A tale of Christmas Eve in Aus

It was early evening and the sun had just set. I strolled down the gently sloping street with the bush on one side of me and the decorated houses on the other. I loved looking at all the Christmas lights, there's something about seeing a house framed with glittering colours that just seems so magical.
There was a faint smell of smoke in the air from a bushfire somewhere. The air was warm and pleasant, which was a contrast to the humid heat of the day that had just passed. Cicadas were humming, crickets were just beginning to chirp. I could hear someone playing carols somewhere. It was peaceful, calming. That time of year always was. I loved Christmas and I loved summer, both of them together was always perfection for me. I remembered all the festivities I had been to the month of December. There had been the Carols by Candlelight at Glenbrook Oval. Every year the community gathered in with their families and friends and joined in the singing and festive spirit. Sometimes, it was the only time I saw some old friends from my childhood. People from all the different churches were there, Catholic, Anglican, Baptists even people who called themselves atheists. It never seemed to matter, they were all there for the same reason.
Then there was the Carols in the Domain in Sydney. That was a day long event for most if you wanted to get a decent spot anyway. That meant listening to carols blaring on the temporary sound system while playing cricket in the small area of grass that was gradually shrinking as more people arrived. It meant visiting the St Mary's Cathedral nearby and eating from food stands you would usually be revolted by. Then as the evening approached all the local celebrities begun to arrive and the live performances started with rising bands and artists. Then, finally, the real event began. It started with Santa and Hi-5 for the kids so they could go to sleep, before the rest of the show continued on from there. It was fun and exciting, the day had burned our skin and the heat of it seemed to hold onto us through the night as a result but it didn't matter, this was Christmas the best time of year, when all of Sydney was united together.
Every Sunday in church we sung carols as a congregation and all the speakers spoke of Christ's birth. We always left humming the carols to ourselves. My favourite Sunday was the one when the primary kids did a small presentation and sung to us. Nothing ever seemed to beat that at bringing the Christmas spirit.

Personal Note for 'The Sleeping Spell'.

For a start I need a new name for it. Please send me suggestions.
So, this story first started after reading and watching a whole bunch of Cinderella spins like Ella Enchanted, A Cinderella Story, Ever After etc. I decided hey, I should do a sleeping beauty one. So I did some research on the classic non-Disney story and found the Grimm brother's version which was well, grim. It talks about the prince raping her while she slept and she woke to the travails of child birth. She was put to sleep by the prince's mother who didn't want her son to marry her so she poisoned her and hid her away. It's all quite horrible really, so I decided to keep it more to Disney's interpretation.
I also wanted it to be quite different, not based in the regular medieval sort of setting, and while watching the TV series Firefly I got my inspiration; a futuristic space-cowboy type scenario.
I don't know when I decided to blend other fairy tales into it as background histories, it just kind of happened and provided a perfect set up for why everything had gone the way it had.
This story has taken me several years to write and I have added into it quite a few times and now I am happy with it's final outcome. So let me know what you think, I hope you enjoy!

Mysteries of the Mountains finished

hahahaha so bad but I love it.

Personal note for Mysteries of the Mountains

This is just a short filler story while I fine tune 'A sleeping spell' (Which I will probably change its name because it sucks.)
Mysteries of the Mountains I wrote for an English assignment in the 7th grade. Got top marks for it too. It's way cheesy now, but it goes along with the original 'Phantom Story' as a personal classic in my collection of stories, I actually wrote it between the first Phantom Story and the third part The Phantom's Return. It has the same immature style to it as the first Phantom, and is shocking to me to see how different my style was from these two early stories to The Phantom's return which I wrote only a few months later.
Most stories I begun around this time were never finished so the few that were I managed to keep hold of. I love how much my stories during this period reflect on my life at the time and they are almost like journals with a fictitious spin.
So have a good giggle as you read Mysteries of the Mountains and I will get to my next big one right after that.

The Seven Nation is done!

Again I ask, what did you think? I think its a person PB so please give me feedback on your thoughts. It took my a while to write this one and to figure out the scenes etc so please let me know!

Also, I am thinking of writing a prequel based on Abel from when he first met Nahtoora's mother as a boy to when Darius became Emperor. I think its a story worth exploring, would it be interesting to you?

