Summertime

An email I just sent to a friend:

Randomness. Yeah, I'm in that kind of mood. Can I just say that I absolutely love summer? I love seeing Kydee helping my mumsy outside... I love the smell of freshly tilled dirt. I love eating family dinner at our dining room table every night. I love leaving my window open and having my mum chew me out. :P I love smelling the promise of light-hearted days in the breeze, and I love swatting and worrying over bugs that are molesting my skin. I love it still being light at eight. I love wearing flip-flops and laughing over the scars on my feet and knees caused by my own stupidity. I love sitting in my room, bumping a ball to Libby and accidentally knocking pictures of walls. I love the stories whirling about in my head begging to be written, but I have a bit of time before I dive in head first to my mind and brave the different personalities there. I love the fact that we only have 7 days of school left, and I love starting all over in piano to try to master some true jazz music. I love cranking up the Bose and listening to some awesome tunage. I love feeling full to a point of sickness almost and knowing that my hair is a mess and my makeup is smeared and that right now I have a stupid grin on my face because I'm pitying you having to read this message. I love you friend! :D

My poor, patient friend, right? Haha... but that's honestly how I've been feeling. School is wrapping up, and it's leaving me with this lovely sense of serenity and a burning desire to do some much-needed writing. Maybe only writers can relate to this (so please don't have the police send me off to an asylum), but having nine or ten very potent personalities in your head always giving their comments on the situation you're on can be VERY distracting. It got better for a while, but now they're back with a vengeance.

Right now, my "voices" are named Creedy, Sevrin, Fillin, and every once in a while Viola or Vallyn pipe it. I can't wait to just write what they're saying down and get them off my back for a bit.

Then I have Roni who I left in much distress over her sister Tori who happens to be giving me more leads to her mystery.

And most of the personalities haven't told me their names yet or their stories. There's some girl who has an Irish wolf hound and is making new friends in a small town, but that's all I know.

Then characters from the crazy-fast reading I've been doing lately are adding, too. I find myself daydreaming about a Mary Stewart-like hero appearing out of nowhere when I twist my ankle (Mary Stewart ROCKS my SOCKS!). I just finished the LAST (BOO HOO) Percy Jackson, and I'm now hoping that I'll stop anticipating how his story will end, but you never know. I often can imagine his comments throughout my day, too. And behind all the Mary Stewart mystery, Percy Jackson explosions, Neil Gaiman weirdness (I keep seeing ghosts in my mind, but it makes me more excited than scared!), there's the whisper of the sea on the coast of Cuba from a book I won off of Goodreads and haven't quite gotten into yet.

And it's a good thing no one reads this blog, because otherwise I would never be able to muse freely like this. Happy summertime! ;)

February Over!

Okay so it's not official... we still have what? Five hours of February left? *sigh* Has this seemed like a long month to anyone else? Truthfully, I absolutely LOVE February! I love the briskness and the frozenness and all the other ness-es that come with February, but I love St. Patrick's Day even more! It will be weird this year without my sister here to dress up with me. I don't even have some of her green clothes to borrow. I love green. For some reason I just don't buy green. Maybe because Libby gets it, and we trade off, so we try to get different colors. Still. It leaves me lost when she's away at college.

My goal to get my license is in about a week. Eek! I don't think that will happen today. I ran my mom into town today (I shouldn't have been driving, honestly. I've been sick and my mind has NOT been working... she knew that!) and I accidentally thought my foot was on one side and it wasn't... yeah. Not good. Luckily, there were no cars in the parking space right behind me, but she was on edge the rest of the drive and it was MISERABLE. I'm great with highway and freeway driving. My town driving is still just a little lacking. *Cough cough* A little.

