Random List 2: Literary BFFs

One of the blogs I follow had a guest spot asking “Who Would be your Literary BFF?” so that got me pondering (shocker, I know). So, rather than working on my novel, as I should be (in all fairness, I’ve written 11,000 words in the past 10 days, so that’s not too shabby, but still), I made up my own list.

1. Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – Lizzie and I might be too much alike to get along, but I think we could have great fun together. We both enjoy reading and going on tramps around just to enjoy the solitude of it (I’m particularly fond of the latter activity now that I live with five other people). I also appreciate someone who can be snarky with me, especially about ridiculous people.

2. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery – In my head, Anne and I have been friends for the past 13 years or so. We go on rambles through the Haunted Woods and let our imaginations run wild. I think of Anne as my dreamy alter-ego. When I’m feeling particularly fanciful, I’m channeling my inner-Anne.

3. Skeeter Phelan from The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Again, a snarky friend. Skeeter can only put up with so much B.S. from stupid people and I can TOTALLY sympathize. On top of that, she’s a writer too, so we could sit around and talk about the trials and tribulations of writing.

4. Ella from Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – Again, another long-term literary BFF. Ella’s sassy patience has always made me smile. She’s bright, funny and knows what she wants. I hate indecisive people.

5 Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser from Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon – I don’t know if we would necessarily be BFFs, but she would definitely be an interesting person to be friends with. Between the time-traveling and her knowledge about herbs and such, there would never be a lull in conversation.

6. Honoria  Cynster from Cynster novels by Stephanie Laurens – I love the no-nonsense, quiet strength of the Cynster matriarch. She deals with a family full of stubborn, opinionated men without batting an eye. I would love to learn her ways from her, because God knows I need all the help I can get.

7. Margaret Hale from North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell – Sometimes I already think I am BFFs with Margaret in real life. Her quiet, but fierce personality reminds me of my BFF Katrina.

8. Jo March Baeher from Little Women trilogy by Louisa May Alcott – Jo probably would have gotten me in a lot of trouble, but she would’ve been a great BFF. We could stay up late together writing and bounce ideas off each other.

9. Ellie Harrison from Avalon High by Meg Cabot – Another sassy, no-nonsense girl. She also loves to read just as much as I do. I don’t know about the whole running thing, but being friends with a reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake would be fun, right?

10. Lucy and Peter Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – Peter, well, quite honestly I would want to be BFFs with him and possibly date him. Mostly I would want to be friends with Lucy because she thinks like me and is into the whole believing is seeing thing. She’s a strong personality, which I like, but she’s also very philosophical.

Who would your literary BFFs be? Are they life-long friends or new ones you just met?

Summer Excuses

So...I'm not going to lie. I've been too caught up in writing and researching my new novel to keep up with this blog for the summer. Just to show that I haven't been slacking off, I present....(dramatic drumroll) the cast for the trilogy that I've been working on. The first novel starts in March of 1816.
First, the women:

Sarah Bolger as: Miss Katherine Burns. Heroine of the first novel, Kate, at 24, doesn't plan on every getting married. She's spending the Season as her cousin's chaperone when she meets a mysterious man who will forever change her life.

Kirsty Mitchell as: Lady Beatrice (last name TBD). Kate's best friend since childhood, Lady Bea is a feisty, adventurous sort whose hidden soft spots will be revealed in the second novel of the trilogy.

Rachael Caprini as: Miss Cassandra Armstrong. Kate's romantic dreamy cousin learns the harsh realities of love in the last novel.










And now, the men. (Not gonna lie- I had a ton of fun casting this part :D)

Henry Cavill as: Colonel Lord Aidan Cavanaugh, the Marquess of Pierston. Aidan never expected to inherit the title. He spent most of his life in the middle of India in an army camp. Now, with Kate's help, he must learn to navigate the dangerous world of London society. The Warrior

Joe Manganiello  as: Lord James Hartwell, Marquess of Hartham. James is the heir to a dukedom, but he joined the army from a sense of duty. In the second novel, he returns home to the land he loves. The Farmer.

Chris Egan as: Lord Robert Grey, the Earl of Blaze. Rob lost his parents at an early age. Raised by his grandmother, he's always been a ladies' man. His quick wit and his smooth words win him the hearts of women and other politicians alike. The Politician














So, I probably won't post much until I'm in London. August 20th, get here soon!

April is the Cruelest Month

I hate the month of April. In the world of a college student in Central Texas, it means lots of allergies and lots of paper writing. Over the past month I have written over 50 pages of academic papers, not to mention a couple of scripts for class performances. Want to take a guess how much novel writing has gotten done? Anyone? Anyone? If you said not a whole heck of a lot, you would be correct. I miss creative writing! Right now, I feel like the most creative sentence I would write would be "Once Upon a Time."
But, just to prove I have been writing, I've decided to provide examples of the tortures they inflict on unsuspecting English majors in college. I promise I will write more this summer and next semester (when I'm having marvelous adventures in London instead of being chained to my desk chair).

