Lots of Writing Talk

It's been a rainy week so far.  I know that's a necessary part of spring, but I'm still hoping it clears up soon.  After I left my umbrella in my parents' car after spring break, my mom gave me a different one, and I learned this week that it's broken and basically useless.  It's made walking around campus the past couple of days a bit of a pain.

Most of my time lately has been taken up by studying, writing papers, and writing/editing non-school stuff.  Finals are the week after next, so things are predictably getting a bit hectic as far as school goes.  Still, I've been in a really great mood as far as writing goes lately, and I've made a lot of progress over the past week or so.  I'm currently writing two fanfictions and one original fiction.  I'm almost done with the first edit of one of the fanfictions, and afterwards I'm going to let it sit for at least a couple of weeks before I go through and edit it again.  Hopefully it'll be online sometime in June.  The other fanfic is turning out a bit longer than I originally planned.  I have no idea how long it'll take me to get the first draft done let alone redrafting and editing.

As far as the original work goes, I should be about halfway done with the first draft, and I'm really happy with how it's going so far.  Some things are turning out way different than I had planned with the outline, but I think it's a good thing.  We'll have to see how I feel after the draft is finished.  It's also a bit difficult to tell because I'm planning on it being a series, so I may have to change the outline of the future books too depending on how much more it ends up changing.  I'm really excited about it though because the basic idea of this story has been developing since I was in eighth grade and had to write a short story for English.  It's become much, much different than that story was, but the basic idea of it is still the same.

As you can probably tell by this post, writing has basically taken over my life recently.  It's always a big part of my life, even though I never really talk about it online, but lately it's been even more so.  Other than some reading and school work, it's seriously all I've been doing lately.  I haven't even been on Tumblr in days, and that's an incredible accomplishment as far as I'm concerned.  I think I've kind of set a schedule that involves writing more than I used to, so hopefully I'll stick to it.

Book Review: Werewolves Rule by K.C. Blake

ASIN: B005IDV3OG
Published: August 21st, 2011
Publisher: self-published
Read from April 9th to 15th, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:

This is the second of the Rule series. Vampires Rule was the first. This book begins a few months after the first one ended and continues to follow Jack and Silver as they prepare for their battle with head werewolf Jersey Clifford. Jack’s world is falling apart. Silver has told him she needs space, he might not graduate from high school, and he feels incredibly alone. Enter a new threat, a new enemy. The question is does she want Jack dead, or does she just want him?

Review:

At the beginning of this book I wasn't as into it as I had been the first book of the series.  For probably slightly less than half the book I was somewhat bored.  Not enough to not want to read it, but I wasn't exactly excited to pick it up and read either.  Somewhere around the middle though it got a lot better very quickly, and I really enjoyed the ending.

Blanca turns out to be quite the interesting character.  I'm a little weirded out by her to be completely honest.  I was somewhat in the first book, but it just worsened in the second.  Isobel and Ian were both interesting new characters that were introduced.  Isobel grew on me over the course of the book, but even now that I'm on the third book, I still don't know how I feel about Ian.  I didn't really like Isobel's place in the story at first, but I appreciated it a lot more later.

Jack and Silver's relationship got quite frustrating in this book, and that was the main thing that annoyed me for the first half of the book.  It didn't bother me as much during the second half, but it felt a bit repetitive.  After a while I just wanted to yell at them to stop lying to each other.  They'd been through it enough times by then that you'd think they'd have learned.  Still, it got better over the course of the book, and by the end it wasn't as frustrating.

Overall, I thought it was a good book even if it was a bit frustrating at times, and I'm really looking forward to finishing the third book and seeing how everything ends!

Boston and a Long Week

It's been a somewhat long week.  I feel as if I've taken a million tests when in reality it wasn't quite that bad.  It was actually a good week for me if we forget the fact that I locked my keys in my dorm room yet again.  In reality what's made it seem so long is the tragedy in Boston.  I've been glued to the news all week.  It doesn't help that a boy I went to high school with also died this week.  I'm hoping for a happier week

I actually have two tests back to back on Monday morning, so I'll be studying for at least part of the weekend.  They seem like they'll be easy enough, but I know I need to look over the stuff a bit more.  I also hope to get some major writing done this weekend.  With everything happening this week I've only had a few minutes to write.  I really do need to set aside a lot of time for that over the next couple of days.

