I think this is it

Sooo... I've been wondering, for a long time now, about the future of this blog. I've been posting (irregularly lately) about things that I want to keep you updated on, and given you the idea that this is still going strong, but the truth is... that I think this blog has gone as far as it ever will. 

It's been a good run, and I've had a lot of fun with this. But I do admit, that the lack of interaction and attention caused the fun to fade. I shouldn't care that much, because I was writing this for me, but when you think you're actually going somewhere doing something you love, and then you don't, it's a bit of a mood killer. I appreciate the heck out of everyone who ever read my blog and left comments, who ever gave me such great words of encouragement to keep going with my dream of becoming a writer. I won't stop writing, but maybe blogging isn't the right alley for me. I have been considering starting a Finnish blog just for the fun of it, but I don't know if I will. 

I won't delete this blog. Not yet, anyway, not in a while. Maybe never :) Sometimes it'll be fun to read what I've been writing about. And who knows, maybe some day something really great happens and I just have to write about it in here. Of course I don't expect any of you to check in, but still. Oh, and I will continue on to read the blogs I've been reading so far. 

Thank you :) I'm off to do something else now. 

<3

iira

Plots

This year is almost ending, and I have a lot of plans for next year. They include traveling, working (but where, is the question here), possibly moving, and most importantly: writing. I am so close to being done with just planning my book. I've already started the writing process, but I know it's going to be a long and rocky road to the finish line. 

I am giving myself a year. I'm hoping to finish writing it within that time, but I don't want to push it. If needing more time means a better outcome, then I will take more time. But I do hope, that during 2014 I can offer my script to a publisher, or publish the book on my own. When it comes to writing, 2013 is going to be exciting, nerve-wrecking, inspiring, frustrating and thrilling. This project will also give me something to write about in here: I will keep you posted on how I am doing. I am not telling what my book is about, nor will I give anything else away. But I will get back to you. 

I saw a card recently, that would be perfect to give to me. Sometimes it's fun to find things like that :) 

It said:

"I can't wait for you to write a book, so I can finally know what you have been thinking about for the last few years."

Some of you will know :) 

Slow Motion

I went to the movies tonight. I can't help but float after I've seen a movie that somehow moves me, touches me, impresses me, inspires me. I can't help but to get lost inside my own worlds, various places my mind has created over the years, and feel like I'm in a world that's full of magic. 

Because I am. 

I feel like I have to write now. But at the same time I'm afraid of ruining the perfect images in my head if I were to write them down. The lack of confidence in myself is sometimes overwhelming, and something I have to learn to deal with. 

I'll write.  

Maybe not a professional, but on my way!

When does one have a right to call themselves a writer?

I'm not a published writer, but I still think of myself as a writer. 

Whenever I watch movies, I can't help but think of how I would write some particular scene. I'm not even kidding, I do it all the time, and it's actually quite entertaining. 

I feel like I think like a writer does. 

When I read a book, I fold the pages that have chapters/sentences/phrases/dialogues/monologues/anything that I feel like will be useful to me later. I'm not talking about copying someone else's work, because that's about as unethical as you can get, but learning from the people who have already achieved the goal that I've set for myself: they've published a book. 

Recently I bought a notebook from Powell's (you can find a pic on the post 'I Heart Powell's') and I've turned it into a planning-book for the project that I've been working on for the past few years. That's me, organizing my thoughts on paper for the first time. I am absolutely stoked and so excited to see what will become of it. So far I've explained the plot in about 10 pages, and I'm not finished yet. 

And this is me, a person who becomes overjoyed about a notebook.

Guess I am a writer :)

Let's get real?

