Two Weeks Worth of Blogging In One Post @_@

Man, where to start? So much has happened in the past two weeks, both personally and writing-wise, that I'm seriously struggling to figure out where to start.

I guess the best place to start is the conference I went to two weeks ago. I know I already mentioned it earlier in the temporary post, so I won't go into too much detail. Just know that I had fun and that going to this conference has made me feel more energetic and alive than I have been this entire school year. So I tried to bring this enthusiasm to my club, but, there was a bit of resistance from some people. However, I think they've warmed up to the idea, making me all happy ^_^

Now, you may ask how in the heck this conference has anything to do with you and my writing (which is the reason you read my post). Well, on the way to and fro the conference, I had a limited amount of things I could do. Mostly, I had about an hour (if used correctly) with my phone, less than 1 minute on FB every three hours (because my phone has been weird lately, and says it has low battery if I use the internet for two minutes, even if it is fully charged) and about 16 hours of music. 

Guess how I entertained myself? Yup, through music. Now, my awesome friend JiffyFrose, sent me many things as a belated Birthday present.(For those of you that didn't know, my birthday was on September 6th. LycoRogue has offered to write me one story, any story of my choosing, as my present (which I still have yet to "redeem". But I wonder what I'll end up asking her to write for me :3 The person I beta for, AngelBlood666 wrote me two Legend of Zelda/Hey Arnold crossover stories, which were AWESOME. And Chopfe, my buddy, drew me a card, which I love!) 

Anyway, Jiffy sent me a CD she has named my "Super Special Awesome CD". In it, she gave me 19 tracks (because I am 19 years old) of music she either knew I liked, or songs she was sure I would like. And, of course, Gangnam Style was there too. 

So I listened to the songs from the CD she made me via music player for a while. 

There was this one song that I was obsessed with that weekend: it's called Every Heart by BoA. It's a really lovely song and the translation can be found here. 

I listened to this song many many times on my trip back to my college town and even fell asleep while listening to it.

Now, this song, if you read the lyrics in english, is quite poetic. It's pretty and poetic and I just couldn't stop listening to it. So much so that I hear it in my head, even if it's not playing. XD

The reason I bring this up is because, well, lately I'm not really in the mood to write fanfiction (sadly D:) unless its poetry ( :D ) So although I may put KLIYH on the backburner for now, I may continue writing "Little Pink Book" and "Little Blue Book"!!! So that's good news for the people who have been waiting well over a year (oh god. I've lagged writing poetry for almost a YEAR!?) for an update. 

Also, for my Writing: Fiction Class (because, you know, I love that class :D ) we're about to start turning in our original stories to be peer reviewed by 21 other people, while we watch and cannot say anything. I already know I'm probably going to have the most criticized story, because my writing style is weak compared to other writing styles in the class, but I have a problem greater than that. 

WHAT WILL I WRITE FOR SUBMISSION??

I have no idea what the heck I will choose. I have a few ideas, but I can't really decide...

Either way, I'll write them here, and if someone could PLEASE give me a nudge, it would be GREATLY appreciated!

1. The story I talked about a while ago, with the soldier, his son, and the shoelaces. It's one I'm leaning towards, but I have to write the story in 6-12 pages, 12 pt times new roman, double spaced and one inch margins. I don't want to rush the story into the parameters, but, I think this type of story will really show what I'm good at, as a writer, which is writing something tragic, realistic, and slightly angsty. 
2. My second option is writing an excerpt of OB&H, to get feedback on if people would want this story as a book. The problem with that, though, is that no one really knows the plot of the story, and I don't want to write a scene that is important to the story because it won't be seen as important in context. It'll be seen an something part of something longer, therefore making it seem incomplete.
3. My third option is to write something based on that 31 days challenge on LiveJournal. However, I'm not sure how that would come out and plus, it'd have to be original (no fanfiction allowed, sadly), so it might be harder for me to write.

So yeah, there's that. What I AM excited about is that, this year, for Halloween, I am going to read Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber". It's, in essence  Angela Carter's version of Fairy Tales. From the one story of this book that I've read so far, they're dark, with a great voice from the narrator, and it shows that Carter isn't trying to fill her stories with superfluous details, something I greatly appreciate. Me and my roommate ordered the book (because she also likes the story that I read from it) and they both arrived yesterday! So I'm saving it and reading it on Halloween. 

