My Baffling Brain

I've been awarded the Liebster award by two more bloggers this week, thank you M. J. Joachim and The Capillary!  Since I've had the award already, I'm just going to answer the questions. M. J. Joachim's questions: Fried or scrambled? I am not talking about your brain after a very long day here! I’m a little weird with eggs, I’ll only eat the yolk. So, fried, I guess. Silently passionate or passionately silent? You know there’s a difference. Use your creative writing skills to expand on it. Silently passionate. Given these 3 ingredients (flour, water, salt), what would you make? Bread is not an option here. Um. I want to say Yorkshire puddings, but you need eggs for that… If X + Y = Z, why doesn’t Z – X =Y? I have no idea. Hot or cold? Think chocolate! Think chocolate! Hmm. Both! Depends how I feel, really. Darts or ping pong? Ping Pong, although I’m not very good at that, either. The last time I played the ball hit the ceiling more than the table… ...

Here's part two, and another two poems for you to look at. These ones are based on the myths of  Lamia and Arachne. Lamia: Mistress of a God, Punished by his wife. Sent mad with grief By the death of her children, Unable to rest from the image Of their lifeless bodies, Until Zeus took pity, Gifting her with the ability To remove her eyes, Freeing her from the sight. Transformed by her grief; Part woman, part snake, A monster, taking revenge On the children of others, For the loss of her own. A threat by tired mothers; ‘Behave, or Lamia shall visit In the dead of night, And devour you whole, While you dream.’ Arachne: A beautiful girl, Known for her gift; Weaving tapestries So magnificent, Nymphs travelled To see the magic. She became vain, Believing her work The best in the world. Athena, known for her Glorious weavings, Challenged the girl. She accepted, And the two women Sat at their looms And spun, while A crowd of nymphs And Gods ...

I said I'd be putting some of my poems for my upcoming pamphlet assignments on here, and here they are. The first is based on the story of Pegasus and Bellerophontes , and the second is based on the story of Midas.  I'll be putting up another two tomorrow. Bellerophontes: The golden bridle Delivered in a dream, A gift from the Gods; Clutched tightly In shaking hands, As he observed The winged beauty Grazing peacefully. He leapt onto The horse’s back, Slipping the bridle Over his handsome head, And Pegasus surrendered To his new Master. They rode together, Defeating the chimera That terrorised the land. They became heroes, Worshipped by all. Gifted a wife and Kingdom for his victory, A perfect life, but It was not enough. Craving adventure, He rode Pegasus To Mount Olympus, Home of the Gods. Furious at the arrogance Of this mortal, Zeus sent a gadfly As punishment. Stung, Pegasus bucked; His rider was lost. Crippled and alone, Forsaken by the Gods Who once helped him, He wan...

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at  Scribblings of anAspiring Author . The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week. This week I'm celebrating: - that my sister, who was in hospital at the start of the week, is out now and almost well again; - that I renewed my car insurance yesterday and it's £15 cheaper a month; - that I received my bonus from work today, although it's going to have to go on getting my car fixed, since it failed it's MOT yesterday (badly enough that I daren't drive it!) but it could be worse. Really, the bonus came at the best time! What are you celebrating? :)

So, it's time for the big reveal! My theme for the A to Z Challenge 2013 is going to be Greek Mythology. I've always been interested in Greek myths, but I don't know very many of them, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn more. The only problem I've found so far is that the Greeks didn't use the same alphabet as us, and therefore it's hard to find things for some letters e.g. z and y, because the Greeks didn't have those letters. However, I can use different versions of the Greek names. For example, the Goddess Aphrodite is also known as Venus, so there's my V. I just need to be a little creative. The other reason I've chosen this theme is because I'm working on a pamphlet for a university assignment, and I've chosen the same theme for it - Greek Mythology. So my research for my A to Z posts will also be research for my assignment. Two birds, one stone. You'll get to see some of my pamphlet work next week, since I ...