I honestly thought I would be blogging more here, but as you can see, I haven't. I am truly sorry for that. Finding the time to blog, write and read is very difficult, and I'm going to be honest when I tell you that I probably won't be back to regular blogging until I get back to Finland. I would love to be able to blog more, and not only about my life here, but of various subjects. The thing is, I only have about one month and a week left. In the end, it's not a lot, and I intent to take the most of it. If you've been reading my blog long enough, I'm sure you understand :)

Around New Year's I'll have my 2-year Blog Anniversary. I'm thinking of doing something special. Maybe a contest or something. Gotta figure that out! We still have some time before that, and for the time being, I would love to hear from you guys behind the screen. How am I doing? Besides the lack of posts recently. You love my blog? Love hating it? Why do you read it and what makes it worth while? Please leave comments or send me an email (address found on the right with other gadgets.) Feel free to be anonymous; I know some people aren't comfortable with using any names on the internet. Thank you :)

Oh, and I'm working on a video post. Absolutely no promises on when it'll come out or anything, but I'm working on it. 

Take care out there!!!<3

-i

I Heart Powell's

I went to Powell's yesterday, and... well, I went crazy. People really shouldn't let me go into book stores. So it's not my fault. 

I've seen the movie 'Nights in Rodanthe' and now wanted to read the book.  I bet I'll cry... 

I don't go crazy about just books... notebooks, too. I've wanted to have this ever since I first saw it a few weeks ago, and now finally bought it!!

I actually find blank pages very inspiring. Anything's possible when there's no ink on them :)

"If I fall asleep now, I'll get 7 hours of sleep..."

What do you think about when you go to sleep?

I rarely go to bed and not think of something in particular. I usually think of something nice; something that I have to look forward to, something that's already happened, something that I wish would happen but most likely it never will. Sometimes I play conversations in my head -imaginary and real- and sometimes I'm just so thrilled about some new thing that I've decided to do, that it's all I can fill my head with, and eventually I fall asleep and my thoughts turn into dreams. I kinda like it. In the morning it can be pretty exhausting though, because it feels like I haven't had any sleep at all; all I've done is thinking, when it's actually not true. But there are mornings, when my phone's alarm clock interrupts my awesome dreams. Then I just hit the snooze-button and continue dreaming from where I left off. I'm not kidding :) I can actually do that. 

There are many nights, when I'm just so tired that I pass out immediately after my head hits the pillow. They are few in between, though. I have way too much stuff going on in my head to fall asleep right away. One of my favorite things to do, is go through the story of Ava, all the twist and turns. Over and over again, until I have it all figured out. I haven't made it there yet. Almost :)

So there you go. Ava is the name of the main character in the story I've been working on. That is all I'm willing to let you know at this point. 

I can't wait for the moment I get to tell you I've started the writing process of my book! 

Love,

I

P.S. Don't forget to answer the poll! Your votes determine most of the future posts, remember that :)

Did I miss my youth?

I've always been a good girl. You know, the kind that never ditches school, tries her best, obeys her parents, feels guilty for like a month after snapping at someone. I never went to bars or clubs under 18, though my friends from school tried to persuade me. "Your looks are going to waste!" they would say (I've always looked older than I truly am). But I never went. I liked being at home with my family, doing something low key, like reading and drawing. 

You know how some people don't take the best of their prime years... they sail through them and later on, way later, they suddenly get the urge to do the things they never did when they were sixteen. Lately I've been having the same feeling. Or I've been fearing of having that feeling. In a very short period of time I've become more sure of myself than I've ever been before, and thus gathered up more courage to be more me. I've also come to understand others better, and their way of expressing themselves. 

I'd like to dye my hair all pink, just because I love the color and because I feel more bohemian than ever. I think I've always been somewhat of a hippie. I won't dye my hair, though, so you can save yourself from the mini heart attack :)

I've been wanting to get a tattoo for a long time. I even know which one I'm going to get, if I'll ever have the money and the guts to ink my skin permanently. It's very small and I would get it in a place that's visible enough, but very easy to hide as well. 

I like to play with my thoughts. I like to think of myself actually doing this. But right now... I'm too much of a chicken. And broke. And I'm happy as a brunette. 

