Content Call: I Need Books To Review!

Let's get straight to the point here, friends - I'm back, and I'm in business.

That's right - the big project for this year is going to be the beginning of book reviews. Brilliant, right? I finally get around to doing that thing that I used to do but do no longer but have been planning to do properly for the better part of three years.

All sarcasm aside - I'm super excited to get started on this, and even more excited because it means you guys get to join in. You see, for something like this, for once my own self is not sufficient (if ever it had pretentions to being such a thing).

For book reviews, I am going to need something from you. Your souls.

. . . And by that I mean your favourite books, of course. Same thing, after all.

My little list here will likely keep me sated for a few weeks, maybe longer if my work pile mounts up, but nobody wants to watch a video about a book they don't have a lot of interest in. Or a video blogger who isn't interested in taking recommendations.

So, my dear readers, you silent army lurking somewhere behind my view count but never quite making it to the comment boxes, time to screw your courage to the sticky place and offer up your darlings on the altar of my page-lighting, spine-bending, tale-devouring ambition.

Come now, don't be shy. I don't bite. Often . . .

~ Charley R

P.S. Fear not, there are plenty of new projects in the pipeline for this blog, too. But you'll hear about those in their own time. Watch this space.

Tauriel, Timing, and Triumphant(ish) Returns!

The Desolation of Smaug came out in December - around about the time I was doing the thing I've been doing since earlier that month. That thing being Not Blogging. 

Luckily, part of my New Year's Resolution is to get back on the blogging train and return to the blogosphere, to haunt the space and fill it with wonderful wordy things!

… Which is exactly why I'm marking my return with a video. About The Desolation of Smaug. Or, more accurately, about Tauriel.

I made a post about my views on Tauriel, all based on trailer material, articles, interviews, and fan opinion and theory that began to circulate once news of her existence hit the news.

And, the day after I went to see the film, I made a second video, based on the concrete proof of the film itself.

This, in case you hadn't quite worked it out, is it. It's about as opinionated as the last one, but with fewer irritating jump cuts and more rants about Peter Jackson being a nerk.

I'll be back next week with another post! Weekly posts are my plan so far, and we shall see how that pans out. 

In lieu of this new plan, of course, I am ever open to suggestions from you lovely people about things you'd like to see! More videos? No videos? Posts about my own books, books I've read, books I plan to read? Books in the thematic sense? Chicken nuggets vs fish fingers? Let me know!

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and find a house to live in next year. Like an adult.

… I am not ready for this.

~ Charley R

Thoughts On Series

I still have no idea whether that's the correct way to write the plural, but I did a video about it anyway!

~ Charley R

The Silmarillion - Love, Tears and Rambling.

Don't get me wrong - I love the Silmarillion. But what better way to show my appreciation than by making a (poorly crafted) video highlighting some of the things that mean other people might not love it as much as I do?

Feel free to leave comments! I'd love to get a discussion going here.

To This Day

I wish I could say I was sorry for sharing this. But I am not, and I never will be.

Sometimes painful things need sharing.

Sometimes beautiful things need sharing.

Things that are both of these things, and a thousand other too, always, always need sharing.

The Fires of Mount Mallory's

For those still concerned, I can confirm that the move to Wordpress will not be happening any time soon.

The reason, for once, is not my own crippling laziness. It is, in fact, the work of the school internet and its dislike of certain blogging platforms. To illustrate: in order to check up on the posts of those I do follow on Wordpress, I have to first go to a Blogger blog, bypass the filter for Blogger, then go to another blog to bypass for the forums and blogs category, and then I follow the link to the Wordpress blog . . . and have to bypass another block in order to view it in its correct format, because otherwise everything from titles to sidebar graphics is put through the mother of all blenders.

So, no fear, I'll not be departing from the shores of Blogger any time soon. Come again in the summer, when I will probably be found wandering the skyline in fits of existential wonder, and I may give it a think again.

In other news, St Mallory's Forever! continues to make progress! And that's where you come in.

Would any of you be willing to spare a guest post for Miriam and I to pop by? We're not just there for promotional purposes, of course - we're pretty flexible with what we'll write about, either collaboratively or on our own - but with publication drawing ever nearer, we'd love a chance to reach out and say to people "Look, we wrote a book!"

I like to think we might even be vaguely inspiring, and most probably rather entertaining. So, do let me know if you'd be willing to open up a slot for us to come and spread our ecstatic fits of book-fuelled bouncing!