Allison from Geek Banter and Jamie from Mithril Wisdom are hosting the Level Up Blogfest today, which I've been excited about ever since I heard about it, what a great idea for a blogfest! The idea is to pick a game (it can be a video game, card game, board game - any kind of game you want) and tell us about it. I've decided to talk about the Sims series, as it's been my favourite game series since it came out when I was just 10 years old. I play other games as well, but this is the one I'll choose above all others when I just want to sit and relax. There are three games in the series, each with their own expansion packs. I own every single one; I'm a dedicated fan! The Sims 2 is my favourite, although I love The Sims 3 as well, and that's the one I predominantly play now. I loved The Sims 1 when it first came out, I remember whenever a new expansion would come out I would go into town with my brother and sister to buy it (as my mum worked nights and ...

I got given two awards last week, so I'm going to do them both in the same post. First off, Click from Click's Clan has gifted me with the Liebster Award, thanks! I've had this award before, but I'll still answer the questions. 1. How old were you when you first started using the internet? Computers have always been a big thing in my house, since my dad was into them quite a lot, so I’ve had access to the internet since I was very young. As far as I can remember, I didn’t use it for anything I shouldn’t have! 2. What’s your favourite memory from school? Hard question, I didn’t like school. I think most of my favourite memories involved hanging out with my friends in the lunch hour. I also enjoyed the many times I was in a misbehaving class, because that tended to be more fun. Not good for my grades, though, but I blame the teachers for that.  3. You can invite five people, living or dead, to a fantasy dinner party. Who do you invite? I'm really terrible at...

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author . The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week. This week, I'm celebrating: - the return of my optimism! I'm in a much better place than I was last week, probably thanks to watching lots of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I'm happy Laura again, and I'm glad, because depression really doesn't suit me! - I've got a lot of research done for my assignment to create a pamphlet, and therefore lots of research for the A to Z Challenge, since I'm using the same topic for both. It's really interesting research, and I'm loving every minute of it! I'll probably reveal the topic sometime next week :) - I get to play on the Simcity beta tomorrow, and I'm probably more excited than it is healthy to be! - I celebrated Valentines Day on Monday, since I couldn't do Thurs...

So, Cat Clarke has become one of my favourite authors. I discovered her a couple of years ago, when I read her debut novel Entangled . I read the whole book - 372 pages - in one sitting, because I just couldn't put it down. As soon as her second novel, Torn , came out, I read it straight away (and reviewed it here ). It wasn't as good as Entangled, but still really good. And then came Undone.  Better than Torn, maybe even on a level with Entangled, I loved this book. My mum read it before I did, and she kept telling me to read it quickly so she could discuss it with me, because she needed to talk about it! Needless to say, I devoured it. Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it.  Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself. Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.  A...

I haven't taken part in this meme for so long! This week's question is:  Who is/are your favorite couple(s)? They can be fictional, historical, or even present day. I think I'll go with my favourite fictional couples: - Arwen and Aragorn, from The Lord of the Rings series. - I love all of the couples from Harry Potter, but my favourite has to be Ron and Hermione. I think the moment they finally got together, after years and years of waiting, was amazing! - Ed and Winry, from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (an anime series) - Han Solo and Princess Leia, from Star Wars - Four and Tris from Divergent - Edward and Bella from Twilight (the books) - Buffy and Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Angel only beats Spike because I think the initial love story is better, although I prefer Spike :) - Jared and Melanie, and Ian and Wanda from The Host. - Daenerys and Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones.

Some of you may know that I had a pretty bad week last week. It started off when I figured out I was barely earning enough to cover my expenses. Then I heard that someone had complained about me at work, despite the fact that I always stay behind after my shift is over to help, and often do 12 hour shifts when I don't have to, just to help them out. Because of these things I started feeling down, and then began feeling overwhelmed, knowing that I needed to work more to earn more money, which would cut into my already limited writing time. However, my optimism has returned! I took a few days off (from writing, I still had to work, unfortunately) and spent my time reading and playing The Sims 3. It seems that I needed that rest, because I'm feeling much better about everything now. I've worked it all out, and I know what I need to do to be able to do everything I need to without losing my mind! The first thing I decided was to stop with the 1000k in 100 days challenge. I...

