Firsts

I thought it would be a fun idea to chronicle some of the firsts in my life so I don’t forget, in big things and little things, and in no certain order at all.

So, here we go. Let’s see what I can remember.

The first tooth I lost was when I was four years old in a fish and chips restaurant. I actually can still conjure up the rather blurry memory of digging it out of my mouth.

The first young man to ask me to be his proper dance partner was Stephen, and that was this past November. We’d actualy just met several months prior at Family Camp and we just really hit it off well.  Whenever we’re at the same parties we end up being together for the entirety of the evening. He’s lots of fun.

The first story I wrote was about a boy named Tom and his siblings. I was about seven or eight years old.

The first superhero movie I ever saw was Captain America: The First Avenger. (The second superhero movie I saw was Thor.)

The first mystery series I ever read (as far as I can remember) was Cam Jansen, the girl with the photographic memory. Did anyone else read Cam when they were young? Or Encyclopedia Brown? Or The Boxcar Children? Or American Girl History Mysteries? It’s no wonder my primary entertainment is sleuths and whodunits nowadays, that is all I read as a kid.

My first official crush was Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes. Unashamed.

The first vampire book I ever read was Dracula. Not Twilight. That’s how it should be. (By the way, Dracula? Best. Book. Ever.)

The first person I ever wanted to marry was my best friend Ben. It was kinda devastating to learn that cousins couldn’t marry however.

The first time I got to pet stingrays was at the zoo. But the first time I got to feed stingrays was two year later at Sea World. Both of these things are one of the best feelings in the world, especially if you’re an animal lover, like myself.

The first poster I ever bought was Star Wars related.

I’m pretty sure the first movie I ever saw in theaters was VeggieTale’s Jonah Movie. And I still like that movie.

The first pet I ever personally owned with a hermit crab.  Who’s name I can’t remember anymore.

The first laptop I ever owned weighed about 100 pounds and could barely run the old Army Man games (well, it wasn’t literally a 100 pounds but it was so old that it was just super heavy). My parents were nice enough to get me better one when I proved to be responsible.

My first boyfriend (and so far only boyfriend) is not even a boy. But he’s a he. And he’s the neighbor dog. Clarence. Who adores me because I’ve been walking him for nearly four years. And he treats me like I’m his girlfriend. Because he gets jealous of my attention. So everybody says he’s my boyfriend. Speaking of which: he was my Valentine this year! He laid on my feet, gave me his paw all on his own and even gave me a kiss on face when I asked for one.  Oh, if you were wondering, he’s a Golden Lab. And he’s my first boyfriend.

The first PG-13 movie I saw was The Blind Side.

The first kitten I ever saw delivered from beginning to end was the oldest of Princess’s litter, Dot.

And I would tell you all about the first time someone called me crazy but I don’t remember because it was so long ago and there have been so many numerous times that it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact first time. So, anyway.

~Jamie

Interviewed at Just Me: Writing Edition

For today’s post, I’m leaving the link to the wonderful writing blog that interviewed me about my fantasy book. Rebecca was really sweet to ask me to be her first interview and the post turned out great! Please check it out and the rest of her blog while you’re at it! If you’re a writer, leave her a comment letting her know you’d love to be interviewed in the future! You’d totally make her day!

Here’s the link or just click the picture above!

Hope you guys all had a good weekend.

~Jamie

Seven Things About Myself

I know; I just did an award post a few days ago, but I have to do these as they come or I tend to forget! Anyway, these are great post-makers. Moving on, I want to say a big, big thank you to Moonstonemaiden for awarding me with this, I feel very honored to be called ‘very inspiring’, that means the world to me!

Le rules are:

Display the award logo on your blog.
Link back to the person who nominated you.
State 7 things about yourself.
Nominate 15 bloggers for this award and link to them.
Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements

This post turned out excessively long, but it felt really good to be able to put most of these things into a paragraph and have it just out and on the table to deal with. Posts like these are the reasons why I like blogging, because this is where I am free to talk about what I’m struggling with.

