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.

    

All About Character: On Theodosia

Let me tell you a little something about characters: the story is all about them. People force me to read literary fiction in classrooms, but that is the reason no one my age reads any more (besides people like me). Literary fiction about how it is written, not the main subjects of the story.

And so, this is why I feel the need to talk about my favorite stories characters. Because sometimes, main character or not, "likeable" or not, I need to express the warmth and love that fills my mind when I read good characters.

R.L. Lafevers -- yes, the author of Grave Mercy -- wrote Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, which kickstarts the series of a young, curious girl prodigy whose main job is to take curses off of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Theodosia... she's the girl I wish I was. At eleven years old, she juggles secret societies and vile magic and parents who simply don't understand. She doesn't whine or complain, even though this is the early 1900s and she is expected to behave in a more "polite" manner than sleeping in a sarcophagus and pattering about her father's museum. She rolls up her sleeves and gets to work, researching (in dusty old tomes) or collecting wax (it soaks up curses pretty well) or avoiding trouble (which, of course, always seeks her out).

What I love about Theodosia is her voice. Not old beyond her years, weighed down by her important duties; but not frivolous and empty-headed, like the girls in that boarding school her parents neglected to send her back to. She gets exasperated by the adults around her. She is wise enough not to elaborate on her role in keeping her parents safe from the magic her mother brings back from archaeological expeditions. She has her own scientific methods for getting rid of the curses.

Of course, I am neck-deep in Book 4. But I will focus on Book 1, the Serpents of Chaos. Theo, as she's sometimes called, has no qualms about looking peculiar. She's entirely unafraid of meeting new people, but loves her time researching in the museum's library. In fact, she creates a network of allies to help keep her (relatively) safe and informed.

I am not entirely sure I would be as level-headed if I were in Theodosia's position. This is what I love about her. She meets a secret society and holds a powerful Heart of Egypt amulet, and she doesn't bat an eye. The Serpents of Chaos, as they're called, steal the amulet, but Theo has A Plan. And it doesn't involve returning it to her mother, where it might get stolen again.

Of course, the other secret society she meets (for one secret society is just never enough) is on the side of "good." The Chosen Brotherhood takes curses off of objects as well, but none of them have the same ability to sense it as Theo does. And they help her out, a little, but Theo stands on her own. She creates her own plans, and implements them.

I guess, if I'm being honest, I love Theo's abilities as well. I mean, how amazing and dangerous and exciting is the ability to detect Egyptian curses? And she doesn't just guess; she's not new to this ability. She rolls up her sleeves and applies her First Level Test (wax) and Second Level Test (moonlight) to determine what the curses, she researches how to get rid of it, and performs spells with leftover bits and pieces (of gold wire, chips of red stone, colorful thread, and more). Fantasy stimulates my imagination more than almost any other type of fiction, and Ancient Egypt captures my attention more than almost any other time and place.

Theo has flaws, of course, but I find myself not caring. She can be a bit bumbling and naive. She can (and does) trust the wrong people, hate the right people, and sometimes botch up her relationship to her parents or her younger brother. But she's eleven. She is allowed to be human, in all of that complicated mess of dealing with other people.

Most of all, I think, Theo is unafraid to be all of the things mentioned above. She is unafraid of being the only one to see curses, of trusting the wrong people, of coming face to face with orders of men dedicated to chaos. She never apologizes for it. And I love her fearlessness, because fear never holds her back from the sort of adventure people love reading about.

If you have never had the pleasure of picking up this book, I recommend it. Theodosia is a complex, confident character, and whether you like Ancient Egypt or not, whether you read fantasy or not, this series is worth reading for her.

Have a blessed day.

Fantasy and the Hobbit

So, I've finished re-reading the Hobbit for a school summer project. (No, I'm not going to underline it. It's practically a common noun by now.)

And I must say, I rather enjoyed it this time around. I mean, it still took me a week to get through it, but... it wasn't detestable, once I started accepting the ending. I mean, he didn't have this epic showdown with the dragon, but in a roundabout way, he DID somewhat cause Smaug's death. Anyways, the writing, rest of the plot, and ploys used were nowhere near as bad the second reading through.

