a mason jar firefly

I came across a web series called The Guild maybe six months ago. Starting September 1st, the third season will be steaming in various places. The series is based around the lives of online gamers.

Now, I don't know these folks on a personal level, but I do enjoy their creativity and the show, so I'd like to further spread the word around (my own little way of supporting fellow artists). Linked below is their music video. Watch and get hooked!

I stepped outside earlier only to be met by dozens of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and was given yet another reminder of why autumn is my favorite season.

Currently, I am surrounded by dusty boxes that need sorting and the constant sound of the fan drawing the night air into the room. I'm tired, but not quite ready to sleep just yet.

In the last few weeks, I've managed to watch three seasons of Bones. While I enjoyed the first two, the third season lacked something I can't quite name, and the finale... well, I feel that perhaps the way things ended had to do with the strike.

I saw Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince this weekend. Not having read the book, I have nothing to say I like better or worse, only that I enjoyed it.

I also watched Coraline, and am now wanting to read the book that I bought a few years ago to see if I like the story better.

My writing is slow-going. I recently read in one of those "rules of writing" books that if you're waiting around for inspiration to hit, you have no business being a writer.

Not sure how I feel about that... or maybe I do?

So then, is it that I am wrong with my way of thinking or is the other author, or could we both be possibly right given our own personal experience with the craft?

As I was catching up on my friends' posts that I've missed in the last couple of weeks, I came across a video siredurado posted of an airline commercial, posing the question of whether it'd be something you'd find on American television given its content. This got me to thinking of the commercials we do air, and why some are considered acceptable while others are not.

For example:



I'm surprised they allowed it on air, considering the song choice for the parody, the objectifying of part of the human anatomy that is known to be sexually arousing/appealing (and this was expressed in the original song lyrics) AND the fact that all of this is marketed toward children.

I know the expression "sex sells," but I didn't think that included to kids.

The weather's been pretty grey and rainy here.

I'm working on some character development for a story idea which probably sounds much cooler than it is. Sometimes all I have is a name, and I build off of that, and other times all I have is a personality and I have to figure out a name...

So, anyone else like mashups? I used to find some pretty cool mp3 mashups online a few years ago but I can't remember the website name... but look, youtube has video mashups. Like this one:

So in the last few weeks I've caught up on my movie watching, and when I say "caught up," I mean that. Thirteen movies and 2 t.v. series later... Here's some commentary. Potential spoilers follow below cuts.

( The Other Boleyn Girl )

( August Rush )

( The Prestige vs. The Illusionist )

( Iron Man )

( BloodRayne )

( Sex and the City )

( The Rocker )

( Pirates of the Caribbean 3 )

( The Incredible Hulk )

( Penelope )

( Shooter )

( Wanted )

It's nice to look out my window and see the sun shining and the grass green. The sky can be so blue at times.

The reading went...it went, hehe. I was nervous (something about microphones in my face paired with standing behind a podium just makes my head pound) but I got through it. I saw a few people I studied with in college and got to chat with them for a bit, though I secretly couldn't wait to get back into my car and breathe.

I feel very out of place at times, even at such things as poetry festivals. It doesn't help that I was uncomfortable in my clothes, having dressed up. I'm not the kind of girl (er, woman) who enjoys nylons and hair spray and ugh, make up. These things look great on other people, but I tend to feel like I'm suffocating under a mask of beauty enhancing products.

Maybe it's just that I don't feel like growing up, or at this point, growing older. My clothes style is the same as it was when I was in high school, which makes me look like I'm still in high school, and you'd think I'd want to re-evaluate my style but I guess you could say that deep down, my reluctance to do so is powered by the notion that we're all aging at a continuous, steady rate that doesn't necessarily match how old we feel inside.

It is always interesting to see what others define as "good news."

Today, I learned that having a job, getting married, and/or being pregnant are considered in the category - none of which, by the way, I have or am.

Not that I can fault my family for immediately jumping to these conclusions when I start the conversation, "I'm calling with some pretty great news..." because really, I know that they think I'm getting too old to not be married, to not have children, to not hold a steady job.

Not to say that they were not thrilled when I told them what my good news was about - my writing; poetry, to be specific.

In March, I submitted three poems to a statewide contest with little faith that any of them would be selected. I've always enjoyed writing poetry (well, not always.. actually, I find it difficult most of the time) but I don't consider it my strongest genre, which is slightly ironic because I can "finish" a poem, but it takes me months if not years to finish anything longer than a short story or essay.

I get a call this morning from a woman in charge of the Poetry Festival and she informs me that out of the 140+ submissions they received, I won first place.

