Tabs! :D

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

O is for Obadiah/ Oh no!

Obadiah is was my antagonist for my one story. It's a problem, because every story needs some sort of antagonist (or else where's the tension coming from?) Yes, well, Obadiah is just annoying enough to stop being an antagonist and flips around to be a stinking protagonist. Gah! I don't know what he was thinking, but it was hardly considerate.

Thus I have had to create an antagonist. I think I came up with the solution, but it's still a little wobbly in my head right now. I think I still need to know Obadiah a little bit better, and in order to get to know him better I wrote this little bit from his perspective. It's not particularly good because Obadiah thinks in such boring terms. He's so darn rational, which I was not expecting from him at all. Stupid characters acting out on their own.

---

Yeah. I was going to have a post all about Obadiah, but after Wednesday, this post has changed to Oh nO!

This is what me car is supposed to look like:

The car on the left, the car on the left

Yes, yes, I know it's a bad picture. I know I have better pics somewhere, but I do not have the time, nor the energy, to find them right now.

This is what my car looks like now:

It's kerkrunchled

For all of you who are unaware, this is a stop sign:

See? It's bright and red and shiny?

This is a yield sign:

Also red and shiny, but a different shape

The lady in front of me (who found it necessary to go ten miles under the speed limit on the highway) stopped at the yield sign, when there was no traffic in the way. I wasn't expecting that. I wanted to pull out and drive harmlessly away. She wanted to stop. She stopped. I was forced to stop. My car is totaled.

I sat on the side of the road, looking up at the clear blue sky, avoiding the sight of the green goo oozing out of my car (radiator is dead, dead, dead), trying to parse verbs in my head because... Whoops! I had a final in a couple of hours. Fortunately I left early, so I wasn't late. (That would've been fun.) And I did get to meet a nice tow truck driver.

So finals are over. I have no car. I'm starting a new job that's far away from my house (so my parents can't really drop me off) and I'm going on vacation next week. Life will definitely be interesting.

In other news, the end of my contest came, so tomorrow (probably) I will post up the winners!! :D

And now, for a few moments of silence for the death of my Nissan Maxima.

Friday, April 23, 2010

This is Not a Letter of the Alphabet

Two of my finals got moved up, making this week of finals even worse than I thought it would be. Hence the lack of posts. Figured I'd let you know that I'll be disappearing until the end of the month.

Now imagine a can of Campbell's Mushroom Soup. ;)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

N is for Names

I totally got the idea for this post from Cheri. Everyone needs to have names for the characters. If you have been able to write a story without the character's names I will... Oh. Wait. Okay, so I DID write a short story and the characters did not have names, but that doesn't count. The point is most of the time people in stories have got to have names.

There can be very many reasons behind the names of my peeps, and each individual story tends to have a theme behind the reason for me choosing the names. Did that make sense? Good.

In Blackburn's Prisoner and Thanet's Curse I chose names based on their meaning, and their origin. This was the first time I have ever done this (writing high fantasy I tend to make up names instead.) It was fantastic! I came across some of my favorite names, like:

Cynferth: Welsh, meaning Beautiful Chief. Wait? Really?? Snap. I thought it meant something else. Oh well. It's still a really cool name.
Cenweard: English, meaning Wise Guardian. I LOVE this name. Sadly, I could never name my child this because he would be made fun of so bad.
Nadra: Swahili, meaning Special. This fits her perfectly. I was trying to find a name that started with 'N' that had its origins in Africanishness. And it needed to be short and I wanted it to mean something like 'unusual' so I was very excited.

Then in Haunbrinth everyone is named after real-life people. Not much to tell there. And yes, I did get permission from everyone. Especially the one girl Steph, because she turned out to be a mad angry person with issues.

Cinnamon and Calamus: or Why You Shouldn't Trust Spakes I have peeps divided in two. First there are spakes, who are named after people in the Bible.

Obadiah: Hebrew, God's worker
Solomon: Hebrew, Peace
Micaiah : Hebrew, who is like God?

Sweet! I didn't know what they meant before, I just picked them 'cause they're Bible names. That's pretty cool. Everyone else has weird names that come from I don't know where. Some are middle names of the people they're based on, and some people are named things like Scotch, or Emdy, or Jacqueline, just because that's who they are.

Oy. I need to stop having so many stories that are just floating around.
Oh! My sis told me about these! They are magical.

