Tuesday 31 December 2013

A Very Writing Christmas



My mum got me these for Christmas, which made me rather happy firstly because they were surprises (the good kind) and secondly because in my head, it's symbolic for my mum giving me permission to write, to allow myself to spend time doing something I enjoy and wish to do as more than a hobby in the future, as opposed to spending all my time attempting to do schoolwork and revision. It feels quite freeing.

I shall talk first about The Creative Writing Workbook by Matthew Branton. So far I have got to page 26 and my verdict is that it is both enjoyable and helpful. It teaches basic writing techniques to improve your writing and includes creative and fun exercises to practice using said techniques. I find it interesting to learn new things about a skill I thought I was pretty good at already like this, as I never sat down and learnt how to write fiction; I just did it, pretty much ever since I learnt how to pick up a pencil and write with it. I have faith in this book, that by taking me back to the beginning, it will genuinely improve my writing. I highly recommend it.

I have not found The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan quite so useful as The Creative Writing Workbook. It is mostly an inspiration-finding tool, supplying new and interesting first lines to start off a piece, "Sixth Sense Cards" to inspire you to write a piece by evoking a sense, and spinners for choosing a protagonist, a goal and an obstacle between the two. Personally, I feel that I do not need inspiration for new ideas, as I have a pantry full of ideas stocked up in my brain that I haven't written yet; for me, finding inspiration and starting a project is not the hard part, it is carrying it on and keeping myself interested in it enough to continue writing. Therefore, this isn't quite for me, as it really does focus on the finding ideas and starting a new project thing, however I plan to take it to my school's creative writing club, and I imagine we'll get plenty of use out of it. The only other thing I would say is that, from the side, it looks deceptively - almost annoyingly - like a box of chocolates.

Anyway, here's hoping that a jolly Christmas was had by all, and that everyone starts off their New Year well! :)


Saturday 28 December 2013

Essential Songs For Existence 4: Women


We're back to the influence of my dad's taste in music for this choice. This band is, for me, a kind of local band; I was surprised to find out a year or two ago that they were from the nearest city to me, not America, like I'd always assumed. My dad actually said he once saw them walking out of a pub not far from where we live, but didn't realise who it was until afterwards.

Anyway, Women, from Def Leppard's best selling album Hysteria, is what I would personally say is their most famous song, unless it's Rocket or Pour Some Sugar On Me, or Love Bites. Or Animal or Armageddon It or Hysteria. My brother (who is now a bigger Def Leppard fan than my dad) tells me that they released seven singles from Hysteria, however, my personal favourite, Gods Of War, is one of the couple of songs that weren't released. (If you want to know why I like Gods Of War, it's the guitar. I just love the guitar.)

Hysteria is undoubtedly Def Leppard's best album (it sold over 20 million copies - which surely answers the question of why you should really know who they are), but that isn't to say that their other albums aren't good too - my brother tells me that Pyromania almost sold as well as Hysteria did. In fact, my brother has made me listen to some of their other albums, and the more I listen, the more I like what I hear. Apart from the songs I already mentioned, I would recommend Love and Hallucinate from Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, To Be Alive and Disintegrate from Euphoria and Photograph and Too Late For Love from Pyromania. As for any other albums of theirs, I haven't listened to them.

I'm sure my brother will be pleased that I actually listen to what he says sometimes, and have put some of his crazily detailed knowledge to good use. :)

Saturday 21 December 2013

Essential Songs For Existence 3: Fairy Tale Of New York


Happy Christmas, everyone! There is no doubt in my mind that you've already heard this one - which is exactly why it's going on this list. It's also one of my favourite Christmas songs. :)

Saturday 14 December 2013

Essential Songs For Existence 2: Summer Of '69


I'm sure that whenever somebody mentions Bryan Adams, everyone - especially those who remember the early '90s (which, of course, I don't, but still) - thinks of Everything I Do (I Do It For You). But I'm going to talk about a different song by Bryan Adams. My mum is a huge fan of Bryan Adams and has been since she was a teenager, and because of her influence, Bryan Adams' songs were the soundtrack to my early teens as well. Between my mum and I we have his entire collection of albums and I have seen him in concert twice. So for me, an Essential Songs For Existence playlist would be void without him.

Summer Of '69 may not have stayed at number one for sixteen weeks when it entered the charts, but it's still one of Mr Adams' most famous hits, and it's an awesome song. My personal favourites are not any of the famous ones, however, no matter how good Heaven, Cuts Like A Knife, etc are. I could list a great many songs here (Mr Adams' career does, of course, span thirty years), but my absolute favourites are: Thought I'd Died And Gone To Heaven from that most famous album Waking Up The Neighbours, Home Again from the previous album Into The Fire, and I Was Only Dreamin', a less known song from Adams' 2004 album Room Service. I could go on: Hearts On Fire, Heat Of The Night, Fearless, On A Day Like Today, Please Forgive Me... but I think I've given you quite enough song recommendations for one day now. :)

Friday 13 December 2013

Storms


http://figment.com/books/732589-Storms

http://www.wattpad.com/32255697-storms?d=ud

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2885104/4/Shattered

Saturday 7 December 2013

KRISTIN CASHORE, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY

I just read this on the blog of my favourite author, Kristin Cashore.

