Helmut Thielicke quote

"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

Proverbs 31:30

C. S. Lewis quote

"Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes everyday and death of your whole body in the end: submit (to God) with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life."
-C. S. Lewis "Mere Christianity"

Friday, August 23, 2013

Epic

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  My family and I just watched Epic today for the first time, and let me just tell you: IT WAS AWESOME!!!  It was one of the best movies that I have ever watched!  It compares to a Disney movie, that's how good it was!

My father at first was wary of watching.  He thought that it would be lame and childish (and my father loves animated movies), but boy was he in for a big surprise!  I would recommend this movie for all ages!  From young child, to old aunts and uncles.  Yes.  It was that good.  Believe me.  Epic was... epic!  A movie for all ages!

My two favorite characters are:  MK (Mary Katherine), the main character.  She somehow gets shrunk (by the queen of the leafmen) and is given the major responsibility of protecting a Pod, the next queen.  And then there's Nod, a rebellious ex-leafman, who assists MK and the head leafman, Ronin, try to get the Pod to safety.

The movie had a really good plot and the animation was absolutely stunning!  And we didn't even watch it with the Blue Ray!  One of the themes that was going on in the movie was, "There are many leaves, but one tree.  No one is alone."

This movie was comparable to Rise of the Guardians, which was a very good movie also.  I rate Epic 9 out of 10.  A great family movie!


Angelina Zoe

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

At the Coming of the Dawn

This book only has a chapter written in it so far.  It is a really sad book, and I hate writing sad books.  But alas, I can’t help myself.  I love to make my readers cry as they read!  I like it when the tears stream down the reader’s face, making agonizing sounds.  If you think I’m bad, you should see the stuff that my fellow writer, Mel N. Cholly, writes.  It is absolutely heartbreaking!  Heartbreaking, I tell you!

Believe me, this is going to be a really, really, really, really, really, really, sad book.  So read on, readers, read on...

Angelina Zoe



               It was the third of July, that dreadful day, when my life was turned upside down by a powerful rainstorm and a misery so great, and so painful.  The day that no one will ever forget.
               It started out as any other sweltering hot day in June on the island of St. Simons, Georgia.  My father worked in the lighthouse as the lighthouse keeper, and my younger sister and brother and I lived with him in the little house that was attached to the bottom.  Being the eldest, and the strongest, I helped my father in the daytime with the keeping and cleaning of the light.  During the afternoons, when the sun shone, our father would sleep and prepare for the upcoming night.  At night, father would stay up and tend to the light, and during the day it would be my responsibility to take care of my brother and clean out the glass and mirrors that reflected the huge light at dusk.
               It wasn’t a hard job, cleaning the lights, but it was tiresome.  In order to get the glass to shine like the sun, I had to lug two buckets full of soapy water up five, winding, steep, flights of stairs.  I’d never complain, though, because I know what father does every single night, and has done for the past fifty years. 
               It was the night before the third of July when my younger brother, Elroy, and I were sitting on the jetties right on the ocean.  It was almost dusk and a storm was brewing to the east.  The clouds above in the sky were an ominous black color, threatening to break open at any moment, and I could hear the distinct sound of thunder in the far away distance.  It was faint, but I could still hear it. 

               I should have known that trouble was brewing.  I should have known that something bad was going to happen.  I could just feel it in the air as it whipped at my face, stinging my watering eyes.  Elroy tried to persuade me to get inside the lighthouse before the storm started.  But what did I say?  I told him no.  No.  Why did I not listen to him?  Listen to my heart?

Under the Cover of Darkness

Under the Cover of Darkness is sort of an experiment book for me. It started out as a spy book, but then it turned into something different.  It wasn’t supposed to be a book about family coping together in hard times, but it did.  I did not have control over my characters!  It was my idea to make it spy, but it was David’s (the main character) idea to make it a touching story.  Well, I never win arguments with my characters.  So... David won and it’s now a sentimental book. 

