Blog Updates 2021

(Images used from Pexels and Pixabay) 

Hello everyone, I have some very important updates to tell you: 

 Email subscription updates- 

Since Feedburner went away, and I don't know how long my feed on that will continue to function, I decided to switch to follow.it. So, if any of you were subscribed via email to my blog before and get a message that says "Please confirm your subscription" know that this from  me. The name may be "Advemture1359" or "Adventure Awaits" given that I claimed both feeds for my doll blog and this one. In either case, if you get an email from follow.it, know that it not spam. 

       This is what the new follow by email widget looks like: 

If you're already subscribed or want to subscribe, you can go enter your email into the box on the sidebar

I'm also working on a way to import the emails of people who are subscribed to this blog into the new service, since Follow.it does allow you to do this. However, I may end up waiting to do that until the feed completely stops working. (Just so you don't get two notifications at the same time, because that would be very annoying). 

If you, too, are a blogger on Blogspot.com who needs an email subscription service for your blog in place of Feedburner, I recommend checking out this post  by Jen Ryland. It helped me find Follow.It, and if you need to decide what service to use, I found the article to be really helpful. 

Page updates-

The Meet the Character pages are very outdated, and I don't have a lot of pages for the newer stories or characters. So, I am updating those, and so far I have pages for Phoenix, Oak, Sebastian, Elm, Riona, and Celtiere.

 I also now have a FAQ page. So if you have any questions about this blog or my art that I haven't answered, please ask in the comments. 

That's all for now, 

Quinley 

Announcing My July 2021 Project: The Mystery of the Body Thief

 

A while ago I mentioned that I finished writing the first draft of this novel. This July, I am focusing on editing it and working on the second draft, along with some world-building along the way. 

For this project I started writing the first draft in 2018 and finished it in 2020.  I made a lot of posts about this novel in the past, so if you want to check them out, here you can, or if you can to look at posts about the series as a whole here you can. 

Synopsis-

Genre: Fantasy | Murder Mystery 

Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!" 

Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle.
Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all. 

Characters- 

Here are the characters. Please note, many things have changed. Phillip, the dwarf guard character  from the first draft moved to later book, given that the time-line changed a lot. (The dwarf and elf war happens much later). Also since Phillip is not coming in until later, I replaced him for now with a character named Angela. I had created her character for All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again, but that setting and story changed, too. Angela didn't fit the story anymore, so I moved her to The Mystery of the Body Thief instead. 

There are other characters who appear later in the story, but I won't be including them in this post. In this post, I am including the characters who have the largest impact on the plot: 

                                                         Horatio 

A servant who works in the castle, who lost his memory. He has a connection to Annabelle, but what the connection is, he doesn't know, but he longs to find out. 

                                                     Ophelia 

She is one of  Horatio's few friends and one of the healers at the castle. She works with the Earth and Air Gods and learns her magic from them. She is a very sweet (but quiet) person. 

                                                    Lady Annabelle 

Lady Annabelle is a princess, who is in a coma, who fell unconscious at the same time as Horatio. Before she was in a coma, she worked as a detective and sometimes would work with D.I. Time and Marigold. 

                                                Detective Inspector Time 

An old friend of Annabelle's, he is a detective actively working on the case of the murdered royals. 

                                                    Marigold Time 

Marigold is also working on the case of the murders of royalty, and is the adoptive daughter of D.I. Time. She also works as a detective in the police department. 

                                                           Vonivera 

Lady Annabelle's lady in waiting, she is a friend to Horatio and a frenemy of "Angie." Unlike the other ladies in the castle, Vonivera is a fairy and she finds it odd to be amongst elves and humans. 

                                                          Angela "Angie" 

    Another one of Lady Annabelle's ladies in waiting, Angela is "a close friend" of Vonivera's (or at least that is what she tells people).

Soundtrack- 

I compiled a playlist of music that I listen to while writing this story. I decided to make a different playlist for the second draft, because it is neat to look back and listen to music that I listened to when writing the first draft of this novel. 

                              My Goal- 

Since I'm on the second draft, my goal is going to be edit/rewrite at least 12,000 words. I made my goal smaller because, editing is really hard and I don't want to make myself stressed with a large goal. There are also a lot of things that have changed in the plot-line, so getting those changes into the story, along with the world-building is very important in this second draft. While it may not be perfect, I have the third draft to fix those flaws. 

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Are you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this July? If so what are you writing? 

-Quinley 

Twenty Years Older: A Letter Tag.