So I figured I would give you a list of my favorite fantasy tropes, as used in The Hobbit.

Favorite Things About Fantasy

1. War! The Battle of Five Armies, people. (Even though, technically, it was more like six or seven armies, when you include the Eagles and Gandalf. Good old Tolkien.) There is no other genre where magic and magical creatures can turn everything into an unpredictable, completely befuddled mess.
2. Magic! You just have to love Gandalf's fires that drive off the Wargs in that scene after getting away from the goblins. And the Ring -- no one could forget that. 
3. Evil Forest! Because, ya know, the Mirkwood just isn't as cool if it's easy to get through.
4. Shape-shifters! We once had a cat named Beorn, and I didn't get the reference until years later.
5. Dragons and hoards of gold! I want to write a book about dragons one day. Not like Smaug-dragon, but a relatively good one. And also, hoard of gold.
6. Evil goblins! Somehow, stories seem a lot better when goblins are evil. I don't know why. I mean: the Hobbit, Artemis Fowl... 
7. Hobbits! How many people don't want to be a hobbit? Second breakfast, nice home under a hill, natural stealth, etc etc etc.
8. Neolithic landscapes! Yea! For some reason, the whole unspoiled-by-indutrialization landscape is easy on me. (Is it neolithic, or medieval? The Hobbit, I mean? Because it has the monarchy... but only deep into LoTR. Mostly, it's a quiet hobbit neighborhood, a vast stretch of wilderness, and then one human town who bows to a King under the Mountain, who is not human.)

As well as plenty of other things, but we'll not make this a super-long post. What about you? What are your favorite fantasy tropes?

Have a blessed Monday (if there's such a thing)!     

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.

Music and Myself

Happy last day of the month! The ending of a February, the beginning of a March. It's been a rough February, I'm not gonna lie: and March will probably be worse. But Spring Break is the first week of April! Yay!

Anyways, I don't have much to post about. I'm rewriting my rough draft again. I really need to work on my pacing and detailing; my last draft's topped at 50k words. I feel like my character hates me for this, but I'm also reworking the plot. Again.

I hate that I have an entire world and an entire person, and I cannot seem to write her story because I have no actual plot. Every plot I contrive feels, unsurprisingly, contrived.

But I didn't write this to rant about writing. (Ooh, I love alliteration. =D) I can't really remember why I sat down to write this post, either, so I thought I'd post you some music suggestions, songs I listen to for a certain mood. Like a lot of writers, I like music on while I'm working. Look them up on youtube, if you have a chance. They are generally free of swear words and have deeper meanings than parties! (And I'm not so good with music genres, and I focus more on songs, so it really would do best to actually listen to the songs.)

Heavy
Welcome to the Masquerade -- Thousand Foot Krutch
Frontline -- Pillar

Sad
The Good Left Undone -- Rise Against
Iris -- Goo Goo Dolls

Chill
I Dare You To Move -- Switchfoot
It Ends Tonight -- All American Rejects

Upbeat
Boomin' -- Toby Mac
Live It Up -- Group 1 Crew

Odd/Creepy/Crazy/I don't really know what to call this one....
Mordred's Lullaby -- Heather Dale
Better Dig Two -- The Band Perry

Inspirational
Even If It Breaks Your Heart -- Eli Young Band
The Lost Get Found -- Britt Nicole

Wow, I did not realize how much music I listen to. This is the briefest sample of my favorite music; I had to delete two from each section so you wouldn't get freaked out by the length of this blog post. It was kind of cool to go back through my notebook of songs and write some down for you -- I should do this more often. My blog is the Inky Melody, after all.

Anyways, I hope you listen to some of these songs, if you don't know them already. And if you do know them, congratulations! You can listen to them more. If you don't end up liking these songs, that's alright, too.

Have a blessed Thursday! =D

Follow Friday #32

Happy First of February! (That alliterated! Sweet! =D Sorry, I love alliteration perhaps too much.) Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

Q: What is the first thing you would do if you woke up to find yourself in your favorite book?

