Autism Awareness Book Giveaway- Closed!

This is my sister Laura.

Stetsons are cool.

This is my sister Laura being hilarious.

My family found out Laura had autism when she was about two years old. She's doing pretty well now, well enough that we think she'll be able to move into a group home eventually. But she's the reason I'm participating in this.

So the book in question is a Book of Legend.

Oh yes.

Oh.

Snap.

Yes.

Bask in its glory, kids.

Bask in its glory.

In all seriousness, though. If you want this book, then all you have to do is reply to this post (as in the one I'm writing/you're reading at the moment) with answers to the following:

1) Are you doing anything for Autism Awareness Month?

2) Are you following this blog?

3) How many lines from The Princess Bride can you think of by yourself? As in: no internet involved. No friends. No family. Just you, soldier.

OK. Go!

EDIT: OH MY GOSH I was in such a rush to get this posted because of this project thing that I totally forgot about autism information. I fail forever. But here it is now.

Autism affects 1 of out 110 children now (it was 1 in 125 two years ago, FYI), and there are four times more boys with autism than girls. It's a spectrum disorder, which basically means that it ranges in severity (you have low-functioning, high-functioning, then everybody in between). There's no cure and nobody is sure what causes it - by the way! If you hear anybody tell you that they've found the thing that causes autism, it's probably not true. Because in all likelihood, it's a combination of biological and environmental factors.

You can find more information here.

Autism Society
Autism Speaks
Autism Research Institute

You can also find the other blogs involved in this week's giveaway here. Thanks everyone who's commented already and so sorry for the info delay!

Friday Fragments

OK. So it's already the 8th. Weird.

1) So last Friday night, I started feeling a little weird. By Sunday, I was totally bed-ridden and felt like I was dying, which explains Monday's post. This lasted well into Wednesday. So yeah.

2) Finally got my hands on If I Stay! It was alright. Not a bad read.

3) The fountains at school are running again, which means spring is officially back. And to prove it, it's supposed to get into the upper 70s (like between 75-78) on Sunday or Monday. :D

4) On the eleventh, the Autism Awareness Book Giveaway is starting. Be excited.

Have a good weekend!

Battling a plague demon.*

*By which I mean I'm horrifically sick and in no state to write a blog thing.

Here's this instead.



Have a good day, everybody.

It's April 1. You know what that means.

It means it's Friday! So here are this week's fragments.

1) It's Autism Awareness Month! (Note the change in banner.)

And there's a book giveaway hop over at the I Am A Reader, Not A Writer blog.



Naturally, I am all over this. Erin at Quitting My Day Job is participating as well. You'll be able to see a full list of all the participating bloggers at the previous link. What book am I giving away? Not sure yet.

2) This makes me laugh. So much.

3) Script Frenzy starts today. I am not going to attempt it this year, and I'll tell you why.
2009 (by myself): 6 pages. Finals happened.
2010 (collaborated with Kassy): 25 pages. Finals happened.
So yeah. I can sense a pattern here. Any of you participating?

Have a good weekend!

Why I Read/Write YA: A Response

Erin at Quitting My Day Job asked in today's post what our high school experience was like and why we read/write YA books.

I went to high school in a relatively small town. Not the smallest by far, but small enough where people tend to remember your name. It was small enough that most everybody understood why it was hilarious that I screamed for five minutes at one of my best friends for a Senior Send-Off skit (I was the quiet one in school; she was the outspoken one).

Summarizing. Freshman year was alright, sophomore year was just OK, junior year was THE BEST EVER ZOMIGOSH!!!1one528@+42*!!~#%!!!one (you will never see me do this again, I promise), and senior year wasn't terrible.



My best friends were, and are, awesome. By the end of senior year, we had like a four-girl-band type of thing going. We even have this AMAZING graduating picture that Kirstin and I call Smartest to Dumbest. Kassy and Steph call it Least Common Sense to Most Common Sense. We're all very mean. :D I don't actually have a copy, so let me doodle it for you. Wow, this post is media-heavy.

Kirstin: Valedictorian, National Honors Society sash thing, Honors cords

Me: National Honors Society sash thing, Honors cords

Steph: Honors cords

Kassy: GRADUATED!

So yeah. But we actually spent most of high school writing this amazing series of short stories called EPSE. It's like if high school were an epic and had 13 main characters. Yeah, we didn't know what the heck we were doing.

I read YA because, well, it's fun to read. When I'm reading more age-appropriate books, I don't feel compelled to binge read them. I've never felt that sort of immediacy with an "adult" book, even Lord of the Rings, which I adore. And with YA, you can talk about a LOT of things. You know what I mean.

Why I write YA.

1) Force of habit. I've always written it. It's like my default setting. :D

2) I'd rather write about high school drama than college drama. (Sometimes I just sit in class and think, "I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place...") At least high school drama has hilarity potential.

