Warning

I probably won't be posting much for a while, because I'm starting Drivers Ed tonight and I have it almost every night for...three weeks, I believe.  Time with God, Indy, chores, school, and writing take priority over blogging.  But I'll be back!

- Ellyn

Thankful in Words

I lay flat and quiet, cheek pressed against the freezing snow.  When Will's footsteps faded to other side of our man-made sledding hill, I moved one arm an inch up and pushed myself forward with one foot.  My coat crinkled against the crust and I stopped, holding my breath.


It took me a long time to move again.  Finally, when Will grew impatient and started yelling, "I give up!"
I waited to move until he was at his loudest pitch of the phrase.  Grinning, I knew not one of us was going to give up, even if he came down from the hill to look for us, like he threatened to do.


He was wiser than to expose himself to the anger of me and my brothers, though...he stayed on the hill.


I moved forward again.  Now I was in a tricky place - beyond two trees close together, there was no real cover against the stark white snow.  What if I go between the trees? Hmm.  Could be painful.


From Will's place, I was pretty sure I melded into the tricky moonlight gradient of black, gray, and white.  But the silence of the trees wouldn't mask my breathing, or my noisy snow clothes.

not my image

That's the kind of thing I do with my brothers.  Risk my sanity, strength, and voice while playing pirates, fencing, and yelling across the pasture.  Or in this instance, freezing my chin off while pushing myself on my belly through the snowy woods at night, trying to get to our sledding hill while not being seen.  (Pretty impossible, by the way.)

But it's this kind of thing that makes me feel thankful ...
- For my four brothers
- For hot chocolate and a warm house
- For snow
- For quiet
- For a challenge

Every night for thirty days, I'm going to be writing down in my notebook what I'm thankful for.  I've already done it for three days and it's amazing how much sweeter life seems to me.  Sometimes, I'll put what I'm thankful for in posts, like this one.  But only sometimes! :)

Next time, I'll give you your second fencing lesson.  Or a book review on Leviathan...we'll see what I feel like first.  :D

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P.S.  I'm also happy to say that God helped me get my poetry muse back! I was worried that I couldn't write poetry anymore, but the other day, when I was supposed to be writing a school poem, I thought of this great one and wrote it down and needless to say *takes deep breath*... I am so happy!


P.P.S.  Speaking of thankfulness, I've just discovered Ara's blog, Shilah! I think she's my new favorite blogger.  Also, my two pals  have started blogs and I know they'd appreciate it if you head on over and help them get started in the blog world.

My dear friend Amber at Blessing Blog

and

Pheona! (remember her?) Who I'm happy to announce is using that screen name - anyway, she has a babysitting blog at lemons and lemonade



Love!

Ellyn

A Conversation with His Highness

Ren's border guard ship, by yours truly

Seaspear is at the point where it's not exactly at the climax, but it's coming close.  I'm falling into potholes all the time and all the time I'm getting new ideas for the story.  Today, I wrote 1,000 something words and I'm planning on doing more tonight.  But I decided to take a break and have a conversation with one of my characters, Prince Cyrus, for your enjoyment.
I did one for Jacha a while ago, which you can view here.

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Me *cheerfully*: So, Cyrus, how do you fare?

Cyrus *huffily*: How do you expect? I'm weary, footsore, emotionally lost, hungry, wounded, and heartsick.  How much worse could things possibly get?

Me: Wel-l...

Cyrus: And you added a whole new subplot that makes me look insecure! I am NOT INSECURE!

Me: Yeah, you ain't very patient either.  Has his Lordship thought anything about how I have felt lately?

Cyrus:  What do you mean? You're the author.  What could you possibly have to worry about?

Me: You'd be surprised.  For one, my characters are taking over my life...

Cyrus: Pssh, what now.  You're the one controlling me, which is five times more frustrating than your situation could ever be.

Me: Prince Cyrus, a prince does not complain about his circumstances.  Not publicly, that is.

Cyrus: I'm sorry.  I just honestly don't think I can make it.  Especially since you want me to walk all the way back to Arben now.

Me: You just need to trust me.  You forget that I can see the big picture - you can't.

Cyrus *hopefully*: So that means you're going to send me help?

