I did some spring cleaning today. Everything just felt dirty, but now my room feels better. The dust was killer on my allergies especially if I put my hands near my face. I hate dealing with the itchy face and watery eyes, but it was worth it.
While I was cleaning I went through my stack of notebooks and papers that I keep together. They all contain stories that I’ve started, but never have gotten around to finish (I love writing in plan school notebooks). I always get a great idea and start writing something that “I swear I’m going to finish this time.” Then a week later I’ve thought of another great idea and start on something else. After four notebooks of this I dedicated a page to my story ideas. I would write down the plot that I had thought of and how I wanted it to go. But I wouldn’t start it. Instead I would work on the previous story.
I noticed as I was going through my stories that they all had to do with romance. Which it a little weird since I’ve never been much of a romance reader. I love science fiction books. Dragons, magic, wars, heroes, gods, and everything that makes up a new world that is exciting. Yet when I write it’s always a romance. Maybe it’s the girl in me. I don’t know, but they always seem to come easier. I do enjoy re-reading things that I’ve written. They may not be the most amazing thing that I’ve put on paper, but it makes me happy to see that I wrote something. Of course I critique every little line and edited it even though I might not ever finish it.
I’ll have to pull them out again soon and pick one that I would like to see have an ending.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Critiquing For the Better
This week for my creative writing class we had to submit a piece of original work. I submitted my piece “You Are My Drug.” It’s a short story about a couple fighting about a betrayal one of them committed. It’s one of the pieces I’m most proud of. I think that it flowed really well and held a lot of the pain and suspense I wanted it to have.
I submitted it last year when I took the class. It went over well with all but one person. It made me really happen that they enjoyed my writing. I’m hoping that this new group of students will like the piece as well. As much as I freak out about people reading it I believe that the criticism is very helpful. I used the things that the last students told me I should change and love my story even more.
Having people tell you what’s wrong in a helpful manner allows you to change whatever your ding for the better.
I submitted it last year when I took the class. It went over well with all but one person. It made me really happen that they enjoyed my writing. I’m hoping that this new group of students will like the piece as well. As much as I freak out about people reading it I believe that the criticism is very helpful. I used the things that the last students told me I should change and love my story even more.
Having people tell you what’s wrong in a helpful manner allows you to change whatever your ding for the better.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Ideas
I’ve been thinking lately that I might either start writing me memoirs or create a character that suffers from the same social phobia that I do.
I’m not that old (only 22) but I think that since most of the memories are still fresh (or as fresh as they can be) it’ll be easier if I start writing them down now. My grandmother has written hers already. She had my cousin Mikey and I go with her to Oregon to see her old house, her foster homes, schools, works, and other places that where apart of her life before she moved to California.
I think it would be nice to have those memories down so that I can show them to anyone who would like to see them.
As for the character I want to show something to people who don’t understand or know what social phobia is. I’m only self diagnosed, but it’s something that I know and when I try to explain it to others they think that it’s something easily fixed. Or they laugh at it. They usually believe that all the person has to do it talk to people. But it’s so much deeper than that and the problems can be coped with but they affect everyday life.
I still don’t know if this is something I will follow through with. It’s hard enough for me to explain what I feel that I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to write down what the character it feeling.
I’m not that old (only 22) but I think that since most of the memories are still fresh (or as fresh as they can be) it’ll be easier if I start writing them down now. My grandmother has written hers already. She had my cousin Mikey and I go with her to Oregon to see her old house, her foster homes, schools, works, and other places that where apart of her life before she moved to California.
I think it would be nice to have those memories down so that I can show them to anyone who would like to see them.
As for the character I want to show something to people who don’t understand or know what social phobia is. I’m only self diagnosed, but it’s something that I know and when I try to explain it to others they think that it’s something easily fixed. Or they laugh at it. They usually believe that all the person has to do it talk to people. But it’s so much deeper than that and the problems can be coped with but they affect everyday life.
I still don’t know if this is something I will follow through with. It’s hard enough for me to explain what I feel that I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to write down what the character it feeling.
Monday, April 5, 2010
First Bee Sting
I took a walk today with my dog Chase. I was in front of my neighbors lawn when a bee flew by my face and towards my neck. I titled sideways and pulled down my sweat shirt. As I titled my hair from my pony swung and I felt immediate pain. I made my way towards that house titled sideways and made my way up to my mom. She checked it out and sure enough I was stung.
