May 19th, 1536: A Tribute to Anne Boleyn

I know I’m not supposed to be blogging during my official leave of absence, but as many of you know, today is May 19th, the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution. And I couldn’t pass up this occasion to pay tribute to someone I deeply admire and respect.

All the ladies had stunning hair thanks to Andrea and Jenna!

In November 2012, several of my friends and I got together and shot a short film regarding the extraordinary life of Anne Boleyn. The final result was approximately 20 minutes, depicting her life from her time with Margaret of Austria to her execution in 1536. Our budget was literally nothing. My camera is nothing special, and neither is the editing program I used. Everything we used in the film we previously owned or made. The costumes, the set, the weapons (we had swords, axes, arrows, bows…ninja stars…they didn’t make it into the film). Everyone chipped in and contributed (we had some amazing hair stylists and seamstresses), and I think it’s safe to say we all had a blast, and everyone, especially the star of our film, learned a great deal about Anne and what it was like during her final days.

The following clip is short and just a peek at what we accomplished that day.

The beautiful Anne Boleyn, played by the equally beautiful and talented Kenzie.

There are so many things I didn’t include in this 90 seconds — George Boleyn’s execution, Anne’s time with Mary, Queen of France, the birth of Elizabeth. Each person involved in this project is so talented and ridiculously cooperative, enthusiastic, and helpful. I was such a bossy cow of a director it’s a wonder they didn’t kill me before the day was out — and most of them want to make another film this year!

I’ve been pestering Kenzie for years, saying that she shares a startling resemblance to Anne. When I asked her if she would like to play Anne in a film, she sort of laughed and sighed and said, “Do I really have a choice?” She was remarkable; she did everything I threw at her and then some. She brought Anne Boleyn to life, and I personally think she did a marvelous job.

So here it is. In memory of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England. May 19th, 1536.

Thanks to Kenzie, Greg, Maggie, Andrea, Sam, Devin, Zozie, Jenna, Emily, Melinda, Tim, and Joan for their cooperation, assistance, talent, and patience. I love you all!

For last year’s tribute to Anne Boleyn, click here.

Confession of a Terrible Blogger

Once upon a time, I was a good blogger. I posted three or four times a week and was pretty good at keeping up with reading/liking/commenting on your blogs. I’m not saying I was perfect, but I feel alright about the blogger I used to be.

Alas, that blogger was slayed sometime after October/November. My posts have been sporadic (or less so), my reading of your blogs pitiful and embarrassingly non-existent. It’s not because your blogs aren’t awesome! They are. Truly. Many of you are the type of bloggers I aspire to be.

I just don’t have the motivation/concentration/time to sit down and just enjoy WordPress anymore, whether it be for myself or for you guys.

And I feel really guilty about it. About once a week I’ll think to myself, “Libby, you should go write a blog post. And read some blogs. And leave super nice comments on ALL of them. And discover new blogs to follow. And keep following them. You really should, Libby.”

But do I ever listen to the little voice in my head?

No.

Sometimes I get as far as turning on my computer somewhere beneath all the junk on my desk and opening up Google Chrome. I’ll click open YouTube to listen to some music as I prepare myself for my amazing return to blog stardom (return? or ascend? I wouldn’t say I was ever a blogstar ) and, well, you know the rest. I’ll hear an awesome song, and decide to post it to Facebook. And then I spend the next hour clicking through pictures of Anne Boleyn and Lord of the Rings (though not usually in the same photo) and before I know it it’s time to get something done that I should have done three hours ago, or three days ago.

You all know it, and I know a lot of you have gone through similar stages in your blogging careers. Some of you may have given up on your blogging dreams and are no longer with us. Some of you pulled your act together and kept going for the rest of us to enjoy.

I can’t stomach either of those right now.

I know I can’t dedicate myself to re-becoming the blogger I was last year, I don’t have the time, but I don’t want to tell you all I’ve decided to abandon Blogland for greater adventures.

….So, this is my lame compromise.