Me *mysteriously*: You'll see.  Take heart, my good fellow, I believe in you.  That's why I named you Cyrus.

Cyrus: Wait - I'm named after someone in your world?

Me: Yup.  It was a noble king, Cyrus the Great of Persia.

Cyrus: I'm flattered.  So, uh...how did he die?

Me: I'm not that dumb! Look it up yourself.  I have to go to dinner in my world now, so goodbye, old chap!

Cyrus *grumbles*: I wish I had a dinner to go to right now...

Me: I said, good-bye, Cyrus.  Hang on.  Help's on the way, I promise.

A Fencing Lesson, Part 1 {Weapons}

Hasn't every Narnia / Lord of the Rings / fantasy reader wanted to learn swordplay? I hope you know that staged swordplay is just that - STAGED.  When I took fencing class with two of my brothers, the teacher said that any professional fencer would be...well, rolling on the floor laughing at Pirates of the Carribean or Princess Bride.  (Princess Bride especially in my opinion.) All the same, I would love to learn how to do fake swordfighting like that :D

But fencing is next best.  This will be part 1 in a series of fencing tutorials.  I do not know very much about this art, but I know a little and hope to learn more through these posts.  :) Me and my brother Eli have resolved (with Nerf swords pointing high in the air) to fence more this year, and so far we have been nerf-fencing almost every night I don't have lots of schoolwork.

not my image

The Deadly Weapons (kinda)

Now, it's time to get serious.  In our fencing class, we learned three weapons: foil, sabre, and épeé (pronouced "ep'ay").

via

The foil is a light weapon and it is the one beginners start out with.  (That's why I'm listing it first. :D) I like the foil.  It's easy to handle and it's not quite as scary as the sabre or épeé.

Target areas: Torso, abdomen, and back.  Think of the area a long vest would cover.  (No legs, head, or arms!)
You may notice that the handguard on the foil is not very large.  That's because hands don't count either.

The foil is a jabbing weapon.  This means that you cannot slash around like heroes in the movies do.  If you don't touch your opponent with the point, or "button" of the foil, the touch does not count.

To score a point, you must have the right of way, which I'll explain at the end of this post.

via

The sabre is a little more complicated than the above foil, but it was the favorite in our fencing class.  Every time we went to grab our weapons, everyone scrambled to get a sabre before they were all gone.

Target areas: Same as foil, but with arms and head.  No legs.  (When we nerf-fence sabre, we don't count the head.  Just thought I'd mention that. :D)

Unlike the foil, the you must use the sides of the sabre.  No jabbing! You slash / cut with the sides of the weapon.

Sabre also uses right of way.

via

I think that the épeé is the hardest weapon to remember how to use, and personally it's probably my least favorite of the three.  You can remember part of how to use it by remembering that is the most lawless weapon.  If you were fencing in a real battle, épeé would most likely be used because any touch counts.  Anywhere you manage to touch a person, it counts, as long as you use the point of the weapon.  (It's a jabber, like the foil.)  There's no right of way, either.  Yes, my friends, the épeé is a dangerous game...


Target areas: Again, EVERYWHERE!

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So, What's Right of Way?

Right of way is - I think - hard to remember as well, but I'll try to explain it as best I can.  Say you are fighting foil.  As your opponent comes in toward you, your sword point jabs him in the stomach.  Even though you may have touched him first, it does not count unless you have taken the right of way.

How do you take the right of way? You extend your arm, so instead of standing in position like this...

huge sword, ain't it? my dad got it for Christmas :)

You have your sword like this.  Also, you must have your tip pointed at the target area.

Now, you can take your point.  But, there are a few strings attached.  Your opponent can take your right of way for himself by

- Parrying your blade
- Knocking it away so it isn't pointed toward the target area
- Or get in right when you bend your arm - even a tiny bit - to make a thrust.

Of course, you can do that too, if your opponent already has right of way.
The below video is EXCELLENT and explains right of way really well, so I'd encourage you to watch it if you want to learn fencing.  And it's only three minutes long!

Right of Way in Foil Fencing -- powered by eHow.com


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Next time, I'll talk about posture and other equipment needed.

