Book List Updated

I just updated my Book List page with the following titles:

• Forest Born by Shannon Hale
• Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale
• Beyonders:  Seeds of Rebellion by Brandon Mull
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Insurgent by Veronica Roth
• Michael Vey:  The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
• Michael Vey:  Rise of the Elgen by Richard Paul Evans
• The Enchantress by Michael Scott
• The 13th Reality:  The Journal of the Curious Letters by James Dashner
• The 13th Reality:  The Hunt for Dark Infinity by James Dashner
• Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings

The best of that bunch was Red Kayak by far.  And it’s funny about that one because it’s a book my daughter needed for school so I bought it used on Amazon.  When it arrived I read the back cover, thought “this sounds good”, so I read it at random and really enjoyed it.  That’s always awesome just reading something out of the blue and finding an unexpected gem.

My second favorite was Palace of Stone.  This is a sequel to Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy, which is one of my favorite books so I was excited about it…but also a little wary because Princess Academy is a great stand alone book (and I thought it was going to stay that way).  Palace of Stone was better than I expected, so that was nice and it didn’t ruin a story I already loved.  Thank goodness for that!

I’ve read approximately 18 new books this year.  That’s a guess, I haven’t been keeping a careful count.  I’ve probably also read an equal number of rereads.  I love rereading good books and when I’ve kept track in the past my new reads vs. old is usually about the same, but again it’s just a guess.  I’m currently reading Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper (a reread, the last book in a very good fantasy series called The Dark is Rising Sequence).  I have The Kill Order and The 13th Reality:  The Blade of Shattered Hope, both by James Dashner, checked out from the library and waiting for me to start this week.

I’m also really excited to read J.K. Rowling’s new book, The Casual Vacancy, coming out at the end of September.  I can’t wait to see how her first non-Harry Potter story is!

Second Manuscript

I did some major revisions on my finished manuscript and a few readers and taken a look at it for me, four have read it and three others have it available to them but they haven’t read it yet.  So far the feedback has been positive and the suggestions helpful.  I know right now what I think the weakest part is, I just need some time to think on how to fix it.  Setting it aside has been good, I put it away for a few weeks before doing the major revisions and that helped me look at it in a more objective and less emotional way.  I’ve also put it away since doing the major revisions, I haven’t looked at it for about a month, and I don’t plan on working on it again until I hear back from a few more of my readers.  It’s out of sight, but not out of mind necessarily.

In the meantime I’ve been working on my second manuscript…which really came first, but I never finished it.  Progress on this work is a lot slower for a number of reasons (lack of routine due to it being summer, more complicated story, and the idea not being completely worked out in my mind yet).  I should still be able to complete the first draft in a few months…but I won’t be done then because this story is long enough that it will probably take two books to tell it all.  Right now I have down about 35,000 words.

The second attempt at finishing a manuscript isn’t any easier than finishing the first one.  I’m not sure it ever gets easier, I just have to sit my butt down each day and write, it’s the only way it gets done.  That’s not to say it isn’t fun and rewarding, because it is, but it’s not easy.  My confidence level seems to fluctuate all the time to, I’m constantly swinging between questioning my work to feeling totally pleased with it…all the time.  Is that normal?  I’m trying to be realistic, because I know my work isn’t terrible, but I also know it will never be perfect (there will always be something I can improve) so I’m trying not to dump on myself or get overly confident.  I’m trying my best to stay calmly in between.

Writing

Hey, it’s been two months exactly from my last blog post.  I really am a terrible blogger, that’s just the way it is and I don’t apologize for it.  Life has been busy with my family especially with school getting out next week (I’ve been swamped with end-of-school activities and my husband was gone for two weeks on a business trip in Asia so I was on my own).

Despite all this I’ve been getting back into a hobby that I’ve let sit for the past few years:  Writing.  I like to write because it’s fun and creative, but it’s something I learned to enjoy only within the past ten years or so.  Around that time I joined a writing group that met once a month and I learned a lot from the people there with much more experience.  Since then I’ve dabbled in it just for fun.  Once, I wrote a novel length story just to see if I could.  Well, I could…but it was a terrible book, I was very unhappy with the final result.  I tried to revise it but I wasn’t into it at all so I gave that one up.  I’m not even sure where it is anymore.

