Create.

You know, like, make stuff.  I need to do that.  I need to make something for myself, something not school related, something that is satisfying and makes me feel like I matter.  I should really work harder on this novel.  I like it, I like it a lot, but it's hard to motivate myself.
Okay.  Here's the deal(io).  My current wordcount is 3391.  By the time I go to sleep tonight, it will be 8,000 or higher.  And, as an added bonus for my lovely, lovely readers, there will be a drawing, created by me, of something in my bedroom.  Probably my chair.  Or desk.  Posted on the blog.
Making promises is probably a good way to force myself to do stuff.

Today during lunch, I made myself a new twitter profile image.  I like it quite a bit.  I used the tutorial made by the ever-inspiring Door Sixteen.

And here is a random picture that I took quite some time ago.  It's muffins.

Books are sexy

I think if I mention sex more on the blog, I'll get more google hits. We could make this into an experiment with an if-then statement and a writeup and everything. Party time!*
I haven't blogged in eons, but I'm not really sure why. I've been a little bit down lately. Like, I still have times when I'm over the top slap happy excited, but there's something of an underlying current of negativity. I don't know why.
I'm reading Native Son and Merchant of Venice for AP Lit. Aaaaand today I went to the library for TAB and got a book about animation** and when I checked it out, they said I had a hold and it was...dun dun dun...THE VIRGIN SUICIDES.
Do we remember Middlesex? Oh yes we do. I'll be reading this tomorrow, and hopefully it will be just as good, if not better. However, by my first assessment, it's astonishingly thin. I hate thin books. Unless they're The Great Gatsby. That was good. Or...the Eames book that's earned a permanent place in the bedside collection***. Or...novellas.
Novellas. Mmm...Novella project. What do y'all think is an appropriate wordcount for The Novella Project? Is 30k enough? That's when I always seem to run out of story.

*I'm actually considering doing this.
**Stop motion animation coming at some time or another...whenever I have time, which is basically when I get into college.
***Book lovers never go to bed alone.

Reading

I'm reading Hardball right now, for AP gov. It has, quite possibly, the dorkiest book cover of a book that I've actually read. However, it has a Machevelli reference every third page, so there's a few redeming qualities.
If you have an E-reader, do you get that feeling of turning the last page and wishing there was more, feeling like you've lost something that you relied on? Or do you turn the last page and move on to the next book, leaving no time to mourn it's passing? That's the kind of thing that scares me about Kindles and whatnot. Maybe they take away our ability to apprechiate a single book and they merge stories together into a never ending series of entertainment. Do you reread things on a Kindle? And with self publishing, how will we decide what's good? Is it simply what's popular? And is genre simply liking the same things that other people like? Do you finish books as much with a Kindle, or is it another cause of Internet Induced Attention Disorders?
I don't know if it's good or bad.
However, I think reading with the internet offers a new chance for something that I would like to try: Serializing. Having subscribers and getting a new chapter out every week and having readers engaged, it's like television. I love the idea of literary television.
If I was to serialize a novel, it would be the lovechild of Pushing Dasies and Ugly Betty. In book form.
This blog post was kind of a poor argument. I need to work on that if I want to make a living serializing my writing for the world to see.

It's final. I'm a dork

But...Middlesex. Page 497. "The chairs are by Mies too. You see knockoffs everywhere but these are original, warn-out by now, the black leather browning at the edges."
I should go to bed. Really now.

Again!?!?

Middlesex. Page 407. "An Eames chair stood behind the desk.By the window was a Le Corbusier chaise, made of chrome and cowhide."
I would like you to know that this is an awesome book, even without the furniture references.

