Apologies for the extreme lateness of this post… The reason for its lateness is very lengthy, so just know that it involves a hacked wifi router, algebra, a new phone, and multiple security scans on a MacBook that are still going on as I am writing this. Just take my advice and don’t EVER download Mac Keeper! Also I a typing this on my phone with a demented bluetooth keyboard, so I am sorry in advance for any nonsense! Anyway, this post is to announce the winners of this giveaway! So without further rambling from me…
Tanya is the Winner of Scrivener, and Abby is the winner of Storyist! I don’t really wanna post the discount code here because… obvious reasons, so I’m just going to message both of you guys on twitter! 😄
The Killing Game (DNF review)
Title: The Killing Game
Author: Toni Anderson
Genre: Suspense, Romance
Pages: 366
Publisher: self-published
Published: April 12th, 2013
Find It On:
•Amazon
•iBooks
•Goodreads
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Wildlife biologist Axelle Dehn isn’t about to let anyone harm her endangered snow leopards—not the poacher intent on killing them, nor the soldier who wants to use them as bait. But Axelle is unknowingly entangled in a conflict that stretches back three decades, a conflict that could spark a war between two of the world’s great nations.
British SAS soldier, Ty Dempsey, is on a mission to hunt down an infamous Russian terrorist in a remote region of Afghanistan. Dempsey hasn’t failed a mission yet, but when Axelle is kidnapped by the Russian, he is forced to choose between duty and his heart. He risks everything to save the determined, prickly woman he’s fallen for, but in doing so sparks a deadly series of events that threaten to expose the most successful spy in history. A spy who will destroy anyone who gets in his way.
My thoughts: ☆☆
Remember that “blind date with a book” challenge I took a while ago? Yeah… This is the book I got.
Let me begin by saying that I really do not like reviewing books I don’t finish. I want to be a published author in the hopefully near future, and I wouldn’t want someone publicly judging my book when they didn’t read it all. I try to do authors the same courtesy that I would like them to give me by just never speaking of books that I don’t enjoy, but since this was part of a challenge that I just kind of dropped, I thought I’d go ahead and review it on here so you’d know how that ended up. However, I will not be posting my rating on Goodreads or Amazon like I normally would because I don’t want my two star rating to factor into the average over there. This rating is based on the first sixty pages, and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt! But complicated ramble aside, here’s what I thought:
I knew this book wasn’t in my preferred genre when I picked it up, but I started it with an open mind because I’ve really enjoyed other genres the few times I’ve branched out. If I can connect with a character or theme, I can almost always find something to like about the book. But unfortunately that didn’t happen with The Killing Game…
The Writing
The writing style was very choppy, and it made it reeeeeeeally hard to get into the story! Here’s a snippet of the notes I started taking for this review just to give you a taste:
•Ok… I get it… It’s cold.
•Yeah… Harsh landscape… Got it!
•Wait a second! There are two “D” names, and idk who’s who anymore!
•AWWWWWWW! Leopard cubs!
•How long are we going to drag this out can we please either capture the guy or let him go or kill him already?!
Looking back at those notes, they seem kinda harsh, which is exactly why I hate writing DNF reviews! Again, take this with a grain of salt, but the writing was just very hard for me to read. I kept getting confused at who was talking because there were… I think three POV characters that I saw??? And I kind of had a hard time transitioning between them because I didn’t connect with any of them. Which leads to my next point…
The Characters:
I know I didn’t get far enough to really see any character growth, but every single character seemed very flat to me. It was all “telling,” not “showing.” Everything was directly stated, and there was no subtext for the reader to fill in the blanks.
The Plot:
I think the plot is probably the best thing this book has going for it. If the writing had flowed a little easier, and there wasn’t so much description of cold weather and rough landscapes, I would’ve probably finished it just to see what happened.
Conclusion:
Please ignore everything I’ve said here and give this book a chance if you’re interested in this genre. It could very well be that romantic suspense or whatever on earth this thing is just is not my cup O tea! For all I know, suspense books are supposed to have choppy writing and cardboard characters! If you read this kind of thing regularly, please enlighten me on the writing style and characters of a typical book in the genre because now my writerly nerd side wants to know…
Let’s Chat!
