The Rambler

Can I please marry Adventure Time right now? I would very much enjoy that. I need it in my life. It is imperative to my survival.


In other news, I've been pretty dead on here recently. However, I am done classes for the year now and look forwards to catching up on everyone's lives.

Fans whose hopes were dashed when Stephenie Meyer sidelined Midnight Sun, her planned fifth book in the Twilight Saga, after it was leaked online, have reason to get excited. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will publish Meyer's The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella on Saturday, June 5. The book goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. with a 1.5 million-copy first printing (an e-book version will be available at 6:00 a.m.).

Really? REALLY?

REALLY?

Unfortunately, it's true.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner tells the story of a newborn vampire introduced in Eclipse, who will also appear in the film version of Eclipse, scheduled to be released on June 30. The book was originally envisioned as part of Meyer's The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide. "I'm as surprised as anyone about this novella," said Meyer in a statement. "When I began working on it in 2005, it was simply an exercise to help me examine the other side of Eclipse, which I was editing at the time. I thought it might end up as a short story that I could include on my website. Then, when work started on The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide, I thought the Guide would be a good fit for my Bree story. However, the story grew longer than I anticipated, until it was too long to fit into the Guide."

Go fuck yourself, Smeyer. Really. I would really appreciate it.





_{Also, thank you to everyone for the kind words on the previous entry. <3 I really appreciated it.}

My poor, beautiful puppy passed away last night. I got the call this morning from my mum. She was crying when she told me.
Maggie was old, almost fourteen, but she wasn't really showing a lot of warning signs. Apparently, she was coughing last night, but that was all. She went to sleep in her bed, curled up in front of the heater and just never woke up, I suppose. As far as we know, she wasn't in any pain before her death. I'm very thankful for that. I think she went peacefully.

I can't imagine going back home and her not being there. She's just always been there. I was six when we got her. I spent that first night curled up with her in the hall. I refused to go to bed because I was scared she would be lonely without her mum and brothers. She slept in my bed until my mum had to kick her out. She was a huge dog and she took up the entire bed. I still snuck her up there with me almost every night.

I just started crying again while writing this.


Maggie, I miss you and love you so much. <3

A friend of mine is an avid antique book collector. As a general lover of books, I always thought that this was a supermegafoxyawesomehot hobby. So I decided to join her in it. I just bought my first true antique book. Two dollars, excellent shape. I just got home and looked it up and found a news article from 1908 reviewing the book. I am peeing in glee right now. I was even more excited when I read the review where it stated what an excellent book it is because it can fit right in your waistcoat pocket. <3
Unfortunately, I passed up a book from the 1800's which was going for five dollars... I sort of really want to go back for it now...
Maybe tomorrow.

UNGH, I LOVE OLD BOOKS. IT'S SO TINY AND CUTE AND SMELLS LIKE HISTORY. I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

Dear people in my classes,

If you do not want to hear critique on your stories, then do not take a course based solely on the peer review system. It clearly states the format of the class in the course description. You are dumb and have had plenty of time to drop without financial liability. Just because you are "not planning on becoming a writer" does not mean that you are not subject to critique. Besides, these are third year classes. Why the hell are you taking up seats for people who are in the program if you don't even care about it.
Kindly pack up your crappy stories and leave.

Sincerely,

Fiona




In other news, went to Chapters today and bought Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timmothy Findley and Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Niel. So excited to start them. Slightly more broke, but oh well. Worth it.

I've been sort of boycotting the 2010 Olympics these past couple of weeks. Of course, that's very hard to do when the Olympics are occurring so close to where I live. I support the athletes and everything they've gone through to get where they are. It's a wonderful show of self-discipline, something I wish I had more of. I do not, however, support the over zealous spending that has gone into the event. It's such an unbelievably cash cow at this point.
I felt quite patriotic today, though. Not just because we won gold, or even because we've made a record. I'm not denying that that's cool, but it doesn't have anything to do with the feeling of national pride I experienced today. I was at work during the game, and on the opposite side of the mall was an Olympics set up. There was a large flat screen TV and bleachers set up for viewing. The place was packed. My coworker and I took turns going down to the set up, him to watch the game and me to just sort of soak it all in (I'm essentially a hockey hating, beer shunning disgrace of a Canadian). When I was down there, people were hugging and smiling and just generally happy. While I was in the store, people were popping in just to keep me updated on the score, to tell a joke or simply to chat. I think I would have been generally irritated by that if it weren't for the fact that the entire mall, minus the Olympics setup, was completely deserted.
Still, it was lovely seeing everyone so happy and so proud of their country. Over here in B.C., we don't get patriotic very often and I normally cringe at the idea (we are by nature a fairly modest people), but I was happy to see it and even take part in what I could.
I even got to jump up and down and scream when I heard the cheers from the other side of the mall. It was very loud and very infectious.

