Quotes, Quotes, Quotes

"There's something a quote does that nothing and no one else can ever do; it can become a part of you, you may never meet, or even know who wrote your life down in their own words, but that person is your companion. Quotes help you get over pain, feel loved, make you smile or even laugh, on those tough days. And to think you started thinking no one knew what you were going through."  - Unknown

 If you know anything about me, it's that I get a good deal of my inspiration from quotes.  So I thought that I would share some of my favorites (seeing as I need some inspiration right now, and I'm sure you could all use it at some time or another).  Hopefully, I will be able to credit the majority of them, but some I just don't know where they came from and I can't find the source.  In no particular order...

"You always have a choice.  Even giving up is a kind of choice."  - Wildwood Dancing

"A man can change his stars.  I will not spend the rest of my life as nothing."  - A Knight's Tale

"Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like."  - Lemony Snicket

"Fairytales are more than true.  Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." - G. K. Chesterton

"To live would be an awfully big adventure." - Peter Pan

"If we could control who we love, life would be a lot simpler, but mush less magical."  - Unknown

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."  - C. S. Lewis

"My heart is yours, to fill or burst, to break or bury, to wear as jewellery, whichever you prefer."  - Dashboard Confessional, Hands Down

"Your men love you.  If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough."  - A Knight's Tale

"After all these years I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her."  - Mark Twain

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood, and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."  - Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery

"If ever you get lonely, just look up and remember--I'm under the same stars as you."  - Chris Coca

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." - C. S. Lewis

"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need to discipline and restrain ourselves?  It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want.  And it takes the greatest kind of courage.  I mean what we really want."  - Ayn Rand

"Look. (Grownups skip this paragraph.) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending. I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming." - William Goldman, The Princess Bride

 “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.”  - Gloria Steinem

"The hero always wins, because in the end, he has the most to lose."  - opalish, A Simple Story (fanfiction)

"Maybe, for once, it's not about the happy ending.  Maybe it's about the story." - Marin Mrowca

"A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words."  - Samuel Butler 

"If there's ever a tomorrow when we're not together, there's something you should remember:  You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you."  - Winnie the Pooh

"We read to know that we are not alone."  - C. S. Lewis

"Maybe human beings are programmed--to help one another, even to fall in love, but just because it's human nature doesn't make it bad."  - Pretties

"You've got to go through it to get to the end of it.  Better not be late."  - Catching Fire

"Artists use lies to tell the truth."  - V for Vendetta

"She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here.  And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive."  - The Last Olympian

"Go after her, fuck, don't just sit there and wait for her to call, go after her, because that's what you should do if you love her. Don't wait for her to give you a sign because it might never come. Go scream you love her and be with her, because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really."  - Unknown

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.  We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.  And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering; these are all noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.  But poetry, beauty, romance, love; these are what we stay alive for."  - Dead Poets Society

“I want to draw something that means something to someone! You know. I want to draw blind faith, or a fading summer, or just a moment of clarity. It's like when you go and see a really great band live for the first time, you know, and nobody is saying it but everybody is thinking it. We have something to believe in again. I want to draw that feeling.” - One Tree Hill

"And the little prince said to the man, 'Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them.'"  - The Little Prince

"So, whoever you are, and whoever I am, you made it all right to be me."  - Driving Lessons

"Speak louder than the words before you, and give them meaning no one else has found." - Ian Axel

"Here's what I'd like you to do for me: Make me laugh. Make me cry. Tell me my place in the world. Lift me out of my skin and place me in another. Show me places I have never visited and carry me to the ends of time and space. Give my demons names and help me to confront them. Demonstrate for me possibilities I've never thought of and present me with heroes who will give me courage and hope. Ease my sorrows and increase my joy. Teach me compassion. Entertain and enchant and enlighten me... Tell me a story." - Dennis O'Neil, from 'The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics'

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things– trees and grass and sun and moon and stars. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones."  - C. S. Lewis

I hope you all liked these.  They kind of mean the world to me and I hope they can affect you as well. (:

Love Always,

Kayla

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Realistic OC

I just posted a How-to guide to writing an OC.  It includes the Marauder's Era and Harry's Hogwarts years, and talks about naming, appearance, background, personality, and examples of characters.  I really hope that it helps you guys come up with characters, and feel free to ask me anything about my characters or your own and I'll be happy to do whatever I can. (:

Love Always,
Kayla

He's Worth It (Chp. 50 Spoilers)

"You give me the kind of feeling people write novels about."

