Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

So I'm a true crime fan. This is nothing new; I think half of my posts this summer were about the Last Podcast on the Left, a horror/true crime podcast. And as someone who likes true crime, I do like learning about a lot of cases, a lot of atrocities, a lot of terrible shit that happened. It's a kind of morbid fascination, and let me tell you, a little creepy to pull out this info at the supper table, but, eh. But only a couple of cases have really gotten to me. I mean, all of them have gotten to me in the sense that I am horrified by them, but I'm talking, did further research on my own, watched documentaries, maybe wrote something based on it? Basically they (and i'm not saying this is healthy, it probably isn't) consume me for a little bit. Especially if I end up writing something either based on it or inspired by it. The first case that did this was Columbine. This one actually got me before I started listening to LPOTL (their Columbine episode isn't act...

So, I've been pretty set on doing a sequel to an already existing project for NaNo. That's what I figured I'd be doing. And it might still be what I'm doing. I mean, I don't know--for the past four years of NaNo, I've just kind of waited until I woke up on November 1st and decided then. I haven't 'created' the novel until the first, even if I had a rough idea of what I was going to do and what I was excited for. Last month, there was an idea that captured me and I was like, hm, maybe I'll do that instead of this companion/sequel. But I talked to one of my critique partners and she talked me down and it was fine. But then I got another idea just a few days ago, based on some stuff I've been listening to podcasts about/watching documentaries about/being temped to purchase books about, and it's honestly a lot to put it off. I feel like next year will be the year of true crime-y first drafts, because I've got about three ideas sitting...

November's next week already, I guess, and that means it's time for NaNoWriMo . I've been doing NaNo for years, this will be my seventh, and I would never even consider missing my one non-guilty first draft of the year. It's maybe dumb to feel guilty about writing first drafts, but if left unchecked, I will spew out a million thirty thousand word tiny little novel-like beasts, so a little bit of guilt is probably good here, because without it I would never rewrite or revise anything. This year's NaNo, for me, is a companion/sequel to something I wrote a couple of years ago and is probably the best thing I've ever written. There is no demand for this sequel; the first book hasn't been agented or anything (I'm even taking a break on querying because I think the first chapter needs to be rewritten, and I'll look at it again post-NaNo), but I like to have at least a first draft of every book that could possibly come out of a story written as soon as ...

So, I've been rewatching American Horror Story (as you probably know from the sheer amount I was talking about Tate Langdon a while ago), and last night I watched episode eleven of Asylum. Spoilers for Asylum ahead, I guess. Episode eleven is the one with the really tense, really boss escape of Lana Winters, and the scene where she slaps the tape up against the window of the taxi and gives Thredson the finger. It's that episode. It's where she kills him. It's "I'm tough, but I'm no cookie." I cheered like, every single time. Yep, me, alone in my dorm room, just full of so much love for Lana Winters. I used to call Asylum my favorite season (now I know and have accepted that it is Murder House ), and a big part of that was Lana. She is the most badass heroine that the series has. She's ruthlesss and single-minded and stubborn. But she's not really an anti-hero; at least, not until the end, maybe. She's human. But she is so boss. She doe...

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite series to check out from the library was the Mary-Kate and Ashley Two of a Kind books. They followed Mary-Kate and Ashley in like, middle school style time, and they quickly moved into a boarding school setting, and they were so fun. I now work at the library that I went to as a kid, and we recently withdrew all of our Two of a Kind books. I mean, fair. They are very, very early-2000s, and Mary-Kate and Ashley aren't exactly as big of a deal as they were when those books were coming out. But I was blacking out barcodes and stamping the WITHDRAWN stamp and I decided to take a couple home with me. Just the ones that I picked up and was shot back into the past with; just the ones that I could remember vividly. So I picked three. And then a couple days later, I found a couple books I wanted in the book sale room, and I grabbed three more. Now it wasn't anything to do with whether I remembered them or not, it was just the fir...

So, a little bit of a disclaimer here: I don't have any real experience with either, just opinions about what I want with my writing. I've never self-published anything. I've never had anything traditionally published. I have nothing but vague ideas. I've always wanted traditional publishing. That's always been my goal with my writing, was to be traditionally published. I write novels, and pretty typical novels; there's nothing wacky or out of the ordinary with them. There are a couple of my things that I think would work well with traditional publishing. But lately I've been thinking. See, I've got this one project. It's massive. It is my baby. It's the first thing I ever really completed (at least first-draft-wise), and the first book (in the series, because this bitch is a series) has gone through god-knows-how-many-drafts (the current word document for it is titled: Draft Nine or Some Shit Like That). I've written at least a second ...

So, I'm coming up on graduation next semester, and I'm graduating with a minor in French. The way that I got this minor is... kind of on accident. When I was in eighth grade, my best friend at the time was asking if she could take French for her foreign language. I went to the tiniest school in the world, so it had to be over ITV, but we managed to gather enough people for a French class. I just kind of... kept taking French. Then college came around and I just kind of... Kept taking French. My French professor wants me to postpone graduation a semester, go to France next semester, and then graduate with a French major in addition to the English major. When she was talking about it last Thursday, I kind of wanted to do it. And part of me does... see the good part of it? Maybe I want to. But I don't know if I really want to. I don't know if I want to postpone graduation. I don't know if I actually want to. Also, I don't speak French. I do not speak French...

It's weird trying to get into sports at a later age, especially when you're not into any sports at all is because you don't come from a sports family. I feel like it'd be different if you were from a sports family and didn't care and then later cared, because then at least you'd have a base. My family does not give a shit about any sports. None of them. Barely even high school sports that my brother plays (this might be because for the last three years, his basketball career has been reclining gently on the bench, hands folded on his lap). But I've discovered I like hockey. I like hockey a lot. Thanks, my-college-getting-a-hockey-team-sophomore-year. So I've been trying to get into NHL stuff too, and it's... weird to try and figure out what teams you like and what you're into and also figuring out the sport, I had to learn how the sport works because my prior knowledge to two years ago was 'whatever was in the movie Youngblood, and I spen...

tl;dr: sucks So like, I'm pretty new to Tinder, but I  have my stories to share in comparison to one of my friends, who lives in a major US city that is not North Dakota, let alone rural North Dakota. She's talking about how she's hooked up with a few people and it's been cool and I'm sitting here like "all of my matches are at least forty miles away, except for that one kid who I think is the kid I complimented on his Vegas Golden Knights shirt the other day???" But I am pretty new. It's only been a few days. And it's been cool talking to people, even if they live sixty or a hundred miles away; if nothing else this shit'll make me feel less awkward about talking to dudes online? I guess? I mean, I'm not gonna delete my account. This is my second go-around, and the first time I deleted my account as soon as I got a match because I was like "nope," but now I've not only matched but had a couple of brief conversations and ...