A Very Writing Christmas

My mum got me these for Christmas, which made me rather happy firstly because they were surprises (the good kind) and secondly because in my head, it's symbolic for my mum giving me permission to write, to allow myself to spend time doing something I enjoy and wish to do as more than a hobby in the future, as opposed to spending all my time attempting to do schoolwork and revision. It feels quite freeing.

I shall talk first about The Creative Writing Workbook by Matthew Branton. So far I have got to page 26 and my verdict is that it is both enjoyable and helpful. It teaches basic writing techniques to improve your writing and includes creative and fun exercises to practice using said techniques. I find it interesting to learn new things about a skill I thought I was pretty good at already like this, as I never sat down and learnt how to write fiction; I just did it, pretty much ever since I learnt how to pick up a pencil and write with it. I have faith in this book, that by taking me back to the beginning, it will genuinely improve my writing. I highly recommend it.

I have not found The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan quite so useful as The Creative Writing Workbook. It is mostly an inspiration-finding tool, supplying new and interesting first lines to start off a piece, "Sixth Sense Cards" to inspire you to write a piece by evoking a sense, and spinners for choosing a protagonist, a goal and an obstacle between the two. Personally, I feel that I do not need inspiration for new ideas, as I have a pantry full of ideas stocked up in my brain that I haven't written yet; for me, finding inspiration and starting a project is not the hard part, it is carrying it on and keeping myself interested in it enough to continue writing. Therefore, this isn't quite for me, as it really does focus on the finding ideas and starting a new project thing, however I plan to take it to my school's creative writing club, and I imagine we'll get plenty of use out of it. The only other thing I would say is that, from the side, it looks deceptively - almost annoyingly - like a box of chocolates.

Anyway, here's hoping that a jolly Christmas was had by all, and that everyone starts off their New Year well! :)

Essential Songs For Existence 4: Women

We're back to the influence of my dad's taste in music for this choice. This band is, for me, a kind of local band; I was surprised to find out a year or two ago that they were from the nearest city to me, not America, like I'd always assumed. My dad actually said he once saw them walking out of a pub not far from where we live, but didn't realise who it was until afterwards.

Anyway, Women, from Def Leppard's best selling album Hysteria, is what I would personally say is their most famous song, unless it's Rocket or Pour Some Sugar On Me, or Love Bites. Or Animal or Armageddon It or Hysteria. My brother (who is now a bigger Def Leppard fan than my dad) tells me that they released seven singles from Hysteria, however, my personal favourite, Gods Of War, is one of the couple of songs that weren't released. (If you want to know why I like Gods Of War, it's the guitar. I just love the guitar.)

Hysteria is undoubtedly Def Leppard's best album (it sold over 20 million copies - which surely answers the question of why you should really know who they are), but that isn't to say that their other albums aren't good too - my brother tells me that Pyromania almost sold as well as Hysteria did. In fact, my brother has made me listen to some of their other albums, and the more I listen, the more I like what I hear. Apart from the songs I already mentioned, I would recommend Love and Hallucinate from Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, To Be Alive and Disintegrate from Euphoria and Photograph and Too Late For Love from Pyromania. As for any other albums of theirs, I haven't listened to them.

I'm sure my brother will be pleased that I actually listen to what he says sometimes, and have put some of his crazily detailed knowledge to good use. :)

Essential Songs For Existence 3: Fairy Tale Of New York

Happy Christmas, everyone! There is no doubt in my mind that you've already heard this one - which is exactly why it's going on this list. It's also one of my favourite Christmas songs. :)

Essential Songs For Existence 2: Summer Of '69

I'm sure that whenever somebody mentions Bryan Adams, everyone - especially those who remember the early '90s (which, of course, I don't, but still) - thinks of Everything I Do (I Do It For You). But I'm going to talk about a different song by Bryan Adams. My mum is a huge fan of Bryan Adams and has been since she was a teenager, and because of her influence, Bryan Adams' songs were the soundtrack to my early teens as well. Between my mum and I we have his entire collection of albums and I have seen him in concert twice. So for me, an Essential Songs For Existence playlist would be void without him.

Summer Of '69 may not have stayed at number one for sixteen weeks when it entered the charts, but it's still one of Mr Adams' most famous hits, and it's an awesome song. My personal favourites are not any of the famous ones, however, no matter how good Heaven, Cuts Like A Knife, etc are. I could list a great many songs here (Mr Adams' career does, of course, span thirty years), but my absolute favourites are: Thought I'd Died And Gone To Heaven from that most famous album Waking Up The Neighbours, Home Again from the previous album Into The Fire, and I Was Only Dreamin', a less known song from Adams' 2004 album Room Service. I could go on: Hearts On Fire, Heat Of The Night, Fearless, On A Day Like Today, Please Forgive Me... but I think I've given you quite enough song recommendations for one day now. :)

Storms

http://figment.com/books/732589-Storms

http://www.wattpad.com/32255697-storms?d=ud

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2885104/4/Shattered

KRISTIN CASHORE, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY

I just read this on the blog of my favourite author, Kristin Cashore.

I don't quite know why this moved me, but it did. The first thing I'd like to say is that, Ms Cashore, the author does matter. Without the author, there would be no book. And when somebody falls in love with a book, the likelihood is that they do actually think about that person who sat down and spent their time and effort to write that book.

Secondly, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't use your books for coasters, Ms Cashore. I don't use any books as coasters, I have too much respect for them. I may have realised my love for your books a little too late to stop a few slightly dog-eared pages and broken spines on Graceling and Fire (my copy of Bitterblue is a hardback. And I did try very hard with the spine of Fire, so I'm sorry I still broke it), but I most certainly do not and never will use them as coasters. :)

Thirdly, one day, one of those letters in one of those piles of fan mail will be from me. One day. :)

Essential Songs For Existence 1: Livin' On A Prayer

Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi is a classic. My dad likes Bon Jovi so I kind of grew up with some of their songs - especially this one, the most famous. I didn't like them that much for a long time, I thought they were alright but it was more my brother's sort of thing. But you can't deny that this song is just awesome.

As for other Bon Jovi songs I would recommend, I have only listened to three of their albums - Slippery When Wet, the origin of this song, their first greatest hits album Cross Road, and also their latest album What About Now - which is an amazing. My favourites from these are Lay Your Hands On Me, Keep The Faith, Army Of One, Because We Can, I'm With You, What's Left Of Me and Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. These are most certainly not Bon Jovi's most well known songs, but they're the ones that I personally like best.

So why am is this the first of my Essential Songs For Existence? Well, I thought that was obvious. :)

Essential Songs For Existence

There are some songs you expect everyone to know. Maybe they're old classics, maybe they're popular songs, maybe they're songs you grew up with. Either way, when you start singing them, you would think that everybody would join in - and if they don't, you are fully licensed to give them that "what planet have you been living on to not know this song?" look.

So I thought I'd share with you the songs that, to me, are these sort of songs: the Essential Songs For Existence.

I will post a new song every Saturday because why not (I post on the writing blog I share with my friend, Surprise Duck!, on Fridays, and I plan to start uploading new readings of short stories etc on my YouTube channel every Wednesday), and I'll explain my choice, and I'll also make a YouTube playlist on my channel so that, if you haven't heard these songs that are essential for your existence, you can listen to them all in one place. :)

This Is Hubert

So in my study lesson today I got bored and decided to listen to a certain rather popular podcast called Welcome To Night Vale. I downloaded all of the Night Vale episodes a couple of months ago maybe and have been slowly attempting to catch up with them ever since. One of the ones I listened to today, "Candidate", involved a five-headed dragon. So, being bored, I drew a dragon.

