List of Books to Read in 2012

For I am a reader as well as a writer. In no particular order:

• A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
• The Great Gatsby by Scott F. Fitzgerald
• Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Betwixt by Tara Bray Smith
• Tales of Madman Underground by John Barnes
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• Les Miserables by Hugo Victor
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan (once it comes out!)
• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• A Tree Grows in Brookyln by Betty Smith 
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (summer reading list)
• The Little Prince by Atoine de Saint-Exupery
• City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare (when it comes out)
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (my childhood stank, obviously)

Oh lordy, wish me luck. As you can see, I read pretty much anything except for romance. I don't expect to enjoy all of these books, but I do want to read them in case I do. Have a happy new year!

Some updates.

Sorry it's been so long! Not that anyone's noticed, anyways, but I still faithfully update this blog as a sort of writing diary, I guess? Huh. It's been over month since the occurance, but I finished my novel! Congratulations to me. I'm in the editing stage and it's like a literary hell. All these passages and plot holes and bluh bluh. I'm so lazy. I can't deal with it right now, so I've been reading a great deal to take my mind off the novel and absorb some good writing skills, hopefully. Expect a truckload of book reviews in the near future.

Also I'm in the Philippines. It's really hot. I went scuba diving. Hurray.

And right now I'm watching Peter Pan (the live version from eight years back) and the Aunt just said, "There is nothing as difficult to marry as a novelist." I laughed and thought of a piece I read called You Should Date an Illiterate Girl, which led me to think of another piece I read called Date a Girl Who Reads, both of which I think are beautiful.

Okay, bye.

In which I managed to write 10k words in one night.

Decisively deciding that yesterday night would hold a decisive battle in the war against me not winning NaNo, I headed to the sofa and thanked God for the fact that we didn't have Internet in our hotel room. (Right, I was in a hotel room. I could have been watching TV or playing pool or whatever you do in hotels, but I wasn't. Props to me.) My fingers tap tap tapped the keys like mad; I think typing should be a sport. I had to take a break because I got hand cramps. I deserve a medal in my humblest of opinions. Four hours after a mad dash to 40k words, I press alt+T+W and alas! I had reached my word count goal for the day.

If I could write at that breakneck pace everyday, then I'd be long done with my novel by now. But I don't work at a mechanically steady pace. I have my lackadaisical why-am-I-even-doing-this days, and my less common determined let's-get-down-to-business days. There's only three days left in NaNo, and I need to stay in the latter stage in order to be a winner. Let's hope I do.

3k words behind on Nano.

One brave Sunday, Dana faced the computer screen with the challenge of writing 6k words in order to catch up to her word-count goal. To say the least, she caught up to her word-count goal. It was a feat of sorts, how she managed to write that much on a busy day.

She is faced with the lighter challenge of writing 3k words, but unfortunately, the brave heroine is fatigued from her writing journeys. Will she suck it up and write? She should. But will she?

midnight masterpiece;

Let the cool air fill up

your lungs, bring nighttime into your

body—forget to exhale.

Decipher the Braille written

across your skin,

the cold of your fingers

raising the dots on your arms.

Let the sky swallow you,

wrap you in dark blue and

spread constellations like freckles throughout

your skin.

Lose yourself in the midnight masterpiece—

join the stars.

join the stars.

Lagging.

I feel like I'm the computer and the computer-user at the same time. My heart has been clicking on my mind's "fucking write something" command but my mind is lagging, loading the action perpetually.

I'm only behind by 3k words, which is not bad at all under normal circumstances. I've been incessantly lackadaisical though, lately. Ughfaksljfhasdlkfjh.

Book Review: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Title: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Rating: 4.3/5
Rationale for Rating:

I got this book on an impulse, because I adored the cover, and because I'd read Elsewhere in sixth grade and loved it. I got more than I expected. I thought it would just be some fluff to read, but it was more than that. It still met some of my expectations. However, I found myself incredibly attached to the best friend--which I often do with books, especially when the best friend is of the opposite sex and oh-so-secretly in love with the MC. Anyways, I digress. It was a decent book.

Basically, Naomi Porter is sixteen and about to start her junior year when she gets a concussion and amnesia from it. She can't remember past sixth grade, which is hard when eleventh grade is such a crucial year for her. She has a boyfriend, Ace, who she can't remember. She's the co-editor of the school yearbook with her best friend, Will, whose inside jokes she doesn't understand. Her parents' divorce, which happened four years ago, is brand new to her, and her dad's fiance is even brand new-er. She has French, photography and tennis, none of which she knew she was into. And amidst it all is James, the mysterious boy that called the ambulance on the day of her accident.

It received a 4.3 because of the lack of character development from some of the secondary-but-not-minor characters, the bland prose, and the uncharacteristic choices that Naomi makes. And I didn't like how the author sort of explained things instead of using dialogue or some other clever method. And I thought that it was sort of unnecessary to have Naomi be an adopted orphan from Russia. Also, I hated James. I just did. I recommend it mostly to teenage girls that like romance books but think that Nicholas Sparks' books are too long. Just kidding. I guess it's a nice book to read when you want a decent love story.

