Top Ten Tuesday #3, and another apology.

So, another apology: I haven't been doing things on this blog as often as I would like. I know I keep saying I'll keep up with it. This summer shall be a bit different, with this Top Ten meme. I have little to do and more will to do anything at all.

With that said, this Top Ten might be a little difficult. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is a freebie, so I thought I should mention my Top Ten Song-Book Character Matches.

(Or, the top ten songs that match a certain book character really well. Look at the title of this blog again, if you expected me not to take this opportunity to share great books AND music.)

As a side note, the music is written artist:song title, and each link goes to a video with lyrics. (Or most of them do, anyways.) If I don't list an author in my little summary, then it is either easily searchable or extremely popular.

1. Sebastian (Black Butler manga) -- Pirates of the Caribbean: Pirates Montage

Yes, it's a manga, not a book. But the difference between manga and novels is a post for another day. Sebastian, a demon butler, fits the suaveness of this piece really well. The adventure caught up in both the music and the manga fit together better than some puzzles. (Don't get me started on puzzles.)

2. Kelsier (Mistborn) -- Imagine Dragons: Ready Aim Fire

Kelsier is a true revolutionary in a dystopian future. The mood of both Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series (specifically the first one, which is the only one I've read) and this song fit really well, and the lyrics do, too.

3. Katniss's Mum (The Hunger Games) -- The Civil Wars: Kingdom Come

I don't remember Katniss's mum's name. I know. But I like this song for her because you cannot tell whether she is good or bad. She is a very gray character; she is not at all the sort of stereotypical mom you usually find in media, but neither is she the demonized "bad" mom that you might also find. She's not high on drugs, but neither does she take care of her children. She cares for them -- she takes care of Prim while Katniss is away in the Games -- but her grief after her husband's death has subsumed her character. And this song (which, I know, is from the Hunger Games movie soundtrack) captures that grayness.

4. Lia (Wintergirls) -- Helio: To Write Love on Her Arms

Lia definitely deserved to hear this song. She was dark and sick; mentally ill. This song is made for the TWLoHA project (To Write Love on Her Arms), which is meant to help self-mutilators and raise awareness. This song both fits her and would have been an inspiration to her. Lia's anorexia and her grief after her best friend dies combine in a spiraling way, and this song both acknowledges the pain and the mental illness, and tries to comfort.

5. Jennifer Strange (The Last Dragonslayer) -- Superchick: Not Done Yet

Jennifer Strange is a very tough character, but not in the muscles-and-kicking-butt sort of way. She sticks things out and is always fair, even if that means being forced to kill a creature who is the last of the kind. She is one of the only people in Jasper Fforde's world who wants to stick out and give a dragon the fair end of the deal. And this song represents that willingness, in the same easygoing way that Jennifer herself has.

6. Maddy (Gamer Girl) -- Britt Nicole: Headphones

Now, Maddy is not a music person, and the song, of course, tells you to put on your headphones. But both are about that escapist healing. Maddy disappears and grows through her manga drawing and her video game, which this song captures so perfectly. Put on your headphones, pick up a video game, find something to distract you and make you happy! (This book is by Mari Mancusi, in case you want to read it.)

7. Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter) -- Owl City: Fireflies

Yes, I have to pair two famous, widely loved things. Luna and Owl City just go together. They both have that scatterbrained, chaotic splendor that makes them such compelling dreamers. Although they seem somewhat random (Fireflies? Nargles?), their randomness shows perfectly an undercurrent of emotion that speaks deeper than the practical characters around them.

8. Joe Zabbidou (Black Book of Secrets) -- One Republic: Secrets

Okay, this song is less Joe and more the people he deals with. He deals in secrets, and records them in a big, black book. (Hence the title.) F.E. Higgins wrote this quirky book, and it is quite a good read. The mysterious pawnbroker of secrets has a knack for making people feel that yearning to share what's on their mind, the same compelling that is behind this song.

9. Devon (After) -- Linkin Park: What I've Done

I wasn't overly fond of Amy Efaw's novel, After. Devon is a very unlikeable character, but I am not sure that is why I didn't like this novel. In any event, she is a very complicated young woman -- the book revolves around the aftermath, as she waits for the trial to convict her of putting her newborn in the trash. And, while the Linkin Park does not match the atmosphere of this novel -- Linkin Park has a darker, deeper, timeless quality to their music, where After has a much more contemporary feel to it -- I think the message behind this song does match an undercurrent to Devon. "Let mercy come/and wash away/what I've done" and all that.

