Songs of the Riverwick Five

Hey, everyone!

I'm obsessed with playlists, and I actually have slowly growing lists of songs for all the characters, couples, and even particular situations within the series. But literally five seconds ago I decided to share the playlist of the Riverwick Five. It's not extremely long, at the moment, but ... yes.

1. White Houses - Vanessa Carlton
2. Marching On - One Republic
3. Oh My God - Ida Maria
4. Letters From the Sky - Civil Twilight
5. More Than This - Vanessa Carlton
6. Sleeping Sickness - City and Colour
7. Never Let Me Go - Florence + the Machine

I am constantly adding to this list, as well as many others, and some of the songs get reused, because they fit several needs, but everyone should listen to this list. E v e r y o n e.

This one was actually done completely on accident. I... have no words.

Video diary, day fourteen.

Happy All Hallow's Eve, everybody! Take a little time out of my least favorite holiday to watch this video of me talking and rambling, check out some quality music and maybe even read this (completely hypothetical; it was never actually written nor does it have a part in the story) short letter from one character to another. It's between Tammie's parents, who I am in love with, and I've been writing a lot of these as an exercise to get to know my characters a little better.

Music!
Stay Awake, by Lydia
Like Yesterday, by The Morning Of
I Wouldn't Mind, by He Is We (I'm seeing them on Saturday! Oh my gosh!)

Before you read the letter, I'd like you all to soak in this picture of me from yesterday. College has not improved my picture taking skills. I have a folder named "Cute Blogging", where I save all of these pictures, in case anyone was wondering.

Video diary, day thirteen.

Ah, and I have returned to the dorm.

Today was a very important day in the world of Delta Gamma; big/little revealment! YAY! Gabi is my Big and I am her Little so now we do Big and Little things like go on adventures. I hope we can somehow get a flying carpet.

As for the world of writing, I have realized that the discipline system of Riverwick is not all that it's supposed to be, and the students have too much free reign over the school. It was not intended to be this way, and that will require tweaking. It's supposed to be the kind of school that every student would hate, with lines, ridiculous regulations and all that great stuff I got to deal with in middle school.

ALSO, I may or may not be posting a few short-short stories I've written on Tammie's parents, Amity and Harrison. They are very special characters, ones that I love very much and would have preferred not to kill but it's absolutely necessary to the story. I'm very iffy on posting it though, for various reasons which include copyright, they're very private, secret stories and I feel like it would be a betrayal of the characters to release something about them right now, and... I just sort of don't want to as much as I do want to. Mixed feelings, I'm having.

Anyway, here's a picture of me running to my sisters on Bid Day. I really like this one, so cherish it.

Video diary, day twelve.

Today, while watching Doctor Who with Vivian's little sisters, I compiled a good list of things that will need editing and revising. They're the sort of things that have been up in my head, but I never actually wrote in the book. It's headcanon, if you will. The nice thing about being the author is that my headcanon has to be everyone else's canon. HA.

I also made a list of sort of random things within the book, which may or may not be important. And I drew a helpful map of Riverwick. Three cheers for semi-productivity!

I bet there are some people wondering if there are any good pictures of me in existence. The answer is yes, but I am not especially good at taking attractive pictures, and I have the kind of face that lends itself to contorting into beautiful expressions when a camera is present. So here I am dressed as Hayley Williams and enjoying some ice cream.

Video diary, days nine, ten, and eleven.

Hello everyone! I'm not dead! Hooray!

I feel terrible about not making videos for two whole days, but I was gross embarrassing-looking sick, with a fever and everything. And I didn't have my laptop.

But for whatever evil reason, the video has absolutely refused to upload no matter what I try. So I'll just type out everything I talked about.

Due to being quite sick and confined to my parents' house for two days, I was unable to work much but I did a lot of thinking. I've come up with a few ideas of how to make things better and somethings to rewrite. Nothing is actually changing, except the way it's written. I will be providing updates on this as I continue on with it.

Because I felt bad about not making videos, I also talked about something else that was on my mind, which was how people will often say that they enjoy writing but aren't very good at it, definitely not good enough to ever amount to anything or let other people read it. I think that's ridiculous!

If you want to be a writer, but don't think you are very good, don't give up on yourself. No one is going to be stellar at first. My first "stories" were fanfiction written in the margins of my diary, and boons almighty it was awful. Thankfully, I have made quite miraculous strides since then, but none of that would have happened were it not for practice. I'm talking notebooks filled in, entire packages of pens used up and hours upon hours of sleep lost to never ending ideas.

