Follow Friday #4

The rules are simple: answer the question, follow the hosts - Alison Can Read and Parajunkee - and then follow other people, leaving them a comment with the URL to your blog so they can follow you back.

Today's question:

Birthday Wishes — Blow out the candles and imagine what character could pop out of your cake…who is it and what book are they from?

Who would I choose?... (EDIT: I'm assuming from a friend-wise point of view. I see a lot are about hot guys, which I didn't even consider.) Saphira from Eragon by Christopher Paolini. She's a simple, loyal dragon, yet wise at the same time. How she'd fit in my house is a different question and the FF question didn't mention specifics. :D Perhaps Meggie from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - she's a fellow book lover! Plus, she went inside a book, and can read stuff right off the pages of a book! I'd love to compare reading material with her, and it'd be a dream come true if she could read, like Tinker Bell or maybe a magical cat, out of some book for me.

What about you? Who did you pick? Leave a comment and follow! Have a blessed Friday! <3

Friday Favorites

I'm posting this and the Follow Friday seperate this time, because the Follow Friday is focused on way more.

My week has been pretty lazy. I read books and blogs and I lay on my bed and daydreamed. As well as the normal necessities of life - eating, sleeping, using the bathroom. Overall, I haven't really done anything productive, except for my chores earlier this week and going out once to see Brave.

What did I read this week? I've mainly read Eon by Alison Goodman. Or should I say reread? I decided to read a second time because I recently got the 2nd book, Eona. I love this series so much - it's a perfect blend of Chinese/Eastern mythology (especially of the dragons, and the New Year's cycle of animals), and of an epic high-fantasy world.

I came across this awesome quote the other day, which really got my brain a-working.

"Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out."
~J. K. Rowling

So true! Anyways, here are a couple others:

"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues."
~Rene Descartes

"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
~Thomas Jefferson

"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds."
~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

I did some research on wikipedia about the last name there, May Ann Evans or "George Eliot", and it turns out she was a novelist during the Victorian Era in England. According to wiki:

Mary Anne (alternatively Mary Ann or Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and well known for their realism and psychological insight.
She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.

I find it amazing that a woman during the restrained times of this period could find the audacity to write more than what was expected of her. I've never read her books, but just the fact that she'd publish under a guy's name to avoid being stereotyped is an indication that she was a real-life heroine of her time.

That is pretty much it. I'll just post a couple pictures now.

(I know - Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Doctor Who, all in one post. I am so proud to call myself weird!)

Wednesday Writings: On My Thoughts

I have realized that I never plan these posts out. I just write, and hope y'all are inspired by the randomness that threads itself across the screen.

Do you ever stop to think of the reality of publishing? The reality of your words, in the minds and hearts of other people? It sometimes overwhelms me to think of the subtle, powerful ripple that is made through a population when a new work of words becomes popular.

I think that language/writing is the most mysterious force in nature - how two words with the same meaning can have different connotations; how these meaningless sounds we make somehow have meaning. It's more powerful than birth, or death, or love. It ties us together in a way that those forces cannot accomplish alone.

As writers, we hope our words tie people together: we hope we can tie a reader to a fictional character, to create a bond that withstands anything because one of the two isn't real. We want the babies of our imagination to be loved by other people.

When I think of my writing, and of being published, I don't imagine me being the next Stephanie Meyer. I think of my book, worn with love, squashed between louder books on a library shelf where a lonely little girl will see it and read it and escape reality another day. I see some future English teacher passing out my book to a group of bored students and saying, "Of the big boom in literature of the 21st century, this work is considered among the greatest because..."

Am I worried that the fantastical story of my heart will drown in the sea of paranormal romance? Yes. But do I wonder if my work will be one of those that becomes popular after my death, and then lives for generations? Yes.

I love words. Simple as that. And I wish to share it with the world, even though I've never felt like I belonged with the swearing, skin-showing, people who are looking for love. Because I don't do any of those things. But I wonder if there is some hidden girl out there, who is asexual like me, who is conservative and quiet like me, who thinks like me. And that distance has kept us apart, but if I publish my writing, then maybe she won't feel so alone.

I'm sorry if this bores you, or if you are mystified by the lack of coherent thinking on my part. The point of this post is to express why I love writing. Do any of you ever wonder about any of this? Do any of you feel like this? People are crazy, and emotional, and I can only hope that they can understand each other, like I am asking you to. I don't understand why I felt the need to wander and wonder, but here you go.

