Introducing Gunpowder Organic

It was a dark and stormy night.

Suddenly, a shot rang out.

A door slammed.

The maid screamed.

Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!

While millions of people were starving,

the king lived in luxury. 

Meanwhile,

On a small farm in Kansas, 

a boy was growing up. 

~It was a Dark and Stormy Night, by Snoopy Brown

Most of my life, I have felt my writing has had Snoopy's characteristic scattershot style to it. No one is quite sure where any idea came from, or why they are all connected, but I promise that it will all tie together...in the next book! 

The earliest story I remember writing was a revisionist history novel, which I wrote when I was seven or so. It was awful, but I managed to turn out a very impressive word count for someone so small. I remember hitting ten thousand words. I don't remember if I wrote more after that. That computer bit the dust many years ago, for which I am truly thankful. While some early works of authors can be hilarious, any remaining copies of mine should be collected and burned, and the burners should enjoy a pizza afterward for a job well done. 

I have written a lot since that era of young folly, but all of my completed works are short stories, or novels that I co-authored. When I am left to my own devises, I often leave a trail of unfinished works behind me. Stories that have no end, or are missing a middle, or various chapters that aren't attached to anything. These sit, usually, until they are lost or mislabeled or ever so rarely, picked up and reworked. The majority of my writing for the last ten years has been in the form of writing circles in Ditto Town, an old haunt of mine. For some reason, Ditto Town has kept me writing, not matter how busy I am. I fail to understand this, mainly because all of my friends who have left Ditto Town did so because they were too busy and could not find time. I still regularly visit Ditto Town to this day.

College took me farther away from work on novels, due to the highly analytical nature of my degree program. With room for very few English Lit classes in my schedule, my nervous pencil energy was diverted to drawing bones, and the smoke rising from my laptop was more from the frying of electronics than from my furious typing (yes, I did cause my computer to literally explode). In an odd twist, my artistic writing tendencies started expressing themselves in my secondary language, French (English is my mother tongue, but I first learned French as a child). I immediately found this frustrating as I didn't have the breadth of vocabulary to accommodate my writing style, yet I struggled even more with expressing basic plots in English. I felt as if my brain had caged up my Muse and refused to let her out, so she had dug an escape route to my composition centers through a foreign language. I shudder to wonder what stories she would have come up with if my secondary language was German!

The main story that I wrote (and continue to work on) from that time is called Balafre, and if I were to give it an English title, it would be Scarface. It is a topsy-turvy story of fairytales gone wrong, but is mainly based on the tale of Beauty and the Beast. Of course, my Belle is Balafre. Rereading the tale consistently reminds me of early storytelling ventures. I suppose writing skills grow the same in any language.

It was with great relief, then, that I finally realized I have a new story idea, one that I hope to be able to fully develop this year. My friends sometimes joke that I am really a secret agent, spying on mutinous agencies and protecting the world from their malice. While I'm afraid this is simply not true, I hope to put the skills that  they point to as evidence of my double life to work in my newest story, one that actually has a secret agent in it. Meanwhile, I shall spend my evenings with the lovely Tea Spitters, sipping hot beverages, typing in all caps, and preparing to dazzle the mad, mad world with our collective brilliance.

Oh, yes. I forgot one thing.

The name's Organic. Gunpowder Organic. And yes, that is a tea. 

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down...

 Hello, folks!

So, I'm actually writing this post because I'm scared out of my mind to write the next scene in my current novel, And a Dash of Fear.  Instead of torturing myself with that (which I'll probably share with you guys soon,) I wanted to post about my NEXT novel, which I got the idea for just a few days ago.  It's called "We All Fall Down," and I'm ridiculously excited.

Basically, because of my enormous Black Butler obsession, I wanted to write a novel set in Victorian England.  And, for no other reason than because it sounds really cool, I've decided to set it in a circus.

So far, all I know is that it involves a fourteen year old boy named Oliver (or maybe Elias...or maybe Asher...) who runs away from his abusive home and ends up joining a traveling circus.  However, after a devastating fire and the death of the ringmaster, Oliver ends up finding himself trapped in a mystery more dangerous than any he could have possibly imagined.  It's up to him to get out alive, as he battles colorful characters, his fear of the tightrope, and a potential killer. 

I'm so excited to begin!  Of course, I actually have to finish writing AADOF first, but that's okay.  That story is reaching its climax, and soon I'll have to say goodbye to Adam, Molly, Ianto, Harry, and all my other characters.  I might save We All Fall Down for Nanowrimo, but it really just depends on whether I can wait that long.

To get in the mood, I've created a Pinterest board, and I've begun working on my playlist already.  The song that sums it up perfectly?  Gutter Glitter, by the Switchblade Symphony.  Enjoy.

 

 Happy plotting!

Vanilla

Let's Take A Roadtrip

I love roadtrips and my love of them has transferred into my writing. That's right [write] folks, Sam has started another novel.

This one is going to be a fun one. It's lighthearted and explores finding yourself and getting lost on purpose. It's about a boy/young man/man who helps a hitchhiker and is sucked into her plans to travel the country with her belongings piled high in the back of a car.

Tyler hates roadtrips. He doesn't want to leave the comfort of home, but he has an unexpected (and entirely unwanted) desire to see the world before he turns twenty-five. He quits his job and joins the girl, much to his girlfriend's displeasure. They sleep under the stars and their car breaks down on the Golden Gate Bridge.

She's sassy and he's quiet. She loves adventure and he loves to be at home. And they both want something more out of life.

And so I'm taking a roadtrip with these characters, exploring the country from the comfort of my room.

[pinterest board can be found here]

....

