I speak to you today…

… not as a blogger. Not as a friend. But as a publicist. 

Friends. Blog readers. Commenters. Lend me your eyes (and your trust in Twitter recommendations).

If you have any taste at all, follow @CMaine_Official on twitter. It is the Twitter page of Christopher Maine, the writer whose fanclub I am self-elected president, and it’s only just started but follow him – it contains probably the most creative countdown (for something incredibly exciting!) I’ve seen, and don’t forget – you can read and follow his blog at http://www.christophermaine.wordpress.com , and you can buy his first novel “Dragon Flight: Renegade” at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Flight-Renegade-Tales-ebook/dp/B007B3CZF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336334468&sr=8-1 .

Time for a light-hearted post!

I’m going to ease myself back into blogging with a couple of light-hearted posts. To be honest, I’m not feeling an awful lot better, which isn’t a good thing when I’m on the last day of my antibiotics, but I guess it’s going to take a while. So, for my first light-hearted blog, I’m going to basically just post pictures of things I really really like. Sounds a bit simplistic – that’s exactly what it is, and that’s why I like it so much. I’ve been posting all these “Moom’s Views”, which I will continue with eventually, I have a draft of a post about Samantha Brick floating around somewhere that needs finishing and posting, and it’s all well and good but it gets a bit upsetting and miserable after a while, because it seems like there’s not very much about the world to celebrate these days. So, I’m going to celebrate some of the things that I like about life. Obviously top of the list is my boyfriend, my family and my dog, but I’m not going to post pictures of them – I want to protect their privacy and not force them to have their pictures broadcast all over the internet by me!

1. VW Campervans

  

If you’ve seen my Tumblr, you’ll have realized by now how much I love VW campervans. I don’t know what it is – maybe it’s the distinctly hippie air they all carry, which I do love, or just how amazing and rounded they look and how much they make me think of holidays and fun, and I love them! Personally my ideal one would be sunshine yellow like in the first picture, or sunset colour ❤

2. Disney

I love Disney, more than any other film genre (I think it’s possible to call Disney its own genre by now, because there’s nothing else that really applies to it. Animation could refer to anything and cartoons don’t quite cover it, so I’m gonna say that Disney is a genre of its own). There’s so many things about it – there’s always a happy ending and I love the fairytale ones. My particular favourite is “Tangled”, the Disney re-telling of Rapunzel, because of the amount of just plain beautiful scenes in it.

  

3. Gaming

I wouldn’t call myself a mad gamer, as in it’s not my whole life, but I am partial to the odd go on the PS3 every now and again – particularly Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m a violent person, but I love that game – mainly because you can get rocket launchers and blow things up, but also because I’m fairly good at it considering I don’t think I’ve ever been good at shooting games before. I’m not going to post any pictures of this because I think everyone knows what MW2 is, and if you don’t, try playing the game – it really is quite fun. Downside is, I’m one of those annoying girl-gamers, who puts her clantag as “Girl” so that all the guy n00bz playing know that they’re getting decimated by a girl. I’m not just a mindless killer, however – I do also like playing games like The Sims (the third is my favourite) and Spyro 🙂

4. Haribo

Yep, I love Haribo. Not going to lie, I prefer Haribo to chocolate. Yes, I am a disappointment to the entire female side of the species, but what can I say? Chocolate gets sickly, I’ve never known Haribo to. And the variety! With chocolate, you’ve got three types – milk, dark and white. Yeah, you can have your fillings or whatever, but with Haribo, there’s just so many different types! In just one bag you can have foamy eggs, little hearts, cola bottles, gummy bears, rings – *sigh* it’s amazing! And then you’ve got Tangfastics, Super Mix, all the seasonal variants, mini packs – it’s just wonderful. And it’s happy! It really is a happy world of Haribo ❤

  

5. Llamas & Alpacas

Yes, I think we’ve all ascertained by now that I like llamas. Perhaps not to the extent of my little April Fool’s Day escapade (not enough to dedicate my whole blog to, and certainly not more than life itself), but I do really like llamas. I’m not averse to their fluffier cousins, the alpacas, either – in fact, I might even be inclined to say that I prefer alpacas to llamas. But really, how can anyone dislike the fluffy long-necked goat things? I mean, just the description of them is amazing! And their faces! Look at their cute widdw faces!

