A Few Awesome Things

Hi! I'm back! No, I haven't been away ... just lacking in the blog area of writing. So here I am, with a few awesome things to share with you.

Awesome Thing #1:

I got three days in a row off work. Which means I can paint my nails! I'm so happy. We're not allowed nail polish at work, which is very depressing in my opinion, and two days off work is never enough for nail painting to be worth it. But I got three! Yay. Now my nails are bright blue :) Awesome.

Awesome Thing #2:

I shouted Justin, Amber and Jordan Slurpees and Amber won a free one, and she gave it to me because they were leaving for Adelaide that afternoon. So today I redeemed the ticket and got a free large Slurpee. Awesome.


Awesome Thing #3:

I just made a chocolate/banana milkshake. It's awesome.


Awesome Thing #4:

I've begun rewriting my novella, Fat Beagles Are Unattractive. For those of you who don't know, it's a fun, slightly humorous story about a family with six kids and one very chubby Beagle puppy. It's currently sitting at 16,000 words so I'm hoping to expand that by 9k with the large plot point I'm about to dump on it, and get it up to at least 25,000 words.

If you were to ask me what age the book is for, I'm really awful about knowing exactly what age I'm writing for, but from the characters I'd say about ages 10-14. The narrator is 14 years old, and from what I've heard in regards to kids' stories is that the readers are usually about the same age as the protagonist or younger.

The goal is to get the rewrite done by May or early June, in order to use the story as my free proof copy from Createspace, which I won for doing NaNoWriMo. After that, I'll tidy it up until closer to the end of the year, and then submit the book for publishing. How exciting! I can't wait to get my first rejection letter in the mail. I plan on framing it. It's gonna be awesome.

Anyways ... that about all I can manage to write at the moment. I have uni work and rewriting to do, which I really should be prioritizing, but hey.... Ta ta for now :)

This is why I love Pink.

Okay, so there's a lot of swearing in these songs I know, but that's not my point. My point is the message that Pink puts in these songs. Have a listen, if you'd like. But really listen. Take in the words.

If there's one piece of advice I'd want to give all the girls (and boys too) of Generation Y and Z, and beyond, it would be this: No matter what you do, you won't be accepted by everyone. Not everyone is going to like you. Don't waste your time trying to be something your not. Just be YOU, whatever that is - don't try and shape yourself into something else to fit in with what other people pressure you to be. There are 6 billion+ people in this world ... just be yourself, because there will still be more than enough people to love you just for who you are.

Do what you want. Dress how you want. Cut your hair the way you like it. Dance like you don't care what people think. Sing out loud like you mean it. Dream BIG. Have fun! Let God shape you. 

To Him, you are perfect.

To me you're perfect too. Just the way you are.

So raise your glass ... if you are wrong, in all the right ways. :)

Happy Anniversary :)

It's my parents' 20th anniversary today. And I get a free sleepover out of it so that they can have the house to themselves haha. Thought I'd share with you this photo:

That's my Mumma about to walk down the aisle with her Daddy. Ain't she beautiful? I love this photo for three reasons:

* The excited/nervous looks on their faces

* The lovely lighting

* The way the photographer captured the sign that hangs above the door: "Jesus Christ the same Yesterday, Today, Forever"

Twenty years pass and everything around us changes ... but God is the one constant. He will never change.

Drinking in the words...

I have come to a conclusion that when I read more, I write more.

It makes sense, really. I absorb the beautiful words of people like P.G Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Sara Gruen and J.K Rowling and it inspires me to make more beautiful words.

I was also reading this list, Ten Rules of Writing, and there were two that stood out to me in particular:

1. Try to spend more time writing than cruising the Net, and that includes reading chat about writing.

5. Read widely, and that means outside your genre, and as far outside your socio-economic-ethnic pool as you can get.

So I decided to make a booklist. And spend more time reading instead of being on the internet, in an effort to get me writing more. Reading and writing usually go hand in hand.

I also want to embrace this idea of 'reading anything and everything I can get my hands on', which includes things that I don't want to read. And so I jumped on Book Depository, with the goal in mind that I would order one book that I had never read, one non-fiction book about something that interests me, and one book that I wasn't really keen on reading but should read anyway if I want to be a Young Adult author. I briefly thought of adding one book of poetry to this as well, but seeing as Book Depository has free postage and therefore no handling, I would save my money and buy and nice hard backed copy from somewhere like Elizabeth's and know that it wouldn't get dinged up on the way to my doorstep.

So, the three books I ordered.

Firstly I added Never Let Me Go to my shopping cart, by Kazuo Ishiguro. You may recognize the title from the movie that's about to come out starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley. I'm keen to see the film and so I thought perhaps reading the book would be a good idea. Plus it sounds like my kind of story - sci fi without being in space. :D
Secondly was the ever-wanted-to-order Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey. I read the first chapter or two when I got it from the library, and fell in love with it, so I put it on my mental wishlist to order the moment I wasn't poor. Then I forgot about it. But now it's coming! I do so love the 19th century. I can't wait to read the rest of this book - I found some incredibly interesting little tidbits in the first couple chapters that will definitely be turning up in the pages of my own novel. Excitement.
Lastly, I had to choose a book that I should probably read but am not quite excited by the concept of it. I'm into trying to read popular teen fiction at the moment so I can 'know what's on the market'. Currently struggling through City of Bones (which, for the record, failed me on the second page with the most hideously awful sentence I have ever read in published fiction. Not counting a few sentences written by Stephenie Meyer, of course...). Thought I'd try for something perhaps a little better and order myself a nine-dollar copy of Tomorrow, When the War Began. Purposely went for the non-movie-edition-cover, of course. I have never read it and yet surprisingly did not mind the movie; although, truth be told the protagonist was one of the biggest Mary Sues of all Mary Sues, so I can't say I have much hope for her in the actual book. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give it a try.

Now off to read the rest of Chapter One of After the Funeral by Agatha Christie. Care to share what you're reading at the moment?

How to know who your real friends are:

No matter what you do, or say, or feel in front of them...

...even at three in the morning....

You will not be judged.

You will be loved.

Here's to a whole new year of poetry readings, guitar strumming, singing, playing with fire and enjoying everything just the way it is. Let's stay this old forever :)

Nothing is impossible for God.

Right now there is a boy in China that turns 14 in twenty days. He has no family. If he doesn't get a family before he turns 14, he can never, ever be adopted.

Twenty days.

That's all the time he has left for a forever family to find him. 

It's not impossible for God.

Pray with me?

Filmography 2010

I stole this from Kristy's blog Review Rant Rave. It's flipping amazing. This is the kind of thing I want to do. I get shivers watching this.

18...

So I turn 18 in a little under twelve weeks.

I'm pretty excited. Decided that I'm going here for dinner on the night of my birthday.

Woo thai food :D

Anddddd I have the most awesome birthday party in the making.

Get excited.