Thursday, December 15, 2016

Holiday Of Giving

The end of the year is coming around and so is Christmas, or (as I sometimes call it) the Holiday of Giving.
 So I have a few things to say.

 Firstly, I will be moving this blog from blogger and onto Wordpress. My other two blogs are on Wordpress and it's easier for me to keep them all on the same platform instead of swapping back and forth between there and blogger.
 I'm not sure when I'll actually move the blog, it'll probably happen later today or tomorrow but I will post the link to the new blog on here so that you can go over to it.



Secondly, as it's Christmas, the Holiday of Giving, I've decided to put the price down on Ruby! You can now get a copy for free.
 The price won't go back up until Jan 1st 2017 so you've got plenty of time to grab a copy before the price goes up to $1 minimum. Share the link with your friends and spread the Christmas cheer!
https://leanpub.com/ruby-willow-byrne


Merry Christmas everyone! <3

Monday, October 24, 2016

A Melody Of Words



Pieces from the puzzle of my life
Strung together into words
Laid out upon the wooden floor
The parchment curls around my toes

This is a book of words
This is a book of melodies
Welcome to the book of my writings
A Melody of Words




From my Wattpad book, A Melody of Words.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Broken Mirror



And I've discovered
If I stare in the mirror long enough
It shows me who I really was
And who I really am.

And maybe that's a good thing
But all that I can see is the bad
It tears at my heat
And it tears at my soul.


Monday, September 19, 2016

Ruby Carter Has Come To A Stop

I wondered if it was going to happen, when I started out. I had a storyline, characters, chapters planned, but there was something wrong and I was worried that it would pop up and... it eventually did.

 Pretty much, the thing that was wrong was that the storyline I had came up didn't do justice to the first Ruby book and the characters.

 So pretty much, this means that there probably won't be another Ruby book for now. I'll hold onto the plans for the prequel so that I can look into it in the future.

 I am however focusing on another book, which is completely separate from the Ruby world. It's just polishing off character profiles and chapter outlines.

 I'm very disappointed about having to stop the Ruby Carter book but I'd rather not have another published book than have a published book that ruins the story and characters of the original book. I hope you understand. <3




 (If you're interested though I've lowered the price down completely on Ruby, so you can now get a copy of it for free! I'll be putting the price back on October 1st, so you've got two weeks to get a free copy. <3)

 

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Book Work

I've decided to get back on with my book writing, after being reminded that NaNoWriMo starts in a little while!

 Well I'm working on two books, one for NaNoWriMo and another to hopefully publish!

 My NaNoWriMo book is actually based off an idea I've had in my head for a while (two years actually). I started writing last year for my NaNo project, but had problems with it and stopped. I've been working on the plot, characters and the world these last few days, so hopefully I'll have everything I'm going to need by the beginning of November.

Vague idea for a cover, from 2015.

 The other book I'll be working on is a Ruby prequel, which will be going over some of her past and why she ended up moving next door to Lachlan. I'm a little unsure about this because I'm worried about not doing the story justice, however I guess if I don't like the first draft I can just rewrite it!
 The hope is to get the prequel published by the end of the year, maybe just before December at earliest. I guess that I'll just have to see what happens. I've got the story line, the chapter outlines and the characters all sorted, so all that's left to do is start writing.

Current book cover for the Ruby prequel.
Hopefully I'll have the first draft done by November, which will leave me to do my NaNoWriMo project.

Monday, August 29, 2016

Maze Runner Book vs Movie - Comparison Essay

I've decided to share an essay I wrote earlier in the year for English. Here it is. :)


   The Maze runner was originally a book, written by James Dashner. A few years after publishing, it was turned into a film.
   Like many movies originated from books, there were quite a few differences between the two. The main ones were the differences between movie and book characters, the relationships of the characters and the Gladers' history.

   In the book the Gladers are a supportive little community of teenage boys. There is some competition, but it's kept to a minimum, as they all look out for each other, knowing it would be harder to survive the Maze if they didn't.
   In the movie the competitiveness is played up more that the supportiveness. This change was made to help the Gladers fit into the Hollywood 'teenage boy' stereotype. Because of the change in their behaviour and personality, they become a lot rougher and more bullyish.
   They change a lot of the characters to fit in with the story to get it to work for the stereotypical Hollywood movie. Teresa, for instance, becomes slightly more delicate and feminine in the movie. However, out of all the characters, they change Gally the most.
   In the Maze Runner book Gally is the meanest of the Gladers, and has a severe disliking for Thomas. He is completely convinced that Thomas has come to destroy their little community, after having seen Thomas in his memories during 'The Changing'.
'When his malicious stare fell back upon Thomas, he had one last thing to say. “Whatever you came here for – I swear on my life I'm gonna stop it. Kill you if I have to.”'
   Pretty much he's the Glade's version of a school bully.
   However that wasn't good enough for Hollywood, so they turned him into a 'good guy gone bad' character. He starts off as a much more supportive character. He still has some of the bully aspect to him, but he's much more respected and respectful. That starts to vanish after Thomas breaks the Glade's Number One rule by running into the Maze. Then his character follows along with the book version.