I don't know, if my prime years are behind me. Maybe I'm living them right now, or maybe they're still ahead of me. Either way, I don't think I missed them. I never did anything I wasn't comfortable with. I'm glad I was a good girl. Still am. My writing's still my main way of expressing myself, but who knows... maybe someday I'll choose more obvious ways to show my true colors. 

Once upon a time there was this girl...

After a while of posting about random stuff, let's get back to my favorite subject.

Writing. 

Remember how I told you there's an idea I've been working on for a couple of years now? Well, I'm so close to start working on it on paper instead of just in my head. Stoked! It still requires some polishing, but I think I'll get it started this year :) Now, don't be too harsh on me! It's already July, so I'm giving myself only five months. That's such a short time, when you really think about it. And with everything that's going on and everything that I still have ahead of me, I would probably be wise to give myself more time, but I'm too excited to wait anymore. 

All this planning has gotten me thinking about what would make it easier for me to start the writing process. Some say it's useful to draw from one's own experiences, but that's something I want to be careful about. It's only natural that some characteristics and story lines come from my own life, but I wouldn't want to have everything ready, you know? I've noticed that, when writing, sometimes the story writes itself. I love it when that happens. Even I don't know, what will happen in the end, and I'm the writer! 

Let's say I wanted to write about... me. A girl with a dream of becoming a writer, who loves to travel the world and be herself, no matter what others think. That's kinda.... boring. Beentheredonethat -stuff. There's nothing new to it. I would have to color it up a bit. I have this heart-condition that's really not a big deal, but on paper I could make it a big deal. The girl could have some serious problems in her life despite her health. At this point, it's not me anymore, that I'm writing about. It's just someone who's loosely based on me. As I add more to her, she becomes a totally different person, and that's my point here. Autobiographies are one thing, but when it's fiction we're talking about, I think the best way it works is to just keep it that way. Fictive. Real life is where the stories come from, but everything doesn't have to go by the book ;) Am I explaining my view in an enough complicated way?

Let me know what you think! 

xo

V is for VOICE

Having your own voice is extremely important. Especially when it comes to writing. This is something that I still need to practice, but I'm getting there. 

Here's an interesting article I found on the subject. This is for all the bloggers out there! :)

How Can You Find Your Own Blogging Voice?

This is it for tonight! 

xxo

something... probably nothing

Haven't been blogging that much this month... I have my reasons.

1. More work

2. No topics

I haven't made any progress on the alphabet posts either. V is a very tricky letter, please help me. And while you're at it, give me ideas for an X, too.

In the lack of better things to write about, here are some things that have crossed my mind lately:

-I hate mosquitos
-WRITE
-Blog
-I'll have four wonderful days off this week. In a row.
-Christina Perri's concert is next week!
-I should finish the last book of the Hunger Games trilogy.
-I should cook more. I have pesto and garlic that won't last forever.


And here's some music for you to enjoy.

First watch this AMAZING video:

Then this parody:

Have a nice week everyone :)

The 100th!!!

I wanted to add 100 exclamation points to the title, but oh well. 

So, here we are! My first big mile stone! The 100th post. 

Shoulda baked a cake...

Shoulda prepared a speech. 

I am happy writing and knowing there's someone somewhere reading. Thank you for that!

Looking forward to sharing the upcoming hundreds of posts with you!

<3

sounds like a plan

I'm the kind of person who likes to make plans. Sometimes they're irrational and I make them just for the heck of it. I get a kick out of imagining my life ten years from now. 

Plans change. Surprise, surprise. When I was sixteen I though by the time I was twenty, I would have seen it all. I'd have a job, I'd be getting married and planning a family life. I want to laugh so hard right now... Oh, that naive, sixteen-year-old me. When I turned twenty, I had a high school degree and I was attending a cooking school. I had just moved away from home, into my first apartment. That summer was the first summer I was unemployed. My love life was nonexistent. I'd say my life was nothing like I had planned four years back. Lol. 