10. Doctor Who -- Celtic Woman: A Spaceman Came Traveling

Okay, this is totally cheating. Doctor Who may be a TV show, but I feel that there is enough fanfiction written and published on this show that I can sneak this one in last. Really, this song is perfect for Doctor Who; the background singers are even wearing TARDIS blue! I can imagine a fanfiction somewhere about the Doctor showing up at the birth of Jesus.

Those are my Top Ten this week. What're yours? Leave a comment!

    

Top Ten Tuesday #2

Alright, so I know I skipped last week. Life is hard. 

The Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is "Top Ten Inspiring Quotes from Books". (These are in no particular order.)

1. The story itself unfolds in the space between the "before" and the "after". 

-Lisa Cron, Wired for Story  

I like this quote so much because it is so true -- the character before the story began is never the same as the character after. Lisa Cron's writer-help book is full of amazing gems like this quote.

2. You are dust, her eyes said. You are dirt. You are nothing. Why do you bother surviving? Why are you still alive?

I am the dust in your eyes was the answer in Hathin's look. I am the dirt that will bury you. I am the nothingness waiting to open up under your feet. And I can hold on longer than you can.

-Francis Hardinge, The Lost Conspiracy

I love the courage in this silent exchange. It is the courage of an individual who has never shone, never spoken out, but who holds a quiet brilliance and resilience all her own. Of all the quiet characters I've come across, I would most want to be Hathin.

3. There are places that are truly dark in the world, Ven, but this place is not one of them. It's not really dark here -- it's just night.

-Elizabeth Haydon, The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme: The Floating Island

This quote reminds me that the places and people my characters meet are never truly evil; there is no haunted forest, no Dark Lord. Everything is composed of shades of gray. It reminds me that every place and every character in a book is just waiting for its dawn.

4. But there are times

When peace just becomes

a broken mouthful.

A word that no tongue in the world

can pronounce.

-Melanie Little, The Apprentice's Masterpiece

This is not particularly inspiring, on the surface. It seems kind of dreary. But it is a reminder of life, that the world is a difficult place in spite of everyone's good intentions. And it is a reminder that these are just times, and that you can get through them. That is what this book is about -- two boys who get through the Spanish Inquisition, one of those bloodiest of historic conflicts. 

5. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another... We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves.

-Veronica Roth, Divergent

Okay, so this quote cannot be found in the actual story -- it's found in the manifesto for Dauntless, in the back of the book. But it still struck a chord with me. 

6. When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.

-Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

I actually did not like this book all that much, but I have to admit that there were plenty of quotable things in it. This particular quote stuck out in that it reminds me of the power of books, and the way words have of getting into your heart.

7. Ordinary thoughts are pretty dull. Powerful ideas have a life of their own; they carry on, unshakable, from person to person.

-Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer

Fforde is an amazing writer. I love this quote so much, because for once he wasn't being funny: he was being thoughtful. It keeps me writing, sometimes, to think of this quote. It reminds me that these powerful ideas cannot be bottled up -- I need to write them.

8. Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.

-Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

Yes, another quote about words. It is so true -- the whole world is inside a book. I'm sure there are several people quoting Inkheart, but that is because Cornelia Funke is absolutely amazing. I've been a big fan of hers since I was little.

9. If everyone is yelling, no one can be heard.

-Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

I love this quote because it is exactly the opposite of what people normally advise you to do. Everyone tells you to speak up for yourself, for others; but Donnelly reminds us that sometimes we have to sit back and listen, as well.

10. If I win, I'm a prodigy. If I lose, then I'm crazy. That's the way history is written.

-Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

Yes, if you've been to my website before -- or simply poked around my blog a little -- you'll notice I'm a big Artemis Fowl fan. This quote has always stuck out in my mind, because it reminds me that I can dream big; the worst that can happen is I'm called crazy now.

So, those are my quotes. Now that I have laid bare my soul for you to take inspiration from, you can return the favor. Comment! Share your own stories, tell me which of my quotes you already knew, or the ones you'd never heard but you took to immediately. 

Have a blessed day.

    

Top Ten Tuesday #1 and a Note.

