A teenager's take

My high school doesn't ban books. In fact, we've got 'Read a banned book' posters ALL over the walls at school. Now, I live in a town with probably less than 30,000 people. I think the little census signs say 12,000. (But that's way, way off.) Regardless, we're kind of small, and my town probably does have some close minded people. In fact, we weren't allowed to watch the president's speech a couple weeks ago because so many people complained.
Yet we don't ban books. Why? Quite frankly?
It's stupid and pointless. Yet it happens.
Ever read this series?

(It's the old cover.)
This series used to be pretty popular. I've read them. They're good.
Ahem. 'The book was pulled from the middle school library recommended list because of concerns that the book deals with the occult.'
It's not funny, yet I find myself laughing . . .
It is called FICTION. I'm a teenager and I'm writing a story about demons. Does that make me a witch? No. (Do I want to be a witch? Most definitely. I mean, just look;
Sigh. Don't I wish. Those books were banned-or at least challenged-too. What a crime . . .)
Anyway, back to the point. If I write about demons, that doesn't make me a demon worshiper. If it deals with the supernatural, it isn't the occult; at least not the creepy, let's kill the world and drink blood kind.
Yes, I do feel the urge to put a picture of a vampire. I'm abstaining. This is how serious I am. You have no idea how much it hurts.
Then there's this book.

Banned because: 'objected to the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated by members of a racist white community.'
Um, that's the point of the book. It's American culture, as sad as that is. It just makes no sense. This happens in schools. Primarily high schools. As a kid, my take on it is a little different. Yes, it's terrible that it infringes our rights. However, I think the hypocrisy is worse.
Banning a high school student from reading insinuates that we're idiots. It is as if we can't handle what we are reading. If you can trust us with a car, then you can trust us with a book. If you can trust us to get up, go to school, make our dinner, feed the dog, do all of that and more, then I just don't see the point in banning a book. I promise--even if we read stories about the occult, it will not be nearly as traumatizing as some of the movies I've seen, or the jokes made by some of my guy friends.
Ugh. Yeah, I think some of those jokes are about twelve hundred times worse than anything I've ever read.
Now, because I refrained earlier, because my mind is now scarred from remembering those strange and terrible jokes, and because these books are ALSO banned . . .

Yup. Banned for pornographic images.
Come on, America. Just get over it.

It's kind of like cinema heaven

Note the kind of. If it was true cinema heaven, there would be more Tom Felton. I'd put a picture of him, but I think you all know what he looks like. (If not, just scroll down. I'm sure you'll find one.)
However. With the news of this--


--becoming a movie, my world has brightened. (This is the Italian cover of City of Glass. I'm using it as silent proof of foreign countries abilities to produce awesome covers.) Granted, it's an American movie and the first book being optioned, but still. YAY!
Second, there is this.
Yes, pure awesome. The Olympian series by Rick Riordan is becoming a movie. However, the guy playing Percy is seventeen...good for teenage girls. Sad for those who wanted an exact copy of the book. Still, though, I think it'll be really good.
Okay, that makes me sound less like a squealing little girl than I am. Truthfully? I really did start squealing when I saw the commerical.
Sigh. What I can I say? I love these books, have been reading 'em since they came out. I even have the original cover on Lightning Thief.
Third, there's the fact that the Uglies movie is set for 2011. Yes, Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

That's the full shot of the girl upon Uglies cover. Now, I don't know about most people...but if I looked like that? Well, I sure as heck wouldn't be calling myself ugly. Pft.
Then, there's apparently a Hunger Games movie coming out in the same year!!! Hunger Games!! Movie!! Loud, wild screaming, please? Yes, indeed. It will probably be majorly violent, and I don't care. It's a teen movie so it can't be THAT bad.
Seriously. How awesome is that?
Then, finally . . . There's this . . .

....Pretty....
That is, Dakota Fanning's dress. What else would I have meant?

What's wrong with mature?

People that like to write--especially the like to write fiction--don't tend to be boring. It's kind of hard to have 'no imagination' when you spend all day writing about imagined worlds.
Yet for the past three weeks, I have been fending off comments about being 'too mature' 'too sensible' and 'just way unimaginative'.
Yes, because I don't turn my mind to dream up new 'Your Face' jokes, I now have no imagination.
Gah. I've never been told maturity is a bad thing, and yet now I've got a friend who, to quote, thinks I was born thirty and grow more middle aged every day; who says I don't take risks.
I have fun. I enjoy myself; I go to parties, I hang out with friends, I dream about selling my sister to the circus and I spend all Geometry talking about cute boys. (You may notice a recurring pattern. I don't speak math.)
Bleh. I don't understand why being mature and not wanting to lie and act stupid ALL THE TIME is a bad thing.
My apologies. So, I know this has nothing to do about writing, and that's what I meant this blog for . . . but quite honestly, it's bugging me and I was interested to see if anyone else had opinions.
Mature is bad, now? Not just bad, but utterly taboo?