Seven things about myself:

I still can’t drive. My mom is pressuring me to start learning as soon as the stress goes down low enough to where I can study better. It will be much more useful if I do learn to drive; I’ll be able to do grocery shopping or take trips to the library on my own if I get my license. I just don’t have that great burning to learn right now… I suppose that’s the problem. In some ways, I’m a homebody. Sure, I love going out to friends’ houses or attending parties or just going to Costco with my mom, but I don’t have the wanderlust where my feet want to travel the world. Maybe Europe someday with my special someone, but outside of a few trip idea that I am keeping to myself and Mom, I don’t really want to climb in a car and drive anywhere. At least… not now.

I want to be more comfortable in my skin. I’m tired of looking in the mirror and frowning at myself. I’m tired of not feeling pretty. So, something I just started this week was getting my makeup and girly stuff off my shelf and dust the top off and use some of it! I’ve painted my nails with my favorite light lavender polish, I’ve started putting on some sweet smelling lotion and a tiny bit of my pink lipstick. I know that true beauty comes from being truly happy, but honestly, I’ve not been very happy recently with all the extreme levels of stress in my home. It’s shown with myself-respect in how I’ve let myself go a little. I’m dressing more sloppily, I’ve not put makeup on for weeks, not even for church. So I decided this week that from now on in this new year, I will be taking the time to pretty myself up, to dress a bit better, to get back to painting my nails regularly. I think this will help my self confidence more. I can look in the mirror and smile and say, “I not ugly!” And I’ll see self-respect smiling back. And I will feel better in my skin.

I love accomplishing new piano songs on my own. I haven’t had a lesson since I was twelve and what I learned in that last lesson was really easy stuff compared to the stuff I’m trying to play now. I like to play haunting melodies and the themes from my favorite tv shows and movies. I’m trying to conquer the Avengers theme right now and it’s a little difficult. I can hardly read the bass notes or treble notes, much less the notes that fly off the scale. I sometimes have to pencil in the notes names onto the paper so I remember what they are; sometimes I can’t play songs because they’re so advanced for the skills that I have. But at the same time, each new song I’ve managed to nail and memorize, I get such a great sense on accomplishment from it. Because I memorized that six page song, I taught myself how to do that finger play, I learned how to read those hard notes. All by myself. When my fingers can play the song all by themselves while I shut my eyes and I still nail the song: that’s the best.

Speaking of which, I’m trying to decide which of these two songs I want to learn next; I’m mean, I’ll eventually learn both, but I don’t know which one to get first because I like them both pretty equally. I’d love to hear which you guys like better and you could help me decide which to learn first! This one is called Chimes and this one is called Field of Daisies, both by Brian Crain. The other two songs that I’ve learned by this amazing composer is Rain and Wind; you can listen to these two songs and pretend I’m playing them because, yeah, I nailed those two pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Sherlock Holmes was pretty much my first official crush. Like, I had it bad for a long time when I was fourteen. We were, like, married and everything. But he came and he went, new things came along, I slowly forgot about him until last year: BOOM. He came leaping back out of my closet in book form, alive, covered in dust and shouting, “Remember me? I’m back in your face! Try to get rid of me now!” So, last time it was Basil Rathbone’s version that made me giggle, this round it’s Benedict Cumberbatch’s version . . . . . . . . . . between you and me, I plan on having twin boys; I will name them Basil and Benedict and they’ll grow up wearing deerstalker caps. Because, come on, it’d be a bit much to name your child Sherlock Holmes, right?