I should probably start with a note. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but I have taken a strange sort of on-again, off-again hiatus for a long while now. I want to reassure you, though, that I plan on coming back. Hopefully regularly. Life has been up and down for me this past year (starting last March, when my grandfather died, up through this March, when my college announced that they would be closing).

So, in an attempt to be regular, I thought I'd try a meme. I've been watching the Top Ten Tuesdays for awhile, and it looks like fun and an easy way to connect with people. And without further ado, I will continue with this post.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Top Ten on the TBR Pile. (These are in no particular order, by the way.)

1. Huntress by Malinda Lo. I am currently reading Ash, and Huntress is the prequel. The book is so good -- excellent prose and synopsis, deep, well-rounded characters -- that I can't wait to continue in this world!

2. The Story of Owen: Dragonslayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston. I am a sucker for a good dragon story, and this one looks very promising.

3. The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. I've had this one in my sights for a long time -- it seems like a solid fantasy novel, with an excellent synopsis, but I could never find our copy at home. So I checked it out from the library.

4. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. Jones is hilarious and her take on fantasy cliches is truly great fun to read. I started it, but had to put it down awhile ago, and I cannot wait to pick it up again!

5. Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett. This one isn't really YA, but neither is #4, so I'm going with it. I actually have to read this particular book for class, but it sounds really interesting -- short stories all tied together through history and science.

6. A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony. Again, not YA, but this series is pretty much a fantasy classic. My mother (who has read them many times!) highly recommends it, and says the puns are to die for.

7. The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker. I have loved previous novels of Baker's (including her Frog Princess series), and I look forward to this one.

8. Emily's Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak. This one looked like a fun read, full of Emily Dickenson and adventures.

9. Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann. This one promises to be full of deep, thought-provoking poems about tough issues.

10. Agatha H and the Airship City by Phil Foglio. I had never heard of this MG series until Amazon randomly recommended it for me. But it sounds very fun and very intriguing.


How about you? What are your Top Ten? Have a blessed day.

Mozart

I found a collection of Mozart's letters translated into English on Scribd. I don't normally use Scribd; usually only my mother uses it, to look up books on knitting and crochet. But I found my Nano draft, which is about Mozart, so in a research frenzy I decided to read through them and take notes.

Here are a few of those notes:

• Born: 17th January 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. Father: Leopold Mozart, an intelligent, ambitious man who's always used his knowledge of music to get ahead. Wolfgang and Nannerl were the only two of Leopold's seven children who survived.
• By the age of four, Mozart required only 30 min. - 1 hour to learn a piece of music. By age five, he was composing short pieces.
• In 1769, letter (in Latin) to his sister: "I should like to know the reason why indolence is so highly prized by very many young men, that neither by words nor blows will they suffer themselves to be roused from it."
• At the very least, he knows Latin and Italian (and, I presume, German). Very knowledgeable about opera and singing, as well.
• Apparently fond of a poet named Herr Gellert (though I believe "Herr" might be a title, not a first name.)
• August 1771: "I don't like to sleep after eating."
• 1777: he gets up at 8:30 in the morning, spends the entire morning composing/writing, then afternoons giving lessons to various individuals, and then after supper he converses with his students or reads a book.
• He always refers to his mother as "mamma," even in 1777 when he is almost 20 years old.
• Seems to be very honest and good-natured; in a letter to his cousin, he rhymes the entire thing.

This is a somewhat short list, but rather specific. And it sort of makes me rethink making him the bad guy in my Nano draft; it's easy to see why no one touches him in regular fiction. But I still want to make him a bad guy, even if it's just because he's too good-humored for me. I think I've settled on making a Bad Guy By Neglect.

Perhaps one day I'll manage to organize and edit this Nano draft into a proper novel. And while he might not figure quite so large a role as the villain, he might still make a great source for tension, busy as he is with all that opera-writing.

Have a blessed day. :)

Life, School, and Internet.

It's been a week. Already. Wow.

It's not that I'm not interested in keeping up with this blog. It's just... I have very little access to a computer. I'm sharing an old desktop computer with my little brother and his friends, my older brother, and one of my little sisters.

And, of course, Nanowrimo has ended. I officially managed to get to 50,000 words, despite a laptop crash, starting three free online classes -- and my regular school day, with its 3 AP (college level) classes, and a photography elective, and an honors Spanish 4 class -- AND my normal diet of internet articles on writing craft. I'm very proud, and very antsy as I try to find something other than editing that draft to do.