Love,
Ellyn

The Chronicles of Mistmantle - M.I. McAllister

none my images

Are you one of the many Redwall fans out there? Or do you like the idea of Redwall, but you’re intimidated by the many garbled dialects and length of the books?

If you answered “yes” to either of the above, Mistmantle is for you.  I fell in love with the series at the prologue of the very first book.  The island of Mistmantle is surrounded by heavy blankets of fog – hence the name.  It is said that once you leave Mistmantle, you can never return through the thick, protective shroud.

Urchin, a pale-furred squirrel, is born on a night of Riding Stars, an occasion signifying either good or bad luck.  All the stars are released from orbit and swirl around the sky, free and wild.

Urchin is an orphan from birth, for his mother, having just arrived at Mistmantle, dies on the shore and is washed away.  But Urchin is found and brought to live among the close-knit community of moles, hedgehogs, otters, and squirrels.

As a young squirrel, all Urchin wants is to be a page to the gallant Captain Crispin.  When his dream unexpectedly comes true, he is caught up in a plot against the king which throws Crispin out of position.  Urchin must work with Needle the hedgehog, Captain Padra the otter, and many others to save their freedom and their king.    

The second book, Urchin and the Heartstone, is my personal favorite – a certain part at the end made me cry, and any book that does that usually gets high ratings from me.  I cry easily, but not for books.  But it has great action, a great new character development that comes in, and awesome pacing.  I didn’t really like The Heir of Mistmantle very much – there wasn’t enough action for me and the plot was too simple.  But still, I’m glad I read it.  I think there are a few more books, but I want to stop just in case the series goes bad, like the Warriors did.

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M.I. McAllister’s writing is amazing.  She doesn’t over-use exclamation points, knows just when short sentences are effective and when they are not (*happy scream*), and the way you come to know and love the characters is like magic.  I honestly think I’d go live as an otter on Mistmantle if I could.

I do wish that Urchin had a bigger part in the books.  You know he’s special because of the Riding Stars, but he wasn’t really a big part of anything.  Which makes a little bit of sense – after all, Urchin is only a young squirrel.  His life is just beginning.  What kind of things will he go on to do when he’s older? And what would life on Mistmantle have been without him?

It makes me happy to ponder over. :D 

Here’s a huge plus to the series.  When I realized it after I finished, I think my mouth dropped open.  :D The young animals are actually respectful to their elders.  Especially Urchin.  He always addresses the Captains as “Sir” and he doesn’t think he knows it all.  When he has his own ideas, he gives them in a very deferential way.  How often does this happen in kid’s books anymore? I mean, really – wow.  I read the tiny little “About the Author” section, and it says McAllister is a minister’s wife.  So maybe that’s what it is!

After each book, I felt so full and satisfied.  Oh, goodness, that feeling of satisfaction after finishing a great book…it’s something you can’t buy with money.

Well, actually…I think you can.  Just go pick up Mistmantle. :)

n  For the Record, My Favorite Characters Are:

n  Padra

n  Sepia

n  Hope

n  Lugg (in the third book)

n  Urchin

Evolution and God in Harmony?

Our Dilemma: Should a person be a true, Bible-believing Christian and believe in evolution at the same time?           

Answer: No.

My Reasons:

Reason 1: God created the world in seven days, not billions of years.  (Genesis 1)

            Christian Evolutionist’s Defense: 1 Peter 3:8 ~ “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.”  This verse puts all the “days” specified in the Bible into jeopardy – how do we know something took as long as it says it did?

            My Defense: Genesis 1:5b ~ And there was evening and there was morning – the first day.

Here, God makes it very clear how long the creation of the heavens, earth, light, and darkness took him.  One evening.  One morning.  What does that equal? One day! The above refrain is repeated after each day of creation. 

Also, God knows how confused we would get trying to figure out, ‘hmmm – now is this really twenty-four hours we’re talking about here?’ He created the sun and the moon and stars to dictate our days and years (Genesis 1:14, and He created the days and years for us as well.  He wrote the Bible for our use, not His (He already knows everything in there), so He’s going to use our concept of time, not His.

            There are also other references to days in the Bible that are very clear “days.”  Like the story of Joshua when the sun stood still? Joshua 10:13 says that it stood still in the sky for about a full day.  And Joshua only lived for 110 years, so how could that day mean one thousand years? 

