Foreshadowing: it is awesome

I’ve blogged about this before, so here’s a little reminder so you can understand the rest of this post:

In chapter 18, Fabienne, a French vampire, revealed something about herself. Something I didn’t plan or know until the moment she revealed it.

And then I realized that a few things I’d written earlier in the chapter now made perfect sense. At the time, I had no idea why I wrote those thing, and oddly enough, I hadn’t questioned it. I hadn’t thought to myself “Why is she choosing to describe her that way?”

And a little after that, I realized another description in chapter 6 made sense. /Reminder

And now, today, as I’m plotting, I went back to chapter 4 for some reason and something there also makes sense. Basically, Fabienne has been dropping hints about herself from the moment she appeared on page. So to speak.

Is that not THE most awesome thing EVER?

And if you’re wondering why this post is also in the category “Procrastination” it’s because that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 5 or 6 hours.

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“You know there’s a really good hangover remedy, it’s a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.”

Quote brought to you by episode 11 of season 2 of Supernatural: “Playthings.”

Onto my Friday night

Friday night, two friends came to my place and slept over. We stayed up until 6 am, watched Rocky Horror and Dogma (both fantastic movies I highly recommend) and I dyed my hair a color the hair dye calls “chocolat noir” = black chocolate. When the dye was in my hair it looked very light, so my friends teased me, saying I’d go blonde. (I didn’t.)

HOLIDAY!

Oh, and did I mention: I’m on holiday! (In case the title above wasn’t enough.) No school ’till the 22nd, baby! 😀 Can ya tell it gives me a happy? (That’s Buffy slanguage btw.) Now, because of it being the holidays, my room has turned into a shithole. Let’s see: clothing dumped on chair #1 (because I have 3 chairs in my room), chair #2 is actually absent at the moment and chair #3 only has my dressing gown; for desk #1 (mine), I can’t even see its surface, and desk #2 (my dad’s)… kinda the same.

Wondering why my dad’s desk lives in MY room? Yeah, so am I. See, there’s no 5th bedroom that could double as his study, and there’s no place downstairs for his desk… Result=my room is cramped. I have 3 chairs (2 of which are mine), 2 desks, a little step stool, my bookcase, my chest of drawers/dresser, built-in cupboard, 2 bins, my bed, my “bedside table” (it’s actually a small wicker thing that might have been a drawer once upon a time) and then…

Then you have the furniture on TOP or underneath all this crap.

On my desk alone I have two add-ons. Seriously. One thing on my desk, and then something else on THAT. On top of my bookcase, there’s one add-on for my books. On top of my dad’s desk… 3 add-ons. Under it: 2 add-ons.

Laughing your ass off yet? Cuz under my desk, I have a box of crap. Under my dad’s desk? Yeah, you guessed: a box of two or crap. And let’s not even look inside the cupboard. Oh, and I have a fan living behind my door. All the time.

Yeah, my room’s a dump.

BB guns and why they shouldn’t be sold to little @#$%

See, yesterday my sister had a friend over, and the weather was good. So my little sis and her friend go outside to play on the trampoline. My little brother goes out too. At some point, T, who lives nearby, and his friend L (two boys from my sister’s school) show up. With a BB gun.

I don’t know all the details, but I do the know the result: my brother got hit in the THROAT once and hand twice and my sister got hit in the leg.

I was sitting on the couch, with a coffee table in front of me, when I heard what happened. Furious, I stood up and banged my leg against the table. I wanted to punch those little jerks. (It took a lot of self-control to use the word “jerks”.) My dad went to T’s house, told his mother what had happened and came back.

Because nobody’s seriously harmed, my dad didn’t do anything more, but I hope that those two kids are grounded for the next two weeks.

Movies:

• Saturday Night Fever: 7/10 John Travolta, dancing, 70’s songs… You know what, I don’t think I need to say more.
• Sin City: 10/10 Marv says you have to see this movie, otherwise, he’ll ask you for your coat (if he likes it) and torture you. And when your eyes go dead the hell he sends you to will seem like heaven after what he’s done to you.
• The Other Boleyn Girl: 6/10 Made me cry, but nothing extraordinary.
• Pan’s Labyrinth: 7/10 Wow. All I can say is, go watch it if you like horror movies, fantasy and WWII. (BTW: I watched it in Spanish with French subtitles.)
  
