A Little Flare

I want something new. I want something that draws you in and refuses to spit you back out, that makes real life seem distant. I want it to make you cry when it's over. I want them to reach into your hearts and bury themselves there, so that it takes days for you to get things back to normal. I want humor, and action, and drama. I want originality and to test the lines of taboos. All of these things I want to encompass in my first novel series, and so many more.

I'm not a magician (sadly) or Cassandra Clare. I finished reading the Mortal Instruments series last night and was so heart-stricken to find out that there wouldn't be another book for a year that I could hardly sleep. In between reading, I worked, and it felt surreal. That's what a really good book does to you. It has to feel real, something I have trouble with.

I don't want to put Anya's story away. She is the character that's most alive to me out of all the ones I've written. Her story shines, and I absolutely love the ideas that come to me when I work with her. But I must face the fact that although her story is somewhat original, it is based on a very overused concept. I must realize that although I think I've injected enough originality to combat this, I might not have the talent to write such a story.

There's a good reason for this, which hit me in the gut last night while I puzzled over ways to fix Anya's story. The problem arises because she has no memory. Every story I've read that feels real to me has a common thread: the main character reflects on the reality versus the fantasy. With Anya, she wakes up in the fantasy with no memory of the reality. For a better author with more experience, this can be fixed, but the fact remains that I am not that author. I have very little experience with young adult fiction. Although I've been writing for seven years, I've always focused on adult romance and suspense, something that's a sort of "comfort zone" for me. There's always the same basic outline, always the same basic ideas, and you just twist them in your own, unique way. For this, the most important thing is your writing style, not your story, or even your characters. It's your "readability" that is supposed to draw in the reader.

With young adult fiction, the sky is the limit. The story is the heart of the novel, the backbone of the book or series. You can mold it however you want, taunt the reader by making them think one thing, then yank the carpet from underneath them and throw them into a magnificent twist. I wanted this freedom, I have it now, but I haven't yet mastered how to use it.

The point of all this rambling is this: I don't want to write a new novel. I have no idea if I'll even try to write it or get it published if I do. It may be nothing like what I wanted, and it may be everything. My plan is to work on a concept that hasn't been worked with before, or at least not often.

I'm taking the idea from a novel I wrote called Chasing Shadows. It was a half-assed attempt I made at the age of thirteen that came out a decent 60k words. It was about two thieves going after the same prize, a cursed artifact that was both alluring and deadly. They both went after it, they had to fight each other for it, and they were nearly caught, leaving empty handed. In the end they had to trust each other to get get inside the building and figure out who it was that was stalking them and seemed to know at least one of their identities, and of course, they fell in love.

I adored this novel. It was so fun to write, even if it didn't turn out particularly well. I love the idea of thieves, cloaked all in black, a villain and yet somehow the hero of my tale. So I've decided to make an attempt at a story about thieves again, this time a YA (young adult) novel with a paranormal element.

I haven't figured out much more than that. I may not ever write a word of it, but I'd like to try. There's so much I want to try with this series that I've never tried before. One of the hardest will be figuring out how to make it into a series. That, and finding the time to write it (sigh).

Conversion

Under normal circumstances, I would probably put something like this on my Tarot blog, but since this is going to majorly affect my life, I decided to put it here. And besides, it's been a while since I posted anything at all.

If you're on my Facebook, you probably know what I'm talking about. If I haven't told you, I'm converting to Paganism. Why? Well, I was raised loosely Christian, and despite the fact that I really liked going to church and feeling like I was a part of something bigger than myself, I never really felt the connection to what I was being told. At first, I thought it was just the denomination of Christianity that didn't fit, but after going through a multitude of churches ranging from Baptist to a very liberal church that openly welcomed homosexuals (like my aunt, who introduced me to the church) to pray with them, I soon discovered that there was a bigger problem. But what could it be? I could feel the presence of a power higher than myself, and I felt someone listening when I spoke, so that could only be God, right?

Eventually, I broke away from the Christian community because, really, what was the point? Nobody believed the way I did, and I didn't want to feel pressured any more than I wanted to pressure them by talking about the differences in our beliefs. I've floated in limbo this way for a long time, until just recently.

The day after my 18th birthday, I finally decided to go get a deck of Tarot cards. I've always had a fascination with the unknown and believed that there was a mystical side of the world that was outside the realm of explanation. I myself have had deja vu since I was small, a cognition strong enough that I recognize every minute detail of a situation as it unfolds (including my thought processses, the way everyone moves, the way the wind blows, sounds, etc.) as if the moment in time had happened exactly the same way before. It's impossible to really explain and probably impossible to understand unless you've experienced it yourself.

I don't know what inspired me to buy a Tarot deck, but despite my feeling that there is something mystical about the world around me, the accuracy of the deck was enough to really shock the hell out of me. I worked a good 15 readings the first day, and all the questions I came up with were answered as if someone was speaking to me, and sure enough, they came true. It was an enlightening experience I'll never forget, even if I never took up another Tarot deck.

Anyway, this led me to do more research on Tarot, which led me to a youtube channel by Sayge Sorrel. She had quite a few really interesting vlog videos about her life as a new Pagan and her experiences as she became accustomed to it. Her views were so surprisingly similar to mine that I began looking into Paganism, and found information that was nearly identical to my beliefs, give or take a few details. I eagerly threw myself into finding out more, and this is what I've found:

Paganism is an envelope term, like "Christian." There are many different denominations (or traditions), the foremost being Wiccan. Although I do participate in Wiccan rituals, I don't like using the term because many posers my age like to pretend to be Wiccan "Witches" and I don't like to be associated with uneducated fools. Just sayin'.