Just so you know

I just finished Guns, Germs, and Steel. This is an accomplishment, but realize that when I say that I finished it, I mean I got to the epilogue. Harry Potter taught me that nothing good can come from reading past the end of the book. I mean, Hermione/Ron? No. That's just wrong. Nothing good can come from that ship. And who thought that Tom Felton should have a beard in the film version? That was a really bad choice. He's hot. With that beard, he just looks gross. And Harry, give your children better names. The epilogue starts on page 403, but the book ends on page 518, so it's more like I finished the book, sans prologue and epilogue.
You know what this connects to? The other book I recently finished, Empire Falls. It was kind of dumb, mostly because nothing happens in the first 400 pages. If you're going to write that much backstory, call it a prologue so I know to skip over it. And also, a school shooting is taking the easy way out. Really? That was pathetic. It was just like "So, these people live in this small town and everything happens at this diner and they're going to merge with this bar so they can sell alcohol and there's this kid who's kind of messed up and btw, he dumped his grandma's body in garbage and then he shot up his art class (no one ever shoots up their art class. They go to the cafeteria and shoot up the jocks. Really, I learned this shit from wikipedia, where I learn everything else) and then our favourite main characters get the fuck out of Maine."
I can explain the plot of every book I've ever read in long, drawn out sentences.
The Art of Keeping Cool, which I read thrice before I realized that I'd read it before? WWII, kid's dad is in the army, he moves in with his grandparents and spends a lot of time with his cousin, finds out something that's not that exciting of a secret and kinda hates his grandpa for it, and his mom leaves stuff out of his dad's letters when she reads them to him and his sister.
Dude, it's been like four years since I read that book.
Anna Karenina, which is like 800 pages long? I'm Anna Karenina and I'm Russian, I went to hang out with my brother and make sure his wife doesn't leave him and while I was doing so, I met this other guy, Vronsky, who just happens to have the same first name as my husband and then later on, I move in with him and have a kid with him, and then way later, I throw myself in front of a train.
Catcher in the Rye, which every tenth grader in the universe is required to read? I'm Holden and I'm pretty angsty and I just got kicked out of my fancy pants prep school, and I'm going to New York and I'm wearing this red had and asking some questions about ducks because I'm the duck and what happens to me in the winter when the pond freezes over?
You're welcome for that bit of literary education that I just gave you, free of charge. I accept gummy worms as your thanks to me.
Also, if I eat a lot of gummy worms, couldn't it be said that I eat a diet of worms? Get it? Get it? Every time I think of that, I laugh my head off. It's my facebook status right now.
I might be a dork.
In other news, me wanting to go to church alone today turned into a three hour expedition to my grandparent's house. Sometimes, I get angry at my mother. I realize that I should never tell her where I'm going. How long 'till I move out again? Less than a year? Good.

...

I just read Outliers. It was good. Really good. One of the few times in my life that I've actually enjoyed a non-fiction book. It challenged my world view, and that's what books are supposed to do, isn't it? They're supposed to make you question everything that you've taken for granted, and, well, change things. That was deep.
It made me question my attitudes towards school a lot. I remember, the last time I could have been considered to be good at math was 7th grade. I would always finish my tests and homework last, and I kind of thought that it was bad, that there was something wrong with me because it took me so long. That was addressed in the book. I remember some teacher (okay, I'm 95% sure of who it was) saying something about student's motivation and rice paddies, and there was a whole chapter devoted to that. There was a lot about the lucky break, and how sometimes the lucky break isn't just one thing, it's a lot of things that happen to line up. I remember reading something about how babies born in November and December tend to be less successful later in life, and the article I read attributed it to the number of babies concieved by younger parents on prom night. This though, said that it was the number of January 1st cut off dates that made the difference. Since the cut off date for starting kindergarten in Michigan is December 1st, my brother started kindergarten a year later than I did, and he went to school all day. I started kindergarten when I should have and went to school for a half day. If we follow the logic in this book, it's no wonder that it took me so much longer to learn how to read.
In short, this was awesome. I read it straight through, except for the three times when I thought I should go to sleep, turned out the light, rolled over, closed my eyes, decided that sleep wasn't going to happen any time soon, and started reading again.

Short.

I read this and I liked it, despite how I feel about the author's face. And you all know how I feel about his face, right?

On Animals...and Orwell...and sci-fi/fantasy

I finished reading Animal Farm today. You should be happy for me, considering the fact that in recent years, I've had the attention span common in my generation, courtesy of google, and as a result, I've had a lot of trouble finishing books*. This is a personality flaw.
I liked it. I liked it a lot, because I felt like every third word was a reference to something that I knew. I'm not generally a person who gets symbolism on the first (or fifth, for that matter) reading, but in this, it was all blatantly obvious. I think that might detract from the story, a little. I know that it's all about communism, that's what all my post-its were saying, but I'm not sure if I think it was really a good story. It just wasn't entertaining. That might be shallow of me, to want to be purely entertained by books. I want them to make me think too, but I want it to be a good read, without being too simple or overdone with symbolism.
This porridge is a little too hot or too cold in both aspects, I think.
The problem that I often have with science fiction and fantasy books is often that the author gets too caught up in their big imaginary world to bother to develop their characters. Animal Farm had none of that, because history developed the characters, but there was still something that wasn't quite right about it. Maybe if I read it again, it will have more of whatever I'm looking for. I do wonder if it's just some innate issue that I have with sci-fi/fantasy, that no matter what, I'm determined to find something that's wrong with it. This is kind of strange, given that the steampunk thing/novel five is something of a fantasy. What am I doing writing fantasy? I don't even read fantasy!
This is a strange decision on my part.
Was this photo a tragic attempt at being like someone else? Maybe.
Today was also exciting because...I got to go inside the new library. My town has been building a new library for what, a year and a half now, and it's very close to being done. I was taking part in their commercial, and I had a chance to look around. It's going to be marvellous. Marvellous enough that it almost makes me want to live here. Almost.
*However, I've maintained a strong relationship with commas over the years.

