The Whining of the Writer

Warning: The following is a series of complaints made by yours truly and may mimic the sound of crying babies, whimpering puppies, and other sounds that express the feeling of being upset and are yet sometimes annoying. Read at your own discretion.

Hi, my name is Sarah and I reign over the Land of Lazy as Princess Procrastinator. Lately though, I've been thinking of resigning. *insert gasps from the Lazy natives*

Yeah, it's true. Procrastinating just isn't working out for me anymore. At the risk of sounding like a child, school has gotten really hard. Especially for a procrastinator. The further behind I let stuff fall at school, the more time that I have to spend getting it done again. And you know what has suffered as a cause to that? My writing.

Aside from school stuff and blog posts, I don't think I've written anything new in awhile. My poor, half edited, Nano 09 novel sits in my writing bag waiting for the return of my pen. It probably doesn't know who wrote it anymore. *sigh* I also have three shorts in mind, two of which have been started and one on the back burner of my brain.

So I hereby vow to work on my time management. During the daytime hours I will do everything school related. After dinner I will do what I want, writing and so forth. It has been decreed... (Because royalty are always decreeing something right?)

How do you all handle writing time and other priorities?

By the way, still looking for a challenge on the Poetry Slam for this Monday. Have a suggestion? Let me know. Leave a comment! :)

Imaginary Love

Alright, character crushes. We've all heard about them and a lot of us have had them. There's just something about certain fictional characters that we just can't resist. Let's go through some popular ones:

Jacob vs. Edward - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Of course this is the first of any imaginary love list. I mean people created teams for them for goodness sake. For myself, I'd choose Jacob. Come on. He's at least halfway normal. But for Bella I'd choose Edward for reasons that are obvious in the last book.

Peeta vs. Gale - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Now this is a tough one. On one hand you have Peeta who grew close to Katniss by being the chosen boy in their pair, but on the other is Gale who grew up with her and is already like family. Ugh. I can't even make a choice. I don't know what I would do.

Brenda vs. Teresa - The Maze Runner by James Dashner

In the second book, The Scorch Trials, we are introduced to someone who could be a new love interest for Thomas, Brenda. So again we have the old friend and the new one. From where they're at in the book now I'd say that Thomas should go out with Brenda but it wouldn't work out then he'd be conveniently single when he runs into Teresa again years later. Classic romance movie scenario.

Regardless of what choices they make, I wish these imaginary characters the best. Here's to finding many new imaginary loves. Check out these books if you haven't already. Happy (early) Valentines Day! :)


Ps.- Check out the people over at The Treehouse Gang. They posted a story of mine today! Let them know what you think about it then check out their other posts too. :)

The Scorch Trials - James Dashner

The Scorch Trials is the second book in the series following The Maze Runner. I'm going to try my best to avoid anything that might be a spoiler. After escaping one nightmare that they were forced to fight through, Thomas and his friends have come to a resting point only to find that WICKED, the group that's to blame for their troubles, wasn't done with them yet. It starts right where the last one left off. If you remember, back when I made a list of books that I couldn't wait for, this was one of those along waited books I sought after. I have to tell you, it was well worth the wait.

From the very beginning I was hooked. Every chapter just pulled me in and I could hardly find a place to stop that wouldn't have me wondering "what's going to happen?!" until I can pick it back up again. Once you get to the middle it levels out a bit but nearing the end of it he builds it up again till you finally think you have it figured out.

It's like a roller coaster ride the whole way. I highly suggest you pick up The Scorch Trials after checking out The Maze Runner if you haven't already. Check out James Dashner's blog for more details on all his books. I will see you guys on the next post. :)

POETRY SLAM!

Welcome to the first ever Scribbles and Shorts Poetry Slam! *snaps fingers*

So this is how it's going to be done. Each poetry post will be put up on the last day of the month. Until the end of the next month you guys, my Scribblers as I've decided will be my friendly nickname for my 'followers' (I like it, don't you! :) ), can comment as to what kind of poem I should write for that month and what it should be about. I'll choose one and post it. So here it goes!

