Harry Potter

I was very reluctant to fall into the Harry Potter crowd around the time book 4 was written. I thought the story of a little boy going to wizarding school was a bit too little-kiddish for me. A friend convinced me to go the the movie theaters to see the first movie and I was intrigued. It took 3 movies before I decided to read the books, for research purposes of course, I wanted to be an author and I wanted to see what it was about these books that made them so fascinating. I finished up to the 5th book and was hooked. I had been working at a bookstore and had to work the Book 6 release party, I bought my copy but decided to wait til the 7th book was closer so that I wouldn't have to deal with the suspense, however with customers coming in and telling me "I couldn't believe Harry this" or "I can't believe Snape this" or "Dumbledore..." That I finally read it. Having learned my lesson the first time when the 7th book came out I went home and read it cover to cover in 12 hours so no one could spoil anything this time. I was sad that the series was over, but happy with the ending, I thought the King's Cross chapter was pointless the first time I read it, of course it was like 9am after reading it none stop since 1am, but it made more sense the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th times that I read it. I've actually lost count as to how many times I have read each book.

Yesterday I finally got to see the preview for the last 2 movies(since they're splitting the last book into 2 films) and I was sooooooo excited! It was before the new Twilight:Eclipse movie and I must say I liked the preview more than the movie. So here it is, I am a nerd, I love Harry Potter and I'm not ashamed to say it!

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Maturity

I find it very interesting when adults behave in an immature fashion. My husband and I have been spending a lot of time at my parent's house because my sister has been in town. Normally there are between 4 and 5 vehicles when we are all there. Their neighbors are so picky about our cars being parked on the curb and occationally hanging over infront of their house by a few feet. In retaliation today one of them parked their car infront of my parent's house so that we couldnt park there. The side effect was we had to park directly infront of the neighbor's house today. What ever happened to being friendly to your neighbors? You have to live right next door to them, why try to bicker about such miner things? Why cant we be friends? Why cant we all just get along? So my parent's children like to visit, we dont block their mail box, we dont block their driveway, we barely block the view of their fence, why get so caught up in such a little thing? I guess I'll just never understand.

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Twilight

"I was consumed by the mystery Edward presented. And more than a little obsessed by Edward himself."
Bella Swan, Twilight, Chapter 3, p.67

Okay, so I mentioned it in my last post and figured I would elaborate as I have time to do it now. I do not like Twilight. I say that but I am fascinated by it's fan-base and want to see the new movie to see what all the fuss is about. First I will address the books, because yes, I have read the books.

#1 A girl falls in love with her mysterious stalker, becomes likewise obsessed with him, and gives up everything to be with said stalker. Half the stuff the characters say to each other is borderline creepy and far from romantic.

#2 Why I think girls love it so much: Bella is a blank slate. Look at it, she is a plain girl who has an 'old soul.' That's about all the description you get of her in the entire series, but look at the immaculate detail her star crossed lovers are given, even down to the smell of their breath. Most girls want to think of themselves as more mature than they really are, hence the old soul (which by the way isn't an accurate description, Bella is portrayed an immature girl with a very unhealthy obsession that eventually leads to her literal death). And she is plain, a description most girls apply to themselves. Now look at Jake and Edward, both have extremely detailed descriptions. Edward is basically a marble statue of a Greek god, Jake the rugged, caring bad boy. Both stand out for their perfect looks and are both obsessed with this plain girl most female readers can relate to.

#3 In retrospect I feel the books are very poorly written but that fact is masked by the obsession with the characters that readers have since they basically put themselves in Bella's shoes, and admittedly it would be easy to overlook flaws if two hot guys are obsessed with you.

My problems with the movies?

#1 Poor acting, mostly by Kristen Stewart. The end.

Now I leave you with a picture of Creepy McCreeperson.

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Hmmm....

