Hi Again, Also Bella, Also "Wasted Time"

Hi, all.

I can't believe I haven't posted since winning the writing contest.  (Late March, right?)  Stuff has happened and I'm sorry I haven't updated you on any of it.  Bullet list timeeeeeee:

• school is out and I'm a "rising junior"  (somebody told me that was the term)
• I took down the post about being in the newspaper and my editing Freshly Squeezed v2 because I gave it to the greatly capable and deserving Sarah Fosburg
• she did a great job and Freshly Squeezed v2 is out; I'm on pages 9 and 60-64 (my favorite piece though is on page 32)
• I have a new story to post!
• I have a cat, though that happened back in February.

Here is my cat, her name is Bella:

And here is a short story called "Wasted Time" that I wrote while fairly stressed:

Wasted Time

Um...so yeah, I think that sums it up.

Until next time,

-Allie H-S

P.S: I also started a cover band with a couple of friends, but it has no name.  I am the guitarist/ukulele-ist.  Root for me, 'cause I dunno how to play instruments, but I'LL TRY!

SO I ACTUALLY DID NOT LOSE THE CONTEST

HI, ALL!

So remember this post when I was half-secretly all bummed like, "yeah so I lost the writing contest but here have a story anyway"?  Well I actually was only thinking that because the UVU people were all, "Hey so yeah we'll notify winners by March 1st, yeah totally," and then it was like March 3rd and we'd heard nothing back and I was like, "the tears are real."  But hey guess what IT'S MARCH 27TH AND THEY GOT BACK TO US!  I actually was a runner-up and will get fifty dollars for it!  Yaaaaaaaaaaaay I just placed in a writing contest for the first time everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Thanks to everyone who read "Locks and Keys" and gave me feedback.  You guys are great.  I am excited.  This is pretty swell.

Yay.
-Allie H-S

HOW TO CRANE: Step-by-Step

Hi, all.

So I was folding some paper cranes recently for the GSA's upcoming Week of Silence.  (Basically just Day of Silence, but with lots of promotion on the Monday through Thursday beforehand.)  And I was also showing a few other people within the GSA how to fold cranes, and I kind of just decided to make this tutorial and post it on my blog.  You know.  For the good of the people.

-HOW TO CRANE-

Materials:
- a square piece of paper and preferably a table.  that is all.

The rest of this tutorial will be given in photos and captions.  Click on them and they should enlarge.  Enjoy.

So get a piece of paper.  This is foil paper, but any kind will do.
(I actually do not recommend foil paper for your first time; it's finicky.)

Fold it diagonally, with the color on the inside.

Now do that again the other way. 

Now fold it horizontally with the color on the outside.

Now do that again.

Now poke the middle point up and make a tent-y thingy like this. 

See how the diagonal folds you've made just kinda collapse in?
Push 'em in more.  Make it happen. 

Now put it on the table and flatten it.  It should make a square.
Be sure the open tip is at the bottom.

You should have four flappy thingies on the edges.  Take one.
Fold it to the middle seam.

Do that again with the other one.

And then the other side.

It should look like this, you know, like a kite.

Now take the tip and fold it down.

Flatten it back up again, flip the paper over, and repeat. 

And then, one one side, open the thingy-things like this.

And then pull up the tip from the bottom. 

Open it.  Then open it moreeeeeeee.  (This should be
taking advantage of the fold you made when you folded
the tip down.)

Take them corner folds you made and reverse them.
Try to be as clean about it as possible.

Flatten it on a table.  It should look like this.  Then, 
like most of these steps, repeat on the other side.

Now, my friends kept forgetting this step, but like, ya gotta take
the legs on the bottom and make 'em skinny.  To make it easier
to remember, I started calling this step "sexy legs."  For some reason.
Just fold it to the center again. 

Now do it again.  Sexy legs.

And then a third timeeeeee....

And then a fourth time and you're good. 

Sexy leeeeegs! They're like legs, see?

Now take one leg, and kinda pull it out and flatten it and
turn it halfway wrong-side-out and stuff?  It's hard to explain. 

And push/fold it up a little moreeeee.  This is an
okay picture, right?

This hopefully shows it a little better.

And then make it all the way wrong-side-out,
like that.  (This is hard the first few times.  A lot 
depends on how precise your previous folds were.) 

