Friday, April 27, 2018

Love in Simple Things


I wrote this about my dear friend who let me stay at her house for a whole week last year. Love ya, girl!


You invited me into your life 
You let me stay for awhile 
It wasn't for very long 
But I fell in love 
With everything about it
I never wanted to leave
The way you treated your siblings 
That simple act of caring 
You always did for your mom 
The way you loved mornings 
I'd watch you breathe it in 
Meeting God in that quiet time 
The way you grinned 
Every time I came in the room
I fell in love with everything 
I never wanted to leave 
We both know knew I had to
But it doesn't ease the ache 
But I'll be back
and I'm never going to forget 
How much I fell in love 
with everything about you
Until I can do it  
All over again

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Camp Update || Driving Adventures


I feel rather overdue for a life update here. Honestly, I have no idea why y'all keep reading my blog when I'm inconsistent and don't post great content, but I am insanely grateful for every one of you. (My computer does not like the word insanely. Probably because I overuse it. We're rolling with it anyway.) 

So what have I been up to lately? Well, mainly I've been digging myself out of a hole called Camp NaNo. I set a rather challenging goal of writing 30,000 words. You would think this would be easy after writing 50k for regular NaNo, but I'm finding it pretty hard. But, I'm enjoying getting my two story's onto paper. 

I'm behind on my writing and editing goals for the year, but I am trying not to let that take over my life. (Not sure how well I'm doing on that). This last week it was 100% worth every moment I spent away from working on goals because most of it was with my family, which was just about the best.



In the way of photos, I recently got to do a photo shoot with my lovely sister Rose. I love doing photo shoots, and it was fun to get out there and do one again. We hit the golden hour and got so many pretty shots (Mainly because she's gorgeous). Also I ordered a zoom lens for my camera! I am so excited about this! I'll post pictures from it when it arrives.

Oh, and I driving update: I drove all the way to a good sized town about forty-five minutes away and went through my first stop light. It had six lanes of traffic. I nearly had a heart attack just because of all the cars to pay attention to. Good news, this was a pizza run, so I had an awesome meal right afterwards. ;)

So what's been going on with y'all?

Friday, April 20, 2018

With Them You Are Wanted


Sometimes I just need happy poems, so here's one for you. It's not my best, but I like it anyway. 


With them you are wanted
You are needed 
They're there to say 'its okay'
They'll do something  
a million times for you 
They'll repeat something 
until you understand 
They'll laugh with you 
They aren't afraid of tears 
They ask your advice 
They aren't afraid of quiet 
Absences only brings them closer 
Anger only makes them gentler 
Irritation only makes them kinder 
Doubt only makes them pray harder
Fear only makes them push closer
They aren't about to leave you 
and you are wanted 


F R I E N D S 

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Camp || A Bedraggled Princess


Hello! Well, CampNaNo has not been going as planned. I am currently behind on my word count and short on inspiration. But, I'm going to keep trying. For today I've got some unedited sections from my work in progress, A Bedraggled Princess. 


Fear ravaged Thaylon like a beast never satisfied. It ran through the people, making them hide in their houses lest the feared end would come to them. War had not brought such terror with it. Drought had not made people hide in such a way. No, this was something much bigger, something no one could stop. Thaylon was being completely overtaken by illness. 


I leaned against the glass windows of the tower. Everything was safe in here, my parents told me. There was no need to worry. But the one thing they didn’t tell me was safe was the only thing I cared about; my brother. He was out there, sitting in one of the village huts, and I would never know if he was sick or well. 



“Did you not see the sign?” 
I cocked my head to one side. I backed up a few steps and looked around. My heart seemed to sink into the pit of my stomach like a rock. On a bright yellow canvas spread out over one of the windows was a large sign reading “Quarantine.” 

Friday, April 13, 2018

My Problem with Aesthetics


Aesthetic is the it word right now. Some people have an aesthetic feed, some don't. We gush over someone's amazing aesthetic. We have aesthetic goals. We want our life to look aesthetic.

Are you getting tired of hearing that word in repetition? So am I.

