Micro Fiction Monday: Sunken Memories

The smell of campfires hit me in the face as I turned the page. Not literally, because I was in my room in the middle of the afternoon, and in no way remotely close to a bonfire. But this slightly dented hardback, its pages already creased from the dog ears of another read-through, was one I bought last summer. The first time I read it was by the light of the fire pit outside our tent, and the smell came back to me now, as though the pages had absorbed the smoke when I was reading.

~~

The next book I read brought a cool breeze to my cheeks, and though the air was silent, I could hear the jingle of holiday songs. I closed my eyes and saw soft yellow lights among thick green branches, could feel the satisfaction of wrapping paper tearing beneath my fingers, revealing the cover that I was now holding in my hands. The first time I read it was that afternoon, during the peaceful quiet of a holiday.

~~

I crack open my new book as I exit the bookstore, the rush of a new addition to my collection still fresh in my bones. The air has a chill to it, and I quickly zip up my jacket, tugging my silk scarf farther up my face. My eyes drift over the new, unfamiliar words as my boots crunch through the dead, fallen leaves.

And like every book I’ve read before, this memory will soak itself into the pages of this book, only to be released when I start the story anew. 

You Do You, Boo (A Discussion About Internal Motivation)

Last year, I did a small series of blog posts in which I discussed the variety of ways to motivate yourself externally. It was a nice little series. I enjoyed writing it. But what happens when all those frills stop working?

Remember....who....you are....

(Inserting gifs in here because it's 2016 and that's the Thing To Do.)

The most common advice I hear from anyone, in terms of work and career, is to do what you love. A no-brainer, right? It would seem so; hell, I preach that advice every day. But what happens when you don't even know what that means anymore? What happens when you sit down one day, doing The Thing You Love, only to start thinking that you maybe don't love it as much as you thought?

You have a freak out, for starters. You start to panic a bit. You start to question whether you're on the right path, whether this thing truly is The Thing You Love. Then you bury your troubles under hours and hours of Sims and try not to think about it.

(Not like I would know or anything....)

What makes something The Thing You Love? What magical quality does it posess that allows it to turn from just a hobby into...more? It's not an easy thing to pinpoint, really, because there's not just one way for it to get to that point. We all live different lives, we all choose to put our passion in different things for different reasons. There's no road map to figure out what The Thing You Love should really be. 

All you can really do...is do you. You do you, boo!

I don't know when I started saying this. Probably as a joke, to be honest--something to say indifferently, as a go-ahead to a suggestion, when the process doesn't affect the outcome, or the outcome doesn't affect me at all. "Go for it--you do you, Boo."

Then, last month, a friend of mine uploaded a post on her own blog, and made reference to this saying that I've suddenly adopted as my own. All at once, I realized that this saying wasn't really a joke at all--it had become advice. Real advice. Good advice, that I had never really thought to follow.

I started writing when I was around nine. It's been a part of my life for a very long time, and for all that time I never struggled with my future life plans. I wanted to do this, I was working hard for it, and I knew I was good. (Most of the time, anyway.) I always knew what I wanted to do...until suddenly, I didn't. (Y'all already know that story; it eventually lead to the creation of this blog.)

I joke about procrastination a lot. I've always done it, but over time it's gotten worse. Shouldn't this be easy? Shouldn't I have enough passion to push myself out of whatever rut I find myself in and just do it?

It wasn't that I didn't want to. I did. It's that I was lacking the energy, the time, the motivation. Every time I felt that rush, that flurry of words that poured out of me, I grabbed it desperately. I didn't want to let it go, to drift back into the void of other people's stories, all of which were starting to do nothing but remind me that mine wasn't out there.

But every time, I let go. I had to, because of responsibilities and commitments and a zillion other things that I wanted nothing to do with. I started to resent my job because of it, because I felt that every moment not spent towards The Thing I Loved was just a waste of time. I threw every creative project that wouldn't bring me a step closer to publication under the rug. 

Eventually, I threw The Thing I Loved under the rug, too. I didn't think I could do it anymore--every time I sat down to start, I got too distracted with other things. I got too frustrated with the fact that I wasn't anywhere near where I wanted to be at this point in my life--and I felt like a failure.

I stopped blogging because of it--for months.

Here's something that not everybody tells you: you're not always going to love The Thing You Love. You're not always going to love your dream job. No matter what it is, there are going to be days when you want absolutely nothing to do with it. There are going to be days when you want to do literally anything else, anything to avoid The Thing You Love. But that doesn't mean you just give it up--it doesn't mean that you've lost it, it doesn't mean that you need to throw in the towel and start looking for another way to occupy your time. That's why I wrote those initial posts, why I spent so long focusing on external motivators--because in dire times, they can save your ass. You need every ounce of inspiration you can muster.

But if you don't have the internal motivation to back it up, you're not going to get very far.

I don't know much, but this is what I do know: I love creating things. I love telling stories. I love pouring my heart and soul into something, and turning it into an experience for someone else. I love that. I always will, even sometimes I wish I could skip the hard part and skip straight to holding the finished product in my hands. The passion remains, through all the procrastination.

