Perfect World Review

Perfect World Review

Rightio, so this is my review of Perfect World. As promised. My mom played it, and I loved watching her do Territory Wars with her faction (Kamikaze) and I even got to use barb buffs on one of them! When I was younger and before I played, of course.

Anyways, now I have my own account and I play pretty often. I’m in a faction called Rivalz, and we are a level three faction with no territory, although I’ve heard rumors that our leader is planning on entering us in one about a year from now. I have a level 62 Venomancer and a level 47 Cleric, as well as a few others I don’t use.

Onto the review.

Character Creation:

Overall, this is good. You’ve got lots of different hairstyles, although there aren’t many that just “pop,” y’know? You can change the shape of your eyes and nose and mouth and head and stuff, and it’s really a lot like the creation thing in The Sims 3 when it comes to editing your character’s looks. You don’t have a bunch of different outfits, just the one armor set. (And fashion (called “fash” in game for short) if you decide to buy out of the cash shop/boutique.) Fash can also be bought from the auction house for in-game coin and from cat shops in major cities like Archosaur and City of the Lost.

The cons of the creation system are a lack of variety, especially for hair. As a girl, I love having kick ass hair on a character. PWI simply doesn’t have that without the cash shop. Also, it’s hard to get your character to look just right. The sliders work fine when editing the body, but you can never find that perfect shape. Another thing, when editing the breast size (on a female character) it changes your character to have broad shoulder (if you go for bigger boobs) and smaller, frail looking shoulders (if you go for smaller boobs). The color picker also isn’t very good. The colors available are not vibrant, at all. You can’t have flame-red hair or silver eyes. It comes out looking washed-out. I think that if they’d add preset colors (i.e. in The Sims’s style designer, you have little squares under a tab with pre-selected colors.) that it would be much easier to find a half-decent color.

Overall: Character creation could be better, but it’s not bad.

Gameplay:

This part of the game is rather boring, in my opinion. You do the same thing on all classes, minus the parts before you go to Archosaur (The main city). Before that, you’re in your home city (i.e. City of the Lost, Tellus City, City of Raging Tides) and you’re getting used to the game by killing mobs and learning how to auto-path and just work the game in general.

After that, you go to Arch (Archosaur) and do quests for General Summer and The Elder of Archosaur and stuff. More or less flying and killing mobs. Honestly, I’d like to escort some npc to safety or something.

The fun part is the dungeons. You need a squad for most of them (Not sure about you lvl 100+ guys) and this is where you have to play a part. I’ve done damage dealer most of the time, and I like it. It’s the least stressful position to be in. You wait for your tank (usually a barbarian) to get the mob attacking him, and then you hit the thing. You, ideally, take no damage, and the whole thing goes smoothly. The cleric is the most stressful position, as you have to keep everyone alive and are probably dead if you take damage. No one expects you to get hit, and if you do, they don’t notice a lot of the time. Also, if anyone dies, you’re immediately blamed for it. If you let the tank die (even if it’s because you’re healing yourself or someone else) your whole party will probably die. Then it’s all your fault.

However, there is always the option of leveling and then helping low level players. You can make money off of that. Power leveling people (plvl) can bring on 500k coin a lot of the time. If you were to plvl six people, you’d get around 3 million coin. That’s enough for cheap fash in the auction house and cat shops. The higher level you are, the easier it seems to get to play. Low level players see you as a force to be reckoned with.

There is also the option to be “Reawakened.” Once you hit level 105, you can choose to start over with all of your skills and items and run yourself back up to 105. You can do this nine times. There are also people who are overpowered (op). These players can one-shot anyone if they choose to do so, and are extremely useful to have on your side. They are lethal as an enemy, especially in PvP things like duels and nation wars and territory wars.

Also, if someone you trust invites you to join a guild, don’t pass up the offer. (OOOH! Get the reference?)
               Seriously. Join a faction if you can. It’ll help with the gameplay (you’re gonna have questions) and you need people to run dungeons. Plus, it gets lonely without one.

Overall: Boring, unless you play with a group. You are also considered a “noob” and basically useless to levels 80 or 90, and even then you may not be useful since they’ve added a Reawakening system.

