Short Story Ideas

Earlier this year I had two great ideas for a short story. One of the ideas was a story based in an ‘Area 51’ style place but instead of working with aliens, the scientists worked with diseases to create the deadliest diseases possible for use in war. This story idea can go in two ways; either the scientists create a zombie virus or a super-virus infects the workers. Either of these ideas would have the same two main problems; not catching the disease and stopping the disease from escaping the Area 51 style setting. These problems would probably work better in the zombie story because the survivors would be hunted by creatures and not just staying away from infected people. I decided that calling this story “Area 57” would be fitting since it relates to the well known Area 51.

The second story Idea I have is quite weird. This is because it was based off a very vivid and extraordinary dream of mine. In this dream I kept accessing a secret land inside a shopping centre. To access this extraordinary land, you have to go through a whacky door or passage (pull toilet flusher off the toilet or taking off a baby table in the lady’s bathroom). The land concealed by the shopping centre was very green with tall rock islands and several large lakes. The secret land was unknown by many and cherished by those who knew about it. A plot for this setting could be an evil organisation trying to break their way into the sacred land and an all out war could commence inside a shopping centre. But the twist is that both sides are trying to fight in secret so the public doesn’t know what’s going on.

Those are two story ideas that I’m considering writing a story on, if writing a short story is necessary one point for school. By the way, these are MY ideas and I would like to discourage anyone from stealing my ideas.

Best fishing Weekend Ever!

Alright, so a new blog post. I’ll talk about my weekend. Well, more like just Saturday.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning. 6:15 am!!! But this was to go fishing so I was happy with the early wake up. Dad woke me up an hour late so I decided to have a shower to wake myself up. I don’t usually shower before fishing because I just get smelly on the boat and no one is gonna see me. I made a coffee in mums travel mug just before dad and I left to pick up Lochie, he was coming with us too! With his gear in the boat and him in the backseat with all the dog fur, we drove towards town on hopefully a great day of fishing. But that was just false hope.

Soon after we rocked up at the boat ramp and spotted the public toilet wall graffitied with spray paint. It wasn’t mindless graffiti, it was quite artistic. Anyway, we launched the boat and Lochie and I are waiting for dad to park the car when he spots heaps of decent sized mullet schooling around the jetty. I jumped in the boat, grabbed the gaff and attempted to gaff one of them. I failed miserably. Dad hops in the boat and we’re off, gliding across the cold water of the Murchison. The air was that much colder that steam was visible on the waters surface and we could see our breaths. And thus, we begin our long drive out west.

After half an hour of driving, we pass underneath a raining cloud. It rained on us but it was light. The rain produced a spectacular double rainbow in the distance, and one end seemed to finish exactly at our spot.
“Well this is our lucky day Lochie!” I yell over the roaring wind
“Hope so!” He shouts back. That’s where we were wrong. Not 5 minutes after the double rainbow vanished, our engine cut out. At first I thought dad stopped the boat because he saw some good ground but he didn’t do it. The key wasn’t responding!!!! He checked the motor, lifted it up and declared that we were stuck. Dad radioed the VMR (voluntary marine rescue) and got them to tow us back through the river mouth. Lochie and I still wanted to fish so we dropped a metal jig over the side. We had only just begun jigging that day and we were pretty carp at it. (did you see what I did there?) we weren’t over any good ground either and we jigged for an hour until the VMR boat arrived to tow us in. With a mess up with attaching the tow rope to the front of the boat, we enjoyed a ride home without the sound of the motor. It didn’t feel natural moving that fast on a boat without hearing the motor going! With a quick half hour ride, we arrived safely back in the river mouth. We hooked the boat on and drove home, with nothing to show for it except a stuffed up boat!