Angelina Zoe


               David Cruse walked out of his bedroom and into the tiny kitchen in the three bedroom apartment that he and his three siblings lived in.  His younger, and very mischievous, little brother, Noah, was already at the table, trying to scoop as many Lucky Charms into his mouth as he could.  Next to him slouched in the chair was his other brother, Brian.  
               Brian was a tall, skinny, fifteen year old with streaked blond hair that had natural highlights of red and sea blue eyes with green specks in them.  Pimples freely populated his face, and he had little, white pieces of toilet paper stuck to his skin where he had cut himself shaving.  He wore a stained, once white undershirt and grey, gym shorts that were too short for him and were pulled in many places.  “Nah, I’ve been up for a while.  You just can’t tell my by sleepiness.”  He followed that phrase with another loud yawn.  “Hey, where’s Molly?  I was sure I heard her little voice somewhere this morning.” 
               David shrugged, picking up a marshmallow rainbow from the table that had escaped from Noah’s overfilled bowl.  “She and Noah woke me up this morning.  I haven’t seen her since.  She’s probably in her room.” 
               Noah nodded eagerly.  “Yup.  She’s in hur woom, twying to hide from me.  We were pwaying hide and seek, and I towld hur to hide.  And then I was hungwy.” 
               “And you just left her still hiding,” David asked, looking at the little redhead with question in his eyes.
               Noah nodded and noisily slurped the milk from his bowl so that there was only cereal left.  He wiped his milk moustache with the sleeve of his dinosaur pajamas and smiled.  “I’ll go get hur once I’m done.” 
               “Which will be in, like, forever,” said Brian, taking the bag of Lucky Charms cereal and pouring a bowlful of it into his mouth. 
               David sighed and watched Brian.  “Come on, Brian.  Really?  Use a bowl, dude.”
               Brian crunched noisily and looked at David, shrugging carelessly.  “It’s a waste of dishes,” he said through his loud crunching.  Or at least that’s what David thought he said.  It was kind of hard to tell what he was trying to say with him eating and all. 
               Noah laughed at Brian and started to do it himself, jumping out of his chair and onto the table, trying to grab the bag with his chunky hands.  But David quickly snatched it away before Noah could pour any into his mouth.  “Nuh uh, Noah.  You know better.  You have much better manners than Brian.”
               Noah stuck out his lower lip in a pout and plopped back down in his chair.  “Bwian did it,” he whined, rubbing his face. 
               “Yeah, well you’re not Brian.  You’re Noah.  And Noah has better manners than Brian.”  David placed the Lucky Charms bag in the refrigerator on the top shelf where Noah couldn’t get it and went to go sit back down at the table.  Noah wasn’t pouty anymore and was now scoffing down the rest of his mushy cereal.
               “So,” Brian started the conversation, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms around his chest.  “What are we going to do today?”
               David shrugged while he took a napkin and wiped up Noah’s milk mess.  “I dunno’.  What do you want to do?” 
               Brian’s smile was replaced by a sad frown, and his eyes became gloomy.  “I’d like to... to visit mom,” he said quietly, his voice becoming hoarse.
               Noah suddenly looked up from his eating and furrowed his eyebrows, complexed.  “Visit mommy?”  He asked, cocking his head sideways.  “But I thouwht that she is in heaven.” 
               David smiled sadly and nodded his head.  “Yes, she is in heaven, right now.”
               “Then how can we visit her?”  Noah’s face still had remints of cereal and milk stuck everywhere.  
               “Brian means where she is...” David sighed heavily and looked at the little redhead. 

               “Where she is buried,” a soft girl’s voice finished David’s sentence.  It was his little sister, Molly.  

Not Alone (title pending)

Not Alone is the fantasy book that is the sequel to Alone In the Dark.  It is going to be a series of three books in all.  That is if I get them all completed.  The second one is mainly about Fëllon Xrëeon’s (the main character from the first book, Alone In the Dark) daughter, Žashŧä.  Yes, I know.  The name looks very fancy.  Almost too fancy.  But I had fun creating it.  :)  Here is an expert from Not Alone.

Comment and tell me what you think of it!