I have a hard time striking a balance between ‘reserved and quiet friend’ and ‘overly-clingy friend’. Because I’ve never had many friendships, I really value the ones that I do have, but I have this big fear that I may come across as really clingy and weird if I stick too close or talk too much with those friends and annoying them to death. I hate the idea of having people look at me and thinking, “Great, here she comes, it’s going to be ages before I can get her to be quiet again/get her to stop trailing me“.  To come off like that to the few friends I do have horrifies me, so I do the next worse possible thing and I stay too reserved. I just don’t know how to strike the perfect middle on this, especially because my first impulse is to be on the more clingy side of things. I’m a socially-oriented person, I like to both talk, and to just sit quietly in the middle of a group of friends and listen to them all talk. I need to be around people. But I’m so awkward when it comes to properly engaging with certain friends. This is something I’m going to work on this year… unless I happen to loose all those friends by moving to a new church again. This seems like a looming possibility that might happen in the near future and I’m stone cold terrified of having to start all over again but… let’s just not continue down this train of thought just yet, okay?

I’m still going through the self-discovery process. Because during most of my teen years it was overly taught that one had to find their identification as a member in a family, my dad didn’t really allow me to try to think that I was and am, in fact, an individual person with my own personality, my own needs, my own likes and struggles. And while, yes, it is true, we are all part of a family and we should try to work together as a family, I wish the other half of the coin hadn’t been washed out of the picture then. I’m now trying to get that other half back. How can I expect other people to understand and know me when I don’t understand or know myself?

I’m thinking about writing a time traveling story. I don’t have much of a plot or character ideas or anything but I’ve had the end climax in my head for many years, so, I might actually try to write it out one of these days. It’s quite a scary idea and it’s only in the thinking process because I have so many other stories that I want to write first, but I think it would be fun to attempt a story like this.

I’m going to nominate just a few people here who have been ‘very inspiring’ to me.

Grace: Grace is very inspiring in that she has learned to be comfortable as herself. She’s had many encouraging words for me over the past two years and she’s inspired me to embrace my inner fangirl without feeling weird about it. She also writes some great inspirational posts.

James: James is very inspiring when it comes to consistently commenting. He’s always has a kind word no matter where he comments and he does a great job giving back great feedback. He’s been inspiring to start commenting more, because comments really is one of the best things with blogging.

Alexandra: Alexandra is very inspiring in that she’s an accomplished self-published author! I’m inspired whenever I see her accomplishments to try to reach those accomplishments myself one day with my own writing; she also has given me so much encouragement to keep trying with my writing!

You three have been very inspiring to me in your own ways, so you really deserve this award from me to you! Thanks so much for being in my life!

And that wraps up this much-to-long post; thanks for reading, guys!

~Jamie

The Next Big Thing

I’ve been tagged by Moonstonemaiden; it’s a writing/book tag, which I’ll be copying onto my writing blog shortly; whichever post you choose to comment on is up to you.

Considering I’ve done a good deal of talking about my book, already, I will attempt to not repeat myself too much.

What is the working title of your book? The working title of my most recent book is “Forever Fairy”, but I have an acute sense that the title is nowhere near what it should be, so it certainly won’t be on the published book.

Where did the idea for the book come from? Two places, from a fantasy tumblr and from my own experiences of ‘going on adventures’ in fictional books with my friend. I wanted to write a story about two kids like ourselves actually going into a book and I wanted to try writing traditional fantasy, so I combined both ideas.

What genre does your book fall under? YA Fantasy

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Oh gosh, I hate this question. I know of only one character who has an actor for his face, and that’s one of my three main characters, Ryan Evets. Cillian Murphy is the perfect actor for Ryan.

I’ve already written an excessive amount about Ryan’s character–you can read my post about him here. I will only share two things about him here. He’s extremely complicated yet sympathetic and I think he will be one of my strongest characters yet.

I really can’t think of any actors to play my two other main characters Will and Penny. It’s probably because I’m so picky…

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? One sentence synopsis are easy, what I need to write is a paragraph one. Anyway, here it is, “Two teenagers find themselves trapped in a fantasy world inside a cursed novel and discover that they can only return home if they see the book out to the end and help steer it to an actual happy ending.”