I meant to post this earlier, but I've been drop-dead busy with no time for blogging OR replying to any emails, so if you're an angry friend, I'm sorry! Anyhoo: I felt like posting this poem in celebration of February. Seeing as people tend not to be deep enough to understand my poetry (just kidding... it's just atrociously bad and introverted), I'll give a tinsy explanation, but take it for what you like! I believe you can interpret poetry however you want, but in case you like to avoid confusion, here's what I was trying to get at:

I was sitting in band where I had a rare serene moment where everything just went into perspective. You know what that feeling feels like? I get it often, but usually not in the inspiration of poetry. Anyway, from the band room, I could see the old yellow high school across the street with the empty (I wonder if we even really have a flag?) flag pole. It was amazing! This really wet snow was falling, and it would stick to the flag pole and just build and build until finally some would slide down. It was gorgeous. I hope I captured it's beauty a little bit. give me some feed back, okay?

Only February

Looking out this window
And feeling that I see
Somehow a world deep within me.

A muted fall dancing from the sky,
Like a bird drifting softly
As it falls from it blue sanctuary.

White blankets warm the trees
Turning brown to frosted silver

Old yellow brick
Interrupted by an empty flag pole
And a hopeless fall sliding down the cold metal,
Denting its fellow snow below.

The cloudy grey sky
Floats like Santa’s beard behind the scene
And makes me sad
Its Only February.

Buzzzzz

I feel like that sound has been going through my head constantly... between clogging, ballroom, INL, pep band/Jazz band, and everything else, I feel like I'm flying around constantly--like a bee! Hence the buzzing!

I haven't read hardly any books lately... *sigh* If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! Wait! I lied! I did read The City of Ember, and I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie, and I want to read the next book.

Speaking of movies, is anyone else dieing because they haven't seen Coraline yet? I can't remember the last time I was so excited for a movie, and I don't remember the last time I had to wait so long to see a movie I was excited for! *Takes deep breath* I'll make it, though! Anticipation is always a good thing... right?

So much has been going on that I don't even want to begin to start. Wait... does that make sense? I guess one of the most time-consuming things right now would be the Road Show I'm participating in with my ward. I get to pretend to be a little kid and sing a song at the beginning! Yipee! It will be a blast! I always love excuses for singing particularly badly-- even worse than usual. :D

Well, mayhaps I will post more soon when I find some time... until then!

So Goes Life

Ugh. That's all I have to say. Ugh. I won't go into detail about my absolutely horridifying week because I don't like to dwell on my misfortunes. Let me just give you a few pieces of advice instead:

1. I do not suggest staying after school until 8-o-clock pm. I repeat: 8-o-clock PM. As my teacher said, "That is not a good way to spend your past-time." I mean, I love school and all, but seriously. Don't do it.

2. Force yourself to be happy about something. It's hard, but it may help you prevent a very ugly, malicious day.

3. No matter how good that cheesecake looks, cut your piece in half! Especially if you've already eaten a steak dinner and feel like you're about to pop.

So my week was long and horrid, and my weekend was short and wonderful. So goes life. We celebrated my mumsy's birthday by partying with my siblings and soaking in some hot pots which felt very nice! My sista came home from college, but she wasn't home near enough! I miss that girl!

Whenever we have family reunions, my mum and her two sisters always sing a song that goes something like this (I'm sure you've heard it):

"Sisters, sisters
There were never such devoted sisters,
Never had to have a chaperone, No sir,
I'm there to keep my eye on her
Caring, sharing
Every little thing that we are wearing
When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome
She wore the dress, and I stayed home
All kinds of weather, we stick together
The same in the rain or sun
Two different faces, but in tight places
We think and we act as one
Those who've seen us
Know that not a thing could come between us
Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can
Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister
And Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my man
Sister and me and John
I know deep inside your heart that you will feel the best intention
Sister you will know
You understand that in the far I'll always be you, the men will come and go
All kinds of weather, we stick together
The same in the rain or sun
Three different faces, but in tight places
We think and we act as one
Those who've seen us
Know that not a thing could come between us
Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can
Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister
And Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my man
Sister, who comes between me and my man"

I've always loved watching them sing it and then singing it with my own sisters, but I was really feeling the last line this weekend, "Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man..." My sister went on a date when I had hardly seen her, and only my mum and I were left to eat spaghetti while watching NO RESERVATIONS. On the upside, though, it left me a whole evening to myself to get some writing done. I haven't written in over a month; I've been too depressed after losing my thumbdrive that had my latest work on it. Of course I'd saved it somewhere else on my computer, but I hadn't updated it for a while, and I lost near a hundred pages on it. If that's not depressing, I don't know what is. Anyway, I decided it's time to start rewriting at long last, and I played around with the first ten pages or so. I can't decide what POV it would be best told from, so here's an excerpt from the first page of each. I'm open to any opinions on which you like better.

