Time is running out!!!

Time is running out to enter for our Operation Feedback Blogfest!!!

It ends this Monday--so get entering!! :)


~Elizabeth

Eowyn

Alright, so if you don't already know, I'm a major Lord of the Rings fan. I had to choose someone from a book to write a five paragraph essay on, so I chose Eowyn. I'm having a little trouble coming up with a conclusion, though (my 5th paragraph), so any suggestions are highly appreciated!

Underestimated

There was a girl named Eowyn who lived long, long ago in a land called Middle Earth. She was the niece of King Theoden, King of Rohan. She was beautiful beyond compare, although her eyes were forever stained; she had seen how cruel reality could be. Middle Earth was, after all, in a huge war. Sauron and Saruman, together with all the forces of Mordor and Isengard and a some others who joined their cause, against. . .well, against practically everyone else. King Theodon’s only heir had died in a battle, and now the blood heir to the throne was Eowyn’s brother. Eowyn felt so useless, as if no one trusted her—she knew her skills with the blade. She wanted to defend her people.

Eowyn remembered looking down upon her insane Uncle Theoden.  The realization hadn’t even hit him yet that his son was dead. It made her want to cry. She remembered how it used to be; Theoden had brought her and her brother, Éomer, up as if he were their own father, since both of their parents were dead.  She ran outside, for she could stand it no longer—she needed some fresh air. As she inhaled, she recalled the slow fade of character and memory that was eating away her uncle, the king. He was now advised by a fellow named Grima Wormtongue; his character as snaky as his name. But as she looked up, she saw horses with riders approach. Little did she know that she would fall desperately in love with one of them—Aragorn, son of Arathorn, rightful heir to the throne of Gondor. How could she help it? He was, after all, charming and rather handsome. . he had an air of mysteriousness that clung to him, and that made Eowyn long to know more about him. Of course, it also never occurred to her that one of them, Gandalf the White, would remove the curse that Saruman had placed on her uncle. No, they were just normal riders to her.

Soon, however, Eowyn’s life began to change. True battles were beginning to occur, and Rohan was about to be attacked by a devastating force. She pursed her lips as she thought of the past events. She remembered when Aragorn showed her his necklace that his beloved elf maiden, Arwen, had given him. Most of all, however, she remembered that terrible time when she thought Aragorn had died in a battle—short though it was, it cut her heart to pieces. Then, of course, there was what happened after he returned. Legolas, Aragorn’s friend, gave him back Arwen’s necklace. It was a stinging reminder that she did not hold his heart. But with that, she gave up all hope of a future with Aragorn. Instead, she set her mind on another matter; King Theoden, who was now in his right mind, was refusing to allow his precious niece into the fields of battle. He would only allow her to take care of the women and young children. Eowyn knew she could fight; she only needed a chance to prove it. And later on, she would.

 Sauron was about to unleash nearly all of the forces of Mordor onto Gondor, the area of which Aragorn was heir.  Rohan rushed to their aid, and Eowyn snuck her way into the forces. In that battle, she saw her uncle die. Yet, her experience there was not all bad. She turned out to be rather useful—the King of the Nazgul, who could not be killed by men, appeared on the battle field, killing many. But Eowyn was no man, and she was able to defeat it.  All of the hurt from Aragorn was washed away as her eyes beheld Faramir, son of the Steward of Gondor. Not long after the two were married, peace was restored to Middle Earth, for Sauron was dead.

~Elizabeth

Christmas

I love this time of year. A lot.

There are little signs everywhere that Christmas is approaching; stores are posting count-downs on their windows, people are starting their shopping, egg-nog and hot cocoa is appearing on the grocery store shelves. . .It's all so exciting. 

This is the spectacular time of year,  
When signs of Christmas begin to appear,
Christmas lights aglow,
Grass covered in snow. . . .

I don't know why, but I just felt like adding that in there. For some reason, rhyming helps me write poetry. It makes it easier to come up with the next line, plus it sounds cool when you say it out loud.

So, what about you? What do you like about this time of year?