“You’re going to be gone for ‘a while’? How long is a while?” I can tell she’s annoyed by the way she asks the questions. After a moment she adds, “And where are you even going?”

I close my eyes and wince. That’s the question I’ve been dreading. “I - erm - I’m kind of going on a road trip.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line for a long time. And then, “Tyler, you hate road trips.”

Assassins in the 1950s?

assassins in the 1950s? green fedoras? time travel? oh no! ... oh, yes. 

 Yes, that is my new story idea.

Last night I was laying (lying? Which is correct?) in bed when a crazy idea jumped out at me.

Assassins in the 1950s.

What? What the heck?

And yet, I have this inexplicable image in my head of what this novel will be. It will possibly involve time travel, it will involve spies, evil people, and lots of intrigue--and most of all, it will involve green fedoras and an amazing character named Adam.

Not sure exactly how to explain him. Is he an assassin? Maybe. I do know for sure he's a bit of a rogue. Is he for the good guys? Maybe. Most likely. But he's used to being in bad places, I'd definitely say. Rough around the edges, and yet totally charming. I love him already.

It will also involve a love interest for him (duh) and lots of suspense. Because I love suspense.

And did I mention that it's about assassins?

Anyway, I don't even know how to comprehend all this inspiration and ideas that are coming my way. Normally I'm scrounging for ideas like I'm in an inspiration-starved desert. It's so unusual to have this many ideas hit me at once. First this idea about 50s assassins... then Here Comes the Sun, then Evanescent Fireworks. (You'll likely hear about these in upcoming posts.)

My mind is exploding with ideas.

I love being a writer.

(check out the pinterest board to see more pictures & the green fedora itself.)

Stay awesome,

-Pepper

what is chamomile?

" a medicinal beverage made from the fragrant leaves and flowers of the plant by the same name" 

 But, I, friends, am not a tea, or a flowering plant. I am a girl, very much a she-child, in fact. 

  

'Ello! I'm Ashley, or, Chamoline, as I'm to be known here on this place of sweet insanity. 

I'm always a little bit clueless on just where to start when it comes to talking about myself, so, if it looks like I'm winging it, don't worry. I probably am.

So, eh...to start with I guess, I'll talk about my writing experience? 

My my my, what an experience it has been indeed! 

the first true writing I can remember doing is in a little garden decorated journal with a little sunflower clasp, when I was around...

hold on. I still have it. let me check the date. 

I started in in 2005, which would have made me 8.  The spelling is enough to make me shirk in shame, and I tend to just discuss absolutely everything under this merry sun.  And I made lists, I made a LOT of lists.  

I've always been a bookworm. I read "Great Expectations" when I was just a wee twelve year old.  I guess that spilled over, and I truly can't remember when I first started writing.  

I think, think being the keyword, the first thing I wrote was a small inkling written on rough, grey construction paper titled, "I love my cat". I basically documented why I loved my cat, and in all the ways she was incredible. My mom still has it saved somewhere.

The next thing I can remember, was a 'Alphabet book' where I basically wrote various things and words that began with each letter on their designated page.  It was simple, and I took a week to write all 26 pages. I was rather proud of it, and even stuck it on our bookshelf. 

And then, I somehow moved up in the writing world.

I discovered plots, and characters; I discovered REAL writing. 

 The first true novel I wrote was titled, "The Adventures of Danny Fox" where this mischievous fox upset all his friends by pestering them to play with him. But, alas, they are all too busy. So poor Danny is left quite alone, until, a equally mischievous girl fox happens upon him.  And it was a happily ever after. 

That was the opening of the door for me, and I haven't stopped the words since.  From age 9-12, I wrote in probably near 20 various books, all fairly the same. You see, I seemed to have an obsession with Orphans, and cattle farms. And prairies. And wagon trains, and you can imagine the rest. Two childhood favorites was Laura Ingalls' books, as well as pretty much anything involving orphans, so I just borrowed.

When I got into my thirteenth, and even my fourteenth year, I started having emotional problems, and really critiquing myself. I ended up really hurting myself by the harsh judgement, and I stopped writing for those two years. (Excepts journals. I cringe at how brutal I was to myself and everything around me during that time period). I thought I wasn't 'good enough' at writing, and was just wasting my time.

I don't really remember what inspired me to pick up the pen again, but my return came in the form of a novel called, "The Key to D'Lair". I recall telling myself, "if I can't make this work, I won't ever write again". D'Lair (as I called it) was my last hope. I poured everything into that book. Everything.
It was roughly about a girl who is given a key by a stranger, and is given a map and told she "is the guardian" before the stranger died of wounds.
She, the girl was named Tarine, goes on a quest to discover just what she was guardian of, meeting a Seer, an exiled Prince, and a jack of all trades along the way.
Basically, she is guardian of the last two dragons, and must use them to recover the throne from the evil king and his son and return Miles (the prince) to his rightful place.
D'Lair didn't work out. It had too many holes, cliches and character flaws. but it restarted the passion for writing, and I'm afraid I haven't stopped since.
I still have the hundreds of notes, and notebooks I filled with D'Lair. Sadly, most of my pre age 13 writing was disposed of during my hating time. And so I cling to D'Lair as the first thing I really wrote.

The next writing landmark came with November 2012, NaNoWriMo. I, firstly, met all the lovely lasses on this blog through Pepper's group. They have made writing 10000000% more enjoyable.
And secondly, something just clicked that November. I began taking writing so much more seriously, and even though I can't put my finger on it, I can just tell "something has changed within me, somehow, I'm not the same". (You should know this, I will randomly slip into lyrics or quotes. Don't be disturbed if I put parentheses around random things. I'm just quoting).