Personal note about 'The Seven Nations'

'The Seven Nations' is a more current story which I first concocted in my mind in late 2007. It started off with my love of the TV show 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'. I loved that show as it was coming out (Still do!) and thought it would be sweet to have bending powers. (It's the nerd in me right there) That year I also got dumped, hard. It wasn't pleasant, and unkind things were said, which I in fact use in the story. So, I came up with the very first concepts of the Princess and Prince Finigan as she uses her powers to totally kick his trash. Then, as time passed, I began to feel hope for love again and I knew there was still someone out there, someone better, waiting for me. Thus the rest of the story was born. I didn't write much on it though back in 2008, just the first few pages and a scene here and there when I got bored in lectures etc. But this year I got back on it and it all pulled together, the history, the characters, and my final choice for the climax as I had been tossing between several endings before then, but the one I chose is the one that fits best with the Princess' growth and personality.
So, I'm really looking for feedback on this one, it is my best story yet and I want to know what people think about it. It's also much longer than previous stories as there is a lot more going on as I created a whole world and it's history and landscape. I will be posting the map I drew as well.
Now, sit back and enjoy, 'The Seven Nations'.

The Phantom Series over!

Finally, they are complete! I hope you enjoyed them, and watching my writing style grow and change, as well as my twisted pubescent mind. :-D It was fun going through them again, remembering my life at the time I wrote them, and all the people who made the characters in my mind. I have some fond memories of those times and people and I love that I can visit them again when I read these stories.
I will eventually get 'The Phantom in Vienna' written and post it once I do.
Let me know what you thought of 'The Phantom Series' by leaving a comment here or on facebook.

The best is yet to come!

So the gang is done with high school and is on to new adventures!!! Stay tuned to see what happens in the final installment of The Phantom series!!!
Are you liking it so far?

Well ahead on the typing

Since I am well ahead now on typing these stories out, I will be posting 2 each day of The Phantom: What Happened Then?. I am eager to get onto my next big story because it is EPIC! My best story yet! It's much longer than all the rest too so it will take quite a while to post it all so each part will be fairly long.

Posted 2 today

I've gotten way ahead on my typing so I posted 2 today as they were both kind of shortish :-D

Personal note for The Phantom

This story is being posted after several requests. It is my first ever story that was more than a page long. It began my story writing as a pass time, and was received so well by my friends who read it I wrote 3 parts to the series. I will be posting all 3 part sequentially.
There is one part missing, as it is meant to be a 4 part series, but the 2nd one never took. It didn't fit very well with the rest of them, so as a result was never finished. When I finish the first story I will give a summary of its important parts to keep the flow of the stories.
The Phantom is a story I wrote in the summer/Christmas break between my 6th and 7th grades, Dec '98-Feb '99, I was 12. While reading this please take this into account. (I find it a hysterical read now, I was so naive!) Because of it's personal significance I am not going to change a thing, just spelling and grammar.
The Phantom's Return I wrote during my 7th grade year after several of my friends expressed that they liked the first one (probably because they were in it!) It is probably the most 'popular' of them all among my 12/13 year old friends of the time.
What Happened Then? took a little longer to write, I started my 8th grade year and finished sometime during my 9th. Both this and The Phantom's Return will also be kept the same with only spelling and grammatical changes and  I have updated the wording in it a little so it sounds more like the 16 through 20 year old that she is in these stories rather than a 12/13 year old trying to be grown up.
I thought about writing another one, but the stories kind of lost steam and I didn't feel I could take the character much further. As a result, I have rewritten the last scene for What Happened Then? plus I hated it, I wrote it when I started going into a rough spot in my life so it was kind of depressing.
A number of the characters are my friends of the time, no name changes or anything, and the boys that she has travel with her were my 12 year old crushes! HA HA! They didn't have their real names, mostly because I only knew one of their names at the time! HA HA HA! I was such a girl... (Yes you may ask, I'm married now and not ashamed of my past choices in boys, they were hot) But by The Phantom's Return they had evolved beyond that and were nothing like the boys of which they were based.
So, I hope you enjoy my personal 'classic' The Phantom Series.

Dancing in the Athenian Rain finished

What did you think? Did you enjoy it? Be as analytical as you like! If you hated it let me know, if you loved it, definitely let me know. What were the highlights/lowlights?

