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Lindsey's Story

6/8/2012

4 Comments

 
Welcome to what may be the last entry in this Way Cooler than Clint blog tour.  Enjoy the first two chapters of Lindsey's story!

Vegatopalis: The Battle of the Beans
by
Lindsey

Chapter 1

One day in Vegatopalis there was a storm and every veggie had to be locked up in their houses  it was that bad.  Then surprisingly gaurds from the other kingdom came marching up and down that road saying, "hep two three four."  "Whats happening," said a baby carrot?  "I have no Idea", said Daddy carrot, "but I think we're about to find out".  And they were, because the general stepped onto a stool and said, "People of Vegatopalis we beankeas have come to take over". 

"Why, what have we done?" asked a tomato.  "You steal all of our food and supplies."  Now that the general had spoken the tomato was very red with embarassment.  "Never fear," called someone from above."  It was Captain Celery.  "If you want to fight lets fight!"  "The battle of the beans is on."

"Oh so it's on"? Said the general.  "Well well well."  "Oh yah," spat captain celery.  "Well blah to that."  "Blah". Said the general back at him.  "You'll be very very very sorry for this, captain celery", screamed the general.  "Oh pa leaeeeese," said captain celery, "call me crunchy."
Picture
Picture
Chapter 2

"Now all of you", said the general to his knights, "I want all of you to help win this war even if we have to cheat to do that."  "Yes sir" can the echo of the beans throughout the kingdom.  "Excelent," said the general.  With a grin," get the butter ready."
4 Comments

Tad's Creation

6/5/2012

3 Comments

 
A Creation
by
Tad

a sand car with guns, some are bad and some are good, it smells like toxic egsaust, it sounds like a high pich roaring terex, it eats any thing in is path, it can drive and can change with feet and wing if it wants to fly, when it dies it produces a baby and in 1 year will be in full growth, the gun shot laser beams that have poisonous chemicals that if touched it can kill fast, it is indestructible, it can smell any thing even some thing toxic it has good eye site in day and is invisible in day and night, it is steal it can burn small as a bug or be as as a normal sand car.
Picture
3 Comments

Jayden's Story

5/30/2012

3 Comments

 
For the next installment on the Cooler than Clint blog, we turn to Jayden, who would like to share a sizable portion of a story.  Enjoy!

The Worst Life!
By Jayden

The last three chairs, just happen to be in France.  That map says the chairs in an old palace.  "Great, that place is haunted!" said Elizabeth.  "Thats a myth," said Kyle.  "Stop fighting and let's get our buts moving!" said Kathren.


Soon they reached the palace.  "I'm not going in there," said Elizabeth.  "Fine you can stay out here and watch for danger," Kathren said.  "Let's go in there!" Kyle said.  They all went in, except Elizabeth.  She stayed outside and looked for danger.  Four hours pased, suddenly a nun came up to Elizabeth!  She said, "Come... follow me."  Elizabeth was so interested she followed the nun not knowing she was an evil witch.  After a few minutes they arrived at another palace, more of a castle. 

Kyle and Kathren got skared when the big bell rang.  The second time it rang munks came slidding down a rope!  Three floating chairs came down and three monks caught them.  Three other monks got rope.  The last three grabed them.  They put them in the chairs, And used the rope to tie them to the chairs!  The chairs instantly started to fly up in the air to an old castle "Elizabeth," said Kathrin.  Elizabeth said, "The nun, don't licen to her, she is an evil witch!"  The evil witch came out in a pointy hat and black clothes.  "O more guests, yes!"  Now you have your friends to wach me take over the world  And you all will be my hard working slaves, Ho Ho Ho!  First I will assign you a job.  You my gorgous will be a maid," She said to Elizabeth.  "Put this old maids dress on."  next she told Kyle, "You can be... a... Knight.  You look buff enough to be a knight." 

"Yes!  I'm a knight!"  Then she gave Kyle a sword.  Then gave Kathren an apron and a spoon.  Kathren guessed she is the cook.  Then the evil nun said, "I know what you can here for."  "Ho..."  "How do I know." the witch cut her off.  "What do we want then?" Kathren said.  "You want the three chairs I caught you in"  "Ah can you read our minds?"
3 Comments

Emily's Play

5/28/2012

13 Comments

 
Welcome to day two of the Cooler than Clint Blog Tour.  Today, for your enrichment and very great edification, I am proud to present the first act of Emily's play King & Queen Thieves.  As always, the following is Emily's writing verbatim, with no editing on my part.  So all props to her.