So what about you? Is there any specific reason you pick out names for your characters, or do they just come to you? Oh, and what was the weirdest name you ever used for one of your characters?

Friday, April 16, 2010

M is for Mouse

I MISSED A DAY!!!! Augh.... The shame. *hangs head*

Stupid school.

Anyway, so what happened while I was a way:

My sister lost her mouse. She wrote a letter to him here. What she doesn't know is that her mouse did leaves a note for her, but he left it in my room. He is a very confused mouse, so you can't blame him too badly. This is what his note said:

Dear Smoochie-poos of a Rebecca,

I am terribly sorry that I left without warning. I know you must be very worried. I promise you, it was not my fault. After you had fallen asleep for the night the mice from the ceiling came down and attacked me without warning, stealing me away to their dark domain. The Queen of the Racing Mice (that's what they call her) saw me from a hole in a ceiling and demanded her legions to come and claim me as one of their own. I had no choice. Now I am eternally stuck up here, where they continually make fun of me for not having a tail. I know you never cared that I didn't have a tail. It makes me missing you an awful lot. I pray you are moving on, finding new mice in the world, because I do not think it possible for me to be free from the clutches of the Queen of the Racing Mice.

Forever yours and tailess,
Your Mousey-wousey

Awww... What sadness. It also contained this picture:

So cute...

I'm not sure if this is the Queen of the Racing Mice, or one of her minions. Hopefully one day the Tailess Mouse can be freed of his captors and find his way home.

P.S. If you've commented and I have yet to visit your blog it's only because of school, my cars brakes having to be replaced, and my general harriedness. I am so excited that I've gotten so many comments, and people caring about what I have to say. You all deserve a muffin!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

L is for Languages

The other day my friend and I were talking about the languages we're creating. (She can already talk and think in hers. How cool is that?? Pretty cool. Pretty much a 5 on the E.o.m.) As we were discussing the problem of grammar, letters, and other stuff my friend made the comment that she cannot understand how I have more than one language that I've created.

I will explain it to you. I am insane.

Insane like a pirate bunny!

So maybe I don't have a slip of paper to prove it, and so what if I've never been psycho-analyzed; I'm still crazy. But if I'm not harmful to anyone (including myself) why should it matter? At least, I'm convinced I'm crazy because in a couple of hours I can structure the basic sentence structure and grammar of a language, then I can spew you out a good hundred vocab words. No, I'm not bragging. Bragging is obnoxious and stupid. I'm explaining how this proves that I'm crazy.

Crazy like a purple bunny.
A purple Alien Bunny! Eep!

It's like a disease. I try not to create new languages, I really do. And then a character will randomly say: "Wycujet anu kevredit?" And I stare at the character in shock, because now I have to figure out if 'Wycujet' is a noun, and whether or not kevredit can feasibly be a verb.

Sometimes, it makes me angry. You see, I'm working on this book with my friend 'Lucretia' (I don't know if I'm allowed to use her real name, so...) and it's set in its own world. She is writing from the perspective of Saoirse, and I am writing from Jadena's perspective. We've gotten into some interesting backstory, but I was convinced there would be no languages, because there was no way I was going to get into Yangorian (still haven't). Right. Until Jedrek and Alcandor started yammering away in the Ancient Dialect of Kruje. Good job. I hate you.

This has happened before. In my story, Pixie Princess, I have the main girl, Izka, living with Dwarves. I naively believed she could live with non-English-speaking creatures and not have to deal with creating a language. Doy. I'm an idiot.

Then there's the stupid world of Earac with Lohs, and the Gragan tongue, and I can't even tell you the rest of them.

Then there's the world of Gorsonian with Labiou, which is related to Traluh which is...

Whoops. Stopping. Sorry. Have I bored your socks off yet?

I still can't find a good sock attack picture.
I think I need to make my own.
Ooh... That gives me ideas. Mwahahaha >:)

It's interesting, because I am not bilingual. The closest I ever came to learning another language was when my mum tried to teach my brother and I Spanish, but she gave up when all we could do was make fun of the word for snake. or maybe it was for dove? I don't remember because I didn't learn much. The best part was the Muzzy movies.

I love Muzzy!!


