Making Memory's

I'm a planner, and a dreamer.  I've grown up leaving in my dreams for the future and in my weekly check list.   People always said to write what you know and I never really listened to that advise.  What have I ever done that would be worth writing about?  That's what I thought for a long time.  Then I read an article that explained it for me.  You don't have to actually go on a quest to write about one.  Just remember back to when you spent four hours in a nature park till your feet were numb with walking.  Add to that the time you camped out in the backyard during a storm and your tent sprung a leak.  That was cool I thought, but that was all.  It didn't change anything though.  But a few years ago I realized that I was letting a lot of experiences pass by.  I preferred to stay home and write instead of going out and meeting new people seeing new sights and generally enjoying life.  Since I figured this out I've been making a conscience effort to enjoy the moment.  Instead of relaxing at home I've decided to go out of my way and out of my comfort zone to make memories. 

Yesterday I went to a chalk art contest.  Before I probably would have sat down and watched a movie, but no I was walking around the street watching people coloring with calk and talking to artists about the pictures in their booths till 10:30 at night.  It was so worth it though.  At 10:00 they had people come in and blow fire and spin burning balls.  It was really cool.  Time is moving on and I am falling asleep every few words.  Good night and God bless.
Morgan J

Colorado Trip

Sorry I'm late with this post.  I was going to do it yesterday but I kept forgetting.  Last time I wrote I was on my way to Colorado.  My family and me went up through New Mexico then into Colorado.  Actually I really loved the desert.  The day we were there it wasn't too hot and the night cooled down nicely.  We stayed at an RV park out in the middle of nowhere.  When we got there it was already dark and there were no lights around at all.  The stars were so bright that first night.  When my sister first told my about the milky way I didn't really believe her.  You kind of have to image it at home, but out in the desert you can see everything.  It was like one of those pictures of the night sky that you see on the internet that look digitally enhanced.  It was one of my favorite sights of the trip.  The rest of the trip the nights were cloudy or we were in a city and we didn't see much of the stars the rest of the trip.  I almost liked the desert better then the Rockys.  The desert was quiet.  We got up in the morning and there was no sound around us at all.  No birds, no bugs, very faintly if you listed hard you could hear water because our camp site was above a lake.  It was really peaceful. 
I took tons of pictures and wrote down things that caught my attention.  I thought you might like to see some of the pictures so here are a few that I liked.

Enjoy and have a blessed week
Morgan J

Looking Forward

This is not my picture

I keep trying different crafts.  Quilting, beading, crocheting, knitting, weaving, finger weaving, scrapbooking, painting, drawing, and other things that I can't think of a name for.  My latest projects have been more of the 'make it up as I go' kind.  Last Christmas I made a big black dragon out of card stock, paper towel rolls, pip cleaners, tap, and lots of hot glue.  He hangs above my bed.  His name is Verbrennen, which in German means burning.  Recently I finished a hot air balloon/flying house model.  And a steampunk themed mixed media notebook.   One thing I've learned with every new craft is that the first one is never the best.  It may look good to me when I first make it, if I make a few more and learn some more about it the first one will begin to look worse and worse.  When I was nine I made a little quilt.  All by hand and with a night sky embroidered on the back.  I was really proud of that little blanket.  Till my grandmother actually taught me how to quilt and I realized everything that I had done wrong.  I'm still a little proud of that first quilt.  For a nine year old who didn't know how to quilt I think it was a pretty fair attempt.  But it is by no means as good as I thought it was then.  Its that same way for the other crafts.  No matter how good it looks when I make it I know that in a month or two I'm going to look back and see all the flaws that I can't see now.  My friends Della and Sarah mentioned this a few weeks ago when we went to the museum.  Only they applied it to writing, and for some reason I had never really thought about it that way before.  I may write something to day; a character, a phrase. and think it my best work yet.  But I forget that in time my skill with writing will grow and that amazing character will look flat and be filed away under 'good tries'.  The Nightin books that I'm working on now will not be my best work.  No matter how much I edit it will not be my best book.  Actually I'm hope it isn't the best, because in five or ten years I want to be a much better writer.  It's almost sad to think that the Nightin books aren't that good.  But at the same time it's something to look forward to.

Well I need to rap it up.  I'm going to Colorado tomorrow for a week and I have to get some packing done.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you next week.
Have a blessed two weeks.
Morgan J

Oh Look I have an Editeor

This is not my picture

I learned how to write during National Novel Writing Month.  NaNoWriMo is a challenge were you try to write a 50,000 word novel in one month.  You tone out that inner-editor and write like there is no tomorrow.  I got pretty good at that.  My inner-editor was almost forgotten after four years of not listening to her.  But then this year I started editing.  In all those past years only once did I edit one of my short stories and then I simple got my big sister to read it and tell my what was wrong.  Not really the same as editing it myself.  Most of the time I never reread any of my writing.  The book was just filed away in a folder in the very deep places of my computer.  All last year I was getting pushed to edit.  My sister would look at my writings and tell me that I really should edit.  Friend who I would tell about my stories would tell me to edit.  My grandparents would read one of my books and say 'Morgan you should really edit this'.  But it took a complete stranger to get it through my head.  I took a writing class with a local author and she read some of my stuff.  She was impressed and told me I should really start editing. "You need to stop writing and finish the books you already have."  I had never thought of it that way, but she had a good point.  My books weren't as I had thought finished.  They were only a ruff draft.  Like a raw diamond that hasn't been cut or polished.  A stranger telling me that woke me up and I finally acted on all the advise that everyone else had been giving me all year.  Editing posed a new problem that I had never in countered before; how do you edit?  It took me a few months but I managed to rewrite the whole plot outline for the first Nightin book, and slowly I began rewriting.  I'm still puttering away on it but every so often I hear my inner-editor pointing out something that can be easily changed.  She is waking up and I'm rather enjoying the help.  It's like having a spell check system in your head that points out confusing sentences and weak scenes.  I don't hear her often but maybe that's just because I don't know how to listen.  This summer I made the goal of 10,000 edited words and right now I'm only half done, but if I can write 50,000 words in one month I can surly edit 5,000 in the same time.  it's all a work in progress.

