It's Been a Long Time -- Or, a Serious Blog Talk.

The time, my friend, has come 
To talk of other things --
Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax,
Of cabbages and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot, 
And whether pigs have wings.
~Alice in Wonderland (1951) (Disney)

So, I know it has been months. You've stopped noticing. Stopped caring. Moved on with your life, as it were. I'm real sorry about that.

Right now, instead of bits of my own poetry or a book review or some fluffed out rant on romance or summaries, I want to have a Serious Blog Talk. Not the serious talk of I'm-About-to-Quit-Forever. It's the talk of the future and the past, of where I want things with this blog to go, and how I'll keep to a posting schedule.

Because I like this blog. I want to keep it. It keeps me sane, sometimes, to flick through my own sometimes childish or clumsy writings, and to write some more. And goodness knows, these blog posts are easier to read through than 50,000 word manuscripts, or my painful-to-look-at poetry.

My problem is posting it in the first place. I have a hard time getting up the urge to post. I shouldn't listen to "urges" or "the Muse" or anything else -- I know that. I should sit my butt in the chair and work. But this is a lot harder now, at college, where there is a ton of other work that needs to get done -- for example, the two papers I have due next week, or massive amount of textbook reading I haven't gotten to because I've been attending classes, working on shorter, more immediate homework like translating Greek sentences, or attending cool things like the Fall Festival, where we got free mason jars to decorate and popcorn and candy to eat, while sitting around having a normal conversation with friends.

The list goes on and on. And, to make things worse, my life has gotten sticky and sad. I don't want to do much of anything anymore. It was like that before -- before November, before college life, before high school, even. But it's gotten worse, because my sister died.

Chelsea, my older sister, was 22 years old. She got her Bachelor's degree in Biology this past May -- my mother, her, and me all graduated at the same time. We got to stand up at the podium, at the front of the sanctuary at our church, while a line of people came up to congratulate us. She had just started working toward her Master's this semester. She loved bugs, and free food, and drawing, and Dumpster-diving.

She died in a car accident November 2nd, 2014. A couple weeks ago, now. At times, it doesn't hit me -- I sit there and smile, and the thought begins to form -- Chelsea would love this -- and then I choke. What does random Greek sentences matter, in the face of that? What does posting on a blog matter, or reading a book, or attending class?

It's only been a couple weeks. It's as clear and bright and painful as the slowly-growing-colder air. Everything has to keep being arranged, when I want to go back in time -- to 2013, 2012, 2002. Some other time, before such a horrific event, before any of us knew this was coming. When we could have a measure of peace. When we were a whole family, complete -- because we can heal, now, after the event, but we will never be whole without our Chelsea.

But we have to deal with the future, no matter how much we want to go back in time. Life moves forward. My parents have to clean out her apartment. I have to continue my studies, make up the week I lost when I went home for the visitors and the funeral. I have to eat meals, and take showers, and pull out all these blasted sweaters and scarves and fingerless gloves. I got a work-study job, Monday afternoons -- I'll only be making around $22 to $27 a week, but it's money. I need to start thinking about Christmas, of what I'll get my family.

I have a mountain of laundry to do, and blog posts to write. I have a weekend to look forward to -- a trip on Sunday to Richmond, to see the Agecroft Manor or VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). Later tonight, my friends are going to the movies, and they invited me.

All of this leads up to my main point, that this blog is going to look a lot different. I didn't want to bring my personal life into this, but it's a personal blog -- it's about books, which are as close to my heart as cats or my family. Well, maybe a bit less, as I've found myself more inclined to stare out windows and feel numb than reading books.

I don't think I can stand, right now, cheeriness and book reviews of lighthearted novels. I can't be enthusiastic about anything, not characters I love or fantastic worlds. I still love them -- I may still gush about them -- but I think that I need to take a step back, and talk more frankly about more. About my own writing. About the books I'm reading for class -- like English Women and War Literature. About the ways I'm keeping track of everything, from my personal reading to my class reading to my writing and personal time.

Poetry, I'll post -- most of it is spur-of-the-moment, stream-of-consciousness, which almost defines my writing. That's what this blog post is, after all. I'll probably still post book reviews, and things I find aggravating in books, like how ridiculous it is when authors try to cram a romance in their novel, for no other reason than to do it, and then don't even mention such a thing in the summary.

Right now, I have many things to do. I want to post, say, once a week. I'll try to do so. It's hard to do anything right now, but I want to try. So, I'll leave it here, and see what comes next week -- if I can keep to my word about this.

Hello, Dear Friends.

It has been a long while. I know. Summer is not the most productive time for me. For some reason, being given all the time in the world to do whatever I want, I invariably choose to sit on the couch watching Bones or Law and Order, while occasionally picking myself up to go sit on my bed to read a book.

However, now that summer is over, I am in college. Yep -- college. Where the cost of textbooks and the amount of homework both pile up as time goes on.

But this is not really what my blog is about. As I mentioned in my last post, this is a reading/writing blog. So I shall endeavor to explain my reading and writing schedule for the next month.

As my laptop has no Microsoft Word, and I am not entirely fond of Open Office, my writing has been moved to pen and paper. This goes slowly, as I am not used to writing out whole drafts. I hardly manage to write out outlines on paper, and I love outlining. As again, my plot is not anywhere near workable -- I know it is this element that is off, somehow, ringing false in my own head. The pivotal element of my previous plots hinge on actions my character has no inclination to do, for it is outside of her personality to choose such options.

But this time I think I may have it right. I always think this, of course: if I didn't think the plot idea was right, then I wouldn't write out a full draft exploring it. But I am learning more about my work as I progress. Each failed plot, each wrong draft brings me closer to a workable one, because it presents to me new angles through which to see my character and setting, and what themes I want it to reflect.

