Some Reminders

So give thanks to Arovis,
Give thanks to the Three,
For this is the way it was meant to be.

- Talebearer Creed, Britton Peele's Talebearer Trilogy

"There is a design, hidden in the chaos as it may be, but... It's there. And you have your place in it."

- Wesley, Angel

"A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the 'why' for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any 'how'."

- Victor Frankl

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. "

- C.S. Lewis

"A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling."

- Arthur Brisbane, "The Book of Today"

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."

- Walt Whitman

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

Command and teach these things. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

- 1 Timothy 4

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

- 2 Timothy 4:1-5

Waking Up

I have sent off the second draft of "The Awakening" to both a professor a several chosen/voluntary readers. So there's that... Hopefully they'll give me enough good comments and critisism to build on so my next draft is a winner for Writer's of the Future (*hint hint*).

I've already started another short story project, though it's pretty bizzare, and very likely won't be seen by more than, say... Six pairs of eyes. So that may not matter a ton.

The beginning of "Tobias" needs to be revised pretty desperately, but as more and more time goes on I'm more and more sure of how to fix it... And make it really, really awesome. I may write more (if not all) of the second half of the novel before rewriting the first, though.

In other news, GTA IV comes out tomorrow, and the fact that I'm so excited about it probably means that the world has turned upside town. Quick! Somebody flip it back over before Michael Jackson is black again!

Of course, the fact that it's currently tied with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for best game of all time (as OoT surely is) on Metacritic certainly helps things make sense... Sort of. Apparently the story is really, really good? Really? Then I shall play it!

In other other news: Go Stars!

The Cast of the Talebearer Trilogy

**NOTE: Obviously these aren't real cast members. The book hasn't been published yet, so it'd be absolutely insane to assume that there's a movie in the works.

Also, these aren't even real suggestions for who I'd like to play certain characters should Talebearer movies be made. The exception to this is the actress you'll see listed for Cassandra. She can have the job as far as I'm concerned... She'd be perfect for it, I think. Unless she's too old by the time my dreams of a "Tobias" motion picture come true.

This is just to give you guys some sort of visual idea of the people I've been "living with" for the past few years... sort of. Some are pretty solid representations (again, see: Cassandra), while some, like Tobias, are rather iffy.

But it's a fun and interesting excercise for me nonetheless. For those lucky few of you who have read the first half of "Tobias", let me know what you think of my choices.

Also: The formatting is kinda funky. Dang.

Tobias:

Freddie Highmore

Reasonably tall, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He’s not extremely bulky, but he’s no wimp either. He’s fast, but his main strength is his ability to plan and command.

Cassandra:

AnnaSophia Robb

Tall, blonde, beautiful, and more than capable of taking care of herself. Green eyes. She has combat skills that easily rival Tobias and Matthias, but she doesn’t originally seek an army life. After war breaks out and Tobias leaves, however, she starts training. She joins the Legion lot long after Matthias, and is put under Tobias’ command for the ‘Hell’ mission. She also dislikes being called by her nickname, “Cass”. Tobias is the only one who can call her that without being pounded. Others have tried, but only once.

Matthias:

Josh Hutcherson

He may look bulky, strong, and somewhat gruff, but he’s more willing to crack jokes than to take lives.

Heich:

Jeremy Irons

A Commander in the Legion. Knows his way around a battlefield.

Mia:

Miley Cyrus

A lone mercenary. Long, dark hair. A few years older than Tobias, but that doesn’t stop her from becoming quite infatuated with him. She has a normally peppy and bubbly personality, but she’s tough in battle.

Victor:

Jonathan Jackson

“Leading them was a man dressed entirely in black, with an assortment of blades at his side. He was clean-shaven aside from a black goatee that matched his hair, and he looked to be about twenty-five summers old. From what he could tell, Tobias took him to be a higher ranking Loki officer. Perhaps equal to Tobias’ Commander rank from a Loki standpoint.”

The Way It Was Meant To Be

But there were those who wanted more,
The ones who hid in shell,
And should they loose the dogs of war,
They swing wide the gates of Hell.




But give thanks to Arovis,
Give thanks to the Three,
For this is the way it was meant to be.

If I'm not mistaken my next blog will be my 50th here on BrittonPeele.com. I might celebrate in style, who knows? I could talk a bit about characters and plot for Talebearer, since that's kind of why I'm here, you know?

Truth be told I should be making more progress on writing the Talebearer Trilogy. I've spent several nights over the past couple of weeks at a friend's dorm instead, getting beat by a girl in Mario Kart. Is there no greater shame?

Stay tuned. Things may get exciting in the near future.

::EDIT:: Oh! Almost forgot. Apparently the Bible is America's favorite book, with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter among the most popular choices for second favorite. So utterly fantastic news all around!

Bombs Away

Readers' copies of the first half of "Tobias" have been sent. Huge thanks to all the people who volunteered to read it.

Last night was mostly spent finishing that. Chapter 12 ended up being more mammoth than I had originally intended, making finishing it a 3,000 word task. It's been some time before I've written that much on one story in a short time span. But I have to say, it felt REALLY good.

Today has thus far been spent tweaking some stuff (Cassandra dialogue, mostly) before sending it out. I've also been reorganizing my notes for the trilogy... See, there are 41 pages of them (almost 20,000 words), so finding stuff was getting a little tricky. Reorganizing them by book/subject is proving a fair task.

Still to do today is to write my Daily Toreador column for this week, and I have NO idea what to do it over. While it's been a fair year for early calendar releases, it's still pretty slow for news and columns to talk about. I'll have to think of something.

And then... I don't know. Isn't there some football game or something on tonight? Some big thing? I don't know. The Cowboys aren't playing, thus I can't really say I care. Go Stars.

Back to Verana I go, I guess...

Readers Wanted

Some time today, I vow to finish chapter 12 of "Tobias", putting me somewhere around the halfway point of the (first draft of the) novel.

As such, I think it's time to get constructive critisism again, perhaps for the final time before the novel is finished entirely.

I can't just send it to anybody and everybody though. I need people I can trust in two main areas:

1) People that won't steal anything, because I'm sure you know that plagerism of fantasy novels by young, inexperienced and unproven writers who may or may not suck is a big thing right now.

2) People that can give me their honest, brutal opinion. This is EXTREMELY crucial. No one ever learned how to improve if everybody just said, "This is great! You rock!" Don't get me wrong, I love hearing you guys say you love my stuff, but if there's something, ANYTHING that doesn't agree with you. Point it out. Tell me it sucks. Tell me it needs to be scrapped. Not only can I take it, I need to hear it.

The manuscript will be around 40,000 words, which is admitedly a lot to ask people to read. Thus, you can take your time with it (though if you're going to read two chapters than stop for a few months, I'd at least like input on those chapters), or even request to wait until summer if you want. I'm hoping the whole book will be done by then, but I could still use the critique.

Of course, my goal is that the book is enjoyable enough that you want to read it, even if you're kinda busy. But I realize that this might not be the case.

So if you're interested in putting your name down for consideration as one of my esteemed "test readers", leave a comment or shoot me a message/e-mail. Be sure to give me your e-mail address if I don't have it.

Also, I'm pretty positive that this isn't an issue with any of the people reading this, but the novel - written in a very secular style and tone despite "hidden" Christian themes - has small amounts of mild language as well as intense scenes (hopefully) that deal with both violence and rather dark subject matter. So read at your own discretion.

Thanks, guys. The gates of Hell are opening, but this is the way it was meant to be.

- Britton