New Old Address

With the help of Nitecruzr and the link he gave me, My Blog is Owned by the Wrong Account.
I will be moving the whole of this blog to another account. Over the next few weeks I will be deleting all the "extra's".
The blog will be ready to move roughly a week before publication of, The Altered Lives of Lily & Ivy, book one.

For my followers nothing should change at all except the changes that I will be making.
I will be keeping the same blog address and hence you as my followers.
Book one is in the very last stages, right now I am working on the art cover, fonts & appearance.

Please bear with me over the next few months - soon, very very soon this blog will be up, running and will have its purpose realized.
Hopefully it will connect me, to my readers, and you to my characters.

Until then, thank you again for your patience.

Choices

I started this blog a long time ago in the hopes of gaining a following that would help launch my book.
Life - never seems to work that way.
At least not for me.

Instead I blathered, dithered and changed things repeatedly.
Focused on random and trivial.

Now that I am self publishing my book in e-book, I have choices I have to make.

First off - my book is amazing. (series)
Yes it should be properly published. However, I can't do it right now. I really can't. I can not mentally deal with publishers, editors, interviews, begging, rewrites and bad reviews.
I can not wait another year or two of paper work, legal, financial, critical ect.

Hopefully one day my book will have the proper attention it deserves. However, I need to get my work out there.
Due to this I will be deleting this blog.
If you are one of the few faithful followers - don't worry, I will be creating a new book blog that will be launched at the same time as my book is published.
I will add the link here and (hopefully) move over a few of my favorite posts, before this one will be terminated.

Also the new blog will not be connected to my personal blogs. It will be separate.
I hope to have all of this changed over in the next few months (3-4) in the meantime though, I will no longer be posting here. I am working hard on book 2 in the hopes that I can launch it a few months after book one. (another plus to self publishing I can launch them closer together)
Then I can turn my attention to book 3 ~ which really does need some attention.

Thank you -

me.
 

When & What to Scrap

Scraping.
This is a horrible - horrible word for a writer.
When I was done with book one (and the base outline of the rest of the series) I went through and re-read book one.
It was a master piece!
I swear - it was perfect. Not one flaw.

5 years later and I have finished its final draft in the editing process.
I have to laugh.
The first 4 chapters were not only redone about 20 times they were eventually partially scraped and the rest pushed back and cut into different parts of the story line.

The story didn't change. I want to make that very clear.
Not once in the whole process of writing this book series has the story line changed.
Rather I started it from a different time point, with a different character.

Reading reviews from your readers - especially close loved ones - HURTS.
However, the first and best thing you can do is ask people to be brutal.
Why?
Because they even at their most brutal will still be kinder then people you have never met. People that you meet and share the first few chapters with on book help sites.
THEY are MEAN, and yet helpful.
They don't understand the way your brain works, or know the Real Life versions of a few of your characters. Nothing in your book makes sense to them unless you have laid it out properly.

I have also made a painful choice to go ahead and start working my book into e-book format. I don't have the time, patience or sanity to deal with a publishing company right now.
I really wish I did. My books are amazing and should be put in proper hands.
Instead I will be self-publishing.
Praying the entire time that I have protected every faucet of my work.
I will keep you updated on the process.

Never be afraid to save one version of your book - and completely re-tool a different version.
In fact for most writers its what I would suggest.
Its hard to delete - especially when it comes to 3-4 chapters worth of writing.
Making a copy will free you of the worry that you are tossing away gold.
You can always revert and start again.

Feed back is essential.
You understand your book like no one else does or can.
You can see what you are trying to describe.
Feedback is where you find out if you did a good enough job!

One of the craziest bits of feedback I got (which only strengthened my resolve to write it the way I did) was from a professional editor/publisher.
He found my character narration using one twins voice, to be odd. He also didn't think it could work.
I mean they're twins... why are you writing using first person?

Blink. Blink.
Because she is still her own person?