In which I bemoan my tragic life. In other words, everything I've ever blogged about.

I have a cold, and I feel very yucky.
I wanted everyone to know that. I'm currently sitting around in my pyjamas and thinking of things that I could do that do not involve doing the copious amounts of homework that I should be doing. I have not made any advances on the college question. I have not made any advances on the career question. Progress on the book is at a standstill*, and I saw Alice In Wonderland last night. I want the book to look like that, but with less colour. Would that be a good backdrop? Because it's going to have a lot of characters (think Harry Potter. When in doubt, always think Harry Potter) and I want it to feel sort of steampunk-ey. Does that all fit together? Would that work?
Maybe progress will be made on the book after all.

*The book is currently in planning stages. It doesn't have a title, apart from "the steampunk thing" and the "they're going to do...something" and "Novel 5" writing on this novel will occur when school gets out.

No really, I'm a positive person.

I read Wintergirls last night, making it the first book I've finished in 2010. I paused my reading three times, once to put on my pyjamas and twice to consider studying for French. It was really good, but reading it right before you go to sleep is not a very good idea. I don't usually remember my dreams, but last night, they freaked me out a lot more than dreams ever should.

Before we start, I would like to show you We All Have Secrets. It's like PostSecret (which I adore), only a little different.
Today someone said that the only books I like are unoriginal. This is absolutely true. However, they had this negative connotation of unoriginal, and that doesn't make any sense to me. Everything about me is completely unoriginal, yet I still find a way to like myself. The clothes I wear are unoriginal and mass produced, the hairstyle shared with thousands, the books I like, depending on which ones, are shared with millions. I have nothing original around me, and I'm fine with that. I think there's this overwhelming desire to consider anything original to be good, that we lose the beauty of having something completely unoriginal done very well. I can go to school and read the same book that every other kid in America has to read, and I can still love it. I can love watching the same movie over and over the same way I can love talking to the same people over and over. If the book is good, and the movie is good, and the people are interesting, then what is there stopping me from enjoying it? We've had enough people on the planet who have had some inclination to create things that there's almost nothing original out there. Everything has been tried before, but it's a little bit different every time, and that's why it's interesting.
On the other hand, origionality does have it's values. I could write a completly origional novel about the Glaggeden, a group of creatures that live on a star. They live on a star because no other authors think of writing about creatures that live on a ball of firey gas. These creatures can not talk, because all those other novels have talking creatures. They can not have internal conflict, because all those other novels have internal conflict. They can not have a war with some sort of other creatures, because all those other novels are about war. In fact, because literature has an overabundance of characters that are creatures, I am considering of making them into plants instead. We have an award winning novel coming up as soon as I can figure out what happens in it.

I like this idea

I had this idea last night, and I'm not sure if it would work or not. I'm considering having my main character be in a relationship. Not a happily ever after type thing, but to contribute to the "I've messed up my whole entire life" scene. I like this scene quite a bit, it's the only one I've thought out entirely, and it inspired the whole thing.
I hate happy endings.

Figuring.

I wrote this out of no where a couple weeks ago. I think it kind of pulls everything in my life together, but I'm not sure if I like having everything in my life pulled together like that.

I think I like books because I am an incredibly lonely person. When I was ten, I had no friends, so I read books. I was lonely and sad and angry, and no one at all knew what I was feeling.
Except for them. I could go to them anytime, and they accepted me and more importantly, they loved me back. That's why I write. Because Holden will always be lonelier than you, Harry will always be under more pressure than you, the Baudelaires will always be less fortunate than you, and Anne will always be more killed by Nazis than you. That is huge and comforting ot me, and I think it's huge and comforting to other people too.

I'm nearly to the end of Travels with Charley, and it's making me think about one thing. You already know what that thing is, probably.
I'm thinking about home. Not home as a place, but home as a set of ideas that you carry with you. I'm thinking of all these schools that aren't here. They aren't going to be here, and if I go to them, I probably won't be living at home. How doe we create a home for ourselves outside of the place we've known? Maybe this is striking me more because I've always lived here, but it does make me wonder. If I moved to some other city, how often would I see my parents? How often would I see my grandparents? How do you keep in touch with people when you never see them? When you're old, do you still have the same friends?
God, this idea of moving is almost as interesting as the idea of going to college. It would almost be worth it to move someplace else and not bother going to college at all, at least not right away.
We're going to forget that I ever suggested that last idea.
In other news, it's Christmas break. I'm allowing myself the weekend to slack off a bit, but after that I have to study quite a bit for APUSH and finish my extra assignment from physics and finish my self portrait for art and clean my room. There's a novel that needs a hellava lot of planning too, but I don't know when that's going to happen.