Also, there was apparently a happy mob in downtown Vancouver today. They were climbing on bus stop covers and all over Future Shop (who had closed their doors due to the riot). That one... not so cool, guys.



I haven't posted music in a while, so here:

I really love this song, as I do all of Regina's work. Simply gorgeous. And unfortunately, I think it's a feeling we've all felt at some point or another.

We talked about who vs whom today in my copyediting class. This was, of course, all I could think of.
I was the the only person in the class, aside from the prof (who had just learned the trick the previous week) who knew the he vs him trick to logicing out whether to use who or whom. Since she didn't know it very well, she asked me to teach the class on the section. It was really nerve-wracking, but I felt really awesome. Copyediting is unbelievably dull some days, but I'm so glad I decided to take it. I've learned so much that really helps me improve my own writing. Luckily, our prof plans to change the lessons and make them more interactive with more in class work. Listening to a classmate read aloud points on a chapter you've already read is just not that enthralling. At all.

I'm also starting my sci-fi story for Genre Fiction (sweet baby Jesus, I love that class). We're allowed to choose between fantasy and sci-fi for the project and never having taken a go and sci-fi before, I've decided to at least see where this takes me. I'm doing a post apocalyptic piece. That's all I know. It's due tuesday and I have two sentences done.

Come ooooon, inspiration.

What do you get when you combine a bit of typography, humor and amazing art? Why, it's Hanna is Not a Boy's Name, of course! It's a webcomic by the wonderful Tessa Stone and follows the adventures of Hanna Falk Cross, a (shitty) paranormal investigator. Despite Hanna being the main character, the story is told from the point of view of Hanna's zombie companion, known simply as "...".
Stone herself classifies the story as sugarcoated horror. And what's more fun than horror with a fine sugar coating?
Anyways, I really suggest that you check it out. It's quirky, it's hilarious and it's ever so wonderful.

I'm always really disappointed when there's someone in a class who quite obviously does not want to be there. There's a boy in our genre class who does nothing but mock and sneer at everything. Whether it's other people's work or the genre itself. When we do our workshop sessions, he does no previous editing and doesn't even bother to read the stories beforehand. He actually said to a person during critique last week, "I dunno. Didn't read it." I wanted to bitchslap him. The most irritating part is that I know for a fact that we had a 20+ waitlist for the class. A waitlist full of people who really wanted to be there and who would read the stories and give critique and not mock everyone and everything.
Just, augh. The part I really don't get is why he's paying $250 for a class he's not interested in. I really hope the prof fails him. So far she hasn't called him on anything yet, which honestly surprises me.

On a similar subject, I finally finished my romance story. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. The required writing style is the complete opposite of my own. It was an excellent assignment, though. I had to really step out of my comfort zone (I need to do more of that). I've been working on the novel for so long that I'm gotten into a total stylistic rut. It was really great to be forced out of that.

( Pretty tunes under the cutCollapse )

This romance story is going to kill me. I don't think I quite realised what I was getting into. Our stories have to follow the guideline:

Women are beautiful, intelligent, passionate, witty (ie: Mary-Sue-ish)
Men are dangerous, brooding, and cause an initial problem.
Simplistic writing style.
There must be a conflict barring the two.
Love must be consummated in some form or another.
The woman must chase the man.
Story must have a happy ending.

I personally prefer a story with a sad ending. I try to write self destructive characters with detrimental flaws. From what I understand (from the lecture I'm sitting in on), this is not something I can do for this assignment. Other than the conflict (which really should be in every story), these are all things I tend to avoid.
So that means the previous story is out the window. I might just bail out and write a borderline harlequin. Pffffft.

Any tips floating around out there?


Oh well, I'm taking the story I was working on and entering it in the Arts Council short story competition. The entry price is only $15 (cheaper than most of the contests I've seen in the area) and the prize is cash and publishing. I figure why not?
We'll see if I can get it finished for the due date.