Basically, this is a post for two reasons: 1) I'm doing the A-Z challenge and running out of ideas because my brain is slowly being drained by a Monstrosity name Skool. 2) I'm curious if anyone else has dabbled with creating their own languages. 3) That's all I can think of right now, because I'm translating a section of Akkadian, studying for my Greek vocab quiz, and writing down vocab for the Ancient Dialect of Kruje (ADK).

I apologize if I've bored you, and I'll probably read back through this later and think "wow, I need a life." But what's the point of having a life of interest and intrigue that leaves one tired and bored? I'd rather have a life of boredom that leaves me interested and intrigued.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

K is for Kill, Kill, Kill! and Die! Die! Die

I have realized a recent trend through my current wip's. Violence and death. Yup. Happy, huh? In Thanet's Curse I'm having the issue with my characters killing people without regret or any serious moral "hm, maybe I shouldn't kill this guy?" It's very weird. Especially because I'm not a big fan of murder. But seriously, the one girl, Damaria, kills like it's her hobby, and Nadra has these spikes of anger that are just plain dangerous.

No, Nadra doesn't look like this.
But sometimes I do.

The reason behind this is I get very annoyed at movies/books/sandwhiches that show murder like this:

BadGuy: Go ahead, shoot me!

Heroine: I will (hands shake while holding weapon/gun/zap stick)

BadGuy: No you won't!

Heroine: I can do whatever I want! (Hands BadGuy gun.) And I want to not kill you.

BadGuy: Swell. (shoots Heroine/Hero)

This type of scene tends to get me screaming "Shoot 'em in the leg! Shoot 'em in the leg!" Seriously, their leg can heal and that way they won't continue to train monkeys to steal every can of peanut butter in the galaxy. Thus, my scenes tend to look like this:

BadGal: Go ahead, shoot me!

Hero: Sure (shoots BadGal in leg).

See? Simple, easy... But when it's the five-billionth time Hero/Heroine has given up without a fight... I worry. I do have the excuse of it being in a world of fantasy, where maybe murder isn't looked down upon with the same fervor. But. Um. No. A girl kills her father (by accident) in self-defense and she gets banished for so many years. Yup. People still take it as serious as bananas. And bananas are pretty serious.

Feel the seriousness ooze out at you. Bwoogaly-Bwoogaly!

What about you guys? Have you ever had to deal with death in books? Do you find it easy to kill? Even FUN too kill? I mean, not really kill, because than I would have to have the popo hunt yo face down. (On a side note, fortunately I haven't started basing to-be-killed characters off of real life customers. I haven't lost it too badly.)

He, on the other hand, has lost it
*shudders*

Monday, April 12, 2010

J is for Jacqueline, Jedrek, and Jadena

I have a problem. You see, my current wip is based off of an inside joke my friend and I had. So, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, I based Scotch off of her, and Scotch's best friend, Jacqueline, was based off of myself. Why? Because Jacqueline was only going to be in one scene, so I figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Notice the words "was going to be." Yes. Jacqueline is in a whole lot more than one scene. In fact, she has made it impossible to NOT write her into the series of books. (Yes, it was turned into a series. How? How?) Yes. She will have her own book.

AHK! Do you know what this makes me feel like? Well, um, like I think I'm a super cool person. Can you imagine what that future interview could sound like:

I am the one with the hat.

INTERVIEWER: So, who inspired you for the character Jacqueline?

VAINAUTHOR: Myself, because I am SO brilliant

INTERVIEWER: Wow, everyone hates you.

This leaves me smacking my head on the table asking "Why? Why? Why?" Until Jacqueline came up and smacked me on the head. She told me to make a list of the four main characters.

Scotch: Loud, outspoken, spazz of a person who is cement-hard faithful to her friends
Emdy: Quick-witted, easy-talking, knife-toting kinda' gal
Jacqueline: Quiet, bird-like, mutters curses in Akkadian, Egyptian, or any other language she can think of.
Amarilla: Tends to space-out, spunky, shouts out random words when provoked

The whole reason for this exercise? (Other than being extremely useful.) I realized that Jacqueline is, well, Jacqueline. She isn't me. While we may have things in common, that's normal. I can find things in common with anybody, whether real or not-quite-real. (Seriously, even if it's the fact that we both dislike the smell of puke, I WILL find something in common with people.) Jacqueline has developed, grown an odd fascination for birds, is way more quiet and trusting than I ever will be, and she is completely her own person now. Maybe her personality did germinate with an idea of my own personality, but she grew way beyond me and became her own person. Sweet muffins! How exciting was that?