On My Mind

I have three things on my mind right now. They are copyright law, e-books, and primary documents. I could tie them together somehow, but that would be quite the strech, so we're leaving them linked by my lovely comma abuse.
Copyright law
I sort of feel like copyright law is becoming more and more irrelevant in the age of the Internet. I want to watch movies and listen to music for free. But, at the same time, if someone was stealing content that I made and making money off it, I would be pissed. In short, I should get content that other people generate for free, as long as I do nothing that would involve making money off it.
E-Books
I read the blogs of a couple agents occasionally. One of these agents had a post about the future of e-books. Before reading this, I was not a fan of the e-book concept (even though I've read novel-length works on my computer before) because it always seems to involve buying an expensive device that you can't even read all the books you want to on. I'm not particularly hard on my books, but I'd much rather ruin a four dollar used book than a two hundred and eighty dollar Kindle. However, he approaches it from a different perspective, which makes sense, considering that he's in publishing, not a reader. He thinks that this recession combined with changing technology will result in a rearranging of the publishing industry. This is similar to what I was already thinking, but he applies this to books instead of newspapers. I think that the newspapers that are going to be sucessful in the age of blogs and online news are the ones who embrace and use the changing media to their advantage. He thinks that the role of the publisher may no longer be editing books and printing them and sending them out to booksellers, but it will evovlve into more editing and marketing books. With e-books, one could self-publish very easily, but publishers would still be out there to edit and market a book, and many books would be more sucessful with the help of a publisher. I'm sort of warming up to the concept of e-books.
Primary Documents
Today in APUSH we got to hear about how we should participate in class more often. I participate in class, but during this talk I did my physics homework and pondered the reasoning behind my teacher's strange beard. A students use class time well. Later, we were finishing up this activity in which we read and analyzed a bunch of primary documents. I made a joke about how I was going to go home and analyze another group of primary documents and then write a DBQ. Just for the fun of it. The recepient of this joke thought I was serious, which made me consider actually doing this. If I can't sleep tonight, you know what you'll see on the blog tomorrow.

The Difference.

When I was twelve, I wrote an essay about how JK Rowling was my role model. A part of me still wants to be her.
I just hit 20k on Milton's story.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is 257, 045 words long. Because I'm the kind of person who can only measure success in 50,000 word increments, that's more than five NaNoWriMos.

The Interwebs

I'm thinking about the internet and how it blurs the line between fiction and reality. More specifically, I'm thinking of Paige Railstone, publishing, and John Green.
DJ Railstone intrigues me. Am I more real than she is? I, after all, am not a DJ and have never been to Estonia. Her life is probably more interesting than mine is. She has more internet presence than I do. She has more fans than I do. Is she real? Am I real? Or am I an effort by myself and the people around me to create something that fills a space? This concept is making my head spin just a little. If Milton had his own website and facebook and twitter, would he be real? If Hogwarts was a real castle with real students going to school there, might Harry Potter be real?
Publishing is interesting. I really don't think that novel legnth fiction is dead, but I think that it's changing. I think it's possible that it would be normal to read most books on a FanFiction.net type website. Everyone could publish things and make money off of them, but the ones being the most sucessful would be the ones who have the most readers, getting the most advertising revenue. I'm not sure if this site would be free to read or not, but if it was, you've got a lot of your copyright issues gone right there. Still, the idea of never having a paper book to hold and read and hi-lite (okay, I can't write in most books, but some people do) sort of bugs me. And yes, I think it's cool that the internet messes with things that have been the same, physically, for hundreds of years.
John Green makes fictional characters real. It's not his writing, although that's good. It's stuff like Omnictionary, having facebook pages for fictional people, having nerdfighters, having the school in Looking for Alaska be remarkably close to a real school. This is really cool. Authors like John Green and Jackson Pearce (although her book isn't out yet, so I have not idea how real the characters will become) feel like real people, and that is really, really cool.

Rebecca

I finished Rebecca (the Classic tale of Romantic Suspense!) last Saturday. It was really good.
What I thought was sort of strange was the DeWinters' relationship. Mrs.DeWinter feels like she'll never fit in at Manderly and is sort of distant from her husband in the beginning of the book. Then, she finds out what happened to Rebecca, his first wife, and everything is suddenly better. If you found out that your husband killed his first wife, wouldn't it make sense to be a little bit freaked out? The only thing she was worried about was him getting caught.
Also, Rebecca was sleeping with her cousin. Creepy!
Also, am I the only one who would go to someone's home before getting married to them?
Also, Manderly sounds absolutly amazing.

"We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."
I'm reading All Quiet on the Western Front, just wondering how much you can regret something before you explode.