The Hunger Games

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Written by: on Monday, June 17th, 2013

Daily Prompt: Bookworm
Tell us about the last book you read (Why did you choose it? Would you recommend it?). To go further, write a post based on its subject matter.

I almost answered “The Casual Vacancy” by JK Rowling but I’m still trying to make my way through that book. The last book I read was “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.

I chose the book because after watching the movie, I decided that it might be interesting enough to see how the story was actually written. I also wanted to know how she tackled all those characters in one setting. I was surprised that it was first person, present tense and it took a little bit of energy to get used to it. Then I pretty much flew through the book and it was okay. I recommend it for anyone that liked the movie.

I think a lot of people pretty much know about the setting. Twelve districts, two tributes are picked from each (children – one boy and one girl), and they’re all put in a special arena where they kill each other until only one is left standing. There’s cameras everywhere so it’s all fun entertainment for the posh people living in the Capital.

 

State of Vermont

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Written by: on Thursday, August 25th, 2011

The Daily Post asks: Have you been to where your parents were born?
Have you been to where your parents were born? What was it like? If you haven’t been, describe how you imagine it to be.
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Yes, I have. Many, many times. My parents were born and raised in Vermont. It seems practically everyone in the family was born there. That’s why doing the family tree was pretty easy. I didn’t have to dig for information in lots of other states, just pretty much Vermont since they’ve been there for generations on end.

While growing up, I dreaded the family trips. No matter where my father was stationed at the time (Retired Marine and living on base housings in different states), we always went by car. I absolutely hated the trips. I hated being shuffled from house to house. I hated the sleeping arrangements.

I’ve never been to any of the touristy areas of Vermont. I don’t know these big tree-covered mountains and ski resorts that Vermont is often represented as. It usually depends on where the relatives lived. Some lived by themselves near/in woods because they were hunters. My grandmother lived in a regular neighborhood. There really isn’t anything that stood out that made it a beautiful place to visit. It was always rushing around so that my parents could see their family before we had to leave.

I do remember once that we ended up in the middle of nowhere with lots of farmland. My mother pointed to this really old house and said that she grew up there as a kid with her siblings. That was pretty neat at least…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sky

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Written by: on Friday, July 1st, 2011

The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge is Sky. I was really surprised to see this because earlier tonight I took a picture of these purple rays coming out of the clouds!

Makes me want to write a story including a scene like this where some magic is bursting behind the clouds because of some powerful character or something!

 

True Blood – Be Vampire or Vampire Hunter?

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Written by: on Sunday, June 26th, 2011

Ah, a new season of True Blood starts tonight on HBO at 9pm EST. Can’t wait! I also love how LiveJournal’s “Writer’s Block” question for today is this:
Would you rather be a vampire or a vampire hunter, and why?

I would definitely be a vampire hunter.

I don’t want to live forever and always be thirsting for blood. I know there’s stories where vampires are ‘sane’ until they smell blood. There’s stories where vampires don’t die if they haven’t had blood in so long. On and on.

I’m not sure about what kind of Vampire Hunter I’d be. I know there’s some where they have to invent special weapons that can move faster than vampires. Then you have some ‘hunters’ that are endowed with powers and strength in order to keep up with vampires.

2011 AW Community Photograph

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Written by: on Saturday, June 25th, 2011

An interesting late afternoon with a lot of people gathering in ActiveWorlds AWGate for a community photograph. I’m afraid my personal screenshots weren’t very good but I just took ’em for fun.

Took this at 4pm.

Gaia and Riff were there too.

Took this at 5pm.

Pretty weird to see a lot of faces in the area. There were lots of black silhouette ‘placeholders’. I imagine to keep down the lag from too many avatars in one area. I believe that there were more people to the far left but where my avatar was placed, I was too far out of view to see them all.

CreateSpace Proof Copy arrived!

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Written by: on Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

I was stunned the proof copy arrived today when the estimated date was the 7th. It arrived in a box but nothing to hold it in place. Upon opening the box, the book looks like one of those ‘gently used’ books because of the cover being a bit banged up.

Cover

There’s this weird not-quite-bent-but-you-can-see-it edging…

cover close-up

The inside is pretty awesome. The text looks like it’s fading but that’s just the camera flash killing the text. The text is really easy to read.

Interior

The very last page at the end of the book has a page inserted that says in large letters “PROOF” with a barcode and the date. I imagine that’s there to let the company know that it’s a proof.

I think if I had more time before the ‘free proof copy’ code expired (It was a code given to NaNoWriMo 2010 winners in order to get a free proof copy from CreateSpace), I would’ve taken the time to make my own cover. Now that I have the book in my hand, the cover does make it seem painfully obvious that it was designed by a template program. I was worried after reading threads on CS that I might hit into unexpected setbacks where they might turn me down for something I did wrong and it’d take longer and longer to have it approved. Everything was approved on first submission so I managed to get it in before the code would’ve expired June 31st.

I was also asked this twice so I’ll place it here in case. CreateSpace does require you to order a proof copy of your book before you can start selling it. Therefore CreateSpace is not a ‘totally free’ option to publish a book. Had I not had the code from NaNoWriMo, I would’ve had to pay $7.74 for my proof copy (5×8, cream paper, 304 pages). I don’t know if shipping is free for proof copies but I didn’t have to pay for it.

And thus, this ends my journey. It’s weird to look back at the first post I made about NaNoWriMo and trying to decide if I should do it or not. Now I face a new concern. If I were to do NaNoWriMo 2011, will I not make as much effort because I might feel, “I did it before, I don’t need to prove myself again”? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when the time comes around again…