Right now, I actually have several WIPs, as I can't seem to just sit still on one. But my favorite of the four stories hashing around would be "For the Last Time". 

It's a very different novel than anything I've written before (it has a very John Green style). And it simultaneously breaks and gladdens my heart.
The rough and short of it, it starts with the funeral of the heroine, Avian. Her boyfriend, Benson, is at the open casket, with a ring, as he had planned to ask her to marry him that weekend, and brokenly voices his desire to "have one last chance to be worth you". (I'm quoting Myself there. That's real smart aleck of me....) quite suddenly, and for seemingly no reason, he is brought back in time to the days before they had met.
Benson has to win her heart all over again while still trying to be better for her. Throughout the book, he realizes she will just die again, unless he can stop the cause of her death before it has a chance to happen.
Basically, the whole book is a lot of bittersweet sad happiness.
And I haven't decided if Avian dies a second time or not. 
I got the idea while listening to random coldplay songs. the sad beauty of them inspired me to write something of...well, sad beauty. 

So....uh, yeah. This is me, Chamomile. It's gonna be a blast, ok? 

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.”

-Sydney Smith

Hey there, I'm Rooibos

 Actually my name is Johanna but since we're all tea here, I'm called Rooibos after a fantastic little blend of flower from Africa. I actually didn't think very hard about my name, it just so happened to be the one I was drinking at the time. Anyway, it seems I am to give you an introduction into my character? That always seems to be hard, I have very little trouble with others, but who am I really? We'll start with some facts.

1. I'm 16, turning 17 this June.
2.  I take sugar in my tea, not too much but rather sweet.
3. I mostly talk about my boyfriend named chocolate on Twitter. We're going steady.
4. I have about 600 chickens
5. I've only finished 1 story in my whole writing experience.
6. I buy more books than anything else.

 7. I'm closer with people that I've never met than most people in real life.
8. I write a lot, well duh. But I haven't finished my nano book from November  although I did reach 50,000 words a few days early.
9. I am whole-heartily enthusiastic about God and living life to its fullest.
10. I'm a photographer and blogger and spend a wee bit too much time on tumblr where I'm obsessed with tv shows... ahem.

So, what else? I live on a farm and I'm the oldest of 7 kids. I was born in Germany, but I'm not a German. My parents were missionaries in Romania for 11 years and I've traveled America, but I was in a car-seat, so it doesn't count. My favorite book ever is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, then followed closely by a ton of books all tied in 2nd place. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Great Gatsby by F. Scot Fitzgerald, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (content warning here: it's really rough) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë... and so many more, it's not even funny how many books I have. 

My current book is my nanowrimo novel called Eilam Fear Was Invisible which is about a young man and his being friendless and alone and basically just the struggles of being a loner and meeting other people like you. I've been working on it far too sporadically but I'm hoping to totally finish it this year. And then rewrite it because I don't like so many things, but that's what comes with editing, right? People say to write what you know, and this is what I know. I'm someone who sometimes compares herself to Holden Caulfield in that I walk around muttering how people are phonies. People think I'm strange, and a little bit off, but I'm okay with that now. I've met so many other people who are lovely and smart and think reading and writing is an awesome that I can greet doubters with a knowing smile and admit to being strange. I'm also a Nerdfighter and a fan of all things webshow related (Lizze Bennet Diaries anyone?).

So yeah, that's me. I'm sure there is a ton you could learn about me, but let's stick with this for now.  

Cheers,
Johanna

....Earl (no really I have no idea what else to call this)

Okay, so, credits for "Earl go to Ashley (aka Chamomile) but it seemed to fit and now, according to Pepper and Vanilla, I'm a prominent member of a retirement home community.

 Um...anyways (you've gonna have to bear with me, I haven't written a blog post in years.) So my real name is Caroline and I've been writing seriously for about five years. When I was little, I was always drawing pictures of characters even if their story wasn't written down. A few stories are documented in old notebooks--where there's a suspicious pattern of ALL female characters, sorry boys--but nothing was ever finished or really taken seriously by me. When I was 10, I saw the Wizard of Oz for the first time in years, which spurred me to create my own Oz-like story. I don't remember if that story was ever actually written. About a year later, I saw the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean simutaneously, both of which were huge inspirations for my first real novel. I took some of the general themes of the Oz-like story, mashed it together with the inspiration from the other two, and wrote "Enslaved" in two notebooks in sixth grade.

Over the next three years, Enslaved went through two more drafts. In early 2010, after the third rewrite was finished, I entered it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. My dad (who's an editor and writer as well) and I slaved over the pitch together, and finally submitted everything in to Amazon. I was absolutely crushed when it didn't make even the preliminary cuts. Looking back, that book not making it any farther is one of the best things that could have happened. There's no way I want the public to read that novel. *shivers* But I was glad for the experience.

That fall, when I was 14, I decided to try Nanowrimo for the first time. I worked up inspiration for months to write a Greek-mythology inspired novel. That was undoubtedly the most difficult thing I've ever written. While I don't think the writing itself was bad, the characters were dry with no emotions and no arcs, the plot was predictable, and most days I had to force myself to write. With one day to go, I reached 50k, and at 11PM on the last day of Nano, I finished "The Labyrinth." I swore that I'd never do Nanowrimo again.

And, well, here we are, of course.

During Nano '10, I got the faintest, barest ideas of a plot for a novel called...Pictures of You. ;) I had nothing except a character named Erika, the North Carolina coast, a guy named Leo, and a love story. I don't remember when exactly I came up with PoY's real plot, but sometime that winter/early spring, on an afternoon when I was probably bored, I suddenly started thinking about the Witness Protection Program. I really don't have any idea how that happened (maybe because of the WITSEC episode of Psych? Probably.) And I decided that my novel would be about WITSEC.

