Contest(not mine)

Over at KT literary, there's a contest for making cover art. I've played with this stuff before, and it's fun, so I figured I'd put one up. Plus, since I'm so picky about other people's, it's probably good for me to make my own and realize how superior real art departments are.
The rules and stuff are posted under the picture, and the link to the agency.


This one's really simple, because the picture was too cool for me to do anything other than crop, resize and change saturation(sounds like a lot, but isn't really. Speaking as someone who's had to help put out yearbooks, believe me. It's not)
These are the rules;

1 - Go to Fake Name Generator. The name that appears is your author name.

2 - Go to Random Word Generator. The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 - Go to FlickrCC. Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, Picnik, or similar (KT literary used snagit, I used picnik, which is free) to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in, as desired.

5 - Post it to your site along with this text.

And this is the site!
http://ktliterary.com/2009/07/having-some-fun-with-book-covers/

I suggest you try it. It's weirdly amusing.

It's happening again

Thirteen Reasons Why is a book you have probably heard of. That's for good reason. It's fabulous. But trolling through Jay Asher's blog, I found something quite sad. It was in the list of covers.
Yup. It happened again. I have fallen in love with foreign covers over my own countries' work. I know, quite sad.
This is our cover of this heart wrenching but beautiful book. (No, that isn't sarcasm. It really is that good.)


Now, this is an ok cover. It's actually pretty cool.
But look at the UK version. . . .

By the by, I happen to like the quote on the British one. I didn't notice it until it was this big, and I think the back or of the U.S. one says something similiar. . .But I like it. Just saying.
I like this cover better, too. But this is the Italian one. It either scares me or inspires me. Inspires me to do what? Who knows, but I kind of like it
.
I think the other two fit the story better, but it's still cool.

Hmm. Japan. Kinda bland, but it's really pretty.
Thoughts, anyone?
In case I offend anyone with my blatant foreign love, I'm sorry;
It isn't just books, and it isn't just me. A lot of my friends have this problem too. We love Chinese food best, or Mexican, or Italian. We had to do a project on someone interesting for English and I chose Coco Chanel. Most of us would rather visit London than New York. Some friends and I made up a scoring guide for guys, and accents gained them two points.
*Note. We were at a debate tournament, it was midnight and we weren't getting home till three. Some of our male teammates started being jerks, and we came up with a rating scale. It kept us awake. Yes, we are shallow sometimes and yes we have a lot of time, but we did have reason. And now the note is longer than the paragraph.*

Email is quite evil

Why is email evil, you may ask?
Because it has kept me from a partial request.
Not only that, but a request from a really, really awesome agency.
So yes. Email is very evil. One month later, three tries after?
Finally, it worked.
Thank you, someone in the higher powers, because you have just totally and completely made my day by letting my email perform what it's supposed to do.
I'm too happy to be angry.
Okay, that's a lie. I'm still annoyed. But anyway.

Eight hours later

I have lovely parents, who, on the occasion of my last birthday, got me a new desk. That might sound very weird for a teenager to ask for, but I spend a LOT of time sitting at that thing. The one I'd had was . . . Well, as old as me.
So, a couple of months ago, I got this for part of my birthday.
I did not realize why my mother was so reluctant to help me build it. Sure, I thought it would be hard, but surely not that difficult.
Well. I was quite wrong.
Eight hours later, two diet Cokes, multiple scratches and a Starbucks later, it was built.
Eight hours.
Eight flipping hours.
But now that it's over, I'm happy with it. Not while I was building it; no, then it was a device that the devil had created just to tick me off. I was not meant to build furniture.
I mean, seriously.
It took two days, and eight hours of building, quite a few curses and having to spray the bloodhound with a water bottle so he wouldn't eat the plastic nail thingys to get it done. I prevailed, though, in keeping him from devouring the nails.
He did manage to get the packing Styrofoam though. Trails of white, fluffy, environmentally negligent pieces of packaging can be found throughout my house.
It's worth it though.
All in all, I am so very happy with the labors of over eight hours.

I'm supposed to be good at this stuff

Give me a broken computer. I can usually figure out what's wrong. Show me the camera with a glitch-I can fix it.
However the STUPID comment button on any cool layout that refuses to work?
Yeah.
I have NO idea.
So that's my explanation for the now rather devoid of color blog.
Lame, I know.
But for the life of me, I cannot figure out what's wrong with the comment button lately. Clicking it over and over did not work. Hitting the computer did not work. Diving into the little html thing and minutely removing stupid little words? Yeah, that didn't work either.
Gah!
Computers just hate me today. I did revisions for like two hours. What happens, after two hours of idiotically not saving?
For some random reason, no one knows why, the computer just SHUT DOWN.
I give up.

****Later that night-
I fixed it!*****
I think.

Pretty

That's really all that is to say.
Pretty. Good book. Well, the first one was. The second probably is as well.
Now, as someone with red hair, I think I have the right to be jealous. I want my hair to look like that!
On another note--
Oh wait, new note!!!!!
So, I just finished A KISS IN TIME.
And now I find that Beastly is going to be a movie too!
Wow. That is a LOT of books to movies.
But that's okay. I'd much rather watch my favorite books than many other stuff.
...Vanessa Hudgens, you say? Really? And Alex Pettyfer?
Hmm....
So this is her.
.
And this is him.

I like him much better.
I know a lot of people wanted him to play Jace for a City of Bones movie(not in the works. Just a fan favorite.)
Wow. Alex Flinn got a pretty cast.
Here's the link to the website;
http://www.beastlythemovie.com/
Well, I was going to talk about nail polish distracting me from my computer but I don't really feel like it anymore. Go look up the movie. Or Lesley Livington. Or nail polish, if you like.
It's sparkly, after all.

Revisions

I have found a synonym for hell.
Revisions.
Actually, that's not really true. It's kind of fun, playing with a manuscript. I like tweaking stuff to make a story better and I think I've finally hit the point where I can tweak a story no more. At least, not on my own. I'm searching around for a beta or two on various websites to get different opinions, and I'll keep tweaking, but I'm happy now.
Now, the hellish part comes with grammar. But getting it right is fabulous.
It's almost as good as cake or pretty nail polish.
Or this;

I LOVE fairy tale revisions, especially modern ones. Alex Flinn's BEASTLY was really good. I've only read about four chapters of this one, but it's fabulous so far.
My mom and I were at the bookstore today for quite a while, actually. I saw a lot of good books. It was interesting, seeing all of the books because now, I associate the agent with the cover. It was kind of odd, actually.
On another note; WINGS.
No, not like butterflies; as in fairies. As in Aprilynne Pike. As in this;

It's becoming a movie too. Guess who has been optioned for the main character?


Why yes. That IS Miley Cyrus.
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. It's great if she stars and does well, because the author will get great press and it will be a good movie. But I really hope Disney doesn't turn it into Tinkerbell fest. That would be quite sad indeed.