"Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not"

Yesterday, as I continued my Harry Potter marathon, I read about the wonderful Room of Requirement - a magical room which can only be discovered by someone who is in need. " 'It is a room that a person can only enter,' said Dobby seriously, 'when they really have need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker's needs'...". The room only appears if you walk by the wall thinking hard about what you really need. Harry currently needs it to hold his Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, but the room changes for anyone depending on their need.

I started thinking about my own room of requirement (ROR)...what would be in it? where would it be? The more I thought, I realized that I don't really NEED anything right now. Sure, there are things that I WANT for sure, but luckily, I am happy to say that if I walked by this room, I don't think it would appear. I think, that if I ever do need it, it would be filled with friends and family to help get me through. So, I guess my ROR is not there, for now. It's comforting to know my room would be full, if ever the time comes.

What would your ROR look like?

After a While

I seem to be straying away from book banter a bit, but ever since I went home for a visit this past weekend, I've been "reflecting" on stuff, a lot, I guess you could say. (And words, lyrics, poems fascinate me almost as much as books! :) I had kinda disturbing dream last night (the ones where you wake up and wonder why in the world your brain could possibly dream something like that, and it involved a person I would certainly not consciously chose to dream about). Anyways, as I checked a few of my favorite blogs this morning, I came across this poem that, like yesterday's song lyrics, struck me.

After A While by Veronica A. Shoffstall
After a while you learn The subtle difference between Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn That love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of woman,
Not the grief of a child

And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns
If you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone
To bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure
You really are strong
You really do have worth
And you learn
And you learn
With every goodbye, you learn.

Dare You to Move

No breaking book news today. I'm not close to finishing my current Harry Potter, but I'll give an update soon. Just for fun, or for those that want to reminisce about this lovely book, here is a quote from the page I am on:

"As I was saying, the Vanishing Spell becomes more difficult with the complexity of the animal to be vanished. The snail, as an invertebrate, does not present much of a challenge; the mouse, as a mammal, offers a much greater one. This is not, therefore, magic you can accomplish with your mind on your dinner. (duh! :)

On a random note, I added a bunch of old songs to my ipod over the weekend. I came across this song from the Walk to Remember soundtrack (remember that tearjerker?) I never really paid much attention to the words, but today they stuck with me for some reason.

Dare you to Move by Switchfoot

Welcome to the planet

Welcome to existence

Everyone's here
Everyone's here

Everybody's watching you now

Everybody waits for you now

What happens next?

What happens next?

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance

The tension is here

The tension is here

Between who you are and who you could be

Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened

Maybe redemption has stories to tell

Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell

Where can you run to escape from yourself?

Where you gonna go?

Where you gonna go?

Salvation is here

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move

I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened

Today never happened

Today never happened before

Inn BoonsBoro

I've mentioned her before on this blog, but romance novelist Nora Roberts but writing seems to be only one of Roberts' specialities as she has just opened a bed-and-breakfast in Boonsboro, MD. She has incorporated her love of literature by following a literary-theme in the 8 rooms of the hotel. But, not just any literary couples "The whole idea was the rooms' themes had to be linked to literary couples who ended up with happy endings," says Roberts, who says she was challenged to find enough couples to fill the bill. "Romeo and Juliet? Dead. Tristan and Isolde? Dead. Not happy. Dead, dead, dead. Rhett Butler and Scarlett? He didn't give a damn. You try finding seven of them."

Check out all the rooms here.


They all look cozy, but I had a few favorites. How fun would it be to decorate a house based off your favorite characters. Who would you choose?