Have you ever had your own characters become something you didn't expect them to be? And if you would like I'd love for you to write a sentence describing one of your main characters. Just because I love learning more about you guys :D No, I'm not a stalker, really. I just WRITE about them, honest.

Before I leave you to comment, I wanted to mention another couple of characters that keep surprising me. Jedrek and Jadena. They're both from the book I'm writing with a friend (if you ever get confused with how many books I mention, I apologize. I'm such a spazz I end up writing at least three books at the same time, if not more so it sounds like I'm very productive with my writing when really I'm just a spazz.)

Jadena was supposed to be a girl-who-faints-at-blood kinda' person. Yeah. She's a total warrior chick, and is a little bit afraid of babies. Where did that come from?? No idea. But she is also a little bit insecure, which I also wasn't expecting. I'm enjoying learning more about her.

Then there's Jedrek, who was supposed to be not-at-all complicated, kinda' like a rock. Nice, comfortable, dependable. Rocks are NOT supposed to have complicated pasts, and they are NOT supposed to be able to speak a language that's been supposedly dead for the past fifty-odd years. Oh, and he should not be able to speak this language with the local Geikling. Just doesn't happen. (If you're wondering what a Geikling is, he's kinda' made up, and I'm not even sure what he is yet. He IS arrogant and I love him.)

I think that's one of the reasons why I love writing. It's unpredictable, but if someone does get stabbed and dies I don't have to freak out, because I can just shrink the document and walk away from it.

Walkin' away...

Sunday, April 11, 2010

I is for Interesting?

Laura over at Wavy Lines had a blog up today about predictability. It got me thinking about my own string of novels that I've been working on, because she was asking what one did to make their characters stop being predictable. There's pretty much ONE thing I do to stop my characters being dumb and boring.

I make them go crazy.

Yup. Just like that.

A little while ago I mentioned that my one character, Scotch, is just WAY too okay with someone stalking her. This is bad because one big point to writing this book was to show a more realistic approach to how someone would react to a stalker. Now, don't freak out at the word "realistic" because remember, I am writing this and I am ridiculous, so what I count as realistic others might scratch their heads at and wonder at my peculiarities.

Anyway, because she was being way too laid back, (which is the total opposite of her character) I make her paranoid. She makes her mom take her to the police station, but no one takes her seriously because she's barely sixteen, has an over-active imagination, and her stalker keeps interfering in ways that are so not cool. (Though, is it really his fault? Being a spake and all didn't give him many choices in the way he would be raised up.)

I am very excited, because I've been mapping out the next book in the series (yes, it's a series *hangs head in shame*) and I am just waiting for all the terrible things I can do to my characters. Mwahahahaha >:)

So for you writerly people out there: What do you do when a character is being as boring as a dirty sock? Do you like to mess with their mind? Throw rocks at them? Or do you give them some incurable disease, where they can only eat foods that start with the letter z? Do you stick your character with an annoying side-kick?

Alright, I'll stop now because if I don't I will continue this list for a very, very LONG time.

And a quick note: I have NOT been commenting on your blogs very much, my dear followers, and for that I apologize. April is the Month of Evil for me, so I will be around like a cat, sometimes disappearing for days or weeks only to pop up mysteriously again. (At least, that's what our old cat did.)

Oh! And my sis is having a super cool contest! It includes super cute owls. :D Aren't you excited already??

And there is still time to enter my First Ever Contest.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

H is for Hi

Yup. That's pretty much it.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

G is for Greek

There is something about ancient stuff that makes me happy. Especially the Greeks. No idea why. Especially because when I was younger I absolutely refused to read a Greek Mythology for school, telling my mum I would rather FAIL, which for me is a big deal. Then my sis made me read Antigone (by Sophocles) in 11th? grade. Ever since than I have been fascinated with the time period.

Check the link for more random Greek info
Maps... *Drools*

I was so interested, that I wrote up a monologue based on Antigone. I had to go to this boring homeschool Historical Night, (sorry mum, but they were boring) where you dressed up as a historical character and tried to give people clues as to who you are. I picked Antigone, because even though she was a fictional character, she was in a play, and the play was part of history. So there.

A vase from the Louvre!!!

Instead of making up a list of clues I wrote a monologue. I worked my butt off over it, trying to get it just right. Then I stood up, looking all pale and tragic, and gave my little speech about pleasing the gods, and how I'd rather die for the gods than live blah blah blah.