Angelina Zoe


               Žashŧä leaned her head back against a branch of the tree she was up in and sighed deeply.  She drew out a dagger hidden from somewhere on her person and flipped it in her hand, muttering as she did.  “‘Princess’ don’t flip daggers in their hands, Žashŧä dear,’” she mimicked her mother in a high voice, making a sour face.  “Well you know what, Mother?  This is one princess who does!”  She hurled the dagger with all of might forward, hitting a tree in front of her.  It hit it with a thunk and was rooted firmly there. 
               “What do you think of that, Mother?”  Žashŧä growled as she pulled another dagger from her boots.  She flicked her wrist, still holding the blade in her hand, and licked her lips.  “When am I ever going get out of Yilla and into the real world?”  Žashŧä sighed, hating the life she was living now.  She never wanted to be the princess’s daughter.  She wanted to be normal.  A normal, twenty-one year old elf.  But that was impossible, being the granddaughter of the king of Yilla.  Everyone wanted to serve the granddaughter of King Glandias, and no one would ever leave her alone.  No one.  Not even her own mother. 
               Žashŧä made another face as she thought about her mother.  Her father wasn’t bad, she admitted to herself.  He didn’t raise her the way that the ancient elves of Yilla had raised all of their children.  He did it the way he thought best.  And that is where her mother and father didn’t always agree on.  Life just isn’t fair, she thought to herself.  I’d rather be a villager, starving and not having enough clothes than to be the Princess Aurïa’s daughter.
               She flipped the dagger again in between her fingers and hurled it right next to the blade she had thrown before.  She needed a way to vent her anger, and this wasn’t enough.            
               Suddenly, Žashŧä was aware of another presence near her.  “That’s one way to let your anger out,” a voice from behind her echoed. 
               She turned around quickly, drawing another dagger, and suddenly stopped when she recognized the elf.  Sitting in front of her, twenty feet from the ground, above in a tree, was her father, garbed in black.  She sighed, relieved she didn't hit him accidentally, fueled by her anger.  “Father?  What are you doing here?”  She asked, looking at him with her quizzical blue eyes that still had anger behind them.   
               Fëllon adjusted himself on the tree branch he was sitting on and gazed into Žashŧä’s face.  She knew that he was thinking she looked so much like her mother.  That just made her sourer.  “I've come here to see you, my dear.  Why else would I be here?” 
               Žashŧä didn’t meet his piercing black eyes and turned away from him, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Not a lot of people can sneak up on me like that,” she mumbled, staring at the decorated handle of her dagger.  It had an intricate design of two wolves under the three suns of the far away land Freelane.  
               “It is a gift of mine, sneaking up on people.  And it is much easier when that person you are sneaking up on is angry or absorbed in troubling thoughts.”  For a split second, Fëllon thought back to his adoptive father who taught him the meaning of stealth.  But only for a second.  “Žash, what’s bothering you?” 
               Žashŧä sighed angrily.  “Mother!  Mother is what’s bothering me!  I can’t be with her for more than a minute without her telling me what to do and what not to do!  You don’t know how annoying it gets!”  She brought her dangling legs up and held them close to her chest.
               “She is your mother,” Fëllon commented, leaning back a little.  “And you owe her your respect.” 
               “You don’t understand, Father,” Žashŧä whined, putting her hair behind her pointed ears.
               “Oh, yes I do.  You should’ve seen your mother before you were born.  Even before we were married she was giving me orders!  Ordering me around like a slave!  Like I was her personal bodyguard.”  Fëllon lifted an eyebrow and smiled.  “Then again, I was her personal bodyguard.”  
               Žashŧä gave him a wary look and narrowed her eyes.  “You are just making that up.”
               “No, I’m not.  If you think she’s bossy now, it’s only because she loves you so much.”  Fëllon paused for a moment and then went on.  “If she didn’t care about you, then do you think that she would worry about your future?  Or her wanting to bring you up as mothers bring up daughters that will soon rule Yilla?”
               Žashŧä’s expression didn’t change at all.  She still held the dagger in her calloused hand and looked at it wistfully.  “She wants me to stop sword fighting.”  She then looked up at her father with pleading eyes.  “Father, you know how much sword fighting means to me.” 
               Fëllon nodded slowly, looking at her thoughtfully.  “No one said that you had to stop it if you didn’t want to.  Your mother just expressed her unhappiness with it.  That is all.” 
               Putting her dagger away, Žashŧä unfolded her legs and let them swing again.  “I guess I never thought of it that way.”  She was quiet for a while, pondering on what her father had just told her.  “I, uh... guess I should go talk to mother.” 
               Fëllon nodded, a hint of a smile on his handsome face.  “That would be a wise thing to do.” 
               Žashŧä shrugged and stood up unsteadily on her thick branch, holding her arms out for balance.  “I guess the sooner the better.”  Then she quickly added, “But I’m not going to repent.  Just talk to her.”
               “You’d better be quick about it.  You know how your mother can worry.”
               “Oh do I ever!”  She jumped from the branch and clung onto another one further down, doing that for each level of branches until she got down to the ground.  “Are you coming?”  She called up to her father.

                “Yup, I’m coming!”

Alone In the Dark

Here’s an expert from my fantasy book Alone In the Dark.  The book is completed, but it was written for NaNoWriMo.  Yeah, that tells you everything.  Right now it is under construction.  I’m about half done with rewriting it.  Yay!  So it’s almost there!  Halfway!  

If you’d like to read more, comment and I’ll have more.  

