Hi! It's firefly114, author from inkpop and fictionpress and owner of the Fire Me Up website! I'm also Mischief1Managed on fanfiction.net and Amortentia Black on mugglenet. Here's my blog, for rambles and updates. If you have any requests (and I love requests) of things you want me to give my opinion on, or questions to answer, shoot me an email at laurel.firemeup@gmail.com or ask on my formspring widget on the lower right side.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

William Blake and Other Assorted Novelties

Currently listening to:
Barrel of a Gun by Guster




New things!

  •  I don't know how you could not notice, but I've got an awesome new layout! A huge improvement on the last one, don't you think? It really fits with the silverware theme. (A very odd theme if you ask me, but I like it.) I'm still working on the design of the blog and the widgets and such, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!
  • Another exciting new addition is the c-box. It's located on the right-hand side, under the post archive. You should still comment on my posts (hint, hint) but the c-box lets you talk directly to me and gives me a chance to respond! It's only a live chat if we're on at the same time, but it's a great way to ask me questions, give me suggestions, or just stop by and say hi! I'll love you forever if you write in it. 
  • I've figured out a way to upload Word documents as a PDF so you can see some of my works in progress before I post. The first one I did is for my Harry Potter prequel fanfic. It's located under the "Harry Potter" tab, and you can see the rough prologue I wrote. Next, I'll probably be uploading a short story I wrote last spring entitled "Devil's Beach" as part of a collection of stories. 
I had jaw surgery last week and I was starting to recover, but I stopped being able to open my mouth more than an inch or so, and the after-surgery swelling never went down, so I have to go back in for a second surgery tomorrow morning. Joy. 

I couldn't really do much this week, so I sat with my big anthology of British poetry and read the entire thing cover to cover. I love William Blake, and I've read Auguries of Innocence before, but the first stanza struck me even more when I read it this time. 

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

The poem just has such a serene feel to it. If you read it when you're agitated--the whole thing, not just the first stanza--it helps you calm down and accept whatever it is. I first read the poem in British Lit class in high school. It was a whole class devoted to British Literature, and I was in heaven! Well, admittedly, my mother forced me to take the class to get some "real" literature and I was less than happy about it, but my teacher was great and he had a way of getting everyone interested in even the most boring writings. He didn't care if we turned stuff in late, as long as we did it eventually, we never had any tests or quizzes, and we would just have whole-class discussions about our interpretations of the readings. I always imagine his voice reading this poem--it had a slow, low, soothing quality to it. The first stanza is all about seeing the world in different ways--through something tiny, something living (which is also a symbol for love), and to see time as something either ever-expanding or  with a limit.

Anyway, enough of that. I found this wonderful Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge, courtesy of Scandalacious Intentions. It looked like fun, but instead of doing full posts about every question, I'm going to do short answers and post five days' worth of questions for each blog post I write. 

Day 1: Your favourite book: Order of the Phoenix or Goblet of Fire. OOTP because of the places that book has been with me--Italy, camp, Wyoming... and GoF because it's the only book where I felt Harry was truly happy. 
Day 2: Your favourite movie: Prizoner of Azkaban, but only because of the cinematography.
Day 3: Is there any of the films adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book? Deathly Hallows Part 2. It left out so much. I posted about it right after the premiere.
Day 4: Least favourite female character? Ginny, because I feel like she wasn't developed enough as a character. JKR started to, but stopped after the second book. She had the possibility to be a really deep, interesting character.
Day 5: Favourite male character? Sirius Black. He's such a complicated character--a case of arrested development, fiercely loyal to the point where he knows he would die for his friends, yet rash enough to risk everything







Updates:

2 comments:

  1. Oh please tell me how to upload pdfs to my blog! I've been wanting to be able to do this for so long!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Prologue looks interesting, even if it's a rough draft. What would polish it up as a finished product is if you shed some new light on Sirius's home-life and attitude towards his parents. I mean, he's only eleven, so I'd imagine he'd still have some attachment toward them and be quite afraid of not going into Slytherin?
    Is Sirius going to be the central character of your series, or James and Lily?
    Is each novel going to have a self-contained story (more like in earlier HP books), or are you planning to have them just following the events of Voldemort's rise (like in later HP books)? Only because it seems like a discrepancy to have the first three spanning the space of a year, and then the next one to span three years.
    Definitely looking forward to it though.
    ~ Phoebe

    ReplyDelete

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