This Post Has A Title

Because I don't have anyone to credit with the title for this post (other than myself...?) and my brother and I spent about five minutes laughing hysterically over this yesterday, I'm going to share with you a very amusing little video by the name of Tom's Tales of Awesome. It's quite entertaining, if you're looking for a laugh. Or a giant lemon.

But anyway, now that I've gotten thoroughly sidetracked, I would like to spend a moment talking about titles. Titles are really important to books, movies, etc., and it's not at all rare for the working title to be completely different from the final published title. The trick there is, I hardly ever have even working titles for my stuff. I have exactly zero idea how to come up with a good title.

Seriously. How do people (i.e. you, dear reader, who could leave me a comment with advice) come up with good titles for stuff?!

So many books have these great titles. Like SHIVER (Maggie Stiefvater) and HOLD STILL (Nina LaCour) and TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY (Jay Asher) and IF I STAY (Gayle Forman) - titles that are concise and descriptive-but-not-too-descriptive and make you wonder what's inside them. And then there's books like I'D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU (Ally Carter) - cute titles that make you smile, play with words, and just invite you to find out what they're talking about. Titles and cover images are the first things that you see when you look at a book, and they usually determine whether or not you pick it up. So good titles matter.

Unfortunately, my superpower is not Creating Excellent, Perfect, Wonderful Titles. Not, of course, that I have a superpower, but if you were to take something I'm good at and call it a superpower, Creating Excellent, Perfect, Wonderful Titles would not be on the list of options.

I wrote a vampire story once, back when you could walk into the young adult section at Barnes & Noble without practically drowning in vampire stories. Of course, then TWILIGHT came out and vampires were huge and now this Untitled Vampire Romance Novel is completely cliched and overdone and I don't really want to look at it anymore. But my point here was about the fact that this novel clocked in at 83K words on the first draft (which is where it still is...well, draft 1.5), had a pretty complex pot, was about characters that I loved, and...completely lacked a title. I was sort of calling it IMPOSSIBLE, but there's already an excellent and somewhat recent book with the same title by Nancy Werlin (you should read it, by the way, it's quite good). A friend who read the manuscript suggested BLOODLUST, but that seemed so dark and vicious and didn't at all convey the contents. And no one else offered any suggestions, and I didn't come up with anything else, and it has no title.

And for that particular story, it's kind of a moot point now, since that one's on the back burner until the vampire hype dies down. But now I'm working on a new story. It's currently saved in My Documents as "chelsey spy story." I guess it's not important to have a title for the whole novel when you're only 13,600 words into it, but I'd love to have something to call it besides "chelsey spy story" or "chelseystory" or "current spy story."

Sigh. If anyone has any Magical Powers of TitleCreating, I'd love to borrow them for a while. Please?

Having said that, I'd like to warn you that if you did lend me your Magical Powers of TitleCreating, it might be a while before you got them back.

Especially since I can't work on my story right now (grrrrr) because I have to do AP Lang homework (mega-grrrr) about "Civil Disobedience" (which put me to sleep several times) and "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" (which was better). I would procrastinate on the AP Lang work in favor of "chelseystory" except that Castle's on tonight, so I have to have my homework done by 10.

Because ohmygoodness I would be so sad if I had to miss an episode of Castle. It's an awesome show. ABC Mondays at 10, people. Watch. :)

Love,
Bex

We'll Sing Hallelujah

Hello, dear readers. This is my official February 7th post, after the fifteen-minutes-late February 6th post. Just, you know, in case you didn't know.

So today is Superbowl Sunday. I really couldn't care less about the Superbowl. Football is not exactly my cup of tea. I'll probably be doing math homework (or thesis homework, or creative writing homework, depending on what I do now) during the actual game, and then I'll look up for just long enough to watch the commercials. Because really, the advertising is the best part of the Superbowl.

However, I did not write this post to tell you that I don't understand the point of football but find talking animals and cute children saying funny things about random products amusing. I was originally going to recommend the song Change by Taylor Swift, which I'd heard once or twice but really listened to for the first time the other day. I know it's country and therefore not something that I'd usually listen to, but I think I am somewhat in love with this song. It's amazing. Because of lyrics like this:

"You can walk away, say we don't need this, but there's something in your eyes says we can beat this. Because these things will change. Can you see it now? The walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down. This revolution, the time will come for us to finally win, and we'll sing hallelujah..."

Amazingfultastical. (Yes, that is a word.) I love it. And that was originally going to be the sole focus of this blog post, and you should absolutely go listen to it now.

But then I spent the first part of my afternoon reading instead of doing homework, and I discovered a book that I absolutely had to share with you all: TANGLED, by Carolyn Mackler.

At first, I wasn't sure I liked it. I thought it was going to be just another chick lit where the dorky-girl-who-has-no-life either ends up with some hot guy who turns out to have a sweet personality or discovers that being hot and popular is not all it's cracked up to be. But I kept reading, because I kind of liked the characters, and...wow. It turned out to be really good.

