Velone

About a month ago, my sister asked me if I had any ideas of what to knit next. I gave her the usual list- a hat, wristers, a cowl, and possibly some other things- and then added another suggestion: a dragon. This caught her attention, and I told her about the stuffed dragon pattern that I'd found a while back and never tried. She asked to see the pattern, and I showed it to her, and asked that if she did end up making dragons, that she make one for me as well.

Fast forward to last Sunday evening, and look what appeared on my bed:

Isn't he cute? His name is Velone, after a dragon in one of my stories. I actually specifically requested that my sister make my dragon to look like the character Velone, since he's pretty much my favorite of all the dragons I've written- and he's probably in or close to my top five of dragons in general.

Why? I'm glad you asked.

Velone, the character

Velone is a miniature ice dragon, which means he'll never get much bigger than a housecat. At the moment, being only about two weeks old (as of the end of Destinies and Decisions), he's small enough to fit comfortably in a largish coat pocket. In fact, he spends a good deal of time in a pocket, since it makes a good hiding/napping spot.

Velone is a Rider's dragon, bonded to Emma Alyron. Like Emma, Velone loves music. His favorite way to express himself is through humming: cheerful tunes when he's happy, slower melodies when he's thinking hard, and Emma's favorite songs for when he's trying to encourage her. When he's not trying to express a particular emotion or sentiment, his "default" tune is the first one he heard Emma sing in the moments before he hatched. Though she sang it as a lonely lament, it's since become a symbol of hope for both of them.

Velone might be tiny, but he has an enormous heart and a protective streak three miles wide. If something is threatening his Emma, he'll do whatever he can to stop it, and when she's feeling discouraged, lonely, or just not good enough, he'll hum, nuzzle her cheeks, and remind her of the truths she needs to hear. He doesn't entirely understand why Emma fears all the things she does, and he consistently nudges her to step outside her comfort zone, to be the person she could be rather than the person she sees herself as.

Writing about Emma and Velone is almost always really fun. Velone is very different from most of the other dragons in my stories when it comes to interactions with his Rider. For one thing, because he's so small, there's a lot more cuddling involved. (Yes, dragons do cuddle, or at least mine do.) For another, he communicates more through images, feelings, and humming than through actual words. This makes him a bit more challenging to write, but I enjoy the challenge. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Velone also serves as a catalyst for Emma's growth as a person, which makes their interactions doubly fun to write.

Do you have a favorite dragon or other mythological creature in your stories? Please tell me about him or her in the comments! As always, I'd love to hear what you have to say!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

P.S. Just in case, Velone isn't the only dragon my sister's made . . . she's actually been really busy. To demonstrate just how busy, here's a picture of all her dragons:

Slippery Time and Other Things

Time can be a very slippery thing. You sit down one minute to do a bit of knitting and listen to some of a good book or to enjoy yourself online and the next thing you know, it's two hours later and you've forgotten to do something important. Like schoolwork. Or writing. Funny how that works.

At least if you lose track of time while you're knitting, you're doing something useful. In the past two weeks, I made a new pair of wristers and most of a cute headband that my mom found a pattern for. I would've finished the headband yesterday, but the book I was listening to, Howl's Moving Castle, ended much too soon. You'd think that by this time, I'd be used to it, that the ending wouldn't make me wish so hard that there was more or that the characters were real and I could visit them because I'm not ready to say goodbye. But I'm not, which is why I spent most of today reading the two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle and wishing very much that Howl and Sophie played a bigger part in the other books. I'm strongly tempted to start listening to the book all over again, unless I find something else to listen to that catches my attention more.

In other news, I wrote myself into a corner and can't seem to find my way out of it. Unless Inspiration shows up and rescues me, or at least gives me a secret passage out of the corner, I'll probably scrap the story and start over with something new. Or maybe I'll just work on my WIPs from last year's Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo. That would work too. I just want to write something that's not this particular story and where I have a better idea what I'm doing.

Ok, this blog post is turning into a lot of moping. Time for happier stuff.