Have you read The Killing Game? Did you finish it? What are your thoughts on DNF reviews? Have you ever written one? Would you consider writing one? Under what conditions if any would you write one? Let’s chat in comments!
These Broken Stars (minor spoiler with warning)
“For a moment the image before us is frozen: our world, our lives, reduced to a handful broken stars half lost in uncharted space. Then it’s gone, the view swallowed by the hyperspace winds streaming past, blue-green auroras wiping the after-images away.
Until all that’s left is us”
― Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, These Broken Stars
Title: These Broken stars
Author: Amie Kaufman & Meagan spooner
Series: Starbound #1
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 374
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Published: December 10th, 2013
Find It On:
•Amazon
•iBooks
•Goodreads
Synopsis From Goodreads:
Luxury spaceliner Icarus suddenly plummets from hyperspace into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive – alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a cynical war hero. Both journey across the eerie deserted terrain for help. Everything changes when they uncover the truth.
The Starbound Trilogy: Three worlds. Three love stories. One enemy.
My Rating: ☆☆☆
Please allow me a moment to fangirl… I love this story and these characters even though they both have their flaws, but I promise I’ll try to be coherent!
The Writing:
To have a dual point of view, this book flows amazingly well! The writing is very elaborate as is typical for the genre, but it’s elaborate in a way that seems simple if that makes any sense at all… It pulls us as the readers into a new world and makes sure we know all the important details, but it also isn’t overly descriptive.
The Characters:
Lilac and Tarver are awesome characters! They are both very distinct, and even if the chapters weren’t clearly marked with who does the narrating, I would be able to tell them apart with no problem!
The Plot:
Uhh yeah… The plot does get a lil weird closer to the end, but let’s just… look over that and focus on the cool characters and setting! Just kidding!
What lost this book two stars?
I knocked off two stars for the plot because there are a few things that really bugged me, but these things could very easily be subject to opinion:
•Scenario: A boy and a girl have been flirting. Girl pretends to hate boy because father orders her to do so. Boy and girl get thrown onto a deserted planet. Boy and girl fall in love. Shocker…
•Minor spoiler alert pertaining to plot tropes! Skip to the next bullet point if your concerned: You know how sometimes characters die, and then they come back to life when the love interest is heartbroken and can’t seem to move on without the “dead character? I’m not saying that happened exactly, but yeah…
•The ending was a little sudden. One minute things were happening, and the next minute Lilac and Tarver were headed back to wherever their home planner was! Huh what???
What won this book three stars?
•Very distinct characters.
•Strong internal and external conflict.
•Really cool alien beings!
•Interesting use of character backstory.
•Easy to read writing style.
•Other general awesomeness!
Conclusion:
If you like SciFi at all, I think you’ll like this book! I will definitely be reading the rest of the series!
Share your thoughts?
Have you read These Broken Stars? Do you wanna read it now? Any thoughts on my rather scattered review? Let’s chat in comments!
The Islands at the End of the World (spoiler free review)
Title: The Islands at the End of the World Author: Austin Aslan Series: Islands at the End of the World #1 Genre: Young Adult, SciFi Pages: 384 Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books Published: August 5th, 2014 Format Read: Audio Find It On:
Synopsis From Goodreads
Right before my eyes, my beautiful islands are changing forever. And so am I …
Sixteen-year-old Leilani loves surfing and her home in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. But she’s an outsider – half white, half Hawaiian, and an epileptic.
While Lei and her father are on a visit to Oahu, a global disaster strikes. Technology and power fail, Hawaii is cut off from the world, and the islands revert to traditional ways of survival. As Lei and her dad embark on a nightmarish journey across islands to reach home and family, she learns that her epilepsy and her deep connection to Hawaii could be keys to ending the crisis before it becomes worse than anyone can imagine.