"In particular, I want to address how the romance novel has affected women writers. During the early days of the novel, what we would now consider romance novels were outlets for female writers to explore on what terms marriage should occur and the role of choice within those terms. Helene Cixous commissions women in her essay "Laugh of the Medusa”, telling them, "Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you...Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don't like the true texts of women--female-sexed texts. That kind scares them" (Cixous 2041). Writing within the romance genre allows for female-sexed to reign supreme and explore different facets of the readers’ psyche. As a part of this, I also want to discuss the idea of androgyny and gender identity within the romance novels. Romance writer Linda Barlow asserts in her essay "The Androgyny of the Writer" that, “The various elements contained in [romance novels] function as internal archetypes within the feminine psyche. This includes the hero, whom I see not as the masculine object of feminine consciousness but as a significant aspect of feminine consciousness itself” (Barlow). The inner gender dichotomy happening within the mind of the reader allows for conflict and personal resolution in the outer gender dichotomy of the marriage plot that is happening in the novel. From this discussion, I want to move on and explore the male-female relationships that are modeled and matured within the lexicon of the romance novel, both in the novels themselves and in the discussion surrounding them." ~ an excerpt from my Literary Theory and Criticism paper over Feminist Criticism and the Romance Novel

"As a woman, there is not much Volumnia can control since; socially and politically she is subject to the will of men. But as a mother, she has a surrogate that she has taught to listen to and put into action her own personal agenda This sentence and the below highlighted one are essentially the same point, maybe make them neighbors or cut one to avoid repetition without growth. When she sees her son for the first time upon his return after the war, she tells him, “I have lived/
To see inherited my very wishes/
And the buildings of my fancy: only/
There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but/
Our Rome will cast upon thee” (II.I.197-202). She speaks of his accomplishments as if they were hers . She has spent most of her life raising this man;him andnow he has fulfilled what she sees as his duty to her: he has brought glory to himself and to Rome. As a woman, her worth isn’t measured in the same way as a man’s. Her one job in society is to raise her child. Raising a child without a father makes his success or failure even more her responsibility than other mothers. Martius’s return to Rome isn’t just his triumph- it’s hers as well. All of his achievements are partially hers because she made him the man that he is." ~ an excerpt from my Capstone paper about the role of women in Coriolanus and King Lear by Shakespeare. 

My life is soooo exciting, isn't it? 

Count down to summer and getting to see my wonderful friends and family? 4 days.

My Oscar Wish List vs. Who Will Actually Win

I will admit to having not seen too many of the nominated films this year between school and a general lack of interest in most of them, but the ones I did see, I enjoyed. I am voting against Avatar because every year I’m anti-whatever-gets-the-most-nominations-and-I-haven’t-seen

Commentary:
- Watching Neil Patrick Harris opening and I must say WIN!!!!

-       Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick are adorable! I love that the Academy decided to do a John Hughes tribute! Hughes was brilliant at getting people and making life funny. He is missed.(“SAVE FERRIS!” ” It’s really human of you to listen to all my bullshit.”) Pardon me while I tear up a bit.
-       The chick who played Uhura looks like she’s pooping purple froth or something.
-   Oh, Ben Stiller. Was the Avatar dress-up game really necessary? Yes, we know you’re funny (not really), but did you really need to be blue?
-       Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner look bored and sound rather unintelligent and flat (Kristen Stewart more so than Taylor Lautner). It’s appropriate that they introduced the horror segment. Was it really necessary to have them present anything? On the other hand, it could be the only way they will ever make it on the stage at the Oscars, if they’re current projects are any indications of acting caliber. (Same goes for Zac Efron)
-    James Taylor for the In Memoriam segment is classic! Always the saddest part of the show 
-       Points for innovation on the Original Score presentation, but overall it just didn’t quite work. Most of the music was not hip-hop, break dancing/tumbling worthy. Ballet might have worked a bit better. It’s hard to reconcile the style of dance with the music. Up kinda worked, but not really. Avatar worked, mainly because it was the only piece with distinctive drum beats.
-       Almodovar and Tarantino: it would utterly terrifying to spend even one minute inside their heads. Seriously weird, but smart dudes.
-       What is with all of these actors and the totally unattractive facial hair? Why Colin Farrell? Why???
-       The costars introducing the nominees for best actor is soooo sweet! I love it!
-   I want to be as classy and elegant as Kate Winslet when I grow up!
-       Were four presenters from the Twilight Saga really necessary? Ok, Michael Sheen was appropriate and Anna Kendrick had to be there. The other two soo didn’t.
-       MEMORIES! AT THE CORNERS OF MY MIND! (That was for you, Mom). Barbra looked quite classy tonight. Yay for aging gracefully!
- Overall, a rather tame show this year, especially compared to the Hugh Jackman extravaganza last year. Funny and fairly on time, but tame.
- And predictable. I guessed every single one of the winners. That NEVER happens. That's how predictable this year was. Hopefully next year will be better. Music was quite good!