• Cress comes out in three day! Three days! I'll have to wait until it comes in at the library before I can read it, but all the same- three days!
• A Draw of Kings also comes out in three days.
• I still need to read Allegiant but I'm kind of scared to. I want to know what's going to happen, but at the same time, I have a feeling it's going to be something heartbreaking. And it's easier to just listen to Howl's Moving Castle, which isn't very sad at all. Actually, it's quite funny and I defy anyone to read or listen to it and not be in a good mood by the time they're done.
• Owl City music can be sad, like 'Lonely Lullaby' (which I'm listening to now), but I love it anyway. Though I generally prefer the happy songs, like 'Hot Air Balloon'.
• There's a short story contest on at my library. I need to pick something to enter. For once, I have plenty of options! (Thank you, TPS Summer Creative Writing class!)
• I love playing Ticket to Ride, but if you and your friends are playing it while your parents are having Bible Study, you really need to start it before snack time. Otherwise, you end up having to stop halfway through so that people can go home and go to bed.
• I love this song:

Well, that's all for today. Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

Tagged Again!

I have been tagged again, this time by Scarlet Raptor. It's the same tag as last time, so I'll dispense with the instructions and get on with the random facts:

1. The last book I read was Entwined by Heather Dixon, a 12 Dancing Princesses remake. 
2. The next book I plan to read is Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix, though I may decide to read Starflower by Anne Elisabeth Stengl instead if I decide I'm still in a fairy-tale-ish mood.
3. I like making up words.
4. I once wrote a sonnet about procrastination. I'm thinking of posting it sometime, if I ever get around to it.
5. My favorite poem is "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. 
6. I'm currently knitting a coif.
7. I'm currently listening to "The One" by Skillet. 
8. I got new sandals last weekend. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to wear them yet. 
9. As I type this, it's 1:04 PM.
10. I'm thirsty.

And now for the people I'm going to tag:

Vrenith

Aarathyn Arvell

Joel Ball

The WordWeaver

Rayne Speryll

Rob Thacker (or one of his characters)

IDK323

And once again I seem to be out of people. Oh well. 

Namárië!*

- Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

*Farewell!

Tag! I'm it!

Hey'a, everyone! It seems that Hyperlinkzer tagged me on his blog. (My first tag on this blog- exciting, isn't it?) To perform the tag, I have to state ten random facts about myself and then tag ten other bloggers. To the ten other people, I apologize in advance. You'll probably all have been tagged before at least once.

So, anyway, on with the tag!

1. The first fantasy books (other than fairy tales) that I can remember reading were The Chronicles of Narnia. 
2. Currently, my favorite word is bumfuzzle, which means confuse, perplex, or fluster.
3. I love Laser Tag (though I haven't played it much) and would happily spend an entire day playing it. 
4. I own the extended editions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King. 
5. I may or may not spend a good bit of this evening watching The Fellowship of the Ring. I want to, but it depends if I'm busy and if I decide I need to write and whether or not I have enough time to watch a decent amount of it.
6. Two of my three favorite hairstyles are from the Hunger Games movies: Katniss's braid from The Hunger Games and Prim's braid from Catching Fire.
7. I'm hoping to make a Lorien cape (like the ones in The Lord of the Rings) over the summer. I'm also thinking of trying to knit a cape at some point in my life.
8. My Camp NaNoWriMo word count is 44,513 words, which means I have 5,487 words left to write before I complete my goal (though not my book).
9. I used to always put Parmesan cheese on white rice.
10. I have no idea what else to say here.

Now my random facts are done, and I just have to tag people. Once more, I apologize if the person I've tagged has been tagged before. So I tag . . .

Emma (a friend of mine from WI)

Ryebrynn

Gwingyth

Jag Swiftstorm

Warrior of Aror

Raptor

Um. I seem to be out of people to tag who I know haven't been tagged at least once or twice already. So . . . if you read this, you have a blog, and you feel like doing it, go for it!

Namárië!*

- Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

*Farewell!

Knitting and NaNoWriMo

Hello, everyone! Happy Day-After-St.Patrick's Day! It's nice to think about spring coming soon- though I'll admit I was none too pleased when I woke up this morning to see snow on the ground! Hopefully the weather will start getting more springy very, very soon, because I want to be able to read and write outside in the sun, go biking, and wear short sleeves.