So, I've really thrown myself into my free online classes. I'm taking three of them, across two websites -- Coursera and Open2Study. Let me outline the pros and cons:

• Coursera is a website that offers free college level classes. Pro: It goes really in depth -- the one class I have on here requires watching 15-20 minute long videos, has an archive (this is a class on historical fiction; it offers primary sources), and requires discussion in the forums, or at least one question asked of the guest authors he talks to. I have extensive notes on historical fiction now, almost more than I wanted to know. Con: it requires some work, and it's a bit of a struggle on a busy schedule.
• Open2Study is a bit less strenuous. Pro: less work, and no requirement for discussion in the forums. Though, obviously, it's encouraged. Con: less work, and the classes can be kind of easy. I'm taking two classes on there, one on anthropology and one on sociology, and both have easy, 5-7 minute long videos with a one-question quiz after each.

Yes, I am stressed out. It is a self-imposed stress. There are three notebooks beside me, a pen, and the flash drive I use for taking notes in Word has gone missing. I prefer the Open2Study, over the school-week, but over the weekend I can really get back to work on this stuff.

Have a blessed weekend!

Friday Music

Yes, it's almost the end of November! (I'd add an extra exclamation point there, except I hate exclamation points on principle. So perky and self-satisfied. Only when I am truly meeping about something would I add another, and while the expected relief of December would certainly constitute a perky, self-satisfied feeling, it is not quite as meepful as, say, Doctor Who. Or BBC's Sherlock.)

That was an awfully long parenthetically enclosed aside. But I don't care. Every inch is true. And it's Friday -- I deserve a few long asides. Of course, here in the U.S. it's Black Friday, but I don't go anywhere on this day of the year, so it feels like a normal Friday.

And to demonstrate my normal Friday feeling, there is this song. A perky, almost meepful piano rendition by Michele Mclaughlin called "the Clurichaun".

(See also by Michele Mclaughlin: Across the Burren, the Eternal City, and Carrowkeel.)

Have a blessed Friday.

Happy Dia de Los Muertos, and Happy Nanoing!

Hi! It's Friday, it's the First of November, and you know what that means. It's Nanowrimo. It's the Day of the Dead. And it happens to the start of what hopefully is a great month.

First off, Nanowrimo -- writing a novel in a month. Yes, I'm participating. (Q: What should I be doing write right now? A: Not writing blog posts!) My idea is weird, and involves rebellions, other worlds, and Mozart. It's titled "The Wolfgang" for right now. I might be referring to it obsessively over the next month, and shall usually abbreviate it to WG.

Now, yea, I haven't finished my other draft. I'm decently sure I can keep up 3k words a day -- 2,000 words for WG, and 1,000 for WR. ("Wretched Roads". Mages, healers, and curses, if you care to know.)

As for Dia de los Muertos... It's a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, honoring dead loved ones. I've written about it before, a couple weeks ago. So instead of a long rant on something that has little relevance, here's a list of Spanish words:

• Calaveras -- skulls. Also, there are calaveras de azucar (accent on the u), which are sugar skulls. 
• Calacas -- skeletons.  From what I know, these are very popular, like Halloween skeletons are popular: toy skeletons on the altars or for the children, cloth/plastic ones on poles that they parade through the street, etc.
• Altar -- well, an altar. Not too hard to figure out. The table on which they set offerings of food, flowers, and photographs to the dead loved one.
• Cempachusil (accent on u) -- marigolds. They put these "flor de los muertos" (flowers of the dead) on the graves or altars of loved ones. 
• El pan de los muertos -- bread of the dead. Literally, bread they leave on the altar for their loved ones.

 

November is a grand, brown-ish, most-definitely-autumn month. It generally means cold, lack of sleep, picking up the academic pace, and writing a novel for me. But it's also full of colorful leaves, and days off from school for Thanksgiving, and snuggling under five or six different blankets without feeling stifling-hot.

So, here's to dead people, writing too much too fast, and a brown month full of leaves and cold. Who says a little cold is bad for you, after all? It clears your lungs from all those words that scratch at your ribcage, ready to crawl out.

Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

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.

So, Life.

