Okay, I'm going to be brutally honest right now.

Young adult books suck. Most of them do. The amount of cliches and utter crap that are packed into books like "So Yesterday" by Scott Westerfeld is amazing. Seriously, these books are so full of crap they make SkyMall look like a first aid magazine. ALL of the YA books I've been reading lately completely find themselves without any sort of craft whatsoever. These books are so awful it hurts to read them.

Do you know what's worse than a horrible young adult novel with no decent plot? A horrible YA novel with no decent plot that is popular and praised by people because the author wrote one good book.

Twilight, is, of course, the only exception to crappy YA books, and the exception of Vivian Vande Velde's books.

Other than that, YA book's craft is declining. Rapidly.

I'm supposed to put my novel away and not edit it.

For at least a week.

How is that even possible?

One week.

Hey that's a song!

But seriously. My novel is stalking me.

I can handle a couple of days, though.

...

...

Who am I kidding?

• Human nature forbids humanity to ever unite for a cause. We'll be fighting until our last seconds on Earth, no matter what. This has been proved by the people who deny climate change and have only made it more apparent to me that if a meteor was hurdling to the Earth then there would still be a handful of people who deny the fact even with the giant rock in plain view. I mean, face it, how many anxious cries for people to unite have been sent out by nonprofit organizations? Exactly. How many have been successful? There's your proof right there.
• There will always be that one person who screws up a game of telephone just to break out into hysteric laughter when the last person in the round announces that the word was "frosted fruit loops" instead of "llama". Same goes for journalism.
• Our education system proves time can be manipulated. Have you noticed that half of all High School students have the brainpower and maturity equal to an eight year old with a more explicit vocabulary? It's like they're frozen in time.
• The other half of high schoolers that are going to end up running the country some day are getting less attention then the ones who are frozen as eight year olds. Our society is putting disciplinary boundaries and learning boundaries and more homework on all students, not just the ones who need it. More homework = less self study time. The last time I checked, not everything the influential people of our time was learned in school. It doesn't help if the youth of today don't have a life outside the controversial school system, as it is with AP classes.

Much more to come!

Golf. I have a serious issue with it.

When I was 12, my father thought that I should play golf. He got me clubs, signed me up for lessons, and I hated it.

Same story for piano. Except... for piano I didn't need clubs, I didn't have to walk around outside in a million degree weather, and it was my mom who tried to teach me.

Both failed utterly.

Golf is pointless. Basketball is amazing. Golf and cheerleading are just for looks. Basketball is for real athletes.

Basketball is more strenuous than soccer and all of the other sports. Us bballers need a lot of lower AND upper body strength, AND we need to be extrememly talented, graceful, and coordinated as well as having extreme game smarts in a small court. It is harder than any other sport. Cheerleading and golf are for sissies.

We also don't need cheerleaders. Motivation? PSH! We eat motivation for breakfast! We don't need any pom-pom chucking hair-obsessing ditzy skinny girls running around screaming. (No offense to those cheerleaders who actually break that previous stereotype!)

Wow. I talk a lot.

-Rika

The dark doesn't really bother me. I do agree that everything that happens in the dark becomes more sinister- take, for instance, someone walking down the street with a duffel bag. That is so horror film-esque that people walking by on the same street would grab their pepper spray. But if that happens during the day, people pay no mind.

I love staying up late because the dark is quiet, and I can write without interruption. Plus, no one's awake to tell me that watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 for the 28th time is pointless if I'm watching it in French (even though I've watched it a million times and have memorized every line!!)

My point? I continue on doing my thing, but I get tired earlier because my brain thinks it's later than it really is.

-Rika
Watching Pirates of the Caribbean

The Black Box is difficult to explain. Here goes...

"A peaceful teenager unknowingly finds a new weapon of mass destruction and becomes invaluable to the government."

OH SNAP! You so wish you could come up with a novel idea as good as mine. But I started writing today and I had some serious writer's block. It took me four hours (procrastination included) to write 8 pages. (They were pretty darn good pages if I do say so myself)



Did I include imagery and metaphorical language as well as other descriptive tactics?

Of course not!

Are there major plot holes that will just get bigger as I attempt to fix them?

Obviously!

Am I going to win NaNoWriMo? 

I'd smack anyone upside the head if they denied the fact that I'm going to win. And it's going to be amazing.

-Rika
(Feeling pretty good that she's writing a novel and already has a grand total of 3,335 words! PSHYA!)
 

Creating a character is like making soup. You have to have all the right ingredients so that it will be balanced. It can't be bland, though- just as each character has his/her own unique quirks.

Here's a quick outline of Alexia:

• She is a tall, athletic 17 year old with short hair and has tanned skin. 
• Her posture is confident, her chin is up and she isn't afraid to look someone in the eye, but she's not rebellious. Her style is comfortable, and she dresses like an athlete although she isn't one.
• She is very introverted, although she uses instincts to solve problems instead of logistical thinking, she doesn't really want to change the world and cares very much about the people around her, she could care less about her appearance as long as she is well groomed, her hobbies include snowboarding, painting, and writing. She has intelligent, athletic friends and can work in an uncontrolled environment, although she loses it whenever anyone close to her dies. She likes environments that are free, uncontrolled by anything, yet unchaotic. She takes life very seriously because she has seen many near her die and doesn't want to waste her own life. On a Sunday afternoon she spends her time outside.

Now I'm not going to release much about my story, except for an excerpt later.

Off to go finish some of my to-do list,
-Rika

Forget blaming the war on the republicans. Forget blaming the current financial crisis on the democrats.

Blame all your problems on lazy people!

Things that lazy people are responsible for:

1. America's obesity rate
2. America's education rate and all of the bad grades
3. The economy
4. The war in Iraq
5. Poverty
6. Corrupt Governments
7. The diseases without cures

Think about it. Lazy people are responsible for every problem. If there weren't lazy people, every student in our schools wouldn't simply blow off assignments for the heck of it, we'd all be a lot healthier, and more problems would get solved.

Yes, we all have a certain amount of laziness in us, but all of those people who have never worked a day in their lives (cough cough celebrities) aren't exactly helping anyone by shopping every day, except maybe the short term luxury economy.

This is why I make a point to stay busy with my hobbies and goals as well as maintaining a social life. With everything I have to do, I have pretty much no time for TV. Thanks to the fact that I watch less than 1 hr. of TV a week, I am pitifully behind in terms of the lives of celebrities and the latest TV shows, but am further ahead in other areas of my life, like basketball, ballroom, kickboxing, videos, and writing.

My point with all of this is that life is short- too short for us to be sitting on the couch and mindlessly snacking away on the foods that will eventually lead to health problems in the future.

So, America, stop this nonsense and get yourself together! Think how much you could get done by being active participants in LIFE!

-Rika

When keeping tangible objects from younger siblings, the best tactic are man-eating zombies. Locks and promises can break, but zombies won't stop until the whole household is guarding your precious secrets! (Note: after your whole house have been transformed into flesh craving carnivores, consider moving.)

Passwords? Psh! Who needs them. I type in random words and numbers and hope that the computer's remember password feature doesn't let me down.

*Yawn* Right now I'm exhausted from working late and waking up early so I'm going to take a break now.

-Rika