EveOfAnthem's Xanga

Music

Sun, 25 May 2008 00:26:00 GMT

Well, this has nothing to do with writing (is this my first post that doesn't? I think so), but I feel it's something I want to say. Even though no one shall read it.
It seems to me that there is this common misconception amongst schools, school teachers and school administrators, and anyone else who has an opinion about the study habits of teenagers, that music should not be played when they are studying or doing schoolwork. According to them, it is a distraction and will affect the quality of their work detrimentally.
I find the opposite to be true. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Whenever I play music, it helps me concentrate and puts me in a sort of "zone." Without it, I find things simply too boring and quiet, and get distracted more easily. So how did this idea that listening to music during homework is bad get started? I have no idea, but it irks me because, as with so many other things, they make this blanket statement for everyone and just assume that it is true. Thus, they tell us all not to listen to music when studying, they ban MP3s from our study halls and just generally lump us all under this "music will distract you" category. Annoying.

To The Nines

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:39:47 GMT

I actually wrote something. Oh my God.
Well, it's pretty bad (in my opinion). But still -- it's something. I'm out of practice, I admit. I need to start writing again. I will start writing again; I have to, actually. Postable stuff, that is, not just papers and whatnot. This is because I am in a Fantasy Lit. class, and I have to do this Final Project in place of a Final Exam, and I chose to write an indeterminate number of related short stories for an anthology I have planned. I'd also like for them to not suck, so that means I have to actually put time into them... curses. Anyways here's my newest story. I'm not sure if I'll post it on Fictionpress.com yet. Possibly after I polish it a bit. Maybe if anyone ever actually reads this, I'll get feedback?...
Maybe not.

To the Nines

“For those of you getting off at Raleigh, the temperature is a lovely 72° F, partially cloudy. The local time is 1:20 in the afternoon. We hope you have a lovely time, thank you for flying with Southwest Airlines.”

Huffing, Daniel tugged his oversized carry-on off out of the overhead bin, rolling it down the aisle and out into the air-conditioned connecting hallway. Already late, he hurried, his long legs moving at a ground-eating pace.

“I just hope there’s not any distractions,” he muttered to himself. “The last thing I need is another delay. I’m already so far behind schedule, I’ll never catch up.”

Weaving his way to the proper baggage claim, Daniel flopped down, as exhausted as if he had been running a marathon, as opposed to simply sitting on a plane since early in the morning. Finally, after what felt like hours of waiting, the first of his two small suitcases came ambling down the conveyor belt. Crawling along at a snail’s pace, it was easy for Daniel to catch hold of the handle and heft it off of the carousel.

Settling down on his suitcase instead of the ground this time, he tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for his second bag. As he absently hummed to himself, he spotted a woman weaving her way through the crowd easily, avoiding bumping into anyone despite the crowd. As she came closer, Daniel could spot her very out of place dress: a black, strapless evening gown that swept the floor, falling in elegant folds of fabric; heels so tall he was amazed she could walk in them at all, let alone with such grace; a choker of diamonds that glittered at her white throat with matching earrings and bracelet; make-up light but tasteful and auburn hair sleekly done up in a French twist – all-in-all, she was ready for a state dinner at the White House, not an airport at just before two in the afternoon. Remembering the movie he had watched in-flight, Daniel breathed to himself, “Wow, what a Bond girl.”

Unable to tear his eyes from her slender, elegant form, Daniel watched as she paused right beside a much more casually dressed man. Even as he gazed, riveted on the absurd spectacle, The Man carefully passed a package wrapped in what looked like ordinary, brown postal-packaging. Yet The Woman accepted the package with as much care as one would give a newborn baby, wrapping it in a lace shawl that had previously been wrapped around her shoulders. The Woman then took something, too tiny for Daniel to see, from her small, black evening purse and handed it over to the man. Oddly, as he glanced around self-consciously, no one else seemed to be taking note of this very note-worthy exchange. It was as if they had better things to be doing…

With a jolt, Daniel remembered his own baggage. He turned briefly to the carousel, checked off that his other bag was not currently passing him by, and turned back to The Woman and The Man…

…Only to find that they had both disappeared, merging back into the crowd. Daniel thought he barely caught a swish of black fabric slide out the glass doors, but could not be sure as his shook his head, resolving to think more on it later.

So yeah. Maybe I'll continue. Probably not. After all, I have little enough time/motivation to write as it is.