See? Look how mature the baby panda is, petting its mom. Or whatever it's doing. No one tells HER(Him? It?) that she/he/it is too sensible . . .

A high power existance

So, with school out, rain pouring down and being home alone, I have lost my motivation.
I don't know where it went. I wish I did. But instead of doing my homework, I find myself obsessively editing and checking my email. Editing entertains me, so I don't count it as work.
Seriously. This has been my afternoon thus far.
Sit. Stare.
Click onto internet.
Check Yahoo account. Nothing.
Sit. Stare. Read a few pages of Catching Fire. Edit a chapter from my most recent story.
Click mouse.
Check AOL account. Notifications from Facebook.
Sit. Stare. Edit some more.
Click on to internet.
Check Yahoo and OMG THERE IS SOMETHING THERE IS, THERE IS-
There is a notification from Piknic about their process of touching up pictures.
Sit. Scream.
Sit. Stare. Look down at my Honors Geometry homework. Decide that Geometry will never be used in the real world, so doing the homework this very instant isn't necessary.
Edit some more, write a few paragraphs.
Sit. Stare. Click. Repeat.
Yes. This is the life of the modern teenager.
What a hopeful future we have, America. What a hopeful future indeed.
....
Ok. Going to go do something productive now....
Yeah. Sure.

Eight years ago today

I was in second grade when the planes hit.
Second grade.
But I can remember.
I was so scared. My mom was crying. The news showed nothing but image after image, and in my mind it was almost like a game. Surely those weren't, like, people. Surely not. I told a mom at school what had happened and she laughed at me. Laughed, because she couldn't believe it was true.
I'm mentioning it here because it seems quite honestly as if so many others forgot. I know that we have to move on. While we're still in the midst of a war that (supposedly) was started by these attacks, though, I think we should remember.
It's been eight years. Eight years, and that's a long time. But I don't think we should forget. Yeah, it's depressing. It seems like we're dishonoring those that died, though, by just forgetting; by just not mentioning it.
I don't know. It really bothered me all day, though. It was too terrible to brush away, even after eight years . . . We didn't even have a moment of silence at school. (At least not in the Spanish Hallway, where the intercom doesn't work.)
It just seems like those people deserve better.

Yup

I got a full request.
A full.
That makes me actually quite pleased. If I'd posted this ten minutes after I first checked my email there would be a heckuva lot more exclamation marks. As it is, the nerves have kind of set in. So . . . yeah . . .
But at least now I know if she says no, it isn't because my writing stinks. That sounds odd, but quite honestly? It's good enough for me. Of course, I REALLY REALLY REALLY would love a yes. But a full is still good.
Now, to calm the nerves that are threatening to quite frankly eat my alive, I'm going to go edit. Also, watch Titanic or something else equally mindless and forever imprinted in my head.

Actually, these nerves might be too much for even Titanic. Time for the big guns.
Yes. I am just that awesome.

I have never read a perfect book

That is, until Hunger Games. But even that one I wouldn't have called 'perfect'. No, the ending was too awful.
(awful in the omg I want the next book, why on earth would she do this to me, who will she pick, why, when, NOW! kind of way)

That's the British cover, for those who don't recognize it. (Hah. As if I would have ten seconds ago)
Anyway. I just read the second one, Catching Fire.
Oh, my goodness. I took it out to breakfast with the family and read between ordering, read in the car, read at home and had it finished in, like, an hour and a half. It was just that awesome.
The next one, please. Now. Now.
Now, now, now, now, now.
Talk about perfect. If the third is anything like the first two, I will have read a perfect series. It transcends good. Suzanne Collins is to applauded. I liked her first books, but these are just amazing. She had to have put so much thought into these, so much planning.

Barbiac

I have a talking problem.
I always have. When I was little, I can remember getting in a 'fight' with my mom. (If I remember, she told me to clean my room. Ahem.) My punishment for her was going to be to spend all day without talking to her.
I lasted fifteen minutes.
I was a compulsive storyteller, even as a kid. I had stuffed animals by the dozens, and all of them had a history. Some of them had enemies and most of them had a couple of designated friends. Then there were the barbies.
I was a Barbiac.

I know. It's a terrible thing. I should be ashamed. I have moved past my adolescent denial, though, and now fully admit it.
Not only did they have stories, they had life missions. They had fights with their boyfriends, they rescued princes from dragons. . .
. . . yes, even as a six year old the sexist thing bother me . . .
Today, talking was a bit of an issue. Got yelled at for it in class, talked my mom to the seclusion of her room, ect, ect.
No wonder I like writing.
You get to ramble on and on, and then you get to read it back and sometimes out loud, and it's just more and more talking. Not even Barbie world lives up to it. (My inner child is screaming defiance at that last statement.)
Quite seriously, though. Not only can the princess rescue the prince, but she can save the world. Plus, she can do it without being plastic and having a two centimeter waist.
What more could you ask for?

Oh, shut up.