After that comment I figured the world - and men like him - needed my book.
Yes she has a twin sister, yes they are close, yes they are together almost all 5 books.
Does it mean that she is not a valid person?
Seriously I don't get it.
Maybe one of these days I will revisit the series and write it from her twins point of view.
This will be the Ivy series and the other would be the Lily series.
Sounds good to me!
;)

Hey I said you needed to listen and process feedback - not that all feedback is more important then your work or what you want to do with the book!

The Hunger Games - A Review

 
Hunger Games Book One - Movie One

For all those out there that watched this movie without reading the book first - really its not that long nor that hard of a read - GO READ IT!

The movie follows the book - leaving the story line only to streamline it or to allow the audience to understand parts.
However, you miss all the inner thoughts - self whispers and hidden meanings - things they CAN NOT add to the movie. They try - its there if you know what to look for but again only if you have read the book.

~~~ Spoiler warning!!! ~~~ Spoiler Alert! ~~~

Long long ago the world almost destroyed itself in a war of weapons. What used to be known as America had reformed after years and years of hunger and starvation. This new countries capitol was known as Panem. It was built mostly by the affluent, brilliant and the powerful.
To help the whole of the country survive it created 13 districts, each district a specialty - farming, fishing, clothing, meat, coal, timber ect.
After several hundred years the districts woke up to the fact that they were slaves for the capital. They rebelled. In the process district 13 was lost - along with thousands and thousands of lives.

In retaliation Panem created the Hunger Games. Each year, each of the twelve remaining districts had one girl and one boy taken from them (between the ages of 12-18) they were then thrown into a huge arena where they would be forced to battle each other to the death.
The sole survivor would be allowed to live, and their district would receive special bonuses for the whole of the year.
To make it even more of a sick thing the capitol makes it mandatory viewing, something for amusement.

From the second Katniss is chosen, she wears a mask, hiding all of her true thoughts and emotions behind it. Why?
Because strategy starts from that very first moment. You can't appear weak, useless, silly, stupid ect.
Its a battle of wits, will and fighting for power.
To add another twist, the capitol allows sponsors, when you are in the arena and need medicine, water, food, weapons ect. You can get these items from sponsors, people who are betting on their favorite to win and will spend millions to give them a hand.
When you watch the movie and see them smiling, playing up to the audience, this is the reason. They can't afford to lose sponsors.

The whole book is about politics. About a cross between Roman and Greek times of the Gladiators & Arena's of lions and men, and communism.
A teenage, modern day, Animal Farm, if you will - just more appealing to teens as well as getting a more personal story line.

I say its a MUST read for teens and adults alike.
Teens in this country (America) have forgotten that to be free costs, no one just hands you something for nothing. Hopefully it will encourage them to be more involved and aware of what is going on around them.

Yes the movie and book are violent. Yes, kids kill kids. Yes, its horrible.
YES - that's the POINT!!!

If you don't understand it or don't like it - read all three books - maybe it will enlighten you.

For those that are already fans - lets make sure the future stays "free"!

Ch. 1 Strange Brain

The Weird Life of Me
Chapter One - Strange Brain

I know that most books start out like this, I mean how else really are they supposed to start right?
I try to convince you that this is an honest to goodness, my life story.
Problem is that while I have lived it, on paper I still don't believe it.

Then comes the other issues, like the memories that feel like memories but at the same time kinda like dreams and they are only half complete. Bits and parts, things I remember but still am unsure if they really did happen.

Also there is the problem of where to start? If I start from my childhood this will be a tome rather then a book. If I skip my childhood in full, you won't understand me - at all.
Most importantly I am among the very few people on Earth, whose left and right brain work in tandem.
I am ambidextrous and have been since birth.
I do everything with either hand - although I write, cut ect mainly with my right (as I was taught).

My mother saw from early on that I would color with both hands, at the same time, on different parts of the picture, using different strokes - from that point on she pushed me to writing with my right hand - not to handicap me but to help me - the world is set up for right handed people.
