Blog Memes: Celia

Over halfway through the class, now. Here's Celia Costain's meme:

(1) PLEASE WRITE OUT, PHONETICALLY, HOW YOU WOULD PRONOUNCE THE WORD, "MEME."
Meh-MAY

(2) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
Brown. Yeah, it’s weird, but I like brown. What can I say?

(3) WHAT CARTOON CHARACTER WOULD YOU BE?
*sigh* Charlie Brown, probably

(4) IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Either the ability to run around at super fast speeds, or else the ability to be two places at one time

(5) WHAT IS THE FIRST ITEM ON YOUR "BUCKET LIST"?
Get all the stuff on the rest of my lists done.

(6) DESCRIBE YOURSELF. USE 3 WORDS.
"Who am I?"

(7) WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINISHING THIS MEME?
Fold laundry

(8) HEMINGWAY ONCE SAID THE BEST STORY HE EVER WROTE WAS ONLY SIX WORDS LONG: "FOR SALE, BABY SHOES, NEVER USED." WHAT STORY COULD YOU WRITE IN ONLY SIX WORDS?
"I feel sad for the baby."

Gettin' Back to Blog Memes: James

I've neglected this for the past couple days, so I better get cracking.

George's meme is HERE, and Allie's is HERE.

And this is James Kosalinski's:

(1) PLEASE WRITE OUT, PHONETICALLY, HOW YOU WOULD PRONOUNCE THE WORD, "MEME."
It’s pronounced, "Meme." Duh.

(2) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
What if I were colorblind? Huh? Did you ever think of how insensitive this question would be?

(3) WHAT CARTOON CHARACTER WOULD YOU BE?
I don’t watch cartoons

(4) IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I wish I could fry the brains of people who clog up my inbox with idiotic memes.

(5) WHAT IS THE FIRST ITEM ON YOUR "BUCKET LIST"?
Convince the world of their errors.

(6) DESCRIBE YOURSELF. USE 3 WORDS.
Better. Than. You.

(7) WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINISHING THIS MEME?
Wish I could have back the time I wasted on this stupid thing.

(8) HEMINGWAY ONCE SAID THE BEST STORY HE EVER WROTE WAS ONLY SIX WORDS LONG: "FOR SALE, BABY SHOES, NEVER USED." WHAT STORY COULD YOU WRITE IN ONLY SIX WORDS?
Alone he ventured. Bears ate him.

Congratulations!

John and Katie, two members of the JP2 High writing team, got engaged this weekend.





Best wishes for their future happiness!

More Stuff on the JP2 Website...

... in between wrestling with the opening chapters of The Midnight Dancers, I've been updating the John Paul 2 High website. There's now more stuff on the character pages and a little more information on the overall series-- and more is coming. Check it out if you have a moment. Plus Christian Frank is (finally!) answering some questions on the blog.

Some Answers

Hi-ho, C. Frank here, the erstwhile author of CR. Regina has been emailing me twice a day asking me to come over here and answer some questions. It's been a busy week, but I managed to get over here...now, let's see.

Was Celia supposed to be St. Cecilia for the All Saints Day party?

Yes. She just assumed that Allie would recognize her costume, forgetting that Allie's not exactly an expert on saints.

Is there any hope for Tyler? Will he ever become a nice person who isn't a sick jerk? Preferrably a Catholic person? I know this is a rather spoilery question, but I just need to know if there's hope. It seems like there's a part of him that wants the truth, even though he's currently too lazy to actually look for it.

There is hope for everyone. It really depends on Tyler. But I can't say more just now. It is kind of a spoilery question (I think you just coined a new word there!) but I will say that the path Tyler is going down doesn't look good.

Are any of the kids confirmed? I'm guessing Celia is at least, but I'm not so sure about George and Allie and the rest. If not, will we get to see anything like that? I'd love to see Allie's confirmation.

All the kids at JP2 are confirmed, except for Allie. Allie's mom and stepdad aren't practicing Catholics, so she hasn't really practiced her faith at all, ever, at the start of the story. As far as whether we'll see it....well, keep reading!

Will there be more students at JP2H with each book? Every few books? At all? Will we get to know any of these kids, or will they just be there to make the school bigger?

Well, a school really can't stay that small and stay in business, so yes! More kids will join! And there will be some strange additions to our cast of characters, let me tell ya.

Will we get things from Celia's perspective sometimes? Or any of the other JP2H-ers?

Yes. In fact, Book 2 (which is already in the works) will be from Celia's perspective. In fact, there will be a different perspective with each book.

