Faerypin Contest!

And, at the eleventh hour, I finally have my entry for @ruanna3's Faerypin contest (at exactly 300 words)!  Enjoy!
Oh, and here's my inspiration pic:

Marvelous Light

They said the place had once been magnificent.  On fire with color.  Now everything about the castle, the whole land, really, was cold and grey and full of shadows.  The windows, intricately designed, let in watery, colorless light that did little to actually brighten anything.  Every now and then, though, a flash of the most beautiful colors could be seen, flashes of the glorious past destined to remain only ever in the past. 

I had never seen this myself, but the servants occasionally brought it up for entertainment.  I would pace up and down the hallways, hoping for a glimpse of this colorful light, only to be disappointed day after day by the stalwart grey glass.  It was clear glass, actually, but it was so wavy and everything was so bland outside that it appeared to be grey.

I was making my usual rounds through the castle hallways when one of the servant girls rushed up to me, breathless and slightly fearful.  Or was it tearful?  I waited for her to catch her breath before speaking.

“What is it?” I asked. 

“Your father,” she said, “has fallen ill, and the physician fears that….” she trailed off at this, but it was all too clear.  

My father was not a young man.  He would most likely not recover.  I stood there in shock at the realization that I was to be king, and in that moment, the sun broke through the constant cloud cover and the halls lit up with glowing colors: scarlet, magenta, gold, purple, emerald, azure.  It was breathtaking, and we both stared in awe.  I thought back to the last time the servants remembered seeing the colors.  It had been when my father’s reign began.  When there was the potential for change.  And so there was once more.

On a ledge waving my hands

At this point, I'll do almost anything.  Almost.  Here's the deal:  I've been applying for jobs left and right since I got back from college, and I've only heard back from one, in a negative manner, but at least I heard back.  And now I've just remembered that bosses will look at potential employees' online social stuff and I shouldn't say what I was getting ready to say.  But I will say this:  This time next week, I'll be officially broke.  I.  Need.  A.  Job.

First OUAT Piece Reveal!

This necklace was inspired by my getting sidetracked while watching Once Upon A Time and focusing on the little rose off to the side.  Points if you get which episode I'm referring to (it's subtle)!  Blue goldstone is probably my absolute favorite stone to work with.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Oh boy,

I've been tagged in the 'Kreativ Blogger Award' by Matt Sloan.  So....

Rules:

1. Thank & link back to the person who nominated you.

2. Answer the ten questions.

3. Share ten random facts/thoughts about yourself.

4. Nominate seven worthy blogs for the Kreative Blogger Award.

The Questions:

1. What's your favorite song?

Ummmm, heh.  Let’s see.  Currently?  The might iPod declares that my most played song right now is still “Safe & Sound” by Taylor Swift w/The Civil Wars.  I have been listening to “Poison & Wine” by the Civil Wars a lot recently, you should check them out!

2. What's your favorite dessert?

Our local fudge is awesome.  Any kind, though I’m pretty old school & usually just get the chocolate with some kind of nut in it.  They also give free samples ;-)

3. What ticks you off?

People not USING THEIR TURN SIGNALS. *ahem* That is all.

4. What do you do when you're upset?

Usually listen to music, read a book, maybe try to write something.  That usually doesn’t work—although I was pretty upset when I wrote the flash fiction that got shown on the Flash Flood Journal site.

5. Which is your favorite pet?

My dad doesn’t let us have pets, and the fee at my new apt complex is….expensive…. but I’m a cat person.  Not really a fan of dogs, although if I raised one from a puppy that would be a different story, but I’d rather have a cat.

6. Which do you prefer: black or white?

If we’re talking clothing, black.

7. What is your biggest fear?

Apart from the financial mudslide I’m in right now?  Heights.  Particularly with any kind of ladder.  I suppose the fear of falling applies to both there….

8. What is your attitude mostly?

Uhm.  In person, I suppose I come across as unfeeling or uninterested, but really I’m just nervous around new people, or people I’m not comfortable with in general.  If I know you, you’ll have a hard time getting me to shut up…  I’m pretty easygoing, I guess, but I tend to overanalyze and freak out about things waaay too much sometimes.

9. What is perfection?

Something that can never truly be achieved.

10. What is your guilty pleasure?

Watching The Vampire Diaries.  Don’t hate.  It’s pretty awesome.  And the vampires don’t sparkle.

The Random Facts:

1. I might be a little older than the average rising college senior, but that’s because I worked full-time in retail after deciding not to go to another college that was infinitely more expensive.  I learned that I do not wish to have a career in retail.  It makes you hate humanity.

2.  Once upon a time, I sang and I was a music major before I realized all I’d be able to do was teach.  And 

I do not want to teach.

