Welcome to Book Corner where we will all sit down with cups of tea and I will serve you fresh baked cookies and tell you about a book I think you absolutely should read. And after you can come back, (or stay if you’ve already read it) and tell me all of your thoughts and opinions you have to share.

“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

I recently saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in the theaters. It was every bit as beautiful and heartbreaking as I expected it to be. Unfortunately, it also changed what the story was about and took away what I loved about the book.

“Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are.”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is about a journey. Eleven year old Oscar is a witty, sweet and insightful kid suffering a loss that’s hard for anyone who hasn’t been there to imagine. But because of this loss he goes on a treasure hunt of sorts that leads him all around New York City talking to dozens of people with the last name of Black. He learns their stories and through them he learns who he is.

“..Literature was the only religion her father practiced, when a book fell on the floor he kissed it, when he was done with a book he tried to give it away to someone who would love it..”

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

all italicized quotes credited to Jonathan Safran Foer in his novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!”

love,

I’m alive I swear. I’ve been lurking beneath piles of tissues, reading possibly life changing books and making friends with the shadows. In the mean time, if you  miss me, you can wander over to my attempt at a Tumblr, my self-love work of the sorts. It’s my attempt at sticking with Gala Darling’s Radical Self Love and writing from that place deep inside. It’s also a love letter to myself and everyone else who wants to share the love. I’ve also been lurking around Twitter, and waiting on a transcript so I can apply to library school. I’ve also been spending a lot of time fighting with my tonsils and throat and sinuses. And I’ve been applying liberal amounts of lotion. And Googling exactly what I need to eat to have the optimum immune system I obviously do not have right now. And taking weird supplements and drinking apple cider vinegar in sugar free grape and cherry juice (it really is tasty!)

And also, being patient. I am not good at being patient.

So comment with what you’ve been up to, what you love and what links I should read. Or add me on Twitter and share your Tumblr. Let me know what you do for sore throats or consistent allergies.

(weheartit)

lovelove,

Some things I love today.

* making pumpkin whoopie pies with a cupcake pan
* Midnight in Paris

* my nail polish color Blue Slate
* discovering new blogs (Can You Stay for Dinner, &  Eat The Damn Cake)

* re-committing myself to writing in the mornings, doing word wars at night and brainstorming
requesting transcripts from the schools I attended so I can 1. know what my final GPA was and 2. apply to grad school
* reducing my to be read pile from 65 books to about 37 (not by reading them, mind you but I’m getting there). Now I can actually see all of the books that I have to read and they’re not hiding each other on the shelf.

What do you love today?

In a way, it doesn’t matter what I’m writing, or why. I just need to do it. I need to crank out words onto an open screen. I need to release my secrets into Moleskine journals. I need to find pretty paper and write lovely letters. I need to stop and asses my day. I need to purge thoughts onto the screen before I can full comprehend my own feelings. I need to spread my thoughts over the Internet, risking over sharing for the option of reaching out. I need a place to stick the stories I create. I need to mold them into reality by the way of words.

In short. I need to write. There’s no way around it. Every since I was in second grade and we started writing exercises on computers, I’ve needed to write. I asked for a computer for Christmas and Santa brought a shiny new black and white MS Dos computer. At school we wrote short stories. I really feel like that was the beginning of everything. Of where I am today.

And so I come to tell you about 750 Words. I’ve made this post before, though it’s never seen the real Internet world. Every version is a little different, but still every version is a little bit closer to what I want to say.

750 Words is a website based off Julia Cameron‘s idea of “morning pages” it’s what you write before you write anything else, the brain dump that gets you going. It’s your warm up exercise to accompany your cup of tea. There are no rules for morning pages, but the point of 750 words is to write that many words per day, at least to start off. 750 words is the equivalent of three double spaced pages and it’s a canvas to your day.

You can write journal entries, brainstorm random thoughts, think up blog posts, insult your neighbour, complain about the state of the world, create an alter ego, or write fiction. You can review the movies you’ve seen and hated, wonder what the future will be like, create shopping lists, explain why you won’t be crossing things off your to-do list, write love letters to someone you haven’t met. You can do anything with words and a blank space. It’s yours for the taking.

Fun things about 750 Words include: random badges when you’ve completed 750 words for days at a time, pie charts to tell you how emotional/ positive/ etc. your writing has been, and graphs to show how fast you wrote and  how many times you were distracted for three or more minutes at a time. If you sign up, you can elect to get a daily e-mail reminder to write your words.

Over the past few months I’ve been slacking with writing my 750 words daily. I’ve put all of my focus into writing my novel and then, at the end of November, burning out and just taking too much time off. I’ve managed to not write blog posts, forget about journaling and ignore words that weren’t already published (I mean, I read five books last week. I guess that’s kind of a lot…). I plan on using 750 Words to bring me back into the world of blogging, to remind me to finish my novel and to let my writing take over like it wants to most of the time.

So if you’re a writer of sorts, or if you like to make epically long lists or if you’re looking for something to complain to, I suggest checking out 750 Words. The daily e-mail reminders are great, just because they are one more thing to talk you out of keeping lazy. If you’re a wanna be writer, now is the perfect time to stare at the blank white screen like the rest of us.

There’s one thing that I always remember about my freshman year fiction writing class. You have to show up in order for the writing to. My professor taught us that discipline is what brings on inspiration. Sitting down to write every single day, especially if it’s in the same place at the same time, trains your brain to think writerly things. It makes it so you are able to write, even if you think you can’t. And it also means that if you want to be a writer, you can be a writer. You just have to show up and do the work. And you’ll keep learning along the way. It may not mean that you’re going to be published or that you can make a living off your words, but that’s not the point in writing, anyway.