I started writing PoY that spring, and I had never before fallen in love with characters so quickly. They were the first bunch that I felt like I know immediately and didn't have to force myself to get acquianted with. It was a fantastic experience. But probably sometime in the early summer, I got inexplicably stuck with PoY. I was at almost 60,000 words, more than I'd ever written in one project, and I could not get any further. Of course, now I realize that this is because the plot was meandering, the characters barely knew each other, and there was--wait for it--NO romantic connection between Erika and Beck.

Yeah, that needed to be changed.

Pictures of You sat for a few months, relatively untouched and shoved to the back of my mind. I was planning to participate in Nano '11, with PoY, but the night before, I changed my mind. For some reason, I just knew that I wasn't going to do it. I was on to other things. For a year, I barely wrote. I thought I had lost the desire for it. My novel was abandoned for a twelve months, as was nearly every writing project.

However, I still loved the story, so I made up my mind a while before Nano '12 that I was going to do it this time. Before Nano started, I wrote about 12,000 words, and fell back in love with this novel. I had an incredible Nano this time around--writing PoY was an absolute breeze compared to The Labyrinth. I finished about a week early with a lot more story to go, even though I didn't know it at the time. I don't think I could have predicted just how much this story would affect me. So many things were changed from the first time around and a lot of new stuff added (for instance, Beck became a COMPLETELY different person between the two drafts. I liked him before, but during Nano, he suddenly gained 10x more depth and became my favorite character that I've ever written.) PoY is a lot darker than anything else I've written before, but I think that may be one of the reasons I love it; it's a new experience for me. It went from having no set message to becoming a story about brokenness and troubled minds and recovery and love and saving people, and at times, for me, it was heartbreaking to write.

Before Pictures of You, I had three other serious projects, but none of them, for me, rose to the level of obsession/love that I have with this one. I realized that modern day/contemporary is what I need to be writing (as opposed to fantasy and historical before; PoY was my first modern day novel.)

So, anyways, that's just a little part of my journey with writing and with Pictures of You. We've got a long ways to go, but I can't wait to see where else it takes me. I honestly never imagined that it would teach me this much.

And, to give credit where it's due, I seriously doubt that my novel and I would be where we are if not for the Tea-Spitters. You ladies seriously made my second Nano experience 892163247 times better than the first, and I can't thank you enough for all of the support, encouragement, and talking me out of sad endings. I owe a lot to y'all. ;)

Lots of love and apologies for the length,

Caroline xx

Hey guys! I'm Fuze

Or Scarlett. Some people call me Scar. And now I have a new nickname: Fuze. I chose it because I'm from the south and Fuze makes some really good sweet tea. If you are some poor northern soul who has never had sweet tea before, then stick it on your bucket list right now. Because you're seriously missing out.

Like sweet Christina over there and a couple of other people on here, I'm new to blogging too. So bear with me. Figured I would utilize this first post to let you guys know a bit more about me and what I do in the writing world. So I guess I should get started. 

The moment I learned how to write I knew that this was gonna be some kind of thing. I've always had an extremely vivid imagination and found that I could express the images that I see in my head through written words. When I was six or seven years old I started a diary (because that was the cool thing to do back then). It was written in a cute little pink notebook with these weird cartoon horses on the front. What I wrote in there started off as boring yet adorable entries that any other child would write in their notebook. As I continued to write in there I recognized how extremely uninteresting I was. Reality began to bore me from a young age. So, at seven years old, I started a new log in that little horse notebook. I started imagining myself in a fantasy world. A world that would grow up with me and shape who I would become. Yeah, I know, it sounds real dorky. But it’s the truth. Alamare came to life in that little journal. And thus a new little writer was born.

Most of us start writing cute little stories when we are really young. I was one of those people. The only difference is, I never stopped writing on my cute little story. It grew and transformed over time. It started off as this sweet, innocent little story about a girl named Jade who discovers this alternate reality. Now I am sixteen and have this entire universe living inside of me. That young girl, Jade, has turned into this remarkable woman named Eriif. She carries with her all of my good qualities with some of her own thrown in there. She also carries my mistakes and my pains, along with some of her own disabilities. Over the years I have poured a lot into her and her little world, which isn't so little anymore. What started off as a simple, childish story grew this incredibly complicated trilogy that I like to call the Firetree Chronicles (but I’m probably gonna change the name sometime soon). 

I hate giving summaries of my books. But I guess I should tell ya'll a little bit about what goes on in this insane story. Imagine a world filled with the things that you've only dreamed about. A world built upon this world's legends. A new reality made of this world's fantasies. Our legends, the beasts, the myths, the ghosts, the zombies, the dragons and unicorns, elves, dwarves, giants, and weird things that we used to love as children, exist in this world. But they aren't fairy tales. These creatures and beings aren't lovely dreams that our paradises are made out of. They are flawed, terrifying and very different. They live separately from us, but their reality is connected to our own in that, if one world dies then the other dies with it. For thousands of years both worlds have lived in peaceful ignorance of each other. Suddenly a force arises in Alamare and threatens to disrupt that sanguine peace. The only thing that can stop it is the power found in two human girls. The trilogy follows these two humans through this mysterious land as they rally to save this foreign world. Will they succeed in defeating this terrifying force, or will they fail, resulting in an apocalypse for both worlds?