I had thought I knew everything about Spike. I thought I knew her likes and dislikes, her intelligence and grace, her flaws and arrogance and entitlements. But now I realize I have not been able to discern her next move. When confronted with Enemy A, does she back away? Does she engage in conversation? I am sure she doesn't try to fight it out. That is the one move I know she would never pull. Which is why it is very hard to articulate a plot which moves forward smoothly, and which forces her to take that action she would never do.

The move to pencil and paper is a drastic one. It is different, scrawling it out: it takes more time, and it LOOKS different in my handwriting. But working in a computer lab on campus means leaving my dorm room, and anyways, I do not entirely remember where they are. So I am hoping the change in writing equipment is for the better.

Right now, I need to practice Greek, and read up on Early and Medieval Britain, and yes, to keep writing. But I will try to post once a week regarding books I've read, works I'm writing, and perhaps to recommend certain tips to you about research (as that is what college is good for: taking whole classes so you may learn one crucial detail on how your novel plays out).

Have a blessed day.

  

Guys. I'm Gonna Graduate.

Right now, I pretty much feel... restless. And as much as I don't really want to treat my blog like my diary, I feel like I can say this here. Because it's one of those Big Events in Your Life.

What spurred on the thought was the Senior Awards Assembly two days ago, where they hand out all the medals and cords and whatnot. It takes hours and it's boring. The same people win all the awards -- you know the type, who wear so many medals for music and student council and Honor Society and everything, that when they step up to the stage to receive the next award you can hear their medals jangling.

I was mentioned exactly three times. Two of those times were just being recognized for achievement in (*ahem* just for signing up for) AP classes, no medal or pin or even certificate necessary. The third time I received a gold cord, for "Honors Graduate," which is a fancy way of saying I took honors classes and got good grades like I was supposed to.

Still, it's one more award than others got. Some people didn't receive anything at all. (And one guy received a couple of awards for publishing a children's book and I'm trying not to be jealous right now, because my novel is still at a cringe-worthy stage.) I am not coming out of four years of an institution which did more to harm my understanding of the world than it did to help with nothing. It's a gold cord, sure; a few flimsy badges and a little pin for "participating" in gym in previous years. All will decorate my sash-thing. (Does anyone know what that part of a robe is called? You see it in graduation gowns and in choir robes, and you can never tell if the short end should be facing front or if it should be the longer end? Or am I confusing you?)

But the thought still surfaces: I am going to graduate. In less than two weeks, I am going to claim a piece of paper which will tell everyone I am sufficiently versed in English, Science, Math, and Social Studies to pursue a higher education. (Yes, it's necessary to capitalize those. If I believed anything school taught me, I would think they are the only important things in the entire world. They even had an entire section of the Awards Assembly dedicated to giving out awards for "excellence" and "achievement" in those four areas. And no, creative writing is apparently not considered an English elective, even though AP Statistics is considered a Math elective.) After four years of doubting myself, of mornings where I absolutely do not want to drag myself out of bed and do so anyways, of days where I feel as if I might vomit but head to school anyways, of endless rounds of homework and memorization in classes I do not care about, of every last little injustice I've felt, because I am too quiet to tell my lab partner to let me participate, too, or because of my apparent inability to operate in social surroundings...

After everything, I am finally leaving it. There is no guarantee I won't find it at college. In fact, I probably will. But that is months away. Right now I am leaving it. Maybe I'll encounter it in the workplace, if I have to work at the factory where my parents work, because I cannot, technically speaking, afford college. But I do not have a job yet. Right now, all of everything is finally laying to rest in the building in which it occurred.

And I don't want it to happen. I don't want to let go of the familiar maze of hallways, suppressing the tears when I do not get any awards even when I know it is technically my fault for being too quiet to join anything, the teachers who are nice and try to help us understand, even when I either already know it or do not care. I don't want to leave behind the awful boredom, the wandering thoughts which grasp the concept and then forget it next period, the exhaustion of having information of one subject rammed down my throat and then, in the space of seven minutes, get to another class to have information of another subject stuffed into my ears.

In a way, it's a sort of dilemma, a meeting of opposite forces in my heart: the desire to stay behind, to just remain in high school with the lunches with my friends, and the rare occasion I learn something I want to, and the way some of the teachers even try to encourage my own thinking and self-expression; and with letting go, leaving the good and bad behind, because I have been ready to do so for a long time now.

It's scary, to think I'll be graduating. I will have to go to college, where they'll actually let me study what I want to, but at a high cost and risk of debt; or I will have to join the workplace or the military, a mass of people even larger than the crowds at school, where even fewer people will know me or care. This world is full of possibility, of money and happiness and exploration and everything they never think to teach within the confines of a school building. A place where I am as unprepared and new at everything as a newborn, where I might as well be another seed on a dandelion head when someone makes a wish.

But it's exciting, in a nauseous mix at the pit of my stomach, to think that I will not be something to treated with condescension. Hopefully, no one will repeat the same thing in simplest terms for five minutes, just to make sure I get the point. There will be no homework besides working on a home. I have the chance to learn what I want to and hold a job I love to work on, even if it's a chance and not a guarantee. I will have a whole lifetime to spread a pair of wings I have been cobbling together, away from the eyes of kids smarter than me and more involved than me or less caring and less intelligent.

I am a smart girl. I received a recognition -- three of them -- for it, when others got nothing. I may not be dripping with medals and honors, with people praising my abilities and potential. I may be too quiet, too inclined to stare unprotesting when someone else does the work for me. But I can do many things I keep out of view of others, like hold whole worlds in my head and read over a hundred books a year, every year, and I can write essays about works of fiction that receive top marks. I get top marks on AP exams, which are college level before I am in college.

