School Is Hard

What I'm Listening To Right Now: Candleburn - Dishwalla
What Mood I'm In Today: Writing

So school is literally kicking my butt.  But I love it.  Who knew what an adventure Literary Criticism would be?  I've read Saussure, Lacan, Freud, Barthes...and have yet to read more.  I have learned so much about language and everything that goes along with it.

Because I've been so busy, I'm not blogging as much.  But I will say this.  I've written several short stories lately, one on my own, and several with the help of my hubby.  He's got awesome ideas, I tell you what.  And now, I'm thinking about posting some of the short stories online, just to let people get a feel for them.  Look out, world. 

With Halloween upon us, I have several suggestions for good reads.  Who can resist?

Poetry: Edgar Allen Poe.  My personal favorite is The Tell Tale Heart.  Incredibly creepy.  Read it when it's raining, and twilight is just starting. 
Young Adult: Scott Westerfield's Midnighters Series.  If you time it right, read all three books, ending on Halloween.  Blue Noon has got a lot to do with it. 
Childrens: Fright Night Flight
Adults: Anything by Ambrose Bierce.  My personal favorite is The Boarded Window.  Love it! 

Happy Halloween Everybody!  Maybe in November, my blog will be longer...or I'll have a short story for you for Halloween, if I can get my butt in gear!

And So It Begins (Again)

Ah, the delights of an approaching September.  The sounds of cheering fans from the football stadium a mile south of my house, the smell of new books and freshly sharpened pencils, and the days slowly becoming shorter and shorter until the leaves turn red or gold and fall to the ground.  Isn’t the beginning of a new school year kind of fun?  There are so many things to hate about school, but also so many things to love about it.  New people to meet, a new season around the corner (followed by the three most fun holidays ever), and apparently new television shows, which I don’t know much about because I don’t actually watch that much TV. 

I thought a list would be fun for today.  If you leave a comment, let me know what your favorites are. 

My Favorite Back to School Books  

One of my favorites!  Who doesn't remember having a day like this?

Elementary School: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

                     Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

                     Miss Nelson Is Missing

                     Anything Harry Potter (What’s more fun than a school much more exciting than your own?)

Middle School: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series(Ok, technically this could go Elementary, but I love it)

                         Sweet Valley High (very girly, fair warning)

                         The Diary of Anne Frank (might have to read this anyway)

                         R.L. Stine (he has a line of scary books for young adults)

High School: Sleeping Freshman Never Lie (this is one of my all-time favorites)

                      The Uglies (Westerfield is one of my favorite authors)

                      Twilight (I know, so cliché.  But I also really think it touches on that young adult feel)

                     

And a slew of teenage movies about the loveliness of high school:

                        Clueless

                        Mean Girls (This is actually a lot less shallow than it looks)

                        Ferris Bueler’s Day Off

                        Footloose

                        Can’t Buy Me Love

                       

Ok, that’s the extent of my lists today.  To all of you starting school, good luck.  I’m starting too – today.  I’m excited and nervous and all kinds of anxious at the prospect of going back to school.  It makes it extra nice to have a supportive guy by my side, cheering me on (minus the skirt and pom-poms). 

Back In The Day

What I’m Listening To Right Now: If I Die Young, The Band Perry

Mood I’m In Today: Reading 

Ah, back from vacation and not a smidgen more creative for it.  Nothing is flowing; I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.  Yuck. 

However, I did read a fantastic book during this marvelous road trip.  The Old Willis Place, by Mary Downing Hahn.  I absolutely love this author, and first fell in love with her books when I read Wait ‘Till Helen Comes when I was ten.  She tells the best ghost stories in the world, and she can make you feel like you are there, from the smell of the air to the chill of the wind.  The Old Willis Place is now my favorite book by Hahn.  I love the characters, and I came close to tears a couple times.  My husband loved it (he made me read it out loud) and it’s now his favorite as well.  If you need a spooky book, but don’t like those intense, ultra-creepy kind, this is a good book for you. 

The main character, Diana, is twelve years old in the book. Her brother, Georgie, is ten.  She takes care of him on the farm where they live.  When the new caretaker comes, he brings his daughter with him, another twelve-year-old girl who Diana immediately wants to become friends with.  But there are complications, and she is soon involved in a nail-biting adventure that reveals the truth about everything that’s happening around her. 

