Picture This

    I'm super excited to release the first images of my cheesy attempt at making maps for the Four Kingdoms and Central City. Keep in mind, these maps are still in the early stages and are subject to change as I figure more things out and finish the book. Not everything has been named yet either. Most of the cities are unnamed still (hence, "Laeto's Capital City"), the sea in Tykra is unnamed, and the mountains in Zetalon are nameless as well. I've still got a lot of work, but I'm really excited about what I've accomplished. Take a look.

    **Blue is water, so the sea and the rivers, the green arrows are forests, and the brown triangles are mountain ranges. The black line indicates the split in the kingdoms. The yellow pentagons are the castles. And I've already made an error, because Vayua's bounty should be Vayu's bounty (it's the name of the head Varnan God, and I misspelled it *hangs head in shame*). I also forgot to label Zetalon's castle.

More World Building

    Look! Two posts in one week! Hooray!
    This is a long overdue post about more world building, thanks to my friend from England, Elise, who you might remember as the Magic Writer. Since my last world building post, Elise has written  two more posts in her world building series. The first one is on characters and brainstorming initial character traits and everything that needs to be considered when setting up the society in your world. It lists off things like your main character, magic, government, other classes of people (like servants vs. wealthy and ordinary people), races (humanoid vs. fantasy creatures), and the roles of men and women in the society.
    Powerful has an interesting way of looking at all these world building things. It's got quite a few different classes depending on which part of that world you're looking at. It's got four different kingdoms that all have unique set ups, then there's the Four Kingdoms overall. It's hard to simplify down. The main thing that jumped out at me, though, was that she mentioned gender roles. It's actually a fairly big point to my story. Tykra (Kyla's kingdom) doesn't really have distinct gender roles. Kyla doesn't run into any problems because she's female. Luzi doesn't pay any attention to gender roles in Laeto, because for him to rule he has to be married and they usually rule as a couple. As soon as Luzi gets married, he'll become king and his new bride becomes queen. In Zetalon, women hold the majority of the power. The monarchy is passed down from mother to daughter or the next closest female relative. Varn is different though. Aya is struggling with the traditional gender roles for her kingdom. Women are child bearers and rearers. They do occasionally hold jobs if needed, but they are not associated with the government in any way. Aya wants to be part of the government, so she is working hard to change the ways of her kingdom.

Popping in Again!

    May has not been my month for blogging. Bad Alyson! 
    Just an update, Husband of Mine has started his internship, and things are going great for him! I finished reading Grave Mercy (which I mentioned here). It took me a lot longer to finish than I hoped, not because it was boring, but because I've been so busy. I finished my crochet projects, and now I'm working on the large stack of sewing projects that have accumulated over the past few months. Ripped pants, broken zippers, bandanas for the dog, and a new dress. I'll post how that's going once I actually start on it (I haven't even bought fabric).
    I've been working on revamping the end of chapter 7, but the writing gods have not been on my side. I ended up starting the chapter over 7 times, and filling two notebook pages with my name written over and over again. Yes, I've been very productive. But, the good news is that I'm starting to win over the writing gods once more so hopefully this block will go away. 
    So for now, I'm going to post some pictures of what I've been crafting, then I'm going to fold laundry and get back to my chapter.  First up is the elephant lovey that I made for my best friend's baby. (I cannot find the pattern for it anymore! The elephant head and arms were taken from this pattern.)

Busy week!

    It's been a while since my last post, so I figured it was time for a quick update as to what I've been doing-
    I started a new job! Whoo! I stopped nannying back in December, and applied a couple of places, but because of my trips to the doctor and Physical Therapy, I didn't really focus on looking for a new job. About a month ago, a relative called and offered me a position working as a scheduler from home. Basically what I do is organize a list of businesses by location, make phone calls to schedule appointments, and send out reminder emails. It's boring, but I get to work from home! I love it! I'm on my own schedule and I can work in my pajamas. Even though the company I work for is based here in California, I can continue working when we head back to Utah in August. 
    I started writing again. A little. Kinda sorta. Well, I sat down to work on revamping the ending of Powerful chapter 7 when I got interrupted and couldn't remember the end of the sentence, "I used to think..." so I'm still working on it. But I've gotten the pen and notebook back out, which means I had some downtime. After another week of work (and seeing my best friend again on Saturday!), and Husband of Mine starting his internship, I'll actually be on a regular schedule which means I'll have more time for writing.
    I've been crafting! I learned to crochet. I tried to take up knitting a while ago, but never really got into it. Crocheting is only slightly different, but it seems to go a lot faster for me. When I finish my projects, I'll post pictures of them.
    I also started reading a new book series. 