(Images used from Pexels and Pixabay) 

I was nominated by Maith at Maith's Musings, thank you so much for the nomination. I really like the concept of this tag. 😄  Also I was tagged for it right before my surgery, so it made my day when I got it. 😃

The Rules:

1. Appreciate the blogger who nominated you.

2. Mention Gauri@BrighterAlleys the creator of this letter tag.

3.  Answer the question, which is a task to write a letter.

4. Now, nominate five bloggers who you think are worth it. Make sure they know that they are nominated.

         The prompt: 

Imagine yourself to be twenty years older than now. You have become what you always wanted to, and are living your dream. But suddenly, the 'current version of you' pops out of nowhere and asks for some tips. What tips will you give? Write a letter from the 'twenty years older you' to the 'current you' and tell how you reached your goals in twenty years.

- Gauri at Brighter Alleys , Twenty Years Later: A Tag. 

          The Letter: 

Dear younger Quinley, 

You are receiving this letter from the future. Hard to believe isn't it? But I am you, just twenty years older than you are now. (Other differences from you-as-now, are that I am acting in and animating movies and a published author and illustrator...so more differences than just age, but that is beside the point). 

I have advice for you:

If you're feeling run down or like you everything feels hopeless, you should know that you can get through it. It may be hard to believe while you're in the middle of the situation. But you will get through it, and once you get through it you will be stronger than before. 

Don't worry about giving up on your dreams or goals. You never will (especially if you're scared about giving up on them), if you keep working hard, you will get to them. And if someone tells you that you can't do something, prove them wrong. 

Also you don't need to (constantly) remind people that you are committed to something (for that very same reason). You know you what you like doing, and if you're scared that you're going to stop liking it or give up liking it, then (ironically) that means you're not going to give up liking it. You know that, deep inside, it brings you happiness to do, and that is important. 

If you keep working hard on your dreams and goals, you will get to them eventually. It may be hard at times. Some days may be harder than others: some publishers may not like your stories, some animation studios or people may not like your animations, some authors may not want you to illustrate their books, or some people may not like your movies or some casting directors may think you're not the person for the role. But if you keep working hard and pushing through, you will get there. And you may find a publisher who likes your book,  people who like your animation, an author who wants you to illustrate their book, people who like your movie, and a casting director who thinks you're the perfect person for the role. 

Anyway, I hope my advice makes you feel better, 

Sincerely should it be sincerely or love? Uh, I don't know, I'm writing this to myself. 

-(Future) Quinley 

P.S. I may have created an issue in the space-time continuum. Oops! But at least you have advice now, right?? But, I'm fixing this issue now! [Sounds of rumbling can be heard.] Alright everything's fixed. Also, you, um, may have something similar to Star Fleet in your future now...oops. 

       I nominate: 

          Lanie 

          Elena 

          Andrea

          McKayla 

      MiddleEarthMusician 

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      What would you do if you received a letter from your future self? 

          -Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #3

                                         Click here to read the first and the second posts in the series. 

While I don't normally post two drawing posts in a row, I wanted to share some more drawings connected to my last post. My body has been physically hurting recently, so it hurts to draw. Because of that I felt like I should post some of the drawings I did before my surgery. 

In other news for this blog, I have a world-building post (for the Look Into the World series), which I am working on, and which I will post once I finish adjusting some parts of it and adding in some illustrations (after I feel better). Also, before my surgery, I entered in a world-building contest on World Anvil . You can read my entry here. 

And now, since the updates are done, on to the post: 

I decided it would be fun to practice drawing in different styles, and the drawing style the voters wanted me to do was The Cursed Princess Club (which is a webcomic). 

I ended up drawing Oak in that style, and I really like how she turned out in the end. 

This is a drawing I did of the air god. The voters wanted me to draw him in his temple.
I really liked how it turned out in the end. 

This was not a majority vote, but I thought it would be fun to draw Elm in the drawing style of the Cursed Princess Club as well. 

The drawing above was also a majority vote. Voters asked for a drawing of Matilda in the style of Steven Universe.  I decided to take it a step further, though, and ended up drawing Matilda in all different types of drawing styles, just to see what she'd look like. 

And finally, the drawing of Felix in the style of Tim Burton was kind of a majority vote (I say "kind of", because there wasn't really a winning vote on the poll). And  I just thought the drawing Matilda would be fun to do, even if it wasn't a majority vote. 

I really like how they both turned out in the end. 

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Which drawing is your favorite? What would your characters be like if they were in a Tim Burton movie? 

-Quinley 

Using Polls to Create Art #2

                                                       Click here to read the first post in the series if you haven't already. 

This post was meant to be published earlier. The drawings in this post were drawn in 2020, but the post got lost in the drafts on my blog, and I forgot about it until now. (One of the answers on the survey reminded me about this post). 

