The Beginning Series: Book Three

My still neglected blog is finally getting updated, this time with some information about The Beginning Series: Book Three. This one is written in Cassie’s point of view, and can be found here.

This one was definitely the easiest to write out of the first three, and it was also easier to write than Book Four and Five. It was similar to the original plot, so there was no hesitation on what should be happening in this book, but at the same time it didn’t have that sort of boring quality that Jake’s books have. I enjoy Cassie’s narration, so it was a nice change in pace to be able to write her story.

As you may know from reading the cannon version of this book, it’s the one where Ax is finally introduced. Other than that, there’s not much to add. This book could easily be skipped if you’re a new reader who doesn’t feel like going through all the books, unless you wanted to see all the fun stuff that gets thrown in from Tobias and the twins.

I won’t put any quotes from this book in, because I don’t feel like it. If you happen to read it, though, and you want me to put something from there in here, just let me know.

2012
04/23
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
TAGS

























Write comment

The Beginning Series: Book Two

It’s about time I updated my extremely neglected blog. I don’t think I have any followers, but I’m going to post a bit about Book Two just in case any of my readers from fanfiction ever decide to check this out.

For those of you who don’t know, The Beginning Series is a – well, why explain it again. You can find a description of what The Beginning  Series is here. But if that’s too long to bother reading, I’ll just say it’s a rewrite of Animorphs.

Book Two is in Tobias’ point of view, and set around the same time as The Encounter. It starts out with Tobias’ mixed up version of what happen in the construction site.

So he tells us about the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Visser Three. Then he says, ((Here, have a cookie.))

Instead he gave us the power to morph into animals. Now Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Gilberto and I fight the Yeerks. By fight I obviously mean fail a lot and count it as fighting. -Book Two, chapter one

Tobias’ book is more humourous than anything to be taken seriously. Why? Well, because you really can’t consider anything he says as canon for TBS. Half of what he says are flat out lies. I try to make it pretty obvious that he’s an unreliable narrator, but in case you don’t know, well, you sure do now.

Anyway, after Tobias’ not-very-good introduction, it pretty much goes on as the original book did. Tobias and Rachel saving that bird chick (no pun intended) from Dealin’ Dan. Except Marco has joined them on their little mission.

After the other Animorphs question their sanity, Tobias is supposed to get a glimpse of that Yeerk ship the whole book revolves around. Instead, he gets a great sense that something is missing, then puts it off as something entirely different. So we leave it up to Marco to give us a plot.

The Yeerks want to turn a Church into a shelter for the homeless, and give support to families in need under the condition that they going the church. The Church they choose for this operation is in the bad part of town. Naturally, this Church is the one Marco attends on a weekly basis.

Nothing about the battle can really be trusted, since it is Tobias. The general idea is that the Yeerks show up to infest a guy who needs  a Yeerk in his head. The Animorphs fight them off, Gilberto stabs a few dudes with benches, and the Yeerk return Gilberto’s nice gesture by cutting his arm off. Marco scolds him for swearing inside a Church, and it’s all:

((Oh, FUCK!)) Gilby yelled, dropping his bench. And his arm. ((God – freaking – damnit! Shit!))

((Gil!)) Marco shreaked. ((Don’t say things like that! It’s bad enough that you do it at all, but you’re in a CHURCH.))

((My arm is fucking OFF, Marco! It’s GONE. Seriously, I’m going to BLEED to DEATH and all you care about is me swearing in Church?))

((Of course not,)) Marco said gently. ((I’m more concerned about the fact that you’re getting the floor dirty and that Rachel broke one of the walls.)) Then, even more calmly, he said: ((I can’t exactly yell at you for bleeding.)) – Book Two, chapter sixteen.

Also, this is pretty much the most important part of the book:

Anyway, we (Jake) decided that it would be a smart idea to try and stop the Yeerks from going into the Church, seeing as Cassie – the most useful of us Animorphs – was inside. Also, William. The whole point of this mission was to rescue him.

Oh, and I suppose some of us might have cared just a little bit about what happened to Gilby. But probably not. Maybe Marco, but I don’t see that happening.

Once the – one, two, three, four – once the four of us got inside (kind of), I realized that the Church wasn’t nearly as destroyed as I expected it to be. In fact, it was almost as if the Yeerk were respecting our religion and leaving most of the surrounding area alone. Not one Yeerk appeared to be breaking or trying to break anything, not including us, of course.

