Important Questions

Since we’re already discussing witchy things, I have a question to open up to Tumblr. The magic workers in my book series currently go by the title “druid”. (At first they were just called “witches”, but for some time I was concerned about offending people and just switched it to “druid”.)

ANYHOW! I want to hear all your opinions, because I am considering changing it AGAIN. Maybe even back to the original one. 

For context, the magic workers in this series are heavily tied to nature, to the point where some claim they can feel the earth’s rotation in space. Some are born with such magical abilities and others have to purchase magical things.

So which word do you think would work better for these people: witches, druids, magi, or a completely new title? 

Or does it really not matter?

My Lips Are Sealed!

As it turns out, I can’t actually view anyone else’s post but my own. I can like it, but I’m not allowed to see it while logged in. And when I attempted to log in to WordPress Support to ask what the problem was, it decided that I don’t actually exist. That’s a nice fact to know, I suppose.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Explaining Things

Somebody asked me the meaning behind my url recently. I think maybe this is a good time to actually explain it, so here’s what I responded:

“The meaning behind it? Well, one of the biggest parts of writing [for me] is my faith. And I want to use my gift to help society, to help them see what’s wrong [with them] and fix it. So I’m like a messenger angel, and sometimes I have to be really brutally honest in my writing to get people to understand. I have to get my wings dirty. That’s what blackwingedgabriel means.”

So why do you write?

What drives you to write? Reblog and discuss. I’m curious about the answers this could get.

Liebster Award!!!

I have just been awarded the Liebster Award. I did not see this coming at all, and super thanks to http://cloveramerica.net/ for awarding it to me! It’s especially cool to get it in the middle of a massive metamorphosis of the blog. The concept of the blog has evolved so much from my original plan. Can’t say it’s a bad thing either!

So, what is it? The Liebster Award is community-based, and qualifying blogs must have fewer than 300 followers. It’s a great way to discover new blogs and bring them to the attention of your readership and the Blogosphere.

Once nominated, you answer 11 questions about yourself or your blog, then give 11 random facts about yourself. The next step is to nominate 11 more qualifying bloggers for the award and create 11 questions for them to answer. Then you must visit each blog you’ve nominated and inform him/her about the award.

So here are the 11 questions from http://cloveramerica.net/, along with my answers:

1.  Why do you blog?
It started as me wanting to get the word out about my writing, but I’ve met so many awesome people on here since that point. Now it’s become a hobby.

2.  What is your deepest fear?
Oh, that’s a deep question. I have way more insecurities than I should, but a big one is rejection.

3.  What was the first thing you ever wrote/created?
I started drawing when I was about two, but my first creative writing piece was from when I was eight. It was a journal entry from my cat’s perspective It’s pretty funny even now!

4.  What is your most prized possession?
Probably my laptop or my Bible. But I have a Bible on my laptop, so probably my laptop.

5.  What is number one on your bucket list?
Go to Scotland and find my great grandparent’s home!

6.  Coke or Pepsi?
Coke! I was raised in a Coca-Cola loving family, so it’s sort of ingrained in me now. But I still enjoy a good Pepsi from time to time.

7.  What is your favorite historical time period?
It’s a tie between the French Revolution and the later Victorian era.

8.  What inspires you?
Life constantly inspires me! Life itself is beautiful and fantastic, and most of the scenarios in my stories are at very least inspired by true events.

9.   If you saw a crime in progress, would you put yourself in jeopardy or seek help/call 911?
I would probably try to do both. The better question is which one I would do first, I guess.

10.  If there was one thing in your life you could re-do, what would it be?
As many bad things that happened that I could change, I don’t think I would change anything. I am a firm believer in the butterfly effect. Who can say what would happen if I had just changed one tiny thing? I might accidentally start World War 3!