A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
My Rating: ☆☆☆
Before I get into this, I have to say that I would probably give this a two star rating had I read it and not listened to the audio book. There are a lot of long passages of Hawaiian language, and I think it would have detracted from the story had I been trying to read the text. When I see a word I don’t know in a book, I usually end up googling how to say it because it bugs me until I know. That being said, the audio book made all the Hawaiian words sound Beautiful! It pulled me into the story rather than bringing me out of it because I wasn’t struggling to read words I’d never heard before.
The Plot:
The plot was very original! We’ve seen stuff like this before: worldwide power outage, people panic, economy shuts down, government is obviously keeping a massive secret, there’s lots of fighting, and alien attacks and biblical prophecies come into play. However, The Islands at the End of the World does a really good job of putting a new spin on things. Because it’s set in Hawaii, we become amerced in a new culture that adds to the mystery. Austin Aslan does a fantastic job of pulling you into the Hawaiian world and making you believe in the culture, and then he throws a massive plot twist into the mix that creates an ending you’ll never expect.
The Characters:
Ok… Several of the characters seemed a little flat to me, (Leilani’s dad for instance), but Leilani kind of makes up for it. First of all, she has epilepsy, and it’s not one of those things where the character has a medical disorder just for the sake of having a medical disorder. It does cause a couple problems, and it is relevant to the plot. The only problem I have with it is that Leilani’s dad tends to have a… somewhat downplayed reaction when Lei has an epileptic seizure. There’s one point where she wakes up, and he’s just like, “Hi,” and I was left going “Shouldn’t you be a little more concerned that the world is in chaos and your daughter just had a horrible seizure?!” I personally have a disorder where my adrenals don’t work, and I’ve had some pretty bad seizures before, and my parents are not exactly cool, calm, and collected when I come out of it… I also question some of the language used when Lei has a seizure. It’s referred to as “fits” a few times, and I think I remember reading somewhere that that’s not accurate. Epileptics can feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong!
Why is this not a five star book?
•Several flat characters. •The thing with the Hawaiian language mentioned above. •Downplayed reaction to epileptic seizures. •Some awkward dialogue. •Possible incorrect medical language concerning epilepsy.
Why is this rated three stars?
•Hawaii makes for an interesting setting. •Cool new culture. •Epileptic character that isn’t just epileptic for the sake of being epileptic! •Original spin on an old plot. •Cool Hawaiian shaman people. •Hawaiian language sounds beautiful in the audio book. •An ending you’ll never expect!
Conclusion:
I will be reading the second book as soon as I find it! I did point out a lot of flaws, but quite honestly I didn’t notice those until I started taking notes for this review. The writing pulled me in, and held my attention until the end.
Share your thoughts?
Have you read The Islands at the End of the World? Do you want to read it? What are your thoughts on the use of foreign language in books and characters with medical disorders? Let’s chat in comments!
Introduction to Traveler’s Notebooks
If you read yesterday’s post, you know that I’ve started a collection of traveler’s notebooks. This post is to explain what traveler’s notebooks actually are and why I love them so much since I’m sure some of you were going, “What the heck is that?” The picture above shows the two journals I currently own. They are both from Chic Sparrow. One is a Creme notebook in the color “dark chocolate” and the wide size, and the other is a Patina in the composition size. Still have no idea what I’m talking about? I’ll simplify it because I was confused too!
So what exactly is this thing called a “traveler’s notebook?”
Basically, a traveler’s notebook, (TN), is a piece of leather that folds in half and makes the shape of a notebook, or maybe a three-ring binder. It has between two and six elastic bands inside the spine, and one elastic band that comes out the back of the spine in a loop than is used to hold the notebook closed. The bands inside the spine are used to hold inserts, which can be notebooks, folders, zip pockets, or a mixture of everything. This is a picture of the inside of my notebook…
The notebook inserts are really nothing special. You know those composition books with the stitched binding that are pretty much just a bunch of pages folded together into a booklet and can be found pretty much anywhere? Any of those will work as long as they’re the right size for your cover! Chic Sparrow does have inserts, but you can literally go to Staples or Walmart or wherever and get books in the right size. The composition sized cover holds normal sized composition books, which is great for my purposes because braille is bigger, but it’s also really bulky and probably won’t leave my desk much. The cool thing about my composition size is that it came from the Patina collection, which means that I could get a quote burned into the leather! Here’s a closeup picture of the quote…
The wide size holds 5 by 8.25 inch inserts, and I have successfully crammed eight notebooks into my Creme with no overhang. It just took a little creative adjusting of bands and a couple paperclips!
