Loud beauty is your nature.
You don’t try to impress.
Yet you made this man a chaser.
By being yourself and nothing less.
I am not afraid to say out loud,
How beautiful you really are to me.
You shine like the brightest sun above a cloud.
You illuminate my darkness and set me free.
You and me are the dream team.
Being with you makes me feel unstoppable.
You shine this beautiful beam.
Thank you for your loveliness.
It feels me with such liveliness.
Written by. T. Edward Redd
When I first saw her,
It was love at first sight.
She wanted not my royalty.
She wanted not a dime.
Just a dance with a man she saw across the room.
We moved with such bliss.
I was no Prince Charming. There were no expectations to meet.
Just a man and a woman. She took me from my world.
For the first time in my burdensome life of royalty,
I found a woman who wanted nothing but I.
With her I was naked and free. Free to be just me.
Like the shooting star she was,
She came and went.
Leaving nothing but beautiful stardust, to confirm her existence.
My love was blind. I followed her glow and found the star and my life…dimmed.
I married a woman I barely knew.
A fantasy my desperate mind placed on a stranger. An escape.
Irony would have it that I too was her escape.
She was a poor girl looking to escape her troublesome world.
She found a prince and made him her ticket to freedom.
She was just like the others.
Full of unrealistic needs and expectations.
Can a man not just be a man? Or is man doomed to always play hero and savior?
I never tried to repaint her beautiful canvas.
So why does she try to paint over an already finished work of art?
Cinderella, you made me feel so normal that night.
But why is it now you expect me to be anything more than a man?
After 60 suspenseful hours I finally received my final grade for my college math class. I am officially finished with college math for as long as I live. Now I just need to finish two and a half more semesters and I will get an English degree. Then I’ll pursue a license in education. I’m already living my dream as an author. When I’m out of school I plan to keep writing and teach kindergarten/ Preschool. I’m on my way. But that’s a couple of years into the future.
Presently I’m still working on the preproduction stages for my graphic novel. Character and setting creation and script writing. Tonight I’m going to mess around with my copic markers and make some colored illustrations as I find a new Netflix series to get into. I have high hopes and expectations for myself as I dive deeper into this project!
It’s day 12 of my blog challenge. I’m proud of myself. At first it was hard to stick to this but now it’s habitual. I always make sure I post something on here before 12 a.m. My next goals for this blog is to start spending a few hours of my week to browse and make comments on other blogs. Sort of get more involved. I’m starting gain weekly followers again so maybe I’ll reach my goal of 1k by next January. We’ll see 😀
That’s it for now. I’ll be sure to post those illustrations and my deviantart page here before Monday. Until then here’s yet another piece from a story I have. It’s called, Dreams’s Bridge. It’s a magical story about a guy who meets a girl he used to have dreams of in high school. He had never met or seen her until his first day of college. From then on things make one magical twist after another.
I couldn’t register what was happening. I knew what was going on but for some reason I couldn’t react. I couldn’t even blink let alone move. Alice slowly walked to my table. She was clutching her dress nervously in her hands. Her blushing face got redder as she got close. I wasn’t so calm neither. I had no ideas on what to say or anything. Sara walked ahead of her and made it to the table first.
“She’s as nervous as you are but she’s really sweet. Good luck,” Sara said. She grabbed her things and left the table.
“Here’s your chance, big guy. Blow her away with that poetic mind.” Jean nudged me. He motioned Tylor to leave with him. Both of them left and Sara had gone to sit with Alice’s friends. I gasped realizing I was alone and even more nervous. She started twirling her hair nervously as she got close.
She said, “Hey did they leave because of me? I really hope not. I don’t want to be rude or anything.”
I fumbled my words, “Yes, er, uh no! No you’re fine. I think they left on purpose. You can sit if you want.”
She nodded and sat. I couldn’t believe it. It was her. Dream’s Bridge. She had the same long and curly brown hair. Her eyes were hazel and she had freckles across the bridge of her nose. The dress was the biggest shock. Violet colored cotton complimenting her perfect and creamy complexion. I was mind blown. Then I realized I had been staring at her for a REALLY long time.
“Um. Am I dreaming,” I dumbly said.
She laughed, “What?”
I shook my head and said, “Nevermind. Sorry. Um…”
The awkward silence birthed. We just sat there watching one another. But she didn’t look crept out at all. She was trying to hold her glance. But she must have been too nervous. She smiled and turned away and I did the same. We both laughed at the same time nervously.
I uttered, “Um.”
“Yes?” She leaned in.
“Huh?” I was confused.