However, the ability and skill to use both hands, remains.
I am both creative & logical. I can view something or someone sympathetically AND from an unemotional standpoint.

Add to this that I was a strong willed child. Not a spoiled child. A strong willed child. Yes there is a difference. If you can win an argument, begrudgingly or not, if you can win any form of battle with your child chances are they are a spoiled child and not strong willed.
Even after I knew I was wrong (shhh... every now and then it happens) it could take me up to two weeks to admit it. No, I am not talking about a sulking teen... I was 6.

I was brilliant, bored, and not very nice.
I had my own ethical code. Many times I would defend a person I didn't like because I knew that what the other person was doing was wrong.
It had nothing to do with compassion for the victim, more over it was contempt for the bully that moved me to act.

Now due to my special nature, and yes I really can say that, I drew quite a lot of attention.
My parents both wanted to strangle me and also they had great pride in me. I knew who I was. Nothing could sway me from what I believed to be true. I was not a follower. I also didn't care to lead.

The school ended up giving my teachers a daily allotment where I was sent for 15 minutes a day down to the principals office to sit - this was not in punishment - rather it was to give my teachers a break.
In my 7 years of grade school, I was on first name basis with all 6 of my principals. 
I had an "Uncle" who visited me on the play ground. Always standing a few feet off of school grounds, off and on for several years. Sometimes I would see him everyday for weeks other times it would be months between visits. I called him, Papa Angel.
I have many "half" memories of my childhood. Conversations in places, with people and I don't remember why or how I got there. Only parts of the memories stand out.

I have an older sister and I am the baby. Something (one of those foggy childhood memories) happened and we flipped roles. I became her protector.
Now as an adult I can take a sibling test and score in oldest, middle & youngest categories. They call it being well balanced, I call it a result of a turbulent childhood.
At the age of five I wanted to knife an adult in his kidneys. Not only did I know that he was bad, I knew how to hold a knife and where the kidneys were on the human body.
Part of me to this day, regrets not doing it when I had the chance.

Strangest of all my childhood though might be what I call the "Alien" factor. Dreams upon dreams of things that could not have happened, and yet the dreams feel more like memories. Especially in the way they have lingered over the years.
Signing a blank paper when I was 4, asking questions about tests that I took and no one else seemed to, odd sounds, voices in my head (I know really mental that - however, all the conversations were very logical and quite grown up so I never really felt insane...)

I was a fighter, but not a bully.
example:

I had this friend. He lived on the same street, we were in almost all the same classes growing up from kindergarten on. He was one of the popular ones, cute, athletic, funny and yet we still connected. We were not best friends, but we were friends.
In the fifth grade he grew angry that everyone was always saying not to get into a fight with me. (I really hated that - there were days I was itching for a good fight.)
He hated that out of the whole school - older kids included - I was deemed the scariest. Me - cute, short, tiny, crazy, outcast, few solid friends, not in the in crowd - scary.
He challenged me to a fight. I put him off for a full week.
Finally I agreed if he would fight me in front of the school - in front of the principal office windows.
He agreed.
We stood poised like a bad western, both dropped our back packs onto the ground. I waited, he fidgeted.
"Please J- don't do this." I begged.
"You will fight me!" J- answered growing braver.
He ran at me, I held still, I repositioned my legs and allowed him to ram into me.
The first run he hit me with his shoulder pummeling me into the ground, landing hard on top of me.

I stood and allowed him to take another run (rules were one of us had to call it quits)
Five more times he ran at me - five more times I allowed him to hit me, without defending myself, without stepping out of the way.
On the seventh pass I stepped out of the way (my patience was growing thin - he was supposed to be my friend after all and this was about the dumbest fight I had ever been in) he flew past me and landed face first in the grass.
"What did you do that for?!" J- screamed at me. That made me laugh.