Well yeah. That’s what it’s about, but there is so much more to it. I’m working on four books right now like a little nerd. I don’t usually tell people about it because I’m afraid that they would judge me. Actually I didn’t tell anyone about it for eleven years. No wait, nine years. I suck at math. Anyways I was just too embarrassed, but I so wanted to share. Having that much information in my head was too much to bear on my own. Three years ago I started doing this epic event called NaNoWriMo. I’m sure that at least some of ya’ll have heard of it. The first two years of National Novel Writing Month of Insanity were really hard for me because I tried to do it alone. I still reached 50,000 but struggled the whole way through. Last year my dear friends Caroline and Christina introduced me to the Tea Spitters, which was called NaNoWriMo support group at the time. As the month progressed we got more awesome and became the Tea Spitters. These girls are incredibly good writers, which intimidated me a bit, but as I time went on I grew comfortable around them and started sharing bits and pieces from my story that I was writing using NaNoWriMo. They were the first people to ever experience Alamare besides me. And they liked it, I guess. Basically I’m trying to say that if it weren't for this crazy awesome group of writers I probably would have stopped writing a long time ago and no one would have ever heard of Alamare. Actually, without them I probably wouldn't have been able to get through November. My family is going through a rough patch right now. I am too. We’ve struggled all year through some unfortunate situations. Towards the end of 2012 I was ready to, well, break. And these girls’ support got me through it. So, yeah.

Currently I’m still writing sparingly. Just like anyone else out there that pesky thing called school is in the way, along with dance. I dance about fourteen hours a week, sometimes fourteen hours a day. I also play competitive classical piano. So that’s always in the way of writing. But I’m not letting my busy schedule stop me. Right now I’m taking a break from the series and writing a little novella about North Carolina ghosts. I took an interest in the legends after I visited Beaufort, which is famous for its ghost stories, specifically the ones about Blackbeard. I try to write on it for at least 15 minutes a day.

So that’s me and those are my stories. I hope to bring them to life someday for people other than myself. I guess all teen writers dream of doing that someday.

Keep writing guys. Don’t forget to be awesome.

-Fuze

Hello, I'm Dragonwell!

Hi, there, reader! My name is Dragonwell, short for Dragonwell green tea (yes, it's an actual tea. I was as surprised by it's epic name as you might be).

I'm new to blogging myself and this is actually my first blog post that I've ever written, but one thing I'm definitely not new to is writing. My writing journey started when I was in elementary school (I don't remember how old I was) and I took a creative writing type class. I wrote a few little short stories and the longest poem about winter in the history of poems. I remember writing one silly little thing about a knight that saved a dragon and took it to safety instead of killing it like the king had ordered. There weren't any character names, just "The Knight" and "The Dragon" and "The King" and the guest stars, "the three dragons" and a random thought at the end: "Princess." I decided to pull it out to look at it to make sure I got all of the details correct. It's the silliest story, but most of the stories from back then are, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who can say the same thing about the things they wrote as a little kid. I certainly would never share it with anyone, but I remember reading it to the class and being so proud of it, even though some older boys were snickering while I was reading it. I didn't realize it until I was older, but...it was snicker worthy if I do say so myself.

After that, I started writing Nancy Drew stories, which would probably be considered fanfiction, and I posted them on a messenger board for pretty much all things Nancy Drew related. I grew out of that, though, but I think it really helped hone my writing skill and my love for the art. From what I remember, I seemed to get fairly good responses, but I kind of faded out of the writing interest for a while until I started writing more and more fanfiction. I took another writing class in late middle school and wrote this pretty cool spy story that I tried to write a sequel to a year or two ago, but I simply couldn't. I still love the story even though the plot was fairly weak, but that didn't make me a writer. I spent a while writing fanfiction and calling myself a "writer" even though I really wasn't. I hadn't really written anything I could call my own, even though I had started a few things that I never finished. They were simply ideas that I started putting words to, and they probably would have been fairly interesting books if I could've figured out their plots before setting them aside to return to my fanfiction.

One thing that started as an idea that slowly grew words and sentences and faces and names was a book called The Daughter of Robin Hood. I think it started in 2011 when I started watching this spectacular TV show called Leverage. That show inspired my book. I rather liked it, but I set it aside for a while until I was encouraged by someone who had read a few of my stories. I had given him mostly the beginnings of stories that really hadn't flown off and spread their wings, but he still gave me a lot of praise and encouragement. The Daughter of Robin Hood had been his favorite, even though I had never really thought about going anywhere with it. But then that happened, so I picked it up again. Unfortunately it took a wrong turn, so I dropped it because it was so boring. I returned to the fanfiction scene, but then in 2012, my writing became more and more serious.

I had heard of this thing called NaNoWriMo quite a few times over the years, mainly from one of my closest friends. We met in the middle school writing class, bonded over our love of writing and Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, and we've been friends ever since. Our friendship has grown closer and closer ever since. I decided to do NaNoWriMo in 2012. It was my first year ever doing it. I was going to start this completely new story, even though I barely knew anything about it. I had most of it planned out and it was waiting to begin, but a week before November first, I mentioned to her, "I could do this one, or The Daughter of Robin Hood." She encouraged me to restart TDRH (The Daughter of Robin Hood), and I'm so grateful that she did encourage me! I knew how I wanted it to end, I had all of the characters named and the plot figured out, so I only needed to make minor changes.