A War of Gifts

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:56:02 GMT

ORSON SCOTT CARD HAS A NEW BOOK OUT!
IT FITS WITH THE ENDER UNIVERSE!
I CAN DIE HAPPY!
Okay, not quite. But still, I do so love Orson Scott Card's books. I am aware that many people love his work. That is not why I read his books. I have read all of the Ender-centered ones, but not the Bean-centered ones -- odd, because I do love Bean (he's adorable. "Did you see it! Did you see it! Did you see how fast I went! Did you see how I changed direction!").
Start from the beginning: I love to read. I read all the time. It's my pet hobby. Because of this, my mom sometimes just picks up books for me from the library. Most recently, the book was A War of Gifts. This book is an Ender story, set during his time at the battle school. I shall tell you no more about the plot, but it is short (120-odd pages) and very sweet.
Personally, my favorite Ender books (Ender-centric or Bean-centric) are the ones set during battle school, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. I know some people think Bean is annoying, that all of the books after Ender's Game are just cheap spin offs, yada yada yada. I don't agree. True, I've only gotten through half of Shadow of Hegemon, but I think when I started reading the Bean section the last one or two Bean books weren't even out yet. I didn't enjoy Speaker of the Dead (of? for? I can never keep track of which one it is, mainly because I read the preface and Card said he went back and forth... I think), Xenocide or Children of the Mind as much as Ender's Game, but I did enjoy them. Perhaps it's because I was in middle school (wow, that's getting to be kind of far away, time-wise!) when I read them (yes, all of them). Maybe it's just the type of story I was looking for when I read them.
Either way, I love the interaction of all the Battle School kids, the games, the classes -- everything. I sincerely desire for Card to write more. A War of Gifts was a great early Christmas present. It even started me re-reading all the Ender books (well, actually the Bean ones right now), and I would love to see more expansion on these children that were so brilliant and so odd.

NO TIME

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:06:14 GMT

So, to make a long story short and repeat myself from my ff.net bio:
I have no time. I signed for all of the classes which require the most work (the most labor-intensive classes offered, is how I've been putting it) and they all require lots of reading, writing and other work. Therefore, all my personal writing is on hold for a long time. I'm sorry, I love to write, but not with an exhaustive school day and a massive homework load.
As a side note (to quote verbatim from my ff.net bio): Apocalypse Now: Trippiest movie ever? Trippiest movie ever.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

Experiment

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:14:02 GMT

I have decided to try a little... experiment. As you all (all who? No one reads this...) know, I have a pen name on ff.net. Under it, I post my stories that I've actually worked on, edited and feel are pretty decent. The only exception to this is my first piece, but hey, everyone's first story sucks, right? I was only in middle school or something anyways...
But the point is, My Lunarmercury stories are ones I actually think about. Planning actually goes into them, as does effort. I feel they're more or less respectable (especially my Planet Ladder one. It's the first long, serious story under that category! Awesome! Now if only Planet Ladder would become popular...)
Most of the stories under my main fandom (Yuu Yuu Hakusho) are not respectable in the least. They're error laden monstrosities, and almost all of them are Mary-Sues. Unfortunately, almost all of them have massive, unprecedented amounts of reviews -- positive reviews, at that. It's pathetic and disheartening.
I think I'm going to write one of them.
It won't be grammatically incorrect, nor will it have incorrect spelling. I simply can't bring myself to butcher English the way some of these girls do; it makes me want to cry and then gouge my eyes out with a rusty spork (especially since I'm almost positive I'm going to major in English in college, as well as something else related to writing... probably creative writing, but it depends on what college I'm going to attend).
Now, this story will not be under my Lunarmercury pen name. I'm going to make a new one (something Hiei related, probably -- that's the general trend in those types of writers). The general story idea I already have. It's an idea from middle school, which should tell you how horrible it is. This girl that I'll make into the main character could be de-Sueified very easily. In fact, I'm going to have to add things to make her a Sue. I'm also going to pair her with Hiei, because that's one of the main things Mary-Sue authors do. I am doing this to see how many more reviews I get for a terrible, unoriginal fic like that than I do for my fics that I toil over in an attempt at creativity and originality. This fic will have it all: cliches, purple prose for the Sue and no one else, trite and unrealistic romance, OOCness and more. It's guaranteed to be horrible. At the very last chapter (in which the Mary-Sue dies, by the way, and everyone is devastated by her death even though they shouldn't be), it'll do an abrupt about face: I'll do decent description, lose the cliches and have Hiei pair up with Kurama. My author's note will explain that this was an experiment, that I consider this fic and all the Mary-Sue fics awful, and that I'll allow a few weeks for feedback, then delete the fic. At that point, my profile will consist of one word: PWND. It'll be fun. It'll probably make me cry, too; I'm bound to get a fair amount of reviews that I don't deserve. Or maybe I'll get the exact same amount. That would be kind of funny.
Also, I plan on having this xanga as the homepage in my new profile. If anyone discovers that it's all a big joke to me, I wonder how they'll react? Better, I wonder how everyone will react when my lovely, het, Hiei/OC romance becomes Boy-Love Kurama/Hiei? Oh, I hope it'll be fun...
Let's see how this works out.