FIRST PERSON:
“Somebody help me!” My best friend’s voice rang out throughout the busy store. A small circle was forming around us, but I could only just barely tell. My eyes opened in a slit, and the little I could see was tilting.

Maggie’s voice was earnest and breaking. I knew she was crying. I tried again to open my eyes… to bring myself back to reality, but it wasn’t working. It was like I was stuck in my head, white flashes breaking across my vision. I might’ve been embarrassed that I was lying motionlessly in Mervyn’s if I wasn’t in so much pain. This had never happened before… I had just felt light headed and then I had collapsed in a faint. I couldn’t force my eyes open nor could I force any of my limbs to move. Like I said, white lightening flashes crashed across my vision, causing excruciating pain. I was a little annoyed—if I was going to faint, the least my mind could do was go unconscious, but no, it stayed wide awake. In fact, it was more alert than it had been in a very long time. So much for trying to cheer me up, right Mags? I thought to myself.

THIRD PERSON (This one is still very rough):
“Somebody help me!”

The voice rang throughout the busy department store strangely muffled by the herd of people that gathered around the two girls. One girl laid on the floor completely motionless, and the other knelt beside her still screaming for help.

Sevrin Jennif McCreedy had passed out almost a full minute ago. She could here the onlookers shouting for someone to call an ambulance. You’d think the idiots would call 911 themselves instead of yelling at everyone and their dog to do the work for them, Sevrin thought dryly to herself. She was irritable, but she really had every right to be. She kept thinking that the least her body could’ve done for her as it was passing out was let her mind go unconscious, too, but no; she was even more alert now than she had been in a very long time. Instead, she was just paralyzed. She couldn’t open her eyes; she couldn’t move any of her limbs.

The girl kneeling next to her had given up on screaming and had taken on to weeping like a fountain. Bless her, Sevrin thought dryly. She loved her best friend Maggie to pieces, but she was just getting annoyed now. Maggie always had been on the more dramatic side.

“She’s dead; she’s dead!” Maggie cried in a broken, pitiful voice. She kept repeating the words like some trained bird.

Another flash. In her mind, Sevrin was screaming even louder than Maggie had been. As soon as she had collapsed and gone paralyzed, excruciating white streaks of lightening had started erupting throughout her body. She could feel them pulling her muscles from her bones and trying to disconnect her mind from the rest of her body. They were very close to being successful.


Please! Tell me what you think!

This Calls for a Sigh

Phew! Wow! Exhaustion... that's what I'm feeling constantly these days, and I really have no good excuse whatsoever! So many people do so much more than I do in a day. I spent a whole week being and miserable and sick about a week ago. I hate being sick, and it was not pleasant! It really took a toll on my body, though. I've been coming home exhausted every day.

Still, even exhaustion cannot put a stunt to my reading! If I wrote a review on every book I've read in the past two weeks, this post would be WAY too long, so I'll just say that I've been enjoying my Joan Bauer books, Peeled, Sticks, and Stand Tall. They are all superb, and I suggest them to everyone! After Peeled, Stand Tall was definitely my favorite.

Interesting fact: Did you know that if you were to read all the books that came out only in the US in a week, you'd have to read over 27,00 books a day! How depressing is that for someone like me that wants to read it ALL! Haha... that fact is curtesy of Cha Cha... my favorite research outlet.

As long as we're being somewhat random, here's possibly one of my new favorite quotes:

"Writers aren't really people.
They're lots of people.
Trying to be on person."

Haha! How accurate is that? It almost is as good as "Writers were meant to be eccentric. If they weren't, they'd have a hard time writing."

Which reminds me, I've had a new epiphany of an idea to write about, and it's still underway. I'm absolutely in love with the character and story; although it's not nearly as quorky as most of my other work. Still, it's nice to have something new to work on once again.

