Important Things To Know

"The only normal people are the one's you don't know very well." - Alfred Alder


First: English country dancing turns out to be "Jane Austen movie dancing," according to people who have actually seen Jane Austen movies, and "the kind they were supposed to be doing in A Knight's Tale before the 80s took over," according to me. It was weird and fun and I had a good time. The square dancing lessons in 2nd grade turned out to be marginally useful after all.


But now I want to tell you about the book my best friend showed me last night (a gift from our other friend for her amusement). It's a book of FAQs from Christian teenagers, and their answers.


Things I Learned From This Book:

• God cares whether or not you're popular at school (I'm not sure if this means homeschoolers are just screwed, or if they get to be archangels)
• STDs do not exist if you are married (poof!)
• Flirting is EVIL because it takes your mind off of Jesus. (Like Jesus cares if you're thinking about him 24/7. Personally I'd find that rather creepy, but maybe that's just me.)
• Sarcasm is a sin (and I'm definitely not going to hell)
• Pregnancy is not caused by sex. "It's a symptom of the sin of premarital sex." (So I guess I still don't know how babies are made within wedlock.)
• Not only are you not allowed to date non-Christians, but you're also not allowed to date someone if they're not really, really Christian. If they just go to church and believe everything laid out in the Apostle's Creed? Not good enough.
• Public schools encourage everyone to be gay. (They use state funding to set up kissing booths and everything. Did you guys not know this?)

And those are just the ones I remember. You know, sometimes the world worries me.

How To Survive The Tolerance Apocalypse

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-- and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman


Disclaimer: Post may be offensive. Please read with discretion.


Ten funny movie charts.


Approximate quote from this book I found in a place that is not my house nor a library or bookstore: "...how to protect your child from the dangerous new cultural movement known as 'tolerance.'"


The book (New Tolerance) was too long to read in the short time I was there, so I thought I would compile my own set of directions.


How To Survive The Tolerance Apocalypse, the Elf Army Writes Edition

1. Direct your browser to Amazon and search for "Circular Logic." Purchase. This is your weapon against both the tolerant people and those they are tolerating.
2. Begin fighting your way into either the South or rural northeast to find more of your own kind-- there's strength in numbers. 
3. Avoid all cars marked "hybrid" and those with bumper stickers not relating to sports teams. If you see any sticker that reads "Coexist," find the nearest shelter and stay there until your local news station tells you the coast is clear.
4. If anyone you suspect might be infected approaches you, attempt to frighten them off with your Circular Logic.
5. Settle somewhere far away from a public university-they're breeding grounds for the Infected. 
6. If there is a wi-fi connection in your area, destroy it. Same with any televisions-- there's no knowing what they'll broadcast these days. Even Fox News isn't safe anymore-- they actually acknowledged Glee's existence.
7. Willingly form concentration camps consisting only of your fellow intolerants. You will be safe here-- for some reason the Infected try not to stray within a mile's radius.
8. Find a transceiver. Every few months, check to see if NPR still exists. If so, it is not yet safe to emerge. Please wait patiently.
9. Use the transceiver to attempt contact with other groups. You need to keep the gene pool open, because you might be stuck in there for a long time. Then again, you don't believe in evolution, do you? Never mind. Forget I said anything.

Mr. Paranormal Romance

Meet Mr. Paranormal Romance. He won't pay very much attention to you at first, but we fully expect that the two of you will become quite good friends. Or even **waggles eyebrows** friends.


Mr. Paranormal Romance is English. He is tall and dark-haired and ridiculously good-looking (unless he is a werewolf, in which case he will be muscular and tan). His good looks rest mainly in the region of the hair, which is dark. He is also rich. He plays piano and composes his own music. He has great hands, which will be described as smooth, flawless, and long-fingered. He is a loner, but comes out of his shell when he meets you, Miss Reader.


He is very charming and will smile devilishly. He has an ironic sense of humor. He probably has a leadership role. He is intelligent. Actually, he's something of a genius. He's also ridiculously good-looking. And English. 


All of the females (and token gay men) at his school or workplace have been in love with Mr. Paranormal Romance at some point or another. However, strangely enough, none of these people are jealous of Miss Reader after he begins to notice her, unless one of these people is one of Miss Reader's close friends.


