Queries

It's frustrating, reader, to realize that every agent you've sent a query to doesn't want to represent your book. I've sent in queries to at least three different agents, and heard back from none of them. Fortunately, the reason I haven't heard back from the most recent one is because I just sent it an hour or so ago. I really hope this will be the one. I've had this book for nearly a year, and nothing has come of it.

Wish me luck, readers!

- Aimee

It's just an idea,

It's just an idea,

Formless, nameless and vague.

It's just an idea,

A nameless idea,

An annoying, brilliant plague.

I'm sure any readers out there who have ever striven to create something from nothing know this feeling. I was just sitting at my piano, struggling to get an idea to flow from my brain, to my fingers, and then into the keys, but very little made it through. Instead, I found myself mimicking the same key and feel of the song I recently learned, A River Flows in you. Any artist out there, whether you be an author, a poet, a painter or a musician, must know how frustrating that is.

That's the whole idea of the little poem I felt like posting today. I actually just wrote it a few minutes ago. At least a few words made their way out of my head today. It's more than I can say for most of the week. I'm hoping I'll find my inspiration again somewhere, but until I do, I'm stuck doing history homework, and hoping I'll be able to write an essay in an hour and twenty minutes this Thursday. (History exam, yay!)

- Aimee

Once upon a time, a little girl proudly showed her mother a story she had written. The story the childish and morbidly brutal murder of a Thanksgiving turkey, and it was on that day that the little girl knew she wanted to be a writer.

Years later, that little girl, now grown up, sat on her laptop, mourning her lost inspiration. So many stories, started and never finished. So many poems, a deep chasm reaching into her soul. So many ideas, wasted, squandered, unwritten. The words echoed 'round and 'round in her skull, begging for release, tormenting her with their cries.

That little girl is me, reader. Yes, I once wrote a story about a Thanksgiving turkey being murdered and eaten. I've also written a story in which a hungry wolf fights, and then devours Barney the Dinosaur. My childhood stories were rife with violence, for reasons even I don't know. But now, I look back on those stories and wonder what happened. At least then I could get my ideas out. I could form the stories with my words, and feel the satisfaction of a world becoming more and more real with each word I wrote or typed. Now, all I feel is an endless swamp of words in my head, and my inspiration miring down in them...

I suppose every writer feels this way sometimes. I know I've felt this way many times before. I'll just have to wait until my inspiration returns.

- Aimee

Dreams

"There now, child. Doesn't revenge taste sweet?"

The little girl staggered, her crimson eyes fading. "No," She whispered into the darkness as it rose up to welcome her. "No, it takes like... blood."

I had a very strange dream last night. That little piece of random writing up above is the only part of the dream I can remember vividly. The rest is all little flashes that don't make much sense. I think the main gist of it was a little girl with red eyes who had been raised by a vampire. She made a friend, but the vampire decided to use the friend as a sacrifice or something. I don't remember that part too clearly. Either way, the vampire wanted to kill her friend, and get revenge or something like that. I'm not really sure what the dream was about at all. But, it was interesting, I'll give you that.

I'm tempted to write a story about it.

- Aimee

I don't know how many years it's been since I got snail mail that wasn't a birthday card, something from the bank, or a catalog from the clothing store my mom works at. And the catalogs aren't even for me.

But that is all an issue of the past! A friend of mine, who I used to only keep in contact with by stalking the home page of Facebook, and occasionally chatting with her over the same deplorable website, is now my pen pal! I just got another letter from her in the mail, and I can't describe how it brightened my day! My day went from a less than perfect school day that I spent coughing my lungs out, and fighting a head ache, into a very awesome day. Who knew bringing back a lost art was so much fun?

I think more people should use e-mail, facebook and IM's less, and go back to good old fashioned snail mail. It's more fun! Who doesn't enjoy getting a letter in the mail? I know I do!

- Aimee

I like to think I have a good imagination. People tell me that my writing is good, and descriptive, almost as though I know exactly how the characters are feeling because I've felt that way myself. Usually, I have never experienced the feelings I'm writing about. I don't know what it's like to lose someone I was very close to. I don't know what it's like, or what could drive someone to contemplate suicide. But there is a word for what I experience, and that word is Empathy.

Empathy - the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person's feelings.

I may be an empathetic person. But I will never be able to imagine what it must have been like to experience the events that took place on 9/11 nine years ago. I was little more than a child at the time, about nine years old, so I remember only bits and pieces of that day. But now that I've grown up a bit, my heart aches for the families who lost loved ones and friends that day.

I can't imagine what it must have been like, what it must still be like...

We ought to continue praying for them, as well as for our soldiers and their families as well. So many people have sacrificed so much in order to protect innocents like me, and you, Reader. Their sacrifices should never go unnoticed.

- Aimee

The world around me is silent, and still, as it is every time the clock strikes five in the morning. All the color has been drained away by the lack of light. Everything is gray, the only distinction between objects made by the different shades of gray they display in the barely distinguishable light. I sit silently in bed, my head resting back against the wall behind me. Outside, I can hear the mockingbird I have come to recognize singing his heart out. A thought springs to mind, and it makes my lips twitch upward in a smile.

Why does a mockingbird sing at such odd times of the day? Is it because he's stayed up too late and has gone slightly crazy? Or did he just wake up, ready to tell the world that he's starting a new day?

I'm inclined to think that it's the latter.