This is Hubert. He's a dragon. I like dragons. :)

I think I'd like to write a story or too about Hubert. With pictures, of course; there shall have to be many more pictures of Hubert in the future. And perhaps his brothers, Hugo and Harold. I think their parents must have had a bit of a thing for alliteration. :)

A Little Update

It's gotten to that point whereby I'm starting to get nervous having not posted something on my blog for a couple of days.

So I thought I'd give you a little update.

Firstly, I got my first university offer!! I am very excited. I have been checking my emails more feverishly than normal these past couple of weeks waiting to hear something from any of the four I applied to... and I finally got some news! Thank God it's good news!

Secondly, I thought I'd do a bit of re-branding. You may notice that my username thingy is no longer Beth G but Bethie Jade. You may also notice that a little link in the "My Links" thing down on the left of my blog which reads "My YouTube Channel" has appeared. Now, if you type Beth G into the search box on YouTube, a great many people called Beth G come up. However, if you type in Bethie Jade... nada. I am the first and only Bethie Jade on YouTube. :)

Please be aware that Bethie is just a username-type-thing, and Jade is my middle name, so if ever you wish to contact me, please call me Beth. Beth is still my real (and preferred) name. :)

Wild Apparitions

A while ago, I posted this poem on my blog. As I mentioned at the time, I wrote it at creative writing club; our teacher read us a poem called "The Deer" by Helen Mort, gave us some wildlife magazines and told us to write a poem about a picture of our choice inspired by Mort's poem. My poem took about five, maybe ten, minutes to write, and I was pretty pleased with it, which is surprising as I don't consider poetry to be my strong point. So this is one of the very few good poems I've actually written.

Anyway, I have now posted this poem on YouTube. I would be very grateful if you could take about a minute of your time to watch it and give me some feedback! Thanks!

I.L.Y.

Well, I haven't posted anything writing-y on here in quite a while, so I thought I'd share something I wrote in Creative Writing Club. I read it out and recorded it, and posted it on YouTube! Here it is. There is a link to the written version in the description. Enjoy it!

Time For A Story

Last year, I went to Germany on work experience with my school. Because it was a school trip, we were made to write diaries in German. Here is a small extract from mine (after my teacher corrected it):

Mittwoch, den 28. November (Wednesday the 28th of November)

...Emma hat mir ein schönes Lied mit ihrem MP3-Spieler gespielt und jetzt schreibe ich mein Tagebuch. (...Emma played me a beautiful song on her MP3 player and now I'm writing my diary)

Are you wondering what the beautiful song that my friend Emma played me was? What a shame, because I'm going to tell you anyway. In fact, I'm not, I'm just going to post a video with the song on it, so that, if you haven't heard it before, you can have the same experience as I did a year ago today (except minus the canteen of a German youth hostel, five other students and two German teachers).

On this day last year, I was introduced to the awesomeness that is Nightwish, and thus, in a more indirect manner, I was introduced to a genre - symphonic metal - that I had never heard of before, and yet that I would come to love. So I thought I would write a small tribute to that moment in time: the moment that the awesomeness that is Nightwish first touched my ears. Thank you, Emma, and thank you to whoever started the discussion about music over dinner, although I'm sure you don't remember just as much as me. Also, thank you to Evanescence, for writing a song (Bring Me To Life) that my mum would hear and like, and which would lead her to buying your album, which would eventually lead to me hearing it and deciding that I liked rock music, which would mean that I would be able to appreciate Nightwish when I finally came to hear it. (Also thank you to Evanescence because I still think you're awesome, and also because you led me to discover my other favourite band, Within Temptation, who are also symphonic metal)

If you liked Storytime, then I recommend you listen to Amaranth next - as it was the second Nightwish song I ever heard. :)

SPOILER ALERT

If you haven't watched the 50th Anniversary special yet, then WHY THE HECK NOT??!! Trust me, you really should go and watch it right now. And I mean that. Right. Now.

So I watched The Day Of The Doctor at the cinema on the 23rd of November (it was AMAZING!! Loved it SO MUCH!! And there were people in full costume in the cinema. And people in fezzes. And people with sonic screwdrivers. It felt like we were all friends because we all love Dr Who.) and all I could think was that the tenth Doctor married Queen Elizabeth the First, so he was king. Now, Elizabeth died, but the Doctor didn't. The Doctor is still alive. So the Doctor is still king.

David Tennant, Tenth Doctor, King Of England since 1562. All hail!

Happy Birthday, Doctor Who!

I can't believe it's finally the 23rd of November!! Happy 50th Anniversary, Doctor Who! I am very excited to see The Day Of The Doctor later today, I can't wait! It's going to be brilliant - a celebration truly worthy of an icon of television over the first fifty years of Doctor Who. Long live The Doctor, and may viewers of the future continue to love you as we all love you now!

#savetheday

Plothole!

Plot-hole! Plot-hole! I have hit an unexpected plot-hole! I didn't plan for this to happen, this event was not in my outline, and now it's turned itself into a bit of a problem, like oh crap how on earth can I get my characters out of this in a way that means they can carry on with the story like I want them to??!!

Sorry, I just needed to share this with someone, and I thought it was better on here than on my Facebook, where there are all those people that I know, ugh... (I have nothing against my friends, btw, it's the people, you know the ones, who you only added because you had no logical reason not to, you do know them after all, you just don't want to share all your personal secrets and shit with them - and what one writes is most certainly classed as a personal secret. Writers may not put their life stories into their novels, but they do put their souls into them, and that makes them very private, so I do not wish to even talk about this novel that I haven't shown anyone to those awkward people who I both know and don't know. Also, I just started craving orange juice.)

And it's nearly the 23rd of November!! And I managed to swap my shift to get the night off work after all!! I can't wait and I can't believe it's so close!!! (I was about to say, the world had better not end now, when it's so close, but if it's about to, it's fine, the Doctor will save us). We're going to the cinema to see it. I'm not entirely sure who "we" is, because personally I'm going with my boyfriend, but two of my best friends will also be there somewhere, and a few other people we know are going too. Basically, my boyfriend and I are going, along with as much of the Whovian population of our town that Cineworld can fit into two screenings at once, and it just so happens that approximately half of that Whovian population of our town are at our school and are a similar age to us.

In Other News

Also, I sent off my UCAS application today, which means that once my teachers have checked it, it'll be sent off to the four universities I'm applying to. I'm so excited! It's like - you know that future thing that you're dreaming about? well, it may well be about to happen. :)

And I had my second driving lesson this afternoon, and this time I didn't panic, and my driving instructor didn't have to tell me to pull over so I could have a bit of an emotional breakdown because driving is absolutely terrifying without a huge traffic jam behind me! I'm quite proud of myself.

And finally, I also discovered that s'mores are better with chocolate digestives than with plain digestives, and if you melt the marshmallows on an actual campfire rather than tealights.

