SOOOOOOO CLOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, my gosh. Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygooooooooooooooosh! I am so close to being finished with my project that it's crazy! I just had my LAST meeting with mentor and I have FINISHED my book! Indeed, I am FINISHED.

If you would like to order a copy of my book, you can click on the buttons below and in the sidebar. To buy a print copy, click on the book button. To download a copy (in pdf ebook form), click on the headphone button. This is consolidated in my storefront located at the bottom of the page as well. A paperback copy is $6.23, and you can also download a copy for free. I will not receive any profit (the cost is for production), but if you'd like a copy to read, feel free to make a purchase.



OH MY GOSH, I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please excuse my outburst, but it's the truth. So um... that's pretty much all I have to say right now, because I'm too hyperactive at the present to make myself write anything relevant to what I promised to post.

Oh! Here's the back cover, which took me FOREVER to finally decide upon.


You can also see a lovely preview here as well, which shows the dedication and a summary that includes another excerpt from later on in the book. By the way, I actually dedicated the book to Tizon. His death came around the same time that I was getting much of it written, and it seemed like the right thing to do.

Ok, I'm sad now. *sigh*

-Mary

Next time on MPBwtUaCOLT: Why... (really, this time)

I like music...

I like it a lot, in fact. I like it so much that I make playlists for just about everything that I write, and Licentious Child is no exception. This list, I'll warn you, is kind of... varied. I would link the songs so you all could listen to them, but since that would open up the possibility of downloading, I can't. That would be ILLEGAL. Speaking of which, I issue the disclaimer that I have no ownership over the folowing bands and their songs whatsoever.

1. "All Around Me" -Flyleaf
2. "Crawling" -Linkin Park
3. "Page Avenue" -Story of the Year
4. "Things I’ll Never Say" -Avril Lavigne
5. "Papercut" -Linkin Park
6. "Be Our Guest" -Beauty and the Beast OST
7. "La Tortura" -Shakira
8. "Temptation Waits" -Garbage
9. "That's What You Get" -Paramore
10. "Now Comes the Night" -Rob Thomas
11. "Listen to Your Heart" -DHT
12. "Vindicated" -Dashboard Confessional

If you happen to actually have access to these songs, then good for you. If not, then tough luck. Maybe if you're nice, I'll let you listen to my mp3 player.

Anyway, "Hello, Dolly!" was great, and I hope that you got to go see it. The Charlotte Observer came and did an article and took pictures at one of our dress rehearsals. They used a few in the paper (I was in one of them), but the rest can be seen here, which can also be found on my link list in the sidebar. There's a great picture (#5, I think) of me working with the guys, filling in for Cera ("Dolly"). See, there's this part where they pick her up and I didn't think that they were actually going to do that to me. Well they did, and I look totally surprised. Because I was. Understandably. Good grief, those short guys are strong.

The good news is that I now have time to actually write. Woot! I have like two days to finish my book. Speaking of which, I've got to go sleep so that I'll write instead of nap tomorrow.

-Mary

Next time on MPBwtUaCOLT: Why...

COME SEE "HELLO, DOLLY!" Oh, and more about my product, I suppose...

COME SEE IT!!!!!

APRIL 24, 25, AND 26 AT 7:00 PM
APRIL 27 AT 2:00 PM
TICKETS ARE $5.00 AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR OR BY REQUEST FROM HelloDollyCCHS@yahoo.com
LOCATED IN THE M.L. BARNES THEATRE AT CENTRAL CABARRUS HIGH SCHOOL

Now that I'm through advertising, I guess I'll further elaborate on the plot of my novella. And to clarify what exactly "Hello, Dolly!" has to do with my product, I happen to be the dance captain for said production and to be honest, Dolly is eating my book (YES, CERA, YOU ATE IT! Ignore this if you're not Cera... ^^). In fact, even right now I should be working on it, but I'm not (obviously) and I need to get like ten pages written before the end of the month. Just shoot me- PLEASE.

Anyway, I hate writing summaries... *sigh* I shall give it a try:

[insert mysterious voice-over, perhaps with a British accent]

Miss. Dahlia Cress was normal. Her family was well-off and respectable, and she was young and beautiful. One might even go so far as to call her the ideal Victorian woman, raised from birth to be an "Angel in the House".

Unfortunately, things change.