And now I can graduate, leave behind a place that has felt unhealthy to me for a long time. I am leaving behind friends, and good intentions, and the random everyday acts which sometimes helps me get through it. I am leaving behind bullies, and casting off the knowledge I never wanted to learn, not even if it is "good" for me, and all of those random everyday acts which grind me into dust and another face in the crowd.

Two weeks. Two weeks of nothing, of classes I am done caring about and final exams, three of which I don't have to and won't take. Graduation practice. And then the real thing, Saturday morning, June 7th. I'll be wearing the gold cord and my trivial little pins and badges, most all of them for being a good little girl and getting good grades in the "smart kid" classes. I'll be wearing a little black dress beneath my blue cap and gown, which isn't sexy or little, but knee-length and short-sleeved and still the most daring and the most formal outfit I have ever worn. And maybe, if they let me, I will be clutching a book as I climb the steps to the stage, trying to keep the one-size-too-large flats from falling off my feet while I accept a diploma.

My stomach has that nauseous mix again. I cannot tell you which force wins out, or which feeling will overwhelm the other. My heart pounds in its little cage -- or in its protective hiding spot -- and my hands shake, and I cannot stop my body from fidgeting or feeling sick when I so much as look at that cap and gown. But it won't be long until that is over, and a tether will have been cut -- the one that anchors me to an unhappy world. And maybe I carry that unhappy world inside of me, and maybe it won't feel better. But it's one less tie to such a place, to a place where I have no control over when I am allowed to go to the bathroom and what I learn.

And maybe, with letting go this anchor, I can stretch out a little, feel my nervous heartbeat and my shaking fingers, and I can tell myself that I have a chance now, a price to pay and a choice to make and maybe even a set of very good consequences for my future. That even while I am nervous and scared, there is something bigger, and better, and I'll be on my way to the version of me which I save for my daydreams.

I'll be on my way to a reality of my dreams, or a failure of them. But I have faith that I will allow the former to keep me happy, or to keep the latter from crushing me. Because I am a smart girl. I can get through four years of no control, over almost everything. So I can get through a lifetime with just a bit more freedom than I've ever been allowed.

Well, you know... Life.

I'm on spring break right now. Yea. Spring Break. Do you know how I've spent it? Watching TV, knitting, petting my cats. I finished the draft of my WIP, so I've put my writing down for this week -- make it truly a break. I haven't even really been reading; I've picked up and put down half a dozen novels since Saturday.

Sometimes I wish I could just-- I just wish I could get out of my house every now and then. I don't have a driver's license, but even if I did, there just isn't much to do around my neighborhood. This is the suburbs: a lot of residential homes, a convenience store within walking distance (though, without money, isn't exactly ideal); there's a Wal-Mart 20 minutes away, and a Food Lion maybe ten minutes from here, and a couple of libraries. Barnes and Noble and a movie theater are also twenty minutes up the road.

But still, I've been to the library this week. I have no money to go to any stores, or to a move theater. There aren't really "parks" around here, except one like half an hour away. And that's like a Lord of the Rings adventure, to go that far. We generally don't like spending a fortune in gas.

So instead, I sit here. I just watched three hours of Bones, on TNT. I ate a bag of popcorn. Colored in my coloring book. Knitted a little. Something heavy and sad sits in my rib cage, like a rock of emotion tying me to the couch. Which sounds a little melodramatic, but sometimes I might as well be tied to the couch. My cats come and sit on my chest, Siamese cats who'll compete to sit up on my shoulders and on my chest. (I think the ones who get stuck sitting in my lap and on my legs are further down the hierarchy. Because, yes, cats do have a social hierarchy -- probably a very strict one, considering how much they claw at each other.)

I've been considering college. And, like a lot of the rest of my life, I fear I'll have to settle for my second best. Actually, between the three I've been accepted to, there are two I'm considering with any enthusiasm. One is a co-ed college, the other an all-women's college. I'd like to go to the all-women's college. I'm planning on majoring in archaeology, which involves hard sciences like chemistry and earth science -- in an all-women's college, I could hope to avoid some of the -- well, men. I took chemistry last year, earth science my freshman year. Sometimes the guys get a lot of attention, even though the teachers -- female teachers -- do their best to get to us shy girls stuck at our little table near the middle of the room.

But of course, the women's college is more expensive. The enrollment is like, $500. The enrollment at the co-ed college is $300. And the co-ed college is close enough to my granddad's that I could live off-campus, cutting down on costs even more. No study abroad. No trips across the country after I graduate this June. At the co-ed, they offer a classics major, too -- that should offer less hard sciences, right? More art history? Perhaps I could take that.

Or, maybe, I could just not go to college at all. My sister and mother have incurred enough student debt without me adding to it. (Actually, I don't think we even qualify for loans.)

Maybe I could get a full-time temp job over the summer, at the factory where my dad works. I could spend twenty years working there, just like him, and marry and have kids and never have any money above a middle-middle class existence, just. Like. My. Family.

Is it so much to wonder, that maybe I want a little something more? To travel, even if it makes my stomach churn in anxiety? To... to be rich, one day, lots of money, and I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I can afford to go to college, or sit around bored during Spring Break while other students get to go to other states, visit family, go on vacation?

I realize that I need more than a high school diploma to do anything. But a college degree is no guarantee, either, and I don't even really want to go. I am just getting out of the public school system. I don't want to go back into another educational system, one I can't actually afford, even with the rather hefty scholarships they're throwing my way, even if they offer me into their Honors program with smaller classes and more control over what classes I want to take.

