Test Prep

This past week we've been spending large amounts of time getting ready for a standardized test. It is SO boring...

Starved For Good Fiction

I am starting to realize how starved I am for good fiction, taking into account I was so excited to read good Harry Potter fanfiction last night I put off doing my homework for another couple of hours, and I reread some of the books on my "favorite books" bookcase for, oh, about the seventh *cough, possibly more times, cough* time. It seems as if I've read everything in the library, excluding the new stuff. I just want some good fiction to curl up with, possibly an entire unread series; is that too much to ask? Well, if anyone has anything to recommend let me know; if lucks on my side I haven't read it yet.

GOOD H.P Fanfiction

I just came across this seriously awesome Harry Potter fanfiction where Malfoy gets transformed into a rat and becomes Ron's pet. Although I don't really think Harry Potter is all that well written *dodges rotten tomatoes*, this is hilarious and I highly recommend it.
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/maya/DMTABR01.html

Nothing Interesting

Well, I made a goal that I would blog daily for a year, but I don't really have anything to say that I'm willing to stick on the web. I'm considering going all "Gothic Lolita" for the yearly comic convention that takes place in my city in June. I know it's sad, but I've already started planning my outfit...

Hacking Apart My Novel

I read another thing in the book How to Grow a Novel; you should take the worst scene in your novel and take it out. There is an entire scenario in mine where my MC goes to a dance. It's about two thousand words long and I think I'm going to cut it, because nothing happens to advance the plot in it.

Laughing

Today was a yoga class day for me. This week lots of crappy stuff has happened, so naturally I was rather stressed. I take the yoga class with my mom, and while doing one of the poses we caught each other's eyes and burst out laughing. It was just a total release of all the stuff that I'd been dealing with. Just giggling was so nice; I really have to remember to laugh more often. It makes a world of difference.

Taking Out the Red Pencil

Yesterday I checked the book How to Grow a Novel out of the library and I finished it this morning. It's a great book that came out in the ninties on the mistakes that novelist make and how to go about editing your novel. After reading it I took out a red Crayola pencil and started viciously editting the first twenty pages of my novel (the only part I've printed so far). I now have something to work with, and am in the process of going through and making corrections.

When You're Stressed

I was thinking today about what I do when I'm stressed (note: not stressed because of stuff you have to get done, but stressed because of a situation that is out of your control). This led me to wonder what other people do when they're stressed, because I doubt it's the same stuff that I do.
My Stressed List:
1. Re-read a book that I've read several times (anything by Tamora Pierce, Meg Cabot, or the Pendragon series).
2. Paint my nails.
3. Bake something sweet and yummy (brownies or cookies).
4. Work on the tank that I'm knitting.
5. Write poetry or write in my journal.
6. Last but not least, I eat (or, shall we say, slightly overeat.) I know that it's unhealthy, but if stuff is going badly that's what I do.
What's your stressed list? Post it!

Sushi

Today I am hanging out with my grandparents at their house. I don't remember quite how it happened, but I mentioned sushi and watched both grandparents wrinkle their noses at the thought. This, of course, prompted me to attempt to change their mind and prove that sushi is good. As luck would have it, my brother wanted to go the supermarket to get food for lunch, the same supermarket that happened to have good sushi (do you see where this is going). I got all veggie sushi and *success* got both grandparents to try some. Unfortunately, my grampy reacted the same after tasting it as he did when he tried the hummus I made when I was trying to be vegetarian, he said that he could see 'how it grows on you', but he wouldn't like anymore. I finally took the hint.

When To Just Shut Up

Today I was hanging out at a friend's house with three or so friends. One of my friends accidentally let the fact that he had acquired a complete copy of my novel slip. The more he tried to talk himself out of the situation, the worse he looked. It finally got to the point where I was laughing so hard about his inability to just shut up that I couldn't really me mad at him. The ironic thing is that I did something similar the other day, only online instead of in person. I mentioned something offhand that I didn't really want the person to know, but instead of just shutting up I has to try to talk my way out of things (it was as bad an idea for me as it was for my friend today). So, in short, I suppose my advice for today is that if you find yourself in a situation were you've let someone know something that you shouldn't have just shut up and avoid messing up anymore.

Back From SHOPPING!

I just got back from shopping and I had SUCH GOOD LUCK (yes, the capitals are necessary). I went to a bunch of outlet stores and there were really good sales. I got all of these pretty hoodies and stuff, though I won't bore people with my descriptions of the clothes, but they are AWESOME!!! Mostly I got really colorful things from J Jill, a big change from my usual goth outfits.