Even the Colleges...

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:10:07 GMT

My feeling on the future of writing has gone from hopeful to hopeless in one evening. How sad.
    So I decided to venture out into the world of badfic again. I was going to (politely) critique an author's work in hopes of making a difference. I came across a story that was mildly funny, but really had atrocious spelling and punctuation. I pointed out some errors and recommended a grammar book and a dictionary (but in a way that was less rude than it sounds here...). Instead of the "OMG y are u soooo mean? who do u thnk u r to insult MY stry!" I was expecting (only probably more error laden), I received a polite, appreciative reply in which the author admitted her grammar and spelling were awful and that she was going to fix the story! I was stunned. Flabbergasted. But most importantly... I was overjoyed. Here was a person who would listen to constructive criticism and use the comments! Immediately, I gained hope -- sure, she's part of a tiny percentage of authors who'll actually acknowledge they've done wrong, but at least now I know these fabled authors exist!
    Unfortunately, my hope died a horrible, painful death not hours later. This requires a bit of back-story:
    In the fall of 2006, I had to write a narrative essay for my honors English course. Now, I spent a bit of time on this essay. It was on a topic close to my heart that had had a big impact on my life, and I felt it turned out rather well. After editing it, going to my teacher to have him help me edit it (and that man pulls no punches with his criticism -- if he thinks it's bad, he'll tell you, but he'll also tell you how to fix it) and fixing it so that the word count was within acceptable parameters, I submitted it to the Bennington Young Writers Competition (Actually, they had a mandatory maximum word count, so that was why I had to cut it down to size). Well, first of all, they lost my submission. I know they must get a lot of entries, but surely not so many that something like that should happen. Luckily, they were pretty gracious about it (I think. I left it to my parents to yell at them).
    I didn't win, unfortunately. So I finally went to their website to see who did win. Hm. I read the first place submission... I read the second place submission...
....
They weren't very good.
    Now obviously, as someone who entered into that competition, I'm not anywhere near unbiased. That being said, I can still critique them, and they aren't that good. Besides the fact that they have improper grammar and punctuation of the sort that cannot be accidental, their writing was wandering, off topic and just plain mediocre. The second place one, while still (in my opinion) better than the first place entry, was preachy, didn't stick to its own topic, and didn't finish up half of its points. She has so many things that just don't make sense, an incorrect translation of a quote and random and pointless scene changes. She went on to put in more quotes from the person she quoted in French, then mistranslated. Her quoting of him? Pointless. She didn't comment on his quote, didn't analyze it, didn't do anything with it except have it sit there. Not exactly a winning entry.
    The first place one... well, it was choppy. It's writing just didn't make it for me. It didn't succeed in painting a scene, and while it could have been filled with emotion, the writing fell flat. She just didn't convey her feelings to me. Frankly, I was not in the least impressed. These were the people who defeated my piece? The one I put blood, sweat, tears and a piece of my soul into? I know I put emotion into that paper, I got over twenty opinions on it. The judging on this contest was just... disappointing. It wasn't just the non-fiction either, the fiction was pretty bad too. I wonder what they'd do if I submitted a fantasy piece for the short story? They'd probably reject because it wasn't "real writing." It could be the best piece in the universe, they just seem like that type of snob to me. What jerks.
    Frankly, if I were the professors, the grammar mistakes alone would have ruled it out for me. These weren't just typos that you can miss even after proof-reading, these were true errors! If you're going to submit a piece to a contest, you should make sure errors aren't there. I look up spelling and grammar for this blog, they can't do it for a contest with a cash prize? It just makes me sick.
    I kind of suspect some sort of favoritism, too. Not only did people from the same school win multiple times (not the same person, just the school) that year, but in previous years as well!
    I don't know what they were looking for in their submissions, but they weren't very selective.
    I'm certainly ruling out that college.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:55:03 GMT