With a quick drive up the hill and dropping Lochie off, we emptied the boat and dad rang a boat mechanic in Gero to see if he could figure out the problem, since we were going to Coral Bay in a few weeks. He found that the wiring was done wrong with all motors made in the year 2009. He took it to gero Monday to get it fixed and we’re driving to gero to pick it up in a few days. We’re so lucky we took the boat out for a fish before Coral Bay. Having a boat problem there would have ruined the whole holiday since we only go to Coral Bay to fish the spectacular reefs. With the greatest day fishing I’ve ever had behind me (sarcasm is hard to type!), i began to look forward to an awesome Coral Bay holiday with my ‘cousins’ (dad’s high school friends wife and kids).

Thanks for reading this and don’t worry, I’ll be back!

The Hero of Ages

*CAUTION – SMALL SPOILER ALERT*
Well, I’m glad this is the last book review. I’ve had a gut full!
The Hero of Ages is a satisfying conclusion to one of the best book trilogies ever. The story begins one year after the events of The Well of Ascension.

The magic metal that Elend ate at the end of The Well of Ascension saved Elend’s life by turning him into a Mistborn. With only one year of experience, Elend attempts to find clues left behind by the Lord Ruler in the form of caverns with large supplies of food, acting as bunkers. Every bunker, starting with the Well of Ascension, had a map showing where the next one is. Each bunker had a specialty; weapons, clothes, crops, etc. The Lord Ruler built these bunkers specially for when Ruin was released. Ruin wants to end the world , and stopping it seems impossible. He is the power of destruction, a force whose ultimate goal is to destroy the world. He hasn’t gained his full power yet because he needs to find his ‘body’ whereas he only has his mind. He secretly manipulates and effects people to do what he wants. He can hear anything anyone says so plotting against him is nearly impossible. Ruin’s opposite God was called preservation. Preservation needed ruin’s help to create humans, so ruin agreed to help them but only if preservation agreed for him to be allowed to destroy it one day. Preservation caged ruin in the Well of Ascension to stop him from ever destroying the world. By doing so, preservation sacrificed the last of its mind and released its body as the mists that spread across the world at night.

Vin is overcome with grief for being tricked into releasing ruin at the Well of Ascension and tries to do everything she can to destroy the destruction God. Later in the book, Vin becomes one with the mists and becomes preservation. She fights against ruin but can’t beat it, their forces are of equal power. She watches helplessly as Elend fights an all out war, with the power of Atium, against the massive army of Koloss that ruin has rounded up. When ruin makes a Koloss kill Elend, Vin loses it and pushes as hard as she can against ruin. Since she is human and humans are part destruction, she successfully send ruin into the abyss. He drags her in as he falls and the bodies of Vin and ruin fall from the sky. Dead. Saved finds the two bodies and reaches into the smoke coming from both of them with either of his hands. He absorbs both ruin and preservation’s godly powers and becomes an allmighty God. He makes spook a Mistborn and sends him books of what was in his metal minds and a book on all the events that happened throughout the series.

And this, my blog readers, is where I finish my Mistborn trilogy book review. I am a big fan of these books and I am on the look out for others written by Brandon Sanderson. Thank you for reading my entire book trilogy review and I’ll see you at the next blog post.

The Well Of Ascension

*CAUTION – SMALL SPOILER ALERT*
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program of Mistborn book reviews.
Alright, so since the trilogy is so intertwined, this review won’t be in depth. I can’t talk about the plot much without spoiling the first book, but I may have to spoil some things. The Well Of Ascension begins 1 year after the ending of the first book. Vin is now an extremely experienced allomancer with over 2 years of training. She is dating the new ruler of Luthadel, Elend Venture. He was heir to one of the mode powerful houses in Luthadel and Vin liked him since she first attended the balls that the nobility hosted when she was part of Kelsier’s group. Elend is a philosopher who was convinced in a government with a voting system at the start of his rule. But, as it turned out, the people of that time weren’t ready for a system like that.

After overthrowing the lord ruler (sorry for the spoiler) Elend and Vin desperately try to find the Lord Ruler’s hidden stash of Atium – the rarest and most powerful allomantic metal ever. They want to either sell it or let Vin use it to protect Elend from assassins. With no luck finding the stash, they stop searching for it.

