Monday, October 31, 2011

Karate-Chopping the Week

Readers, I'm afraid I've been thinking. A dangerous pasttime, I know. But this wacky young coot is just restless, and my sanity's only so-so. Now, the wheels in my head have been turning since I looked at this crazy small blog. See, I promised myself I'd be marr--

Okay, that's as far as I can carry the song, haha. Anyway, I figure since I actually have a following now, I should try for some organization in this blog. (Not that I need organization, ha! No one has organization like Gaston--I mean me. Ha ha! Ha...... yeah) And anyway, here's the layout I propose:

Monday Message
Thursday Thought

Yep! That looks organized enough for me! So that means from now on I'll be doing a post every Monday and every Thursday for sure . . . and possibly other days of the week if I burst with something I have to share. But Monday and Thursday for sure! Monday Messages will be little ideas and occurences just from watching the world, and Thursday Thoughts will be a little thought on writing (which I hope you will enjoy whether you're a writer or not).

So with no further ado, since today is a Monday and those only come around once a week, I shall disclose my first Monday Message. As you can probably tell, I've had the topic of candles on my mind. (You're like . . . "Huhyeahwhacomeagain??")

Last night I carved a pumpkin again for the first time in years. (Candle for pumpkin leads to candlestick from Beauty and the Beast leads to the earlier song parody--ta da! (Now you're like . . . "How do you ever get anything done with that attention span?")) It was fun. A lot of fun.

I dropped one of the pumpkins in the garage when getting it out of the truck, and that led to a giggling fit because, well, have you ever dropped a pumpkin on concrete? Have you seen them bounce? Have you heard them? Hilarious. The feeling of squishing pumpkin guts in my fingers is something I'd forgotten, and it brought another nice bout of laughter. Dumping pumpkin innards in the sink and having the slimy orange pulp hanging out of the mouth and eyes of your carved creation . . . nothing beats it. And the bright smell of pumpkin juice stains your hands even after washing.

The best part is when you put in the candle though. You flip the lights off and there's this flickering orange creation sitting on the counter grinning at you. The grin's a little crooked, and the eyes are asymmetrical, and some of the light escapes through tiny gaps in the seal of the lid that you didn't even know were there. After a few minutes, a little spot on the lid starts blackening because it's a tiny pumpkin and you can smell the inside burning just a bit, but it's all good. Being lopsided makes it even more Halloween-y, and even if burning pumpkin isn't exactly perfume, it's not a bad scent either.


When was the last time you did something that made you happy as a kid? It's fun, and far from pointless.

~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 23 (NaNoWriMo tomorrow!)

Current song: Dieu que le monde est injuste by Garou [Quasimodo, Notre Dame de Paris]
Current quote: "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere." ~ Belle [Disney's Beauty and the Beast]

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

That Which is Lacking

I consider myself to be a calm and a rational teenager. (whY aRE yOu LauGHiNg?? O_o) Off the top of my head, I can think of very few things that upset me, and these things are very rational. To name a few--spiders with unreasonably long legs cause me to cringe, seeing people eat french fries with a fork causes me to weep, and hearing people say, "I love ALL music. Except screamo. And rap. And hip hop, and country, and opera. And classical, and LadyGagaandBowlingforSoupandNeilDiamondand30Secondsto--" that, well, that just makes me facepalm.

Anyway, yes it is perfectly calm and rational to be upset by those things, yes? YES. I believe, also, that it is perfectly calm and rational to be upset by Blogger's LACK OF A REPLY BUTTON.

Seriously. What kind of communication program lacks a method in which to reply to comments? It's BARBARIC, I teLL yoU! So, because of that-which-Blogger-lacks, I am forced to waste the time of everyone in order to create a completely random post in which I can justify replying to a comment as an ending sidenote. Here goes:

(Mythical, booming voice) I HAVE COME TO YOU TODAY TO IMPART A LIFE-ALTERING STORY. For those of you who do not know, I am part Native American (for real, I'm Cherokee on my dad's side, but THAT IS NOT THE POINT!). There is a story of our people that has been passed down THROUGH GENERATIONS and told around COUNTLESS CAMPFIRES (or, I believe for me, I first heard it on the third-grade playground, but THAT IS NOT THE POINT!). It is a story of mystery looping through time, and one that will NEVER HAVE AN END, for what true story does?

It was a DARK AND STORMY night, and the rain came down in TORRENTS, and Big Chief said to Flying Hawk, "Tell me a story."

So Flying Hawk began, "It was a DARK AND STORMY night, and the rain came down in TORRENTS, and Big Chief said to Flying Hawk, 'Tell me a story.' So Flying Hawk began, 'It was a DARK AND STORMY night, and the rain came down in TORRENTS, and Big Chief said to Flying Hawk, (what's the rule for quotations inside quotations inside quotations?)--''"

ANYWAY, that is enough mystery to enlighten your minds for now, and, as I said, how could I finish a story with no end anyway? DUH! (YES, I AM still CALM and RATIONAL, wHy DO yOu aSK??)