One last thing before I go - I really, really, want to show you this. It's the pinnacle of my Maths-based achievement. It's also an exhibit of some of my finest scary laughter.

~ Charley R

St Mallory's Forever! - Official Promo Video

Video compiled by Miriam Joy

Special thanks from me to my not-so-little brother, for his valiant attempts at impersonating a tripod.

500 Miles of Dartmoor

No, the title of this post is not just an awful pun on the song choice used in this video . . . honest! Stop looking at me like that!

Anyway, here you have it, all edited up and prettified, as best as iMovie will allow me.

Enjoy!

However, before you go, I have a very, very, VERY important question to ask you.

What would you like me to do my next "Writerly Tips" about? I have a few ideas, but I'd be really interested to see what you guys want. After all, it's your amusement that I write them for, isn't it? No subject is too nitpicky or too daft (unless you want me to do a post specifically about how to decide on a colour for your heroine's toenail polish, I might struggle there).

~Charley R

Operation: Exeat

Operation: Exeat is a go.

Repeat, Operation: Exeat is a go.

Begin in 30 seconds, repeat, begin in 30 seconds.

Phase One, Operation: Exeat, initiate.

Phase Two, stand by for action.

Begin in 20 seconds.

Phase One complete,

Phase Two, initiate.

Begin in 10 seconds.

Phase Three, begin initation.

Phase Two, complete.

Phase thee, begin initiation.

Phase Three complete:

Begin ... Begin ... Begin.

Operation: Exeat is a go.

Initiate Distraction Sequence.

Distraction Sequence Initiated.

... Now run.

~ Charley R

In Which iMovie Makes Me Look Daft

Here be the link to the actual vid, just in case this fails horribly:

http://youtu.be/mzQw7oMcQHM

~ Charley R

A Birthday, the Hobbit Way

To the astonishment of her family, her friends, everything that moves (and several things that don't), Charley Robson has survived another trip around the sun. This brings her total of survived rotations up to 17 - her longest record yet!

She doesn't know who's more surprised - herself, or the stool she just tripped over.

And now, reverting from third person before I confuse my split personalities any more than they already are, I give you .... THE OBLIGATORY BIRTHDAY POST!

Words cannot express how long I have been deliberating over what to write here. 

1) Should I give you an update on my life right now? - Nah, I'm not doing anything beyond revising, and I've whined about that enough already.

2) Should I do a special post about birthdays? - Pretty pointless, considering they're nothing special. Everyone has them after all.

3) Should I write a deep and meaningful post all about the trials of growing up, complete with examples from my own life, all topped off with an inspiring but blatantly obvious message? - Tried. Failed. Bought the t-shirt. Twice.

Nah. That's not going to work.

And, after much deliberation, I decided to follow in the small hairy footsteps of the Hobbits, and do a backwards birthday. 

This is my birthday present to all of you.

Enjoy!

- Charley R

Of Cookery and Crowd-Pleasing

Today has been a good day for me. For a start, I actually managed to sleep - something I haven't done properly for several days, due to a combination of stress, noisy neighbours, the tail-end effects of a fever and some seriously whacked out dreams - one of which involved Benedict Cumberbatch teaching me Quantum Physics on the Mobius Strip while he was wearing the Fourth Doctor's scarf. The ultimate nerdy dream, if only I didn't reserve a particular hatred for Physics and have never watched Sherlock...

But, with a good start like that, it was no wonder that my day's been rather good. No pressing homework needs over the weekend, handed in the first draft of my English coursework (something that's been irritating me for weeks), and - for once - not had too much pressing homework over the weekend.

Which, at long last, allowed me to start drafting the beginning of my trilogy rewrite. I have multiple ideas of how I could start it, but today I took one of those ideas and ran with it. Words could not describe the general weirdness of being back in the world I have been out of for so long. Despite the changes I've made to it, it was like walking into a house you used to live in as a kid and discovering how easy it is just to imagine it's all yours again.

But enough soppy sentimental stuff - the main reason I'm here today is to ask a very important question.

What do you want to see on my blog?

For you old timers, you know I do a lot of random stuff when the mood takes me; I find you entertaining videos, pictures and animated gifs, I do rambles about music, I post my poetry, even an extract from my stories every now and again, and I've started my new writerly tips series.