I don't quite know why this moved me, but it did. The first thing I'd like to say is that, Ms Cashore, the author does matter. Without the author, there would be no book. And when somebody falls in love with a book, the likelihood is that they do actually think about that person who sat down and spent their time and effort to write that book.

Secondly, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't use your books for coasters, Ms Cashore. I don't use any books as coasters, I have too much respect for them. I may have realised my love for your books a little too late to stop a few slightly dog-eared pages and broken spines on Graceling and Fire (my copy of Bitterblue is a hardback. And I did try very hard with the spine of Fire, so I'm sorry I still broke it), but I most certainly do not and never will use them as coasters. :)

Thirdly, one day, one of those letters in one of those piles of fan mail will be from me. One day. :)

Essential Songs For Existence 1: Livin' On A Prayer

Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi is a classic. My dad likes Bon Jovi so I kind of grew up with some of their songs - especially this one, the most famous. I didn't like them that much for a long time, I thought they were alright but it was more my brother's sort of thing. But you can't deny that this song is just awesome.

As for other Bon Jovi songs I would recommend, I have only listened to three of their albums - Slippery When Wet, the origin of this song, their first greatest hits album Cross Road, and also their latest album What About Now - which is an amazing. My favourites from these are Lay Your Hands On Me, Keep The Faith, Army Of One, Because We Can, I'm With You, What's Left Of Me and Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. These are most certainly not Bon Jovi's most well known songs, but they're the ones that I personally like best.

So why am is this the first of my Essential Songs For Existence? Well, I thought that was obvious. :)

Friday 6 December 2013

Essential Songs For Existence

There are some songs you expect everyone to know. Maybe they're old classics, maybe they're popular songs, maybe they're songs you grew up with. Either way, when you start singing them, you would think that everybody would join in - and if they don't, you are fully licensed to give them that "what planet have you been living on to not know this song?" look.

So I thought I'd share with you the songs that, to me, are these sort of songs: the Essential Songs For Existence.

I will post a new song every Saturday because why not (I post on the writing blog I share with my friend, Surprise Duck!, on Fridays, and I plan to start uploading new readings of short stories etc on my YouTube channel every Wednesday), and I'll explain my choice, and I'll also make a YouTube playlist on my channel so that, if you haven't heard these songs that are essential for your existence, you can listen to them all in one place. :)

Thursday 5 December 2013

This Is Hubert

So in my study lesson today I got bored and decided to listen to a certain rather popular podcast called Welcome To Night Vale. I downloaded all of the Night Vale episodes a couple of months ago maybe and have been slowly attempting to catch up with them ever since. One of the ones I listened to today, "Candidate", involved a five-headed dragon. So, being bored, I drew a dragon.

This is Hubert. He's a dragon. I like dragons. :)

I think I'd like to write a story or too about Hubert. With pictures, of course; there shall have to be many more pictures of Hubert in the future. And perhaps his brothers, Hugo and Harold. I think their parents must have had a bit of a thing for alliteration. :)

Wednesday 4 December 2013

A Little Update

It's gotten to that point whereby I'm starting to get nervous having not posted something on my blog for a couple of days.

So I thought I'd give you a little update.

Firstly, I got my first university offer!! I am very excited. I have been checking my emails more feverishly than normal these past couple of weeks waiting to hear something from any of the four I applied to... and I finally got some news! Thank God it's good news!

Secondly, I thought I'd do a bit of re-branding. You may notice that my username thingy is no longer Beth G but Bethie Jade. You may also notice that a little link in the "My Links" thing down on the left of my blog which reads "My YouTube Channel" has appeared. Now, if you type Beth G into the search box on YouTube, a great many people called Beth G come up. However, if you type in Bethie Jade... nada. I am the first and only Bethie Jade on YouTube. :)

Please be aware that Bethie is just a username-type-thing, and Jade is my middle name, so if ever you wish to contact me, please call me Beth. Beth is still my real (and preferred) name. :)

Sunday 1 December 2013

Wild Apparitions

A while ago, I posted this poem on my blog. As I mentioned at the time, I wrote it at creative writing club; our teacher read us a poem called "The Deer" by Helen Mort, gave us some wildlife magazines and told us to write a poem about a picture of our choice inspired by Mort's poem. My poem took about five, maybe ten, minutes to write, and I was pretty pleased with it, which is surprising as I don't consider poetry to be my strong point. So this is one of the very few good poems I've actually written.

Anyway, I have now posted this poem on YouTube. I would be very grateful if you could take about a minute of your time to watch it and give me some feedback! Thanks!