What can you conclude from all this?

Conclusion: God created this universe and beyond in only seven days.  He didn’t only create a few bits of matter, either.  Not even only two fish meant to mate and reproduce and mate and reproduce until more species developed.  He made everything.

Reason 2: God says He made everything according to its kind.

            Christian Evolutionist’s Defense: ---

            My Elaboration: In Genesis 1, everything is again made crystal clear.  God says that every plant was made “according to its kind.”  Every bird was made “according to its kind.”  Every sea creature was made “according to its kind.”  Every land animal was made “according to its kind.”  And what about man, God’s masterpiece? Something able to think, reason, question, worship, figure…

God did not take two monkeys and say, “Keep breeding and be fruitful – in several thousand years you will produce a creature who is able to think, reason, question, worship, and figure.  I will call him man.”

He said….

Genesis 1:26 ~ “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Conclusion: Land creatures did not come from birds or fish.  And man is not just a more intelligent form of ape.  God gave us all the animals to rule over and all of the green plants to eat. (v. 29) The whole earth is ours to fill.  (v. 28) Everything was made according to its kind.

Dilemma Solved!

1 Chronicles 16:31 ~ Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”

Love,

Ellyn

 ---


Side note: I’m not disputing microevolution here.  I’m talking about macroevolution.  Microevolution is like a wolf breeding into a samoyed.  We’re making new dog / cat / chicken / younameit breeds even today, and that doesn’t conflict with the ‘according to its kind’ way God made animals.  Macroevolution is like a wolf breeding into a giraffe.

Side note 2: All a person needs to do to go to heaven is ask Jesus into his/her life.  Believing in evolution or not believing in evolution has no say in that.

I'll Be Brave...And Give You Snippets

My dad gave me a quote once from some famous author that said something like, You should only publish your third novel.  I went searching for it, but I couldn't find out who said it.  Anyway, for me....

It's true.

I have two novels (one's more of a novella) that I wrote and completed before Torn Heart.  Sometimes I find myself thinking of them both as a total waste of time, but I have to catch myself and say, "NO!"

I may blush furiously when I read them now, but without them I probably would not have Torn Heart in book format today.  Those two "learner" novels helped make me the writer that I am.  

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"Hello?" Christine sounded as cheerful as ever.

"Hi, Christine.  This is Donna.  I'm at work."  The bitter tone in Donna's voice gave away that something was going on.  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

"All right, what did he do this time - burn down the store?"

Donna almost smiled.  "We-ell, part of it."  She waited for Christine's astonishment.

"What! Donna, that was a joke."

"That may have been some sort of joke, but I'm not joking now."  Donna kicked a piece of metal for emphasis.  It made a loud clanking sound.

"What'd he burn, then?"

"The right half of the storerooms."

Christine sighed in frustration.  "I wish I could come and see! It sounds so exciting over there, compared with here.  I won't be able to come home until tomorrow."

Donna grinned.  "And even then, you won't be able to come to work."  She heard Christine groan.

"You bet I will! I'll be there even earlier than Liz."

Donna laughed, said goodbye, and hung up.  She ran back to the shopping area.  Carol was just arriving, and someone had evidently told her about the fire.  Her usually neat hair was tousled, and her face was red with anger.  She stormed inside and picked up the phone on her desk.  

"That's it.  I'm calling the police."

"Stealthy Schemes and Tricky Plots" (yes, you may laugh) is a sixty-page book that I wrote when I was eleven / twelve.  It was more of a forced kind of writing, as I did it through my school.  If you find yourself needing motivation for your writing, stuck on grammar, spelling, and shallow characters, I totally recommend How to Write the Novel Way.  By the end of the school year, you'll have your own finished novel.  You'll have finished it because you had to, which is both a good and a bad thing, depending on what kind of writer and person you are.  :)  As I type this, I have SSTP in front of me on the computer desk.  It's self-published, meaning that my mom went and got it printed herself, then cut the paper to size and brought it in to Kinko's to have it bound.  It doesn't look professional by any means.  But right now I feel an odd and strong affection for my first little book.

