Guest Blogger Friday!

Today's another one! This wonderful Friday, we have my good friend Sudsy (Soap6644 on NaNo). He agreed to write a blog post for me! I'm glad he did, because it's really good. So, everyone, please give a round of applause to... Sudsy!
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Writing. Writing is an escape from reality. No matter how bad things get in the real world, you have your own world that you can retreat into. You can make this world perfect, or worse than the worst moment in our history.


This world has its own problems. These often represent problems in the present world, and the author is expressing their opinion in a way that grabs at the attention of the reader. There never was a good story without a problem of some sort. The characters must have some sort of challenge to overcome. These challenges come in infinite varieties, a common one is war.

Another thing is perspective. Using war as an example, you can have a vast number of perspectives. From a soldier on the front lines to a peasant who's life is affected very slightly, everyone has an interesting tale to tell!

This world, to me at least, is somewhere to which I can, and often do, escape to. It's just so amazing and fun to be in charge of your own little world, and I always want to expand mine!
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I thought that was very good. But now, I must dash off, I'm at my mom's work for the day because at my school, we get days off to go and do something, like go to a museum or job shadow someone of anything like that. I'm using her work computer because her laptop won't connect to the Internet, so I have to go, 'cause she's gotta get back to work. Have a good day everyone!
-Cos

Guess who!!

Olive here!!!

*looks around and breaths in deeply* awh it feels good to be home!

It's been long, and hard, and full of stress BUT I will be coming back soon..

you see. I've recently moved.
And I had my computer put under restriction by aliens. Whom forgot the password that made it so I couldn't have Internet...which when I finally (cause I'm stubborn) decided to get Internet....they um...couldn't get in. So....they spent the money and got in today! Tonight! About 40 mins ago!!

And here I am!!

Oh I cant wait to get this thing bac-----I'd like to thank Cossy for doing a WONDERFUL job with the blog...in fact....this blog is pretty much her's now...=) And I LOVE it!! Oh my! I love it soooooo much!!!
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH COSTELLO!!!!!!!!! You don't know how much this means to me!!!!

Anyways.....=) Here is my idea...please leave comments(if I don't get back right away do not freak out okay?):
What if Cossy kept this blog? and I made another one? I'm thinking I could guest on this one say once a week, and mine be a cooking blog. You see I have to make lunch everyday now, and I could take a picture of what is in the food and the final project, ect. I already plan on asking my parents if I can do this(as it will make me want to actually cook lunch?) so...if you all say no its fine. :) just an idea.....

Anyways.....Its good to be back!! I hope you are alll doing well!!

And night! I have to get up at 7/8 to do my walk with the fam....hills suck.
-Olive

I've Decided to Mix Things up a Bit...

I'm gonna do a photography post today. I decided to because for the past week, I've been taking a lot of pictures. I've even come up with a tip! So, let me know what you think!

Whaddya guys (and girls) think? Please, feel free to comment! Now, my tip! If you see something worth taking a picture of, by all means, grab it! Take those pictures, get the right shot. That's pretty much what I did with all of these. There's this sort of hallway that leads up to my door, and on the left hand side, there's a wall that has a couple of rosebushes there, and that's where I mostly get the urge to take a picture. So, take those words to heart, kids. Have a good day, everyone! Don't forget to comment!
-Coffee

Belated Guest Blogger!

I am so sorry. I had some stuff to do on Friday that took all day, and I didn't have time to post, and we had a football game on Saturday, so no time then. So here I am, with my guest blogger! His name is Mikey, and he's a real good friend of mine. So, here he is! :)

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Hey everyone, I'm Mikey with a guest post for Cos. My post is on Prolonged Exposure. Extended or “Prolonged” exposure is a great tool to take some really cool and amazing images. Prolonged exposure means that the camera’s shutter is open for a longer time than normal, allowing more light onto the picture. This can make the picture look like the object you are taking a picture of seem like it is moving. I like to use this feature mostly at night. You can get some really great pictures if you use your imagination.


Here are some pictures that I took while watching an aerial fireworks display. The camera was a few years old, but it was a digital camera with lots of mega pixels, (9.0 I think) and some other really nice features.

During the fireworks show, I set up my camera on a tripod and pointed it at the sky where most of the fireworks were exploding. Then I zoomed in on the area so that the fireworks would fill the viewfinder.

After setting the exposure time to what I thought would work, I would take the picture and wait for some fireworks to go off hoping to capture the entire display over the course of the exposure time. I experimented with all of the time setting until I found the right setting that would work well for what I was taking a picture of.

As you can see, it worked! But honestly it took me a little bit to get the hang of trying to predict when the next round of fireworks went off. After snapping lots (and I mean LOTS) of pictures, a few of them turned out really good! The one that looks like a flower is my favorite.

If your camera has the prolonged exposure feature, try it out sometime and you will be amazed at what you can get. You can use prolonged exposure at night or in the daytime for a variety of subjects. Just use some imagination and get out here and get “snapping”! Thanks for your time, see you in two weeks! -Mikey

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That was awesome! Sorry for the wait everyone, but I hope this made up for it! Please, comment away!
-Costello

Geez, I'm Terrible.

