Random Thoughts - Blank Page Edition.

I remember when I was in Year 12 and my English teacher said 'There is nothing more daunting than a blank page.' While that may be true with writing an essay, I find it is completely different when you are writing fiction.

You see when you are writing fiction you are actually placing a piece of you soul, your hopes, fears, and love on to a page for one day to read. That is the daunting part, the fact that one day this may be read by someone who thinks its nothing more than a big pile of poopoo.

It is actually exciting to fill a blank page. There is endless possibilities when you are faced with a blank page. You can create a world that you the writer can get lost in. A world that you can control when the world around you is self imploding either by acts of God or acts of Humans.

It's the only control one can ever have. The control over the blank Page

Writing Update

I have changed the name of my novel.

I know it doesn’t seem that big of a deal seeing that the likely hood of it getting published it right up there with a shark eating me while an asteroid falls on my head, but it’s a big deal to me. 

Actually it’s not as big of a deal as it should.

It’s gone from Wanted to The Wanted. I think that ‘The’ makes it sound more dramatic. Well I put a dramatic emphases on it when I say it so bleh to you.

What are your thoughts on my (un)dramatic title name

Anna and the book Review.

I really, really, really wanted to do a book review. So I did.

As I have mentioned, I love stories, and most of all I love good stories. The problem now a days is that book stores tend to cater to the newest trend. In the Young Adult section (and yes that is the area I always go to first) there is copious amounts of supernatural themed books. Which yay, that’s good for a nerd like me but they all sound the same by the blurb. ‘He was harbouring a deep dark secrete he was a vampire, a vampire in loooove.’ Well most of them are worded a bit better than that, but now it has come to a point where I just roll my eyes when I see them.

Vampires and young forbidden love have now become very much the trend, and like with the Teenage RomComs you have to sort through a lot of crap before you get something good. However there is a time when a book bucks the trend. The book which is the subject of this review does not deal with the supernatural love, and lets face it, that's a bit of fresh air.

Enter Anna and the French Kiss. I had heard about this book through the VlogBrothers, and if you don’t know who they are, seriously get on youtube. John Green (who too is an author) spoke about this book, and as a Nerd Fighter I just had to check it out. Now I didn’t have high hopes for this book, to be honest. I didn’t expect it to be anything more than what the title suggests. I thought it would just be about Anna shoving her tongue down peoples throats. But hey it was summer and it sounded fun so why not give it a whirl.    

Now maybe it was because of the low expectations, or because I am a hopeless romantic but I fell in love with this book.

Anna and the French Kiss had something most Young Adult Romance books don’t have – it had realistic love.

It was a first person narrative, which just adds to reality of the story. I often find the best use of first person narrative is with characters that are relatable, that are normal. Which is why Harry Potter is Third Person because let’s face it there is only one chosen one – but back to the point.

Now it could be because I am a film nerd (like Anna) or I would love to spend a year in Paris (where this story takes place) but this book had me enthralled. I cared about the characters, and the scenery, I cared about the relationships, not just the romantic ones but the friendships. I hated St. Clair father and laughed at Anna’s dad’s expense (come on we all know that author who writes tragic love stories where someone dies or some real heart breaking condition. *cough* Notebook *cough*)

It was tremendously romantic, without going corny. It was beautiful without being sappy. It was entertaining without being slapstick. And most of all it was realistic. Stephanie Perkins has really captured what it is like to be young and in love, but real love not that co-dependent I can’t breathe unless you tell me too, love.

The only sad thing about this book is that it ended – which sounds stupid to say, and I get that. But I loved being in that world so much I wanted to get in a time machine go back to when I was seventeen and somehow become an American and then go and enrol into that school. Yes I know it would be impossible but just let me have my dream.

I am really looking forward to the next book Stephanie Perkins writes but I have to admit I am a little weary. While I loved beyond all reasoning Anna and the French Kiss, can someone really capture lighting in a bottle twice? Neither less I will get it as soon as I can here in Australia and read my little heart out.

I really do recommend this book to any hopeless romantic or any cold hearted bitty. Because it will either fill your yearly hopeless romantic quota or melt your frosty heart. 

Check out Stephanie Perkins' website here

Writing isnt as easy as a blog would suggest

You know what’s hard? Writing emotional scenes.

There is just something about trying to make the reader feel some kind of emotion seems a bit forced to me. Normally my rule of thumb is, if I cry while writing it, at least someone will cry while reading it. But so far it hasn’t worked with the scene I am writing.

This scene isn’t particularly pivotal at the moment and maybe I am just wanting a emotional scene, so really I shouldn’t push it into something it’s not. Because there is no point trying to make it into this melodramatic scene when you are trying to base something in reality.

Good talk guys,

Now back to writing. Only a couple of chapters left.

My aim is to have it all finished including an edit by ANZAC day for those of you who don’t know that’s the 25^th of April. Nothing says ANZAC day more than finishing a book about the supernatural eating young not so pure girls and guys and stuff, its kinda blood bath-y.

Yay Lets start a blog

I thought, hey I have already allowed one blog to fall by the waist side why not try for a second, so here I am.

You see wonderful judgemental people of the cyber space, I am an aspiring author in my last couple of chapters of writing my first novel, and so I thought ‘Hey why don’t I write a blog documenting the last stages and then maybe my quest to get it published.’ Don’t worry though my dear spam readers, I am not naive enough to believe I will get published, but if there is one thing the internet likes, is hearing about people failing. So once again here I am.

Who am I?

Well isn’t that a loaded question? I could start off with saying my name – but how does that really describe who I am?

Don’t worry dear readers, I am not a douche, questions like that will not be posed regularly in blogs. But then again I cant promise they will never be posed.

I am Kara, simple enough, 21, even simpler, female – well now that’s complicated. I am opinionated but hey who isn’t. The truth is we all think we are right, we all have our convictions but only some are so annoyingly arrogant about it, it kind of makes you want to slam a phone in their face. And no I am not Russel Crowe. I am average, every day, and it’s kind of nice. But then again who doesn’t want to be extraordinary.

However I have one thing that most writing, aspiring or not, don’t have. I know what it’s like to fear to write and read. It’s not because I was afraid that it was going to be crap, because as you can tell from my last paragraphs I have no problem with being crap, its more the fact that I didn’t want to be judged. Being judged is something nearly everyone hates, even more so if you are charged with murder, but I was afraid of being judged as ‘dumb’.

You see dear beloved one reader I may or may not have. I had a learning disability. It’s a weird term, but I guess it’s pretty true. To be disabled means to be hindered in your day to day life and when you can’t spell much more than your name functioning in society leaves you a little short.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a desire to read and write, but it also as if I was pushing myself to the preverbal limit to be able to. I just thought it was my lot in life.

Enter stage right Harry Potter.

I like many of my generation have Harry Potter to thank for reading. I have always loved stories, but when you can’t read you stick mainly to the ones acted, and I use the term ‘acted’ extremely loosely, on television. Yet there was something about the world of Harry Potter that not only taught me to read but to love to read and write.

But this isn’t a platform for me to gush about my love for the boy wizard but to explain why I am doing this. For me to come from the girl who had to learn to read and write while others were going on their first dates to the girl who is almost finished writing her first novel – it’s quite a feat, even if no one ever reads a single word of my story. So I wanted to document it, and as I am living in the 21^st century I am obligated to do it in a public setting, while still keeping some anonymity.

I hope you enjoy what this blog may end up offering, if you don’t, well sucks to be you.

Remember the 3 R’s Reading, Reaching and Robot Dancing