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.

  

[Insert Interesting Title Here]

It's been an entire two weeks since I last posted. I do apologize for my impromptu hiatus. I would blame my midterm exams, and the review for them, but really it's that I'm too tired from all the review and exam-ing to post anything.

Yesterday was the last day of my exams. I only had one -- in photography. Which certainly doesn't sound terrible, but all of my pictures are awful, I had the most awful migraine, I barely got any sleep the night before. So I considered not posting anytime this week or weekend. Or even getting out of bed. But I'm a tough girl, I like to think; I took a couple painkillers and here I am.

Instead of a nice, relevant post centered on one topic, this post is sort of a hash-mash of what I've been doing these last couple of days. Starting with...

My knitting, my book, and my cup of tea.

1. Knitting. This is one of the weirdest inventions of humankind, in my opinion. It's numbing; exhausting; difficult. But in the end, even the small amount I've managed in the past few days makes me absurdly pleased. Proud, even. It's just loops of yarn and a couple of aluminum needles -- but it looks complicated and amazing, and I made something with my hands. Created something, when I'm normally a passive reader and consumer.
    
2. Reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Anyone who looks through my archives will know that I'm generally not one for literary, popular, or classics -- but The Bell Jar is something different. Depressing, honest, with this sort of bruised, timid, recoiling-from-life sort of mood. Painfully close to heart. And I can't help but connect to it, like seeing a mirror that reflects a sadder, heavy-spirited version of myself.
3. Research. I went to the library and checked out 18 books -- only nine of which were for-fun fiction reading. I'm pretty proud of myself. I don't typically wander into the nonfiction section. But I braved it out this time, trying not to think that the people around me are judging my lack of knowledge in all those numbers on the spines of the books. Of course, these books range from beekeeping to medicinal herbs to forensic sciences and clay techniques and jewels.*
4. Orphan Black. Seriously. It's a Canadian series on BBC (I think). About this woman who sees a woman identical to her step in front of a train -- and so she decides to take this woman's identity. It's a bit graphic in places, but it's worth a watch. (My mother watches it, too. We have this long geek-fest about stuff like Orphan Black, BBC's Sherlock, and Once Upon a Time, which is another of my favorite shows.) My mother needs to stop recommending shows to me.

Yea, I'm not a complicated, dramatic person. But I love my little things.

So, have a blessed weekend. Read some books. Learn knitting. Watch a little TV. It's the holidays, after all. 

Did I mention it was the holidays?

Mary Shelley is helping us with our wrapping paper.

*Not forensic sciences and clay techniques and jewels in one book, obviously -- I mean I got three separate books on those three separate topics. But how awesome would it be to have a book that combined all three of those? It would be a fiction masterpiece, assuming it's even decently well-written.

Confessions and Comfort

Yes, it's Saturday. I meant this post for yesterday, but my laptop is still out for the count. I'm using my mother's laptop, and she's getting her master's degree online from Liberty University. So, she's on pretty much... always. She's asleep right now.

As you might know from my previous couple posts, I'm participating in Nanowrimo. Or was, until 5k words were lost and I had to switch to using the laptop of a busy woman. But it's not just that, is it? I can't write very well.

Why not? One laptop is as good as another, right? That's the mindset of pretty much everyone around me. But I can't get the words out. At best, I've managed about 1,300 words a day. Closer to 1,000 words, or none at all. In Nano, your target word count per day is 1,667 words.

So, why can't I do it? Why won't the words come? Well, as you can tell from the title of this post, it has to do with my comfort spot.

Let me describe to you the very different rooms of my house in which I find myself:

• My room is the size of a closet. In the corner, stuck between the door -- which actually hits the desk when opened far enough -- and a large, wooden dresser, is my desk. My bed, which takes up most of the room, is just far enough from the desk to make typing while sitting on it very difficult, so there's a small stool jammed between it and the desk, in order for me to not have to balance my laptop in my lap. Strewn across my desk are notebooks, embroidery thread, papers, and a couple of small bottles of paint.
• My mother's workroom, which was my childhood room, has pink and yellow walls, with Winnie the Pooh stickers and crayon scribblings all over them. Probably your average-sized bedroom, and my mom has collected what looks like thousands of crochet magazines over her lifetime. They're everywhere. Her desk is stuck between a bookshelf of Mom's religious reference books and a side table. There's a fish bowl with one of those little beta fish* and a clean mug (also, coincidentally, Winnie the Pooh) that contains all of her pens and pencils, along with a couple of those green Barnes and Noble straws poking out of it. Oh, and let's not forget to mention the hundreds of crosses that now decorate the wall.

