Under Construction

Working on getting this blog back up and running. 

We can't say TOO much yet, because we don't want to give away any surprises, 

but we just wanted to let you know that there will be

posts to come. 

Also, we are working on a new template idea, so the blog is under construction,

as of now. We aren't even sure what we want to do with it,

but have a couple of ideas running around in our brains. :) 

Check back in a week or two to see what we've decided.

~Ashley

Just another post

I'm not sure what's going to happen with this blog now that Sky and I aren't writing together anymore, so I decided that I would write about MY writing journey here and let Sky decide whether or not she wants to write here, as well. :) Since I paid the money for the domain name, I might as well be using the blog for something. I also have a personal blog that I never post on. :P This one just seems cooler. Maybe because Sky took the time to make an awesome template for us.

Picture copyright
Ashley Strawser & Hannah Lyter

Lately, I've been working on a story that I call A World Without Sound. It's about a girl whose deaf, but can read lips. It's definitely a stretch for me and has the best set-plot that I've ever had. It's actually one of the easiest stories I've ever written.
*ahem* That is, when I actually take the time to sit down and write it. Since we were gone from home for the last 10 days, I haven't written that much lately.
But of course, my stories and plots still run through my head.
On the left side, I have put the cover for A World Without Sound.
As always, this may not be in a couple of weeks, but for now it is. The girl on the cover is a good friend of mine who gave me permission to use her for my cover model for Shaelyn Renay Hartford.

Anyways, A World Without Sound is what I'm focusing on right now. There are many other plots and characters running through my head.

Including a set of characters that I've had for YEARS named Maggie & Ross. They have been characters running in my head for years, and I haven't been able to write their story. Actually, I wrote their story, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, ya know? So I've tried re-writing it.
And um, rewriting it.
And rewriting it again.
I think that I've restarted their story about 10 times. I'm not sure if this time it'll work or not. But I'm hoping so. I actually started it on my way home from FL, on my iPod. Not far into it to say the least, but at least it's being written, right?

Well, getting offline for now. I have to finish reading a book, and start writing A World Without Sound again. Man, I'm gonna be busy tonight. :)

Ciao ya'll!
~Ashley

Hello all

Um wow, so it's been a long while since either of us have posted on this blog. Probably because all of November we both did NaNo last month - and successfully, I might add! We were so glad for that.


Lately, she and I have been writing separately - trying to find our "voices" in writing. I've been working on a story about a girl who is deaf. Her father left her family when she was fifteen, and that caused her to stop writing novels (which is her passion). The goal in this story is to make her find her writing again, to learn to look past what her dad did and get back to her writing. I think it's probably the most well-written story that I've ever written.
I'm not saying that to brag in any way - it's just the story is coming together way better than I ever thought that it could. Sometimes I can just sit and write pages upon pages of it in my notebook, and I feel so good afterwards. I don't know that I've ever felt that good about any other story that I've written.


As for Kylie and me - our writing together is sort-of on the back burner for now. We may get back to it at some point because we have so many great plots that just need to be written - or rewritten from past books - but like I said, for now, it's just  not working. We're both super busy, and don't really have the time to write together.
Hopefully we'll be able to get back to that next summer when we both have a little bit of free time! I miss writing with my best friend.
But until then, I plan to find my voice as a writer and try to grow as one, as well. 


Until next time!
Ciao ya'll!
~Ashley

We're Doing NaNoWriMo

S: So, it appears that we haven’t done a typecast for 200 days. That’s like... almost a year. Last time we did one, it was my birthday in April.
A: Um, holy canoli, it’s been a while then. I thought it was more recent than that. We should try to do them more often than that.
S: Yes, at least once a month or something like that. I’ve missed this. But there’s a reason we’re doing a typecast this November.
A: Of course there is. Isn’t there always a reason that we do a typecast? Although, it’s usually got something to do with us writing TOGETHER. This time...not so much.
S: Which is actually kind of weird, but at the same time, it makes sense. Ever heard of NaNoWriMo?
A: If you’re a writer, I’m sure that you have. If not, let us, I mean, me, explain. ;) November 1st starts NaNoWriMo. It’s National Novel Writing Month. And the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Seem impossible?
S: Uh, yeah. But it’s really not, judging by the fact that thousands of people participate each year. And this year, I’m among those thousands of people.
A: As well as me. I have tried to do it a couple of times, but have always found myself failing. Why? Um, because I was stupid enough to wait until the last minute to come up with a plot. This time, I was way more prepared. Plot, chapter summary, and even good, solid characters. That tends to help.
S: Yes, I did the same thing, but this year, I came up with a plot about a month ago and spent a while outlining. And aside from my brief meltdown this morning, I feel pretty confident.
A: I had my plot for a long time - since a dream I had this past summer - but I didn’t actually sit down and start working on it until the end of October. Then I worked like a crazy person trying to get my characters, plot and chapter summary into a document before the first.
S: That’s what I did, too - except I had no dream to be inspired off of. I just started from scratch and went with it.
A: Almost all my stories come from dreams. Come to think of it - most of all OUR stories come from dreams, too.
S: Good point! Speaking of our stories, we do have a quick announcement that has something to do with what we write together. I’m sure you can guess that it probably has something to do with Will and Elle.
A: Mostly likely because that’s what we’re working on at the time being. We finished the main part of the book with a word count of....
S: 106k! And after this, we just have a short epilogue to finish this book up.
A: But seeing as we have NaNoWriMo to work on, we might not be finished it until after December 1st, which is fine with me, since I have a whole heck of a lot to write between now and then.
S: Ditto that! But as far as I’m concerned, Will and Elle is mostly finished, which is cause enough to celebrate.
A: So if you guys wanna congratulate us, we would be happy with that! :) As for now, it’s time for me to go back and work on my NaNo novel.
S: And as for me, I need to go hang out with my sister so that my family doesn’t think I’ve gone anti-social. :P
A: Good luck to everyone who is doing NaNoWriMo this month!
S: And even if you’re not doing NaNo, good luck with your respective writing endeavors! We’ll see you next time!
A: See ya!
S: Or as Ashley has said in the past, ciao, y’all!
A: Oh yes! I’d forgotten since it’d been a while. Ciao, bellas!