This is something I've realized pretty recently. That you can't really plan your life. It's not like a building you design. You just have to live it and let it design itself. There's always something unexpected around the corner and you're just going to have to deal with it the best way you can. Of course I'll still make plans, but I'll just have to learn to alter them as I go. 

This is what I've been thinking about in the past weeks, and now I decided to share it with you. I have this uncontrollable need to maintain this blog by posting regularly, so if you have some ideas for upcoming posts, let me know! 

Thank you for reading!

-i

What to write about.... ?

I feel like lately I haven't written about anything that interests anyone but me. Sorry about that ;(

 Once again, I am reaching out for you all. I know what I like to write about, I know what I like to read about... And I would like to know your views as well. Some of you may read my blog because of the fact that I write about whatever I want to, and that's great. I've never wanted to brand my blog, which is why I'm giving you the opportunity to influence on the upcoming posts. 

So, you know the drill. Please leave a comment if there's something you would want me to write about besides the things I'm already writing about, or if there's a topic you want to read more about. I will commit to this and write about every single thing you suggest. How does that sound? :)

Please note, that I've added my email-address to the side bar, so if you don't want to leave a comment, but still want to say something, feel free to email me! 

awaiting for... something :) 

-I

About Writing

I have been writing stories, songs and poems since I was ten years old. That means I have kept a hobby for almost thirteen years. It's by far my most beloved thing to do, so I wanted to share something about it with you. 

I'm not a patient person. I want things done now, not in the next five minutes. This has been a bit of a challenge for me when it comes to writing. I used to be even more inpatient than I am today, so what would happen was that immediately after an idea presented itself, I would start writing it. I was hoping to develop the story as I wrote. I would come up with the names of the characters along the way.

Never happened.

As you can imagine, I eventually got frustrated and didn't finish anything I had started. Occasionally not being able to come up with finished pieces I would give up writing for a few months. I really wish I could go back in time and slap the stupidness out of myself. 

Building patience and learning to take things slow has been the biggest change I've had to do over the last couple of years. I'm still hatching this one idea in my head -been doing so for almost 2,5 years- and I'm still not ready to start writing it. This is the best thing I can do about it, just let it stew. Also, building the characters is very important. Let's say, for example, that I write a story about a 35-year-old man. Without creating a "voice" for the character, there's a risk I'll end up writing about him as if he was me. Get it? I would be writing about myself as a 35-year-old man, he would do things as I would do them, not as he himself should do them. So you can see, it's important to make sure the characters have their own voice, their own characteristics, their own personality. It doesn't matter if you don't agree with the character. If you find yourself in a situation like that, it just means you've succeeded in creating a whole new person. 

Writing can be overwhelming, no matter what you write. Sometimes you can find yourself so deep in it, that the problems in your imaginary world become problems in your real life. There's a saying that goes something like this: You'll know you're doing great at your job when your personal life is going down the drain. No matter how much I love to write, I'll try to maintain a sense of reality of some kind :) Sometimes I do live in my own little world, but it's ok, they know me here. 

I've been writing since I was ten. Does it make me a professional? No. 

But I'm not a rookie either.

P.S. One new reader! Welcome! :)

"nothing"

I've never been into diaries that much. Once, maybe for about a year I kept one but it was always a challenge to write down what I did everyday. I'm not good at sharing. Not even with blank pages (which is why I love writing fiction, guys.)

I write here a lot.

So tell me... what makes you feel better when you're having one of those days when you just want to scream at everyone, break everything you get your hands on and curse everyone who gets in your way?

And when there's no particular reason for this?

When everything, every single bad thing in your life just gets to you?

Damn snowball-effect.

D is for DREAMS

I think the description of this blog is from the movie Inception, but I'm not completely sure (I know, I'm a jerk for using the sentence and not even knowing for sure where it's from). Let me know, if you know. Of course I can google it sometime...

