Award moment

Thank you very much Serene Chaos for this awesome award... I can't believe such a gifted, talented artist thought me worthy of receiving this... =) Check out her super cool blog: http://serenechaos101.blogspot.com/




These are the instructions coming with the award:

1. Thank whoever gave this to you
2. Copy award
3. Post it in your blog
4. Tell us 7 things that your readers don’t know
5. Link 7 new bloggers
6. Notify winners of the award with a comment on their blog
7. Keep being awesome!


So, for the 7 things my readers might not know:

1. I am in love with someone 15 years older than me.
2. I am about to finish my first year of Jazz Dance Teacher Training.
3. I want to be an English teacher.
4. I'm raising money up to buy a digital piano.
5. I live and was born in Argentina.
6. I wear braces... (I'll hopefully and willingly leave them in December! YAY!)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the most awaited moment of the day... My chosen winners!

1. http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/ Roni gives the best advice in regards to writing, and has helped me to write better! =)
2. http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/ Jody has an amazing writing style.
3. http://www.awritersvoice.com/ Deborah's posts are full of feeling and sympathy.
4. http://insanitysmusings.blogspot.com/ Gavin writes and makes you feel exactly the way he wants.
5. http://picturespoetryprose.blogspot.com/ It's been a while since they post, but I love them, their prompts are of the best.
6. http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/ Another blog with great prompts, C. Beth rocks it!
7. http://juleswrites.blogspot.com/ Julie keeps a diary of her life that is very interesting to read.

All these blogs are great, go check them out!

Stormy night

Yesterday night I saw the most impressing storm I had ever seen. I had never seen such a wonderful, enormous and scary thing in my life. What I saw looked more or less like this:

Or this:

Let me explain myself. I live on a 9th floor, and my building overlooks the residential part of the city, which only has small houses, so I have an enormous view of the sky (it actually is half of my window). Last night there was a huge storm going on up there, with the wind rattling my windows and throwing my flowerpots away, but there was no rain. What I did see, was the most impressing demostration of nature power, when thousands or electricity particles moved in the sky. Not only I saw what you see in the pictures above, the vertical rays hitting the ground, but there were rays doing semi-circles and going in crazy angles.

It made me feel a bunch of unexpected emotions: I was veery scared, I felt exposed because I've never been so near to the sky during a storm, I felt the need to go and hide, to protect myself under something like a cave, but I also felt fascination, wonder and amazement. I was captured instantly by it, I could not take my eyes off the sky. It was funny because my family was watching their stupid soap opera and I was literallly giving my back to them, watching outside, my eyes glued to the shining clouds, waiting for the next flow of rays. At one point my mother even said: "We're watching the TV and she's watching hers". I could not help it, not only I hate TV, but I was totally absorbed by the whole thing. It also made me feel very tiny, insignificant, and made me realise how big the sky really is.

It was an unbelievable and marvellous experience, I can't wait to see it again!

A police encounter

There was a post at The One Minute Writer about an encounter with a police officer that made me think a lot. Here is what I answered:

As soon as I saw today's prompt, I jumped to answer it, because whenever someone mentions the word 'police' to me, I instantly think about Garrido.
He was a police officer down in my village, and he was in charge of the busiest street, the one I walk through every day. He was a very cheerful man, saying hi to everyone and always smiling. He knew everyone there!
But one day, a couple was robbing a store, a Kevingston to be more specific, and he came to help, and was shot and instantly killed. This happened last February, and was a major piece of news, appearing in every news channel.
As justice is slower than anything in this country, the thieves are still waiting to be tried, and nothing has been done on the subject. If you looked at the floor of that main street, you saw, in huge white letters “Justice for Garrido or for his murderers?”
However, not everything is bad news, for he got a piece of love from all the grateful people he had helped: when you walk in those streets you see a black bow in every window, and there is a small monument at Kevingston's door. They even named that part of the street after him!
People were raising keys to build a real monument, because the government complained that copper was way too expensive... And that is just because there had been a misunderstanding between the government of the city and Garrido, because it was corrupt and he was not.
And that's what our government teaches us to do: not to appreciate people who sacrifice their lives to protect us.