Mr. Paranormal Romance has some sort of inner darkness or pain, or a secret that can only be overcome with the help of Miss Reader. This is probably supernatural, or involving his mysterious past. It could be a family curse or he could be of a race far hotter than human despite the fact that humans are by far the most attractive race, since all of the non-humans seem to want to mate with them. 


Have we mentioned that Mr. Paranormal Romance is both good-looking and English? 


Just to make sure that Miss Reader is aware of those two Very Important Facts, Mr. Paranormal Romance will be shirtless for some reason or another fairly soon after she meets him. He may also give a speech or tell a long story so that Miss Reader may lose herself in his voice.


Miss Reader's life will gradually grow to center around Mr. Paranormal Romance. This creates a lot of danger and tension. Mr. Paranormal Romance knows this, and will either attempt to leave in order to protect Miss Reader from his inner darkness, discover a fear of commitment, or assure her of his love. If Mr. Paranormal Romance chooses one of the first two options, he will eventually return and their relationship will be even more serious and passionate than it was before. If they are still in school, they will become engaged before it is culturally expected for their ages. If they are not, their engagement period will be abnormally short.


If he chooses the third option, however,  Miss Reader will discover Mr. I'm Even More Awesome Than That Other Guy Who I Hate And You Should Too. This guy may be Miss Reader's childhood friend, or the Nemesis from Mr. Paranormal Romance's Past. At this point, Mr. Paranormal Romance becomes the villain, due to the revealing of his secret . This dating and/or engagement period will be longer, because Mr. Paranormal Romance will have left Miss Reader with doubt, which will eventually be healed by extraordinary patience and consideration from Mr. I'm Even More Awesome Than That Other Guy Who I Hate And You Should Too.


Pity. Mr. Paranormal Romance was so English and good-looking.

(Post inspired by both The Tough Guide To Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones, and Maureen Johnson)

Fail Blog (Post)

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly
disrespectful and impatient of restraint."
-- Hesiod, 8th century BC


Check out that date. Not much has changed in the past 2.5 thousand years, has it?


Today I just wanted to share with you some...ridiculous...things I've overheard recently. (And on that note, how was everyone's Rapture? Did you have to wait in a long line to get into Heaven? Did you form up a Scooby Gang to fight all of the demons? I had a perfectly normal day...because apparently Camping miscalculated and we're all going to die in October. After midterms, but before Halloween. How lame is that? At least I'll get a few weeks to find out what being sixteen is like before I need to worry about eternal damnation. Pity I'll never get my driver's license, yes?)


So I walked into Civics on Friday and this guy adamantly told his friend "A buffalo is just a male cow."


Then this morning in Latin, the girl who sits in front of me asked "Burning things doesn't pollute the air, right?" I said actually, it did. And then I thought about it, and realized that burning hydrogen just makes water vapor, which isn't really pollution. She turned to her friend and said "See? Told you I was right." Well, that's not exactly what I meant...


And finally (this is the best one), my sisters were baby-sitting our neighbors earlier this afternoon. The kids are 6 and 4. They're home-schooled, and the 6 year-old has apparently been studying the "story of the world" (I have problems with the singularity of "story," but I'll let that slide for now). Point being, he knows a bit of history.


So the kids say "Let's play World War Two! We'll be the Germans, and you can be the bad guys!"


Yep. You read that correctly.

In Which I Fight Left-Handed

The Civil Rights movement didn't solve anything-- it only hid the problem away from the public eye. The Cold War rages on-- it's just now waged through the corporate proxy known as Nabisco. What is the name of this vile villain of intolerance and the destruction of the free market? My friends, he is known as the Oreo.


The existence of the Oreo is morally wrong, since it encourages segregation (the different colors are separate). Eating Oreos, on the other hand, is morally advisable, since it desegregates the cookie. Yet buying them for the purpose of eating them is bad, because it increases demand and therefore production, ergo encouraging the immoral existence.


But what if the Oreo is swallowed whole? That would be bad for three reasons. 1. It would cause an unnecessary burden on the digestive tract of the person eating it. 2. It's a deliberate preservation of the segregation and 3. The person could choke and die.


