Words from twilight, five more chapters to go

Title: Words from Twilight

31. Gruffer - Having a rough or brusque manner, voice, or countenance; harsh; surly.

32. Obstinately -Persistently and unreasonably resolved in a purpose or opinion; stubborn. Hard to control or cure.

33. Vehemently - Arising from or marked by impetiously of feeling or passion; ardent. Acting with great force or energy; energetic; violent; furious.

34. Ogle- to look at with admiring or impertinent glances. To stare at; to look at. To look or stare in an admiring or impertinent manner. An amorous or coquettish look.

35. Defiantly - Showing or characterized by defiance. The act of defying; a challenge. Bold opposition; disposition to oppose or resist; contemptuous disregard of authority or opposition.

36. Derision - The act of deriding; ridicule; mockery; scornful laughter. An object of ridicule or scorn.

37. Sullenly - Obstinately and gloomily ill-humored; morose; glum. Depressing; somber; slow; sluggish; melancholy Ill-omened; threatening.

38. Converge - to cause to tend toward one point. To move toward one point; come together in gradual approach. To tend toward the same conclusion or result.

39. Gratuitous - Given freely without claim or consideration; voluntary. Without cause, provocation or warrant; uncalled for; unnecessary.

40. Warily - marked by keen caution, cunning, and watchfulness especially in detecting and escaping danger.

FIVE MORE CHAPTERS TO GO BEFORE THE REWRITE OF BANDIT IS FINISHED. YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dominique

Chapter Nine of Bandit, the next ten words from Twilight, Bet Me

Entry: I’m not going to take up too much time today because I need to focus on my writing. I wish I could say that there’s something exciting going on in my life right now but I can’t. Well, maybe that I’m on chapter nine of my new rewritten novel Bandit.

Oh and that I’m reading again. I just read an old book I bought from a book giveaway at Columbia College Chicago. It’s called Bet Me by Jennifer Cruise. I won’t go too much into detail about it right now because of how late it is but it’s basically a single-title romance and a women’s fiction book all rolled into one. The romance starts when one of the main characters (Calvin Morrisey) goes out on a date with a woman in a checked suit (Minerva Dobbs) on a bet for ten thousand dollars. After they go through with the date, Calvin and Minerva vow to stay away from each other until unusual circumstances forces them back into each other’s company. In the end, they realize that no matter how hard they try, they just can’t stay away from each other.

The reason why I say it’s a women’s fiction book is because the story doesn’t just center on Calvin and Minerva, it centers around their friends as well. Minerva’s friends ends up hooking up with Calvin’s friends which gives the book a very entertaining and enthusiastic read for people who want more out of the romance than just the hero and heroine. I love this book so much that I’m thinking about doing a couple of journal entries on what I observed throughout the book in terms of romance, dialogue, the sexual tension between the hero and heroine, the whole nine yards. But first, Twilight.

Which reminds me: Here are the next ten words from Twilight. Enjoy:

21. Disheveled - Disarrange; to disorder

22. Grimaced - A distortion of the features, either habitual or occasioned by annoyance, disgust, contempt, etc.

23. Cursorily - Rapid and superficial; hasty.

24. Inexplicable - Not explicable: impossible to explain; inexplainable

25. Surmised - To infer on slight evidence; guess. To make a conjecture. A conjecture made on slight evidence; supposition.

26. Appraising - to make an official valuation of; set a price or value on, especially by authority of law or agreement of interested parties. To estimate the amount, quality, or worth of; Judge.

27. Chivalrously - Having the qualities of the ideal knight; gallant, courteous, generous, brave etc. pertaining to the feudal system of chivalry.

28. Peripheral - of or pertaining to a periphery. Distant from the center; hence, distal; external.

29. Gratingly - (1) A grate. An optical device for the dispersion of light waves and the production of spectra, visually consisting of a series of very fine parallel grooves cut in the surface of polished metal or glass, sometimes of a suitably mounted crystal. (2) Harsh in sound; rasping; irritating - the act of rasping.

30. Providentially - Exercising foresight; economical; anticipating and making ready for future wants or emergencies.

I’ll probably do another journal entry before the end of the month. Until then, Buenos Noches.

Dominique

It's over, Bandit, and writing in multiple genres

Hello, everyone:

I know, I suck at this whole blog thing but I've been really busy with finals and getting my grades together for the spring semester. This is actually the first week of me being at home all day since I don't know how long and I'm starting to get really lazy and bored. Can you believe that??? I can. Anyways, I'm still working on Bandit. I'm even thinking about rewriting my second book 'Addicted' so that it could at least be halfway done when I go back to school. I don't know what the future holds for me but one thing's for sure: I'm not going to give up writing my novels. As a matter of fact, I'm even thinking about writing in multiple genres this summer in case I don't make it as a YA author (Right now, my goal is to be a YA/middle grade author and from the way my books are going, it looks like I'm going to try my very best to achieve that goal for awhile before I switch to another genre).

