Dear Old Inkpop

So yesterday, I posted Theoretically Speaking on inkpop, and after just a few minutes, someone already critiqued it! Which was pretty awesome and definitely not expected.

So anyway, just wanted to let people know that TS is now back on inkpop, with a "new" chapter. I use quotation marks because the beginning of that chapter (first page or so) was just tweaked a bit, but then I added a whole new scene at the end of it.

The next chapter - a whole new one - will be added soon :)

Let's see how inkpop goes this time!

Here's a link for those who want to read it: http://www.inkpop.com/node/571496/read

Birthday Girl

That's moi for the day ^_^

I wish that would give me a pass to skip classes and work though. I don't get the point of this title if it doesn't give you the right to do much. Sighs. I spent the first hour or so of today working on a paper, and then I've got work at 9am, and then classes, and then homework for tomorrow. Great way to celebrate my coming into adulthood >_>

On the bright side, I can't wait to celebrate my birthday this weekend with my friends ^_^ On the not-so-bright side, I don't think it'll include cake :(

I've Been Thinking...

I usually don't start a sentence with 'I've been thinking,' because I always get suspicious looks.

But anyway, I've been thinking about a couple of things this week. One, I seriously need to find a purpose for this blog. And I will...soon. Hopefully. Any ideas for what I could do with this? Especially writing related.

Second thing is, I also need to find a new layout for this blog. I'm tired of this one, but I'm just a bit too lazy to go find a really nice layout somewhere.

Another thing I decided was to finally return to inkpop. My friend and I spent months just going from one writing website to another, trying to find a good one, but we sort of gave up. Each one we found was worse than the previous one. She completely gave up but I decided to go back to inkpop.
Soooo...that means I'll repost Theoretically Speaking, and this new completely spur of the moment story I started working on a few weeks ago. It's called Kismet (more about it in another post), and although I really don't have much of a clue where that story's headed, my sister told me to post it. Right now, I'm setting the date to post both of these books on October 21st.

Good news for Theoretically Speaking is that I actually got a few chapters written over the last few weeks. So it'll actually get updated on a regular basis xD

P.S. any ideas for what I can do about this little blog, just leave it in the comments :)

Until next time! ^_^

College is Killing Me and my Writing

Well, not really my writing. All the writing I've done since I moved to Jersey has been pretty good. I actually haven't deleted anything that I've written - just edited it, which is a first for me. I've even started the sequel to STA (before I moved, I sort of deleted it because I hated what I had).

The only problem is that I don't have enough time to write. Or to have a social life. Or to read. Or to blog. Or to do anything that doesn't involve homework. I'm taking this French class on France in the 18th century and we're reading a new French novel every week. It's tiring and boring. I fall asleep every time I pick up the book. And the books are full of satire that I don't even understand. Sighs.

But - there's always a but with me :P - college is actually pretty good. I'm actually learning so much. I know - I'm in college, of course I should be learning new stuff but somehow, a part of me was sort of expecting it to be like high school. I felt like high school was a waste of time. I don't think I learned much there. And all this knowledge that I'm getting here, I'm using it in my books and it makes me feel so smart sometimes xD Ever feel that way? You learn something new and you just have to include it in one of your books? I've got all this philosophy knowledge in my head right now and I'm just waiting for the perfect idea to come along to include it in. Problem is, I've already got close to a gazillion ideas that are already on hold -_-

My Online Shopping Spree

After the dozens of blog posts I've read about Anna and the French Kiss, I've decided to buy it. Let's see if it's as amazing as everyone says it is :P

And there was such a great discount for it on Amazon that I couldn't not get it. It was $6.80 for a hardcover copy of it. Plus, I have this one-month free trial of the Prime Amazon card (or whatever it's called). Basically, I'm getting free shipping for a month, whether or not my purchase is over $25. So I'm totally taking advantage of that xD

I also ordered The Power of Six, which is the sequel to I Am Number Four. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint. Plus, I ordered the seventh book in the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost (One Grave at a Time).

But meh. I haven't even had time to read Richelle Mead's Bloodlines yet, so I have no clue when I'll have time to read all those books I'm ordering.