Graphics and Game Design:

I have a lot to say here, as I dabble in 3D animation and modeling. The PWI designers were what someone might call lazy in designing this, in my opinion (Could also be that when the game came out graphics weren't great?). I don't mean to insult anyone here. I do understand that it is a large world to design (even on the fastest flying mounts it can take ten or fifteen minutes to cross the map from top to bottom), however you would think that they have a fairly large team working on it. I have looked at what was done when it was designed. It is all basically flat shapes with fancy shading. The wooden stairs in City of the Lost? They aren’t warped like they look. That’s shading on the texture map. The railways on Archosaur’s stairs? Also just a flat surface with good shading. All of those little details are just shading on the texture map, from what I can see. The swords and weapons are flat, and not shaped like swords and axes at all really. For example, the magic sword on my venomancer does not come to a point. The handle isn’t round, either. It’s a rectangle too. It looks like a box. Again, I do understand that it is a big world and it does have a lot of work put into it as is, but if you’re going to do an MMO, why not go all the way with the design? Also, like the character creation, the colors are generally washed out. And the mobs look the same for the most part. Like pokemon. You have the same mobs that you have pre-lvl 30 (for the most part), but they look like they’ve just evolved. I think most of them have the same attacks too.

Overall: Pretty, but it lacks detail.

Community:

In all honesty, I love the PWI community. As a lower level, I didn’t know what I was doing and I needed some serious help to learn how to play. I’m a level 62 and 47 now, still technically a low level but I’m working on it, and after a while of being on the game, I feel comfortable asking people for help. There are almost always factions recruiting, and there are usually the same people on World Chat most of the time. So in a way, you become familiar with them and are comfortable asking them questions.

The players are friendly as hell. I have yet to encounter one who is unwilling to help or is rude, and I adore that. I place a lot of importance on the community of a game, and I’d give PWI’s community five out of five stars. I don’t really have anything bad to say here.

Overall: Great. People are nice and always willing to help.

COMPLETE OVERALL REVIEW:
               PWI is fairly boring in gameplay and it takes a long time to level, but it has a pretty world and armor and an amazing community. The PvP events are lots of fun to do, but for it to be fun, you need to play with people. Join a faction or have a small circle of friends you play with on the game.

Swordsman Beta Review -- Day 1

Hey Warriors,

So as some of you probably know, there's a new MMORPG out called Swordsman. It goes through Arc, like Aion and Jade Dynasty and Perfect World and Star Trek online do, and I've recently signed up for beta. My beta key came in and I downloaded it and stuff and so this is my review of  the game so far.

Review: 

               Swordsman is a new martial arts MMORPG. It’s made by the same people who did Perfect World and requires Arc to download and access, like Perfect World. It is currently in beta-testing, and as a beta tester, these are my first impressions.

Character Creation:

I was impressed with this. The hair selection wasn’t big from what I saw, but I did find several that I liked and had a hard time picking. The facial creation and modification was tricky, as the pre-made features were never quite right (What game has good pre-made face features, anyways?) and the sliders were a bit odd. The lips were hard to get right.

               There is no custom-color picker in this creation. You have pre-selected color squares to click, meaning you can’t have green hair or blue or pink if you want. This is a step up from PWI, but if they have unnatural colors too, it would be great. I personally prefer natural colors, but some of them aren’t exactly what I want and I know people who like odd colors.

               There is also no way to edit the body of your character. You choose a gender and you have that body type. Meaning you can’t change the height or weight or breast and waist size of your character. This takes away points in my book.

               Overall: It’s okay, but if you were to fuse it with PWI’s creator, it would be near perfect. That said, it’s easy to make pretty characters.

Gameplay:

The first thing I thought when I got into the game was, “Oh my god, this lag…” That didn’t change. The entire game was laggy. I don’t know if that is normal in a beta or if it’s because there were so many people online, but it was insane. It took a minimum of five seconds for one attack to work (Assuming it worked at all) and hotkeys like “B” for bag and “C” for Character did not work sometimes due to lag. I actually had to stop playing after a while because of it.

As for questing, it’s confusing. I know you click the NPC and talk to it, but then you have fifty million little squares popping up on your screen and you have no idea what to do.  There isn’t even a “Help” dialogue to explain what something is and how it works!

Overall: Confusing and laggy. If there were a “Help” dialogue box that would pop up, it would be easier. Also unable to find out how to assign attribute points. There is also no build set to help you. (I seriously screwed up my venomancer by putting a lot of dexterity on her, and I suck at trying to figure out builds. I need endgame stats or something to go by.)

Graphics and Game Design:

The game is drop dead gorgeous. I haven’t had time to look at the detail of the game yet, but it looks amazing, even with graphics turned all the way down. It seems like it has detail though, because your clothes actually flutter in the wind and on your starting armor, the coin shaped things on your waist bounce too. Like, individually.

Overall: Can’t tell for sure yet, but it seems absolutely kick ass.

Community:

I have yet to assess the community. There were a lot of people asking questions about the game in world chat (how did they get to the required level so fast?!) and the alpha (pre-beta) players seemed to be answering their questions, so it seems fine, but I don’t know for sure.

Overall: Unable to tell for sure yet, but it seems decent enough.

Also, after the beta, there will be a complete wipe. Everything will be lost on your character. That’s crappy.

