It began when i woke up this morning with several errands to run and found, after and hour and a half of searching, that my car keys were no where to be found. I tried retracing my steps, which was hard since I had been on the phone when I came in the house so i had not been paying very close attention to my actions. Some friends and I had gone to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter 6 and I had not driven.
I had *no idea* where they could be, and I was beginning to panic.
In a moment of frustrated brilliance I called the movie theater to see if any keys had been turned in. After describing my set of keys in detail two or three times over a period of fifteen minutes I finally spoke with the manager, who informed me that he had the keys!! My roomie took me and we picked them up. I felt like a dork.
So as a result I accomplished little to nothing of what I needed to do today and my brain was in a constant state of fart for the proceeding six hours at work. Not to mention that I was paranoid about my keys being gone and even misplaced them once right before work so that I nearly panicked. It was bad.
I count my lucky stars (or lucky….potion?) that I did not have to work at Starbucks at 5am this morning. Things would have been a lot worse.
Anyway, the movie was good. Can’t wait to read the book. Now I’m off to chill and, perhaps, sleep?
Hopefully tomorrow my brain will be functioning smoothly again.
~haylee jalyn
I’m in the middle of a road trip from West Tejas to Florida. The change of scenery does a lot for inspiration and idea-formation.
There is a tree across the street from our hotel room. It’s big and quite pretty, but nothing really special. There is something about it, however, that I especially like. The long limbs hang damp, heavy from Spanish moss. The grass and brush that surrounds the trunk is thick, vibrant and emerald green. The dangling moss creates a mysterious cove that surrounds the trunk and the thin morning mist floats beneath, giving the scene an air of magic.
From far across the road I stand and admire. A tree moves aside and Abadoo steps out and returns my gaze. I’m not sure if he sees me or if he is merely surveying the landscape. I wonder what adventure he is in the midst of. I wonder who else might be coming out from the tree behind him. It amazes me the places I find portals to Coloterra. As I blink, however, he disappears and all I see is the beautiful tree. Rather than feeling disappointed, I feel rejuvenated and hurry back to my hotel room where a pen and paper wait; I have found a new story.
Someday I will consistently update this blog.
An event for the day…I just met a new friend. By this I mean I introduced a new character into my book. I’ve been getting to know him over the past few days, and he’s a pretty cool kid. His name is Iron. Later I will post a snippit of his story. For now, anticipate it.
A new character takes a similar getting-to-know process as any person before a writer can write a believable story about them.
This month is the end of the semester and I’ve been quite busy with it. And yet I’ve still gotten some reading in! Yay! Though the list is not near as long as I might have liked, here is what went down this month:
DRACULA – Classic as it gets. It’s all the elements of the cliche vampire story rolled together, which sounds as if reading it all over again might be a bore, but it wasn’t. I enjoyed every moment of reading Dracula. The narrative is told through a series of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings and the like, which leaves gaps in persective and fills them in with perfect timing and class. Although for me the mystery of the vampire story is gone, this book was still a delight to read because Stoker’s craft of storytelling is excellent, page-turning greatness.
One thing I found odd about this novel is that the Count Dracula himself is quite absent from the story. He is there in the very beginning and at the end, but the story is not about him. The story is about Lucy and her friends. (<– if that doesn’t sound corny I don’t know what does) But fo’ real.
Give it a read, if such classics fancy you. I found it enjoyable to finally be reading the “true” epitome of vampire stories. And if nothing else, I learned this solid, unalterable fact: VAMPIRES DO NOT SPARKLE.
WIZARD AND GLASS – Number four in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The fant
asy adventure story has run our heroes onto a crazy, machine-gone-human train who is determined to crash with them aboard and end their mission to the Dark Tower. Only the ability for the group to out-riddle Blaine’s machine-brain will save their lives! As exciting as this entrance sounds, it has little to do with the grand plot of the book on hand. During Wizard and Glass King takes a break from the narrative of his current story and gives readers the history of Roland, the hero of the series. He has given tidbits of it in the first three books, but at last nearly all of Roland’s past is uncovered (to readers as well as to the gunslinger’s companions) in a 400-page flashback. His love for his two best friends and his romance with Susan, the glass ball and the origins of the Man in Black’s ties to Roland are at last revealed.
I have sincerely enjoyed this whole series so far. I had never read King before (I’m not big into horror…at all.) But at the urging of a friend, began reading these books and love them. King is a phenomenal writer. Whether or not you choose to like his subject matter, it is hard to deny the man knows how to create a story and some deep characters. Number five is on my to-read for next month!
THE BELL JAR – Books such as this one make me worry about myself a little bit. Haha! But in all seriousness, it creates this question in my head: How thin is the line between sane and insane? How close are we all to just tip toppling over the edge of lunacy? This book struck a cord with me because it is narrated by a girl with whom I can very closely identify. Esther is not far fetched and I found I had many things in common with her. It’s late into the story, long after her mind has probably began to slip away from her, when I realize it is happening. (Aside: The power of the first-person narration is incredible. I forget sometimes who I am when reading such stories.) All of the thoughts and reasoning, no matter how truly flawed, begin to make sense and are understandable. It’s a little creepy.
Plath, as is known, also ended up going a little off the deep end…er….she committed suicide not all too long after this book became published. Which is easy to picture, I suppose, but it would not be too much of a stretch for me to write a book like this and I am — or I like to think I am — perfectly sane.
The workings of the mind are fascinating. Read this book.
THE PRINCESS BRIDE [my current read] – S. Morgenstern’s classic tale of true love and high adventure. Nearly every 
person under the sun has seen this movie (I say nearly only because I know that my mom has not seen it. Other than that, I know of no one.) And nearly every one of those people love it. It is a wonderful tale. And while the faces of the actors are forever pasted upon the characters as I read the book, it is ever as much enjoyable. I’m three hundred pages in and I feel as if I am only reading the letters of a dear friend. The characters are as familiar to me as anything and I love it all still more as I continue to read. What is so wonderful is how much more of the story there is in the book…and what is even greater is how natural it seems to be there. I do not come upon a chapter and think “Wow, this wasn’t in the movie! How odd!” But it all sinks in seamlessly. Whether you have seen the movie or not, whether you liked it or hated it…I ask you to read this book. Read it.
William Goldman’s abridgement is spectacular (Morgenstern’s original is more commentary and less story) and lets you know exactly where and why parts are cut. All of the story is still intact and in Morgenstern’s original text. And there are many parts that are verbatim in the movie. It proves that great movies can be made from books which do not slaughter the story or characters.
And that’s about it for me. Finals are this week and after that I hope to spend a great deal of time at the park or at the pool reading. I have lined up (in no particular order): Wolves of Calla (Dark Tower 5), Coraline, Fahrenheit 451, Till We Have Faces, and The Two Towers.
Just keep reading,
Hayles
I went running today and passed one of those neighborhood watch signs that we have all seen a million times.
And although I had passed this certian one many times, it made me suddenly burst out into laughter because I remembered an impression from my youth that has never really gone away. I used to think the scary buglar man had an over-bite. It wasn’t until only a few years ago when I realized it was an overcoat. I never really thought about it…I didn’t consiously look out for scary shadow men with over-bites, but this image always looked like that to me.
It was the same way with this picture:
I always thought it was a bird.
~hayles j