What's In A Name?

Names, names, names. I don't think I can stress enough the importance of names. Whether I'm writing or reading, names are such a big deal. First and last names. The character's name alone tells a story of its own.

When I make up a new character, I don't know how long I spend looking for the perfect name for that character. It could be ten minutes (how I wish those lucky days could occur more often) or weeks. The name has to fit the character, it has to sound good, the meaning has to fit the character, and the spelling has to both appeal to me and fit the character.

What I sometimes find tricky is having the name be both original while at the same time fitting the character. And sometimes, I have to be careful for it not to be too original. For Bad Apple, I was told that the names were really original, but then for Joon's cousin, two people pointed out that it was too much. So I changed his name from Bryce to Ryan and in the end, I realized that Ryan fit his character better.

Why am I posting about names today? Because I've met so many people on campus with names that I just loved over the last few days. For example my roommate's name is Jeana (Jean- na) and I just love that name. I don't hear it a lot, it's simple, but it stands out. I also met a girl named Mira and I just fell in love with that name. Funny thing is that my first thought when she told me her name was, 'I have got to use that name for one of my characters.' When I told my sister that, she rolled her eyes and told me that I think too much like a writer.
The other reason I'm posting about names is also because I love name-hunting on Google. I can do that for hours, looking up names and then searching for all the different meanings of that name. (Before you ask, yes, I've looked up my mine. It means gracious ^_^ Whether that describes me is yet to be debated.)

Out of all the names from my stories, I would have to say that my favorites are Jaeger (Jeh-ger) Williams from Destined (although not many people have read much of this), Joon Elizabeth Scarlet (from Bad Apple) and I like the way Aeryn's name is spelled.

And a question for you lovely followers because I love hearing your opinion: do names really matter to you when you read and/or write? For the writers, do you waste endless hours Google searching names or do you use the ones you've heard around you?

And I Rise From the Dead

I do promise that I didn't forget about this blog. This week has just been extremely busy and not only did I not have time to blog, but I didn't exactly have a computer to blog. And no phone. But somehow, I survived.

I'm now in New Jersey and I have to say that I absolutely love it. I've got so many blogging ideas going around in my mind from all that I've done, but today will be a post about yours truly and her first trip to Barnes&Noble xD

On said trip, guess what book I bought? Richelle Mead's Bloodlines. I actually squealed when I bought it  because you see, Vampire Academy is my favorite paranormal series, and I've been following all the Bloodlines teasers on Facebook and just couldn't wait to buy it. I was also going to by The Power of Six, the sequel to I Am Number Four, but I was short two dollars and didn't have my debit with me. But on my next trip, I'll be getting a B&N membership and buying the sequel. Anyone planning on reading those two books? Anyone's already read them?

Farewell, Canada :D

I'm moving countries tomorrow :D

Nothing big, though - I'm just heading over to the states for school, but I highly doubt I'll be coming back. I'll be in Jersey, only half an hour away from NYC. I can already imagine the shopping I'll be doing to stock up on my shoe collection xD

Anyway, let's just hope the plane will get there safely and I'll arrive there in one piece :P

Kiss Me Baby One More Time

I'm sorry for the title. I've just been listening to some Britney Spears today. Not by choice, really. The radio was on and they were having this Britney streak for an hour. Not pleasant, although I do still enjoy her old songs.
But, I digress. Today I shall give you all an excerpt. This excerpt is a bit special for me because I was having some trouble with the chemistry between these two characters for a while. But then I got to this scene and everything just clicked. So then I went back to past scenes and fixed a bunch of things that needed to get fixed. So if it weren't for this scene, TS might have just fallen apart.

The scene is a little steamy (I guess it all depends on our interpretations of 'little'). So you're all warned.

I don't mention any names in it because it happens quite later on in the book and I'd like to keep it a surprise for those reading the book. And also because that's how this part of the scene was written in the first place - without any names :P

Ok. So I'll shut up and let you read the excerpt xD

Excerpt:

“Kiss me,” I whispered, ignoring the dangerously fast speed of my heartbeat. The alcohol created a light buzz in my head but I knew that even sober, I would have  still stood there in the middle of my living room with him.

