rai_ryu | Entries tagged with books

I feel like updating this but I don't think I really have anything to say, so maybe I think I'll just leave this window open and keep writing as stuff is happening.

I've got sort of a roleplay/mutual story going on with my baguette which sort of stalled around NaNoWriMo because it's not like I could write more words in a day than I absolutely HAD to. But then after that I never picked it back up because I am terrible. I told her that today I would continue it, so I guess I should, but I'm all *shies away from writing*. I guess that I've got until she comes home from school to write it though, so I can waste time with other things until then.

Last night at 1:30am I started doing a 100 piece My Little Pony puzzle. I finished it, though sadly it was missing 3 pieces so it wasn't quite as satisfying. I'm not sure why I'm in a puzzle mood. But all my puzzle boxes downstairs sound suspiciously light so I worry they're missing all their pieces.

I really should be cleaning my room. I started it earlier in the week but now it is a terrible mess. Not as bad as before the fire, of course, but still a terrible mess even by my standards. I should ALSO be working on my costume, and of course the writing. So many things I should be doing but I am not. Story of my life right?
I'm trying to work on filling up my sketchbook and doing some Art Journalling. Because I think sketchbooks like that are really cool, and I think it's also important to keep myself creating things. I don't know what I will do once my sketchbook is full, because it's one I got from the school and I'm not sure if other places carry them. It's bound like a book, with a hard black cover. I have one that is plain and one that I've stenciled the Himmel symbol onto the front of (in silver).

I'm sort of drawing pictures of chestnut trees. Which is, in a way, related to that story I'm supposed to be writing. So this is relevant work.

Painted those pictures in a bit of watercolour, but it's bothersome...I'm doing this on the back of a page that is painted black on one side. Since the watercolour soaks the paper, all it looks like is black, so I've no way to tell if my colours are working out until they dry. Eh. It's experimental anyway.Last night I had tried one of those paintings where you colour with white wax and then do a wash over it. So that just adds another dimension of strangeness to that page.

I have suuuuuch a headache. Uhg. I guess that's what I get for being up til 4am?

Ever read so much that suddenly everything you have to read seems unappealing? I read the first two Hunger Games books in maybe a week? But now I'm all overflowing with reading and I don't feel like picking up Mockingjay just yet. I'm also reading like 1000 other things but I don't feel like reading those either. I might read the ebook I'm working my way through...the Simon & Shuester PulseIt site gives you the option of 4 free ebooks every month. But you only get a set amount of time to read them. This month 2 of them actually look good, so I want to try to get both of them finished. I'm almost 2 thirds of the way through Unwound by Neal Shusterman. It's actually really good...but again I'm all put-off by reading suddenly.

I'm going cosplay shopping tomorrow FINALLY. Anime North is so close and I feel like I have nothing done. It doesn't help that a major piece of my costume is being made by someone else. I'm having a friend's mother knit a sweatervest for me, cause I couldn't find the right one anywhere. But now I feel like that part of the costume is missing.
I need to get the last few things for my Jolteon costume as well as some foam to stuff my Xweetok tail with. That should be interesting. I made a list of things I need to get but it seems like I forgot something (even though I couldn't possibly have).

I think I'm gonna end this journal now cause it's already long and basically is just rambling.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: What's My Age Again? - Blink 182

Today is a t.A.T.u. day, apparently. Sometimes there's just days where I wake up with a certain song in my head.

I'm really, really excited about Anime North, and I think there's only like one of my friends who isn't annoyed by me ranting about it constantly XP I'm also super excited for Atomic Lollipop, and tickets go on sale tomorrow! There's a special breakfast on saturday morning for the first 150 people to register. So I guess I am staying up late!!

I really want to work on my cosplays, but there's not really...anything I can do for the time being. For the parts I still need to finish, I have to go out and get some stuff. I guess I could always hand-sew the last little bit of hem on my vest for the Jolteon costume...but that's not the FUN kind of working on cosplays. Also I'm getting a friend's mother to knit a sweatervest for my Neopet costume, and I'm soooo paranoid that it won't be done on time, but I don't wanna keep texting her in case she gets annoyed by me...maybe I'll wait a week before texting again.

I started playing Final Fantasy X on the weekend (Friday maybe?) and I'm so obsessed with it. I really like all of the characters. I'm stuck at a hard boss right now though >_< (well, all of the bosses have been hard lately).

I reeeeally want to read Hunger Games, cause I really want to see the movie, lol. Hopefully my sister will remember to bring them over when she comes to visit on wednesday night. At least the first one! They sound really good.