- Aimee

This story isn’t like other stories. It doesn’t start with ‘once upon a time’. The ending is not a ‘happily ever after’. If you want to hear a story like that, I suggest you rent a Disney film. You will find very little to cause happiness in this story, unless you’re the sort of person who enjoys subterfuge, betrayal, torture and double-agents. If that sort of thing entertains you, then feel free to skip this introduction and get on with the story.

For those of you who are still reading this, I feel obligated to offer some explanation for the story you are about to read.

The events recorded in this story are true. They really happened, to me, and to others. They caused me much strife, and it has taken me years to come to terms with it enough to attempt putting them into writing. During the course of the events I kept a sketchy, sporadic journal. I have included some of my journal entries, although only a few were written in a way that others would understand.

Without further ado, I end my ramblings and leave you to examine my past.

Sincerely,
A shattered soul.

This is something I found a while back in one of my notebooks. I barely remember writing it, and I haven't the foggiest idea what the inspiration behind it was. Personally, I think it's always fun to find an old piece of writing you had forgotten about. I may use this snippet as the beginning of a book some day, for all I know. But until I decide what to use it for, it remains exactly what it is: A snippet. A forgotten piece of writing with no meaning, no context, and no remaining inspiration.

This was accompanied by a poem, which I shared the other day. Sometimes I get into inspired moods, and I just have to write. I wrote five poems in one morning once. Other times I go days or weeks without writing a thing. Those times are always very frustrating for me.

On a side note, I've been listening to Yiruma, a very talented Korean pianist, for the last half hour or so. I just learned one of his songs on piano recently, but listening to his music makes me feel inadequate. I feel like I should be writing music like his. After playing piano for thirteen or fourteen years I ought to be able to write amazing songs. I mean, sure, my music is okay. People tell me it's good, and I'm usually pretty pleased with it, but still. Sometimes I wish I could be good enough at composing to make a living with it... (Maybe I ought to have started taking professional lessons a few years earlier...)

- Aimee

Say hello to the newest member of my family! A family we know rescued a little Siamese kitten, and needed to find a home for him. So my sister and I somehow convinced our parents to let us take him, and here he is! The family had been calling him Steve, but my sister and I agreed we needed a new name for him. We spent well over an hour trying names on him, until somehow I finally came to the name Tidus, and it stuck! So now we have a new baby Tidus, and he's adorable!

Last night he slept in my bed with me. At least, he was sleeping about half the time! The rest of the time he was attacking my fingers, biting his own tail, and running around my room like a maniac. But get this! He sucks on his tail, like a human baby sucking his thumb. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!

I'm sorry this post is all me ranting about my new kitten. But who wouldn't want to share a new kitten with the world?

I'll share a poem or something tomorrow.

- Aimee

As the thought of you jumps through my head
A swift struggle ensues, but I only find
Despite my attempts, how hard I try
I can not force you from my mind.

I always knew you held much power
Over my thoughts and over my heart.
But the way you linger, at the back of my mind
Is a torture the execution of which is art.

I just wrote that little poem because I can't sleep. Obviously, I can't sleep because a very powerful thought jumped into my mind. I'll admit, it was the thought of an addiction of mine... I've been thinking about peanut butter. As much as I wish I could force the thought of it out of my head, I just can't. And now I'm afraid I'll never get to sleep, unless I eat the darn peanut butter. But if I do that, there's a chance I could suffocate and die. Having a peanut allergy kinda really sucks, especially when you absolutely adore peanut butter.

Since I can't sleep, I just did a little more of my history homework. There's nothing like doing history homework at eleven at night. Of all the ways to spend a Saturday night. I guess it's my own fault, really, for letting peanut butter jump into my head like that. Maybe now that I've gotten some history out of the way I'll be able to sleep.

To a good night's sleep!

(And a life time without peanut butter. Boo hoo.)

- Aimee

Sometimes, a person, or even a few people would come along who she felt she could trust. When these people came into her life, every day the heavy walls around her heart would slowly be lowered, brick by brick. But sometimes, someone came along who would take advantage of her lowered defenses, jumping over the low wall and stabbing at the unprotected heart within. And then her progress was reversed, and the walls were rebuilt even higher.

Sorry about the pretty emo post. I'm still working on getting over feeling kind of sick. I'm stuck with a head ache, but after sleeping a whole bunch this morning I feel a little better. Really the only things that have lifted my spirits today are the fact that I got roses today, and there's a chance we may get a kitten this weekend. I've wanted a kitten for so long. I just hope I can handle another kitten...

- Aimee

So, here I am, wandering through life, struggling to survive college classes, a committed relationship, and the trials of being an unpublished author, when all of a sudden: BAM! A sudden fit of feverish symptoms hits me. When I woke up this morning I was not expecting to feel this bad tonight. My head hurts, and I'm pretty sure I have a low fever. The only reason I'm not asleep right now is because I have far too much on my mind.

In fact, I had something planned for my next blog post. I can't remember what I was planning to muse about, though.

I guess I'll have to improvise and ask a question that's been bugging me for days. Why do they call it 'roll call' or 'taking roll' when a teacher reads the list of students' names to see who has bothered attending class that day?

Since my first day of college I have been wondering that, so tonight, I took it to Google!

All I could find was a short Wikipedia entry. Here is some of what it said:

"The term roll call applies to the calling itself, to the time moment of this procedure, and to a military signal that announces it."

Honestly, that didn't tell me much. However, I am now so exhausted and certain that I'm sick that I have to stop writing and either a) go to bed or b) just die and get it over with all ready. Good night, readers.

- Aimee