I’m announcing an official leave of absence. During this absence, I plan on devoting as much time as I can (and time is a slippery little bugger) to my current WIP. (Yes! I have a WIP! Hallelujah!)

Now, during this time, I’m sure I’ll get a stellar idea for a blog post, but worry not! The urge will be satisfied. I will write the blog post and save it to my hard drive. And once my leave of absence is over, I should (hopefully) have enough accumulated enough blog posts to make a bit of a comeback as my former blogger self.

The lovely blogger I used to be got awards like this from other lovely bloggers like Diane, Darlene, Dreampunk Geek, and Writing Underdog. Thanks guys!

I don’t know how long this leave of absence will be. I’m going to say something like…until I get 30 000 words done on my WIP. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but my writing stints are short and sweet and the IP part of my WIP is very IP. Who knows how long that will take?

I’m really going to try to get back on track with reading your blogs, however. It’s been too long, and it will be longer until I decide to make my insanely successful comeback in a couple months. I wouldn’t want you to forget about me, and I certainly want to keep myself up to date on what’s happening in your sections of Blogland.

I feel like a politician with all my promises.

Sigh.

Farewell until next time, my bloggy friends!

Hugs!

~Libby

 

 

BUT WAIT.

THERE’S A POST SCRIPT.

WHOAA.Click for source. 

PS: I do have a kind-of-not-really-legitimately acceptable excuse for my recent weeks of non-blogging. I’m actually still blogging. Just not here, and not as me. I mentioned back in November I had a new idea for a YA novel, and you might even remember her name (though I went back later and changed it to try to deceive you). The character in this idea was a seventeen-year-old blogger/eco-hippie by the name of Storm Rose Bennett-Clark, and you might happen to follow her blog, which launched back in March. During the winter months, I tried putting her story into a novel, and it just wasn’t working — so I decided, somewhat impulsively — to create a blog for her, and tell her story that way.

I’m sure some of you pieced that together already but…Storm isn’t real, and neither are her brother Mica or her friend Hanna. They’re characters I created, characters who may or may not end up in a book one day. They’re not involved in my current WIP, but anything is possible. Pedro the Gnome, however, is real. He sits on my bookshelf, hating the permanent smile etched on his face when he just wants to cry. All four of these characters have Twitter accounts, and you can watch them interact with each other and interact with them yourself.

Storm Bennett-Clark: @StormRoseBlog

Mica Bennett-Clark: @MicaIsaMineral

Hanna Withrow: @HannaTheTerribl (her Twitter account is run by Zozie! Thank for being such an awesome Hanna-impersonator!)

Pedro the Gnome: @GnomeThePedro

That is my confession, my dark secret. But, if you enjoy my writing (which I hope you do) and enjoy Storm, Mica, Hanna, and Pedro, then you can get the best of both worlds by reading her blog, leaving comments, and Tweeting them. I think Storm is going to start blogging more about her personal life in the next couple weeks, and you get to hear all about Jonas Blythe and learn more about Mlle Rousseau!

And if Storm leaves a comment or likes your blog or even Tweets you, you should feel pretty honoured to have a fictional character knocking at your virtual door! Can you imagine if JK Rowling got Harry Potter a Twitter account and blog?

Spring! …Spring?

SPRING IS COMING.

Or at least, it was. Today’s ongoing, albeit light, snowfall kind of ruined the point of this post, but whatever.

The last few weeks have been delightfully spring-ish — the melting snow, the scent of last year’s grass, the muddy mess that destroys any shoes that aren’t rubber boots.

It’s made me very anxious.

This time last year I was in the midst of a writing frenzy, attempting to finish a novel by the beginning of May and that I had started in February(ish). I was writing all the time, everywhere. In the woods, in my room, in the car, before breakfast, during supper, until the wee hours of the morning. This time last year I was writing between 3000 and 6000 words a day, seven days a week. I ate, drank, thought, slept, breathed writing.

