MOVING

I’m moving blog sites for certain reasons. Here’s the new link: http://lucasraalpay.blogspot.com/

Trinity Book 2: Solace of Truths (Official title)

That’s right! The title that speaks to me, the title that is OH so right for my book 2.

And it only took me two years to think of it ;)

“Two years, why, Jace, that’s a darn long time”

It is, and with all that I am it sucks greatly. Naming the book one alone was a pain it the… behind. ‘The Divine Wheel’ is the right choice although in my own opinion, it has no appeal; I mean, who would buy a book that the series title is TRINITY and the book 1 is named ‘The Divine Wheel’. It just too… um, holy.

But it isn’t just holy. The book explains some link about Science, that’s why the first sentence in the book is “There are many universes, there are many you”, an idea I got from the Multiverse theory.

(For the humans who read book 1, if you didn’t read book one, well I’ll just wink at you. SPOILERS)

Going back to book 2.

We all know that the last page of book 1 an oracle had a prophecy given to her by the angels. She said that there’ll be a Death and a Ghost. I don’t want to say much but I’ll just offer you a glimpse on what book 2 is all about.

This came directly from the raw version of book 2 (THIS IS MY IDEA! <unprofessional):

Ghost – a ghost is formed when the anima either had a deal with his/her death or escaped the assigned death. They haunt a particular living or a group of people to send a message or a warning. Ghosts are found either in the place of their deaths or the place where they feel they are home or attached to.

There are different emotions ghosts have which is magnified after death, some are destructive some constructive. They are unpredictable, for their consciousness is already blurred, but that depends on what kind of ghosts are being dealt with.

There are two kinds of ghosts, the contracted ghosts and the Rogues:

Contracted Ghost - This is a type of ghost where after his/her forty days stay in the physical world after his/her death had a contract with his/her assigned death. What the Ghost’s purposes depends on what the anima and his/her death agreed upon in the written bounding contract, and the rules is never constant.

There are still studies and research about Contracted ghosts that could help in understanding their very nature. They are sometimes called as Intellectual ghosts, able to communicate to the living, even to touch an actual object.

An example of a contracted ghost is: Polly Helfte during the 1967 trial of Luminia – her ghost demanded justice for her murder. She haunted a man named Jake Messiltok, and he was the way for her ghost to be quieted. She waited for seven years ever after the killer was found and accused guilty. A happening of the unrefined.

Rogue Ghost – A type of ghost where completely lose their humanity so as consciousness, they are just fragments of their former self. They are animas who escaped their deaths after their forty days stay in the world. Their haunting is quite different and weaker than the contracted cousins of theirs.

They are widely studied and Ghoestologist have accounts on their different behaviors. Sometimes they are called the residuals.

And the Death:

In the books of Evialiah 3:12-14. Deaths have been said.

As I turned forth to the seven ghosts, seven skulls cloth in darkness stood by them. The Naturalities, holding in its right hand a scythe of the ages; the Murders, holding in its right hand a scythe of betrayal; the Accidentalities, holding in its hand a scythe of no reason; the Suicides, holding in its hands a heavy net ten folds huger than the fisherman’s; the Reapers, holding in its hand the scythe for the shouldn’t(s); the Terminations holding in its hand a basket of the young; and the Poisons who holds two swords of the other kind of death.

That’s all for now. And before I forget, tomorrow I’ll be editing Chapter 7 already, so wish me God Speed. ;)

And oh, I love Video games

Vampires and other monsters

As I said before that I’m in an online hibernation… well, looks like not so hibernationy (<stupid coined word) for me after all.

But now, let’s talk about vampires.  

I think the past years we were in the verge of the Vampire mania, scratch that, we were in the vampire mania. Yep, that time I was soo fascinated about them (Twilight(1^st movie)!!! Sequels? Meh), especially after I watched “interview with a vampire” back in 2000(?), their monstrosity just spoke to me. The idea of the story and the conflicts of such fantastical creature inspire me sometimes in writing, but that doesn’t mean that I write about them. I don’t even read much about them.

They’re great monsters––I mean––vampires… (nods slowly*) scary. But I think we need a new kind of monster. Something more terrifying, deadly, a trickster of some sort––

I remembered watching ‘the thing’ (1982), now that’s a monster. The head with a long neck attached to a disgusting spiderlike body left me in nightmares when I was a kid. I want that, I need that kind of monster, but more horrifying.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking (or not), that I already have some monster like that. But sadly, no. I have yet to find that monster that bring nightmares even to adults :D.