Since then I’ve stuck to short stories but I always felt like I had a lot more to say then a short story allows, the novel continued to call to me.  A few years ago I got an idea for another novel and sat down to write it.  I got about 17,000 words  into it and lost interest, I didn’t think it was going well…but I saved it, thinking maybe I could come back to it later.

Fast forward a few years, during that time I didn’t write much besides blog type posts on my formally owned domain and my Livejournal.  I buried myself in reading instead waiting for a time when I might be inspired to write again.  Earlier this year I read Stephen King’s On Writing and afterwards really just had this boost of confidence that Hey, I can do this.  Not long after a new story idea came into my head and I sat down to write it out.

For two months, and then some, I’ve been working on it in my spare time.  Last week I finally finished it, my first full length novel sized story that I’m really proud of.  It came out to just under 93,000 words.  It’s just a rough draft, of course, but I’m super pleased with it, and unlike my first time around, revising it is not making me cringe and think How could I write that? Ugh!  Just yesterday I rewrote the beginning (something I knew I’d have to do all along) and my happiness with it increased ten-fold.  Yes, it still needs a lot of work.  A lot of work (and I hate proof reading), but it’s a nice feeling to be able to do something like this.  Plus I pulled out my second novel attempt, the one with 17,000 words, I realized it’s not that bad and I might really be onto something concept-wise, so I’m going to take a crack at finishing that one, too…and I’m excited about it.

Just one thing I don’t care for:  I’ve been telling people that I’m writing a book and they all act like it’s going to be brilliant and ask me if I’m going to get it published, etc.  While it’s very nice that people have confidence in my ability to write, I wish they’d read it first before deciding if it’s good.  It might not be and I’m fine with that.  I’m going to have a few of my trusted friends, people I can count on for an honest opinion, read it soon so I can get some real feedback and suggestions.  As far as getting published…it’s a cool idea, and I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to get that far in the long run, but I’m just not there yet.  It’s like progressing down a 100-step process and I’m only on step 2 but everyone else is rushing me to step 100 without considering all the other stuff that has to be done first.  It feels a little like too much pressure so I wish people would stop talking about it until I’m ready to pursue those possibilities.

For now, I just want to enjoy writing because it’s fun and I like it.

More Books and Movies

I’ve been busy lately with “life” but I have had a little time to read a bit and see a few movies, here are my thoughts on those…

First, I’ve been waiting for book two in the Beyonders series by Brandon Mull, I read book one, A World Without Heroes, last year and really enjoyed it.  I got the new book, Seeds of Rebellion, when it came out a few weeks ago.  Boy, it was a let down…and I’m really sorry to say that but it’s truly how I feel about it.  Darn it!  It’s disappointing to be looking forward to something and then find out it’s not what you expected.  Now, I like Brandon Mull as an author, I really do.  I think his Fablehaven series is really creative and fun.  Beyonders was looking to be just as fun and creative but book two fell really flat for me.  It took me a while to try to figure out exactly what I didn’t like and I finally decided that I thought the characters were super weak and not at all explained as well as I would have preferred (the characters in Fablehaven are similarly weak).  Characters are very important to me, if I can’t connect with them in some way or like them at all then I find I don’t care so much about their story.  I liked his characters in Seeds of Rebellion just fine, I just don’t feel like I know any of them very well after two books.  The story itself was okay, a lot happens but it doesn’t flow as well as it should.  I still plan to read the third and final book in this series, but I hope it’s an improvement.

Currently I’m rereading the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, some of my favorite books of all time.  I’ve also been listening to the Harry Potter series on my iPod when I take my walks every day.  I suppose that’s not technically “reading” but whatever.

I’ve seen several movies lately, mostly on DVD, and one in the theater.  First the DVD selections:

• Puss in Boots–I didn’t enjoy this one much, it was only okay.  I don’t know what else to say about it except “meh”.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader–This ones been out for a while but I never found the time to see it, watching it is what made me want to read the Narnia books again.  It was good, but not as good as the books…of course.
• Hugo–I loved this one, a really cute story that’s simple but sweet.  I recommend this one if you like artsy-type of films.