Maybe it'll help me write a belated Hey Arnold Halloween story. You see, there was this Hey Arnold Halloween contest, where the winner would receive a Hey Arnold book signed by Craig Bartlett. The deadline was yesterday and I, unfortunately missed it. Although I had an idea, everytime I set out to write it, I would get three paragraphs into the story then turn off word, because I never started the story good enough. But, it doesn't matter. ^_^ I hope whoever wins the contest has a great time with the book, since they deserved it. Of course, I'm rooting for Lyco and AngelBlood666 the most, but I guess I'm a little biased. I'm also rooting for Chopfe winning the Hey Arnold art contest.

Good Luck guys!!! I hope one of you wins!!!

 

And that's it for me! Whew! Remembering what I did in these past two weeks has been tough (mostly because my mind has been preoccupied on other things) but I promised an update and I hate breaking my promises! 

So Huzzah! :D

~DA1326

Temporary Post from a Sorry but Happy Writer

Soooooooo obviously I didn’t post anything this past Friday night. Which may seem a bit strange to any and all of my readers. Mostly because I’m pretty punctual about updating (yup, all three times prior to this one). But honestly, I was busy this weekend.

Now, as you all know, I usually don’t talk about my personal life unless it affects my writing. Well, this time, as much as I want to keep it on the down-low, I’m gonna share why I couldn’t update until this very moment.

The truth is, I’m president of a club at my school and this club is part of a national organization, split up into six regions. I’m in region VI and this past weekend, all schools in region VI who are part of the national organization were to go to a conference. In Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, I did walk around the strip and see buildings, but I didn’t do much more than that. But I did have to travel all day Friday to get there, and got there around 7:30pm and was in the conference (which, mind you, had started by the time I got there) until around 11:30pm. On Saturday, I was doing conference stuff from 7:45am-7:30pm. After that, we (all the attendees) went to our rooms to get dressed in our “street clothes” and were driven to Fremont. We walked The Strip and got back to our housing location around 11:30pm.

Needless to say, I’ve been really really really busy this weekend, trying to figure out how to make my particular club better with all that I’ve learned in this conference. Today, I set out to travel again and am currently still traveling. But except now, I can access wifi.

Since I’ve been so busy last week, mostly preparing for this trip, and this week, because I have an upcoming midterm and paper, I may not give a cool, writing update ‘til this coming Friday night, when I am liberated. 

Sorry. 

~DA1326

Inspiration, Self-Doubt and Recovery! Starring Me with Guest LycoRogue!

Well, this week has been...interesting, to say the least. 

A lot of stuff of happened personally and creatively, however, as usual, I'll only try to slim it to only talk about writing stuff, since that's what this blog is mainly about.

So, starting from last weekend. To cut it down to a sentence, this describes the following weekend: I was sick. XD Ok ok I was being a smart aleck. Sue me :P. Seriously though, I was sick. Saturday, I had a fever on and off all day. I got to 100.7F! Then, I'd take medicine and get as low as 94F. >_> I basically slept all day! I tried to write something on my laptop, but my eyes felt like they were burning from the inside of my skull whenever I looked at the screen. I then tried doing the old-fashioned pencil-and-paper, but that also worked against me, since I realized it was my fever was making me feel like my eyeballs were on fire, not any computer screen. Sunday is when I was a bit more normal. Sure, I had a fever, but it was  only 99.2F. Not too bad, plus, my eyes weren't burning, so that was also a plus. However, at that time, I couldn't really focus on school work too much, so I just caught up on some shows that I usually miss watching on TV (haha funny story about the TV...It's broken...kinda XD). 

After that, I decided I had to do SOMETHING productive, so, I opened up a blank word doc, turned off the wifi receiver on my laptop, and worked on my assignment for writing fiction. 

Now, as usual, I'm talking about my Writing: Fiction class. This is because I honestly love this class. Sure, it meets at night for two hours on two days of the week, and prevents me from finishing classes for the day around the same time my roommate finishes her classes, but, despite that, I still love the class. I love talking about fiction. I love trying to figure out what something means, then talking about it with other people, then sculpting a better meaning for the story based on discussion with my peers. I love listening to these writing styles from these people (even if they seriously make me doubt my ability as a writer majority of the time!) and improving my own style, with every passing class session. Plus the fact that my other classes are either science classes, or a class club where I'm President and have to be on top of things...