If you’re not sure about what size you need, Chic Sparrow has a cool chart to help you out!
How did I even find out about these things?
Story time! I found out about traveler’s notebooks by scrolling through twitter! Another writer had tweeted about how amazing they were for writing journals, and at that point I didn’t have a clue what they were! So what did I do? I Googled! And my friend Google took me to youTube…
Now at first I was like, “Why on Earth would anyone want to watch a video of someone talking about a notebook?!” There were around 700 videos in the search results, and it was like I’d stumbled into this crazy cult of journal obsessed people! I really just wanted something simple to read that would tell me what the heck a traveler’s notebook even was and whether or not it’d actually work for me, but I started watching videos… And then I fell down the youTube rabbit hole, and before I knew it, I’d spent around three hours watching videos about notebooks… Mom and Dad got me my first notebook, (the wide Creme), for my birthday, and that’s when I finally got the obsession!
Why do I love my traveler’s notebooks?
I’m just gonna list things in no particular order:
•Carrying around a fancy leather journal just makes me feel like a fancy writer person!
•The leather smells SO amazing, and it just makes me want to write all the words!!!
•I have… a lot of spiral notebooks that are too scattered to count started right now, and every single one of them has something different in it… With a traveler’s notebook, I can sort of condense that collection so it doesn’t take over. I currently have my idea journal, blogging notebook, book review notes, and bullet journal in the wide Creme, and all of the research/outline/scribbled notes for my current work and progress are stored in the composition Patina. That still leaves me with a separate notebook for notes on all the writing books I’ve read, python code, HTML code, screen reader work arounds, random tech keystrokes and notes, notes on all the workshops and webinars I’ve attended this year on various topics, my school planner, and probably a couple I forgot… I did order three more traveler’s notebooks because there was a major cyber Monday discount, so hopefully I can transfer all those over.
•You can put charms on traveler’s notebooks, and they make pretty jingly noises, and it makes me very happy!!!
•Every leather cover is going to be slightly different from the last, (even if you do get two from the same collection), so I can easily tell what notebook I’m grabbing by the size and texture without having to look at labels and such. You’d be surprised at how many times I’ve left the house with the wrong spiral notebook because I didn’t read the label, and then wondered why I had writing notes in my python notebook.
•They just seem so… rugged. It’s like something a character would find in a story or pass down through generations!
What do you think?
Do you have a traveler’s notebook? Do you want one now? Do you have the “notebook overrun problem” like I do? Would you like to see more reviews of traveler’s notebooks from me? Let’s chat in comments!
BTW… It kinda looks like I might be associated with Chic Sparrow because of all the links, but I’m not. I just chose them for my first notebook because they had really good reviews on youTube, and their website was the only one that actually wanted to play nice with a screen reader. If you search for traveler’s notebooks on the inter web, you can find a bunch of different companies. I do suggest that you check out youtube first though, because all leather feels different, and you probably wanna figure out what kind you want before you spend the money! My Creme is super soft and floppy and molds right around all my inserts, but my Patina is a lot stiffer and has more of a book structure.
Awesome Gifts for Writers
It’s Christmas time!!! I gotta admit that I’ve been in a bit of a “bah humbugish” mood lately because of school and a small plague, (aka this stupid cold), but I’m coming around now that it’s December and it actually feels like winter around here. Anyway… Rambling aside… I thought I’d compile a list of bookish and writerly Christmas gifts! This list is in no particular order; it’s either things that I’ve received/bought myself in the past or have on my wish list this year.