If anyone reading this is from the Boston area, I really hope you're doing okay.  I'm still paying extremely close attention to everything that's happening.  Hopefully it's all over soon.

Book Review: A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

ISBN: 0446608955
Published: September 1st, 2000
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Read from April 5th to 8th, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:

There was a time when the world was sweeter… when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats… Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he’d been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he’d fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town’s Baptist minister… Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart—and the joy and pain of living.
From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes his most moving story yet…

Review:

If you follow me on Goodreads, then you might have seen that I only gave this book two out of five stars.  It's rare that I give books that low of a rating.  Three stars is usually about as low as I go.  I looked through my Goodreads account, and I hadn't given a rating lower than three stars since August 2010.  So yeah, I wasn't really impressed with this book.

I've read two other Nicholas Sparks books before, and I gave them four and five star ratings.  I don't know if it was just this book, or if I would feel differently about Dear John and The Last Song if I went back to read them now.  (I was sixteen when I read those two...)

I think the biggest thing that bothered me about A Walk to Remember was the writing style.  It's a short book, which isn't inherently bad, but I felt like everything was being summarized to me.  That kept me from getting into it and connecting with the characters.  I wasn't emotionally invested at all.  I actually felt kind of guilty for not being sadder while reading the ending, but I just wasn't connected to what was happening.  The summarizing thing also made me feel as if it was written for children almost too.  It definitely isn't, but the writing style just kind of gave that feel to me.  There's not even necessarily anything wrong with being for children.  I enjoy reading middle grade fiction occasionally  but I just did not like it in this book.  It bothered me throughout the whole story.

I saw the movie years ago, so I knew how it was going to end.  Still, I didn't like it.  It seemed too unrealistic, and I'm sure those of you who have read the book or seen the movie know what I'm talking about.  I just thought it was unnecessary and pointless.  Maybe I wouldn't if I'd been more emotionally invested and had connected with the characters better.  As it was though, I didn't like it.

The book wasn't bad for the most part.  I just didn't care.  I had to force myself to pick it up and read.  I probably wouldn't have bothered except it was so short that I figured I should make it through the whole thing.

How I Met Your Mother Season Six Review

I had planned to review the first and second halves of season six of How I Met Your Mother separately like I have in the past, but I was almost done watching the season when I realized that I never reviewed the first half.  It just completely slipped my mind, so instead this is going to be a review of the entire season.  It took me months to get through this season, so let's see how much of the earlier episodes I can actually remember.

I want to start by saying how much I love Barney and Robin.  They're probably my OTP (one true pairing for those of you who don't know) of the show.  I love Lily and Marshall as well, but I just love Barney and Robin.  Every time there's even the smallest hint about their feelings for each other I get excited.

I am not a fan of Zoe.  Overall I guess she's an okay character, but I was just not a fan.  Most of the time she didn't bother me, but her actions in a few episodes made me dislike her.  I was really glad when her and Ted finally broke up.

This is a somewhat random comment, but the entire time Nicole Scherzinger was on the show I kept thinking about how she was a judge on The X-Factor during One Direction's season.  Pointless to point out, but I just wanted to put it out there.  Another random comment I have to make: they mentioned Hogwarts in an episode.  How can I not comment on that?

Marshall's dad dying was definitely the saddest thing to happen on the show (yet at least).  I was in tears when Marshall found out.  That's the only time How I Met Your Mother has made me cry.

I'm a bit conflicted about Nora because I really love her as a character, but as I said before, I love Barney and Robin together.  I don't really want Nora and Barney together because I want him with Robin, but I still enjoy the episodes that Nora is in.

And the season ends with finding out that Lily's pregnant!  I'm really excited for that.  I've already watched three episodes of season seven, so I know a bit beyond the initial episode.  I'm really excited for the rest of that storyline though.

Hopefully I'll actually remember to do two reviews for season seven.  Plus, I only have a few weeks until summer break, so I'll have more time to watch the show!