There are so many things I have to do that it's driving me crazy. I have to continue finishing up Twilight and type up all of my journal entries to my blog to let the rest of the world know how my creative process works whenver I read and reread a book to improve my writing. I know, I know, I've been behind on a lot of things but going to the same class twice a week can do that to you! Anyways, I also planned on posting some short stories on my blog so that people can view it and post thier comments on my page. Better yet, I can post my short stories for literary agents to see as well. Like I said, so many ideas, so little time.

On top of everything else, I've come to a decision about my other future after I graduate for my community college in chicago. I've decided to go forward with my plans on becoming a special needs teacher. Two years from now, I will offically graduate with an A.A. in Early Childhood Education and go for my master's in special education so I'll be able to inspire kids with special needs that their disability shouldn't stop them from what they want to do in life.

Well, I have to get going. I'm already too far behind as it is. See ya.

Dominique

Valentine's Day, still writing Bandit, tests in classes

Hi, I'm back again. I know that at this point, I should be posting journal entries about what I noticed in twilight from the first ten chapters but It's been really, really, hard to do that considering all the exams and tests that I'm either studying for or making a study guide to study from. Right now, I'm supposed to be studying for a test I have on Tuesday in one of my classes but I've been studying for it for three weeks now and I'm ready to take it and move on.

If we don't take this test on tuesday about prenatal development and the feamle gential tract, I'm thinking about taking it on Wednesday after one of my classes is over with so I'll be able to study for the mid-term in my other classes (Which is the week of March 16th). I'll also be able to go back to my YA paranormal novel without feeling guility about studying for a test. I managed to write a little bit over the weekend but I feel like that's not enough for me since I'm almost finished with the third rewrite of chapter four and still can't write anything because of the test.

Sigh. I miss Columbia College Chicago. When I was majoring in Fiction writing, I did a lot of writing and recalling without having to worry about mid-terms or finals. I could write journal entries and stories that was pertaining to the passion I had ever since I was a little girl: Writing books. And if I just so happened to write something that was outside the normal range (Provided that I did all of my homework) then that was fine too. Now I can't even do that anymore. I miss the once a week classes too. The college I'm going to has classes twice a week and it's not even in my major. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to pass this semester woth flying colors.

Dominique

P.S. Happy Valentine's day

Working on Bandit, Twilight words, being a teacher's aide for special needs kids

Happy new year to all! I’m sorry I haven’t been in contact with this blog for the last couple of weeks but I’ve been busy. Not only am I still working on my YA paranormal romance ‘Bandit’, I’ve been trying for the last couple of weeks to enroll in classes full-time at my local community college for Early Childhood Education. Since I haven’t been able to find a job within the last two years of my life, I’ve decided to go back to school to be a paraprofessional (Teacher’s aide) for special needs kids. I’ve always wanted to work with children ever since I taught creative writing at a catholic school back in the summer of 2008. Since I’m going back to school two weeks from now, it’s going to be a lot harder for me to finish my novel.

But by all means, I don’t care what I have to do, it will get done.

Another thing I have been scaling back on is the research on Twilight. To tell you the truth, I’m sick of hearing the word twilight. Everywhere I turn, it seems like vampires have now taken hold on the whole YA genre altogether and I for once had about enough of it. It’s a brand new year which means it’s time to talk about brand new subjects within the YA and romance community. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed the whole twilight saga thing as well but I think it’s time to move on, which is why I’m trying my very best to write down as much journal entries I can so I can post them here and get it over with. I’m at least halfway done with the first book and I can guarantee you that it will be a LOOOONG time before I post some more journal entries on new moon, eclipse, and breaking dawn. The next book I’m thinking about reviewing is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. I heard that a lot of agents want more YA novels from a boy’s POV (Or maybe that’s middle-grade, I’m not sure) and I think that Tangerine is a perfect example on how a boy character should be written.

Besides, I’ve always wanted to experiment with my writing when it comes to the opposite sex. The only problem is every time I try to write from a male’s POV, I always end up sounding too feminine! Then I wind up hating myself for trying it in the first place…

You get the picture.

Anyways, there’s nothing left for me to say except give you the next ten words I got from Twilight that I’m thinking about using (or have already used) in my manuscript. Enjoy!

