"Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of." --Kurt Vonnegut

"…I was, as I said, twenty-five years old, and I had an idea for a book and I knew it was a real one. I tried writing it, and realized that it was a better idea than I was a writer. So I kept writing, but I wrote other things, learning my craft...It took me too long to begin, and it took me too long to finish...I had set out to write a book about a childhood...I was now writing about being a parent...I sat at the bottom of the garden, and I wrote the last page of my book, and I knew that I had written a book that was better than the one I had set out to write. Possibly a book better than I am. You cannot plan for that. Sometimes you work as hard as you can on something, and still the cake does not rise. Sometimes the cake is better than you had ever dreamed...We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write." --Neil Gaiman, about The Graveyard Book

F A V O R I T E F A N D O M F O R T H E M O M E N T

Diadem: Worlds of Magic, Series of Unfortunate Events, Stranger Things, Beastly

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series/Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling, Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale, Holly Black's Curseworker series, Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas series, Diana Wynn Jones' Howl's Moving Castle series, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, The Woodcutter Sisters series by Alethea Kontis, The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, Diadem: Worlds of Magic series by John Peel

Books: Entwined by Heather Dixon, The King, the Princess, and the Tinker by Ellen Kindt McKenzie, Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell, The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Skellig by David Almond, Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn, Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, Hope was Here by Joan Bauer, Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Authors: Diana Wynne Jones, Laurie Halse Anderson, Dan Brown, Jerry Spinelli, Gail Carson Levine, Jessica Day George, Cory Poulson, Millicent Ashby, Katrina Kittle, Lesley Kagan, Kate DiCamillo, Alex Flinn, Neil Gaiman, John Green, David Almond, Holly Black, Alethea Kontis, John Peel, Lemony Snicket, Lloyd Alexander

TV: Firefly, Downton Abbey, Gilmore Girls, Stranger Things,

Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Case Closed/Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, Hyouka, Ah! My Goddess, Ouran High School Host Club, Soul Eater, Your Lie in April, Orange!, Yotsuba&!, Koe no Katachi, My Hero Academia, Mob Psycho 100, Sailor Moon

Cartoons: Young Justice, X-Men: Evolution, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, Teen Titans, As Told by Ginger, Trollhunters, DuckTales

Movies: V for Vendetta, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Lady in the Water, Secondhand Lions, Real Steel, How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, Rise of the Guardians, The Croods, The Incredibles, Paranorman, Kubo and the Two Strings, Lady in White, Newsies, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Trek

Comics: The Property of Hate, Wilde Life, Duck Tales

Fanfiction writers (most on this site): asitiswhenitwas: X-Men, strayphoenix: Young Justice, X-men, L.Burke: X-Men (not ff.net), joanofarc15: X-Men, elecktrum: Chronicles of Narnia, Candyland: Case Closed/Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, Celebony: Harry Potter, RipredtheGnawer: Hunger Games, The Antic Repartee: How to Train Your Dragon, Luvdarain5: Sailor Moon, Scribbler: Teen Titans/X-Men, Haiju: Danny Phantom (tumblr), PhantomRose96: Gravity Falls, Mob Psycho 100 (tumblr, Ao3), Modmad: DuckTales, The Property of Hate (tumblr), Sandflakedraws: Mob Psycho 100 (tumblr)

U P D A T E

11.July.19

I have been reading like crazy, and thusly getting all sorts of ideas for writing. Right now I'm stuck on Alex Flinn's Beastly, but I've also been working on some Diadem, some original, and some Sailor Moon. If I get them to the point I like them, and think they can be read by other people, I'll post.

What would you guys like to see from me? Like...I'm so sporadic and eclectic, and I know a lot of my followers here are similar. But I'm genuinely curious. I've been thinking on revamping some of my old stuff, but I know that that way lies madness. And I get a ton of love for some of those stories, still. Shoot me a PM, or find me on my tumblr and shoot me an ask, I'm there a lot. (angeladex (dot) tumblr (dot) com)

Happy 7/11! Get a free slurpee, if you live in the US and are near a 7 11!

~Angeladex