That week before NaNoWriMo 2012 started, I made those minor changes, created these posters out of giant pieces of paper with all of the character information and locations and everything like that, and I put them on my wall near my desk. Quite a few times, especially around two to three days before NaNoWriMo started, surprises kept popping up and obstacles kept appearing that almost made me want to chicken out of it and go back to my original plan, but my mom told me stick with TDRH because I had made the posters. A day or so (or something like that) before NaNoWriMo started, my friend added me to this group. It was just  a NaNoWriMo support group with people I didn't really know, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend much time in it, but--BAM!! We bonded over our love and passion for writing. We fell in love with each other's characters, we shared excerpts, and they introduced me to keysmashing, fangirling (even though I already did that but didn't know that's why I went into a nerdy-giggling frenzy over pictures of Loki), the use of gifs, and the increased use of my all caps key basically the ten million benefits of being a nerd.

All of us in the group quickly became really good friends. I found people that I actually had stuff in common with, like our love of books and writing and Marvel superhero movies and British TV. We soon became The Tea Spitters. Being in The Tea Spitters really made my first NaNoWriMo experience 100 times better. We encouraged each other, did timed word wars together when we were stuck and we had the most fun conversations late at night. It's a blast being a Tea Spitter, but having them as my friends is even more amazing. In this group I found a love and an addiction to sharing my work. Before then I had never really shared my work with anyone, and I deeply wish I had shared it, because this group made me realize that, maybe, I'm not that bad of a writer. They've really been great encouragements to me and they're the sweetest girls.

I won NaNoWriMo my first year in November 2012, but recently finished TDRH. If you're wondering what it's about, it's about Lenora "Lee" Hood. She ran away from her father Robin Hood and started her own band of thieves. Three years later, she's ready to quit and go into permanent hiding, AFTER she steals the prince's fortune. It's the first thing I've ever finished that I can actually put my name on it and call it my own. It was a spectacular feeling, even though I may or may not have moped around that evening not sure what to do with myself. Even though I'm currently experiencing a tad bit of writer's block and struggling to write something not involving my precious characters and this Irish dude named Sweeney that I've fallen madly in love with (don't judge me). I still have two or more books to write about my favorite characters, and many more names and story ideas that have crossed my mind.

I think TDRH might be the first step in my writing journey, and I'd never ever change that for the world. I'm glad I restarted it in November because I fell back in love with it, I wasn't just writing it because someone saw potential in it. I was writing it because I wanted to write it and I was determined to see it to the end. Because of that, it was an amazing, beautiful feeling, and writing this blog post and thinking about my favorite story that I've that I've written so far makes me want to cry because I love it so much.

Lots of love,
Dragonwell

Hi! I'm Vanilla.

Hey guys!

I'm Rachel, but you can call me Vanilla.  Yes.  Like the tea.  Which is very tasty indeed.

Basically, as I'm sure you've guessed judging by the previous posts, I like to write.  My favorite genre to write is present day/realistic fiction, although I have a long way to go before I join the ranks of such fabulous authors as John Green and Ally Carter.  But I'm working on it.  And one day, hopefully, I'll get there.

I've been reading ever since I was three, and ever since I haven't been able to get enough.  (By the way, does anyone else ever alternate between having 2343486745682 books to read and having zero?  Right now I have zero.  Leave me suggestions in the comments, folks, I'll check them out!)  I started with books like the Boxcar Children and Little House on the Prairie, reading them over and over again until I was satisfied.  I needed more than my library could contain, and I hunted everywhere for something special that I would love.

I can't remember exactly when I started writing, especially since it was physically difficult for me as a child.  But I know I've always had ideas and stories floating around in my brain, and when I was old enough to start typing on my mom's laptop I became an author.

The first major story I wrote was called "Penny Austin and the Mystery at the Museum."  I was really into Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and that sort of old fashioned mystery when I was nine or ten, and I tried to emulate that in this little novella.  I never did finish that story, and I think it's still sitting on a computer somewhere, waiting for me to pick it up again.  Seeing as how I've completely forgotten what the mystery was and who done it, I think it will be as much a surprise for me as for the reader.  But I do remember that my mom gave it to my grandmother, who passed it around to everyone at her work.  They loved it (looking back on it they may just have been humoring a ten year old), and I loved that they were pleased.  Ever since then, I've decided I wanted to be a real live author, like the ones who smiled up at my from the back of well worn library dust jackets.

After that, I fell into a sort of slump, writing wise.  I WANTED to write, but the inspiration and the dedication were never there.  I wrote a few little stories, for schoolwork or just because I felt like it, but at around 15,000, "Penny Austin and the Mystery at the Museum" was the longest project I had ever worked on, and to me at the age of ten, it was the work of Shakespeare himself.

Then, along came Nanowrimo 2012.  Or rather, Camp Nanowrimo.  I.  Was.  Terrified.  I had originally wanted to do Nanowrimo 2011, along with the rest of the slightly insane writing community, but I remembered the event on November 14th, and decided it was way too late to jump in.  Looking back on it, that was probably a good idea.  I had no story, no plan, and I was basically in over my head.

So all spring, I planned my novel.  I read every guide on writing I could possibly find, I looked up how to articles, and I came up with a halfway decent plot.  At the time, I was wildly obsessed with Jane Austen, so my novel, which I called, "Breaking the Cage," involved dramatic scenes in the rain, parents dying tragically, and a beautiful young heroine who didn't seem to fit the mold of society around her.

I absolutely hate that novel, but I finished proudly on June 28th.  I haven't touched the draft since then, and I don't know if I ever will, but I'm incredibly glad that I wrote it.  It was one of the best experiences of my life, and Nanowrimo has become something I definitely look forward to.

This year, one of my friends invited me to join the tea-spitters for Nanowrimo.  And it's been an incredible journey.  I had marathon writing sessions with them, cried over having to kill off one of my characters with them, and I've made a fantastic group of friends.