Angelina Zoe


Fëllon held tight as Ash, his dragon, pointed his body upwards, flapped his wings with powerful strokes, and straitened his thick, spiraling tail, pushing him higher in the air.  When they were far away from the dark and foggy Black Mountain and above in the bright sky, even with the clouds, Fëllon let go of Ash’s spike and extended his arms, holding on to the dragon’s body with his legs and closing his eyes.  
Fëllon saw Ash turn his head slightly to look at him - careful not to let that slight movement affect his flying - and saw that he was very much in his ‘happy time’ right now.  “How long has it been since we have done this,” Ash asked, lifting his right wing a little to turn.  
Fëllon opened his eyes and shrugged.  “It has been awhile since,” he replied, dropping his arms to his side.  “Sorry I haven’t had much time for you lately, Ash.  It’s just that Lord Ȅrräd expects so much from me now.  He has doubled my dark arts training!  Can you believe that?”
Ash nodded.  “He knows you don’t like it.  That is why he does it.”
Fëllon looked down at the scenery below - a bright green forest with a small lake in the center - and sighed.  “He thinks he can harness me with black training, but...”
“But it’s not working.  For him or you,” Ash said, leveling his wing with the other.  
“I don’t know what he thinks he can accomplish making me learn the dark arts.  I mean, if he’s trying to make us closer, then he could just, you know, say so.”
“What has he decided now to make you so upset with him this time?”  Asked ever-knowing-his-young-charge-Ash.  
“He wants me to go to Yilla and pose as the Yillan princess’s bodyguard.  He wants to make sure that she doesn’t succeed in getting the White Mountain dwarves to join the war against us before our forces are ready with ‘The Cannon’.”
“Well that can’t be so hard.”
“It isn’t.  It’s the fact that he just orders me around like a... like a... a slave!  I’m not his slave.  I think the reason he’s doing this is because he wants to see me fail.  He thinks I can’t succeed in anything I do.  He thinks I’m not such a good heir to the throne.  He just wants to test me to see if I’m anything like him in the ruling department.” 
“I don’t know if that is the reason, but I do know that you two are as different as a rainforest and a desert.”
Fëllon sighed, rubbing his hand on Ash’s side.  “I know that.”
“Well, that’s because you aren’t a moronic Mernic.”  Ash chuckled at his little joke and then grew serious again.  “I remember the day that Lord Ȅrräd brought you to the Black Mountain to live with him.  You were just a baby, all pale and pointy eared.”
“Yeah, I know I know.  He didn’t have an heir to the throne so he needed one and he found me.  I’ve heard that story many times.”
Suddenly the world around them changed as Ash dove downwards into the little clearing in the sunlit forest with the small lake.  He slowed down as he hit the ground and gracefully brought his wings towards his body.  



My Novels

Right now I have about a hundred and a half books going on; in my head and in the process of writing.  Every time I watch a movie, or read a good book, or go to some inspiring place, I get an idea for a book.  *Sigh*  And unfortunately that also means new characters develop in my mind!  I don’t know about the average writer, but the worst thing for me is to think of a character and get excited about them and their future, or what they will accomplish, and then have to throw them away to a place in the back of your mind labeled, “Forgotten and Not Remembered... Ever Again.”  It just kills me when I have to do that.  It’s like murder! 

But back to the subject of books.  I’ve gotten off track thinking about my “lost” characters.  There are only three books that I’m working really hard on right now.  One is finished but undergoing major deconstruction and rewriting.  And when I mean major, I mean major!  It was written in exactly 29 days.  One word.  NaNoWriMo.  Need I say more?  The second one is the sequel to the one that’s being rewritten.  And the third is sort of what I call a spy book.  Although it has nothing to do with spies.  Just crime.  But just the word spy makes the book instantly cool.  Like what Jase from Duck Dynasty always says.  “Adding camo to anything instantly makes it cool.”   For me the quote changes to this.  “Adding the word spy and ninja to anything instantly makes it cool!”  Oh yeah... :)  Here are a few main outlines from some of my books.


Alone In the Dark
Genre: Fantasy
Completed, but under major rewriting

He was found as a child, abandoned and alone, by a dark lord and was raised as an assassin in the dark arts.  His play toys as a child were curved swords and battle axes; his playmate and best friend was a scaly dragon and his neighbor was a deadly bounty hunter.  Now at nineteen years of age, Fëllon Xrëeon is sent on an extremely important mission assigned to him by the dark lord Ȅrräd.  Make sure the elven princess doesn’t succeed in her ally mission.

The dark lord Ȅrräd is gaining power over to the west of the peaceful elven providence, Yilla.  His army is growing stronger every day and the elves know they need to prepare for an attack.  The princess of Yilla is sent by her father, the bold King Glandias, to convince the neighboring dwarves to join their forces.   The journey is dangerous, and the princess will need an accompaniment; an accompaniment and a mysterious bodyguard, named Fëllon Xrëeon.     


