What amazes me...

Is people who are able to post something to their blogs almost daily.

I'm starting to read books for school (which I mentioned last post) and the two that I've started so far are both blogs turned into books. The one that I mentioned last entry is called "My war...Killing time in Iraq" and is by a solider who was stationed in Iraq just after the occupation began back in 2003. The second book is called "Baghdad Burning" and is by an Iraqi woman who lives in Baghdad (or did, back in 2003) and is documenting everything around her as it goes on.

Now, granted, I'm not living in a war zone (thank god) nor am I a solider in a foreign country (again, thank god) but I'm truly amazed that they have something to write about nearly everyday. AND they both had a group of followers. Now, they started these blogs back when blogging was new and if you didn't have a blog you went online and found someone's blog to follow, but good lord I've had this thing since March and I only have 4 followers... and half of you never check the website (I guess it would help if I posted more often, huh?).

Both books are shocking, especially if they're 100% true (I'm not saying they've been fabricated, but people tend to embellish stories when they know they have a following). I want to feel sorry for the girl who writes in Baghdad Burning, but sometimes she makes comments that makes it hard for me to feel sympathy for her. She's very adamently against the war (and I don't blame her) but takes every punch at America she can take... and then claims she doesn't hate us. I'm sure my opinions of her would fall right into her perceived view of us Americans, but her blog is very difficult for me to get through. I finished "My War" in two days and didn't want to put it down. I've been reading Baghdad Burning for three days and I'm only 100 pages in (those of you who know how fast I read will know this is significantly slow). But I highly recommend these two books for anyone who wants a better idea of what really went on over there right after the war started. And prepare to be slightly horrified. You dont' realize the lack of "Freedom of press" until you realize what the news stations left out. But I've never been a believer of the validity of freedom of press anyways...hence my switch from journalism to English as a major...

Wasting time like its free

It seems repetitive to comment on the fact that I'm a bad bad blogger... but I'm going to do it anyways. I just can't seem to remember that I have a blog. My life just isn't that interesting and I've always been told that its bad when a writer has to write about writing. But anyways, here I am posting again. I'll try my hardest to make it worthwhile, lol.

My last post was June 22nd which seems like forever and a day ago. Since then I've been obsessed with Sarah Dessen. For those of you who don't know who she is, she's an amazing young adult writer. She has six or seven books (and that number might be low...) and she's had two of her books combined and turned into the movie "How to Deal" staring Mandy Moore. She's phenomenal. All of her books are written in first person point of view and she truly captures the minds, voice, and emotion of girls who are in their late teens and nearing the end of high school. It's like she still is 18 or she hangs out with a bunch of them. I've read five of her books and am completely crazy about at least four of them. If you don't feel it necessary to run out and buy all of her books like I did, I HIGHLY recommend "The Truth About Forever" and "This Lullaby"

Also, excited/sad because my days at NOVA have ended and I have less than three weeks before my classes at George Mason start. I'm not sad about starting at Mason, (more excited/nervous) but I am sad about leaving Creative Writing and Bob. I'm going to miss all of his crazy stories and rantings. My Tuesdays don't feel quite whole since class ended last week. On a positive note, my classes this fall at GMU are totally going to rock. Two classes in particular I'm excited about are a Sports Documentary seminar (part of my homework will be to go home and watch sports!) and American War in Literature and Film. I've already started reading one of the books for that class and it's pretty intriguing. A definite read for anyone who wants to get an insider's view on the war in Iraq. His style drives me a bit nuts because he jumps around a lot, but it's a very interesting read. I started it this morning and I'm already halfway through.