If someone deliberately swallowed it whole to make a socio-political statement, which is more despicable: the suicide, or the statement? Suicide via unchewed Oreo is worse than the unchewedness itself, because if you're dead, you're intentionally ridding yourself of your potential to desegregate any and all future Oreos. Which is morally wrong.


It would be better, then, to confine yourself to chocolate chip cookies. The addition of chocolate chips creates diversity within the cookie, and you can even melt the chocolate beforehand to distribute it evenly. Furthermore, each baker can choose to make chocolate chip cookies in whichever way he or she wants, whereas with the Oreo, it is a corporate-mandated recipe from which there can be no deviation. Every Oreo is stuffed equal. (It's just that some *cough* Double Stuffed *cough* are more equal than others.)


In conclusion: the Oreo is evil, racist, and communist, and furthermore, it should be removed from the American home as quickly as possible.

Irony And Sneaking

"The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past." - Andre Maurois


So I'm watching an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer this afternoon (Sunday afternoon, that is) partially because I like the show, partially because I haven't watched any in awhile, and partially for escapism. And what happened?


I ended up relating to all four of the female characters in the episode in some way, shape, or form, which would have been hilariously ironic if it weren't so annoying (I take that back-- it's hilariously ironic anyway).


That's one of the many things that makes it such a good show, though; it's relatable, or at least we viewers can pretend that it is, which basically amounts to the same thing. 


(Bones makes for better escapism than Buffy, since the central character of each episode is dead. There isn't much to worry about there.)


(CUT TO MONDAY AFTERNOON)


I'm merging these posts because the above was supposed to go up this morning but didn't for some reason and now I have more to say. Let's start it off with another quote as per usual.


"Is this real, or is this not real? I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. They say I'll heal, and learn how to deal...I have this memory that I loved you." - "Real Or Not Real" by All Caps, based off of events in Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins


If sneaking off campus for lunch without a pass is that easy, I should do it more often. I mean, seriously. It wasn't even sneaking; I just walked away from school.
Now, I wasn't actually sneaking off for lunch. I had my AP Chem exam today and was therefore let off early, and I had papers to prove it so I was allowed to leave and everything, but...I could have been just trying to get some ice cream from across the street or something and no one tried to stop me.


That's sad.

Slightly After 10 This Morning, I Rose. Alleluia.

"In poker, if people believe you have a good hand, then you have a good hand. In poker as in politics, perception of reality, is reality. That certainly makes conversations around authenticity a bit more multi-layered and complex." - Andrew Slack

Jeez, I should title posts with Doctor Who quotes more often-- I got almost a hundred views just from Google searches on that last one. Ha.


All right, so if you're a Christian who is likely to be offended by people behaving improperly during church, stay away from this post. Otherwise, read on.


Going to church with my dad is always fun in the sense that he whispers witty comments to me throughout the entire service. He has a large number of such comments on Easter.


For those of you who don't celebrate Easter as a religious holiday, perhaps you aren't aware that throughout the month or so leading up to Easter (Lent), the word "Alleluia" is not allowed to be spoken (which of course ensures that we do, because we're blasphemous children of Satan and all that).


On Easter, the word's taboo status is revoked. Also on Easter, our church prints every single hymn and piece of liturgy in the bulletins that are passed out at the beginning, because taking up all that extra paper is worth making sure people don't have to flip to the right page in the brand new liturgy/hymnal books.
So at the beginning of the service this morning, I counted how many times we were going to be saying "Alleluia." 


The total? 63.


My dad, of course, thought it would be amusing to only say/sing "Alleluia" when he wasn't whispering to me. Mid-hymn he had the brilliant (and offensive, and annoying, and hilarious) idea to sing them in a ridiculously bad falsetto (this began during the stanza marked "women only." He didn't want to miss out.)
I asked him "You do know you're not in a Monty Python movie, right?"


Among other things, it was also determined that everyone in the church was decidedly Team Edward-- they seemed pretty keen on drinking blood.


His Facebook status this morning was: "Alleluia! Another day I have risen. Now that I'm getting older I've learned to appreciate each new day and the ability to get out of bed every morning. Each new day is a gift. That's why we call it 'the present.'"


When we got to church and picked up said bulletins, we saw that the covers read "Our Redeemer lives." My dad immediately said "Cool, they've already seen my status."