~Elizabeth

Villians

Today, I am going to talk about Villains! What is a villain you ask? According to the dictionary, (dictionary.com) a villain is 1.a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.  2.a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot. In a book, the villain is an instigator. I mean, would Batman have ever become Batman if the Joker wasn't terrorizing the city? Or would Eragon (from the Inheritance series) ever have become a deadly half-elf dragon rider if the king Galbatorix hadn't killed all the other riders and had a reign of terror? A good villain can make or break a book. What is a good villain? Well I think a good villain is a villain that you can almost sympathise with. One that makes you look at the good guys and wonder if they are actually wrong. One that is not just malicious but also deadly smart. If you look at some of the most well known villains like Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, they are geniuses. One of my favorite moments with a villain is when the people involved make a choice. They are given two psychologically difficult choices and the heroes have to choose. To clarify my confusing statement, in the movie Spider-Man, Spidey has to choose between rescuing Mary Jane and saving a bunch of people from a falling billboard. In the end he saves than both, but the choice is a mad attempt buy the Green Goblin to hurt Spider-Man. Then you have the more soft villains like Dr. Doofensmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. He isn't exactly a maliciuos person. He cares about his nemesis, Perry the Platypus. He makes a more or less lovable character for the children who watch the show. In the end, no matter what kind of villain you have, you need to make him or her human. (That is if they are human) They need to have some measure of understanding by the readers. I love a villain I can almost relate to. So go and enjoy the flavors of books with good villains!

~Leslie

NaNoWriMo

Alright. . .So I spent most of the day today packing for a family vacation I'm leaving for tomorrow. I'll be on this vacation until Wednesday next week; in other words, I will try to post on my days, but don't be surprised if I miss a day or two. So, that said. . .

I'm up to 6,000 words in my NaNo book! It's so exciting. . .I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with it. I'm using the one that I had been posting sections of, although I have changed most of it. Here's a piece of what I've written so far:

I thought of the people I had left behind. . .  my father, Jaradias, Edwin. . .so many faces. I longed to see them again, just one more time. To assure them that I loved them, to explain to them why I needed to leave. But I knew I couldn’t take back what I had done, and I knew that there would always be consequences for my actions.

And that was the part that haunted me.   


What do you think? ~Elizabeth

Blogfest: Operation Feedback

So, as you've probably seen, I've joined NaNoWriMo. Well, more than that, I've joined their Young Writer's Program. 

It's really a great system. I can put in my word count goal (30,000 words) that I hope to write in the month of November, and can update the amount of words I've written so far. Right now, I'm at 9% ( 2,700 words). 

But doing this gave me an idea.

What if there was a blogfest that went on from November 5th--December 5th, where people could gain points in various ways in a random drawing? And what if the winner not only won a picture-award, but also were able to get feedback on their novels from two well-read teenagers?

As you've probably guessed, Leslie and I will be the ones to hold this amazing blogfest, called:

Operation Feeback will be officially starting November 5th (this Saturday). 

Now, I mentioned a little bit about points above. This is a the point system being used:

For starters, you have to be a follower of this blog and comment on this post to enter. Doing these actions will give you a basic point. You could just stop there, but if you feel like earning some extra points, here are some ways to get them:

1) Put this picture on your blog linking it back to this post--not our blog, this post. 

2) Give a shout out for this Blog-Fest in a post.

3) If you're a participant in NaNoWriMo, you get a point.

But, if you do these things, you have to notify us, either by comment or email, to let us know what you've done, or else we might not find out and you won't get your point.

~Elizabeth

Halloween

Alright. . .So, all my family does for halloween is trick-or-treating, we never really get into it that much. This year, I didn't even do that--instead, I went behind my grandparent's house with a few of my cousins and made freaky noises and smashed pans with wooden spoons. Quite fun, actually. 

What about you? What do you guys do for it? 

Well. . .That's the theme for this week. Halloween.

Write about what you did, or have done. It doesn't have to be something you did this year; if you have this awesome story of something that happened a while ago, feel free to use that, too. Also--we are going to have to make a rule that no real (last) names or locations be used. 

But, remember:

We are a Christian blog. We will not post ANY stories that we feel go against our beliefs. 

~Elizabeth

What do you think?

Ok, I know. I am such a slacker!! My (feeble) excuse is that I am in high school and I have a work load like a ton of bricks. Still, I should post more often. Perhaps I am simply intimidated by the genius of Liz. Huh, maybe not... For this post, I am going to post the beginning of a story. My challenge to all y'all is to finish it. It only has to be a short story. I want to see what you think about it. Now if no one replys, then I will post my ending. Maybe I will Post that anyway... But if a bunch of you send in story endings, i will hold a vote on the best one and the winner will get to post one entry on our blog! If you are the winner, I will send you the rules about the post after you win. So, for the writers, same rules for the TOTW apply. It will last for... Lets say three weeks. Now, to the contest!!!