That novel, which I called, "And a Dash of Fear," I'm still not finished with.  It once again reflects my current obsessions, as I tried to capture the spirit of "The Avengers."  It involves a young man who learns he can time travel (also a subtle reference to my love of Doctor Who), and his adventures as he tries to escape the clutches of a madman intent on using his mind for experimentation.  I've fallen in and out and back in love with this novel, and in a sense, it's sort of like my child.  If you'd like to view my Pinterest board for this monstrosity of a story, you can find it here

So, that's where I am currently, writing wise.  I'm going to finish "And a Dash of Fear" before next Nanowrimo, and then it'll be onto the new project.  It's a wild ride, but I'm looking forward to it.

As the Doctor would say, "Next stop, everywhere!" 

Love you guys,
Vanilla xx

Meet Sam

My name is Bailey, or Sam, which is short for Samurai Chai. Chai happens to be my favorite type of tea and Sam could be from Supernatural, if you’re looking at it from a fandom point of view, so it all works rather well.

I don’t know how long, exactly, I’ve been writing. I do know that my first ‘book’ was written for my uncle who was battling cancer. When he passed away in 2003, my aunt mailed the book back. It’s tattered, with tinfoil covering the front and cotton balls taped on and dotted with black marker for cows. It told the story of a cowboy who got sick and had a bed by the window where he could look out and see the cows and horses and the farmhands building a barn. And when the cowboy got better, he rode the horses and went on round ups.

It was all based on fact. My uncle was a cowboy. His bed at home looked out over his fields and in the distance he could see a barn being built.

After the cowboy’s book was done, I stopped writing for awhile. I said that it wasn’t something I liked to do anymore.

However, in 2009, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo. I decided the night before it began that it was something I wanted to do and so I did. On my old laptop (that couldn't be unplugged from the wall or it would die), I managed to scrape together a [terribly cliche] plot and wrote my heart out. I ended the month with just over 50,000 words and the first draft of a manuscript under my belt.

I wrote very little though the rest of that year. I didn't know what to write about and all of my ideas seemed to be just like the books that I read. I participated in NaNoWriMo again in 2010, rewriting the novel I wrote the previous year. It was horrible and dark, much darker than anything I had written before. There was no hope. After trying in vain to edit and remove some of the darkness, I shelved Bending and the three sequel novels that I had planned.

2011 was when my writing really took off. I started to enjoy writing and I wrote constantly. I have notebooks upon notebooks filled with notes and little snippets of dialogue that are begging to be used in some way. The notebooks are all ink stained and most of the covers are torn or the binding are coming apart. The margins are doodled in and there are pages missing. There are lists of words and names that I like and ideas scattered everywhere. There are little outlines for short stories and some larger outlines that are waiting to be improved upon and written out into novels.

One of those little outlines became the novel I wrote over the summer. It was about a girl named Clair and she lived inside a clock. Clair was [and still is] one of my favorite characters. She's sarcastic and her sense of humor is often mistaken for rudeness. Shakespeare's words sum her up rather well in saying, "Though she is but little, she is fierce." Her story is still unfinished, waiting patiently for me in a file on my flashdrive. It's not the best story, but it's near and dear to my heart.

When November (and NaNoWriMo) came again, I was ready. It was called Living Legends and I retold the legends of Camelot, set in New York City without magic and knights. The Knights of the Round Table were a soccer team. I honestly don't remember all the particulars, but it was fun and lighthearted. Over the next few months I intend to dust off that particular file and possibly begin a rewrite.

Amongst the fun of Living Legends and NaNoWriMo, I developed carpal tunnel in both my wrists. Writing was put on hold yet again.

When I picked up a pen and paper (or my laptop) to write again, it was October of 2012. I plunged back into the world of words a month before I participated in my fourth National Novel Writing Month. I told the story of Alex and Addison, two thieves who were fighting for their own freedom; the freedom to make choices and to live their lies without fear. They became my babies and I love them to bits and pieces. Their story is the one I write most often, scribbling things down in notebooks when I'm away from the computer or typing away furiously into the night. NaNoWriMo 2012 was my greatest success. I met the 50,000 word goal on day 16 and ended the month with over 80,000 words. (My success was mostly due to the amazing support I had with the Tea-Spitters. They did word wars and were a huge blessing. Ya'll rock. Now go eat cupcakes.)

Alex and Addison (now renamed Ailsin) have been where my attention has been focused for the past almost four months. They keep me on my toes and never fail to surprise me with the many different layers they have. They're where I am right now. They keep me busy and I'm happy to be entertained by them.

Hugs,
Sam

Introducing Pepper

For your perusing, 

At times confusing, 

Slightly amusing

Introducing me.

(yes, i couldn't resist throwing a little nick jonas in here.)

So, I'm Sky, but my nickname on this blog is Pepper, short for peppermint tea. And also after the character in Iron Man. "Only 12%?" "An argument can be made for 15."

Obviously, I'm a writer. I don't know when exactly it started, but I do know that I've been writing for about as long as I can remember. My first book was a picture book, written and illustrated by myself, that I wrote when I was five. It was titled Dogs and Cats Castle.

I remember sitting at our old dinosaur of a computer before I was allowed to use the internet, and typing away in WordPad docs. I must have had thousands of WordPad files, and I wish I could still find them. Maybe I could, I don't know.

