The Muse Party Blogfest!

A GINORMOUS amount of CONGRATULATIONS goes to the absolutely AMAZING Sarah Foster for FOUR years of blogging! I discovered Sarah during this past A-Z Challenge and was immediately taken in by her blunt, real writing voice and on point advice. She blogs over at The Faux Fountain Pen.

I am so excited to be participating in a blogfest to celebrate her anniversary!

1. Who is your muse (or character)? Tell us a little bit about him/her and why you brought them.

This is Cassandra--say "hi", Cass--and I brought her because we're basically best friends. Not even joking, we're like the same person. Sometimes when things happen, I'll literally be like "Oh I can't wait to tell Cass--oh wait." Anway, Cassandra is eighteen years old and just graduated from high school. She can't wait to leave for college in a few months and is so sick of her family and town. She's kinda quiet at first, but once she trusts you, she won't shut up. When she's hurt though, she will shut up and GOOD LUCK trying to get her to forgive you. (Sorry, Cassie, it's true.)

2. What are you guys wearing? Dressing up or keeping it casual?

Dressing up, duh! We're wearing knee-length sundresses, with jewelry. And wedges.

3. It's a potluck! Did you bring something yummy?

OF COURSE. Cassandra can't cook to save her life but I made no-bake Oreo bars. (Oh my gosh, Cass, it IS true! Remember that one time London asked you to make pizza with the kids...is the floor still red? Pretty sure you also almost exploded the oven.)

4. Open bar! What are you both drinking (booze or otherwise)?

Being the good-girl-under-21's that we are, not alcohol. Cassandra is drinking a safe Sprite, while I'm drinking some super sugary concoction. 

5. Wallflowers or social butterflies?

I'm a TOTAL social butterfly. Cassandra just likes to stare at people. (Calm down, I'm JOKING. Maybe.)

6. What song(s) will you and your muse sing for karaoke?

If I can manage to convince Cassandra to do it with me, definitely God Made Girls by Raelynn. We're both suckers for country. 

7. What's your favorite party game?

Cass is boring and doesn't like anything.(Cassandra, shut up, I made you. Do you want me to kill off Ben? Then respect me.) I'm partial to anything that involves the sharing of deepest darkest secrets. And Apples to Apples. Oh, and Guesstures. 

8. Which one of you is more likely to end up dancing on a table top?

Me. Definitely me.

9. Has your muse been a good date and would you ever hang out with them again?

She's never good, but neither am I. Guess that's exactly why I would hang out with her again. (Love ya, Cassie ;))

Congratulations again to Sarah! Looking forward to many more years of blogging to come. Also, I guest posted at Jess's blog Simple Scribbles (book review) as well as Nicole's blog Carpe Veritatem (opinion post). So you have three blogs to stop by and leave some comment love for!

Lastly, have a blessed Memorial Day. Thank you, God, for all the amazing men and women who gave their lives for this great country. God bless America!

Feature Friday! One Life: Guest Post by Nicole

SO excited to be featuring Nicole this Friday, who is actually my newest critique partner! Nicole is an eighteen year old writer from over at Carpe Veritatem. If you like what you read here (which of course you will, because Nikki is utterly fabulous), be sure to hop on over to her blog and give her a follow!

Why do we try to rush everything in life? 

When I was five, I couldn’t wait to be ten. When I was FINALLY ten, all I could think about was turning thirteen. On my thirteenth birthday, I proceeded to tell my mom, “Only three years until I turn sixteen and can drive!!”

Now I’m eighteen, and am freaking out. Adulthood and college are looming in front of me, and I just want time to stop for a bit so that I can figure all of this out. 

Yet, I still find myself rushing things.

“Only 111 days until I move in to college!” “Only two weeks until I’m completely done with school!” “Only five more hours until my shift is over and then I can go home and eat pizza and ice cream and binge watch The Blacklist and CSI.”

Okay, just stop. (wait a minute. Fill my cup put some liquor in it. *shameless Uptown Funk reference*)

Let’s just take a step back for a minute, shall we? 

We've all been given one life to live.

One.

That’s it. 

