Random Site of the Moment- This to That

I just found a website that will save many of you a lot of frustration in the future.  The site is called This to That and it's all about glue.  Not that exciting, right?  Oh... you couldn't be further from the truth!  If you ever find yourself needing to glue odd items together, like plastic to styrofoam or fabric to glass, consult this site to find out which type of glue may be best for your situation.  They have a handy drop-down menu of items to choose from.  Just fill in the the "this" column and the "that" column and discover the best type of glue to use!  As if this wasn't enough, the site also contains trivia (with some really interesting tidbits of history), news stories where glue was the main story (various stories of people gluing themselves to things), and Frequently Asked Questions with loads of useful info.  Who knew there was so much to learn about glue?!   

Teen Book Review: Hallowmere by Tiffany Trent

Hallowmere: In the Serpent's Coils by Tiffany Trent
Reviewed by Caitlyn
Corrine is now an orphan. Both her parents are dead. By her uncle she is sent to Falston Manor, a school for girls. Girls are sent because their parents don’t want them or the girls are “not girly”. Corrine starts to have dreams about mysterious Vampire People who are called the Fey. At Falston, Corrine becomes friends with Ilena. Ilena helps her survive the school and shows her many things. Soon, Corrine suspects that there is some evil at Falston Manor. A few girls go missing and Corrine sees some of the staff in witchcraft. When Corrine joins this secret society (not officially), she ends up finding out secrets that mean everything. Will Corrine be able to find out who is evil? Who are the Fey? Why do weird things happen at Falston?
I say read the book! I read this in one night and couldn’t put it down. I recommend this for kids in middle school and high school, mostly girls. This is a five- star book and I can’t wait to read the next one!

Vampire Diaries

Thursday night rolls around and I have one thing on my mind…vampires! I am obsessed with the new show Vampire Diaries. I mean it makes sense. I love the TV show True Blood (definitely for adults only) and the Twilight series books (perfect for the teens). If you want a little something more Vampire Diaries is the perfect touch of both True Blood and Twilight. It has the romance story, but also a little vampire blood. I feel that I have been surprised by the twists and turns in the story. What is Damon going to do next? Is he here to stay? Are Stefan and Elena meant to be together? What is Damon going to do to Vicki? Of course she becomes a vampire. I figured she was a main character so they would make her into a vampire, but was quite surprised when Stefan had to put a stake through her heart. I never know what to expect with the show, but I do know that I love it!!!

The show is based on the books Vampire Diaries. I cheated slightly and read a little bit about the books on the Vampire Diaries website but am not ready to start them. The Vampire Diaries show is keeping my attention and I don’t want the book to take away from it. I know…I’m a librarian and should want to read it, but in this case the excitement of sitting down to watch the show is what I like. The characters in the show are great and it’s keeping my attention every Thursday at 8 on CW.

Has anybody else watched the show? Have you read the books? Do you recommend them? What do you like about the show? Let’s start a discussion and after Thursday we can talk some more!

This Vampire Diaries website includes information about the books and the TV show including interviews with the actors/actresses portraying the character. Be careful if you go to this site to find out about the show. You might be intrigued to take a peek at the information about the books which is where I read mine. If you don’t want to be tempted explore the TV show’s website instead. If you miss an episode they will usually play it on the site for you and you can watch the previews.

Curious about the author? Interested in more of her books? Explore L.J. Smith's website.

Quote of the Moment

"Stories in words are among our oldest, most powerful, most mysterious tools. Through mere sounds on the air or squiggles on a page, they give us what no other technology can-ourselves."

-Rafe Martin (author and storyteller)

More About NaNoWriMo

Hey guys! My name is Laura and I'm a new authoring librarian on this blog. I wanted to post about my experiences with National Novel Writing Month (I saw that Catherine brought it up yesterday) because this is my FOURTH year participating.

As you probably already read the goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 175-page/50,000 word novel between November 1st and November 30th. Word count is the only goal. Unlike any other writing you've probably done, NaNoWriMo encourages quantity and that's it. So, as a participant you have to kind of train yourself to keep writing and stop worrying about what you write. In fact, Chris Baty, the director of the program, encourages that it's a stress-free thing, anything goes (content-wise).

Here's my experiences with it:

Year #1 (2006): I had just graduated from college and I was a pretty good writer from all of the creative writing courses I had taken (and got A's in, just saying) so I felt pretty confident and excited going in to this. I was awesome at developing characters (I had a mother character who was a police officer and was OBSESSED with her job and all things in life being aligned with the law) but terrible at keeping any kind of plot going for 50,000 words. The end product was okay, I wasn't about to go showing it off, but it was DONE. I had just written my first novel!

Year #2 (2007): This was my first semester of graduate school and I guess maybe my heart wasn't it because my characters were okay (not as good as the year before) and my plot literally didn't exist. My characters just kept doing things like going to work, having lunch, and hanging out with their friends. I would never let anybody even come close to reading this novel, but again, I finished. I wrote two novels!

Year #3 (2008): I didn't fully outline a plot but I knew I had to plan out some kind of direction for my story because I did not want a repeat of 2007. So far, this was probably the best of my 3 completed novels, but I hit a lot of road blocks along the way. I had good characters (based on people I knew in real life, which was probably the best thing I could have done) and a lot of funny scenes, but I had only planned out a basic, overall idea for the plot and I had trouble stretching it all the way to 50,000 words. Because of this, I wound up with a lot of silly and sort of random scenes for length. But again, I finished and was now a THREE-BOOK AUTHOR!!!

Year #4 (2009): Happy Day 2! This year I did so much prep work. I typed up a 10-page outline with every scene I planned to include and I also to decided change genres! I moved from realistic fiction alllllllllllll the way to children's fantasy (maybe because I just read The Golden Compass). This is the first year that I'm a bit behind where I should be on word count (I'm at 2,400 and I should be at 3,340), but I feel okay about it because I have so much direction. The only thing I'm noticing is that my characters and my writing just isn't as strong as they once were- maybe because I'm not in school anymore.

Anyway, I don't want to bore you guys with my whole plot summary on my very first post, but maybe I'll tell you a little about it next time I update you on my progress. Is anyone else writing this year? I'd LOVE to hear about your challenges and progress along the way. It's a crazy month!!!!

Random Site of the Moment- Upside Down Dogs

Okay, so every now and then I come across a completely random site that I just absolutely have to share with other people.  There's never a rhyme or reason to the subject matter.  Sometimes it's informative.  Sometimes it's funny.  Sometimes it's just beyond words.  But all the time it's a site that just needs to be shared. 

I played around with the idea of making a "Random Site of the Week" posting, but then I thought, "Should posts on random things be scheduled?!"  It just didn't seem right.  So, after some thought, I'm proud to announce a new segment of the Teen Frequencey Blog... Random Site of the Moment.  These posts will be random in every sense of the word...

Enjoy: Upside Down Dogs

National Novel Writing Month Challenge

It's November 1st and it's not too late to join the thousands of teens (and adults) around the world who will be participating in the 2009 NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.)  For the next 30 days, participants will be writing in the hopes of producing a novel.  Adults are supposed to reach a 50,000 word count, but teens are allowed to set their own goals; a number that would be reasonable, yet challenging.

The main objective set forth by the creators of this writing challenge is to encourage quantity over quality.  That may sound odd and somehow backwards, but the reality of it is- most writers are their own worst critics and often high standards and pressure from within to write a masterpiece on the first try inhibit even the best of writers.  NaNoWriMo offers participants the chance to write on their own, with the knowledge that there's a community of writers out in the world doing the same thing too.  

That's the basic idea of this month-long celebration... just write.  By reaching your writing goal, whether the story is good or bad, you've accomplished something.  Writer's block doesn't have time to take hold, and you, the writer, have a piece of fiction that you can now revise into something better, if you so choose.  

If you're a writer, or just want to give this challenge a whirl, go to the official NaNoWriMo webpage for more details on how it works.

And don't forget about the writing program we're having here at the library:

LITTLE-ATURE: SMALL STORIES
Tuesday, November 24 at 6:00pm
For those of us who acknowledge the efforts of the people taking part in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month celebration, but don't have time to write a novel, we have Little-ature. Play around with words on a smaller scale by creating six-word memoirs, 100-word stories and other feats of brevity.