Off the top of my head, one of the earliest things I've found that I wrote was this Wizard of Oz journal. I received it when I was around five, and I wrote a story about Madeline. (I'll admit that it was partially fanfiction for the Madeline books.) The story went from when she was very young to when she fell in love and got married. (She fell in love at the age of like nine or something crazy like that. Obviously I wrote this at an extremely young age. Recently I looked back on it and just laughed and laughed.) Most of the book revolved around her expanding her family and having lots of kids, as well as her friends expanding their family and having lots of kids. At the very end, I even started writing about Madeline's daughter, Molly, as a teenager. It eventually faded away, but I was really emotionally invested in that story, and I guess you could say it was one of my first stories that had a ton of characters and plot threads.

At age 10 I finished my first book (maybe not full-length novel, but book at least). 'Twas the first project I saw through from the beginning all the way to the end. It was about five kids, all of which were named after states. They lived in Rock Rapids, Iowa and solved the mystery of a missing baby, whom they eventually found in a warehouse. (I've since written about warehouses in my finished novel, Because I'm Irish, so warehouses hold a special place in my heart.) It was written on a brick of a computer and it was my first dabbling in the wonderful world of suspense. That computer has since broken, but I want to try to hook it up again to see if I can retrieve the files.

Then, at the age of 12, I started what I consider to be one of my first novels. I sadly didn't finish it, but I still consider it to be a novel since I had the whole plot planned out, as well as two plots for two books after it. It was called Talryn's Tale, and it was my first dabbling in the world of fantasy. I still miss it and hope that something can be redeemed from it someday.

Many writing projects later, I started Reese's Pieces. This novel was just a project for fun, something for me to spill my brain into at the end of the day. I handwrote it sitting up in bed late into the night, and ended up finishing it at 60,000 words. I actually got a proof copy of it, which was one of the most insane feelings. Holding a book of yours in your hands is a feeling like no other.

As for the actual plot, it was about a girl named Reese who wanted to play drums and loved coffee (very indicative of my personality at the time). It was basically about her, her friends, and quite a bit of matchmaking. There's not a lot there that could be salvaged, so I've shelved it for now. But maybe someday I'll come back to it. (And it ended with me spilling a potted plant onto my character's lap. SCORE.)

The next milestone is what indirectly started this blog and got me on the path of writing vicariously every November--it was my first time doing NaNoWriMo. The year was 2009. I wrote "my Shae story," which was about Hollywood, fame, and mistaken parentage. I did the Young Writer's Program, which allowed you to set your own goal wordcount, and finished with 30,000 words. I still don't really love my story in the slightest, but I am irrevocably grateful for what that NaNoWriMo did for me, and the way it sparked me to do NaNo for years after.

In November 2010, I wrote a story titled Chandler and Paislee about two grieving adults who found love again. (Not really my cup of tea.) I didn't intend to shoot for 50k since I had a friend visiting for the beginning of the month, but in the last week, a friend encouraged me to try to make it. I ended up writing 25k in the last week. It was absolutely insane. After that year, I realized that I could do pretty much anything. ;)

And then November 2011 rolled around, the thing that I'm pretty sure has made me get absolutely serious about writing. My project was Silver Tears, and it was a fantasy. Out of that year I got a new appreciation for outlining, an amazing experience, and a fiery desire to continue writing like this. I also got Riah, who is one of my favorite characters of all time. (She made a skirt out of leaves and has an extremely fiery personality. She's awesome.)

Oh! And how could I forget? That year, I also learned how to gut a deer.

The December following that year's NaNo, I started a project on a complete whim. It was supposed to be a short story, a little thing for my own amusement. It was based entirely off of an inside joke between me and a friend. But then it exploded into something much more. That novel became Because I'm Irish. It became my second, and my favorite, finished novel in July of 2012. It's about a violinist, Fiona, who gets kidnapped by a boyband (it's suspense, obviously, with a fair dose of hilarious humor if I do say so myself). I just can't even with that story. It's one of my absolute favorite things I've ever written. It's currently on hiatus at a standing total of 60,000 words while I get up the courage to edit that lovely thing. (Editing is one thing I have no idea how to do and I'm nervous to attempt. I don't want to make a mess of a story that I love so much, and I'm afraid I'll mess it up if I try to edit it when I feel so inexperienced.) However, out of all the stories I want to shop to get published, Because I'm Irish is pretty high up there. You'll probably hear more about it in upcoming posts.

So then, we reach November 2012, which is when I met my lovely, gorgeous Tea-Spitters. We met completely by accident but we've really got an amazing bond and I'm so grateful for them. We supported each other through NaNo, fangirled, keysmashed, and sent gifs. It was amazing, and they made my NaNo experience 10x better.

I wrote Broken Wings last year, which is my current work-in-progress. It's about people who don't fit into normal society, bald eagles, wolves, living in the forest, an insane villain, and love. It's about love. That year, I learned that I really could write romance. And I also created Lynx and Rane, who are some of my favorite characters. (And Rane is a favorite for others as well. Who knew?)

So now that's where I'm at. I just finished reading over what I have written of Broken Wings two days ago and I hope to start in on it again soon. I think I'm pretty close to finishing, and I hope I can wrap it all up soon. I'm also gathering inspiration various projects, which you can see on my Pinterest page. (My head is exploding with ideas.) And actually, I think my various novels may deserve a post of its own.

I will also have to go into my fandoms sometime (of which there are many) and maybe do a rambling post of all the things I find interesting. Who knows? Anything can happen when you're a Tea-Spitter.

Sincerely yours,
-Pepper

And so it begins.

Well, welcome to the official Tea-Spitters blog! Whether you are a member of the Tea-Spitters, a friend of ours, or just a hapless stranger, welcome!

We still have to get this blog up and running, but until then, you can check out our about page, or our Pinterest board.

We'll see you soon, and don't forget to be awesome.

#lamefirstposts #ohwell