I took a small step forward and felt his jeans brush the back of my hand. Even that small touch sent a wave of excitement through my body.

My gaze moved from his eyes to his lips, which continued to get closer as each second ticked by.

And then, without any warning, they crushed mine in one of those kisses you could only dream of.

Soft. Dangerous. Sweet. Hungry.

His hand slid down to my hip and pulled me closer, and I let my list fall to the ground. Both of my hands now free, I slipped them under his shirt, my palms resting on his chest. My entire body was hot, tingling, and so was his against my touch. His tongue teased my lips, but I knew better than to give in.

Instead I pulled away, out of breath and lightheaded. Whoever knew anyone could kiss this well. 


The corner of my lips lifted in a small and quite unstable smile. “I thought you stayed away from crazy people?”

He chuckled, brought his lips close to mine and, in my mouth, whispered, “Good thing I changed my mind.”

Lucas Everett and...Aeryn Taylor :O

What am I talking about? Well, I've been dying to try writing a book where the characters (at least the main characters) from my other books interact, become friends, enemies, and form friendships. Or even become an item, as my title suggests. It would be pretty interesting to write about Aeryn from TS lusting after Lucas from STA. I wonder what our poor Avery would do. And what would the best friends do? I can totally imagine Jane and Aeryn going at it like the two crazy people they are :P

And it would be so interesting to see what the characters think of each other. If I ever wrote something like this, I'm thinking I'd pick one character and write the story from her point of view (writing from a guy's point of view is a challenge I'm still afraid to take on. He'd probably end up so feminine that people would accuse him of being secretly gay).

I've only read one series of books like that and did like it. Anyone ever thought of writing a series like that? Anyone ever read a series like that? Was it good or bad?

Rejections

I haven't posted in a while because I've been moving, and my Internet was accidentally cut earlier than it should have.

But let's talk about rejections today. I think we've all received some kind of rejection in our lives? Not very pleasant, is it? (You'd have to be a bit weird to disagree with me on this but hey, we're all entitled to our own opinions.)


Now, has anyone ever been given The Rejection Hotline? I heard about it four years ago and laughed my ass off when my friend told me about it. It's a number that you give people who are hitting on you and will NOT give up until they have your number. The message you get when you dial the number is hilarious but not very pleasant.
It works in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, and most cities have a number so that when you give out the number, it's got your area code and the other person isn't suspicious.

I was working on TS the other day and realized that Aeryn has to get rejected by a few guys while she's on those dating websites. It's only fair, since she gets to reject a lot of them. So I thought about The Rejection Hotline xD A bit mean. but Aeryn's a tough girl - she can handle it.

For those who want a good laugh, here's a list of all the Rejection Hotline numbers so you can listen to the message. If you don't wanna pay long distance charges, find your area code.
http://www.canadianfreestuff.com/forum/f56/rejection-hotline-8009/

Some of the numbers don't work anymore, so here's part of the message:

So, why were you given a rejection hotline number? Maybe you were just not this person’s type. Note, this could mean you are boring, dumb, annoying, arrogant or just a general weirdo. Maybe you suffer from bad breath, body odor, or a nasty combination of the two.
 
Maybe you just give off that creepy overbearing, psycho stalker vibe and the idea of going out with you just seems as appealing as playing leap frog with unicorns. Regardless of the reason, please take the hint. Accept the fact that you were rejected and then get over it. And please, do your best to forget about the person who gave you this number because trust us, they’ve already forgotten about you.

What do you think of The Rejection Hotline? Would you ever use it?

Aeryn's Online Dating Adventure

I just finished writing one of Aeryn's adventure date with a guy she met through a dating website. For once, the scene played out exactly like I'd imagined it.

It involves a British guy, a creepy man, and jumping out of a window. For those reading the story on Wattpad, that scene will come in 2 chapters (I'm posting chapter 5 later today or tomorrow morning; the date is in chapter 7).

Oddly enough, most of it actually happened in real life, and all I did was add a small twist at the end.