TANGLED is the story of four teens - Jena, her mom's friend's daughter Skye, a hotshot jock named Dakota, and his dorky younger brother Owen - who for various reasons have to spend a week at a resort called Paradise. Jena meets(/falls for) Dakota and finds a suicide note by a hot tub, and then things are in motion that are beyond their control. There are four sections in the book, each told from a different character's point of view and surrounding that character's individual story, but there's definitely crossover between them. The book is about how their lives get tangled together and how it changes all of them. That sounds sappy or dorky or something, I know, but it's not. It was sooo good. Skye's and Owen's sections were probably my favorites because I could relate to them better, but they were all great.

There is some strong language and some sexual content, especially in the first half, but it's written in so that on the whole it adds to the book rather than taking away from it. I almost put it down because of some of that content, but I am reeeally glad that I kept reading. Seriously. Sweet story, great characters, and just overwhelmingly real. Probably more of a girl book than a guy book, although guys would probably enjoy Dakota's and Owen's sections just as much; you should read it if you get the chance. :) You can find out more about the author, Carolyn Mackler, at her website.

So now you have a song to listen to and a book to read. Two if you take into account ALL UNQUIET THINGS from last night. And I have homework to do. So that's gonna be all for now. Until next time, internetfolk!
~Bex

All Unquiet Things

It's 11:59 PM as I start this, so it'll switch to midnight by the time it gets posted, but I'm gonna count this as the post for February 6. There will be no deliberate double-posting on the 7th. (Yup, there it goes, it is now midnight. Ah well.)

Anyway, once I got home this afternoon, I sat down and finished the book I'd been reading. It's called ALL UNQUIET THINGS, it's by Anna Jarzab, and it was absolutely amazing.

I will admit it took me a while to get into it, but after the first few chapters I was completely hooked. Long story short, ALL UNQUIET THINGS is essentially a murder mystery. A year before the story starts, Carly Ribelli is found dead with four gunshot wounds to the chest. Her uncle, the father of her cousin and best friend, Audrey, was convicted of the murder, but Audrey doesn't believe her dad is guilty. So Audrey enlists the help of Carly's ex-boyfriend, Neily - who was still in love with Carly - to help her figure out who really did it. The story alternates between Neily and Audrey's perspectives. It's really well-written, maybe a bit slow at times but still very engaging, and the story - oh my goodness. Some of it is a bit hard to believe, but Anna Jarzab makes it believable. And the characters are so real and well-developed and amazing. There is some language and content that might not be appropriate for younger teens, but to anyone who doesn't mind that stuff, I would ABSOLUTELY recommend this book. Readreadread. It's awesome. ♥ You can find out more about the author at her website. (You should check it out.)

Well, it's 12:16 now, so I'm going to wrap this post up and get ready for bed. One other quick update before I go: LOST, Season 3, episode 5. I'm still not in the John Locke fan club, but I can't decide what I think of Ben. And the death at the end of the last one I watched (not naming names, because I don't go for spoilers) makes me sad.

But not as sad as the deaths in the seventh Harry Potter book. Reread of that series to commence soon, I hope.

And now I really must head to bed. Goodnight, internetfolk!

~Bex

Popcorn

It is 11:21 PM and I am sitting on AF's floor, not eating popcorn. I am not eating popcorn because I am typing this blog post. AF and KD are eating popcorn. It's the second batch of popcorn we've made tonight. The first one was nasty. This one is good.

Oil + sugar + salt + corn kernels = kettle corn.

Science project: INVALID. Too many variables changed at once on the second batch of popcorn to determine what, exactly, made the second attempt better than the first.

If you're reading this and making sense of it, congratulations. Either you are AF or KD (in which case, hello!!! I loves youu!!!) or you understand how my brain works.

On second thought, I take back "congratulations." If you understand how my brain works, I'm officially terrified of you, because I do not at all understand how my brain works. Yay for neuroscience?

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly overly coherent tonight. I think it's the mix of popcorn + mall + guitar + "caves" conversation + tired + um.....something else maybe? I shall sign off for now. More interesting news later. Probably.

