Contest Results!

Firstly, thanks to all who played! You made my 100th post so much fun :)

And now: the winners!

*drum roll*

Winner #1, the winner of one of the books I have reviewed, is none other than Renee! Yay, Renee! Shoot me an email letting me know which of the 9 books I have reviewed you would like to have for you very own! (There's a complete list off to the right.)

Winner #2, the winner of one of the books I have reviewed AND the super fabulous Prize Pack of Pure Awesome, had the funniest reasoning for the pictures I linked to. But firstly, what were those pictures?

A Giant Cadbury Creme Egg

Some very strange owls...
(and I just realized this could be offensive. Sorry if it does offend anyone. Not my intentions at all.)

Paul Bettany

And here are the winner's reasons:

Picture 1: Cadbury Creme Egg Truck. (OMG, I'm laughing SO hard)
Call me crazy, but I'm thinking you linked this picture because you're actually swimming/drinking in the creme of that giant egg. I can just see you now, clad in a bathing suit as pink as your blog, swirling around in all that creamy glory. There may even be hot guys with you, hot guys with olive-toned skin. And strawberries. Those eggs go great with strawberries, and then you can say you ate something healthy too.

Picture 2: Owl Retards...wow.
Well, this one's a no brainer. You're finally admitting your poor little owl Spanky has a learning disability. It's okay, he's still a great owl. So what if he flies into windows and is cross-eyed? At least he randomly attacks the vampire spying on you from the tree outside. He's not really that stupid—he knows something's up in his little owl senses. Just think of him as a savant. A natural vampire hunter.

Picture 3: That actor who I can't remember his name but he was in A Knight's Tale and DaVinci Code and a bunch of other movies.
Hmm, every movie I've seen this guy in, he has some kind of butt shot or implication of nudity. So perhaps you are promoting the nudist lifestyle? Man, Sara, I didn't realize you were that...free. I knew you lived in the country, but I never stopped to think you might be a clothing optional kind of gal. What? You're not? Oh, um...why else would you link this guy? He's not THAT cute...and he's not your "type" what with the pastiness. Oh! I got it...you like the suit, huh. You're telling the future man in your life that's the suit he should wear if he wants to get anywhere.

The hysterical winner: Natalie! Yay, Natalie! Shoot me an email letting me know which book you would like for your very own!

Thanks again, everyone! It's been an awesome 100 posts!

Contest Deadline Approaching!

Only 20 minutes left to enter Sara's 100th Blog Post Extravaganza Contest! And you want to. Trust me.

100th Post Extravaganza!!

The moment you've all been waiting for is HERE! Sara's 100th Blog Post Extravaganza!

*blows noise maker*

So I have been toying with what to do. It had to be big. It had to be AWESOME. I mean, after all, I have been making my mark on the blogging world for 100 posts now. That's saying something. Literally.

Then I came up with it. The most awesome thing to do: a scavenger hunt.

Yep, a blog post scavenger hunt. *gasp* I know, right? Wanna play? Do ya do ya do ya??

All righty, here's how it's going to work. I'll do it in step-by-step format because it's more fun that way:

Step 1) Read and answer the three questions below (don't worry, they aren't stupidly hard).

Step 2) Your answers will lead you to certain blog posts. In those blog posts I have pasted links to pictures. Find the blog posts, click on links, see pictures.

Step 3) Here's where it gets fun: You now have two options. You can send me an email at seesarawrite(at)gmail.com telling me only what pictures I linked to OR you can send me an email telling me what pictures I linked to and also WHY I linked to those pictures. It doesn't have to be a legitimate reason; in fact, it'd better not be. Come up with the zaniest, craziest reason I would've linked to those three pictures.

There will be two winners. Winner #1 will be randomly drawn from the people who sent their guesses of what the pictures are. Winner #2 will be the funniest, wackiest of the "why I chose those pictures" tales. (Sorry, Winner #2 -- you can't also be Winner #1, so your name won't be in that drawing.)

