Pictures=Lifesaver!

Wow, you guys, I am so sorry I haven't posted in...oh, God knows how long. A long time. I don't even have an excuse for you, and I feel like a jerk for keeping you guys waiting. Well, "you guys" being maybe one person. I would love it if more people read my blog, but that means I'll have to post a lot more. It will be my mid-years resolution. This post might be a little too similar to the post about setting, but here goes anyway. This summer, and a little bit before, I've taken a sudden interest in taking pictures with my mom's Nikon D-40 camera. It's a nice camera, and I'm clumsy, so I can only hope I won't magically break it or drop it in the ocean. Because that, my friends, is very well possible. Anyway, every time I take a landscape picture, I have a feeling that one day, I will use that picture to describe a place in the book that I will be writing (guys, I have like 15 more ideas for books that I need to write, and I already have, like, four going). Like, pictures I take of beaches we visit, the gigantic Sequoia and Redwood trees in California, the gaping deserts of Arizona and new Mexico, the endless crop fields of Texas and Arkansas...I have a feeling I will use it all someday, to describe someplace. Another place I loved visiting while we were moving to Maine this summer was San Francisco. I love big cities, especially New York City. People think I'm crazy, and sometimes I agree with them. I love the tall buildings, the lights, some of the interesting people you meet, the sightseeing, the shopping, I loved all of it. I loved San Francisco because it was so unique. It was unlike any other big city I've ever been to. The smells, the sights, the roads, the people, and all. There was also the Ghirardelli chocolate factory! It was so wonderful :) The only downside was that the Golden Gate bridge was enveloped in fog. We couldn't see the whole thing, just the bottom of it. Alcatraz would've been cool to visit on a foggy day, but the tickets were sold out until...wait for it..JULY 8TH!!! I was so mad, I mean, is it really that popular? When is the next time I will make it across the whole country, people? They don't know that, but URGGHHH!! ANYways. Imagery. Pictures of real-life places are great to have when you need imagery in your writing, because, like I said in my settings post, you've actually been there, you know what it's like, and most importantly, you know what it looks like. If you really want to go above and beyond, write down what you smell, and what you are hearing. All five senses can come into account with imagery. In fact, it's best that way. Usually I only do this if I'm planning on using that place for a setting in a book, but I guess I do it whenever I feel like it. Sorry this is so short, but I'm tired and my thoughts keep running away from me. So I strongly encourage you to take pictures of unique landscapes! Not pictures of everywhere you go, unless you want to. That's something I would do :) I cannot express how important pictures are in writing! If you're like me, you'd forget what a place looks like after a year, and then you're like, a year later, writing a book, Man, I wish I remembered what that place looked like...google it! I mean, I guess you could google it, but that's no fun! Happy writing! <3 (the pictures below are of a street in San Fran, then the Golden Gate Bridge)

Book Review-"Viola in Reel Life" by Adriana Trigiani

Wow...so I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. School has literally been so busy and I also had track and so many other things I'm trying to juggle. But since track is over and the school year is SORTA winding down (if you don't count finals), I'll have a lot more down time. I'd like to share with you two very inspirational books I've read in the past few weeks (and I've read a LOT of books in the past few weeks, including the rest of the Mortal Instruments series and the Infernal Devices, which I HIGHLY recommend). It's sort of a series, except a series which is only two books long, unless the author plans on making a sequel. Which I doubt, because the second book tied things up nicely. I plan to have my series that I'm writing be two books long. The first one's called The Ignorance Of Me, Daphne Willowston, which I have already written and am trying to edit (by trying I mean I'm procrastinating--A LOT), and the second one is basically explaining the backstory of what happened in the first book, while also tying up some loose ends from the first book also. ANYWAY. Book review. Right. So the two books I read are "Viola in Reel Life" and "Viola in the Spotlight" by Adriana Trigiani. The first book is about a girl, obviously named Viola, who has to go to Prefect Boarding School For Girls for a year because her parents are off filming a documentary in the Middle East. She has to leave behind New York City, her best friends Andrew and Caitlin, and basically everything she has ever known. The only thing she has to get through her year at Prefect is her beloved video camera. She keeps a video diary and her dream is to go to film school and become one of the greatest directors of all time. She meets her three room mates, Suzanne, Romy, and Marisol, who actually seem to like being there. With a year filled with first documentaries, first boyfriends, first kisses, and first everything, Viola is in for her own movie, in a way she would've never imagined.

A Little Something Random I Wrote...