First Poetry Slam starter honors go to:

I Just Know Everything
Type: not given
Subject: Childhood

Since I the choice was left open I decided I would go with some haikus because, well, it's all I know for now... So I give you:

Childhood - in form of haikus

Late cries for parents
Waiting for bottles of milk
Changing the diapers

Learning to sit up
To crawl and walk and say words
Loving picture books

Going to school now
Fun with teachers, toys, and kids
Learning to write things

No recess here now
School's not much fun without it
The homework is hard

Sleepovers and snacks
Movies or just hanging out
Always on the phone

Starting to talk back
Whoopings and groundings aren't fair
I always miss stuff

Learning to drive cars
The first time alone is cool
With friends is better

All grown up we think
Only later do we find
We want it all back


So how did I do? Let me know know what you like or don't like and leave a suggestion for next month. Thanks for this months prompt, I Just Know Everything! I'll see you guys next post.

The Replacement - Brenna Yovanoff

"Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, Mackie comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement—left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world.
Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with an oddly intriguing girl named Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs."

-http://www.brennayovanoff.com/


This is the book I was talking about in my last post. I decided to check it out and I'm glad that I did. It was a great, edge of your seat, kind of fantasy. I didn't really know what was going to happen until it was happening and I liked that.

There were parts that seemed kind of confusing, like the characters were going along with it too easy. I don't know exactly how to explain it but I guess I didn't really connect with them the way I thought I might have. I can't say that there was a character that I liked more than another.

It was very descriptive so it was easy to visualize what was going on. Some strong language was used here and there so you can use your own discretion on that. Overall, I'd say this is a book worth picking up.

This book sounds familiar. Did I write this?

I was browsing through some blogs recently when I found a couple of reviews for Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement. That one got my attention because I just so happen to have a short story with the same name. So I thought, huh, that's interesting. Similar titles are bound to come up every once in awhile, right? But after I read the reviews I found something a little more concerning. The expert sounds a lot like my plot.

No, as fun as it sounds, I'm not trying to come up with some crazy conspiracy theory about how Yovanoff sent ninja spys into my notebook to steal my plots. I am, however, presented with my first problem. Do I read this book or not? If I read it and I decide that I want to put some more work into my short than will everything I write suddenly sound like Yovanoff's? If I don't read it than I'll forever wonder if we two great minds that think a like.

Here's the second question. Will having a similar plot lower my chances of getting that story published? I don't believe that short of mine was ever meant to go anywhere but I've been told that if I were to expand it than it could be a really good book. Does it make any difference to agents or publishers if they've heard of something similar?

Well, I've decided I'd read The Replacement because it sounds like a pretty cool book. In fact, I've just started it and it seems to be a little more fantasy whereas mine is pretty realistic. I may do a review on it when I'm done.

What's your opinion? Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever seen a book that was close to something you wrote before?

(PS- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER!!! :) )

2011!!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope the first week of 2011 has gone well for you. We had a lot of fun with my family so mine has gone pretty well. But, along with going back to work and school, a lot of people are making resolutions. Since this is the first post of 2011 I thought I’d share some of my writing resolutions here so you can all yell at me if I’m not keeping to it. :) Lol. Here they go:

1. Write more shorts
Writing short stories is how I started writing in general. Lately though, it seems that I haven’t been doing many of them at all. I kind of miss it. So let’s put a number on it. I will write at least 3 shorts this year. Short number one is in progress by the way.

2. Finish editing/write a query letter for my 2009 NaNo novel
It has been sitting there unfinished long enough. Time to fix it up and see what I can do with it!

3. Do a little poetry
I’m going to try to get an internship and the portfolio that I have to fill out asks me to do poetry. I’ve never really tried poetry before. I had to do a couple of high school assignments here and there but really I have no experience in that. So this year that’s going to change too.

So that’s just a few things I want to do this year. What’s some of yours? Have you already gotten started? I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be made of awesome. Whoo!!

A new year could also bring new things to my blog. I have a couple ideas that I’m going to throw out there that could mean more posts. I was thinking about more book reviews and a ‘Poetry Slam Challenge’ series.

I want to do book reviews on random days because when I finish a book I like to do reviews as soon as I can so my idea of it is still fresh. So I figure why not post them as I read them? The ‘Poetry Slam Challenge’ could be every month. You all challenge me with a topic and the type of poem (like a haiku or…uh, well, that’s really the only kind I know. I really, really need to work on this) and I’ll do it and post it. It will help me learn more about poetry and keep my word on my resolution. Hopefully it'll be fun for you guys to be involved and see how I do with your challenge too. Maybe you could even do it with me and I’ll post a link to poems for that month’s challenge.

Let me know what you think. See you next post. :)