TOTAL OVERALL REVIEW:

Pretty, but super laggy, but it seems pretty cool. Will have to keep playing to assess it further.

Summer's Here!

               Heya, Warriors!

               Sorry again for the lack of updates. As you know, my grades had to be above a B for computer access this summer. Unfortunately, there was one C+, but my parents let it slide. Since then, I have been playing Perfect World, an MMORPG that my mom got me hooked on. I’ve joined a faction (Rivalz) and the people are freaking amazing. They’re all fun and helpful and I definitely recommend joining if you can. I’ve also been on The Sims and testing out the new Swordsman beta. (A review will be posted on PW and SM soon.)

               Since school got out on May 30^th, I haven’t done any new writing. However, as I write this, my internet is out and wont be back on for at least two days. So I’m going to write. And edit. And write more. I’ll have blogs posts for here, as well as my blog on Wicca (http://novawicca.blogspot.com), and as I said before, there will be some reviews for MMORPGs. So far, I’m gonna do Perfect World, Jade Dynasty, Swordsman, Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, and Aura Kingdom.

               It’s likely that I’ll post a few book reviews as well. I’ve decided to do on on The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Some Darren Shan reviews will likely end up here, as well as Heather Brewer, Richelle Mead, and Becca Fitzpatrick and Cornelia Funke.

         CONTEST

 There will be a competition for the character design of the characters listed below:

·        Raleigh

·        Amelia (Dresses girly)

·        Aunt Victoria

·        Syra (Wears all black, usually armor or a plain black shirt and pants.)

·        Liah (Wears all white, usually armor or some sort of simply, but regal, dress)

·        Klaos (Usually wears a white button up shirt and black slacks.)

I’m not going to give much more direction on what these characters should look like, because I want to be surprised. I will say, however, that these characters must appear human. Scars and horns and stuff are alright, because they can be easily glamoured, but nothing like reptile spines and scales and snouts or anything. Wings are fine, so are fox/cat/wolf ears and tails since in most fictional stuff that they’re in they have the ability to hide them.

Rules:

·        No nudity

·        One submission per person (You can choose to do multiple characters, but you can’t do two of Raleigh, for example. Multiple people in the same household can submit entries)

·        The art must be your own, and it must be original (Meaning no recycling previously drawn art)

·        The art does not have to be hand drawn. (You can use Photoshop and Illustrator and Gimp or whatever you like to use. Feel free to build a 3D model in Maya or Blender and send a screenshot of it if you want!)

·        Collaborations are allowed (Say if you wanted to work in Photoshop. Unless you want to try and hand draw everything in there (which is difficult to say the least) then you can have someone draw something and edit it in there or something. Again, no recycled work!!!)

·        No dialogue or busy backgrounds (If you want a background, please stick to a simple gradient or a solid color. Make sure you can see the character well.)

·        Picture must be in color

·        The image must be good quality

·        All submissions must be send to katherynhawkins97@gmail.com and must have “Character Design Competition” for a subject.

As no one will likely see this post until June 18, at the very least, and there is a lack of viewers here, the contest will end on December 31, 2014. (No, I wont forget. The emails will go in a folder and I’ll keep them there till I pick the winner.)

I hope to see many entries coming in! I will pick the best picture for each character and let the winners know, and we will work on what will likely be a Valentine special/short-story featuring the characters of Raleigh. They will also get special insight to the book, as well as the followups! (Meaning some dirty little secrets that aren’t shown in the book! :O Stuff that the characters of the book keep hidden, I’m thinking. Dunno exactly what information I’ll give out, but it’ll be something.) Or maybe I’ll answer questions about character’s past? To some extent. I’m not gonna give you Liah’s life story and why she does what she does or anything, but.

So yeah. A contest, and lots of reviews coming up. Hope to see you guys submitting!

All by best,

Katheryn

Questions, comments, concerns?
Email me at katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

School's Out -- Almost Forever!

Heya! So, school here gets out in a week, and I may or may not be able to keep updating during the summer. (My parents want me to get B's or higher, and I currently have a C-.) It's the end of my Junior year, so yeah I guess school is almost out forever. If you get the Maximum Ride reference.

As for Raleigh, it's still in progress. At first, the main plotline was underway by chapter five, which I didn't like. I'm moving those back, and adding more of Ray's daily life (and the start of her visions) before the plot starts. I think it's going to give you more insight on her character, as well as her companions before the main plot. There have also been some name changes here and there, so when excerpts for this start appearing, don't freak out. I'll let you know whose name has been changed to what when I post them. And I place a lot of importance in the names of my characters, so they may continue to change up until publication.