One life to use it whatever way we please, for good OR bad. We can tell someone we love them, or we can walk away and never talk again. We can glorify God in everything we say and do, or we can hide our faith, waiting impatiently until we can go home and get out of an awkward situation. The fact of the matter is that we’ve been given this life, this one life, for a reason, quite probably a reason more splendid than we could ever imagine; it’s incredible to think about.

So, slow down and enjoy everything about your life. When your little sister asks you to braid her hair, or when your mom takes you out for coffee.

These moments are precious, so don’t wish them away.

Every day you have 24 hours.

1,440 minutes.

86,400 seconds.

How will you spend them? 

Poetry

So pleased to be hosting Becca, an amazing writer-friend from my creative writing group! Becca writes fabulous poetry and is such an inspiration. You check out some of her poetry on Pinterest here.

I've been asked about poetry before, what do I write it about, why do I write it, and of course, how do I write it? But my mental response is always how do you not write poetry? How do you release your emotions? How do you get what feels like a hundred pounds of sadness, love, pain, anything off of your chest? 

I write poetry for numerous reasons, because I want to, because I love to, but most of all, because I need to. If I were an artist, I'm sure I would express my feelings by painting or drawing them, but I believe that words are the key. I love words, they can paint anything in your mind, from the sensation of a summer rain on your skin to a knife of pain in your chest to the fluttering feeling of a first kiss. And poetry, in my opinion, is the most beautiful form of words imaginable. 

It could be a rhyme that sounds beautiful in your head or dancing off of your tongue, or the messy, free flow of bottled up emotions of any kind just leaving your mind. It's relatable, it's freeing, and it's amazing. I once read a quote that stuck with me because it was so true. It said, "Poetry is what happens when your mind stops working, and for a moment, all you do is feel." And it's absolutely true, when I'm writing poetry, I don't think about the things I'm writing, I just write. It's as if I'm bleeding from my pen and spilling everything inside of me. No poems are thought out, they're rarely planned, they just happen. 

As the amazing Robin Williams said in Dead Poets Society, "…. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." And when you hit the point where writing it is as easy as breathing, you can't help but write. At this point, poetry is just a part of who I am as a person, and I couldn't live without it. I don't write poetry by planning out what I'm going to write, it's not a high school essay. I write what I feel. Did I have a bad day? Then I'll write a poem about what made that day bad, but I'll also write a poem about what makes life beautiful. 

Poetry is truly what I stay alive for, but more than that, it's what keeps me alive.

Life: It's yours, write it!

(I would just like to point out that I just survived a near death experience. I was sitting at my laptop, typing away, being responsible and doing science...when I heard this demonic buzzing noise. I was instantly transported, mentally, to an earlier hour when I discovered a huge brown, papery bug with antennas and stringy legs on my window. 

By huge, I'm talking half the size of my pinky. I have really long pinkies. Anyway, so I went to go get someone to kill this bug because...uh...I didn't want to break a nail...But I totally forgot until much later, when I slammed the window shut. Apparently, I have terrible short-term memory because I completely forgot AGAIN until about an hour-ish ago when I heard a demonic buzzing noise and saw a flutter of wings in front of my face. The mass of papery brown disgustingness landed on my keyboard and I slammed my laptop shut, literally swallowing screams of terror and jumping off my bed. Boom. For good measure, I applied some extra pressure. Crush. Cautiously, I lifted the lid...to discover squished a la bug. Yum. I used about twenty tissues to dispose of it.

Not quite sure why I'm telling you all that...but I survived. Guys, I survived.)

Today I present to you some brilliance written by the incredible Anna from over at WONDERFUL JOY.

When I was a little girl, I would put on plays based on stories I'd written. I'm talking outlandish costumes from my dress up box, a full cast consisting of all the neighborhood kids, and my parents and older siblings seated on couches watching. I loved creating something that people enjoyed (or pretended to enjoy, as my lovely big sister Erin would later tell me). I loved being the center of attention. I loved the happy endings. But most of all, I loved bringing a little literary magic into real life. It was a long time before I realized it was actually real life that made literature so magical.

Anne Lamott once said, "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your story." It's no secret that life can be hard. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to people who don't seem to deserve it. Sometimes your heart gets broken, and sometimes you get stabbed in the back. But as cliché as it sounds, the struggle is part of the story.