Soon after, Elend’s father camps on the outskirts of Luthadel with a massive army. Elend’s father is convinced that Elend is hiding the Atium and wants it for himself, he is prepared to kill his own son if he has to. A second army arrives a few days later with the same goals as Elend’s father. The two present armies are of equal size. A siege arises from the new situation. A siege is a sort of tie between the three parties. If Elend’s father attacks the city, he will take it but after the battle has finished, the other army would attack Elend’s father’s weakened army and Luthadel’s walls would have been destroyed at that point. With neither armies attacking first, they wait out Luthadel and hope to starve them or make them agree to hand the city over.

After several months of the siege, an army of mutant men called Koloss attack the city. All hope seemed lost until Vin used an allomantic metal near a Koloss and took it under her control. With this new found knowledge, they subdue the Koloss and discover the Well Of Ascension. The Well Of Ascension is a pool of water which gives a chosen hero unfathomable powers. Vin takes the power and releases it, which is what the old prophecies say to do but when she does a voice yells “I’M FREE!!!”. She had just released a God of destruction called Ruin. Ruin was able to change the words on the prophecy to make it fit his needs. Elend is stabbed by a mist figure, a desperate Vin feeds him a magical metal found at the Well. I won’t say anything else otherwise I’ll spoil a plot twist and no one would want that.

Well, with that out of the way, I’ll see you next week a review of the last book in the trilogy.

Best Spearfishing Session Ever!!!

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Alright, so you guys might have been waiting for a book review of the second book in the Mistborn Trilogy, but this story is so much better. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I went spearfishing a few days back and it was spectacular! My best day yet! So I just had to write about it.

It was Monday the 9th of April after school. I went to a Bushrangers meeting with my mates Lochie and Harry. We are keen spearfishos and we were talking about the low swell that afternoon. Since bushrangers ended pretty early – around 3:30 – we all decided to meet at a great spearfishing beach called Blue Holes at 4:15. I know that Blue Holes is a sanctuary zone but we went on the north side of the border. We ended up delaying our meet up time to 4:30 since I needed to give Lochie a lift there.

So my mum gives us the ‘drop and run’ and we walk to the sandy inlet where we often spearfish from. After a 15 minute wait Harry and his mum arrive. Harry quickly slides on his wetsuit and starts getting his gear on ASAP. He’s in the water before Lochie and I had our flippers and masks on!
“Every man for himself!” Lochie exclaimed as he waded into the water frozen with winter’s cold touch. And with him swimming off into the fish infested ocean, I launch myself after him, speargun in hand. *Once I swim out I spot a 50cm morwong and I follow it around for a bit. After a few minutes I dive down and practise clicking off the safety and aiming at the fish. Once I’m aimed at the top of it’s gill plate, I spot a 40cm goatfish just visible, with it’s red body with black lateral stripes, above and to the right of the morwong’s dorsal fin. After I check it’s back for the goatfish’s distinct spot, I make a small adjustment to my aim and pull the trigger. The spear flies straight over the dorsal fin of the morwong and hits the unsuspecting goatfish at the top of it’s gills. I surface for air and as I place my snorkel back into my mouth, I can feel the goatfish thrashing around on the end of my line. I pull gently on the line and make sure the flap of the spear flips up – to make sure the spear doesn’t slip out – and when I’m sure it has flipped, I yank the goat fish to the surface, red stripes shining in the sunlight’s reflection through the water. I grab it underneath the gills to make sure the fish doesn’t go anywhere and I really notice it’s two distinct ‘whiskers’ on the bottom of it’s jaw. I remember only the larger goatfish have these and I measure it against my hand.

The fish I had just speared was massive for a goatfish. Usually I only see them 15-20cm long if I’m lucky, so this one’s a ripper! I unclip the float line from my speargun handle and I pass it through the fish’s gills and out it’s mouth. I stab it in the head to kill it humanely and proceed to cut the gills with my dive knife to bleed the fish for the whitest possible flesh. With the spear pulled out of the fish, I load my gun again and continue on my way.