Some of the things that have happened in my life this week --

• I finished reading The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango. I don't want to put a review of it up, though. It's a sort-of memoir, about the indigenous Ecuadorian (and part-author of this tale) Virginia Farinango's childhood as an indentured servant to mestizos, the white people. A very, very interesting read, which is mainly fact with some imaginings and details on Resau's part. I don't want to review it because I feel uncomfortable reviewing something near nonfiction, because... well, it's real. fiction is easier to judge, if you will.
• My little sister Nicole, who has down syndrome, walked into some practically-stranger's backyard and started jumping on their trampoline. They weren't home, thankfully, but I've never met these people. I'm pretty sure they're like, the son of one of my neighbors. And it took almost fifteen nerve-wracking minutes to both find and convince Nicole to come back to our house.
• I found a baby snake in my house, brown scales, 8-9 inches long. Not something I see every day. Actually, I've only seen snakes in parks and the biology-lab-place in the Science Museum. And this one was in my house -- wriggling about on our floor -- and... and... *shudders* Snake.  
• Okay, I wasn't that freaked out about it. I found a sort of curiosity in my heart that let me peer at the snake and want to observe how it startled when I stomped my feet. Mom just wanted to trap it in something and put it outside, and then to check for any family members it might be hiding.

So, that's my Friday. How about you? Know what sort of snakes are indigenous to Virginia? Read the sort-of memoir about a girl named Virginia? Have you had strange encounters with animals?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend! 

Photography, Colds, and Writing

Thank goodness it's Friday. Truly.

Do you know that annoying person who doesn't cover their mouth when they cough? And not just once or twice, accidentally; people who cough into the air of their room, go upstairs and cough in your living room, and in your kitchen, all over your food...

Yea, I'm talking about a member of my family. My youngest brother -- who just started 6th grade -- never covers his mouth when he coughs, and now the rest of the family has it. Mostly me at this point -- he's had it several days, then my mom and sister fell sick, and my dad, and now me, the girl whose time spent happily locked up in her room serves a useful purpose.

Except now I've been sneezing and my nose dripping; I've been covertly wiping liquid snot-stuff over the sleeves of my jacket all school day. (Yes, and I am one of those people who goes to school even when she's sick, and so gets everyone else sick. We all have our flaws.) My throat
feels like sand has gritted the inside of that tube that leads from your mouth to your lungs. My eyes are sore and sticky, and I haven't slept or showered since Wednesday. Or Tuesday. But I've finally caught up on most of the school stuff I needed doing.

Thankfully, in spite of the Cold from Dante's Inferno,* I have not had a terrible time. I made my first primitive photograph in photography class. Here's the process:

• First, you have to expose a sheet of photo (light sensitive) paper to white light in the dark room. This means positioning it under a machine that looks sort of like a microscope, except it shines down light on the thing you're doing instead of observing it closely. And it means adjusting that machine to the right setting of intensity, making sure the light is focused, making sure the frame of light is big enough to cover the entire sheet of photo paper...
• Exposing takes about five seconds. You position the photo paper beneath the enlarger (so the microscope-like machine is called), position the object whose image you want to make on top of it, and then you turn it on and white light floods the little area of paper. 
• After that, you dip it in a chemical called Dektol (developer), a soapy-like, basic liquid. Basically, it makes the white photo paper turn black, except for the white shape of your object. You keep it there a minute to a minute and a half. 
• The second chemical you dip it in is called Stop Bath. It's a yellow color, because when you transfer the paper from Tray A to Tray B, some Dektol inevitably ends up in the tray of Stop Bath. Stop Bath actually is an acid, so it neutralizes the Dektol. Eventually, as the effectiveness of the Stop Bath wears down, it turns a purple-y color, thereby alerting you to change the liquid. You keep it in this tray for 30 seconds. 
• The THIRD chemical is a smelly (vinegar-like) liquid called fixer. It makes the image permanent. You dip it in there for 3-4 minutes. 
• Finally, you get to rinse the residual chemicals off the paper by putting it in this large, round sink for ten minutes. The water spins around, so it can wash it properly. 
• Then you squeegee it. You lay the paper on a piece of plexiglass, and use this rubber thing to scrape the excess water off both sides of the paper.
• Next, there's what's called a print dryer. It's a machine in which you lay the paper on its flat surface, pull a stretch of worn, warm canvas over it, and lock it into place. You rub the canvas for a minute, unlock the canvas's metal-rimmed edge from the side of the machine, and turn your photograph over to the back side. Then you lock it into place and rub the canvas for another minute.