The formatting on this is ALL messed up, so it might not make sense, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Chapter One: Chapter 1 "This will be a story about you and me. I’m telling the story, but you see, it will be all about us. This letter is to you, the writer, and how I fell in love after just a few words from your mouth. You see, I think you were conflicted and confused about life before I came. You wrote too many books at once, just trying to get your ideas out before they flew away into some abyss known as your thoughts. See, ideas never really left your brain, they just ran away until you couldn’t see them anymore. This happened with school, too. You spent so much time in your own head thinking about negative things, that thoughts that were worth remembering had time to get away. Too much time. That’s how you ended up with only the negative things to think about for a while. One of the reasons you always acted happy when you were really sad was because you didn’t like to draw attention to yourself. You liked it sometimes, but you felt ashamed. Very ashamed indeed, when you liked attention yet felt ashamed both because you liked it and didn’t like it. You were a confusing person. But because of that confusion, you wandered. You wandered a lot, until you found me. Then you found a stopping place. Well, not a stopping place, exactly. A starting place. Chapter 1 You sulked around in the halls of our high school on the rainiest day of the year. I think you were affected by bad weather. In fact, I knew you were affected by bad weather. In French, this life-changing moment in history, we were partnered up for dialogue in front of the class. I walked up to you. We were only supposed to speak French, so I said: “Tu n’amies pas la pluie?” “Non, il fait tout sembler sombre.” “Je conviens. Mais tu devries essayer…l’acte heureux.” You shrugged. And at that moment you looked into my eyes, really looked into them. It was easy for me to look at those emerald green, gorgeous, heart-stopping eyes of yours, but you seemed uncomfortable with eye contact. I was sad when you looked away. I was captivated by you from the first moment I saw you, I just didn’t know it yet. I think we both had a lot of hidden emotions. You had your happiness tucked away in a safe but dangerous place. I know what you’d say to that. “It’s an oxymoron.” Safe and Dangerous. Well, it is. But your happiness was so safe because it was strong, but dangerous because it was in a place where it could slip away at any moment. I had my hidden love and dedication. See, you were great in school except for Biology, and I just kind of sucked at school in general. I didn’t have one class above a B-. We did our French dialogue about the weather, and we got a perfect score, thanks to your good pronunciation and reminders to enunciate at the end of the word, not in the middle, like English words do. You were pushy, yet in a sexy, determined, hard-working way. I liked how it almost seemed you had confidence in me in that moment, although you’d seen me a thousand times before just blow of a test or get yelled at by a teacher in front of the class. After French class, I sort of followed you to your next class. I just felt this really strange attraction to you. I wasn’t really afraid of the attraction, maybe just afraid that you would reject me, like tell me to “bug off” or something. But you didn’t. Instead you turned around, looking at me, a little below the eyes. You just couldn’t do it back then, huh? The whole eye contact thing. I never really understood that about you. “Is there something that I can help you with?” you asked me slowly, pulling your dark blue hood off. Your mess of dirty blond hair was being flattened by your hands at first. You took out a small brush from the outer pocket of your messenger bag and began brushing your shoulder-length hair. I improvised. I had a habit of doing that. “What lunch do you have?” Please B, please B lunch, please please please. “I have A lunch today,” you said, shifting your bag. “Let me guess, you want to have lunch with me?” Back then you looked at me half like I was some foreign animal from your parents’ zoo, and half like you just wanted to talk to me, spill all your secrets out. It was that kind of look where you just needed to talk to someone, anyone. I couldn’t help notice the barely noticeable smile playing on your alluring lips. That was the first time you smiled at me, even if it was the smallest smile I’d ever seen. “Yeah, I’d like that,” I said, smiling back. You nodded, your slight smile vanishing instantly. “I have A lunch tomorrow, though. Meet me by the café? I have to buy lunch.” Satisfied with your answer, I said, “Cool. You know, I could always bring you lunch. Have a picnic if it’s nice enough outside.” Your eyes flickered to the rainy, gloomy outdoors, then back at me, with an incredulous expression. “You really think it’s going to clear up anytime soon?” I considered that unlikely after a few seconds. “You’re right. It’s a date,” I concluded. “It’s not a date,” you said, looking down. That hit me a little like ice. I guess you were right, it wasn’t really a date. I don’t know if you knew that I liked you. I don’t even know if I knew that I liked you. “Oh,” I eventually said. And as I saw a big group of obnoxious guys roughhousing and stumbling straight toward us, I grabbed you by the shoulders and pulled you out of the way, and we were pushed against a railing as they rumbled past, whooping and shouting insanities. “Idiots,” you muttered under your breath, and I laughed a little, just barely. “What?” you asked, moving away from me, repositioning your messenger bag. I shook my head, just smiling at you. “Nothing.” We stared at each other for a moment, and I finally forced myself to say, “Well, I gotta get to World History. I’ll…see you tomorrow at lunch?” “Yeah, see ya.” You walked away from me, slowly through the crowd of students and annoyed-looking teachers, and glanced back at me, just for a second, grinning slightly. Your hair framed your beautiful face and your green eyes seemed to look at me and past me at the same time. That’s when I knew."