I realize that was a pretty solid chunk of description, so let's get down to the main point: the two rooms are as different as night and day. My small, messy room with the furniture looking too large, compared with Mom's very religious-looking room whose walls haven't changed much since I was five years old.

Of course, since Mom has her Master's classes and likes to have her laptop in the same room with all her reference books, I can't just pick it up and take it to my room. Which is a problem.

To put it bluntly, the hundreds of crosses staring at me make me uncomfortable. The many, many Bibles** do, as well. And the reference books, which all have names like How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart) and Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People (Schraam/Stjerna).

I told you -- A LOT of crosses.

It's not that I'm not religious. I am. Quite so. (Very hard not to be, especially when my former preschool doubles as my current baptist church.) It's just that... well, I'm too religious.

I know it's insane. Completely irrational. But during the summers of my childhood, I spent a week in the Pentecostal camp where my grandad lives. And they'd like to tell people that Harry Potter is evil, that fantasy is evil, because it worships magic and witchcraft or whatever.

And... even more beside the computer.

Which makes it kind of hard for me to write fantasy now, in front of an insane number of crosses. Even though I'm a Baptist and I believe that if God gave me the imagination, He probably wouldn't mind my fantasy. And anyways, evidence: C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were both Christian writers, who wrote fantasy, and their stuff is legendary. Pretty mainstream fiction, not the Christian fiction you find only in your typical Lifeway Christian store.

But I can't help feeling it. Feeling this irrational need to avoid fantasy, even though I love it, because when you put it that way...

I know God loves me. I know He wouldn't judge my fantasy writing -- sometimes I even get the hope that in Heaven, He has a giant library with every book in the world, and some of my books will be there, too. It's make-believe, imagination, a tool He gave humans for the purpose of imagining new worlds.

Perhaps, one day, I will write a book in which I suggest thematically that creating a real world, or at least one that feels real, should probably be left to God. Because right now, my world feels realer than the one around me, and I worry when I see those crosses. They remind me of the world around me, that my imagination is not everything here, and that, perhaps, magic needs to be subtler than spells and potions and spontaneous explosions, out here in the real world. I'm almost sad, at that. Like we've constrained something to a small box, to a subtle little area inside of our minds.

Perhaps this is why power goes to your head, when leaders create their own little world, their own society, when they rip down the old society and put up their own. 

This sort of commentary reels through my mind. I get antsy, can listen to music and swivel in the little swivel chair, and I can't write. Because it is truth unwrapped from its gauzy layer of fiction. And it doesn't make sense. Truth doesn't make sense. It makes feelings. And that's why it needs its little coating of fiction, because fiction does make sense, and it can keep the truth in its place.

I need my little comfort spot. I need the peace it brings, how it sets aside those antsy feelings and truth and lets my fingers stop shaking long enough to write.

And perhaps this all sounds a little out there, a little dreamy, like my mind's come untethered and I'm sending you images from the clouds. But I think a comfort spot is more than just comfort. It's a necessary break from the real world. The real world reminds me that there are people who think God wouldn't like my work. My comfort spot lets me know what I think in the matter.

I hope this makes sense to you.

Have a blessed day.

[EDIT: I hand-counted all of them. There are 113 crosses in my mother's workroom, give or take a couple. Still, a formidable number of crosses, wouldn't you agree?]



*Yea, his name is Jeffrey. After my Uncle Jeff, even though Uncle Jeff is from my Dad's side of the family.
**Let's put it this way: my aunts have seventy pairs of shoes and a Bible between them. My Mom has seventy Bibles and one pair of shoes.