The writing assignment for my writing fiction class for last weekend was the following: 

-Imagine a character. Take time to brainstorm about age, appearance, class, occupation, etc.--in short, the things that make a person an individual then;

-In a list, write down all the things your character wants then;

-Mark or add your character's primary desire, what she or he or it wants most in the world, to the list then;

-Consider what is standing in the way of the character fulfilling her/his/its primary desire then;

-Write the beginning of your character's story 

The story should be between 1 and 3 pages, double-spaced, with one-inch margins.

Here's the thing: I could've written anything my little heart desired. I could've written about an football player. Or a king. Or a spaceman. Or a football-playing-king-in-space. With a mustache.

But why would I do that? Why would I ignore the opportunity given to me to write about someone who I know instead of making someone else up? Someone who told me their story and took control of my typing fingers? 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I wrote an "Of Blood and Honor" (Which, from this moment onward, will be known as "OB&H") excerpt, yet again. 

I already pre-planned the character out a bit, and this assignment just gave me an excuse to write about her.  Her and her antics in Surpareitzo.

Just as a reminder, here is the cast for "OB&H" (the more and more I think about this story, the longer and longer it becomes. I was thinking this would be a single book, but, as time carries on, I think it's actually going to be a book series. But I'll talk more on this point a little later). 

We have:

33 

Natsu Nagayo

Kyo Nagayo

Kotone Nagayo

Rose Tockler

Alemandria (Alemina as a nickname) Arias

Quentin Cheviot

Reynard Fletcher

Marina Yañes

Marina's father

Of course, there are others with names, but this is the main cast. 33 has a real name, but, again, that is secret ;)

The excerpt that I wrote this time, however, is unlike any of the previous ones I've written, because it wasn't in third person. It was in first person.

Usually, I'm a huge Anti-First-Person-POV story teller, but, it actually wasn't written too bad. (and I'm not saying this because I am blinded into loving my writing. On the contrary, I'm very self-doubting over my craft, and am usually the first to criticize any concoction I come up with, you can even ask LycoRogue, my lovely beta. She'll be the first person to tell you this is true!) 

The character that took over my mind and typing finger on Sunday was...DRUMROLL PLEASE...Ms. Marina Yañes!!!

Yes, this character, who may seem unimportant now, is actually VERY important to the story! And she's not even a Princess! Just a commoner! (A baker's daughter to be exact!) 

I showed Lyco my little Marina drabble via fanfiction DocX and she actually liked it a lot, and told me the characteristics I listed for Marina were some that describe Marina's life, yet, aren't details she would think of including for Marina's description. 

Now THAT is saying something. 

If you guys read Lyco's work, you'll see that she adds many details that help move the story, instead of halting it altogether. I've always admired that about her work; how she gives you enough details to show you what is happening without suffocating you with pages and pages of a useless description. So, for her to say that *I* had a detail in there that she would've never thought of????!!! 

MIND BLOWN!

Which brings me to why Lyco is guest starring in this blog entry. As you all know, Lyco is my beta. But, I also kind of think of her as one of my writing mentors. (The other being a high school friend who literally acts like my big sister in the most awesome sense of the word. We're very random together. We can be talking about something as serious as women's right, then, randomly talk about Rapunzel's pet in "Tangled") 

This past week, she was given a huge opportunity from HER writing mentor. The awesome thing about Lyco is that she shares EVERYTHING she finds useful on Writer's Huddle with fellow writers of hers (myself included). 

She even gave me this link to inspire me to write more "OB&H".

When I saw this list, I was literally able to say "yes" to every single thing on the list. But, of course, I was still self-doubting my writing ability and worried her. Again. >_>

This is what I wrote on my penname's FB: "Another one of those doubt things. I love OB&H  but I'm worried. Am I just making another one of those fad books? Because I don't want that. I want to write something that people will genuinely love because of its depth, which cannot be caught at first glance. I want OB&H to mean something more than just a fad and crappy movie based on it. Maybe this is really silly to even think about now...IDK this is just something that's been on my mind recently..."  

Now, the above statement is true. I don't want my book to be the next Twilight or Hunger Games (not that the Hunger Games series is bad, I cannot say because I haven't read the books). What I mean is that I don't want "OB&H" to be a fad book, then grow dust in the Fantasy aisle after like 3 years. I want it to have lasting power, maybe even a book English teachers use for class. But, I always worry that my story will never be good enough.

