Life Update

Okay, so, in case you wonder why I've basically dropped off the face of the Earth over the next few weeks, I will explain beforehand.

I've got end of course tests (EOCs) coming up. They are legit a week away from today.

Not only that, the tests happen to be in Algebra and Biology-- two classes that I struggled a lot in this semester. The first because, hello, it's Algebra + new material to learn, and the second because my teacher is horrible.

On top of this, I take a Gaming 1 class for extra credit, and over the next couple of weeks I am supposed to be planning and creating my own custom game. (The type of games I have been creating are platform (think Mario) games and scrolling shooter games). At the beginning of the semester, the only class I had taken before that had anything to do in Gaming was an online college class that was more about designing games than actually creating them. So, yeah. Having to churn out one game each week has been very stressful.

School is officially out for me May 15. So that's probably around when I'll start getting back into blogging semi-regularly, doing more link-ups, etc.

10 Things I Do In My Spare Time

Otherwise known as; Tansie does really weird stuff. 

Since you all clearly need to know more about moi, I decided to make a post all about the stuff I do when left idle. 

1. Writing

(admittedly, this one is not that weird)

This one is kind of obvious. I try to spend a little time each day writing, so when I'm free it's most likely what I'm doing. Typically I write on my bed, surrounded by an enormous pile of blankets and pillows and blasting music through my headphones. If I'm not plotting deaths in my giant pillow forts, then I'm curled up on the couch in the living room, plotting deaths in smaller sized pillow forts. *cackles evilly*

2. Listening to Music

I love listening to music. In fact, I do it all the time. It involves  dancing spazzmatically to a beat no one can hear but me-- since I also love wearing headphones. I like to think I can pop-and-lock. 

I cannot.

3. Reading

While I love reading, I don't have a lot of time for it. I need to soak in the plot, characters, and setting, and I can't do that in a ten minute break. After school, I like to unwind, and working my brain with the intense, twisty plots that I love reading is not the ideal way to go. 

4. Eating

I'm not gonna lie. Food is just... *dying noises* And I'm not just referring to desserts (like chocolate, ice cream, *more dying noises*). BUT JUST ALL THE FOOD. Also, I would love to travel the world and try a new food in each of them. 

5. Making Videos

I COULDN'T FIND A GIF OF SOMEONE MAKING VIDEOS.
YOU'LL HAVE TO DO WITH THIS.

Inspiration comes in spurts for me, so it's not often that I'm editing videos and playing it over, and over, and over, and over again until it plays as perfection. Seriously. I love music, but there is such a thing as getting sick of hearing the first five seconds play a thousand times over. Eugngnhghghhg. But it is nice to see my dream book trailer come to life. If only it didn't take so much time.

6. Watching Movies/TV Shows

Ahhh, yes. Movies. My safe haven. My absolute favorite thing to do after a super stressful school day is watch a movie. Preferably one that is not also stress inducing. Every good action movie ties my stomach in knots, so I usually end up watching an animation movie. (Some of my current favorites are Big Hero 6 and Lilo & Stitch). TV shows are watched with my dad, so a schedule is needed, since my sister goes to college and my dad has a job that takes up most of his time. Any TV shows that I discover on my own are either watched halfway through the first season and then abandoned, or currently on a break. (TEEN WOLF I'M LOOKING AT YOU)

7. Gaming

It's true. I love it. My current favorite game is Defiance-- mainly because it goes along with an awesome TV show and WEAPONS. ALL THE WEAPONS. I have learned so much from playing the game that my dad said, when observing my sister and I yelling instructions at each other from across the table, that we sounding like actual soldier-people. It made me proud, but actually we were probably screaming things like:

"I AM DYING, HELP ME." 

*actual screaming*

"YOU LET ME DIE YOU TRAITOR. I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE." 

8. Spending Actual Time with the Fam

My family is awesome. We often joke over meals and debate over political things. If you've ever wondered where my level of maturity comes from *sarcasm* you now know. I get all my sass from my parents. 

9. Creating Scenarios in my Mind

Yeah. I actually talk to myself A LOT. It's more a constant muttering, actually. My sister calls me out on it frequently. It happens when I don't even think about it-- meaning that I'll be wandering around the house muttering, or brushing my hair muttering, or feeding the dogs muttering, or just laying in bed. Muttering. 

If I'm not muttering, I'm staring into space with my headphones on, creating really insane story ideas. (Seriously. They can get weird.) My family frequently whacks me to get my attention. 

10. Sleeping

Sleeping is beautiful. It keeps me sane. But I haven't really had enough recently so... That explains a lot.

Update on Millionth Book Idea

Actually, it's not my millionth book idea. I know. I lied already, and it's only the beginning of the post. Shameful.

But it is one of the many, MANY ideas I've already had this year-- and it's only the end of the first month. *sigh* I like ideas, but they either come all at once or not at all. For a person whose life is practically planned on Post-It notes, this is extremely infuriating.

But, hey-- can't have everything.

For some reason, Shadows Dancing (my WIP about a ghost-come-back-to-life girl) is being a lot harder to write than I anticipated. I churned out the first few chapters fairly quickly for me, but now I don't know what to make happen, even though I made an outline.

The only solution, for me, is to write something else until I receive a burst of genius/inspiration for aforementioned WIP.

That solution came in the form of a book about aliens, guns, and kick-butt sisters taking on a severely damaged world.

