[ image via tumblr ] My breath is venturing out into the air with a wispy white coat on, and everyone walks around with a twinkle in their eye. Lately, I go to school each day telling myself firmly that I'll never be too old to wear mittens. I get curious stares from passerby nonetheless when they see me with a pair of them on. Carols that I've known by heart for years come barging into the radio again. Roads freeze over. Hot cups of tea become a
Hello again, everyone! It seems most of my latest posts have been about publication, which is terribly exciting, in all honesty.
First up is Foxglove Hymnal. The piece that's going in there is called "Finger Bones", and it's a little flash fiction I wrote when I was angsting about a big upcoming piano competition. (Which I ended up placing second in, hahaha.) Obviously, it centers around a piano, and it has some horror/macabre-ish elements. The reason this achievement is doubly cool for me is that "Finger Bones"
If you follow me on Figment, you may have read "Pinioned", the magical-realism entry that I wrote for Figment's Homecoming Contest. Unfortunately, it didn't win, but it's just been accepted by this fun magazine for those in grades 6-12!
The piece itself is loosely based on the Russian fairytale "The Feather of Finist the Falcon". Using that, I basically wrote a little flash scene about how Finist and his lover come to homecoming ;)
Parallel Ink is run by high schoolers from all over, living in countries
Whoa, right?
The world continually manages to surprise me. (Needless to say.)
The first one, The Wandering Collective, published my poem "before bed" today. (My first poetry pub - wow.) The poem is basically my odd mind working with the "star light, star bright, first star I see tonight" nursery rhyme. You can probably see where that went :3
Anyhow, The Wandering Collective. They're very feminist and cool, and they "showcase the work of teenage girls". You can read my poem here - but hey, teen
As returning readers might notice, this blog has just undergone a major renovation. It's all so pretty now, isn't it?
I'd like to introduce a wonderful blog designer + person in general to you: Jessie.
Jessie runs My Candy Shoppe, in which she designs blogs for free - and so fast! She was done in less than a week, and let's face it, the change was breathtaking. She also blogs herself in multiple places, but the blog I found her at is A Chirographic Mind. It's a
So the other day I opened up my Figment profile to take a quick look at it.
And realized.
I have reached (and cleared) the fifty-follower mark.
Within four months of joining Figment.
(Note: I am also kind of learning how to use GIFs. Feedback is welcome. :3)
I mean seriously guys. Thank you. Thank you so so so much. All you amazing readers manage to make my day so often and I love you.
I joined Figment with the intention of passing by people's pages with barely a murmur. I didn't expect to garner a legitimate audience or anything - just to share my stories, be nice to people,
Lovely happenings abound in Starflower's life these days.
Another lit mag has accepted a piece of hers for publication. Pretty crazy, no?
Like I've said before, occasionally I write tiny little flash-fiction pieces as a writing exercise. They turn out okay once in a while, and I tweak them a bit (or not a bit, sometimes) before I send them off to places, hoping but not really expecting for them to find a home.
Now, this one's called "Dreaming" and it's got that same magical-ish
Ahhh! IT'S REALLY HAPPENING.
A WORK OF MINE HAS BEEN ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION IN A MAG.
I'M FREAKING OUT, IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED.
It's a flash fiction piece called "City of Whispers and Night", and it's a little thing I wrote inspired by a picture I found on Tumblr:
Actually, I think it was Verse Kraken's Tumblr (Verse Kraken is another lit mag that I'd like to submit to someday. It's pretty awesome.).
So first and foremost, I'd like to thank
You all must be wondering. (Or maybe I'm flattering myself and you really don't care, but you are terribly bored, so you've come to this blog of mine to try and fix that. Either way, you're reading. Heh.)
WHERE IS OtMS?
Short answer: I'm submitting it to a competition in the hopes that it might win stuff, so obviously it can't be up on the nets while I do that.
Long answer: For the next four months or so, I'll be intensively editing the first fourteen-ish (seven actually, since I cut them in half for Figment) chapters to submit the excerpt along with a synopsis of the book to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
Hello, everyone! So I haven't died or disappeared or been abducted... yet.
Which means I have no excuse for not posting for MONTHS.
*mea culpa, mea culpa, I'm terribly sorry*
Actually, I might have an excuse. Some of you might know that I joined Figment several weeks ago and have been dreadfully busy setting everything up, promoting my work, making friends, etc. etc. (I suppose this is where you go, "Making FRIENDS? STARFLOWER? NEVER!! O_O") Although this link is in numerous places all around the
The second in that series I mentioned earlier today. A bit on the creepy side. I like how it turned out, though, with the two kind of staring at each other. This is the steampunk artwork in the "Dressing by Genre" series.
