Shalikan Update 6/4/2013

There were three chapters written, but I decided the first chapter should be split into two, so now there are four chapters out of 31 planned chapters (30 before chapter split). I had gone over the chapter numbers and discovered I had skipped a number when I was changing 30 to 31. 

So far I have the last chapter written as well as the first three chapters, but before I go any further into the story, I'd like to redo the first three chapters.

More information on Shalikan AND Tate's Travels can be found here at my author website

A few interesting links

There are a few links I would like to share.

Google Earth Driving Simulator -Using this and Google Maps for Tate's Travels
Free Payroll calculator -Always a handy tool
Sunrise Sunset Calender for a year
Monthly Sunrise Sunset Calendar -Using this one for Tate's Travels. Helpful as I don't want to write that she is bicycling after sunset, before sunrise or wasting hours.
Time Calculator -Adding up minutes, seconds and hours

Packing tips  -A site that gives tips on how to pack anything from china to food before a move
25 tips and tricks for everyday life -I especially like #1, #2, #4, #16, #20, #22, 23, and #25
75 uses for baking soda
Severe Weather Tips
DIY Home Improvement tips


To find out more about Tate's Travels: http://purplewaxhand.wix.com/tonyafister

Blog background theme

As Replaced is set the desert in Southeastern California, I decided to have the background  reflect that on here as well as my author website.

I also plan on matching the background of the site to at least one theme in each book.

Update for Defiant Hydrogen and author website

Update:  Both the Defiant Hydrogen Blog and my author website will be undergoing layout changes over Labor Day weekend.

Replaced: First Chapter

                                                  Chapter One

There is a diminutive city resting within a corner of its particular little world.

This city does not have a formal designation, for the developer or any other human beings have not given it one. This small city lies nestled at the foot of a small mountain.

The mountains have no snow on the peak, nor did they ever have snow on the peak of them, unlike mountains in Colorado. At the halfway point of the mountain, going to the foot of the mountain and going through said town, is an unnamed river.

This river is rather large in proportion to the town with no name. This town with no name has a very small population and seems to have a few buildings that are absent.

The missing buildings in question were not stolen, for they, on no occasion, had ever been there. The buildings that are missing are not important, but they will be there anyway.

There is a public library on the northern side of town, as one would leave to visit the mountains. No one ever crosses the threshold of this public library nor does anyone ever exit the library.

It is a high quality built library, but does not possess any books or furniture in the interior.

Supposing that you were in the air and floating at will over the small city, across the town to the south side of the city, and in sweeping your gaze from city block to city block, your eyes come to rest upon a man.

He is somewhat short in height in contrast to most people, but that does not trouble, inconvenience or worry him. Nothing bothers him.

He wears a small custom made electric blue cardigan sweater, which he does not need, bell bottom pants, which fits him in a satisfactory way, custom made oxford shoes, that are almost the customary color of oxford shoes, but slightly lighter, but he does not wear any socks. His hair is a burnt sienna, but from the way it looks, the hair might as well be painted on.  He is thin, but not emaciated, sturdy enough to remain upright on his own two feet, which are glued in place on the pavement.

He has been standing in this one spot for a week and a half now, but he has not moved from this one spot.

Under no circumstances has he slept, for he is never tired, never raised one foot like that of a flamingo, or an egret or a heron in order to give his foot a rest, never sat down, never laid down, has not even moved one part of his body even to blink for he does not have any functional eyelids.

His hands are, to some extent, outstretched at a forty-five degree angle from his body, but he does not think anything odd of this. He faces the street as though he is looking back the on the route he had taken to get to this spot, but he had not come from that direction or any other direction except up.

He had come from the sky of this small city, rapidly and lightly coming to rest on this one spot. If he could look up at the yellowish white sky of this world, he would be able to see the bright motionless sun of this small municipality.

The sun of this city unexpectedly stopped shining without forewarning for days at a time. The people of this city did not panic or stray from whatever it was they were doing.

When nighttime fell upon the city when the sun went off, nobody could see anything as the streetlights of this small town did not work.