Most of my free time lately has been spent in knitting and reading. In addition to the projects I've already told you about, I've made a second pair of wristers, which I'm wearing now, and a pair of yoga socks. Yoga socks, if you didn't know, are socks that don't have heels or toes, so they're basically the equivalent of fingerless gloves for your feet, except that I typically wear them over normal socks. Go figure. Right now I'm working on a shawl for my sister. It's going well, and I'm almost a fifth of the way done. There's one row in the pattern that drives me nuts until I start making strange noises of aggravation, but otherwise, it's quite easy.

Book-wise, I've recently been reading the rest of Jessica Day George's books. For those of you who didn't know, Jessica Day George is the author of several remade fairy tales, including Princess of the Midnight Ball, one of my three favorite books by her, and one of the books that inspired my Camp NaNoWriMo novel last year. I also read The Fairest Beauty, the latest book by Melanie Dickerson. I very much enjoyed it, though The Merchant's Daughter is still my favorite Dickerson book.

Speaking of Camp NaNoWriMo (we were talking about it, briefly at least), this year it's in two months: April and July. I plan to do it with the official site this year, which is exciting. I'm thinking that I'll go for my usual goal of 50,000 words in April, and that I'll write the sequel to last year's Camp NaNoWriMo novel (which I've named Danger in the Tower). This year's novel will be called Monster in the Castle, and it's going to be a remake of "Beauty and the Beast" combined with "East of the Sun; West of the Moon". Here's the summary I wrote for the Camp NaNoWriMo site (WARNING: contains spoilers for Danger in the Tower):

King du Karel is dead. The once-missing girls have been returned to their families, except for Poppy, who travels with Ivy and Jacob Serlend in search of Ivy's family. All should be well, especially for Pansy (last name undecided). After all, not only has she been reunited with her father, but she's also learned to control the voices she hears. But Pansy's sisters resent her, and her father is in deep debt because of the money he spent searching for her. When a beast offers Pansy's father riches if one of his daughters will come live in a castle with him (the beast), Pansy feels that she has no choice but to volunteer. But she will discover that all is not as it seems at the beast's grand castle, and the beast himself might not be a villain, but a victim of the same beings that once held her captive.

Sounds cool, no? I'm very much looking forward to writing it, especially since Pansy is one of my favorite characters from Danger in the Tower. I can hardly wait to write a book that's (almost) all about her!

As for the July session, I'm not sure if I'll do it or not. If I do, it'll be with a lower wordcount goal, since I have several other plans for July as well. These include the possibility of a summer writing class and helping a friend with something. (Details to come later.) Possibilities for July's novel include a rewrite of My Father's Daughter, which I started almost a year ago and have yet to finish, or another novel which I haven't named yet, but which will involve aliens, people stabbing bad guys with knitting needles (and actually accomplishing something other than making the bad guy mad), and possibly superheros. I will confess that this novel might've possibly come from my desire to write something in which someone gets stabbed with a knitting needle. (And that desire came mostly from Jessica Day George. Thank you very much, Mrs. George.)

I haven't been doing much current writing, however. I have written one or two short stories, and I wrote a poem yesterday, but that's about all. Procrastination, unfortunately, seems to have mostly beaten me when it comes to writing. I'll have to make sure to send him packing in time for NaNoWriMo, though.

Well, that's about all. Thanks for stopping by!
Calo anor na ven!*
- Sarah

*May the sun shine upon your road!

A Quick Update

Hey'a, anyone who reads my blog!

The past almost-two weeks have passed more or less uneventfully except for a few things:

New books!- Two weekends ago, I finished the Blood of Kings trilogy. As I said in my last post, I listened to the first two books while I was knitting. My friend lent me the third book, which was even better than the first two, particularly since Vrell and Achan both seemed to mature quite a bit. I'd say more, but I don't want to give anything away. Anyway, last Monday (one week ago) I ordered two new books from Barnes and Noble: By Darkness Hid (since I wanted to have it in paper-and-ink form) and Starflower, the fourth book in Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Tales of Goldstone Wood series. In case you didn't know, the Goldstone Wood books are, in general, amazing, and Starflower definitely did not disappoint. (Well, at the end of the story, I was very disappointed that Bard Eanrin, the Wood, the Far World, Starflower, and various other aspects of the story weren't real. But what else is new?)