Spoilers from here on out.

Like I said, I enjoyed it, for the most part. But I hated James, her love interest for most of the book. I hated how he rejected Naomi's love but also pined for her incessantly; I hated how he was such a terrible influence on her. He had depression, yeah, but he seemed to blame all of his problems on that. What a hypocrite--he already said to Naomi that she shouldn't blame all of her problems on her amnesia.

And at some point in the book, I hated Naomi, but only for a little. I hated that she was suddenly so dependent on James, so needy. She made huge sacrifices for a love that lasted for, like, four months, maybe shorter. Months and time lapses weren't really mentioned in the book, which annoyed me because I never had a sense of when things happened. Anyways.

But I loved Will completely. As stated previously, I have this thing for best-guy-friends. The second a male is introduced as the female protagonist's best friend, I almost immediately ship them (with the exception of Hermione and Harry). I call it the Rudy Steiner Syndrome. I love his wisecracks and formally casual way of talking and I loved how he was so subtly concerned about Naomi and I loved his mixtapes and the birthday present he got for her and I loved how he loved Naomi oh-so much.

Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Rating: 4.8/5
A Rationale for my Rating (alliteration ftw):

First and foremost, this book is a favorite. Not the favorite. I can't possibly sift through all the books I've ever read and pick only one to be the favorite. But it is a favorite. I've been meaning to read this book for a while--this was my late friend's favorite book--and since I got my library card replaced, I finally got the chance to check it out. And it's a good thing I did.

It's about this guy, Miles Halter, who leaves Florida to attend high school at the prestigious Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama to seek a Great Perhaps. It's there that his life goes from ordinary to extraordinary, for lack of a less-cliched phrase. He meets a group of friends--real, actual friends--and among them is Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and painstakingly in a relationship, Alaska just might be the Great Perhaps that Miles has been voyaging for.

This book had me laughing and smiling and screaming and crying. I swear. It was completely--and heartbreakingly--real. The prose, the characters, the pranks they pull, the alcohol they drink...it's all lovely. I only deducted 0.2 stars since the ending was a tad rushed. Other than that, the book is amazing and I recommend it to everyone and anyone.

A Side Note (Spoiler):
Some people who read the book say that the moral of the story is "Don't drink and drive." This is complete and utter Shit of Bull. I mean, you shouldn't drink and drive, but that was not the point of the whole story. If it was, then they wouldn't all be drinking in the first place. They drank before the incident, and they continued to drink afterwards. There are deeper messages than that one. Besides, it's hinted that Alaska crashed on purpose. On an impulse, but on purpose.

In which going to a writing workshop was not worthwhile.

Today, my friend Naomi and I went to a writing workshop held at our school. We didn't expect much, and the workshop still didn't meet our expectations. The description was misleading: "This is a wonderful opportunity to meet a children's author and to learn about the writing and publishing process. [author's name] is the motivating author who tells stories of high interest to this age group and follows up with a writing workshop." I didn't say his/her name for the small chance that s/he finds this blog and is deeply offended by the critique coming up. The description should have read: "This an opportunity to meet a children's author and to learn about writing tactics/styles specific only to him/her, grizzly bears, and other things that are completely irrelevant to writing. [author's name] is an author who tells incredibly short stories of high interest to average-intelligence fourth graders and follows up his two-hour-long presentation with a ten-minute period to write according to his limitations."


Yup.

So when we first walked in, we noticed something strange: the entire audience besides us two had an average grade level of fourth grade. (Sadly, they were only a few inches shorter than us eighth graders. Go figure.) This was enough to make me want to leave, but I figured I should stay in case I could actually learn anything.

And I didn't.

Alright, so the author introduced himself and started talking about the books he wrote. They're targeted to third-through-eighth graders, allegedly, and I was thinking they'd be, I don't know, Judy Blume-esque books. They weren't. They were all about families camping in random national parks and finding themselves in a chain of highly unlikely events to happen to campers. He said that his books were around 22,000 words, and everyone was astounded--except for Naomi and I, of course. I have 25,000 words right now on my novel and I'm only halfway done. Anyways. I don't want to compare.

About 90% of the whole presentation was about hiking. He'd start off with, "In my book, these kids get into [insert incident] and..." and then he'd spend ten minutes going off into tangents about grizzly bears, hiking trails and Yo-fucking-semite. It guess it'd be interesting to someone who likes the outdoors. And I guess I do (I once spent five straight days without stepping foot outside), but I came to a writing seminar, not a camping seminar.

And finally, after two or so hours of him talking about The Wonders of The Outdoors, he finally let us write. But apparently we had to follow his rules, or "tips". Tips that I figured were common sense to writers. The story had to be realistic fiction. Something dangerous had to happen. The character wasn't allowed to die. I was transported back to fourth grade when my writing had to adorn to a certain structure. Which I hatehatehate. First of all, I didn't see what was wrong about writing fantasy. The seminar was titled "realistic fiction" but we mostly just learned about What To Do When A Bear Approaches You so why not write fantasy? Secondly, something dangerous has to happen? Bullshit. Sometimes stories aren't loud; sometimes they're quiet, meant to be read in a whisper. We don't all write adventure stories. Thirdly, why couldn't the character die? Because that would be too "morbid" for our age group. The age group was far too diverse to determine what would be "too" anything. In fourth grade, I read Harry Potter, and he dies anyways...

