Sister City

What happened?

Khrys Thomas — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:31:36 +0000

I don’t know what happened. I’ve had several papers due for school and work has been hectic. I have made some progress on several of my novels, but none of them are close enough to completion to call almost done. I have notebooks full of information about Sister City, but I haven’t had the time to post them here. I hope that when school is out, which granted is not for another 11 months, that I will have more time to accurately chronicle the writing of Sister City unfortunately, until school is done. I will be spending most of my time answering discussion questions and writing term papers. I do have a deadline to finish Sister City as my beta reader, thank god I found her, is leaving for vacation on June 12, 2009. She’ll be gone for 2 1/2 weeks and has asked to be able to read it during her vacation, which, of course, makes perfect sense. She has three plane rides, totaling close to 27 hours. Who wouldn’t want something to read on the plane ride that long? As most people, who can read a calendar will automatically realize, June 12 is only two and some odd weeks away. That doesn’t give me much time to finish. Well. It’s just a draft, but it still needs to be finished in order to get a decent beta response

I think that once I have the first rough draft done and get a decent response from the beta reader that it will be easier for me to go back and edit. I often have a difficult time with the second and third draft, because I constantly find something that needs to be changed. Not just changed, but drastically altered. This could prove to be problematic, especially if more than one person is beta reading the book. Hopefully. And this is just a goal, but hopefully I will have at least 3 to 4 people to beta read this book before I send it to the publisher. Of course, if the publisher is willing to look at it

I am interested in feedback on any of the characters in the book. My biggest fear having written Harry Potter fan fiction is that I will end up with a Mary Sue character.

Now, I am off to edit this post as I have been using my new dictation software and there are some obvious grammatical errors that need to be corrected. I am, however, very intrigued by the software as I have been able to work on schoolwork, while I have been making this post. I am hoping that this new software will allow me to work on the book by allowing me to free think onto paper quickly while I’m doing other things. I tend to have some of my best writing ideas when I’m involved in other things. I have a great set of headphones that apparently work, while NCIS is on TV, and that means I can get a ton of work done while I’m doing other awesomely cool things.

Coming soon…

Khrys Thomas — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:52:27 +0000

A small excerpt. I want to get the character bios posted first, though. Hopefully, I will have some more people following me by then.

Luka Townsend

Khrys Thomas — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:48:42 +0000

NAME: Luka Townsend

Nickname: None

BIRTHPLACE: Sebastopol, CA

HIGH SCHOOL: Analy High School

ACTIVITIES: Football

HEIGHT: 5′11″
WEIGHT: 167 lbs

AMBITIONS: To throw a perfect spiral in a NFL stadium.

THINGS I LOVE: Football, Science and Megan. Not in that order!

THINGS I TRULY DISLIKE: People who can’t see what’s right in front of them.

EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE: A drug dealer for a mom.

FAVORITE OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES: Football and playing soccer with Meg.

FAVORITE MOVIE AND WHY: Varsity Blues. Great football movie and you can’t go wrong with a whipped cream bikini.

FAVORITE ANIMAL AND WHY: This is a stupid question. Like asking if you were a tree, what tree would you be… I like little rat dogs like Sascha, okay. Go ahead. Laugh. Whatever.

Catherine Townsend

Khrys Thomas — Sun, 03 May 2009 05:40:04 +0000

NAME: Catherine Townsend

Nickname: Rin

BIRTHPLACE: Sebastopol, CA

HIGH SCHOOL: Analy High School

ACTIVITIES: Cheerleading, Gymnastics

HEIGHT: 4’10″
WEIGHT: 96 lbs

AMBITIONS: To become a world class gymnast.

THINGS I LOVE: Flying through the air, reading a great book and a guy with a great smile.

THINGS I TRULY DISLIKE: Cheerleaders who think they’re ‘all that’, nosy sisters and chemistry tests.

EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE: A good relationship with a fabulous older brother.

FAVORITE OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES: Jumping on a trampoline and swimming.

FAVORITE MOVIE AND WHY: The Mummy. Brendan Frasier is cute and Rachel Weiss is perfect in her role. The movie has action, adventure, and loads of laughs.

FAVORITE ANIMAL AND WHY: I love the Beluga Whale. So ugly at first, but really beautiful when you stop to look at it’s design and grace in the water.

