Where Do I Start?

DRIVING IS FUN.

Yes. That's a good place to start .

I got my permit two days before we left for the beach. And let me tell you, the beach was a good place to go out on the roads for the first time. I scared a few people, yes, but I know they forgave me. And those who didn't eventually will. I think.

SO THIS IS MY CAR.

Actually, it isn't my car, and that's not me in the picture. But it looks like my car (red, has wheels, same model, etc., etc.). That person doesn't look like me, no. KNOW WHY?

*suspense*

Because I have a black and white feather tucked safely behind one ear, yes sir, and I love it. It's going to be a bit long after I get my hair cut, but I don't mind :3

Did I say get my hair cut? Yes I did. You haven't even seen my hair, and so you shouldn't weep for it. I'll do enough weeping for all of us. But I've hit that stage where short hair = grown up and not old. And so I shall give in to my instincts and go for a bob. Or maybe shorter. We shall see. I'm going to be all steel and nails until the first lock falls onto my lap. Then you'll see weeping XD

This is the Lusitania. It was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank off the coast of Ireland in May of 1915.

Did you know that my great-great grandmother had three names? I didn't either, until my grandmother started spinning yarns in her whimsical way after dinner one night. The story she told captivated me, and so I started taking notes (which is obviously what anyone does when something captivates them).

My great-great grandmother was named Anna Maria Yentz at birth, but was always called Mary Anna by her mother. She hated the name Mary Anna (which she thought was her REAL name until her mother told her otherwise) and so she called herself May. She was the third of eight sisters and fell in love with an English interpreter during the First World War when he was in the United States. This chap ran off with their two small children and life savings only a couple of years into the marriage, leaving May to find a note he'd left for her when she returned from work. Well, apparently May didn't accept that, because she saved up enough money for a boat ticket to England and was preparing to set sail after her missing children when her mother basically had a nervous breakdown and forbade her from sailing away. The boat she missed was the Lusitania.

May eventually got her kids back, sailed home for America, and married a man who guarded FDR and was even chief of police in Philadelphia, PA.

The story struck me as fascinating. And so I've undertaken the task of hunting down facts and trying to contain them all in a manuscript, or maybe even a book, about May. It might just be sort of a family history thing, or I might try my hand at historical fiction and use May's life as the basis for my plot. But I fell in love with this story, and I want to learn as much about it as I can.

Besides all the above mentioned, our last vacation of the summer was a real success. It's colder now--I'm wearing a sweater, and it makes me happy and a bit sad at the same time. It seems that fall  has REALLY arrived, and it's time to bid a fond farewell to shorts, T-Shirts, and flip-flops until next year (if my mom doesn't raid my closet before I can dig them out again).

My classes are starting for REAL this week, and I'm super excited.

Time to look up some German verbs.

~

Elisabeth

Inspired by Insanity

My journal doesn't look exactly like this--it has lovely rainbow stripes. But it's made by Iota and I'm happily scribbling away in it.

A strange way to begin a blog post, you say? It is not. It's just insane.

My friend showed me a nifty little notebook the other day. In it, she'd jotted down random quotes that struck her fancy. Some of them obviously struck my fancy and knocked it down, because I've thrown my whole being into starting my own "quote journal." Some of the first names to grace its pages have been Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill, Peter Pan, Oscar Wilde, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Lucille Ball. It's a great mix, and I'm absolutely loving searching my books and the internet for random, inspiring quotes.

This is something of an update. Besides my lovely journal, I've finally gained my permit after weeks of stressing, studying, stuttering out answers to my longsuffering sister, and banging my head on the wall. I drove around a very quiet community for the first time today and came home convinced that all of the cars were out to nom me. They were probably only afraid of me. Driving is fun, I can say, but quite scary. I suppose if I was a boy I'd think differently.

I sound sort of like Jo March--I guess it's not much of a surprise, since I've been chewing through Little Women. I actually like it, which is a big surprise since I don't usually like novels dealing with young women coming of age (you should have seen the Elsie Dinsmore books after I was through with them). Little Women is somewhat unbelievable and so sweet it's almost sour, but it's a good story and the characters have thoroughly engaged me (especially Jo, as you already know). I'm also working on Alice in Wonderland and have decided to tackle Anne of Green Gables after resurrecting my love of the story by watching the trilogy starring Megan Follows.

I outlined today. It was unbelievably hard. I found that I could hardly remember the plot of Avaria. It's time to get to work, it seems--and it's time to work hard. But unfortunately, the only work I'll do this week is on paper. Yes. I'm going away again--back to the shore. I love the shore. REALLY I do. I must love it a lot since this is the third time we've been down this year :3 But I've resolved not to bring my laptop and rely instead on my pen, paper, and the cooling September air to inspire me. I hope it works. Otherwise, Fozzy'll murder me.

I hope you're all enjoying the start of the school year. The very first co-op class is finished, and now I get to go meet "The Venerable Bede" as I plow through The Ecclesiastical History of the English People for Brit Lit. Joy.


I'll miss you guys! Let some little insanity inspire you every day, and you might end up with a rainbow-colored journal filled with quotes from Jane Austen to Jack Sparrow (I hope you do!)

~God Bless

Elisabeth

It's Coming....

Fall. I can smell it in the air in the mornings and feel it under my toes in the afternoon. The leaves aren't changing quite yet, but there's a sense of anticipation, as if all of nature is holding its breath before the plunge. I don't know what the calanders tell you, but for me, autumn is September.

I love September. It contains a lot of happy things. My sister's birthday, the beginning of a new school year at co-op, the last beach vacation of the season, the first walk under the crisp red leaves. Fall means leaf parties, where my entire family converges on my grandmother's house and chases down every leaf in her spacious yard. It means breaking out the boots and scarves and insisting on wearing said accessories every single day. It means school, which can be fun and can sometimes be...well, not so fun. New classes excite me--what will we learn? Who will I meet? How will the classes change me? Fall means finding leaves the color of my dreams and trying to photograph every single one before they start to fade right in my hands. It means shorter days but long, cool, starry nights. It means that soon, we'll all be able to puff out huge clouds of steam into the colder air.

Fall excites me. Even though it's still hot and humid here, I can begin looking forward to sweaters and boots, hot chocolate and long nights studying and occasionally writing like a madwoman when the tingly air completely overpowers my sanity. It's not my favorite season for nothing.

As I head off to my very first class of the year at co-op, I just wanted to invite you to join me in the anticipation =)

Happy Fall~

Elisabeth

More Than Words

I can't believe that 9/11 is almost ten years behind us. Today, two magazines came in the mail. Both of them were special memorial issues. I sat down and just looked through the pictures, not even reading the articles. The emotion, the bare, raw emotion on the faces of the people in those pictures can't be recreated by anything I write. They're surreal, those emotions. They were singular and unique to every person who felt them, and they will never be felt by anyone else. It's very hard for me, as a writer, to see those deep emotions. They're things that I can't touch, that I have never experienced. Researching and practicing and imagining don't help. There's a time when I need to simply say, "I can't imagine." And it's so true.

There is something about pictures that fascinates me. I feel that as writers, one of our hardest jobs is to actually create a picture with words. It's certainly something I've struggled with ever since I first put down "Once upon a time..." on a piece of notebook paper. Those awful, heartbreaking pictures speak more than words.

I don't want to make the tenth anniversary of 9/11 a writing exercise. It's so much more than that.