I'm Back!

    I'm back! Hooray!
    I've been so busy that I haven't even been able to post that I wouldn't be able to post because I'm too busy. We moved back to California for the summer. Husband of Mine has a super awesome internship with Walt Disney Imagineering (Can you say summer of Disneyland?), and after that's over we're heading back to Provo so he can finish up school. 
    

    While he's doing that, I'm also starting a part time job from home so I can work while writing. This is going to be a very busy summer. I'm hoping to get a lot of writing done. I've made good progress so far, and I want to keep working through it because it's going to be awesome. 

    That's all for now! I'm still crazy busy, but only slightly less busy than I was last week. I'll post when things calm down a little after I start working.

    ~Alyson

The Versatile Blogger Award

    A couple days ago, my friend Elise Edmonds nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. 

    The rules for the Versatile Blogger Award go like this:

1) Thank the person who awarded you
2) Include a link to their blog
3) Select & nominate 15 blogs/bloggers you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly and
4) Tell 7 things about yourself

    So I'd like to thank Elise for the nomination. You remember Elise from one of my posts last week. She's the Magic Writer! 

    Unfortunately, I don't follow 15 blogs. So, I'm going to skip the nominations.

    But I will tell you 7 things about myself:

1) My favorite foods are In-N-Out and Sour Patch Kids.

2) My favorite book is Enna Burning by Shannon Hale.

3) I watch way too much tv, and Psych will always be my favorite show.

4) Disney is the best. Don't argue with me on that. It just is.

5) Dr. Pepper is also the best.

6) My other favorite things are Toothless, R2-D2, and Pikachu.

7) My eyes are both blue and green.

    That's all for now. Back to writing!

    ~Alyson

Magic Writer

    Today, I'm going to ramble a bit about Worldbuilding. It's my favorite part of story writing. There are so many elements to it, that I don't even know where to begin. My writing process is so convoluted that my mind hurts trying to sort everything out. Luckily, I've got a friend who has started a series on her blog about Worldbuilding.
    Magic Writer is the blog of Elise Edmonds, an aspiring author in the midst of writing her first novel, just like me. Here's her bio- 

I’m Elise Edmonds, a new writer, living near Bristol in the UK. I look forward to using this blog for literary inspiration and learning more about the craft of writing. I’m interested in all sorts of books: fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, young adult, new adult, mystery, classics, chick-lit, historical fiction – and plenty more. I’m currently writing my first novel, a young adult fantasy about a teenage girl who works in a magic carpet shop. I hope to meet many more like-minded people on my journey, so do stop by and say hello!

    We became good friends on Scribophile. She's also on Twitter, which I don't have an account with. She's also almost as addicted to Pinterest as I am. She uses it for a lot of writing inspiration too (amongst other things, but so do I). Most recently she was using it to inspire her Worldbuilding posts by pinning pictures of castles and other fantasy type settings. You can check out her Pinterest here. We share a board about Superheroes, because who doesn't love superheroes?

    Anyway, her Castles and Worldbuilding posts have been super helpful, and inspired me to focus a little more on the scenery in my own writing. I'm just terrible with description, and I find it more of a second draft add in rather than an initial instinct in my writing. But, I was inspired to try and find some pictures of real world places that generally fit with the pictures in my head of my settings. The first place I thought of was Kyla's home. Though very few scenes actually play out at her home, it's still a big part of her life because up to this point in the story, it's the only place she knows.