If only I could... I don't know. Be free to sit in a library, in any library, and just read what I want to learn for myself. No sitting in hard science classes, where I may or may not get to actually do lab work, depending on what gender my lab partner is. (In an archaeology major, probably a guy. There aren't exactly many who decide to major in it, and I imagine quite a few of them are male, as a lot of science-y jobs are.)

But, of course, life will not fall at my feet and give me whatever I want. I could not go to college, and maybe end up like my brother -- working hard, all day, no flexibility in hours, and at the end of the year get nothing back in tax returns. I could go to college; perhaps I'll be like my mother, who's getting her master's degree in religion, who complains sometimes of male teachers who never give her more than, "It's alright," even when she's spent all day on a paper to perfect it and most of the other guys in her class slapped something together. Spend all day reading and annotating and writing essays, like that's all there is to life -- essays waxing eloquent about one topic or another, no flair allowed.

I know the essays we write in public school. College ones just seem to be longer and more unnecessarily complex. And I am sick of writing them.

But I can't just become a writer. I can't afford to sit around all day and daydream. But I can't stand working my entire life and getting nothing back, or wracking up so much debt I'll be paying it off the rest of my life, and maybe also get nothing in return.

Maybe one day I'll leave the United States, go to... I don't know. Ireland. Russia. Australia. Maybe, while I'm at it, I could grow a pair of wings and join a fairy cult. Because I can't really do what I want, become whoever I want to be, like those well-meaning adults in elementary school tell you. Sometimes, I really can't do anything at all, except sit on my couch. Now it's a marathon of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

An Update on my Life.

Hello. I realize I haven't posted much this month. Life has slammed into me.

Let me start with the bad news. My grandfather died a few weeks ago. We had his funeral -- my mother organized the entire thing, because she's getting her master's degree in religious studies or Christianity or some other such thing in that general area of study, and she wanted to make it personal. My grandfather -- my mother's stepfather -- was married to my grandmother for 42 years. It's been a rather hard blow, to know the laughing, easygoing man I knew as Granddad Richard will now be gone from everywhere but our hearts and memories.

In better news, though, I've applied to 4 colleges and three of them have accepted me. (The fourth hasn't answered back.) All are in-state, all are offering me scholarships over $17,000, and two of them look like viable options for my future. (One is near where my other grandfather, my father's father, lives, while the other is offering a pretty substantial scholarship and entry into their honors program.)

I have been super-busy organizing things with the colleges: I've met with an admissions counselor from the latter (the one offering entry in their honors program), who promised to repeal our financial aid and see if she can't cover more, and asked me to look into scholarships outside of the college. I've scheduled an interview at the college near my grandfather's place, in order to determine if I qualify for a full-tuition scholarship. And I've been desperately researching scholarships online, to see if I can't cover some of the cost.

Good advice for this month, from my perspective.

And, while this sort of pales in comparison with the other two bits of news, and hasn't really affected my posting schedule (seeing as how it occurred only today), I have taken my first field trip since 8th grade. I'm a senior in high school now. I've been a bit anxious about it for the past week, which is why I mention it. The field trip was to Old Town Petersburg, which in case you don't know is actually old. We visited the Blandford Cemetery and the the old part of the city to take pictures, for photography class. I ended up with 4 rolls of black-and-white film (~70-80 pictures), and a curiosity for this city a half-hour's drive from my hometown.

Some cool things Petersburg has to offer:

1. In the Blandford Cemetery, the oldest gravestones dates back to the 1700s! I saw one headstone for a woman born in 1785 and died in the 1820s-1830s.
2. The Blandford Church contains fifteen or sixteen Tiffany Windows, one for each of the Confederate States. Each window depicts a saint and the state's name. The only Confederate state that didn't contribute a window was Kentucky, because it couldn't raise the funds after the Civil War. Tiffany also donated the Jeweled Cross window. I didn't get to see the windows from inside the church, to see the light shine through, but I saw the dull grayness of the windows from outside.
3. The Trapezium House was built either in the late 1700s or really early 1800s. The man who built it was an eccentric man who believed that evil spirits resided in right angles, so he built his house without any right angles whatsoever.
4.  I managed to get a shot of the Hiram Haines' Coffee and Alehouse, which has been around since pre-Civil War (early 1800s -- 1820s, I believe?), where several famous people gathered. Edgar Allen Poe had his honeymoon there, in 1839. It was reopened 2010, I believe, and is in business today. Sadly, grabbing lunch at this historic building was not on our itinerary.

What the Church looks like today (public domain photo)

I wish I had the pictures to show you, but we haven't developed the film yet. We'll be doing that next week. In the meantime, it's nice to let you know the Cockade City is still a historical treasure, one that withstood a siege during the War of 1812 and was nicknamed after its patriotism, so called by James Madison. (A cockade is like a pin they stuck in their hats, and so many people wore them and so many lost their lives during the War of 1812 that President James Madison stopped by to address them.)

So, this has been quite the eventful month. Good things tossed with the bad things, as life often likes to throw at us. For a quiet teenager who leaves her home only to go to school and the library (and occasionally Wal-Mart), the whole blasted thing is like something out of the Lord of the Rings, except my life has no obvious plot or point.

For now, I think I'll just have to take a pain-reliever for my headache, finish up a good book, and draw myself a nice hot bath. And then we'll see about April.

Have a blessed day, and hope you visit a few ancient sites yourself.

Quick Update.

So, I planned on doing a book review of Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve, but I still don't know how I feel about it. Sort of uneasy-concluded-finished-with-it sort of attitude. Yea, it doesn't make much sense to me, either.