When I was talking about "branching out", I was saying that you need to broaden your horizons, and go places you haven't ever been before because it will more than likely inspire you. I have gotten more ideas from running around a garden and screaming numbers in French than I have just hanging around. Nothing's gonna happen if you don't let it.

Of course, you have to be a reader if you want to be a good writer. Classes can teach you how to do it properly but books are like a full body workout for your imagination, and that muscle needs frequent stretching. Read all sorts of genres, from all authors and age groups. And learn to recognize bad writing. I mentioned teen romance novels, such as most of what's written by Sara Dessen (okay, she's not a terrible author, I'm just not a fan), Twilight and a couple other things. If that's the sort of stuff you always read, it will be incredibly difficult to recognize that it isn't exactly top notch stuff. I could go on for days about bad plots and poor character development, but I'll spare you the trauma. Just... read everything.

The fabulous Mrs. Zeanah , who taught me English sophomore year and Creative Writing junior year and deserves an entire video of her own, once told us that the hardest part of being a writer is writing. And she's absolutely correct. But it isn't going to write itself. So my only advice for that is to glue yourself to a comfortable chair, grab a notebook or your laptop and write until you can't feel your fingers. Ignore the internet, TV, even food if you have to (make sure you don't starve, though, that's no fun). Keep writing until you have something your proud of, and then attempt to outdo yourself. You've got this.

Nooooow, I want all of you to listen to No Light, No Light or I will never post ever again. This is a very serious message. And a very serious picture of me and Kelsey before a party. I had a laughing problem and she disapproved.

Video diary, day eight.

Today I'm sort of rambling about the many things that have inspired The Decoder. I had to edit out about seven minutes of me coughing and laughing at Kelsey, so I apologize for the semi-disconnected thoughts. This video is a little silly.

Believe it or not, I am actually feeling better today. My voice sounds horrible, but I was able to eat something and I'm not as tired. Hopefully I'll be all better by the weekend. 

For those of you who are interested, this is a short list of the songs I compulsively listened to while writing the first draft. And if you've never written while jamming to Disney songs, you should definitely try it.

1. White Houses - Vanessa Carlton
2. Skinny Love (Bon Iver cover) - Birdy
3. Go the Distance, from Hercules.
4. Status Quo - Joey Richter, from Starship
5. White Blank Page - Mumford and Sons
6. Hands on Me - Vanessa Carlton
7. Drumming Song - Florence + the Machine
8. Time Bomb - All Time Low
9. Every song from Tangled.
10. Set Fire to the Rain - Adele
11. Sleeping Sickness - City and Color

Do all of these songs have significance to the plot? Not exactly.

This is what I learned in my graphic design class:

Video diary, day seven.

So I'm pretty proud; I've been running this blog for a week and I haven't gotten tired of it. Let's hope it keeps up!

Today I'm (very briefly) talking about some of the things I've been looking into about publishers and agents. I've only been reading up on it for about two days, so I don't have a lot to offer, but I have found some amazing websites that have already been a huge help.

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2011/02/how-to-get-published/
http://www.agentquery.com/default.aspx

Also, I'm sick, so if you're thinking to yourself, "She looks like she's about to turn into a zombie", it's because I am.

Tomorrow, I'm really not sure what I'll be talking about, to be totally honest. Fret not, though, I'll figure something out.

And last but certainly not least, everyone should check out Vivian's blog. She's helping me with the second draft, and has been kicking my author butt since sophomore year of high school. Also, she's hilarious, good at poetry, and can recite Edgar Allan Poe at the drop of a hat.

Here's a picture of the two of us in our World Religions class, senior year of high school. Look at it. Let it fill you up. Breathe it, be the picture.

Other things that need to be said.

I came across the TT on Twitter called #uglygirlsarenotallowed, and I weep for humanity. Is it really okay to tear other people down like that? What puts you above them, what makes you better? Who says you aren't the ugly one, and that society's perception of beauty is nearly irreparably flawed.

Isn't there anything worse than being considered ugly? I would hate to be called stupid, boring, shallow, run of the mill, ordinary, rude, unloving or soulless more so than ugly. To me, it shows the lack of true dislike on the bully's part; if the best insult you can throw out is 'ugly', then I have no respect for you, and I probably didn't have much in the first place.

