What Are Ant-tables?

I’m doing creative writing this semester and today in class we did an interesting exercise in which we each were allocated two random words, and with those two words we had to make up a new concept, an invention of the sort.

The two words I got were ‘ant’ and ‘table’, and as you can guess from the title, I ended up creating ant-tables, a particular type of creature that used to live in the Ice Age. The exercise was so fun for me that I’ve decided to share word for word what I wrote during class here.

Enjoy!

The Ant-tables

A feeling of wonder took over me as I bent down to examine the fossil closely. We’d just discovered a new species: the ant-table. It used to live in the Ice Age, but it became extinct soon after that.

A creature, the size of your thumb, armed with four straight legs and skin as rough as wood. Ant-tables would freeze their body in hibernation during the harshest winters. They were resilient and would live as long as a century.

The Past, Who We Are and Other Thoughts

It feels like it’s been ages since I last posted on this blog.

This was mainly because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking (which eventually also includes writing, reading and watching anime/TV series ^^).

Three months’ school holiday is way too long, although it’s been filled with seeing new horizons, since I’m in a foreign country, but at some point it pretty much fucks your mind, especially if you’re living on your own. You start getting all deeply philosophical and start questioning every aspect of life.

Or is it just me?

I’d like to share a few of those haunting thoughts that have been following me for a while… and hopefully read your comments afterwards:

1. On Mirrors

I don’t know if I’ve talked about this here but I moved to a cheaper residence at the start of the year and among the furniture available in my room there was no sign of a mirror! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not your vain narcissist typical girl, but I enjoy making up outfits in front of a tall mirror and… well I simply have this ‘strong liking’ for mirrors. Therefore the mirror chase was on! My friend also joined me because she happened to want a mirror as well (peer influence XD). We were of course looking for the cheap options so we looked a little everywhere and took our time before we finally settled on those specific budget-friendly-but-nice-quality mirrors…

Anyway, this whole ‘chase’, that lasted about a month, made me think of something very peculiar about mirrors. It all started when my friend taught me how to know the difference in quality in the glass of the mirror (quite simple actually: just look into both mirrors one after the one and check for any ‘deformities’ in terms of how your body is being reflected… If your head is way bigger than your body you obviously know it’s not a good mirror…). She thus wouldn’t choose a mirror because it didn’t reflect her ‘normally’ i.e. the way she thinks her body is.

This was when the discussion started and my thoughts started to grow.

But how does she know how she is? If one thinks about it, no one can see oneself, except through reflecting glass, like a mirror, but if my friend just proved me that the mirrors can be flawed, then in truth, one can definitely never see oneself.

Why I Love Anime

I’ve never been a big fan of anime series and I can count on my fingers how many of them I’ve watched in my whole life so far. (Haha, being an Asian has led me not to be interested in Asian stuff.)

However, I have to say, I really really admire anime.

On the rare occasions that I do watch one, I go completely crazy over it.

And the reason this happens is that anime producers/writers/whatever are simply the greatest storytellers that ever existed.

Indeed, this is a writing-related post (hihi what could you expect from me) and the answer to the ‘why I love Anime’ is simply because of its storytelling.

Creative Writing & Me: Continued

(Before I officially start writing this post, I would like to disclaim that this is not a ‘part 2’ to some previous post, although the title may give this impression.)

It’s been a while since I’ve finally settled back (physically and mentally) home (Malaysia, that is) from an awesome trip to Singapore and I still have a little less than 3 months to go before school starts again. And what does An Evil Nymph usually do during long holidays?

Yes, I’m back to writing my crazy novel(s)!

Okay, as a writing recap-update:

Exactly one year ago, I rewrote what was supposed to be the last draft of a novel I have been passionately struggling with since Camp NaNoWriMo 2012. The writing flowed easily. I was content. By February-March 2014, the draft was done. I left it idle for a while because I was doing another smaller writing project (a novella) which I had intended to finish before I’d go to Malaysia for my studies. I did finish it and by that time, I was ready to hop on the plane towards my university life!

Anyway, my plan at that time was: focus on your studies and uni life first, then during the 3 months holiday, go back to the final draft and revise it. Then edit it and maybe send it to publishers? Well, now, fast forward to the present time, I did start revising it… And finally it is not as good as I expected it was. Sincerely, I think that going to Malaysia, starting a new independent life in a foreign country kind of made me grow up… including my perceptions and creativity. And when I read what I had thought to be the final draft of my dearest idea ever, I realised that I actually knew nothing (Jon Snow xD). And I would have known nothing of the world, of real life, if I had stayed at home.

I just feel that one year had made all the difference.

Therefore, I stopped revising; I was quite disappointed and discouraged, because I would have to rewrite the 103,000+ novel (again) if I intend to go along with it, and at the same time, in that particular time period, I was dealing with conflicting emotions and thoughts on career choice (read my ‘A Beautiful Mind’ post?).

But now I’m back on track! What I decided in the end was to move on: after all, my final draft was only one novel in a duology I had planned, so instead of going back to it now, I’m going to focus on the second novel of the duology. Then maybe after this one is done, I might find the right way to deal with the first one. One has to know the end to begin 😉

However, in the end… I’m currently writing that ‘second novel’, but as a stand-alone thing. With a completely different structure from the first one… And I’ll see how it goes. As long as I’m writing, I feel sane… I mean, emotionally balanced.