Can I say ouch. It was my first bee sting and it hurt a lot. I put some Neosporin on the wound which just made it hurt more. After my mother saw that I was okay all she could say was
“the poor bee”
“you killed a bee”
“bee’s are disappearing and you killed one.”
So now not only do I have a wound on my neck I have the guilt of killing that poor bee. And it wasn’t even my fault!
So I wrote this small poem called “Poor Little Bee.”
"Poor Little Bee"
Poor little bee
Flyng about
Made one wrong turn
In my neck it flew
A moment of panic
A quick sting
A quick getaway
One last flight
Landing gently
Stilling in the breeze
Poor little bee
I’m very sorry bee that you flew into my neck.
Can I say ouch. It was my first bee sting and it hurt a lot. I put some Neosporin on the wound which just made it hurt more. After my mother saw that I was okay all she could say was
“the poor bee”
“you killed a bee”
“bee’s are disappearing and you killed one.”
So now not only do I have a wound on my neck I have the guilt of killing that poor bee. And it wasn’t even my fault!
So I wrote this small poem called “Poor Little Bee.”
"Poor Little Bee"
Poor little bee
Flyng about
Made one wrong turn
In my neck it flew
A moment of panic
A quick sting
A quick getaway
One last flight
Landing gently
Stilling in the breeze
Poor little bee
I’m very sorry bee that you flew into my neck.
Writing
For a month I’m going to be using this blog for my creative writing class. I’ll have to update five days a week. I’m not sure if it only had to be for writing. I’m sure I’ll mix both writing and personal. I hope that doesn’t bore or offend anyone. I also hope I have something to say about writing. Maybe this’ll be good for my writers block and I might actually get something on paper.
When I was younger (not that long ago) I wanted to be a writer. Being a book nerd it was the ultimate fantasy to have a book that I wrote published. To have millions of people read it and to have the pride of holding that book in my hands. About 2 years ago I knew I wouldn’t ever be a published author and I was and am okay with that. I’m not a fantastic writer and I find my stories to be a bit childish and simple. My mother told me that a friend of her has a daughter (she’s like 12/13) that has finished writing a book. It was about 200 pages and her dream is to be a published author. I received a look like “just like you.’” I informed her that I didn’t want to a huge published author.
I love writing. There’s a feeling that I get when I can create that’s impossible to share. I just love it and I also love the exhausting afterwards. When I starting writing and get really into it I go into this trace-like state and just write and write. When I’m done I feel a great tired feeling. It doesn’t sound correct when I put it like that but I love it.
So while I’ll never probably become a big-shot author I’ll still love writing. And I’ll never stop writing for me.
When I was younger (not that long ago) I wanted to be a writer. Being a book nerd it was the ultimate fantasy to have a book that I wrote published. To have millions of people read it and to have the pride of holding that book in my hands. About 2 years ago I knew I wouldn’t ever be a published author and I was and am okay with that. I’m not a fantastic writer and I find my stories to be a bit childish and simple. My mother told me that a friend of her has a daughter (she’s like 12/13) that has finished writing a book. It was about 200 pages and her dream is to be a published author. I received a look like “just like you.’” I informed her that I didn’t want to a huge published author.
I love writing. There’s a feeling that I get when I can create that’s impossible to share. I just love it and I also love the exhausting afterwards. When I starting writing and get really into it I go into this trace-like state and just write and write. When I’m done I feel a great tired feeling. It doesn’t sound correct when I put it like that but I love it.
So while I’ll never probably become a big-shot author I’ll still love writing. And I’ll never stop writing for me.
Friday, April 2, 2010
King Tut and the Golden Age of Pharaohs Exhibit
At the De Young Museum in San Francisco they had an exhibit called King Tut and the Golden Age of Pharaohs. They had items from all over the world all of which came, obviously, from Egypt. It started last year and I had mentioned wanting to go but we kinda stopped family days to save money and it wasn’t mentioned until two months ago. We had planned on going Sunday the 21st but the tickets were sold out so we got them for Saturday the 27 the day before it ended. They were selling 90 tickets for every 30 minutes we were able to get tickets for 4:30. Before we could go we had to stop in Sacramento.
It was also the 2 year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. We left the house at 9:15 and headed up to Sacramento. My grandmother, aunt, and cousin were waiting and we hung around the gravesite, took some pictures, had a small speech, and left some flowers. After we went to Brookenridge (?)….well it was a restaurant and had some yummy breakfast.