Where Oh Where Shall My Story Take Place?

Generally if you want a great story, it should take place in somewhere you are more or less, familiar with. Doesn't mean you have to live there or anything, but you should know enough about the area you are talking about that you aren't just guessing where things are. If you mention real street names and real shops in your books, it will sound more confident, at least if you are a beginner/intermediate writer. If you want to have a fictional town, by all means, go ahead. You can describe it like you were describing your own town or a mix of many towns' descriptions. Example: since I live in Washington, I will describe a fictional town that really doesn't exist, but describe it with my town's descriptions: "Marthaville was big, yet small. Hard to get around, yet everything was in walking and biking distance. The town had an abundance of elders and cute little shops which the lacking youth strongly enjoyed. Downtown was where the youth met up: for pre-homecoming and after-sports practice frozen yogurt, after school hangout, and coffee talk. The most beautiful part was not how everyone got along or how well the shops all complimented each other, but the vast, blue ocean. Visible from the edges of the meadow that the town sat in and at the top of hills (and if you were lucky and rich, your own porch), Puget Sound overwhelmed you if you were 2 feet away or 2000 feet away. The turquoise body when paired with an orange, blue, and pink sunset made the perfect opportunity for a first kiss or a marriage proposal. Marthville was the city of dreams, as much as the Titanic was the ship of dreams." Sorry if I got a little carried away. That happens sometimes, because describing things like cites and other items are my second most favorite part of writing. My first is dialogue, which will be an entirely DIFFERENT blog post. So as it turns out, how I described the fictional town Marthaville, Washington, is exactly how I'd describe my own town. It makes the place/setting sound much more relaxed and comfortable if you know what your talking about. Another aspect of setting is time, even though it can really be its own aspect of writing a book in general. Say I wrote a book about somewhere I visited when I was five years old, and I haven't visited it since. Things have probably (and hopefully) changed since 2003, with technology these days and people and all that. Make sure that the time lines up and makes sense. It wouldn't make sense if a book takes place in 1975 and they have cellphones. Unless, of course, you are writing a book where instead of technology advancing as time progresses, everything gets old-fashioned as time goes on. Interesting aspect to think about, huh? Anyways. Setting is also important because maybe it compliments your characters. Say your main character is a country girl. At least have part of your book take place in the country. Maybe another part in a big city, so the reader (and YOU) can see both sides of your characters. She needs to express her country-ness and what she's like in a big city, which is the opposite of what she's used to. Same with maybe a city girl, a computer techie, or a surfer. You get the idea. Well, I hope you've found this helpful and interesting! Just so you know I really enjoy writing these, it's not a chore for me or anything. Happy spring break!! :D

Book Review-"The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen

WARNING: THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS (I guess we'll see how much I let slip from my brain on this one). I read a book yesterday called "The Running Dream" while I was sick and laying on the couch. It's an easy read, but a REALLY good one. It's very inspiring, and very relatable if you are a runner. It's about a girl who gets in a terrible accident after running a 55-second 400-meter at a championship meet (a league record in the book) and ends up losing her right leg below the knee. The book is about her realizing to be thankful for what she hasn't lost and the friends and family, and her team, that care about her most. Another important aspect of the book is how she gets to know a girl named Rosa who has cerebral-palsy, who also one day would like to cross a finish line. Jessica (the main character) learns to see Rosa for who she is, not her condition like she had always seen Rosa before her accident. The book is called "The Running Dream" because Jessica has a running dream every night when she is dreaming about running every morning with her dog Sherlock, like she always used to before she lost part of her leg. The symbolism is that each time she has this dream, she is getting closer to having it come true. Her track team is working to raise $20,000 for a running prosthetic so she can run again. I recommend this book for anyone who wants an easy read and also if you just need/want to be inspired! The book made me tear up at the end because it made me realize that if people truly believe in something, they will stop at nothing to get it, and will never give up. Happy reading! :P

Characters=IMPORTANT!!!