Confused? That's okay. Here's an example:

You found all three pictures. For argument's sake, let's say they were of a banana, a field of corn, and a candle. You send me an email saying, "Sara, your game was dumb, but I found all three pictures. Banana, field of corn, candle. Ha." I put your name in drawing. OR you can email me saying, "Sara, your game was stupid, but I beat it. Ha. Banana, field of corn, candle. Haha. And you chose those pictures because you have an obsession with the color yellow. Hahaha." I put your name in the drawing, but I'm sorry, that is not funny enough to make you Winner #2.

Better? I hope so.

But I haven't answered the most important question: what do the winners GET?

Winner #1 will get their choice of one of the books I have reviewed. (Though, after my oh-so-delicate ripping-apart of some of these books, I may have made them look a *tad* less appealing.)

Winner #2 will get their choice of one of the books I have reviewed AND get the super fabulous Prize Pack of Pure Awesome. It's filled with all kinds of surprise writerly goodies.

Now that I've made this much more difficult than it needs to be, here are the questions!

Question #1) What was the seventh book I reviewed?
Question #2) Who won my first book trailer contest?
Question #3) What is the name of the university attended by my MC in Blind?

Yay! Have fun :)

Oops, need a deadline, don't we? Let's set it for Wednesday at 10pm EST.

Oops again -- I just realized it's Monday, and I missed Project Perk last Monday due to illness. But what better way to perk everyone up than with a scavenger hunt?

Who's Driving This Thing?!

Since a Fantastic Friday post would be sadly empty (got the blog award, and...um...started eating solid food again?) I'm going to jump right into a thought-provoking post.

A question has been on my mind for awhile now. Well, it's more of an observation, really, but I thought it'd spark some interesting discussion. So here we go:

What's driving your novel?

My novels are always, always, ALWAYS plot-driven. Always. So much so, in fact, that writing a character-driven novel is extremely difficult for me. What first brought this realization to my attention was The Tudor Tool; it is turning into a character-driven novel. Who let this happen, I don't know, but it is happening, and it is bothering me greatly because it is shaking the foundation of my little writing world.

Firstly, neither way is better than the other -- I just happen to have always preferred plot-driven. I greatly envy those who can write character-driven, as they have a level of character richness that I toil and fight and scrape and bleed to have even a little bit of. And the fact that The Tudor Tool is becoming character-driven means I am in for a long, painful, soul-wrenching writing process. Gotta love those.

In my head, character-driven means the center of the story is the characters. Their development, their emotions, their struggle/growth. There is a plot and a world that grows around the characters, but for the most part the story's strength lies on the characters and people read the book for the characters. I have been wracking my book shelf for a good example of this, but I keep coming back to something not on my book shelf: Natalie's Void. I know it's not readily available for you all to pick up and see the example I'm trying to make, but you'll just have to take my word for it. While it is a story about a girl who is born without magic to a wizard family, it is more a story of a girl coming into her own in the world and becoming a woman. There is a wizarding world and a whole magical universe, but Coral's self-growth takes the most precedence.

This is an awesome way to drive a novel because it relies heavily on emotion, and people always relate to it in some way. The characters become breathable, livable, viable beings that readers would follow anywhere, to any novel/world/story. This is why books like the Anita Blake series (hey, there's another example!) can go on and on and on, because the characters are so driven that readers must keep reading them. (Not saying that plot-driven doesn't have real, breathable characters. It's just that character-driven tends to focus on those characters.)

Plot-driven is a whole other ball park. What drives this kind of novel is the plot/world itself -- the story is big, "sprawling," and any manner of characters pop up in it. The easiest way to explain this one is to explain how I come up with my novel ideas. I see the story first -- with Stream Pirate, I saw the world develop when I was sitting in a geology class. A world of rivers and steam boats and dangerous underwater beasties. The more the world formed, the more I realized I needed characters to fill rolls and move the world/plot forward. Enter Yazoo, Alluvial, and the rest. Some of them had backstories, some didn't; either way, they all showed up in the plot/world I had created and let it sweep them away. They had lives and desires and emotions, but the plot/world was more prominent than they were.