Unfortunately, Gilby could be seen swinging one of the – very broken – benches around. So it kind of cancelled out the Yeerks’ kindness.

((Gil!)) Marco whined. ((Stop hurting the Church!))

((I’m not,)) Gilby lied, smashing a Hork-Bajir over the head with his bench. ((He is.)) Then Gilby used his bench to point at one Hork-Bajir. Sadly, the bench was too broken and pointy, so the Hork-Bajir got STABBED through the FACE. ((Oops,)) he said sarcastically. ((I think he’s dead.))

Then Rachel walked in. Marco practically screamed – in a very, very angry way – because the doors weren’t quite big enough for her. So she kind of, totally, took some of the wall with her.

((Sorry, Mar – did you just stab that Hork-Bajir in the face?))

((Hells, yeah, I did.))

Gilbench is my OTP.

Moving on, they failed to save the guy they wanted to save, and sort of took out the Church by accident. Then they decide that to really solve their problem, they would set The Sharing building on fire or something.  In the end, the mission was completely useless because the guy who was in charge of this whole thing had a heart attack and died, so the thing got called off. Or something like that. I barely remember it, even though I wrote it.

Book Two is pretty much completely useless. It’s funny, though.

2012
03/11
CATEGORY
The Beginning Series
1 comment

Rewrite

For a while I’ve been thinking about it, and I finally decided that I was going to multiply my already neglected workload by about a million. I’ve written quite a bit for Xerxes’ Children, and I’m proud I got so far. But I already know that I could do so much better with it, so I’ve decided that a rewrite would be a good idea.

I’m not changing anything major, of course. The characters will all be the same (although Gilbert will be a bit tweaked), and the same kind of stuff will be happening. I just know that I was kind of lazy when I wrote it the first time, and I could improve it a lot if I really wanted to.

In other news, Spider is still in the same place as it was the last time I posted on the blog. I obviously need to rewrite a bit of the ending there. It will hopefully be easier to continue it after that, but I don’t really plan on working on that for a while.

As for my Animorph fanfiction (which can be found here), I’m finally done Book Three. It’s been done for ages, but it’s now all up. All there is left to do is wait for the preview for Book Four. Speaking of which, I’ll also be rewriting some of that. I’m not liking chapter two very much, and I wrote myself into a bit of a corner, which is pretty impressive since it’s following a plot of one of the canon books.

I’ve also been thinking of writing a book that’s mostly a collection of short stories all based on dreams I’ve had. I have a lot of good dreams that could all be written into a strange story of some kind, so I decided that I might as well use them somewhere.

That’s all for now. I need to remind myself to update this more.

2011
09/11
CATEGORY
Xerxes' Children
TAGS












2 comments

The Beginning Series: How Book One Happened

The first book happened when I couldn’t think of any one-shot ideas. It was too long ago for me to actually remember how I managed to actually start that. But I had wordpad (my word program of choice) open, as well as Acrobat Reader, which had The Invasion open on it. So I just started writing while adding some twists to it.

I know for a fact that Book One isn’t as good as the other two (or three, rather, although none of Book Four is posted yet). It was before I had my lovely editor, so there are probably quite a few typos and things. The first one was also mostly a test, to see if I could write the whole thing and if people would actually like it.

Maybe one of these days I’ll edit it. Maybe after I finish Book Four, because after that I have two books that will be easy to write.

** Book Four is in Marco and Gilberto’s point of view, so a lot of narration and stuff is changing. Not as much as in Book Two, but still. I find myself rewriting chapters a lot.

Anyway, in Book One you see some differences with the characters. But for the most part a lot of things that could have been put in there are not. For example, if you’ve read Book Three you’ll see that Tobias has a running joke of seeing things first, as stupid as that sounds. Book Two definitely shows how wacky Tobias is. But Book One really seems to be lacking that.

But, of course, people still seem to like it.

I’ve had a few people asking about why Book One is so much like The Invasion, both in a nice way and a completely rude way. So I guess I’ll explain that.

The point of some books being the same is to show how simular (or different, in the cases of books that are entirely different) the characters are. The only difference in Jake’s life is a different best friend, and even though that could potentially make him a little different, he could also stay the same Jake. He was still raised the same, has the same family, and so on. Therefore, Jake isn’t all that different from his canon self. So I don’t see how his narration would be different. As for only adding in a few lines here and there, that was a my bad on my part. I was just starting, after all.