We were able to get done at the time we wanted, 12:00, and get on the road to San Fran. It only took us about 2 hours to get to the Bay Bridge and a little longer to get to the toll booth. After the bridge we hit wonderful traffic. Let me tell you having seven people crammed in a van on a semi-warm day is not fun. We made it to Golden Gate Park but couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around until we found on the other side of t he park. We made it to de Young at 3 something and just walked around before I told them I was sure we could go into the main part of the museum just not the King Tut exhibit yet. So we wandered around the art and artifacts. It was interesting, but I did get a little bored after the fiftieth African head mask and stopped reading all the info.
Anyways skipping some uneventful nonsense after we toured the musuem at 4:40 we stood in line for King Tut. We had to wait upstairs and then slowly made our way down the stair to another line. They had a video about King Tut’s death and we got our tickets scanned (there were also people buying tickets which was a little annoying since we probably could have gone last weekend). I knew that no one but me was really excited until we got in line downstairs. I swear it was like getting on a ride. Everyone perked up, Chelsea started quoting the mummy, I showed her that King Tut married Ankhesenamun and his dad’s name was Imhotep the IV was his father (or grandfather), Chelsea then thought there was a conspiracy theory, and people began admitting there excitement. They had the huge wooden doors that they let the people in and would shut them after 20 or so went through. We were finally ushered through the doors and ended up in a small black room that had blue lights and two TV’s on either side of another set of big wooded doors. I swear it felt like an amusement park ride. We were shown a 90 minute video giving up an introduction on King Tut before allowing to enter. The first room has only a bust of Tut then you walked through different rooms that held all the items.
Upon entering the first room I knew why they limited the amount of people allowed to enter. In each room there was one big poster talking about what the room theme was with history and then there was tall glass cases with the items. At the top of the case they talked about what the item was so that people behind the large crowd could read before seeing what it was. But there were so many people. You could barley move, it took forever to get up close to the case, and even though there was air-conditioning it was warm. My annoyance for the people gave me a bit of claustrophobia which made me even more annoyed. I lost the family after the second room (my mom saw a group of people said “forget it” and walked away), but Chris joined me and we joked around as I read and saw everything.
Even though I wanted to seriously injure, yell , and skip things I had an amazing
time. There were so many interesting and wonderful things from King Tuts Tomb and from Egypt in general. They had knives, stools, games, the outer part of a mummy coffin, Canopic jars, weapons, King Tut’s still-born children’s coffins, and so much more. The last room showed what King Tut’s coffin was like (six boxes, three coffins, and a head mask). They also had some of the jewelry he was wearing.
After that It was the gift shop. I just walked around wondering what to buy because they had so many cool things. But I ended up with a book and magnet.
I can’t really think of any other word to use but amazing…thesaurus gave me some good ones: incredible, remarkable, mind-blowing…you get it. I was just astounded buy the things they made and how thousands of years later it’s still there and we can look and hold it. Learning more about Tutankhamum; how he changed his name, his parents, his marriage to his half-sister, how he really looked (club foot, cleft lip, diseases).
Almost eveything had gold in it. The gold was mixed with wood, silver, other melts or a varation of it. You would never had know that there was wood under the gold. They created such smooth surfaces and detailed carvings by hand. If it wassn't made of gold it was a colored stone (blue, white, black). Everything was beautiful and I can almost imagine half of what Howard Carter felt when they first entered the tomb.
I loved it and it wish I could go through again (just without so many people). It has definitely made me want to visit the museum in Cairo where they hold these items and much more. I also want to see the pyramids that are amazing in themselves but that held these things.
It was also the 2 year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. We left the house at 9:15 and headed up to Sacramento. My grandmother, aunt, and cousin were waiting and we hung around the gravesite, took some pictures, had a small speech, and left some flowers. After we went to Brookenridge (?)….well it was a restaurant and had some yummy breakfast.
We were able to get done at the time we wanted, 12:00, and get on the road to San Fran. It only took us about 2 hours to get to the Bay Bridge and a little longer to get to the toll booth. After the bridge we hit wonderful traffic. Let me tell you having seven people crammed in a van on a semi-warm day is not fun. We made it to Golden Gate Park but couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around until we found on the other side of t he park. We made it to de Young at 3 something and just walked around before I told them I was sure we could go into the main part of the museum just not the King Tut exhibit yet. So we wandered around the art and artifacts. It was interesting, but I did get a little bored after the fiftieth African head mask and stopped reading all the info.