It depends on which I'd get to wake up in. I have a lot of favorites, really. I have so many favorites, I have to separate them between my greater-favorites bookcase and my lesser-favorites bookcase. But of course, I am in love with fantasy, so I would probably first of all perform magic.

Magic is epic. If I woke up in Hogwarts, I'd try to levitate myself. (Or a feather, perhaps.) If I woke up in Inkheart (or Inkspell, really), I'd go sightseeing. (Fairies, underwater creatures, oh-goodness-the-possibilities...)

Or I'd go riding on a dragon. Find an invisible spell in some world. Capture a tooth fairy!*

It really, really, depends on the world. But you can bet your giraffe the first thing I'd do involves observing or performing magic. Your giraffe would be perfectly safe, and the person you bet against would mournfully hand over their panda bear. Or you could be nice and tell them they can keep their panda bear; there's really not enough space in your house for more than one bigger-than-a-human animal.

How about you? What would you do? What obscure books have you read that would be lovely (or at least epic; don't want to go into some of these book-conflicts!) to jump into? Have a blessed Friday!

*What the Dickens: the Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy by Maguire. Truck yea, I pick good books.

On History Stuffs #2

So, every Wednesday, I'm going to post random little spots of history, for your use as the beginnings of research or just for fun (because trivia IS fun). This week's topic:

The French Revolution "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"

What it Was:

• began in 1789
• overthrew the Bourbon monarchy
• created a republic
• ended with Napoleon's rise and the creation of his empire

Causes:

• changes in ideology (the Enlightenment)
• social changes (population growth --> not enough food)
• First Estate and Second Estate were the clergy/nobles, who were small social class: most of the people were the Third Estate, or the day laborers.
• Sharp economic slump, that King Louis XVI tried to fix with unpopular tax reforms

The Rev:

• Third Estate formed a new assembly (National Assembly), made of non-noble property owners
• They wrote Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen --> advocated freedom of thought/equality for all
• They formed a strong parliament
• Stormed the Bastille (a prison), where they didn't free many but started the rev
• Eventually captured the king and queen -- Queen Marie Antoinette organized an escape for the royal family, but failed.

The Reign of Terror:

• Led by Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety
• excessive use of the guillotine (including on King Louis)
• try to replace the church/religion with nationalism and Enlightenment reason
• Robespierre himself is eventually beheaded by the guillotine

The Final Phase:

• Napoleon Bonaparte takes charge, becomes emperor
• reduced parliament, limited freedome of expression
• powerful police system, universities to train bureaucrats, male equality, religious freedom
• Aggressive expansionism, gaining territory for France all through Europe
• Eventually stopped by Russia --> it was winter, in Russia... his soldiers could not survive.

Results:

• Congress of Vienna (1815) --> France not punished as long as European balance of power is restored.
• Revolutionary ideas spread across Europe inspiring other revolutions and demanding changes (and to other parts of the world, i.e. Latin America)

Now, this scrapes the bare minimum of the French Rev. This is all I gleaned from my notes, since I'm in a bit of a rush. There's a TON more stuff about this particular topic, and it's quite fascinating. I recommend at least googling it.

This is one of my favorite topics, actually. I don't know why, it's just all the... blood, and spirit, and how everyone really believed that killing the King and Queen would solve an economic/social crisis. I mean, America did something similar, in declaring their rights as equal to their "superiors", Britain, but America always struck me as less bloody, perhaps because it was a formal war.

I didn't really put how all this affected other places, but it did. It seriously screwed up Europe: part of the Congress of Vienna was going back and rearranging the borders of all the countries again, because France took so much. And it disturbed American politics, as well, and as I said, inspired a bunch of other revolutions in Europe. But this post is more on the Rev itself, on France in this time period. If you want more specifics, Google it.

Again, I have a historyteachers Youtube video. It'll give you a bit more specifics.

[I used my history notes from AP World History last year on this post. And a spot of info from a notebook I kept in elementary school, which I didn't remember until I flipped through it. Weird. Anyways, citing my sources and all that.]

What do you think of the French Revolution? Have a blessed day!