Nothing in this small town worked as it had been supposed to. The people of this small town never seemed to be aware that nothing from the doors (which never opened); to streetlights to even, the cars themselves never worked the way they were supposed to

Suddenly, large white, very wet, slightly cold globule of something fell from the sky and landed on the man on the street corner by the nonfunctional fire hydrant, covering him from head to toe. A small portion of the globule also landed on the fire hydrant.

If the man could feel anything, he would almost certainly be disgusted, taken aback or incensed even.

If he could speak, he would have most likely expressed his opinion on the subject of him being covered in a disgusting gummy substance. If he could move, he would have wiped his face free of the offending substance and would have walked the silent, nearly empty city in search of a working shower, which he would not find.

Instead, he stood on the street corner and did nothing or said nothing as a voice from the heavens rang out and the silhouette of a giant fell across the path of the silent, still man on the street corner by the fire hydrant that did not work. 

Replaced: Riverbrook, California

Riverbrook, California in Replaced is a fictional town where the main character, Samuel Khoder lives.

I went to look up information I had written down for the town, only to discover that I no longer had it. I wanted to find where I had decided Riverbrook would be and an hour later after searching through Replaced itself for clues, and my best recollection of where it was on Google Maps, I 'found' Riverbrook once more. I'm just glad I put it near the Salton Sea.

After first settling on a location near the interstate, I noticed it was near a city named Riverside. I had considered moving Riverbrook elsewhere, but decided to keep it right where I put it.

The geographical coordinates for the north entrance to town is: 33.54435,-115.494193. I do realize it is in the desert and there are mountains around, but viewing it from above on Google maps, I am reasonably certain the town can fit within that area without cutting into the mountains.

Gas Line Road would turn into Tree Street, until it leaves town and becomes Gas Line Road once more, while Bradshaw Road becomes Main Street while running through town before going back to being Bradshaw Road.

I had used graph paper to chart the town streets, making them nice and straight, but as I'm sure you noticed Gas Line Road is at an angle and Bradshaw Road curves.

I guess the streets of Riverbrook will have to curve with them? There are streets named after the zodiac, a couple fruits, flowers, two cities in Egypt, trees, a Sims 3 action and two Doctor Who references.

Anyway, the 48 streets of Riverbrook from North to South going East and West are as follows:

Riverbrook Way, Virtue Parkway, Seashore Boulevard, Aquarius Lane, Aries Road, Cancer Street, Capricorn Boulevard, Gemini Way, Leo Street, Libra Lane, Pisces Hill, Sagittarius Road, Scorpio Way, Taurus Road, Virgo Street, Horizon Road, Origami Boulevard, Oriole Road, Chateau Lane, Lemon Street, Apple Path, Alien Road, Canoe Flip Road, Main Street, Cliff Side Road, Science Lane, Torpor Road, Sweden Street, Shalikan Street, Hope Road, Dolly Lane, Flower Parkway, Aster Lane, Forget-Me-Not Street, Longevity and Prosperity Drive, Lobelia Lane, Love Street, Marigold Road, Nasturium Boulevard
 Woohoo! Street, Lion’s Pride Lane, Rome Street, Zoom Drive, Neith Road, Harkness Drive, Christie Lane, Van Gogh Road and Westcott Lane.

The 36 streets of Riverbrook from East and West that go North and South:

Chewy Road, Globe Way, Shakespeare Lane, Poet Road, Writer Boulevard, Sunday Street, Monday Way, Tuesday Road, Wednesday Boulevard,  Thursday Hill, Friday Road, Saturday Parkway, Fairfield Drive, Lennox, Road, Ash Street, Oak Street, Poplar Street, Tree Street, Hickory Street, Acacia Road, Alder Way, Lime Street, Willow Road, King Size Road, Kitten Street, Puppy Road, Lamb Lane, Owlet Landing, Candy Drive, Memphis Street, Weeping Angel Road, Knowledge Way, Wisdom Landing, Hardship Boulevard, Experience Street and Cheeseburger Lane.

I wonder how the town would actually look like overlaid onto that area...

NaNoWriMo?