YA and Epic Fantasy

So, I've been traversing links to blog posts and psychological studies and whatnot, as I'm wont to do, when a link pops up in my Twitter from Mythic Scribes. Its title: Is YA the Death of Epic Fantasy?

I read the article, and it seems fairly innocuous. A narrator, who explains he has nothing against YA Fantasy, tells us that Epic Fantasy, which he describes pretty much just as Tolkien, is dwindling as YA Fantasy takes over the market.

But I hate this kind of thinking. It's so subtle that you want to agree with this narrator. You want to say, "Well, he's sort of right. People gravitate towards YA Fantasy, because it's easier to read, but the real stuff in the adult section, the 'Epic Fantasy,' ends up forgotten in a dusty corner."

The problem is, it recirculates the age-old opinion that YA is somehow less. It's less fantasy than epic fantasy, easier to understand, not as dark. The article describes it as:

  Now, I have nothing against YA Fantasy. I could even see myself writing one. Like many others, I love and aspire to the abilities of Rowling and others like her. And although her pieces became increasingly dark, they don’t contain the true grit of Epic Fantasy. Sometimes I want to see blood, smell death, and feel the sexual tension that might even be expressed in Chapter 1. I want a battle axe to split a skull and a brain matter to splatter across the page as I read. And, I want it all done with a vocabulary and structure that excludes some readers. Sorry.

Do you see me gritting my teeth and wincing?

YA fantasy can be just as sexual, just as bloody, just as "true grit" as epic fantasy. Even in Chapter 1. I've read many, many YA novels, ones that start out viscerally. That continue throughout the book to be visceral. It's YA Writing 101 -- show, don't tell. Make things tense; make things dark. Push the character as far out of their comfort zone as you can, leave them at rock bottom, and then you can pull them out. Maybe.

And, well, let's face it: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series started out as MG, not YA. So did the Percy Jackson series, which he also references. Yes, the elder generation started reading books like Tolkien in elementary school, but I remember that The Hobbit wasn't really offered in my elementary school library. We had these books that are marketed specifically for those younger readers of MG.

In fact, I was so hesitant about reading "older" books back then, that I still struggle with it today. They teach you that reading has levels, that some things are too smart or too dumb for you. Today, I feel self-conscious walking through the MG aisles of my B&N looking for books, because I could swear the parents and little kids are judging me. Sometimes I get the feeling that the adults in the YA aisle feel that I am judging them, even when I'm not.

But it's not true. "True grit" is as likely to be found in YA as it is in adult. The problems in the books -- the torture and the sexual tension and the brain matter -- are not portrayed less in YA, just different, from the perspective of a struggling teenager instead of a world-weary adult.

And, to bring up an example (never leave out evidence when making an argument!), here you go: one of the details that stuck out in my mind the most after reading If I Stay (Gayle Forman) was of the main character hovering over her body after the car accident, looking at the brain matter of one of her family members splayed across the road.

Is that true grit? You asked for brain matter, there's an example. And If I Stay is one of the relatively popular YA novels, not one of those obscure novels I dig out of the library.

Moving on to the vocabulary and structure. Yes, true that the YA market looks saturated with the World of Snark trope from the outside. But just earlier this summer, I read Princess Ben, a story with impressive vocabulary and structure. And there are plenty of others, waiting in libraries and bookstores everywhere, that do not employ the sometimes atrocious slang used in modern teenage circles.

And, in fact, it doesn't exclude readers. Grammar isn't the problem. It's the educational system that doesn't offer such epic books in school libraries, that cuts funding for the English department, and teaches kids to hate reading by requiring that they do so. It's the adults who don't read and set examples for their children, who don't take biweekly trips to a library or bookstore, who don't hit home the fact that language is the most powerful tool we have.

(I've been fortunate enough to have a mother who's even more of an avid reader than I am. and I'm sure there are plenty of parents or guardians or teachers who make an effort to connect a child with a love of reading. But too many don't or can't manage it.)

He mentions:

One thing that I always appreciated about Epic Fantasy was its exclusivity. Not everyone could read it.