(Oh yeah, that’s one of my newly bought notebooks in Malaysia!)

Happy New Year 2014! New Year’s Resolutions and More…

Last year I mentioned that I wasn’t really into New Year’s resolutions, but I still gave myself three little goals to achieve, and today, I’m going to review it and see what happened.

The first one was to focus on writing. Then I elaborated: And I sincerely hope that in the end of 2013, I am left with at least one polished and completed novel, ready to be published.

That didn’t come true. Well except that instead of ending up with a novel, I ended up with a short script, which I am now writing into a novella.

That isn’t disappointing or surprising though, because I know that this year was a year full of school work, being my last year in secondary school.

And that’s how my second resolution had been to work hard at school, focus on my studies.

Which I hopefully did? I don’t know I am still waiting for the results!

Then the third and final goal I had set myself was to find where I stand. I quote: I want to finally find my whole identity. I want to know – no, to be sure of – where I’m going. Who am I? What’s my mission? 

Did I succeed this one? I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe I still have yet to learn about myself. In any case, during the year there were a lot of confusion and ups and downs about my identity and plans for the future. Fortunately, today, I know exactly where I am going and I know myself better than a year ago.

I know what I have to do 😉

(just throwing in a random recent photo so as to keep this post more interesting hehe)

10 Seconds Of Advice On Life! + The Visual Artist Tag!

I uploaded two new videos this past week. And the two of them are sort of collaboration videos.

The first one is:

Scrapbooking Gifts From Finland!

A few days ago I received a lovely surprise in the mail: a gift from Finland!

In fact I had won a giveaway at Thrifty Finn, a very nice blog hosted by an awesome blogger, and I had totally forgotten about it! Anyway, here’s what I got:

Awesome cute stuff!!! 🙂 Thank you so much, Niina!

Art Is Changing My Life

Some of you might remember that when I started this blog, I said that I had a new hobby every year.

Only writing remains constant throughout my life’s journey, since it’s more than a hobby, it’s a passion, well, it hasn’t always been constant but it always came back – I always came back to it.

French fanfiction in 2008, vidding in 2010, makeup and blogging in 2011, novelist-huge-breakthrough-plans in 2012… For some I… well I didn’t give up but I kind of was out of time to do all so I had to eliminate, while for others, like blogging especially, remained and will remain in my life I believe.

And in 2013…

Art.

Of course, everything I stated above is art, but what I mean is that this year I’m embracing the very basic stereotype form of art, which is the visual one, painting and drawing. The one art I drowned in when I could not even read and write, which made me use up all the paint pots and try out all the cheap painting brushes we had in our family’s shop, and which made me wonder about beautiful sunsets painted on canvas…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

This first week of Easter/first term school holidays has begun with lots of colours! Enjoy my colourful creative life in this little gallery of photos, dedicated to this week’s photo challenge, color:

How I Control Anger

Anger, although being one of the seven deadly sins, is a very common feeling, felt and expressed by everyone. Usually, anger is impulsive; it is a release… of shouts and cries until one’s throat is dry and the face’s gone all red and sweaty.

But then, sometimes anger makes one do or say things that one may regret afterwards.

Creative Food!

Hey everyone, I’m back! 🙂

Today I’m going to share with you something I do a lot when I stay at a hotel: I play with food! Well, not that kind of playing, but I like to just be creative with the presentation of my food in my plate. I usually do this mainly for desserts and breakfast. And desserts especially when there’s a chocolate fountain! (which we had this year!)

Therefore, simply scroll down and enjoy:

Desserts:

Little Choco Castle 😀

So This Is Christmas!

So this is Christmas…

But what have you done?

That night I saw an angel fall from the sky. Her golden hair gradually lost its shine as she reached the ground. Her beautiful white gown was stained with dirt. I could not see her eyes or her face, but I knew that she was the loveliest thing that could ever exist on Earth. She looked so fragile and innocent.

This Is Halloween! [or The Happy Nightmare Before Christmas]

Although here in Mauritius we don’t officially celebrate Halloween, or Samhain’s Eve, whatever you call it, many of us, especially teenagers, always find a way to make this 31 October a special day, even despite having exams on the next day.

Yes, many of us were just stuck at home with revision work… but fortunately? I had tuition in the afternoon. This is when my friends and I decided to wear orange and black and cry out ‘TRICK OR TREAT’ when the teacher would come into class.

Doesn’t mean that we got sweets in the end.

But it was just so fun.

Closeness & Creativity [WPCs]

In this post I’m catching up on the Weekly Photo Challenge, which I missed last week because of some lack of photographic inspiration and emotional turmoils… Anyway, I’m fine today 🙂 So here we go!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Close

As you have seen in my previous post, I’ve been drawing lately, and because I don’t have any photos inspired by ‘close’ – or if I do I don’t want to post them I guess because of some kind of reason my conscience has… – I’m going to show you my latest and completed drawing:

How can this relate to ‘close’?