So, quick update of my life:

• I went to visit my sister two hours away from where I live, and to take a tour of a college just a few blocks from where she lives. It's the furthest I've been from my house in years. It was like a freaking Lord of the Rings adventure for me.
• That college? Yea, it's very... big. Grand, classical furniture, really good technology, two theaters and nice people and living on campus all four years. I'm applying, but I have no clue if I would actually go there, unless they offered me a full scholarship.
• I was meant to go to another college tour, too, but my mother has trouble navigating big cities like where my sister lives, so we called and rescheduled for sometime next week. My mother's car is a stick-shift with no power steering, and the city in question has, like 90-degree roads* because it's located in the foothills of some mountains. 'Nuff said.
• I've gone driving more! Instead of the small Mustang, though, it's our big ole Suburban. And that thing's a freakin' tank. Still, my dad has relaxed some and says I've been improving already.
• I went to Hobby Lobby. Apart from bookstores, craft stores are among the greatest places to be. They're just so interesting. Miniature Victorian-style dollhouses (about five, all of which would come up to my waist if they'd been set on the ground); strange owl and frog statues; expensive-looking paintings of flowers, street corners, and paths in the woods; many, many decorative crosses; and a whole aisle of stickers. It's like some creative world that exploded inside a mundane building.
• I have had a snow day today and yesterday. And we didn't have school Monday, either, because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And I went to visit my sister last Friday. So I haven't ben in school for a pretty darn long time, and I'm getting a little giddy. (Oh yea, and we don't have school tomorrow, either.)
• My laptop has -- again -- shut down on me. This is the one I just got for Christmas. I don't know if it's me, or if I just get really terrible laptops. 

So, yea. This is what's been going on. I've started free online courses on Coursera and Open2Study, one on water and one on morality, so I'm not completely academic-free. I've settled on a relaxation day tomorrow; watching TV, maybe going to the library. Not much.

Anyways, I hope you have a blessed day! (Especially if it involves snow and no school!)


*Not literally 90 degree angles. Just really, really steep hills, and confusing turns -- like, fork in the roads instead of the neat square intersections like what I'm used to around home.

Driving Lessons

So, I drove for the first time today.

And I do do not mean this is the first time I've driven today. I mean that I've been asking for driving lessons since I got my learner's permit, and my parents have finally relented and took me out in our white mustang for a first lesson.

Driving, obviously, is not a skill that comes naturally.

I have avoided any major incidents, but according to my father, I need to work on my steering. And staying to the right side of the road. And accelerating. But hey, I didn't crash into anything -- my dad jerked the steering wheel before I had a chance to do so.

People apparently do not like first-time drivers. As I'm going along at about 5-10 miles an hour in my little neighborhood, two cars pull up behind me, and my dad indicates for me to pull over and let them pass, and, like, I can see their faces looking down at me from their big cars -- they are scowling at me. Completely annoyed, as if they hadn't once been in my position.

We drove up and down the relatively straight road, learning to turn and when to press the gas -- and which one is the gas, and which one is the brake -- and then we ride around the block. I pushed the accelerator all the way up to 15 miles an hour. My hands are still shaking.

I should've started learning to drive several years ago, back at age 15 (and 6 months, as per state law). But I didn't even get my learner's permit until I was sixteen, and it's taken me over a year to convince my parents that driving in the 21st century is a skill I must learn to possess.

And let me say, we probably should've never invented automobiles. Driving is as stressful as it gets for me, and I'm one of those ultra-slow, careful drivers. (I learned that in go-carting. They kicked me off the track, I was driving so slow.) And, yes, it's nice to be able to travel to relatively far away places with relative ease, but dang -- is it hard to keep your attention on mirrors, road, and which pedal your foot is pressing.

And, since I don't take pictures of our family car, please enjoy a photo of my cat. I'd bet Sarabie is perfectly happy avoiding all cars. And traveling in general.

 

Small Update

I am really busy with my writing. Currently at around 28,000 words -- 2k less than where I should be. On the other hand, I can't really regret my trip to the library today. (And I only got 10 books this time. That's a good step down from 15 books, when I'm trying to write instead of read!)

In other news, I have trawled through many Wikipedia articles. Some of the ones I have up right now:

• This one, Emperor Ai of the Han dynasty, was a homosexual ruler of China.
• The idea of Hijra in South Asia, where men can dress and act like women;
• Grace O'Malley, (aka Granuaile) the female Irish pirate from the 1500s,
• and Charles d'Eon, a very early openly transgender woman who also happened to be a French soldier and spy.

I do not consider this to be a waste of my time. It does, however, provide me with a lot of distraction and Shiny New Ideas. I mean, tell me -- which of the above could possibly not spark off an idea in the creative brain?!

There's not much else to tell. I've barely finished a book. Too busy writing. Too busy balancing schoolwork/homework with that writing. Not much else to tell.

Have a blessed Monday and Tuesday. :)

Archery Mishaps

So, today, I decided that for-goodness'-sake if I want to learn archery, then I will. My little brother has a set of bow and arrows he used last year when he was on his elementary school's archery team, and the expensive thing's just taking up space anyways, and it's not fair that my little brother gets the archery set before I do.

So, I asked him politely and he let me use his bow and arrows. And laughed as he watched my pitiful aim, though not in a harsh, mean-spirited way; more of the way you laugh when a sibling does something like try archery without having any aim.

Anyways, the archery range-thing we have set up -- an old mattress leaning against our fence, surrounded by bags of dead leaves and with a paper bull's eye target skewered to it -- is... not the best, for beginners. Behind the fence, of course (this being the suburbs) is another house, and their backyard. And these people are not our next-door neighbors; they live a half a block away, literally behind our house. (Or we're behind them. Perspective, right?)