Now, take in mind that I was at a homschool group. One of those Uber Christians homeschool groups (no offense). It was hilarious. There was complete dead silence and everyone was trying NOT to make eye contact with me. I could just see it on some of the parents' faces "What are her parents teaching her?"

Fortunately someone guessed who I was and everyone let out a collected breath as I got my heathen self off stage. It was great.

Following that tradition, I am writing a play in the tradition of Greek Plays for my school project. However, my college is liberal, definitely not Uber Christian (which I could go on a rant about, but I'll spare you that boring mound of words), so I think the Resist eye Contact Stares will be at a minimum.

It's basically about a Dude bringing Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Shakespeare to the modern world to comment on the world of retail. Sophocles and Aritophanes decide to bring the Cashier back to Ancient Greece, because she is treated so terribly, but of course, she is treated just as terribly in Greece. Shakespeare than wants to bring her to England, but alas, a Merchant wants her to be a wench in a tavern, so they have to scurry back to Modern Times. The Dude wants the Three Playwrights to change the world, but they let him know the world "is not there's to save" and that's it's up to him to change it.

I love it. It was so much fun to write, and I included some really super geeky things. Here are a couple of my fav lines, right after the Customer demands the Cashier to be his slave:

CASHIER: The gods must have abandoned me, to leave me in such misery.

CHORUS: We know we should feel bad for you, but we kinda' want our own slave too.

That's where it started. Those two lines got stuck in my head, and out came a really ridiculous play. Some day I want to expand it (the project is 5-10 pages long, just a one act play), because I just have so much fun with it.

This, of course, means I will have to read all of these:

Mine, mine, all mine! Mwahahahaha!

Okay. No. There not all mine. One I stole from my mum, four are my mums, and one is the library's. *Sigh* Aristophanes, I will miss you when I return you to sit on a cold, metal, dead shelf, sitting among other books less worthy than you.

He has a creepy snake beard
*shakes head*
He just lost cool points

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

F is for Freedom or Frustration? Followers, and Fantastical Creatures

Yeah, um, that blog title is huge, and I don't know how well I'll cover everything, but I figure this will help distract me from translating the Descent of Ishtar (kill me now!) and give me something else to think about.

First off: Forty Followers!!!!!!! *spazzes out* I can't believe it. You guys mean so much to me. Knowing there are people out there reading and commenting.... It's Fantasically Fantabulous.

Second off: I figure there are two aspects to writing: Freedom and Frustration.

Freedom!

I picked this pic because for me, this embodies freedom. A path to take where you will, when you will, benches to pause and rest on. There are (hopefully) these freedom moments when writing. When all the words are lining up just right. When you can sit for an entire day typing, forgetting about food, forgetting about sleep, forgetting about everything except the world unwrapping itself around. (Okay, some of you would never forget to eat, but I would so just imagine you could forget to eat.) It is freeing to be able to write.

It is also Frustratin:

His main character just shot three people and squawked like a duck. Ahhh!

THEN there are days where we can't even write two words, everything we write sounds like garbage in a rusty garbage bin, and when we try to get a character to act correctly they end up flying off on spaceships and leaving us alone to sit in front of our laptops/computers/notebooks trying not to scream or throw shoes at the nearest individual. We know we're writing for a reason, but the only thing we see is the myriad letters laughing at you, because you can never be a writer.

This is why all writers are insane. We have our FREEDOM! VICTORY! days, followed by a day of Frustrating, and it leaves everyone around us wondering: What is wrong with them?

What are your favorite Freedom moments? Do you have a special way of dealing with the Days of Frustration? (other than eating lot's of sugar and pretending to be a cow... not that I've ever done that, or even thought of doing that.)

And just for quick...

My friend and I were looking up mythological creatures when we found this:

The Uma-No-Ashi, which is a leg that dangles from trees to kick passersby. Don't you love the Japanese? That is just so random.

Then there's the Fear Gorta, who comes around during famines. According to legend they originate from Hungry Grass, which is a bit of grass cursed by fairies. At least, that's what wikipedia says, and we all know that if wikipedia says it it has to be true. *eyes roll*

Oh! And CONTESTS!

Jackee over at Winded Words is having a contest. Apparently her prizes are lucky, so check her out.

Also, Lisa and Laura have an EPIC contest over at their blog. They're sisters, and who doesn't love sisters?

Alright. That's enough for one day. My homework is feeling a good amount of rejection, so this blog has served its purpose.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

E is for Eurghakkkkkkaaaa (Because I Don't Know What Else to Name This)

Okay.

Right now my brain is so fried from school, a symposium thing-a-ma-bob (nothing major, just a lot to think about) so I'm going to do another book blog. Yay!

So awhile ago I won a contest Falen was hosting. Ages, and ages ago, when the moon was still young and the sun was still old... Erm, I mean... *sigh* Reading way to much mythology stuff, anyway. I won a B&N gift card and I finally just HAD to go book shopping today. Look what I got:





















I LOVE mythology books. I am so excited to read them, and I've already start going highlighting crazy on the one. The other tiny, tiny pic of one is an herb book. It has led my mum and me to want to start an herb gardening. I am totally doing that this summer.

After I write a paper on the reason why America won't continue because of the lack of mythology.

Oh! And about the Contest: I realized I forgot to ask ya'll to add up your points when you're all done, and leave the total in the comments. With how good I am with math, if I counted points up I'd end up giving someone -23 points and someone else 62.

Monday, April 5, 2010

D is for Debris

The fabulous Falen had a writing prompt contest a little whiles back, and in my hemming and hawing about what to post today Sonshine said, "Ooh! Post your short story!" So I figured I would.
*Update*
Due to the Author's Borderline Skitsifrenia the short story has been removed. But here's a pretty picture:



Friday, April 2, 2010

C is for Contest, and Courage, and Calamus

YES!!!! I am finally having a contest. About time, right? So originally it was to celebrate reaching 23 followers and already I have 34. Holy guacamole!

Before I get to the prizes:

Christine over at Christine's Journey is having a contest because she reached 100 stalkers, I mean, followers. YES! And I only just started following her, but just from her one post I can tell she is a very nice, amiable person, so go on over and stalk her and enter her contest. Yay! (Oh, and check out Kaitlyn's site, she has the cutest pics ever, and one of her pics is going to be one of the prizes, so go forth, but not until you finish reading this.)

Christina over at Chocolate for Inspiration is having a really, really cute contest. Check it out.

Shannon is also having a contest with six possible prizes, celebrating getting an agent. Woohoo!

Okay: Now for My Contest

There will be 3 whole winners. Unfortunately, because I am super poor, right now I'm going to have to limit it to the US and Canada. I know! Sad face. I know for a fact some of you are in other places, so I'll just have another contest later which will include you. Man. I feel like a terrible exclusive hating person.

For the first place person:

* Homemade pillow
* Owl. Thing. (For info on this see Joan's post)
* Stickers!
* Pen


Aw, creepy owl thing.

For the pillow you won't win the exact one in the picture. I'm going to make you a new one! Here's some of the fabric I already have:


I use napkins. Whoever wins can either pick two of these, or (depending on their favorite color/design) I will go out and buy some new ones.

For the second place person:

* Owl. Thing.
*Stickers
* Pen


For the third place person: (beware, it is very lame)

* stickers
* pen

Who doesn't want creepy chicken stickers??

It will be running until the end of April, because there is no way I can be ready before then. It will end at exactly April 30 at 11:59 pm.

Okay, here's the pointage stuff:

Be a follower +1 (this is a must, whether you're following this one or Slumpvis)

Tell me your favorite color and/or design +1 (this is also a must, partially for the whole pillow thing, partially because I just want to know. Mwahahahaha >:)

Side blog thing +1 (if this isn't a clear definition I apologize)

Write a blog that mentions this contest +2

Any questions let me know :)

And a quick note about Courage:

I'm afraid my character, Scotch (named after the tape, not the liquor), is TOO courageous. She hops around and is definitely not a wimp, but I'm afraid she's a little bit too okay with everything. Is that weird? I know there has to be a good balance between courage and fear, so I'm going to have to pay good attention to this when I get around to the re-writes.

And a quick note about Calamus:

Does anyone know what it smells like??? Or feels like, or where I can by seeds so that I can grow some of my own?

B is for Books, Duh

Okay, so this one is kinda' obvious. Who knows how many other people are going to write about Books? Okay, so I could probably go find out how many people are, but there is no way I have time for that. So today I am going to just post about some of the few books that I will actually read more than once.