Found here, via Wiki/CC. This is what it's supposed to look like!

• And voila! Your photograph is ready. As long as you didn't mess up on any stage of the process. 

So, yes, that's the entire process I went through, to end up with a black paper, no image. Apparently, I didn't expose the paper correctly, though my teacher assured me I did the chemical part correctly.

How was that for a story? Well, not really a story. More of an anecdote of how to make it through a class period when you barely know what you're doing. And, speaking of stories, the third draft of my story is turning out suck-ish, thank you for asking. I'm so sick and busy that when I do get a free moment to work on it, I find that I want to sleep instead of write, and nothing comes out onto the paper. (Metaphorically speaking, of course. I type my stories out on my laptop.)

But anyways, for those of you who didn't know, this is how you make a photograph without a camera! It's an interesting experience. Hopefully, I'll make an image next class. And also hopefully, by next class my nose won't be dripping into the water wash.

Hope you have a blessed Friday and weekend! Get better at the things you love, get over sicknesses, and get a proper amount of sleep!

*You know by Dante's Inferno I mean the h-word, right? The devil's homeplace? I just have a ton of trouble including even the mildest of inappropriate words, in both speech and in writing.

Follow Friday #50

[This is going to be my last FF post. *sniff*sniff* I've thought about it for several weeks now, and decided that since fifty is such a nice round number, I'll stop here. I want to focus less of finding new readers and more on entertaining the ones I have.]

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

Q: Activity! Share your favorite literary quote.

Meep! I have so many. Like seriously... SO MANY.

Here are some of my favorites:

"You are dust, her eyes said. You are dirt. You are nothing. Why do you bother surviving? Why are you still alive?
I am the dust in your eyes was the answer in Hathin's look. I am the dirt that will bury you. I am the nothingness waiting to open up under your feet. And I can hold on longer than you can."
~Frances Hardinge, The Lost Conspiracy

"There are places that are truly dark in the world, Ven, but this place here is not one of them. It's not really dark here -- it's just night."
~Elizabeth haydon, the Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme: The Floating Island

"You can burn the paper,
but you cannot burn what it contains;
I carry it within my heart."
~Ibn Hazm (Spain; 994-1064 AD)

"When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything."
~Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

How about you? What are your favorite quotes? Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

Follow Friday #49

[Meep! School is over! Summer vacation!! ;D]

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

Q: Activity: Spine Poetry. Create a line of poetry with your book spines (take a picture). Not feeling creative? Tell us about your favorite poem.

My webcam isn't the best. And neither are my photography skills. So, here are the books and my line of poetry:

"Cinder:
Beautiful Creatures Marked,
The Throne of Fire Chosen."

[Cinder (Marissa Meyer), Beautiful Creatures (Garcia/Stohl), Marked and Chosen (Cast and Cast, The House of Night series), and The Throne of Fire (Riordan, the Kane Chronicles book 2).]

I don't really know what my own poem means, but it sounds really cool. It sounds like something out of Narnia. "People judged to be too beautiful are sent to the Throne of Fire, a sort of electrical chair except instead of killing you with electricity, it enlightens you and brings you to life by setting fire to you..." Or something like that. It sounds like an idea for a novel... Hmm...

(And, just because... Can you see the tops of the spines of the books below them? Can you guess which books they are? Okay, I'll tell you. In no particular order, there are Levine's Ella Enchanted, Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Goodman's Eona.)

As for my favorite poem... William Blake's "The Tyger." No contest.

"Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Symmetry is pronounced "sihm-ih-try". Gotta say something for poetic license.

There are a whole six stanzas in the poem; I'm too lazy to copy the whole thing, only what I know from memory, so feel free to look the rest of it up. In fact, here, I googled it for you.

How about you? What's your favorite poem? What does my poem mean to you? What sort of poem can you create with the spines of your books? Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

Follow Friday #48

[Yay! I only have to go to school two days next week, and then I'm out for the summer! :D)

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

Q: Have you broken up with a series? If so, which one and why?

There've been plenty of series over the years that I've just neglected. There's Beautiful Creatures (Garcia/Stohl), which I only read the first of. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (you, know, The Golden Compass?), which I got halfway through the second one. I read the first and maybe part of the second of Redwall (Brian Jaques).