King & Queen Thieves
By
Emily

characters
- Violet (servant)
- Ivy (Princess Servant)
- Jenny (Queen servant)
- Janna (King servant)

N = Narator
V = Violet
I = Ivy
Je = Jenny
Ja = Janna

Act 1, Scene 1

N: This is a play about 4 crazy girls that become servents for the King, Queen & Princess.
V: I am so excited!
I: Not me!  I am scared.
Je: I am nervous & I am scared.
Ja: I wonder what sallary we get.
N: They were all nervous and very scared.
V: Do the King and Queen steal from people?
I: Maybe they have people steal for them!
Je: And the people get lots of money for stealing for the Queen & King.
N: When they met the Queen, King, & Princess they could tell the Queen & King were hiding something.  The Princess however was innocent.
I: I wonder what the King & Queen are hiding?

13 Comments

Today, This Is Abi's Blog

5/24/2012

2 Comments

 
Well, it was bound to happen.  My neglect of this blog has resulted in a full-blown rebellion.  The Internet elves have gathered together, taken a vote, and decided that this space will be far better used by more diligent, more interesting, and vastly more attractive people than myself. 

So for the next week or so, this blog will now belong to a series of very smart and even more awesome grade schoolers who participated in the book club I ran for their school.  Over the course of the club, about the last three months, each of these students devoted herself or himself to writing, revising, and editing a piece of writing from the club with the intent of being published here.  I made clear that anyone featured here would have to produce a truly excellent written piece (a rule that I excuse in regard to myself).  That is exactly what each did.

So today allow me to welcome you to the blog of Abigail, who I and other very lucky people are allowed to call Abi, and to the first public description of a newly discovered species: the Torpion.  The following is a transcript of Abi's description of the Torpion without any editing or adjustment on my part whatsoever--so she gets all the credit.  (Oh, and I should also admit that she taught me how to spell tarantula correctly.)

*****

Torpion

by
Abi


The Torpion is a small but deadly creature.  It is EVIL!  It is covered in little tiny hairs like a tarantula, it can also fly.  It smells like this special perfume.  When someone smells the perfume they fall into a deep sleep.  When they wake up they are under the Torpion's control.  The more the Torpion catches the more likely it is to take over the world.  It sounds like a baby croc crying to it's mother.  It has a tail like a scorpion.  It has ten eyes and three legs.  It hast two arms like a scorpion.  It eats fish called minos and for a treat it eats small birds and bugs.

2 Comments

A Very Cool Work in Progress

5/8/2012

6 Comments

 
This post is a glimpse at one reason among many--Many, MANY--for why I have been incommunicado.  But as you'll see, some things are just a priority.

The following is a work in progress, a play, by a friend of mine named Reagan.  She is one of the girls in the book club I run once a week in conjunction with the author residency program I'm overseeing at a local elementary school.  Last week she was so productive in her writing that I projected her play for the whole club so she could receive some feedback and we could run through the play, acting it out to see how it plays.  It's pretty awesome.

Now, understand that it isn't completely done yet.  There is some more revision and editing to be done, but Reagan has three more weeks to polish it up.  But her good work to this point deserves some recognition.  So here's a look at Reagan's work in progress.  Other kids in the club are writing pieces as well, and at the end of the year those who revise and editing their pieces until they shine can be found right here on my blog.  So consider this a taste of what is to come from some very talented kids.

Untitled

By

Reagan

(The characters have names but they are not yet recorded in the text.  Something to be added later.)

C: Ah, the arcade.

B: It is fun to me you get to play games.

C: Well I think it will just make people Koo-Koo.

B: Well why don’t you go play the Barbie Game.

C: Ok!

B: Well I am going to go play Star War.

C: Ok I will meet you in 20 minutes.

They leave and come back in 20 minutes.

B: Hey do you want to get pizza?

C: Yah that sounds good.

They go to get some pizza.

B: Are you ready to go home.

C: No, I want to keep playing

B: Well why dum dum!

C: Did you just call me dum dum.

B: Yah dum dum.

C: Fine I might as well slap you in the face…




6 Comments

I Am Not a One-trick Pony

2/22/2012

3 Comments

 
But I am by nature a one-trick-at-a-time pony.  By this I mean I like to work on one thing at a time creatively, from beginning to end, without stopping or interruption if I can help it.  My preference is to start a book and write it to completion without dividing my time between projects. 

I do all my research and planning and thinking and rethinking and note taking and outlining.  Then I sit down and write the first three chapters, as a rule.  I then write a synopsis, my first comprehensive treatment of the story.  Using that synopsis, I write the rest of the novel, beginning to end, outlining each scene or chapter about a day before I write it.  Once the rough draft is done, I usually give it a little time to cool before starting revision.  I then do my three or five or eight revisions until I feel I can't see any changes that clearly make the book better.  Then I write the proposal package, research agents and publishers, and submit.  Only then do I move on to another project.   