Best Picture: SECOND CHOICE WON!

Like: Up (second choice Hurt Locker)

Will: Avatar
Yay Hurt Locker! You came from behind to beat the technology giant! Socially relevant movie: check! 

Best Actor: CORRECT

Like: George Clooney or Colin Firth

Will: Jeff Bridges

Hmm…edgy, angsty character: check! Colin Firth should have won for his sheer adorability and George Clooney should have won for putting up with being teased all night. Still, very nice acceptance overall. He said man too many times though. What's wrong with dude :)? 

Best Actress: CORRECT

Like: Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren

Will: Sandra Bullock

I’m still skeptical about the movie itself and have not seen it, but I can’t help but be happy to see Sandra Bullock get an Oscar. She’s been one of my favorite actresses for a long time. She’s quite hilarious and brilliant. To console myself, I’ll think of this as a career Oscar.

Supporting Actor: CORRECT

Like: Stanley Tucci or Christopher Plummer (Go Captain Von Trapp!)

Will: Christoph Waltz

Was anyone else totally and completely confused by his acceptance speech??? It felt like I was watching a mini Tarantino movie: it kind of made sense until it just didn’t. 

Supporting Actress: CORRECT

Like: Penelope Cruz

Will: Mo’nique

Sigh. This award season was rather predictable. Edgy movie with virtual unknowns aka underdog? Win! Kudos for the Hattie McDaniel shout-out. 

Director: LIKE WON!

Like: Kathryn Bigelow

Will: James Cameron

My little inner-feminist is doing an extreme happy dance! YAY! First female director to win an Oscar!!!!!!!!! It’s about damn time!

Original Screenplay: Correct

Like: Up

Will: Hurt Locker

Let’s face it. Hurt Locker is just the kind of film the Academy likes. Anything edgy and dealing with controversial current events is an instant favorite with them.

Screenplay previously published:

Don’t really care, didn’t see any of the movies

Art Direction: CORRECT

Like: Anyone but Avatar (loved all the other movies)

Will: Avatar

Oh, Avatar. Yes, you were pretty and everything, but must you hog ALL the awards!

Make-up: LIKE WON!

Like: Star Trek or Young Victoria

Will: Young Victoria

Yay, Star Trek! You at least got to win something! Really fun movies very rarely get any recognition at the Oscars.

Costume Design: CORRECT!

Like: Nine or the Young Victoria

Will: The Young Victoria

How could she not win for mid-19^th century costumes for a movie about a “dead monarch”? And she even looks like a costume designer! Corsets always mean a win for the Oscars!

Original Score: LIKE WON!

Like: Up

Will: Avatar

Take that Avatar! Yay for the little animated film that could! Very pretty, sweet, appropriate music! Good speech too!

Original Song: CORRECT

Like: Either Princess and the Frog song or Nine song

Will: Crazy Heart song

It wins points because it was performed by Colin Farrell, but it’s so predictable for the edgy-angsty song to win. Nine’s edgy-angsty song was so good! Why couldn’t it have won?

P.S. That was so early for that award to be presented! I guess after last year’s horrible amalgam, they just opted to make it a normal award instead of a show-long process. Sigh

I miss the show-long process, it gave the audience a chance to actually experience the songs and maybe develop an attachment to them.

Animated Feature: CORRECT!

Like: Up

Will: Up

I’m sorry, but Up was just too adorable not to win! Pixar did an amazing job putting it together. I know,  I know, it was kinda depressing, but it was so sweet and heart-warming! Why can’t all movies be that good?

What were your predictions? What did you think?

Procrastinating: Episode 1

On this episode of Taylor procrastinating paper writing: A list of 100 Books the BBC thinks that people haven't even read 6 of. How wrong shall I prove them?

An X means i have read it.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X

Subtotal: 9

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot X

Subtotal: 4

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Subtotal: 3

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma-Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X

Subtotal: 5

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Subtotal: 4

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Subtotal: 2

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Subtotal: 2

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt

Subtotal: 4

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X (the book that the paper I'm procrastinating is about)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Subtotal: 4

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X
SUBTOTAL: 4

TOTAL: 41

Almost half. I'd say that's fairly respectable for a 21 year old. 

Random List 1: Favorite Jane Austen Heroines and Heroes

My brain is trying to process stuff right now, so I decided to make a random list. This one is in keeping with the epic paper about Jane Austen I'm currently working on.

Favorite Jane Austen Heroine: (In order from favorite to least favorite)
1. Elizabeth Bennett
2. Anne Elliot
3. Fanny Price
4. Elinor Dashwood
5. Emma Woodhouse
6. Catherine Moreland

Favorite Jane Austen Hero
1. Mr. Darcy and Captain Wentworth (I can't choose between them)
2. Mr. Knightley
3. Edmund Bertram
4. Henry Tilney
5. Edward Ferrars