Never Alone (title pending)
Genre: Fantasy
Uncompleted
Sequel to Alone In the Dark

Žashŧä Xrëeon hates the life she has now.  As the daughter of an elven princess, and granddaughter of the King of Yilla, she is expected to be a lady, and a feminine lady at that.  But she doesn’t want to be a lady.  She wants to be a swordmaiden.  She wants to lead an army of Elves, not sit in a stuffy castle, learning what to do and not to do.  Her chance comes when the supposedly extinct race of vicious Mernics rise to power with a new leader.  Yilla doesn’t stand a chance against the rising Mernics, even with her allies of Gnomes and Dwarves. 

Fëllon Xrëeon, along with his daughter Žashŧä, in a desperate attempt to stop the attacking Mernics from destroying their beloved city, travels to the ancient country of Uörmiaŋ where there are sure to be more troops.  Along the way some mysteries start to unravel... maybe even the mystery of Fëllon’s shadowy past.       


Under the Cover of Darkness
Genre: Modern day fiction
Uncompleted

David Cruse is your typical college student who lives with his family until he can get a job.  That is until his mother falls ill and dies.  He is then left with three younger siblings to raise, care, and provide for.  But money doesn’t come easy where David lives.  Will David Cruse choose the path that will lead him down to ruin and destruction, or will he use his faith, the faith that his mother instilled in him when he was just a young boy, and get through these hard times? 


The Iris Windr
Genre: Fantasy
Uncompleted
Co-authored with Mel N. Cholly and Anastasia Cross

The Elven island of Virialis has been peaceful for the past many years since the wicked Snaidraug Elves were banished from the kingdom.  Since then, only peace and happiness has ruled over Virialis.  But it is not to last forever.  The king and queen of Virialis are murdered, along with the three protectors of the royal: the ancient race of the Iris-Windr. 

Chaos and havoc wreak Virialis as the three new Iris-Windr try to cope with the murder of their former mentors, and the new responsibility of protecting the only royal left.  The princess.  As they try to unravel the mystery of who killed their beloved mentors and the princesses parents, other secrets start to unfold.  Dark secrets. 


At the Coming of the Dawn
Genre: Historical fiction
No synopsis yet.  Idea still not fully developed.  I think I have writer’s block on this book!  Ironic, isn't it?

Journey Into the Shadows
Genre: Fantasy
Almost completed

Ian Ilias, a vagabond, along with his twelve year old companion Cedric, is hired to steal important official documents for the kingdom of Nossalia.  He is supposed to steal them from the princess of Yamalif, Nossalia's sworn enemy.  But along the way, Ian finds out some disturbing facts.  About his country and himself.           


I will have an excerpt from each book in the upcoming posts.  I hope you find these titles and synopsis quite 
interesting!  Thanks for reading!


Angelina Zoe 

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

My Random Life

Hi!  My name is Angelina Zoe, and as you probably can guess, yes, I am a writer, and yes, I often say and do very random things.  This is my first time ever having a blog!  Yeah, I'm new to the party.  Although I do write on another blog about conquering and momentarily defeating writers block.  Can I get an amen?!  Anyone?  DEFEAT THE WRITERS BLOCK!  :D

So anyways, I love writing!  I've written over a million books, but I've only finished about two.  It is so easy starting books, but so hard to finish them!  Ahg!  It is so overwhelming, all these novels that I've started buy haven't finished.  Either I've lost the inspiration for them, or else I haven't the patience and lost interest in it.  Yup, that's the sad life of a writer.  It's very agonizing when having to put that novel, and especially your well loved characters (I'm tearing up just thinking about them [*sniff sniff*]), in the back of your mind, or in the trash!  Thinking about my forgotten characters makes me want to bang my head against my laptop and cry, trying to get the inspiration for them back!  But I can't do that.  This is my only laptop and I don't want to have to replace the keyboard.

Anywho (I stole that from my bff!), my other hobbies include: ballet, pointe, tap, reading, writing (obviously), watching movies, singing, playing the guitar, playing the piano, playing the ukulele, emailing, blogging (very new), trying to put down my competitive spirit, um... I like doing a lot of things.  I LOVE EATING CHOCOLATE!!!  CHOCOLATE!!!  Ahem... sorry.  That was, uh, the other side of my chocolate eating self.  I will devour anything in sight that's made out of chocolate!

Please forgive my sudden outbursts...

This blog is also dedicated to the glory and the advancement of Jesus Christ!  I am a true follower of Jesus and I believe in giving Him glory through all that I do.  In all I do I hope to bring a smile to His face.

With that in mind, I hope you enjoy reading, and hopefully following, this blog.

Always,

Angelina Zoe