Poetic Voice - Homeschool Blogger

You know the feeling you get when...

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:25:00 -0500

... you come back to your blog after abandoning it for a month and realize that nothing has changed?

It's a slightly depressing feeling, I must assure you.

Yes, I have been off traipsing the high, forbidding mountains of LiveJournal and FanFiction.net, and having a glorious time of it too. You really must go visit my LiveJournal. I've been posting several times a week there, and I post artwork too! Too much fun.

Fanfiction! I cannot believe how much it has been a part of my life for the past three months, and I am ashamed when I read over my recent entries how little I have posted about it! Short stories have been flowing out my ears! If you visit my fanfiction profile, you will see all that I have done. Except for the bottom two stories, everything that you see has been written since July. I encourage you to read and enjoy. Out of all of mine, (and I know this is myself speaking, so I can't adequately recommend my own stuff), but I would suggest you try Original Solutions, A Childlike Happiness, and if you're up for some serious depressingness/angst, More than a Man.

Aside from the fanfiction, I have also been working on a fairy-tale type story that is threatening to become a novel. It's called Evanescent Moonlight, and I've posted the first chapter of it here. Currently it's about 15,000 words long, and I'm working on trying to finish writing Chapter 9 and editing Chapter 2.

Also, I am getting ready for NaNoWriMo 2009!! I'm so excited!!

Well, I think that about wraps it up for now.

Besides, of course, my birthday, which was on Friday. I am now 16!!

I fare thee well!

*dances off grinning*

The post in which Cherise spills her guts about her vacation

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 18:33:00 -0500

I think I was holding out on posting because I wanted to have a nice, polished post detailing my lovely little vacation. But, seeing as how I'm about to go insane from lack of blogging, I'm going to post whether or not it turns out well.

So yes, my vacation was lovely. All the beautiful scenery filled the writing brain back up. :)

A few salient points that stick out in my mind:

Box Canyon Falls, in Ouray -- oh my gosh, you see pictures of things like these in far away countries on the other side of the world, but I never expected to find them here, in my own state! The canyon was more like a giant, sculpted crack in the earth, at the far end of which was a waterfall. The water actually came into the canyon behind the rock, and there was this window-like hole in the rock through which you could see the water as it fell. And the water was literally blue! Anyway, I feel the place beat Reichenbach for poetic-ness by a long shot. If I have to get rid of a character, I'm throwing him into that waterfall. ;)

The Gondola at Telluride -- an absolutely free gondola that took you up and over the side of the mountain and into the next town! That was so fun. What made it even cooler was the fact that we had some rain storms rolling in, so we got a perfect view of the clouds resting on the mountains. Amazing things, the San Juan mountains. I spent days looking at them, and I still couldn't get over how high and craggy and majestic they were. I'll try to post some pictures.

Almost Dying -- twice, may I add? The first time we almost hit a four-point deer. Second time.... oh, I don't think I'll ever forget the second time. *shivers* We had stopped for lunch at this park in a little town in the middle of nowhere, right? My sister and I saw a merry-go-round thing -- you know, those metal things that you hang on to and run really fast to make it spin. Well, I've never gotten a chance to ride on one before, and I've always wanted to, so I grabbed my sister and we ran to go try it out. So here we are, spinning around merrily, when all of a sudden this huge gust of wind comes up from out of nowhere. I hear a huge, thunder-like crack behind me. The thing keeps spinning, an image flashes through my mind of one of the branches from the huge cottonwood tree behind me breaking off. My sister screams for me to run, hops off the thing (while it's still spinning! And this girl has a broken foot!), and runs back to the car. I try to obey her order, but I know I can't just jump off the thing without breaking a limb in the process. At last I manage to hop off, but with the sickening feeling in my stomach that if the branch really had been headed my direction, I would have been dead by now. I run back to the car, following my sister.

My mom is sitting in the front seat, staring at us with wide eyes. After a moment of trying to get our breath back under control (and keeping ourselves from going into hysterics), we walk back to look at the damage.

Fifteen feet away from where we were playing, two huge branches, both larger around than I am, have fallen against the swing set, making two V-shaped dents in the iron bar where they landed.

If the wind had been headed another direction....

Ugh, I don't want to even think about it. That's when you start waking up every morning and thanking God for just being alive.
So that was my vacation. *grin* Oh, and I forgot to mention that I got to eat authentic Thai food for the first time in my life -- cooked by a person from Thailand! It was yummy.

Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

Listen as Cherise's brain goes pop -- (A post in lists)

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:49:00 -0500

Facts:

School starts tomorrow (well, that isn’t exactly a fact – more on that later)
NaNoWriMo is in November
The deadline for the Watson’s Woes Challenge is tomorrow

Things that are also facts, and are related to those previously mentioned:

Today is the last day of freedom. (Ack! No wait, I’m surviving…. Breathe…..)
I have made a list of things that must be done before November. If everything on the list is not completed, I can’t do NaNoWriMo.
I have got to get myself writing. My entry for the challenge is not finished yet, and I don’t know if I quite have the courage necessary to plunge into all that depressingness.

The list of requirements for NaNoWriMo:

Phase outline for the novel-to-be must be complete.
In my Chemistry course, I must be finished with Module #5. (I’m scared of this one, mostly because I still have 2 ½ modules left to do from my Biology course last year. To give you some perspective, there are 16 modules in a one-year course.)
Christmas presents for everyone must be planned and/or started. (I really got myself into trouble last year when I woke up from NaNoWriMo and found that I didn’t have enough time to get everyone nice gifts.)
I must have completed some significant editing on Tears for the Silent Lands.

Things that surprise me about my pre-NaNo planning:

I’m allowing for the possibility of not doing NaNoWriMo
I’m allowing for the possibility of doing NaNoWriMo
Finishing Enchantress is not one of the requirements
In fact, actually writing anything besides the phase outline is not a part of the requirements.
The list of things that must be done is as short as it is.

Explanations for things unexplained in the previous two lists:

I have discovered my limits. Not limits to what I am able to do, but limits to what I can do and still function as a human being. I cannot keep driving myself to extremes, like I did during and after NaNoWriMo. During NaNoWriMo it was OK, but afterwards I still expected major output from myself, and it dried up my creative brain. And besides, quantity does not mean quality. I have decided to switch to writing quality work, and stop caring so much about how long it takes me to write a novel.
Enchantress is a pickle. It just is. It requires more time and contemplation than I have to give it at the moment. If I force myself to work on it, then I will most likely mess it up again like I have been doing, and I don’t want to do that. I’m only going to write it when I can write it so that it’s God-honoring, and not some self-fulfilling borderline junk.
I can’t be all output without no refinement. I have to edit sometime in order to sharpen my writing style.
I will not fall behind in my other responsibilities. I just can’t. Therefore, I will make sure I am caught up before I am stuck writing for a month.

And there you have it.

The Cleverness of Me

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:17:00 -0500

I'm posting again! Oh, the cleverness of me!

Of course, most people would have the decency to post more often than I do, which means it really isn't that clever that I'm posting again, but oh well. I just felt like saying that.

And you know, it is rather clever to post again when you're worn out from a sleepover at your grandma's where you stayed up too late, and you feel like a complete vegetable. Yes, for a vegetable such as I, posting is almost brilliant.

Now, the really clever thing would be to come up with something to say, other than merely stating that I'm clever.

Hmmm....

Oh, perfect!

Some of those who stop by this blog will have seen these already. But I know some of you haven't, and now you can see them!

To sum it up, I found this free photo-editing site called Picnik.com, and I've fallen in love with it. My art muse went crazy, and if you click the fabulous link that is staring you in the face, you shall see the fruits of my labor.

Please, comment and tell me what you think!

Other than that, I must announce that I have filled my playlist to the brim. 200 fabulous songs, with no room for any more. Please, scroll down the very last two and listen to them, because they're absolutely beautiful and inspiring. They're composed by James Newton Howard, so how could they not be brilliant?

Other than the previous 'other than that', the Watson's Woes LJ community is having a challenge, the deadline for which is Friday, and I've only just started working on it. Please pray that I get it done by Friday, if not before, and that it will be really good and that all the lovely peoples will vote for meeeeeeee so that I can win.

Speaking of which, I did place second in the last challenge they had, and they gave me a lovely banner which I've been meaning to post for forever but haven't gotten around to until now:

Lovely, ain't it?

School starts Friday, I think, and contrary to my expectations, I'm beginning to like the idea of it. I've been wasting my own time for far to long, and once again I will get to have new things of substance poured into my brain! Here's hoping that the state of my life will improve as a result of this, because.... in case you haven't noticed.... it's a wreck. It's been a wreck for quite some time, but once again the fact comes glaringly to the surface of my mind, to the point that I cannot ignore it. I'm just glad God doesn't give up on people, right?

Hope you have a lovely rest of your week!

"No, no, let me explain: she said..... what were we talking about again?"

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:14:00 -0500

The title is a real-life quote from my dear sister, who was trying to help the rest of the family understand something I said, since apparently I mumbled. *giggle* Her, um, speech has been rather interesting of late. Take, for instance, her habit of replacing important words with words that sound similar (I'll let you guess what word she actually meant to say):

(Talking about grapes)
Me: This one tastes a little funny.
Rachel: Maybe it's cemented.

(Talking about a shirt that was a little immodest -- and here I shall proceed to embarrass her.)
Rachel: It was so low! I mean, I wasn't showing any cartilage, but still.

Alright, enough of the embarrass-Rachel fest. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to tell my stories. ;D

The reason for this post, dear reader, is that I happen to be in a posting mood, and I already posted on my LJ. I have little snippets of things that I've been wanting to share with you for a while, and I thought I'd throw them together into a post.

Now the dreaded anti-new-movie rant.

As some of you may know, there is a new Sherlock Holmes movie coming out Christmas of this year.

*tries not to gag before she's ready*

Since you cannot share in my hatred of it until you have seen a preview, I shall proceed to give you the link to the preview. Please note this is a MODERN movie, so of course it comes with lots of warnings attached. I rate the preview as being PG-13, which is probably the rating the movie will have. There is evil lady in it who does several very inappropriate things, so be forewarned. The ONLY reason I am posting this is so that you don't have to go hunt it down on your own to know what I'm talking about. I do NOT recommend it, and I hate the fact that I'm even posting a link to it.

Oh, and if you have any understanding of what Sherlock Holmes is SUPPOSED to be like, you should be horrified beyond belief.

The link is here.

Now that a few of you brave souls have actually seen the preview (and hopefully been disgusted -- if not, I need to talk to you), then you will have a better understanding when I show you this drawing that made me very happy (rated PG to be safe):

The drawing that made me happy.

GO SHERLOCK!!!!

And here's a picture of the real Sherlock Holmes:

I couldn't resist. :) In memory of our dear Jeremy Brett. *wipes tear away from eye*

Anyhow, there's your fangirl rant of the day! If you wish, please go read my fanfiction. *inserts shameless self-plug*

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Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

Terror

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:40:00 -0500

School came up as a topic of conversation over lunch – the first time it's been discussed seriously in more than two months. And now that the meal is over, I'm sitting on my bed, pondering why my first reaction to the thought of school was terror.

Terror? Where did that come from? I can understand disappointment or even anger, but to feel a mind-numbing fear that still ripples through my neck and shoulders.... it seems horribly illogical.

I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm a reasonably intelligent homeschooled girl belonging to a good Christian family. Aside from a deplorable tendency to get behind because of my own laziness, I don't have any subjects I struggle at. I'm never terribly overloaded with all the things I need to do, the school atmosphere is pleasant and friendly. And at base, I like to learn. Why this fear? I don't understand.

What exactly am I afraid of?

Is it that I'm afraid of having so many hours of my time taken for studies I have to do, whether I want to or not? That must be part of it. I am very possessive where my time is concerned: I guard it jealously, and mourn over the loss of it.

Is it the fear of having my mind being enslaved to whatever it is I have to learn, unable to ponder my own thoughts? Yes, at least partially. I think I could stand six hours of physical labor every day better than I can stand the thought of parting with my reflections for those same six hours. As long as my mind is free, then I do not care about captivity. But when I must apply my mind to technical things like math (forgive me actually speaking the name!) – that is the true imprisonment. What is my soul to do during that time? It sits idle, wilting, with no notion of where to go or what to feel. The life of the soul ceases while one is doing math.

Fear of stress? Oh yes. Much stress. Science modules that should have been finished a month ago. Literary analysis reports that must be written, though I can find nothing intelligent to say on the subject. School's-over-memorize-science-terms-finish-math-homework-eat-dinner-write-for-half-hour-bedtime-sleep-wake-up-school-again. How do you breathe when life is like that?

Perhaps the biggest fear, and the one I am most hesitant to name, is the fear of lack of direction. The fear that all our programs are just wasting time, and that I will come to the end of my school career and find myself inadequate to face the real world. That all this time I should have done something else with my highschool years. That I am a failure.

I must be overreacting. It can't be as bad as all this. I will survive somehow.

At least, I hope.

~ / ~ / ~

Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

Hmmm.... thinking....

Sat, 1 Aug 2009 10:31:00 -0500

Writing is a pickle. Literally. It's got a smooth skin with an interesting bumpy texture, and when you bite into it it's sour, and yet you still want to eat more of it.

Wow, I didn't think I'd come up with that good of an illustration on a whim.

Anyways, writing has been just like that: I am wearing myself out by writing too much, and forcing myself to write even when I don't want to, and thinking that I can't do anything except write. And yet when I tell myself I should take a break, I can't -- I'm addicted to a pickle.

Surprisingly, though writing fanfiction helped for a little bit, I now have that feeling you get when you eat too much chocolate -- stuffed with fluff, and not enough veggies. I love writing fanfiction, but I can't get over the nagging feeling that it's going nowhere.

I posted a post on my LiveJournal a few days ago that ties into this issue, and I would be pleased if y'all would read it. It explains something I've realized with my writing style -- something that I find highly disturbing.

I hope this post makes sense. I wrote it on a whim, and it's yet to be determined whether my bleak outlook is the product of reality, or merely the result of a dreadful case of heartburn.

~ / ~ / ~

Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

WHAT did you do with your Avatar???

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:44:00 -0500

I know, it doesn't make sense to any of you that I should replace my beautiful Padme / Faeryn picture with this strange man with a funny smirk on his face.

First of all, I am not replacing the picture for good. I am just taking a vacation from it and having a little fun being un-poetic. In due time I will bring it back, and then you can relax once more and forget that these other strange pictures ever appeared on my account.

By way of explanation, the 'strange man' is Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Jeremy Brett. That should do a good deal to enlighten you on my reason for choosing it. If you're still in the dark.... well, I'm sorry.

All credit for this beautiful masterpiece of an avatar goes to KCS, who on top of making lovely avatars writes amazing Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. Click here to visit her LiveJournal, or click here to read her fanfiction.

By the way, bonus points to anyone who recognized the avatar at first glance. You get a high-five and a cookie. ;D

Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

Drabble!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:34:00 -0500

I have written my first fanfiction drabble for Sherlock Holmes, which may be viewed here. In case you all are wondering, a drabble is a short story or scene that is exactly 100 words in length. Please read and tell me what you think!

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Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

Now all that remains is to title the darn post, for which I have neither the desire nor the stamina....

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:53:00 -0500

Considering the sheer number of people who have reprimanded me for not posting, (and seeing that I have not posted since last month), I thought I should break my silence, even if I do risk getting potted plants, rotten tomatoes, warn-out slippers, and other undesirable items thrown at my head for posting again without even having the decency to comment back anyone who's commented on here.

Here, I declare a truce. You don't have to comment if you don't want to. You probably wouldn't anyway, but I'm just saying you don't have to feel obligated to. I am posting merely because there are a few people who want to read about my life even if I don't comment back, and they get grumpy (and violent, I've noticed) if I don't post. Just to let you know that I have not forgotten that I owe everyone a huge debt in comments.

Hmmm.... my life. I don't know what to say. I know what I think, but unfortunately I have so many conflicting thoughts about it, all of which are jumbled up in such a horrid tangle, that if I attempted to dissect any of them in detail the whole mess would fall onto the paper in all its unglory (I just made up that word, aren't I clever?), and I'd end up telling you a bunch of nonsense, which wouldn't help me sort it out any better, and wouldn't help you process it any better either. (Although it probably would give you plenty of material if you wished to blackmail me at any point in the future.)

I'll take it one step at a time.

What have I been doing? Wasting my time. I could write a very long rant about that, but I won't.

Oh, what have I really been doing? Well, I've been doing a lot of writing, and a lot of procrastinating on my leftover schoolwork, and only a little of the schoolwork itself. I've ranged between reading almost nothing to reading so much that I forget to do my writing. In the past week, I've been having cycles of spiritual breakthroughs followed by slumps where I sink back into all the junk that would like to keep control of my life.

I suppose I had better mention my recent Sherlock Holmes obsession now intentionally, before it comes out on accident. Yes, it really is a full-blown obsession, and it has taken up the better part of the month. Since I can't figure out how to post videos on HSB, I'll just give you this lovely little link to my LiveJournal (and watch as everyone dives for cover at my sudden use of alliteration). I posted an amazing Sherlock Holmes video that I found on there. I also posted a little mini-rant along with the video. I am compelled to say, Jeremy Brett is the most amazing Sherlock Holmes ever. He practically IS Holmes, in my mind, and I daresay I can find a ton of other fans who would agree with me. (A bit of trivia: as a young man, Jeremy Brett played Freddy in My Fair Lady. You know, “I have often waaaalked, down this street befooooore.....” *sings* I could not imagine two completely opposite characters to portray, and yet he executed them both beautifully!)

As a result of this obsession, I now have a new cause. I'm calling it the “Dr. Watson is not a bumbling idiot” cause. Anyone who has read the stories knows I'm right. Dr. Watson is a smart, honorable, kind, honest man, one that I would be proud to know! He just has the misfortune to have the most brilliant private consulting detective ever as his roommate.

*ends rant* Alright, if I don't stop now, I never will. I could go on for hours, and I have other things to tell you about.

*glances at list* Actually, considering the lengthiness of the other subjects I want to relate to you, I think I will end this post here and continue it in the next few days. That way, this post won't be insanely long, and I won't wear out my fingers. I have yet to cover fanfiction (which has a whole host of issues tying into it), and Farbeyond, so don't let me forget!

I remain your humble, if somewhat lazy, blogger. (Ah, wait, take back the humble part. Good, now I'm really humble. Isn't humility strange like that? As soon as you realize you have it, it's gone.)

~Cherise

(P.S. I've changed my mind and decided to leave you with this lovely Sherlock Holmes quote:

Holmes: "Where do you think that I have been?"
Watson: "A fixture also."
Holmes: "On the contrary, I have been to Devonshire."
Watson: "In spirit?"
Holmes: "Exactly. My body has remained in this arm-chair, and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco."

Don't you feel like that some days? "Good grief, now where'd those cookies get too.... oh, nevermind."

Quote taken from Chapter 3 of The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)

~ / ~ / ~

Copyright 2009 by Cherise A. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.