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I’m not sure, but I’m leaning more towards self-publish. I think it takes a lot more hoop-jumping to get a agency to publish your book and I simply will like having more control over my story if I self-publish.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? It’s not done yet, but so far, I’ve written most of Part Two in a month.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t read that much fantasy at all, so I don’t think I can point at anything.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? I’d say the main inspiration to write this story was Dylan, my best friend. In him I had already found an interesting personality that was fun to attempt writing in my own ways on paper and his enthusiasm as we read book after book over this pas year was touching in that he enjoyed reading just as much as I did and he enjoyed doing it with me. We’d traipsed through Victorian London on the heels of Sherlock Holmes for months on end, traveled Europe chasing after the vampire fiend Dracula, were bottled up in a train with Hercule Poirot surrounded by dozes of murder suspects for about three weeks and in a single evening, met the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane. I thought one day to myself, “We’ve really gone on some adventures together; how much more exciting would it be if we could actually go inside a book and live it in real life.” And the idea sprang to life in the form of a magical curse and fantasy novel where two kids much like ourselves find themselves pulled into a book and unable to leave before seeing it to the very end. Dylan helped inspire this idea, and one day when I get this book published (it will happen–it will), I’ll no doubt put his name on a page all by itself as a way to say thank you…

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? While this if in form of traditional fantasy, I’ve tried to break as many ‘rules’ of the typical fantasy novel as possible. Entering a fantasy world, characters are effected by the change. They don’t find themselves discovering they now have special powers. They don’t want to be there, they want to return home (this is usually opposite in most books). They can’t use magic without consequence. They’re foreigners in a book written by another human being, discovering that they have stumbled over a thirty year old curse and ‘by chance’ are the ones given the challenge to break that curse, even though they have nothing going for them. If this doesn’t pique ones interest even by a little bit, then I’m doomed to have a failing novel. A more detailed post about all this above can be read here.

Sooo….

I’m going to tag a few people here, including:

Maribeth

Emily

Alexandra

Grace

Can’t wait to see your posts, girls. And thank you, again, Maiden, for tagging me!

~Jamie

11 is a fun number

The 11 Tag has come back around and I was tagged by two different people on the same day! I thought that was hilarious! So. Here we go, 11 facts about myself, I will be answering 11 questions from both LouPat and Solace Utara. By the way, thanks for tagging me, gals! I feel special when I see my name on someone’s list of tagged people for some reason. XD

1. I’m a bad writer; I should have been working on world building for my NaNo fantasy novel today, but instead I did lots of research on the Royal Opera Theater in London. All for a book idea that just popped up out of no where the other week. It has me very excited though; as of now, it’s’ a steam punk/Victorian murder mystery set in 1892 in London. And Sherlock Holmes might have a cameo in it. I’m very mad at myself about all this.

2. I just started a journal with one of the notebooks given to me for graduating. I always miserably fail at keeping journal’s, so we’ll see how long this one lasts.

3. I love Adrian Von Ziegler’s Celtic and Gothic music, it’s the bulk of my inspirational writing music. He’s also composes World music and Film music. Don’t be scared away by some of the darker pictures he uses; he writes amazing music which I would recommend all writer’s checking out at least once. CHECK OUT HIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

4. While our family has never celebrated Halloween, I enjoy seeing all the costumes that come out around this time of year. I’ve even been taking advantage of things that I don’t normally see in stores. I’ve bought enough things to pull together a Biker/Victorian-esque outfit, completed with a feather hat, delicate gloves, a leather jacket, dark sunglasses, and spiked bracelets. Along with my black boots and blue skirt, it looks awesome. All I’m missing is a motorcycle.

5. My sister and I just finished watching both Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. I like Anne of Avonlea better.

6. Video game music rocks. I just found the soundtrack to a super old army game called People’s General I used to pretend to play when I was younger. The Intro music itself is so stirring and makes you just want to march off to war!

