My Ink Is Made Of Coffee.

Let's talk about coffee. Coffee is my favorite beverage in the world. Green tea is the only other thing that comes close (man, I wish I had some now).

Not only is coffee warm, creamy, and delicious, but it really helps me get what I need done. 

Whenever I have late nights with writing or blogging or just because I have to get things done, coffee is right there beside me. It is there for me. It is my best friend. There are so many projects of mine, I wouldn't have finished without it. 

I could go on talking about coffee all day long, no really, I could, Lily hmu for a coffee conversation(; Hahaha. But for now, I just thought I would tell you how I take it. 

I actually like my coffee a lot of different ways, there are so many different flavored creamers and syrups out there these days. But I like my everyday coffee plain and simple, and a little bit sweet. I don't put much sugar in my coffee, I always use more cream, but I like flavored creamer. Irish Cream is my favorite, but anything raspberry, hazelnut, or pumpkin does the job as well. And whenever we don't have flavored creamer (because we often don't ): ), a simple pack of hot cocoa does the trick as well (I'd like to think my Church friend's for teaching me that).

I also really enjoy getting coffee out. McCafe is my quickest fix, as I can walk to my neighborhood McD's. I don't like the hot coffee from there, I won't even get it if I'm having breakfast there. I almost always order the regular mocha frappe. But every once in a while, if I'm in the serious mood, I'll get a vanilla iced. 

Starbucks is my favorite when I'm going out for coffee. We don't really have any other coffee shops out here in Mobile, anyways. We used to have several (there was one I really liked next door to a shop called Aimee's Bridal - noooo, that's not why I liked it!(; But they closed their doors about three years ago), but Starbucks ran them all off. 

Anyways. There are a couple of different drink orders I get at Starbucks. It mostly just depends on my current mood (or on the season). My MAIN drink order is a white chocolate frappe with raspberry mixed in. But I've recently gotten into the iced coffee kick, and I like their plain iced with liquid sugar instead of the granulated. During the fall seasons I like to get either the pumpkin spice or nutmeg. But the came out with something new this year. Praline something? Anyway, I got that once, and it was sooo good. I'll probably be getting it as soon as the season starts this year! My final drink order that I sometimes get is actually just the bottled mocha coffee. It's really good when I go with some friends but I don't wanna spend much money, myself. And of course, I always have to get my cake pops!

Now that I've told you how I like my coffee, I'd like to know how you like yours!(:

Black & White Stories~

There are a few pictures on Tumblr that I love more than anything. One of these pictures have been coming up on my dash a lot more often lately, and it inspired me to write a story on it...

There are a few pictures on Tumblr that I love more than anything. One of these pictures have been coming up on my dash a lot more 

And I hope I have this one day. 

Freckles. Through the dark, sticky sky that’s all she can see, his freckles. 
The stars above his bare back barely give them enough light to see. But the truck bed below her holds them both up.
He leans down to kiss her. But he can’t see her, and so, they bump noses. He laughs, but really he’s covering up the moan that came from rubbing up against her nose ring. He always loved that little thing. 
She found his mouth finally. It tasted of limes and champaign. It was a good idea to have a picnic out there. 
He had packed it up all special for her. He even brought he favorite desert. The desert was eaten first, and everything else was mostly forgotten. Except for each other’s lips. 
She caught his bottom lip between her teeth, and tugs. His breath hit her mouth, oh so warm, and she pulled him even closer. 
The night would be endless, they both knew that, and just maybe they were ready for it. 

**You can find a rebloggable post of this story here. 

http://faithliesin-me.us/post/114117420657/wonderfulsenses-18-freckles-through-the

Thanks for reading! Feedback would be awesome. :D

Nessa's Story Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

I arrive in a long yellow bus, a few other kids and me. I don't talk to them, of course. I never talk to other kids. Not when it feels like they're always talking about me. 

I don't what I was expecting when I was told that the school was in the mountains, but I was definitely expecting a lot more snow. There is some snow, here and there, in sparkly patches, but for the most part, everything is an emerald sea. 

Everyone piles out of the bus, but I stay close to the side. I don't like touching people. I don't really like people. 

There seems to be a long walk to the building that assumes the school, with more emeralds and tons of footprints. I can see the grandiose building from here. The double-story is made of brownstone, with a newer looking addition made of grey stone. There's even a balcony and a brass dime built into the original part. It makes me want to find a flying carpet. 

We start the walk. 

I push down the sleeve of my jumper as a few kids brush past me and I feel electricity on my arm. 

"What do you think is over there?" an accented voice asks me. 

All I can see are the pastures made of jade, but I don't think she's talking about that. 

She pushes a tangle of sandy curls out of the way so she can squint at whatever it is. "It looks like a sport's court."

Once she said that, I could see what she was looking at. It's a large concrete slab that does indeed look like a sport's court. Only it's chock full of odd contraptions and playground equipment. 

