January Playlist

Howdy!

This is the first month of 2017, what did you think of it? Better than December in general? Or was it just okay?

Soo… I have some good news. My Spotify started working suddenly! My little logo on the side of my menu hasn’t been working since maybe April and then it went off officially in May and didn’t have it until Dec. 28th, I still don’t know why it’s working but I’ve been loving the crap out of it!

I knew I missed Spotify but I didn’t think I missed it this much! One of the first things I did was make a whole new playlist for my blog. I bet nobody knew it was different, which is okay. I haven’t been very open about it because I figured it would stop working on me. In case it ever does that again I created a playlist of songs I missed and hadn’t heard in a while! I was even adding songs that I was listening from YouTube for the past eight months. Funnily enough, it’s still growing! This playlist has a total of 300+ songs on it! The last time I checked it, I read 128 songs… I’m just making things easier on myself!

Now to talk about song of the month, which you’d think would be very, very difficult to pick from but it really wasn’t because I went with the first new single of 2017! On New Year’s Day, I woke up late in the afternoon and found out that London Grammar had a new song on their website! It was released about five hours before and I kind of hoped it was up on YouTube (I found it odd that my instinct was to look for it on there first) but it was there! The new track is called “Rooting For You” and man, is it good! I really love them, they’re different and tend to chill me out if I’m having a very hectic day!

Since I had the blog playlist at the side, I didn’t want to necessarily share it again, but I also hadn’t been keeping track because of the amount of music I’ve been listening to! However, I can tell you some artists and genres I’ve been listening to lately. Symphonic metal has come back into my life! I have quite a bit on my iPod but I have a whole playlist that has 830 songs in it. A band that I’ve been obsessed with lately is Beyond The Black. You’ll learn more about them on Thursday! I’ve also been listening to my ole hip hop/rap playlist that has all the good stuff on it. As I’m not much into new rappers, I have been hooked to G-Eazy. I literally have 7 songs on my starred playlist!

However, I’ve been very happy that I can listen to my “Fantasy” tracks without having to worry about it going on a break in the middle and become a total buzzkill! And I’ve titled them “fantasy” but not in a sexy way – ew! I think the best way to describe it is “epic” instrumentals. I mostly use them for whenever I’m doing blog posts or while I work on my project. So that’s what I’ve chosen to share with you today as January’s playlist, is my Volume II fantasy playlist. Enjoy!

What was your song of the month? What was the first song you listened to ring in the new year?

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

Monthly Write Up | Research & First Draft

Howdy folks!

I have decided to do something different this year!

I feel like a fish out of water with this. I’ve been fine with being just a blogger; working on interviews for Disability Horizons has sort of changed me in the last year. I’ve also missed participating in the different writing challenges I was doing two years ago, but majority of them have stopped so I’ve had to fight between the ideas that would only last a couple of scenes and a few that would last a few months and slowly fade away!

I’ve started a new project. It’ll go on for at least a year. I’ve decided to give myself room to explore and write what I please, it’s nothing for my blog or Disability Horizons. It’s just something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and I’m just now figuring out how to make it happen.

I started researching at the end of October and mainly it was just my curiosity. I wrote up a small plot of what was floating in my head that at first took up eight pages in my notebook. They were just random ideas I had in the beginning of what I thought I wanted for my project, lots of things didn’t exactly pan out but I thought they could be interesting if I had went into a sci-fi direction.

Since my characters are very complex, I have sort of used my newly interviewer skills to find out more things about these characters. I don’t want to talk about them a lot on this post, but I’ve had to interview quite a few people in the last three months. Thankfully, everybody has been very helpful and welcomed the pretty personal questions I had for them. I’ve used their information to create what I think are some realistic characters!

For my birthday, we went to Barnes & Noble as a family celebration and I spent a good chunk of my money on books I thought would help guide me through this process. I purchased this book because I figured it would be a good investment and it honestly was, because it gives you a lot more information that you may not even think you would need to know, like your target audience.

Another thing is that it’ll give you tips on how to research. The most important thing I got out of this section was that your research is never going to be complete! I have over 20+ pages of research and I know I could include more but I can’t add everything into the story. It’s impossible to have that much included into it without overwhelming your reader!