Dominique

P.S. UPDATE: The same process I have been doing with chapter one of Bandit has worked for chapter two. I’m now working on the third and fourth rewrite of chapter three which equals twelve more chapters to go! WOOHOO!


Statuesque - resembling a statue, as in grace, pose, or dignity.

Surreptitiously - accomplished by a secret or improper names: Clandestine. Acting secretly or by stealth.

Meekly - of gentle and long-suffering disposition. Submissive; compliant; lacking spirit or backbone. Humble; lowly. Gentle; indulgent; kind; compassionate.

Opaque - Impervious to light; not translucent. Loosely, imperfectly transparent. Impervious to reason; unintelligent. Imperious to radiant heat, electric radiation etc. having no luster; dull. Unintelligible; obscure; dark; lying in shadow.

Warily - marked by keen caution, cunning, and watchfulness, especially in detecting and escaping danger.

Lapsed - to pass slowly or by degrees; slip; sink; to lapse into a coma. To deviate from virtue or truth; fall in duty or accuracy. To pass or elapse, as time. To become void, usually by disuse or neglect.

Suppress - To put an end or stop to; quell, crush as a rebellion. To stop or prohibit the activities of, as a rival political group; abolish. To withhold from knowledge or publication as a book, news, etc. To repress as a groan or sigh. To stop (a hemorrhage etc.)

Incredulously - Refusing belief; skeptical. Characterized by, caused by, or manifesting doubt. Incredible.

Saturated - Completely satisfied; replete; incapable of holding more of a substance or material; a saturated vapor.

Contemplating - To look at attentively; gaze at. To consider thoughtfully; ponder. To intend or plan. To treat of as contingent or possible. To meditate; muse.

I did it with chapter one of Bandit, writing down new words from twilight

Hello everyone, Just came by to tell you the great news. A long time ago, I tried to rewrite my first novel called An Unlikely Reunion. I rewrote it so many times that by the time I finished it, I wanted to lock it in the closet and never take it out again (Yes, there were a few times where I might have been temepted but I still kept my word). As of today, I managed to write the third rewrite of the bandit, read it, correct any mistakes I made from the third rewrite into the fourth rewrite and no complaints!!! I even managed to let go of the fourth rewrite and go back to doing the third rewrite of chapter two!!!! YIPEEEEE! This means that I'm capable of writing and rewriting my work as I go! This means that I could have a faster first and second draft with every manuscript I do. I hope that this never ends!

Okay, enough of that.

I know there are people out there who's sick and tired of me talking about twilight but I've decided to add some words that I've learned from the first book to enchance my story in the bandit. I'm probably only going to do a few words until my next blog entry. Hope you enjoy!

First ten words from chapters 1-3 of twilight:

Omnipresent - The quality of being everywhere present at the same time: ubiquity.

Verbose - Using or containing a wearisome and unnecessary number of words; wordy.

Scarcity - Scantiness, insufficiency; lack of necessities; dearth.

Permeable - To spread or diffuse through, to pass through the pore’s or interstices of, to penetrate something.

Scanty - Limited in extent; Small, close; cramped. Restricted in quantity or number; scarely sufficient. Sparing.

Pallid - Of a pale or wan appearance; feeble in color.

Nostalgically - Severe or poignant homesickness. Any longing for something far away or long ago.

Idling - Not occupied; doing nothing. Averse to labor; lazy. Affording leisure. Without effect; useless; unavailing; Mech. To Operate without transmitting power, usually, at reduced speed; said of motors and machines.

Gangly - Awkwardly tall and loosely built.

Prattled - To talk foolishly or like a child; prate. To utter in a foolish and a childish way; to prattle secrets. Childish speech; babble. Idle or foolish talk.


P.S. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Title: YIPEEEE! Finished my first chapter of Bandit, Finished reading Tangerine

Hi all, Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. for the last couple of days. I just got finished reading this excellent book called Tangerine by Edward Bloor. It’s about a boy name Eric Fisher who moves to Tangerine Florida with his parents in order to start a brand new life in another town. But as soon as they get settled in, mysterious things starts to happen in Tangerine that Paul can’t figure out, including an incident that involves his older brother Erik and those mysterious glasses that he wears all the time in order to help him see…

I’m just going to leave it at that. It’s a really good book. I’ve decided not to give anything else away in case you want to read the book.