The point is something you’ll have to figure out on your own.

My first official work day of 2012 was gunked up by my inability to get out of bed. I reset my alarm for an hour later — the actual time I would normally wake up — they lay in bed for a half hour awake and in the end didn’t get any writing done. I’ve decided that this will be my year for writing. So I am going to go ahead and get writing.

I am also here to tell you that there are only 77 days left until the first day of spring. This is an important count down to me and while I usually start it on January first each year, I missed a couple days. This could be because I’ve been taking vitamin D supplements so I am slightly less ridden with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Or maybe because I’m coming back from a long weekend. Either way.

It’s practically spring already! I am saying this from a position where I’ve yet to bring my winter coat up from the basement, but I left my house heavily adorned in a beautiful scarf I received for Christmas. I choose my battles and in the battle against cold, I opt for scarves over coats. I like to hold on to that shred of hope that winter won’t really come for yet another day.

So what I come to you today with is reason that, unfortunately for us, winter is a necessary evil for this time of year. At least for those in the northern part of the hemisphere.

* Winter is necessary for Holidays to feel like Holidays. All of the songs sing about the cold, the snow and chestnuts roasting on an open fire (that open fire won’t be necessary in the summer!)
* Rebirth. The year is like a Pheonix. It needs to burn and die in order to come back again in the spring.
* It’s harder to appreciate the beautiful greens, luscious flowers and birds chirping in the Spring when you  haven’t gone without for four or five months.
* The bugs tend to die off in the cold.
* Snowy owls (like Hedwig!) wouldn’t exist.
* The cold weather makes hot chocolate taste better. This is a known fact, proclaimed by me.

We’re always making and breaking resolutions, yearly, monthly and daily. We pledge to change ourselves and then by the end of the hour we’ve forgotten our commitments. It’s okay, really. As long as you aren’t too hard on yourself for not checking off everything on your ways-to-perfection list, goals are really better to make than to just ignore. Why? Because it’s something to strive for. Having goals keeps us growing. Working toward achieving dreams makes it so we aren’t as likely to become complacent. We want change. And we are going to set those goals to get there. Even if we don’t take action, it’s important to recognise this need.

If you’re sick of the usual lose weight, save money, pay off credit cards, etc. etc. goals that come around this time of year, here are some more creative goals and resolutions you may want to consider:

pick a word for 2012, write it down somewhere and see how that word manifests itself into your life
ride your bicycle to work on sunny days
learn how to change a tire or the oil in your car
take part in Meatless Mondays and become a vegetarian for 52 days out of the year
write in a journal every single day
make five new friends from five different cities with five different occupations
stop complaining
give up sugar
start a spending fast
give yourself a facial every Sunday
start a food diary
say Yes more often
take a self defense class
don’t buy any gifts in 2012, be creative and do it all yourself, bake, create and make old things new
read x amount of books

What are your resolutions?

It might be the end of the world in 12 months. It probably won’t be, but then again, your world might end tomorrow. This is why 2012 needs to be the year to LIVE IT UP. It’s the year to let go of all your fears, remember that child that lives inside you and enjoy your life.

So I’m assigning you a task:  write out a huge long list of things to be excited about in 2012. These are things that might not happen, stuff you want to make happen or even just little things like the fact that it’ll be spring in however many days!!! I start my spring countdown on January 1st. It gets me through the winter. Plan out an awesome vacation you may or may not actually take. Find lots of pictures to look at of that destination. Read the Happiness Project and plan one for yourself.

Listen to the Counting Crows, specifically Long December on repeat until you fall asleep for an amazing nap. Don’t worry about all those extra calories you ate in December. Give the left overs away and start fresh right this moment. Forgive yourself and move on.

Think about 2011. Can you narrow it down to a few words? I think, for me, 2011 was Learning and Awareness.

Lastly, set a word for your upcoming year. I’ve narrowed mine down to: transformation, self-clarity, and love. And also Health.

If you give yourself one thing this holiday season, give yourself the gift of love. Take the time to just be and give to yourself. And what I mean by this is … write yourself a love letter.

Maybe it sounds corny, but only because you might think it’s corny. Tell yourself how much you love yourself. Write about what you love about yourself. Write about you right now as if you’re telling this to some other person. Open it  a year from now after you do the same again. Remind yourself that you can’t ever love or be loved unless you gift yourself that gift first.

Here are some examples of ideas for your love letter:

Write it in bright pink glitter gel pen, make the words stand out.
Create your own stationery and write on that.
Keep the pages going and going. Write as much as you can.
Time yourself. Give yourself ten minutes of pure love. Or more less.
Address it to yourself in 2012.
Put glitter in the envelope so you’re showered with it when you open it next year.
Use stickers, draw pictures or cartoons, tell your story however you feel it’s best for you.
Write with your eyes closed.
Write in pig latin.
Translate your letter into French so your future self will have to translate it back. (or learn French next year!)
Tell yourself a story.
Remember one thing amazing about 2011.
Practice alliteration.
Create metaphors.
Rename the people in your life.
Write it in e-mail format and have Future Me send it out.
Include your 2012 bucket list.
Ponder the end of the world.
Imagine where you’ll be this time next year.

It’s important to exclude anything negative from this letter. Your future self doesn’t want negative in his/her life, so don’t give in. Make everything positive. Search out the light in situations, reflect on why something bad might actually be a blessing.

Finished and still inspired?
Write yourself a love letter to be opened in 2016.
Write your best friend a love letter for next year.
Write one for a stranger and leave it in the bindings of your favorite library book.