“Oh. Nothing.” She was embarrassed.
Awkwardly we laughed. She smiled and waved at me as she rose her eyebrows like she was asking a question. Softly she spoke, “Hi?”
I waved back and said, “Hi.”
“Alice.”
“Ryan.”
We were very short spoken and again we laughed. I think we both knew that the other was nervous. But we didn’t know how to deal with it. Even though we were being dorky and quiet it felt nice. Really nice. There was something about being around her that felt so right. It felt like my dreams. Except it wasn’t a dream. Dream’s Bridge was in front of me and her name was Alice.
So far I’m pretty terrible with this challenge. My last post was Saturday and it’s Wednesday. Last night a friend of mine told me I was doing horrible with the challenge. My response was, “You read my blog??” I was aware that bloggers checked it out but when I found out that a friend looks at it REGULARLY I got pretty touched and inspired. In short I promised her to tackle this challenge hard.
For this post I’ve decided to do a character breakdown for one of my main characters from Love Bleeds Red, Samantha Black. Love Bleeds Red is the second book I’ve decided to try and publish. I’ve decided to write about her character origin and creation to share how I come up with characters. Originally I was going to write about Aliyah Conrad from my debut novel, Hero’s Romance. But I’ve really been into LBR lately so I chose Samantha.
Her character is heavily inspired by a high school crush I had with a girl named, Samantha Goodford who went by Sammi. She was singled out at her school and didn’t have too many friends. Yet she was extremely blissful and happy. Not to mention very attractive. She dressed like a scene kid and had glossy red hair. I thought she was the coolest girl ever and just drew to her. Eventually we got together.
Samantha Black’s character stems from Sammi in a lot ways. Especially the night’s curse. The curse makes virtually everyone including family fear or detest Samantha Black. Complete strangers will avoid or become disgusted with her presence alone due to the bad vibes her energy throws off. To add to that the curse makes her nearly immortal. For two hundred years she had to face solitude and torment until she eventually learned how to blend with humans.
During her second century of being cursed she meets Thomas who for some reason is immune to the effects of her curse. She’s instantly surprised when he sits with her during lunch and quickly gets cautious. She thinks he’s going to be cruel but is again surprised when Thomas is kind and seems genuine in nature. Not only that, he has love for her. His kindness and genuine nature eventually captivates her heart.
What I like the most about this story is that it has a strong mix of realities I’ve lived. Sammi didn’t really have friends until I met her. She wasn’t an immortal vampire or anything supernatural. But as far as solitude and ridicule went Sammi and Samantha are relatable. The only time someone spoke to Sammi was to make fun of her. She had it pretty bad with bullying because she was so different as far as dressing and personality went.
For this book I took a life experience and added fantasy and fiction to it. The outcome was this amazing and mind blowing story filled with unique characters. Samantha Black is my most favored character because I feel that she’s the most original and interesting TO ME. As I put more and more books out I’m sure readers will disagree.
I originally wrote Love Bleeds Red to help Sammi with depression back in high school. She used to hurt herself and it really tore me up. You have this beautiful and amazing person. She’s kind, funny and wouldn’t harm a fly. Yet it seemed like no one could see what I did. No one could understand the beauty I saw. So through a story I showed Sammi what it was I saw. Simplistic beauty.
When I tell people the story behind Samantha Black’s origin they all ask where Sammi is and why I’m not with her. Sammi moved out of the country when we were in high school. For a while we stayed in contact. But over time life just sort of pulled us apart. I do miss her at times though. That’s why I’m glad Samantha Black was created. I will never forget Sammi because part of her became my story. When I finally share the story with the world I’m dedicating it to her. Full name and everything. Maybe one day she’ll read it and remember the story she inspired and all the times I sent her chapter after chapter. Who knows what could happen.
I thought it would be fun to do a post about character creation and give some insight on my process. I feel like that’s one of the questions I get asked the most whenever someone finds out I’m an author. The blunt answer is dreams and life experiences. I have yet to create a meaningful character purely from nothing. Most of my characters are made from some sort of dream I hold or memory I made with someone. Even supporting characters.
That’s pretty much all I have to give about Samantha Black’s creation. I can’t say too much without giving major spoilers. I haven’t given much mention about this story. So I can imagine how confused or intrigued some people will get with her description alone. I like Samantha Black’s character so much that I’m deeply considering making a graphic novel based on LBR. But that’s another post for another day.
Hey bloggers/followers xD I missed my nightly update last night but I have really good news.