I was trying to get through some of the classic books before classes started. Made it through Gone with the Wind (an accomplishment in itself since its almost 1500 pages) and started reading This Side of Paradise by Fitzgerald before the parcels full of school material started arriving at Mom's house. Since I'm working full time and also going to school full time, I want to get a jump start on require reading for school so that when assignments pop up this fall I just have to review the material. This is a strange concept for me, because I used to think that people that were this prepared before hand were nerds. My, how my views have changed since high school... Anyways, after reading GWTW, I sat down to watch the movie, which has always been one of my favorites and so I was really looking forward to it. Memo to myself and to everyone else out there: if you are in love with a movie and then realize it was also a book...think LONG and HARD about if you want to read the novel, because chances are it's going to totally ruin the movie for you. Now, some of this isn't GWTW's fault. It was made in the late 1930's so there are no special effects to speak of, some of the acting is really cheesy, and the sets aren't the best. But I swear the speed through 600 pages in the first hour and a half. I think my favorite part though is when Rhett and Scarlett are fleeing Atlanta with Melanie, Beau and Prissy and Rhett says "we have to get out of here before the fire reaches the explosives!" and the camera cuts to a stack of boxes that are clearly labeled EXPLOSIVES. I'm thinking: c'mon Hollywood.

I've also been typing. Had a dry spell there for a while where it was really REALLY hard to get through this one scene in the book, but I typed my way through it (or TYWTTE as Bob would say) and now I'm looking forward to getting to the parts I actually want to type. Not that I didn't want to type this part, just that the conversation between characters didn't come as naturally as I wanted it to and I got frustrated with my descriptions because I feel like I always describe things in the same way. My plans for the rest of the night are actually to take a shower to cool off, grab a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone and write until Top Chef comes on at 9 tonight (restaurant wars! My favorite!).

Shoulder is feeling better (finally) but I whacked my knee on a cabinet at work yesterday and now that hurts like hell. Starting to feel like I can't win. But hopefully I only bruised my kneecap and once the black and blue mark goes away it'll feel better.



Alright, just almost had a coronary because I hit the backspace button and it took me to a different screen and I thought I lost this post. So instead of posting pictures of the books I've been reading recently, you all will have to read back through the post and use your imagination. lol. 

Flea markets are sometimes totally worth it...

One of my best friends from high school, Sara, and I spent last weekend in Harpers Ferry, WV to go white water rafting and horseback riding. There's really not a lot else to do in Harpers Ferry (except go to Charles Town Races and Slots... and YES I had that stupid song stuck in my head all weekend) so finding things to do got a bit tricky. Friday night at dinner Sara asked the waitress what the nightlife was like and she literally laughed before telling us nothing (well, there was a bar up the road called "the pub" but she "strongly recommended" that we didn't go there. We drove by the next day and it sure enough looked like a really shady place. You have to ring a bell to get into it.... wth?). Our rafting excursion wasn't until two pm Saturday and neither of us slept well Friday night, so we were up early Saturday morning with nothing to do. Looking through a binder of "local attractions" in the hotel room, Sara found a flier for a local flea market. I've always thought flea markets are nothing more than giant yard sells... and Saturday's experience did nothing to discourage that thought process, but I will never discredit them any longer. If you look hard enough, you can find some really awesome stuff.

For instance... I've been searching for Clueless (yes, the movie with Alicia Silverstone) and surprisingly no one in the area has it. Sure, I can order it online, but the shipping is nearly as much as the movie is. So I was pleasantly surprised to find Clueless stuffed into a holder at one of the stands on Saturday morning, and the guy selling it only wanted two dollars for it. Which seemed totally fair, considering the only reason I want to see it is b/c it's considered one of the best spin offs of Jane Austin's Emma, and it is also included on a couple lists of movies to see before you die (and we all know how crazy I am about my movie lists).

But the best find of the day came a few minutes later, at a stand three rows over from where I found Clueless. As you might recall, a month or so ago I compiled a list of books that influenced me as a reader when I was younger, and a writer now that I'm older. One of the books on the list was TimeCat. The copy I read when I was younger is a newer edition, rereleased for modern kids. I found the first edition copy of the book, hiden away in a pile and the seller only wanted fifty cents for it. I was so excited to find it, and I'm sitll excited now.

Of course, in the long run the book won't be worth anything (it isn't like finding a first edition of Gone with the Wind, or anything) but it's so cool to look at the old illustrations and hold the old book in my hand. And it smells fantastic... old and a bit moldy, just like all the great old books do. I'm not sure I'll be going to too many more flea markets... but Saturday's was definitely worth it.