Finally, during Spring Break I hurt my heel a bit on one of my walks so I had to take a break for that to rest it.  So I took an afternoon and treated myself to the movies by going to see The Artist.  I’ve wanted to see this one since I first heard about it, but it took a long time for it to come to a theater near me.  I think it’s gone already again so I’m glad I got to see it while it was here briefly, I really loved it!  It’s a modern silent film in black and white, so it looks old but it’s not.  I just had a lot of fun watching it because it’s so different then the new stuff that comes out nowadays.  It reminded me a little of Singin’ in the Rain, both movies cover the same time period and similar subjects, but the actual plots are totally different (not to mention The Artist is silent and Singin’ in the Rain is a musical).  The Artist also gets much darker in parts which is probably the only reason it’s rated PG-13.  Anyway, fun times.

I’m planning on seeing The Hunger Games as soon as I can, hopefully this coming Friday.  I wanted to see it sooner but “life” won’t allow it, LOL!

Crochet Square

I made this crochet square yesterday, it was my first time attempting the pattern so I know there are errors:

It looks cool but I have no idea what to do with it now, haha.

Movie Review and Progress Update

I took my three kids to go see The Lorax yesterday.  I was looking forward to seeing this movie because The Lorax has always been my favorite Dr. Seuss book with a great message.  Sadly, the movie did a poor job living up to the spirit of the book.

First of all, The Lorax is a musical.  Or maybe not an outright musical, but is full of musical numbers that are highly cheesy and really pretty bad.  In fact, the movie immediately begins with a musical number, during which I couldn’t help thinking, “Please kill me now.”  It was that bad.  What’s even more ridiculous is that Taylor Swift is cast as one of the vocal talents, but she doesn’t sing a word.  I’m not saying she could have saved the bad songs, but you’d think the movie creators would have taken more advantage of the talent available.

Secondly, Dr. Seuss’s simple message became lost in visual extravagance.  Everything about this movie was just overdone and it was just too much.

On the plus side, the animation was fun, the vocal talent was good, and when they weren’t singing it was actually tolerable to watch.  As expected, the story from the original book had to be expanded in order to make sense as a full length feature film, and the story itself was pretty good.  It flowed, made sense, and stayed true to the vision of the book.  However, the ending reminded me quite forcefully of Wall-E, I don’t think it gives to much away to say that it involves a chase over a small sprouted plant.  It seems to me they could have attempted to be more original, or if they felt the need to repeat ideas used in Wall-E they would have followed Wall-E‘s example and kept it simple.

In the end The Lorax wasn’t terrible, but it’s wasn’t great either.  It does not live up to the hype surrounding it (that shouldn’t come as any surprise to me).  I think it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between this film and Wall-E, the latter coming off as the superior offering.

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In other news, I’ve finished moving all of my Quilting Bee pages over to this website.  I’ve also moved up my book list and added to it.  I will continue to periodically add new books as I read them…or remember I’ve read them (haha).

So, all in all, this website is “finished”, as far as I have nothing else to add for now aside from an occasional blog post.  If I find anything worth adding here in time I will.

Recent Reads

I’ve read a few good books lately, interestingly enough they are both non-fiction.  I’ll read pretty much anything, but non-fiction is not a common genre for me.  Anyway, here are my thoughts on both:

On Writing by, Stephen King
This is a combination memoir/tips on writing book written by Stephen King.  I thought it was excellent, especially the writing tips, they were all well explained and useful (good for someone like me who has an interest in writing).  This is, in fact, the first full length book by Stephen King I’ve ever read.  I’ve only read a single novella by him in the past.  His style is not really my style, but I liked this book.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by, Aron Ralston
Another memoir, but this time by a less well known person, although you’ve probably heard his story before.  Aron Ralston is famous for cutting off his own hand when he got it stuck by a boulder while hiking in Utah.  This book is about that experience in his own words along with additional details about his other adventures.  Sometimes books like this aren’t particularly well written but this one was pretty good, although a bit slow in the beginning.  I would still recommend it, his story is a good one.

Header Updated

After repeated struggles I finally updated the header at the top of the site.  It features a photo I took of some of my favorite dolls in my collection and their cute feet.

What I really wanted was a pixel header like I used to have on my domain, but something always got messed up when I uploaded it.  WordPress wants a specific size, so I did that, but it was still resized thus compromising the image and distorting it.  This was extremely frustrating.  In the end I gave up on a pixel image and opted for a photograph, a photograph takes to resizing better then a pixel image and still looks fine.

All I know is I didn’t want to continue using the default image.  I liked the photos included but they weren’t mine nor did they have anything to do with me which made them and the site feel too impersonal.  I’m satisfied now.