Titania and Oberon from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (described as "waltzing into a magic forest")







Westley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Inspire Me

I'm sitting on my couch watching the Oscars, and I just realized how much I heart Hugh Jackman. (Also, cutting to a shot of Angelina laughing while Jen Aniston presents was very clever camera man, come on!). Anyways, they just presented the awards for best original and adapted screenplay. Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of seeing either of the winners (Milk and Slumdog Millionaire), however it got me thinking about the skill and creativity needed for such an undertaking. I'd love to find out more about the process of reworking a novel into a movie script, how they decide what to keep and what to take. Writing an original screenplay is a project that I might be taking on soon, crazy I know. Back in November I signed up for National Novel Writing Month and wrote a 50,000 word "novel" in a month. I have only been able to bring myself to read 15 pages of this effort...it needs quite a bit of work, to say the least.

I didn't find out about NaNoWrMo until the the day before it started, so I had to come up with an idea from scratch and plot it out in a day. That could be part of the reason why it was so difficult trying to write 3 pages a day while still developing the plot. Anyways, I am planning on participating in Script Frenzy and attempting to write a 100 page screenplay in a month. I have more than a month (and much more than a day) to come up with a decent plot, so I want to think of something spectacular! Coming up with the last one was hard enough, my brainstorming seems to be lacking. Where do you go for inspiration?

2008 Word of the Year

In addition to my love of reading books, I also love editing. Luckily I get to do it most days, and today at work I was reading over Copyediting, a newsletter I receive about language. Although this is a little out dated, they listed the "word of the year" for 2008. Different dictionaries/societies chose different words (for different reasons), and here are the winners:

• hypermiling (New Oxford American Dictionary) - "to hypermile," "to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one's car and one's driving techniques".
• overshare (Webster's New World) - verb, "to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions from alarmed discomfort to approval.
• bailout (Merriam-Webster)
• CORRECTION (American Dialect Society) - bailout

My favorite by far was overshare, chosen by Webster. "The Word of the Year results from Webster's New World's language monitoring program, which documents emerging merging English as it appears in the press, TV, radio, and Internet. Every month, more than 2,000 new words, meanings, pronunciations, and spellings are identified. At the end of the year, the editors at Webster’s New World review the collected research and create a short list of words that have yet to appear in the dictionary but hold intrinsic linguistics qualities that merit consideration for entry into the Webster’s New World lexicon."

A whole page is dedicated to the word, including Webster's Editor in Chief explaining why they chose the word, and real life examples of oversharing (and its consequences) from people in NYC.

Other final candidates included leisure sickness, cyberchondriac, selective ignorance and youthanasia.

All of these words fascinate me, so maybe this will become a weekly feature (I'll find and explain the losing/runner-up Words of the Year, get excited!)

Old Magic

I'm happily laying in my bed as I write this post, yay for President's Day! This weekend has exhausted me, or I'm coming down with something. I had a pretty busy weekend, so let's hope I just need some relaxation time.

One of the main accomplishments of the weekend was finishing Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Unfortunately I had already seen parts of the movie, including some pivotal ending scenes, but I blew threw the last 100 pages. More than any of the other books, Rowling has set the stage for upcoming drama to unfold in the wizarding world. Things I particularly enjoyed:

• The clearly budding romance between Hermione and Ron (I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I think she is building something up).
• The Weasleys showing up as Harry's "family" during the Triwizard Tournament.
• Voldemort referring to the "old magic" - aka the love and sacrifice Harry's mother had and made for him. (It was obvious in this book that Harry has loyal friends who love him and that is where much of his magical strength comes from, unlike Voldemort's who dark powers have suffered from his lack of loyal followers.)
• Finally finding out a little bit about Snape. She has presented him as a pretty simple character who did not care for Harry, but I knew that he had to be much more complex. We finally find out more about his past and I cant wait to find out more specifics in the upcoming books.

I really enjoyed this book because it went beyond Harry's world, showing the impacts of the dark lord's rise to power may have on others. I continue to find Rowling's innovative genius amazing (the things she can come up with never cease to surprise me, her imagination is endless). This book, more than any others, was a cliffhanger, gearing up for what appears to be a much darker, dangerous world the wizarding community (and by reading the first chapter of book 5) the muggle community must face together. Looking forward to book 5!