After fluffing around in the shallower water with the other boys, I watch the colourful blur of a parrotfish shoot past me and take off. It moved like it was speared but there was no line coming from it so I assumed the spear pulled out of the fish. I try to raise my gun quickly under water but instead swim as fast as I can after it. It swam out of my vision almost a split second after I saw it and I never found it again. Harry swims next to me and asks me if I saw the fish he speared. I point him in the direction it went but I was later told that he never found it again. With that fish gone, I headed out more north to an area we hadn’t checked out yet.

Here I saw a few small parrotfish that would have been about 20cm long. Nothing spectacular but I would have taken the shot if one was still for long enough. After seeing a small school swim a bit deeper I turn in that direction and spot a small golden trevally. With a quick dive and a hurried aim, I shoot the fish. The trevally wriggles off the spear before I even begin to swim to the surface and stops so suddenly that I doubted I even hit it! When I was almost at the surface, he swam near me slowly, then turned around and swam away hurriedly. It was almost like he was saying “Ha ha! You didn’t get me!” So with a quick reload, I was set to go get a big one.

By now it was nearing sunset and I was thinking of just swimming another 20m north then swimming back in to call it a day. On my 20m swim north, a small rocky outcrop looms near. I see a large, fish shaped, colourful creature and I instantly recognise a massive parrotfish. In my panic to shoot the thing, I hurriedly try to flick the safety off a few times and shoot at the fish without spending time aiming. The fish erupts into a series of spasm-like movements and flays around in a small shady patch. With a quick resurface and the snorkel back in my mouth, I look down at the massive fish thrashing around on the end of my spear. I see that I speared it in the guts and that the fishs guts are hanging out. I then notice the small flap of skin that would have been it’s belly, with my spear through it. Not knowing if the spear was going to stay in I dived down and pulled the fish up at the same time. I reach for the struggling fish’s gills and wrap my fingers firmly around the inside of it’s gills. The water around it becomes greener and hazier than before and I know I don’t need to be bleeding it, the spear did that for me! I take my remaining hand and wrap it around the side of the spear that isn’t pointed and I keep pressure in it so that the fish doesn’t slip off. I leave my gun trailing behind attached to my spear as I take off to the beach. As I approach the beach I lift the fish out of the water for a second to show my mum. The setting sun and the beautiful colours of the fish make for a truly memorable moment that will stay in my mind forever. Only now I witness it’s true size.  I pass Harry and he gives me a double thumbs up! Woo hoo! And with motivation from that, I speed swim my way in and dump the fish on a rock.

Lochie and mum are on the beach waiting, mum with her phone in hand. Lochie puts his arm in the air and waves a crayfish around for me to see. I congratulate him on the first crayfish caught diving by any of us. With a quick stab to the head and a slice to the gills, the fish bleeds it’s last drop of blood as my heart pumps my own around at an alarming rate. After a couple of pics with me holding the fish at the shore line (see above image), I spot Harry out the corner of my eye walking along the rocks. I find this quite unusual since getting out of the ocean there is quite tough. The first thing he says to us is:
“Does anyone have another pair of shorts!?”
“Why?” I ask, chuckling.
“A shark the size of you swam next to me!” He exclaims and says nothing else on the matter, for now.

Harry brings out his fishing ‘brag mat’ to measure the parrotfish I speared. It turned out being a thumping 75cm!!! With a few pictures of all the fish and many high fives, we make our way back to the car, with a great range of experiences in our memories to stay with us for a life time. This was definitely my best spearfishing session ever.