It has been a pretty good day. :)

(Except that I still haven't finished my German essay yet, so I still can't allow myself to write my novel - which I'm still several thousand words behind on, by the way)

Being A Writer

An English teacher of mine once said (I lie, he said this several times) that words (as well as similes, metaphors, personification, etc) are the tools of a writer's trade, like saws and hammers and things are the tools of a carpenter's trade, and a novel is the writer's equivalent to a carpenter's wardrobe. To make the wardrobe as best as he possibly can, the carpenter needs to use exactly the right tools at exactly the right time, (he can't hammer the pieces together if he hasn't cut the pieces yet), and it's the same with being a writer. You need to use exactly the right words at exactly the right time to make your piece of writing the best as it can possibly be.

Having been a writer for a rather long time compared to my fairly young age (I used to staple pieces of paper together when I was little, draw the front cover, occasionally write, or begin to write, the first page if I could be bothered, and call them books), I do always like to pick the right words to use. Like, all the time. Which is fine, until you consider my memory. It isn't very good. So I pretty much spend my life trying to remember that one word that I wanted to use, because the synonym that means exactly the same thing doesn't fit with what I want to say - yes, it gets my meaning across, but only just. I want the word that gets my meaning across perfectly.

The time when this gets most in the way is in German lessons. I've been learning German for maybe about six years now, and am taking an A Level in it, so I'm fairly capable. But I'm just because I'm good at German doesn't mean I'm fluent - I may be able to write essays in German, but I still need that humongous German/English dictionary (and sometimes the grammar textbook) in front of me for reference. So far so good - but what about when I don't have my dictionary? And that, my friends, is where I begin to run into problems. Because whether I know that I know a word in German and have just forgotten it, or whether I've never come across the translation at all,  I am going to want that one word that fits in exactly the way I want it. And likewise with sentence structure; if I think of an English sentence that I want to say in German, that is exactly how I want to say it - but in German. So if I want to say he went into space, I want to say he went to space, not something equivalent, like he was an astronaut. It gets the same message across, and that's what you have to do when you can't remember the German word for space. But I didn't want to say er war Kosmonaut. I wanted to say that he went into space. And that is where my being a writer gets in the way of my German - mostly in my speaking, when I have to think of something to say on the spot, and also just in any situation where I don't have a dictionary in front of me.

Talking To Friends

The one thing that usually happens when I talk to my friends, even when I talk to them on Facebook, is that things go crazy. Well, talking to one friend, Ross, today led to two things that are a bit crazy.

Firstly, I discovered pirate metal. It's metal, perhaps slightly similar to symphonic metal, except that it's all about pirates - you know, the swashbuckling ones from like the Victorian era, like in Pirates Of The Caribbean. It's absolutely insane, and quite awesome. I would say that if you like Nightwish, you may well like Alestorm, which so far is the only pirate metal I have heard.

Secondly, we started a new blog. It's a blog about writing, and the idea is for it to become of sort of online writing community; a small, cosy one. It's called "Surprise Duck!", because we're mad like that. It's only just starting out, we have posted two things, and so far nobody but us has seen it. But anyway, it's there now, and the link to it is going in my list of links down on the left. :)

Tumblr Teenagers

On the few occasions when I'm out and about I do worry about whether old people find me intimidating when I walk past them. Okay, so I'm probably about five foot three (I don't know, I haven't measured myself in years, I just know that I'm small), so I'm probably not that intimidating, but I'm still very aware that some teenagers are intimidating to old people - you know, those kids that hang round smoking or drinking or whatever it is that they do, and just generally being a bit thuggish, a bit scary, a bit gangsta. I feel like, as a goody-little-two-shoes teenager, I have to show people that the future of the human race aren't all terrifying idiots.

But at the same time, there's another bad teenager stereotype, and this time I am one of the ones that fit into this category, I admit. It's that whole computer generation thing: that a whole generation of kids are just spending their lives on the internet and on computer games. And what made me think of this is that just now, my mum came and asked me how I'm doing with my schoolwork, like she normally does, and I was like, it's fine, even though I've actually spending most of my time on YouTube and Facebook - like I normally do. But then she said to me, "Hurry up and finish off, and then you can come downstairs and chill out."

I don't know if anybody reading this is at all like me, but if you are, you'll know that right then all I could think was: do I really have to go downstairs to "chill"? Can I not do that up here, in the glorious isolation of my room, with my laptop and my internet and my Tumblr account and my fangirling and my music and my earphones and my book? Cause I'd much rather do that.

Music Recommendation: For My Pain...

I believe that many people in the metal world, especially the symphonic metal world, will have heard of Finnish songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen's band Nightwish - they're pretty big, and that's because they're pretty damn awesome. But compared to Nightwish's huge success, not many people seem to have heard of Holopainen's other band, "For My Pain...". I only discovered them maybe about half an hour ago through Mr Holopainen's website; I have been a Nightwish fan for almost a year now and I haven't heard of For My Pain before. It seems they only released on album, "Fallen" in 2003, but the website doesn't list a date for the band breaking up, so technically they're still around here... somewhere. Maybe.

Firstly it is necessary to point out that For My Pain... is not Nightwish. The most obvious difference is the vocals; male vocalist Juha Kylmänen sings for them as opposed to Tarja Turunen (or later Anette Olzon or Floor Jansen). There are obviously other differences - I do not think I would class this as symphonic metal like Nightwish, the style is quite different - but I haven't listened to them enough to be able to spot them.

Either way, I have listened to a couple of their songs and they seem pretty good. Personally I prefer Nightwish - by a huge margin. But still, it isn't bad, and is quite possibly underrated. I think most of the songs from the album Fallen are on YouTube. I personally like the songs "Dancer In The Dark" and "Tomorrow Is A Closed Gate" although I haven't had chance to listen to them all yet. But basically, if you like Nightwish, or in fact any sort of metal, go and listen to For My Pain...

Mid-Month Update

So now we are halfway through November, and halfway through NaNoWriMo, so every novel written by NaNoWriMo participants should, by now, be at least 25,000 words in length - halfway to that winning 50,000. Of course, there will be people who are nowhere near that and people who have given up, and people who are a couple of thousand words behind. At just over 18,000 words, I am one of those people.

Now, it could be worse. The last time I took part in November NaNoWriMo, I think I got about 5,000 words - definitely no more than 10,000. I had exams to revise for. I had no time for writing. Technically, I don't have any time for writing this year. With a new part-time job, school, actually having a bit of a social life for the first time in my life (which is basically watching old Dr Who episodes with my boyfriend - although I'm still slightly surprised I can actually say that) and starting driving lessons, more is going on in my life right now than has ever gone on before. It's a bit tiring. It might be alright if I'd kept up from the beginning and not skipped a couple of days, but now I'm trying to catch up more than the required daily word count, and I don't have time.

According to the stats graph on my account on my website, I will finish my novel on the 14th of December (this year, luckily - I'm not doing that badly) if I carry on the way I am, and I need to write 2,119 words every day to finish on time. I don't think I'll make it, but that's not to say I'm going to give up! Wish me luck, and I may well cross that 50,000 word line yet!

Note: I said before that I should be at 25,000 words by now - well, it seems now that I checked on the website that I lied. Today's target word count is 26,666. Which means I am about 8,000 words behind. I think I will definitely need that luck you were just in the process of wishing me. :P

The Time Lords?

So I found this song here, right here (please click here and press play on the thing that says "listen"!) on tumblr and I reblogged it. I since found out that it's a real song, called Doctorin' The TARDIS, by The Time Lords.