Well, it's done!  It was a mammoth of a chapter, but it is finally posted!  I'm really excited and I know that you are (hopefully) going to love it!  Or you've read it already and you did love it (again, I hope).  I had a lot of fun writing it.

Cado was particularly intriguing.  Do you ever have characters that just speak to you and connect with you easier than all the others?  That's what he was like for me.  As I was in the process of creating him, he obviously had to have a reason for turning into a murderer, and he simply told me his story. All I had to do was write it down.  I love characters like that.  The whole chapters actually just ended up flowing out.  I'd started it about six different times and scrapped every single one of them, but I sat down and ended up writing all 15,000+ words in a day.  (That's what White Tea does for you!)  Anyway, definitely don't forget about Cado, Caradoc, and Waverly.  They are going to play larger roles as time goes on.

Writing this story, I'm beginning to realize that to have a 'good' James/Lily story, you really have to have a lot of other people involved, you know?  Their lives were so focused on the big picture that the story would be flat if you only talked about Lily, James, and their closest friends, which is why I am loving the Amelia/Cado and Caradoc/Waverly subplots.  They're very different from each other, but they are equally fun to write. 

I especially liked the part where Cado talks about not everyone having a happy ending, because it's so true.  We only really hear about James and Lily, who are tragedies in themselves, but at least they found love, which made it all worthwhile.  But some of the people obviously did not find that love, or they had it and lost it in the end, and I don't want to get super angsty, but I also think that you can't tell a true war story without a lot of pain and loss.

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter!  I would love to hear if you have any guesses about what might happen to Amelia from here and what the mission is that Cado is planning.  I'll tell you that you'll recognize one of his fellow-assassins. and that there will eventually be four of them total working together for C.W. Umbridge.  So tell me what your thoughts are!

Also, did you notice all the sets of brothers in this chapter?  Gideon and Fabian, Cado and Caradoc, Sirius and Regulus.  I was considering naming the chapter Brotherly Love, but I wanted the title to relate to James and Lily instead, since the major event of the chapter was the last scene with the two of them.  But you did get the reference to troll blood, didn't you?  I hope so.  I know it's been forever.  In case you didn't, Lily and James got detention together back in their 5th year, and had to spend it cleaning out Slughorn's store closet.  James accidentally knocked over a barrel of troll blood and covered them both with it.  It was that night that Lily first agreed to be friends with James if he left Severus alone.

So, drop a review on ff.n and leave me a comment here!  I want to hear all of your thoughts!

Love Always,

Kayla

Chapter 50!

"And the cynics were outraged,

Screaming, "This is absurd,"

'Cause for a moment a band of thieves in ripped up jeans 

Got to rule the world."

Chapter Fifty is completely written!  I just have to edit it and it will be ready to post.  But while I'm doing that, here's what happening:

It's titled Between Blood and Fairytales and includes Peter's decision, Remus and Vanessa telling Ms. Lupin about the new law, Lily struggling with idea that James wants her out of his life, and finally taking some action, Alice and Frank starting the Order, what happens to Amelia Bones (sort of), play practice and the play itself, some Stellar advice, a Sirius decision, brotherly love, Greg being slimy, and a grand finale you won't forget. ;)

New characters come into play as well.  There are Gideon and Fabian Prewett--two very different brothers who have to make a decision regarding the war and their careers.  Cado Dearborn, who struggles with the idea of right and wrong and tries to find a definition for love and an escape from its pain.  And Caradoc Dearborn, who (somewhat unwillingly) takes his older brother in and nurses him back to health, all the while trying to show him the true meaning of goodness and love.

I think you're really going to like this one.  It's the longest yet--right now 13,700 words.  Look forward to it this afternoon (Sunday, Oct. 24th)!!

Love Always,
Kayla

Sincerely, Me

"Artists use lies to tell the truth."  - V for Vendetta

Hey lovelies!  I have decided to start posting a blog to keep you all up to date with developments in my stories (currently Of Raindrops, Flowers,& Wishing Wells and Secondhand Wings), just so that you all know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or anything.  I'll also give you teasers and post drawings occasionally.