So I wrote this new story, "Valley," on Wednesday. I didn't spend terribly long on it, but somehow I've never needed to spend terribly long on my stories. In fact, the reason it took as long as it did was because I kept on getting distracted, whether it be by my computer or by a family member or what have you. But anyway, I still spent a decent amount of time for writing it all in one day, and I worked fairly hard on it as I do all of the things I write and post (I am trying to make a reputation, and a good one, at that). But so far, not only has it received no reviews, it only has three hits! I'm pretty sure it starts off with one hit anyways (why, I don't know, but it does), so that means only two people have read it! I guess my summary must suck.... It's gotten to the point where I think I'll just delete it, edit it, spend a long time thinking up a good summary that doesn't sound like it came out of a "1001 Cliches" hand-out. Seriously, it's an awful summary. It could probably use some editing, too, and I might add on... there's a good portion of it that sounds like it's there just to give the story some length, but I meant for it to actually play into the story... maybe I'll just write a little sequel and let people know so they don't go "WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THOSE FOUR PAGES RAR." That would be most sad. Or maybe I'll just tack something on (except it's not really tacking on, since I wanted it to be there from the beginning...) because I really did want to get to see her later on in life. I just couldn't figure out how to keep on going without making people say "This should have ended when she was still twelve." I could probably figure out how to make things relevant without mutilating and extending past what it should be... I think I have something in mind...

But yeah, I really should edit it and come up with a good summary for it and then repost it so it is actually up in the front of the pages, or else it will never get read and that would be sad.

Oh... and... if anyone wants to read "Valley" (while it's still up) here's a link: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2382808/1/
Hopefully, it will take you there.

Oh, and I've just discovered something wonderful! I don't show up under the search engine. At all. Not my pen name, not a single one of my fics, nothing. I don't understand it. At all.

But yeah. "Valley." Reading much appreciated. Link will be fixed later if it needs fixing (it probably will).

(I am so upset right now I can't believe it this is SO AWFUL...)

Edit: Revised "Valley." Fixed some minor stuff, made things important without ruining the story by stretching it out. Here's a new link to the story, because the old one doesn't work anymore: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2384165/1/
Please read and enjoy!

Voleurs

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:13:16 GMT

Well... I finally started writing the next chapter of Voleurs. Now that I've cut the entire story down from twenty chapters plus epilogue to seven chapters possibly with an epilogue (but probably not), it's getting off the ground... but I had to rework my entire outline. This new one is a lot less detailed, too, but that's okay -- it's good to have freedom to let my fingers run away with themselves, I suppose.
Even though I've started it, who knows when I'll finish even this chapter? I swear, my muse ran away from me. Either that, or she's hibernating... Probably got eaten by the muse monster, stupid muse. (Actually, when I was younger, I made a little cartoon with a muse monster that looked like a bull chasing a muse away from a girl who had just started to pen a story... hm... wonder who that girl could have been? The story went that the muse monster ate muses, and so any time he came near, the muse had to run away. I swear, he must be real and hanging around me! My muses always abandon me!) So yeah, that's the update on my fanfic. Collision... is not even being thought about right now, but all I have to do is read Planet Ladder and I'll probably feel like writing it. However, even though I know where I'm going with the story in general (and I know how the climax is going to play out!), I haven't the faintest idea how I'm going to start the next chapter. Argh. It's so frustrating. Ah, well, I know part of it, so I'll just write some crap beginning and then write the middle-end (in which I know what I'm doing) and then I'll go back and bang my head against a wall and fix the beginning.
    Twilight Falling... ah, Twilight Falling, how I hate love thee. Well, at least I have an idea of what I want to do in the next chapter. How I'm going to accomplish it... that's another story. Stupid thing. By the way, if anyone who's reading that story (or is intrigued by it and goes and reads it) can suggest a better title (and a better summary -- mine is so awful!), I would love you forever. I might even write a story for you! ...If that actually persuades anyone. Heh.
    At any rate, Twilight Falling is my original fiction piece I'm working on right now. It's a novel, but I don't actually know how long it's going to be... (probably because I don't know what'll go in the middle other than a couple scattered scenes.... well, I'll figure something out. There's a lot for Kayana to do, after all). The summary I have for it on Fictionpress.com is (ah... what is it...) "Her duty is not to protect the innocent, but to kill the guilty. As she strives to fulfill her duty, she is drawn into a web more twisted than she ever could have imagined..." What it's really about is a girl (of course... my protagonists are pretty much always girls, because I can't write boys) who has been instructed by her island to go and cleanse the earth by killing off the evil people. Unfortunately, the evil people are pretty much all that exist, so she has a pretty much impossible job. It sounds like a Buffy rip-off when I type it like this, but it's really nothing like Buffy. For one, she fights no supernatural creatures -- they're all human (at least at first), but there are never any demons or vampires or anything like that (so why is it in the fantasy section, you ask?). Well, it's set not in the future, but more of an alternate reality. It's not meant to be a preachy, "this is what we could become," it's meant to be a gloomy, morbid place where nothing good ever has happened and ever will. The protagonist isn't really good. She doesn't care about saving people like other heroes do. If the victim of the crime she stops dies in the process, it's all the same to her. S/he probably deserved to die anyway, or she would have killed him/her the next night anyway as s/he committed a crime. An example of how easily these killers become twisted is her sister (who is the person in the prologue, so if you're really worried about spoilers for something that has little to do with the main story, don't read this next sentence). Her sister went crazy, slaughtered a group of children simply because they were bickering, then went and drowned herself in the ocean for her failure. Cheery, no?
    But anyway, she tries to kill off all the evil, but she feels like it's an impossible job, and then (like all protagonists) she meets a MYSTERIOUS MAN who... well, we don't know if he's evil yet. But he knows of Kayana (but not her name, apparently, since he only ever calls her "she"). What'll become of him? Who knows. He's barely showed up so far. u.u'    At any rate, I tried really hard not to make it cliche, and I think I succeeded, but who knows. If you could drop by that story and tell me what you think? My penname for Fictionpress is in my second post.
    Well, I really should get back to work on Voleurs... later!