The Final Empire

*CAUTION – SMALL SPOILER ALERT*

I have recently finished a series of books called the ‘Mistborn Trilogy’ by Brandon Sanderson. The trilogy is a best seller in the U.S and the U.K with the first book being called ‘The Final Empire’. The story is based around this books version of a girl from the lowest class of the hierarchy (the Skaa) with the rare power of Allomancy in a medieval fantasy world. In this world the sun is red, ash falls constantly from the sky and strange fog (named The Mist) appears out of nowhere at dusk and disappears at dawn.
In the first book the main character (Vin) is rescued from her life of hiding in a thief gang by a legendary man (Kelsier) looking for recruits to help him overthrow the Lord Ruler who has ruled the world for a thousand years. Kelsier is the only man to have escaped The Pits of Hathsin. If you are sent to the Pits then you have one week to find a geode of a precious metal called Atium through the cracks at the Pits (sort of like a mine) or else you are killed. If you succeed then you have another week to find another geode or be killed. The process is repeated until you die. Kelsier gained the power of Allomancy in the Pits of Hathsin and used his newfound powers to help him escape. He reveals to Vin that she has the power of Allomancy and asks her to help him overthrow the Lord Ruler. She joins his small crew of ex-thiefs and thugs (most of which have an allomantic power) and she gets to experience one thing she has never gotten to do in her life. Trust.
The whole book is riddled with twists and turns that keep you guessing. It is a heist story with bits of romance, magic and self confliction thrown in. The book seems to follow one of Kelsiers sayings, “There is always another secret”.
This is my favourite book series with a close second by The Percy Jackson Series. It is perfect for anyone looking for a great read.

Cray Diving Kalbarri – 19th Feb

Last Friday was memorable.
I went through a normal Friday school day (Maths, sport, careers ed) up until lunch. After lunch I went snorkelling as part of my outdoor education elective. Sadly when we got to the beach the wind picked up and the clouds covered the sun. So basically, it got kind of cold. With all my gear on I walked down to the water’s edge and felt the water, by golly it was cold! With no sun to heat the water up, my time in the water was quite unenjoyable. The low levels of sunlight, the weak current and the dozen pairs of legs kicking around made for murky waters. It was quite uneventful except for the small wobbegong I spotted and Bailey scratching his hands on a crayfish. I was pretty pumped to try my luck at catching some that afternoon with Lochie after Bailey was talking up the size of the crayfish he got his hands on.

My day dreams of catching huge crayfish persisted through the next half hour which consisted of meeting Lochie at school, riding together to the Ambulance centre next to the school (Lochie’s mum works there), getting changed into our wetsuits and zipping down to the beach. After locking up our bikes and agreeing to take our dive bags in the water with us so we could store any caught crayfish inside. My dive bag is a fluorescent yellow bag with a large opening which is held shut by a spring.

The clouds had moved on since school ended and the wind slowed down to just a few knots. Without further ado we dived in and swam to our diving area as fast as we could. Even with our wetsuits on it was a bit chilly. But after I got my blood pumping I was feeling much warmer and eager to locate some crays. After a while we spotted a deep ledge with several huge crays hiding inside. When I resurfaced the sand I had stirred up took ages to settle. I knew that there was going to be a long wait between dives because of the murkiness.

After spending a half hour of fruitless attempts at snaring a cray, Lochie stayed under water for a long time and tried to pull something from under the ledge. He backed out with empty hands and started swimming back up. As he was resurfacing he “flipped the bird” at the ledge and tried to mouth something to me with a big grin on his face. He held his hands about 40cm apart and I knew he had his hands on a ripper! We stood on a shallow part of the rock and he said that the crayfish was so big he couldn’t get his hand around the top of its shell! After hearing this news I dived straight down to the ledge and spotted a crayfish. It wasn’t the monster Lochie grabbed but it would have to do. I stuck the metal pole of my cray snare behind the crayfish and pushed on the back of the pole to widen the loop at the end. I slowly put it around the crayfish’s tail and let go of the pole which snapped the loop around the end of the crayfish’s tail. I barely had time to reach for the crayfish before it slammed it’s muscular tail and flicked out of the loop. I tried to swear but bubbles just came out and made it more urgent for me to reach the surface. I checked my watch as I reached the surface and it was time to head back in. With a wave of my middle finger to the ledge I started swimming in with Lochie trailing behind. We arrived back at the beach and we were kind of disappointed by the lack of crayfish in our hands. We rode home up the hill with our gear and that ended our Friday afternoon. It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped but on the bright side, at least I looped my first crayfish!