It made me think of when I was twelve.  Holy cow, that was a long time ago.  At that age, friends were important, and I was just starting to break away from my need of family.  I started noticing boys, and how completely incompetent I was when it came to communicating with one.  It’s so funny…when I look back on how scared I used to be.  I probably didn’t need to be so freaked out. 

Ok, so I was a little bit shallow.  But I worked really hard, and started to find out what I enjoyed.  English was my favorite subject, and my favorite class.  I had been placed in the honors English class, which was a double-edged sword.  It was challenging, and I learned a lot, but I also became discouraged because I was at the bottom of the class.  It frustrated me to death that everyone around me could read faster than I could.  Going from top of the class to the bottom wasn’t exactly heartening. 

I experienced other things that made me not so shallow, however.  I’d already seen an uncle and two grandparents die, and the next year would go to yet another funeral.  Since then I’ve lost three cousins and a third grandparent.  I also saw friends fall to things like drinking, teen pregnancy, and experimentation with drugs.  I’d like to say it made me more aware as a person.  I would often notice when people around me looked troubled, but I didn’t always say.  I had this gigantic fear of offending people, and I’m not sure why.  Sure, I probably would have offended some people, but I think I would have also made some really good friends, and possibly even helped someone out. 

I think there’s a lot of that “helping a friend out” going on in this book, so definitely give it a read if you haven’t already.  And until next time, here’s the Mary Downing Hahn website.  Enjoy!

What I'm Listening to Right Now: Rob Thomas, Lonely No More
What Mood I'm In Today: Reading

Did I ever tell you that I hate query letters?  I do.  I hate them!  I've been working on one all day, and I've deleted it and re-written it so many times.  I'm ready to throw my laptop out the window.  It's the same with short stories.  Trying to cram information into just a few words is my biggest hurdle as a writer.  It's like sculpting; looking for something inside that big lump of clay and turning it into a fantastic piece of art that no one can resist.  Much more difficult than it looks.  Just ask Mike.

Mike, by the way, is my husband, who patiently reads all of my crap and tells me what's wrong with it.  I love him for that.  He is brutally honest, and even though sometimes I want to smack him for it, I know he does it because he wants to help me.  Seriously, you should have seen some of my first writings.  Totally scary. 

Tonight Mike will get to read my query letter, which he will inevitibly rip to shreds and I'll probably have taken several Advil before the event is over.  However, in celebration of Obnoxious Query Letter Day, here is a link that I like.  I think it's a good query letter, and it makes mine look like poop.  Pardon my french. 

Query Letter

Did you notice I'm in a reading mood?  I'm reading the Iron Queen right now, and I'm enjoying it.  So fun, and my favorite part is the knight thing, which I won't give away here, in case you want to read. 

May all your literary adventures and ambitions be better than mine.  Hehe.  Until next time. 

What Mood Are You In Today?

Yea!  A new blog.  One more thing for me to do.  But this is my writer's blog.  I figure if I want to be a writer, I'd better start getting serious.  Seriously.

I follow a blog that lists what song the blogger is listening to when she starts writing.  I'm going to do that!  It's so fun, and I like to see what other tastes are too.  After this, I'll try to remember to post it at the beginning of my blog.

What I'm listening to right now:  Staind, Right Here

Every day I'm in a different mood.  Today, it's a writing mood.  I read up to five different books at the same time, and whatever mood I'm in is usually corresponds to the book I'll finish.  But today, I probably won't read anything.  I'll probably write all day.  Not that it will amount to anything.  Days like this can be dangerous, because my books get too much in depth - fluffy, as Mike likes to call it.  Although, sometimes I think it's funny to watch his facial expressions when he's reading my fluffy stuff.

My new favorite blog that I found yesterday:
http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com/2009/05/agent-spotlight-jill-grinberg.html
Literary Rambles.  Love it.  So informational.

I also happen to be spaced out today.  So my rambling, jumping from subject to subject blog is turning out to be exactly that.  Sorry.  I'll try to write when I'm more organized.  In my brain.

Which reminds me.  You're thinking, why the title? I often refer to the word "brain" in my writing.  It's the only way I can describe certain things.  For instance, "my brain was so exhausted, I couldn't seem to pull any information out of the files I store there."  Lame, maybe, but I happen to like the word "brain."  Couldn't resist.

Until next time, enjoy your mood today.  Hopefully it's not a bad one, and it's more creative than mine.