First off, before I go tearing into my *cough* speech. Let's look at what an aesthetic is exactly.

Long story short: Aesthetic is beauty that gives pleasure.

But what does it mean to us? From my investigation, it mainly means having a color theme. Normally white with just a touch of succulent and fairy lights. But it can mean something different with every different subject (For book covers paintings and very few colors are aesthetic right now)

So what does it do? It makes people want to have aesthetic life's. We want to have a life that inspires comments like "wow, your life is so aesthetic."

I'm going to tell you something; there is nothing aesthetic about my life. Not even my Pinterest boards. I can't stay with one theme to save my life.

So now we get to the point of this post: if aesthetic is just wanting things to look pretty, why do I have a problem with it? 

Once upon a late night online, I decided I was going to be aesthetic. I was going to figure out how all these people did it, and I was going to do it too. Why? Because its pretty. Those people are the most popular. And it would be nice for once to have people say my life looked beautiful.

Once upon the end of my first week, I had failed and I was beating myself up about it. I just couldn't seem to stick to what went with the theme I had chosen. There were so many other things I loved.

I was holding myself to an impossible standard of what the internet thought was pretty. I told myself that it was just posting pretty pictures, it wouldn't make a difference. But it did. It made a huge difference. I was getting frustrated with my whole life and everything in it for not being aesthetic.

To me, trying to stay true to my 'aesthetic' led to a lot more detriment then it did good. It was like I was forcing myself to lie about my life and say it was petty so people would like me.

Now, guys, I'm not saying that all aesthetics are bad, or that having an aesthetic feed is bad. What I'm saying is that sometimes we hold our self to a standard so high that it forces us into a mold not made for us. We weren't all made to post white/green/fairy-lit photos, okay? We weren't meant to only read books with pretty covers. We weren't meant to hate posting a picture that didn't go with our feed.

Maybe we need to rethink our aesthetic. To ask our self's why we are doing it. Because if you're doing it because you love posting pictures that go together, and it just makes you feel happy, go for it. But if you're doing it (Like I did) because of pure pressure, and trying to gain followers, maybe its time to rethink. People may look at your feed and be impressed, but maybe there are other people who feel suppressed by the aesthetic movement and would be encouraged by you being different.

Do you agree? Disagree? I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm totally up for discussion on this one.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Get to Know Me Tag: Writer's Edition

Yes, this is me with a monkey. I like the zoo, 'kay? ;)
I got tagged for this, and it looked like a lot of fun, so I decided just to go for it. =)


RULES

 - link back to the person who created the tag -
(Savannah

- thank the person who tagged you -
(Thank you, Gray!)

- share the tag graphic (optional, optional! I know it won't go with everyone's blog design) -

- tag eleven bloggers –


VITAL STATS/APPEARANCE 

(pen)Name: Mikayla H. (Yes, Mikayla is my real first name)

Nicknames: KK, Bestie, Imperial Ruler (We won't talk about this one...).

Birthday: July 5, 1999

Hair color and length: Light brown. It falls about to the end of a short sleeve. (I don't know how else to describe it.)

Eye color: Blue. 

Braces/piercings/tattoos: Nope. Never had any, never plan to. 

Righty or lefty: I'm right handed. I was ambidextrous as a child, but my parents trained me right handed. I still have a little of the ambidextrousness(Yeah, I know that's not a word, just go with it) left over though.

Ethnicity: Caucasian.


FIRSTS

First novel written: My first book I ever wrote was a little 5,000 words book called Martha's Treasure. It was a rip off of my life and I was insainly proud of it. I still love it in a way. My first full length novel I wrote was Flight From Kelar in 2016. 

First novel completed: See above answer. I have only ever abandoned one project, and that was because the person I was writing it with decided to stop, and I couldn't write it without them. 

Award for writing: Nope, but that's because I've never entered my writing into any kind of contest. 

First publication: None. 

 Conference: Nope. 

Query/Pitch: Nope, and I have no plans to. If I ever publish, it will be independently. 


FAVORITES

Novel (that you wrote): Probably ether Flight From Kelar or my Ordinary books. I have a love/hate relationship with my books, but at this moment, (probably because I haven't been editing it) I love Flight From Kelar best. 