"An art aims, above all, at producing something beautiful which affects not our feelings but the organ of pure contemplation, our imagination."
Eduard Hanslick

Contemplation has been the name of the game today. All my sister has wanted to do is watch Weeds, and when I finally admitted I was tired of watching it she and my hubs decided it was time to play video games...something equally as boring to me as I am not very good at playing first person shooters, especially online. So here I am, 6 hours of boredom later and I have decided to do something productive: figure out that opening chapter! Right now I will simply refer to it as 'Cinder'(the intended finished title of my story). I figure a main attribute of my female main character needs to be the first thing introduced because it wont make sense anywhere else and it's one of the most important things involved in the plot. She and her best friend take an adventure in search of love(yes it's a romance, which will not be the hallmark of my potential writing career, but it's an easy place to start). I am now having a little trouble figuring out exactly how they will depart on this journey of the heart without raising any suspicion. I think a major issue I need to overcome as a writer is, I can write dialogue like it's nobody's business, I just have a problem with the filler. How much is too much description? What should I be putting in the description? I have turned to researching books currently in print, and since I want my story to be successful I have been looking at successful stories. I may dwell on it more in a later post but Twilight to me is a descriptive nightmare, is it really necessary to know the smell of his breath? Her descriptions of the characters seem more like creepy stalkers that need to be institutionalized rather than romance. Practice makes perfect, luckily the advent of computers and Word make it very easy to go back and make changes to documents :)

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Emotions

I am a very emotional person. I dont have to know the person, but if I see someone crying like 60% of the time I might start crying too, and pretty much 100% of the time if I do know the person. I havent quite figured out a way to control it, I just start crying even when I dont want to. Take tonight, I watched our recordings of the last 2 Deadliest Catch shows tonight and I bawled my eyes out when Phil Harris had his stroke. I dont know him, but I was still so devistated that I'm tearing up as I write this. I definitely need to get stronger emotionally if I'm gonna handle my chosen profession. I'm gonna have to be around people that are having a hard time and I'm gonna have to be strong. But how on earth do you check your emotions? How am I supposed to know when I'm being too caring for my patients? Guess I'm just gonna have to find out.

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Me, an author?

''For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.' '' Thomas Greenleaf Whittier.

For a very long time I have toyed with the idea of being an author, I even started college with that aspiration. I was on the path of a creative writing degree when a thought struck me: I don't need a degree to be an author. So I changed my major into something that more readily offered itself up as a wise financial decision, first history, then political science, then international affairs, and finally Nursing. It is perfectly possible to have another career and still be an author. My problem is I lack the dedication to actually finish a story. I have started a fair few, but fell far short of any semblance of a conclusion. Now I finally have a story I feel I can market and I'm stuck, how do I begin it? It's all in my head, the characters, the plot, the twist, the climax and the anticlimax, but how do I begin? And when I do figure that out, who will actually want to read it? Maybe I should approach it like a marriage, I am dedicated to that marriage til death do us part, death being representative of the conclusion of the story, so maybe this idea will give me the dedication I need. Self control and endurance are two things I lack, perhaps my first novel will be an exercise to control them and put them into practice. We'll just have to wait and see for only God knows what the future holds and he doesn't want to spoil the ending by telling us what will happen :P

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Finally in Nursing School!!!!

So after 2 and 1/2 years I finally got the letter saying 'Congratulations' after course transfer errors and missing classes on transcripts I have finally gotten into Nursing School...or rather I will be once I submit the form formally accepting the offer for admission. I've waited so long to finally be on the path to pulling my own financial weight in my and my husband's relationship and it's here at last! 1 year and I'll be an LVN, 2 years and I'll be an RN. To finally be a legitimate member of society, to finally be paying my dues, it's all sooooooooo exciting! I get to look forward to a job I can make good money in and that I will enjoy apart from the ridiculous hours, now that I'm in I should be saying that it's only just begun, but since I have overcome this hurdle I know I can handle the rest. I'M IN NURSING SCHOOL!!!!!

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