   The character's relationships are changed a fair bit through out the movie as well, to help the movie flow in a more “suspenseful” way.
   The relationship between Thomas and Teresa changes significantly between the book and the movie, meaning that some of the more interesting things between them are missed. In the book, Teresa recognizes Thomas immediately, and afterwards continues to behave as though she has known him her entire life. This is enhanced by a telepathy link they share, which seems to indicate that they did know each other previously.
'Tom, I don't know any of these people. Come and get me! -Teresa, The Maze Runner, book'
   Meanwhile, in the movie, Teresa plainly has no memory of Thomas, and vise versa. However if they had the telepathy link between them they may have figured out the connection sooner, but the telepathy link was removed from the storyline to save time, meaning that it wasn't until towards the end of the movie that they discover that they knew each other.
'“Who are you? They said I kept saying your name during my sleep.” - Teresa, The Maze Runner, Movie'
  The reason for the dramatic changes to the character's relationships with each other was to save time to use for developing the story plot and to keep the movie to a reasonable length. The saved time ended up being used by adding non-existent book scenes to the movie, such as the Gladers having a party to celebrate Thomas's arrival in the Glade.

   Another dramatic difference between the two is the history of the Gladers. In the book, when Thomas asks how long they'd been in the Maze for, he's told that the longest was two years.
'Alby continued. “Two years, I've been here. Ain't none been here longer.” - The Maze Runner'
   However when Thomas asks the same question in the movie, he's told that they've been stuck in the Maze for the past three years. The reason for the added year in the movie is to add yet another layer of suspension, and also one of hopelessness – because two years of being stuck inside a glade surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters clearly isn't chilling enough for Hollywood film critics.
   There was another big difference between how the first of the Gladers arrived as well. In the book, a group of between forty to fifty boys were placed in the Glade. They all had the equipment needed to begin their community.
In the movie, only one boy was placed in the Glade per month. In this case, the first ever Glader was Alby. The reason for this was to help define Alby's character, explain why he became the leader of the Gladers. In the book, the main reason he becomes the leader is because he has a natural leader-like personality.

   Quite a few things ended up changing in the movie, much of it so that it would fit with Hollywood standards. However, despite the changes made, the storyline of the movie managed to flow fairly consistently to that of the book.
While I do enjoy the movie, as it does give a different perspective, I personally prefer the book for it's greater depth into the story.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Ruby

 It's fun being back here, I'm enjoying posting on this blog.

 Since I've gotten into doing writing I've wanted to publish a book. Pretty much I thought "I can write, and if they can publish a book so can I!" and then that was that. I tried writing books to publish them.

 Well I quickly realised how hard it is to write a decent book that is publish worthy. I spent many hours working away with different worlds, and constantly discarding them to work on an easier or better idea. If you were to look through my many folders you would see many unfinished stories, waiting for me to come back to finish them off when I feel I can do them justice.

 Earlier this year I got some inspiration for a short, four chapter story. I set my mind to planning it and writing it and I'm very proud to say that I eventually had it written and published by the end of June.

 It's called "Ruby" and is about Lachlan McLean, who's life takes a turn for the better when Ruby Carter moves in next door.
 To make it clear it's not a romance novel, it's drama. It could fit under the young adult category too I suppose, but I wrote it to be appropriate for anyone aged 13 and older.


 You can purchase it off leanpub, and you can pay as little as $2.24 USD for a copy. 10% of the cash from each copy sold is donated to NaNoWriMo to help them run the event.

 I'm so excited to share this with you guys, it's been a huge achievement for me to get this done.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

The Darkness Poems


The stars glisten in the evening sky
Their cold silver light brightens up the heavens
But she was so caught up in counting them
That she never realised the silver moon had gone.


From late night thoughts. 
This is another:

I close my eyes to the darkness
The shadow of my life
I try to find the silver lining
but it left me in the night.

So in the darkness
I'm left to wander 
Singing a song 
And left to ponder.


 I posted these onto my google plus page "A Little Princess", then decided I'd post them on here after I deleted the page.

 I'm calling them "The Darkness Poems" because they're about loosing the light inside of oneself.
 Hope you guys enjoyed them. xoxo

Friday, August 26, 2016

Poetry

Well I'm back for good. I've decided that leaving this blog unattended probably isn't a good idea. I mean, I love to write and share my writing, so why do I abandon a blog that I made especially for doing that?

 Well I recently took a small break from my poetry writing as I feel kind of like I've been bled dry inspiration wise. However a little writing competition popped up on my Google Plus dashboard and I decided to join in. I wrote a short poem for it. 



The sun is setting, low in the sky
My time is come, I'll say goodbye
I'll go to the road and you can watch me leave
Try not to speak as you grieve


The sun is setting, the shadows are long
I've left the town, my friends are gone


The sun has set, it's now dark night
I'm surrounded on all sides, there's no light
It's lonely like this, I'm sad my friend
I didn't think this is how it'd end

 It is, like the majority of my poems, untitled. I would love to give it a title however I'm not sure I could find one that would do it justice. I suppose it'll be something for me to think about. :)

 I'll probably post something over the weekend, not sure though. 

 I'm so glad to be back here. 

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Writing Competitions - Australia

 Looking for something exciting to do as a young writer?

 I generally have trouble finding interesting things for young writers in Australia to do, so I was pretty excited to find out that there are a whole load of writing activities going on at the moment! And by a whole ton, I mean the three writing competitions I found. Trust me, three is a lot more than I normally find.

 If you're in Western Australia, the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers is coming up! It's open to students aged 5 to 18, or anyone in the school years 1 to 12. Entries open June 13th, and they close July 4th. Interested? Well you've got plenty of time to come up with an entry!

 The Fellowship of Australian Writers WA is also holding a writing competition. It's open to anyone aged 21 or under - sounds pretty good, huh? Entries close on June 30th!

 And lastly, Express Media are hosting a writing competition, open to all Australians 18 and under. There's a huge range of cool stuff in the prizes, it's not an opportunity to miss out on! Entries close on July 1st.

Definitely some snazzy sounding competitions, eh? Good luck with them! (Psst - if you haven't guessed already, I'm entering all three).