Sometimes I miss out on a lot by day dreaming. I can sit in a class and suddenly realize twenty minutes has gone by and I've been somewhere else. Mostly I'm going over the details of a novel I'm planning on starting soon. I've been doing so for the past two years! It's about time I do what I dream about.

Write a book.

I think this is beautiful. Corny, yes, but beautiful. 

I've done another post about dreams as well, and you can find it here. I'd rather have you read it again than repeat it all now. My dreams haven't really changed since then.

What do you dream about? 

B is for BLOGGING

Surprise, surprise.

Blogging is probably one of the most greatest and funniest hobbies I've ever had. I started in December 2010 and after a slowish start I'm picking up, and I'm really into this. 

What I'm actually glad about is that I started when this whole thing wasn't so "in". At least it wasn't here... Seems like blogging has become more and more popular in the recent past. I'm always on the look for new, interesting blogs, so if you're blogging, don't forget to link me the address! 

I'm doing this for myself. I truly enjoy this. I'm glad to have followers who care enough to read about what I have to say. I welcome all comments and suggestions to improve my blog, but... since you guys are a pretty quiet bunch of readers, seems like I'll be making the decisions on topics for now :) 

b the w, I love typing this post with my green nails. 

just because

My friend and I had an interesting conversation today about talking. Why can't one just throw a topic out there and then talk about it with others without someone taking it too seriously or personally?

Sometimes when I'm writing, I tend to worry what others might think about it. Say I write a story about a girl who turns into a prostitute to pay herself through medical school. Does it mean that I accept prostitution? No. I never depict anything I don't really have to, but sadly, with the world being how it is, having my characters live in a perfect world isn't something readers would buy.

I think the same applies with conversing -why can't we talk about something just for the hell of it? You can always express your opinion, but judging others shouldn't be your job. And if you don't want to take part, that's cool too. Just don't make others feel bad when they've actually done nothing wrong.

When I read, I don't think about the author. I think about the characters and the way they're acting and handling their lives. Fictional or not, they become alive when I read. For me, it marks a successful writer when I'm able to relate to the characters and see the world through their eyes. After finishing the story, all I can think about is how wonderful a job the author had done with it. Not "why would he write that" or "does he really think so?". The beauty of being a writer is that you can create characters with their own minds, you can create whole worlds if you want to. What you write, doesn't necessarily reflect your own opinions. You just have to agree enough to make it work, and more importantly, make others believe in it, too.

Some might not agree with me on this, but I don't really care. What good does it to me to just sit around and wonder if someone's going to approve of me or not? Instead I could go out, meet my friends and just be. If there's a silent moment, I could say something completely random and see how they react.

Try it, might be fun :)

xxo

The Power of Imagination

About two years ago, give or take a couple of months, I came up with an idea for a fantasy novel. Unlike other times when I had something exciting to write about, I didn't start to write down this one. Instead the idea kept growing in my head, changing into something very different from what it was in the beginning. Sometimes I would write down a particular scene just to see what could happen, but other than that I have very little notes on this.

Whenever I heard an author say he/she had been working on an idea for several years, it struck me as unbelievable. How hard can it be to write a story? You get the idea and you put it on paper. 

If only it would be so simple...

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am, that I still, after two years, have not written the story that's in my head. It plays on my mind like a movie and not a day goes by that I don't think about it. Sometimes it can be a few weeks that I don't do anything about it, but mostly I keep on developing it. I try to figure out the situations, relationships... I'm still not finished with it. Almost, but not quite. 

Someday I will write it. It might take me another two years, but so what? My goal isn't to get it published. I just want to have the patience to work on something for this long and see through it. I would also love to get some peace of mind, because I know this one will haunt me until it's over and done with. 

I really have to get the Office thing for my MacBook Pro, because Texturi is... just terrible. 

xxo