Except it's not.

Because HERE is the original (below) and the song which plays from the link above is NOT the same. Notice the different introduction? Notice the different guitar-y bit? Notice the verses with lyrics? Those are not in the original, it is not the same.

Now, I'm not saying anything bad about either song. I just have a question I want to ask.

And my question is this: where on Earth did the one in the top link come from? I looked up covers of the original song and none of them match this one. So who made it and where did it come from??

And more importantly: WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD IT???

In the meantime, if you don't know the answer to these questions, which you probably don't, just listen and bask in the awesomeness of a song about Dr Who. :)

Emma Blackery's Thoughts On Google+

And I must say, I think I agree with her.

The Last Dream: NaNoWriMo 2013

When all else fails, you still have your dreams... don't you?

When you have come to despise the fairy-tale figures that dominated your entire childhood, it's just your luck that the alien invasion that comes to tear your world apart brings the characters that have haunted you for years quite literally to your doorstep - and right after you discovered your sister has been lying to you (again). Seriously, it's just not your day, is it?

I thought I'd share the synopsis and cover art for the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo this year - The Last Dream, originally called The Cloudmaker. The inspiration for it came from driving past a small white building in a field in Scotland somewhere between Edinburgh and the English border which I think was some sort of mini power station (I can't really remember what it looked like so I can't tell you what it was), but it looked to me like it should be a cloud factory. I was annoyed at myself for wanting to write about this cloud maker for NaNoWriMo, because I'd wanted to write a novel about a fangirl this year. And then I had a weird dream which involved an alien invasion, and I'd wanted to do my NaNoWriMo novel about that too. So, I combined the three together, and this is the result. :)

Will be the result. Will be the result, when it's done. (I'm currently about 2,000 words behind but there we go).

The book cover is a pretty picture of some clouds that I found on Google Images, and I used the programme Paint and the font Shelley Volante BT (the Nightwish font) for the text.

Also, I am putting the link to my NaNoWriMo profile in the list of links down on the left of the home page. Visit it if you wish. :)

A Fictional Setting Brought To Life

This photo appeared on Kristin Cashore's blog a day or two ago. It is my belief from this blog that she's in Iceland at the moment, and this is one of the pictures she took of her travels. If you have read Fire you may well know what I thought of as soon as I saw this picture (particularly because of the rocks):

Kristin Cashore, you have found The Dells.

It made me very happy, so I thought I'd share. :) The blog post this picture is on can be found here.

Song Recommendation: Paradise (What About Us?)

I was literally in hysterics when I heard about this song coming out. It is the new single (released about two months ago now, I think - I'm only just getting around to blogging about it) of Within Temptation and Tarja Turunen. You might wonder what sets this song apart from other songs - what exactly had me hyperventilating, when the song wasn't even out yet? Well, Within Temptation are awesome. They are my favourite band. Fair enough, you might think. Nightwish are also awesome, they are my second favourite band. What does that have to do with anything, you might ask. Well Tarja is the ex-lead singer of Nightwish. Tarja is also awesome. And awesome + awesome = CRAZY AWESOME! Knowing that a song that was practically a collaboration between my two favourite bands was like a dream come true.

And "Paradise (What About Us?)" well and truly lived up to expectations. It's amazing. (Dr Who fans - notice that there's a sort of background noise in the build up that sounds kind of like a TARDIS?) I think I am slightly in love with it. This song on repeat = perfection. I simply cannot wait to hear Within Temptation's new album (rumoured to be out in January, I believe), and Tarja's new solo album has been out since August, methinks.

Figment: The Shoes

I finally posted a story on Figment.com. I'm not sure why, I've had the account a couple of years now so I don't really know why I thought now was a good time to finally post something on it, but there we go. Anyway, it's about the memories that are attached to certain items, it won't take two minutes of your precious time to read (literally), if you follow this link right here then please enjoy it. :)

Wild Apparitions

I wrote this poem at my school's creative writing club and it was published in a newspaper for the schools in my local area. We were given a load of wildlife magazines and told to pick a picture of an animal and write a poem or a description about it. You can guess what animal I picked when you read the poem. I now have the picture stuck on the back of my creative writing folder (it's very pretty). I wrote this poem pretty quickly, I recall, and oddly it didn't take much editing for me to be happy with it. It isn't often I write a poem I'm happy with, no matter how much time I spend on it or how much I edit it, which is why I thought I'd share this one with everyone.

So, here is the poem:

Perhaps a memory, perhaps a dream,
From a summer long ago:
I turned around and there it was,
Its outline glinting gold.

Its body in shadow in half-light,
Its head held tall and proud –
The wolf stood high and looked at me;
Looked me up and down.

Only a moment it was there,
But forever in my mind.
When the sun glints gold that way,
I turn
And there the wolf I think I find.

New Account, New Start :)

It's not really that much of a new start. It just sounded good.

So, this isn't exactly the solution I had in mind for changing the accounts on my blog, it's slightly more stressful in that I shall now have to reapply all the settings that, in my eyes, make my blog MY blog. But it's a solution. I definitely didn't just waste an entire evening doing this.

I'm not deleting my old blog (for now, I need it as a reference to get this one looking exactly the same), and you can find a link to it in the sidebar thingy on the left. I don't see why you'd want to go look at it, I have all the posts from it right here (I know! Magic!), but still.

I have changed the name of my blog again, mostly because of course there cannot be two blogs existing at the same time with the same name. So I took a step back in time to rename it the original name, "The Authoress And The Voices". Except without the "And The Voices" bit. Because I didn't like it.

Well, that's that, I suppose. Eventually I aim for this blog to look exactly like the other one, but right now I have things to do and quite frankly I've had enough of sorting out blogs today. I'll be posting the same sort of stuff as I was before: book reviews, short stories, rants, etc... So there we go. Please enjoy my blog! :) Goodnight, readers... goodnight...

GOOGLE, WHY?!

This is a little bit complicated. I created a new Google account specifically so that I could link this blog to it. Turns out, I can't do that. Unless I can. Somebody educate me please?

Basically, if Google lets me have things my way, I want to connect my blog to Google+, except that I don't particularly want to do that on this account, hence why I created a new one. I think I've linked the accounts, and I sent an invitation to my other account to be a writer on this blog. The theory behind this is that if my other account can be listed as a writer on this blog, then I can promote myself to admin, connect my blog to Google+ on my other account (because apparently blogs are so much easier to use on Google+, if you believe what Google tells you), stop blogging from this account, and voila. I have no idea if this is actually possible. I haven't got past the first stage yet. This account tells me that I have sent off the invitation for my guest writer, but my other account has no idea about it. Has it just quite simply not come through yet - and I just need to wait a bit longer? Should I try again?

I have no idea why I'm bothering to ask. It's not like anybody's actually reading this. Which was the idea behind connecting this blog to Google+, to connect more and actually get a couple of readers, because apparently Google+ is so much better.

But anyway. Long story short, if things go my way, I'll be blogging from a different account, on Google+. That account is beththewriter.librarymouse@gmail.com. I have the same picture as this one. I will be rather difficult to find, unless this blog magically shows you its followers, because I followed it in the hopes it would help my predicament. It didn't. I am also my only follower. Yay, popularity...

NaNoWriMo

I don't know if you've heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is actually international), but it's an online challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month (specifically, the month of November). Anyone can participate, and it's free to join.

I took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time in 2010, when I was fourteen. My novel was called The Children of The Forgotten and I completed it (albeit thanks to it snowing and my school being closed towards the end of the month, so I had a couple of extra full days in which to write). It wasn't very well planned and I never managed to finish the second draft but there we go.

In 2012 I took part in Camp NaNoWriMo, which is the same thing but in the summer - like an American summer camp, but online, and for writers. That was also fun (however I believe I prefer the November event; I think because it is more well-known, so there are more people and I felt like I was part of something bigger and grander.), although again it wasn't very well planned (I began the novel on an impulse with an idea that I forced out of my head specifically so I could take part). I did finish it, but I got bored with my main character halfway through, and I'd got quite far without very much actually happening, so I killed off my annoying protagonist, threw my plotline (metaphorically) out the window, and continued the novel by following some much more interesting characters who consequently had run-ins with dancing trees, cheese-on-toast running away, people with extremely long names made of up numbers, and a disappearing donut-seller who was actually a murderer (he poisoned his donuts). It was all rather amusing, but absolutely terrible.

I also attempted NaNoWriMo in 2011 (getting little further than perhaps 5,000 words) and Camp NaNoWriMo in 2012 (I got to 41,000 words before giving up - except that I didn't give up on the idea, because I'm still working on it now. Just very, very slowly.)

Generally I'm not very happy about there being no more January examinations, because it means we have to do ALL OF THEM in the summer which just adds to the pressure (thanks a lot, like we really need that), but what it does mean is that if I have no exams in January then I don't need to spend every second of November and December revising. Which in my books can only mean one thing. NaNoWriMo. Which is particularly good because NaNoWriMo is really the only time I have ever finished a writing project that isn't a short story.

I do have an idea already prepared for this year's novel, but the likelihood is that things will get pretty random (when one has 50,000 words to write in a month and a novel with serious themes, possibly the only way to get through it is to keep oneself entertained with the occasional light-hearted and plain crazy scene. It's gonna be great.). Fingers crossed for completing it, though. :)

TO READ: Bitterblue

SPOILER ALERT FOR GRACELING

(also, click here for a series of letters between the characters of Graceling and Bitterblue set before the beginning of Bitterblue, written by Kristin Cashore)

The third instalment in Kristin Cashore's The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is Bitterblue, set eight years after the first book Graceling and on the same side of the mountains as the aforementioned novel - in the kingdom of Monsea, where young Queen Bitterblue now rules, still attempting to help her country recover. This book most certainly has the most complicated plotline of the series, and the darkest themes as well.

Bitterblue is the coming-of-age story of a young queen struggling to find herself and to take control of a kingdom she is supposedly in charge of. Feeling disconnected from the people she rules, Bitterblue begins to sneak out into the city at night to hear stories of her late father, a corrupt king, and it is there that she meets Teddy and Saf - two young men known as truthseekers who use thievery and publishing to try and put right what they believe to be wrong in the world, although there are many who would take extreme measures to silence them. And so it is just as the web of lies set up to make her transition to the throne as a ten-year-old is beginning to fall apart that Bitterblue starts spinning her own web of lies to hide from her advisors that she is trying to uncover the truth, and to hide from her newfound friends the power she truly wields.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Bitterblue; I loved seeing characters we met in Graceling return and I very much liked how relatable the character of Bitterblue is - she might be a queen, but that doesn't mean she can't get just as annoyed and confused as the rest of us (what I would like to know is, who had she been hanging around with who would teach her to use the word "balls" as a curse word?). Of course I particularly love Cashore's writing style, and her use of humour (there are a number of brilliant quotes I could point you to which I found rather amusing). Overall, I would say that Bitterblue is my least favourite in the series - however, please consider that there are only three of them, and that they are all favourite over pretty much all other books I have read.

Adults Reading Young Adult Books?

This is a response to this article by Joel Stein, who clearly doesn't know what awesomeness he's missing. I do, I suppose, see his point about children's books, but sometimes people want to see what they missed by not reading a certain book as a child, and certainly there are some people who even in adulthood could learn a few things about being kind etc etc etc from children's books. And I agree that an adult reading a kids book in public can seem weird and embarrassing. My problem with this is that he doesn't seem to quite get the distinction between "children's book" and "young adult book".

Now, what do you think of as a children's book? The thing that comes to mind is a cardboard full-colour picture book, or, for older children, a not-very-thick book with large print and the occasional cartoon illustration, usually filled with great adventure in which nobody gets hurt and gets home in time for tea, or has at least some form of happy ending. And what about these books Mr Stein is referring to as children's books? Twilight; The Hunger Games - and now you'd all better pay attention because I won't be defending Twilight again anytime soon.

Fair enough, Twilight may seem melodramatic and some of the whole love triangle thing unappealing to many people over say fifteen, but vampires, werewolves, that level of romance, all topped off with the odd bloody battle - is that for children? Fantastic for "tween girls" - yes (it wasn't that long ago that I myself was a Twilight-obsessed "tween girl") - but maybe not so great for adults (especially adult males), but most definitely not for children.

And what about The Hunger Games? Well, I'm sure an innocent eight-year-old would absolutely love three full-length illustration-less novels documenting at best heartbreak and a bittersweet ending, and at worst the gruesome slaughter of teenagers forced by a violent dictatorship, followed by a political campaign to overthrow the corrupt government.

What I am saying is that, as I hope is obvious by now, young adult books are not children's books. Did Mr Stein not notice the bit in the title of the genre that uses the word "adult"? To me, a young adult book doesn't have to only be read by the young adults in our world. It is not fair to look down upon them simply because of those who happen to connect with them best due to the age of the characters. Because in my view, a young adult book simply is a book that deals with young adults, and who understands being a young adult better than real young adults themselves?

I am going to use the example of Kristin Cashore's The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy here, simply because it was through looking through Kristin Cashore's blog that I found her response to this article, and thus found this article itself; also, these fantastic books are most certainly not well-known enough.

The trilogy is in the Young Adult genre, so how serious is it? Could a more mature reader stomach this stuff that is enjoyed by younger audiences? I'd like you to read this blog post by Kristin Cashore herself about why she wrote the second book in the trilogy Fire and tell me yourself. Tell me that it doesn't contain adult themes and a message that Ms Cashore wants to get out to the world - the world of adults.

And if, despite this, you automatically think that because of the series' genre, the storylines are simple, there are no underlying morals, the characters are immature or are stock characters, then think again. Let's take a look at Ms Cashore's third book Bitterblue, which has won awards for children's books. Its protagonist is an eighteen-year-old queen of a fantasy world. So far it's sounding like a children's book.

But now let's look a bit deeper - which basically would mean reading past the first page. Firstly, when I gave it to my mum to read, I had to try and explain half of it to her. The plot got that complicated. I already mentioned the protagonist is a queen - she has a kingdom to rule - therefore there are going to be some politics involved here. Then her late father was a sick, power-hungry psychopath, and eight years after his death, she's still finding evidence of his cruelty and trying to fix the many, many things he did so badly wrong. So she's confused, she's overwhelmed - but she's strong, strong enough to fight back and survive assassination attempts, and she's clever, with a good mind for numbers and ciphers. And that romantic interest who in teen books are always so perfect - he's a thief, but a good thief, although he acts rather too rashly at times. Oh, and sexual acts may or may not be hinted at throughout the course of the novel. Still sounding simple and stereotypical and "dumbed down"? Still sounding like you'd give it to your kids as a bedtime story? Or maybe it sounds like something you'd prefer to read yourself?  Are you believing me that Young Adult books such as this one can be read by more mature people yet?