Obviously, Lyco (figuratively) slapped some sense into me. (Via "come on! You. Awesome." kinds of comments)

As you can all tell, I get very very very self-demeaning when it comes to writing. I always find my stories missing depth and readability. I think the reason I'm so unsure about my writing is because, growing up, people around me always said my stories "weren't good enough". The person who introduced me to poetry would encourage me to write it, but always gave me the "aren't good enough" kind of critiques of an up and coming poet. (Of course, I'll admit, my early works were by no means any forms of gems, but, a little encouragement would've been nice. I had none of that. My mom never even found out I wrote poetry until my senior year of high school!) 

Lyco thinks this is why I get so self-conscious, and I'd have to agree with her there, but that doesn't prevent me from being self-conscious about my writing. I just am. 

It doesn't seem to matter how many people I talk to that genuinely love my writing, I still get very "oh, I'm not a good writer! I suck at description and dialogue!" 

Which is why I come to depend on Lyco. She's my support, and she's really been giving me super support this past week, even if we can't have our long FB chats or even Writer's Conferences as much as we used to. 

Of course, I also have the awesome sauce Angelblood666, the person I beta for (although, lately it seems he no longer needs me) who also encourages me to write, because he also believes I'm good at it. 

So, now, around a week since I have updated, I can say that my sinus inflammation is all but vanished, and that my self-doubt in writing is slowing ebbing away.

Hopefully, next week, I actually write more "OB&H" stuff, but we'll just have to see where the next week takes me!

Till then, have a creatively random week!

And remember to write about all those football-playing-kings-in-space. With mustahces.    (<I:{D)

Craziness, Sickness, Inspiration and Self-Consciousness: ALL IN ONE WEEK!

Well this week has been CRAZY!!!!

OMG SO MUCH STUFF!!! AHHH *Pulls hair out* 

Haha Just kidding. Where to start? Where to start? It feels like these past 7 days went by so fast...

*sigh*

Well, I guess the best day to start, would be on Saturday. Well, that day, I easily slept until around 11AM (having gone to sleep at like 1-2AM myself) and hung out with my friend. You know, the one who I have talked about, that knows about 33's real name, back-story, and a few plot twists in "Of Blood and Honor".

Anyway, I showed her an old passage of a very old original story idea, which was called "Fear No Evil". This was written like in 2008-2009!!! This was so old; just to give you an idea of HOW old and HOW long ago this was...I was barely trying to find my writing style out at that time. 

Here's the first paragraph of that story (again, this was not my best work)

It was a dark alley, where anything could hide itself; Demon smoke, witches, warlocks, even a shape shifter or two. Despite the dead darkness with cigarette smoke suffocating the otherwise fogless night, there was a kind of peaceful silence. Then, a shape was thrown into a trashcan, startling the sleeping pigeons to flight. In the dim moonlight, the shape transformed into a man, around 25, with a suit under his badly beaten and worn out black trench coat. 

One word to sum up the main idea of this story: Apocalypse. Again, really really REALLY old story! 

So, on Sunday, I just studied for class and got ready for Monday.

Monday, I finished doing an assignment for my Writing: Fiction class on Tuesday. 

Yes, I have a writing fiction class, and its actually pretty neat. Basically, a class where we talk about some writing techniques, do a quick write, read our quick writes, talk about stories we were supposed to have read beforehand and get new readings for the following class. Every class meeting, two people (who signed up on the first day) read a chapter from a book, or a poem, or song lyrics, to the class and talk about why they chose this particular work; this exercise is called "Invoking the Muse". 

The reason I even bring UP this class is because of what happened on Tuesday. I know I'm a writer. I'm pretty decent at it and I find it something I need to do. If I'm not writing SOMETHING, its like I'm suffering an aching from a bone. Writing is my sanity (I guess meaning this blog is also my sanity) so, I guess that, that has gotten me overconfident about my writing. 