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Loves Me Not - t.A.T.u.

I have not been sleeping well at all lately. I think my mind is mostly just racing.
My relationship is going very well, and I'm getting closer and closer to my girlfriend. I guess I'm just not used to being close to someone again? So at night my mind races with warnings to myself not to get too attached, or I feel an inner turmoil, a sort of anger at myself for letting someone into my nice comfortable antisocial cocoon. I don't know, I'm weird and crazy and my craziness doesn't like company, or something.
Despite that I totally love her and I don't want things to change, and I DO want to keep getting close to her. I'm just not used to it again.

I'm watching Hoarders right now and it always makes me want to clean, even though obviously I'm not a hoarder (although I guess it isn't obvious to the internet). I misplaced my actual MP3 player back in December, somewhere in my room. Now I have to use my old one, the first one I ever got. It's irritating because the driver's don't work anymore, so I can't add music. It's filled with emo songs from my last relationship, so mostly I have to listen to the radio on it, but the reception is bad and there's so many advertisements. I hope I find my regular one soon *sigh*.

So I sort of resolved to leave the house at least once a day, and since I resolved that I have. Makes me feel at least a little more productive. Tomorrow I have to start working on costumes again.

The one guy on Hoarders has a whole wall of books, and I kind of want it. If I ever did hoard something it would be books. One of the biggest reasons I'm looking forward to moving out is so that I can get many bookshelves and fill them all up.

Current Mood: tired

Things are going well lately, I think.

I've got a lot of ideas in my head for things, and as usual I am just looking for motivation to get them all done. Good news is that I'm not gluing myself to my computer anymore, and actually going out for walks like I used to. My ankle still bothers me when I do, but I'm starting to see that as just an inevitability.

I'm trying to put together a drag routine. I'm not really a performer so I am super nervous and not sure what I am going to do :P I believe I will be doing it to the song I've Just Seen A Face from the Across The Universe soundtrack. And yeah, I can do drag even though I got my boobs cut off.

I'm so happy with my body, omg XD I think I look like the perfect mix between boy and girl (my hips aren't going away, so I might as well accept them!). And I look like a wonderful gay boy all the time. Ah, I am glowing inside!

I just started reading Eragon, and I'm a little iffy about it. You can certainly tell the author's age/amount of experience from reading the first couple chapters. But maybe it will look up as it goes on. It certainly won't be the WORST book I've ever read.

I also need more happy LJ icons XP

Current Mood: flirty
Current Music: Super Bass - Nikki Minaj

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When I was very young - Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman.
I think it was because it seemed a lot different from the other kid's books I'd been reading, also had quite a few things I found interesting (though I can't recall them off the top of my head).

Then around Grade 5 it became The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I believe it was really my first introduction to fantasy, and I think I was really drawn into the "waking up in another world" type thing. I remember reading Greenwitch afterward, and being made fun of by my classmates because of it (though that really wasn't anything new). Interestingly, I didn't finish the series until my 5th year of highschool. I read the whole series as part of a SpecFic project. It's still up there in my favourites.

Then in gade six (which I still count as being a child), I stumbled upon Animist by Eve Forward. I was in a used bookstore, and my mother said she would buy me one book. I raced to their mindbogglingly large fantasy section, completely unable to choose. Told we were leaving, and if I didn't pick I could have nothing, I grabbed at a book with a wolf on the spine. A skim of the back cover deemed it potential, and so I bought it. Ever since then it has been on my favourite book list - Animals, fantasy, two things I loved at the time. I also do believe it spawned my great love for Grey Morality. It was a wonderful story, set in a very real world - as in the kind you find yourself immersed in.
I also find interesting that it was adult fantasy, and yet I so completely enjoyed and understood it at a young age (or maybe 11 isn't so young?)

Current Mood: nostalgic

First I must state that I really should be sleeping.

I've been in a strange mood lately, in addition to not feeling well.
I am not reading a very good book at the moment.
No costuming today. I have a hard time remembering what exactly it is that I DID do today. Tomorrow I'm going to get back to carving, because for some reason I am dreading the pants.