This is a fun way to drive a novel because it deals a lot with "sweeping." Where character-driven engages readers on an emotional level and allows them to relate to their own lives, plot-driven engages them on an above-and-beyond level; it makes them forget about their own lives and sweeps them into an entirely different world (sometimes literally, like Middle Earth; sometimes a world within our world, like Jurassic Park).

Both modes of driving rock equally. Writing this post has helped me understand my inability to write character-driven novels; I prefer to deal with sweeping people away and not with their immediate emotional fluxuations. But I am determined to write The Tudor Tool (or, really, my MC is more determined to have her story told), even if it results in me sobbing over my laptop. For being a girl, I'm horrifically out-of-tune with emotions.

PS: Two posts until the 100th Post Extravaganza! *drum roll*

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

I don't know about you, but I am so over this whole able-to-catch-contagious-diseases, mortality thing. How is it that we have machines that can wash our cars, wash our dishes, and wash our clothes, yet we still have no cure for the stomach flu? *sigh*

On the bright side of being forced AWOL due to being mortal, I get to come back to lovely surprises!

Lovely surprises like this award gifted me by Aerin!

This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award.

Now I get to nominate. Muahahaha

And hhheeerrreee they are:

L&L, Natalie, Kat, ChristaCarol, Renee, Jill, Sam, and, of course, because she is the closest by blood, Nikki.

Yay, blog awards!

Fantastic Friday!

I'm almost reluctant to bump the On a Serious Note post down. There's such awesome discussion going on. If you haven't already, join the commenting!

Fantastic Thing-that-happened-in-the-last-week #1) See above. Awesome discussion. (And it's almost at 20 comments, which is a record for me and makes me very excited. People read my blog! *tear in eye*)

Thing #2) Wisdom teeth removal = very misshapen face. But the Fantastic Thing is that I no longer look like an orc. Yay!

Thing #3) Forgot to mention this last Fantastic Friday; it's another vacation story. Well, more a statement: mirror mazes ROCK. If you ever have a chance to go through one, DO IT. Felt like I stepped into a Harry-Potter/Alice-in-Wonderland world. The best part was when my sister found a little chair in a corner and I, being brilliant, screamed "TRAP DOOR!" which resulted in her leaping up, screaming like she was dying, and running away. Though running in a mirror maze is a very stupid thing to do...good times, good times.

Thing #4) Visited mi prima on Wednesday! It was awesome. We talked books, visited her church, made Chinese food, went shopping. Tis fun to have writing in the family :)

Thing #5) I survived the first week of the new quarter. Yay, school again. Ahem. Good thing: so far, I'm passing all my classes. Haha

Thing #6) What is now called The Tudor Tool (and will probably change again) is now the love of my (immediate) life. I bought an Avril Lavigne CD for inspiration, and the moment I started listening to it, Crystal started going off about what she wants to see happen, who she wants to meet, what she wants to do/not do, etc etc. Love. This. Book.

Thing #7) I must stop buying things for my 100th Blog Post Extravaganza. I keep finding things that I MUST add to the Prize Package of Pure Awesomeness, and it's getting a little out of hand. There are now 8 different things in this Prize Package of Pure Awesomeness, and it's name says it all. It is pure awesomeness. I'm considering splitting it into two separate prizes. Maybe...whatever I do, you want to win this. You do. 3 posts, and someone will rightfully claim the Prize Package of Pure Awesomeness as their own...

On a Serious Note

I had two options for my evening. Write a new blog post or watch the elimination on American Idol. Though since my beloved Kai got eliminated oh so long ago, I admit I just don't care for this season as much. Sure, there are good singers, but eh. I liked Kai. And he is gone. (Despite his awesome nickname abilities: American Kai-dol. Teehee.)

Unlike most of my posts, this is a little more serious. A lot more serious. And it's a subject I'm personally familiar with, so the insane glorification of it lately has left me fearing an epidemic. Hopefully you all have recognized it too; it's one of those silent-but-deadly things that far too many girls (because, lets face it, guys aren't as widely affected by this) are unaware of. What am I talking about? Here I go:

Abusive relationships.