Stop Trying To Hit On Me

I noticed I haven't posted anything writing-related in a while :O Here's an excerpt from TS. This happens in Aidan's car after Aeryn guilt-trips him into giving her a ride somewhere.

With my hand in mid-air, I stopped and turned to give him a blank look. A small smile was at the corner of his lips as he looked back at me. “Aidan, you trying to hit on me messes up the whole order of the universe. Plus, I have enough nightmares as it is.”

He frowned, looking offended. “Trying? I wasn’t trying to hit on you.”

I turned back to the mirror and began applying the mascara again. “Of course not.”

He grinned. “Trying implies failure. I was hitting on you. Want me to do it again?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“You have beautiful eyes, Taylor,” he said as he made a right.

“Aidan, shut up.”

“They’re almost as beautiful as your hair –”

“Uh-huh.”

“ – and as hot as your lips.”

I groaned and as we slowly neared a stop sign, I chose this moment to quickly finish applying my mascara. I closed the tube and turned to look at Aidan. He sneaked a glance at me, his blue eyes looking as amused as ever. “Stop trying to hit on me,” I said. “I'm not stupid enough to fall for it.”

He grinned. “Worked in high school.”

“Yeah, well I’d lost part of my brain back then.”

“Found it yet?”

“Uh-huh. Long time ago. And it’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“That’s too bad.”

Oh, Canada.

For those of you who don't know, July 1st is a huge deal in Canada: it's Canada Day! :D

I've been to a few July 4th celebrations in the states and as much as I do like it there, there's nothing like Canada Day, especially in the nation's capital.

It's amazing. Streets are closed for the entire day and everyone comes downtown to celebrate Canada (I do mean everyone.) People are dressed in red and white, have the maple leaf symbol painted on their faces, there were even a few people in red and white morphsuits, the Canadian flag is everywhere and the feeling is amazing. It's even crazier on the buses; people will randomly start sing-alongs about being proud Canadians, and the buses are beyond packed (we had to literally push people off at the end of the night).

There's music blasting everywhere, entertainment at almost every street corner and yesterday, Kate and William even came downtown! Unfortunately, I missed them by a few minutes. I was watching this escaping act (it was so bad -_-) and by the time I left to go see what this gathering crowd was taking pictures of, I saw the royal car turn the corner. Sad moment :(
This is a picture of the escaping act I was watching instead; it was pretty bad, because the guy kept building it up and then at the end we realized that anyone could have gotten out of the chains and the jacket:

And of course, the fireworks at the end of the night were great. The only unpleasant part was that pretty much everyone was smoking weed around me, so I was suffocating.

And after the fireworks, there were these dancers dancing behind windows in a building.

Anyway, happy belated Canada Day to my Canadian followers, and happy Fourth of July to my American ones! (And for the others...well, I'm not really sure xD)

Graduation!

I'm officially done with high school! I got my diploma today and it's when you throw your cap in the air that it all settles in: you're done with high school :D

I'm so excited right now. This morning, I did not want to wake up. I was actually considering skipping the grad ceremony and just sleeping in. Waking up at 6am just for a ceremony isn't pleasant -_-

And the ceremony was long. I got a headache about halfway through, and it seemed as if the awards would just never end. There were so many of them.I'm just happy I got the award for my writing class :D

The valedictorian speech wasn't very good (At my school, you vote for the valedictorian; it doesn't have anything to do with your GPA. Canada's just a bit wack this way). There were so many awkward moments during that speech that I just felt bad for the guy. It started out awkward and I could tell that he was nervous: he usually speaks so quickly and flawlessly, but he kept stumbling on his words. And there was this one moment when he was like, 'I'm parched. I'm going to take a sip from my water bottle.' Then the guy takes a whole minute and drains the entire bottle. A lot of people were saying it was vodka, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were right. I mean, the speech was just so awkward.
It wasn't all bad though. There were a few funny moments, and he even quoted Rebecca Black once, and it actually fit in the speech pretty well. But that's about it. I'm just happy I didn't try to be valedictorian.

Wattpad

I used to post my projects on inkpop but ever since they changed the layout and a lot of the features on the site, it just lost its appeal to me. At one point, inkpop just became stressful and my friend who introduced me to inkpop even called it a cult. Lol.