And, of course, when your aim resembles that of a small child's, you are bound to aim too high and watch as that arrow sails straight over the fence and into the backyard of a complete stranger.

I have learned the hard way if you want to learn archery, you must insist on a decent archery range. Perhaps I'll move it myself, to lean against the fence of a neighbor I actually know.

I have also learned not to walk barefoot half a block to retrieve said arrow. It roughens and burns the soles of of your feet. But, on the bright side, I've found out the stranger-neighbors are actually really nice; they didn't question a young boy and his older sister retrieving an arrow from their backyard. They just smiled and opened their back gate to us, and let us search for ten-fifteen minutes for that blasted, hard-to-find glorified stick arrow.

So, I'm taking it easy today. Tomorrow's Halloween, and I'll be puttering around my house, hoping to avoid the inevitable knock on the door, because someone in our house'll have to smile politely and tell little kids that we don't have candy. (And if we did, we would eat it ourselves, not hand it out to strange little kids.) Instead, today I've taken a nap, typed up this blog post, written an essay and worked on two projects during school, and the little archery I managed before having to walk half the block to retrieve my pride that arrow.

What about you? Plans for Halloween? Mishaps in life today?

Have a blessed Wednesday! (And Halloween, if you celebrate or not!)
   

Guess What? I'm Not Dead.

Sorry I haven't posted for, like, a week. Yay, look at this. I'm not dead.

Normally, I wouldn't post such an obvious sentence, but I stayed after school today for an early celebration of El Dia de Los Muertos. (I'm in the National Spanish Honor Society, by the way. I didn't just randomly decide to celebrate the dead with a group of friends.) Some quick facts:

• This is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. (We had ours early because the end of our 9 weeks is then, and everybody but the teachers are just relaxing. The 9 weeks is about half the semester, if you don't know.)
• Yes, it literally stands for "The Day of the Dead." It's celebrated in Mexico.
• What do they do? They put on skeleton masks, they buy these orange-y marigold-type flowers, they eat candy skulls (calaveras) and coffins. They leave food and flowers for their dead loved ones and celebrate their good memories of the person.
• It's basically that. It's a celebration of the lives of the people who've passed on, and a sort of laugh in the face of death sort of thing.

Yea, so we painted glass jars and listened to music and ate popcorn and Pringles. It was pretty fun. Mine sucked, which is why I'm not taking pictures of it.

So, yea. You now know I do stuff in my spare time, extracurricular stuff so my college application won't read, "And... I do nothing but compose the occasional blog post and read books." That would look sort of pathetic, doing nothing but reading. Ahem. (Not like I did exactly that since pretty much sophomore year.)

Anyways, I've been thinking of future-y stuff ever since Saturday, when I attended an Open House at a local college. Now my guts are twisting as I think of traveling abroad before I go to college, or at least traveling up and down the East Coast, and think of what college to attend assuming they all accept me, and think of what sort of career I'll have besides writing. Big picture stuff I generally avoid, because it makes me anxious.

And will I travel to Mexico one day, and celebrate the Day of the Dead? Maybe one day. Maybe the day I stop getting over my fear of leaving my little county.

Have a blessed Wednesday.

Declaration of Personality

I didn't mention it Monday, in midst of my book review, but I am still quite happy from last weekend.

Why? Our library was having a book sale. You know, where they attempt to get rid of some of those discards, the obscure books, the ones no one wants to read. Imagine a room filled with books, books you've never read: hardcovers, paperbacks, nonfiction, fiction, YA, adult, cookbooks and magazines and classics, all laid out like desserts, on those rickety tables used by schools, libraries, and community events.

(Oh, yea. And did I mention the free Bibles outside the door, in a crate? My mother already owns like, 70 Bibles. And now she owns five more.)

My mother and I went there with $21. We bought around 60 books. THAT IS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. One normal YA book costs between $7-10. The library was selling 10 YA discards for $1. The adult discards were 5 for $1. It took three boxes to carry them all home.

So, here's a list of some of the books we bought:

• The Qur'an -- the holy book of Islam. Not one of the discards -- my mother dug it out of one of the piles and bought it, because she's studying for a Master's degree in Religion. She needs it to connect between Islam and Christianity.*
• Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo -- a book about a boy who is "endowed" with the ability to see photographs moving. It used to be one of my favorite series as a kid, but my copy had a few pages missing, so I bought this one.
• Culture and Value: A Study of the Humanities -- a culture-history textbook, complete with highlighted passages. For those who don't read this blog often, I LOVE history, especially the sort of cultural things they don't teach you in high school level classes.
• Arabian Nights/Aesop's Fables -- this was a 2-in-1 book of both. You probably can't tell, since I don't believe in using exclamation points! and ALL CAPS!! to show emotion, but I am really geeked out about this.
• Savvy by Ingrid Law -- a book about a girl who can hear your thoughts through any ink on your skin. I remember reading it a couple years ago. Pretty cool.
• *Insert 30 more books, most of them fantasy and/or about other cultures*

As I said, pretty amazing weekend. That Saturday book sale goes under my list of "Best Days Ever." Why am I telling you this? What is the point of this post -- is it to give me a sense of power, as I condescendingly smile at your meager attempts to save a lot of money for fewer books? Is it to give some subliminal message about how older books are better than new books? Am I rubbing my hands together while plotting to build my own library, where all of those conservatives who only read white men will be forced to read more diversely with my diverse selection of diversity?**

No. Well, maybe the last one. But that can wait a few decades, when I'm rich and famous and those conservatives are kissing my proverbial boots. (Ha. Ha. I can dream, can't I?) No, this post is simply because I think my blog is suffering from impersonal-itis.