And publication is only a hope right now. Keep that in mind. Most publishing companies I've looked at only have any interest in previously published authors, and only in finished manuscripts, if they're even taking on new projects in the first place. And editors? The ones I've looked at charge about two cents a word. Raleigh will be, ideally, about the length of a Vampire Academy book, and at the bare minimum the length of a Cirque du Freak book. (Maybe they'll end up short and get longer as the series goes on? Or maybe the editor will help with expanding everything. Maybe it wont need expanding, but some serious rewording?) Who knows. Anyways, you guys have a great summer. Have fun. And don't die. Definitely don't die. That's no fun, I hear.

All my best,
Katheryn

Questions, comments, concerns? Email me at katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

4-30-14

     Heyo, Warriors! Again, I apologize for the lack of updates. I don't have access to my computer at home for a few weeks, so it's been a bit tricky for me to getting the blog posts done.

     In relation to writing, chapter five is done and edited. The excerpt with the flashbacks was unedited if I remember correctly. Anyways, chapter six is now underway. Raleigh is completely out of her element now, due to some spoiler heavy reasons I can't reveal. I can tell you that the main plot has started, though, and Ray is going to have her plate full. She's also been dragged from Minnesota to Texas. Talk about climate change!

     Anyways, I'll get 6 done as soon as possible. And then you guys will get an excerpt. (Pre-edits of course.)

     All my best,
            Katheryn

The Limestones - Why Don't We Just Dance

Hey, Warriors! Chapter four's been edited and chapter five's been sent off for editing and chapter six is under construction. I have an excerpt for you soon, but for now, here's a little video of some guys that came to my high school a couple weeks ago. They're an acapella group called The Limestones from St. Olaf's college. They have tryouts every year for new people to come in, and as far as I know, they don't have a limit on how many there can be. They are SO nice and over all a really cool group of guys. So here's a video from their fall concert. Evan (#3) is the lead vocalist here. Just felt like sharing this with y'all. The song reminds me of home. (Texas, if you didn't know.)

4-10-14 (And an excerpt)

             Morning, Warriors! Right, so, I didn't get my stuff edited by Diane O'Connell, but Mackenzie (Here's her blog) directed me to an editor named Mike Valentino who did a free trial for her. I've sent in the first four chapters (I'm working on four with Mackenzie as I type this) to him for a free sample. And as I work, here's another excerpt. Not sure if this is gonna stay in the book, but whatever. Chapter four is dark for Ray, as it concerns the deaths of her parents and brother, thus explaining how she got landed with her Aunt Victoria and her secrecy.

The streets were quiet. No one was out, walking or in cars. Most of the houses were dark, too, except for the occasional flickering of a living room TV.

As I approached the corner of Teal Lane and Birch Avenue, I came to a stop. Beside me were a small wicker wreath and a white cross leaning up against a stop sign. I smiled sadly. “Hi Mom, hi Dad,” my voice was barely a whisper, “It’s been a while, huh? Seven years tonight.”

I almost had the audacity to hope for a reply, but the dead can’t speak. And they don’t come back. It was harsh, but it was a truth forced upon me since their death when I was ten.

The night they died, I was in the car with them, coming home from a school dance. They were planning on getting a divorce, and were arguing over custody of Josh, my brother, when we were hit. A series of painful flashbacks rolled through my mind like a movie.

“Josh needs to stay with his sister!” my mother argued.

“A boy needs a father, Matilda, not a sister. Just like a girl needs a mother.” Dad retorted. I wanted to insert that any kid needed both parents.

She narrowed her eyes at him, and I shrank back into my seat. A warm hand gripped mine, and I looked up from my feet to see my older brother, Josh, smiling at me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, “They’ll take care of us.”

He always knew what to say. He’d always taken care of me when mom and dad couldn’t. I smiled back.

Just then, bright lights distracted me. There, right in front of us, was a big truck.

On the wrong side of the road.

And it slammed into us.

People crowded Josh and I, all with cameras and flashing lights and microphones. They shoved them in our face, trying to get us to answer what happened the night of the wreck. Josh held my hand. He told the reporters to leave, but they wouldn’t. They wanted to know exactly what had happened, and why. Josh tensed as I watched him. He’d been different since the accident. More… broken.

Our aunt came out of the hospital behind us, shooing the swarm of bodies away. We were all tired and hurting, but she was still looking out for us. It was her job, now that mom and dad were gone. Josh let go of my hand and walked for her car. He hadn’t said a word since Aunt Victoria told us that mom and dad were gone. He’d barely even looked at me. Was it because I looked like our mom? Was I some kind of bad reminder of that night?

I sat down at the breakfast table, trying to get loose of sleep’s hold on me. Aunt Victoria sat a plate down in front of me, filled with bacon and pancakes and syrup. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. There it was again: the sad glint in everyone’s eyes lately. Josh had it. Aunt Victoria had it. Our grandparents had it. Did I?