On Tuesday, when we did a writing exercise (it was a simple one. Our class leader, who is a grad student, brought 5 things to class. One was a broken ornament. It looked like a ball, black and solid, with the outside looking like bubble wrap [I can't really explain it...]. Another was a R2 D2 Pez dispenser. Another was dirty shoelaces, with trains (in red, yellow, blue, and green) all over, and one was a pocket watch, with a carving of a previous Chinese leader's face on it) I had two thoughts. One was about a soldier who has the dirty shoelaces. He gave train stamps (in red, blue, green, and yellow) to his son before he went to war, and told his son to "be strong and brave, like the trains". So, the soldier gets deployed and one day, he receives a letter. In it, are these white shoelaces, with colored trains stamped on crookedly. He opens the note, and sees "be strong and brave, like the trains, Daddy" in his son's jumbled scribble. He carries the shoelaces with him, and, of course, they get dirty, but he tries to keep them clean, and keeps looking at the trains there. This thought, that his family, especially his son are waiting for his return, drive him to survive, so he does. He comes home, and wants to surprise his family, so he doesn't tell them. He walks into his house and sees it normally. As he goes up the stairs, to see his sleeping son, (he comes home at night), he finds dark, thick fluid...so, basically, I was going to have it so that the day the soldier comes back home, a murderer just killed his wife and son. Thus, he keeps the note and shoelaces, as a reminder of his innocent son. 

But, I didn't write that in class. I just had that idea. 

I, instead, went with the slightly angsty/kinda disney movie idea. 

It was centered around the R2 D2 PEZ Dispenser. Basically, a 19 year old named Jimmy has a growing Star Wars collection, that fills his room and is now overflowing into a hallway. His mother comes in and threatens to kick him out if he doesn't throw away these things, to which he simply nods his head, but ignores. Anyways, summarizing the rest, he keeps the Star Wars stuff because it reminds him of his mentor/father figure who saved him from being beat up. His mentor loved Star Wars and told Jimmy the reason why was because "it was about a seemingly ordinary person doing extraordinary things". His mentor/father figure has a stroke and dies, so, in his honor, Jimmy begins to collect Star Wars things. Where does the R2 D2 PEZ Dispenser come in? Well, his mentor/father figure gave him the R2 D2 Dispenser to Jimmy in his will; that being his prized posession. 

I know, its a lame story, but I wrote it, because I wanted to try to go out of my comfort zone. My angst-ridden comfort zone...LOL

Anyway, as I previously mentioned, we read these pieces aloud. And I read mine aloud. However, I felt SOOOO self-conscious about my writing by the time it was my turn. All the other stories were brilliant (some more than others) and here I had nothing more than this disney channel/after school special crap to share...I felt like my story was the worst. Like really really bad. So, on tuesday night (after class) till thursday night (the next class meeting), I felt like I hit a writer's low. Another one of those, "should I even bother writing anymore?" kind of period. But, I kept reading, and starting to re-read Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief". Now, this author is probably the closest author to my writing style. Him and Ayn Rand. 

Well, I got so into re-reading it, that, on Thursday, when it was MY turn to "Invoke the Muse", I read "Death and Chocolate", the first chapter of "The Book Thief" to the class.

(I strongly encourage EVERYONE to read this book. I have read it at least 5 times in the past 4 years, and I HATE re-reading books!) 

On another note, apparently, this book is also going to be a movie...so, we'll see how that turns out. 

So, on Thursday, we had to do a writing assignment based on two paragraphs that were based on Jack: an old, lonely pessimistic man who meets Sarah: a young girl who is always happy. In the last few sentences, Jack thinks Sarah has a dark side, but he doesn't know.

I spent my 20 minutes writing on Jack, and really delving into his depression. The day he met Sarah, I really wanted him to question his life, and have her, the annoyingly happy teenage be his saving grace.

And I read it out loud, and, judging from the subtle "wow" I heard, and concentration I felt on my story, I'd say it was an improvement. 

So, now, I'm just right. Not too cocky about my writing, and not too ashamed of it! XD

Which brings me to sickness...

Ever since Wednesday night, I've been having a slight cough. Yesterday, I had a sore throat, but this morning (I'm talking 4AM) I had mucus in my nose that kept me from sleeping. So, I'm currently writing this while eating chicken flavored pasta soup and drinking orange juice in a mug. 

Long story short, it turns out I have a slight sinus inflammation, but I now have medicine. Don't worry about company! 33 has been talking to me, mostly through memories though. Alemina is talking to me in a softer tone now too. Kotone and Natsu like talking to me a lot. Quentin is doing his own thing and Reynard is being difficult. Rose still won't give me a second glance. 

Anyway, that was my update! :D 

PS Just realized something tragic. Today is October 5th. The day Arnold's Parents left him to help the Green-Eyed People, and never came back. :'( 

To help bring back The Jungle Movie, as well as Arnold's parents, please sign the petition. 

That is all!

~DA1326