2018 April/May/June Update:

As you know, most of the year I publish 2 to 3 articles a day.

However, every year during convention season, I take a break from that to go full swing CosPlay.

From early April 2018 to late June 2018, article posting schedule will be sporadic, while CosPlay Season and Convention events are going full swing.

During this time period, you can expect most, possible all new articles to be focused on costume making, CosPlay, and the characters I'm CosPlaying.

UPDATE: It's now divided into 7 pages. The primary page "Meet Avallach" is now over 20,000 words long. At this rate, it'll cross 60,000 long before the costume is finished, and that's not including the other 5 pages. The primary page has now crossed 60,000 89,000 words and counting, the whole set of Avallac'h pages are now more than 200,000 words long, and more then 500 pictures of Avallac'h and his friends have now been uploaded on these pages, plus there are now 400+ hour-long videos f the costume making process as we record live, every second of this insanely elaborate, over the top CosPlay project.

As of May 19, just 29 days to PortCon we are embroidering his blue coat in a countdown against the clock to finish in time for the event, while we pray that The Dazzling Razzberry will be re-weilded back together and drivable in time for PortCon, after it's recent vandalism by Old Orchard Beach's ever growing Ku Klux Klan problem.

There will still be daily updates, but the BULK of the daily updates will be limited to the pages linked here:

  1. The Avallac'h CosPlay: Who is Avallac'h?
  2. Obsession: Meet Avallac'h
  3. [NSFW] Avallac'h & His Nude Women | Witcher 3 Game Screenshots
  4. Historical Accuracy vs Avallac'h (to go live later this summer)
  5. The Avallac'h CosPlay Costume Making Vlogs (will go live AFTER finishing the costume)
  6. How To Make The Avallac'h CosPlay (will go live AFTER PortCon)
  7. How Much Did It Cost? ($800+ will run to around $3,000) Budgeting The Avallac'h CosPlay (eing written as the costume is being made, will go live after completion of the costume)
  8. Why do children CosPlay rapists & rape victims? & WHY Avallac'h is a M18+ character. 
  9. PortConMaine 2018
  10. On Being a Handicapped CosPlayer: A Look At Events of PortConMaine 2017 That Resulted In 3 Disabled CosPlayers Getting hurt at The Convention and How These Things Could Have Been Avoided



EK's STAR LOG
CATEGORY ARCHIVES:
NaNoWriMo Overachievers:
Top 25 Clichés in YA novels
(A NaNoWriMo Post)

As has been requested (endlessly) EK's Star Log is returning to the internet. You can still read the original archive here... https://eelkat.wordpress.com 

The reason you couldn't find it is because I set it to private un-index mode, meaning it no longer shows up in Google search results and can only be accessed by a direct link.

Meaning, if you didn't have the url for it, no amount of searching for it would tell you how to find it. Anyone who had the url could still access it though.

I had set it to private September 23, 2013, intending to move each page here to EelKat.com... however, November 14, 2013, after only moving about 30 pages, I was beaten up and left paralyzed for 5 months, then spent 18 months relearning to walk. I am still crippled and have limited mobility.

Below is one of the blog posts that originally appeared on EK's Star Log. The original articles are still online but no longer indexed in Google. Links to the original article, are included with this post, as is the original posting date. Clicking the links will take you to the original site, where you can see the old Space Dock 13 website still online. Space Dock 13 as it looked when hosted on WordPress from 2003 to 2013.


By EelKat Wendy C Allen


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NaNoWriMo Overachievers:
Top 25 Clichés in YA novels (A NaNoWriMo Post)

Top 25 Clichés in YA novels (A NaNoWriMo Post)

Posted on Saturday, November 7, 2009 | Comments Off

My Answer:

Was reading Top 25 Clichés in YA novels and had to respond to her list.

Lets see how many of these thing I did/do in real life, shall we?

#25 – Vegetarian teens with unsympathetic meat-eating parents

I was a vegan teen who grew up on a poultry farm. My parents were very unsympathetic.