I’m nearly finished with the paragraph formatting for Hero’s Tale. I stayed up until 5 last night doing it and now I have less then 100 pages left. After that I just have to format the chapter headers xD whoop whoop!
I’m really motivated to just keep going and follow through with this publish. I talked about publishing for two years until I actually doing it. This isn’t one of those times. I’m going to do this and it won’t be my last publish.
A lot of my followers motivate me to keep working, you all know who you are. I just want to thank you. It means a lot.
By the way things look, I might have the interior work finished by tonight. I have to read it through to make sure there aren’t any weird spaces, paragraph breaks or typos. My editor pretty much nailed the spelling and grammar checks so this should be pretty swift.
It’s so cool that I’m actually meeting the deadlines I made. Getting stuff done 🙂
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all that follow me. If you have a fan page, I’ll be sure to follow you. Thanks followers 🙂 Keep writing and blogging
Since I made this blog, I’ve started to realize how meaningful writing is to me. It’s pretty much a HUGE chunk of me. Even though I have to do a lot of work for this publish I’ve never gotten “bored” with it. Yes, I’ll get frustrated when I can’t figure out how to format something properly. But I just persist until I get the job done.
Everything I have to do, I see it as fun. I was talking to one of my favorite bloggers last night and I was telling them how I will most likely have to go through and do the words per page formatting manually. 500 pages, one by one and I’ll have to format paragraphs and do headers. Even though this is alot to do, I see all of it as fun not torture or “work”.
I just think how fun it will be to make this book look like an actual book. This is the dream. I’ve wanted to be a writer forever and now here I am. I AM a writer. I’m formatting my own work, making my own cover and getting ready to publish my own book. It just feels amazing.
Writing makes me feel at home. You know how when you have a long hard day and you get home, kick your shoes off then jump in bed and just snuggle your sheets, blankets and pillows? It feels so amazing right? That’s how writing makes me feel. Who can relate? Leave a comment 🙂
Meeting other writers or even readers who love to read make me feel that way too. I can’t really explain it but I just love to write. That’s why I don’t mind staying up until 6 in the morning typing or formatting. This is what I want to do and I love doing it. Trust me, “Hero’s Tale” may be the first publish, but it’s far from the last. This is only the beginning.
After I blogged this afternoon I worked on a story called,
Beyond a Lifetime” it looks like it will be my third complete draft. That one is meant to be a series so now I’ll have two series. Hero’s Tale and Love Bleeds Red are the only complete drafts so I’m excited about getting my numbers up. I have over 7 projects going so I feel a little slow at the time it’s taking to finish.
No work until Thursday, meaning I’m going to have a lot of time to put into Hero’s Tale. I’ll update when I wake up tomorrow. Thanks for those who read my updates 🙂 I appreciate the support.
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all that follow me. If you have a fan page, I’ll be sure to follow you. Thanks followers 🙂 Keep writing and blogging
Hey bloggers/followers I don’t much time to spare tonight because I’m about to setup my workspace. This consists of a couch with pillows, my laptop, power cable, food, music, and the tv which I mute for some reason? I don’t know why but I have to work with the tv on but I always mute it.
Formatting is harder than I thought it would be. I had to do more reading and research today. I had to leave the house so I didn’t have time to work on it. Then once I got back, I took a nap. Now that I’m fully rested, I’m ready to tackle this. I have everything I need.
Alot of people that self-publish have told me formatting was one of the hardest parts of the process and now I understand what they mean. But they also said once you get the hang of it, things get easier. And I’m getting the hang of it 🙂 alright I’ve got close to 6-7 hours before I have to sleep. No sleeping in today because I have work tomorrow.
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all that follow me. If you have a fan page, I’ll be sure to follow you. Thanks followers 🙂 Keep writing and blogging
Hello bloggers and followers! Today was pretty insightful. I did brainstorming for book cover designs and calculated prices for the whole self-publishing process. I’ve decided to publish through a website so I had to get my numbers right.
I won’t tell you guys the price for all of this but I will say things are looking up. I spoke with my friend Tylor and he says that he will help me create a cover. The cover is top priority right now. Before anything can go forward I need the outside design of the book. So these next few weeks will be spent towards that.
With the holidays approaching it becomes pretty difficult to keep up with everything but somehow I’m managing. I’m keeping up with this blog, my book work, purchasing gifts for family members, while still having the leisure to hangout with friends and work on another book. How do I do it? I have no idea. It gives me a headache thinking about it. Even when I’m working and have school, somehow I find time. Small sacrifices win the battle. I know when I sell my first book all of this effort will be worth it.