Knitting- I finished the cowl I was working on at the time of my last post the day before Valentine's Day. I then started a bandana cowl, which was the largest project I'd done yet. It also required circular needles, which drove me slightly nuts for a while. However, that project was interrupted when my youth group leader asked if I could make a button cowl (the first cowl I made) for him to give to his wife, and also offered to pay me for it! I was happy to do so, and finished that cowl last Saturday night. Then I finished my bandana cowl just this morning, and am currently wearing it. I plan to make another pair of wristers (or fingerless gloves, or whatever you want to call them) next. I spent most of the afternoon searching out patterns, and now I just have to pick which ones I want to make. Decisions, decisions . . .

Writing- I've written two short stories in the past two weeks, one on Valentine's Day morning and one last Sunday morning. I'm fairly pleased with both of them, particularly the Valentine's Day one, since it's an idea I had in my head for a while but didn't figure out how to do properly until that day. I'll probably post one or both of them on here at some point, and may also enter one of them in my library's writing contest. I haven't decided whether I'll do one of the two I wrote recently or if I'll enter Speak Life instead.

School- School in general is still going fairly well. My history is still trying to kill me, but I've managed to come out on top. My science (which I decidedly did not like at the beginning of the year) is getting better. I've started my Literature (which only takes up half a school year) and so far, I've been enjoying it. I'm supposed to be reading a Sherlock Holmes story tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading!

Calo anor na ven.*
- Sarah

*May the sun shine upon your road.

Finally, a Post!

Wow. I haven't blogged for a long time. Sorry, everyone. I wish I could say I was busy, and sometimes I was, but mostly I was just a procrastinator. Sorry again. And anyone who still reads this, thank you very, very much.

I had a lot of fun over Christmas break. Grandpa came down to visit for the holiday, and Mommy made ladylocks. (Ladylocks are pastry tubes filled with cream and with powdered sugar on top. They're absolutely incredible.) Some of my favorite presents included the Legends of Karac Tor series, a Skillet cd, and a Middle Earth map poster. Shortly after Christmas, my friend and I went to see The Hobbit a second time. I almost think I liked it better the second time, since I could anticipate what was happening better. New Year's Eve was spent at our friends' house and was also a lot of fun.

New Year's Day was mostly spent in two activities: taking down the Christmas tree and matting and framing my Hobbit posters. In addition to the full-size poster I got for Christmas, I got four free posters the first time I went to see The Hobbit. They all look fairly similar in design to this:

That's actually one of the posters, which obviously shows Bilbo. The other three have Gandalf, Thorin, and Gollum on them. All four, plus my map poster, are now framed, matted, and hanging on the wall across from my bed. This meant I had to rearrange the items already hanging on that wall, but I definitely think I like my room better this way.

School is going fairly well. I'm not overly crazy about my history, and a few semi-recent tests have resulted in me uttering the phrase "I'm dead" more than once. Thankfully, the last two tests have gone somewhat better, and none of my other subjects cause me quite as much pain.

In other news, I've decided to start knitting. This is mostly because I wanted something to do while I listened to By Darkness Hid and To Darkness Fled, audiobooks written and recorded by Jill Williamson. They were originally recorded as podcasts, but you can get all of both books free on her site. I'm very much enjoying both the books and the knitting. So far I've made five pairs of wristers, and I'm working on a cowl. I have another cowl design that I want to try after I finish this one, so that will probably keep me busy for a while.

I haven't been writing much, though I have been doing plenty of editing. I've finished editing my NaNo Novel, and I'm finally done with the first round of edits in my Camp NaNo Novel. I'm planning to try to write more for the next week or two before I start the second round of editing on my Camp NaNo Novel (which is probably going to be edited more times than any novel or story I've written since I wrote Rosa). I have been reading quite a bit. One of my favorite books I've read recently is Princess of the Silver Woods. It's the third book in a trilogy by Jessica Day George, and the first book in the trilogy, Princess of the Midnight Ball, helped inspire my Camp NaNo Novel. I thoroughly recommend the trilogy, though I haven't read any of her other books yet. I'm also looking forward to reading The Fairest Beauty, the latest book by Melanie Dickerson, another author I'd definitely recommend if you like remade fairy tales.

Well, that's about all. Thank you very much for reading, despite my long absences. I hope that I'll do a better job of fighting off Procrastination in future. Thank you again!

Nai haryuvalyë melwa rë.*

- Sarah


*"May you have a lovely day."