Well, in celebration of randomness, I wanted to post a few pictures that my sister Lib and I took after Christmas. She's the model in the green. I'm in the red:






Then, Lib took a picture of the amazing snow storm we had Christmas night:



And Lib did my hair for the Tristake dance. Below are the pictures (front and back) of the awesome finished product:

Back:

Front:

If you've made it this far, I've thought to mention a very interesting discussion I've been following on the importance of all books... not just chapter books. It made me feel better about my obsession and love for children's picture books and graphic novels. All are important, and we shouldn't be ashamed to read books with pictures no matter how old we are! If you're interested, click here to go to Shannons' blog and read her posts on it.

Happy Readings!

Holiday (Reading)

Oh phew! I love the holidays! I love all my family that comes to visit, and the great spirit that accomplanies everything. Holidays are also very tiring though Very! I've been off of school for nearly two weeks. I know; it sounds like heaven, right? It was. For about the first week. Now I have way too much time to think, and I am extremely ready to go back to school. As long as I have some time, though, I figured I might as well do a megga-blog and try to put a brief on my break thus far: (Sorry for the large pictures below... I couldn't get them any smaller.)

Where to start? I guess we'll start with Christmas! Our camera died at about this time, so I'm sorry to say that I have no pictures for this year. You'll just have to use your imagination. Christmas was glorious, as always! This was the first Christmas in two years that my brother Sam has been home to celebrate with The Fam seeing as he was in Spain serving his mission last year. We were afraid that Ky wouldn't be able to make it from Boise with all the snow, but he came the day before Christmas, and that made the holidays great already! As usual, it was an adventure with lots of interesting TV shows playing (curtesy of Ky-D) and happy-making conversation. It was so good to be all together for Christmas! We only missed Anton, Syd, and Isabelle who didn't come to our house until later on Christmas day. It was a great Christmas, and I've really enjoyed everything I got; even thought I didn't feel like I deserve it.

So what has the rest of my break consisted of? Haha... take a wild guess. Wow. You're good. I've read a plethora of different books this break, and of course, I have to comment a little bit on at least each of them. I'll try to remember the order I read them in.

First, I read a Robin McKinley book. I've always enjoyed McKinley's work, but after
reading her book Sunshine, I wasn't sure I wanted to read this Chalice. I am vastly grateful that I did! It was... beautiful. Amazing. I can't even explain it. It was strange, creative, and absolutely tremendous. I related really well to the two main characters, and loved what the book said about leadership and orginality. For my full, breathless review, go here.

After I read Chalice, I read the book I got for Christmas: The Princess and the Hound which is by Mette Ivie Harrison, the other author who critiqued my writing when I went to that writing workshop this summer. I loved this book, too! It was refreshing to read a "romance" from a guy's point of view, adn I loved the main character. The story was original and unpredictable. There was this very large component of animal magic that created the whole setting and story that I absolutely adored. I would recommend this book to fantasy lovers and dog lovers!

I've hearing a lot about a certain series lately, so I dicided to check it out of the library. I read hte first book The Faerie Path, and let's just say I was not impressed. In fact, I can only describe it as absolutely horrific. It was like watching a bad movie with horrible acting and a scary script. Everything sounded so forced and immature. The story was not original. It was just all around a bad book. I wouldn't suggest it to anyone. I read the first one in three hours and was so disgusted that I decided not to make myself suffer through the other two books in the series.

So, by this point I was depressed because I had run out of books to read. I've been on a Joan Bauer fix lately, and all I wanted was to read her books. Joan Bauer is one of my favorite authors of all time. Her books are generally short and full of humor, but they always convey a deep meaning that usually deals with family. She is a master at writing comedy, and I admire her so mcuh. Anyway, so I reread the one book I have my her and ordered three more off of Amazon. The book I read is called Backwater. In all of Bauer's books, the main character has a very distinctive quality or talent that sets them apart. In Backwater, it's Ivy's love for history that sets her apart. She's working on putting together all of her family history, and it takes her on a journey into the mountains to find her hermit aunt. Hard to explain, but it is absolutely hilarious! One of my very favorites!

