Bottled Sky

I don’t care what the old adage says. I judge books by their covers. The only times I buy books whose covers don’t tickle my fancy are when they have been recommended by someone with whom I share similar tastes in books (tastes that tend toward the off-beat and the downright weird).

But more importantly, I judge books by their titles. What are titles for if not for grabbing potential readers by the collar and screaming, “READ ME!”?

In my case, the likelihood of my buying a book is directly proportional to the strangeness of its title. If book titles were people, I would be most effectively grabbed by that freak skulking at the back of the classroom or that woman dressed like Helena Bonham Carter on drugs.

See below the titles of the last five books I’ve enjoyed:

• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
• The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy (a well-chosen gift from the same someone I mentioned above)
• Life of Pi
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

So now I ask you, are there any strangely titled books that you could recommend to me? I’ve just got back in the swing of reading, and I want to keep my momentum.

I predict a book shopping spree in my very near future.

While I am still working on a way to achieve my goal of traveling the world, one of my books has gone ahead without me. My friend Chrissa went on a vacation to London last month, and I lent her my copy of The Lovely Bones to read on the plane. In return she photographed my book all around the city, much like the Traveling Gnome in Amelie. Here’s the jet-setting novel in all its London glory:

Check out the full-size photos here.

Doesn’t my book look like it’s having fun? I’ll find a way to get there (as well as to Santorini, Venice, Tokyo… well, you get the picture) myself someday. I’m sure of it.

I began writing when I was five years old, typing short stories on my mom’s office computer. I wrote about rude rabbits and pigs with wigs and fancied myself the next Enid Blyton, whose books I used to collect. I later discovered poetry and penned many a bad rhyme. And then came the “junior journalist” phase, where I joined essay writing contests and became a staffer for the school paper. Growing up, I was so often told that I had potential for writing by both biased (my mom) and unbiased (teachers — they didn’t like me because I was a lazy underachiever) authority figures that I thought it must be true.

Here’s the truth, though. Even now that I have successfully earned a Journalism degree, I still can’t decide whether I like writing or not. While there are times when I feel the urge to just write, I usually struggle so much with it that I wonder if I’m even having fun. It’s rare for me to come up with a piece of writing that I’m satisfied with, and even when I do I still cringe every time I see someone reading what I wrote.

It’s drastically different from what I experience with my other hobbies. Even when it takes me days to complete a layout or finish a drawing, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m enjoying what I’m doing. And I’m always proud of the end product and eager to show it to anyone who’s interested, whether I’m completely happy with it or not.

However, this is also true: for all of my creative pursuits, I always appreciate a good critique. I don’t mean good as in positive, but as in detailed and specific. I’ve attended writing workshops where they figuratively ripped my assignments apart, but I’ve found those sessions very helpful and even enjoyable. Not all reviews I’ve received were useful, though, particularly those that came from people who 1) didn’t really know what they were talking about and 2) didn’t take into account what I was trying to do with my piece and simply made suggestions based on his own vision. For me a useful critique is one that points out issues I might have missed and helps steer the piece closer to where I want it to go.

Kimmie‘s recent review of Skylight was definitely useful. I requested her to critique this site after reading her well-written article on website reviews. Her suggestions helped me address many issues that had been bothering me before. The features section is now more organized and the index page less cluttered thanks to her. Next step: a more flexible CMS. I seriously need to move on from Blogger. Any suggestions?

In other news, I recently made two kid-inspired layouts, one for my candy-loving friend Kathy, the other for my LJ. What can I say? I have a lot of free time these days, being a bum and all I’m just resting a little before I go into full-on work mode after the holidays.

Nikki’s Failure Tip #347: Waste time by writing pointless haikus.

An excellent example of a pointless haiku appears below. It was written by Nikki herself while failing to finish a 10-page dialectic discussion on art theory.

caffeine and no sleep
deadlines loom ominously
procrastination

For a complete list of Nikki’s Failure Tips, watch out for her new book entitled “I’ll Think of a Title Later: The Procrastinator’s Guide to Never Getting Anything Done.” It will be released worldwide as soon as Nikki finishes writing it (i.e. never).

You can also check out Nikki’s writing portfolio (which is really less “writing portfolio” than “two poems and one children’s story written for class then recycled into website content” — but we’ll just call it a writing portfolio for brevity’s sake).

You know how in movies kidnappers usually videotape their victims holding the day’s newspaper as proof that they’re still alive? Considering how long I’ve left this blog to grow mold and other multi-celled organisms (Can you tell I have biology this semester and that I haven’t been paying much attention in class?), I feel like I should post a picture of me with today’s paper. But in the same way that I’ve been too lazy to update this thing, I simply couldn’t seem to get off my ass to snap a simple photo. In other words, you’re just going to have to take my word for it: I’m Nikki and I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet.

A couple of things have happened since I last posted that might actually be proof that hell has frozen over.

Proof # 1: I wrote poetry

I think I’ve mentioned before that I find it quite difficult to write most of the time, so I had avoided writing classes like the plague. This semester, however, I was forced to take a creative writing elective, because there was nothing else that fit into my schedule. Hence the poetry. Before this class my experience with poetry was limited to my third-grade masterpiece about the “little seed in need of the sun and the rain and the soil indeed.” When my friend Aggie heard about my poetry-writing predicament, she said and I quote, “What?! How can you write poetry? You don’t have angst!” I may not have angst, but I tried my best to fake it. And apparently, I do have a bit of cheese somewhere in the recesses of my sap-retardant brain. I am now the not-so-proud author of four poems (one bad, two semi-bad, and one almost-okay). The class has since moved on to prose, so I have progressed/regressed to penning terrible short stories. It appears that I have even less sense of plot than I have angst.

Proof # 2: I gave up meat

I, carnivore extraordinaire, have become a vegetarian. I had to prepare a report about animal rights and welfare for my Environmental Journalism class; I haven’t been able to eat anything that walks or flies since I first researched about the topic over a month ago. (We humans are a cruel, cruel species.) I have never been a fan of tofu or vegetables, yet strangely enough, I don’t really miss meat. At first I thought it would be a passing thing, but now I’ve decided to give up beef, pork and chicken for good.

So there. If you–unlike me–believe in hell and that you are naughty enough to land prime real estate in Satanville after this life, you just might want to invest in a good pair of ice skates. Skis, sleds, and snowboards might be fun, too

That’s it for now, folks! I’ll post again the next time there is a big-ass deadline looming over my head and I feel the need to procrastinate. Until then, let’s all try not to take ourselves too seriously. (Yes, you! I’m talking to you! Lighten up!)