I mentioned NaNoWriMo in my previous entries without clarifying what it was to those who had probably never heard of it.

For those who aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:

NaNoWriMo is a yearly event in November in which participants challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in one month starting 12:00am November 1st and ending at 11:59pm November 30th.

The name NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, but anyone around the world is welcome to join.

NaNoWriMo was started in July of 1999 by Chris Baty, who then moved the event to November.

In 1999 NaNoWriMo started out with 21 participants and in 2011 it had over 250,000 participants.

Participants start out with either no outline, a vague outline or a structured outline, but the writing itself has been described as seat-of-your-pants writing.

December is known as a month for both finishing the novel, if participants hadn't already finished it in November, as well as a month for editing.

NaNoWriMo has inspired many timed challenges, which can be found at this wiki page.

There is also National Novel Writing Day (not an official challenge), where participants set aside a period of 24 hours and write. Most aim for 50,000 words, which would be a minimum of 2,084 words each hour.


My first experience with NaNoWriMo was in November of 2003. I don't remember how I found it but I read about what NaNoWriMo was on the site itself, thought about it, wrote up a quick outline the next day and then started participating the day after that on the 7th.


I won with a finished novel that was a little over 50,000 words with an hour to spare. I found it to be fun and exciting and decided to do it again the next year.


The following year I found I wasn't that interested in participating, but enjoyed reading posts in the forum, especially the nanoisms.


Looking back I realize I participated in NaNoWriMo every other year, except in November 2011, which was a month after my husband and I moved here to Washington state.


I do intend to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year as I have about 16 other book ideas I would like to flesh out. 


There was one year I decided to write 17 novels in 11 months just so they would no longer be just sitting in my computer gathering dust, but I realized I needed a break from writing after that year's NaNoWriMo so I never attempted doing so, just as I never attempted NaNoWriDay myself.


Perhaps I will one day.

The thing about Replaced...

The thing about Replaced is that it is actually supposed to be the third book in a six-part series. Not a sequel to the first two, but they are all in the same universe. Well, HOTM (name will be said at a later point), the sixth book, which I haven't written yet, is the direct sequel to TQFTHOK (name will be said at a later point), the fifth book in the series that I came up with first for the NaNoWriMo in 2006, which was the second time I participated in NaNoWriMo.

The one that was come up with first is the fifth book, the one that was come up with second is the sixth, the third one, Replaced, is actually the third book in the series and is being published first, the first book was thought of fourth, the fourth book was fifth and the second book came about sixth because I really liked the name of the first book's main character's grandson's name when I did his family tree for the book ending.

The reason Replaced is being published first is it was completed, as the actual first book in the series, Shalikan, had only two chapters to its name, the first and last chapters, as well as a finished outline.

I believe I started Shalikan for NaNoWriMo of 2010.

So, While I'm waiting for Replaced to go into revision rounds, I'll start on Shalikan.

First post: Replaced

I wrote the first 50,000 words of Replaced in November of 2009 for NaNoWriMo, then a took a four month break from it then continued writing the other half of it in March of 2010 before finishing it in April of 2010.

Replace sat in my computer for a little over a year before I showed it to my husband, whom I had met in January of 2011. He, despite not being much of a reader, sat down with it and read a few chapters.

When he was finished he told he like it and then asked when I had written it. When I had told him how long it had been sitting in my computer he then asked if I wanted to get it published, in which I had said yes and since then he has been trying to prevent me from procrastinating on getting it published, while telling almost everyone he met that I had a novel coming out before we moved to the state of Washington, where he found some more people to tell.

Here is the back of book synopsis for Replaced:


     Samuel Khoder is the CEO and owner of a local paper distribution company living in Riverbrook California in the year 2057. His life is uprooted when he is shot and left for dead by someone previously unknown to him. 


     He wakes up in the house of his best friends to find that his life has been taken over by an imposter. With the help of his friend Horace, a doctor, and Horace's wife Debbie, a makeup artist, Sam endeavors to take his life back without raising suspicions.

Right now the publication process for Replaced is at 65% and in the next two to three weeks the revision rounds for the book will start.