Genre: Contemporary fiction.

Author: Jessica Greyson, Sarah Holman, Rebekah Morris, and J. Grace Pennington. 

Writing Music: Two Steps from Hell (They're better then the name sounds), Lindsey Stirling, and Avalon if I want something with words. 

Time To Write: From 9-11 PM. I'm not a night owl, but I do like writing in silence, so early night is the best for me. Our house pretty much shuts down at 10. 

Writing Snack/Drink: Sweet tea and sour cream and onion chips. I also really like M&M's because they're not messy. I can pretty much eat anything while writing, so I'm not normally to picky about it. 

Movie: The War Within. I think. I find it very hard to pick favorite movies. 

Writing Memory: Probably the moment one of my best friends told me my stories made her laugh and she wanted more. <3 But actually writing was one NaNo I spent two days pouring my heart into a short story for a friend. I knew that it was a good story, even if it wasn't perfect. That story is still one of my favorites.

Childhood Book: I'll Love You Forever.



CURENTLY

Reading: The Negotiator by Dee Henderson

Writing: A Bedraggled Princess, book five in my Princesses of Thaylon series.

Listening To: Be There by Capatol Kings

Watching: My sister and I are watching through Five Mile Creek together, but that's rather inconsistent.

Learning: To many things to count.



FUTURE

Want to be Published: Doesn't every writer dream of publishing? I don't know if it will ever happen though.

Indie or Traditional: Indie, if I ever did it.

Wildest Goal: I really don't know. I have a lot of goals, but I'm not good at keeping a running list in my head.


 I TAG

.... 
No one. 
You saw that coming, didn't you? Most of the bloggers I know ether have already been tagged for this, or do not participate in tags. 

Thank you all for joining me! 

If you've done this tag, drop me the link the the comments so I can check it out! 
What's your favorite writing memory?

Friday, April 6, 2018

Lost


I hope you enjoy this slightly moody, subdued, kind of disjointed poem. It's all I've got tonight.

Another night 
I don’t know 
Where I’m going 
I don’t know 
Where I am 
I’m lost 
In the middle 
Of so many things 
So many decisions 
So many paths 
Wanting to take me 
In a hundred directions 
I’m not sure I want to go 
But I don’t know 
Where I’m going 
So how do I know 
What path not to take 
And what decision to make
I’m so very lost 
In the middle 
Of so many things 
I’m afraid 
Perhaps 
I’ll never be found 

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

March Highlights


March was pretty good, here are the highlights:



My sister and I rearranged our room just a bit so that all of my book could be on one wall. It's pretty awesome having all my books in one place after having them scattering all around the room for a long time.

I started driving! I've thrown us forward in our seats a couple times, and almost hit a building, but other then that, it's been going well!





My sister and I were taking pictures on this abandoned tractor and I had the brilliant idea to climb on top of it. I thought I was being really careful, then I found myself falling backwards off of it. Thankfully all I got for this experience was a giant black and purple bruise from landing on a metal part of it. =)

My sister, Rebekkah, and I made homemade chicken nuggets! They were surprisingly good.

My editing

My book, Just Your Ordinary Thief, has been a real pain to work with. It started off with me cutting out nearly 8,000 words of the 23,000 word document. Then I printed it off and highlighted the whole thing, which was pretty fun. Then I wrote 5,000 words I needed to bring it back up to my goal of 20,000. Now it's finally done and I am so happy to be done!

I had cookies for breakfast. Yes, this was a highlight of my month. ;)

I got to stay home alone one day, so I spent the morning reading Jessica Greysons newest book alone. *happy sigh*

I had enough s'mores to last me months. It was totally worth it. 



There were so many amazing books this month it would be impossible to pick a favorite!
Hello March Brin Lael
Something Summer of 1999
I Hope you Know Burning Youth
The Moment Before Letters to Jayna
First Post Revisited Stories by Firefly 
My Liberty Experience Scattered Scribblings 
Headlights and Flowers on a Rainy Day Chasing Moonlight


How was your March?