So as of right now, Raindrops is in it's fiftieth(!) chapter, and as you know, it's been a WIP for a long time.  This is mostly due to the fact that I have been re-writing the story, and I've been having more inspiration with that than with the newest chapter.  I won't post the re-written version of Raindrops until I catch up with myself (and I'm only in the third chapter right now), but I will continue to post new chapters as I get around to them.  Fifty is going to be the longest yet, and it will include Peter's answer to Bellatrix's offer, the play, the beginnings of recruitment for the Order of the Phoenix by Alice and Frank, Remus and Vanessa's reaction to the Werewolf Rights bill, Amelia's plans now that she is no longer involved in the MoM, the Ministry's reaction to Amelia's double-crossing, Lily coming to her senses (or in a way, loosing her senses completely), and further details about the war with Voldemort.  But while you wait for all of that, I've decided to give you a snippet of what the new Raindrops is going to look like.  This is an excerpt from Chapter One:

Her cold, bare feet drug in the grey sand as she swung back and forth in the low swing.  The wood beam above creaked in protest at the weight, as though it had not been used in many years, and the chains reeked of rust and mildew.

It was, like everything else in the small industrial town (ironically named Lantern City), in desperate need of repair, but the landlords that owned most of the area around the old textile mill had never seen fit to waste money on something children would not use.  Few people went outside at all due to the thick smog that hung in the air like a dark, suppressive cloud, and those that did hurried from one place to the next, shielding their faces and never stopping to speak with anyone.

The only residents of the town were those who worked in the mill, and over time, they had taken on the filthy, grey look that had seeped into the small brick houses and stamped out any amount of color there once was.  Their faces were ashy; their hair was somewhere between grey and mousy brown and hung limp about their thin, sallow faces; their eyes were flat and pale, and no longer told the million little stories that most eyes can convey.

She looked up suddenly when she heard the sound of feet on the cobbled street, and saw a man in the dusty, grey uniform that all of the mill workers wore.  His salt-and-pepper hair looked out of place on such a young man, but the shadows of lines forming on his brow told her what she already knew—work at the mill aged people far too quickly, drained them much too soon.

He caught sight of her sitting in the swing and seemed unable to look away, like he was suddenly a child brought into a toy store for the first time and astounded by the innumerable colors and sounds.  She blushed and turned her head, and the man kept walking, but she could feel his eyes on her until he turned onto Factory Way.

Her mother had once described her as the stained glass windows in a dreary old church, and while the once-beautiful windows in the church at the end of the road had long-since been boarded up, the girl could understand the analogy.  Perhaps, had she lived in the little town year-round, she would have faded, too, but she attended school far away, and as such, had maintained her vibrant color.

Her skin was pale, but not in the sickly way that most in the town had, and accented with freckles.  Many girls her age hated their freckles, but she was able to see them as just one more part of the spectrum.  Cracked pink lips framed her wide mouth, which was full of too-big teeth that all showed when she smiled, and her shockingly green eyes were almond-shaped and surrounded by thick black lashes.  But easily the feature that stood out the most was the long, red-bronze hair that curled softly and thickly down her back.

She had, however, inherited the rail-thin figure that was common in the townspeople, though while at school she was able to gain a small amount of weight.  But she always appeared too thin to truly be healthy.  During her time at home, she seemed to absorb the smell of smoke from the mill until she could not get it out of her skin for weeks into the school year.

She coughed, the smog getting into her lungs and affecting her breathing, but still she sat in the swing.  She was waiting for him.  She and him—an unlikely pair that was misunderstood wherever they went.  While at home, the locals assumed that they would be yet another marriage of convenience, as so many were, and at school, people thought of their friendship as impractical, impossible even. 

He was supposed to be there, and the only reason she could imagine that he would be late would be that his father, who was far too fond of liquor, had been rampaging drunkenly about and hurt him or his pacifistic mother.

As soon as the thought of her friend in trouble crossed her mind, she was on her feet, but a second set of footsteps interrupted her.

Hope you guys liked it so far, let me know what your thoughts are on the whole process.  Obviously, this is just the introduction to Lily's life, so there isn't any real interaction yet, but still talk to me! I'm re-doing a lot of the story, and writing all of fifth year, since I skipped so much of it when I first wrote it.  Let me know if there is anything you want to see (Constance's home life, Regulus at school, a confrontation between Lily and Remus, whatever you want).

As for Secondhand Wings, my current priority is Chapter Fifty of Raindrops, but once I get that out, I plan to continue with Wings ASAP.  I can't honestly tell you what I have in store, because I haven't decided yet, but in no way have I forgotten this story!

And I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of those who have reviewed both stories and sent me notes to ask where I am and if I'm okay.  It all means so much to me that you guys care, and I promise to get back on track hopefully by this weekend.  I'm taking the ACT for the last time on Saturday, but I'm hoping to write Saturday afternoon and hopefully Sunday afternoon as well.  I LOVE YOU ALL TO BITS!

Love Always,
Kayla