Her Name is Chi

And she is me.

Or at least, she's loosely based on me. Granted, she's a little thinner, and her hair is longer. She has super thick hair down to her waist, and it's always going everywhere. She has my brown eyes with fantastic eyebrows and my adorable button nose. She's got my olive skin tone and wide hips. Like me, she wears only black. She's a lesbian, like me, and loves coffee. She's a sarcastic geek with quirky habits.

She is a barista, working in the world of Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside. I'm writing a fanfiction for that series. It's a few years after the events of Ironside, and Chi is an employee at Kaye's coffee/book shop, Moon in a Cup. Everything is normal.

Then a woman charges into the shop, interrogates and curses Chi, and leaves.

What? But why? When Corny (now called almost exclusively "Neil"), Kaye, and Chi seek answers, Chi's curse is quickly lifted, but it leaves behind more questions. The woman was working for someone; who? Why did she curse Chi? Where are the disappearing fey going? Who wants Kaye, and why? Why is Chi missing her memories? Will Corny and Luis get back together? Will Kaye and Chi end up together? (No. They won't. Kaye is already paired with Roiben.)

Oops. A spoiler. Which is fine, since that what readers would have expected anyway. The real mystery is what's in store for Chi.

I have the whole story plotted out. It's going to be novel length, maybe a little bit short. I've been working on it. I won't be able to work on it this week because I have tests, but I'm hoping for next week. I absolutely refuse to post any of it until I have the whole thing done. This is just in case a) I turn into a slacker and never get it done (don't want people to enjoy the first few chapters, only to be disappointed that they'll never know how it ends), and b) so I don't end up having to fix plot holes in the early chapters as I write the later ones.

So that's what up. Just felt like writing a quick post about it, I guess.

Before I Go

I found this poem as I was searching my files for a school assignment. I wrote a couple years ago. I don't remember the inspiration, but I like what I wrote. I'd completely forgotten about it.

So this I know, before I go

A secret must I tell

As deadly as the drifting snow

Even if I’m damned to hell 

My throbbing heart was torn from me

My hands stained bloody red

I killed he that stole it from me
And left him there for dead

My life drains in gushing rivers

My eyes are weighted low

I took the life from the giver

My soul thrums, sad and slow

His ghost came back and sang to me

And I gave him a dirge

And so we parted happily

Entwined, our souls will merge

So he with me, and I with him

A double travesty

Pliant to each and every whim
Till blood should be set free

The Mind in the Night

This is a poem I wrote a little while ago about the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious (or unconscious). I'm still trying to decided if I like it or not. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, so let me know if you see anything that needs work (I'm sure you will - I hope).

We flowed from our dreams into being -

Touched only with our fingers, entwined,

No warmth in our chilled translucent skin -

Spoke only silent words,

Our ghostly breaths on the night air

The echoes of thoughts.

Our pale voices were petals of cherry blossoms, 
locked under the black surface of water,

Ever drifting, mere shadows of light - thin, and soft

There was no fleeting reality as we walked across crystalline waves

And the frothy sea foam washed over our feet.

We swept through the stars, hovering around us like icy fireflies;

Our cold lips were parted as if to let our souls escape...

So we lasted, until the dawn began,

Until dusk shattered our fragile darkness

And sent us back into our dreams.

Endless Ink Spots

Ink splatters on a page
Are hopeless fingers
Wasting their days writing -
What does it mean?

I used to be a writer. When I was 13, I decided that when I grew up, I would be a famous novelist like J. K. Rowling. I created my story; a member of an ancient race of mentally superior beings goes bad and must be killed by the Chosen One. I wrote thousands and thousands of words for my story. I did tons of research into the art of novel writing and just writing in general. I took classes. I practiced and I practiced my writing. Eventually, I was even good at it.

But it wasn't enough.

I wanted nothing less than perfection. I wanted my books to wield their own powerful sense of being. I wanted them to be alive and personal and full of color. I wanted my readers to cling to their pages, breathing in the smell as though trying to suck in the atmosphere. I wanted to be placed in the Literary Hall of Fame next to the likes of Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephen King, J. R. R. Tolkien, and of course, J. K. Rowling. I wanted to achieve immortality through my words.

This was an ideal I could not reach. I think I knew that from the beginning, but I clung stubbornly to my ideal. In the words of J. R. R. Tolkien's hobbit, it was precious to me. Still, you can't sleep forever. One day you have to wake up from the dream. My waking up was slow, reluctant, and painless. It was a gradually drifting away pervaded by the kind of bittersweet sorrow that follows things lost. I was distracted. The notebooks began to gather dust, the pencils grew dull, the saved files were not renewed.

I don't write seriously anymore. I just write for fun. Mostly I just have this little blog here for blurbs and vignettes and whatnot. In the end though, all the learning I had during my writing phase paid off. I got full credit on the english related sections of the SAT (except for the essay...I dunno what happened there). I do well in all my english classes. I occasionally write something, a piece of a story, but I never show anything to anyone. I never will. Maybe one day, though, I'll go back to writing.

Get Smarter: Read a Book!

You've probably heard a teacher mention at some point, how people who read a lot are better spellers. They're also better writers, better speakers, better at grammar, more open to new things, more creative, and etc.

Reading is nourishment for the mind. Each book you devour takes you on a journey, teaching you, shaping you, persuading you, exposing you to new ideas, developing you, and changing you - if you open your mind. I've seen those kids in class who are -sure that they aren't going to gain anything by reading an assigned book...and they're usually right, while the kids who went ahead and read with their mind open, usually learn something. Imagination is key. Inspiration.

Books can be your life companions. My mother read me The Hobbit when I was six years old. Later, I didn't remember much of it; there was a dragon, and some gold, and a dwarf king who died. But when I was old enough to understand it on my own, I reread it and loved it. Now I reread it every once in a while.

Words are tools. Reading stretches our subconscious, teaching us vocabulary and spelling. Spelling is a neuromuscular skill, meaning that you have to stretch it a lot, which reading does for you. I suspect vocabulary is also a neuromuscular skill. In any case, it's pretty commonly known that people who read more have a larger vocabulary and are better spellers.

Books give us information, especially non-fiction. Even those puffed-up self help books can teach a few things (although they take too many words to say a thing). Kids these days tend to use the internet to do their research. If they have a paper for which they are required to cite a book source, they usually flip through the book, find one relevant quote, and only use that. Heaven forbid that they actually read the book. The problem here is that the internet, while a great place to do research, is also not known for its reliability. It's also way too convenient. Kids get used to just being able to type in what they're looking for and getting thousands of results back. While this isn't a bad thing, they also need to know how to find what they're looking for in a book.

The library is my friend. It's the community's friend. Anyone can go to a library. Lately, budget cuts have put libraries in trouble. Read more about this crisis here, here, and here.