Stumbling across your old blog is surreal and cringe-worthy

Holy shit, I was so young.
This blog is like 4 years old... I don't... Dear lord.
I suppose this stands as a digital representation of young high school me.
...
Young high school me sure fucking loved dragons.

Fancy Hair!

So, we went to the Renaissance Fair.

'Nuff said. 

House of Hades Cover!

Hey! I know this is a little late, since the cover was revealed a couple days (week?) ago.

BUT.

(Obligatory disclaimer: the cover, series, everything belongs to the wonderful Rick Riordan. Blah, blah, blah.)

Isn't it beautiful? (Fawns over cover.) So gorgeous. I mean... Look at it! Let's all take a moment to admire it. I can wait. (Whistling.) Ready to move on? Okay.

Let us discuss this. Obviously, Percy and Annabeth are front and center. Where we left them in Mark of Athena (warning, spoilers ahead) they had just fallen into Tartarus. Now, we see Annabeth leaning heavily on Percy, because her ankle is injured. We see Percy holding a dagger, and they're both wearing what looks like make-shift cloaks or shawls or something. We see the Doors of Death in the background, which we can only assume they're going to open with the help of the rest of the Seven. We see some sort of monster in the upper left-hand corner, but I can't figure out what it is, exactly... We se a river, the water of which twisting up against their legs. Percy's doing, probably. And in the background, we see a river of lava. 

So many possibilities! What will happen in Tartarus? Will they encounter monsters they've already defeated- and, worse yet, since they're in Tartarus, will the monsters even die when they kill them? Will Nico help them open the Doors of Death from this side, or the other side? What will the rest of the Seven do, now that Percy and Annabeth can't reach them? Just... Gah! So excited, guys. I am so excited.

(Though not nearly as excited as I am for Catching Fire. November 22cond. That's in 169 days. Not that I'm counting or anything. But that's a whole other topic.) 

Oh my gods! October. It comes out in October. I can't wait that long! I shouldn't have seen the cover, because now I can't wait! (Sigh.) The life of a fangirl. 

ALLEGIANT!?

Veronica Roth has released the title of the third book of the Divergent series. So far, we've had Divergent and Insurgent, so I assumed that the last book would be titled Convergent.

But, no. The last book's title is... (Drumroll.) Allegiant.

Wait. What?

Allegiant? As in... Loyal? Faithful? Pledged to something? Huh... This will be interesting. What is Tris allegiant to? The Dauntless? Or something else? What's outside the fence? Who's outside the fence? What will happen now that they know how their world started?

For those of you who have read the series, you know what a horrible cliffhanger we were left on at the end of Insurgent. Ms. Roth, you have many a fan angry at you. (Shakes fist.) I mean, come on! You don't just end with a scene like that! What about Tris's grandmother? (Great-grandmother? Great-great grandmother? Ancestor?) What about Tobias? What about everything? So many questions, Veronica. So. Many. Questions.

Speaking of questions, what will the motto for this book be? We've had "One choice can transform you" and "One choice can destroy you". What's next?

I am insanely excited for the thrid book coming out, and the movie. (Gasp) The movie! Have you guys seen the news? Tris and Tobias have both been cast, and a picture from the knife-throwing scene has been released. If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out! There are links on Veronica's blog.

Veronica Roth's Blog

So many questions, so little answers... Such is the life of a fan.

Until next time!

Bookshelf Conundrum

My bookshelf is too small.

See, I organize my bookshelf by a system: magazines go on the bottom shelf. Scrapbooks go on the top shelf, in a basket. On the second-to-top shelf go my absolute favorite books- the best books I own. On the third-to-top shelf are the books that I also really like, but they aren't favorites. On the fourth-to-top (or second-to-last) shelf are the books I own that are just okay. This shelf is the most full.

There are some exceptions to the rule. For instance, my Hunger Games trilogy is on the "also really good" shelf, even though it's an absolute favorite, because I ran out of room on the "favorites" shelf. That's just one example. But, generally speaking, that's how it's set up, from top to bottom- favorites, really good ones, okay ones.

And, well, recently I've been getting books for my birthday, Christmas, random gifts, for myself, etc, etc. So, my bookshelf has gotten a bit over-full. I don't really want to double-stack them (aka, put a row of books behind another row) except on the "just okay" shelf, because I don't want to hide any of them. Because of that, right now it looks a little like this...

These are the "favorites" (top) and "also really good" (bottom) shelves. As you can see, they're rather... stacked. And there are more books that I want to get still! A lot more! And some more I'm reading right now that aren't on the bookshelf!

...

I NEED A BIGGER BOOKSHELF. 

That is all.

NaNoWriMo Madness!

November is almost upon us! (Celebrates.) All together now: "Winter is coming." No? Just me? Huh.

Anyway, November is almost here, and you know what that means! NaNoWriMo! (National Novel Writing Month.)

I'm SUPER DUPER CAJUPER excited! (And yes, I did just make up a word.) Now, if you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, then 1) shame on you, and 2) what are you doing on this blog? Go look it up!

NaNoWriMo, for me, is one month of complete madness and frantic typing. I often bribe myself with little treats in order to get through my word count for the day. Such as leftover Halloween candy.

 Last year my WCG (word count goal) was 30,000, being 1,000 words per day. That's about two typed pages. This year, my WCG is 40,000, making it about 1,334 words a day. That'll be interesting, considering each day I have enough homework to keep me working until dinner. But, NaNoWriMo is all about that: finding time to write no matter what, with no excuses. It's the month to block out your calendar. As shown here.

I've spent the day filling out character forms and going through knots in my fuzzy, planned-out plot. And cleaning off my desk. 

Of course, this is probably futile, because last year my desk filled up with empty pens, pieces of scratch paper, lip balm tubes, half-full tea cups, candy wrappers, staples, sticky notes, the odd headache pill and pretty much everything else you could name. Such is NaNoWriMo. 

Hope you guys have a fantastic Halloween, and an even better national novel writing month! Remember, reach your word count goal no matter what! Even if you must turn into a writing zombie! 

Good luck!

Oh, and as a random thought, I'm totally obsessed with this song right now. It's just so pretty and epic. And it's from The Hunger Games, so of COURSE I love it.  (Credit goes to the Taliesin Orchestra.)

 

Books on my To-Read List

It's been SO LONG since I blogged!
Basically here's my life right now: go to school, come home, do homework, listen to music, tell myself that I really should work on my story, put off working on my story, mess around on the internet, eat dinner, spend time with my family and go to bed. So, I haven't really written that much lately... I've been too distracted by the internet... (cough). Yeah.

But! I DO have a list of books I want to read soon. Here it is.
-The Maze Runner by James Dashner
-The Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (have you seen the trailer for the movie?! It looks awesome!)
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (Also because of the new movie coming out. Looks sweet. And it's got Emma Watson in it, so what's not to love?)
-The Twilight series. Wait, wait, I have an explanation! I want to read it because there are so many people who say it's bad, AND so many people who say it's good. I want to be able to form my own opinion. Plus, I hear the last movie is coming out soon, and I want to be able to watch all the prior movies after I read the books. (Never judge a book by its movie).

Hmm. Looks like I read a lot of books because of their movie counterparts/trailers. Well, I guess that's a good a method as any!

Here's the trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"Be! Aggressive! Passive! Aggressive!" That made me laugh so hard.

And here's the trailer for Beautiful Creatures

Aaaand here's the latest trailer for Breaking Dawn part 2.

Even if you don't like Twilight, you've gotta admit, that looks EPIC. Eh? Eh? Am I right?

What can I say? I'm a sucker for trailers.