Cheyenne’s Bookish And Writerly Gift Guide:
•Notebooks, journals, cool paper, etc…
While we writerly types tend to do the majority of our official novel drafting by keyboard rather than pen, we still gotta have our cool paper and journals for scribbled notes and ideas! I am currently obsessed with traveler’s notebooks, which are awesome because you can have multiple notebooks in one leather journal cover! And maybe the leather cover makes me feel like a fancy writer person… I think I probably totally killed that image by saying “writer person…” If you still have no idea what a traveler’s notebook is after reading the introduction, (linked above), I’d be happy to do an introduction/review/much better explanation than this is turning out to be of how I use mine when I can breathe through my nose!
•Fancy pens! (Blind writers can either substitute a slate and stylus or send me horrified emojies in the comments for daring to use such in today’s age as they’ve been doing on twitter.)
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Ya gotta have a cool writing utensil to write in that fancy journal.
•Books!
This one goes for both writers and your typical bookworms. You could even get really innovative and give a writer a book about writing! I’m currently inthralled in Tarot For Writers if you don’t wanna have to search.
•Cool bookmarks
Writers like shiny things. We really like shiny things that we can apply to books or writing. Bookmarks are perfect, and bookmarks for traveler’s notebooks usually have dangling charms that make pretty noises and make writers like myself very happy! Or maybe I might be very easily amused???
•Writerly clothing
Did you immediately conjure up a picture of a professor looking guy in an ink-stained leather jacket, or was that just me? If you didn’t, that’s totally fine, because I’m not talking about that! Writers like to be comfy, and you can find lots of writerly T-shirts. Seriously! Just Google it! I mean Google, “Writerly T-shirts,” not, “IT.” I currently own several writerly T-shirts, (thank you, Mom and Grandparents, for the writerly birthday gifts), my favorite of which says, “Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book and kill you!” It also has a raised up fountain pen and dagger on it, probably because I text the dagger emoji way too often… No, I’m not crazy; it’s just my angry emoji!
•Writerly jewelry.
This might vary for different writers, (depending on whether they like jewelry or not), but I have a couple of things that I wear whenever I sit down to write. My jewelry isn’t specifically writerly, and honestly I don’t know when, why, or how I started wearing it for writing, but I usually have my peridot ring, my copper Triskelion ring, and my angel wing locket necklace when I sit down to write. However, if you Google, “Writer jewelry,” you’ll get some more specific writer things! I recently watched a youTube video by Emmalederman about writerly gifts, and she has a ring with the names of her characters engraved on it. Here is her video if you wanna check it out…
•iTunes/Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift cards.
If you reeeeeeeally don’t wanna go out of your way to find your writerly friend a gift, this’ll do the trick! I promise they will find something from one of the stores above!
Share your writerly wish list?
Did I miss anything? Is there anything cool on your bookish or writerly wish list? I’d also love to know what books you want, (because my TBR only consists of 52 books at the moment.) 😜
Giveaway!!!
Yep! You read that title right! Because I won NaNoWriMo, I have a 50% discount code for either Scrivener or Scapple and Storyist for Mac! I already have Scrivener, am unable to comprehend Scapple, and don’t really have a need for Storyist because I’m quite happy with Scrivener, so I’m gifting the codes to two of you subscribers of mine! Here’s everything you need to know:
•Since Scrivener and Scapple are made by the same company, the code can only be used for one or the other.
•You can use the Scrivener or Scapple code for either the Mac or Windows version depending on your operating system.
•The Storyist code is only for Mac users.
•There is a free trial for all of the programs available at the links above.
•You have to be following me in order to enter.
•I will pick the winner at random next Friday, which is December 9th.
•To enter, like this post, and leave me a comment saying which app you’re interested in.
•More than one comment does NOT get you an extra chance at winning. I’m only putting each name into the random name picking thingy once.
For my visually impaired friends…
I spent forever trying to figure out if this stuff was accessible before I finally bought Scrivener, so I thought I’d help y’all out by simplifying things a little. You can thank me in the comments if I even have any blind people following me! 😉
•If you’re using VoiceOver on a Mac or IOS device, Scrivener works like a charm and doesn’t even require any crazy work-arounds!!!