So anyway, I stopped going on inkpop. It gives me too much trouble: every time I log on using my username Blueview, it switches me to a different account linked to my Facebook account. It's really irritating. And I don't even know how to upload anything on the new site (kinda embarrassing but whatever xD). I'm only going on there to read this one project that I've patiently been waiting for for quite some time now.

Just yesterday, I found this new writing site. Wattpad. It's got such a simple layout. It's pretty much how inkpop used to be before everyone started swapping in order to get feedback. And it's copyrighted, so it's safe :D
I've posted Theoretically Speaking on there. If any of you would like to read it, that's where I'll be posting and updating from now on. I only have the prologue and first chapter right now, but more will be coming.

Here's the link for those interested (my username is MsBlueview):
http://www.wattpad.com/1616740-theoretically-speaking

Dilemma!

My aunt lent me her copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and I've been trying to read it for a while now. I started it about six months ago, and got to the second page. But then a chick lit caught my attention and I dropped it to read that chick lit. And then a few months later I tried reading it again, got to the third page, but then wasn't in the mood to read at all, so I stopped.

I started it last week again, got to the third page, but then this book from the library came in so I read that library book instead. For some reason, I just can't bring myself to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It's not that it's bad...I just get distracted from it so easily. The author uses a bunch of words that I've never even heard of before, have no clue how to pronounce (and I'm actually wondering if they're even English...), and the names are so hard to pronounce.

But at the same time, I've heard that it's a really good book. And it would be so embarrassing to just give the book back to my aunt after more than 6 months of having it. She'll ask me how it was and I'll just be like, "Oh, yeah...I didn't really read it." I can just imagine the disapproving look she'll give me every time any book is brought up.
Dilemma, dilemma. Sigh.

Anyone read that book?

Au Revoir

Goodbye high school xD Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

Today was my last day of high school and it couldn't have come faster. As much fun as I had there, can't say I'll miss it.

But at last...no more uniforms, no more waking up at 8 every morning (although I rarely ever woke up at 8 at one point; I sort of gave up going to school on time) and just no more high school.

It's time for high school to go bother someone else now :P

Slimming Down

I just finished writing an overly long chapter (took me weeks to finish it) but I know I need to either a) cut it in half (there are two scenes, so it would be easy to do that) or b) slim that chapter down. If I go with option a) I feel as if both of those chapters would be pretty incomplete. They're two scenes, not two chapters, and they just wouldn't work well as chapters.

But if I go with option b) I'd be cutting a lot of things out. Things that I really need to include. Or at least I feel like I should include them (but you know what they say about the author being too biased to always see clearly). Things that really develop the minor characters and strengthen their relationship with the MC.

So the problem here is that the chapter is too long.

Has it ever happened to any of you before? Any wise and must-follow advice that your brains cannot wait to share with me?

Online Dating

I use to think that only desperate or extremely busy people tried that but whoa - the amount of people I know who are doing it actually boggles me.

My friends made accounts on this one dating website for fun, and every day we see someone we know on there and we're so surprised. I haven't made an account but it's definitely fun to hear about my friends' stories, and it's even more fun to see the kind of people on there. There are those nasty pervs who always start their conversations with something along the lines of 'Touch me' (Ew -_-), there are those people who are so paranoid of meeting some old creep, but then there are those who read people's profiles and are actually interested in the person's personality.

Every day, I hear at least ten funny stories from my friends (like this one guy who said that he was 35. When my friend told him that she wasn't looking for someone this old, he said that he was actually 21 and asked if she wanted to see his driver's license. All he kept sending her were a bunch of his webcam pictures until she finally blocked him). But if you're lucky enough, you'll actually meet a decent person on there. Or you'll meet a complete creep and wonder why you ever signed up.

