Blog Changes to Come

Right, well, I know I said there'd be new colors and layouts for new books only, but I think some change is in order. The pink is just not working, and I'm under the impression it's driving readers off. Really, this blog looks like it's some girly teenager's blog. So change is coming, but no new book.
Got an idea for a color scheme? Email me. Katherynhawkins97@gmail.com

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

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!

Monday, March 24, 2014

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.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

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!

Monday, March 10, 2014

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