Well, I hope that helps. Thanks for your support. Seriously. It's really cool that you guys are enjoying the book so much. Keep spreading the word! More is on the way.

CR reviewed on Love2Learn.net's Blog!

...The first in a fascinating new series created by a team of young Catholic authors....The book reads very well; it’s a definite page-turner with lots of surprises and events that keep the reader going. Because it’s trying to be realistic, this book doesn’t solve all the problems and mysteries within the 300+ pages. You’re meant to end the book, shaking your head, wondering “but what about...”

Thanks to Mary G. at Love2Learn.net for a great review of Catholic, Reluctantly!

Blog Meme: Allie

Here's part two in our series of character memes

Today is Allie Weaver's turn:

(1) PLEASE WRITE OUT, PHONETICALLY, HOW YOU WOULD PRONOUNCE THE WORD, "MEME."
Meam rhymes with bean… Sort of.

(2) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
You mean to wear? Black. Colors in general, a pale, strong blue.

(3) WHAT CARTOON CHARACTER WOULD YOU BE?
When I was little, I wanted to be Wonder Woman.

(4) IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Sometimes, I wish I had x-ray vision. But I would also need x-ray hearing to know what the people were saying. Does that count as one superpower or two?

(5) WHAT IS THE FIRST ITEM ON YOUR "BUCKET LIST"?
Yikes! This is morbid. Get married, I guess.

(6) DESCRIBE YOURSELF. USE 3 WORDS.
I’m a "PIG."—"Pretty Intelligent Girl!" :P

(7) WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINISHING THIS MEME?
Text Madison.

(8) HEMINGWAY ONCE SAID THE BEST STORY HE EVER WROTE WAS ONLY SIX WORDS LONG: "FOR SALE, BABY SHOES, NEVER USED." WHAT STORY COULD YOU WRITE IN ONLY SIX WORDS?
That top looks cute. Charge, please.

Blog Meme: George

Okey doke. Like Regina said in the last post, we're going to be posting a few memes over the next few days so you can get to know the characters a little better.

If you have an email account, you've probably encountered memes like this. The concept is simple: a list of questions that you answer and then forward to your friends. Each person who recieves the forward will delete the previous answers, fill in his own and then forwards them on. Ideally, your answers give your friends the chance to learn a few things about you they might not have known.

So what we've done is have the JP2 high school students all fill out the same meme. We'll be posting one student per day. (If you want to fill out the meme yourself, feel free to do it in the comments box.)

First up is George Peterson:

(1) PLEASE WRITE OUT, PHONETICALLY, HOW YOU WOULD PRONOUNCE THE WORD, "MEME."
Mee-Mee, I guess

(2) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
Green

(3) WHAT CARTOON CHARACTER WOULD YOU BE?
Jerry the mouse

(4) IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Flying. Definitely flying

(5) WHAT IS THE FIRST ITEM ON YOUR "BUCKET LIST"?
If you mean, what I'd like to do before I kick the bucket then: make the world somehow better than it was before I got here.

(6) DESCRIBE YOURSELF. USE 3 WORDS.
Doof. This is hard. I guess I'm a GUY who takes ACTION and stands up for JUSTICE. Yeah, I know it sounds lame, but how do you sum up yourself in three words?

(7) WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINISHING THIS MEME?
Work out.

(8) HEMINGWAY ONCE SAID THE BEST STORY HE EVER WROTE WAS ONLY SIX WORDS LONG: "FOR SALE, BABY SHOES, NEVER USED." WHAT STORY COULD YOU WRITE IN ONLY SIX WORDS?
'I can’t write six word stories.'

Meet the Characters

Just a web admin note to say we updated the character profiles on the website. Check them out if you want.
Peace out,
Series Queen

Some Reactions and Questions

I'm going to post this letter from a fan and ask Christian Frank to answer some of the questions within it. Like I said, we can't answer questions that would spoil the plots of the other books, but we'll try to tell you what we can!

Feel free to post in the comments boxes!

Hi Regina! I just read John Paul 2 High: Catholic, Reluctantly and I thought I'd let you know what I thought! I also have some questions. Most of them aren't spoilery, so you probably won't have to be coy, as you say. ;)

When you said that the series would deal with things that Catholic teens deal with... I didn't realize how much I would be able to relate, or understand what those kids were going through. The dialogue was so real, and way to go on having photographs of the characters! The story just played out like a movie for me, because the characters didn't look like drawings in my mind. The only thing that bothered me (and I know you've heard this before) were the IM conversations. Yes, I know some teenagers use "2" for "to." As if the extra letter will kill them. But Celia spelled correctly, at least! My IMming tends to be more like hers, but I capitalize letters.

