Happy Halloween!

The only time of year when you're allowed to talk to strangers.

This year I'm going to go as Death (with a scythe). I hope a lot of old people will answer the door when I ring the bell. My little brother is going to go as the Black Spiderman. I'm going to take him around the neighborhood in celebration of this special day!

I'm going to enjoy this day before tomorrow appears on the horizon. Because tomorrow is a special day for us aspiring writers. It's not a holiday. It's definitely not a holiday. It's more like a literary version of a woman giving birth. You force yourself to go through the torture of it so as to create something special in the end. So it's certainly a special day. But it's definitely not a holiday.

So are you writers out there ready for tomorrow. Because tomorrow is NANOWRIMO!

I can already feel the bags forming under my eyes.

P.S. - Even if you're not a writer, you must still prepare for the day after Halloween. Be sure to have an abundant supply of toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, mouthwash, and maybe some Pepto Bismol for upset stomachs.

The Versatile Blogger Award

I have just received "The Versatile Blogger" award from Donna Hole. Thank you, Donna!

I'm glad that someone finally recognized me as a versatile blogger. And by versatile, I mean blogging about a bunch of random topics that only vaguely have anything to do with reading or writing books.

Now to accept this world renowned, prestigious award, I have to:

1) Thank and link back to the person who gave me this award. Thank you Donna Hole!

2) Tell everyone 7 things about myself

3) Pass this award to 15 other bloggers

4) Contact the bloggers that I've picked and tell them about the award

So here are the 7 things about myself that you may not know:

1) I attempted to write my first novel in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I got to around 60 pages before I got bored with it.

2) I'm addicted to watching web shows like I Heart Vampires and Little White Lie.

3) I don't believe in the Roswell incident, but I do believe that there is life on other planets. I'm not talking about intelligent aliens. I'm talking about alien trees or alien bacteria. Not all life has to be technologically advance.

4) I want to take a trip to London someday

5) I have a phobia of china dolls. Actually, I'm afraid of any inanimate object that looks like a human with staring eyes that never blink. But china dolls are the scariest.

6) I love chocolate. And I also love coconut. So yay for Almond Joys!

7) I want to write a book, but I'm really lazy.

And now to pass on this award to 15 other bloggers (I have such a big heart. It's even bigger than a whale's):

Kiersten (Kiersten Writes)

Jess (Big Deal to Me)

Liz (8 Bit Words)

Julia (Writing Jewels)

Clarissa (Listen to the Voices)

Chelle (The Prairie Library)

Chazz (Chazz Hart)

The Bookish Snob

Stephanie (Natural/Artificial)

Heather (Little Squeed)

Petty (Pen and Paper)

Kah Woei (The Books of My Life)

Misty (Writer's Block)

Missie (The Unread Reader)

Natalie (Between Fact and Fiction)

So thanks again to Donna Hole for passing on this award to me. And a gigantic, whale-size THANK YOU to all of you who read my blog!

John Smith

Back to the Future lesson

Hey there blog readers,

I've just finished watching Back to the Future (again). When people think of this movie, they usually think of time travel and crazy scientists and stuff. But when I watched it again, I realized that this movie teaches you an important lesson in life.

It taught me that no matter how smart you are, or how talented you are, you won't get anywhere in life if you're not confident.

The character of Marty McFly is someone that hates being called a coward. This is because his father is always intimidated by the bully. Marty's dad is a coward who holds his head down and flinches in fear at the slightest thing. He just sits there and takes the abuse that the world dishes out at him. He's not confident at all.

As a result, their house and life and etc... are just pieces of cow manure.

However, when Marty goes back in time and inadvertently gives his father more self-confidence, he then returns to the future, only to discover his father lives in a nicer house, with a richer life, and he just published a novel (plus the once scary bully is now waxing his car).

This goes to show you that you need confidence to succeed in life. I don't care if you are intelligent or if you have some special talent. If you don't have an ounce of confidence, people are going to walk all over you. You'll just be that cubicle guy who has coworkers making you crunch their numbers so that they can go home and relax, while you stress over paperwork with the janitor pushing a mop around late at night.

So be confident. Don't think about how you might not make it, or how your work might get rejected, or how you'll fail. You've got to believe that the novel/song/invention that you've created will become something big someday. Put your mind to it and make it happen.

Be Confident!

Monologue Song (La La La)

Although I don't watch Saturday Night Live that often, I do sometimes hear about some extremely funny things about it. Recently, I heard of a song played by Taylor Swift when she hosted SNL a few months ago. So I went and checked it out, and it was hilarious!

She played a song called "Monologue Song (La La La)", and if you want to watch her perform this song as well, here is a link.

P.S. - This is a video from NBC's website. It's not a youtube video, so I don't know how to embed it on my blog.

Mockingjay!!!

Finally, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins comes out today!

To be honest, I haven't even read The Hunger Games or Catching Fire yet. I first heard about these books awhile ago, but when I found out that they were dystopian type novels, I was a little turned off by them.

Ever since high school forced me to read books like 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, I kind of started to not like dystopian novels.

But I keep hearing all this good stuff about The Hunger Games trilogy that I now want to read these books. So I waited until Mockingjay comes out so I can buy all three of them at the same time.

If you haven't ordered this book yet, go stop by your local Borders or Barnes & Noble. Or if your eyes are glued to your computer, order it here at Amazon


Once I get my copy of these books, I'll post a review of all three.

I Quit!