Has anyone noticed that in books, characters are what makes the book interesting? Whether it's a person or a things, the characters matter to a high extent. There's the protagonist, which isn't necessarily the "good" guy. Up until a few months ago, I thought that's what the protagonist was. But really, it's just the main character whose actions are followed throughout the book. So, for instance, imagine J.K. Rowling followed Voldemort's actions throughout the Harry Potter series. Imagine how completely and utterly different the books would be! Harry Potter is the protagonist in our reality, but if Voldemort's actions were followed instead of Harry's, VOLDEMORT would be he protagonist. Weird thought, huh? Well, I'll stop babbling and try to get to the point. Now the antagonist isn't just the "bad" guy, either. This is the character that forces the protagonist (AKA the main character) to act. Just think about it. In every movie you've watched and every book you've read, the antagonist (most of the time a villain) does something that causes the main character to go on some big adventure or do SOMETHING big. I don't know about you, but I never really thought about that before. I just accepted the fact that it was the way things went in every book: Something big happens (the first event in a series of complicating events), there's this whole adventure (whether or not it's an actual adventure like Percy Jackson), and often the end of the book leaves a lead to another book in the series or two people fall in love. Lots of books are like that, and it may seem ridiculous. But that's just the way plots were made to be. And authors try to do anything they can to make THEIR book as interesting as possible to spice up the original plot diagram. Now I'm really getting off-topic, so I'll talk about characters now. Making good characters can be REALLY hard. It sure is hard for me. It sounds ridiculous, but something I have trouble with is coming up with names for my characters. In the book I wrote, the main characters name is Daphne Willowston. I love her last name, and it's a shame that I don't remember how I came up with it. I love it when I find the perfect name for my character, because when you do, it seems to speak about them and expresses every little detail even if you aren't sure exactly what your own character looks like. The name speaks for it, so you don't really have to worry about it. When a name speaks for the character, it gives an idea about who the character is but often leaves their physical appearance open for interpretation in the reader's mind. I have a character named Vee, who has icy blue eyes and black hair and pale skin, and my Mom saw her as African-American. You can never really force an image in a anyone's mind, especially if the reader likes to imagine their own way. Secondly: you need to get to know your characters. I read a book called "Spilling Ink" a few weeks ago, and I discovered a very useful tip. It's a bit mad, but it helps me sort out my characters' ambitions and feelings. What you do: sit down at one end of your bed. Pretend one of your characters is sitting across from you, like you were sharing gummy worms and gossip about the latest...whatever. Now, interview your character. Talk to them. Don't say I didn't warn you that this might look utterly crazy if your brother or sister walks in and wonders what the heck you are doing. Ask your character questions about their childhood, what they want most in the world, who their best friend is, their deepest secret, their favorites foods and books and music, who their crush is, etc. Give them time to reply. Keep asking questions until you feel you could write a brief biography about them. You don't want to get your characters in the wrong place by the end of your book and have them speechless (AKA writer's block) because you didn't know their heart's desire. Trust me, if you just listen, they will reply. And to make sure your characters never get old or unlike themselves, keep revealing new things about them. Make minor (or major) characters that compliment their personality. Say you have a character that's scared of snakes, #1. Say you have another character that loves snakes, #2. They compliment each other, because #2 can save and comfort #1 about snakes. If you have characters like that, it will keep your reader's interested in the characters because they will want to keep seeing dramatic things like that. If that makes any sense. I might be talking crazy. All I know is that your characters need to be interesting. MAKE them interesting. YOU are their creator. Make one character have an infatuation with anything banana-flavored. Have one character that is a professional tree-climber. A character whose life depends on the fragile life of a single fish. You get the point. If necessary, make your characters as WEIRD, and as FUNNY and SARCASTIC as possible. That's what can make dialogue and interactions between characters interesting and engaging. Now go ask your character their favorite color!