I think one of my main issues was figuring out the plot, which is different from the one I mentioned earlier. As I was in the middle of writing out information that I thought I would need for the characters and story in general, I didn’t have an exact lineup of how everything was going to go, it was just like scraps of images of different parts scattered in my mind. So in November, I stopped working on my research and began writing my plot. In this book, it shows you how to write it in a three act structure. Here are my rough explanations of the three acts:

• ACT I – is generally your beginning for your main character. What life is like at that moment and then what suddenly changes for them.
• ACT II – is what your character is working for, but is basically failing at; by the end of this section they must figure out what they really want and work towards to reach it.
• ACT III – is where you are leading your character(s) to the end, a climax is added to give him/her one last disaster to figure out how to decipher. This is when your character finds out who they are.

In the mist of not only figuring out your plot, you have align the whole thing into this type of structure plus include three different disasters that are worse from the last that affect the main character and/or characters in your story! By the second day of writing this, I had a nervous breakdown and cried like a baby! 😦

---

I had made myself a little rule at the start of December that once the new year came along, I would start writing out my first draft. I was actually pretty content with that decision until I caved because just working on research alone can get a little boring. A normal person would probably figure out the very beginning of their story and then write it out – I still haven’t found a way to write it so I decided to work from ACT II to hopefully think of ways on how to create a great beginning for my main character Heath. I think I will continue on with the story from starting in this direction and if I finish it, I’ll go back and figure out a good introduction.

My nana gave me a medium size binder that belonged to one of the aunts in the late 1980’s and at first I stored my plot inside because it was skinny enough. I thought it would be a nice fit, but it’s not. She also gave me a lot of loose leaf paper to get me started with the first draft. I’ve had a lot of people freak out on me about the fact I’m not using my laptop for this. I like writing things out and it’s more dependable for me right now! I’ve  had to use 3 notebooks and 1 binder.. I feel like I’m back in school!

I gave myself a deal and it isn’t a New Year’s resolution or anything. I decided that I would write a little bit everyday, whether if it is research or my first draft in general. I would get something done in that time period. Unfortunately, I can only write 2-3 pages at a time because my lower back gives me a lot of problems. It’s always been like this, I had this issue whenever I doing art both at home and in school. I also decided that if I was still committed to it in February, then I would do the same thing and just continue like that until I finish it. God willing! 

If I am still writing next month, I might put up another write-up review. I don’t want to force myself to write, I like everything to flow organically. That is what works for my blog, then I’m going to do it here with this too!

So what do you think of my first monthly write-up review? 

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

Meet Joseph David

Howdy!

Today I get to tell you the good news! I have a new baby cousin! I know there’s a correct term for this lineup but that gets really confusing, so he’s just a “baby cousin” to me!

When I put up the last post, I mentioned at the end that I wouldn’t include any pictures of his face on my blog in fear somebody would take them and use them for their own. I knew I needed a banner so I did use a couple of photos my aunt Katt had put up the night he was born on Facebook, but I slipped a blue ribbon in the middle of where his face meets up in the middle of the collage to kind of disguise him a little bit, you can still see him but not in a way that somebody would think to steal the picture in general, unless they’re dumb, which some are unfortunately!

Kristi’s due date was January 6th, but as the date kept getting closer and closer she wasn’t feeling like he was going to make his appearance on Friday. She even posted on Facebook that if he wasn’t here by that day then she was going to be induced on Tuesday and hopefully be born on later that day or early Wednesday. We kept teasing her saying, he likes his home and when he wants to he’ll come out. Well, her water broke around 2:30am Friday, she went to the hospital and waited, I’ve had to go back through my Aunt Katt’s statuses and she apparently had pitocin twice to try to force him out but they ultimately had to do a C-section.

It was roughly like 7:30pm when we got the news about the C-section. The little tyke just didn’t want to come out, which when he was born we quickly found out why. Little Joseph David was born at 10 lbs 3 oz and was 22 1/2 inches long! We were all thinking he’d be around 7 lbs or at least under 8 lbs and then we hear this and it just kind of surprised us! Another thing that my nana (and everybody else) wondering about it too if JD would be born with red hair or not. Kristi’s boyfriend Joe is a true ginger and so we’ve all be secretly wondering and Kristi sent a picture of the back of his head to nana the morning after and you can slightly see the tint of red in the back.

So I figured I should explain his name a little bit. As far as I know, he isn’t considered a “Jr” despite sharing both of his daddy’s first and middle names. However, my papaw and uncle (Kristi’s father) share the same first name, they have different middle names. I don’t see it being an issue as calling him “Jr” if his middle name is changed, because last name is the still the same.