#24 – Shy or withdrawn characters that take refuge in the school’s art room/ compassionate art teachers

I have Autism – I have barely spoken a full paragraph in my entire life – I was constantly teased and bullied by students because of it and my only refuge was – huh – my art teacher’s class room – how odd – oh yeah, and my art teacher btw was Kevin Hawkes – a young, not yet famous Kevin Hawkes;

I was in his class the day his first book got accepted and he brought all the original canvases in to class to show us (the guy is a picture book author/illustrator who today has won nearly every award and children’s author and illustrator can win)

#23 – A token black friend among a group of white friends – usually it’s a girl, and she’s always gorgeous

In my town of 12k people there is only 1 black family. Just one.

------(2017 UPDATE)-------

In 2009 when this article was written or town had 12,000 year round residents and bragged of being 99.9% white.

In 2017 it now has 3,000 year round residents...the 2,000 Gypsies, Romas, Travellers, and Jews who were here in the 1940s before any white people moved in, are still here. There are also now more then 100 black, Muslim, and other non-white families.

In 2017 our town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine is down to fewer then 25% white, and yet, we now also have the Ku Klux Klan in town, marching around chanting that the town of Old Orchard Beach is 99.9% white and they are going to make it 100% white. I think they need to open their eyes and look around.

------(END UPDATE)-------


#22 – A tiny scar through the eyebrow, sometimes accompanied by an embarrassing story

I have a scar under my nose across my lip – the only remaining evidence that at age 16 I had to have plastic surgery after one of our roosters mauled my face with his spurs

# 21 – Using the word ‘rents for parents, but not using any other slang

Never heard that one before.

Not in real life or in a book.

Wonder where she got it from?

# 20 – A beautiful best friend who gets all the guys but doesn’t want them

I was accused of being that girl – often.

Other girls refused to talk to me because of it. Thing was I had one boyfriend, who I started dating at age 12, and today 22 years later am still with and he’s still the only guy I’ve ever dated – the other guys that followed me around ignoring the other girls, got ignored by me because I already had the guy I wanted and just wanted these dolts to get off my trail

#19 – The wicked stepmother who turns out to be simply misunderstood and it’s all cleared up in the climax#18 – Authors showing their age by naming characters names they grew up with (i.e. Debbie, Lisa, Kimberly, Alice, Linda, etc.)

uhm . . . since when did THOSE names become dated? I could see if it was Rose, Opal, or Pearl, you know, names not seen since the 1930’s, but heck, new babies show up every day with the names she picked.

#17 – Parents who are professional writers or book illustrators

uhm . . . I’m a professional writer, so are several of my uncles and aunts, and heck Kevin Hawkes himself was my teacher when I was a teen! How many writers do you know who DO NOT have kids? Aren’t we supposed to *write what we know*?



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#16 – Using coffee, cappuccino, and café latte to describe black people’s skin

I asked a black woman about this and she said this is only offensive IF only the black person is described as a food. It's not offensive if in the same book, white people are described as milk, cream, sugar, and Asians are described as honey, almond, caramel. She said when such descriptions are used consistently with all characters regardless of race, there is no problem, the problem is that usually, ONLY the black person gets described as food.

#15 – Main characters named Hannah and making a note of it being a palindrome

One of the girls in my Sunday School class in the 1980’s was named Hannah and she used to walk into class every day and the first thing she would say was :

“My name is Hannah, I can spell it the same way forwards and backwards, you can’t do that with your name!”.

In fact she said it to every one she meet all day long, every day, for years.

She continued to do it as a teenager.

And now as an adult... you guessed it, she still says it.

#14 – Younger siblings who are geniuses, adored by everyone, and usually run away during the book’s climax, causing dramatic tension

Geniuses are NOT adored by anyone.

They are nearly always an only child, if they have siblings, they were an adult before the siblings were born.

yeah – Did I mention I have Autism? My overall average IQ is 138. My literary IQ is 221. My math IQ is 75 which is why my overall score is so low.

Less than .03% of the world’s population has an IQ over 130.

Less then .001% of the world’s population has an IQ over 200.

I started reading and writing at age 3. I wrote volume 1 of the Twighlight Manor series in 1978 – yes, I was only 3 years old when I wrote that book. Adults used word “prodigy” and “indigo child” all the time. I hated it. Many times I thought about running away.