“I’ll go get your brother,” Aunt Victoria said, walking upstairs.

Several moments passed when she was gone, then I heard a piercing scream. I rushed upstairs as fast as my tiny legs would carry me, only to have Aunt Victoria try to keep me out of my brother’s room. I couldn’t see much, but what I did get a glimpse of would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Josh’s room was painted red. Everywhere. Bits of what I assumed were bones were strewn across the room, along with some gushy looking pink material. A gun was on the floor, and Josh’s bloody arm was limp on his bed, hanging off of it a bit. There were three slits on his wrist.

Josh had killed himself.

            I was alone.

 I sighed and sat back on my legs, wondering if there was a way I could have prevented it. The dance was supposed to be a night for me to escape all the arguing and everything else that comes with divorce. I was supposed to be at a friend’s house after it, but she canceled. They weren’t supposed to pick me up. They weren’t supposed to be dead. And it was my fault. My friend had offered to at least get her mom to drive me home, but I called my parents instead. If I’d waited on her mom, the shipping truck would have been out of our neighborhood. If I’d waited, my parents would be alive. My brother would be alive. Everyone would be okay.

Movement to my right dragged me out of my thoughts. I squinted at it, hoping to see what it was. And once I could, my eyes went wide. It was a man in black. Even his face and hands were covered. And he was running at me. With a sword.

As you've hopefully noticed, chapter four is going to be fairly long in comparison to what the others have been. It mainly focuses on Raleigh's past, hence the series of flashbacks.

And again, I'm not sure how much of that will make it past editing. So don't expect it to be in the book. I think it's a decent idea, but others may not, so. Anyways, I'll keep you posted on this. 

Don't forget to follow the blog! Makes it easier to stay updated.

All my best,

Katheryn

Raleigh has been sent to an editor!

Warriors, you have no idea how excited I am.

Raleigh has been sent to an editor! (Well, the prologue through chapter four.)

But still. Write to Sell Your Book emailed me after I filled out this thing for a trial edit, and asked me to send in the first 5-10 pgs. So I did, after Googling her to make sure she's legit and not a scam. Turns out she's got like, 25 years under her belt as an editor for books and magazines.

Questions? Comments?
katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

All my best,
Katheryn

4-5-14

Hey, Warriors!

As of the second of this month, chapter four has been sent off to Mackenzie for editing.I haven't heard much from her as of late, so I'm not sure when I'll get it back to finish it up and print it and start on chapter five. That's a thing for me. I gotta have the previous chapter done and with me to work on the next one. Little details matter a lot to me and I don't wanna have to spend a lot of time going back and rewriting because of them. I'd rather get them set the first time and work on the main plot-line and subplots.

Also, I've recently put this blog on a website called StumbleUpon.com. The website is kinda like Pintrest in a way, but it's really nifty and totally worth checking out. Not to advertise crap, but the site's nifty. And I'm gonna go try and find some food.

All my best!
Katheryn

Cover and a new email

Warriors,
I have somehow managed to transfer The Hideout to my new email address (katherynhawkins97@gmail.com) without much trouble. I'm surprised, really, at how easy it was! All you do is add an author and remove the original one and it'll be under the new author's account. If that makes any sense. I also managed to set up automatic forwarding on my gmail accounts, so if you're still emailing the old email, I think I'll get it. But I'll reply with the new one.
And now for the cover's draft!

I'm not sure on the title of the book or the series yet, so the words may or may not change. And I've edited the blog post and put in the new draft. If you have any suggestions on it, please let me know. 

Again, my new email address is katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

All my best!

The writing resumes!

Hey, Warriors!

As you probably know, I've been sick these past few days. What does that make for? Lots of Aura Kingdom and no writing. Well, as I am feeling good enough now to sing a soprano 1 part in the choir, I think the writing will resume tomorrow morning. I’m still editing for Mackenzie (Fatas: The Strings of Fate), who I linked to earlier. (Mackenzie is her pen name, what she wants to get the book published under.) She's also editing some of my stuff, mainly telling me where to reword and correcting small errors.

By the way, here's another excerpt from chapter three.

Fang’s room was fairly clean. There was a pizza box by the TV and the desk was piled high with old books and papers, but it was still clean. I took a seat on his bed, and he pulled out his desk chair. “Do you think that was funny?”

            He furrowed his brow, and I took his silence as being completely clueless.

            “Do you think telling me I might destroy the universe is funny? Do you like screwing with people’s heads?” I glared.

            Fang sat back, understanding passing over his face. He sighed. “Raleigh,”

            “No. Don’t. You don’t go around saying stuff like that. It’s weird. It’s creepy.”