• Death Proof: 9/10 Maybe I should give it an 8, because compared to Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1&2, it’s not that great. But still, it’s a Tarantino movie… Side note: You know that rule that in novels and movies, all the dialogue has to go somewhere, lead to something. Pointless dialogue has to be murdered (“murder your darlings”), you know? Well I love how Tarantino just ignores that rule and it works. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and Death Proof all started with more or less pointless dialogue. But it was awesome dialogue that I was willing to listen to. (Btw, anyone else absolutely love Michael Madsen as Mr Blonde? I know he’s a psychopath but damn is he sexy.)
• Sweeney Todd: 8/10 Tim Burton + Songs + Gore/Blood + Johnny Depp + Helena Bonham Carter + Alan Rickman =  Go watch it. I don’t know why though, but I’m feeling pretty “meh” about it right now, but I think I liked it. Maybe it’s because I’m overdosing on movies. But if you’re a Burton fan and haven’t seen it, for some reason, go and rent it right now.
• Happy Feet: 7/10 This is a feel good family movie that I recommend. You won’t regret watching it. Trust me.

The Over The Top Award

Kelly from “Rants, Observations, and other Remarks” gave me this award:

Rules: Answer the following questions with Single Word answers then pass this along to 5 other bloggers. Make sure you let them know about it though.
Your Cell Phone? Awesome
Your Hair? Dyed
Your Mother? Caring
Your Father? Amazing
Your Favorite Food? Sugar!
Your Dream Last Night? Blank
Your Favourite Drink? Hot chocolate
Your Dream/Goal? Happy
What Room Are You In? Bedroom
Your Hobby? Reading
Your Fear? Choking
Where Do You See Yourself In Six Years? University
Where Were You Last Night? Home
Something That You Aren’t? Outgoing
Muffins? Yes!
Wish List Item? Books
Where Did You Grow Up? Netherlands
Last Thing You Did? TV
What Are You Wearing? Hoodie
Your TV? None
Your Pets? Dog-like
Friends? Awesome
Your Life? Eh…
Your Mood? Happy
Missing Someone? Yes
Vehicle? None
Something You Aren’t Wearing? Socks
Your Favourite Store? Bookstore
Your Favourite Colour? Green
When Was The Last Time You Laughed? Today
Last Time You Cried? Friday
Your Best Friend? Netherlands
One Place You Go To Over And Over Again? Imagination
Facebook? Mmyeah…
Favourite Place To Eat? Bed

Wow… It took a lot of self-control not to use more than one word.

(Okay, I know I often used two words with a hyphen between, but it could have been a lot worse. There’s so much I want to explain. Like my pet… Please? Let me explain why I said dog-like. See, Rex is the family dwarf hamster, but he acts so much like a dog: lies on his back to have his belly rubbed, very loyal… That’s kind of it for the dog part, but here’s where he’s not like a hamster, or at least not like the one we had before: we once left him home for 12 days (we had no other choice) and when we came back, he was still tame. He didn’t try to bite us.)

Okay, I think that’s it. That’s everything I wanted to blog about. Oh! Wait.

Novel editing

I plan to edit my novel (Kenna’s Choice) for spelling mistakes and the like during this holiday. Small stuff. Then in April I’ll tackle the big stuff and in July I’ll get my CreateSpace proof copy. I was gonna start editing on Monday, then I was gonna do it today, but I need to print 200 pages, and our printer can’t handle that. So it’s gonna have to wait. Or I could just print the first three chapters… Uh oh. I’m considering putting it off until tomorrow.

No. I’m gonna post this, get off my ass and print 3 chapters and then edit them using my fantastic editing websites:

http://www.autocrit.com/websitepublisher/articles/6/1/Edit-Your-Novel-In-Three-Steps/Page1.html

http://hubpages.com/hub/Editing-that-Mess-of-a-Novel

Editing Your First Novel: 7 Things You Must Know

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2005/04/novel-vii-edit.html

http://writinghood.com/writing/basic-tips-for-editing-your-novel/

http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/admin/craft/line-editing/

Sorry for not making them clickable links but I’m too lazy.

Supernatural: *scream of despair* The first two episodes of season 5 are gonna be on Living, a channel I DON’T have. *screams again* 😦 Kill me. Kill me now.

*bows* Until I blog again.