#13 – The mean-spirited cheerleader (and her gang) as the story’s antagonist

I knew one of them.

She grew up to become a criminal. A professional forger of documents. She makes a living stealing checl books and forging signatures.

# 12 – A dead mother

about half the kids I knew growing up had one parent or the other – dead, gone to war, in jail/prison, or left home/divorced – in fact I was just about the only kid in Sunday school who actually had BOTH parents

# 11 – Heroines who can’t carry a tune, even if it were in a bucket

I can’t sing, never could

# 10 – Guys with extraordinarily long eyelashes

many local guys wear not only mascara, but also fake eyelashes – it’s pretty common actually, and not just with teenaged guys either

# 9 – The popular boy dating the dorky heroine to make his former girlfriend jealous, and then breaking the heroine’s heart

Never heard that one before.

Not in real life or in a book.

Wonder where she got it from?

# 8 – The diary, either as the entire format, or the occasional entry

One of my favorite books of all time is Dracula and is written in diary format –

oh look, my favorite author Edgar Alan Poe wrote like that too! *shock* –

and guess what, the first books I ever read were the “Little House” Books, uhm, those were not just written as a dairy – it ACTUALLY WAS her dairy!

# 7 – Fingernail biting

drives me crazy when I see people biting their nails – I can’t stand it, but wait, almost every one I know does it!

# 6 – Characters who chew on their lip or tongue in times of stress – usually until they taste blood

name a person who DOES NOT do this – name one – try it – you can’t

# 5 – Raising one eyebrow

again - name a person who DOES NOT do this – name one – try it – you can’t

# 4 – Main characters who want to be writers

1.5 million new titles are published EVERY YEAR, 70% of all writers never write more than 3 books in their entire life time – that’s a lots of kids wanting to be writers when they grow up and hey, I was one of them!

# 3 – Calling parents by their first names

I know several kids who do this. I always thought it weird that they did it, but there they are – doing just that

# 2 – Best friends with red hair

I know at least 30 red heads (natural) and many more who dye their hair red (and yes, 7 year old girls DO dye their hair)

And the number one thing found in YA novels…

#1 – Lists

There are lists in novels?

Really?

I've never seen one.

I wonder what books she reads?

but still, name a person who DOES NOT write lists – name one – try it – you can’t – and

– heck, she listed this on a LIST herself for crying out loud!!!!!!!

I do got to wonder, if so many of these things happen in real life, than how are they cliche in fiction? What is she saying that REAL LIFE is cliche and we shouldn’t be writing about it? What ever happened to the writing law of : Write what you know?

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Comments Offon Top 25 Clichés in YA novels (A NaNoWriMo Post)Posted in advice for fiction writers, Autism, conventional writing practices, EelKat, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, publishing, Wendy C. Allen, writing, writing advice, writing for children


My New Squidoo Lenses: Birthday Parties, Mermaids, Ponies, and Pickles

Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008 | Comments Offon My New Squidoo Lenses: Birthday Parties, Mermaids, Ponies, and Pickles

I’m slowly getting my new lenses published. Here are the ones I published today:http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesMermaids

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesPonies

http://www.squidoo.com/SourPickleI’ve still got about 40 more started that I haven’t published yet. I’m doing a whole series of birthday party lenses, each with a differant party theme. I searched and found tons of differant theme ideas, so now I’m building a bunch of lenses to go with them.

More topics I write about:

52 Stories in 52 Weeks Writing Challenge 50000 adventure advice advice for writers aliens animals Art Arts author authors Autism birds  blogging books CafePress cats characters Copper Cockeral Cards and Gifts CosPlay EelKat Etiole faeries Family fantasy fiction friends Genres geography goals Gothic harassment Hobbies horror Just For Writers kimono LDS Life life blogging Maine making money online Mormons my thoughts on... NaNovel 2009 NaNoWriMo national novel writing month Old Orchard Beach Phooka phookas publishing readers sci-fi science fiction sewing short stories Squidoo Stories The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints The Ruby Throated Humming Bird The Twighlight Manor UFOs Wendy C. Allen witchcraft witches words per day write writer writer's block writers writing writing contest Writing Exercise Writing Prompts: Writing Tip of the Day Zazzle


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