Spot Light! Help for Character Development

Recently, I stole a few books on psychology from my mother and have been whispering to them at night in hopes of learning the secret to the universe. No such luck - but! What I did divine from this particular beauty could be of help to writers who are having trouble with body language gestures or a signature something their main character frequently has a habit of doing.

I've only breached the first chapter but, I've already learned quite a bit. Elizabeth Kuhnke talks a lot about things people may do subconsciously; such as micro expressions. Those of you who have seen the show Lie To Me know what I'm talking about. To those of you who don't: Micro expressions are bits of emotion that flash across our face for a split second. Now, you may be able to hide your feelings by way of specific gestures and serious mental discipline but, no one is capable of hiding micro expressions. You can use that to your advantage as a writer.

For instance: You could have a heroine that is very observant and is a natural Emotion Detector and then have the princely cool guy whose suave and is one of those 007 types who never lets his real feelings show.

Then she goes on to talk about gestures that are signature to us as a person. How we all have something that defines us. Some are stronger than others. She makes an example of the tennis player who used to yank on the back of shorts just before a match. It was something he did a lot of and people began to mock him in the locker room.

It'll help with identifying what gesture goes with what emotion and how we react to certain things. It has whole chapters for our hands, legs, arms, and lips.

I hope this will help ^_^

Uilebheist

The Uilebheist is a Nordic/Scottish sea monster that has multiple heads and is sometimes called a Draygan. They came to the remote Orkney and Shetland Islands by way of Norse invaders. Instead of tearing apart ships and gobbling sailors, this beast is more akin to the title of protector. He guards the rocky coasts and the islands' inlets.

Because the Uilebheist's second name, Draygan, is so similar to the English word Dragon, they may have at one time been thought of as watery cousins to the fire breathing ones that storm castles and take the princesses locked up in towers.

It says vaguely in very old Norse text that there was some sort of being that watched the coasts. They were probably what sparked the idea for the Uilebheist.

Until next time!

Liebster Award

I got nominated for the Liebster Award by the awesome Amanda at BornBookish! Thank you Amanda! 

My first ever award.... (sniffle, sniffle) Thank you! I'm so happy!

The rules of this award are:
1: thank the person who gave you this award and link back to their blog
2: Reveal your top 5 blog picks for this award and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3: Copy and paste the award onto your blog
4: Have faith your bloggers will spread the word
5: And most of all, have lots of fun!
The key is to nominate bloggers with 200 or less followers.......That's gonna be tough. I just sort of started blogging a little while ago and I don't really know a lot of bloggers...the ones I do know are way over the 200 mark....So, the list may be short one.

I choose you!
SearchingLife  For your creativity and humor

A Writerly Pensheep For your wonderfully animated personality

Anarchy on the Allotment For your witty remarks

Angeline Trevena For your insight and sheer awesomeness

The Bookshelf Muse For your always helpful tips that help us lost authors find our way

Thank you so much! This will be a much admired award. I will polish it and love it forever.  

Wednesday Mysteries.... Stolen Birthday Cake Conclusion.

The Conclusion: 

Unexpectedly, I couldn't find ANY evidence linking my parents, myself, the cats, or the sneaky neighbor kid to my missing cake.

All that's left is the empty cake plate....

T_T my caaaake..... Oh well, I'll just have to bake another. ^_^

What really happened? Why is there no evidence? Who's the culprit? And how could anyone eat an entire cake in one night without going into a diabetic coma? These questions have yet to be answered.... Perhaps, we have a fairy in the house.... a very greedy, chocolate loving, sneaky, chubby fairy.

Wednesday Mysteries....Stolen Birthday Cake!

My birthday was on Monday... I'd made a cake with my dad that looked suspiciously similar to the photo above - except I'd doodled a smiling cow on top. Now, you wouldn't think and ENTIRE cake could go missing by Wednesday morning....but it DID. O_O

I'm as shocked as you are and maybe a tad hurt... I should have known better than to bake a chocolate cake in a house full of choco-nuts!(me included)

It started out like this: On Tuesday night, I ambled down the stairs to the kitchen. There, I sliced myself up a piece of the decadent chocolate cake. At the time, it wasn't even half gone. The next morning......

T_T MY CAKE!!!! (**Sniffle, sniffle. Sob, sob.**) That's just not right. How can an almost whole cake be reduced to THIS?! Surely the cats didn't eat it? Well...they might've (they'll eat just about anything you give them) but it would be awful hard for them to open the refrigerator door and pulled the protective plastic lid off. It had to be human. Since there are no children in the house, I'll have to point the finger at the two Big Kids - my cake eating parents.

I suppose they'll look like this when I find them.

 But, I think the more likely culprit of the two would have to be my mother. Then again, I can't underestimate my father either. Or...maybe I did it in my sleep.... First things first, I need to find the evidence. It could have been none of us and the cats really did eat it or it could have been that nasty kid across the street. Who knows? I guess I'll have to step into the shoes of my own detective characters to solve this baffling mystery....

Next week I'll tell of the conclusion!

Spot Light! Music Bands

Howdy! Here's yet another installment of Spot Light! Today, I'd like to share with you some song that I found.

I was recently re-watching the awesome TV series Haven when I heard a song called We All Fall Down by Sweet Talk Radio. It appeared at the end of season one's episode Ball and Chain. It's a mysterious song with a baroque air and yet laid back. If you'd like to listen to it, here's the link -Sweet Talk Radio's We All Fall Down 

And while I was listen to that, I came across another song by accident. It has some very uplifting lyrics. It's Karmina's Walk You Home.  

 It's acoustic and soothing. The lyrics suggest it's being sung by a friend who's worried about someone close. That they don't need to bear the burden alone and that, "I'll walk you home." It's a very beautiful and sweet song. Here's the link if you'd like to listen -Karmina's Walk You Home 

Until net time~

Gremlins

Do not be fooled by this adorable face! This Hollywood dramatization couldn't be more wrong..... Because, gremlins are evil little creatures that look like this!!!!!

This is also the face of the creepy thing hiding under your bed. 

Gremlins, according to my fairy dictionary, didn't start causing mayhem until WWII when airplanes came to be in use. They would attach themselves to plane wings and hitch-hike. That is, if they didn't sharpen their claws with them or ice them first. They'd also appear out of nowhere in the pilot's windshield as a cruel joke. These happenings only occurred over Europe. It says that many pilots experienced the torture of these little devils. The Allies nor the Axis wanted to believe these claims...but they kept happening. Eventually, they felt they had to log them in the flight records.

The gremlin of the 1943 Bugs Bunny cartoon

Most pilots who complained of Gremlin attacks had, had their wire pulled out of the engines, holes poked in their wings, gas leaks, spontaneous combustion, wing ice even though they were no where near freezing temperatures, and of course, they'd pop in front of the windshield.

They are little body builders, for, they can tear through metal without a sweat. They don't need food, air, or water for longs periods. They also range from the sizes of a child to an adult and are very hairy and have a grin like the Cheshire Cat, supposedly. I can't say for myself since I've never seen one - and hope to never see one.

I hope this helps you in some way if you've got writer's block. All of this information came from my beloved book - A Witches Guide to Faery Folk by Edain McCoy. Until next time!