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"Don't forget: I'll be there with my crutches, just as I promised!" Adam shouted.  There were so many more things he wanted to say.  His insides were crawling like a nest of ants.  So many things could go wrong! What if he never spoke to Thorn again? Or Austine, for that matter? But Robin was tugging at his arm.

"Come on," she said eagerly.  "Let's get a good spot as near as we can."

"Yeah.  Ross is helping the general so he'll join us later."

They made their way to the front of the Harthian army, grouped on one side of the fighting square.  The Braunjillian officer who had been chosen as speaker stepped proudly onto a block behind the fighting square.  "I am pleased to call the Braunjillian champion to the square," he bellowed with a voice like a buffalo's.

All the Braunjillian soldiers took off their caps and cheered, as if the combat was already won.

Adam held his breath as a pair of lithe legs strode to the fighting square.  A pair of shiny black boots clicked together.  Adam's eyes traveled upward.  The agile body of the General Kilian bent to the crowd.  Adam didn't mean to meet the general's gaze, but he did, and Kilian's eyes smirked into his with a flash of ice-blue confidence.  The general's eyes moved along the row, and then narrowed with puzzlement.

Adam tensed.  Did Kilian realize his daughter was missing?

For the Love of Harth.

My dearest love and my first actual novel.  I still love it dearly, but it embarrasses me now, and that's why I feel like it was so much a waste sometimes.  I was always so excited to work on it every day, and my dad and I went through it countless times editing and improving.  (The first/second drafts were a combination of Prince Caspian and Star Wars.) And the characters! I wrote this when I was into the Warriors series, so I named my second male lead "Thornclaw" and shortened it to "Thorn", cause obviously the former is not a name fit for a human when cats with names of that sort are all the rage.  Austine!! My little Mary-Sue is audacious, small, and dark-haired, all things I wasn't and still am not.  So, in a sentence: this story was my intro to the real life of an author - writing's more than just putting words down on paper.  It's about choosing the right words and molding them into different plot twists.  It's about not making your characters perfect ideals about what you'd like to be - cause that shows, and it can be embarrassing.  :)

Make that a few sentences.

I feel like I could talk forever about Harth.  *sighs*  I keep the finished draft in a binder with a cover art that says, "coming, winter 2008."  Didn't happen.

That's okay.

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"I am a fool, fool, fool!" The words beat out in time to Jacha's pounding footsteps.  She hissed them to herself as she rushed through the complicated maze of passage ways, which wound underneath the main level of the queen's castle like so many noodles in a plate of spaghetti.  Jacha knew her way much better than her pursuers did, and a herd of clumsy of Queen's Guards in full uniform seemed no match for the slight, wiry shadow of a girl as she pivoted on her toes to bolt ahead of them.

All the same, Jacha was furious with herself.  The expensive pin that had caught her eye had caused her to take a chance that turned out to be all too slim.  Its cold, gold weight rested in her clenched hand now, but it had not been worth the dangerous train of shouting men who ran at her heels.

"Get back here, little piece of vermin!" An arrow whizzed past Jacha's ear.  She thinned her lips with determination and gathered all her energy to sprint around the approaching twist in the passageway.

"Stop, thief!"

The call almost made Jacha laugh.  It was so pointless - what thief would stop at those words? No matter how assertive the men sounded, she was going to keep on running.  Jacha burst around the corner, her dark hair whisking against the wall.

A flash of black ahead alerted the running girl, and she skidded to a horrified stop.

TORN HEART! I'll save my extensive composition about how, when, and why it was written for several other posts.  Sorry about any typos you may catch - I didn't copy-paste this excerpt.  I just copied it out from my book - cause I could! (But notice - it's my third finished novel.  :)    

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 Haiven squinched her eyes shut.  She could not let those guards hear her cry, though a valley of sleeping prisoners was not a silent place.  Heavy breathing filled the air, mingled with snores, sharp cries from some, and spontaneous moans from others.  But all the same, she cringed as a wrenching sob broke through her lips.

A cool touch on her shoulder made her uncurl from her shivering ball of misery, and when she looked up, she saw the black-haired girl who had spoken with the general that day chained beside her.

“Haiven?” whispered the girl, her silvery eyes shadowed in the darkness.