3.  I’m an English major now (NO, I do not want to teach!!), and I’d like to go into the editing world, if not writing.  Maybe both.

4.  I got a Nerf gun for my 20^th birthday.  My brother and I still occasionally have wars where we’re finding darts a month later.

5.  I really enjoy photography, but I don’t exactly have time for it, especially in Greenville, where there’s not a nice, pretty old downtown area like here.

6.  I was in a play entitled “Candlesticks” once.  Pretty much the extent of my acting career.

7.  I am a Star Wars Lord of the Rings Chronicles of Narnia Harry Potter Almost Any Crime Drama nerd.  There, I said it.

8.  I love the beach, and unfortunately, my seven day forecast shows rain and clouds with lightning.

9.  I prefer the fictional realm of my stories and other stories, and if that makes me crazy for watching a TV show, knowing it’s a TV show, and yet still seeing it as possible, then call me mad.  It makes me a better writer.

10.  I love hummingbirds, if that wasn’t evident from my username/blog name/etsy shop name.  Ours are currently fighting over the feeder.  Business as usual.

The Nominations:

I really don’t read a lot of blogs, so sorry if I put someone up here that’s been up here before!

http://yearningforwonderland.blogspot.com: @ruanna3

http://lilliemcferrin.blogspot.co.uk/:  @LillieMcFerrin

http://www.angwrites.com/:  @ang_writes

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/:  @angela_goff

http://www.morgue-of-intrigue.blogspot.com/:  @Evermore_Evil

http://sjiholliday.com/:  @sjiholliday

http://thelastkrystallos.blogspot.co.uk/:  @LastKrystallos

Busy busy bee....

Hey look, an update!  Well, I've been keeping rather busy despite not doing much of anything.  I applied for a couple more jobs and I have an interview Monday.  Still haven't mentioned that one to my mother.  Maybe I'll save it for Sunday....?  Lol. Which reminds me...still need a gift. I wanted to get her an Amazon gift card, but there's a decided lack of funding. Maybe my dad will take pity on me :-).

I've pretty much been watching ABC's Once Upon A Time nonstop since last week's episode.  Hulu's awesome.  Even if they are charging now. It's the same price as my Netflix plan, and since I'd rather watch TV shows than movies at the moment, I've discontinued my Netflix for now.  I'll probably start it back up in the fall, though.  Anyways, all the fairy tales have me inspired for once, and I thoroughly embraced that in my jewelry-making.  Kinda run out of steam at this point, which means I need to stop sitting on my hands and start photographing these pretties.  I may hang on to one of the necklaces.  It was one of those moments where I was laying it out on my tray and I knew it was going to be amazing once I finished it.  I'll have to post pictures once I take them.

As far as writing goes, I'm honing my flash fiction abilities.  And rather enjoying it, too.  I submitted a few pieces to National Flash Fiction Day's Flash Flood Journal, and one of them got accepted!  It will be featured on the site at 2 am on May 16th.  I'm so excited! I've also sent another piece out elsewhere, and I'm looking in to other writing contests.  Maybe if I start hacking my way into the writing world now, slowly, while I'm still in school, it won't be as painfully difficult to get in once I'm done with school?  I'm staying positive, and looking at lots of options so not all of my eggs are in one basket.  As long as I keep writing....

I think I've discovered that my tendecy is toward the fantastic when it comes to fiction.  I tried a work-related flash piece, and it honestly wasn't my favorite.  The romance is fun, too, but there's just something about fantasy  and magic, drama and romance, murder and the unusual that draws me.  It's what I enjoy writing, and if I enjoy it, others will, too, right?  That's my logic, at least. :-)

Five Sentence Fiction

Decided now that school's out to try my hand at some more flash fiction--cutting it close on the deadline for this one, but here's my entry for Five Sentence Fiction with the topic "Explosive."  Enjoy!

Launchpad

Never, never, never let the child of a chemist and a mechanic play with explosives.  No one’s child should play with explosives, mind you, but especially not the child who has one parent always tinkering with different machinery to see how it works, how it’s put together, and can it be done better, and the other parent mixing things together to see how they react and can she invent some new medicine with a really fancy name that's hard to pronounce.  It’s not generally condusive for a good parent-child relationship, though it does give a whole new meaning to the term “nuclear family,” come to think of it.  Anyways, I don’t know what that boy was thinking, lighting the fuse on his homemade fireworks in the middle of the yard, but I do know that rocket went a good ways into the sky—he might be stupid in the common sense department, but that boy’s got talent, apparently.  Heard the NASA recruiters are already swarming for him to join their program after high school, can you see them doing that if my Johnny lit off a homemade bottle rocket in the yard?