Anyhow, there are many traditions and values associated with Paganism, which I'm looking into, but the basic belief is that the world around us is a blessed place, and we are all good so long as we make good choices. Everything in the universe is united and works together to create what is around us. Most Pagans worship a God and a Goddess, which I fully intend to do for one reason -- I believe in a power greater than myself. I don't believe this power is male or female, or that it is any number, including one. To worship that which I believe created us all, taking on the roles of God and Goddess to describe it simply takes the ideas I worship and separates them out in a way that allows me to better pray for something. If I was to pray openly to one diety, it would be a goddess, simply because I'm a woman and I feel more openly connected to a female power than a male one.

I don't know for certain if other Pagans view the God and Goddess the way I do. I'm still studying, but I feel comfortable with this religion. It's very relaxed and centered on every individual's views. Most Pagans support free exploration of your personal views, and many denominations are a mixture of religions (including some outside of Paganism) that match what they believe. There is no central government for their churches, and nobody points fingers at sinners.

Please forgive any statements that seem to be bashing Christians. I mean no ill will. I fully believe the diety known as God and my diety are one in the same. As Ghandi said, "Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take a different road, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarreling?"

Blessed be! ♥

'Bowling For Soup' Had it Right

The title of this blog post refers to the song High School Never Ends by Bowling for Soup, but for me I guess it would be College Never Ends.

This isn't really interesting, but it's going to play an important role in my life, so I decided to blog about it anyway. I've decided that I'm going to get two Bachelor's degrees, a Master's, and go to law school. Insane, right? Probably, but I've been panicking at the thought of leaving the student world and joining the career world (I don't count my job at Target as a career). It's still quite a few years off, and I know exactly what I want to be, but lately my classes are flying by (literally...I just finished my first 2-week Sociology class) and I've been trying to figure out how to get where I want to be while weighing the risk/benefits.

See, primarily I want to be an author, but I don't want to count on it to pay the bills, so I decided to become a literary agent. To do that, I have to get a Bachelor's, Master's, go to law school, probably get some experience as a lawyer, move to NYC, find a job in this god-awful economy, make connections with people in the literary field quickly, find and recognize talented writers, work my butt off to get their work published, and then hope that it pays off (because I get a percentage of their earnings). You can probably see the risk with this career. Overall, my future wasn't looking so good.

Then, in my Sociology class last week, someone mentioned that they were going into social work. I don't know what happened, but I have been hung up on it ever since. I know it involves kids (which I hate) and a lot of work for very little money (even though I'm cheap and greedy) but I couldn't stop thinking about what I could do in that kind of position. I can help people (even if they aren't always grateful), I can make the transition easier for people who would otherwise be facing someone cold and emotionless who thinks little of them, and maybe I can do something important with my life.

So, here's my plan. I'm going to get my degree in social work (whatever that degree is) and start going into that while I get my English Literature degrees (Bachelor's and Master's) and start working toward law school. I'm going to try to publish the next book I finish, which means I'll be working with a lit agent and can check out what the job entails while I'm getting there, and in the end I might just end up in NYC with a job I enjoy that miraculously paid off, or anywhere I want to be, doing something important with my life (even if my paycheck is suffering for it).

It'll be crazy for the next dozen years or so, but for some weird reason, I'm looking forward to it.

Reality Check

Today was the first day of my spring classes, and I left early enough that I could get there in time to find a parking spot, walk a ways if I had to park in the boondocks, and find my class. I got there to see cones lining off the streets, men in reflective jackets, and a bunch of sports-loving idiots walking across the roads in front of cars where there isn't even a crosswalk.

I love that colleges take the random public more into consideration that the students that are keeping them open. We pay out thousands of dollars to them, we work our asses off and donate our time to them. Most of us have jobs on top of going to school full time. But none of this seems to matter the whoever puts together the events, because they decided to have an event and cordon off half of the largest parking lot on campus, the one right next to my class, for a bunch of flag-waving, painted morons, most of which never even GOT a college degree and probably intend to work for walmart for the rest of their lives.

I spent twenty minutes fighting through crowds of cars, idiots wearing MY university's colors, many of whom decided to walk down the middle of the lane without any consideration for the crowds of cars that they were holding up (who had classes to get to), and when I looked at my clock and realized I was five minutes late for class, completely lost, all the way across campus from where I needed to be, and still not able to find a parking space, I left.

I should mention that the class I missed was a math class, which is my worst subject, and the class is apparently half online, which confuses the hell out of me, and I probably won't ever figure out how that works because this was my first class of the semester. They generally don't go through the syllabus twice.

Who Needs CGI?

I just found something completely awesome on youtube! This guy rocks my world. He does makeup tutorials, and I am completely in love with his "Avatar" movie makeup tutorial! This would be perfect for Halloween, so I'll try to remember to post something about him again in October!

Avatar Inspired Makeup Tutorial


Exposed Teeth Makeup Tutorial


Broken Doll Makeup Tutorial


Stapled Makeup Tutorial

Blogger's Block

To put it bluntly, this month has been a boring blip in my life, filled with nothing but couch-potato-ing, work, and school (and more of that than anything else). None of that makes for interesting blog material, so I'm at a loss.

So instead of getting something cool, you get to read about my upcoming events! 18th b-day is a month from yesterday (and on a Sunday, eesh). I still have nothing planned. Will probably go 18-to-enter clubbing later in the week - If anyone wants to come, text, tweet, or msg me and I'll let you know what's going on <3.

Otherwise, not much to report; I don't even have any new excerpts *sob*! I'll get to work finding something cool and interesting on the web. Until then:

visit me,
(I've rejoined the obsessive community of myspacers)

tweet me,
(I haven't left the obsessive community of twitterers)

or click play:


Muse - Uprising