Impersonal-itis: (n.) When a blog, facebook, twitter, or other personal platform becomes cluttered with posts that are not diary-style confession time on opinions of various topics. Or, you know, at least not as personal as the author would like.
Ex.: My blog's last two posts are book reviews. Which are semi-personal, but in a way, they're my way of skirting around the bushes. They're recommending you books, based on my subjective-yet-hopefully-qualified-as-valid assertions about technical aspects like characterization and plot.

So, I want to begin posting more events from my real life, chronicling the (not-so) exciting life of a suburbs girl in the Southeast United States. And perhaps write a few more short spiffs, which I haven't done in awhile.

It's seems odd, posting this on a Wednesday, this Declaration of Personality, to declare and so promise to uphold my duty as a blogger to blog about the life that literally means everything to me. (More on nature vs. nurture some other time.) I feel like this should be posted on a first day of a month, or the last day, or on some holiday or other some other such day that has some importance to it. A plain old Wednesday, middle-of-the-week day, doesn't seem to have any power behind it, but I think I want to stop giving so much importance to the day and more on actually holding to my promise.

So, here's a start: a good Saturday and three boxes of books.

Have a blessed day.


 *I had to edit one of my mother's papers once, because she's so exhausted from six kids and taking online courses that she can barely maintain grammar. And my mother is an over-achiever, so she had me fine-comb it for any tiny errors. We are officially never going over differences between Christianity and Islam on this blog. I've never read the Qur'an, or even really comprehensively read the Bible, so I am not going to write a post that looks quite like my mother's paper pointing out weaknesses in Islam and strengths in Christianity.

**These two links lead to vastly different places: the first leads to Gilmore's words, and the second to a challenge to his words. I think the average, mild reader will prefer the latter. 

Happy September!

It's the first of September! You know what that means?

1. I start school in two days, right after Labor Day. My senior year, as it happens.  College planning, here I come. :(
2. It's a month of black and gold. Queenly colors. (And don't ask where this came from. I have a color associated with each month, paired with black. Because black is good any month. Just the word September conjures up a metallic gold to go along with that black.)
3. It's Artemis Fowl's birthday! Ahem. Yea, I know I'm an absolute nerd, knowing a fictional character's birthday, but in my defense, the 7th AF book takes place on his birthday. September 1st.
4. The Legend of Korra, season two -- Sept. 13th!

It's going to be a busy month for me. Not only does school start up, but I have a TBR pile literally twenty books long, and I'm finishing up the latest draft of my story. Wow, it must be, what, my third or fourth rewrite? Plot is very difficult to iron out, ladies and gentlemen.

And, yes, two of those four good points are fandom-ish. AF and TLoK, goodness gracious! (I have a T-shirt with a Doctor Who quote on it and a Pinterest board dedicated to all the fictional goodness of everything. Just to keep myself from painting my room TARDIS blue and dressing up like a Kyoshi warrior. Yes, I am a supreme fangirl.)

How about you? What does September bring about -- new TV shows, school, or novels? Have a blessed day, and a blessed Labor Day for those who pay attention to that particular day!

Letters to Life: On the Topic of Romance

Dear readers, writers, publishers, agents, editors, etc --
(or, To Whom it May Concern)

I walked into my local Barnes&Noble the other day, and I walked out without buying any books.

Do you know what that means to me? It means that I can't find anything that would interest me. It means that the YA section I normally browse is chock full of nothing-that-would-interest-me. It means that that open-mindedness that I've had since kindergarten finally starts to crumble.

To be fair, it's not a one-time thing. My world didn't rock off its hinges just from one unfruitful trip to the  bookstore. Rather, it's a culmination of years of trips to several different libraries and two different B&Ns that ended with a general sense of disappointment.

And what am I disappointed about? I apologize for not stating it first, but here it is: there feels to be too much romance in YA, and I feel shunted out of my favorite (and technical) age group.

Romance is good for people. The world's better with love and love stories, I truly believe it is. But it's slowly eating away at my beliefs. I am not a romance person; I don't like reading other people's hormones, and as I've never wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend, I don't really want to read about other people's desire to have one. I mean, I already knew I was different from other people; I read books to escape it. And when I can't turn to new books for new escapes, then I'm sad and frustrated and I leave bookstores with nothing in hand.

"Owl" be watching for more fantasy without romance!
( A pic of the owl outside our home) 

Aren't there people out there who want something different? The YA paranormal romance section of my local B&N takes up a decent amount more space than the YA fantasy/adventure section, and the fantasy also comes with romance. And that's the B&N that stands as its own store, and not my other "local" B&N, which is in a mall half an hour's drive from my home.

Is it too much to ask to come up with books where the female protagonist is not there to fall in love? That instead of finding a guy, the girl can save the world, and then live happy ever after on her own? Or even just more guys saving the world. Because, you know, love kinda has to come second to something like that.

YA and Adult, I know, "have" to have sex or love. Teenagers are exploring their first times and all that, and adults are basically teenagers who're allowed to get drunk and party, except they also have to pay for it at an eight-hour-a-day jobs, and adults' love lives don't just stop after their first attempt.

But... love isn't everything. It isn't life. We don't need to only write about the first time we kissed, or fell in love, or had sex. Can't we write about the first time we found out our parents lied about Santa Claus? Or the first time we truly felt like our own person, and not the person our parents wanted us to be? Or the first time we told our parents that we aren't the person they wanted us to be? Kinda like Middle Grade, except with themes of being ourselves and not of finding out what we like and our place in society.