Anyway, in a partly related topic, here’s my short short about a vampire.

A Real Confession of a Contemporary Vampire

By: Arthur Johhansen

There was a huge dark home just sitting around in the outskirts of a hidden town, I was dirty and gothic but I was home. I am a vampire living for a thousand years more or less, I forgot my past life, I forgot the people I cared for and the people I killed. I traveled the world searching for others––others like me. Do you believe what I’m saying to you? You wish…

I live at a small apartment which I rented last month; my current job is an assistant editor in a magazine you haven’t heard of, somehow my job sucks (Hate it). My current age is 89 but I look younger than my age… maybe 26 more or less. Well, many envious old timers there asked me about my secret, and my secret is that I am… um… a vampire.  It’s up to you if you’ll believe me but I’m truthful and I just want to take this out of my chest.

First thing first, we are not called Vampires we are called Vampyrs. I don’t know who coined ‘Vampires’.

During the past decades I saw these… imagery of vampires permanently etched on the minds of the people: pale faced, cold skin, sharp K9s, hypnotizing stare, super strength, and a charming face (well I could enumerate some, but this would do for now). I mean, WHAT the heck! What we truly looks like in real life is just like a normal person, and nothing more. Yes we are pale, but not pale all the time sometimes we became tan, and I like tan, I really do (artificial tanning, because too much exposure in the sun can cause us severe sun burns, I hate that also). WE DON’T HIDE FROM THE SUN, actually we love the sun, we don’t suddenly burst in flames because of it.

Another is our craving for blood and our craving to kill for blood… Oh crap, yes we do crave for blood like (you) humans crave for a vintage wine… or drugs (mostly drugs). We got drunk when we drink the red stuff, with no hang over, unlike homo sapiens. I did not kill anybody for blood, because I don’t want to be in jail and be raped… and I’m not a bloodkard/drunkard. We eat human food like you humans do, we just aged slowly.

I have to tell you, I’m not that charming, unlike what other books says. I haven’t gotten laid for a year… fine, two years… three months… fourteen days…

Anyway, my eyesight its 320 in my left eye and 200 on my right, my eyeglasses is out of date now. I’m old, yes, but we’re not immortal! We vampyrs also DIE NATURALLY, like humans, we just live far longer that a normal person. And another thing, we don’t get scared when we see a cross, actually I’m a catholic since birth. I visited the Vatican city 40 times, unlike other catholics. AND WE WON’T BURN FROM SOMETHING HOLY.

Last week when I visited the book store (which I haven’t done for the past years), I saw the shocking truth. There are a bigger section of vampire books on every store, WTF, there were hugger collections of it (I know it’s all fiction but… WTF) –I’m just saying…

Well, I hope many read this shit. The reality and fiction are now blurring guys. And one last thing WE DON’T TURN TO BATS. =D (<smiley face)

Thank you for reading.

For the love of writing

For the love of writing I’m in a current state of online hibernation; after that I’ll wake up and eat the hell out of advertising my book (whatever that means).

Now, I’m currently working in strengthening the flow of my chapter 5 of the book 2. And yes, It’s all in all 27 chapters, ranging each chapter with those 5k words at least. Mind you, the time a writer spent in thinking a plotting is just the minor part, by that we’ll be having that writing frenzy.

That’s the second draft, Oh but, dear… editing he second drafts sucks and I’m in the hell state in writing.

It’s the part of writing that you’ll see how crappy you write. Trust me, I know. Right now I’m reading a paragraph and I’m saying to myself “who wrote this sh*t?” yep, I’m harsh to myself like that. I mean, every combination of sentences is in chaos, and I need to set the order.

Chaos… Order… (sorry, I’ve been reading Rick Riordan’s Kane series. AND it’s a good book!)

Also, I found some technicalities in my first book, I lowered the price until I post the revised edition of the “Edition 2” wink* (<I don’t know why I did that…)

Anyway, hopefully doing the third drafts would be easy as I remembered.

Trinity: Book 2 preview

Something to look forward to ;)
Still undecided about the title though.