And then do it to the other side too, and it should look like that.
Now.  Time to get nit-picky.  Choose which little pokey thing
is the least precise and would be better as a crane head than as
a crane tail.  I choose the right one.

Fold it down carefully, like when you folded the legs up. 

See how it's not just all smushed-down, but instead can be
made nicely wrong-side-out again?  Good.

Now make it wrong-side-out.  Huzzah!  It's a head!
(This also depends on how nice your other folds were.) 

Take a wing.  Fold it down.

Take the other wing.  Fold it down. 

Fold them back up a little so it can sit.  And then?  Yaaaaaaay
you did it!  Be good to your new avian friend.

Have a nice day!
- Allie H-S

Fish, Frogs, Mushrooms, and Spiny Things - Part 1?

Hi, all.

So let's give you a quick update on my photography class.  Film photography is, like, super duper fun, and I've done a lot of cool stuff in class this year, but third quarter, my teacher kept being absent/things in the darkroom kept breaking, and basically the last couple months have been really frustrating because we couldn't get anything done.  And then, finally, my teacher decided that because she's also pursuing her own art career, she really didn't have the time to teach this class (which honestly had become pretty clear), plus she kept getting sick (and I genuinely hope something's not wrong, like she's still a good person and everything), but so, long story short: she's quitting in a week.  But she's leaving day after tomorrow.  Aaaaaaand I'm mad.

I'm mad 'cause several times this year, she got mad at us for not working hard enough on this class, and now she's really just bailing on us (and she has a greater obligation than we do, being the teacher and all - I mean nearly every time she was gone, she didn't even leave sub notes, so we just sat in the room and stared at the wall for an hour and a half), and also because I may or may not be able to finish this project, and I want to because I wanna submit some pieces to the Kimball Art Center's Wasatch Back Student Art Show.  The theme of this year's show is "Over the Moon, Under the Sea."  I went to the aquarium and everything.

I have finished a couple of prints, though, and I like them, so now I'm posting them here.

This is some sort of weird demonic sea urchin.  *shrug*

This is the same photo, but "solarized."
(basically you expose it to light as you're developing)

These are some cute mushrooms. 

Same mushrooms!  Except I sprayed on the
developer instead of putting it in a tray.

The thing that sucks is that there are some things I would still like to develop, but I don't know if I'll be able to because I don't know if we'll still be doing actual film stuff with our sub fourth quarter.  But like, look at this frog here.  He'd come out so cute.

There's a tiny frog in the middle.  I upped
the contrast in iPhoto so you could see him better.

We started a project with a lot of cool stuff, like cross-processing (developing color film with black and white chemicals), solarizing, scratching/tearing/burning negatives, etc, and I was starting to get excited about the class for the first time since the beginning of the year.  So ah...who knows what'll happen now, really.  *sigh*  Whaaatever.

Anyways, until next time.

-Allie H-S

EDIT: The title of this post also promised you a fish, so here's that:

And here's a turtle and a duck just 'cause I like them:

I'm not sure why the colors are so weird on the frog one.  *shrug*

My new photography teacher seems okay, I guess.  Better.  We'll see how this goes.

Also, this is indeed part one, but there is little chance of a part two.  Sorry!

Short Story: Locks and Keys (with Audio) (UPDATED)

Hi, all!

Sorry for the lame amount of posting currently.  I was actually waiting for the results of a writing contest to come through before I posted anything else.  I have a short story I wrote called "Locks and Keys" that I was actually going to post back with "Missoula," but instead I decided to enter it in a writing contest.  If it had been previously published, it would have been disqualified.  Not that is really matters, since I lost (ouch).  I'm actually pretty bummed.  But hey, at least I can put the story online now!

Locks and Keys
(I took this link down, revised it, and put it back up at least four times before coming to the version you see now.)

Locks and Keys Audio
(Sorry my S's are so loud.)

So...you enjoy that.

We've definitely done lots of other projects in Creative Writing this year, and I know that for this blog to become a good portfolio, I need to be prolific.  But I also don't wanna post anything I don't think is good, so...we'll see what I decide.  We're doing a poetry unit right now, so I'll probably do a post of a few poems later.  I still have to edit some and write a slam poem.

Wish me luck!
-Allie H-S

P.S: my updated favorite webcomic list should appear on the side bar.  New ones include Johnny Wander, Balderdash!, Paranatural, Monsterkind, Harpy Gee, and The Lonely Vincent Bellingham.  Wow, that's a lot more than I expected.  My friends say I have a problem....Haha...ha....

UPDATE: Eek look here I just learned I didn't lose yay!

Happy Birthday to Me

Hi, all.

Today was (is) my birthday.

So happy birthday to me!

It's dark outside, so it's mostly over now, but I just thought I'd make it an excuse to say hello.

I'm actually kinda sad that it's over.  One of my friends who's an awesome baker made me these really nice brownies with mint chocolate frosting and they were amazing, and another friend who's admittedly less pro at baking but is super cool and tries really hard made me chocolate chip cookies even though her oven was broken and I thought that was super nice, and my waifu (my girlfriend, not literally my wife) is gonna get me a somethin'-or-other, and another friend said they'd give me pennies because I collect pennies (wow I've been meaning to post about that for months - yeah, I collect pennies 'cause I think they're cute), and just everybody was cool and nice and awesome today, and it makes me kinda sad that it's about to be over.

I'm not even sad about the not-getting-gifts-anymore thing, 'cause like, we just had Christmas a month ago and all, and I'm just really materially satisfied right now.  No, it's really just 'cause I wasn't really thinking about my birthday coming up until it surprised me when I saw the date on Monday.  So it was super unexpected when a bunch of people - some of whom I don't really talk to - started wishing me a happy birthday out of the blue.  It was like, "Hi, we might not be good friends or anything, but I just want you to know I'm glad you were born, so have a nice day."  And even with my good friends, I just thought that was super nice of them, you know?

It was.  It was nice.

I hope you all have happy birthdays, too.
-Allie H-S

Short Story Time! "Missoula"

Hi, all.

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I also know that I promised you all a peek at whatever decent writing I manage over this school year.  We really haven't done any interesting writing in English this year (just essays and things), but I would kind of like this blog to function as a portfolio, so maybe I'll post those later.  In the meantime, I'll talk about my latest couple Creative Writing pieces.

But first (bear with me), I am excited to announce that next year, Mr. Parker will be offering a Creative Writing II!  It will be a class in which each student chooses a long-term project, a goal they've been interested in for a while, but haven't found the time to fulfill.  These include screenplays, novels, poem books, etc, and the entire year will be dedicated to finishing that one project.  This means that, potentially, I could have a book published before I'm out of high school.

Oh my god.  I have been wishing for a class like this for years.

Also, so you don't think I've been doing nothing all school year, here are the projects we've done in Creative Writing that I may or may not (probably won't) post later:
1. Memoir - We spent the entirety of first quarter just writing this short memoir.  Mine was about a friendship I lost last year, and involved a lot of personal angst.  We'll be reviewing these fourth quarter, and if I decide then that mine doesn't suck (or at least that I can fix it), I'll post it then.
2. Horror Story - I didn't actually finish my horror story (whoops), partly because I had horrible writer's block, but mostly because I kind of went all-out and decided to write about things that frighten me personally, every single day.  It was about creepy china dolls and mirrors and evil reflections and stuff, and I'm pretty damn sure that I can't ever finish it without it affecting how comfortable I am at home, so you probably won't see that one.
3. Unexpected News ("Missoula") - This (or most of this) should be posted below.  The prompt was to write a story in which the main character receives unexpected news.  "Missoula" is about a fifteen-year-old boy named Andy whose mother one night takes him and his little sister, Molly, and leaves their father.
4. Deeply-Held Secret - This one really wasn't very good.  My main character, Ed, has a crush on a girl who's into drugs and stuff; one day when there's a drug bust at school, the girl stuffs her drugs into a random kid's locker, and Ed realizes it's his best friend's.  It was choppy though, and poorly put together.  I like Ed's friend's name, though; it's Lionel.  (He goes by his middle name, which is Jack I think, short for Jacob.)
5. Surprise Ending ("Locks and Keys") - Okay, so my surprise ending here wasn't that revelatory or anything, it just wasn't overly anticipated.  "Locks and Keys" will hopefully be posted eventually, but first, I'm entering it in a writing contest.  It's about a sixteen-year-old girl named Elliot whose mother died just a couple of months ago.  Elliot finds a note written by her mom before she died telling her that she needs to find the box that a certain key fits because it's apparently got some cool stuff inside.

And that's as far as we've gotten.  So.  Here, have a link.

"Missoula" on Google Drive

You'll notice Missoula has "Part 1" at the end of its title.  This is because I'm toying with the idea of making it into a little continuing project.  So maybe I'll post more of that later.

So...yeah.  Enjoy, and feel free to comment below.  (I like knowing you guys exist.)

-Allie H-S

So Things Change

Hi, all.

So if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I haven't posted in about two months.  Sorry about that.  And if you're here, you'll also know that about a month ago, I changed this blog's URL.  Sorry about that, too.  And if you've ever been in high school, you'll know that things change.

Let's talk about that.

On November 1, just after some of my friends had a heart-to-heart on Halloween night, they decided that it was necessary that we shut down the Role Play.  It had been causing some social, academic, and creative issues that I don't want to elaborate on on here, and in order to make things better, we thought it best to cut off all collaboration.  No more book.

So that sucks.  Obviously.  But you'll notice that this blog is still named Rousseaux, and its URL is still Anthony's birthday.  One of the conditions was that our individual characters are still ours, and we are free to do what we want with them.

So, since I'm not actively working on his development anymore, let's go ahead and post Anthony's character form here, for future reference.

So, I realize you have never been properly introduced: kids, meet Anthony; Anthony, meet the kids.

Anthony James Rousseaux

Gender:

Male

Born:

September 9th, 1992 (currently age 23, in the beginning of the story only 21)

Literary Status (Protagonist/Antagonist):

Uncertain

Shadow Ranking:

Was once Tier Nine Recruiter, now Tier Seven

Height:

6'4"

Appearance:

Tall and skinny, with narrow shoulders and a slightly lilting stride.  Really not incredibly strong.  (He has a knife, but in battle relies mostly on his cards.)  He has pale-gray hair trimmed just out of his eyes, which are a light brown.  He has a rather effeminate jawline and a thin nose. Anthony actually has lots of scars and a Shadow Mark on his left wrist, but he hides them with a Three of Clubs.

Sexuality:

Straight demisexual (needs to form emotional bonds before he can be interested in any-thing

sexual, kissing or otherwise)

Personality:  

Very quiet and very observant.  Not particularly light-hearted, but easygoing in most situations. He 's very private, and has to be pushed (or at times, negotiated with) in order to express his feelings because he's not sure they're critical to many situations, or his past because he's mostly ashamed of it.  

Flaws and Weaknesses:

Just because Anthony does not often acknowledge or act upon his emotions doesn't mean they don't trouble him regularly.  He spends a sizable amount of his time regretting things, and swallows every emotion he doesn't want to feel.  This is obviously unhealthy, and he has paid the price for it in many ways, on many occasions.

Skills:

Anthony is a card dealer; he has a magic deck of cards with a specific power each, categorized by suit ("Spade to Fight, Heart to Live, Club to Build, Diamond to Steal" - fighting, healing, illusion-casting and misc. cards, respectively).  He's also fast in a fight, if not particularly strong, and has good endurance.  He always has a diamond-made dagger on him for when he can't or won't fight with his cards.

Story/Backstory:

He had an English mother and an American father.  His father was a state representative for northern California, where Anthony lived on the family estate until he was old enough to go to school.  At that point, his parents began sending him away to a British boarding school every year, where he spent the holidays with his English grandparents, only coming home to California for the summers.  By the time he was ten, he really didn't have much of a relationship with his parents past maintaining social pretense.  

When Anthony's cousin Nathan's parents died, Nathan came to stay with them and became a fast family favorite, causing tensions to rise dramatically.  One day near the end of the summer, Anthony and Nathan had a fight that involved the Black Joker or Master Thief card tearing between them.  This killed Nathan, and Anthony received a jumble of all his interesting thoughts and memories which, as you can imagine, took a while to sort out.  Anthony's parents flipped and all social pretenses dropped, causing a huge fight.  

This was when Anthony ran away and was intercepted by the Shadows.

The Shadows recognized the potential in Anthony's card dealing power and made him a priority trainee, eventually turning him into a skilled Recruiter.

One of Anthony's first recruits was Dakota Black, when Anthony was thirteen and they both still believed in the Shadows.  They became fast friends, and Dakota's house became like Anthony's second (and at times, first) home.  

When Anthony was fourteen, he fell in love with a girl named Cassie Reed and couldn't bring himself to recruit her.  Dakota helped the couple to run away from the Shadows, and they tried to go into hiding, but did not succeed; thus, Anthony was forced to recruit Cassie.  She was immediately shipped off to another base, and he never saw her again.  A year later, another Shadow ratted out Dakota for helping them, and as punishment for their treason, Anthony had to kill him.  (At this time, Anthony was 15, Dakota was 14, and Raven - Dakota's little sister - was 11.)

Anthony shouldn't have killed Dakota because that's a really shitty thing to do to your best friend, but also because for the years to come, it gave the Shadows a hold on Anthony they hadn't had before.  They convinced him of how cowardly and unforgivable that was, among other things he'd done (recruiting Cassie, killing other people, etc.), and essentially used these things as blackmail to make him do even more shitty stuff.  (It was very important to them that he felt like he would never have an out.)

In order to deal with everything, Anthony made himself pretty much completely numb, and it worked until he was about nineteen (when he peaked and stopped climbing the Shadow ranks).  Then Raven ran away from home, and the Shadows assumed that it was because she'd found out about them or about Anthony killing her brother.  They immediately sent Anthony to either recruit her (despite her apparent lack of powers), or kill her.  He knew he could never recruit her, and at the thought of killing his friend's little sister, Anthony finally snapped.  He had a small mental breakdown because he couldn't manage to numb himself anymore, and he finally allowed his allegiances to drift from the Shadows.  For the next two years or so, he followed after Raven without actually catching her, and got demoted several times.

When our story starts, Anthony is on his way to recruit Raven to the Shadows, but sent on a detour to befriend and recruit the other characters.

Kill Count:

Unknown

I made this with an anime maker game;
I couldn't change the proportions so he
kinda looks like a twelve-year-old, but
it's supposed to be him after he leaves
the Shadows and joins the Army.

Same anime maker; this is him before
he peaked in the Shadow ranks, so probably
when he was eighteen or nineteen.  (He drank
very lightly then, but now doesn't drink at all;
it freaks him out.)

Sara made this Anthony dragon with
her mad drawing skillz.  (No, Anthony
cannot actually turn into a dragon.)

Bailey made this with an online
chibi-maker thing.

Again, chibi-maker thing.

This was made on Polyvore.

Siri made this for I think my
Christmas present last year.

This is the original inspiration picture of Anthony,
which I may or may not have posted here before.

I'm not sure I own any more than two of those pictures.  Moving on.

Because the roleplay is over, and I am without a project, I'm pretty freaking bored.  Right now, I'm floating around doing stuff like rereading Harry Potter (third time), rereading Hunger Games (second time), starting Divergent, watching lots and lots and lots of movies, basically looking for inspiration wherever I hope I can get it.  It's not working very well, but I'm not really sure what else to do.

Any ideas?

In Creative Writing, we've been doing lots of short projects, which are interesting and fun, but they really need revision.  (Once revised, I'll post them here.)  Mr. Parker (yes, last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher) says that next year he'll be offering Creative Writing II, in which we'll work on just one project all year: a big project, like a screenplay or a novel or whatever it is we high schoolers each decide we've wanted to do for the past sixteen-to-eighteen years.  So I'll be working on a novel, then.  Yaaaaaay!  I really need a project now, though.  Something to work on consistently, and something that I can feel is meaningful and well-executed once I've finished.  And maybe next year I can fix it, or try a new one.  Either way, there's really no reason to wait around.

I need to finish something.  Mr. Parker told me I'm good, but I "lack discipline."  Sad, but true.

Get it together, Allie.

Do you guys ever get like this?  Project-less and under-stimulated, I mean.  And if so, what do you do?

Until next time (whenever that may be),

-Allie H-S

P.S: I do have one thing I've been poking at, a short story about a girl whose mother uproots her and her little sister to leave her father.  It's called Missoula because that's where they go, off to see her aunt.  So we'll see if that turns into anything.  Wish me luck.

Other Miscellaneous Updates: I never finished 1984; I hate Debate; you should read a webcomic called Namesake; I joined Pottermore as WombatRiver12772 and it put me in Slytherin; and HAPPY THANKSGIVING unless you're not American in which case HAPPY DAY YOU SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING NICE FOR DINNER!  That is all.