All you have to do is start. That's how you figure it out. You push past the hard bit, you grab hold of every ounce of motivation you can, and you use it to fuel the launch.

Because once you reach the stars, there's nothing holding you back.

You do you, guys.

- Justyne

Review: Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

"Sometimes in life, we need a few bad days in order to keep the good ones in perspective." -- Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

Do y'all remember when I did a review on November 9? Do you remember how much I loved it?

WELL BUCKLE UP CUZ WE'RE ABOUT TO GO DOWN THAT ROAD AGAIN.

It is becoming quickly evident to me that I am absolute Romance Novel Trash, which I feel like I've always known but never wanted to admit. (I haven't started buying books with half naked guys on the cover yet, though, so progress??) Anyway, this book follows Sydney, a 22-year-old college student who comes home from work on her birthday to discover that her best friend / roommate has been cheating on her with her boyfriend for lord-knows-how long. She throws a punch, grabs her stuff, and moves out...only to quickly find herself homeless in the rain, because she actually doesn't really have anywhere else to go.

Enter Ridge, her neighbour from across the apartment courtyard. He offers to let her live in their apartment, rent-free, if she agrees to work with him writing songs for his band. She agrees, and the two quickly form an attraction--which is a problem, because he has a girlfriend, and Sydney absolutely refuses to let what happened to her happen to another girl.

My favourite thing about this book is the absolutely refreshing honesty that was present throughout their relationship. It often feels like the conflict in just about any romantic comedy / drama / subplot in an action movie derives from an utter lack of communication between partners. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not, but either way it is utterly overdone and frustrating every time it arises.

Good 'ol Sydney and Ridge, though, are completely upfront and honest about their feelings for each other. They know that they are mutually attracted to each other, and instead of trying to ignore it or deny it, they put all of their feelings on the table and c o m m u n i c a t e. They express themselves, they explain and understand why they can't pursue these attractions, and it feels SO GOD DAMN REFRESHING. All of their conflicts arise from outside sources, not from screts between them. This only strengthens their relationship, too, because they learn to rely and trust one another in ways that a lot of fictional couples don't in romantic plots. WRITERS EVERYWHERE, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TAKE NOTES.

That being said, though, I got a little frustrated with their actions throughout the story. Like yeah, being honest is good, and it definitely helped avoid a lot of would-be issues, but...come on. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS, GUYS, REALLY.

I was also a little let down by the bonus playlist. Basically, the book contains a QR code that leads you to a free online playlist of the songs that Ridge and Sydney wrote in the book. It was an excellent concept, to give the reader an actual song to listen to along with the lyrics instead of creating some bad makeshift version in their mind, but I feel like it could've been done a little better? For example, I found myself wanting to listen to the songs as they were sung in the book, right? But I was a little disappointed to find that all the songs were sung by the same guy--even the ones that Sydney was singing in the book. I just think it would've been cool to get another, female artist to step in and sing the songs that Sydney was singing in the story. Granted, I wasn't a huge fan of the songs in general, so that didn't help, either.

Anyway. That aside, Hoover's writing was super vivid and well done, her characters well developed, and the plot caught me off guard a number of times--which, I think I've mentioned before, is really hard to do. And the concert scene at the end? A. DOR. A. BLE. I almost died.

All in all, I give it a solid five stars. (Or at least like 4.8)

Until later,

- Justyne

Micro Fiction Monday: Twenty Degrees and Sunny

Twenty degrees. Sunny. Clear blue skies. A breeze that neither slaps you in the face with sticky humidity, nor pricks your skin with goosebumps. It is the absolute perfection of a day.

And I’m stuck in this hellhole.

In this building, air conditioning is nonexistent. I mean, that’s not entirely accurate—the dining room has air conditioning. The dining room, in fact, is quite pleasant. It’s the kitchen that makes you feel like you’re trapped in the depths of the devil’s lair, at his mercy for eight hours on end.

If someone offers you a job as a line cook, turn it down. You’re better off with the waitstaff, with all the screaming babies and picky eaters it comes with.

I’ve worked here for five years now, which is just long enough to realize how much the job sucks, but also long enough to form bonds with the people who are actually tough enough to last this long in a kitchen job. (Kitchen jobs, I’ve learned, are not for the faint of heart.) It’s long enough to adapt to the closing routine like second nature--learning to flip all the switches and wash all the dishes within five minutes of closing time, dragging the last bag of garbage with me on my way out the door.

Now, the sun has already gone down, and the air cooled from its perfect daytime temperature. I pull a sweater over my head and fling the garbage into the dumpster out back. Before I reach my car, I look up.

The moon is shining, and the stars are out. The cool air is a welcome change from the humidity of my day, and the sky remains as clear as it had been during the day.

I sigh. It’s the absolute perfection of an evening.

Review: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

Stop measuring yourself against us. It’s not the right scale. You have your own gifts, your own talents. Show the world everything you’re capable of, Marguerite. You don’t even see how amazing you are. - Claudia Gray, Ten Thousand Skies Above You

Look, another sequel! Read ahead at your own risk!