3) Teenagers with their mood swings, dramatics, shenanigans, and hormones make for doggone entertaining characters. Real Life Example: At the beginning of senior year, my friend Kirstin had a crush on this boy she called the "Sun God". Or something like that. Well, she wasn't wearing makeup one day, and she thought she saw him pass by our cafeteria table. What did she do? She dove under the table and took Kassy with her. It was hilarious.

4) This.

"So, when you and Radar said you were going out to 'get slushies', was that your secret code for getting together and making out?"

Hydro/Radar is my OTP. (Yep. I ship characters I helped create.)

It's story time!

Too exhausted for a proper post. Here's something from the hundred theme challenge. The prompt was Sixth Sense.

--

“Do you have any recurring dreams?”

Evan Lin just wanted to know why Lily Hale painted him in one of her original pieces for their sixth grade art class. In the painting, Evan and Lily were piercing a giant shadow with two glowing swords. Rays of light ran through the shadow like cracks.

In real life, they didn’t really talk that much at all. Usually when they passed each other in the hallway, they just smiled and nodded. When he asked her why she painted him, she just told him to walk with her after school.

And that led to her completely off-the-wall comment about dreams.

Evan replied, “I can never remember my dreams in the first place.” He looked at Lily from the corner of his eye. “Is that what it is?” He frowned and crossed his arms. “…You’ve been dreaming about me?”

Lily shook her head. “It’s not like that. I’ve only had a one dream with you. And I don’t know why you were in it because real life people always stay out of my head at night.”

Evan scratched the side of his head. “What do you mean by that?”

Lily sighed and ran her hands through her curly brown hair. “It’s like when I go to sleep and start dreaming, it’s not quite a dream. It’s like I enter a whole different world that’s just as real as this one. And I know that in dreams, everything seems real until you wake up. But even after I wake up, it’s still incredibly… real. For lack of a better word.” She took a deep breath. “So that’s what makes me think it’s a different dimension.”

“You know you sound crazy, right?” Evan laughed in attempts to lighten the mood.

Lily smiled and nodded. “Yeah, but I think you’re gonna keep listening because you really want to know where you came into play.”

Evan had to admit she was right. “That’s true. So what was that thing we were killing? Was it like that world’s version of Sauron or something?”

Lily shrugged. “I dunno. Like you, it’s a recent development.” She paused to think, then added slowly, “But I don’t think we were killing it.”

Evan stopped on the sidewalk and grabbed Lily’s shoulder. “We had swords. Glowing swords. We were stabbing a huge shadow. How is that not killing a bad guy?” He waved his right hand side to side. “You know what, nevermind. It’s just a dream you had.” He continued walking, but Lily just stood there.

“Um. Actually…”

--

Just the first draft, but yeah.

Have a good day, everybody!

Friday Fragments

Wow, it's already Friday. It appears the timey-wimey-rollercoaster that comes after spring break has set in. (Timey-Wimey-Rollercoaster: Time appears to accelerate and weeks pass before you realize it.)

1) Don't know how I missed this last week, but they cast Katniss in The Hunger Games adaption. I was kind of rooting for this unknown actress on YouTube, but if they say she's good, then I'll trust their decision. Now I guess they're focusing on Peeta.

2) I became Facebook-popular this week with this music video I've been working on to Owl City's "If My Heart Was A House". Two weeks with Paintbrush and Windows Movie Maker. And it's not finished yet.


3) If you're like me, you might occasionally wonder what kinds of delightful stories JK Rowling is cooking up these days. College Humor has an answer.

4) A conversation from Wednesday:
Nurse: So what's your major?
Me: Creative Writing.
Nurse: Oh my gosh, WHY? What can you do with that?
Me: *Stunned laughter*
True story. Have to give her credit for being honest.

Well, have a great weekend, everybody!

The Hundred Theme Challenge!

When I was a wee thing, only 16 years old (this is a joke), I stumbled across something called the Hundred Theme Challenge. Thought it looked cool. Never saved the prompts. Lost track of the website forever.

AND THEN I FOUND IT. HERE. Two years ago. I've tried to make a story of the hundred themes twice now. Both attempts failed miserably.

The rules are to write a story or create some kind of art with each of these themes. If you want to try it, well, go for it. And here are the themes I'm using.

1. Beginnings
2. Middles
3. Ends
4. Insides
5. Outsides
6. Hours
7. Days
8. Weeks
9. Months
10. Years
11. Red
12. Orange
13. Yellow
14. Green
15. Blue
16. Purple
17. Brown
18. Black
19. White
20. Colourless
21. Friends
22. Enemies
23. Lovers
24. Family
25. Strangers
26. Teammates
27. Parents
28. Children
29. Birth
30. Death
31. Sunrise
32. Sunset
33. Too Much
34. Not Enough
35. Sixth Sense
36. Smell
37. Sound
38. Touch
39. Taste
40. Sight
41. Shapes
42. Triangle
43. Square
44. Circle
45. Moon
46. Star
47. Heart
48. Diamond
49. Club
50. Spade
51. Water
52. Fire
53. Earth
54. Air
55. Spirit
56. Breakfast
57. Lunch
58. Dinner
59. Food
60. Drink
61. Winter
62. Spring
63. Summer
64. Fall
65. Passing
66. Rain
67. Snow
68. Lightning
69. Thunder
70. Storm
71. Broken
72. Fixed
73. Light
74. Dark
75. Shade
76. Who?
77. What?
78. Where?
79. When?
80. Why?
81. How?
82. If
83. And
84. He
85. She
86. Choices
87. Life
88. School
89. Work
90. Home
91. Birthday
92. Christmas
93. Thanksgiving
94. Independence
95. New Year
96. Writer's Choice
97. Writer's Choice
98. Writer's Choice
99. Writer's Choice
100. Writer's Choice

Isn't it glorious?