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author . The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week. I've had a really bad week. I don't think it's really for any reason in particular, just feeling very overwhelmed, like I mentioned in my ISWG post on Wednesday. So I'm glad it's time for this blog hop, as it reminds me that I do have things to celebrate. - even though I haven't had much motivation, I've still got a lot of writing done. - I've chosen my theme for the A to Z challenge, and it coincides with one of my assignments, so my A to Z posts will basically be research for it; two birds, one stone! - I've finally redesigned my blog, after weeks of meaning to. I like the new look much better, the old one was a little too busy. Hope you all have a lot to celebrate. 

I've read Alyson Noel's previous series, The Immortals Series, and while it had its problems, I did enjoy it. So when I noticed she had started a new one, I bought it straight away. Strange things are happening to Daire Santos. Crows mock her, glowing people stalk her, time stops without warning, and a beautiful boy with unearthly blue eyes haunts all her dreams. Fearing for her daughter’s sanity, Daire’s mother sends her to live with the grandmother she’s never met. A woman who recognizes the visions for what they truly are—the call to her destiny as a Soul Seeker—one who can navigate the worlds between the living and dead. There on the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico, Daire sets out to harness her mystical powers. But it’s when she meets Dace, the boy from her dreams, that her whole world is shaken to its core. Now Daire is forced to discover if Dace is the one guy she's meant to be with...or if he’s allied with the enemy she's destined to destroy....

It's time for another post for Alex J. Cavanaugh's ISWG . Last month, my post was all about the two assignments that I had to hand in on the 16th, and how I was struggling with them. Well, I managed to hand them in, and I actually thought I'd done quite badly. I wasn't exactly happy with the work that I'd handed in; I just felt like I'd rushed it, and that there was so much more I could have done to make them better. However, we were told the other day that we've all done really well in the assignments, so it seems I've been worrying about nothing! I think it's a writer thing; always wanting to improve your work. Now, we have two brand new assignments to start working on; it never ends! I do think these assignments are easier, though, and I'm really looking forward to getting started on them. For one, we have to choose an event or sequence of events from our lives and write about it from the point of view of a biographer. This should be ...

100k in 100 days is a challenge I’m participating in which involves writing 1000 words every day for 100 days, until you reach 100,000 words. I've been really behind with this challenge, but I'm starting to catch up! Here are my stats for the last week: Tuesday Jan-29 - 259 words Wednesday Jan-30 - 804 words Thursday Jan-31 - 1311 words Friday Feb-01 - 1239 words Saturday Feb-02 - 400 words Sunday Feb-03 - 387 words Monday Feb-04 - 1829 words So a pretty good week, overall. My overall wordcount now is 29106, and I'm supposed to be at 36000, so I'm not too far behind now. I should be able to catch up. 

Time for another goals post, I can't believe it's February already! My goals for January were to: Open a savings account – I've opened a savings account, and I even have some money in it! I'll be adding to it every time I get paid. It's nice to know that I have some money saved away, just in case. Finish my two assignments well – I finished my two assignments, and we were told the other day that we've all done pretty well on them. I'll let you all know what I got when I get my marks back. Write 1000 words a day – I was doing really well with this, up until a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm about 7000 words behind, but I'm slowly catching up! Finish 4 books – I've finished three books so far, and am 61% through another, so I nearly made it. Do some overtime – I've done enough overtime to ensure that I'm behind on my 1000 words a day challenge, so that's enough for me! I think I did quite well on my January goals, overall. ...

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly bloghop hosted by Viklit over at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author.  The idea is to post anything you want to celebrate from the last week. This week I am celebrating: - I've managed to fill my first ever writer's notebook (yay!) and have got myself another one, and it's so pretty! I even took some pictures, which I never do (but hopefully I'll start; my posts look boring when I don't use pictures!) The blue notebook is the one I've just filled, and the one with birds is my brand new one :) I wanted to include a picture of the pages, because of the pattern at the top; my old one just had blank pages, so it was  a nice surprise when I opened it up.   - I signed up for the A to Z challenge ; I really enjoyed it last year, so I can't wait for it to begin. - Some of you may know that I recently handed in a couple of assignments, and that I was really worried about them. I haven't got the marks back yet...