(To be clear, this is honestly how I think. I am only sixteen, and I do not drink, or get high; I am just random/crazy/deep sometimes. I don't know what I think of you if you jumped to the conclusion that I am drunk/high, but I can reassure you that I'm not.)

Haha, well...

I don't normally write on Tuesdays. But I was looking through Tumblr... My randomness has an excuse to be random today, because I found an appropriate picture.

:D That's really all I had to say.

Monday Minute

I had an awesome weekend! I went to see Brave with my sister - it was wonderful! I love accents and magic and mythology and strong heroines and... well, pretty much everything else. :D

I don't really have anything planned. I'm not even perfectly sure why I'm posting this. I'm just a little hyper on lack of sleep (the Brave movie ended about midnight last night) and that feeling you get after you've done something productive (which was just halfway cleaning my room without being told).

So, here is a video of a song I've been obsessed with for the past few days, and some pictures from Tumblr:

Which concludes my randomness for the day. Yea, I love Disney a lot. I love a lot of things a lot. :)

FF#3 and Friday Favorites

Wow, it's been a whole week since I posted. I got caught up in doing nothing. :)

FF is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee and, well, you know the rules. Answer the question, follow people, link them back to this post so they can follow you, etc.

Today's Question:

Q: If you could "unread" a book, which one would it be? Is it because you want to start over and experience it again for the first time? Or because it was THAT bad?

My answer... This is a tough one. I might say the Warriors saga by Erin Hunter. I loved that series, but I haven't read it in a long time, and I want to know whether or not I'd love it the first time around if the first aound was now. I mean, I first read it back in the 4th grade, and then again (and again) throughout middle school. But now, after I just finished my sophomore year, and I've read a great number of "higher-level" reading material? Would I still feel the magic, now that I look for the grammatical errors, the plot holes, etc.?
As for one I'd "unread" due to its horrible-ness, I would say... erh.... well, probably Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Not because of anything the author did intentionally, mind you, I just found the end devastating. I won't spoil it for those who've never read (or heard) of it, but it was just mindblowing in a not-so-great way for me. For those who have read it, you might understand what I mean with the whole Game thing. I don't know, I guess sci-fi isn't my favorite genre of all time.

What about you? Leave a comment with your link! Don't forget to follow! <3

As for my favorites? Here are some music videos and quotes:

Quotes:

"That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most."
~Up (the Disney movie)

"If everyone is yelling, no one can be heard."
~Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

"Remember the small things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."
~Robert Brault

"What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice."
~Albert Einstein

It's been a busy week full of reading and daydreaming and sleeping. Sorry I haven't posted all week - I've been too lazy to do much, because I've been reveling in my first week of summer vacation. :)

Have a blessed Friday and keep writing!

Friday Favorites + FF#2

FF is a weekly meme that is hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. The basic rules are:

1. Follow thte hosts' blogs and create a post answering the question.
2. Follow other people's blogs.
3. Link them to this post so they can follow you.
This week's question:
Happy Father's Day! Who is your favorite dad character in a book and why?

1. Mo from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. He's such a laughing, book-loving, nomad father. He loves and protects Meggie through the whole series.
2. Uncle Garrow from Eragon by Christopher Paolini - you got to give him credit for raising Eragon like his own child. And I thought his death was so tragic, because his nephew couldn't save the only father figure he ever had (except for Brom, of course!).

3. Bob from the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix; he raised both Arthur and the other children, even though not all of them were his. Quite a few were adopted or his stepchildren, but he loved them all the same, thouhg clueless about Arthur sometimes.

4. Gaia's dad from Birthmarked by Caragh O'brien, who actually died, but I think he deserves a mention. Gaia remembers her dad throughout the book; he was a fun, laughing kind of dad who loved his daughter and his wife very much.

Those are my answers. And my favorites this week:

I read A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain this week, which took most of the week. I found the large sections of Ye Olde Speak hard to follow. Overall though, it was entertaining up until (but not including) the end.

As for quotes, I found a few wonderfully simple ones:
"Everything you can imagine is real."
~Pablo Picasso
"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"
~Dr. Seuss
"A library is infinity under a roof."
~Gail Carson Levine

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."
~Ernest Hemingway

And the last is a couple pictures from tumblr. (Or possibly deviantart or photobucket. But mainly tumblr.)

That's it for this Friday. Don't forget to follow and comment! Have a blessed weekend! <3