I loved the characters. I had read the first few chapters online a few times, and it was so weird to realize suddenly that there was MORE to the book than that! And that these people were characters... real characters... I don't know how to explain it, and I'm doing a horrible job of it, but I loved them.

The book was really funny. I loved J.P. :D He had me laughing almost anytime he said something!

Now for my questions:

Was Celia supposed to be St. Cecilia for the All Saints Day party?

Is there any hope for Tyler? Will he ever become a nice person who isn't a sick jerk? Preferrably a Catholic person? I know this is a rather spoilery question, but I just need to know if there's hope. It seems like there's a part of him that wants the truth, even though he's currently too lazy to actually look for it.

Are any of the kids confirmed? I'm guessing Celia is at least, but I'm not so sure about George and Allie and the rest. If not, will we get to see anything like that? I'd love to see Allie's confirmation.

Will there be more students at JP2H with each book? Every few books? At all? Will we get to know any of these kids, or will they just be there to make the school bigger?

Will we get things from Celia's perspective sometimes? Or any of the other JP2H-ers?

That's all. Thanks for working so hard to get good Catholic books out there for teens! :)

Introducing the John Paul 2 High Team

The John Paul 2 High team: from left to right: top row: Andy A+Hat, Johnny
bottom row: Ry, Regina the Series Queen, small child mascot, Token "Teenager", Julian
Missing: H, Craig and Jamie Spiering, Fr. Christopher Pollard, Jaime, Ann (and Bowman the Black is not in the picture because he was taking it).

These are some of the people who brought you the John Paul 2 High series. As you can see, I have a hard time getting them all in one room at the same time, but these were the ones who were able to make the last meeting: mainly our writers (all the guys in the picture are writers). The Token Teenager (in pink) is now 21 and thus no longer a teenager, but she still gives us feedback on how realistic our characters sound. Some of the others not pictured are editors and idea people. Fr. Chris Pollard is our chaplain and checks the books against Church teaching. Everyone is an important part of making this series work. It's been a lot of work thus far, but also a lot of fun.

Anyhow, in the coming weeks we're hoping to post more about the characters on this blog and on the website, and to give you all a chance to get your questions about the series answered.

So stay tuned, and if you think of it, say a prayer for us! Thanks!

Review on SpiritualWomanThoughts.blogspot.com

Catholic, Reluctantly is the first in what is hoped to be a long-running series of books focused on John Paul II high. Editor Regina Doman (Waking Rose, Angel in the Waters) is working with a group of talented young writers to bring young Catholics books about people like them. Christian M. Frank has done a great job with this one! The story is engaging and interesting and leaves you wanting more. I, for one, am looking forward to the next installment. Read more...

Catholic Reluctantly on CatholicMoments.com!

"Series Queen" Regina Doman was interviewed about Catholic Reluctantly and her other books on the CatholicMoments podcast. Click here to listen!

Regina Interviewed by Catholic Moments

Last week I had a great interview with Lisa Hendey (http://www.catholicmom.com/) for her podcast, Catholic Moments. We talked about the Fairy Tale Novels, Angel in the Waters, and of course, John Paul 2 High. Click here to listen (my interview is about 1/3 of the way in). It would be great to get some comments on the podcast on Lisa's site, so if you have a question, comment, etc. leave it on her page.

Thanks for listening! Lisa's hoping to do an interview with John Paul 2 High author Christian Frank sometime soon, so check back!

What did you think of Book 1?

By now some of you blog readers have finished the book: please let me know what you thought! Post your reactions in the comments boxes if you want!
Peace and good
Series Queen

Catholic, Reluctantly on Amazon!

Catholic Reluctantly is now on Amazon.com! To buy it, click here. And could I ask a favor? If you've read the book and liked it, could you go to Amazon and post a short review? Those things really help! Thanks very much in advance!

I'm up at Steubenville now and getting ready to talk about "Writing in the New Millennium." Say a prayer for me, because I've lost my voice. :( And if you're in Steubenville, I hope you can come to the talk! I'm going to be talking about pointers for Catholic writers trying to get published in today's market. And I'll have copies of Catholic, Reluctantly on hand if you want to buy one.

It's on Amazon!

Catholic Reluctantly is now on Amazon.com! To buy it, click here. If you've already read the book, would you consider posting a review at Amazon? Thanks so much!