First place. Never in a thousand years (well, maybe a small part of me thought the possibility was akin to a "shot in the dark") did I expect to hear her say that.

It is a moment like this that makes me feel like all the time I spent following my dream has not gone to waste.

Not only did I win first place, but I won a small amount of money, and I've been asked to read at the Festival in a few weeks.

Now all I have to do is remember to breathe when I'm standing in front of a crowd and a mic.

I think we all have songs that hold some meaning to us on an individual level. Some that provoke feelings we cannot describe to anyone, but that we genuinely can feel. They stir parts deep within us, memories we have forgotten, good or bad, and that is what I love about music.

I try, or tried, to capture this essence in poetry, but never quite hit the mark. I longed for a while the ability to sing, because I thought somehow that would ease a transition into lyric and songwriting, though I never attempted to learn how to read music or how to play any instrument.

I wonder now, if I had been given a different childhood, if these little desires, longings, would've been possibilities that may have affected how I write today. Would I be writing the things I do if I had been handed a violin at the age of five?

I think I must have a fear of being too old to learn something new, but I know I'm too young to be feeling washed up. I hope.

I've always been a bit behind when it comes to fads, crazes... well, anything that seems remotely like it's not here to stay. I have an aversion to change, if you will, and that puts me in the peculiar spot of not always knowing what is hot today, or what was "so five minutes ago."

I just saw Twilight, and I'm not quite sure, exactly, what all the hype is about. It's a story about vampires and mortals, and what *could* happen if they were to fall in love.

Now, I'm not trying to be too hasty here. Perhaps the books are one hundred times better than the film. As a writer, I feel that I have a pretty good idea what can and cannot translate from the page to the screen. That's why there are different formats for artistic expression. What one can say by writing is not always what one can say by filming, and vice versa.

For me, though, there was too much... ( spoilers, maybe? )

...anyway, I will read the first book, at least, before I decide if there is more here than just another story about vampires in the mortal world. My guess is most of the craze is coming from teenagers or vampire fans.

Hello!

It has been six weeks since I've been here. I tend to get pulled in one direction and keep moving that way and that has its good and bad qualities about it.

siredurado asked me about the new project I mentioned in my quick post in February and I suppose that at the time I thought it'd be boring to talk about. Well, maybe not boring to me. =)

Having been a student of writing who bought countless books and reference guides that were listed in course syllabi, I developed an idea of what I thought would make a decent (hopefully) book on writing.

So I've been mulling over chapters and layout and writing bits and pieces here and there, and hopefully I'll have a first complete draft before the end of the year.

Though lately, I've somewhat pulled away from that project due to photography work and experimentation with technique.

Some of you probably understand that feeling one gets where they wish they had more time in the day for everything they want to do. =)

It's been a bit since I last posted. I recently started volunteering my time and writing skills to a university. I've also begun a new project which I'm pretty excited about.

Hope all is well in your worlds.

We're eight days into the new year. How many resolutions have you already broken?

Some years ago, without really thinking about it, I stopped making resolutions.

It's not that I'm a pessimist; I'm not. I like to think that I believe in the good things in life, and in people. But resolutions, well, usually they're about doing something to change a person (for the "better") and in one of those moments where you realize something about yourself, I'd say that the reason all the resolutions failed was because deep down, I must be okay with the person I already am.

This is either good, or rather alarming. I haven't made up my mind yet.

I'm no good at sleeping.

That said, I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a good one. It's somewhat sad, how Thanksgiving is overlooked. As soon as Halloween is over, all the Christmas crap replaces it on the shelves.

I only remember going out once on Black Friday (for those who might not know what that is, it's the day after Thanksgiving when many stores have major sales starting at ridiculous times, like 5 a.m.) with my mother and I don't plan on doing it ever again, if possible. I prefer to avoid stores from Black Friday to December 27th (the 26th too, because everyone is out returning gifts).

I'm not feeling very interested in Christmas, and especially not in my birthday, and I don't know if that's because I can't sleep or if it's a reflection of my general mood this year.

I go through phases. That's really the best way for me to describe my interest in any given thing at any given moment. Writing is, with no doubt, the thing I phase in and out of most.

Can you truly be a writer if you don't write every day, every week, every month, every year?

I say yes. It's about inspiration, and inspiration isn't guaranteed to be with you day-to-day.

While I might not be physically writing, I do tend to write in my head. I could attribute this to being a poet; one of my professors once said that people claim to never see poets writing, but that's because they're carrying the words around in their heads for a while before they put them down on paper.

After several months of no creative pen-to-paper action, tonight a muse has whispered in my ear.