Anyway, the basic premise of this series is using poll responses to create drawings, using majority votes to decide aspects of the drawing. Unless otherwise stated all these drawings came out of majority votes. 

And here they are: 

This is a good character turned villain. It represents the majority vote in this particular poll (where the choices were between Gletta and Tirfendiel).  Gletta won and poll respondents wanted me to do an evil version of her like I had done with Phoenix and Annabelle. I wonder if her goth style made people think "oh she'd be a cool villain." I ended up changing her appearance as a villain and making it so Gletta is more aligned with what her parents wanted her to be. I imagine she wouldn't be happy this way and perhaps she would use her power (as queen) for bad rather than for good. 

I notice people tend to like to see characters who usually don't dress in fancy clothes, wear fancy clothes. Oak, who is a huntress of Artemis, wouldn't usually wear something like this because she is in the wilderness and it would be bad to get her clothes dirty.  Given that I drew this before I learned how to do figure drawings, I may decide to redraw it in the future using what I learned from figure drawing. 

This is a drawing of my version of Ichabod from a retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow  that I may decide to write one day. I did the poll for this a while ago, around Halloween, and the choice of him going out trick or treating in a halloween costume was what won the vote. However, in 1790s America (which is where his story takes place) trick or treating wasn't established as part of the celebration for Halloween. But even so this was very fun to draw.  I also thought it would be fun to dress Ichabod up as a vampire, because why not? (I'm guessing that Aurinda (a main character in my retelling) probably convinced him to do it). 

The poll that produced this happened around the same time. I decided to have Oak dress up as Medusa, but have everything she wears be made out leaves like her normal outfit is. 

For this one I had people vote on what medium (digital or pencil) I should draw the picture in. Pencil won.  Also, as with the drawing of Gletta, the option of drawing Oak as a villain won. In this alternate universe, I imagined what would have happened had she not joined the Hunters of Artemis. 

Based on the same poll as Gletta's drawing, I ended up with a different result for Tirfendiel. The majority vote here asked to see him celebrating whatever winter holiday exists in his world. Since people in that Fantasy world are fascinated with the spirit world, it is common during the winter months for people to seek guidance from the spirits about the months ahead. 

And though the drawing medium was not voted for on either the drawing of Ichabod or Tirfendiel, I thought I'd play around with using a photograph as a background while having everything else be drawn. (I also played around with the transparency of the layers).   

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Which drawing is your favorite? 

If your character was going to a costume party, what would they dress up as?

-Quinley

YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED: Help Me Improve This Blog.

 

Greetings Travelers, 

 I thought I'd get feedback from you (the audience) on what you want to see in the future. Of course I will still be blogging things that I want to blog about, your answers won't stop me, but they will instead will help me improve different things and there and help me figure out what kinds of posts to make. 

But there are certain things analytics won't tell me, that a survey like this will. So I'd love to hear your feedback. 😉

Here's the survey: 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you're a blogger, what are your favorite topics to write about? And why? 

-Quinley 

P.S. If you're subscribed by email to my blog, in July that widget will go away from blogspot.com. I will be working to find something similar to it, so that you can still get notifications by email.  (If you know something that works let me know.) But if you don't get emails anymore from my blog in July, it's not because I stopped blogging it's because that widget went away. 

The Mystery Blogger Award

 I was nominated by Maith at Maith's Musings and Vanya at Chirps of a Forest Bird thank you so much, Maith and Vanya. 😊

                                                                    The Logo: 

The rules: 

1) Display the award logo on your blog.

2) Mention Okoto Enigma, the creator of the award.

3) Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

4) Answer 5 questions from the blogger who nominated you.

5) Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.

6) Share the link to your best post.

7) Nominate 10 – 20 bloggers and notify them that they are nominated.

8) Ask your nominees 5 questions of your choice, including 1 weird or funny question.

9) Continue the chain!!

Three facts about me: 

1. What inspired me to start writing Fantasy was Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as Nesbit's writing. And what inspired me to write Gothic Horror were the authors Washington Irving, Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, and Oscar Wilde. 

2. I've been drawing and creating stories since I was little. I used paper dolls to play out story-lines. The paper dolls would usually be princesses or mermaids, and I drew them myself. 

3. My favorite Greek goddess is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and my favorite Norse god is Loki, god of mischief. 

My Best Post(s): 

I'm going with the posts I had the most fun making and am dividing them into categories. I've done this because my favorite post is different and wouldn't really show the whole blog itself, but instead just a part of it. 

