102.7 Fresh Concert

So last Saturday I went to the 102.7 Fresh Concert at Eisenhower Park. It was awesome!
They featured Tyler Hilton, Five for Fighting, and KT Tunstall:

Tyler Hilton - I Believe in You


Five for Fighting - 100 Years


KT Tunstall - Black Horse & The Cherry Tree


*My camera is mainly for taking pictures, so the video isn't high quality and the zoom sucks. But the audio is surprisingly better than I thought it would be.

If you can't see any of the videos, click here

Youtube Channel !!!

Hey blog readers,

I have recently been watching book trailers. If I publish my novel, I plan to make my own book trailer (once I learn how), and it'll be awesome. But I'm going to need a site to host my book trailer (someday...) and what better place than Youtube. So I decided to create a youtube channel.

Here it is: thelazywriter youtube channel.

* The channel names for "John Smith" and "Bow ties are cool" have already been taken. If you're not a Doctor Who fan, then you probably don't understand what I just said.

I hope that you enjoy my channel, and please SUBSCRIBE.

John Smith

P.S. -- When I read The Hunger Games trilogy, I think that I'm going to review it on video.

Mockingjay!!!

Finally, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins comes out today!

To be honest, I haven't even read The Hunger Games or Catching Fire yet. I first heard about these books awhile ago, but when I found out that they were dystopian type novels, I was a little turned off by them.

Ever since high school forced me to read books like 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, I kind of started to not like dystopian novels.

But I keep hearing all this good stuff about The Hunger Games trilogy that I now want to read these books. So I waited until Mockingjay comes out so I can buy all three of them at the same time.

If you haven't ordered this book yet, go stop by your local Borders or Barnes & Noble. Or if your eyes are glued to your computer, order it here at Amazon


Once I get my copy of these books, I'll post a review of all three.

Character Development

If you've been reading my blog, then by now you've already learned how to create characters. If you don't know how to create characters, just click here for my blog post on the subject.

Now that you made your characters, you will now need to know how to develop them. Before, I used to think that the most important thing in a story is the plot. But that's wrong. Great characters are just as important as a great plot (and if you're writing in first person perspective, characters are definitely more important than a good plot). So be sure to develop and make your characters real.

Here are some methods that I use to help develop my characters so that they won't turn out to be flat and boring:

1) I fill out the Nanowrimo character questionnaire. They ask you questions about your characters, such as their fondest memory, their quirks, their insecurities, etc.... (they will also ask you questions about your characters that you will never mention in your book. You should answer those questions anyway because those answers will make the character more real in your mind, so you'll write them in a more dynamic way in your book). If you fill out this character sheet, your characters will become more real.

2) There should be flashbacks about the characters in your story. If one of your characters has a flashback, then that means that the character has a past history. This history will make your characters seem more real. For example, a husband and wife is talking about having children. In the next paragraph, there will be a flashback of that husband as a young boy playing by himself in the backyard. The flashback ends, and the husband tells his wife that he wants a lot of children. This shows that the husband is someone that wants a big family and doesn't want his children to grow up lonely like he did.

3) Write about your character in different situations. If you write a scene where your character is in a birthday party, or a maze, or sent into the future, or etc... then you get to see how your character will react outside of your story. A character shouldn't be a puppet used just to move the plot along. You've got to see how the character will react in different scenarios.

4) Create a short biography of your character from his/her point of view. Make your character describe the important moments in his/her life. Write it so that it seems that your character wrote it in their own grammer, dialogue, and tone that they would use. This develops the character's speaking voice, while at the same time gives you the character's history.

5) Keep in mind that if your character were to die, would your readers care if he/she died? (I recently wrote a short story in which the main character dies. I got someone to read it, and she cared more about what's for dinner than the death of that poor boy). To be honest, my best advice to teach you how to make readers care more about your character... is to read Harry Potter by JK Rowling. Those books can teach you a thing or two about creating characters that readers will care about.


So that's all the advice I can give you about character development. There are probably other tips out there on how to make your characters more real, but I can't keep procrastinating and look over every single article about developing characters. Sometimes the best way to develop your character is to just write down your story.

Happy writing to you all,
John Smith

I Quit!

Last week, a woman named Jenny announced that she was quitting her job through a series of messages written on dry erase boards, which she photographed and e-mailed out to her entire office of roughly 20 employees. Those photos — and a wildly amusing supposed backstory — have since found their way to the Internet.

Here are those photos:

If any of you here thought that this was real, I apologize. This is a hoax created by the Chive.

I found this post on Rockin Rita and I thought that it was hilarious! So I decided to share it with you as well. For proof that this is a hoax, click here.

One Lovely Blog Award!

Hi readers!


I would like to thank The Fighter Writer for my second blog award! It's the One Lovely Blog Award!

Thanks for thinking that my blog is... lovely. Weird.
I would have called my blog fantastic, stupendous, life changing, and modest. But I guess lovely is a good description for it too.

Anyway, the rules for this award states that I need to do the following:

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are the 15 other blogs that I'm passing the award to:

LadyViolet
The Wormhole
In Which A Girl Reads
The Thoughts of A Book Junky
Musings of A Reader Happy
Stir Your Tea
Ted Cross
Constant Revision
Smash Attack Reads
Reading Teen
Blog with Bite
Small Town Book Nerd
Writing Jewels
My Writing Journey
Raquel Byrnes

Congratulations to you all!

John Smith

The Bold Faced Liar Creative Writer award!

Hey Readers,


Guess what? I just got an award! Yay!
It's The Bold Faced Liar Creative Writer award!

And it's all thanks to RaShelle for giving it to me. Who is RaShelle you might ask?
RaShelle is a gourmet chef that can make Gordon Ramsay cry in defeat.
RaShelle is a negotiator that can convince bank robbers to free their hostages in exchange for a pack of chewing gum.
RaShelle is someone who never needs an umbrella because it's against the laws of physics for rain to fall on her.

But seriously, RaShelle is a creative writer with an awesome blog: http://rashelleworkman.blogspot.com/

...and she can tame dragons with the sound of her voice.

Thank you for the award, RaShelle!



To be able to accept this award, one must now do the following:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
2. Add the award to your blog.
3. Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth.
4. Nominate four creative liars–I mean writers–and post links to them.
5. Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.


Here are my six lies and one truth about myself. Can you spot the truth?

1) I hate coffee

2) Danger is my middle name

3) I once met the Old Spice guy

4) I've seen every episode of Star Trek

5) Dogs bark at me when I wear purple

6) I once went to Stonehenge

7) I have a pet chinchilla


Now to pass this award on to 4 other people:
Cassay
Monica
T.S. Bazelli
J.C. Martin

Congratulations!

Thank you to all who read my blog,
John Smith

P.S. - To be able to write fiction, you must be able to tell a lie.