... And a Movie!

Today, I realized why there are publishers.

We all know that a writer writes, an agent are the bridges towards publishing, and publishers… well, they publish. And they advertise. Which clearly a field where I suck, or maybe just too lazy to do. To be honest, the reason for this post is because of my dismal sales.

No sales for a week.

Yea that’s right. And it don’t inspire obviously. I watch my ranking to go higher and higher each day (I don’t do it for an hour, not that too obsess with that). I told myself not to look at the rankings, but there some unknown force that’s pulling me to do it.

I believe with all I am that my book is good––Who else would do that for me? Who else would to that for a writer with no means of support from friends?

I’m in a stage of being a melodrama, no, I’m in that stage now.

Anyway, let’s be transparent with my sales for a change.

During the first month, I had a good run. I had 2 to 3 downloads per day which brought me to the top 27k in paid kindle store. Not too bad for an unknown with did not do any extensive advertising. Then in May, I had 2-5 downloads per week, but it stopped during the fourth week until now. My ranking is in top 307k. Yeah! (<sarcasm)

I’m not complaining. There are forces that result to this which I could not control. I’m just saying. I promised that if I have a single review, I’ll finish book 2. So here it is, something that cheered me even to this very day. A five star review.

Saying this book is incredible would be an understatement. It's been a while since I have read a book from a new author and was satisfied by the end of the book. That only happens if the story is awesome and male character is a he-man and the length of the story is long. That doesn't mean I am not Quivering with anticipation for the next book in the series but the length of this novel makes me optimistic about the length of the next one. The plot is interesting and the characters enjoyable. Although now that i think about it aside from the character the rest were basically hollow. Some of the ideas were a little confusing like what makes the Septuagint's the good guys and the Oneianecrons the bad guys. All I got from the story was the Septuagint's somehow or another keep the balance between light and darkness and the Oneianecrons don't. There are some other confusing things as well but I basically ignored them until i could draw some inferences about them. Other than that it was an awesome book. I don't know about other people but all I care about is the story, I can and have occasionally ignored a lot of stuff to read a book. This book has romance, action, fantasy, comedy, weird creatures, magic, and much much more. I gave the book a five out of five and you would be depriving yourself of a very enjoyable story if you don't read this. Here is to hoping the author sells a lot of books and writes the second book soon.

This alone keeps me writing. The idea that a stranger would love the story you created seems to be overwhelming even if no one cares about it. All I need is that one that does.

So why writers write?

I thought I know but now I don’t have a single clue.

So I keep asking the past days. Why do I write if no one cares? Why do I spend time in front of a computer numbing my finger tips for threads of prose that only a few people would see? It’s one of my life’s mysteries I guess. (like why a thread in a forum called a thread, and other nonsense questions)

I still have a thousand reasons to stop. As dumb as it sounds… I still don’t.

The reason just eludes me.

(For any readers who downloaded my book and found this blog, I’m half-finished editing chapter two of book two. Also I’m already doing its cover.)

To summarize what I feel right now, here’s a song.

I love community (with every fiber of what I am) BTW.

Six seasons and a movie!

5,385 views and 3,209 downloads!!

YEA!!!

No...

Sad to say, this is not the number of downloads of my book nor the page views of this blog. It’s an artwork that I created to represent that Leonardo da Vinci himself can see angels/spirits and created an anatomical study of them.

It’s on my deviant art. At first, I thought the number of people viewing it and downloading it would decline as the epic strands of time passes by. But no, both views and downloads is still increasing every day. Oh I hope that would convert into sales, because I’ll be a happy boy if that would happen.

I studied Da Vinci art by myself, thanks to the internet and ‘the little book of Leonardo da Vinci’ I came to know how he drew his sketches; those fine strokes he did and the amount of detail he gave to them. He also have some notes, which I don’t understand up to now, so I just scribbled unknown words to the art work I made ‘The Muscleanatomy of an Angel’.  

I try to imagine a possible joint-lock not directly at the wing bone but instead to the upper arm socket or at the shoulder. I gave how wings flex and created the thickness of muscles as it contracted. I even pointed out the angles and the limits of the wings when they are stretching out. all based on how da Vinci depicts a study. But I didn’t caught an actual angel and dissect him/her, okay? (wink, wink)

Here’s my sketch: