I've created my Mecca....

So dad and I spent most of today doing some home improvements.... mostly in my bedroom. My room is in the front of the house and gets direct sunlight. Our air conditioner also seems to love the basement and despite turning all of the vents off downt here, it still gets the majority of the air. So between that and the direct sunlight my room gets for like.... six+ hours a day, my room is like a sauna. And I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of sitting in one place and sweating a lot. Especially when that place is the location I do most of my typing. And needless to say, Dad hasn't been crazy about the amount of our electric bills since I constantly turn the a/c on to cool my personal, unwanted sauna.

So today we spent about two hours fitting my windows with window film, which is supposed to block about 72% of the heat that comes into the room. It's been up about five hours, and I can tell the difference already. Now, don't get me wrong, by the time we put the treatments up it was already late in the day and most of the sun had already penatrated my room. And, god bless them, my blackout curtains (which really didn't black anything out) and my "energy saving" curtains had already been half heartidly been doing their job. And it was an extremely pleasant day today, so all of my excitement may be for naught. I'd like to think that isn't the case, because I just went and spent almost a hundred dollars on furnishings for my window seat, which I have turned into my writing mecca. Pictures follow.

The film acts like a mirror, as you can tell since you can not only see my new writing space, but also the rest of the 1/2 a room I'm in. That's the full shot.

Shot to the left.

Shot to the right.

Isn't it beautiful? I think so at least. I may never leave it. I can turn my head to the right and spy on the neighbors or look up and look out into the trees that sit at the bottom of the street. Right now I'm sitting with my window open (and I keep picturing myself falling out of it... which would not be plesant since I'm three stories up) and there's a nice breeze and it's perfect.

So keep your fingers crossed for me that the window films help and that I have truly found my mecca. =)

Happy Saturday!

Song of the moment:


Because I'm now an Idol freak, and because the song seems fitting of my glorious day. haha

aaaaaand I'm back

I've been yelled at at least twice for not updating this in a couple weeks. It's like you guys care or something LOL.

Anyways, I am now officially DONE with my classes at NOVA! =) Now that the added pressure of trying not to fail math is off my shoulders, I can get back to the things I like to do... like updating my blog. Sorry it's been a few weeks, but whenever I got the chance to sit down and write, I wanted it to be on what I'm currently working on, not my blog. But no worries, what I've got up my sleeve is worth the lack of posting here. (Nothing like tooting my own horn, haha)

But, in between the lack of posting here, the writing, the studying, and work, I've been rereading books that I was in love with in middle school and my Freshmen year of high school. I figure since the series that I'm writing is geared towards young adults (not necessarily middle school)I should reread some of the books I loved when I was that age, so I can reacquaint myself with the language and the things kids that age like. I found something kind of remarkable as I was doing this.

A lot of what I write now, sounds like a lot of what I read then. It has never been so clear to me that in order to become a better writer, you have to READ, READ, and READ some more. Every single thing you read as a child will impact what you do when you're older, and you don't even realize you're learning as you're doing it. Just as I didn't realize that what I was reading when I was 11, 12, 13 + would reappear in my own voice when I started writing at 16, 17, 18... 24. The most important thing to do is to read a huge amount of genres so your writing will be versatile.

Here's a list of the books that helped shape me into the stunning writer I am today (*toot toot*):

I beg of you, do NOT judge this book by its absurd, ghastly movie. The book is nothing like the crap they put on screen a few years ago. This is an extremely charming Cinderella story about a girl who lives with a nasty curse put on her by a fairy. She has to obey any order given to her. In the novel, Ella is confident and quirky and in the movie they made her look like an idiot. This is my absolute favorite book of all time because it's so girl friendly.

Another great novel, and the author actually wrote columns for teen magazines so I feel confident she knows what kids want to hear. This book always makes me cry. The characters seem extremely mature for their age, and I think that's why some of my characters feel mature and I have to spend some time dumbing them down a bit. This is about a girl who thinks she kills her brother (he gets hit by a car chasing after her) and she goes on a search to find the boy who received his heart. It's amazing.

This is a cool book by a British author and it's actually like 40 years old. Instead of cats having nine lives like the phrase goes, this author says that cats only have one life like the rest of us, but they can travel to nine different times and places. This cat takes his human along for the ride. Along the way they stop in Egypt, Britain/Rome, Ireland, Japan.... etc. It's a cute story filled with history.

This could possibly be the book that got me interested in mind games. It's about a girl who can move things just by thinking about them. They link her mind games back to a medication her mom took when she was pregnant and it's about this girl as she tries to find others like her.

This is another freaking amazing book about repressed memories, hidden family secrets, and moving to Florida. haha.

When I was younger, I used to read this book over and over and over. It's amazing (all of the books I'm naming are). It's about a girl who lives near a nuclear power plant that has an accident. They have to wear masks in order to avoid radiation levels and it totally turns their lives upside down because she and her grandmother are farmers. Then her grandmother decides to take in two refugees from the plant and that really throws a wrench in things. But I'll warn you... if you read this, grab a box of tissues.

This is the book I credit with almost all of my creative instincs. Not just because it's such a wonderfully thought out and imaginative book. When I was in the fifth grade, my friend made me read this book. I fell in love. Every day at recess we became the characters in this book, which meant we ran around the playground prancing and pawing the ground and throwing our hair over our shoulders like horses. Yes, I neighed and whinnied too. But we didn't just play out the story that was outlined in this book. We took it a step further. We created more characters, we created back stories, we created futures for the characters.

Whenever I introduce myself in a writing class, I like to tell the story of my sixth grade writing project. We were told to write a creative story that we'd read outloud to the class. Everyone else wrote a page or two. I wrote twenty pages and my story had chapters. My story was about the Unicorns and I wrote so much because I could see everything so vividly.

Now, part of that is because Bruce Coville created a vivid world when he wrote. But a lot of that is because of what I took from that book and turned into my own with my friends.

Thus, my rant about how important it is to read a wide array of novels as a child, and even more importantly: as an adult. But my rant on that will be another day.

Later, loves! =)