            “Raleigh, please, just – “

            “No, you just stop it, Fang! Stop screwing with everyone!” I exclaimed, surprised by my outburst. Clearly, he was too. “Don’t you get it? You’re a freak! You shouldn’t even be talking to me. Hell, you almost got me kicked off the cheer squad by spreading that dumb rumor that you were going to ask me to prom.” It was true. They’d cornered me at my last practice and told me that if I wasn’t careful, I’d be off the team pretty quick. “Your mom might be sitting pretty at the school, but you aren’t. Don’t forget that. You’ll always be a freak,” I hissed, “How does Amelia live with you?”

            Fang’s eyes sparked with anger, but his face remained calm. Silently, he rose to his feet, and when he spoke, his voice was dangerously low. “You’re right about me being a freak, Raleigh. But at least I know what I am. And I can own up to it. You on the other hand,” he chuckled darkly, “You’re more of a freak than I could ever be. And trust me, you don’t know Amelia. She’s a stranger to you.” He moved to open his door. “You should go, Raleigh. Go home where it’s safe. Where you can curl up in bed and ignore the warning signs you’ll be getting soon.”

This one kind of follows the last excerpt, if memory serves. I've yet to replace the old excerpt, which was the end of chapter one, so here's that one.

Fang stopped across the table from me, his hands in his pockets and his eyes focused solely on me. “Raleigh, can I talk to you?” he asked, no trace of the nervousness other guys had when talking to me. I frowned; he didn’t sound like he was asking a girl to prom.

I leaned back in my chair. “Whatever you have to say, Fang, you can say it here.” My unease increased when a panicked glint surfaced in his eyes. Fang never let on to any of his emotions, not even a fake smile, and especially not fear. Even his friends claimed they’d never seen him smile or heard him laugh.

“Raleigh, please,” he glanced around. People were murmuring. Beth was glaring fiercely at him, as if he was about to make a big mistake. “Come into the hall, at least.”

I glanced at Beth, whose glare had been intensifying since Fang arrived. Cautiously, I stood and followed him out. He led me to the auditorium, then turned to face me. “This isn’t about prom, is it?”

Fang shook his head. “Afraid not. I’m here to warn you that your life is in danger, and if you somehow manage to survive, you may end up destroying the universe. You’ll certainly have the power to.”

Right. Well. There are my excerpts. And now I am off to go through some chapter two edits that we missed. Mackenzie says I have a problem with expanding, which could by why most of my chapters are ending up not much longer than James Patterson's.

All my best!

Note: I'll be getting a new email soon. The address will be posted, along with a draft of the book cover, very very soon!

A Recent Update

Good morning, Warriors! I apologize for my lack of updates. I have been fairly busy, and now that I'm not, I'm sick.

First off, school has been taking a lot of time. The teachers here actually hunt you down and ask for assignments, whereas in my other school, they didn't glance twice. I mean, they'd post grades and missing assignments, but only one or two specifically asked you for the missing ones. So figuring out how to do these missing assignments is a job of its own. And for someone like me, who has to know all the little intricacies of how to do something, it takes a while to learn something new.

Next, there's prom. I have been looking online for dresses, plus all day Saturday shopping for one. We started about eleven a.m., after getting up at six to leave at eight to go to St. Paul. Once there, we met up with my grandma and ate breakfast. Then, the shopping started. I don't think we found one till nearly two or three in the afternoon. Really, compared to some other girls I know, three or four hours of looking isn't all that bad. Here's the dress. The theme for this year's prom is The Great Gatsby. Surprising? I think not. The movie was cool, and the visuals there were pretty awesome, but the book was so boring. I couldn't sit through it.

Finally, I have been writing. And editing. I have chapter three finished on the first draft, and a friend of mine has edited it for me. Once I go through that and finish up tweaking, I'll move on to chapter four. And I have to edit her chapters. (Here's her blog: Fatas: The Strings of Fate) Also, the excerpt I posted before has been edited. Unfortunately, most of the edits were lost. Meaning I have to go back and edit everything again.

Thanks for stopping by. It's always nice to get pageviews. For today, I am off to play The Sims 3 and hope this cold goes away.

Chapter 1 Excerpt

Hey, Warriors! I have finished the prologue and chapter one of Raleigh, after taking a couple weeks off to try and catch up on books. And to make up for the lack of updates, I have an excerpt for you guys. Constructive criticism please?

Right, so the prologue explains the clans and everything (they come in later in the book). And chapter one starts out with Raleigh and Beth going to meet Mia (Beth's sister) for lunch. A recent rumor says that Fang is going to ask Raleigh to prom. Here's the encounter, as well as the end of the chapter. I don't think I'm giving too much away here, as it's fairly obvious that he isn't really there to ask Ray (Raleigh) to prom. It's never that simple in a book like this.

