Crimson Sterling's Blog

Hello, everyone!

I am in the process of re-combining my work, which means I'll be getting rid of "Crimson Sterling", and joining my Crimson titles back with my Alexandra Lanc titles. This actually makes it easier on me, I've learned -- but we all have to try things to see if they work, before we can make changes.

I hope you'll stop by my website, which I am about to finish refurbishing, and that you'll follow me here on GR under Alexandra. Thank you for reading!

Website: http://www.alexandralanc.com

Best Wishes,
Crimson~

Photo not mine; found via Pinterest. Hello, dear readers, and welcome!

I know I've been a bit silent lately, but I have been far from static -- quite a lot has been going on. Some of you may have seen the news about my websites being remodeled, so I'm here to talk a bit about that, and to talk a bit about life.

We all go through periods of change, I think; change is our way to reinvent ourselves, to grow, to weed out what works and what doesn't. In the midst of change, however, I t...

Hello, dear readers, and welcome!

Today, NaNoWriMo asked for help in inspiring the writers of tomorrow (and yay for NaNo 2014 and beyond!), so here I am to give some advice and inspiration! Wherever you are in the time-stream, I hope that this post makes you smile, and makes you want to write!

So, here we go!

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To A Future Writer: The Importance Of Being You

Hello, dear, future writer – this post is for you, and for me, and for everyone who is already writing; this po...

Hello, Allegiants! This post will introduce you to a new W.I.P. (work in progress) that I will be posting, bit by bit, on the site.

A little about how W.I.P.s work: as I write the story, I will clean up chapters and post them, one by one, to this blog, where you can follow the story (chapter order can be linked to easily on the Works In Progress page)! When the story is finished, it will go through editing (where it will no doubt be tweaked, scenes added/subtracted, etc.), and then the final draft will be posted in document form on the site in full.

About "Lock and Key" ~

"Lock and Key" is a story from the Convergent Kingdoms Universe, starring Lokea Kingsbury and Iliris, first introduced in Midnight Terrors. The story gives insight into the Kingsbury Family, some of Lokea's backstory, and her relationship with Iliris and her Blood-Brother, Zarrod.

Working synopsis: "The eerie voices of living shadows have been haunting Lokea Kingsbury for over a thousand years, as she struggles to let go of the losses she has suffered, but with the rise of the Rogues, and the welcoming of the human Knight Blood, the voices are becoming louder than ever, threatening to drag her into their depths. Struggling to come to terms with what she deems to be her weaknesses, and facing her fear for the future, Lokea searches for a light and purpose of her own, finding surprising strength in one of the things she has always hated: humanity.
A story of family, love, and the connections we form, "Lock and Key" is about discovering the strength within oneself, letting go of loss, and discovering the strengths within others."

Please enjoy the story! I've also posted my (first) concept art for Lokea at the end of the post, and on the Convergent Kingdoms Gallery page, as well, with more art to come! I will also be doing a cover for this story, and will post that when it is finished...

Read more at: http://www.crimsonsterling.com/open-w...

Photo not mine; found via Pinterest. What does it mean to be creative?

I'm sure if you ask, you would get a different answer every time. This, I believe, simply lends to the fact that we are all creatively different, and that we all have new things to bring to the creative world -- which, as I try to often say, is a good thing.

But if we take this question, and delvedeeper into it, it can lead to the related question: how can we be creative?

For this, too, everyone seems to have different answe...

Hello, dear readers, and welcome!

Some of you may be new to this site, some of you may havebeen here before, and some of you may be long-time fans --whatever the case, thank you for stopping by! I hope you'll stick around and become part of the Allegiant family (that is, an extremely wonderful fan; if you're wondering where I got the title Allegiant from, you can readMidnight Terrors on the Convergent Kingdoms Universe page).

In case you don't know muchabout me, my name is Alexandra, and I am...

Photo not mine; found via Pinterest. Click for link. Hello, dear readers, and welcome!