I'm sure you're all wondering what my mom thinks of this-- perhaps I shall write a not-all-that-personally-detailed post regarding her views tomorrow.

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment." - Rita Mae Brown


"Nothing is perfect. Therefore being perfect is being nothing, and that's a great way to lose weight." - Craig Benzine


I want to give this book four separate reviews. I think it divides fairly well into four distinct parts, and I have different feelings about all of them. However, it is one book, so it gets one post (sorry it's so long-- I had a lot to say). Page numbers are approximate (give or take about 20).


In the world of Delirium, love is a disease known as amor delirium nervosa, and there is a Cure. This Cure is administered to everyone as soon after their eighteenth birthday as possible. The narrator, Lena, is three months away from her Cure at the beginning of the book, and she can't wait.


Part 1 (pages 0-100): The Awesome Part


I read this part in one day, and I raved about it to anyone who would listen. It focuses around the dystopian-ness, and how their society works (they read Romeo and Juliet as freshmen just like we do...except they read it in health class- how awesome is that?). Despite the fact that they view love/passion (for anyone in any context or any hobby or whatever in general) as something to be eradicated, I think this part treats the idea of love pretty fairly and gives it a realistic representation.
I read chapter 1 (it's only about 4 pages) three times before moving on. This part gets 5 stars.


Part 2 (pages 100-200): The Cliche Part


This is the part where I saw every single plot "twist" coming from a mile away. However, it wasn't cliche in an annoying way, so I didn't particularly mind. The awesomeness of the first part carried me through. 
This part gets 3 stars.


Part 3 (pages 200-300): The Twilight Part


This is the place where everything goes all Twilight-y and I start rolling my eyes.
Ironically enough, it's in Part 3--the part in which Lena realizes that love is a good thing-- that I start to be annoyed by its portrayal. People in love might act like air-heads on occasion, but they're not complete air-heads.


Seriously: It's one thing to enjoy kissing, and to want to do it often. But it's quite another thing to say that everything that happened in your entire life before you kissed random shirtless guy in a shed that smells of wet dog didn't matter. Okay, so he wasn't a random guy. He was the guy from Part 2. But still. 
(Also, there is an entire two paragraphs about how awesome this guy's chest is. I had to put the book down and laugh just because there really isn't any other way to react. Just tell me he's very attractive, will you? I can fill in the details on my own. I flipped back to that page during lunch today and passed the book around just to show how ridiculous it was.)


(MORE SPOILERS)
In this part they also visit Awesome Chest Guy's home in the Mysterious Wilds. And when they get into his house/tent/trailer thing, it turns out he has a transparent roof with a romantic view of the moon and then he starts lighting candles. REALLY? 
 I've nothing against candles or watching the moon, but...both of them together just seems completely excessive in this context. This is the middle of the forest in a camp run by the homeless impoverished outcasts of society. It's a freaking dystopia. (Plus I think they'd feel a bit more awkward than the book depicted.)


But then it turns out he has huge stacks of books lying around his trailer, and he pulls one out. So he's redeemed himself a bit, right? I love being read aloud to.
But then he starts reading love poems to her. NO. Too much. That's really, really too much. Read her anything else (even a story that happens to have romance in it!) and the night is lovely (ha, unintentional pun) and romantic (even if slightly over-the-top with the candles, but hey, they don't have electric light) and perfectly enjoyable. BUT NOT LOVE POETRY. 


So this part gets 2 stars, 2 only because it flew by so quickly I didn't have the time to get even more annoyed with it before reaching


Part 4 (page 300- End): The Stressful Part


Hand me a book, and chances are that I'll like the first third-or-so best. Authors are simply better at writing beginnings, since we get more practice with that. In addition, beginnings are more about immersion (see review for Part 1 and also Avatar) into the world. And you know I love the worlds.
Endings are more formulaic, because stuff has to be resolved somehow.


Part 4 was the adrenaline-filled Ticking Clock Ending that is so common and rarely fails to keep the book open on my knees hidden under the desk. Because despite how ridiculous Part 3 was, I didn't actually hate either of the protagonists, so I wanted them to live happily ever after because on the one hand I'm an enormous sap. However, on the other hand I'm a reader/writer who enjoys dark endings.
So if it had ended happily, I would have been glad for the characters and written a bad review of this part.
It didn't end happily, though, so I'm a bit sad for the characters and am writing a favorable review of this part.
3 stars, for being a decent-enough resolution.