Why do looks matter so much to us? Why is being pretty so important to someone's confidence? Is that really all we have, anymore? I'd rather celebrate the beautiful minds, the kind hearts and the brave spirits than those who have nothing to offer but their looks. Beauty fades, and it fades fast.

People who have to break others down in order to feel powerful are the weak ones. They are cowards, hiding behind temporary masks and afraid to come out and face their rotting souls. Internal beauty shines through, but an ugly heart radiates through every pore, and everyone can see it.

“Is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me.”  - JK Rowling

Video diary, day six.

Hello! Happy day six!

Today I am talking about the final member of the cleverly titled Riverwick Five, and lo his name is Mark.

Mark is a character that is very special to me, and has been since I jotted down some very vague ideas for this book way back in November. I'm not sure why, but I've had his character pegged down since the very beginning. He's one of the only things that hasn't gone through major changes; Tori and Emily's names were reversed in the first plot outlines, for instance.

After today I will no longer be talking about characters, but random bumps and things I come across while writing the second draft and chilling with some cool agents and publishers (the thought makes me quake).

I'm socially awkward at parties.

On Cheerleading

Literally a couple minutes ago, I read a comment on Tumblr about how someone "hates" cheerleaders because they think they own the world when all they really do is walk around in a slutty uniform, and how they should get off their high horse. I was infuriated. As someone who cheered for twelve, yes, twelve years, on all sorts of different teams and in two states, I know I'm being honest when I say that those stereotypical girls are a very small fraction of actual cheerleaders. 

When I say I've cheered for twelve years, you have to understand that I'm not talking about simply standing on the sidelines of a football or basketball game, shaking my pompoms around. I'm talking about competitive cheerleading, I'm talking about working on a routine for weeks, just to perform for two minutes and thirty seconds. I'm talking sprained ankles, torn rotation cuffs, concussions and bruises so big and black people thought you were being abused. Those girls, the ones that dedicate hours and hours of practice, fall on their face and insist that they're completely fine, the girls that wouldn't come off the floor if they peed themselves, are the real cheerleaders. Not the girls who think having the uniform gives you power, but the ones who understand that it's not just a privilege to take the floor, but that it's the result of hard, hard work.

The girls I've met through cheerleading are some of the most dedicated people I've ever met in my life. Who do you know that is willing to keep trying no matter how many times they fall? No matter how much they bleed or how much they want to cry? Do you know anyone that is willing to throw themselves on the ground, literally, to potentially save someone else's life? A lot of people talk a big game, about how they would do anything for their friends, but those girls put it into action. Even if they're scared, they'll do whatever it takes to make it work. 

Cheerleading has made me brave, it has made me stubborn and it's kicked me in the ass time and time again. I've learned what it truly means to feel worthless, weightless, strong, powerful, cheated, determined, and so many other things, which I can't even put into words. I have thrown up, then run back to the mats. I have fractured my ankle and kept it a secret because I didn't want to come out of the routine. I've tumbled when my arm was numb, I've competed with pneumonia. I have screamed so loud I threw up. I never thought myself strong enough to push through some of the worst times in my life, but the support of my teammates and the drive my coaches put in me has given me the guts to do almost anything, like publish a book at eighteen. I probably wouldn't have the courage to be myself.

It is unfair to assume that all cheerleaders are the same, and there are bitches on every team. Mean girls can be anywhere. But to say that we're all sluts (most of us didn't have time for boyfriends or partying between practice and homework), think we own the world, or that we don't do anything is just plain wrong. I understand why people stereotype us, but you have to understand that life isn't a high school movie, and we're real people, not robots in uniforms.

Think before you speak, and ask yourself if you would like to be judged so harshly before you do it to someone else. Nothing hurts quite like hearing a lie about yourself.

Video diary, day five.

This has been, without a doubt, one of the weirder days I've lived. I made a new addition to "The Embarrassing Things I've Done" list, went to the movies, and now I'm back in my dorm. Alone. Yay.

I didn't say this is the video, but I absolutely love movies. For a long time I wanted to be a director, and every now and then I get a preliminary idea for a screenplay. I'm going to minor in Communications, I think, and I'm really excited. Gah. My love of film isn't entirely equal with writing, but it's way up there.

Today/tonight, I'm talking about Tori, the third and final female member of the Riverwick five. She's someone that's very easy to hate, so I have a feeling some people are going to worship her. Don't do that. No one likes Tori, not even Tori.