11.  What do you hope people get out of your blog?
I want them to be able to think and laugh, basically.

And these are the people I’m nominating, each of whom has inspired me in one way or another:

1.   http://onwritingdragons.com/

2.   https://atolkienistperspective.wordpress.com/

3.   http://pintsizefiction.com/

4.   https://akankshagulia.wordpress.com/

5.   https://pisscoffeeandvinegar.wordpress.com/

6.   http://aetherealengineer.com/

7.   https://johnguillen.wordpress.com/

8.   https://benjaminditmars.wordpress.com/

9.    http://forwhomthegearturns.com/

10.  http://lscott76blog.wordpress.com/

11.  https://butismileanyway.wordpress.com/

Finally, the eleven questions for my nominees to answer:

1.  Why do you blog?

2.  Favorite music?

3.  What would be your perfect day?

4.  If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

5.  Favorite author?

6.  Coke or Pepsi?

7.  What is your favorite historical time period?

8.  Read on a Kindle or paperback book?

9.  Who would you want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?

10.  Favorite color?

11.  What do you hope people get out of your blog?

Thanks for playing and best of luck to you all!!

Midnight Musings

I have been a bit of an insomniac in the past couple nights, so here’s a late night blog! I have no idea what’s about to go down in this blog, but here we go!

For those wanting to track the craziness, check out the 1 AM Tweets Facebook and Twitter that I made for other insomniacs. I may change the name to Insomniacs United or something like that if I get more admins.

With all the insane late night things going on, I decided to keep a record of my thoughts from the previous night, some of which I put on the Twitter I mentioned above. And the things that run through my mind are probably some of the most interesting things that I don’t even know if I can answer or understand to their fullness even in a completely awake state.

The gist of the first question I recorded is whether pure colors actually exist, even at the molecular level. At the time I was talking about chocolate because I love chocolate. Is chocolate really brown at all, or is it a rainbow of colors at the point of atoms? Can we really say we have a favorite color? (Mine are silver, black, and red, by the way.) Perhaps such questions are silly. After all, it doesn’t matter since it’s only light waves of different wavelengths.

The second question that entered my brain, which doesn’t work with just about any religion, was whether everyone on earth could be one person. This seems like an odd question at first, but consider it. If reincarnation truly exists, should it necessarily follow the laws of time? What would stop it from sending your soul back in time or even hundreds of years ahead of your existence? What if it went into the baby version of your child once you died? What if the souls of the two people who made you were in fact your own in different forms? I can think of many reasons why that couldn’t work, but it is an interesting theory. If I didn’t have a religion already, I would make that one.

The third question regards mortality itself. What is immortality? Is it not the ability to keep on living until something stops you? If that were the case, aren’t we technically all immortal? Think of the legendary vampires. Vampires, according to the legend, must be killed with a stab to the heart, a beheading, or being lit on fire. But wouldn’t that kill anyone? I could say the same for humans, really. “Well, they don’t die unless their bones just stop working under them, or they get hit by a car, or stabbed, or shot, or etcetera!” We’re all immortal until Death one days tells us we no longer are. That’s my philosophy.

Most of the rest of the questions regard what to do in the Soldier Chronicles, the series that I’m working on now. Thanks to recording these late-night thoughts, there are going to be FAR more plot twists, betrayals, and character quirks / developments than ever before! In this universe, nothing is surety to happen. The most good good-guys may become pure evil. The most bad bad-guys may become saints. And everyone is equal in the eyes of Death himself.

Thanks to these late-night ideas being recorded, I have planned all the way to the very last book (Book Four) in terms of plot twists. Not all of them have been planned, but a great deal of plot and twists have been planned already. The final one no one is going to believe that I planned this far ahead, so while I have been home visiting for Winter Break, I have asked my mother to keep the final plot twist hidden away so that I can prove it later. Indeed, the great game changer is already set in motion, and no one’s going to see it coming.

Except me.

I’m going to see it coming.

Probably.

And the rest of the psychoticness is recorded on my 1 AM Tweets page. Insomniacs are welcome to join. We shall rule!!!