"Your hitting me, fighting me and what I should just continue to let you? Walk away J-. If you come at me again I will fight back." I knew that he was not going to stop. He had reached the age where manly pride was more then just words on paper, it was something to prove.
He ran at me again from about 8 feet away. I took on small step to the side, balanced, and hit him once right in the stomach.
He landed on the ground, weeping.
After several minutes of holding his stomach, weeping and wheezing in turn, he glared at me.
"Why did you do that?!" J- said, seriously? Really to this day I still don't understand what he was thinking.
"I told you to stop, I begged you to stop." I reached down and helped him to his feet. "But don't you ever think that I won't defend myself or that I can't anytime I want to." I answered, then I walked over picked up his back pack, dropped it at his feet and walked away.

He told me later that what scared him the most was how detached and calm about it all.
How I proved to him that it didn't matter how many of his "best shot" he hit me with - it didn't faze me.
Afterward he realized that I hadn't even hit him to really hurt him. My one punch had been to end it - it hadn't been my "best shot".

From then on - he tried to protect other kids from making me really angry. He had already seen me, calmly and nicely end our fight - he didn't want to see me fight when I was angry and trying to hurt someone.

Now you might think, I'm brave, dumb, took karate.... In reality while my father had taught me how to fight - it was natural, instinctual. It also helped that due to my strange brain I can turn off pain.
I didn't feel the pain until the next morning waking up stiff and sore. Even then I managed to stretch it out and ignore it.

Yup, re-reading that I most definitely sound insane and I wouldn't believe it either and yet - its all true.

T.R.Garris

 

Ever Been Judged?

Have you ever been judged and been found wanting?

In school as kids we are judged all the time. First in age, height, hair color, who lost their baby teeth first, maybe even who potty trained first.
Later on its sports, grades, size, looks and the "it" factor.

In work, marriage and family it becomes about performance.
How often you do something, how well you do something, IF you do something.
Ever feel like life has become one big pass or fail?

Thankfully I know that God will love me even if I get an F. He doesn't grade the same as you do or on the same things.

I am about as honest a person as you could ever find. I don't waste my time or energy striving to fit into some perfect picture. I am me. I let people, those who know me and those who don't, see the real me.
The good, bad, ugly and even the annoying.
At times this is a bad thing.
Showing so much of my self has opened my self up to open judgement, criticisms and out and out rudeness.

So let me be very clear about a few things.

First off - just because I am open and honest about everything - doesn't open a magic portal into, "Lets Judge T Day!".

Second - If you are judging my openness and honesty and finding something wanting - most likely the problem is with you.

No I am not kidding. Remove the stick in your own damn eye. I see mine quite clearly and am working to improve them. Obviously I see my OWN issues as I write, blog and talk about my junk for all the world to see. What's your excuse? You don't see me running around judging you now do you?

Third - when I say things like I am tired or worn out. It doe's not immediately mean I am sick. It might mean that I am tired of the day in day out crap that I deal with.
It might mean that the KIDS are giving me a hard day and a massive headache - a break would be nice.
When I say things like I really don't feel good, it might mean, that after 6 years of taking care of everyone else in my families health issues, while ignoring my own, that I am burnt out.

FOURTH and most importantly - just because I am extremely OPEN about WHAT goes on in my life and who I am, it does not show you my emotions.
My feelings, emotions and heart are shared with very few and I rarely let anyone see that much of me.
I don't cry on people's shoulders.
I don't open up and talk about my deep pain.
My loneliness, my hurts, fears or worries.
I don't share my inner burdens with many (if ever).

So while you spend so much time judging me, giving me dots instead of stars, God is holding my hand and helping me through. Because while you are busy judging me, I am busy dealing with my issues and I am not alone.

So NO I don't apologize for who I am and NO I will not change what YOU want me to change. I am becoming a perfect work in Gods grand design.
I may limp past the finish line but I will cross it - will you?

Socialist Legends

Now I am NOT writing a post naming out wonderful socialist men of legends. Rather lets look at the word legend in more detail.