I'm tired, shivering and I need to take a shower but I might not. So here's a picture from my cheerleading days.

We're very serious about what we do.

Video diary, day four.

Can I get a shout out from my homedawgs?

Today I am talking about Rob, Emily's older brother. I can't say too much about him, either, as his story doesn't quite begin in The Decoder, but really comes to full bloom around the end of the second book, then continues throughout the rest of the series. However, he's quite a good character and I like him very much.

Tomorrow's character is a surprise, because I'm not so sure who it will be, myself! Just know that it's gonna be good.

I have been doing a lot of showering and thinking about Draft One lately, and I have a few ideas of how to make it better. I envision myself talking to publisher over Christmas break. That would be so incredible. Hopefully it will become reality.

I'll definitely be uploading some designs I've done either later today or tonight! Weekends mean nerd hour for me, so there's much to be made. I'll hopefully post pictures of the HPC stuff I'm doing, as well. Because it's exciting and it's my blog so yes.

Video diary, day three.

It's cold, I didn't sleep at all last night, I drink too much diet coke and I'm blogging from the bathroom on the hall. It must be Thursday.

Today, I am talking about who is possibly my favorite character, Emily. When I first began to write her, she was not my favorite, but she evolved with the plot and has come to be just as important as Tammie, as well as someone I can honestly envision. Of course, as a writer, I think as all of my characters as real people, but Emily is the kind of character that could start to actually breathe at any given moment.

I can't actually say much about her, as she is shrouded in mystery throughout much of The Decoder, and her past is something that Tammie learns over time. This is video is not super informative, but you may find that you'll learn something.

Perhaps later today or tomorrow, I will be making a graphics post. Nothing much, just a few things I've been thinking about, and since I'm a huge geek, I've been drafting. However, I am a very busy lady, and have much to do. I am on the Council of my university's Harry Potter club and we're planning a huge party (and I foolishly volunteered to make House banners. Also, go Ravenclaw!), I've got to work out (because I absolutely want to make the All Star Quidditch team) and I have to work for my mom so she'll pay my sorority dues. Then there is writing to be done, as well as sleeping.

Would you believe me if I said that I felt busier in high school?

As a parting gift, I have included a picture of me hanging out with Fifi, the unicorn. I like to share cute pictures of myself (like this adorable specimen) because I feel that it is the internet and I can do what I want. So look at this picture and enjoy it.

Have a happy Thursday!

Books everyone should read.

- Vivian Beltran

In case you couldn't tell by my dream to be an author, I love books. I have been reading since time began, and over the years have happened upon a great number of very good books. And now that I feel like it, I thought it'd be nice to share this list with the internet, so everyone can judge me.

The titles that are in bold have either inspired/seriously changed me in some way. Those books are very important to me.

Series:

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth
The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Just Books:
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Looking for Alaska by John Green
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Paper Towns by John Green
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathon Safran Foer
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Un Lun Dun by China Mielville
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

I feel it necessary to note that this a very condensed list. These are not the only books I have ever read (I cannot possibly remember all the books I've ever read), nor are they the only ones that I love. I will, of course, be adding to this list as time goes on, but until then, have a cute picture of me from my junior prom.

Video diary, day two.

Hello, readers and creepers! It is Day Two of working on draft two, and for my video diary of the day, I decided to sort of summarize the protagonist and narrator of the book, who is named Tammie.

Do not fret, little ones, for this is only a glimpse of what Tammie and the entire book is about. It's even less than a glance. More like a passing glimpse of someone's butt.

Tomorrow, I will be talking about another character, and I will possibly be posting a list of what I like to call "Important Things", all of which have been inspirational. This will be followed be more lists, cleverly entitled "Important People", "Important Songs", and "Important Pictures of Nikki Doing Weird Things". That last one may or may not be a joke.

This blog has (so far) been a lot of fun. I hope to keep it updated, so I can troll in the deep.

Here's a picture of me owling on top of a washing machine.

Video diary, day one.

A week ago, I completed the first draft of my first ever book, The Decoder (spoiler alert: I'm the author!). Today, I decided to start working on the second draft, as well as start a "professional blog" and make a daily video diary in order to track my progress and process in writing this.

Also, here's a picture of my face, so you can look at it if you're feeling down about your appearance. This will give you a confidence boost.

Here's to aspiring authors everywhere!