In other news, I’m very excited about what’s going on in my life right now. After trying to rewrite The Electric eel Bandit (and failing because of the story’s premise about underwater creatures and the whole human/shape shifter scenario) and months of being stuck on what to do next, I finally managed to write the first chapter (and third rewrite) of The Electric eel Bandit (A.K.A Bandit) and I LOVE it!!!!! It’s totally better than the first and second drafts and I’m constantly writing down all the stuff I need to work on after I finished the third draft.

In case you’re confused, here’s what I plan to do.

After I write the third draft of chapter one, I plan on going back to chapter one and rewriting it again (which would make a fourth draft for the story) but I’m only going to do this ONCE. If I rewrite the fourth draft and realize they’re something missing that I should have put in sooner, I’ll make a note of it and move on to chapter two. I plan on doing the same thing with chapter two, chapter three, four etc…until I reached chapter fifteen.

Third rewrite of Chapter One + rewrite = Fourth draft of Chapter One
Third rewrite of Chapter Two + rewrite = Fourth draft of Chapter Two

You see where I’m going with this?

In case you’re wondering where the third rewrite came from, I had already completed and rewrote this novel one (There was the first draft and then I rewrote it which left the second draft for the novel) and now I’m in my third rewrite of the novel but by the time I’m finished, I will have the third and fourth rewrite of the novel DONE. Isn’t that amazing??? Although I’m excited about writing and rewriting my novel, I would strongly not recommend this to people who have not completed a manuscript. If you can handle writing and rewriting the first and second draft of your manuscript, then so be it. But if you write (and rewrite) the first and second drafts of chapter one to the point where you want to scream you might want to take a long-winded vacation…

I’m just saying…

Moving on, here is my system on how I plan to write my novel according to the page count:

Chapter One = twenty pages
Chapter Two = twenty pages
Chapter Three = twenty pages
Chapter Four = twenty pages
Chapter Five = twenty pages
Chapter six = twenty pages
Chapter Seven = twenty pages
Chapter Eight = twenty pages
Chapter nine = twenty pages
Chapter ten = twenty pages

The total of Chapter one through ten: two-hundred pages or 50,000 words when you divide it by 250 words per page.

This is one option for me if I want to make my novel shorter. Depending on the plot and characters of the novel, I could possibly go with this option. However, I think that what I’m writing about is much bigger than ten chapters could possibly hold. In that case, I’ll continue on with my list.

Chapter eleven = twenty pages
Chapter twelve = twenty pages
Chapter thirteen = twenty pages
Chapter fourteen = twenty pages
Chapter Fifteen = twenty pages

The total of Chapter one through fifteen: three-hundred pages or 75,000 words.

I’m stopping between two-hundred and three-hundred pages when it comes to this book more or less. No matter what the page count is between the numbers above, I know one rule I have decided not to follow until I’m well established in the publishing industry to pull it off: I WILL NOT write any YA novel that’s over four-hundred pages (Also known as over 100,000 words if you’re paying attention to word count). That’s what I did with my second draft and it ended up being a total mess. I can’t even look at it anymore. What was I thinking? In the end, I’d rather be safe then sorry. I stick to the word count like the literary agencies and publishers want so they’ll be able to read my fourth draft without having a question mark in their head on whether they should represent me or not.

Dominique

P.S. I finished my journal entry on chapters ten through twelve in my notebook Moved on to chapter thirteen. Don’t know when I’m going to be able to post them online but all I can say is that it’ll be soon…

The Thing about contests, need to do a journal entry on Twilight

Well, I entered into the knight agency contest today. I had hopes that I would be able to be in the contest but the first 129 comments came in two mintues after seven 'o' clock so I ended up being screwed. I thought I had hope when Deirdre Knight said that they would randomly draw eight people who signed into the comment section between seven and seven-thirty (In eastern time, it's between eight and eight-thirty since New York is an hour ahead of where I live) but I just looked on their website and found out I was not one of the eight people selected for the contest.

Bummer.

Even though I'm sad that I wasn't chosen for this contest, this has taught me a very valuable leasson when it comes to publishing contests: If you really want to be considered for literary representation or for a publisher to read your work, do things the old fashioned way. Send in a query letter, wait about a month or two for a response (or more depending on the agency or publisher) and if it's not the results that you want, keep trying. So far, I've entered three contests that I somehow knew I was going to win. Those contests were:

YA novel Discovery Contest
Medical Fastrack contest (A contest sponsored by Harlequin medical romance team for first novels)
The knight Agency: Speed Dating with Deidre Knight

So far, I've lost in all three contests and don't plan on entering in any more contests...EVER. Like I said before, I'm going to do things the old fashioned way. At least I know I'll get some sort of response from that person at that time (Good or bad). Oh well, back to square one again. Despite what happened today, I'm still not giving up on my writing dreams.