-Kayleigh

EDIT: *sheepish look* I forgot to explain why I didn’t pass the blog award to 5 people. That’s because I can’t think of a blog who didn’t get the award already… Also I’m too damn lazy to make an effort. Sorry.

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“Our room’s on the fourth floor. It’s… it’s high.”

Quote brought to you by Supernatural, episode 6 of season 4.

Movies I’ve seen recently:

• The Job Just once, I’d like to see a female assassin who kills without mercy and doesn’t change over the course of the movie. You notice those tough, female, merciless assassins always soften up? Oh, and if you’re pregnant and shot in the stomach, wouldn’t you die/lose the baby?
  
• UP Wow. I’d heard so much about it, but it’s only yesterday that I finally saw it. And I’ve never seen such a dark Disney movie… Made me tear up once or twice, and I loved when *KIND OF SPOILER* Carl lifted his house with those balloons. That was just pure awesome right there. I definitely recommend it.
  
• Dead Poets Society If you haven’t seen it yet, may I ask you: Why the hell not? Go watch it right this instance if you like poetry, enjoyed the movie “Freedom Writers”, and like seeing kids rise up. Highly recommended.
• Yours, Mine & Ours A great family comedy, kind of like “Cheaper by the Dozen”. In this movie, however, it’s 18 kids, not 12. I’d seen it before, but that was so long ago, so we rented it to see it again. I’d forgotten so much of it. Anyway, even if you have seen, go watch it again. I’m sure you’ve forgotten what a fun and funny movie it is. 🙂
• [Side note: I’m not creating a new blog post because a)I’m too lazy and b)I have seen these movies recently.]
• The Interpreter Once again, because I’m lazy I’ll only say that I loved this movie and highly recommend it.
• Vacancy It was okay.
• The Royal Tennenbaums I LOVED it. Go watch it now!

Hives

So, for the past year or so, I’ve been getting hives when I shower. According to Wikipedia, this is “aquagenic urticaria”. But maybe that’s not what it is for me, ’cause Wikipedia says it’s very rare and what I get is kind of common. Anyway, it’s not that annoying, it just mean that for up to an hour, I have red blotches on my chest with welts in the center. It doesn’t hurt or itch.

The other day, however, I got home, changed into my pajamas and noticed that I had those red blotches, without the welts though, on my stomach. I told my mom and she said to wait for it to go away. Some time later, I find some on my legs. This time, with welts. So I take an antihistamine (little story: I have never in my entire life managed to swallow a pill. That antihistamine pill is the first one I’ve swallowed in my life. And I’m almost 16. Sad, I know, but I’m terrified of choking on pills.) and my mom looks up what could be causing it. Later on, I see some on my arms and my back.

Turns out, the weather and stress can cause hives and it’s nothing major to worry about. Next morning, it’s all gone.

Oh, and my mom told me that when I was a kid, whenever I got upset, I’d get hives.

A Weird Dream

Now I’ve had some strange dreams in my life, but last night’s dream is the winner.

I dreamt that I was in heaven, except it was underground, where hell is supposed to be. And heaven was inside God’s head. But the strangest part of that dream is that people were cutting through God’s brain and they found insects.

Have you had a stranger dream?

Writing

Okay, I’m ashamed… I haven’t worked on “Playing with Darts” in a little over two weeks now. Most of that time was taken up with Supernatural, but that’s been finished since the 27th. It’s now the 31st and I still haven’t worked on my novel. I keep telling myself that I’m only 15 and that I’m not trying to get published yet and I shouldn’t feel so bad about putting it off. But the longer I avoid it, the worse it’s gonna get, and then I’ll probably never finish it.

So I should just start writing, right? Even if it’s crap, I need to write something.

Problem is… Now I have a new excuse: I’m sick. And I really am. I woke up yesterday and I felt like crap. I ended up spending 2 hours in bed and the rest of the day on the couch. I haven’t done anything I enjoy doing because I’m too sick to enjoy it.

Okay. I’m just gonna post this and finish writing chapter 7!

Right after I make myself a hot chocolate.

(Oh, proscrastination, how I hate you so…)

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Meme

I was tagged by Courtney. I tag Caitlin Kittredge.

What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?

The last thing I wrote, apart from Tweets and the like, is the epilogue of the first draft of my first novel.