In the last couple of days, I've been working on color theory as part of my design work and I have to applaud all painters out there that mix their own colors as part of their normal routine. It's not as easy as it might appear, and you better be under good lighting, too.

I'm making a color wheel (only to the tertiary colors) and am a bit concerned that my violets may not be quite right, but I'm going to wait til tomorrow when I can use daylight instead of house lighting to attempt them again.

Speaking of color, I found this interesting: red and green are opposite each other in the color wheel and are the same value and when put together, they cause visual stress. The person who pointed this out to me then added that they also happen to be Christmas' colors.

I've been rather busy with designing and studio work. Below the cut is one of my designs that was well-received by fellow artists and I thought I'd share it here; please note that the original image is not mine and I am not taking credit for it. I adapted the image under a Creative Commons license, and I found the image on Flickr.

( Read more... )

I made this in Photoshop. I colored her eyes, hair, and lips, and applied a filter over the entire image. The text I created as well, using her body for its texture/color.

National Novel Writing Month.

I was thinking of participating this year, but as it's November 6th and I haven't written a single word, I'd have to write at least 2,083.3 words a day to hit 50,000 by the end of the month.

Still, I might try. To those who are working on this great feat, I wish you the best.

A few years ago, right when you sense summer is hiding around the corner, I wrote an essai in the style of Sei Shonagon for a nonfiction writing class where one of the things I listed as being hateful was an iPod.

I remember that the main reason I listed it was because all I heard around campus was "iPod this, iPod that," and if you had a different kind of mp3 player, well, it couldn't be as fabulous - it just couldn't.

So, in my own way, I boycotted the product, grimacing whenever I heard its name; rolling my eyes while walking down the hall behind iPod owners - and I figured, back then, that I'd always have this opinion...but now, I'm sitting here listening to Jaymay sing about the weather on my shiny new iPod Classic and realizing how in only a few years, the ways in which a person thinks s/he was set doesn't necessarily guarantee that they are.

Why did I buy one? Well, many reasons, including that I thought I owed it to myself to figure out if the iPod really isn't for me and the only way to truly do that is to try one out.

So far, I don't find it really that big of a hassle to import my songs into iTunes before they're transferred to my iPod. Each album only takes a couple of minutes to import, and I don't actually feel as though I'm spending any more time doing that than I was when I directly transferring albums to an mp3 player.

One thing I don't like, though - is in order to get the album art, you have to have an iTunes Store account, and when you go to set one up, they require you to give them a credit/debit card before they will finish processing your information/product registration. The card is used for when you decide to buy music on iTunes, but I don't really see why you have to give it to them BEFORE you even consider buying something; why can't you just give card info when you actually make a purchase?

That's my only complaint at the moment. I have thirty days to try out the product, and if it turns out I'm not iPod-compatible, well, at least I can say I know I'm not because, like beer or camping or heavy metal, I tried it once.

In a particular cell phone company commercial, a businessman stands in front of his secretary and asks her to tell him what's on the agenda for the day. As she goes through the list of all the talking, texting, and image-sharing he's going to do, he has her move his meeting to another time during the week because he can't fit in his job with all the cell phone services he's going to utilize.

While that is slightly troubling (how is he going to pay for that cell phone bill each month if he gets canned at work for, you know, not working?) what troubles me more is the line the secretary says about how he'll be texting his son during recess.

Are they serious? Or rather, do people really give their children cell phones when they are at the age where they still go outside for recess?

Recess, when I was in school, lasted up until the fifth grade. It was something that you lost when you entered junior high and symbolic in the way that once you no longer go outside to play during the school day, well, you've moved along the path leading to adulthood.

Fifth graders are still around eleven years old, are they not? I find that I keep thinking, "when I was eleven, we didn't have..." and something as seemingly insignificant as a line in a commercial has me realizing that I understand, now, every time someone older than me had a hard time wrapping their head around one of my fads, interests, or even decisions.

So, then, at what age do children stop being children? Surely it cannot be as easy to say anymore; not with the way technology evolves faster than we grow into our skin.

A foreign film, Persepolis is a must-see for those interested in autobiographies, women's rights, and the history of a country unlike (or like) your own, told through the eyes of someone who has experienced it firsthand.

Writer, illustrator, and now a director, Marjane Satrapi moves us through the plot with a string of witty, sarcastic, defiant, and inevitably tragic moments, and the soundtrack truly complements the film.

Based on her life (and her graphic novels) as an Iranian girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution, Marjane tells a story that is sure to get you thinking about not only what it means to be free, but what it means to be a free woman.