Another Writing Excerpt!

This was a paragraph describing some scene from nature.
The sun dips behind the trees, her rays reaching out through the leaves, as though desperately trying to stay above the horizon. Trickling further and further down, she peeks behind the tattered gazebo, thrashed apart by birds and nature. In the sun’s death throes the sky lights up in a magnificent array of oranges and reds. The clouds drift lazily, unaware of the spectacle around them. At last she is swallowed below the horizon, and all color is drained to a dark blue, growing ever blacker as time goes on. It is a dance the orb will make each day until doomsday, a dance of life, a dance of death. When we are but bones and dust, she will dance, dance until the very end.

Words on a Page

Been dog-sitting all day, which has been thankfully really easy. Thank God, because if I was baby-sitting or something I think I would've wanted to shoot myself by now. Jessica came over and we watched Doctor Who, which was quite nice. Unfortunately, I've been kind of lacking in proper food today so when I go home I'm making something delicious.
Welp, that's it for today. Oh, and the dogs are adorable.

Making Bank

For the next eight days my mom will be in Granville, Ohio for her high school reunion. This means I'm going to be alone, yay! And, I've got a job dog-sitting my aunt's dogs for the next two weeks, which means making money! Even more yay!
I hate the idea of getting an actual job. Honestly, I hate the idea of being restrained by a schedule at all. I thrive on the freedom summer gives me. Wake when I want to, sleep when I want to, eat when I want to, randomly go out and do something if I want to. Having a job makes me restrained again, and don't even get me started on school. I just feel so much better, mentally and physically, when I am free.

Oh look a writing excerpt!

Been reading A Storm of Swords most of today, which has put me in a bit of a medieval mood. When I was taking my creative writing class this spring, we had to write a few pages of our final project. Not knowing what I was going to do, I wrote the first few pages of a fantasy medieval political drama action adventure thingy that was kind of like Game of Thrones but not really. I wrote it in about 30-45 minutes one night, so it's not the best and probably has lots of typos, but if you want to read it go ahead.

The faint hum of violence hung in the air after the night’s storm. The ground squished with each footstep the girl took, flecks of mud splashing the hem of her dress. A tree in the town square had crashed from the winds, which had started the horses in the stables enough to have knocked open one of the door locks. Some of the night’s watch had to gather a horse or two that had scurried off early in the morning. The girl felt sympathy for the horses, because she knew what it was like to be trapped. Her family was among the poor of this tiny hamlet, a place few had known existed. She heard the tales as a small child of princesses and heroes, and fell asleep each night dreaming of what it would be like to be one. Each morning, however, she was faced with the same cold reality of poverty.
The hamlet was buzzing with excitement this morning. Not the kind of excitement one feels from parties or other celebrations, but the curious, morbid excitement of fear. For today, the girl had heard while she was doing her chores, was going to be a hanging. The bottom of her stomach had fallen out. Such an event was occurring far more frequently than ever before. The victims hanged were not just murderers or thieves anymore, but good men who suffered only one transgression that before would have been so minor.
The girl hurried forward in the rapidly growing crowd. The hum of the gathering grew louder with each additional person, until it became deafening in the girl’s ears. Not far away from her she could see the stocks and the nooses hanging down. Her eyes clung to them, hypnotized as they swayed with the damp wind. Above her, the sky was an electric blue, and the cotton clouds sailed along, ambivalent to what happened so far below them.
The crowd hushed. Up the steps came a man dressed in the colors of the town guard’s captain. In his hand he carried a scroll rolled up into a tube. Following them, with loud footfalls, came the prisoners. First, a man who looked as though time and stressed had aged him considerably. Following him, his wife, the sides of her head adorned with a shock of gray. Finally, came the son, a boy no older than fifteen. The girl’s jaw dropped slightly, though she had the self-control to lift it back up. The eyes of the boy seemed so calm, and yet, there was a fear deep inside of them.
“The prisoners,” began the captain, reading from the unfurled scroll, “have been found guilty of the failure to pay taxes, an assault on the king’s guard, and treason. By our laws, these crimes have the punishment of death. I hereby declare this to be so, by order of the king, in the Year of Our Lords, 567.” As he spoke the hangman pulled the nooses around each other their necks. When he finished his speech, the captain made a subtle, yet noticeable motion. The hangman pulled the lever.
A ripple of shock and unsettlement went through the crowd. The girl cast her head down. All she wanted was to leave this place, to go back to the time of fairy tale princesses and heroes. It was a time of desperation. It was a time when heroes were needed once more.

Next Stop, Anywhere

The height of summer always makes me think back to when I was younger and was obsessed with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and fantasy in general, but mainly those two. It was also when I thought I'd be a young writer someday, so I took great care in delving my imagination into my favorite works. In so doing, I would think back to being a little kid and hearing stories about magical forests with different areas that led to your favorite worlds. Obviously this was a library, but there's something I find immensely... childlike and fantastic about that. Walking into a deep green forest in June, the sun on your back, and seeing a sign like this up, showing where to go to find your favorite place. And then you'd follow the sign through the forest, and find your very own Hogwarts, or Narnia, or Ghibli Hills. It would be like a nexus of all things good.
I wish I lived up north where green forests like the one I imagined exist, putting up a sign like this, and then just going off to read in different zones of magic. Maybe putting up little things referencing those areas, like Gryffindor seals and elvish writing.
I'm 20 years old and I want a magical forest of all of my favorite things. Is that so much to ask?

I posted this song during my music challenge, but it reminds me of reading my fantasy books during the summer. When I hear it, not only do I imagine a summer night looking at the stars, but also of the Harry riding his broom through the night sky, having his own adventure, or Frodo and Sam beneath a big tree, sleeping.
Summer to me isn't go out and party. It's get out a book and delve into the world created.

A Summer Update

This summer has been wonderfully epic so far. From my personal life to my life with friends, everything has been just fantastic. This summer is really turning out to be the one I've been wanting for I don't even know how long. I've been doing everything I wanted and more, from Universal to my first concert, to Busch Gardens and reading A Song of Ice and Fire, all the things I've wanted are working out nicely. I still need to get the DnD campaign rolling, but we've got loads of time for that.
Starting Tuesday I'm going to be getting money from dog-sitting my aunt's dogs, which is absolutely wonderfully timed. There's a big thing I'm planning which Ashley knows about, and which Jessica will know soon. But I don't think I've been so happy, excited, and nervous for anything before :-D

Day 30: Whatever I Fancy

Well, the last movie blog post. It's been a good ride, not as fun as the music one but still good.
Anyway, the post asked for whatever I fancied, and I couldn't find a movie thing, so here's David Tennant being awesome as Hamlet.