There is a world beyond the sun. It is inhabited by creations. Everything ever created or made up lives their life in this land. Only a few can see the creations, hovering around their creators until their stories are done and they can travel the road of the sunset. Of these, even fewer can travel the road themselves. One boy, Dylan, was the only one who could travel the sacred road, but he grew up and stopped pretending. One like Dylan is only born every 50 years and the world felt the loss of Dyan sharply, although they did not know it. The next one to be born was a girl corrupted by pride and power. She enslaved the world behind the sun for years. Back on earth, creativity had stopped. Until one dark night when the long awaited child was born...


Now its your turn!

A little more. . .

Alright. . . So, today I'm going to post a little bit more of that story I've been doing, but first. . . I'm probably going to do NaNoWriMo this year (more info on that on Monday), and this will be the book I'll attempt to write 50000 words on. So. . . I want to come up with a title. . .any suggestions?

“Curias!!!” It was all I could do to say his name, but it was all he needed to move much faster. And soon, we were at a full speed gallop.        

It seemed as if that was what we did the whole day. I felt a feeling that had never before existed to me—freedom. I felt as if I was finally unleashed from the chains of bondage that held me tight for so long.  

Free. . .and yet not free. I knew there would be people endlessly searching for me.

But I knew they would never catch me. And yet, even if they did, they couldn’t keep me contained. I was already let loose, had already tasted the fresh air. No, there was no going back.  

But I soon realized that, although I was prepared to fly away at the speed of light, my horses were incapable of such a task. They continued to get slower as the day went on, until eventually  they could take it no longer.  

“They must rest,” I mumbled, feeling tired myself.  

“For a few hours—nothing more. We cannot afford any more time than that.” 

“What?! Are you insane?”

"No," he raised his eyebrows, ". . .are you?”

“I demand at least six hours of sleep, thank you very much.” I lifted my chin as high as I could.

“Well, I’ve got a newsflash for you—we’re not in the castle anymore. There’s no such thing as six hours of sleep,” he looked down upon my limp form, “But. . .if you’d like, I could stay up and guard while you and the horses sleep.”  

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,”

I laid myself down upon the moist grass surrounding a tree in the area we had stopped at, only to hear Curias chuckle, “After all, you’re the one guarding tomorrow.”

I moaned.  

~Elizabeth

Themes

Alright. . .So the theme for this week's TOTW is Action/Adventure, and if you want to (appropriately) tie it into Halloween, that works too. We also have a late entry for last week's theme (Apples). Here it is:

 I was sitting on a chair in my apartment that first October out on my own. It still didn't feel like home, even though I had lived there for two months. I had all of my things that had decorated my room at my mom's house placed around the apartment. The two porcelain Chinamen served as bookends on the bookcase. My guitar poster graced the wall by the window. And the ancient rug that I had inherited from my great aunt lay on the wooden floor. I even used the same laundry detergent as my mom had.
     I knew that I missed my mom and Karen, my sister, but this place was supposed to be home! Nothing felt familiar. The chair creaked as I got up out of it. I walked to the window and looked out over the park. Three, old maple trees were turning crimson on the tips of the branches. I sighed. It must be apple season, I thought vaguely. Apple season. I tilted my head in thought. That was what I was missing – the feel of the smooth apple skins in my hands when peeling them, the smell of applesauce bubbling on the stove, and the sight of three or four golden apple pies cooling on the rack. I had always loved apple season. Mom, Karen, and I would gather in our large, farm-style kitchen – bushels upon bushels of granny smiths, macintosh, and galas filling all available floor space. We would spend a week peeling, slicing, cooking, and baking them. We would can apple pie filling and applesauce, bake apple pies, and dry apple slices.
     I sighed again, at the memory of those happy, autumn afternoons after school, and decided that that was what I needed to do. I needed to buy some apples. I grabbed my purse and counted the money inside. Three dollars and fifty-four cents. Most of my money I had used up to furnish my apartment. I figured I would need sixty dollars or so to by a couple bushels of apples. Sixty dollars. Not much, in the scheme of things, but in my limited budget, it could mean forgoing a couple meals. I looked around my scanty apartment and decided – I needed apples.
     I was inspired! I tore across the room and into my bedroom. Rifling through my box of old stuff, I found nothing worth sixty bucks. I strode back to the living room/dining room and surveyed it with a determined eye. And then, I saw it – the dilapidated, old lamp sitting on the end table (or, it at least looked old at that moment, in light of the apples that were to come). I snatched up the ancient relic, marched outside, and walked the three blocks to the pawn shop.
     After that, I went to the farmers' market and bought two bushels of apples. I walked contentedly back to my apartment, opened the door, and – gazing lovingly down at the two bushel baskets straining the sinews in my arms – exclaimed, “I'm home!”

-Aylin