Off Shopping

I'm off shopping today!!! Therefore, I won't be writing on the computer, but instead in my big red binder where I keep my diary and my writing (I guard them both equally). Well, I'll be writing until the bumpiness of the road makes it hard for me to write, anyways. By the way, if you are over the age of eighteen please take a couple of minutes to click on the MS Funding Petition link on the right and fill it out to let your legislators know that funding MS research is important. Federal funding for Multiple Sclerosis research has been on a serious decline in the past couple of years and it's important to stop this disturbing trend.

Quotable Movies

I watched one of my favorite romantic comedies, French Kiss, last night. It is really fun to quote. The following is a brief list of my favorite movies to quote.
1. French Kiss:
"Happy - smile. Sad - frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion." -Kate
"That's all? You have no strategy, no armor, no bull$hit?" -Luc
2. Ever After:
"I shall be known in history as the man who opened the door." -Leonardo da Vinci's character.
3.Princess Bride:
"Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped." -Prince Humperdinck
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." -Inigo Montoya

For the First Time Since November...

Now I actually deserve that brownie sundae I ate earlier (with fresh out of the oven brownies). I actually opened up my NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) novel and started working on "Part Two: And Then..." (if you can think of a better title for part two PLEASE let me know). This is the first time since November that I did something other than edit my NaNo. Also, I took on the time consuming task of putting the dates in, since I just slacked off and put the day of the week without the actual day halfway through. This took forever, along with figuring out what the date 'seven weeks later' would be. These are the things that I do on Saturday's, the only day of the week that I'm in a good enough mood to tolerate it. Here is what I have written so far. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part Two: And Then...
Seven Weeks Later
Tuesday, November 10
Look, I know I should have written in these past couple of months (I don’t really know why I’m explaining why I didn’t write, it’s not like someone is asking ‘Hey, how come you haven’t written in that diary of yours’. I guess I’m explaining myself to my conscience, or maybe the adult me that will come across my old diary twelve years from now and wonder why I didn’t write for over a month.) Things were too boring for me to bother me to write, with tests and the usual drama that I seem to have gotten used to this year, and then things were so busy that I didn’t write, mostly because I was out of the habit. So, since I didn’t have any homework today, since I finished it all in class I decided that I’d get this out after school and fill in, in brief, what has happened since I last wrote in here. I’ll probably forget some stuff, since it has been a while since I’ve written, but at least I’ll get basically what has happened down here. When I’m done with that than I will continue to write daily (or at least almost daily) so I won’t fall behind and do catch up like this again.

A Sleepy Saturday

I really look forward to Saturday mornings throughout the week, when I'm stressed. The reason for this is because I take a Saturday morning yoga class with my mom and it is SO NICE. It helps me unwind and get stretched out at the end of the long week. Before I started taking this yoga class Saturday's were the day of the week that I was the crankiest. Now I am all happy and bouncy *big difference*. So anyways, I just finished having lunch after my yoga class and am probably at the happiest I'll be all week. When I'm at the my happiest I tend to write the most, because I can trust the fact that I won't kill off my characters and can actually advance the plot. First, however, I must go to the grocery store to get eggs so that I can bake mint brownies. Then I will write, really, I will.

On Endings

If I choose to edit and stick with my novel there is yet another thing to consider, which I was asked yesterday. How will I end it? I know that the story will be split into two parts, the first section, which I've already written, and the second, which I've only just begun to write. I know that in the second section she will come to the decision to break up with her boyfriend. Once I write that I don't know where I should take the story. I'm going to just have her be single and happy that way, but should I end the story with the end of the school year? Or should I end it about halfway through the year when she's just cool with who she is and when the drama has died down? Yet another possiblitiy: I could end it with her first day of high school. I could take the easy way out and just end things in the middle of it all, leaving the possiblity of a sequel. At least that decision is at least twenty pages away...