Fang stopped across the table from me, his hands in his pockets and his eyes focused solely on me. “Raleigh, can I talk to you?” he asked, no trace of the nervousness other guys had when talking to me. I frowned; he didn’t sound like he was asking a girl to prom.

I leaned back in my chair. “Whatever you have to say, Fang, you can say it here.” My unease increased when a panicked glint surfaced in his eye. Fang never let on to any of his emotions, not even a fake smile, and especially not fear. Even his friends claimed they’d never seen him smile or heard him laugh.

“Raleigh, please,” he glanced around. People were murmuring. Beth was glaring fiercely at him, as if he was about to make a big mistake. “Come into the hall, at least.”

I glanced at Beth, whose glare had been intensifying since Fang arrived. Cautiously, I stood and followed him out. He led me to the auditorium, then turned to face me. “This isn’t about prom, is it?”

Fang shook his head. “Afraid not. I’m here to warn you that your life is in danger, and if you survive, it’ll be drastically different.”

So how was it? Good? Bad? Okay? Email me some feedback. Or comment. Whichever works for you. Also, if you have ideas you want to throw in for the book, send them in.

Email: nicolahawkins97@gmail.com

Until next time,

Katheryn

Comment Responses
Racheal from Texas writes:
Dude. The libraries in Texas are linked too. If there is a book you want in another library, you can order it at yours and they will send it as soon as possible. Wow. Idiots these days. But, I read that store Hy-Vee? as HIV, And I was like, since when do STDs have chinese food?

Well, Racheal, I haven't ever come across a library in Texas that's linked with others. I don't think they're around Kaufman or Sherman, if there are any. Of course, I could be wrong. Hy-Vee's Chinese food looks good though, even if you tainted it with the STD comment. Thanks for writing and please keep reading!

Books, books, books!

Hey, Warriors! Sorry for my lack of updates lately. I have been up to my ears in books these past couple weeks. As a result, Raleigh hasn't had much more done to it.

"Why?" you ask? Well, because I have several series to finish and two of them are checked out to me right this moment. I have the Vampire Academy series (Just finished Blood Promise) and The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (Eleventh Grade Burns). After these, I have the Maximum Ride series to finish, then the Mortal Instruments, and then the Divergent series. And speaking of Max Ride, I'll post the order of the books, since no one seems to know the order and I need to have a place to access it quickly.

1. Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
2. Maximum Ride: School's Out-Forever
3. Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
4. Maximum Ride: The Final Warning
5. Max (Or Maximum Ride: Waterwings, as I've read.)
6. Fang
7. Angel
8. Nevermore

While on the topic of Maximum Ride, I would like to make it known that, according to some things I've heard, there will be more books after Nevermore. As for the order of these books, I haven't noticed any timeline errors in reading them, and I certainly hope that that would be the case, as this order came straight from James Patterson's website. 

Anyways, all of those book series are on my most highly recommended list, except the Divergent series. I have yet to read it, but I keep hearing how amazing it is, and I'm sure it will be a good read. While I'm here talking about these books, I'll go ahead and post some of my favorites, in no particular order because putting them in order would be impossible.

The Iron Fey

Cirque Du Freak

The Demonata

Vampire Academy

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod

Legacy of Tril
Maximum Ride
... and more coming soon!

Until next time,
Katheryn

Weird Minnesota Stuff: Part 1

As promised, here is some new (and maybe a bit strange) stuff from here in Minnesota. I'm just gonna do five a post, and even though a couple of these are just small things, it really lets you know you're in an entirely different area.

1) Snowmobiles.

I've never seen one. So, naturally, when one pulled up to the gas pump across the street, I darted to the window in Subway and was like, "Oh my god, is that a snowmobile?! I've never seen one!"

Naturally, I got weird looks from the natives.

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2) Snow shoveling

Have you ever worked out before? If not, don't start it with shoveling snow. I just did it earlier today, and nearly collapsed from exhaustion afterwards. (Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but still.) And if you do have to do it, make sure you have a good snow-blower. Ours puts out smoke sometimes and smells bad, so I don't completely trust it, but it's better than having to shovel it all by hand. Some of this stuff comes up past my waist! And it's soft and fluffy, not like Texas's wet snow. So, the cold isn't quite so bad. As long as the wind doesn't blow.
I still don't recommend going out in a hoodie though.

3) Boxed Potato Chips
This is probably one of the more weird things. Like, they're really good, nice sized potato chips, but they are in boxes. There are two or three silvery packages inside one box, depending on which one you buy. I've never seen anything like it before.