Plotting for NaNoWriMo. Yes, already.

I don't mess around when it comes to plotting for NaNo. It's pretty much how I spend a good portion of the year.

March- May: Figuring out ideas and characters.
June- July: Deciding on an idea and working on fleshing out characters.
July-October: Plotting the entire story, beginning to end.
November: Obvious...

So these are the ideas I have for NaNo this year. So far. :D

• Step in Time to My Heart (WT, albeit one that makes me laugh): Exactly what it sounds like. It's a love story about band geeks. Yay band geeks!
• Sim Saves the Galaxy: A rewrite of NaNo '08, The Wonderful World of Imminent Doom. It's a story about this interplanetary war in a made-up galaxy called Tsu-Min. It's kind of worth the rewrite for this one line: "It's time to save the planet!"
• Key to Hadley's Soul (WT): It like an AU version of our world where people are born with these things called "soul keys" that change in appearance as the person grows. Then one of the MCs, Hadley, loses his key and he starts to forget who he is. (I like this one.)
• Level Up: A superhero story! It's about a college kid named Molly who has super strength and invisibility. Then she meets her arch nemesis who has no name yet, but he has a vast array of mind-related powers. (I like this one, too.)
• Battlefield Suburbia (WT): It's about an angel/demon war. In the suburbs. (And this one, as well.)
• Forever Saturday: Based on a lyric in an Eleventyseven song. "Every single day was a Saturday." Then I just thought, OH MAN! What if time just STOPPED and every day WAS a Saturday?! That would be crazy.

But yeah.

So, anyone weird like me and start planning for November insanely early?

Friday Fragments

It is Friday, and it is the third day of absolutely gorgeous weather. I think I'm justified in sharing this song with you. It's called "Spring" by Your Heart.



It's also a free download if you absolutely must have it on your media playing devices. :)

1) Jesi Marie was kind enough to share this picture with me.

Thought the cheetah with an eyeglass was a bit random, but it's funny. :D

2) I've been showing this to everyone because it's just so funny. These people took the music video for Total Eclipse of the Heart and rewrote the lyrics so that the song fit the music video. Hilarity ensues like you wouldn't believe. Embedding has been disabled for it, but here's the link.

3) Did you hear about the Fukishima Fifty? They're these nuclear power plant workers who stayed behind at the plant to make sure that nothing worse happens, even though it greatly endangers their well-being. Now that's heroism, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, have a good weekend!

The Writer Nutrition Pyramid

It's a bit flawed, but then again, it's just a joke.

(I got a little bored.)

Qs for Yous*

*Title pilfered and modified from Rachelle Gardner. I am so sorry.

It's so beautiful outside that I can't concentrate on anything. I actually skipped class (OK, so that was more of the fact that I needed to go to the Secretary of State and get my registration renewed). So here are some questions for all of you out there.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? (To clarify, just in case: do you outline your stories, or do you make them up as you go along?)
I'm more of a plotter, but leave wiggle room.

Where's your starting point for writing? Do you usually think of the characters first? The basic premise? The plot? Title first? First sentence? Last sentence? A particular scene? Anything else I failed to mention?
I tend to flip-flop between the characters and the premise.

Music while you write?
Only instrumental here. Can't concentrate if it has words.

And now it's your turn. :)

Because the video isn't working.

Here's a song called I Am The First Fifty Digits of Pi. It's kind of amazing.

The aforementioned proper post.

So I finally heard about the New Play Project. And I got in. :D It actually turns out that one of my old classmates from EfA Drama and Screenwriting in high school is in the class, too. I don't know if I mentioned what we're actually going to be doing in the class. We're going to be writing a live serial over the semester, so that'll be really cool.

In honor of National Pi Day, here's a math-related love poem containing all the math concepts I understand. :) It's called Casting Nines.

If I were casting nines
And I cast out you
I’d cast out seven
And then me two

If we were a triangle
You’d be Leg B
I’d be Leg A
So the hypotenuse is you and me

If I was X
And you were Y
Then our love would be
(xy)2 = ∏

You’re my common denominator
My other digit and radius
The 1 degree who makes 360
Dividing by zero would destroy us

(xy)2 / 0 = ………

But since you’ve been gone
Since you left me
Our right triangle
Became my isosceles

I was casting nines
I cast out you
So I’ll cast out seven
And then me two.

Have a nice day, everybody.