Hunger Games Sadness

I'm feeling very left out at the moment reading all the posts about people planning to watch The Hunger Games this weekend and how excited they are. Just so you guys know, I REALLY WANT TO WATCH IT NOW TOO! But, sadly, the movie is only coming out here (South Africa) in THREE WEEKS TIME :-( Because clearly none of the in-charge-of-movie-releases-in-this-country people know what a big deal this is. And they are so missing out. And they're making us miss out.
*sniff*

Feel free to tell me in the comments how awesome the movie is!

PS - Because I'm a super multi-tasker, I'm also over at Arlee Bird's Tossing it Out today, talking about stop motion videos :-)

~  ~  ~

And I got tagged!

Daisy Carter from Fresh as a Daisy and Madeleine Maddocks from Scribble and Edit have both tagged me in the Lucky Seven game :-)

The Rules:
1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating.



This is from an MS I haven't looked at in nearly a year. I promise I didn't cheat. I'm just glad there was some interesting conversation happening on page 77! (In case you're confused, the MC is talking to Seth, but the character Max is also in the room.)

“I’ll have you know that there is no world that exists where I could possibly have been attracted to you.” She glanced quickly at Max, who was watching them from the comfort of his chair. He was now lounging sideways, his hands behind his head and his feet propped up on the armrest of Seth’s chair.

Seth laughed loudly. “Your passionate denial is amusing.” He reached over and ran a finger slowly down her cheek. “I could have you if I wanted, and any other girl too,” he boasted.

~  ~  ~

And I got an award!

Thanks so much, Melissa and Krista, for passing this award onto me :-)

• Favorite Color: Purple
• Favorite Animal: Tough choice. I'm gonna go with Scrat from Ice Age.
• Favorite Number: 13. It's supposedly unlucky, but I was born on the 13th :-)
• Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Fruit juice
• Facebook or Twitter: Hmm. If I had to choose to only use one forever... Ugh, no, I can't choose. They serve different purposes! Okay fine. Facebook.
• My Passions: Reading, writing, family, friends, God (not necessarily in that order!)
• Getting or Giving Presents: Giving. Especially when I know the person well and it's something I KNOW they will love!
• Favorite Pattern: Something with curly-flowery-leafy vectors.
• Favorite Day of the Week: Friday. Duh!
• Favorite Flower: Um ... the red ones?

Daymares and a Little Girl Pouting

Ooh, tagged again! Thanks, this time, to Traci Kenworth.

1. Daymare or Nightmare?
Daymare = a frightening hallucinatory condition experienced while awake (Oxford Dictionaries Online). That sounds super creepy, so I think I'll stick with nightmares!

2. How many books/short stories/poems/songs etc. have you written?
books: 1
unfinished books: several
short stories/novelettes: several
poems: a few
songs/compositions: less than 5

3. What genre is your current wip? 
Paranormal fantasy.

4. Do you have someone in your life who keeps you on track with your stories? Give them a shout out!
Kittie Howard :-)

5. Do you write what you know, or stretch your imagination, or both? 
Streeeeeeetch my imagination.

6. Who would you like to see on a coin/money? 
Doesn't really bother me, since I only look closely enough at money to tell how much it's worth! But apparently the new South African Rand banknotes are going to have Nelson Mandela on them, which I think is pretty cool :-) (though I do like the animals we currently have on our banknotes!)

7. What’s your favorite place to write and why? 
On my bed in the evening with stormy weather outside. It just works :-)

8. How would you describe your “voice”? eg. Southern gothic…
Hmm... the only way I can think to sum up my writing voice is YA :-) Think Kiersten White mixed with Stephanie Perkins (not that I would dare to compare myself to two such awesome authors! But that's the kind of "voice" I'm going for at the moment.)

9. Do you mix genres? Which ones? 
Fantasy and romance.

10. If you could move anywhere in the world where would it be? 
Um... possibly New Zealand. I kinda like it here in Durban, though :-)

11. What book (craft or otherwise) have you learned the most from?
Learned in terms of being a writer? Anything by Cassandra Clare.
Learned in terms of life in general? The Bible.


Since I've already been tagged before, and tagged 11 other people, and this game of tag has been going for a whiiiiiiiiile now, I'm gonna stop this branch of it here :-) You can all stop running now!

~  ~  ~

I've recently started taking note of the keyword searches that lead people to my blog. I like to occasionally share the most random ones :-)

rachel mcadams ass: yup. Seriously
lazy boy on couch: uh... don't remember doing a post on that specific topic!
y: just y. Nothing else.
little girl pouting: also don't remember ever mentioning a little girl pouting!
candle in darkness on far right side: that's, uh, very specific...
ichtys tetoválás: I understand the "ichtys" part (the fish shape used as a Christian symbol. I have it tattooed on my ankle), but I have no idea what "tetoválás" means. Anyone know?

Happy Weekend!

Outer Space Scares Me... and Other Random Facts

Thank you, Kathleen, for tagging me to answer 11 random questions about myself! It's good timing, too, what with all the new campaign members coming around and not having a clue who I am. I'm sure once they know about my weird habits (questions 2) and my hoarding tendencies (question 6) they'll definitely come by to visit again...

Um...

Wait! Stop! Where are you going?!

Okay, so here's the deal: I answer 11 questions from Kathleen, then I tag 11 people and ask them my own 11 questions. Here we go...

1. On average, how often do you look in a mirror (practicing faces for your writing does count!)?
Wait, so when I'm putting cream/makeup on my face, every time I look away and then back in the mirror, does that count as a separate occasion? How about checking out my hair in the ancient blank computer screen that sits on my desk at school?
Answer: no freakin' idea!

2. What is your weirdest/strangest/most interesting habit? Be honest!
Um... When I'm thinking I often hook the underside of my tongue ring over my bottom teeth. I try not to do that when standing in front of a class full of students, though!

3. If you could go anywhere in the UNIVERSE, where would it be and why? (Fictional places are totally part of the universe.)
There is one thing I want to see before I die and that is the Northern Lights. Sorry, I know that's still on this planet, but outer space kinda scares me!

4. What fictional character do you hate with a passion?
Hmm... President Snow from The Hunger Games books.

5. Upon landing on a deserted tropical island, you realize you have only one thing to help you survive! What is it?
My Kindle! And it would have a magical everlasting battery.

6. What do you hoard collect?
I don't think I technically hoard anything, but the closest thing would be books. There's nothing else I have in such vast quantities!

7. You’ve just landed on a brand new, never-before-discovered planet. What do you name it?
Rachel's Planet of Awesomeness?
No?
Okay... The One With The Purple Rings.

8. Fill in the blank: I am proud of myself for _______________.
... reaching the final word on that 120 000 word novel! (which I have yet to inflict upon the reading world)

9. You have half an hour to cook a meal for your family/friends/people. What do you make?
Half an hour? Seriously?! Probably pasta mixed in with whatever bottled pasta sauce I can find in the cupboard! Plus fresh herbs from the garden.

10. You’ve just been asked to give an impromptu speech on any subject. What do you talk about?
Um... social media? High school mathematics? I feel I know quite a lot about those two subjects at the moment!

11. Is there life beyond our planet?
Like I said before, outer space (and in particular, aliens) kinda scares me. So I'm sort of hoping there's no other life out there!

~  ~  ~

All right, I shall be tagging 11 people I have recently followed through the Writers' Platform-Building Campagin:

Kaylie Austen

Melissa Maygrove

Yelena Casale

Morgan Shamy

Julia King

Vicki Orians

Tina Moss

Melanie Stanford

Melissa Dean

Samantha Drane

Jocelyn Rish

And here are your 11 questions:

1. Describe yourself in one word.
2. What was your favourite book as a child?
3. eBooks or paper books?
4. If you could go back in time and change one thing in your life, what would it be?
5. What song is currently stuck in your head?
6. What fictional character do you most resemble?
7. If you could have any super power, what would you choose?
8. What is your favourite quote?
9. Are you a full-time writer or do you have some other day job?
10. Which book would you pick up first: awesome cover or super cool title?
11. Cream or ice-cream?

Looking forward to seeing your answers!

Another Game of Tag!

I was tagged by both Amy and Laura in the same day!

1. Do you think you're hot?

Right, since everyone else seems to be avoiding the real meaning of this question, I'm just going to go for it.
HELL YES!
(Okay, that was a joke, people, a JOKE! Stop looking so shocked! I'm actually really cold right now...)

2. Upload a picture or wallpaper you are using at the moment.

I have Windows 7 and my Desktop is set to the slideshow option of the landscape photos.

3. When was the last time you ate chicken?

At lunch time.

4. The song(s) you listened to recently.

This was playing on the radio when I drove back from gym just now...

5. What were you thinking while doing this?

I need to do this tag thing before I forget.
I think I pulled a muscle at gym. Why didn't I warm up properly?
I should dry my hair. Wet hair is probably why I'm still sick a week later...

6. Do you have nicknames? What are they?

Rach (That was kinda obvious, wasn't it?!)
My sister and I call each other Poo (or Poop). Can't quite remember why... I think it started out as Poodle.

7. Tag 8 blogger friends.

Okay, I'm gonna tag some of my newer followers :-)

• Gabrielle
• Gabriela Lessa
• ladygwen
• Nichole Giles
• Zan Marie
• Genna Sarnak
• Jacquelyn
• jenniefire

A Game of Tag

I have been tagged by fellow SA writer/blogger Misha from My First Book to answer the following questions:


If you could go back in time and relive a moment, what would it be?
That exact moment when I opened the newspaper on the day my Matric results came out and FINALLY discovered what I'd got... And it wasn't just the results themselves, but the entire terrifying world of possibility that lay before me at that point.

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
I'd go back to my first year at Cape Town University and HAVE MORE FUN! (I was so darned responsible and boring!)

What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
Ok, this isn't a movie/TV show, it's a book. The reason being because the whole way through reading it I was thinking THIS IS ME! The character was a neat freak, complete germ-o-phobe, scared of getting into trouble for missing classes, and quite happy to stay home and read a book instead of going out and partying. ANNA from Stephanie Perkins' ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS.

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?
Go see Misha's answer. We live in the same country with the same unfortunate politicians, and I feel the same way she does about this bloody agent (<--- if you've seen the interview you'll know who I'm talking about!) guy.

Name one habit that you want to change in yourself?
Biting my lip.

Describe yourself in one word.
Busy
(All the time!)

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.
Helpful
(She's doing a blog series (here and here) on tips to improve your and your audience's blogging experience)

Why do you blog? Answer in one sentence.
To amass adoring fans To chat with other readers and writers about stories, writing, publishing, rubbish and basically all things book-related.

Name at least three people to send this meme to, and inform them.
These are all people I've met recently:
Carla
Luana
Sammy



AND AND AND!! Don't go yet!

Sarah is hosting a blog hop (and competition!) to build links between and get to know other awesome writers :-)
(And I'm on her 20 Awesome People list! Eeeeee!)

R is for Random Question

You walk into a bookstore and there are two new books on the table in front of you. One has a supercool eye-catching cover, but a really lame title. The other has a drab and boring cover, but a really clever/witty/funny title. Which one do you pick up first?

How Many Have You Read?

Via J. C. Martin @ Fighter Writer

Apparently (I can't find an original source for this!), the majority of people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here...

Instructions:
• Copy this list.
• Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.



I have read:

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
   
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphe Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
24. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
25. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
26. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
27. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
28. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
29. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
30. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
31. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
32. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
33. Emma -Jane Austen
34. Persuasion – Jane Austen
35. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
36. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
39. Winne the Pooh - A. A. Milne
40. Animal Farm – George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
44. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
49. Atonement – Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
51. Dune – Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
61. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
71. Dracula – Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses – James Joyce
75. The Inferno – Dante
76. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal – Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession – AS Byatt
80. Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
93. Watership Down – Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
97. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
99. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
100. ??? (For you observant types, yes the list does appear to be missing book no. 100)

I have read 18! How many have you read?

Cherry on Top Award

1. Gratitude

Thank you ever so much to Writer's Block NZ for giving me the Cherry on Top Award :-)

2. Question: If I had the chance to go back and change one thing in my life, would I, and what would it be?

Nope. I've made some really big and scary decisions in my time, but every single one has led me to where I am now. And where I am now is exactly where I'm meant to be :-)

3. Passing on the Award

• Kirthi @ Dreaming in the Rain
• Madeleine @ Scribble and Edit
• Ellie @ ELLIE GARRATT
• Faith @ Literary Coldcuts on Toasty Buns
• RaShelle @ A No.2 pencil stat!
• Golden Eagle @ The Eagle's Aerial Perspective

Go visit the lovely blogs!

Sweet Friends Award

A) A big thank you to Quinn from seeing, dreaming... writing for giving me a Sweet Friends Award :-) Okay, I think it's actually called the Happy 101 Award, but what does that even mean? (If you know, please tell me!) I prefer Sweet Friends :-)

 B) Now to list 10 things that I love...

1. Sleeping - I take my sleeping very seriously.
2. Making music - piano, flute... plus a few other instruments I've experimented with over the years.
3. Pyjamas - I'd wear them all the time if it was socially acceptable.
4. Sushi - Oh. My. Gosh. AMAZING!
5. Tech-minded boyfriend - goes without saying, right?
6. Hot baths in winter - it's relaxing just thinking about it...
7. Chocolate - no list of loves would be complete without it!
8. Maths - come on, I teach it, it would be sad if I didn't love it.
9. Lentils - you think I'm weird? That's okay :-)
10. Jeans - the staple of my wardrobe (since I can't wear pj's all the time!).

C) And now to send the award on to up to six other people. And if you've already been given this award before, well then... lucky you, because I'm happy to give it to you again :-) And don't call me lazy for giving the award right back to Quinn! He was my first blogging buddy, after all :-)


1. Quinn @ seeing, dreaming... writing
2. Rachael @ Rach Writes...
3. Marieke @ Marieke's Musings
4. Tessa @ The Quest for a Literary Agent
5. Erica and Christy @ erica and christy

Erica and Christy are two separate people, okay! (anyone who was about to point out that I only listed five... He he he)

Now go check out their blogs. These people are awesome!

Book Shelves and Book Questions

Have you succumbed to the world of e-readers, storing your neatly organised bookshelves all inside one slim, attractive electronic device? Or do you, like me, still crave the feeling of holding a real book in your hands, turning real pages, and smelling real paper?

If you're like me...

Important Book Question #1

Where do you keep all these books, and how do you arrange them?

Because storage can become a serious problem! Every now and then I have to shunt a boxload of books off the shelf and into the storeroom outside...

When I was little I arranged my books by height. That was a little weird. Now that I'm slightly less weird I arrange my books by Importance. Books I read less often get moved higher (where I have to stand on a chair to reach them), and my favourite favourites remain at eye level :-)

Important Book Question #2

Do you use a bookmark or bend over the corner of the page?

Personally, I would chop off my own finger before bending the corner of page. Okay, perhaps that's a little severe... But seriously! Bending the page is like some kind of book sin! 

Important Book Question #3

Do you ever eat while reading?

Come on. CHOCOLATE + BOOKS. What could be better?!

~

Okay, so perhaps they're not important questions, but I'd like to hear your answers nonetheless :-)

Tag, You're It!

So, a fun game of tag has been circulating the blogosphere.

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, CONSIDER YOURSELF TAGGED!

That means you gotta answer these questions too!

1. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Why?

Ooh, so many options... Telekinesis is 

pretty cool (see Quinn's theory), but I think I'd go for something to do with FIRE, ie. pyrokinesis. Fire is beautiful, mesmerising, powerful...

2. Who is your style icon?

My sister. She always looks awesome!

3. What is your favourite quote?

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

I NEED books like I NEED air!

4. What is the best compliment you've ever received?

Hmm... Well, since it's all about writing on this blog, I'd have to go with the Commonwealth short story judges highly commending a story of mine :-)

5. What playlist/cd is in you ipod/cd player right now?

I only use my ipod at gym and my current gym playlist includes:

Locnville

David Guetta

Ke$ha

VNV Nation

The Veronicas

30 Seconds to Mars

6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?

When I was little and not allowed to stay up late, I was a night owl. Now that I can do whatever I want whenever I want I can't make it past 11... I know. Bad planning on my part.

7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?

Dogs. A source of unconditional love :-)

8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?

Rachel is my first name, Morgan is my second, and writing is what I love best.

~

If you want to see how other people have answered, go visit...

seeing, dreaming... writing

Renae Mercado

Coffey. Tea. And Literary

A No. 2 pencil stat!

~

And my follower count has reached the lovely round figure of 50 :-)

Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you, fabulous followers!