I’m sorry I’m not able to share anything else at the moment. I’m hoping Kristi and Joe make a trip down sometime we can meet the little guy and nana can hold him too! Unfortunately, I can’t hold him which sucks but I don’t think my arms can fold into him like everybody else.

If you would like to read my previous baby posts, here they are!

• A New Baby In The Family
• It’s A …
• Baby Shower 
• How To Wrap Presents 

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

What’s My Favorite Movie?

Howdy!

You can blame Shona for these next batch of movie posts. She’s been doing a 30 Day Challenge on her blog that’s all about movies! I’ve decided to do parts of it. I cannot do all of it in one month, but I have decided to do maybe 2-4 a month and see how it goes!

It is actually very hard to figure out what movie would be my favorite because I’ve seen so many! I thought at first that maybe it would be Back To The Future but I thought I would be kidding myself if I didn’t say, Michael Bay’s Bad Boys. I know I’ve talked about it a couple of times in the last two months but I can’t help it!

If you read what I got for Christmas last week, you know that I got both films in one from my presents! It was a nice surprise since I screamed because I was so happy! I haven’t got to watch the second yet and I even have it on my DVR but I don’t think I can delete it off of there yet… I’m a weirdo!

Why is my favorite?

That’s an interesting question, mostly because it’s a great mix of action and comedy in a film. I think Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are funny guys and I like how they can be dead serious and then flat out hilarious a minute later. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve watched the first and I know VH1 has been playing it for the past year but I cannot watch it without both swear words and when they skip key scenes! I mean, I just can’t do it!

Best scene!

I think how they start off with the entire movie is genius.

Marcus (Martin Lawrence) is eating what looks like McDonald’s in Mike’s (Will Smith) new car and as they are bickering about how he’s eating and Marcus complaining about not having any cupholders. As they are fighting back and forth, Marcus spills his fries all along the passenger seat which prompts Mike to pull over to the side of the road, take off his sunglasses and just rips into Marcus.

As this whole part is going down a couple of thugs pull up behind them and use a girl to distract them as they make their way up to their doors and of course this trick instantly grabs Mike’s attention and then the guys go up to their windows and pull their guns on them forcefully asking them to step outside of the car. Marcus and Mike try to talk to them nicely but in the mist of that, they go back into bickering to each other which distracts the thugs and once they have had their fun with the two baboons they pull their guns on them and arrest them!

Tell me how that’s not a brilliant introduction? I mean, not only is it funny but the ending was just great! The thugs thought they were a pair of crazies! Nope!

What is your favorite movie ever?

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

REVIEW | Taboo

Howdy!

So I decided to change up what I originally had for today. I wasn’t necessarily happy with that post so I figured I could do something else and thus came this review! I’m only discussing the events that happened in episode 1.

Last week the channel FX premiered a miniseries called Taboo, a dark and mysterious drama about a man who was thought to be dead, comes back to the life he left behind in London, where his now dead father has him as a sole heir in his will and with a piece of land called Nookta Sound (that is located on west side of Canada) that is considered a “wasteland” by various people but the people of the East India Company want him to sign over that property to them.

The man James Daleney is a very haunted person. You don’t see it until after he makes it to the pub after everybody’s left the funeral. He sort of has an episode at the end of the general scene after his half sister and brother-in-law has walked away from him. The first episode is an hour long, but with the slow pace you are kind of left wondering about all of these people and their intentions, but I think James is the second most interesting person on the show. I’d like to know about Sir Stuart Strange, the chairman of EIC but I’m more into what and how James knows so much about the EIC and his father Horace’s actions towards the end of his madness.

My dad and I were originally going to watch the show together, but I wanted to watch it live with everyone else. The only bad part about it was all of the freaking commercials! Once you start using the skip button when you record your favorite shows late at night, you automatically become best friends with it. And like an idiot, I decided to take off my headphones about 30 minutes before the show started. The day after, I remember telling my mom that I thought dad should wait until next week (meaning Tuesday) to watch it as it might go a little faster, but he does like darker themes and like me he loves anything to do with Tom Hardy, who plays James Delaney.

If you can handle a little witchcraft or supernatual themes, then I think you’ll like it. It is very interesting. I am apart of the Facebook group called “Taboo Tribe” and we were asked to rate the first episode, I gave it an 8. I thought it was fair as it was slow in parts and you were mostly getting more questions than answers than anything else but it was a nice beginning!

So what do you think about Taboo? Are you watching it as well? What was your favorite scenes? Who are you most curious about? And if you’re not watching, does it sound like you would in the future?