The first thing I wrote (I was 11) that I still have is an awful, cliched, cheesy, Trollz rip-off story that I never finished. I called it Sapphire and the PMG’s. Go ahead. Laugh. I’m very ashamed of it, but I can see that even then I had a little bit of talent. I only got serious about writing two years after that.

Write poetry?

A week ago, I think. I wrote it differently than my other poems — I just thought about a scene from a movie and then let my fingers do the writing. I, for the first time ever, had absolutely NO control over it. Maybe I’ll post it here, so you can see what the result was. (Result=very strange…)

Angsty poetry?

A year ago, I think.

Favorite genre of writing?

Urban fantasy.

Most annoying character you’ve ever created?

Hmm… I don’t know, I’ve created a lot of characters, in stories that never got finished, but annoying? I never wrote enough of those stories to get annoyed, but maybe Rosalie. Her unfinished story — called *cringe* Unwanted Vampirism, which, yes, was about vampires — sucked. In a bad way.

Best plot you’ve ever created?

I’ve never had much luck with plot, I usually write character-driven novels. I’d have to say the one I’m plotting right now, or the one I’m going to plot when I have the time.

Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?

Not having a certain charater do something. I was writing a letter he sends to the main character, and when I finished, I realized something and said, out loud: “He doesn’t do it!”

How often do you get writer’s block?

Not very often, and most of the time, when I can’t write, it’s because I’m being lazy/procrastinating/distracting myself/etc. NaNoWriMo taught me to power through. Write “something happens” or “they talk and go to shop” instead of a scene, and most of the time, once I’ve written that, I find that I can write the thing that happens, or the talk.

It’s like by writing that, I free myself. And then I can write again. I highly recommend this.

Write fan fiction?

Um, quite some time ago. I’d say 6+ months ago. Maybe even a year ago.

Do you type or write by hand?

I always type the actual story, but I plot or figure out problems in my story by hand.

Do you save everything you write?

Yes. I’m too lazy to sort through old stories and throw them away.

Do you ever go back to an idea after you’ve abandoned it?

Generally, no, but I have this one story I started that I realized has some potential. So I will be going back to that one.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve written?

As of now, I’m really proud of three poems, one half-started novel, one complete but unedited novel and two prospective novels that I have yet to write.

What’s everyone else’s favourite story that you’ve written?

Well, people on Fiction Press seem to like A Blanket Unwoven, but now I know that it’s absolute crap.

Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

Well duh! Not that I’m proud of it now.

What’s your favorite setting for your characters?

A small, non-descript town, usually with a forest. (Seriously — there’s a forest in every one of stories.)

How many writing projects are you working on right now?

My upcoming projects are as such

-Plot/Research/Write “Playing with Darts”

-Edit “Kenna’s Choice”

-Plot/Research “A Tale of Two Sisters”

-Write script of “An Unexpected Blood Relative”

-Edit “Playing with Darts”

-Write “A Tale of Two Sisters”

-Shoot short movie “An Unexpected Blood Relative

More of less in that order.

Have you ever won an award for your writing?

No.

What are your five favorite words?

I don’t really have any favorites, but I’m sure I’ve come across a word and thought “Wow! I love that word!” but I can’t remember those words.

What character have you created that is most like yourself

All characters I’ve created are at least a bit like myself, but I’d say Kenna, from “Kenna’s Choice” is most like me, except I’ve got a better relationship with my parents and siblings.

Where do you get ideas for your characters?

I don’t. I just get an idea for a story, usually a first sentence, start writing and the characters are created as I write.

Do you ever write based on your dreams?

No. Possibly because my dreams are too strange to be turned into novels. By strange, I mean strange. Seriously.

Do you favor happy endings, sad endings or cliff-hangers?

I love sad endings, but the best are bittersweet ones. Sad-ish but there’s hope, there’s a little happiness in there. Happy endings can be good too, but too mushy and I don’t like it. (Breaking Dawn anyone? I mean come on– You know what, I won’t even go there.)

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Very. Unless I’m in a big hurry, like 11.30 pm, 30th of November, NaNoWrimo, I always use backspace to correct myself.

Does music help you write?

I can’t write without it.

Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops into your head.

I don’t know anything by heart, so I looked for something:

It’s snowing now, flakes of ice melting on your grave, giving a heavenly glow to the grass and the cemetery.

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Typing test

79 words

Speedtest

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