Her life took a turn for the worse (or so she thought) one night when she was attacked by a monstrous beast. Every full moon hence, she would turn into a monster herself, but as Dahlia feels like she's losing her humanity, she realizes that never before had she felt so free.

"So did the world around me shift, or just my perception of it?"

Alright, that's all you're gonna get from me. Honestly, I hate writing summaries with a passion, so this will have to suffice. Also, if you'd like to know (not that you really get a choice if you're reading this), here are a few (possible) future entries. Keep in mind that everything's tentative.

• MUSIC! (See the bottom of this entry)
• why the heck I decided to write, of all things, for my senior project
• how one goes about writing a book
• a crash course in publishing
• whatever else I feel like blogging about (that relates to my project, of course^^)
  
  -Mary
  
  Next time on MPBwtUaCOLT: One word- PLAYLIST!!! Or is that two...?

My marvelous mentor, Maureen (isn't alliteration fun?)...

I have an awesome mentor- seriously. We both have like super crazy schedules due to her career and my participation in "Hello, Dolly!" (which you should come see, by the way), but she works with me to find time to meet. "Mary, what it exactly does your mentor do?" you might be wondering, or "Who the heck is your mentor, exactly?" Allow me to clarify.

Her name is Maureen Ryan Griffin and she gives creative writing workshops. She is a published poet as well and lives in Charlotte- I highly suggest visiting her website, WordPlay, which will give you more information about the services she offers and her books.

Now that I've gotten the advertisement out of the way, I'll tell you what we actually work on together.

Well... we edit. And plan. And then edit some more.

Really, that's it. I mean, I've attended one of her workshops, which was pretty cool, but then afterwards, we editted. That's about all I can really do with a mentor in regards to my particular product.

But anyways, Maureen's really cool and has been a BIG help with the editting process, which is irksome and tedious- definately the worst part of writng.



-Mary

Next time on MPBwtUaCOLT: Perhaps I shall elaborate...

I kind of miss DisneyWorld... *sigh*

So as promised, here's the first chapter of my novella. I don't plan on posting any more than that, you know in case some creep tries to steal my story before I can get copyright. I would LOVE to be published one day, so I'd like to keep the story mostly to myself.

Licentious Child: Chapter 1

I hope that you'll enjoy it, and if you don't, well then I can't please everyone. Anyway, in honor of my friends on Grad Night, here's some pictures of me working on my product. These were taken for my project portfolio while I was on my own trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth". See, I went during Spring Break with marching band because not only was it like $50 cheaper, we got to stay almost a whole day longer.


So here's me in the British section of EPCOT, being "inspired". This is actually the park that I got to march in, which was pretty cool. And yeah, I know that there weren't any phone booths in Victorian England, but it's British, so close enough. Anyway, it's better than seven photos of me just typing.


This is my best friend (Jessi Barr), my sister (who was tired of walking by this point), and myself in front of Cinderella's castle. This one isn't going into my portfolio, but if it HAS to relate to my product for this blog, then, uh... Cinderella is fantasy and so is my story. They both have romance as well. It's um... More inspiration. Yeah, I'll go with that.


This is me typing during the TEN HOUR bus ride home. For all their comfort to the hind-quarters, charter buses are quite uncomfortable to sleep in (we left late and drove all night). Don't you just love my snazzy Class of 2008 Mickey ears?

-Mary

Next Time on MPBwtUaCOLT: Mentor Meet and Greet!

So... Here's some stuff...

So welcome, hi, blah, blah, blah...

I'm going to just go ahead and skip straight to the point- this is my blog for my graduation project at Central Cabarrus High School. I'm required to do this to display the product I have to create, and I suppose that you'll want to know what my product is. Don't worry- I'll get to that in just a sec.

First, I had better explain my project topic. I chose to do my project on the evolution of women's literature, and naturally, that was what the research paper part of my project was about. For the related product, I decided to write a novella. I'm a woman, I'm writing it, therefore it is women's lit.

So I've been working on my novella for a while now (since February), and it's entitled Licentious Child. Now don't laugh if this isn't your particular cup o' tea, but it takes place in Victorian England and is about a werewolf. Later, I'll post the first chapter of it, but for now I'll just leave you all with the cover I made for it. See, I'm going to self-publish a copy to show to the judges and I love to photoshop, so that's how I ended up making the cover.

It was actually two separate pictures entirely and I put them together.

-Mary

Next Time on MPBwtUaCOLT: First Chapter + DisneyWorld!