Everyone knows they're "bad." Everyone knows they don't want to be in one. But what I'm seeing lately is a slow and completely unintentional brainwashing of young, impressionable girls into thinking abusive relationships are okay. Magical, even. Quite frankly, I am sick of this. Sick. Of. It. This is both a PSA and a plea, a desperate beg, to authors everywhere to STOP writing characters like this.

Characters like Edward Cullen. Yes, I'm going there. Sorry Edward fans -- agree or disagree, but this is what I'm seeing happen (seeing firsthand -- my sister is adamantly in the belief that he is a sexy dreamboat of a boyfriend). But remove the actual story and look at the facts of what Edward does: he keeps Bella from her family; he won't be with her unless she fulfills certain "requirements," changes very materialistic things about herself (the car she drives, her stance on wearing engagement rings/getting married); he breaks into her house and hides in her room while she sleeps; he does all this under the banner of "I know what's best for you. You have to do this." While Meyer wrote all these things to be innocent and charming in a young-love way, they ARE NOT charming. These things, however portrayed, are never okay. Hearing them for what they are (alienation, ultimatums of the petty and controlling sort, stalking, manipulation) automatically evoke the response of "No. These things are wrong." But in the context Meyer put them in, in a "true love" relationship, they're disguised as all right.

Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion. Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this. But hearing my sister say that these things are CUTE is disgusting and terrifying, and I'm very angry with Stephenie Meyer for telling her legion of tween-age fans that these things are all right. Thousands of girls get into abusive relationships without seeing it, and don't realize until afterward how they could've avoided it. But now, with Edward Cullen as the prime love example, girls will be LOOKING for men like him? I can't stomach that.

The most disturbing part of all this is the response girls have to being told Edward Cullen is a horrible example of a boyfriend. I went to the Breaking Dawn release party last August, wearing a Team Jacob shirt. Edward fans, whom I didn't know, would come up to me and make snide remarks about "that stupid dog." When I asked them what Jacob did wrong and pointed out what Edward did wrong, they would get red-faced angry and stomp away. People at this release party throughout the night continued to get angry because of my Team Jacob shirt. At first it was funny (and kind of still is...). Now, though, it's a little worrisome.

Again looking at the facts, Jacob was what should have been the "perfect" boyfriend. He accepted Bella for what/who she was; he helped her become a stronger person; he supported her and comforted her, never pushing her into any decisions about herself; her friends and family approved of him. And yet, despite his good qualities, the Edward fans HATE Jacob. HATE him. And none of them has ever given me a straight answer as to why. They can only say that Edward is better, Edward is better, Edward is better. Which, if you ask someone who is in an abusive relationship why they stay in it, they are so blinded by it that all they know is that he is the one. He is the one. He is the one.

I take advice from a lot of what I read and know that if I had read these books before my own relationship, it would've been a lot harder to let go and get out. Books like these give girls a battle cry:

"Edward did it, so it's all right."

"Maybe my boyfriend really does know what's best. Maybe there's some secret, magical reason he's doing this to me too."

THERE IS NOT a good reason. There never will be. And girls need to STOP being told this is all right behavior.

I know if any hardcore Edward fans read this, I'd probably get cyber-stoned. And maybe it's just my rather cynical view of the male species that makes me pick out every bad detail about Edward, but I honestly do like Jacob. He was the one thing Meyer did right. And he, not Edward, should be who all the tween-fans swoon over and hope for.

To end on a lighter note:

5 posts until Sara's 100th Post Extravanganza! And I have a pretty sweet contest in store. I'm very excited.

Conversation I had with mi prima today:
Nikki: *singing along to a Jonas Brothers CD* ...and I'll fly--
Me: The Jobros can fly?
Nikki: Yep, they have wings.
Me: *eyeroll* They're "angels," right?
Nikki: Nope. They have Red Bull.