Have a blessed week
Morgan J

Challenge Me

We have not internet.  More accurately I am have no internet.  My two sisters have their smart phones so they get internet on that.  Truth is I don't really miss it.  I miss the music and the wide selection of movies to choose from.  We don't have a TV ether so there is nothing to distract me from writing.  Oh joy.  So I invented a game.  I was looking more for an excuse to spend time with my sisters that did not involve  watching a movie on the laptop.  It turned out to be really fun.  And they actually liked it.   I call it the Challenge, because it sounds cool and I couldn't think of any other name.  We each challenge the others with something random.  So that each person gets two random things that they have to incorporate into a drawing or in my case a short story.  The story has to be short or it will take way too long.  Last Saturday was the last time we did it.  My challenges were 'book' and the 'Chi Rho' which is the Greek symbol for Christ.  But this time the story I came up with would not be told in a few pages.  I'm still working on it, kind of, between editing and crafts and work and reading.  My sisters say that we can't do another challenge till I get it done.  I'm planing to get it done this week.  The game really is a lot of fun and it gives me a writing excuse to avoid editing.  It is also forcing me to write shorter stories and planing ahead so that the story doesn't run away with itself.  This has been more of a rambling post but I put off writing it till too late.  I will do better next time. 

You all have a blessed week.
Morgan J

Three Faces

Lately I've been thinking about two of my favorite characters and why I like them.  In 2009 I started writing my first real novel.  Everything I wrote before was a poor and recognizable copy.  It started with my older sister telling me to write something about WW2 because I was so fascinated by that time period.  I came up with a story that I liked and told chapters of it to myself every night before I fell asleep.  When one of the characters died I actually made myself cry.  My sister encouraged me to write it down and finally I started it.  Without a title we called it German Brothers for the lack of something better.  In 2011 when I finished the first draft I finally found the name; Harder to Win.  I got it from the Bible verse that says "A brother offended is harder to win then a walled city."  The main character was named Johann and he was the first character that really became real to me.  He is the sober, mature side me.  In 2012 I started a long series of books about a family of brothers.  In the second book a villain showed up that I had not been prepared for.  Searcher Maze Mirrorson came in as a bounty hunter and turned into a funny, sometimes crazy young man who is insecure and lonely. 

These two characters are based off two different sides of my own personality.  I read somewhere that every person we bring to life on the white page is a version of us.  We put a bit of ourselves in each character.  At first I was a little skeptical.  So I tried to make up someone based on someone else.  His name is Journey.  And he is by far my least liked character.  He is really annoying.  What ever happens you can be sure Journey will do the one thing that bugs me the most.  Guess what? As I learned more about him I discovered that instead of being completely different, Journey actually has almost the same personality as me.  Now how irritating is that?  That is so like him.  After all the trouble I went to he turns out to be the opposite of all I was trying to make him.  He is like my evil twin.  But, I will not waste this post in ranting on how much I dislike this guy.  Searcher is so much fun to write and when I'm not writing about him I actually start to miss him.  Johann is like my perfect big brother.  If I had a big brother I would want him to be like Johann.  In Johann I put all the characteristics that I want to cultivate in myself.  Searcher got all the mischievous qualities that I enjoy.  Most of the time the Johann side of me won't let me do them but every once in awhile on weekends I can get away with being a little silly.  The part of me that relates to Johann keeps me moderate and mature and matter of fact.  While the bit of Searcher in my head keeps me laughing and having fun.  I love one because he is a better version of me.  And I love the other because he is just fun to hang around, and he gets to do all the things I would be too scared to do.  (Like turn all the lights off in school when everyone's talking.)

I'll see you all in a few weeks,
Morgan J

Confrontation

Moving away from home for the first time is fun and exciting.  Stressful sometimes and scary all the time.  I moved out with two of my sisters and they have made the whole experience so much easier and harder then it would have been along.  Three girls in a single bedroom apartment can get on each others nerves.

"We're out of space we need to put the books on top of the shelf."

"No, I think it looks bad.  We can just stick the notebooks in a box."

"No, I want to be able to find my notebooks."


And so it goes on.  There have been many argument in our little apartment, and there will be more.  We knew it would happen before we moved out.  You can't put three girls in a one bedroom apartment with the same car and same place of work and not expect a lot confrontation.  But instead of splitting us up it has helped us grow closer.  Every time we make up we learn more about each other and how to get along with them.
Arguments aren’t so bad when you end them the right way.  When you end the discussion knowing more about the other person and understanding them better, you did it right.   Last week I asked my older sister for ideas on what to write about in the next post, she came back right away with “arguments”.  I got to thinking about confrontation in life and stories.  In life it forces you to go past the ordinary “hi, how are you” kind of conversations.  An argument shows you a vulnerable part of that person and opens the door for you to get to know them better.  The same thing applies to stories.  That moment of weakness gives you a chance to show the characters fears and motivations.  It gives the different characters an opportunity to get closer and the reader to get closer to the characters.  Arguments can be used as a tool introduce the readers to hidden sides of your characters.