"For a nuclear war," I mutter. 

She laughs, "You're funny."

I look down, "Thank you."

"I like you," she holds out her hand. I shake it, and if she gives me her name, it's fuzzy. I don't give her mine. 

"Well, now we've fallen behind," she says. And I don't have any time to respond as she grabs my arm and ruses me into the moving crowd. 

"Don't." I feel claustrophobic among all the tangled limbs. I keep bumping into them.  

I lose the other girl. I panic. I put my hands over my ears, and somebody puts their own hands over them. "Are you okay?"

"Don't," I say. 

"Okay," he moves his hands. 

I look up at him. I don't know what gets to me more, the concern in his brown eyes, or his brown eyes. 

"Are you okay?" he bites his lip. 

I shake my head. He's wearing a red zip-up sweatshirt that looks really warm, and I want to ask him if I can wear it. My knit jumper just isn't doing it anymore.

"Don't like new places?" he lifts a corner of his mouth. 

I shake my head again, "I'm claustrophobic."

"Oh," he looks down. "I'd say I'm claustrophobic too, but I'm just not." He looks back at me, and I look away. 

"Uhm, what usually helps it?"

"I- I don't know," I say. "I usually stay away from situations that elicit my fear."

"That's always a good idea."

I nod. I caress my arm. I can't get that electric feeling away. 

"Why did you come here?" the boy asks. 

"I want to learn to be less scared"

"Hmm," he nods. "I should probably be more scared."

I ask, "Are you serious?"

"No," he whispers. "Right now I'm very scared."

I smile at him, because, for once in my life, I'm not. 

How I Wrote Eight Books in One Year.

You're probably asking yourself, "How does she stay so motivated?" Well, you might as well answer yourself, "She doesn't."

I don't do motivation. At all. I don't even think I can. Because I try, and then pfft- nothing. What I do do (hahaha, I know, I said "doodoo"!) is competition. 

When I was eighteen, I found this really helpful authors' community online. It was for new or indie authors to help get feedback from each other and inspiration for new ideas. There, I made this really awesome author friend (I have a few, it's kind of amazing). She's quite a bit older than me, with kids my age, but we still get along well. 

Anyways. I read this author's personal story even before I started talking to her. And in it she stated that she wrote all seven of the books in her series in only one year. And I never forgot that (well, obviously not, since I'm writing this four years later).

I was living on my own at the time, but a few months later I had to move back home due to things that were out of really anyone's control. I had to find distractions because of the things that happened, and I decided to throw myself back into my writing for good. I thought about the author's community, but by that time I didn't care about sharing my writing anymore. But I thought about my friends story. 

And that was when I decided I could beat her (in a very friendly way, of course). So I decided to write eight novels in only a year. I'd already written one, so I only had to write seven more. I settled on an average word count I wanted all of them to be, and calculated. Then I divided by the number of days I had left in the year to get the number of words I would have to write daily. And then I started writing daily. Some days I couldn't write as many as others and had to double up the next day. Some days I didn't get any sleep at all. But all of that didn't matter, because in the end, I finished my goal of eight books in a year with just a few days to spare. And I'd never been so proud of myself. 

Since then I've finished only one other book, about twice as long as the others, and have started about fifteen or so more projects. 

The eight books that I wrote in a year were all part of a series. One is meant to be a stand alone with a follow-up series, but I'm now working on shortening the other seven into a follow-up trilogy (one is a novella and will be a special epilogue at the end, as it's a prequel story about one of the side characters). And, currently, I am putting the stand alone through its final edit before sending it to agents for publishing. 

I really hope I get published soon. It's my dream to live nothing but a life of writing, and that's all I've lived for the past few years. But I have to get serious enough to start making money from it. I can't do anything else, and I have a lot of hospital debt. But one day. One day. 

Schmedules Schedules.

Well. I finished that schedule I said I would docyesterday. So, I thought I'd show it to ya!

For Sundays I have written down, "Need to just hang out with Maddison, rest, and read."

And the I have listed:

Protein shake when I wake. 

75 book quotes on Tumblrly. 

Write a post for Blogspot. 

Queue. 

Mondays just have: Protein shake, CRAFTS, queue. 

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays are all the same:

Protein shake and book quotes whence I wake up. 

Write a Blogspot. 

Write, write, write, write, write/research. 

Queue. 

Friday is another day I spend with Maddison, so those aren't quite as filled up. They are listed:

Protein shake. 

Tumblr quotes. 

Blogspot. 

Fun stuff with Maddison. 

Read until q/bed!

And Saturdays:

Protein shakes. 

Tumblr quotes and blogspot. 

R

E

A

D

Queue. 

Now watch me forget to do all of that. 

And I forgot that I have to clean up after my cats everyday. 

Schedules Schmedules.