So naturally, I realized that I wanna include this in TS. Aeryn knows exactly what she wants in a guy, and what better way to find that guy than through online dating? Many different ideas popped in my head, but I narrowed it down to two ideas right now, and I think I'll just see where the story goes. What I can't wait to write are all the creeps that will start messaging her (I feel like I've got such a twisted mind right now :P)

Writing Class

I took a writing class at school (after taking it, dropping it, taking it again, dropping it again and finally taking it, all in four days) I sort of expected my writing to become amazing by now (like, published-author-amazing). But seriously, the only thing I learned from that class was that there's more than one one type of essay. Way more than one type o.o
We spent ages writing essays and only about three weeks on the fiction unit. Last week had to write a flash fiction and after hours of staring at a blank screen - completely uninspired - I was able to write the flash fiction. I titled it 'My Friday Night With You' (I posted it on inkpop) after Katy Perry's song Last Friday Night.

Parallel Beginnings

I've finally updated Theoretically Speaking on inkpop! I had so much rewrites to do and just last night, my USB ( the one I just bought) stopped working. Thankfully, I learned from my last mistake and had everything backed up.

But anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about today. I've been editing STA for a while now (on and off), and every time I'm done with it, I always try to work on its sequel. After restarting the beginning of Say It Once (the sequel) more times than I can count, I was finally satisfied with the last beginning. What I have in mind for the sequel is to have a parallel (more or less parallel) beginning and ending to STA. I changed the beginning of STA a while back and I think this new idea works better. At least I'm hoping it does :P

Here's the rewritten beginning of STA and the beginning of SIO:

Second Time Around - Chapter 1:

Jane and I stared at the five pictures aligned on my bed, showing in embarrassing detail my disastrous fall in the mud puddle last month at the park.

She shook her head and laughed at the last picture. “Your eyes look like they’re ready to pop out of your head.”

I groaned. “I know.”

She pointed to the second picture, which showed my brief moment in the air, right before my butt landed in the mud to make its glorious splash. “This reminds me of freshman year.”

Oh God, I thought, remembering the fall we both had when trying out for the soccer team. Like most of my embarrassing moments, it had been captured on camera and was forever remembered.

“Why was there a pile of clothes there?” she asked as she leaned closer to the pictures.

I sighed and walked to my closet, ready to put the Forest Incident behind, just like I had done with all of my other embarrassing incidents. “They took my clothes while I was changing.”

Jane nodded matter-of-factly as if it all made perfect sense. “You did have it coming for you.”

I turned back and blinked at her. “I broke up with Logan an hour before. How was I supposed to know that his friends would make me run around a forest in my underwear?”

Jane snorted. “It’s called Karma, Ave. Nothing personal," she said with a shrug. "And look at it this way: I would've done the same if I were them." And knowing her, she most likely would have.

Say It Once - Chapter 1:

“You look like Rudolph.”

“She was Rudolph.”

“She’s missing the antlers.”

I glared at both Lucas and Jane before grabbing the pictures off the living room floor. They both laughed and Jane, my best friend, smirked before she walked to the kitchen.  

“I told you to stop carrying that camera around and taking pictures of people. Four years later, you still don’t listen. Karma’s a bitch, Ave,” she called over her shoulder. I rolled my eyes.

“Jane, you need to get over it.” During last month’s Spirit Day – which also happened to be Jane’s Bad Hair Day – I had gone around taking pictures. I’d forgotten to delete her picture from the batch and the newspaper’s editor had used it as the front page of this month’s issue. The paper sold like it never had before, and Jane never let me forget it. “The picture wasn’t even that bad,” I said, reaching over to snatch one of my Rudolph pictures from Lucas’s hand. He moved it out of my reach in time and pulled me by the waist.

He grinned down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “You make a hot Rudolph, McAdams.”

 “Haha.” I tried to reach behind him but didn’t succeed at much. “Luke, give me the picture.”

Jane came back with a glass of water and shook her head. “Don’t give it to her.”

“Jane, this picture is a thousand times worse than yours was.” She stared at me over her glass of water, unmoved. “I’m wearing a leotard!”

“And tights,” Lucas added, his eyes back to the picture.

I glared at him. Sometimes I wondered how he and I were still together after a whole year.

And she comes back to life...

I've almost abandoned this blog, haven't I? I haven't written or blogged in the last two weeks. I've just been sleeping, doing homework and reading.