But, what I want to know is, what do you guys want to see more of? If my poetry and story extracts are rubbish, I won't bother with them. If you think me finding idiotic pictures is a waste of my time, I'll stop that too. Or maybe you'd prefer a change in the way I do my posts? Would you like more pictures in the posts? Would you like me to post more or less than I do? Would you like me to start typing in Klingon or Quenya?

You get the idea. Let me know what you want in the comments!

And now, to celebrate my particularly happy day, here is a cut scene from my favourite movies (and, for that matter, books) of all time. Though it's hard to build on perfection, I seriously wish the moviemakers had kept this scene in Return of the King.

And Not a Single "Are We There Yet?" Either.

******

Busy Charley is busy.

Proper posts will come over the weekend - promise! Fling me into a flaming chasm of doom if I don't.

In the meantime ... live long and prosper.

Turn up your Speakers and Prepare for Epicness...

I had images of the characters from my Aeserion Trilogy singing this the other day ... I just had to put the song up here to illustrate its awesomeness.

Some day, I will have a character who introduces themself as "kicker of ass".

Some day...

I Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts!

Yes, that's right, the holidays are over. Personally I think there must be some sort of Time Thief running around, because I could have sworn my holidays were longer than this. Whoever you are, Time Thief, bring them back or I will hunt you down and stab you to death with a rusty spork. Seriously.

But, I have to admit, compared to what most people seem to be feeling in their Facebook status, I am actually rather looking forward to being back in good ol' Dun Holme. It's Lower Sixth year, therefore I have dumped, murdered and buried every subject that I hold in distaste, and am left with a schedule of only my favourites - and a lot more free sessions than I'm used to. This - if I work as well as I remember doing on essays - means I will hopefully be able to get a lot more work done during the day, and therefore have more time off in the evening to work on my writing.

Plus, because it's the Sixth Form, there are lots of perks - the school suit is a lot nicer than the uniform, though I must still malign it out of principle (don't get me started on that rant - it's quite scary), I get to sit in a comfy chair during house meetings (hee hee, I said comfy chair :3) and I get MY OWN ROOM! A proper room too, not just a cubicle on a corridor! Though I will miss the coridoor banter (and pray to God I'm not put in the Quad in Ald. West, because that means I'd get locked out every night moving from my prefectly duties in Dun Holme, and get no sleep whatsoever), I'm looking forward to a little bit more privacy. Plus, less things to distract me when I'm trying to work or write ... or do anything, really.

But enough about me. There's also some good news for you, my loyal readers!
My school life is a lot more exciting than my home one - I can tell you all about wonderful muddy adventures with the CCF, about funny drama exercises, about random incidents with friends and, really, anything else you want to know about boarding school - and probably a few things you don't.

Anyway, I'd probably better get back to packing ... I shall leave you with this! The epic song from the epic A Very Potter Musical, which, funnily enough, gave the title of this post its name.
If you watch nothing else on YouTube this year, watch this. Trust me.

A Multi-Purpose Post!

Well, would you look at that, a dual-purpose post!
Merlin's Underpants, this is exciting!

Anyway, as well as being an obligatory "I'm not dead yet!" post, this little monster also serves a couple more purposes ...

The first, and most important, is to let all you lovely people know that "The Scribblings" tab is finally up and running! Sorry that only two of the works have links - I haven't finished writing Legend yet, and I never posted the NaNovel due to its holey plot, lack of continuity and overall suckiness. However, if you want to know what sick, twisted creation my mind spawned last November, feel free to read the synopsis!
If you want to know more about what's going on in any of the stories (trust me, no question is too odd!) Then leave me a little comment below and I'll happily do a little "Twenty Questions" blog post to answer all your quieries :)

And the next purpose .... there isn't one xD
To make up for it, here's an awesome video I found on YouTube. Who thinks this should be my new theme song?

-Spook

Whovian Hilarity

Any Doctor Who fans out there? Well, check these out, they are absolutely brilliant. I nearly fell off my bed watching the first one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1WRX9uROtE - complete Doctor, Martha, Jack madness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlUvUFH_0j8&NR=1 - Just ... bahahahaha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAk2HjHSGbo&feature=related - Dalek, Dalek, TRUCK!

Enjoy! ... or should that be, EXTERMINATE!

Catherine Tate - The Offensive Translator

I have watched this video six times, and each and every time I have cracked up. I find none of these language caricatures offensive (unlike some of the people who commented on the video on youtube - silly people =P).

Watch it and see - I hope you will find it as hilarious as I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY66ZJ0TFUI