Anyways skipping some uneventful nonsense after we toured the musuem at 4:40 we stood in line for King Tut. We had to wait upstairs and then slowly made our way down the stair to another line. They had a video about King Tut’s death and we got our tickets scanned (there were also people buying tickets which was a little annoying since we probably could have gone last weekend). I knew that no one but me was really excited until we got in line downstairs. I swear it was like getting on a ride. Everyone perked up, Chelsea started quoting the mummy, I showed her that King Tut married Ankhesenamun and his dad’s name was Imhotep the IV was his father (or grandfather), Chelsea then thought there was a conspiracy theory, and people began admitting there excitement. They had the huge wooden doors that they let the people in and would shut them after 20 or so went through. We were finally ushered through the doors and ended up in a small black room that had blue lights and two TV’s on either side of another set of big wooded doors. I swear it felt like an amusement park ride. We were shown a 90 minute video giving up an introduction on King Tut before allowing to enter. The first room has only a bust of Tut then you walked through different rooms that held all the items.
Upon entering the first room I knew why they limited the amount of people allowed to enter. In each room there was one big poster talking about what the room theme was with history and then there was tall glass cases with the items. At the top of the case they talked about what the item was so that people behind the large crowd could read before seeing what it was. But there were so many people. You could barley move, it took forever to get up close to the case, and even though there was air-conditioning it was warm. My annoyance for the people gave me a bit of claustrophobia which made me even more annoyed. I lost the family after the second room (my mom saw a group of people said “forget it” and walked away), but Chris joined me and we joked around as I read and saw everything.
Even though I wanted to seriously injure, yell , and skip things I had an amazing
time. There were so many interesting and wonderful things from King Tuts Tomb and from Egypt in general. They had knives, stools, games, the outer part of a mummy coffin, Canopic jars, weapons, King Tut’s still-born children’s coffins, and so much more. The last room showed what King Tut’s coffin was like (six boxes, three coffins, and a head mask). They also had some of the jewelry he was wearing.
After that It was the gift shop. I just walked around wondering what to buy because they had so many cool things. But I ended up with a book and magnet.
I can’t really think of any other word to use but amazing…thesaurus gave me some good ones: incredible, remarkable, mind-blowing…you get it. I was just astounded buy the things they made and how thousands of years later it’s still there and we can look and hold it. Learning more about Tutankhamum; how he changed his name, his parents, his marriage to his half-sister, how he really looked (club foot, cleft lip, diseases).
Almost eveything had gold in it. The gold was mixed with wood, silver, other melts or a varation of it. You would never had know that there was wood under the gold. They created such smooth surfaces and detailed carvings by hand. If it wassn't made of gold it was a colored stone (blue, white, black). Everything was beautiful and I can almost imagine half of what Howard Carter felt when they first entered the tomb.
I loved it and it wish I could go through again (just without so many people). It has definitely made me want to visit the museum in Cairo where they hold these items and much more. I also want to see the pyramids that are amazing in themselves but that held these things.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
I found this website a while ago called We Heart It (http://weheartit.com/) but never really got around to searching it. A week ago I finally got around to looking it and I loved it. There are so many great pictures on there and they lead you to the orginial or where the picture was linked to. I love LOVE quotes and collect them. A weird thing to collect but I have a book and word document full of them. So I looked them up on We Heart It and found some great ones. I'll have to get the pictures that they are on.
For now here are some of them that I found just in type:
Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don’t go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day or an hour, or half a second, when so much happens it’s almost like you are born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet.
-- Life is Funny
There will come a day when you’ll feel like shit and you’ll want to give up. When that day arrives save yourself some trouble and don’t do a thing. Take a nap
“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
— ~ Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
There is an inner beauty about a woman who believes in herself, who knows she is capable of anything she puts her mind to. There is a beauty in the strength and determination of a woman who follows her own path, who isn’t thrown off by obstacles along the way. There is a beauty about a woman whose confidence comes from experiences - who knows she can fall, pick herself up, and keep going.
For now here are some of them that I found just in type:
Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don’t go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day or an hour, or half a second, when so much happens it’s almost like you are born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet.
-- Life is Funny
There will come a day when you’ll feel like shit and you’ll want to give up. When that day arrives save yourself some trouble and don’t do a thing. Take a nap
“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
— ~ Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
There is an inner beauty about a woman who believes in herself, who knows she is capable of anything she puts her mind to. There is a beauty in the strength and determination of a woman who follows her own path, who isn’t thrown off by obstacles along the way. There is a beauty about a woman whose confidence comes from experiences - who knows she can fall, pick herself up, and keep going.
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