Writing on a tightrope...

I really don’t want to be one of those writers that I, myself, would criticize. I always threaten the Universe that I’m going to start a blog on all the injustices and gigantic mistakes that some of my favorite filmmakers and writers have made over the years.

Here’s a mini-rant to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

Indiana Jones 4: Really? From the get go I knew I was in trouble. A gopher mound as the Paramount Pictures mountain, uggh! It just got worse from there: from a fridge that apparently can protect you from a nuclear holocaust, to swinging with monkeys, to the Aztecs worshiping aliens. Yeah, pretty horrible.

Aliens 3 & 4: There are only two Alien movies: Alien and Aliens.  3 & 4 shouldn’t even count. I mean in the beginning of 3, Fincher completely made the second movie meaningless by killing off Hicks and Newt. Stupid. Seriously. Only two Alien movies. Possibly three if Prometheus ends up being a good as it looks, but I could be jinxing myself!

Harry Potter book 5: Book not the movie. The movie actually ended up fixing the things I hated about the book. Now don’t get me wrong, the Harry Potter series is one of my favorite books series of all time, but five was a mess. Who can really blame Rowling? I mean the entire world was waiting impatiently for the fifth book, that’s an enormous amount of pressure! But the way she killed Sirius was… well… it was lame. Not sure of how else to put it. At least Gary Oldman gave it some emotion in the movie. In the book: nothing. Not even a single tear. And Sirius was one of my favorite characters! There were so many issues with book five I can’t even go into it, but needless to say, six and seven more than made up for it!

I could go on, but I’ll stop. My worst fear is that as soon as I spout my ramblings, I’ll have an ear load of everything I messed up in my books. No one is perfect. And as writers and creators sometimes we lose the bigger picture. It’s nice when you have a group of people you can run things by, but I feel a lot of these people are so famous that no one wants to be honest with them anymore. They tell them everything they do is great, so they don’t have anyone to give them critique anymore. I’m just grateful for all the people in my life that are willing to tell me if I write a piece of crap, lol!

Here’s to honesty!

The Riser Saga… This blog is dedicated to all the ups and downs of my writing process. Writing is my biggest passion and I can’t imagine my life without it. The Riser Saga is a series of books I’m writing that follows the harrowing adventures of teenager, Chelsan Derée, and her fight for survival in a dystopian future. I’ve written the first two books, Riser and Reaper, and I’m currently writing the third and final book in the trilogy, Ripper. It’s such a blast writing a character like Chelsan, her power to control anything dead within a four-mile radius, lends itself to some pretty crazy action sequences. Set in a futuristic world where as long as you take a little pill called Age-pro, you can live forever. Of course, it doesn’t stop death. You can still get hit by a hover-car or be stabbed by a mugger or fall off a cliff. But as long as you steer clear from freak accidents and take your Age-pro you can be immortal. I wrote the books in first person through Chelsan’s eyes. I’ve always said that I mentally never made it past fifteen, so writing as a teenager felt right at home. I can’t believe I’m on the final book of the trilogy. It makes me savor everyday. Some days are harder than others because sometimes I haven’t quite figured out exactly what I want to happen next. I always outline everything. But the outlines are loose and the story inevitably ends up evolving into something even I wasn’t expecting. That’s always the best feeling when your own characters rise up and tell the story for you, surprising you in ways you never predicted.

The third book!

I'm in the thick of it! The third book Ripper of the Riser Saga is well on its way and I'm really excited where it's going. This will complete the first trilogy of the series. I have an idea for another trilogy in the same world, but a different main character, which will be introduced in Ripper. I'm really delving into the messed up politics of the future I've created in this last book. From assassins that used to work with Turner, to Elisha coming back with full on Chelsan powers, this book will hopefully be even more action-packed than the first two.