7. I have a thing for BBQ chips. ‘Nuff said.

8. I’ve decided I really want to see an accurate Dracula movie, but according to all my friends, there is yet to be one made…. I just did a Google search and there have been about 28 different Dracula films made but I don’t think any of them stay close to the actual story. SOMEBODY, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF MARSHMALLOWS, MAKE A DRACULA MOVIE THAT ACTUALLY FOLLOWS THE BOOK FOR A CHANGE! I WILL PAY MONEY TO SEE IT! AND PLEASE CAST TOM HIDDLESTON IN IT SOMEWHERE! THANK YOU! AMEN! …. somehow that turned into a prayer. Lol!

9. I feel weird during autumn. My family lives in Arizona and here you don’t see much when it comes to season changes. No leaves changing colors or temperatures dropping very noticeably. No scarves or sweaters till November at the least. And seeing everyone on the blogosphere prattling on about, “oh i just love autumn when the leaves change brrr i get to wear my scarves now this is totally my favorite time of the year forget christmas now i’m going to starbucks for my pumpkin latte luv you bye.” LOLOL  Teasing aside, I feel left out not seeing weather change like everyone else. :*(

10. I still haven’t started reading Lord of the Rings yet. Grrrr. And there will be no time during November either. Oh well. I will put it on next Summer’s reading list, lol.

11. I love Donald Duck cartoons. Period.

LouPat’s Questions:

1) What is your earliest memory?

That’s kind of hard; I’m not sure how to separate memories and home video! LOL. Especially since I’ve been watching home video of myself since I was about two years old! So… kinda tough. One early memory I have is riding bumper boats at a kids park in our neighborhood.

2) What is your favorite holiday tradition? {Any holiday will do.}

Mmmm, maybe looking at Christmas lights with the family during Christmas. Probably anything to do with Christmas really.

3) What is your favorite musical? {This can be Broadway, a Disney film, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc.}

All musicals I’ve seen are leaving my memory very fast, so I’m just going to say Beauty and the Beast because those songs are genius because they actually help the plot along and they’re beautiful.

4) Would you consider yourself an early bird or a night owl?

Mmmmm, more night owl than early bird but I can’t stay up super late like my sister does.

5) How has the Lord worked in your life since this time last year?

He’s certainly shown many instances of Providence that are too obvious to push to the side, so I think He’s helped me put more faith in His control over all things.

6) If you could have dinner with three theologians and/or heroes of the faith, who would they be?

OhMyGosh how are you suppose to do this???? Going off  the top of my head, I will say John Calvin, Martin Luther and William Tyndale.

7) How would you describe your favorite kind of fictional hero {not heroine}? Are you generally attracted to or intrigued by the aggressive, scholarly, reckless, quiet, jovial, brooding, tender, or straightforward?

Well, I like all sorts of different hero types. Take Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Two very different male leads but both extremely heroic. And I like both of them very much. I know some people prefer Luke over Han and other people prefer Han over Luke. But me? I like them both equally!

8) What are you currently reading for pleasure? Schoolbooks don’t count

A Study in Scarlett is the book I’m reading now and AM LOVING IT. SHERLOCK HOLMES, HOW I LOVE YOU, YOU WONDERFUL WRECK OF A HUMAN BEING! *swoons*

9) If you could live in any other state, which one would it be and why?

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe Oregon or Washington State. It rains in those states a lot and I love rain very much. I could be sensible and say Texas because that’s a pretty conservative state but in all honesty, most people from Texas irk me. Texans, please don’t take offense, but you guys do seem to brag a lot. The general feeling I get from Texans is quite a bit of pride which just rubs me the wrong way. I know you’re very proud of your state, but please. Tone it down a little bit, okay?

10) What is your opinion of coffee? Do you drink it? If so, how do you drink it?

Coffee is fine for some people, as long as you do not get addicted to it. I personally do not drink coffee.  My mom only drinks coffee once in a while and my dad doesn’t like it. We don’t keep very much coffee in the house and I don’t even know how to make it. You pity me, perhaps. Oh well.