CREDITS:
The girl in the dress (same stock artist as the previous dress girl, incidentally):
http://lilystox.deviantart.com/art/Red-Dress-Ball-Gown-149415357
The skeleton:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Skeleton-Grasping-2-55484818
The background texture:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Texture-10-17913434
The gears from which I made the brushes:
http://n-gon-stock.deviantart.com/art/tech-03-gear-9117277
http://mossi889.deviantart.com/art/Gear-png-347981098
YAY. Which genre do you think I should do next?
I think this one turned out okay. :)
It was just a little spontaneous thing I did in Pixlr Editor and PicMonkey. I was experimenting with how to use Pixlr Custom Brushes.
Credits!
The girl in the dress (lovely cutout, yay):
http://lilystox.deviantart.com/art/White-Dress-Ball-Gown-149415373
The background texture:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Dream-texture-86290571
The hexagons used to make the brush:
http://epicalnerdybunny.deviantart.com/art/Free-Hexagon-pattern-02-371945610
That's all, I think, since I made the binary brush using text.
This might make a nice book cover. :3 It's the first in what I hope to make a
In New York City, 1897, life has never been more thrilling-or dangerous Finley Jayne and her "straynge band of mysfits" have journeyed from London to America to rescue their friend Jasper from the clutches of a devious criminal demanding a trade-the dangerous device Jasper stole from him...for the life of the girl Jasper loves. One false move from Jasper, and the strange clockwork collar around Mei's neck tightens and tightens. From the rough streets of lower Manhattan to elegant Fifth Avenue, the motley crew of teens follows Jasper's
When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D.J. can't help admitting, maybe he's right. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn't so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won't even call home. Why her
In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one...except the "thing" inside her.When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no "normal" Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch....
Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of "them." The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her
I've grown quite smitten with a wonderful writing website called Figment, which I plan to join this summer.
And the quality of the writing on this site blows me away.
*SQUEALS AND JUMPS UP AND DOWN GAAAAHHHHH EVERYTHING... WHAT IS MY LIFE?*
Figment is home to a whole lot of amazing novelists. And reading the books is free. So, without further ado, I made graphics featuring my favorite Figment quotes. :)
I suppose you could use them as wallpapers... but only if you check out the
"Corpus Bones! I utterly loathe my life."
Catherine feels trapped. Her father is determined to marry her off to a rich man--any rich man, no matter how awful.
But by wit, trickery, and luck, Catherine manages to send several would-be husbands packing. Then a shaggy-bearded suitor from the north comes to call--by far the oldest, ugliest, most revolting suitor of them all.
Unfortunately, he is also the richest.
Can a sharp-tongued, high-spirited, clever young maiden with a mind of her own actually lose the battle against an ill-mannered, piglike lord and an
Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.
But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the
The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She's training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And - most importantly of all - she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.
But nothing comes without a price.
Someone is murdering Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine's Circle, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters
This is another part of the Sir Thomas More school project. More persecuted those he believed were heretics during his time as undersheriff and later Lord Chancellor of London. The finger symbolizes the "righteous finger of God".
NOTE (again): The burning is not meant to make any religious statement. My beliefs are personal, but I'm not meaning to insult yours, either. It is simply that More was Catholic and this is what he believed he was doing.
Again, Pixlr Editor for cutouts, PicMonkey for finishing up.
The title of the artwork is Latin for "many things have fallen only to rise again". It's another photomanip for school, a project about Sir Thomas More. This symbolizes More's belief that humans, while sinful in nature, had the potential to rise towards better things.
NOTE: The angels are not meant to make a statement about my or anyone else's religious beliefs. They are simply there because Thomas More was Catholic and thus he would have associated this rising with the angels.
Pixlr Editor was used
When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.
Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain
Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help
I DID IT!
Even though none of my readers know the slightest thing about this new novel.
:3
More on this later, I promise.
This is mostly for the sake of the lovely deviantART artists whose stock stuff I used.
Attribution: Cover design by Starflower Hunting. Stock texture courtesy of ~Myruso on deviantART (http://myruso.deviantart.com/). Girl silhouette made using stock image courtesy of ~Lynnwest-Stock on deviantART (http://lynnwest-stock.deviantart.com/). Man silhouette made using stock image courtesy of =Falln-Stock on deviantART (http://falln-stock.deviantart.com/)
Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.
Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him,
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing—not even a smear of blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows.
After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues - and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of Northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides
xv. intersectional feminist. writes poems about love & violence. writes star-dusted prose. lives for the obnoxiously artsy & the sharply observant. thinks out loud about stories & their aftermaths here at fairy skeletons.