You own everything that's ever happened to you. The good, the bad, the ugly, it's all yours. 

Annie had a wonderful post the other day about keeping readers interested and writing what you know. Like her, and many other writers, I used to be confused about the "writing what you know" rule. I got so confused that I actually started writing a book about a ballet dancer. I've now been dancing for eleven years, so I know quite a lot about ballet, but that's not what "writing what you know" really means. (The story was terrible anyway. The main character wanted to get the part of Clara in the Nutcracker, because the boy she liked was cast as the Prince. Then the main character's best friend got the part of Clara. DRAMA.)

What I really wanted to be writing was fantasy, but I thought I couldn't do that. After all, I had never experienced battles between to medieval kingdoms. I had never met a king and queen. I definitely had never dueled a wizard or sorcerer. I didn't know any of this stuff. So how was I supposed to write it? 

Eventually, I started thinking about J.K Rowling. She was just a girl born to a poor family in England. She had certainly never ridden a broomstick or waved a wand or attended Potions class. Yet the world she'd created seemed so real to me. That's when I realized that maybe it was the simple (or sometimes not so simple), every day experiences that make your stories come to life.

J.K Rowling never had the darkest wizard of all time murder her parents, but she did lose her mother to multiple sclerosis. She never experienced the hopeless feeling associated with dementors, or heard their eager, rattling breath, but she did suffer from extreme depression. These experiences weren't pleasant or easy, but Rowling used the pain to give Harry a story. An amazing story, in fact, that has influenced countless lives.

When you create characters, don't think of them as characters. Think of them as real people, with real problems, real personalities, and real emotions. Sometimes we get so caught up in wanting to make the perfect character, that we forget characters aren't supposed to be perfect. They're supposed to be human. The heroes can make mistakes; the villains can make good choices. We must remember to put a bit of ourselves into all of our characters, that way they seem real.

If you don't put your life into your writing, your story won't come alive. Remember: you own everything that's ever happened to you. Now go tell your story.

What I've Been Up To

Hello, dear readers. So sorry that I've been a bit MIA. Things have been sort of crazy in my formally quiet little life. Well, actually, my life has never been what one might call quiet. However, if I had been cruising along the highway of life at 60 MPH, now it's more like 120 MPH.

Let me enlighten you. Here's what's been going on in my reading/writing world:

1. I have been reading a lot more, which I am quite pleased about, considering how crazy things are. I'm still not reading as much as I was when I was homeschooled, but I have been reading more than I did in the beginning of the year. I'm currently reading Scarlet, book 2 in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. LOVED book 1, Cinder-- definitely a book that will be reviewed soon=) But I might have to shelf Scarlet for a bit because my hold on Requiem (book 3 in the Delirium series by Lauren Oliver) just came in! I've been DYING to read it.

2. I mentioned before that I'm working on a new story. Progress on that is slow, but it's coming along. I'll try and post an excerpt soon. That leads me to thing number 3. . .

3. Preparations for Camp Nanowrimo! I'm going to camp this April because I really want to write the mentioned story. I'm absolutely in love with my characters already and I'm really enjoying writing their story. I've never done Camp Nano, but I think it would be a great way to help my story along. Plus, my birthday is in April, so Nano is the best present ever!


Now, here's what's been going on with everything else:

1. Toledo. I mentioned before that we're moving, which is crazy stuff in itself. Selling our house, buying a house, and registering in a new school (I'm SUPER excited about this new school, just thought I'd throw that out there) has been demanding most of my family's time. Even though I guess I personally don't have to sell our house or buy one, it still weighs heavily on my mind. Which is sort of dumb, considering that there's nothing I can do about it.

2. School, meh. Pretty self-explanitory. I've been working crazy hard to keep my grades up because of this new school I'll be going to.


And here's a sneak peak at some things coming soon on AM Station:

1. Cinder/Scarlet book review! Already spoke a bit about that, stay tuned!

2. Guest post! I'm pretty sure Perks of Being a Wallflower is going to be reviewed, but more on that later.

3. Camp Nanowrimo updates! I highly encourage you to take part in this upcoming camp. It sounds like it's going to be AMAZING!

Thanks for reading, guys. You all seriously rock my world-- thank you for taking the time to read my blog=)