11) You’re about to go on an extraordinarily long trans-Pacific flight and you’re only allowed to take one DVD with you to watch on your laptop….. Jamie Joyce: your favorite Star Wars movie (I believe it’s Return of the Jedi) or…The Avengers. I may have just made you VERY desperate.

IT IS UNBELIEVABLE, I AM BEING FORCED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN STAR WARS AND THE AVENGERS! OHMYFREAKINGGOSH! ….. I’m going to say The Avengers though, because it is my recent favorite. Seriously, if you haven’t seen this movie, go see it now. Unless, of course, you haven’t seen Captain America, Thor or Iron Man. Watch those first, than The Avengers. TRUST ME, YOU WON’T REGRET IT!

Solace Utara’s Questions: (wordpress squished these together, don’t know why)

1) What are your fandoms?

Ah, I love talking about fandoms! My fandoms include Star Wars, The Avengers, and even Dr Who, although I’ve never seen the show. I’ve seen so much of it on Tumblr though that I feel like I could be part of the fandom in just a small way. And while I’m not a huge Batman fan, you could say I’m in The Joker fandom because I really like The Joker. And I’m in the Disney Fandom too.

2) Do you do fan art? If so, can you post it?

I’m afraid I don’t draw very well at all. I once drew a nice picture of Chewbacca in the middle of church (lol) but I’m afraid I lost the piece of paper. It was over a year ago.

3) What is your opinion of Ahsoka and why?

Oh goodness… I’m going to get A TON of hate for this. But I do not like Ahsoka. DISCLAIMER, I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT ASHLEY ECKSTIEN! But I do not like Ahsoka. To me, she messes up things and simply adds more questions to the Star Wars world. She’s such a big character, how come we don’t see or even hear about her in RotS? I could list other reasons why I don’t like her but that wouldn’t profit anyone.

4) Do you like to write?

Oh yes! I love writing!  I feel rather rusty with my fictional writing right now, it’s actually been a while since I did any decent fictional writing. But I’m hoping to loosen up during NaNo for the upcoming year of 2013!

5) Would you rather be an Elf or a bounty hunter?

I’m afraid I don’t know that much about elfs so I will go with bounty hunters, because they’re pretty swag. Lol. Cad Bane, anyone?! Or how ’bout Boba Fett? Some you up for a serving of Zam Wessell?

6) Explain your perfect fantasy relaxation place.

I actually have it right here in front of me. My desk, in my room, near the window, under the fan, with a candle next to me and my headphones on. I’ve not had my desk in my room for a long time, so I’m happy to be back in the quiet of my fortress.

7) Tell us a strange talent you have.

I don’t know if I have a strange talent! Lemme think….. no, I’m sure I don’t have a strange talent.  Lol. That’s sad.

8) What are things that make you happy?

Oh, good music, good books, good movies, good talks with friends, the good life, you know? Stuff like that. Oh. And ice cream. Yes, I sound very superficial but I believe in being grateful for the little things.

9) Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?

I have not see either but I will easily go with Lord of the Rings over Harry Potter.

10) What’s the last song that’s stuck in your head?

I think it was the party music from the Toy Story short Partysaurus Rex. Watch the whole thing below. Why didn’t I get glow-in-the-dark bath toys when I was little?!?!?!?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqv0n_uQfdY&feature=related

11) Have you ever been in love?

I seriously don’t think I have been. I’ve been attracted to different people and I’ve had crushes but I honestly don’t think I’ve actually ever really, truly fallen for someone. (I have more feelings for fictional characters than for real people, actually. You know, Steve feels, Loki feels, Joker feels, Robin Hood feels, Star Wars feels, Sherlock Holmes feels…. I’ll will bet that the longest crush I ever had on a fictional character was Captain America… but let’s not go there right now. XD

I don’t feel like tagging anyone and I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t already been tagged and I don’t feel like coming up with eleven questions either. LOL. So, I’ll be a rebel and just end here. If you haven’t already GO CHECK OUT THE MUSIC LINKS I LEFT YOU! RIGHT NOW! Please and thank you.

~Jamie