A.J. Maguire

Tag: Novels

  • End of Week 3

    Is it really week 3?  Well, I suppose the first week was only two or three days long, so I won’t feel bad that I’m only sitting at 19762 words.  And I really, really won’t feel bad about that number since it is finals week and I have 1.5 projects left to do and a lovely multiple choice test waiting for me.  (The .5 project is mostly just gathering some pictures and the other one is an essay, so I should be able to finish relatively quickly.)

    I am seriously excited for the next two weeks, though.  Because after TODAY my summer classes will be done and I can play with my Camp NaNoWriMo project with more intensity.  And I do mean intensity because I just found out that one of the passengers currently on board Jorry’s ship the Zephyr was actually hired by Devon’s real mother to track him down.

    Sweet holy conflict, batman!

    In Jo’s defense, she sorta thought Devon’s real mother was dead.  And the lady did leave her three month old baby behind when she got arrested, so … yeah … Jorry feels fairly justified in her choice to keep him.  (Fairly justified.  She does have the moral capacity to see how murky the situation really is.)

    But, let me tell you, the scene where she gets confronted with this information was super fun to write.  Here, I’ll cheat and leave a snippet on this board as well:

    “That boy’s name is Devon Barlow and he is my son,” she said very quietly. “He is more a part of me than my own skin.  If I ever hear you even whisper such a story on this ship again I will disembowel you.  Are we clear?”

    Well, alright, so that’s more of a quote than a snippet.  If you want the actual snippet you have to go over to the Camp NaNoWriMo page.  At any rate, I need to run off and finish my finals so that I can breathe again.

     

  • Top 5 Heroes (Literature Version)

    Let me start off  by saying that this is not an exhaustive list.  I read every day — to some extent anyway — and therefore my choice of who makes the best hero is likely going to change over time.

    Hero – a man of distinguished courage and ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.  (Author’s addition — someone with the oomph to carry a story for 300 pages or more.)

    Coming in first place is James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser (AKA Jamie) from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  Taking away the swoon factor of a giant red-headed, sword-and-musket-wielding Highlander, Jamie has this vulnerable quality that just makes me want to give him a big hug.  He’s got bravado and gumption, and I’m pretty sure he’s just as bad at strategy as I am because he sort of just does things.  (Like march into an angry mob and try to save an accused witch from being killed.)

    Second place goes to Kelsier from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistorborn – The Final Empire.  No, I didn’t pick Vin or Elund (the two you might expect me to pick from that book) because they irritated me at some point or another.  Vin because she got a little whiny about where she came from and Elund because … yeah … he didn’t get all that much page-time in the book.  But Kelsier … Kelsier was my favorite.  And my coworkers can attest to the fact that I fairly squealed and spun in my chair a few times during the battle moments there at the end.  (I don’t want to spoil it, but I’m a girl and even I was impressed with the magic fight.)

    The number 3 position goes to Nathaniel Bonner from Sara Donati’s Into the Wild.  Sweet, holy bananas!  What I wouldn’t give for that man to comment about my boots.  There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about Nathaniel, he can’t use magic and he doesn’t use a sword, but he is super smart and I’m pretty sure he makes up for the no-sword thing with the tomahawk.

    Coming in at the fourth position is William Harindale.  I know, I know, he’s 17 or so, but the boy has “hero” written all over him.  He stars in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series and he’s the first character to make me cry in a long time.  (No, I’m not going to tell you which part made me weepy. )

    I had a hard time coming up with a fifth hero.  I almost bent the rules and dove into film and TV heroes, which would have given me people like James T. Kirk and Han Solo to pick from, but I’ve decided that film heroes deserve their own segment.  Heck, Star Trek deserves its own segment of Captains to fight between.  So!  I chose for the final hero … Harry Potter.

    Yes, yes, good old Harry Potter.  But there’s a reason why everyone loved him enough to stick with him for 7 books.  Young, fresh, tragic, lost, and pit up against insurmountable odds … Yeah.  Harry counts as one of my top 5.

    That’s it!  That’s my top 5.  Who are yours?