Acting and improv: 

But Soft What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? and 

Phoenix and Annabelle Get Interviewed For a Villainous Job 

Reviews: 

Play Review: Frankenstein 

Animation: 

Pandora's Box (Animation Project): Scriptwriting, Storyboarding, and Concept Art.

Writing: 

The Fairies or the Faylena (short story). 

Drawing: 

Using Polls to Create Art #1 

(Though singing and songwriting is a thing that I intend to do on this blog, I do not have a post featuring it yet. However, I may have one in the future....) 

Maith's questions: 

If you could travel back in time, which era would you visit? 

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon#/media/File:Akropolis_by_Leo_von_Klenze.jpg)

There are many many different eras in different parts of the world I'd love to visit--way too many to include in an answer to this prompt. But I'll go with a single answer for this: I'd visit Ancient Greece. And I probably would visit the Parthenon and other ancient temples if I went there. 

Which superpower would you like to have and why? 

I've always wanted to be able to shape shift. It just sounds like such an awesome power to have. I mean, I could shape shift into an animal and do things I wouldn't be able to do as a human. 

Also, I may have always wanted this power ever since I read a book about a prince who was cursed to turn into a bird at the most inconvenient times. While it may have been a curse for him, it would be a gift for me. 

What is your biggest and greatest achievement till now? 

I'd have to answer with two things: First, finishing my first draft of The Mystery of the Body Thief, and second, getting into a theatre company that helped me learn more about Shakespeare and acting in general. 

The one book you could read over and over is _____. 

(Images from Goodreads, here and here)

Two books fit this perfectly. One is Igraine the Brave, and the other is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I have read both books many times, over and over again, because they are both so good. 

Which artist would you never get tired of listening to? 

Erutan and Karliene. That's two answers, but I usually listen to their music when I write. Their songs are usually covers of music from TV shows, movies, and video games, though they do write their own original songs, which generally have a Fantasy or Gothic feel to them. Also, Karliene writes about women in history. 

Would you rather experience the formation of the universe or the end of the universe? 

The formation. It would be neat to see the Big Bang happen and see the planets form. It would be such an exciting experience. 

                                   Vanya's questions: 

                       What are your all time favorite books?

This is a very tough question, but I'll create a list of books that are my favorite: 

Fantasy- 

The Voyage of the Basset 

Igraine the Brave 

We Goddesses: Athena, Aphrodite, Hera 

Lord of the Rings 

The Hobbit 

Gothic-

Frankenstein 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 

Coraline 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle 

The Picture of Dorian Gray 

Epic Poetry- 

The Iliad and The Odyssey

The Journey to the West 

And there are others, but I decided not to include all of them.  Because that would probably take up most of the blog post. 

                                          What is your biggest dream ever?

I long to open my own film company and make my own movies that way. That will be difficult to do, but I think it would be really neat.  I also want to act in my own film version of Hamlet, as Hamlet, and I want to make film adaptations of my novels--acting in them (as one of the characters) and directing them. 

                             What is your favorite thing to do in free time? 

I do acting, singing, songwriting, drawing, animations, and writing--pretty much everything I blog about on here. I also do yoga, mediation, doll customization, and photography. 

                                                     Who is your inspiration?

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_McFadden#/media/File:Gates_August_2016.jpg)

For acting it has to be Gates McFadden (who acted in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Dr. Crusher). She was the person who inspired me to do acting. 

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Waterhouse#/media/File:John_William_Waterhouse_001.jpg)

John William Waterhouse inspires my artwork. And Cartoon Saloon (the creators of Song of the Sea, Wolf Walkers, etc.) inspire my animation. 

Erutan, Karliene (who were mentioned previously), and Johann Sebastian Bach inspire my music. 

And the authors who inspire my creative writing vary depending on the genre. 

Would you rather spend a day in home without doing anything or in some old fort?

   Is the fort haunted? What time period is it from? And what area of the world is it in? Either way, yes I'd go to the old fort and go ghost hunting in it. Maybe stay in it over night and see if I'd see any ghosts. 

I nominate: 

Meri Greanleaf 

McKayla

Maya 

Jasmine 

Jan 

Annika 

and anyone who wants to do it. 

My questions: 

1. Would you rather be a mermaid/merman/merperson for a week, or a fairy for a year? 

2. If you could meet any fictional character, whom would you choose to meet? And why? 

3. What's your favorite song to listen to right now?

4. Would you rather spend a month in a house that is haunted, or in a village that is haunted? 

5. What inspired your current project(s)? And how different or similar is your project now from the thing that inspired it? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Who inspires you to create art? And would you also like to spend a day in an old fort? 

-Quinley