Guys. THIS BOOK. Do you remember my review for the first one? Do you remember how much I loved that one? This one was just as amazing, if not moreso. CLAUDIA. GIRL. YOU KNOW YOUR WAY AROUND A SEQUEL.

Literally everything I loved about the first book was present within these glorious pages. The well-placed flashbacks, the pacing, the Russiaverse. GUYS. I almost wanted to cry from the sheer joy and surprise of returning to the setting of my favourite arc from the first book. And, unlike the first book, the climax and ending caught me completely off guard. That's hard to do, guys, trust me. I ask a lot of "what if" questions.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You came out back in November. I bought it almost the day it came out, but for some reason that I can't even comprehend, I waited until just last month to read it. In retrospect, this was probably a good idea, because the idea of waiting until NEXT NOVEMBER for the conclusion seems absurd, and at this point, it's less than six months away. I JUST CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG, OKAY. I JUST CAN'T.

Probably my favourite part about this book--and about 75% of the reason I say my girl Claudia knows her way around a sequel--is how she took the themes of the first book and expanded on them so freaking well in this one. In A Thousand Pieces of You, Marguerite explored the concept of destiny, of being meant to be with someone over and over again in a hundred thousand lifetimes. She saw how similar she and her family and friends were across dimensions--how her parents were always drawn to science, her sister to adventure, herself to the visual arts. At the beginning of this book, she believed that a fundamental part of a person's soul remained the same over dimensions, that each Paul or Theo or Marguerite is the same person. Then she discovered that that's not really the case--each version of someone is their own person, with their own life, their own memories, their own feelings. They can't be held to par with a different version of them, because they're just not the same person.

Marguerite had her beliefs going into this new adventure, and with each dimension she visited, she found herself at odds with them. Things weren't as simple or as black-and-white as she thought or wanted them to be. And I just loved how Gray took this concept that seemed so obvious and crystal clear and showed that it really wasn't. It was extremely well done.

I also loved how she started to dive into the ethics of inter-dimensional travel. It's a fun thought, the idea of being able to jump into another dimension and live another life. But revisiting the Russiaverse allowed Marguerite to see the real consequences of her visits, of what these other versions of her go through both while she's borrowing their body and after she leaves. Is it really fair to use the body of another for your own purposes, even if they live a dimension away?

ANYWAY. Y'all can bet that I'll be buying the finale the second it comes out. (The title alone makes me want to cry because EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SERIES IS WONDERFUL.) Finales are often hard to execute, especially when the rest of the series is as well done as this, but I have the utmost faith that Gray can pull it off. (CLAUDIA, YOU'RE MY GIRL. I BELIEVE.)

Five stars to you, Claudia Gray. Five hundred million stars, one for every world that a Marguerite lives on in.

Until later,

- Justyne

Micro Fiction Monday: Crazy

This summer is for catching fireflies. Every summer is different. Last summer, I spent every day the pool, until my finger tips were permanently wrinkled and the chlorine turned my blonde hair green. The summer before, I boycotted shoes. No sandals, no flats, no sneakers. I went barefoot or I didn’t go at all.

This summer, I want to catch fireflies. I want to run in the field behind my house with a net in one hand and a jar in the other. I want to fill a dozen jars with their light, for my entire bedroom to be illuminated with their glow.

It’s weird, maybe a little crazy. I haven’t caught a firefly since I was a kid. Everyone else I know is working, going to the beach, having bonfires in their backyards. Normal summer things.

But I keep the jar in my hand anyway. Because summer is meant for crazy.

FREEDOM

Let me tell you, folks, I have taken summer for granted for FAR TOO LONG.

My blog posts have been, clearly, off track as of late. This happens a lot. I'm not proud. But every now and then, I have a valid excuse. Like four exams, one student film, two different website codes, one paper, and a weekend in which I proudly did nothing but scroll through Tumblr and play Wind Waker. (Followed by a couple weeks in which I didn't update because, really, what else is new?)

Now that exams have passed and the academic year has ended, I feel a foreign sense of freedom that I have not felt in years. It's strange, because I now find myself in the same life situation I held for two years--no classes, no homework, just a part time job and all my time to devote to writing. (Or playing Sims. Mostly playing Sims.) I have the exact same amount of freedom now as I had before I restarted my academic career back in September.

Now, though, it feels more...liberating. After months of cramming homework into every spare moment, of studying at work and writing notes on the bus, I now have NOTHING TO DO. I have all the time in the world to work on as many personal projects as I want--or to just sit on my butt and watch Netflix until my brains ooze out of my ears. (Which I've done. A lot.)

I find myself making plans, massive to-do litsts with more items than I probably have time for. And I did the same thing even before I went back to school--although my free time never actually increased, it still felt like it did during the summer. I don't think this feeling will go away after I graduate, either. This is something that has long been engraved into my brain, and will stick around for probably an enternity. There's just something about summer that has this almost magical feel to it.

I guess that's why it's my favourite season.

Until later,

- Justyne