Haiven furrowed her brow, distracted for a moment.  “How do you know me?”

“Our fathers were friends.  I remember you from when we were both younger.  I’m Celene.”

“Mmm.  Yes,” murmured Haiven faintly, her brow furrowing even deeper.  There had been so many children of her father’s friends that she could not keep them all straight.  But even so, it was comforting for them both to have a friendly face in the huge mob of strangers, and Haiven huddled down at Celene’s back, still unhappy, but feeling braver and ready to take on more Cliffhangers at break of dawn.

Hearts Unbroken (temporary title) is a story I'm writing with Whisper.  We have 90 pages and six main characters.  And we take turns writing chapters, sometimes both sharing in on one.  I was writing when this when Torn Heart "attacked" me and I had to write it.  But this one's still plugging along.  It's gonna be great! When we get some more plot threads woven in there.

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There may be spoilers here.  Sorry.

Ren looked at Grailyn with a sinking feeling in her stomach.  She hadn’t remembered that they had no proof of their claims.  That was a grim blunder that made light of something very serious. 

            

“We can give you proof,” Grailyn said.  “We know where they meet.  Remember the number on that old house at all, Ren?”

        

 She shook her head, cringing at the prince’s skeptical look and wishing with all her heart that she had written it down somewhere.  If the prince didn’t believe them, they really would be hung.  She had heard that hanging didn’t hurt at all, but she wasn’t sure if she believed it.  After all, who could come back from the dead to give the truth?   

          

But one look at Grailyn and she swallowed her fright.  He wasn’t about to give up and she shouldn’t either. 

“And all this about my Merriam being a spy,” Cyrus began.  “It’s wrong, I say, just burning wrong.  Imagine such a beauty put on a ship with leering, stealing ruffians like pirates.”  He spat on the stone floor.  “Climbing riggings and swabbing decks – bah!”

“I don’t believe she swabbed any decks,” said Grailyn.  “But she wanted something for her father, that’s sure.” He leaned forward, nose to nose with the prince.  “Listen, Highness.  We can give you proof that Shiloh’s in the wrong.  And we won’t try to escape.”

We won’t? Ren poked him hard, but he went on without seeming to notice.

“What do you say, Highness? Do you want to see the truth?”

Prince Cyrus was silent.  He seemed to be contemplating whether to risk his life to Shiloh’s magic, or risk the escape of two dangerous criminals.  He turned to look Grailyn and Ren full in the face, his decision made.  Ren’s heart constricted and she clenched her fingers around a handful of soft pillow.

“No,” said Prince Cyrus, and stalked out of the jail, with the parchment crumpled in one fist.

Coming in an unestimatible amount of time: Seaspear! I love this story - it's turning out just how I hoped it would! I'm around 90 pages with this one too.  :)

I hope you enjoyed my (very long) writing history, friends!  Congrats to anyone who read the whole thing :) I'd love to hear more about your own writing history, if you're "willin' ", as Mr.  Barkis of David Copperfield would say.

- Ellyn

Giveaway Winners Announced!

Well, I know it isn't even 8 in the morning yet, but I just couldn't wait to find out who won my giveaway.

Are you excited too?

Alright, here we go.

The winner of the first copy of Torn Heart is.......

Congratulations, Lily!! Email me with your address so I can send off your copy as soon as possible.

But we're not done yet, folks.  There's still one more copy that needs a home, and I'm sure it will be well taken care of by the lovely...

Hannah, thanks so much for entering :) Please send your address to my email (above) to claim your copy.

And to all my followers - thank you for making this giveaway a success.  I did not think I'd get so many entries! I wish I could afford to send you all a free copy, but that is why I'm not my own market manager.  :P

However, you can still buy a copy of Torn Heart here, if you're interested ^_^

Stay tuned for my next post - hint: writing snippets!

Love, 

Ellyn

Giveaway Closed

The Torn Heart giveaway is officially closed.

Either tomorrow or the next day, you will discover our two lucky winners!

- Ellyn

Tea to Try

With Christmas over, everyone's settling in for a long hard winter.  (Except Southerners - pore things.) When sharp winds and plummeting temps drive you indoors, brew a cozy cup of tea and settle down with your favorite book for the afternoon.