~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 10 (Wow, I am lacking. And with NaNoWriMo so close, too!)

Current song: Kiss it All Better by He Is We
Current quote: "You say, 'Dad, can you please park my [car] in the garage? I don't want it to get rained on, or, or breathed on.' . . . [After you get home,] you open the garage to kiss your car goodnight, and . . . there's no car. But you are a calm, and a rational teenager. . . You find your father in the living room watching TV, and you're not mad. No. You calmly say, 'Uh . . . Dad? DAD, Dad, D-Dad. Where's my, uh, my cAR, Dad?? Dad, wHeRE's mY--uh, where's my car . . . Dad?'" ~ Hank Smith [From the talk The Do's and Don'ts of Dating]

 PS: I find this the perfect oppotunity to point out that Blogger is lacking a reply button, so I am unable to reply to comments made on posts. (No, I have never mentioned this before. I am sure you're mistaken--this post was about mystery and neverending stories (Also, I suppose I could just post a comment myself which contains a reply, but Blogger insists that my account does not have "authorization" to comment on my own blog. I am very calmly and rationally befuddled by this.)) Therefore, I take this time to add in a note to this extremely important post that I would like to thank WilyBCool not only for his awesome name but also for his comments on my last post and his nomination of me for the Versatile Blogger Award! Thanks, thanks, thanks, and I hope this mysterious post has not confused you or scared you away. :D

Sunday, October 16, 2011

DA WINNER

First off, I really really want to thank everyone who participated in the blog hop and who entered my giveaway. Gah, it makes me so happy just to see the followers box over there! I keep double-checking because I can't believe there are really that many people!

Ahem, anyway. This is the first time I've ever done a blog giveaway, and after the actual contest ended, I was at a loss. My general problem looked something like this --> CHOOSING DA WINNER. In fact, it looked almost identical to that. In double fact, I do believe it was that.

Quite the hurdle, you must agree, so I devised a most spectacular plan to jump it. I would count the number of entries I had, then hop in the car and drive to Best Buy. Why Best Buy? Patience, Smeagol, my love. Have you ever been to Best Buy? Last time I went window shopping there, I got mobbed by eight different employees within the hour or so, all with the same question of, "Is there anything I can help you find?" Well, nothing that day, but today I did need help finding DA WINNER. So I wanted to run into Best Buy and wander the shelves aimlessly until an employee walked up and asked, "Is there anything I can help you find?" at which point I would very sneakily say, "Why, yes, thank you. I am looking for DA WINNER and I need a number between 1 and 31. Can you please suggest one?" After they gave me a few odd looks and perhaps asked for clarification, they would give me a number and I would proceed to the next employee. I would continue to do this until I found a number that repeated, which would then be dubbed DA WINNER.

Unfortunately, not only did I forget that today is Sunday, but we also got quite the heavy rainfall here and my poor car's engine started shuddering and coughing, so I retired indoors to stay (the kind vehicle got pulled out of retirement to drive me around, so I figure I can at least give it rainy Sundays off if at all possible). Thus came PLAN 2 FOR DA WINNER. (Haha, right now you're all like, "JUST TELL ME IF I WON, WOMAN!!" well, PATIENCE, MY LOVE! (man, I am super tired right now, so half of this probably makes no sense. Please forgive me for that, as well as for my hungering to watch Lord of the Rings and write in ALL CAPS.))

Spectacular indoor plan--I would count all of the DVDs in my collection, then all of the books on my shelf, then text three random friends and ask them for a completely random number (NOT a good idea when your friends are teenagers by the way. 752, really, Ash?). After gathering all of those numbers (some of them QUITE large), I would add them together and then divide by three (MY favorite number) until I achieved something below 100. I would then proceed to count through the entries in a round until I reached the resulting number, who would then be DA WINNER.

However (haha, are you going MAD yet?), after I did this (YES, I ACTUALLY DID IT!), I couldn't quite decide if it was completely fair or not. My math skills are rusty at best and I couldn't remember all the past lectures on probability and even odds and so on. Since I wanted it to be fair, I threw away all of my WONDERFUL, DETAILED PLANS, and simply pulled out my graphing calculator (such a let down in comparison.) I set my random number generater to choose between 1 and 31, and then let it draw randomly three times, at which point the third number would be declared DA WINNER.

HA! So here you have it--I honestly don't know how else I could choose in the rain indoors while being fair without making my brain explode and CONGRATULATIONS TO DA WINNER! I sincerely hope you enjoy this book, and I hope the rest of you stick around through my craziness, if just for the chance to win AWESOME THINGS in the future. :)

~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 3 (Haha, not really. I haven't done any writing yet. But I like 3!)
Current song: Gee! by Girls Generation

Current quote: “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” ~ Herm Albright
PS: What do you MEAN I haven't told you who DA WINNER is yet?? Read between the lines, Smeagol, my love. (What do you MEAN Gollum never says that??)

Haha, I'm tired. Congratulations to BETSY LOVE. Check your email for more from me (Not too much more, don't worry), and thanks for entering!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

October Blog Hop!

