BRIGID RISES FROM THE DEAD!!!

Well, hi. This is awkward.

So, I am aware that I haven't posted anything in, like, half a year. How embarrassing. But of course, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation. See, I was abducted by aliens. And then, when I finally convinced them to send me back home, they accidentally dropped me off in China. So, I had to swim across the Pacific Ocean, where I had to battle giant sea monsters. And when I finally got to the United States, I found that the country had been overtaken by zombies, so I had to kick some zombie butt on the way back home, which took up a lot of my time. Then I finally got back home, where there was a monster pile of homework waiting for me and it tried to eat me and then it killed me and I came back from the dead.

Okay, so none of that story is true, except the part about the homework-monster. But basically, I have been too busy with school and my job and my procrastination to update my blog. So, now I am back and I must be more dedicated now or everyone should come after me with torches and pitchforks.

SO BRIGID. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?

Well … uh … rejection. Lots and lots of rejection. But I think I will dedicate an entire separate post just to that. More on that later. For now I'm just going to get y'all caught up on all the random stuff I'm doing.

Ahem. So, on a happier note: Since I last posted, I finished writing my sixth book, Walking Shadow. I wrote it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November). If you do not know what this fabulous event is, you should check out nanowrimo.org (well, if you're a writer and you also happen to be insane).

Walking Shadow is a fantasy that is basically about these two kids who have to make a journey through the Underworld, and there are demons and deals with the devil and Shakespeare references and all sorts of other wonderful things. I like to think of it as, like, Greek mythology meets Alice in Wonderland––but of course, with its own weird twists. For now, I still love this story, but knowing me I'll probably hate it in a month or two and feel like re-writing the whole thing. Oh well …

ANYWAY. As for my other projects:

First of all, I am writing Jump, sequel to my book Edge (which I finished writing last July) and second book in a trilogy (I hope … if I can get it all organized and everything). I won't go into much detail on this one, since, you know, it's a sequel and everything. Even if I explained the entire first book it wouldn't make much sense, since the plot's pretty unorganized and full of holes and I don't even understand it myself. I need to get working on piecing it all together. But, to explain it in a few words, it's this sci-fi/action thing about clones and mind-wiping and superpowers and stuff. It's gotten a lot more complicated than I intended and now I'm kind of going crazy with it … but, if I do a lot of rewriting and adding of stuff then I think it could be pretty cool.

Secondly, I am working on Unraveling. This one I'm probably the most excited about, mostly because I think it's going to be my first completed realistic fiction novel. … And I haven't made a real attempt at realistic fiction since I was 11––and THAT story accidentally morphed into this weird fantasy involving a talking stuffed pig. But I promise, no talking inanimate objects in this one. It's about this teenage girl going who goes back to her hometown two years after she moved away, and as she wanders around she reflects on life and her childhood, and most importantly on the events that led her to become enemies with the girl who was once her best friend. YAY! I was sort of inspired by Catcher in the Rye––coincidentally, I got the idea like an hour before I found out that J.D. Salinger had died (nooooooo!!!) so I guess I took that as some sort of sign. Haha. That, and I wanted to write something that everyone could relate to. Everyone has suffered through the ruin of a friendship, whether you or your friend moves away, or you get into some huge argument, or you just let it slip away, or you hated your friend all along … blah blah. And a lot of people have read it and been like "OMG this reminds me of my old friend who did such-and-such", so I guess it's working. Bwa haha.

Then, last of all, I started another story called Rage. I'm not really sure about the details on this one at the moment, since I only started it like three weeks ago. But anyway, it's this myth- and fairytale-inspired story about an isolated village under the control of a force that the people call the Monster, although no one has ever seen him. But whoever he is, he controls the weather and keeps them all trapped inside this place which is surrounded by demon-infested forests, plus he demands the sacrifice of a teenage girl every once in a while. The sacrifices have to go into the forest alone and no one knows what happens to them … dunh dunh dunnhhhh. Yeah, so I'm still planning/outlining this one and there's not much plot so far. But it's getting there.

Soooo other stuff I'm doing!

Well, I entered Walking Shadow in the Amazon Novel Breakthrough Award contest––which is this contest for unpublished and self-published novels, and the winner gets a $15,000 publishing deal with Penguin. So, woot woot! I made to the second round, which is the top 1000 novels out of about 5000, so that is pretty cool. I'll hear about the third round on March 23rd. *Scared*

I also got an account on WEbook, which is this pretty cool writing feedback site that I found. If you want to check out some of my writing you can do so here: http://www.webook.com/member/BrigidGH

And of course, I am always on goodreads.com, doing my book reviews and posting writing. I have more stories posted here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/886144

YAY!!! So that's what I did while I was dead. Very soon (like, within less than sixth months––haha) I plan to write an entire post on rejection, because I've been thinking about it a lot recently. Stay tuned … :)