I read Kinsella's Shopaholic Series and every time I tried to write TS, I felt like I was still stuck in Becky's head (the MC from the Shopaholic Series). It's not pleasant. Becky's character is really different and very distinct, and after spending 2 weeks and 5 books with her, it was almost impossible to write with Aeryn's voice. I would write something and delete it because it just wasn't how Aeryn would think or talk or do anything.

But I'm done with the Shopaholic books and today I spent hours trying to get back in Aeryn's head. It's now 10pm and I've finally managed to forget Becky's annoying voice talking about shopping and clothes (I still don't understand how I managed to read all 5 books. She's just such an annoying and materialistic character that it drove me insane by the middle of each book). I've written a thousand words of TS today and it feels so good to be writing again, and actually be happy with what I'm writing.

And, to make up for almost abandoning this blog, my next post will be an excerpt. Most likely from TS, but it might be from Bad Apple. We'll see!

I'm Hopeless

Ever had an entire afternoon (or day) with nothing to do and you think, "Perfect afternoon/day to sit down and probably get a whole chapter done"? And then you end up doing everything except writing.

Happened to me today. I had an assignment to finish but I finished it early, so I had about 8 hours to write. I got all excited about it since the last time that happened, it must have been months ago. I was even feeling inspired! (it's been happening less and less lately, so you can only imagine how excited that got me :P). Anyway, I got home, finished my assignment for school, and then decided to go take a quick nap. And then I decided to just put in a few chapters of reading since I haven't read a book in a while with all the homework I've had. After I got sick of reading, I decided to go make myself a sandwich (I'm not even a fan of sandwiches. I rarely ever eat them unless someone offers to buy me one from Subway, or unless someone offers to make me one). Then I went to make my brother a sandwich (I never make anything for my brother), and then I decided to go for another run (I already woke up at 6am to run -_-). And now I'm here blogging.

I'm not sure why I wasted so much time, and then when I won't have any time to write, I'll complain about never having time to write. I just don't get it. And it frustrates me. The worse part is, once I'm done blogging, I've got to catch a long awaited episode of Criminal Minds. I know. I'm hopeless, aren't I?

Aloha :D

Oh, wow. It's been a while since I've last blogged. I've been busy as hell with homework, and when I'm not doing that, I'm sleeping. Not what I call fun -_-

Anyway, I wanted to talk about setting today. Anyone ever set their story in a place they've never been to? I know I have. Actually, all of my stories are set in places I've never been to, and a couple of them are even set in places I hadn't heard of before I started researching for that particular story.

My writing teacher told us today that it's one of the worse ideas to set your characters in places you've never been to...but I have to disagree. It's hard, I won't lie, but it's fun, challenging and it even gives you the feeling that you've been to that place once you're done writing. And I love that feeling xD

I'm about to start writing a scene for TS that'll happen later in the book - way later - and it's set in...yes, you guessed it, Hawaii! From the beginning of the book, I've got Aeryn's mom bugging her about visiting them there. When things completely fall apart for her, she'll decide to spend her Christmas break with them in Hawaii. She'll take one of the guys with her at the last minute, and I have this one scene with them together at a beach bonfire and I just can't wait to write it. I've never been to Hawaii before, but one of my friends went there last month and hasn't stopped talking about it (yes, it gets a bit annoying after a full week). And I've been to the Caribbeans plenty of times, so I'm hoping things will work out for those Hawaii chapters.

But what do you think about setting your story somewhere you've never been to before? Ever tried it? Was it a complete disaster or the best thing you've ever written?

I do!

Let's talk weddings :D Not only because of the royal wedding that was broadcasted on every single channel the other day, but because I just came from a wedding and let's just say the experience was...mh, interesting.
This was my first wedding (I watched the video of a wedding months ago but that really doesn't count) and it was definitely something. The bride's side of the family is Catholic and I think Moroccan (not sure. Could be Arabic.), while the groom's side of the family is Baptist and most of them are Haitian. About three quarters of the wedding was in Arabic (or some other foreign language) while the other quarter consisted of chanting. I was so completely lost, and I wasn't the only one. On the groom's side of the church, everyone looked so confused and lost. No one was sure what to say (we ended up saying the end of every chant the priest was saying), whether to stand or sit (we ended up standing for about an hour) or what to make of things. At one point, the couple ran around the priest with crowns on their heads and that's when everyone started looking around with confused looks.