Essay~The Obedience of Being Free

The freedoms and confinements of reality are portrayed in the beat poem. “Dog” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti describes a dog walking through the streets of a busy city street, being able to see and smell and hear everything. The poem also has a deeper meaning, being that the dog is free and able to do what it wishes, but also tells the downside of freedom: having a master in some form or another. The reader is able to picture everything that is happening in the poem so clearly that they have an understanding of the dog’s feelings from a certain standpoint. In Ferlinghetti’s poem, creativity bonds together the imagery, figurative language, and the speaker to create a vivid picture of what is happening and describes the feelings and actions of the dog. The imagery in this poem is very distinct, and helps the reader actually smell, hear, and feel what the dog is. At the very beginning of the poem, the speaker describes, “The dog trots freely in the street/and sees reality/ and the things he sees/ are bigger than himself/and the things he sees/are his reality/drunks in doorways/Moons on trees/The dog trots freely thru the street/and the things he sees/are smaller than himself/fish on newsprint/ants in holes/chickens in Chinatown windows/their heads a block away”(1-15). This imagery makes this really easy to picture the street itself, and everything that is going on. These fifteen lines also plant a seed in the reader’s mind that wants to keep growing, that is thirsty for more, that wants to keep reading, because the reader can actually relate to how the dog feels. Towards the end of the poem, the speaker says, “with his head cocked sideways/at streetcorners/as if he is just about to have/his picture taken/for Victor records/listening for/His Master’s voice/and looking/like a living question mark/into the/great gramophone/of puzzling existence” (68-79). These twelve lines describe the dog’s actions, and although the speaker does not tell what the dog is feeling, one can feel what the dog is feeling. The dog is feeling the desire to be obedient, but the need to be free. While telling the dogs actions and vision, the speaker creates a beautiful picture in one’s head, and raw feelings in the reader that stick for a lingering time. Figurative language in this poem arises with the recognition of a sort of fervor and sincerity in the dog. In the middle of the poem, the speaker says, “Congressman Doyle is just another/fire hydrant/to him”(44-46). This metaphor shows that the dog really doesn’t care for politics and the people involved in it. He’d rather do his business on them than agree with them. It’s a way of saying that everyone has thoughts about politics and similar controversial subjects, no matter how small or unable. Near the end of the poem, the speaker describes, “A real live/barking/democratic dog/engaged in real/free enterprise/with something to say/about ontology/something to say/about reality/and how to see it/and how to hear it”(57-67). These ten lines tell us what the dog is feeling, but also plants another greater seed in the reader’s mind: the seed of change. From what the reader can tell about what the dog is feeling, it is easy to go along with because the dog seems so confident and like such a free spirit, but without insulting someone’s judgment aggressively. The reader can value the dog’s way of looking at things, while the speaker is describing a vision of hope that the reader can build off of. The speaker of the poem is able to keep us in check with what the dog is doing, while letting our thoughts roam but also planting the dog’s own feelings in our minds. Towards the end of the poem, after talking about politics, the speaker describes, “The dog trots freely in the street/and has his own dog’s life to live/and to think about/and to reflect upon/touching and tasting and testing everything/investigating everything/without benefit of perjury/a real realist/with a real tale to tell/and a real tail to tell it with”(47-56). This describes the dog’s actions (walking through the street) but expresses the dog’s curious personality, just like people in the world are curious about almost everything and want to do something about it. The reader also makes sure the dog sounds comfortable and confident, which gives the reader, even, a triumphant feeling. In the middle of the poem, the speaker says, “He’s afraid of Coit’s Tower/but he’s not afraid of Congressman Doyle/although what he hears is very discouraging/very depressing/very absurd/to a sad young dog like himself/to a serious dog like himself”(34-40). These few lines are directly saying the dog’s feeling, but it also makes the reader wonder why the dog is feeling this. The speaker plants a feeling of mystery in the reader because it makes you wonder why the dog is so sad and so serious, and maybe if the reader is reflecting his feelings in an indirect way, through the dog. The speaker allows the reader to know what the dog is feeling while also letting our minds (the reader’s minds) wander and think of different possibilities. In this poem, innovation forms a unique alliance between imagery, figurative language, and the speaker’s language to connect thoughts in the reader’s head and tell what the dog is feeling. The imagery paints a bold picture of everything the dog is seeing, feeling, and smelling while letting the reader’s imagination roam a little. The figurative language lets the reader interpret how the dog feels about something, like its lifestyle, Congressman Doyle, and the obedience of being free. When one is obedient, they usually have a master of some kind, right? As it turns out they also have a master when they are free. When our thoughts roam, they are still often controlled by one central thought. So nevertheless they are controlled. One could say we, people, are never truly free from anything, no matter how hard we try. The reader can make the assumption that that’s why the dog is disappointed in the world. Being “free” is important to everyone on different levels, and that is why our world likes to be and is so different.