Last week, a woman named Jenny announced that she was quitting her job through a series of messages written on dry erase boards, which she photographed and e-mailed out to her entire office of roughly 20 employees. Those photos — and a wildly amusing supposed backstory — have since found their way to the Internet.

Here are those photos:

If any of you here thought that this was real, I apologize. This is a hoax created by the Chive.

I found this post on Rockin Rita and I thought that it was hilarious! So I decided to share it with you as well. For proof that this is a hoax, click here.

One Lovely Blog Award!

Hi readers!


I would like to thank The Fighter Writer for my second blog award! It's the One Lovely Blog Award!

Thanks for thinking that my blog is... lovely. Weird.
I would have called my blog fantastic, stupendous, life changing, and modest. But I guess lovely is a good description for it too.

Anyway, the rules for this award states that I need to do the following:

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are the 15 other blogs that I'm passing the award to:

LadyViolet
The Wormhole
In Which A Girl Reads
The Thoughts of A Book Junky
Musings of A Reader Happy
Stir Your Tea
Ted Cross
Constant Revision
Smash Attack Reads
Reading Teen
Blog with Bite
Small Town Book Nerd
Writing Jewels
My Writing Journey
Raquel Byrnes

Congratulations to you all!

John Smith

The Bold Faced Liar Creative Writer award!

Hey Readers,


Guess what? I just got an award! Yay!
It's The Bold Faced Liar Creative Writer award!

And it's all thanks to RaShelle for giving it to me. Who is RaShelle you might ask?
RaShelle is a gourmet chef that can make Gordon Ramsay cry in defeat.
RaShelle is a negotiator that can convince bank robbers to free their hostages in exchange for a pack of chewing gum.
RaShelle is someone who never needs an umbrella because it's against the laws of physics for rain to fall on her.

But seriously, RaShelle is a creative writer with an awesome blog: http://rashelleworkman.blogspot.com/

...and she can tame dragons with the sound of her voice.

Thank you for the award, RaShelle!



To be able to accept this award, one must now do the following:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
2. Add the award to your blog.
3. Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth.
4. Nominate four creative liars–I mean writers–and post links to them.
5. Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.


Here are my six lies and one truth about myself. Can you spot the truth?

1) I hate coffee

2) Danger is my middle name

3) I once met the Old Spice guy

4) I've seen every episode of Star Trek

5) Dogs bark at me when I wear purple

6) I once went to Stonehenge

7) I have a pet chinchilla


Now to pass this award on to 4 other people:
Cassay
Monica
T.S. Bazelli
J.C. Martin

Congratulations!

Thank you to all who read my blog,
John Smith

P.S. - To be able to write fiction, you must be able to tell a lie.

Flying Monkeys, Please?

My birthday is today! I'm now 21! And the only thing that I want for my birthday is over 123 flying monkeys (and by flying monkeys, I mean followers) to join my army. Is that too much to ask?

"Fly, Fly, Fly"
-the Wicked Witch of the West

Thanks to all my flying monkeys!

What kind of name is Hermione?

If any of you have been reading my blog, you'll know that I'm a fan of Harry Potter (best books in the world!). So, I kind of pay attention to the things in the Harry Potter fandom, like Wizard Rock. For any of you who don't know, Wizard Rock is a group of different bands that create songs involving anything related to Harry Potter.

This video involves one of those bands, known as "The Parselmouths" ft. Nerimon on guitar. So if you're a fan of Harry Potter, or you just like great music, watch this video. It's awesome!

*This song is slightly insulting to Hermione, so if any of you are fans of her, you better know how to take a joke.

What is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?

The answer is....... 42




Wow, that was wise and anticlimatic at the same time.






The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy' by Douglas Adams

My twitter account is back! Yay!

I just got an email today that said that they reinstated my twitter account! Yay!

I'm alive and not suspended! (Happy Dance!)

But I'm going to promise myself not to go on twitter constantly, or I'll just get addicted again.

Time to go work on my novel.

Thanks to the people who work for twitter,

John Smith

P.S. -- Follow me on twitter! Please? I'll be your best friend!

Twitter account suspended!

For awhile now, I've been addicted to Twitter. But guess what? My Twitter account was SUSPENDED!

I've been using twitter for awhile now, trying to get friends and followers, trying to build a platform of people who would be interested in my novel and stories. So you can imagine how stunned I was when I lost contact with all those people. At first, I was really angry and desparate to get my twitter account back.

But then I realized that this is a good thing (even though I lost hundreds of followers). I was really addicted to twitter. And if you're a writer, that's a bad thing. The blue bird lures you away from your novel, and then weaves a spell of procrastination over you. But now that blue bird is gone, and I can get back to writing. Yay!

Time to get to work.

.............

.............

....Hey look, someone became my new friend on Facebook. I'll just pop over to that site for a few seconds before I get started writing.

P.S. - If I don't get back my old twitter account, I'll just make another one AFTER I finish writing a book.

Guest Post for Jane Friedman

Hey there blog readers,

I just wrote a guest post for Jane Friedman, who works for Writer's Digest. The post is about using poetry techniques to help write your novel.

Check it out here.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Independence Day everybody!!!

I'm going to take a break from writing today, then go see the fireworks at night.

First Post

Welcome to my blog!


My first post! Hi, my name is John Smith (which is just a pen name, not my real name). If you're a fan of Doctor Who, just like me, you'll understand why I chose 'John Smith' as my pen name. Anyway, welcome to my blog! I hope that you guys will check out this site daily and spread the word about my blog to everyone you know. Follow me as I work towards publishing my first novel.

Thanks to all who love to read and other aspiring writers,

John Smith