LIZORAE

The Whisper  duology , comprising of Whisper  and Weapon , is by Australian author Lynette Noni . If you guys read last week's post , you'll remember her from the YA section.  I have been most fortunate to skip the tense waiting between books and binged the whole series within a week. While I don't think it beats her Medoran Chronicles , it's still an enjoyable read. It's short, so it doesn't take up much time if you have other things to do. For those who haven't read it, it's a dystopian story about Jane Doe. Jane is locked up in a secret government agency facility called Lengard, a place that is, to say the least, unpleasant. She hasn't spoken in two years.  Without further chit-chat, here's 6.5 lessons from the  Whisper  duology .  Let's get to!    1. Keep consistent characterisation  Authors love to talk about how they developed their characters. Oh, I used 67 different questionnaires , one might say. Or, I used every major person...

With Australia Day coming up soon, I thought it might be a good time to celebrate a breed of authors little mentioned: Aussie Authors.  Almost all of the English-based internet is aimed toward Americans. A large chunk of them will reference the UK. But you know which English speaking country is barely mentioned? Australia. And it's the superior country if you ask me. (Kidding, love all ya non-Aussie mates!) Maybe it's just the sites I use, but it's not a big deal anyways. So here's a list of Australian authors that are either popular, authors I love, or both.  Let's get to!    Picture Books  I'm not a huge picture book reader. My memories of them are weak, so I can't say much about these authors. What I can  say is that: if I've heard of them, they're probably really good. Aaron Blabey - Most notable books are the Pig The Pug  series and The Bad Guys  series.  Mem Fox - A lot of her works feature animals, particularly Aussie animals. ...

The best books are the ones that make readers feel something. Fight me.   When people say to make readers "feel something", the first thing most authors think of is to make them cry. But that's only one part of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for books that make me tear up.  Beyond crying - or the base emotion of sadness - you get laughter, suspicion, fear. Make readers have to think about the issues you bring up - your themes. Shock them. You want readers to come away from this emotional rollercoaster wanting more.  So how do you do this? Write impactful scenes. Make them mean something.  Let's get to!    1. Get in the mood  If you're not emotionally invested in whatever's going on in your story, how can you expect readers to be invested? Let's not forget you're the one who revealed the characters and their stories.   Before writing a scene, you need to get in the right mood. While not all authors and readers are the same, if you...

Transcript  Writing With Perfectionism: When to use perfectionism in writing The key question to ask: Can this be changed later? If it can, use imperfection. If it can't, use perfectionism.    Let's look at the three stages of writing: Idea >> Imperfection Research Execution >> Imperfection Planning, drafting Presentation >> Perfection Editing, design

What's this? Lessons from another  video game? That's right, mates. But that's not all, it's another Square Enix game. Instead of Kingdom Hearts , I'm going to talk about an entry in their Final Fantasy  series.  Specifically, the long-awaited  Final Fantasy XV . Or Final Fantasy 15  if you don't like Roman numerals. FFXV was released in 2016 after ten years since its teaser, and is the latest to date. It follows the four Chocobros - Noctis, Ignis, Prompto and Gladio - on a quest to save their kingdom.  There's probably going to be spoilers in here, so I'll give a warning before and after them. That said, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you watch it . Like, right now . It's a beautiful story about the friendship between the bros.  Here's the link I used:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PMDFu9d83Y   Psst, after watching the link above, you should also watch: Episode Gladio, Episode Prompto, Episode Ignis and Episode Ardryn . They...

Hey authors! Today is a special day. You know why? It's Lizorae's first birthday! That's right. You heard me. Lizorae is one years old. *throws confetti* To celebrate, here's how blogging made me a better human organism and a yearly roundup.  Let's get to!    Lizorae's Journey  When I started blogging, I was a weak writer. You can see my first post here . It's awful. I cringe to think about it. Compare this to last week's post . Firstly, my latest post is longer. I'm usually not one to add fluff to my writing, so I know they are facts . (I hope. Please tell me what you  think!) But writing more  isn't the only thing. I'm writing over 1000 words in the same time it used to take me to write around 500. That's double the amount. My typing speed has stayed the same. What's different is how fast and how well I get into the zone. While I have long ways to go, it's an improvement that has made a world of difference outside blogging. ...

We've all seen miscommunication in fiction. I don't know about you, but it drives me insane . I find myself internally screaming like people in memes, and I don't know that many memes .  Communication is something only living things can do. Go figure. And it's an amazing aspect of humanity. It's how we exchange ideas, feelings, thoughts. I revel in overthinking about the unspoken thoughts. Let's not talk about how this probably isn't good for mental health .  You understand what I'm typing because writing is a form of communication. Books are a form of communication. Anything in the arts is a form of communication. Everyone knows this. You might not know communication also includes your body language, tone, disjointed speech.  What happens when you don't have communication? To put it shortly: bad stuff. You might be able to sprinkle in some humour, for sure. But most of the time, no communication means miscommunication. While it may provide sweet, sw...

How do stories resonate with our souls? Or, more importantly, what is a story? Thinking about this led to this: Transcript: "Stories are an escape from reality by offering a new reflection of reality."

What's up, authors? Welcome to another 5th Week Update  and the end of spring . It wasn't too long ago when I celebrated this blog's first post along with Christmas. Time sure flies.  In this post, I'll be going through the usual updates. This "term" has been a pretty hectic one, so this should be fun. Especially today, since I've written three blog posts. Last week's, this week's and next week's.  Let's get to!  Milestones  I've taken my first break. In fact, I've taken my first three  breaks. Not sure if this is a milestone, but hey, who's stopping me from adding this? Saying goodbye to the TQM series. The last TQM post was  12 Quotes To Nurture Your Author Mindset (Part Two) . I have one more planned for next week. It's a completely new format, so you can be excited for it! I may post more like it, but it will be under the topic of Babble .  I started this series because I thought it would be easy. A break, sort of. Bo...

Hamilton the musical came out on Disney Plus. How could I, a musical lover and author, not resist? There's nothing authors love more Than going downtown and staring at some randos They pull up with their toolkit and gawk At the people in the cafes Just to watch them talk. Take [your name here]: the wo/man is loaded. Uh-oh, but little does s/he know that His/er favourites: Rubber, Apple Macbook, Pencil Sneak into his/er toolkit just to watch the author Write, write! Apple Macbook! Write, write! Pencil! And rubber! The author's toolkit. Apple Macbook! Rubber ! My pencil! Write! Author said to be replaced by white-out. Author doesn't need to know. Author said not to sneak back here. Like I said, you're free to go. But look around, look around, the Writing is happening in Starbucks. (Starbucks) Apple Macbook! Write! It's bad enough the author wants to stare at strangers. People shouting in their chairs. It's bad enough there'll be violence in the prologue. New i...

Kingdom Hearts  recently released the long-awaited Kairi rhythm game, Melody of Memory. As the first KH game I had to wait for, the hype was up. I'm not a gamer, so I watched it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsVKx-m0xH4  .  Because it's less than 40 minutes long, I'm watching it while I type. (Also yes, I'm improvising on the structure of this post.) Be ye warned, this post will have spoilers.  Let's get to!  Part 1 - Recaps  MoM begins with a recap of the entire series so far, narrated by Kairi. Let's be real, I watched until the COM recap and skipped the rest. I like the music under the narration, but other than that? Boring. The animation is reused from the game, not updated or anything. The narration itself is basically a Wikipedia retelling. At least have Kairi express her own feelings about it.  A lot of people complain about it, but we can't change what's done. This is the way I see it: what's mentioned in the recap is what Nomur...