Singers with Amazing Voices

As you've probably noticed from reading my blog, I really like listening to music. The other day, I was thinking and I was trying to figure out who my favorite vocalists are, and so I compiled a list. Not all of them are sing lead, but all of them have amazing voices, and their music is really worth checking out!

(On an extremely coincidental note, I'm watching The Five on TV and they're doing a segment on their favorite singers. Weird, right?)

Jen Ledger
Band(s): Skillet
Notable Songs: "Salvation," "Fire and Fury," "Hero," and "Yours to Hold [Live]"
While Jen isn't the lead vocalist for Skillet (John Cooper is), she has contributed her beautiful voice to many Skillet's songs. She normally plays the drums, but since she joined the band in 2008, she has sung on more than ten different songs. She is an incredible drummer as well, which is especially noticeable at Skillet's live shows.
She's also British. 

 


Stephen Christian
Band(s): Anberlin, Anchor & Braille
Notable Songs: "Alexithymia," "Self-Starter," "City Electric," and "Readyfuels"
Stephen has been the lead vocalist for Anberlin since it was founded in 2002, and for his acoustic side project Anchor & Braille since 2004. He has an incredible and elegant voice, and it's just really... mesmerizing. He's also written a book, The Orphaned Anything's, and started a non-profit
organization, Faceless International.

Five Awesome Websites for Writers

I probably could've come up with more than five, but I didn't want to bore you too much.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called, "Writing Stuff is Hard." And it is. However, as some of you may be aware, I run a fiction writing club in my school called the Writer's Nook, which meets online every other Friday. As the leader, I have compiled a list of websites that have helped me with my writing, and I thought I'd share some with you today.








1. Writer's Digest
This website has a lot of amazing stuff. Weekly writing prompts, a free e-mail newsletter, contests, and tons of articles about all things writing. If you have questions about publishing or finding an agent, Writer's Digest has a lot of helpful tips and how-to's for that. There are also plenty of things about writer's block, writing dialogue, almost anything you can imagine. The website covers a lot of genres, from romance to sci-fi. I really recommend you at least check it out, but the e-mail newsletter is totally worth subscribing to as well.

2. Helping Writers Become Authors
This website is somewhat similar to Writer's Digest in that it provides a lot of articles for help in different areas of writing.  However, it is a little different, so I encourage you to check this one out as well.

New Camera

Hello readers! I'm sorry to announce that I don't have much time to write this week, since I've had two English essays due, and one of them is giving me a rather hard time. But I still have a post for you this week, though it's more pictures than writing.

I turned sixteen on Monday (May 5), and my parents bought me a new DSLR camera for my birthday. It's a Canon T3i, and so far, I'm enjoying it. I've also taken a lot of pictures with it, which you can see after the jump. Enjoy!

What to Expect at a College Fair

College fairs are scary. You walk into a big auditorium or gym or other multi-purpose room that's crowded with tables and people. You're telling me I actually have to talk to these college people? I can't just take their papers and run? What's this information card they're telling me to fill out? Did I just sell myself to Lehigh University?




Actually, college fairs aren't that bad. I was just at one this week, and it was a new experience, but it wasn't too scary. If you're planning on visiting one of these things sometime in the future though, here's my post on what to expect at a college fair.

For starters, you can expect to be asked a lot of questions. The three main ones are:

"Do you have any questions?"
If the person at the booth really has no idea what they're doing, they'll ask you this question first. I don't know why, so please don't ask me. But unless you came up with a list of specific things you want to know about each and every school you talk to, you'll probably end up answering this question with "no." The way I see it is this: You probably don't know anything about this school yet, so you have no knowledge to base your questions on. Plus, as my dad pointed out to me later, it's a bad idea to ask a closed-end question.

"Are you a junior or a senior?"
I understand wanting to know what year of high school a potential student is in, but does it always have to be junior or senior year? As some of you may already know, I'm a sophomore. So when people at college fairs ask me if I'm a junior or senior, I just feel the tiniest bit neglected. I don't mind  that people are asking me what year I'm in, but does it have to be junior or senior year?

"What are you thinking of studying?" / "What do you think you want to major in?"
This question actually isn't so bad as it is repetitive. Every person you talk to is going to ask you this question, so you should be prepared with an answer. If you haven't decided for sure what you want to study, that's okay. Even so, it's nice to at least have an idea of what you might want to do.

Click the jump for more!

Spring Cleaning -- Jewelry Organization Tips

Yep, it's that time of year again, the time when you realize you have so much stuff without a home and you need to do something about it. Actually, going off on a tangent here, but why do people call it "Spring Cleaning?" I mean, I get that Spring makes you want things to be all nice and new and clean, but why just limit it to spring?

Enough rhetorical questions - let's get down to business. 

Jewelry is one of the toughest things to organize in my opinion, because it comes in so many shapes and sizes. I always have trouble figuring out ways to store it, but I have found some solutions that might work for you! Or, at the very least, maybe they'll give you some ideas. And I'll just make a quick recommendation here - If you look for "jewelry organization" or "jewelry storage" on Pinterest, there are tons of ideas and DIYs that you can do.

Anyway, click the jump to see what I've done to keep my jewelry organized, along with some other ideas I found along the way.

Writing Stuff Is Hard

As hard as it may be to believe, I don't just sit down at my computer and words magically appear on the screen.

Okay, I didn't really mean that about myself. But I'm sure you've thought something along those lines about some of your favorite writers - "Wow, Scott Westerfeld is such an amazing author. It must be so easy for him to write stuff like this."





Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Writing is hard. Right now, you might be thinking, "Well, of course it's hard. I have to write a ten page paper for my English class by next week, and I have no idea where to start." But it's not just writing that people assign you. Even writing as a hobby is rough. Heck, even keeping up with these little posts on my is tough to do. Why is this so? I've thought about it a bit (actually, not that much, I'm sort of making this up as I go), and here's what I have to say.

Sometimes, I Just Don't Have Much To Say

People sometimes ask me why I don't talk very much. They're justified in asking, by the way, I'm not trying to put anyone down here. And it's not like I never say anything at all - There are just some situations where I'm more comfortable with speaking than others. If it's the right subject and the right situation, I could go on for hours for something. But not all the time. Sometimes, I seriously don't have anything to say.

So, if it happens that I'm with a group of people who are talking and I'm not saying much, it's really just because I don't have anything to say. It's not that I don't have anything nice to say - that's a different matter altogether - I just can't think of anything that would contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

I don't really do "small talk," as some people call it. (Actually, I like the term "idle chitchat" better.) What I mean is, I like to be engaged in a conversation. It's not that I want to have a deep, philosophical discussion every time you call me on the phone, I just don't want to go through the motions, so to speak.

Also, it's not that I hate it when people don't include me in on their conversations. Most of the time, I perfectly happy just sitting and listening to what the people around me have to say to each other. I call it gathering ideas for writing, other people might call it eavesdropping.  Maybe it's just a writer thing, but I like to listen to others, whether they're talking to me or I just happen to be in the same room as them. The other day I found a quote about writing:

All this to say, if I'm with you and I'm not saying anything, please don't take it to mean that I'm aloof or bored. Really. I like to listen to you talk, and I feel bad if I intrude on your conversation with some random comment that barely relates. I'll contribute at some point, but in the meantime, I'll just listen.

(I hope this at least makes some degree of sense. I wrote it all out on a whim, so it might not be entirely coherent. This is just some stuff that's been on my mind lately, and I felt like I should blog about it. Thank you for reading it, and I'll see you next Friday!)