Yes, that's right. I very rarely re-read books. *waits while book lovers across the world throw rocks at me* But I already know what happens, so you have to be real super good for me to read a book again.

The first is the Silmarillion. Yup. Even die-hard Tolkien fans haven't been able to get through this even once, but it is definitely something I would read again, and again, and again. Why? Well, because I'm insane. I thought I had already proven that? I kid, I kid.

I love it and would read it again because Tolkien has created his very own mythology. He was a philologist, a linguist, so many things that I would love to be if I had the time, money, or patience. Which, right now I don't have any of those.

Anyway, Tolkien is masterful in the way he writes this book, making it seem like a true history book. I know some of you are thinking *yawn* and usually I would be with you. I am very picky about history books. If they even have a scent of being boring, I can't even pick it up. I'm terrible when it comes to the whole "don't judge a book by its cover." Are you kidding? I don't only judge books by their covers, I sentence them to jail, refuse parole, and stick 'em in a dungeon based on their covers alone.

Ahem. Moving on.

Drool... This is just a fantastic pic of them all. Well. All but one.

Another series of books that I will re-read numerous times are The Series of Unfortunate Events. They are hilarious, well written, and have big words in them. There is an underlying mystery and mythos that leaves one intrigued. There are just not enough words to explain how amazing these books are. I have no idea how Lemony Snickette/Daniel Handler can write about death, dying, destruction, and a vicious serial killer while still being riotously funny.

The Hunger Games.

You probably have heard the hype, and for some people this is reason alone not to read it. I can't really blame you, because I usually don't like reading books if they're hyped up all over the place. So pretend this book has never been mentioned before except by me, because I'm writing about it right now and it would be hard to pretend you haven't heard about it from even me. It is fantastic. She draws you, makes you care, in the first chapter. You are already hooked. You are a worm, you are so hooked. And yes, it is a fast read (Catching Fire was worse) and that is kinda' sad because it's so good and it's over with so quickly... But that's one of the reasons I love it. Books I have to wade through are good, but they take effort, and sometimes I just don't want to exert effort to read a book.

So there you go, three books that I would re-read time and time again.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A is for April and Already Aggravated

So Lee over at Tossing it Out has decreed this challenge where you write posts every day (except for Sundays) and each day you begin with a new letter of the alphabet, starting with A of course and moving down daily until you hit Z. Shouldn't be hard, right? Ha. Ha.

So, I will be attempting to do this, but it will probably end up getting divided between this blog and Slumpvis Musings. If that annoys you I'm sorry. There's just no way I can to TWO posts a day. Why?

Because April is evil. Now, most people may not realize this. But it is. Seriously. I would have to go back and check my (ridiculous) journals to double check, but from my memory I remember April always being difficult. (Except for in 2008, when I went to London. But that doesn't count.)

First: Woke up sick.
Second: Was stupid and went to school anyway.
Third: Skipped class even though I was here, because I ran up to a friend's room to sleep.

Sounds like a terrible start to the month, don't it?

Fortunately, something wonderful happened yesterday, which is holding up my metaphorically brain fort. Okay. That sounds more weird than it did in my head.

For one of my stories I am creating a mythological creature. This has been, in fact, one of my goals in life. Some people want to change the world, help initiate world peace by making scones, but I simply want to create mythological creatures. Trust me, it sounds easier than it is.

In this story (the one based on an inside joke about these creatures named Spakes) I was trying to figure out what exactly Spakes were when they weren't parading around as humans. Except, they don't really parade, because they are super, super secretive. Anyway. I knew they were dog-like, but definitely NOT werewolves. No. No. No. And so I was all confused and thinking about it right before I woke up.

And ding!

Like a microwave reaching zero, like my annoying oven finishing its countdown, inspiration hit me like a frying pan. I jerked awake and scrambled to look at my Idiot's Guide to Mythology.

I am loving this book

Right now I'm not going to give anything away, because it's an idea I haven't heard of anyone doing before so I'm kinda' being mom-protective of it, and I still have to do research on it to see if it's in fact a viable option. I will say it does not have to do with the Greeks, and does have to do with both the Egyptians and the Hebrews. Possibly. I am super, super, mad excited. Which makes up for waking up sick, missing class, and having to drag myself to another class in ten minutes.

This is why I write. Without it my life would be mad boring.

Ugh... I'm going to fall asleep just looking at this.