And, as you all pretty well know by now, I haven’t really done a whole lot since then. I told myself I deserved a break, but I’ve come to the conclusion I exhausted all my drive to write. Aside from a few brainstorms, a dozen or so poems, and the odd essay or two, I haven’t committed myself to any heavy writing in almost a year.

However, these last weeks, with their wet-ground scent and snow-melt dripping sounds, something has been triggered. Muscle memory? My brain and fingers remember these sounds and tastes and smells…and something is stirring. My body has come to associate the mucky month of March with insane amounts of heavy writing. I went for a walk the other day and realized after about ten minutes that I was thinking of my fantasy novel.

What does this mean?

Nothing, at the moment, other than the fact that I’m distracted, especially when I’m outside.

There’s just too much going on right now, unfortunately, for me to act upon this bizarre reaction my body is having to the weather. Hopefully I can bottle it up and save it for later. Does it work that way? Well, no, but if I tried to simulate spring by splattering mud all over my shoes and melting ice cubes above my head when June arrives…

Silly, Libby.

I will try to blog more often, though! I’ve missed you all!

Aaand, here a few blogs I think ya’ll should check out if you haven’t already:

The Storm Project

Janice In Nunavut

I hear you.

Welcome to my Blog Launch!

Reblogged from The Storm Project:

Hello, Internet! Welcome to the launch of The Storm Project, which, if you haven't figured out already, is a blog. My blog, specifically.

What happens at a blog launch, I'm not entirely sure, but feel free to make a cup of tea and mingle among the, er, crowd. Take notice of all the twinkle lights I put up earlier, glittering in the low light of the early 1900s theatre against varnished wood, and the artfully stacked books, and the bean bag chairs by open fires so you can talk about your favourite books with a fellow book lover.

Read more… 1,066 more words

The Storm Project has launched at last! Why not saunter over and say hello? You might just bump into Oscar Wilde or Jane Austen...

The Storm Project (one day to go!)

Yeah yeah yeah. I know. I haven’t blogged regularly since before Christmas and suddenly I’m popping posts everyday…and they’re about some random-sounding girl named Storm.

Your curiosity will soon be sated, however! You will finally be properly introduced! We’re launching the blog tonight/tomorrow (depending on where you live) but things are still rapidly changing and evolving. I’m ridiculously busy with this project, and it’s not even my blog! Customized headers and backgrounds, themes, editing, Twitter, Facebook, logos, promoting — it’s a lot, which why a team of elite bloggers, readers, writers, friends, and secret agents have been selected to help Storm out on her blogging journey.

Not really. It kind of feels like that, though.

Don’t worry. I have a few blog posts of my own up my sleeve, and once Storm’s blog gets underway I’ll try to blog more. Try being the key word here.

BUT THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT ME.

Storm’s blog — which, in her interview with me yesterday, was announced to be called “Storm’s Blog” — will now be called “The Storm Project.” Her Twitter is still @StormRoseBlog because @TheStormProject was already taken (???), but her Facebook has been renamed and can be found here.

Go like, follow, and whatnot. I believe Pedro the Gnome is trying to convince Storm to let him get a Twitter account, so stay tuned for that…I might also invest in a Twitter account at last. Maybe. There’s a lot of maybes going around, isn’t there? Is there a vaccine for that?

Let them grumble!

Oh, by the way: the little pics we used to ‘design’ those little promotional ads in this post were found by using Google Image with key words like “clip art” “nature” “adorable.” The websites they were from were mycutegraphics.com; bestclipartblog.com; dker.com, and webclipart.about.com (at least according to the notes Storm sent me)…

Interview with Storm Bennett-Clark!

Look who it is, guys!

Well, you can’t see her, but trust me, she’s here, at least virtually.

Storm Bennett-Clark, who, as I mentioned before, will be running a personal blog to be launched on TUESDAY MARCH 11, has stopped in for a little visit and an interview. We’re loving this whole promotional aspect of her online presence. Can you tell?

All right. Here we go.

What will your blog be called?