 Perhaps it's because of a system, not because it's Epic Fantasy. True, it's not everyone's preference; but I would bet not many have access to shelves of fantasy in the first place. Fantasy is a lovely, misunderstood genre, whether YA or adult.

He also says of epic fantasy:

We continued reading fantasy in a society where fantasy authors wrote for adults and their novels were found in the normal fiction section of our local libraries and bookstores. Many of us expanded our interests, flocking to gaming and other pursuits. But our first love was what publishers label as Epic or High Fantasy. In this genre, we met our elven friends, our grumpy dwarven companions, and our nemesis the evil sorcerer.
Despite the unusual nature of our desired reading, it came with a certain quality. The lexicon, the syntax, and the high-literary value of many of these works was something that most ‘kids’ didn’t quite get. To read and understand them was a challenge and an accomplishment. Reading Tolkien as a kid while others were tackling Where the Red Fern Grows came with a knowledge that we were more advanced readers – if nothing else.

First of all, I've never read Where the Red Fern Grows, so I'm not sure what he means by that last statement, but I don't remember fantasy being a challenge. I've always been a proper-English sort of girl, so I can't attest to it, but I don't believe the high-literary value of the  novels was what I didn't get. Value was just not something anyone attributed to fantasy.

Let's put it this way: not once has my school -- elementary, middle, or high school -- actually had us read fantasy for a school project or during the curriculum. It sometimes comes close, like the mystical qualities the Scarlet Letter* seemed to have at times, but they never assigned it. Nor science-fiction, for that matter. I was ecstatic to be able to choose my own reading material for my AP Lit summer project, and promptly chose The Hobbit. Other than that... I kind of think the school system believes there is no value in it.

That high-literary quality, on the other hand... I know that feeling. The same term came to mind the first time I read Tolkien: a difficult book to read, but lovely to finish. It compared with every pretentious book they threw at us in school, but LoTR was still worth a grin, because it was fantastical, a true escape and other world. But no school seems to attribute the same term to the genre.

Most "kids" would be thrilled to read epic fantasy, if they had been taught the grammar skills to manage it. My lack of faith in the school system informs me that tackling Tolkien in 6th grade would've boosted my
self-esteem a lot more than the thin MG novel Crash (Jerry Spinelli) did. Not that Crash wasn't a lovely novel, it just wasn't challenging to a person like me.

(I know, this started out as a rant against adults who underestimate YA novels, and now has devolved into a rant about the educational system. In my defense, I am still in the public school system, and can attest to the atrocity of it, and the direct effect it can have on choice of reading material, and on grammar skills.)

I wasn't actively discouraged from reading "normal" fantasy or fiction. I just wasn't exposed to it. I wasn't given any chance to like it, apart from the spine of the books on my mother's bookshelves, which I was always slightly intimidated by. (They were grown-up books, they would imply. My mother would've let me read them, but I spent the majority of my childhood in school, where they assign easy, boring books marketed directly for the less-than-average intelligent, and that alone made me think it would be best to avoid the "real" and "smart" books they obviously didn't think I was capable of handling. And this was back when I believed they knew best.)

So, YA and MG are really all I had. It wasn't lowbrow; plenty of it has the "high-literary" quality. But I don't think it's threatening the adult fantasy, unless you think that because of the low exposure to adult fantasy, kids will grow up to be less inclined to read it. And you can't really blame that on YA, can you? You can only blame it on the people who didn't put The Hobbit in my hands when I was eight years old.

Have a blessed day. 

*That's sarcasm, by the way. The Scarlet Letter is one of the most scowl-worthy books I've ever come across, because it's dry, difficult to read, and not an escape at all. The most mystical references involve elaborate metaphors of the letter's aura of ignominy. 

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!

Happy Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter and last day of March! I also believe it's the end of Lent, so happy that, as well!

Easter is so much more than bunnies and Easter eggs. It's so much more than candy, gifts, and going to church in your best clothes.

Today, of course, is a blessed day: it's the day of that most central event of Christianity, the resurrection of Christ. It's that symbolic day that Jesus came back to life.