•If you’re on the Windows side, Scrivener will send both JAWS and NVDA into hysterics! I can’t speak for any other screen readers because I haven’t tried them, but you can download the free trial if you wanna investigate and let me know what you find out.
•Scapple appears to be totally accessible on Mac, but unless you have enough vision to appreciate drag and drop functions and understand how things are visually presented on the page, it’s probably not gonna do you much good. I messed with it long enough to decide that it technically worked with VoiceOver, but that I really wasn’t interested in trying to wrap my brain around sightling stuff enough to make the purchase.
•Storyist also appears to be completely accessible on Mac, (I’m not sure about IOS), but again it was pretty confusing because of the layout. I definitely think you could learn how to use it and find it very helpful, but it’d take some time and probably a sightling to describe the layout and explain what text boxes are for. I already had Scrivener when I downloaded the trial, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it.
•In short, Scrivener is the best of the bunch if you’re totally dependent on a screenreader and want some awesome writing software!
That’s all there is to it!!! Make sure you read the rules above, and watch for the winners to be announced on December 9th! Feel free to ask me questions below if you have any, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
November 2016 Wrap-up
Hey y’all! This is the usual thing where I list all my posts from the month and then give you the list of upcoming stuff for December, but before I get into that, I WON NaNoWriMo!!!!!!!!!!! Actually I technically won it on the 28th and scheduled this, so I should get bonus points! But 50K wasn’t enough to tell my story so I’m gonna keep writing through December…
What I posted:
🔲The Playlist Shuffle Tag
🔲The Harry Potter Writing Cup
🔲Girl In Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow (spoiler free)
🔲The Fall Activities Book Tag
🔲Beautiful Books 2016: Novel Update
🔲Happy NaNoWriMo!!! (tips, tricks, panicking, and what to expect from me)
Upcoming for December:
🔲I’m gonna attempt to do Blogmas, which means I post each day for the first 25 days of December, but I’ll probably epically fail in my attempt…
🔲The Harry Potter Writing Cup is officially happening in January, and I’ll post the schedule of chats and such as soon as it’s finalized.
🔲I’m participating in Short Story Society, (go here if you want more info), so I’ll probably be posting some of my writing on here!
🔲I have Christmas break in the middle of the month, which means I CAN READ AND Write TO MY HEART’S DESIRE!!!!! Sorry to scream at you, but you just have no idea what school has been like for me this year… But reading means you get book reviews!!!
🔲I have some writing posts planned, but there are a lot of them, and I’m not gonna list them all out because I’m typing on my iPad and I’m kinda sick of it…
Did any of you whin NaNoWriMo? Are you going to be writing or editing this month? Do you have suggestions for stuff you want me to post this month? Let’s chat in comments!
The Playlist Shuffle Tag
Hey! So… I got to messing with some code, and somehow I accidentally deleted all my scheduled posts, and I am in the process of getting them back, but until than I bring you this random tag that nobody tagged me for! I won’t tag anybody specific since I wasn’t actually tagged, but if you wanna do it, you literally just shuffle your music library of choice, post the first fifteen songs, (NO SKIPPING), and write your favorite verse. I’m just gonna shuffle now before I write another run-on sentence! This should be interesting because my music library is pretty… eclectic.
- Demi Lovato – Heart Attack
So I’m…
Puttin’ my defenses up
‘Cause I don’t wanna fall in love
If I ever did that
I think I’d have a heart attack
If you’ve kept up with me for a little while, you know that I match my main characters with theme songs, and this is the song for Vivien Deverow!
- Reiki Tribe – To The Heart
This is instrumental but SO relaxing…. -
Kellie Pickler – Tough
I wanted lace, I wanted pearls, to be a princess like
The other girls.
But life came hard, to my front door.
And I grew up trying
To even out the score.