  

 

Aaaand that concludes my light-hearted post. Normal miserable service will resume shortly. Thank you for your patience.

The power of music!

Music is a truly amazing thing. It can move people to tears, melt the hardest of hearts and bring a smile to your face when you’re feeling at your worst. It also has benefits that can be more personal to you – for instance, I find it very hard to write if I don’t have music on. However, it has to be instrumentals, or classical/acoustic. I can’t write to many songs with words – pop songs, rock songs etc are all out of the question. The only two songs with lyrics that I have on my writing playlist right now are an acoustic version of “Cancer” by My Chemical Romance, and “Who Wants To Live Forever”, the Katherine Jenkins version of the Queen classic.

I’m not sure what it is about the lyrics – perhaps that I find myself wanting to sing along, and that distracts me from actually doing any productive writing – but I really struggle to write if the music I listen to has any fast-paced lyrics. I mainly use “soundtrack” music – I believe the correct term is “epic score” or something similar. I find the best two groups for this are Two Steps From Hell and Immediate Music – both of these groups have such a variety of pieces available (I say “pieces” rather than “songs” because they are – they are beautifully orchestrated and incredibly emotional. You can get pieces that range from mind-blowingly epic to heartbreakingly emotional and tear-jerking, and my Writing playlist is full of their pieces.

Personally, I find it easier to write with the emotional music – when it’s epic, I often find myself having to sit back and actually losing myself in the music, and I picture epic battle scenes that usually don’t actually fit with where I am in the story at the moment – because it seems to enhance my writing somehow. If I’m writing a particularly sad scene, I will find one piece, which I feel best represents the emotions I’m trying to show in the scene, and I will listen to it on repeat constantly until I’ve finished the chapter. There are some chapters, like the epic long one in this book, where I actually have a smaller playlist playing on loop to write it, because the characters are experiencing such a plethora of emotions, and I want all the different pieces on hand to help me to write it. It seems to work pretty well – I’m so proud of that chapter I wrote, and I’m convinced the music I chose played a definite part in it.

There are some people who can’t write to music, but they find that music helps them to picture scenes in their heads, and even helps them to come up with new scenes – one of the Immediate Music pieces, “Boy Wonder”, basically gave me the whole scene in my head of the first chapter of what will be the sequel to the trilogy I’m currently writing, and that all came from around two minutes of music – just two minutes of noise, but it’s some of the most beautiful and most inspiring “noise” I have ever heard.

So, if you’re ever struggling for a plot, or the words just don’t want to flow, slip on your headphones (or better yet, play it out loud if you don’t have to be considerate of neighbours!), go to YouTube and find some of this epic score music – search for Two Steps From Hell or Immediate Music, listen to a few of their pieces and then see what the Recommendations bar down the side of the video suggests to you – you might just find a new piece of music that gets your story back on track!

Why My Life Is Awesome :)

These are the reasons why I love my life 🙂

– It seems that I have a pretty bright future ahead of me.
– I don’t need the reassurance of others all the time – sometimes I get insecure, but most of the time, I know if I’m doing something right.
– I don’t lie about serious matters just to get attention and sympathy.
– I know the value of friendship – it’s not something you just throw away for the sake of attention.
– I can write my own stuff – it may not be any good, BUT at least it’s original.
– I’ve got a fairly good idea of what I want to do with my life – I’ll work out the fine details later on, but for now I’ve got plans and I know how to achieve them.
– I’m not afraid to do what I enjoy for fear of what others might think of me.
– Only a few more months left at college and then I’M NEVER GOING BAAAACK 😀
AND now the more important ones.

– I have an amazing family who are always there for me, even if other people turn against me.
– I have the best boyfriend a girl could wish for.
– I’m actually, genuinely happy 🙂