Today is an interesting, and in some ways sad, day for me -- saying goodbye to Writer's Wednesday officially. I have very much enjoyed writing these posts, and seeing how they have inspired others, and I will definitely be writing more about writing, just not in this weekly or bi-weekly format (I do not do well with schedules, apparently, despite my orderly OCD,contradictorily).

Thank you to everyone who has...

Photo not mine; found via Pinterest. Hello, everyone! Welcome to Writer's Wednesday. Long time no see!

When I realized that the first Wednesday of May was two weeks away from the last post I did, I was a bit shocked, but here we are for Writer's Wednesday again, and I hope you're looking forward to the post. I liked this post so much, I put it on the Alexandra Lanc blog, too, so there's only one post for today.

First off, some IMPORTANT NEWS (with caps, to make it even more important): May will...

Photo not mine; found via Pinterest. Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Writer's Wednesday!

Today I have a great post, inspired by the always inspirational Madeleine L'Engle, and my own writing life. Also, be sure to check out the Alexandra Lanc blog for "Taking Time For Your Story To Become".

I've added some pages to the website this week! After starting my RedBubble store, I made sure to make a Merchandise and Designs page,where you can glimpse and link to my work on RedBubble (and more, co...

This post has been taken from my new website page. There is a link to it at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!

Hello, dear readers and friends, and welcome to Project Hooked, where I will catalogue my journey through writing my (unofficial) Peter Pan sequel, Hooked.

I have a long, long history with Peter Pan -- in fact, I would say that his story is more than likely one of the first stories I was introduced to. I'm sure, like many others, I saw the Disney film first (I love classic Disney films, wonderful or not), but my first real run-in with Peter, that I remember strikingly, was in a play held by my school.

I went to a private school, which housed kindergarten (and pre-school) through senior year, and it was the older kids who were putting on the play. Looking back, our drama director must have worked very hard to get the rights to perform it, and it was a big deal because it was the first "real" play the school had put on (followed by the theatrical version of "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe", where I played a statue and was part of the White Witch's army, but that's another story entirely). My mother worked with the drama teacher, and my brother was taking part in the play -- his best friend, in fact, was playing Smee, comically dressed in a striped jail outfit. The drama teacher's daughter played Peter, and I was there for practically every rehearsal, still very young. At that time, I wanted to perform in the theatre, so it was exciting -- and even more exciting when the drama teacher showed me how to help man the spotlights, one of which created Tinker Bell! It was my first real taste of the theatre, and though it's been many, many years, I remember it like it was yesterday.

During the first performance, many things went wrong, as they are inclined to do -- most memorably, one of Peter's tights had a run that turned into a hole, and someone had to go to the store to get a backup pair. But I remember manning the the stage-left spotlight all by myself that night, and seeing the story come to life before me, and falling madly in love with it.

I think perhaps then was when the idea for my novel was originally planted, though it would be a few years yet before I would even begin shaping the plot.

Fast forward to 2003, when the last (to my knowledge) live-action Peter Pan film was released. I recall, some months before the film was due to come out, walking into my local cinema, before I even saw the trailer, and seeing the wall-hangings (large ones, too) they had decorating the foyer, Peter grinning down at me, as if he knew something that I did not. I was elated once I realized that they were doing a Peter Pan film, pointing the wall-hangings out to my mother and friends whenever we entered the cinema with glee.

I was so excited when I walked into that film on opening day, I could hardly contain myself...and when I walked out, I was grinning just like Peter, and something had definitely changed.

It may sound laughable, I suppose, but I definitely believe that just about anything can be inspiring, and that we all have things that are important to us, whether or not they seem ridiculous or even childish to someone else -- and Peter Pan is very dear to me. As an author, I hope that one day one of my stories means this much to someone else, and I hope that Mr. Barrie would be proud that his story does mean so much to so many people, even now.

So, back to the cinema, and the film, and the changing: yes, something had changed within the course of that film. Though it's not entirely like the book or play, I still love it, and watch it regularly. I could praise the acting, or the fantastic soundtrack, or the directing, or the visuals (especially the lighting!), but the one thing that really struck me in the viewing of the film was the portrayal of one of my favorite pirates: Captain Hook.