To Edit, or Not to Edit

I know I said that I was going to post one of my favorite parts of my novel, but I'm realizing I have a lot of work to do on it before I show it to anyone just yet. For example, I'm finding periods where there should be question marks, and 'to' when there should be 'too'. I am also discovering the depressing fact that my favorite parts of my novel are long conversations that have pages of dialogue. This wouldn't condense easily into a short story, and really are part of the novel as a whole. There is lots of work to be done on my story, yet I am not sure if it is worth it. I don't know if people would relate to my characters. My main character is at the top of her class, can't keep a secret to save her life, is new at dating, and is naive, yet paranoid (yes, I know I mentioned this before). My other smaller characters include the girl's crazy friends (Goths, Emos, Preppies), a girl who hates her, a manipulative boy (who eventually becomes a semi-friend), and other random people. Yes, my main character is loosely based off of myself. I am currently beating myself up about the not-being-able-to-keep-a-secret thing. I never really thought of myself as a gossip girl, but I (here's a scary thought), might have to view myself as one if I keep up with my chatter. People don't need to know everything that goes on in my life; I need to start keeping secrets and random information that I come across to myself.

On Middle School Drama and Writer's Block

The drama of middle school is foolish. People either have low self esteem or they think they're all that (or, if it's possible, a bit of both, depending on their mood). Especially this year people seem determined to exploit each other and even sometimes (get this), actually blackmail each other. I'm sorry, but I'd like to be able to talk to people who call themselves my friends, on IM or in person, with the knowledge that I can tell them things without the entire world knowing what I'm saying. This is one aspect of the plot of the novel that I wrote during National Novel Writing Month last November (see the link on the right). In the story my protagonist wonders who she should trust when there are an influx of new kids to her middle school. She fluctuates between naive and paranoid and is forced to deal with numerous bloated egos. I am about 90 or so pages into the story so far and am stuck. My main character needs to realize that her first boyfriend isn't all that she originally thought he was and that she really should break up with him. Up until this point in the story (which is written in diary format) there have been about two entries daily, but the decision to break up with her boyfriend should take about a months time, at the least. I simply don't know how to go about this slow realization without making it redundant or boring. I stalled by saying to myself that I was just putting it aside for a couple of months so that I could figure things out. That was in the beginning of December, now it's the middle of February and I still have no clue how to go about things. On the bright side, even if I do give up I have some plotlines that could be reduced to a ten or so page short story, so it wouldn't be a total waste. A post with one of my favorite scenes that deals with the middle school drama stuff I was talking about up above to follow. I just have to painstakingly edit it first.

Beginning of "Meet Death"

Death really isn’t all that bad, all things considered. He’s tall, handsome, charming, he’d be swooned over if he wasn’t, well, Death.People are usually much to caught up in their own petty little passage on to really get to know him. They are always “Eek, I’m dead. Woe is me!” He put up with it for thousands of years, but last year he finally got sick of it all and set up the Dead Support Group. It was really just to shut them up, but it became dreadfully popular in the realm of the dead and soon enough he was stuck running a meeting every single year that consisted of people gathering around in an infinitely long circle of chairs and going “Hello, my name is Bob (or Joe, or Suzie) and I’ve been dead for four years now. It was a heart attack that did it.” Poor Death was then stuck being the sympathetic ear, which was a rather big pain. I mean, by the time he listened to the thousandth fellow who died of a heart attack was he really supposed to be sympathetic? Most of them weren’t exactly angels, so they would have been murdered at some point or another anyways. A heart attack was really quite merciful, but for some reason they didn’t feel that way.Remembering names was hard as well. All the egotistical overweight executives started to run together. Death really isn’t the problem; it’s Mortality that always messes things up. Few mortals ever learn in their lifetime that they are not indeed the same person and go on about with their foolish assumptions must be one and the same, not finding out the truth until their death,though most don’t even find out then. This probably is for the best, as Mortality is rather ditzy and really doesn’t give a damn how people die. She is much more concerned with making sure her jet black hair is perfect, though she has no one to impress. The one time that she attended a Dead Support Group meeting the dead rioted, but I don’t blame them. It was the thirty-fifth year that Mortality attended the Dead Support Group meeting for her first time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the beginning of my short story (unedited). I intend to make it 2,000 words, maybe shorter. Let me know what you think so far (I can take criticism).

Cliche Plots

How cliche can you let something get and have it still be good? I was wondering this as I wrote today. It's a problem I run into a lot. There are ideas and plots that I come up with where one or more aspects have been done before. The thing is, a lot of it is different and refreshing, too. I think there is a thin line between reusing a good idea and copying practically an entire novel. There's a short story that I'm working on and it has Death as the main character. Will readers be able to get past the fact that Neil Gaiman and others have done this before and enjoy the story, or has the idea of Death as a main character something that should be left alone?