I've always been able to keep up little routines: routines with my blog, routines in the shower, and nighttime routines. But keeping a schedule is entirely different. And entirely something I've never been able to do. 

I meet with my therapist once a month for work on my anxiety and panic attacks, and the past couple of sessions have been spent learning how to handle my chronic illnesses without too much anxiety or feeling distressed (WHICH I AM NOT GOOD AT), and one thing my therapist - Melissa - thinks would be good for me is to set up a schedule. And I've been trying. 

The first thing I did is pick which day of the week (because I've found I can only do it once a week) I should set aside to work on my crafts for my upcoming Etsy shop. I decided on Monday. And I'll tell you why. We keep my niece every Friday afternoon and Sunday (pretty much the whole day), so I thought it would be best to work on my crafts while I still have some energy from being with Maddison. So I have my Sundays settled up. 

But then I have so much to do during the rest of the week, that I can't get everything done in a day. Sunday's are obviously out to do ANYTHING because seven-year-olds are serious distractions, and for the three hours we have her every Friday, I always try to plan something for us to do (we have a fun project planned for day after tomorrow). And then, of course, I always just wanna lay around doing nothing after she goes back home. 

But there's sooo much to do every day, and only four and a half days to do practically none of it??? I mean, there's writing, setting up a queue every night on my blog, making book quote edits for said blog, writing posts for this blog, taking my cats out for an hour or two, and making sure I get enough calories in a day (also something Melissa and I are working on ): ). And that's just the stuff I have to do everyday. That's not accounting for the other stuff I have to fit in a week, like, doctors appointments, errands, chores, and writing articles for online magazines. I have no idea how to fit it all in!

Even if I make sure to do the book quote posts in the morning (with a bit of writing in between), the queue at night, a post for this blog every afternoon, and at least two magazine articles a week, everything else falls through the cracks. I have no idea how to get everything else done! And anyways, all I ever do is sleep anyway. 

I realize this is mostly just word vomit (a term taken from my friend (hey Lily!)), but I thought I would just get this stress off my chest. Maybe I'll be able to come up with an actual schedule to post tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading!

10 Things You Need To Know About Werewolves:

10. About Wolfsbane. 

Just like vampires and garlic, werewolves are repulsed by wolfsbane. But it's more than that. According to myth, vampires just don't like to get close to garlic, but wolfsbane can actually kill weres. Wolfsbane is poisonous to anyone really, but a werewolf can die by simply smelling it. In some modern literature, though, werewolves try to consume the plant to cure themselves of the lycanthropy disease. But I don't see, exactly, how that would work if it's supposed to kill them. In The Mortal Instruments, Ryan Jordan keeps wolfsbane of his apartment fire escape. Cassandra Clare never really makes an explanation on this (except that it helps Jace identify him as a werewolf), but it's probably so he can make himself immune to it, so he can't be killed by it. 

9. About What They Eat. 

Once a human is Turned into a werewolf, they take on the eating habits of an ordinary every day wolf. I mean, not like to the point where they're hunting smaller animals or anything, but when they order their steak rare, you'd better bring it back practically mooing. Werewolves can, of course, continue eating like a regular human (unlike vampires who have to train themselves to eat again), it gives them more of a sense of normalcy. But they have to eat MORE. Because now they're feeding that animal hunger. Have you ever seen 17 Again with Zac Efron? You know that part after he first wakes up a teenager and he's piling all of this food to make the world's most disgusting sandwich? Okay, imagine that, but even more disgusting. 

8. About How They Live. 

It's easier for a werewolf to lead a normal life than it is for a vampire. In The Mortal Instruments almost all of the werewolves (except for the really wild ones) hold actual day jobs. Remus Lupin is a high school teacher (granted it IS a magical high school, but nobody discovers his secret until the Shrieking Shack). And several of the werewolves in Vampire Diaries double as college students. However, in City of Lost Souls, Jordan explains that most werewolves feel the need to leave home after their Turned so they don't hurt their loved ones (like he did) when they're experiencing their first Change. He described the feeling of being on the run for the first couple of years. And somewhere in the same series (City of Glass, maybe?) Luke Garroway explained that he had to pretend he'd killed himself to keep Valentine Morgenstern from killing him. But that has nothing to do with the actual process of Turning into a werewolf. 

7. About Wolf Packs. 

Wolves are pack animals, so it would make sense that werewolves are too. The Mortal Instruments series goes pretty in depth in explaining that. Once you're Turned into a werewolf, you have to join a pack. If you don't, you're considered wild. Or you can join the Praetor Lupus. The Praetor is a group of werewolves who work to keep the downworlder law in order. In the Shadowhunter world, all downworlders are pack creatures (yes, that includes vampires, weird as it is), and it's the Praetor's job to place pack less creatures into a pack. That's why Jordan sticks so close to Simon. It was his job to get the Daylighter into the New York vampire clan. But he ended up just sticking around with the Nephilim instead. 