~Bex

Procrastination Central, Version 2.0

Contrary to what one might expect, I did not spend chemistry class today learning about chemistry, nor did I spend APUSH learning about United States History. Instead, I filled one side of a piece paper with song lyrics. I limited myself to one line of the paper per song, and no song repeats were allowed. This page-o'-lyrics was my "collection of positivity" for the day. So now, I have a 30-song playlist of awesomeness. And it makes me very happy. Which is why I am going to share. Hope you enjoy it too. :)

1. Swim - Jack's Mannequin
2. Forgiven - Relient K
3. Never Too Late - Three Days Grace
4. Believe - Yellowcard
5. The Way She Feels - Between the Trees
6. Jump Rope - Blue October
7. Breathe In Breathe Out - Mat Kearney
8. Take Me - Hawk Nelson
9. We Need Each Other - Sanctus Real
10. Meteor Shower - Owl City
11. Dare You to Move - Switchfoot
12. Hallelujah - Paramore
13. All Around Me - Flyleaf
14. Stand Up - Fireflight
15. Hammers and Strings (A Lullaby) - Jack's Mannequin
16. Words - Between the Trees
17. Must Get Out - Maroon 5
18. Tell Me Why - Taylor Swift
19. On the Radio - Regina Spektor
20. A Time for Yohe - Between the Trees
21. There, There Katie - Jack's Mannequin
22. Straitjacket Feeling - All-American Rejects
23. Run - Snow Patrol
24. Runaway - Cartel
25. I Want to Save You - Something Corporate
26. Breathe Into Me - RED
27. Undo - Rush of Fools
28. Me and Jesus - Stellar Kart
29. Set Me Free - Casting Crowns
30. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

Whew! Quite a list, no? It makes me very happy. I would have posted the bit of lyrics I wrote down for each song, but if I had this post would never end. I'm sure I'll end up sharing these songs individually at some point, and you'll get quote snippets then. (I realize some of the videos for the songs are kind of...well, not exactly great videos, but it's what I could find. Music's still all there.)

Also, an update on the LOST-watching: I have now finished Season 2. And oh my goodness. As soon as I finish this ridiculous Senior Thesis Prep homework and some APUSH journals, I will absolutely be starting Season 3. (Apologies to ES and CJ, who want me to watch NCIS instead, but I must find out what happens.)

Love to you all,
Bex

Book Rec! (Plus LOST)

Dear readers, I have a book recommendation for you. As you may (or may not) be aware of, the last book I blogged about back at Teenage Bibliophile - before I moved over here - was WONDROUS STRANGE by Lesley Livingston. It was a wonderful dark fantasy with a bit of romance, about changeling Sonny Flannery and actress-with-unknown-Faerie-past Kelley Winslow. My one-sentence summary there doesn't do the book justice at all. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. (Well, HaufeCoffee hates fantasy, so I wouldn't give it to him. But other than that...)

Anyway, as of yesterday, I finished the amazing sequel DARKLIGHT. It was released back in December, but I only just managed to get a copy, thanks to my local library. And oh my goodness was it amazing. I don't want to say anything too spoilery for those of you who haven't read the first book, but I will say that Sonny and Kelley are having to fight to keep their relationship alive. Sonny is on his quest to destroy Mabh's Wild Hunt, and Kelley is being harassed by a leprechaun with some serious issues and dealing with her new Faerie powers. Meanwhile, King Auberon is sick and no one can figure out why. Things are amiss in Faerieland...

DARKLIGHT was definitely an excellent book. Lesley Livingston writes amazing characters and amazing descriptions and a really engaging plot. My only complaint was that it went by too quickly and I don't have book three yet! You can find out more about the series and the author at her blog.

Also, I promised some talk of LOST. I have now watched all but the last two episodes (er, one episode with two parts, I believe) of Season Two. Seeing as the Season Six premiere is presumably ending as I write this, I've still got some catching up to do. But it's doable...I hope. I am so confused and I really want to know what happens, because Michael appears to have gone off the deep end and two people have just died who I definitely did NOT expect to die. At least, not yet. I guess I shall have to keep watching to find out...

Unfortunately, I don't have any exciting/amusing paraphrases for you today because the episodes I watched today were so serious. But I will say that I kind of adore Sawyer. In a sometimes-I-loathe-him kind of way. And also Mr. Eko is amazing and I dislike John Locke.

Off to go do APUSH homework now. And then watch more LOST. Love to the internetfolk,
Bex

Public Service Announcement

In case you forgot, today is the first of February. This is a very significant day. It is now....February. (No, February is not my favorite month.) Yes, I know. This is very important. You're completely blown away.

If you haven't already, you should change your wall calendar to "February" instead of "January." That way, you won't have a conversation like this:

AF: So the sleepover's gonna be on the 12th.

BT: *looks at calendar* But....that's a Tuesday...

AF: That's January. Wrong month, dear.

BT: ...oh.

And now there is a picture of a whale and the words "February 2010" where it used to be a picture of polar bears and the words "January 2010." You should change your calendar too.

Also! Today's Abbreviated Version of LOST Highlight:

Jack: don't touch that!
Kate: what, this?
*giant net scoops them up*
Jack: yeah that.
Kate: woops...here, let me grab the gun from your back pocket and very awkwardly almost-kiss you to create all kinds of romantic tension for the audience!
Jack: kay. shoot the rope.
gun: *BAM!*
Kate: woops...
Jack: my turn.
gun: *BAM!*
Kate: yay you.

That is all. Until next time, internetfolk!
~Bex