That’s really all I can say about Book One for now. If I think of anything else I’ll either edit this or make a part two.

2011
07/24
CATEGORY
The Beginning Series
Uncategorized
TAGS












1 comment

Xerxes’ Children: The First Book

I finished the first book of Xerxes’ Children a while ago, but I recently decided to add a third part to the book. Well, I was actually thinking about it before, but using the internet to try and translate Latin (which is something I really wanted to include, but I wanted it to be right) is nearly impossible. Luckily, my mom’s BFF randomly brought over some stuff, including a Latin-English dictionary. It’s like it was meant to be.

So with a little help from crimsonoath (who looked up stuff I couldn’t get from the dictionary, as well as helped me get the stupid ‘a’ with the line over it), I managed to get one line of Latin, which was all I really needed at the moment.

The third part of the book is different. Unlike the first two parts, which are in first person and in Dominic’s point of view (except for a few that are in Gilbert’s) this one is in third person and focusing on some new characters, and some old.

In this part it’s about before Dominic comes in. Currently there’s no hints as too how long ago it was, but considering Kallias is still human at this point…

So, the character list gets bigger here. It went from Dominic, Gilbert, Elias and Kallias (plus Dominic’s mother, and whatever I named Dominic’s dog), who I’ve already fallen in love with, to having a couple other characters added in. Liliana, Leif and Necalli, for example, with more to come. It also looks into all the different kinds of magic and all that, that were only hinted at before.

I don’t want to give this all away for people who actually want to read this if I ever get it published or something, so I won’t. But I’m super excited about this.

2011
06/17
CATEGORY
Xerxes' Children
TAGS










Write comment

Finding Old Fanfiction

A long time ago, when I first started to write stuff, I ended up saving a bunch of my work onto floppies when we were getting rid of our computer. The one I know holds my first Animorphs fanfiction ever can’t be opened, and I’ve been planning on taking it in for about a year. I’ve never done that, obviously… but I will.

The ones I can open have such terrible stories, none of which I could even consider deleting. So I moved them on to my USB, which has everything I own on it. A couple of days ago I went through them.

I honestly don’t understand how I managed to even write that bad. But it was great to go back and think “If I know this is bad, then that must mean I’ve improved”. So I guess that must mean that the more terrible the stuff is the better I am now, right? Yeah, let’s just say I’m right.

Almost all the stories were incredibly short (back then it seemed longer) and most of them were Naruto fanfiction. Most of the stories made me look lazy. Short beginnings with no explanation as to what’s going on, skipping things that could have been put in. There were some things I didn’t understand, and I wrote it.

There was one Naruto fanfiction that started out okay, but it ended up with Naruto falling backwards while turning the ground into mud. He used that to escape, even though, as a ninja, where’s a million other ways to do that. The story ended there. I guess Past Me couldn’t think of what else to write, and I don’t blame her. Past Me managed to write herself into a corner.

I know that most of my stuff was bad, but I also know that when I put effort into them they weren’t as bad. Still not very good, but I was, like, thirteen. I can’t blame myself.

The point of this post is this: if you look back on something that you’ve written and you think it’s bad, just figure you think it’s bad because you’ve improved. Even if you wrote it, like, a year ago. Or a week. Or a day. Whenever.

2011
05/28
CATEGORY
Fanfiction
TAGS




Write comment

How did you come up with TBS?

I’ve always had the idea of the twins thing in my head. Out of all the Animorphs I could only imagine giving Marco a twin, because with anyone else it would either seem Mary-Sue-ish or cliché. To me, anyway.

I picked the name Gilberto because I’ve always liked the name Gil. So, naturally, I picked a name that could be shorten into Gil. (I love the name Gilberto, too. You can probably tell, since there’s a Gilbert in Xerxes’ Children and a Gilberto in Spider.)

As for Tobias, I’ve always wondered what he would be like if Elfangor never left. I can only imagine how strange it would be, to be raised by someone who’s an Andalite-turned-human. Looking at Ax, you can’t help but think it would turn out a bit strange. I always imagined Tobias effected by that would turn out a bit wacky.

I just started to think about it one day, with putting all of that together. The Beginning Series is actually something that had everything I could ever want in it. There’s so many things I’m going to add in the future, and things that are already there, that I couldn’t help but write in.