Welcome to the October Blog Hop, where you can visit new blogs, enter to win prizes, and have a great time!

At the bottom of this post, you'll see a list of participating blogs. Just click on each link, check out the prize, and follow the easy instructions to enter. You can enter on each blog, so it's possible to win multiple times. It's frighteningly easy.

On this blog, you can win a copy of David Klass's novel You Don't Know Me, which I talked about in my last post. It's a phenomenal YA realistic fiction with lots of bittersweet humor, a strong main character you'll fall in love with, and it serves as a fantastic lesson in unreliable narrators and first-person present-tense viewpoint.



To enter, all you need to do is:


1. Become a follower of my blog.


2. Leave a comment on this post and tell me why you'd like to win this prize. If your e-mail address isn't visible through your Blogger profile, please also leave it with the comment so I can notify you if you win. You can enter until midnight MST on Saturday night, October 15th.


That's it! You are now entered. Now please go visit all my friends on the list below. It's almost like trick or treating!

October Blog Hop Participants
1. Tristi Pinkston
2. I Am a Reader, Not a Writer
3. Bonnie Harris
4. Michael D. Young
5. Misty Moncur
6. Debbie Davis
7. Mandi Tucker Slack
8. Mary Ann Dennis
9. Deanna Henderson
10. Laura Bastian
11. Kristy Tate
12. Kristy Wilson
13. Jennifer Debenham
14. Jenny Moore
15. Elizabeth Hughes
16. J. Lloyd Morgan
17. Close Encounters with the Night Kind
18. Billy Boulden
19. Scott Bryan
20. Maria Hoagland
21. Shirley Bahlmann
22. Shelly Brown
23. Marcy Howes
24. Lynnea Mortensen
25. Jaclyn M. Hawkes
26. Diane Stringam Tolley
27. Gail Zuniga
28. Betsy Love
29. iWriteNetwork
30. Canda's InkBlast
31. Stacy Coles

Learn more about October Blog Hop here.

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Monday, October 10, 2011

A Tribute That is Not a Tribute

A few nights ago, I found myself in a most uncomfortable position. Not literally, as sitting indian-style on a couch is actually patented as "teh bestest chillin' position eva." Or, you know, if it isn't, it should be.

So I suppose what I should say is that I found myself in a most uncomfortable situation. I had been reading the novel You Don't Know Me by David Klass (which, if you haven't read, you absolutely should) and giggling insanely to myself. Out loud because I just plain couldn't help it--if you've read the book, you understand perfectly and sympathize, yes? It's rare to find a book that will make you cry alternately because it's horribly sad and also because the main character has such a wonderful sense of humor that you just can't stop laughing.

So, yes, here I am, sitting in "teh bestest chillin' position eva" reading "teh bestest book that is not a book" and my cousin happens to be sitting on the other end of the couch playing Super Mario 64 (LONGLIVEMARIO!). Now, I am trying my very best not to disturb him, but these sneaky giggles keep escaping me, and in the Lashasa Palulu tribe, it is considered socially rude to hold back laughter that is dying to escape, so I just had to let it out now and then or else be forever banned from civil society.

Finally, after I have dropped my head onto my knees and am almost crying from laughter, my cousin shakes his head in exhasperation and says, "It can't possibly be that funny."

Now I find myself in the aforementioned uncomfortable situation. Normally, if someone asks what I am laughing at in a book, I would hand them the item and point out for them to read "from here to here." However, Jon has his hands occupied with a controller paddle, and his eyes occupied with the TV, so I can't possibly use my normal method. I could try to explain the situation, but I just plain can't make it sound as awesome or as hilarious as the author. That leaves me with one choice--read the passage aloud.

I do not read out loud. I never read out loud--whenever I'm reading a book, it's either in private with no one to read to, or in full public where reading out loud would disturb the people around me (in more ways than one). I have never before found myself in the position where someone wanted to know something from a book in my hands and they couldn't read it themselves. The last time I read something aloud it was Shakespeare for my AP English class, and I fumbled my words almost as often as I got them right (which, I hate to admit, had very little to do with it being Shakespeare because I do the same with everything else).

So I sat there in silence and fought a debate with myself. On the one hand, I desperately needed to practice reading aloud because it's a good skill to have and something I should be doing with my own manuscripts. On the other hand, if I read aloud, I would most likely butcher the scene and be arrested immediately by the book police for premeditated scene slaughter of the third degree. On the other hand, I had run out of hands, and Jon was giving me weird looks while he waited.

So I took a deep breath and did the unthinkable. And now I am serving out a lifetime sentence in book jail.

On the bright side that is not a bright side, my chance for parole comes up in a few years, which gives me plenty of time to practice.

~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 18

Current song: Juliette by SHINee
Current quote: "Here is my problem in a nutshell: polite requests for Friday night dates can be accepted or rejected, laughed at or cried over, but I believe, even with my limited experience, that they are very rarely ingested." ~ John
[You Don't Know Me, David Klass]