Changes

The next few Parts I have changed here and there, they were terrible. One in fact I completely re-wrote I was so unhappy with it's original, but kept it to its basic theme. I hope they don't seem inconsistent to the rest. Let me know.
P.S As of this section this story is officially longer than the last one.

Sorry....

Due to a busy week I have fallen behind on my typing... sorry for the delay. I will try to get back on top of things this week.
~Katie

Some back ground on this story....

I studied Ancient History in my 11th and 12 grade years, and during my 12th grade year we spent a lot of time on Greek society. Thus my fascination with it.
They were horribly sexist. Women were not even allowed to have eye contact with men. They were expected to be seen and not heard, and were basically treated as breeding devises if they were deemed worth that. They obviously could not vote, but worse than that, they weren't even considered citizens. Brothels, as I mentioned in the story were, like in Roman society, a very popular pass time for the men and one of very few jobs women were allowed to have. Men often had a wife, but then a love mistress. The wife was who society expected him to marry and have children with, but his mistress was more what we would consider a real wife would be nowadays, a woman whom the man loved. Knowing this, it makes Peleus seem like a super hero. He somehow is better than all of it, and loves and respects his wife. He does become a domineering man on occasions but it's not really surprising considering the culture.
On Donna. She is supposed to be an average girl-next-door Aussie girl. In Australia and her time she is fairly normal looking, pretty, but not overly beautiful. It is her differences that make the Greeks see her as so outstanding. As it says, her dark blond hair and blue eyes make her stand out, but also the fact that she is white rather than olive skinned, her teeth would look fabulous compared to everyone else, and she is a little meaty rather than slender which was revered as beautiful as it was considered evidence of good health, wealth and potentially a good child bearer. I should clarify that in the story, but I don't, so here it is.

Just the one today, it's a day of remembrance. I can never forget how terrifying that day was, it felt like the beginning of the end to a 14 year old.

Personal Note about Dancing in the Athenian Rain

The next story in line is 'Dancing in the Athenian Rain'. I will begin posting it in a few days.
As a warning, this story is a bit more adult. This is not just because of the known culture of the period in which it is set, (admittedly the Greeks were never as bad as the Romans who were horn-dogs) but I wrote it during a period of personal angst, self doubt and discovery and while wishing for better times when someone would not only love me, but just like me.
There are some scenes where there are sexual references. This is probably my favourite story that I have completed, but because of it's content I have been afraid to share it with more than two friends. This is a brave personal step for me to put this out there.
I have and will be editing it a great deal but tried to keep the basic integrity of the storyline. I have also modified some scenes that, because I was a seventeen year old when I wrote it, were kind of cheesy and far-fetched.

I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think, as I am very nervous about how it will be received.
~Katie

It's finished!

And what do you think?
Did you enjoy 'Great Southern Land'?
What were the highlights/low-lights?
Did you see yourself at all in this story? (my characters are often loosely based on people in my life)
What do you think about the characters?

My favourite brother is, even though you don't see a lot of him, James. He is mostly there as a bridge between Thomas and Alana, but he is also a very good brother. He is loving and protective of Alana and can be hilarious too. I wish I could have made him play more of a role sometimes, but I couldn't really do much without it being a distraction from the plot.
I wrote this story over a 2 year period, from when I was 17 - 19. I don't know if its obvious to everyone, but it is to me, that my style changes a little and the character of Alana develops. I think as a result, I shows an unintentional natural development of a girl at about that time in her life.
This story is special because its set in my favourite place in this world and my hometown. I love Emu Plains and the Lower Blue Mountains, their beauty is like no where else.

Wanting feedback!

Got questions? ask!
OK! All the characters are now in the story, so what do you think will happen? Who do you think she will choose?
Elias?
Kookaburra?
Thomas?
Arthur?
What do you think about the characters of each of the guys, Phillip and her brothers, Elizabeth and Alana?

I want feedback people! I want it to be interactive here!!!!

Editing

Now it has all been typed up I am proof reading and editing them all. All the unpublished posts are now ready to go so should be easier to understand and a smoother read. I am also going from the beginning and tiding them all up.
If you see anything I need to fix that I missed, let me know! :-D

just a little note

Since my typing is way ahead I will start posting two if they are short, like yesterday. That's all.