Life of a Random

Woop woop! I have finally, lovelies, read Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Almost everyone but me has read it and raved about it, and I finally get to add my voice to the total chaos. :D This isn't going to be a review. It's just going to be a list of things I like about Shatter Me and things I don't like about Shatter Me.                                     You can thank me later. Really. I don't mind.   Things I Did Like:  1. The writing style was amazing for the most part. The way Mafi portrayed Juliette's partial insanity was amazing. I loved the crossed out sentences, the halting sentence fragments, and even the repetition most of the time.  2. HER POWERS ARE AMAZING. She can legit punch through a steel door, guys. Oh, and she kicked it a little. 3. I love the cover...

Welcome to the monthly Teens Can Write Too! blog chain...number eleventh. The prompt is: If you could co-write a book with one author-living or not-who would it be and what would the book be about?  Now I had intended to be all super organized and write most of this before today, complete with cleverness and all that jazz but it was not to be. Also, all the other bloggers so far have considered things like "Would I get along with the author?" and "Would our writing styles mesh?" And I've been all like "Hm. Yes, all very good questions. Why didn't I think of them?"  Obviously it's because I'm extremely awesome.  And prone to not thinking up the important questions.  Okay. So I have been thinking about this question/prompt the whole week. I promise. Vivian Vande Velde was a potential co-author. She has a wicked sense of (sarcastic) humor and she has written lots of books in fantasy or virtual gaming settings, but her main...

Okayyyy. Short review tonight.  Julie Charlton is at the breaking point. She's overwhelmed and burned out, and in today's unrelenting society, her kids are, too. When her sister-in-law Susan, a Martha Stewart-in-training, lands the chance to participate in a reality TV series promoting simple living, and needs another family to join her, it seems like the perfect opportunity. The location is an idyllic farm outside an Amish community in Tennessee. Julie, with her two children, joins Susan and her teenage daughter for a summer adventure. Susan needs to succeed in order to become self-sufficient after an ugly divorce, Julie needs to slow down long enough to remember what her priorities are and regain a sense of purpose and meaning. It becomes clear from the start that "living simple" is no simple matter. With the camera watching every move, Susan's drive for perfection feels a lot like what they left behind, while Julie suddenly finds herself needing to...

To me, whenever I like a book so much that I want to curl up in a ball and hug it forever, it's because of the characters. The characters breathe life into the words. And when I get a story idea, it usually starts with a character. I am having so much fun writing for two characters in a co-written book-- If I Fall. It's really helped me mature with writing distinctive voices. And so I give you (dun, dun, dun) snippets from this current WIP... and some cool pictures from pinterest as well. © 2013 All characters and story snippets are the works of me and my co-writer. Do not copy without express permission or without crediting the original authors.  Caster Skylar                   The reason why Caster is blank is because my co-writer is being extremely picky about what person to agree on (If I Fall is sort of a fanfic of one of her original novels so...I have to defer to her. unfortunately). I'm not sure about Sk...

I'm in the middle of a lovely, delicious vacation. I haven't done anything useful. Well, except for cleaning my room. I just wanted to do a short little post before I head back to my headphones and word document. I'm going to, at last, talk about writing. *gasp* I've always written. I think I started making handwritten "books" (meaning seven pages long with awful hand drawn covers) when I was seven or so. I can't remember exactly. But back then I finished most of my little stories and I took great pride in stapling them together and coloring in the pictures with marker (which I, to this day, still get all over my hands if I use them). Exhibit A- sorry for the neck-craning position...not sorry enough to fiddle around with it though ;)  Then there has been a long period of time where I haven't really finished any books at all. I just get an idea or a character and write about ten pages or so and leave off. It's not very encouraging...but ...

Presenting (drumroll please): OUT OF THE BOX aka the new thing where I spotlight completed Wattpad books. Yay! Regona City: The Creed  by Voif1d (otherwise known as Angelika Gabriele on facebook. It could be a pen name as well, I'm not sure.) Book Stats: 94 pages 53, 738 reads 2,455 votes 469 comments No one seemed to want the shy blonde who was always lost in her own world. Abandoned by her parents as an infant, Sahara grew up in a home for trouble teens not even foster parents wanted to take care of. However, things change when she mysteriously finds herself transported to a world not her own. Now, with the help of a mysterious bad boy, who is addicted to strawberry milk, Sahara sets out on a journey to find a way to go back home. Yet, to do so, she will have to rise to the top of the pyramid in a city where hover boarding is the way of life. As more and more crazy characters join her journey, Sahara is immersed in a dangerous world which only ab...

Warning: This post includes many emotional GIFs. They said she wasn’t human. They were wrong. A seemingly endless war against the insurgent Crowhoppers keeps the people of Moontown fighting when they’d rather be mining valuable Helium-3. Crater Trueblood’s valiant efforts against the genetically-manipulated beings weighs heavily on his mind. What is he really fighting for? In the midst of a deadly battle, Crater captures an enemy Crowhopper. But this one he refuses to kill. “It” is genetically more human than not and its gender seems to be female. She calls herself Crescent. Crater takes her to Moontown as a prisoner of war, but treats her kindly. However, at the hands of Moontown residents Crescent experiences prejudice and even cruelty. Soon Crescent is imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. Crater comes to her aid, and the two become fugitives, escaping into the vast expanse of hostile terrain called “the big suck.” For Crater, it turns out the cause most worth figh...

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do. Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life. To be honest with you, I didn't like this book for the first few chapters. I thought it was neat that it started out in the country and that Mila was a normal girl because that's unusual for sci-fi, but the author took too long showing us Mila's normal (or not so normal) life. Until chapter fourteen. From there, the chase picked up and it's non-stop action and finding...

This is where I list the books I got from my favorite used-books store. Now that I think about it, I usually do this after I've read all of them, but I got six this time and with the stuff I have to do for school and the R.E.A.D.S. that I have to read before a certain time they are not top priorities.  I just got two college applications turned in. By the way, if you're applying to many colleges (in the United States) you should definitely use the Common Application if those schools use it because it is so much simpler. You don't have to request transcripts and standard test scores every time you apply which takes so much stress off of the whole process. You don't have to wonder whether or not the transcripts and test scores will get to the colleges by their deadlines.  I aim to do a lot more educational extra stuff tonight and maybe a little tomorrow (but there's a big family Thanksgiving, so...much less probability of happening).  I know, I know. When a...

I have a confession to make. I am a blog stalker. Sometimes when my favorite blogs don't have any new posts, I'll go to a blog that has a lot of followers and click on random followers (on the Google Friend Connect thing) to see if they have any blogs I might be interested in or if they follow any blogs I might be interested in. Is that creepy? Hmm. Meh, I don't think so :) So as I was blalking (Blog+stalking. I'm a genius. I know you don't have to tell me), I discovered this blog called Creaology (you can check it out here  ) which has a page totally devoted to questions to ask your character. HOW COOL, right? I decided right away that I would save it to do for you all on my blog. I'm not sure that I'll be able to answer them that well though, as I don't even have a name for the character I'm gonna be doing yet *rolls eyes at self*. But hey, you guys can help me come up with a name! This is the character: more or less what she looks like ...