Also. Each pack has to have a leader. And in the werewolf packs you have to challenge the current leader to a battle and then kill him/her to become the new one. 

6. About What They Look Like. 

Now this isn't something that can be answered straight up. In every werewolf story I've watched or read, the werewolf looks different. Sometimes they look like an even more vicious version of a wolf. Sometimes they look like a half-wolf/half-human creature. And sometimes they're described in such a way that I can't even imagine them. But if you see a Changed werewolf, you're obviously going to know it's a werewolf. It's the signs when they're not Changed that you need to know to look out for. But it's more a way they act then a way they look (though some werewolves have silver streaks or sideburns to their hair, like Mr. Fantastic). But they just ACT more animalistic. More vicious and ready to fight. They have more of a growling gruffness to their voice. And they tend to have really big teeth. 

5. About Their Blood. 

So, you don't just get bitten by a cat and then turn into a cat, right? But think about it this way, if you get bitten by a poisonous spider then you'll die (or get turned into Spider-man). So how is that? Something in saliva of the poisonous spider is changing your blood and attacking it. And if you think about it, the same thing happens when you get bitten by a werewolf (minus the whole dying thing). You can't just get bitten and be something new entirely. You have to be changed, or your blood does, rather. There's something in werewolf blood that makes them, well, werewolves. And that is, believe it or not, demon blood. Yup, werewolves are part demon. Lycanthrope is a disease that comes from demons. But that doesn't necessarily make them bad; there are some good werewolves. Just like there are good warlocks. All you have to do is make sure the demon part of you overrides the human part. After all, they're not undead. 

4. About How They Love. 

Wolves are a possessive animal, right? No, really, I'm asking because I'm not 100% sure about this nugget of knowledge. But it feels right to me.  Because what really feels right to me is that werewolves are a possessive creature. Vampires feel possession because they can't feel love (no soul, remember), however werewolves CAN feel love, but they still have a possessive kind of love. Touch their mate, and they'll rip your throat out, right? I sure wouldn't want to get anywhere near the mate of a werewolf. And in Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, Mason Grayback explained that werewolves are also loyal lovers and may feel something for someone they met three hundred years back (although I don't think werewolves are supposed to be immortal, silly Disney).

3. About Killing Them. 

From my knowledge of paranormal stories, werewolves seem to be easier to kill than vampires. Like iron is to a vampire, silver is a werewolves main weakness (which makes me wonder why Wolverine's claws were injected with silver. Maybe to make him immune to it?). If you attack a werewolf with a non-fatal blow of silver, it takes them much longer to heal. And if there is silver actually in the wound, they can't heal at all. You can slowly kill a were this way. Or you can do it quickly with a single shot to the head or heart by a silver bullet. Werewolves can have their heads chopped off, die by fire or poison, or just plain old die of natural causes. You can kill werewolves other ways too, you can bleed them out for instance, but I don't know them all. 

2. About Changing. 

So the stereotype is that a werewolf only Changes when the moon is full, right? And some things do follow this stereotype; ie. Harry Potter and Vampire Diaries (to a point) But other things state that only the FIRST Changing has to be during a full moon. In Wizards of Waverly Place, the werewolves change every night, and the pure breds (those who are werewolves because both of their parents are) can stop the Change halfway if they want to. They can also Change whenever they want (which the call Wolfing Up) or when they're angry. After the first time, werewolves in TMI can Change whenever they want, and it hurts less with each time. They tend to Change to battle. In the Vampire Diary novel I just finished yesterday, Bonnie McChallough dates an Old werewolf. The Old Ones are the originals, but with weres it passes down through generations, so if an Old One has a kid, then that kid is Old as well. Old Ones are weres from birth, and can Change whenever they want. They also can stop a Change at the full moon, but it's extremely painful. 

1. About Turning. 

Surprisingly, there are actually several ways to Turn a werewolf. Being bitten is the most common way. But you can also be born into it. That's a little complicated in the Vampire Diaries series, though (other than with the Old Ones, of course). Your family can be cursed with Lycanthrope for eternity, passing the gene on through generations. But even if you have the gene, you have to go through a special ritual that involves spilling the blood of the innocent to completely Turn. Another way to Turn in Vampire Diaries is to get impregnated by a werewolf (your young will also be werewolves). The final way to become a were is to be born of one. 

A Bonus Thing You Need To Know About Werewolves: Turning Them BACK. 

Guess what! Werewolves can be changed back to humans completely. Or at least in Vampire Diaries they can. All you have to do is cut off one of its four paws. I do not, however know, if they get their hand or foot back when they're human again. The vampires never went through with it. 

• The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare

• 17 Again starring Zac 

• Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling

• Vampire Diaries, L.J. Smith

• Spiderman, Stan Lee

• Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place