There are plenty more, and not always because they didn't interest me. The ones I just mentioned were because I moved on to other books and I just never got around to picking up the next book. Some series, like Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom (I got up to book 5), it's because I never found the next book. (I still hold out hope for that series -- I think one of my local libraries has the sixth. I just have to find a copy of the 3rd so I can re-read the series!)

But really, I try to finish series. Sometimes I don't around to it, for various reasons.

How about you? Do you ever break up with a series, and if so, which ones? Have a blessed weekend!

Follow Friday #47

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

Q: What blogger would you most like to meet in real life? Tell us about him or her.

Oh, goodness. Umm...

In case you don't know (which is quite likely; you've either read my blog and not met me, or you've never heard of me at all), I am quite shy in real life. In fact, "shy" is a bit of an understatement. It took my friend nearly three years to get me to talk to her in more than monosyllables.

This means that if I did meet a blogger in real life, I'd freeze up. Meeting new people is not a cool thing for me. It's like the opposite of cool. More like the one of the scariest things. (I probably have anxiety problems, though I've never been in a doctor's office for longer than a check-up, so I can't tell you with any scientific certainty. Because... well... I don't like strangers.)

(Scientific certainty. What a wonderful phrase!)

Anyways... If I had to meet a blogger, or rather if there ever was a blogger I'd like to meet, I'd say one of three people: Annie from The Epic, the Awesome, and the Random because she's just awesome like that; Steph Bowe from Steph Bowe's Hey! Teenager of the Year, because if I did meet her, we'd be in Australia (where she lives); or one/both of the ladies from The Bookshelf Muse, who I've followed for a very long time and who've published one of the few books on writing craft that I actually own.

So, that's my list. How about you? Who would you like to meet, or do you have shyness problems like me? Have a blessed weekend!

Follow Friday #46

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

Q: The #FF is 150 weeks old! And we want to hear from you! What would you change about the hop? What do you like about it? Or just suggest a question to be used for next week!

I don't know if I would change anything. I mean, it's fun the way it is -- answer a question and see the answers. I'm amazed, sometimes, the answers people come up with; and sometimes I'm surprised at what answers I come up with.

Coming up with questions is hard. I'm a bit ashamed to say, I'm glad other people come up with them on this meme -- it provides questions I wouldn't normally think to answer on my blog. And also, I follow a schedule of sorts: Monday is a book review, Wednesdays are randomly assigned to Fun Historical Facts, a Short Writing Spiff, or Psychology Trivia (or sometimes a rant on my personal opinions). Fridays, if I stopped doing FF, I think I would devote to reading/writing Q&A like this. It makes up a goodly portion of my life, you know?

That being said, I haven't participated all 150 weeks and I'm kind of nervous to come up with my own question. What if it's been done before? But I know y'all nice persons won't criticize.

So here goes:
"Do you read the last page of a book as soon as you first pick it up? Or do you prefer to read only the back-cover summary and wait until you've read up to the ending? Why?"

How about you? Any changes/praises/questions for Follow&Friday? Have a blessed weekend!

Follow Friday #45

[ugh. My laptop has a virus, so I'm stuck on the family computer. Bad keyboard, no privacy, and bugs that walk across the computer desk. I have to use a jump drive between my laptop and this computer for my writing, and I can't save anything in my favorites to read later. Like I said -- ugh.]

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

Q: School is out! What is your favorite summer reading book?

 I wish school was out for me. I have until June. (Can you tell I'm in a bad mood?)

Anyways, summer reading... I oftentimes save heavier reading material -- series, or literary classics -- for the summer. I especially save books I might be embarrassed caught reading in school for the holidays.

Last summer, I read Lord of the Rings. (The one volume edition, which is literally over 1,000 pages long.) One of my favorites to read over the summer though, every summer in a sort of tradition, is Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer). That series is so awesome, but I don't like taking them to school with me. Don't know why.

I have a whole slew of others, but the keyboard on this computer truly is sucky, and my favorite TV show comes on in about ten minutes. So I'm cutting it a bit short.

How about you? Having a better week than me? Enjoy reading the harder classics when you have vacation time? Or do you like frilly romances while at the beach?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend! 

Follow Friday #44

[This post will be kinda short because I'm a bit worded out. I took my AP Language and Composition exam this morning. Three essays in two hours, and 55 multiple choice in one.]