All mine!

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:52:04 GMT

Well, I originally got this blog due to an English assignment -- my teacher decided that it would be a good idea to blog and comment for homework so he knew we were reading, as opposed to us simply fading to the back of a classroom discussion. However, we quickly abandoned Xanga and moved to a different blog site. Despite this, I was unsure as to whether or not using this for my own personal purposes would get me in trouble with my English teacher or not. The school year is finally over now, and I feel safe using this for myself.
I probably won't post much of my life in here. If anything, it'll be essays, rants, and updates on how my stories are going. I'm on fanfiction.net under Lunarmercury and Fictionpress.com under ShadowPlay, and have ongoing stories on both websites. I'm a rather serious writer, but it sometimes takes me a while to update if my inspiration falls away. Therefore, I decided this would be a better place to throw out ideas for stories and tell what's going on with my updates than my profiles on the websites (besides, this finally gives me a homepage!). I've never really blogged before, but I'll probably treat this a bit more... seriously... than a place to regurgitate my life. If I want to rant about Mary-Sues and the degeneration of the English language, this is probably where I'll do it. If I want to whine about how unfair my history teacher is being, this is not the place I'll do it. I have no delusions of grandeur, and I doubt anyone will read this, but I am someone who likes to write. That being said... I guess I'll just welcome myself to my very own blog, now freed from school purposes.

Tale of Two Cities -- First Blog

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:47:11 GMT

It seems to me (as I read my second book that was written during the Romantic Period, yes?) that many of the characters are very similar to those in Les Mis. After all, we have the sweet, innocent, beautiful young woman, the elderly man, and a very devoted family in the making. However, in Les Mis, Cosette very seldom took care of Valjean. In this story, it seems that the values of loyalty and such are displayed plainly, as they were in the other romantic book we have read.
In an only slightly related topic, I found Madame Defarge very interesting, as she just knits and knits and pretends not to notice anything, except when she is needed to do something -- and yet even then, she manages to maintain this "ignorance," as is shown when Dickens says that she "immediately afterwards [after fetching the shoe-making equipment] leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing" (44). Could this be read as an allegory? (Maybe only those with a more feminist streak but) I think so. To pretend ignorance for the good of egos and further investigations, and yet still do what needs to be done -- perhaps going with the "women's intuition" or the "wise woman" theme? After all, supposedly romantics did think a great deal of women -- so assigning such a meaning to Mme Defarge is not completely unprecedented. All in all, I think she's an interesting character, for so little as she's appeared.