Above is the old, and below is the newer version =)

I'm a bad, bad blogger

It's been about a month since my last post.... my bad. lol. Things have been crazy, and I can't really blame it on school, since that ended before my last post. I can't blame it on typing, because I haven't actuallys at down to write in a couple weeks... so I'll just blame it on my being lazy. Which is true. I come home from work at night and I don't feel like doing anything. And I've gotten addicted to Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, so when I come home that's the first thing I turn on (TV on DVD...not the best idea for people that get addicted to shows easily). So I'm going to try to make a pact with myself...I need to do writing of some sort before Dr. Quinn gets turned on (and after Dr. Quinn, Trueblood and The Big Bang Theory).

We'll all see how well that goes.

Anyways... Last week before I flew out to Denver, I sat down and put together an outline of my third book. It's something I've never done before. Usually I sit down and just let whatever comes, come. And my reasoning for creating an outline was kind of morbid. I hadn't been on a plane since 2006 and was kind of nervous about flying. I'm also not one to give away anything about the novels I'm working on, despite being bugged my someone about what I plan to do in the third. So I got to thinking that in the slim chance somethign did happen to me, I should at least have something outlined so that people know how the story was going to end. Morbid, like I said. But the outline has been really helpful. I have everything planned now, including names of characters and places.

These are things that I usually try to figure out as I'm writing the piece and it's usually a break in tempo b/c I like to find names that have meaning...and since it's an alien language I'm creating most of the time I have a lot of liberty with combining languages and words (ie- my character Malgar is a combination of the french words "mal" meaning bad and garcon which means man.). I've also picked some character names because of what they mean. Some where coincidental. Jason means Healer...which I think is appropriate. Amber means precious jewel. In my other story my main character's name is Clara, which means friend. Those were all coincidental. But in my upcoming story I took the time to search names by meaning, and then chose the ones I thought worked best. I won't list any here.

Now that I'm completely off topic... outlines. Back to outlines... It was amazing how fast everything came once I sat down to create the outline. Don't get me wrong, the outline is 12 handwritten pages and took me all day at work to complete, but obviously I couldn't sit down and type out a full book in 8 hours. And now that I have the outline, all I have to do is go back and connect the dots and fill in the blanks. I have to add details and dialogue, but my story is done. It's amazing. The next time I sit down to start a book, I'm going to be starting with an outline.

And having an outline doesn't mean that I can't stray from it. There still needs to be surprises, even for me. The characters aren't real unless they surprise everyone, even their creator.

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! =)

Long car rides...

I love long car rides.

Not just because I think driving aimlessly is a HUGE stress buster (unless you're driving on the beltway during rush hour...in which case you might end up killing someone) but it also gives me endless time to think, plot, characterize, describe, etc. There is no better planning time for me then when I'm driving a road that I know well with music on that inspires my creativity.

For instance, driving home to Pittsburgh this weekend I came up with more dialogue for one story and an awesome metaphor for another. Having time to come up with dialogue for me is huge, because when you sit down to write dialogue it might not always come out the way people talk. So the most important thing for me is to imagine a scene and go through dialogue once, twice or fifty times. The first time I think it through, the scene is like a skeleton. Then I get to figure out how I'd react to the situation, and then flip it into how my characters would react. After I find the dialogue I want to use, I'm able to focus on setting. What's around my characters as they're speaking? How do they interact with what's around them? What arm motions/facial expressions do they use as they're speaking/reacting to speech?

I really think that you can tell the scenes I've thought out and which I've tapped out in one of my writing sessions.

In retrospect: too much thought could also be a bad thing. I could see how thinking a scene too many times through would make it sound robotic, mechanical, mundane, practiced (ha, I love thesauruses). But for me, this method works best.

Current Song:

I just found that song while perusing youtube... but it's pretty fantastic in that damaged heart sort of way.

Happy Monday!