And my feet were killing me by the end of the wedding. The only comforting thing was that I knew it was going to happen. I bought these 8-inch heels last week and although the heel was strong and more or less comfortable, after an hour of standing I just couldn't feel my ankles or feet.

But this experience was very useful. Originally, I'd wanted to make STA's epilogue the actual wedding instead of the ten minutes before the wedding, but since I didn't know what it was like to go to a wedding, I settled on the latter. Now I can have the ending I'd wanted from the start, which has me all excited.

Third Person, Here I Come!

Third person narratives, paranormal, fantasy, sci-fi and an abundance of description aren't exactly part of my comfort zone when it comes to writing. I suck at description, but I'm trying to improve by reading more of those types of books (big yawners so far). I wouldn't say I suck at third person but I definitely prefer first person because I'm way more comfortable with it. But my goal is to write at least one book in third person, have one book with a bittersweet ending, a paranormal one and one from a guy's POV. I've started with the paranormal one (Destined), and now I'm ready to try writing an entire book in third person.

It's actually an assignment for my writing class: writing a fantasy short story about what happened to Sir Cedric, but I've decided to continue with it and turn it into a book. It's a fantasy story (meaning dragons and princesses and lords and all that charade), and like most of my assignments for that class, I decided to do it in third person. It's due tomorrow; I started it an hour ago because I lost my USB (so I had to restart it) and wasn't all that crazy about my original idea. I'm pretty excited about it (even though I probably won't be working on it all that much because of TS and BA), so thought I'd share it with you guys. Here's the beginning (rough draft - I can't stress this enough):

Stonegate Castle disappeared hundreds of years ago, without any warning or explanation to its villagers. No one had the dimmest idea of what truly happened to it, or to its owner, Lord Cedric. In fact, no single villager held a sliver of memory as to who Lord Cedric was. He was simply a name to them, a name without a face, a name that gave off a menacing, yet revered feeling. No one remembered his cold, blue eyes, but they imagined he had them. They imagined the black cape he had refused to part with since his mother’s death, yet had no real memory of it. They imagined his long, black hair whipping through the wind as he galloped on his horse, but could not remember the fear it had once evoked across the entire village.

No one remembered the existence of Lord Cedric.  No one except his sister who had vowed, many years ago, to see his head on a platter and present it to the people of Stonegate.

Bye Bye, Guilty Pleasure

As much as I love guys with British accents, this just put a damper on my little guilty pleasure o_o

http://ottawa.kijiji.ca/c-jobs-bar-food-hospitality-british-chef-looking-for-work-W0QQAdIdZ277532457

Who Knew

Rewriting the latest parts of TS turned out to be pretty good. After I lost my USB, I bought myself a new one and went through my email, Facebook messages to my sister and the deleted files on my computer, and was able to retrieve a good part of both TS and BA (most of it came from inkpop). I'll have to completely restart editing STA and restart Destined (not that bad, since I was only a couple of thousand words into it), but I'm not too bummed about this.

I've been working on TS in between rewriting essays, movie reviews and short stories for school and it turns out that I'm liking the new version better. I wouldn't exactly call it a new version since I'm just rewriting the same scenes, but I'm liking the writing better. It flows better, the characters are more alive, new ideas are popping up in my head and I'm just having more fun writing the scenes now than I had when I first wrote them.

Who ever knew losing my USB could actually turn out to be a good thing. Regardless, I sure as hell hope not to lose this one -_-

Funny Episode Recaps

Anyone here a Vampire Diaries fan? Even if you're not, I think you'll enjoy this.

A couple of weeks ago, I found these episode recaps and have since been addicted to them because they're simply hilarious. Even if you don't watch the show, I think you'll all have a laugh reading this. At least I hope so :P

http://www.tv.com/the-vampire-diaries-curses!/story/25687.html?tag=container;news_story