We're Almost There

On October 17th, we hit 90k. And we have been bad bloggers and forgot to notify you until now. Oops. :P

Anyway, here's a little update. We have 93k as of right now, and we're anticipating when we finally hit 100k. This is exciting stuff, people. Writing 100,000 words is something I never thought I'd do.

Ash and I both think it would be amazing to get proof copies of Will and Elle for Christmas. At the rate we're going, I definitely think it's possible, and I'm really, really excited!

In case you're wondering what's going on in the story, Will and Elle are about to leave on a trip cross-country. They'll be accompanying Will's older brother, Logan, and Elle's older sister Sharon, who are now married. Having older siblings that are married to each other just makes being best friends all the more convenient, don't you think?

Also, did I mention that Will is head over heels in love?

Yeah, this is going to be interesting. Very interesting.

I'm feeling the hype of getting closer to the finish line. We're almost done! Thanks for being our cheerleaders. ;) We will be sure to tell you as SOON as we are finished. Wish us luck!

-Sky

P.S. - it's that time again: National Novel Writing Month. Anyone else doing NaNo?

Long time, No post

Wow, it has been quite some time since either of us posted on this blog. Probably because we're both busy and haven't been writing. At all.
Well, we did a little bit of writing today, and a little bit yesterday. 


Kylie and I started a new story the other day - Confessions of a Teenage Receptionist. The name pretty much says it all.
She's a receptionist and she's a teenager. It's written in first person, present tense, and we're trying our best to make it witty and funny. 


Because neither of us are able to do much writing together, we've been doing writing apart. I've started a couple different stories on my own, and I love writing by myself. Sure, I love writing with my best friend, but I also like writing alone - finding my own voice, and figuring out what I can write about without someone else's help.
Although I do ask for Kylie's advice every now and then. She's my moral support while writing alone, and I'm her's. I guess that's what best friends are for.


We'll try to post a little more about Confessions of a Teenage Receptionist, and maybe a blurb from the book sometime this week. 


~Ashley

Beautiful People - Hayden and Tori

I'm not sure if we've ever mentioned Hayden and Tori before, but the first time we ever wrote their story was a couple of summers ago. We weren't really mature in our writing at that point and we didn't really have a true story line, or even great character profiles. 
A couple of days ago, we decided that we wanted to bring back Hayden and Tori's story, and that we need to redo the plot and the characters. 
We have decided to write this story a little differently - I'm not going to go into great detail, because maybe it could be a blog post later on, but she and I have each taken a character and are making them our own.
Kylie is working with Tori and I am working with Hayden. 
So read about Tori and Hayden below.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tori:

by Kylie 

What is their full name? Victoria Grace McGregor

Does his or her name have a special meaning? Victoria means 'conquer; victory', and Grace means... well, grace (either that or favor; blessing). So her name, as I interpret it, means "to conquer with grace." It's very ironic, considering certain... plot details.

Does your character have a methodical or disorganized personality? She's completely disorganized. As in, "cleaning? What's that?"

Does he or she think inside themselves more than they talk out loud to their friends? (more importantly, does he or she actually have friends?) It depends. Tori has thoughts that she prefers to keep private, but there are some times where she can't keep her mouth shut. She has a hard time not voicing her opinions, which can get interesting since she's very opinionated. She has several friends; Lena, Luke, and Hannalee being only a few of them. As for Hayden, though... well, he's not a friend. Yet.

Is there something he or she is afraid of? She's afraid of failing. More importantly, she's afraid of loss; whether it's losing someone she loves or important memories, or even just lost time.

Does he or she write, dream, dance, sing, or photograph? She has played piano for ten years, and it's one of her passions. On the side, she writes poetry and loves photography. She also took ballet in the past, though it isn't as important to her as piano.

What is his or her favorite book? (or genre of books) She likes anything from fantasy to romance, or even the classics, if they interest her.

Who is his or her favorite author and/or someone that inspires him or her? Overall, Jesus inspires her; the guy she reads about in the Gospels who loves her enough to die. He's her favorite Author, because he's writing her life story. ;)

Favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate chip cookie dough.

Favorite season of the year? Fall! She doesn't get fall in California though, and that's one of the things she misses most about Colorado, the place she recently relocated from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hayden: 

by Ashley

What is their full name? Hayden Mark Lasseter

Does his or her name have a special meaning? Um, on BabyNames.Com, it says that Hayden means Valley With Hay. Wow, 'tis amazing. 

Does your character have a methodical or disorganized personality? Disorganized, definitely. 

Does he or she think inside themselves more than they talk out loud to their friends? (more importantly, does he or she actually have friends?) He has a lot of friends who are jocks. He doesn't really have any true friends. 

Is there something he or she is afraid of? He doesn't like to think so. But he's definitely afraid of things. 

Does he or she write, dream, dance, sing, or photograph? None of the above. 

What is his or her favorite book? (or genre of books) Um, do comic books count? ;) 

Who is his or her favorite author and/or someone that inspires him or her? Any famous soccer player inspires him, because that's what he wants to be. 

Favorite flavor of ice cream? Cookies and Creme. 

Favorite season of the year? Fall and spring. Soccer seasons.