It's a Thursday, and I haven't posted since Sunday. I'm so bad. I'm letting down the few readers I have. This is no way to maintain a stable blog! Argh, I gotta get back on top! Erm, I mean on top of posting. I guess, since I'm using my mom's laptop, which means I don't have any pictures on it, I'll just do a random post, possibly a story, if I find some inspiration. That may come in a post later this evening. Possibly. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Beatles, ever since the kid next to me in English was singing Hey Jude under his breath. Good times... My favorite song right now would have to be Yesterday. 'Cause I believe in yesterday! Yeah! That was bad... *scratches head nervously* I'm not very sure what to post about. Hold on, I'm going to ask my fellow NaNo friends what to talk about. Please hold.
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They tell me I should talk about CC. CC stands for Character Chatzy. Chatzy is this chatroom website, and we made one for our characters! What we do, is we log in as a character in one of our many, unfinished stories and sort of... roleplay! But with lots more drama. :D And I'm not really one for drama, but it's not me. It's Cody, my charrie. He's handling all of it for me. I just sort of... guide him along. And he actually doesn't hate me, like most characters hate their authors. He doesn't hate me because I got him together with Ash, my friend Jessa's charrie, now his future wife. They're engaged. We use the author chat to plan out all of what's going to happen in CC, most of the time as things are going on at that moment. Very time-consuming. Not really. You've really gotta keep up. Reggie knows, poor girl. Well, I'll stop this post. I can tell I'm boring you all already. You miss Olive, huh? I know I do. You know what? I'm going to make a poll. No, she'll never see it. I haven't talked to her in a long time. I miss her. Well, goodbye everyone! Tomorrow is another guest blogger! Be sure to tune in! Or, something like that. Whatever. Just check periodically! Bye!
-Costello

I'm not sure what to talk about...

True dat. Maybe I should talk about NaNo! That's a good idea! 43 more days! Yay!!!!!! I'm so excited! My dad's gotta start working on his outline... He's the one who introduced me to YWP, you know. He did adult NaNo three or so years ago, and about 5 months ago, he showed me the YWP! Of course, I was under a different name then, and seeing as I wasn't attracting any attention to myself, I decided to make a new account with a new name! And thus Costello Shields was born. That's me! But, then again, everyone thought I was a guy... But now they know I'm a girl. Yay! Now I even have nicknames. Cos, Cossy, Cossie, Cod, Coddy, CS, and, most recent, Coffee. Thank you, Reggie.
So, my idea for this year's NaNo. Man, I'm nervous. I've never done NaNo before, and my goal's only gonna be like 5,000 or 10,000. I'm shooting for 10,000. But, my school always gets in the way, so it'll be hard to get any writing time. But thankfully, I've got Write or Die. My idea this year is going through the life of a new character I made, Cody, and I'm gonna tell all the events that have happened since the first day I brought him in to the character Chatzy. NaNoers, you'll know what I'm talking about. ;) Good times. Lots of drama.... Well, I must go. Have a sundae to attend to. (As in, eat it!) Goodbye! Happy Sunday, everyone!
-Cos

Another Guest Blogger!

Hello everyone! Sorry for a very uneventful week. I've been very very busy. Thankfully, my friend Neso on NaNo remembered that they had a blog post on here, when I totally spaced, so yeah! Here it is!

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Oh hello, I’m Neso; you may know me as invisible_ninja and/or the mind behind http://www.theceilingofjupiter.blogspot.com . If you don’t know me, well then, it’s very nice to meet you!


So today I’ve been called to come before you to stand behind you, to tell you something I know nothing about… KIDDING! I’m going to talk to you about WRITING.

It’s really hard to get started sometimes, and it’s really hard to finish other times, and sometimes the middle just doesn’t seem to be working. Trust me, I’ve been there.

So how, then, exactly can you write anything when everything seems to be blocking you?

Well, I have a solution for that! Multiple solutions, actually. More solutions=more fun! You may already know some of these solutions (or all of them), but it can’t harm to reiterate, can it?

Solution One: Ninja-Watch (known by the less popular name of somewhat-stalking)

Go to a public place. Right now. Go. If you can. Finish reading this post first. Or do whatever you “need” to do, like homework, or eating. Psh. You don’t need that!

But the thing is, when you get the chance, just go and observe people. Observe the place you’re in. Whatever. Jot down everything you deem noteworthy-who knows? Maybe you’ll get a really great idea for writing!

Solution Two: Prompts

I’m fairly sure you’ve all done at least ONE prompt in your lifetime, if not more. English teachers in particular seem to like it. And why wouldn’t they? It gives you an idea when your idea well has run dry.

So here are some prompts to get you started:

♦Describe something from the point of view of an inanimate object. Even go through a day in its life.

♦Oh no! Your house is about to be covered with orangey, glowing plasma! What do you do?

♦There’s something odd happening that’s linked to the new girl in school…Plus, what’s up with the computer lab?

♦Start a story with the word “BOOM!” Then say what went on from there.

Solution Three: Chaotic Shiny

Or Seventh Sanctum, or Nine French boys, or whatever generator you wish. Chaotic Shiny is my personal favorite. It has a generator for almost anything under the sun, from topics of songs to sci-fi and fantasy traps to market layouts. It’s given me many a good idea. http://www.chaoticshiny.com

So, I hope you can find something in the gibberish I just wrote that is useful to you! To finish off my post, here are some pictures:

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Wasn't that awesome? Thank you so much, Neso! Be sure to follow the blog posted above! Everyone, have a good day! :D
-Costello