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

Q: Happy Mother's Day! Who is your favorite mom from fiction?

Gracious-wisdom... umm, let me think....

I thought Mrs. Jackson from the Percy Jackson series was pretty cool. I mean, she had to be, right? Mrs. Fowl from Artemis Fowl -- she actually showed up a bit more than Artemis Senior (the father). A strong woman who knew about her son's involvement with fairies books before Mr. Fowl.

And, of course, Mrs. Weasley. I can already tell she's probably a popular answer -- everyone loves Harry Potter, but Mrs. Weasley is the mother everyone loves.

How about you? Who are some of your favorite literary mothers? Have a blessed weekend!

 

Follow Friday #43

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

Q: Give us a sneak! What are you reading? Tell us about a fun or fail scene in your current read.

Well, I'm currently reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway. I figured Hemingway was a classic, so I might as well read it, if not to love it then to at least be able to say that I read it. Every writer should know Hemingway, right?

Which reminds me: I will probably not be posting my usual book review on Monday. This is a pretty hefty book (almost 500 pages), and I'm getting through about 50 pages a day. But I should be able to finish it by the end of next week, and I'll be back to my normal schedule.

I haven't really gotten far enough into it to find a fun or fail scene. At this point, a bit less than 100 pages in, there's a guy. He has to blow up a bridge. He meets a bunch of people who're supposed to help him blow up that bridge. And he's met and fallen in love with some beautiful girl, all in one day. The current scene I'm reading is where he's sleeping outside and that girl -- and this is still his first night in the camp -- climbs into his sleeping bag with him. I don't know if this is going to get that intimate (didn't they have something against printing sex scenes in books in 1940?) but I still can't say I approve.

This novel, I admit, is not exactly my favorite so far. But, I hope that with each page that passes, it will grow more interesting. I kinda like that gypsy character, Rafael, who's an eater, not a fighter. I should be able to get through this book.

Anyways, how about you? Reading an awesome book? Any scene or character that catches your eye? Ever read (or loved) Hemingway?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

Follow Friday #42

[Guess what?! My birthday was earlier this week! I'm seventeen, now! AND, my blog's anniversary passed. My blog is a year old. *fake tears* So, I am mildly happy, despite the ton of review stuffs and the AP exams in two weeks.]

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

Q: Is there a song that reminds you of a book? Or vice versa? What is the song and the book?

YES. Absolutely. In case you didn't notice the title of my blog. (I am a musical-linguistic sort of person. I can't help it.)

Here is a list of songs (their artists in parenthesis) and a book to pair with them. Feel free to look these songs up on youtube. Cuz, you know, these songs are cool to me, and I hope you find them cool, too.


New Tail/Short Hair (How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack/Mulan soundtrack) -- Eon by Alison Goodman.*

Any song by Owl City -- The Complete works of Narnia, by (of course) C. S. Lewis.

Kingdom Come (the Civil Wars) -- Foundling by D.M. Cornish.

Any song by Heather Dale -- The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.

Beauty from Pain (Superchick), Beautiful Tonight (Krystal Meyers) --  Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas,

There She Goes (Sixpence None the Richer) -- Scars by Cheryl Rainfield.

According to Plan (The Corpse Bride soundtrack), Demons (Imagine Dragons), Carol of the Bells (Trans-Siberian Orchestra), Awake and Alive/Rebirthing (Skillet) -- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.**


That is not nearly all of it. The title of my blog is the Inky Melody, after all. This is a small sample, because the full list would stretch around the world a couple times. (Not really; it's digital fluff, you understand -- hard to stretch a youtube video and all that.) And this isn't even including the playlist for my own novel, which I still cling to the hope of publishing some day.

Anyways, look up songs and love music and try new stuffs. And whatnot. How about you? Any special music-book connection? Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

*Yea, How to Train Your Dragon is Viking-medieval-y, not really Chinese-ish like Eon. But I still think it fits. Oh, and I purposely didn't include Eona, the second book, because I didn't like it so much as the first.

**Shush up about my Artemis Fowl obsession. Parts of those songs remind me of the book, and to different characters (though mainly, of course, Artemis Fowl himself). Not like, the whole song. Because that is a pretty hefty list of songs, and not even all of them. And in case you were wondering, it's the confident, suave, epic (and sometimes classical-music) parts of the songs that remind me of that series.