I haven't even decided on a name, since the idea is fairly new, but I've gotten a good start on it and some serious stuff has went down.

Enough so that I can post some quotes.

Quote 1: The following is a conversation between an enemy-dude, alien Xak, and main character Quinn.

His eyes lit with hope. "Okay. Okay, I work for a man named Crazy Pete."
"Crazy Pete?" Xak asked. "Sounds like the criminal name of a demented child."
"It's his name, I swear."
"Does anybody know his real name?" I asked.
"His right-hand man does." He said.
"Who's his right hand man?"
"Buffalo Joe." Xak offered.

Quote 2: The following convo is between Xak & Quinn.

"Calling someone demonspawn is not endearing. In fact, most people would view that as an insult."
"You called your sister a wet sock once." He said.
"Yeah, I was definitely insulting her. Everyone hates a wet sock."

Quote 3: The following is between Quinn and her sister, Luna.

"Fine." I growled.

She smiled victoriously. "Knew you'd say yes!"

Okay, yes, very good. Now shut up.

I muttered angrily under my breath as we went down the stairs and out the glass double doors. Well, at least what has used to be glass double doors.

We kind of smashed them.

Quote 4: A leader of a large group of raiders.

"You find yourself wanting to trust him?" he asked. "Remind yourself of what the aliens do. Remind yourself of the state of humanity. And remind yourself that this is what they did to us."

Quote 5: 

All around were dead bodies. Pile after pile, children slit open from their chins down. The smell of blood was so strong I could nearly taste it, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed it before.

Anyways, I'm quite enjoying writing this story. It's a bit out of my comfort zone (aliens and dead children and all that), but hey-- I've written guns and fighting before. The aliens are very, very interesting because I make them whatever I want. *cue evil laugh* 

I'm not entirely sure how to sum up this idea in a sentence. It feels sort of impossible. 

I'll try to put up a few updates of whatever project I happen to be working on at least once a month. So, um... Any favorite quotes? 

Welcoming 2015

Okay, well, Happy New Year! I am quite late, I know, but I've been... erm, busy. With sleeping (a lot) and watching movies (a lot) and eating (a lot) and crying about winter break being over (unhealthy amounts of tears), I just haven't had much desire to write on my blog.

I'm also crying because I have a Wellness (a nice way of saying P.E. (which is a nice way of saying TORTURE)) class this semester. But that's a topic for another day.

I usually make my New Year's Resolution something along the lines of getting good grades or reading a certain amount of books or going outside more (ha that's still not happening). But this year I want to write a book, start to finish. I haven't actually finished a book in two or three years. I've gotten close but... yeah.

Anyways.

The book I want to finish writing is called Shadows Dancing which is about a ghost-girl. I did a link-up featuring her here.

I'm still figuring out what kind of character she is and I'm hoping to actually plot this book instead of just pantsing the entire thing. I never even have an outline (which is just one small example of how unorganized I am) when writing.

I'll probably post excerpts and stuff while I'm writing this one (be expecting the writing process to be quite long, especially since my winter break is almost over).

ALSO. Because of aforementioned school, I won't be able to read as much meaning not as many reviews also meaning not as much time to post on here. I'll try to post at least once every week but we'll see how that goes.

The Fault in Our Book-Buying

That title sounded a lot better in my head.

So I was tossing around ideas in my brain, and I came up with this: How do you know if you're buying a good book? Um, yeah. It's not a good idea, but it can be answered, which is more than I can say for my other questions, like: "Would it be possible that humans came from water creatures?" or "Would it be possible to attach wings to said humans and be capable of flight?"

Anyways, the answer to how you know you're buying a good book or not is simple. You don't know. It's horrible.

One of the great and terrible deeds in reading (other than dog-earing pages and judging only by covers) is skimming. But why? I mean, skimming is... is okay. (This is my way of saying that I do it a lot.) It helps you get an idea of what the book is about. And often times, I read the first chapter before buying a book that I like the look of. I'm poor, therefore, I am picky. Skimming helps when you can't decided whether or not to pick a book, okay? Just don't skim to close to the ending of the book. That's... that's just bad.

Another thing: Do I believe my friends' recommendation or not? 

This is big for me, because my sister is constantly shoving books in my face and a lot of what I get around to reading are books that she has recommended. Do I always love them? Um, absolutely not. I hate some of them. This has resulted in many attempts at ending my life by said sister. But I do love lots. 

Which basically means that none of my questions are getting answered and this is pointless.

But, oh, the dreaded question of: This book has a ton of hype but it doesn't sound like something I'd love. Should I get it?

I have read many books because of hype. Legend by Marie Lu, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Angelfall by Susan Ee, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, the Mara Dyer books... the list goes on. Most of them I have loved, but only because I was staying in a genre I was comfortable with. The only book I read that had a ton of hype and wasn't dystopian or something similar, is The Fault in Our Stars. (Which I watched last night. It was sad. *sniffles at the memory*) Some have been awesome, and some have been not-awesome, which here means: terrible-- at least, in my opinion.

So the answer to my question is still that books cannot be judged merely by skimming or covers or friends' recommendations. But I'm totally open to yours.

Since I am on my fall break, I have a ton of free time now. Free time I would love to spend reading-- except that I don't know what to read. So, if you have any books that you have read recently and fell in love with, tell me about them. Only if you want to, of course. It's not like I'm forcing you. *wiggles eyebrows*