Tea seems to make everything feel a little cheerier, and its a writer's best friend.

Here are a few of my favorite cups.

(None of these are my images.)

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Type: Black


         - Helps lower cholesterol
         - Helps your teeth, skin, and bones stay healthy
         - May help keep your blood sugar at the right level

My favorite tea in all the world! Super Irish Breakfast is a hearty tea that's a good substitute if you dislike coffee.  It has a creamy, robust taste and goes down smoothly.  I have mine with a splash of milk and a spoonful of sugar.

Type: Black

If you can't find Irish Breakfast, English will do...but I think it tastes a little "dirtier" than the Irish.

Type: Black

Needless to say, I had this on December 25th and it was very good.  It's silky and light with a hint of spice.  Take with milk and sugar.

Type: Herbal

          - Good source of antioxidants / vitamins (Especially Vitamin C)

          - Other benefits depend on what herbs are used

          - Caffeine free

This fresh and minty tea is tasty and has sentimental value for me.  A long time ago, my grandma would come over every Friday with a box of doughnuts and we'd have mint medley and sit around the table scraping off frosting with our fingers.  We still get to do that sometimes - but doughnuts every week can't be very good for you :) Many people use sugar in herbal tea, but I prefer honey.

Type: Herbal

Soothe your nerves with a cup of this chamomile.  Take with a spoon of honey. 

---

Those are my favorite bagged teas.  But there's also loose leaf tea.  It's been a long time since we've had any black loose leaf tea, but that was all pretty good.  It's just kind of a hassle to make, so we switched back to bag tea.  Something my mom does still make (which is very good) is mix Teavana's Blueberry Bliss with Teavana's Peach Bloom.  It's fruity, red, and has a hint of candyish taste.  Take with honey.  

Type: Rooibos

          - Caffeine free

          - Helps digestion

          - Good for skin / complexion

          

What are some of your favorite teas? Are they White (great for complexion)? Oolong (burns fat)? Or green (which is very healthy but I think is disgusting)? Whatever you like, I'd love to hear about it.

Happy brewing!

- Ellyn

P.S.  There is only ONE MORE DAY for you to enter my giveaway! If you haven't, there's not much time left! :O

The Actor Game

Remember when I played "the actor game" for Torn Heart here? This is a fun game that gives you an excuse to avoid writing...which I happen to be doing right now with Seaspear.
In my version of the Actor Game, you are allowed to use people who have deceased and younger versions of people who have grown up.

So, without further delay, I give you...

Ren (no last name yet) played by Rachael Henley.  The only change Henley would have to make here is chop her hair.  Ren's a sailor, so she wears it short.

image not mine

image not mine

Grailyn Beckton played by...well...let me explain.  Grailyn is the lead male, but I can never, ever find anyone to play lead males in the Actor Game.  So, if Reese Witherspoon had a brother who looked like an exact male version of herself, it would be my Grailyn.  Dear, cynical, quick-witted, bossy, studious Grailyn.  He has to be my favorite.

image not mine

Next, we have Merriam.  Finding her actress took a really long time, but I finally found someone.  I've settled for a young version of Winona Ryder.  Okay, hang "settled".  She's pretty much perfect.

There's me beauty.

not my image

not my image

not my image

Shiloh, one of the "bad guys", is played by Geoffrey Rush.  I did not pick him because he was Barbossa in Pirates of the Carribean - Shiloh isn't even a pirate.  I saw him in Les Miserables and knew he was perfect.  Look at him! *gives happy shriek*

not my image - who would have guessed

And last and probably the least (:D), I'm toying with a younger Christian Bale for playing Prince Cyrus.  Maybe. 

not my image

guess what? this is not my image! 

Tell me what you think! And be sure to try the Actor Game yourself, if you're suffering from writer's block.  I don't know if this helped me or not...

Well, I'm off to bed.  But do you know how I spent the evening? *laughs* Fencing with my brothers and making orange muffins for breakfast tomorrow morning.  That's me - I skip from mighty warrior to sweet little homemaker all in a moment.  I admit I might have stopped fencing because of the hearty whack my brother gave me on the index finger.  It started to bleed - I was kind of proud ^_^ 

Farewell, friends.  

-- Ellyn