Cast of Characters

Khrys Thomas — Sun, 03 May 2009 05:00:05 +0000

Guenevere Townsend

(Mom)

Daniel Townsend

(Dad)

Jack Townsend

(Oldest brother – 27)

Inara Townsend

(Oldest sister – 20)

James Townsend

(Older borther – 19)

Luka Townsend

(Twin brother – 18)

Catherine Townsend [Rin]

(Twin sister – 18)

Phaedra Townsend[Bug]

(Younger sister – 15)

Alexander Townsend [Lex]

(Younger brother – 13)

Charles Townsend [Charlie]

(Youngest brother – 6)

Phelps Townsend

(Baby – 4)

Marcus Stephenson

(Only child – 18)

____________________

Rick Stephenson

(Marcus’ father)

Megan Hull [Meg]

(Luka’s girl/soccer player – 18)

Shelby Vance [Babs]

(Gymnast – 17)

Sophie Bates

(Cheerleader/Marcus’ girl – 18)

Laura Ashley

(Cheerleader/Marcus’ girl – 18)

Patrick James Buckley [PJ]

(Football player – 18)

Sarah Dunham [Peanut]

(Cheerleader/PJ’s girl – 18)

Robert Ochoa [Bobby O]

(Football Player – 18)

Shauna Gamble [Pumpkin]

(Math Geek/Bobby’s girl – 18)

Oliver Stafford [Oli]

(Football player – 18)

Trisha Sykes

(Cheerleader/Oli’s girl – 18)

Kirk Conley (Injured)

(Football player – 18)

Giancarlo Varanini

(Gymnast – 18)

Evie Nieves

(Gymnast -20)

Sebastian Stuart [Basher]

(Gymnast – 20)

Maria Mueller [Momma]

(Gymnast – 23)

Caroline Norman [Rollie]

(Gymnast – 14)

Leena Maron [Lee]

(Gymnast – 18)

Noah Lester

(Classmate – 18)

Luis Moreno

(Football – 18)

Shawn Fields

(Football – 18)

Martin Mueller (2nd) [Marty]

Maria’s brother

(Football – 16)

Greg Moss

(Football – 18)

Alejandro Cortez [Alejo]

(Football – 18)

Scott Rose

(Football – 18)

Javier Mendoza

(Football – 18)

Sam Curtis [Sammy]

(Football – 18)

Jose Sanchez

(Football – 18)

Mike Sullivan (Injured)

(Football – 18)

Tim Blair

(Football – 18)

Sean Wallace

(Football – 18)

Scott Watson

(Football – 18)

Joe Dawson (2nd)

(Football – 16)

Roger Gibbs [Rog]

(Football – 18)

Frank Gilbert

(Football – 18)

Clarence Thompson [Larry]

(Football – 18)

4-21-09

Khrys Thomas — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:22:30 +0000

Here’s to unoriginal post titles! I was going to come up with something witty for each post, but I’m afraid that would seriously stress my creative genius. Ha!

I sat down today to work on developing more of a solid time line for the book. Also thinking about the different events and who might or might not be there.

A tentative outline or the book begins in the “present” and then flashes back to when the main characters met (10 years before). From there, it follows them (the main characters) and their families and friends through some of the most important events in their lives. The book ends up in the “present” (2012) and ends up at a birthday party (I think)…

I’m a big fan of writing two sets of time lines. I first set a chronological time line for the entire book. Then, I set what I like to refer to as a location line (or a loco-line for short).

A chronological line is pretty self explanatory, eh? You pick when your book was set, then decide how much time you want to cover. If you’re attempting to cover days, you can make your chapter increments small (like periods of hours. If you are attempting to cover many decades, you can make your chapter increments larger (say, five or ten years at a time).

Now, if you’re trying to cover a ten year span, like I am, you might chose to center a few chapters in the beginning on introductions. Then, you might choose to center a chapter on each of the ten years. Then, you could center the remaining chapters on the “present” time and move the story through its remaining plot.

It is important to note that while the first chapters center on the “past”, they are not merely back story. These chapters are imperative to demonstrate the character of each character. They show the intricate relationships between the major and minor characters AND they provide the necessary history to make the “present” plot plausible.

Now that you have your time line down, you need to create your loco-line to fit it. Sometimes tweaking is necessary to fit the major events fir the chronological time line. For example, when you have a character having a baby (and you have already chosen their DOB when you designed them as a character, and their DOB needs to remain the same) that falls in the same year as another major even in another major characters life the chronological time line may need to be changed to put two events (in two separate chapters) in the same year and skip another chapter based on the next year..

Here is an example of one of my early time/loco lines

8yo New family moves into small town Sebastopol

9yo Younger brother is born Kaiser Hospital

10yo Camp Sonoma State University

11yo Another younger brother is born Kaiser Hospital

That’s all for today. I’m off. Character posts one at a time next.

First Post

Khrys Thomas — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:54:48 +0000

I just wanted to update everyone with a bit more information than is available in a Tweet. Feel free to follow me on Twitter, though, for smaller updates. SisterCity2012 is how to find me!

I am in the middle of the final days of one of my classes in the Master’s Program at UoP. While I fully intend to get back to work as soon as the ball of stress releases my head, I need a few days before getting into anything in depth. My characters are sitting there, rather impatiently, waiting for me to get back to them. In fact, the glossy blue cover of my laptop calls to me right now as I sit at the “school” computer.

Alas. I must finish school before I can get back to my own little world where a Dr. Pepper can ruin the prom.

Be back soon!