After enjoying Backwater, I finally picked up a Mary Stewart book my mom suggested to be nearly a year ago. I can't believe I was so dumb to wait to read Nine Coaches Waiting! This has quickly become one of my favorite books in the whole wide world! It has a very French feel to it seeing as it takes place in France, and ultimately, it is a supenseful mystery with a bit or romance etched in there naturally. I love old-fashioned writing, so I ate this book up quickly. Mary Stewart's rich descriptions and raw writing style fit so well with my inner reader. I suggest this book to any mystery lovers! It is truly amazing! Oh! But I do have to expound very quickly on my very favorite thing about the book. So, it's relationships that push a book forward, right? It's not conflict or plot: those all make up a story, but it's the relationships in a book that propel it and make people really want to read it. Of course, the main relationship in this book was between the main character and the rogue Raoul, but at the end of the book, that wasn't the relationship that mattered. In the end, the relationship that propelled the whole book was the one between the governness (the main character) and Philippe, the boy she was a governness for. It added endless depth to the story that I don't think could've been found anywhere else. As a write, I was very impressed!

Well, I think that about sums up the books I read. I swear I missed a couple, but obviously they didn't compare with these! Now on to New Years Eve which I spent at the Tristake dance. That was fun enough.

Is it not so weird to think that it is now officially 2009? I can hardly fathom it! Although, maybe now I'll start putting the right date on all of my papers at school. I've been writing 2009 for almost three months now. On one very off day, I even put 2003 on one of them. :| Well, one of my resolutions for this year is to use my time more efficiently, so I'm going to wrap this blog up. Remember, if you have any book suggestions, be sure and tell me! I need some more to read!

One More Thing...

I need at least one more link, and I'm not quite sure I've ranted about one of my favorite books of all times yet. I haven't read this recently, but I only got it last Christmas and I've read it at least three times. It's called Blackbringer, by Laini Taylor, and it really is SO good! I love fantasy, but I usually have a hard time with it if the main character isn't human. That's just a little too far-fetched for me, or so I thought. The main character in Blackbringer is a fairy named Magpie. Magpie has got to be one of the best characters ever created! The story is intense, fun, and imaginative. I absolutely LOVED the writing style and the originalility. The author, Laini Taylor, is quite the character herself. She's an artist living in Oregon, and she grew up all over the world. If you're interested in checking out her website, just click on the picture of Blackbringer.

As long as I'm ranting about favorite books, I might as well put in some words for the spectacular Shannon Hale. As anyone who knows me knows, I absolutely adore Shannon! Her books are The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets (all of those are in the same series), Princess Academy, Austenland, Book of a Thousand Days, and Rapunzel's Revenge. This next year she has two more books coming out. I personally haven't read Rapunzels's Revenge yet because it is a graphic novel that she wrote with her husband, and I don't generally read those although I will probably start just because Shannon wrote it! Oh, and did I mention that she's only in her mid-thirties? Yeah... um wow. She's accompished so much! Not only is she a successful authoress, but she's also a devoted mother. If you can't tell, she's my role model. My absolute favorite book of hers is Book of a Thousand Days which is a retelling of Maid Maleen by the Brothers Grimm. It's a journal-styled book told from the point of view of a lady's maid. The whole story takes place in medieval Mongolia, adding an original cultural twist on it. It truly is a gorgeous book. If you're checking out Shannon's website, just click on her picture.

Actually, I've been very blessed to be able to meet Shannon Hale two times. She is very kind, gracious, and funny. This summer I was able to go to a writer's conference that she organized. It was a charity devoted to buying wheelchairs for those in need. I took the first page of my "novel" (I have to put it in quotes like that because I use the word "novel" very loosely when talking of my writing), and I knew we'd be in groups to read and critique them. You can imagine my nerves and joy when Shannon was in charge of my group. I've never felt worse in my life then when my favorite author read my writing out loud, and I realized just how horrid it was, but at the same time I felt unmistakably happy. I learned so much from that experience, and I will definitely be going to the same conference next year!

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of when I went to that conference (I went by myself and didn't want to lug a camera around), but there are a few from Shannon's site. Enjoy!

These were all the tremendous authors I got to meet: