First Sentence(s)

I’m working really hard at getting two one-shots done for Mara’s WWC. They’re both for old challenges, but to prove I’m actually working, I want to try a little experiment.

This one I’ve mostly written by plunking out the first sentences of each paragraph and filling in the rest after my thoughts collected. So how about we take a look at what are so far the first sentence of each paragraph!

Disenchanted

The instability of Zoe’s magic was no secret.

Until the curse, she’d never done more than splintered a goblet, or froze a budding tree by mistake.

Then there was Raine.

Everything about her echoed her name.

Worst of all she had no magic.

Brak was disenchanted with the—paradoxically—ordinary mirage of what could be accomplished with spells and potions.

It all came about because of a slight.

They were in the glade, herding river gnats into a jar for Mizzy’s spell practice.

Zoe’s hands were clenched and her forehead troubled when she found them.

It was her birthday, and Brak had forgotten.

The shouting was level.

“You!”

The tears prickled behind her eyes and threatened to spill.

Brak could feel the bitter magic pulsing in the air.

“You’ll never be whole apart.”

They stared at each other, wide-eyed.

She collapsed over the grass.

His face distorted.

She remained unmoving.

His hand aged.

Zoe hadn’t the strength to do anything but stare.

Every day he tried a new undoing spell—sometimes up to four or five if the effort didn’t exhaust him too soon.

First, Zoe wouldn’t visit.

Make sense of THAT if you can! And know that I’ve been fairly productive in the writing realm this week.

Smells Good Enough to Eat!

I like beauty products that smell like food. Rarely do my nostrils make contact with an artificial scent I can tolerate that isn’t reminiscent of food. I completely ignore the entire perfume aisle. I don’t want to smell like some actress or clothing designer! Gross!

Maybe if Rachael Ray came out with a line of fragrances….

Heeehee. I think it’s hilarious in Twilight how Edward ties to explain his blood lust for Bella as that of a person with a preference to vanilla ice cream rather than chocolate. Because I would be the sort of person to go walking around smelling like vanilla or chocolate ice cream. I hate to give Twilight credit for anything sincerely funny, but there it is. Honesty. =3

Some of my favorite foodie smelling things.

• mark (Avon) Chocolate Mist
  I have a foreboding feeling they’ve discontinued this remarkable product and I’m too scared to look until mine is completely used up because I can’t take the heartbreak right now. It’s the ONLY fragrance I will wear. Honestly. I will not wear any other scent. Just this chocolate stuff.

• Raspberry Lemonade Blistex
  
  Is this chapstick actually doing anything for my lips? Dunno. Do I care? No. Because it tastes like lemonade. In fact, it’s probably counterproductive because I’m always licking it off my lips. Oooh well.

• Lush’s Sympathy for the Skin
  Bananas, vanilla pods, and cocoa butter. Putting this miracle custard on makes me want to eat my own hands. But in a good way! I mean, I would be attracted to me with this stuff. (I don’t know what I’m saying.) Oh yes, and it even does what it’s supposed to do, which is make your hands soft.

• Secret’s Coco Butter Kiss
  It smells like coconuts and heaven! I got hooked on this when I took a stick to Europe on a whim. So now every time I whiff my deodorant, I think of European showers, early morning hours, and sweet smelling adventuring.

• Glade’s Apple and Cinnamon
  What’s that? The house smells like apple pie? Well that’s because I’ve been baking all day in the kitchen! Psych! It’s Glade. And it makes me want to bake pies and cinnamon rolls.
  

• Corn Dogs
  

  

  Seriously. Corn dogs. You want to tempt me? Wave a golden-browned corn dog fresh out of the fryer right under my nose. I will be your slaaaave for liiiife. *lip trembles* I want a corn dog now. Badly. I like to eat it with ketchup and mustard, nibble the crunchy part off the stick, then swirl the leftover condiments around the plate with the newly chewed stick. It’s like a ritual. (Sometimes–okay, every time–I also eat the ketchup and mustard off the stick.)

So yes. Anything food smelling is my friend. Vanilla candles, I love. I once had this candle that could have been a brown sugar cookie. In fact, I think that’s what it was called: Vanilla and Brown Sugar Scented Candle or something. Made my mouth water. *happy sigh*

Great. Now I’m hungry. -_-’

Confession: I also like it when the car smells like burgers. But not when mixed with boys-that-were-riding-home-from-soccer-smell and burgers. Just burgers.

Project Hair Grow – Month 9

I still haven’t got my bangs cut! Money just disappears these days!

Okay, so… not entirely disappears. I know where $5 of it went. I really needed a visual dictionary! (The writing site made me do it.)

Oh right! So the bangs. Yes, I just pulled them back. And my hair looks shorter than last month because it’s in its naturally curly state.

And I really want my shorter bangs back, so my smile is a complete LIE! Hehe. Just kidding. But really… it’s high time for a choppeh choppeh.

Side view. So the length is more evident.

These were taken Sunday afternoon. In case that matters at all.

Yeah, the rest of those were for absolutely no reason. Enjoy their unnecessary existence.

10 More Thanks Things

Trying to make up for another last post. Gonna be short and sweet.

• 1. Sunsets

• 2. Clean bathrooms

Panera’s Restrooms > That Other Store. Despite the awkwardly placed stall that always looks closed.

• 3. Pizza

Pizza is the answer. Except when pizza is the question. Then yes is the answer.

• 4. Amazon.com

A blessing and a curse. But mostly a blessing. Today I bought an “Ultimate Visual Dictionary” because a writing blog said I needed it. And I concur.

• 5. Sound theology

Without which I might have been out with the Camping followers waiting for The Rapture.

• 6. Iced tea

Because you can’t miss tea time, even in the summer weather.

• 7. Hair ties

They go missing like nobody’s business, but that’s part of what makes them…rare? Special? With my hair getting longer… slowly but steadily, these elastic ties are crucial to my work and sanity.

• 8. Story inspiration

Even if it makes me write a bunch of filler that isn’t due chronologically for another two chapters at least! I wrote something without agonizing over every dash, dot, and simile!

• 9. Friends growing up

It’s sad, but inevitable, but it’s also exciting. Like two good friends getting married, and another friend about to intern in New York! Do I feel left behind? Maybe. Am I ecstatic, overjoyed, and over the moon for them? HECK YES!

• 10. The Victorian Trading Co

*drools all over* So… much… beautiful…. I need a million dollars so I can buy everything in their magazines and still afford the England/Scotland trip next summer. I don’t ask much!

And then I was tortured for a book

This post goes out to Mara, who’s several strange dreams I’ve much enjoyed reading. This particular dream I had this afternoon as I slept between church services.

-x-

It was a shotgun wedding for me and some guy. (I don’t have a name for him, but I’m willing to take suggestions. ;P) All I knew at the time was that his house had a plush carpeted spiral staircase with a very modern black banister, and he was suspiciously rich. He always wore really nice clothes and knew weird things like which cologne was worth more by its smell and when a jeweler was trying to rip him off.

Besides that, he was astoundingly good looking. Like… I can’t even describe it. Just imagine who you think is the most good looking man on earth and that’s him.

I really don’t know how he ended up marrying me of all people (he does sound too good to be true) but I believe it had something to do with parental pressure on my side.

I guess we were married for a while, because he started going through these phases of job switching. He’d come home and casually say, “I quit today” or “I’m going to be at home a lot more for a while because I’m changing careers” but we never moved, and all the times he wasn’t working, we didn’t suffer at all financially. Which was all very suspicious, considering I wasn’t working at all and everything we had came from whatever he did. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what I brought to the marriage. Maybe I cooked. I never saw myself cleaning that huge house. I did, however, see myself in a very soft wine colored robe drinking sparkling something-or-other. (It’s seriously bothering me that I can’t contrive of good reason for him to marry me.) When I asked if we’d be okay after about the fifth time he’d changed jobs or was laid off or whatever it was he allegedly was doing, he just said, “Of course! We’ll be fine. God provides.”

Not that I don’t believe that, but in my dream I started to wonder if he was a mob leader or a drug lord, seeing that I never knew what any of his jobs consisted of.

One night we were sitting on the couch watching The Bourne Identity (heehee) and I started giggling and out of pure silliness said, “I think you work for the CIA.” Then he give a long sigh and scooted me closer, planted a kiss on my head and said, “I love you, Beth.”* (BUT I DON’T KNOW WHY BECAUSE I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!!! )

And it was quite for a while, except for the noise on the TV. But then I climbed up onto his lap (I’m short, it’s the only way I can be tall enough to look someone in the face while sitting) and asked, “Is it very dangerous?” He sighed again, and we cuddled, finished the movie, and that was that.

Except it wasn’t, because the next thing I knew I was running for my life with a little brown, tattered notebook in my hand that I guess I’d picked up from my husband’s home office and was now being chased for.

I hate being chased in dreams. No matter how fast you think you’re running, your dream keeps you at a snail’s pace and it’s infuriating! You’d rather just get caught and have it over with so the slow motion agony of it all will STOP, but you can’t stop running because that’s just stupid!

I got caught anyway. And just before I was manhandled by two burly men who looked more like gangsters than anything, I flung the book under some fixture against the wall. It really shouldn’t have worked, but apparently the fact that I didn’t have the book on me was enough for them to believe I didn’t have it recently in my possession.

And then I was tortured for the book.

I had no idea what was in the book. I wasn’t even sure if it was a life or death kind of thing, but I figured it was better to assume so, so I didn’t say anything.

I don’t remember how I was tortured. I don’t even remember that it hurt at all. The running was worse. But regardless, I never said where I “hid” the book!! I was so proud of dream me! Then… I guess I was let go to run around this dilapidated building looking for my nameless husband.

Sadly, I never saw him again. Maybe he’ll reoccur tonight and I’ll get to know that my courage under torture made it so he was able to save a million orphan children from sudden destruction. That happens sometimes; the reoccurring dream characters, not necessarily the part with the orphans.

-x-

*When I told my dad I dreamed he pressured me into marrying a guy who ended up working for the CIA, he laughed and said, “Then he definitely wouldn’t be rich.” But you know, my dream didn’t know any better.