My blog continually grows each day and it’s a real surprise to me. Day four or five and I’m already close to 40 followers. All of who are readers, writers or book reviewers. I’m liking it, I’m loving all of it. I’m confident that if I stay on top of things I’ll be taking a big step towards my dream to write novels for a living.
So at the moment, top priority=Book exterior design. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to have. The back cover will have some sort of symbolism or reference towards the story so when the reader reads they’ll look back saying, “Oh that’s why that’s there.” You know, to make things interesting. The front cover will have the title “Hero’s Tale” and I’m thinking of going with a beige color with either black or red text. Bear with me here, I’m still coming up with ideas. I’ll keep you guys posted.
Thank you for those who comment, follow and like my blog. All of you are very motivating and I appreciate it. Some would say 40 followers is relatively small compared to others. But to me it’s huge, especially when people have been commenting and liking posts daily. It really means a lot, so thank you! 🙂
Stay posted I’ve decided to update my blog between the hours 7-10 in the mornings AND at night. That’s not including random posts I’ll make with random thoughts and such. I probably won’t be punctual ALWAYS but I will try my best. Thanks again guys.
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all who follow me. Keep blogging!
Maybe I should start numbering my updates. I would but I know I’ll be on here religiously for a while with the book publishing coming up. I’d lose track. Meh, whatever.
Hello bloggers and amazing followers 🙂 this will be my update for today. I’m thinking about scheduling times for me to get on both mornings and evenings just so it’s more consistent. I woke up today around 9ish on and off, finally got out of bed at 10. Excuse my laziness.
Speaking of laziness I didn’t finish the revision YET. I got down to 28 pages left to read over. So it looks like I’ll be meeting my original deadline. Very good. I expect to finish by late tonight.
So I try to post at least twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. The night times is where I tend to get more social with the site and browse around, comment and like posts I find interesting. I’m going to try and amp it up a bit. I just don’t want to be one of those people who make posts about literally nothing. If I posts it will be an update or something interesting.
Thank you for those of you who follow, comment and like my posts. I try to follow everyone who follows me and look at all of your posts. I get more followers each day and I’m starting to realize that it will become hard to follow EVERYONE back, let alone comment and read their posts….or will it? Just make posts and get on weekly and you’ll get a comment, like and maybe even a conversation with me eventually.
I actually had a pretty nice back and forth talk with one of my followers last night. “billyrobin” I believe is what her name is or at least that’s what displays when she leaves a comment or likes. She’s pretty cool. I recommend following her and checking out her blog. Seriously, she’s pretty freaking cool.
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all that follow me. Enjoy your Sunday and stay warm out there.
Eventually, these posts will be made earlier. Today went pretty swell. I did more research today. Check out my previous post and you’ll see some of the book covers I looked at today.
I don’t have much to tell at the moment. I didn’t work on the revision today. Well that’s a lie, I worked on some but didn’t finish. There’s maybe 70 pages left to read. It’ll be done by noon 🙂 very excited.
I spent about two hours working on another book I am writing called, “Beyond a Lifetime”. Let me give you guys a blurb.
Violet is a girl who has the extraordinary gift to see the future through her dreams. Theom(pronounced Tom) has a voice in his head that occasionally speaks to him to warn him of dangers. Strange? That’s only the start.
One day while working, Theom sees a girl dressed in all purple clothing walk into the frozen yogurt shop, where he works. She tells him that she known him, for years actually. Through her dreams Violet learned about a boy she had never met, until now. Theom soon realizes that the voice he hears sometimes in his head is hers.
Violet tells him that he and her are mortal angels who were once lovers in a preexistence, the time before they became mortals. Initially he doesn’t believe her. How could he? How could things like girls from the future, angels and demons, and premortality exist? To top it off he has a girlfriend whom he deeply cares for.
After warding off a police officer who turns out to be a ghoul, seeing Violet heal burn wounds with her hands and fighting a demon on the beach, Theom soon begins to realize that Violet’s dreams are more than just dreams. This is a story that will forever change his life in this epic series.
That’s what I would put on the back cover. I decided to make this a series. The ending will be made to lead into another. So far I like the story.
Well it’s that time of night. I must be getting to bed so I can finish my revision in the morning. Goodnight bloggers
If you LOVE romance or love to read in general FOLLOW THIS BLOG. Seriously, I follow back always and who doesn’t like mutual support? I’ve seen reviewers too. FOLLOW. Because I will need people to critique my books, good or bad, doesn’t matter. Some help is better than none at all. I’ll keep you guys updated. Thanks to all that follow me. Goodnight 😀
fictionfanaticandromance 