(SPOILERIFIC NOTE: Awesome Chest Guy shows up on a motorcycle dressed all in black with his Golden-Red Hair Blowing In The Wind and there is a huge chase scene before he sacrifices himself so Lena can escape. Everyone loves Awesome Chest Guy.)


Overall: It's a good book, and I enjoyed it. Part 1 ruled at being Awesome Dystopia, Part 2 was good enough, Part 3 was fun to laugh at, and it was also successful at being "hooray perfect love story make the non-cynical people jealous" (and while I wasn't busy being cynical, I may have liked it), and Part 4 wasn't a sell-out.


So 3.5 stars overall. 

An Abundance of Quotes Part 14

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull." - W. C. Fields


"Don't be a hater-- you'll just end up like Darth Vader." - Alex Carpenter


Which I am posting just because the Star Wars reference made me laugh.


"Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another." - John Dewey


"The history that lies inert in unread books does no work in the word." - Carl Becker, 1932


"Right and wrong is just a matter of perception. The only way you can be wrong is if you believe you're wrong. Or if I say so." - Lord Voldemort's Twitter feed

Also, the funniest "your mom" joke I've heard in a long time, courtesy of one of the people I eat lunch with: "Your mom's so fat that her patronus is a cake."  (Did you guys know that in Latin, "expecto patronum" means "I await my godfather"? Talk about subtle foreshadowing. **worships J.K. Rowling**)

Also Also Also (and this is being added several days after I started adding quotes to this, so I'm sorry it is similar to the Voldemort one): "I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong." - Craig Benzine. I want that on a T-shirt. And I want my mom (specifically her) to buy me said T-shirt, because she (and I) would think it funny for her to buy it for me.

The Origin of the Internet

My grandma sent this to me yesterday. I don't know who wrote it, but it isn't mine, and I'm not making any money off of it so please don't sue me and whatnot. And please enjoy.


In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband: "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her - as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said: "How, dear?"

And Dot replied: "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price.

And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.

To prevent neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was called Must Send Drum OverSound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP)

But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and began to siphon off some of Abraham's business. But he was soon discovered, arrested and prosecuted - for insider trading.

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung.

They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. And indeed did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say: "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."

And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known. He said: "We need a name that reflects what we are."

And Dot replied: "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside. It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE)

And that is how it all began. 

I'm Still Here

It's been what, almost a week since I last posted? You probably thought I'd died or something. 
Sorry about that. Things came up.


To make up for it, though, I'm going to smush several different things into one post to keep you all entertained.


1. An Abundance (or rather not) of Quotes:


"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one." - George Washington


"We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves." - Galileo Galilei


2. Something Funny


3. Something Me-Related


No word from the agent yet. But the band has a blog now, which you can go follow for songs and updates and stuff. I'll say all of the important things on here as well, but there will be lyrics and demos and such over there.


4. Something Related To Patterns/Philosophy/Perception


On an entirely unrelated note, someone asked me for help with an essay on Lord of the Flies earlier this evening. She was supposed to make a "contemporary reference" and wanted to know what that meant.


I immediately decided that if it were my essay, I would write about how the book relates to Inception and the effects they both have on their respective consumers. (She didn't find the idea nearly as appealing as I do.)


Wouldn't that be cool? I might still do it as a post sometime. 

Post Winning-NaNo Effacement Disorder

"Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet." - Dave Barry


This is a post entirely about procrastination.


I intended to keep working after November was over. I intended to get the 1st draft finished by 2011. 
Instead, I became afflicted by Post Winning- NaNo Effacement Disorder, in which the victim completes her 50,000 words and then doesn't go anywhere near her novel until mid-January. In fact, she tries to blot the entire story from her mind.
In short, I have been PWNED. 


Yep. Laugh at my lame joke. The post was going to be "Post NaNo Stress Disorder," but then I came up with that...ha.