It's come to my attention, also, that a lot of people associate romance with "women's" writing, and that that's driving male readers off. All those frilly romantic "girly" covers, something boys wouldn't want to be caught dead with... well, not just boys. Me, too. I think the only time someone catches me reading anything related to romance is if the romance isn't mentioned in the back-cover summary, or if it's a LGBTQ novel. Not that I'm making a comment on boys and reading and the interplay of feminism; that's a whole 'nother post. But it's kind of interesting to note that some other people have this opinion of romanticizing and driving-off-readers, too.  

Now, I'm a writer, you guys. I understand the need to let your characters tell the story, to write what you want and not what some crazy teenager on the Internet tells you to. And as a reader, I know the tendency to not judge a book by its cover romance. And, yes, perhaps I may just sit in a corner and write the fantastical, romance-free books I want to read, and they'll reach those people that agree with me.

But... you guys, not everyone wants to read romance, all the time. A lot of writers like to write romance, and a lot of romance gets published. But it should be at that point where romance is a section of the bookstore, and not all, "Romance" and "YA Paranormal Romance" and "YA Fiction" (which, often enough, ends up being teenage romance set in regular world mode). It should be a romance section, maybe one YA romance section, and then fantasy/adventure, and then mystery or paranormal or whatever else we want. Not several subgenres of romance, and one section of YA fantasy/adventure. And don't get me started on the combined sci-fi/fantasy adult section.

I want to walk in B&N without being overwhelmed by the desire to cry, because my means of escape has now been taken over by the reason I feel different. I want more diverse books published, with more diverse themes than "love conquers all". More than love triangles, or teenagers struggling to save the world and their true love at the same time.

I'm not saying to quit publishing romance, or quit displaying them. I don't want to stop you from writing romance if you really want to write it. I can't tell you not to read the stuff. And truly, it's my opinion that it's being "taken over" by romance -- I'm not a scientist, and I admit, I avoid the adult section oftentimes, so I'm not always varied in my opinions. Maybe I'm wrong. But, guys? Can we at least talk about it? Think about it? Mention it, discuss it, try to make at least this one reader here feel a little less intimidated?

I wrote this post because this blog is for sharing my opinions, and there it is. Is it so much to ask to just read these words, and think about it? When a fellow reader feels alienated, isn't that enough to talk about it? Let me know your kind, thoughtful answers.

Sincerely written by,
JDM -- an avid reader, an aspiring writer, and a shy asexual 

On My Mind

Here's what is on my (cluttered) mind right now:

1. I have a ton of AP History homework to do. And that's US History -- you know, the boring kind. Elections, the vaguest details you can manage while focusing on the least important stuff. I don't care if you list what the Presidents look like; just describe their reign term better.*
2. I have an AP Language exam on Friday. Three essays, 55 multiple choice in about four hours. Yay. :(
3. I'm currently reading The Ring of Five by Eoin McNamee. The author's Irish. Have I mentioned before how awesome I think Irish people are? Because, really truly, they are.
4. I love butterflies so, so much.
5. Why do I write in complete sentences? This is supposed to be a flow of my thoughts onto a blog post, but it's still written in full, (mostly) correct sentences.
6. Tomorrow I have honors math. Meh. My teacher feels the need to teach us calculus, even though it's actually a trig class.
7. Man, I listen to some good music. I feel kinda dramatic and awesome right now. :)
8. Heh heh. Dragons...
9. Should I write a story about dragons? It'd be pretty cool, just add a little characterization, a bit of plot... Hold up. Must stay focused on current manuscript.
10. Ooh, manuscript. Such an intimidating name for such a mess. I prefer calling it "the story", which refers to everything I write except poetry. You know, like, "I'm working on my story. My story's not ready yet. My story needs so much work, I want to cry about it."

That, my friends, looks like a pretty sad list. Apparently, most of my thoughts are currently consumed with schoolwork and writing. Really, school is like, the only time I leave my house. Well, that's not true. There's an event at my local library I want to attend this Saturday. I won't turn into a vampire any time soon.

(Ooh, I could totally write a story about a vampire. How can I twist that definition into something worth writing abou -- .... I mean, I totally have work to do. You know, on my current manuscript.)

Anyways, how about you? What's on your mind?

Have a blessed Wednesday!


*My textbook really does describe the presidents' physical appearances. I'm serious. Just this list of eye color, hair color, age, sometimes even body type. Also their personality, in straight-out terms of traits: oh, they're bold. They're weak. This man relies too much on his advisors. Such awful technique, but then again, I deal with fiction.
They seem to want to turn it to fiction, though; trying to make it as interesting as possible for us teenage youngsters, I guess. I'm still mad at it about calling John Quincy Adams a pimp some 500 pages and a few homework assignments ago.
Sorry for that rant on textbooks, but I seriously hate homework from that thing.

Follow Friday #40

[40! A somewhat odd even number, pardon the oxymoron. Half of 40 is twenty; half of twenty is 10. But then half of ten is 5. This is going nowhere -- I'm just moving on to the post now.]

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee!

Q: We are about to see a lot of posts and tweets about reader conventions, RT, BEA, ALA, and many more starting soon. Which one would you love to attend? Where and why?

Um... honestly? I've never attended a conference. I rarely actually leave my home. I sit on my computer all day. (Well, not literally. I mean I listen to songs on youtube and read internet articles on writing, book reviews, and the news. I don't mean that I close the lid of my laptop and sit on it like a mother bird sits on her eggs. That would be weird.)

I would love to attend one, though! It would have to be up here in the Border states, though: Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland. And it would have to be next year, when I actually have my driver's license so I can get there.

I'd love to attend one eventually, though. Anyone have news on conferences (writer's or reader's, really) in this area? I know ALA is in Chicago and BEA in NYC, but how about around here?

I'd love some news! How about you? Where are you attending, and where is it? Have a blessed Friday and weekend! :)