Spent a lot of time tonight going through my grandad's house. He has a lot of stuff, every time we look we find something new. I think my dad is feeling very overwhelmed by it.
We went through the bookshelves in the basement (50% reader's digest condensed), and found a multitude of old bibles. One had a scribbled note about which passages predicted the current world war. Two had photographs in them - one a picture of a military man, and the other an unmarked picture of an old man. The other had a lace cross bookmark. And one was from 1895.
I got some nice editions of some classic works. The Iliad (which I have a copy of but which is not nearly as nice), The Scarlet Letter (which I have read but needed to own), the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, the collected Sherlock Holmes, and some others that I cannot recall at the moment. I believe I picked up a copy of Huck Finn that has not been censcored (although to be fair, anything up until now hasn't been).

My ribs feel bruised, which I can thank the binder for, but it is far better than the alternative of showing up at the university without a flat chest.

Technically speaking, I've left the house two days in a row, but I am still in a bad mood.
My sister, and later my aunt (with possible cousins) will be coming over this weekend. I feel my patience will be stretched.

Wednesday I will go back to my old college to have dinner. I worry about whether or not I will worry. I don't want to see my old teachers and classmates, and yet somehow I've made myself (and family) a reservation that I cannot back out of.
Only time will tell!

Costuming tomorrow, and perhaps writing. I very much want to write, but when I sit down to do it I feel there is something I am missing that really should be there, and it just drags down my ability to continue on in the story.
I've been thinking of another of my planned stories lately. Wondering if I should let myself delve into that before working more on the current one.

Current Mood: cranky

Title says it all, really.
Had to wake up at 8 (which is early for me at this point) in order to make it to a lawyer's appointment. Had to get my name change certificate notarized. Well, it was really one misunderstanding after another, but in the end it got notarized which is all that matters.
Felt pretty sick after that. Almost fell asleep on the bus, then zoned out so I missed my stop. Luckily the next one wasn't TOO far from my house.
Got home around noon, slept until 2. Did some stuff, went back to bed around 4:30, had a bad dream which I eventually woke from at 5:51.
Haven't been doing much since. No costuming today.

Queer Film class with my bro tomorrow. And bubble tea! Maybe watermelon.
After that I have an eye appointment for coloured contact lenses. Hopefully there's brown available that can cover my blue eyes.
I SHOULD costume tomorrow, but who knows if I will. It's time for the pants...which shouldn't be hard but might end up being so anyway.
I'm trying to carve something out of wax. It is harder than I thought, but I think I can get it right eventually. I have just over four months now?

Still so tired. I want to play more FF8 but it's pretty late already.

Started reading a new book today, one of those cheesy-looking fantasy things. The Burning Realm by Michael Reaves. Finished reading Luna by Julie Anne Peters last night. I was ok - I did think it portrayed transgendered people in a positive and accurate light. The narrator, Luna's sister, was very strange I found. I'm not sure if most of it was just the author trying to "appeal" to young people by using all sorts of weird sayings and "teen" mannerisms. But I did find myself, for once, becoming interested in a romantic sideplot.

I've been very averse to socializing lately. I miss talking to my friends, but at the same time I don't miss it at all. Am I a bad friend?
Either way I have to tomorrow! At least it won't be the first time I've left the house this week.

Current Mood: tired

I just finished reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I am...so in love with it that I have now added it to my list of favourite books (Which I believe is now at three which I can honestly count as my favourites).
It is fairly late so I apologize if this next ramble is kind of out-there.

I am extremely amazed at the way things tend to work out. It's the kind of think that will make me pass knowing looks at the sky and say "You knew this all along" while shaking my fist.
It would have been shortly after this time last year, second semester had just started, and I was in a pretty bad way. I desperately wanted to drop out of college. I agonized over it for days until, after truly believing I could not live if I had to go back for one more day, I told my dad that I wanted to drop out. Naturally, he said no. It was 2am so he said we would talk in the morning.
Now, as it usually goes, once I make my problems known to someone else I suddenly realize that they're nothing. So of course the next morning I gave my dad a half-hearted argument, while I was perfectly resigned to continue with schooling.

Well, second semester I had business writing. The culminating project for this class was a business report, which I decided to do on book publishing. My teacher asked if I was a writer, and I said that I was. She said I could talk to her about writing any time.
Firstly, while researching the report, I came across Justine Larbalestier's blog (specifically about her book Lair, which I enjoyed). From that blog I was linked to

sarahtales, and I quickly rushed to the library to take out her book The Demon's Lexicon. Well, that book is now one of the three on my favourite books list, and I would not have found it if I had left school.

Second, after a talk with my teacher (where she read the first chapter of my novel - greatly exciting!), she reccomended Self Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King.
While reading that, I came across an excerpt from The Lies of Locke Lamora, with which I was very pleased. I added it to a list of books I wanted to read. Then, a few months later, while out at a bookstore, I spotted a copy and eagerly bought it.

