HTML: What I’ve Learned So Far—The Practice Post
So far, I’ve been learning HTML…
There are many things I’ve learned. But let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. I’ve come to realize that one of the best things that I could do for myself is to practice on a website that’s not associated with my learning material. So guess what I’m using?
- That’s right—tumblr!
I’m actually using this post, believe it or not. It’s my first attempt at crating a post that’s entirely in HTML. So expect this to be deleted soon…eh, probably tomorrow—gotta give it a day at least.
By the way, while I’m posting, I’d might as well post a few updates:
Summer Reads:
- This page has been updated to include “Insurgent” by Veronica Roth. Just click on the Summer Read link on My Homepage to get to my reviews for the summer. (Or you could just click Here)This page also has a link to my Goodreads’s(?) widget, which I love.
- This list also has the books I’m currently reading (and hope to finish at some point this summer.
Memes for Writers:
- This page has been updated to include the photosets of quotes that I put up today, though I know these quotes don’t exactly fall under the “Memes for Writers” category. This is just a “holding space” (so to speak) for them.
- I’m also thinking of putting up another page tentatively called, “Quotes to Live By.” What do you think?
The Writing Process:
- Expect another post soon. I’ve got one in mind already, so I’ll probably write & post it tomorrow.
Anyway, I hope you’re all having a terrific weekend!
Page: Day Ratio for the Writer vs the Page: Day Ratio for the Reader
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Page: Day ratio lately. And let me tell, you, every time I think about it, I realize just how time-consuming writing is as opposed to reading. Let me put it like this, so far I’m averaging just above a page (something like 350 words) per day as a writer. But as a reader, I know I can read well over 100 pages in a day if I’ve got time. Well, okay. Most of the time it’s about 20-80 pages read in a day (if I don’t have time to read more). In other words, while it takes me about 2 minutes to read a page, it takes me about an hour to write a page (if I’m on a roll).
Honestly, the most I’ve ever written in a day was 10 pages. And let me tell you, those 10 pages were riddled with grammatical errors including one error that completely ruined the mood of the story’s ending.
- Note about the Error in Question: The last sentence of my story was missing a verb. Hilarious, yes, but it completely destroyed the final point. Proofreading is incredibly important and I DEFINITELY learned my lesson that day. I also learned that I have a habit of either re-writing parts of my sentence (mid-sentence) and forgetting important words, like verbs, in the first draft. >.<
So my basic range is 1-10 pages in a day. I envy people who can write a consistent 5 pages per day.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking of lately. I haven’t had a lot of time to blog about writing, but expect at least one more blog post before the week’s over. Now to study GRE words & HTML before writing. Yay!
Happy Writing! :)
“Insurgent” by Veronica Roth—My Review
Insurgent by Veronica Roth is definitely one of the summer’s hot list for books. It’s a YA Dystopian novel and the sequel to Divergent. So if you haven’t read it and don’t want any spoilers for the first, stop reading HERE.
Now onto Insurgent:
So I finished reading this book a couple of days ago, and I gotta say, it definitely was worth reading. As you already know, the Dystopian world of Divergent & Insurgent is divided into five factions: Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, and Candor (not counting the factionless). The only thing you don’t know is why. No spoilers, but yes, this is something you find out in Insurgent. In this sequel, Dauntless and Erudite continue the war that began in the first book. Naturally, other factions are drawn in, more Divergent are revealed, and probably one of the biggest secrets—a secret the Abnegation died for—is revealed. Sound good, yet?
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the world-building aspects of the book. We get to see all of the factions this time, whereas in the first book, the reader only really learned about Dauntless and Abnegation—with bits of Erudite thrown in. This time, we get to explore Candor, Amity, and Erudite as well as the factionless—remember them? We learn A LOT about the factionless in this book. So we get to see these factions, but we also get to see them in a different light from the first book, which was something I really enjoyed again.
Another aspect of this book that I really liked was actually Tris and Tobias’s relationship. It felt really…well, real. So if you’re thinking it’s going to be all roses between them, you’re wrong. They go through their struggles too and I’m going to stop right now before I say too much. We also learn more about Tobias’s past, so if you thought you knew everything in the last book—you didn’t. Sorry.
Onto things I wasn’t so fond of. #1) Will’s Death and Tris’s guilt. If you’re wondering who Will is, here’s a little refresher: He was Tris’s friend but killed her mom under simulation and it basically took Tris half a page to shoot him in the head and then go about the business of saving the rest of the society & Tobias like a boss. While the first book was relatively brief about Will’s death, the second book harps on it and frankly, as a reader, it was pretty annoying. Seriously, 70% of a book shouldn’t be about guilt about someone from the previous book—especially if that character’s underdeveloped!!! Ok, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but if you read the book, you’re more than likely going to wonder what happened to the strong girl who went about the business of saving the rest of society & Tobias like a boss in the first book. ’cause that’s what I was doing.
- Tangent: Frankly, as a reader, I didn’t care for Will. He was a bit underdeveloped—he didn’t have a real story to him or anything except that he was Tris’s friend—that could really make me invested in him as a character. So I wasn’t heartbroken when he died. Now if Tobias had died, I’d be pretty upset ‘cause he’s one of the most developed characters in the entire story, but Will really didn’t matter to me as a reader. But he mattered to Tris, so there’s guilt there, but I felt like the my lack of investment in Will’s death (as a reader) and Tris’s immense guilt over Will’s death really contributed to the annoyance factor here. If I cared about him more, I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed but he was a minor character who was just kind of “there”—you get the idea. Basically, I think that if the main character’s going to go through a guilt-session, the reader should REALLY, REALLY be invested in that character. Like, to the point of crying. Anyway, the guilt thing was just really overdone (as was this rant about the guilt part, I know).