Instead of typing another few tens of thousands of words (that sounds rather impressive, doesn't it?), I have been playing The Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion. I've "completed"  (meaning there have been a few quests I haven't done) the game with two different characters now, but it hasn't gotten any less fun.
 Playing that also helps me to ignore the people immersed in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. I stopped shortly before Wrath of the Lich King came out, but its kind of painful to hear people talking about how awesome it is.
Of course, playing Oblivion for a few years doesn't measure up to the fact that I've been playing Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction since before my youngest sister was born (and she's nearly 11 and a half). That hasn't gotten less fun either.


I've also been trawling through a huge stack of library books. I finally finished the last one yesterday and so took The Lost Hero to school today since I stopped 3/4 of the way through to read HP and the Deathly Hallows...and what do I find upon logging on to my email? I have another book waiting for me at the library. Which is annoying, despite that I've been looking forward to reading this one.


So by writing a post about procrastination, I have been in effect procrastinating from homework. 

NaNoWriMo: We're Still Alive

For those who do not know, this is a parody of the song that plays during the credits of the game Portal, which I love.

How To Be A Writer

"You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can survive in a way that once-required love cannot." - John Green


How To Be A Writer: Because, you know, this guy has it down way better than I do, so I'll let him do the talking from here on out.





Thanks to KTLiterary for the link, as well as the query review she did for me in October, and for a generally informative blog.

Highlights From Thanksgiving

“The study of history is essentially an exercise in empathy.” - John Green



“The funny thing about writing is that whether you’re doing well or doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That’s actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.” - Still John Green


My cousin: (says hello in Chinese) Oh, wait, that's Japanese. (says hello in Japanese)


Me: No, that was Japanese.


My other cousin: One country makes lead, and the other makes electronics with lead in them! Same difference!


(No offense to China or Japan or their citizens, etc.)


Forsche: the official sports car of Jedi Knights.

Time For Some Humor

In other news, I got another rejection. Now it's pretty much time to hit the envelopes.
In other other news, elementary school writing club is definitely a go for this year. (Yay.) We're hoping to start in time to do the NaNoWriMo YWP, but I don't have any more details other than that.


I've been hideously good at procrastinating for the past 2 months, so those secret projects I was working on...still aren't anywhere near finished. Hopefully I'll work on that this weekend, but I might just end up reading and playing Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion more than is probably healthy. 


Remember when we were talking in writing club (and I posted about it as well, for those of you who weren't there) about how just because something's fictional doesn't mean it doesn't have a basis in reality/doesn't affect you?
Two days ago, after reading about 100 pages of Mists of Avalon, I was asking my mom why the nuns kept telling people to "pray for so and so's soul" when just a few lines earlier they'd been completely confident he was already in Heaven?
She sighed with exasperation and said "It's just a book, Olivia."
I left.
She doesn't like it when I ask questions about religion. She also doesn't like it when I ask (her) abstract questions in general. Apparently they don't "apply to real life." I disagree, but whatever. I have another parent to discuss abstract things with.


And speaking of that other parent...haha...I have a new story in mind starring a caricature of him-- greatly exaggerated and narrowed, but based off of him, nonetheless. It is funny. Or at least it will be once I've written it.

Just For Laughs 2

Here's another joke query from http://queryshark.blogspot.com (I only have about 40 queries left to read before progressing to the next step in the directions):


Dear Sublimity, Snookums QueryShark:

Literary agent Nicola Mersdon just wants three things:
1. An extended vacation in the Bahamas (without the slush pile)
2. A sojourn in the local bar (without the manuscript-bearing students)
And:
3. An engagement ring

But she'll settle for a drink.

Three thousand queries, and Nicola Mersdon has a problem. Her romantically-inclined acquaintance has sent her a diamond ring - without an SASE. Nicola is brought into conflict with her own conscience - can she truly accept the engagement and risk tacit support for NITWIT, a multinational alliance of vicious mass queriersand agent e-mail finders - as it did? But Nicola has a duty, and a harsh one - to reject the query. Whatever it takes.