I've just finished reading a post at http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/ , about the importance of the first lines of a book in order to get the potential reader/publisher/editor's attention.
The writer says that they are crucial, and gives examples of her own writing as to catching the reader's attention. If you wish to read more about it, go to the blog mentioned before and read the complete post.
In my arrogant opinion, [=)] first lines are important to get the reader involved, but they are not the main thing of the story. If they are re-written, they may lose part of their charm, which may lie on that first draft. So don't go crazy trying to think which sentences should somehow sum up the whole book, or at least mention very subtly what will happen at the end, after all, the best thing about writing is to see what becomes of your ideas when you start developing them!
She suggested that her followers should write the first lines they liked the most, the ones that had best caught their attentions immediately. Here are mine:

"It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It’s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling u s about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, “Bring us a basin! We’re going to be sick!”" Matilda, Roald Dahl

Needless to say this got hold of my eyes immediately; I couldn't wait to see what was next. And Roald Dahl sorta mentions the main theme of the story, that being about Matilda's parent's hatred towards her. I just loved it! =)

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it." David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

I only have to say that this first three paragraphs made me smile as no other book had ever made me smile, and I think that they hold the best summary of Dickens' magic, which we two love. It contains irony, witty comments, and also provides evidence of what will happen at the end... It is great.

"SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof." Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson.

This extract made me smile too. It is witty, intelligent and it gives subtle, and not so subtle, clues about what will happen. I particularly chose it because of its originality on introducing the story.

So what are your favourite first lines of books? Do you think they are so important?

Literary crush

Here is a cool blog I found: http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/
In one post, the writer asked for questions she could answer in her next post, and here is one of them, the one I liked the most. I thought I'd give it a try and answer it.

Your two biggest literary crushes show up on your doorstep ready to sweep you off your feet. Who do you go with and why?

Looking through my bookshelf, I went through the most important guys of my favourite books...
Some of them are: the perfect Edward Cullen, from Twilight, David Copperfield, from the book of the same name, Mr Darcy, from Pride and prejudice, and Farid, from Inkheart.
Edward Cullen is such a "cliched" character, the most perfect of perfection, that he turns boring. He doesn't have many evident bad qualities, everything about him is just great, so there is nothing to fight for, nothing to change, nothing to worry about... And although he is tempting, he is not very interesting, and too perfect to be true, that he lacks of realism.
David Copperfield is a character very well described throughout Dicken's story. We get to know him since the very moment he was born to the middle of his manhood, so we have a very full knowledge about his self. I would like to say I would go out with him, and I could fall in love with him, because I consider him to be intelligent, sensible and sympathetic, and a good man above all. I believe I could find him attractive, although he is not top of my list.
Mr Darcy is a hated character from the beginning of the novel, for Jane Austen makes the reader feel what Elizabeth feels about him right away. However, I do like him very much, he is the kind of person one would seldom quarrel with, he is quite chivalrous, but for sure, very tender and loving. I would fall in love with him as well, but I think I'd rather be his sister Georgiana than his wife.
Farid is a character you don't give anything for when he's first mentioned. He's just called 'a guy', and nothing more. Nevertheless, he's one of the most important characters of the book, even more of the book #2. He is a thin, arabig boy of about 15 who was a helper of the 40 thieves of the legendary tale. Therefore, he doesn't speak a word, and he is very shy. He is very simple, but I believe he is cunning, and very wise. I'd rather have him for a date than the others.

What do you think? What would you answer to the prompt question?

SCREAM!

Another prompt in TheOneMinuteWriter.

What makes you want to scream?





My mum when she questions EVERYTHING I say or do, or when she questions my friends, doesn't she know that they are untouchable?
My classmates, when they can't do a tidy essay and leave all the hard work to me.
My teachers, when they believe their subject is the only one we have.

Free

This is a prompt at TheOneMinuteWriter blog (http://www.oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/), which I thought was cool and led to interesting conclusions.



Type a four-letter F word (no, not that one!) and then see where that word takes you as you write for a minute.




Free

I would like to be free from my school responsabilities right now, I feel so stressed and tired... I would like to be on vacation already, but I still have 28 schooldays to go. School shouldn't be so tiring, students should enjoy it and it should be a part of their lives, not their lives themselves. But well, nothing is gonna chage that when classes finish, we feel free.