Things that I didn’t like #2) The continuation from Book 1 to Book 2. By this, I mean, the flow of the story arc. For the most part, things were pretty consistent, but a few things that weren’t consistent: Tris’s guilt over Will (he’s briefly mentioned at the end of the 1st book and then harped on in the 2nd—weird), Tris’s trauma, and the hard drive. Now let me explain, book 2 starts either a day or a few days after book 1. These are just a day(s) after Tris shuts down the simulation controlling the Dauntless and escapes to the Amity’s part of society. If you think about it, it’s almost like the two books could be combined into a really, really long novel—they aren’t, which is good, but it makes it a little odd how drastically Tris’s mood shifts, especially given the tone of the ending in the first book. Also, I’m not sure why they took the hard drive with them (spoiler!!) if they were just going to destroy it. I mean, why not destroy it in the first place? So that left me a bit puzzled, but overall, I felt like the story was pretty consistent with the other book.
Despite the two things I didn’t like about the book, I felt like this story was really good and am giving it 4 stars out of 5. Definitely something worth reading if you like YA Dystopian novels or if you’ve read the first book. It’s new, so it’s currently out in Hardcover. And I totally called it in my last review—there’s going to be a third (and final?) book to come! So be looking for that.
On a final note, here are a few faction symbols that I found online (they’re not mine and I don’t take any credit for them).
Cool, right? Happy Reading!
After watching Once Upon a Time, I was a bit skeptical of seeing another Snow White. I mean, Ginnifer Goodwin was a really, really good Snow White and Lana Parilla was a fabulous evil queen. I wasn’t too worried about the evil queen—Queen Ravenna(sp?) in this movie—but I was worried about Snow White. After watching this trailer, it looks like Kristen Stewart is going to be an excellent Snow White!
This is the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman, which is coming out June 1st in the U.S. (I didn’t make the video—so no credit to me).
Definitely a movie I want to see this summer :)
One Sentence…and an Update!
First of all, one sentence is all I’ve been able to write today. GRE materials took over my brain today and when it was done, it was time to study HTML. Well, I’m trying to learn it this summer. Same with CSS. Wish me luck on that.
You’d think a head full of a hundred GRE words would encourage me to write, but I spent so much time memorizing them, that I didn’t have enough time to really sit down and just write (this post doesn’t count). Also, came up with this mnemonic device to tell the difference between asperity and aspersion (since they sound similar, but aren’t quite): “Severus Snape’s asperity is often demonstrated through his many aspersions.” Only thing that helped me learn it, I swear (thank you, JK).
So anyway, I haven’t been able to write that much, but I have been reading a LOT (in my free time) and I think I’ll be done with Insurgent by Veronica Roth either today or tomorrow, so expect a review post on that soon.
Have a terrific day!
The More I Write,
The more I begin to wonder if this whole “writing every day” is really helping my writing ability. Seems like I’m getting worse sometimes >.<
Oh well, carry on.
The Writing Process: Random Thoughts on Research #1
The more I write, the more I become convinced of two things:
1). That writers somehow end up researching the most random of things.
This is based off my current research that happened when I was trying to describe something and wasn’t sure how to accurately describe it (yeah, I know that’s vague). Point is, I got off on an hour-long tangent because I was researching said subject for one (yes, ONE) sentence. That I’ll probably end up cutting in the end.
a;fkdja;fjdsadjls;akjfcl;dajslf;js;lfa <—The sound of my head hitting the keyboard.
2). I’m also convinced that food is the key to everything. And no, I’m not talking about eating my feelings. I’m talking about adding texture to the fiction. Food’s pretty relatable and if you’re writing something that’s a bit out of your element—like if you’re writing about a foreign place or a made up world, it can really add some believability to your story. I remember reading a fantasy story recently where the main characters were always splitting bread and cheese (cliché!). And ever since, I’ve decided I’d never let my characters eat that poorly—no matter where they were. So that’s something else to research… :/
Whether you choose to believe it or not, this project is going well so far, guys.
The Writing Process: Getting Started
Next to actually finishing a story, getting started on one (especially where I’ve left off) is probably the hardest part for me. Reasons why:
- Procrastination. I’m pretty sure I made like 5+ cups of tea and watched a movie before I actually put anything on the page. This is a very time-consuming, but necessary part of the process for me because it lets me look at the page and then think about what I’m going to write. So procrastination actually helps the planning process a little, but it’s a bit of a hinderance when it comes to actually writing.
- The 1st Sentence. I want to take a thought and put it on a page so it’s not only readable, but makes sense. Somehow, this is an incredibly long and painstaking process sometimes (see my post about the 1st sentence, entitled “The Writing Process: 1st Sentence” for more information about first sentences). This is always the part of the story where I end up writing a sentence and erasing it 5 seconds later. Start, erase, restart, erase—the cycle continues until I’ve got something I don’t hate. You get the idea.
- Interruptions. If you write, you know this is going to happen and for me, it somehow manages to happen at 4am. Who’s up at that hour, anyway? Well, there’s me, for one, and then there’s the person interrupting me & my writing. So yeah, interruptions (even in the late hours of the night) are pretty common and distracting.
- Music. I always have to listen to music while I write, but this actually slows me down too (usually ‘cause I end up singing along or if the song isn’t just right, it throws off the scene I’m working on). So…helping or hurting here?
Despite all of these factors, I managed to write. A little—really, very little. But it’s a start. Now to finish it!
Happy Writing! :)
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