Dominique

Taking my time researching Twilight, Entering into a contest at the Knight Agency

Hi, you guys. I know it's been awhile since I've written a real blog. I've just been so busy and my head has been filled with so many ideas that I haven't had time to write much of anything. Anyways, I've been taking notes and reaserching Twilight lately and even though it's taking a little longer than expected (I'm halfway done with it, it's just that the book is sooooo long!) I'm still writing journal entries on what I've noticed every time I read three chapters at a time (I would read three chapters then take notes on what I noticed). But I have to admit that my research of what Stephanie Meyers is doing in the middle portion of Twilight is kind of boring.

I kept talking about the scenery and dialogue for the last two (or three) journal entries since I've read it until I can't talk about it anymore so I'm deciding to change it up by talking about her techiniques she used in the chapters into writing excercises I could do in order to improve my writing of The Electric eel Bandit (Which I'm thinking about changing it to 'Bandit' since the first title seem to scare some literary agents away). I'm also thinking about posting some of my journal entries on my blog so that people can get a better idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to what I observed in twilight and share it with everyone else too.

In other news, I've been reading some newsletters from my inbox and there was one newsletter that caught my attention this week from the knight agency (You can find it on their website here under the newsletter section of the website). It was an article from Lucienne Driver titled 'beginnings' and offered great advice on how to start your novel in a way to make your readers go 'hmmmm'(I especially like the part about using dialogue to get your readers attention). This article gave me several ideas on how to rewrite the beginning of the 'bandit'. I liked this article so much that I decided to print it out and keep it into my writer profile to use in the future. (Although I have to admit that I need to put all of my writing articles in order but I'll talk about that later). In addition to that, I also read a good article on what they are thankful for this holiday season as well as what they want to see when looking at manuscripts. You should really check it out.

Finally, There is a contest on their blog on submitting a manuscript for consideration here by none other than Deidre Knight. I think it's a good idea for anyone who might be interested. I'm thinking about sending one in myself ('Addicted') just to see where it takes me. I should get started on it right now since I'll probably be exhausted by the time I'm finished with it.

Until we meet again

Dominique

Forget doing a blog every week, still reading and writing

Hi,

In the future, I have decided to do my blog every month until further notice. I just have way too much stuff to do at this time in order to keep up with it. I'm still doing 'Addicted', I'm starting on the third rewrite of 'The electric eel bandit', and I'm reading two books: All the pretty gilrs by J.T. Ellison and Eclipse By Stephanie Meyer. I know, I know I'm doing too many things at once but I can't stop myself. After I'm finished with both of these novels, I'm taking a break.

Dominique

Sent Off Query letters to agents...

Hi,

I know, it's almost the end of May and I should be a lot better at this whole blog thing but to tell you the truth, I've been busy. Not only am I still working on my novel, I just sent out some query letters and sample pages to three literary agents for review. I'm hoping that one of them will like my work enough to at least consider representation. Nothing else to brag here except I still have to type up the notes from Twilight and post it on here on this blog for next week. In the meantime, I have a lot of catching up to do...

See ya.

My Introduction

Hello everyone. My name is Dominique Gibson and I'm a woman on a mission.

My goal: To finish up the latest draft of my novel and send it out to Literary Agents and Publishers around the country.

My Dream: To write full-time and to have the opportunity for my Young Adult and eventually my romance reading fans to read my work and become insipred by it.

What I'm working on now: I'm working on a 100,000-word YA paranormal novel called The Electric eel Bandit'. It's about a thirteen-year-old boy who's on a mission of his own: To find the man that's responsible for killing him and his parents in a boating accident. While he's on his mission, He runs into a lot of trouble along the way invovling love, enemies, and even his mentor and second mom Dr. Madison.

What I may be leaving out: That my main character is a shapeshifter who came back to life by a science experiment that goes back thousands of years and that Dr. Madison is the woman who brought him back to life after she found him washed up on the shore.

A little bit about Me: I'm a college Graduate who has a B.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. When I'm not writing, I spend way too much time watching soap operas, The vampire diaries, and reading about vampires (Twilight anyone?). I have been writing ever since I was eight-years-old.

My mission for this post: To reach out not only to aspiring writers who are trying to get published like I am, but to reach out to everyone who has a mission of their own. I would love for people post what their on goals and missions are on achieveing their dreams whether it's writing, fashion design, computers, etc. I would love to hear from you.

Sincerely,
Dominique Gibson

P.S. , I will have the opportunity to post my sample chapter of my novel in the next few days.