Storm: Probably just “Storm’s Blog,” because I’m original like that, but the URL address will be something like ‘beaniehatsandtea.’ It depends on what’s available, but as soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know!

What made you want to join us lovely people here in Blogland?

Storm: Hahaha, a lot of things. I really enjoy reading blogs and watching vlogs, which is something I only started doing recently. I enjoy the community aspects that can grow up around them, and the social interactions that people all over the world have with each other really fascinate me. And, as I hope to become a journalist someday in the not-so-far future, I thought it would be a good chance to hone my writing skills.

And your life is pretty fascinating.

Storm: Haha, yes, some people think so.

Are you going to incorporate your personal life in your blog?

Storm: Definitely. All 4 of my grandparents lived in the States in the 1960s, and were avid members of the social movement involving hippies. That’s how my parents met. Today, the Bennett-Clarks are what we like to call “eco-hippies” — this basically means we try to live as environmentally friendly as possible; instead of being commercial consumers we try to focus on other things, like family, literature, learning, arts, yoga, organic eating, and self-expression. We don’t think of ourselves as hipsters (hipsters never think of themselves as hipsters, anyway), and I’ll talk more about this in the blog.

What else can we expect from you?

Storm: I would say to expect nothing too unexpected. I like schedules and outlines, but being spontaneous is something I enjoy as well. I’m going to talk about things like my family (twin brother Mica, two younger sisters Sepia and Moonflower, best friend Hanna, awesome parents), my hobbies (reading, music, crafting, drinking tea, movies…eating), and opinions (feminism, hipsterism, conformity), and how I generally live my day to day life. 

Will you tell us a little about Pedro?

Storm: Ah, yes. Pedro. He’s an interesting little guy. He’s a wanted fugitive by the Global Garden Gnome  (GGGG), for reasons which will be explained on the blog. When Hanna was in England a few years ago for vacation, he crawled into her backpack and smuggled himself into Canada. She and Pedro didn’t exactly get along, so he came to live with me. Hanna calls him my souvenir, but he’s decided to be my “sidekick.”

I’m intrigued. Okay, just a few quick questions. Favourite band?

Storm: Bon Iver. Or Daughter.

Favourite food?

Storm: Peach yogurt.

Favourite colour?

Storm: Orange.

Favourite book?

Storm: I personally don’t think that’s a question. It’s unanswerable. I like Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, The Hobbit, The Inheritance Cycle, Little Women, The Picture of Dorian Gray…just to name a few of my very favourites.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Storm: I’m excited to finally join Blogland and hopefully start building relationships with readers and sharing my story! I know Pedro is, too. If anyone has any questions, they can leave them here for you to answer or stop by my Facebook or Twitter! See you all on Tuesday!

• Storm’s Facebook
• Storm’s Twitter

Reminder that the launch of Storm’s blog will be on Tuesday! She’s really looking for help promoting, so feel free to share the links or any of the little promo pics we made (see this post).

Copyright Storm Rose Bennett-Clark.

BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER

Hi guys.

Did the title get your attention?

I hope so. I love chocolate chip cookies. They’re beautiful.

However, I attempted to use a misleading title to get you to read this.

I’m sorry if I insulted you, but I thought it was clever. *cough* cheap *cough*

I’m really just doing some more promoting for my friend Storm. In case you haven’t read my last post, Storm and I, with the help of a few friends, have been working hard the last few weeks on creating a blog detailing events in her life, hobbies, opinions, tutorials, and whatnot. She’s a truly amazing person and her blog is going to be fantastic!

She now has Facebook (you can like the box over on the right side of your screen) and Twitter! She’ll gladly follow anyone back and is eager to chat with you all! @StormRoseBlog or http://www.twitter.com/StormRoseBlog

I’ll be promoting heavily for Storm and she’ll take a visit here over the next day or so for an interview.

Stay tuned!

…and here’s a chocolate chip cookies recipe, claiming to be the best. I haven’t tried them, but faith is key here. They look delightful.

Mmmm!