And so we come to now. I greatly praise this book. I...don't even know what more to say than that, and this entry is plenty long already.
So there I go, perhaps staying in school was the best choice, if only for these two marvelous books.
I'm off to the store as soon as possible to buy the next book in the sequence, after which I'm sure I will pray for The Republic of Thieves to come out every night.

Current Mood: swooning

So, I already have my one goal for this year: Get my jacket finished by the end of January, and get the rest of the costume finished by AN (of course).

But...should I be so bold to...have the goal to finish this draft of my novel by 2012? Sh-should I be so bold?
Considering the substantial lack of progress I've made on it lately, it seems not probably to be achieved, but if I made the goal, perhaps it would motivate me?
I need to dedicate some good time to thinking about this fricken' story first. I decided I wanted it to have more plot points, since the first one is much too short and there's not enough buildup. However, when I made this plan, I forgot to specify what these plot points were. Thinking, thinking and envisioning things is required.

In other news, I keep going to bed far too late. I'm surprised I woke up before noon today.

I'm waiting for a book in the mail. It had better come. I finally caved and bought a copy of Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward.
But I have bad luck with having things delivered to me...

Costuming today. Think I will finally make the epaulets. Maybe the rank bar too. And then writing tonight - because it really just is procrastination.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Shake - Jessie McCartney

Short-term goals for this month (December since November is practically over)
-Get my SIN card updated so that I will at least have the ability to apply for jobs
-Finish my Amestrian Army jacket
-Make some progress on a writing project

I hope those happen, although I've grown an aversion to leaving my house so the first one might be hard.

I had a long phone conversation tonight in which I actually talked and expressed myself at least vaguely well. I never talk on the phone, so I am still shaking with fear as if I had just given a speech. But the person I was talking with is a friend of mind who is a very nice person, so it was not as hard as talking to someone else. I may be hanging out with them tomorrow which will be another first for me.
I worry about the kind of things I should say to people and how open vs how closed I should be.

I got some books from my Grandad's house this weekend. A lot of war books - oddly enough, as much as I'm against war, I am so fascinated by it. A lot of my characters/storylines deal with war in some form. So I want to learn more about it, or at least the wars that have existed in our world.
I also got a couple books by Isaac Asimov. A book on our solar system, which amuses me greatly, and a book on extra-terrestrial life. Also things that very much interest me.
I'll have a lot of reading to do which is kind of daunting, since I'm trying to tackle the bible right now, but at the same time it is exciting because I'd like to learn these things.

Anyway, I thought I had more to say, but I don't really. Which is probably good for you.

Current Mood: weird
Current Music: Food Inc.

Ah, I started writing again today after being on haiatus for around 2 weeks (Anime north fever had set in, you see). And god does it ever feel good to be at this again. By the end of that hiatus I was craving it so badly.
I just needed the words, you know? I needed desperatly to see more of their story unfold. Even if I should know it by heart at this point, it still flows out in ways that are so pleasing to me it is as though I have heard it for the first time. My heart rings in tune with these characters and I cannot wait to carry on.
And, adding to my excitement are the other stories I will have the opportunity to tell when finished with this one.
I want so badly to be a writer. I realized THAT is what I want to do with my life - goodness though, didn't I pick a difficult career? I waited so long for something to be passionate about. Well, I found it. Now I just need the courage to sieze it and embrace it for all its worth.

(A small pleasure today is when I picked a name off the top of my head, went to look it up online and found out it originated in the exact region I had imagined my story taking place)

All that gushing aside, here is some more gushing.
I finally went out and got The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan. I bought both it and The Demon's Lexicon (because I can imagine it being a book I will want to read over and over). However, I told myself I couldn't start it until I was done the dreaded M. Rene.....the horrifying "old man love story" that has plagued my shelves for years, waiting to be drudged through. Well, it is over! And I can enjoy the loveliness that is The Demon's Covenant. Every so often, I have to stop reading and swoon just over the fact that I am reading it. I swoon over its every word.
And when it is done I will probably have to wait a whole other YEAR until the next volume comes out! Woe is me! What will I do? *cries in anticipation*

I should PROBABLY go, since I told myself I would finish this scene tonight - who knows if that will actually happen, but I will certainly do all that I can.

Everyone, tell me your dreams, your favourite books...well, tell me anything! I want to have conversations with people.

Current Mood: In Love
Current Music: Smile - Uncle Kracker

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rai_ryu

July 2015

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