Jason Isaacs plays my absolute favorite rendition of Hook (again, not entirely like the book or play, but rather closer than most renditions; I like the Disney Hook, too, but he's certainly more of a parody, even opposite the original in many ways), and may be one of the largest reasons that idea planted by the Peter Pan play ever took off. Once I came out of the film, I simply knew that some day I had to write a story about Hook (or, at least one where he was a main character, more than in Peter Pan). Most people will say that Peter is their favorite character in the story, but not so for me; I love Peter, surely, but I don't love him nearly as much as I love Captain Hook.

Maybe it's my affinity for villains, or my love of pirates, but whatever the case, when I walked out of that film, I knew that one day, I would give Captain Hook his own story -- and I had a plot in mind.

Fast-forward more years, to late 2012. I was sitting at Five Guys with my mother (in case you've never been, it's a hamburger place; they make great hamburgers, very good), and we were talking about the different story ideas I had, and what I might work on next, now that my newest Christmas story (under Alexandra Lanc) was released.

My mother had heard about the Peter Pan story before many times, but as we sat there I divulged a little more, and we joked about different things I could do in the story. Most of the ideas were silly or ridiculous, which my friend told me as I texted her, but some of them were good, and I kept them -- and more importantly, I decided that day that I would, officially, though I was a bit nervous, write my Peter Pan story, and bring it to life.

Fast forwarding a few months found me in a used bookstore, scouring the shelves for an unabridged copy of Peter Pan; I had decided, when I'd made the vow to write my story, that I would not write it without reading Peter Pan (originally called Peter and Wendy) first, because I wanted to be -- and still want to be -- as close to the original as I can, and honor Mr. Barrie's hard work as much as I can. I happily bought the copy, and carefully took it home, with the kind of reverence that one reserves for special things, but I did not read it until summer rolled by, at the most opportune moment.

That summer, I took my first cruise, and brought Peter and Hook along for the voyage. It was perfect because not only did I have plenty of time to read (in a small, polished library with pictures of ships that looked very pirate-y), but I gained first-hand experience as to what a ship was like (nicer than a pirate ship, sure, but it's still a ship), what an island was like, and my friend and I had plenty of time to plot my story. Like magic, my ideas began to blossom, and when I returned home, I couldn't wait to start penning Hooked...the title I had decided on.

I wrote a little over 40,000 once I returned, spending a good amount of time researching pirates, Mr. Barrie and his inspirations, the history of Peter Pan, and just about anything else I could get my hands on, with Hook in the TV show "Once Upon A Time" egging me on -- as I said, I wanted to make this story as special, and as honorable, as I could, and I still do. But, after those chapters were written, I hit a roadblock. I have said this in other posts, but 2013 was a very difficult year for me, both writing-wise, and in my personal life. I in no way wanted to stop writing Hooked, but at the time I was not penning anything good due to my struggles, and I didn't want to write it if I knew I wasn't doing my best...and so I waited.

Fast forward again to March 2014, not too terribly long ago, as of this writing. I was getting ready to release Midnight Terrors, working on editing Eternal Dark, when -- I woke up one morning, and wanted to write Hooked so bad that it was nearly painful. But, I told myself that before I got back to the story, I needed to re-read what I had written, re-read Peter Pan, and finish Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens; I needed to do this right. So, after a few reading sessions, and an inspiration-filled time at Disney with my plotting-friend, I once more started writing Hooked.

As of this writing it is April 1st, 2014, and Camp NaNoWriMo has started. I am working on Hooked for Camp (hoping to write 30,000 of my intended 120,000...yes, this is a long story), and wanted to create a page on my site to both keep track of my work, and to share it. I hope you enjoy witnessing the creation of Hooked, and I thank you for going on this exciting journey with me. Feel free to comment, and please check back for more.

Until next time, keep dreaming!

You can follow the progress of "Hooked" on my website: http://www.crimsonsterling.com/projec...