All in all, that seminar was crap. Even if I were in fourth grade, I wouldn't like it. At least it was free.

In which I despise English homework.

Alright, since I'm an angsty teenager (well, more teenager than angsty), I need to rant. And it's a good idea to rant about school since I spend eight hours or more a day there anyways.

Anyways, my teacher, who we will call Mr. A for our purposes, said that we'd be doing creative writing. The second you use "creative" and "writing" in a sentence, my ears automatically perk up, right? Creative writing is my strong point. So Mr. A described the assignment--a narrative essay about a pivotal event in your life--and slapped a due-date on it, which is, of course, tomorrow. Since when have I ever effectively managed my time besides NaNoWriMo?

So I went home and, well, I didn't actually look at the rubric he gave us for days. So let's fast-forward to today. I'm reading over my rubric and starting to type my essay. You know, cracking my knuckles and going, This is a piece of cake. And then I actually started writing my essay, trying to abide to The Rubric. And that was the hard part.

First of all, we weren't allowed to use any "be" verbs more than twice if we wanted an A. How many times have I used a "be" verb in this blog post? This blog post would not get an A. Secondly (all these transitions make this sound like a persuasive essay, ugh), we had to have "three complications that propel the conflict". I don't understand how we can have three complications if the story is about something that happened in real life and you can't change past events.

I don't know, I just hate structured writing. I love creative writing because it's so freeform. You just do whatever you want and people read it. It's great. But this is not creative writing. This is limited. This is graded. Screw this, man.

Okay. Teenage vent over. Have a nice night.

Oh god I think I'm posting on this blog so much because I don't want to write.

Oh god I think I'm posting on this blog so much because I don't want to write.

Asdfkljfhsf.

Third post in the row? Don't blame me, my blog is hungry.

Sometimes when I'm staring blankly at the Word Doc, I have no idea what to write. I have all these ideas and no way to connect them. So then I just type: "I don't know what to write. Writing this novel was a stupid idea. Why am I here? I want to go to sleep." and sometimes, "Askdlfjh asdfkjh hkjvbjsdf asfjh." And sometimes my whole writing day is filled with those entries. They'll be hell to edit out but at least I'm meeting my word-count goal, right? Right.

In other news, yesterday I tried out for a volleyball team and made it in. And I watched In Time, which was a great movie. I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. (That's a figure of speech. Whenever I watch movies, I tend to slump in my chair. Hahaheheohoho.)

Seize the Sun and other nonsensical things

Greetings and welcome to yet another blog post. Happy Saturday!

So this month I've been working on a novel called Seize the Sun, which is what I'm using for NaNoWriMo. And I actually like it. I haven't lost faith in it at all yet. I love my MC and the way she says she hates everything but doesn't. I'm in love with her best friend, the literary personification of my quote, unquote Dream Guy. Ugh, have you ever wished fictional character was real? (Especially you, Mr. Peeta Mellark.) 

And here is a summary of Seize the Sun:

Charlene is a volcano. Over the fourteen years she's been bubbling up, always staying below the boiling point. But ever since ninth grade--and the bullcrap it brings--started, she's been heating up. When her best and only friend kills herself, she erupts. But it's not a huge explosion. It's a sort of simmer, a gradual downpour of thoughts and feelings. It's quiet, almost unnoticeable. It's called depression. Follow Charlene into the world of ninth grade. There are finals and flash cards and mean girls and unfair teachers. There are psychiatrists that cost money and anti-depressants and lots of people who don't understand. Most importantly, there is a handful of people who do understand. And they just might make all the difference.

Writing this is really a channel for me, like I'm transferring all my bad feelings from my mind into Charlene's. And I feel bad for poor Charlene since she has her own struggles. But shush. In my opinion, it's a way to get real-er characters. I've never been clinically depressed so some of it is up to my imagination and internet research. It'd be smart to head over to the library and check out some books about depression, but I think I've lost my library card....Heh.

Keep calm and write on.

An Introduction of Sorts

I found it necessary to include an introduction of sorts before I delve into the world of words and blog posts and all that wonderful stuff. I'm Dana Ysabel Dela Cruz, but most of the time I just go by Dana. I'm on the verge of adolescence--twelve years of age--and currently in the eighth grade. In a way, I've always been a writer, but I started writing seriously when I was in fourth grade. Besides writing, I like to play violin/guitar/ukulele/piano/sing, read books, eat food, play volleyball/basketball/badminton, watch any kind of movie, really, listen to music, and draw. I guess I do a lot of things, but the majority of my time is spent in front of the computer screen. Go figure. 

Okay. That was fun. I guess. I hope we can be friends and you don't find me weird or awkward or both.