Recently, I haven't had the luxury of focusing on one project at a time.  Instead, I've been bouncing around every which way.  I made it about 70% of the way through my latest novel (a middle grade fantasy based on Babylonian dragon mythology) when I received the opportunity to contribute to the Writing for Charity anthology, available next month.  More details here.  So I put that off as long as I could to keep working on Babylon then put the book aside and wrote and revised the short story over the course of three days.  I'd been thinking about it in odd moments well before that, of course, and I'm fairly pleased with the result.  Not sure if they'll use it for the anthology, but I think so.  If they do, look for the legal deposition of the troll from The Three Billy Goat Gruffs.  That's mine.  While I'm on the subject, I'd like to plug this event again: $45 ($25 half day), excellent workshops by fantastic authors such as Shannon Hale, Tracy Hickman, and Dan Wells, among others, writing critiques from these same authors, as well as a meal and silent auction on everything from manuscript critiques to dinner with authors.  You should be there.  More information at the site listed above.

Back to the jumble of my last few work weeks.  Stopping the newest novel for the short story wouldn't have been that bad--if I hadn't received a request for a manuscript revision from one of my dream agents at the same time.  That, of course, took priority, so using her comments and some very kind and rapid feedback from some great writers and better friends, I revised the entire manuscript and resubmitted.  Still waiting on the result. 

So that catches us up to the present.  Right now, I'm finishing off a polish on my literary Korean ghost story, the manuscript revision requested in partial by the agent, and about to transition to a final revision on my latest completed work with a focus on a few specific localized issues.  Then I'll write the proposal package and start submitting.  And then, finally, back to my Babylonian story.

This is not my preferred method of work.  But having been through it, I think it maybe should be, at least in certain ways.  I'm getting a lot done very quickly, and I like that rate of production.  Plus, an unexpected benefit has come from revising texts after they've cooled for weeks or even months, which I've never done before.  I'm finding added perspective has come from that amount of time away from the texts, which isn't surprising in theory but is still startling to experience for the first time. 

So here's what I'm thinking for the future.  I still want to work on one thing at a time, as that is clearly how I do my best work.  But I think I'll abandon my dedication to one work in process straight through the entire process without diverting my attention.  When I finish a rough draft, I may set it aside while I pre-write and draft my next novel.  I'll then go back and revise and send out, then revise and send out the second, then repeat the process.  Or I may do an initial revision to address obvious problems I'm aware of after drafting before giving the text time to cool and moving on to my other project.  Not sure yet.  But I'll work it out.

So ten books in and my process is still evolving.  Apparently, necessity is the mother of invention.  Who knew? 

And as you certainly did not notice, my font size on the blog is now legible.
3 Comments

Welcome Back to the Blog Immaterial!

1/7/2012

2 Comments

 
And to my new version of my old site.  I'm sorry for the long, long, long, long, long, long time between active posts, and for the intermittent construction page appearance shifting to the really ghetto tatters of my former blog.  If it needs to be said, I've had some technical complications.

The solution to which is this, a whole new site built via a new platform that will (cross all flexible digits) eliminate all the issues I had with my old site.  For those of you who find your way here again, thanks so much for coming back.  For anyone new, congratulations on fantastic timing.  You avoided the online version of the Abomination of Desolation that was my old site. 

Everything previously available is still here, plus a few cool additions.  You can still sign up for my email list, see my immediate schedule, and monitor recent blog posts on my home page.  Particulars about Green Dragon Codex are available in the Clint's Work section, along with a free sample chapter and a brand new option for ordering signed copies of GDC directly from this site.  (The purchase option through Google Wallet isn't q  My future work should be available this way as well.

The For Schools tab includes information on school visit assemblies and programs, as well as study and curriculum guides for Green Dragon Codex free for download and directions on educational discounts on the book.  The Mentoring and Editing section outlines my services as an editor, teacher, and lecturer as well as my rates.  Under About Clint you'll find my somewhat flippant biography, my calendar of events, and my curriculum vitae outlining my qualifications as a lecturer and teacher.  The Essays section is just that, essays on writing free to the public.  (If anyone has a question about writing that is interesting enough, I might write a new essay and post it on the site for them.)  And we finish up with my Contact Page and this Blog. 

So there were are, at least for the present.  I'm always considering new additions and fresh material, and I promise to try my best to blog more often.  There's certainly a lot to mention since I was last here.  Or there.  On the last site that was here before this site.  Which is the same site.  Sort of.

Anyway, Welcome and/or Welcome Back!
2 Comments

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