So what is it that Mr Stein has a problem with? Is it the fantasy worlds that many of these books seem to take place in? Are they too childish? That, my friend, is called escapism, and any person of any age is entitled to it. Or is it the genre? Now, tell me Mr Stein, what do parents tell their children? Don't judge a book by its cover? Yeah. Go figure.

There is one last thing I would like to say. I don't find it at all fair the way Mr Stein not only condescends these books and their writers (which completely undermines the ginormous effort and the fantastic skill on their part to actually write a book - an eight hundred page first draft and four years for Ms Cashore to complete Bitterblue.) but openly admits to not actually having read ANY of the books he is complaining about. I have read Twilight. I have read The Hunger Games. I have read Harry Potter. So I think I am perfectly justified in saying that he should go home and actually do his research. He's missed some great stuff by being judgemental and condescending (I'm sure he could find some great children's picture books to help him with that). He has some serious catching up to do.

TO READ: Fire

Fire by Kristin Cashore is the second in her The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, however not only is it technically a prequel to first in the series Graceling but it isn't actually set in the Seven Kingdoms at all. In a land bordering the Seven Kingdoms to the east of an impassable mountain range known as The Dells, approximately forty years before the events of Graceling. This is, I think, my favourite book. My one favourite, ever. (And such a pretty cover the British edition has!!)

In The Dells - one of only two kingdoms known to its people, the other being the northern sea-faring land of Pikkia - there exists extraordinary creatures which can appear as any species, be it cat, mouse, wolf, raptor... These monsters, as they are called, can be distinguished by their unnaturally vibrant colours, and have the ability to take control of others' minds, which is added to the almost hypnotic effect their beauty has on some.

Seventeen-year-old Fire (so named for her flaming hair) is the only human monster alive, and is hated by many - sometimes for jealousy, sometimes for her father's legacy, but mostly for her venomous mind. Fire hides herself away on her late father's estate in a remote corner of the kingdom, where her kind-hearted neighbour raised her along with his son Archer, Fire's lifelong friend, in the hopes of deflecting all attention. But Fire isn't safe, not even here.

The Dells is a kingdom still recovering from a king corrupted by Fire's monster father Cansrel, and the throne of the current King Nash is unstable, and the threat of war is looming from all sides. Despite the royal family's obvious distrust of her, Fire's gift would be invaluable, and Fire is not her father. This is the story of Fire's fight to prove herself; to stay true to herself and to do what she feels is right and pay back the innocent prince Cansrel tried so many times to kill. Because underneath her otherworldly beauty, Fire is just as human as everybody else.

I wholeheartedly recommend that anyone and everyone reads this book - whether you're male or female, old or young. Partly because of a blog post I just found. I was going to comment on it, but then it became a bit long so I shall be posting it separately. But whether you'd rather read something fast-paced, or something political, or something romantic, or something magical, READ THIS BOOK.

Finally, I'd like to just direct people to a blog post that Kristin Cashore wrote about Fire and why she wrote it. Also, please find the list of awards and raving reviews for Fire here. :)

TO READ: Graceling

And at last, I've got to recommending what is probably my favourite series of books: The Seven Kingdoms trilogy by the wonderful Kristin Cashore (whose blog is here). Graceling is the first in the trilogy to have been published, and is Cashore's debut novel, although in the story's timeline it is not the first chronologically.

Graceling is set in a fictional Medieval-esque world made up of seven kingdoms: Nander, Estill, Sunder, Wester, Monsea, Lienid, and the Middluns. In this world, some people - called Gracelings - are born with extra-special abilities and are marked by having one eye a different colour to the other.

One such Graceling is Katsa, the niece of the king of the Middluns, who is Graced with killing, and is used by her uncle as a weapon to fuel his fearsome reputation. Sickened by the gruesome tasks she is forced to do, Katsa also works for a secret organisation called the Council, which she started herself, to do good and help people in order to balance out all those she has hurt and killed.

It is on a Council mission to rescue the kidnapped father of the peaceful king of Lienid that Katsa stumbles onto a dark mystery that will lead her on a journey of survival and self-discovery across the Seven Kingdoms in the hopes of putting right a world gone wrong.

Winner of several awards and nominated for many more, Graceling is a gripping and fast-paced coming-of-age novel for young adults, beautifully written with a touch of romance and humour, as well as believable characters who I myself have become incredibly emotionally attached to over at least five readings of this book. It's also due to be adapted for the big screen, by the makers of Life Of Pi; it's a film I'm very much looking forward to, I just hope they do it the justice it deserves.

Also, while browsing Kristin Cashore's blog for the link to the post in which the film was announced, I found this awesome post (if you read it, remember to read some of the comments too, as Cashore comments to answer peoples' questions with more wonderful insights). I swear it's the most inspirational post for writers EVER. Another of my favourites is this one; Kristin Cashore has some of the most brilliant advice for writers, I could actually spend all day finding links to posts from her blog that would be helpful to anyone aspiring to be a novelist (she is seriously inspirational).

Blog Neglect: A Notice To Those Few Who May Be Interested

I'm aware I've neglected my blog over the past couple of weeks. I have a few more book recommendations I want to post but mostly what I want to do with this blog is to post short stories on it, like I originally intended to. One day I hope to read a few things aloud to post as a video, but that may never happen; it all depends on whether I have the time, and the energy, and the resources (I do own a camera, but the charger went walkabout. As in, I think it may have hiked to the other end of the country or something), and whether or not I remember the idea when I do have all of those things.

Either way, my blog has to fight for priority, and unfortunately the more important stuff like school work will inevitably in out; therefore it doesn't bother me so much when a "deadline" for posting something passes. In conclusion, I won't be setting dates for posting anything anymore, you'll just have to wonder and wait, and my next blog post will hit you when you least expect it.

In the meantime, I'm tired (it's only 7PM) and have things to be doing, and when I've done those things, then I have addictive computer games to play and funny cat videos to watch. Auf wiedersehen!

TO READ: Anna Dressed In Blood

I finished this book by Kendare Blake today having spotted it online and thought "oh, that looks good" and then forgetting about it for months before finding it in my school library yesterday. I did have reservations about dedicating myself to read it, as I do now have schoolwork to be busy with once more, but a quote on the front told me that Cassandra Clare found it "spellbinding and romantic" and I do rather like Cassandra Clare's books, so I figured it wouldn't harm me to give it a read.

Anna Dressed In Blood tells the story of teenager Cas, who, like his dad before him, makes it his duty to destroy murderous ghosts. The book focuses on Cas's experience with a particularly dangerous ghost named Anna Korlov, who was brutally murdered years before, and who is the most powerful ghost Cas has ever encountered. It's a fast-paced horror story - not the sort of thing I'd usually read - but it's also a love story.