4) Hy-Vee
Dunno if all the grocery stores here are like this, but Hy-Vee (HyVee?) has CHINESE FOOD for sale. Like, you know how Walmart has fried chicken and stuff in the back? They have that too, but then they have Chinese. Like, cooked. And then they have their grapes on real shelves instead of in a box/crate thingy like most Texas stores do.

5) Libraries
This is amazing. Like, all the libraries are linked. I have some here linked to libraries in Red Wing and Faribault and Cannon Falls, and I can order in books from any of those libraries, public or school. It's awesome, especially for a big reader like me!

Like I said, a couple of these are only little things, but they really drive home that I am far from home. Like, really far.

-Katheryn

You're probably wondering about the book by now...

Gosh, the whole Starting-a-new-entry thing is kinda weird. It's like, "Oh man there's so much I wanna say, but I dunno where to start or what to say so I'll type the first thing that comes to my mind."

Right. Now, before I get off track -- again -- the book is called Raleigh, after the main character: Raleigh Sanders. And the cover I have is kinda pink, hence the pink on the blog. It'll change colors with each book. And the color is gonna change before the book is announced.

Oh, you want a summary? Let's see if I can find Raleigh's voice.
...
I'm normal, really. Well, if you consider being a Seer normal. But in my world, that's about as close to normal as you can get. And normal means danger. Normal means no self-defense. Seers are targets, cause we're weaker than the Clan members. Speaking of, there's an evil dictator over one of the two clans named Liah who's out to destroy the human race and keep all her people on tight leashes and God knows what else.
And I'm supposed to stay neutral.
But when I fall in love, and Liah threatens all my friends and family, it gets hard. I don't know if I can do it. If I break neutrality, it could have apocalyptic consequences. For everyone. On top of all that, her people are rebelling. A war is brewing.

Well? Whaddya think? Let me know. Post a comment. Email me. (nicolahawkins97@gmail.com)

By the way, I'm calling my fans/readers/whatever my Warriors. Or Comrades, depending on whether they like Syra or Liah. And I may have a post or two from point of view of the characters themselves. And here's a summary of the series as a whole.

A war is brewing in a world parallel to our own. When a dictator named Liah takes over a clan who swore never to have a government, her sister Syra gains followers for a rebellion. People begin to oppose Liah. Faithful soldiers begin to betray their leaders in the heat of the war, and passionate lovers turn to bitter enemies. But no one can figure out the answer to one big question: Why did Liah take power when she used to be against all government? Why is she so oppressive? What happened when the Guardians visited her?

A friend of mine is writing a book based off some RPs we did a while back, too. I think it's gonna be great. Like, the RPs were some of the best I've done in my seven years of it. (If you don't know what an RP is, visit this blog: http://kokoronokagami.blogspot.com/ and it'll give some good examples.)

Welcome to The Hideout, followup!

Hello there, person! As I stated in my first post (Welcome to The Hideout), I am a young author working on my first book, and my name is Nicola Hawkins. I'm a gamer, an otaku (anime-lover), and a big reader. In the past, I haven't had much luck with books or blogs. Never kept up with them. But I'm hoping that it'll be different this time, no matter how idealistic or moronic that may be. (I'm a bit of a pessimist/realist, if you haven't noticed. But I don't bite! ... Much.)

Right. So. A month ago today, I moved from northern Texas all the way to... You guessed it, Minnesota. "The Land of a Thousand Lakes", or something. I prefer to call it "The Land of Endless Cold and Burning Legs and Potato Chips in boxes." I have a couple acquaintances so far: Sammie, Celia, Sydney, Evelyn, and a couple others who I'm learning the names of. I won't give their last names, but if I mention them, you know who they are now. And I'll probably be blogging about some of the weird stuff here in Minnesota. (Sorry, Yankees. You guys have lots of weird stuff here by my standards.)

Potential Blog Subjects:

     In relation to Minnesota:
The weather

The house

Chips and other Food-related stuff, like the grocery store shelving

     In relation to school:

The lockers

Food lines

Online stuff

Library functions

The dudes here

The class sizes

Dress code (Remind me about the hair dye policies and the midriff stuff)

      Books:

Maximum Ride

Various Authors

Hush, hush

Vampire Academy (I was into it before the movie, thanks!)

The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd

Some of those might be mushed into one post. 

All my best,
Katheryn

Welcome to The Hideout!

Hey, I'm Katheryn Hawkins, and I am a young author working on my first book. This is going to be my blog, and I'll be setting it up soon, bringing in my designs for the covers of the books in my series. Please come back to see the final results!
Also, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at nicolahawkins97@gmail.com
Have a great day! (Meanwhile, I get to shovel snow soon. Thank whoever for snow blowers for people in their second week in Minnesota!)