The Easter bunny and eggs are symbols,of course: the white bunny for innocence and purity, the eggs as a symbol of rebirth. But they are poor substitutes for the real story behind the holiday. It's one of the reasons I am glad I am not atheist: because it's a holiday with meaning behind it.

(Not that I have anything against atheists. I'm just kinda sad that holidays like Christmas and Easter mean nothing to them, because they don't believe in the story behind them.)

It's the day Jesus came back, guys. For the three days He was dead, Christians died for Him. There was no quabble between Catholics and Protestants, no debating the methods of baptism. There was a single type of Christian: those who upheld the belief that God's Only Son died for them, and would come back.

And He did. He rose from the grave on Easter, to show the world that He is God's Son, and death cannot hold Him.

If you're not Christian, that's cool. If you don't believe, then that's fine. But I do believe, so I wrote a short post on why this story means a lot to me. It's Easter Sunday, and a Christian holiday, so I feel entitled to write a post on my Christian beliefs.

Have a truly blessed day. And here's an Easter song from Veggietales ('cuz that's how I roll) for you to listen to. =)

Updates

Good Sunday and last day of September, followers. (And I've made it past 111 followers! I feel like I've bested Bilbo Baggins, when really I haven't done any such thing. Thank you for allowing me to feel satisfaction at having read the LoTR trilogy.)

I'll give you a basic rundown of the next week - Monday I have a book review waiting, Wednesday I might post a short spiff (yay for you - admire my jumpy writing skills!) and Follow Friday on Friday. I find this little list sad, for some reason.

I might change a few things around on the blog, about the sidebar and on the pages. Probably not the background - I like the black + white + blue theme I've got now.

Anyways, I wanted to let you know that between school and the beginnings of research on my novel (Yes, I've waited until I started my first draft, but it's a sloppy copy - I can go back and change the minor details I need to research) I might be awhile in posting another book review.

Tomorrow and perhaps next Monday I'll have a review up, but it might start slacking off after that. I joined an after-school choir at my school every Thursday and I'm going to Sunday School more often, as well as the homework I have steadily piling up. This leads to less reading time. I might start picking up again about November, or earlier.

Anyways, that's all I need to remind you of. Here's a pretty quote. Have a blessed Sunday!

On Updates and Inspiration

This is just a friendly post, from me (obviously). And again, thank y'all for letting me reach 100 followers! I am quite happy right now.

I've posted a glossary page, so if you don't understand a phrase I use, check there. If it's not there, comment on the post (whichever one I use it in) and I'll add it. You can now follow by email, if you don't have blogger (i.e. you have wordpress or livewritethrive or something else). Also, I put some cute little fish to the side there, because I am like that. But, moving on.

I just came back from Sunday School (which my mother teaches), and I am already feeling better. There's nothing quite like comparing your troubles to Job* to make you feel lucky.


My computer is acting a little wonky today, so this will be short. I can't promise sweet. I'll spend the rest of today doing homework, writing, and listening to Christian music, because Sunday School inspires me that much.




This post isn't meant to advertise my religion, I swear. It leads up to my point.

I've felt out of luck and inspiration for awhile now, and though I have plenty of interest and motive in my writing, I haven't felt motivated or interested to DO it. Putting things in practice tends to be harder than thinking about them.

It took a reminder of Job's sufferings to stoke the ashes of my interest into a fire again. It gave me a serious metaphorical talking-to: Danielle, you need to write this poor girl's story. She needs a chance to be alive, even if you are the only person to read the manuscript.

Well, somewhat. Danielle's my middle name, so obviously the lesson referred to me by my first. But I like keeping online and offline seperate, and it's irrelevant to the world for now.

But what I mean to say is, I've found my inspiration. I found it through my religion. What do you find yours through?

I pinned up the psalm above to my bedroom wall, and will try and print out a few verses from Job to help keep my candle-flame of passion from becoming ashes again.

You may find yours through sports, family, friends, future-readers, whatever. You may find yours through religion like me, or through more earthly, grounded matters. Whatever it is, I dare you to pull something out to remind you of my lesson: writing is hard, but it's worth it.

I dare you to remind yourself every day, to keep you on track and lucky.