I enjoyed reading it and got rather attached to the characters, though I did find it confusing at times. Maybe I just read it too fast. It gets a little gory in parts, which I suppose is why the copy I've borrowed from the library has a "13+" sticker on the front. It did also make me more wary of the creaks my house makes at night - you have been warned. Personally, it's not one of my favourites, but it's still very good and I most certainly recommend it to anyone who cares to listen to me. :)

There is also a sequel, Girl Of Nightmares, which I believe I will be looking out for, and apparently Anna Dressed In Blood is also to become movie.

Song Recommendation: Victim Of Ritual by Tarja

I know, I didn't post a reading recommendation last week, and I'm not posting one this week either, but that's not because I haven't got one. For anyone who read any of my earlier blog posts, it's clear there's an obvious favourite of mine which I've missed; I haven't forgotten it (or should I say, them; it's a trilogy and I might well give each book an individual post), I just thought it would be best to leave it a bit since I know I went on about it rather a lot. Either way, I wanted to share a song I've been listening to today, I may be becoming slightly addicted to it. It's called Victim Of Ritual by the amazing Finnish singer Tarja Turunen, from her upcoming album Colours In The Dark, and it takes "I'd like to sing along but I can't sing" to a whole new level. As in, "I'm not even going to try, because my voice will not physically be able to do that." (And I wish I could roll my "r"s like that)

TO READ: The Light Between Oceans

Sorry this is a couple of days late, but there we go.

I hadn't heard of this book by M. L. Stedman before I picked it up despite the cover claiming it to be an international bestseller (apparently it's also destined for the big screens). Either way, once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. It tells the story of ex-soldier Tom Sherbourne in Australia in the 1920s after the First World War as he becomes a lighthouse keeper on a small remote island called Janus Rock. The main action begins in 1926, when a boat containing a dead man and a baby wash up on the island and Tom and his wife are forced to make a decision that will change their lives.

This is an enticing debut novel which I would recommend firstly to fans of Kate Morton and secondly to anyone who will listen. I found myself getting rather fond of the characters, most of whom just want to do the right thing in a difficult situation, although I did start getting confused between the minor characters towards the end. It isn't often that a book makes me particularly emotional, but this book did almost make me cry, which I consider an achievement on M. L. Stedman's part.

One thing I particularly liked was the detail. I'm not talking about minute detail in lengthy and boring descriptions here, there's none of that (which I recall) but rather all important events are given a mention. You might think this is obvious, but I think something that has annoyed me about books in the past is that they mention something important from the past only later, and that annoys the reader as there is no possible way that they can attempt to predict what's going to happen since they didn't previously know about this event. This is not the case in this book; the past event in question is given in its place in the chronological order of things, leaving the reader wondering its relevance, and we are only enlightened on this point later in the book, something which, for some reason, I did like (this is quite possibly only the writer in me picking up on this). It's only a small point, and something I imagine most people wouldn't notice, but I apparently thought it important, so there we go.

In conclusion, I very much enjoyed this book from the first to the last word, and found it, overall, gripping, intriguing and fascinating with a hint of something enchanting. And no, I can't lend you my copy, because I'll be lending it to all my friends first. :)

TO READ: The Secret Keeper

This is my favourite book by Kate Morton, and, since she is one of my favourite authors anyway, you can take it that the other three took some beating. The Secret Keeper tells the story of Laurel, who, at the age of sixteen, saw her mother Dorothy kill a man. Years later, after a successful and on-going acting career, and as Dorothy nears death, an almost elderly Laurel attempts to find out why her mother did what she did, and who she was before she was a mother. Just as in Morton's other books, the story is told from different points in time; we follow both Laurel searching for information in 2011, and as Dorothy's drama unfolds in wartime Britain in the 1940's.

My mum is reading this book for the first time at the moment, and she's usually pretty good at seeing where things are going, but with this book, every theory she presents to me when I ask where she's read up to is wrong, and the real answer is unexpected. It's full of mystery and intrigue that deepens as the book goes on, and of course a bit of romance. I recommend this book to anyone who will listen.

TO READ: The Importance Of Being Earnest

This is a play I'd like to recommend young people to read, people my own age, because I don't think people my age read things like this enough. I can't remember what my impression of Oscar Wilde was before I read this book in English Literature, but it wasn't good, and I wasn't looking forward to reading it. I thought it would be boring.

Oh, how wrong can you be?

I absolutely loved The Importance Of Being Earnest. My and my friend both thought it was brilliantly hilarious, and declared ourselves in love with Oscar Wilde after the first lesson studying it, despite him being dead and gay. Unfortunately I'm not sure the rest of the class agreed with us; while we were trying to make sure our giggles were silent, none of them seemed to crack a smile.

But I do think it's important for young people to appreciate the genius of the great classic writers such as Oscar Wilde. And, yes, you can watch a film adaptation or a play version of The Importance Of Being Earnest but I think the best way to get the full meaning is to read it.

I don't know what the title of this post should be...

Currently listening to this song on repeat. I thought people would like to know. :)

Also, I attempted writing continuously for fifteen minutes. I thought it would get my thoughts flowing meaning that I could do some serious writing. It didn't work, and what I ended up with was pretty odd - no, I'm not sharing it :P.

I went on a week-long residential Creative Writing course a few weeks ago and it was amazing and I met a load of awesome people and I feel it really improved my confidence (I'd never been on a train on my own before, and I managed two changes travelled halfway across the country, and I also read out a piece of my writing in front of about thirty people, I was pretty proud of myself for that). Anyway, so since this blog is about writing as well as other stuff, I thought maybe it would be nice to share some of the things I learnt, which was more than I expected. I'd also like to maybe read out a few of my pieces on camera and post them, since the whole reading-aloud thing was recorded, and I thought that might be fun, especially if it'd just be me. So maybe that might happen, one day. One day. :P

TO READ: The Night Circus

Erin Morgenstern creates a beautifully vivid world and an enchanting atmosphere in her novel The Night Circus. Trying not to give too much away, it's a story of magicians, of romance, and of a lifelong battle to the death set on an elaborate and unconventional stage. There's something about it, some sense of magic and mystery, that makes it inspiring, un-put-down-able and unique. Perhaps it's in the intriguing storyline with its jumps between the past and present; perhaps it's in the second-person passages which bring The Circus Of Dreams to life; or perhaps it's in the style of Erin Morgenstern's writing which just combines everything so wonderfully.

Whatever it is that makes this book so special, it is indeed special, and if you could only ever read one book in your entire life and I had to recommend that one book to you, it would be this one. It certainly captured a part of my heart and still hasn't let it go.

TO READ: Throne Of Glass

I was drawn to this fantasy novel by American writer Sarah J. Maas because of its promise of an intriguing and different story and a strong female lead character, but I soon found another reason to read it. Throne Of Glass began on writing website FictionPress.Net when Ms. Maas was sixteen. This got my attention because I joined FictionPress when I was thirteen, so I was really excited to find a brilliant, published book which started with a teen author on FictionPress. And a brilliant book it is, too, with elements of a romance and a murder mystery as well as fantasy.

This is the story of 18-year-old Celaena Sardothien, an infamous assassin serving a life sentence in a gruelling work prison which should already have killed her. Celaena dreams of freedom, and it is a chance at freedom she is offered when she is asked to represent the prince in a competition to become the King's Assassin, but will mean either death or a return to prison if she loses.