- Demi Lovato – Warrior
Now I’m a warrior
Now I’ve got thicker skin
I’m a warrior
I’m stronger than I’ve ever been
And my armor, is made of steel, you can’t get in
I’m a warrior
And you can never hurt me again
- Lady Antebellum – Down south
I was born I was blessed
Right place, right time I guess
Ain’t no good reason why I left
Except to run and roam
Would you take me back and take me in
Let me be your child again
Kiss my cheek forgive my sins
And let me call you home
- Reiki Tribe – Sleep Therapy and Relaxation
Pretty flute music…
- The Band Perry – Independence
Patient anticipation
Up till now I’ve been hurry up and waiting
At a bus stop in independence licking an ice cream cone
I’ve been kicking I’ve been scheming
This is as close as I’ve ever been to leaving
Five blocks away, a stone’s throw from home
But I’m as good as gone
I gotta get gone, gone, gone
Shooting like a gun, a gun, a gun
Skipping like a stone, stone, stone
Far as I can run to where freedom is free
There’s a road like a long gray ribbon far as I can see
And it’s pulling independence out of me
- Selena Gomez – Kill Em With Kindness
The world can be a nasty place
You know it, I know it, yeah
We don’t have to fall from grace
Put down the weapons you fight with
And kill ’em with kindness
- Dean Evenson & Li Xiangting – Green Quiet Mountain
This whole album can take me straight to my happy place.
- Walk Off The Earth – Rule The World
They say no way, oh, I say I’ll rule the world
Ain’t afraid of the walls, I’m a break ’em down
They stay the same, oh, I’m feelin’ high as a bird
Ain’t afraid of the ground, I’m a stay up
I say yeah yeah yeah, they say no no no
They say slow slow slow, I say go go go
They say no way, oh, I say I’ll rule the world
I say I rule the world
- Lorde – Royals
This whole song kind of carries the theme of my story because my world is ran by a bunch of power-hungry royals, and these kids are forced into the royal life when they really do not belong there.
- Imagine Dragons – Demons
When the days are cold
And the cards all fold
And the saints we see
Are all made of gold
When your dreams all fail
And the ones we hail
Are the worst of all
And the blood’s run stale
And this one’s also on my writing playlist! I promise I did not arrange this!
- Cassadee Pope – I Am Invincible
I’m invincible
I’m unbreakable
I’m a diamond cut to last
I’m unstoppable
I’m a hero
Like a phoenix from the ash
- Miranda Lambert – Roots & Wings
I got red dirt stains
On my boots and jeans
Calloused fingers
From my guitar strings
Wild like the wind
In the tall pine trees
I got roots
And I got wings
- Twenty One Pilots – Heathens
We don’t deal with outsiders very well
They say newcomers have a certain smell
You have trust issues, not to mention
They say they can smell your intentions
This is possibly the creepiest song I have ever heard, but it’s on my iPod because it gets me in the mood to write those really dark scenes! insert dagger and pen emoji here
The Harry Potter Writing Cup
Hey, writerly people! If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen some discussions about the “HP Writing Cup.” Some blogger friends and I have been chatting about a little writing contest idea, and this is the official announcement that it will be happening, but the unofficial plan! So to simplify that a bit… It’s gonna happen, but we’re still working out the specifics!
I have teamed up with Trisha, Tanya, and Megan to host this fun challenge. Like I said above, I don’t have the plan/schedule set in stone yet, but here are the basics:
•We’ll pick a month, (probably January), and the challenge will run for the length of that month.
•Every word written in that month counts as a point for your Harry Potter house. (I’ll have a form up soon for you to tell us your house and some other info.)
•Any creative writing counts, (including blog posts!)
•We’ll host Twitter chats about bookish and writerly things! (Ya gotta have a Twitter account if you wanna do the really fun stuff.)
•Someone will head each house, (as of now, Trisha is heading Slytherin, Megan is heading Hufflepuff, Tanya is heading Gryffindor, and I am heading Ravenclaw.) The head of each house will host word sprints for their group, and maybe have some fun extra prompts/challenges.
•We’ll come up with ways to earn extra points so it isn’t all writing. (Suggestions welcome!)
•You need to be following all of us to see important updates if you wanna participate!
•Your input is needed! Do you have a suggestion about how to improve this? Drop me a line in the comments, or let Trisha, tanya, or Megan know on their blogs! You can also message me on Twitter @Cheyenne_writes!
Cheyenne Raphael Writes 