HAPPY NEW YEAR! Now that that's out of the way...
As you may have been aware, "Shining Armor" was originally written as a school assignment. Well, I'm now back in school as of Tuesday, and on Tuesday, I received my story again, which was graded and had comments written by my English teacher. The grade? A-. And in my English teacher's class, this is saying something; he's a tough grader when it comes to writing assignments! In his comments, he stated that he was impressed by my writing (as usual), and he was also impressed by my incorporation of "trickster story" elements into my story. I was especially pleased with the latter, as the "trickster" elements were more abstract in my story than in most trickster stories, and I wasn't sure that he would catch them.
As promised, I will now update you on "Illusions & Lies: Undercover." I have made progress. Last night, I forced myself to continue writing it, and I made a decent amount of progress. I can say for certain that this story is pretty much devoid of any action/violence (there are violent references, though), but it is primarily to serve as a transition from the dark (and still kind of funny) atmosphere-exposition stuff of its predecessors to the next chapter of the Illusions & Lies story as a whole. Oh, and I&L 6 will also be a transition story. Just as an advance notice! I'm not setting any actual date that I&L 4 will be ready by, but I'm hoping it'll be out before February.
Lastly, I was nominated for the Best Writer award over at the ZU Forums (along with two other, completely different awards which I don't even stand a chance at getting)! The ZU Awards are held twice a year, and they span every possible aspect of the forum community, including the creative side. This is the first time I have ever been nominated for the Best Writer award, and I must admit that I have been dying for this award more than any other award on ZU (even more than Overall Member of the Season!) since I first started posting my written works to ZU. The voting process is well underway, and there are seven other ZU members in the running for this award besides me (one of them being Holden, a member who has been giving me great feedback on my more recent stories!). This is not a request for votes (even though I can't get disqualified for making one here since this is not on ZU). In fact, please only vote for me if you (besides belong to ZU) really think I deserve the award. Be sure to check out mine and the other nominees' works in the ZU Writing forum!
That's all for now! Expect some "In the Trees" feedback within a few days! And hope you are all enjoying your first week of 2011! Ta-ta!