When I first started it was mostly something to work on when I had writer’s block. Being so close to the original story line meant that I didn’t have to put much effort into it, which was a nice break from all the thinking that went into my other work. But then I started to think about it. The future of the series, the characters.

There are so many things I want for this series:

I wanted to give David a chance at not being evil. I think if things had happened differently maybe he wouldn’t have been pushed to do what he did, and I want to deal with that.

In this story, Tobias is openly bisexual. Another character will have to work through their own issues with that. I’ve always wanted to have a story with this kind of stuff in it, and I’m getting a chance with TBS.

I thought the thing with the Howlers was cool, and having a part two to that plot would have been awesome. So I’m totally doing that.

Most importantly, a continuation of the last book. At the moment, the series may only be on Book Three (based off The Message), but it will get there. I really can’t wait for that.

Needless to say, this is no longer a side project I use for when I have writer’s block.

… Actually, it is kind of a side project, since I have Spider and Xerxes’ Children. But whatever, I’ve written more for this than I have for those.

2011
05/27
CATEGORY
The Beginning Series
TAGS















Write comment

About The Beginning Series

The Beginning Series (TBS) is about the exact same thing Animorphs is about. Kids fighting aliens, except a million times more awesome.

The difference between TBS and Animorphs is that a few things changed before the construction site, but the plot is generally the same. The things that are different?

Well, first of all, Elfangor wasn’t the one to give the Animorphs the power to morph, but because of the Ellimist (what can’t you blame on that guy), they got the power anyway. So where’s Elfangor if he wasn’t there to meet the Animorphs? Well, Earth. He never left. He’s with Tobias.

Tobias is way different in this series. Having a loving family instead of neglectful relatives can do that to you. He definitely replaces Marco as the comic relief.

Which brings us to our second main difference. Marco. We all know that Marco and Jake are best friend for life. Except they’re not this time. In fact, Marco isn’t even Marco. He’s Gilberto. Huh?

Because I’m me, and I love twins, I had to throw in a Marco twin. You’re probably thinking something like “That’s so lame!” or “I don’t want to read a story with a Mary-Sue twin thing going on.”

But don’t worry, Marco and Gilberto (that’s their names) aren’t really getting much more attention then the rest of them. They both have their own stories and plot twists, but no more than the other Animorphs. In fact, unless the story is in Tobias’ point of view (can you say unreliable narrator?), or their own point of view, you probably won’t see much of them for a while. They’re each other’s best friend, and for the most part they keep to themselves. Gilberto more than Marco. He at least talks to Cassie, and Tobias talks to him. Gilberto is kind of anti-social.

For those of you who are wondering, Jake still has a best friend. His name is Tobias. Poor, Ax. Why would you steal his future best friend, Jake?

2011
05/27
CATEGORY
The Beginning Series
TAGS














2 comments

How Xerxes’ Children Happened

I came up with the idea for Xerxes’ Children after I had a this weird dream. I was running around in the area where I live. For some reason I was a dog. Some other guy, who I remember had long silver hair and was a legit vampire (meaning he didn’t sparkle). Somehow I turned that dream into something completely different and it turned into Xerxes’ Children.

I guess Elias, who can turn into pretty much anything, came from the dog thing. The other characters were pulled out of my own brain. There’s no vampire in it, and probably won’t be, since Twilight kind of ruined vampires for everyone. But maybe I’ll write in a character that reminds me from the guy in my dream. Without him this story wouldn’t even exist, after all.

Xerxes’ Children will hopefully end up as a series. I’m not sure how many books I’m planning to have at the moment, though. The first one is finished, but I’m considering adding a third part to it instead of going right into the second book. It just feels too short. Although it’s about the same size as your average Animorphs book, it definitely isn’t suited for the same age group. So I’m guessing maybe I should aim to make it longer.

2011
05/26
CATEGORY
Xerxes' Children
TAGS







Write comment

Summery for Xerxes’ Children

Dominic had the misfortune of meeting Gilbert, Elias and Kallias. Gilbert is apparently going to teach him magic, while Elias (a changling) is going to stand by uselessly and wait for him to get enough magic to turn Kallias back into a human and send them home. Kallias is a cat that can see the future.

It sounded easy enough. That is until he started to get attacked and/or kidnapped by things like demons and humans-turned-maniacs.

2011
05/26
CATEGORY
Xerxes' Children
TAGS












Write comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.