But her querier's romantic inclinations are as nothing compared to his employers'. NITWIT are determined - and there's the devil in the details, as they offer Nicola a chance to die for: a reconciliatoryholiday with her rejected. Unfortunately, NITWITs may provide cookies and scented paper, but honeymoons aren't their speciality. As Nicola finds out to her cost - brought to New York for a sacrifice upon one of agenthood's highest pinnacles of sense. Tied to Miss Snark'sgrave shrine in Central Park, Nicola is forced to offer her betrothed and his allies in NITWITtery a critique, forcing them to retire in shame. Then she eviscerates them.


LIFE AND LOVE IN AN SASE is an epic tale of tragedy, the human condition, and the eternal duology of love. My 200, 000 word manuscript - described as a fascinating combination of Socrates and Faulkner - is available upon request.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


(Name)

Just For Laughs

Hey, this is my 100th post. Wow.

This is a query letter posted on Query Shark. I hope you find it amusing.

 Dear My Dream Publisher Of Good Humor,

Three students of the College of Witching and Whizzing in Ireland are finding out that life isn’t all it is cracked up to be when Lord Saddam-a-mort decides to go on a rampage with all the artillery he could muster up. When their college professor fights Lord Saddam-a-mort, and almost kills him with the Crystal of Darkness, Lord Saddam-a-mort yells out a truth that shatters the heart of Larry, one of the three students that wears thin glasses and always seems to figure out magic without much help from his education at the College. He yells out, “Larrrry, I am your Grandfather.”

Trusting the evil Lord in his hour of doom, Larry decides to go on a quest to look for his father, because he deduced that if he had a grandfather, that must mean that he had a father at some point in history. His faithful, red-headed girl friend, with eyes like the sea after a storm, goes along for the ride, and they take their other friend Juan Hector Manuel Crisanto Deigo Carlos Felipo Marco Alberto Miguel Fernando Hermanez Recardo the 3rd, an exchange student from deep Mexico.

They only make it as far as the next interesting place, Scotland, and find themselves in the throws of a castle, because, well, something happened, but there they were. The hunched back man who answered the door, eerily followed the three around the castle. Door after door was opened, with the hopes of finding Larry’s father, but all that lay behind each one was a new mystery to solve. Behind one, for example, was Central Earth which consisted of the children of Men, Elves, and Gnomes that haunted the gardens of Men. There Larry, his red-headed girl, named, um, Matilda, and Juan, connected with Leroy, son of the Dave, son of the Harold, who produced DNA papers stating that he was indeed the father of Larry, and also a prince.

Thrilled, Larry high tailed it out of there, just as a war was unfolding against Man and the formidable Garden Gnomes who were in league with the Plastic Pink Flamingos of the Netherworlds. The three students used this knowledge of the Castle of Doors to get away from the hunched back man who loosely guarded the door of the castle. As they are leaving, the hunchback says with a look of horror in his eyes, “I smell dead people….”

As the three grew, Larry couldn’t live in comfort knowing that his father has maybe or maybe not survived the battle against the Garden Gnomes. Until one day, a letter came along by Owl, and enclosed in the letter was a golden bracelet which he had to go to the country of Saddam-a-mort to throw into the burning oil wells and destroy. Upon the destruction of this bracelet, the wars of Central Earth would cease, and all the people that are wired by their heads into every outlet in the Pink Flamingos power lines will be freed and allowed to live as normal men of Central Earth, instead of living as a ‘renewable energy source.’

I would like you to consider reading my 100,789 word manuscript for the genre: pre-teen action thriller adult fantasy drama, chocked full of recipes, tips for green living, and coupons for future upcoming books. I have always loved writing, ever since the fourth grade when my work was included in the 1975 Christmas Pageant at Show Low, Arizona Elementary School. (Yes, that was me! You remember that, don’t you? DON'T YOU?)

I have received many compliments on my work from my husband, my mother, my deaf aunt Matilda (the inspiration behind my main characters love interest), and my goldfish. I also attended a New Kids on the Block concert when they first toured, and studied a prestigious Book on Writing I got at a garagesale. This manuscript could be considered for a screenplay, and should be categorized right up there with other genius Cinematic Works of Art, such as, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a moment of contemplation while we ponder the greatness of the Monty… hummmm...ok, that’s enough).

Passing this query up would mean certain death for your Publishing corporation.
I will encourage you to use your good sense and really consider-accept, this almost finished manuscript, destined to be a best seller.

Sincerely,
(name redacted)