*Job was a rich, happy, dutiful man in the Old Testament. God decides to test his faith by taking everything he owns: his children die, his servants and animals are killed by invaders, he himself becomes covered in boils, all in the space of hours or days. But no matter what, Job never blames God, and God rewards him with twice the animals and servants; another eleven children; and Job lives to be 140 years old. Happy ending.

Have a blessed Sunday and enjoy your week! I have a book review tomorrow and Follow Friday on Friday. I don't know about Wednesday.  

Weekend Melodies #4: Snowflake

Weekend Melodies is a weekly feature here at Inky Melody, in which I choose a random word and a song that relates to it. You are welcome to join in with your own song in the comment section!

This week's word is: Snowflake. Yes, I know it's Spetember, but it's never too early for Christmas.

[And by the way, I have 100 followers! *Meep!* Thank y'all so much. :D]

[How It Connects]

The Carol of the Bells is a Christmas song, and is one of my favorites. This version isn't the original - it has other Christmas songs mixed into it - but it is still fast-paced and awesome. And, of course Christmas = winter = snow. Snowflake. Yea.

[My Favorite Line]

This version doesn't have any lyrics. Hah. Of the original song, though:
Cristmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the bold...

Have a blessed weekend! What song do you think of?

Weekend Melodies #3: Restless

Weekend Melodies is a weekly feature here at Inky Melody, in which I choose a random word and a song that relates to it. You are welcome to join in with your own song in the comment section!

This week's word is: Restless

[How This Connects]

This one is pretty obvious. Belle wants adventure, more than her normal life. She's restless in this tiny French village. In case you didn't know, I love Disney movies: Mulan, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King... Beauty and the Beast is my fourth or fifth favorite.

[My Favorite Line]

With a dreamy, far-off look
And her nose stuck in a book...

(Doesn't that describe me so well? Haha.)

Have a lovely, blessed weekend!

Weekend Melodies #2: Accusation

Happy first day of September! Don't you just love the uncertain feeling in the air, as if nature is wavering between the end of summer and the beginning of fall?

Weekend Melodies is a weekly feature here at my blog, started because of a love of words and music. Over the weekend (depending on how busy I am on Saturday), I share a random word and a song that connects to this word in some way. Anyone can comment on this post with a link to the song they thought of.

This week's word is: Accusation.

(I created a list of words a few weeks ago as a writing prompt, and I'm pretty much following that. It's not that I actually feel like making accusations. :D)

[How does this connect?] This song is sort of an accusation against a king. It asks this king, "what will people think of you when you're gone? I know they'll think of me as a hero." Heather Dale has such a beautiful voice and sings these rather fabulous songs about medieval times. This one stands out to me as speaking up against someone in power and accusing them of what they're doing wrong. [My favorite Line] I know what they'll remember in the words of every song What will they say about you... when I'm gone? What song do you think of? I love feedback!

Weekend Melodies #1: First

I've decided to do a weekend feature here called Weekend Melodies. As the name implies, I'll post my favorite song or a song relative to a book I'm reading on a Saturday or Sunday, and include a line or two of my favorite song. The song has to include or relate to the one (random) word I choose. I may or may not explain my connection between the chosen word and the song if the connection is obscure enough.

Since this is the first post, the word is: first.

(Have you ever noticed just how wierd that word looks? First. It even sounds funny. I love funny sounding words. *Happy sigh*)

(In other news, Rose's Competition has officially ended! I rearranged some of the thingies around my blog. Also, I go back to school in a little over a week, on the 4th. Wish me luck on that. My computer's acting up, so the spacing on this post is a little off... I think this is enough "other news". On to the song!)

[How Does This Connect?]    -------    I love this song so much. To me, it describes a moment of perfect happiness, of sincerity, for the first time in a long time.    ------- [My Favorite Line] -------
        This innocence is brilliant, I hope that it will stay.  
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I do not mind if y'all join me in this feature. Post a song in the comments or on your own blog (with a link to it in the comments, so we can see) with or related to the word of the weekend! I love to hear new songs.   

Have a blessed weekend! :)