As I said, I picked up this book because of its promise of something different to the usual teen fantasy fare of vampires and werewolves, so I was disappointed when I found the first signs of a love triangle developing. I have grown sick of love triangles; I hate the things. But Sarah J. Maas actually pulls it off very well, and if you want to know how, or what I mean by that - well, you'll just have to read the book, won't you?

It isn't what I expected from reading the blurb, and there were bits I wasn't satisfied with, but overall the positives outweigh the negatives, and Throne of Glass is definitely worth reading.

TO READ: Mockingbird

Not to be confused with Harper Lee's bestseller, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine is the story of a young girl named Caitlin who is struggling not only with her brother's death but also with Asperger's, a form of autism. It's well-written and thought-provoking, giving the reader an insight into how someone who lives with Asperger's might think, which was interesting for me as I know someone with a form of autism similar to Asperger's. I know that they read the book too, with somebody else, and apparently they really opened up to discuss the problems that they themselves have in dealing with autism while they were reading the book. It kind of helped me to understand things from the point of view of someone with autism; it's not that they're being stupid or awkward deliberately, it's because they are genuinely struggling with certain things, and this book helped me to see that.

The back of my copy of this book describes it as "bittersweet" and "unforgettable" and I would certainly agree with this. Even if the topic of autism has no relevance to you, I would still recommend you read it.

NOT TO READ: Flying Blind

Again I'd like to point out that I feel bad for criticising other writers' hard work but this is just my opinion, I'm sure there are many people who like this book. It's Flying Blind, book one of a series called The Dragon Diaries by Deborah Cooke. It took me a while to get into this book mostly because I didn't like Ms Cooke's style of writing. I thought the protagonist seemed childish (at least , at the start), a bit too full of herself and dramatic for me; it felt like she was trying too hard to get the reader's sympathy. As a writer I have been told over again that it is best to show the reader what you mean rather than tell them straight out, and I just thought that we were told too much rather than shown it. I must say that I did get into it eventually, the storyline did get better - but I do think it was slightly overdramatic at parts. I did just feel like it was trying too hard to be good, it wasn't natural. However, as I said, it improved as it went on, I thought.

If anyone's read it, then I'd like to know your thoughts, I know a good few people will disagree with me (I just read an online review that absolutely sings its praises, but I do agree with it when it says it's probably aimed at the younger end of the YA spectrum, which may be why I didn't enjoy as much as others did). I personally won't be reading the sequel, though, and you may well find my copy in a charity shop at some point in the future.

TO READ: ACID

Is it Sunday? I think it's Sunday. (This is what study leave does to brains who have trouble remembering the day of the week in normal circumstances...) Well I'm posting this whether it's Sunday or not, so deal with it. :)

ACID is the newly released debut novel of English author Emma Pass, who I have actually met. It is a dystopian thriller aimed at teenagers - and not just girls, as one might assume by the fact that the main character is female. ACID tells the story of 17-year-old Jenna Strong, who, in a future Britain controlled by strict dictatorship police force ACID, is trying to survive the high security prison she expects to spend the rest of her life in, until a mysterious rebel group break her out. Full of twists and turns you wouldn't expect, ACID could well be the next big thing in teen fiction.

Of course, it isn't perfect - I know some of my friends at creative writing club who read it had a note-passing conversation picking holes in the plot and confusing themselves with what happened there and why did this happen? However I myself didn't notice these things, and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is fast-paced, well-written and intriguing; overall, difficult to put down. The ending perhaps fizzled out a bit, but other than that, it is a brilliant book that I completely recommend to girls and boys, teens and adults alike.

My Song Of The Day: To Take You Home

To Take You Home by British musician Frank Turner is taken from his second solo album Love, Ire & Song which was released in 2007 (he recently released his fifth album, Tape Deck Heart). At the point of the album's release I hadn't heard of Frank Turner and it's only in the past week or so I've started listening to it. I personally prefer his third album Poetry Of The Deed and to that I prefer his fourth, England Keep My Bones. Anybody seeing a pattern and willing to bet Tape Deck Heart will end up being my favourite once I've listened to it?

Well, that went off topic quickly.

To Take You Home is a quirky, heart-warming song about love which is refreshing when much of the rest of the album seems to be more anguished, even the more upbeat ones. It has something of his later song Rivers from the album England Keep My Bones but with something more epic in the drum beats and something more personal and hopeful in the lyrics. It's so cheery. :)

Frank Turner – To Take You Home

NOT TO READ: The Catcher In The Rye

First off, I would like to clarify that I am not saying this is not a good book. As a writer myself, I do not feel particularly comfortable in criticising other people's works since I know it's not nice to have people say your work is rubbish. This is not rubbish. On the contrary, The Catcher In The Rye is certainly a well-written book; the main character has a distinct and interesting voice and he is very well developed.

My main complaint with this book is its point. Or, more accurately, its lack of one. So the guy wanders round the city thinking about things. Tell me this: why do I care? If something of true consequence happened, then I might care. But nothing like this does happen. There is no true antagonist to go against the protagonist; there is no main problem to be overcome, therefore there is no building tension, no climax, no resolution. I admit that I had high hopes when I started the book; I thought, what's going to happen to this character? He implies something terrible happened to him, it must be interesting, what is it? But in the end it's... nothing. I think strange is the word I would use to describe it. Strange. Yes, I can see how these experiences might perhaps lead to the character feeling the way he does, but is it interesting enough to the reader? No, I do not think it is - I only really finished the book so that I could say I had read it from cover to cover, and in the hopes that something might actually happen.

If you look at it from an English Literature point of view, you might perhaps find something of interest than if you read it for pleasure. The Catcher In The Rye is certainly a literary venture; I wonder if it might be considered a modernist novel - a work in which the author experiments with a new way of writing narrative. In the light of this information, the book appears better, because a modernist book would tend to drop some aspect of the traditionally accepted form of a novel. Therefore, I would say that if you are planning to study it and look at it in depth, then go ahead, but if you are planning to read it for pleasure, depending on your taste, then this is not the book for you.

TO READ: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

This is a really enjoyable read, and as far as I can remember it is suitable for anyone with an attention span long enough to read it all. It's talented 'authoress' Kate Morton’s debut novel* a romantic mystery set mostly in 1913, 1975 and 2005, in England and in Australia. It’s hard to explain much of what it’s about without giving too much away, but I’ll give it a go:

It’s the story of a young girl found alone on a ship to Australia in 1913 who cannot remember who she is or how she got there, other than something about a woman named the Authoress. It is also the story of Nell, the woman the little girl grows up to be, who in 1975 goes back to England to trace her heritage and find out what happened to her. And finally it is the story of Cassandra, Nell’s granddaughter, who follows Nell’s footsteps because of a house she didn’t know existed and the forgotten garden attached to it in Cornwall which she inherits from Nell after the latter’s death in 2005.

For me The Forgotten Garden is a captivating page turner; a very impressive debut novel which I very much recommend to anyone and everyone. Never mind werewolves, vampires and high school love triangles, I really believe young people should read more books like Kate Morton’s, and they should begin with this one.

If anyone was wondering, the name of this blog is partly inspired by this book, which is why I thought it fitting to write about it first. And next week I WILL post on a Sunday, rather than forgetting and putting it off till next Sunday. :)

*She’s written three novels since, and I can verify that all three are indeed as good as the first; they are The House At Riverton, The Distant Hours and The Secret Keeper.