Monthly Guest Post - Hilda Leticia Dominguez

Thanks to Hilda for supplying this month's Guest Post! Go check out her blog HERE.   "Hey everyone! I want to thank Amy-Anne for letting me guest post on her blog for you. How many of you love to write? How about draw? Or both? Well, guess what? You can publish your own creations. I'm here to talk about my experience with self-publishing. See, at first, I was searching, sending query letters, submissions, etc., to what are called traditional houses. An example of one is Simon & Schuster which they publish books like City of Bones. For many years I followed to the letter what my books said to do, but I was either ignored and other times rejected. Frustrated, I turned to self-publishing. I did so much research on it that I found out that many writers are turning to self-publishing too because of its benefits. And, LOL, traditional houses are getting worried because of it. That is what they get for being so picky! What are the benefits of self-publishing vs traditional way? - To be published the traditional way, you have to send first a query letter, actually according to the publisher's guidelines. It is a long, nerve-wrecking process of silence to see if your story gets published or not. If they do pick your story, they go through with you where to edit or replace in your manuscript (story) and like many authors, I don't like that. Personally, it is wrong because each writer has a "voice" of how they tell their story. If editors start poking their noses into your story and make some changes, they can mess up your voice and ruin your book. And another thing, many publishers wont even look at your manuscript if you don't have an agent. Yup, it's like show biz, but without the photo shoots, and all that, LOL! - There is just one plus side to traditional publishing: you don't get to pay for anything. The publisher pays you and other expenses like advertising, etc. SELF PUBLISHING: - Many writers are self-publishing their work because of its benefits: -You have the freedom to choose how you want your book to look like, inside and outside from fonts, font types, and illustrations, to cover designs and book size. There are MANY options to choose from. So you have more freedom to create your book the way YOU want it to look like, unlike a traditional publisher. They choose for you. -You can do it yourself for free or you can pay for services from editing to illustrating. - Did you know that some traditional publishers are turning to authors who have self-published? Basically traditional publishing is competing with self-publishers, but there are those who notice authors who have self-published and contract them for more books. - Another pro to that is that authors have the freedom if they want to go with the traditional publisher or continue on self-publishing. There are only 2 cons: - You have to pay only once for the services to make your book. - Unless you are a very sociable person, you have to advertise your book yourself, unless you hire a PR which costs a lot of money! But that wont guarantee you will make many sales. You can try selling them through your parents's work, relatives, friends, or online medias like twitter, Facebook, etc. My Story: As I mentioned above, I did my own research --a lot of research! And I am happy to have found Createspace. Through Createspace, you can have your book sold on Amazon.com, worldwide, and even at your favourite bookstore but some bookstores don't have them on shelves. You have to place an order with them. Anyway, to make a long story short, since I'm not familiar with doing it myself using their tools, my brother paid services from Createspace to have my story, The Invisible Spy Spying on the lives of Celebrities, into a published, professional book! Those of you who have won my book giveaways know the look and feel of a great high-quality book for such a small price to buy it on Amazon. The process was super easy. The only thing I needed was patience to receive the next step. Since I hired an illustrator through Createspace to do my book cover, I received sketches over time, and each time they wanted my feedback. If it was okay with me, I okayed it and went on to the next step until all was done and I pressed that glorious "publish" button on my laptop. DING! 'PUBLISHED!' The next day, my book was listed on Amazon.com. I was so beyond thrilled! The only problem I'm having is spreading the word around about my book. So if you could please help, spread the word about my book around-- families, friends, school, work, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or even make posters or flyers and place them on phone poles or make your own bookmarks and type where they can buy my book. If you read this far, wow! Congratulations and thank you! I can go on but I think I mentioned the important stuff for you to get the idea how it works. Recommendations: If you want to publish your story, I recommend you do your own research. Learn, learn, learn on your own. That is the best way to learn than any other method." https://www.createspace.com/pub/l/diyauthor3.do?ref=1159301&utm_id=6085&cp=70170000000bqtY&ls=Paid_Search&sls=MSN_DIY ~Hilda Leticia Dominguez, Author of "The Invisible Spy Spying in the lives of Celebrities"

Yay Blog Design (Woo)

You may or may not know that I am currently trying to update my blog's appearance, and have been for a couple of weeks now. I have planned a load of different themes, and so today marks the first of many possible designs. I know that right now you're all just like;

 

Right? Well just.. chill.

It took me a while to set up this current theme, and I may (I did) have temporarily deleted the comments function in the meanwhile (oops). Anywhale, they're back now and I would love to know people's opinions on the new design, because I'm not quite sure as to whether I like it or not.

I mean, I like the automatic sidebar and the colour theme, but I'm not too sure on the font and title layout..

Ideas?
 

Tenerife!

So a few weeks back I went to a place called Tenerife, which is a small island situated in the 'La Canaria'. I was going to post photos the second I got back to the UK, but I couldn't figure out how to transfer images on an SD card to my IPad (solution; spend hours sending each photo separately.. *sighs*), and then I couldn't chose my favourites so I uploaded them all onto the Flipagram app.

 

For those of you who fancy checking out my experience (it took about eight hours in total to make this so at least watch it out of pity..), here it is ~

 

 

Despite the (EXTREMELY RUDE) comments from nationals of Tenerife ('es muy blanca', 'pálido como la nieve', etc*), I had a great time. The food was amazing, the scenery was absolutely stunning, and best of all, the weather was H-O-T. Luckily, unlike previous visits to Tenerife, my skin didn't fry under the hot sun - partly because I only sunbathed when the moon was clearly visible in the sky.

 

Also, as Tenerife is a tourist capital, I found everything to be unreasonably under priced - I even bought a stunning new bag for under £4! So it was a shock to return to England to pay seven thousand pounds just for a can of Fanta (slight exaggeration).

Oh, and to those of you who realised that I had (once again) disabled comments from my blog - they are BACK UP. Please remind me to stop trying to fix things using various complications of technology, as I tend to break a large amount of online products.

 

*These are genuine comments. One man said the first quote, translated as 'she's very white', as he passed me on an antique Spanish street. The second one was said by my mother's friend (who owns a small, but AH-mazing restaurant), which translates as my skin being 'pale like snow'. To be fair, I have lived in England for at least four years, so I'm blaming my non-existent-tan on the UK climate.

Moon Landing Conspiracies

After the Apollo missions ended in the seventies, why haven’t we ever been back? 

This was a subject that we were talking in my chemistry class for a bit, and the evidence has me convinced that there really was no so-called 'moon landing'. Call me naive, but I did a few related Google searches, and I am now 100% sure that the film (at least) of the 'first ever moon landing', was a hoax.

I have researched for this post for weeks, and I feel like I have learnt a LOT of useful information. I might start looking into conspiracy theories more often, because this investigation has been really interesting.

My idea is that the film was fake but they did actually visit the moon (I only believe it because of the evidence of the fact that if you go onto any moon map, there's the bleach white American flag situated on the surface). 

Maybe the film got destroyed and they had to make a replica? Either way, the Government is blatantly lying about it (or so I believe) and I'm certain that America faked the tape to win the ultimate Space Race.

The most convincing points that I came across were as follows;

The American flag was waving.

How can a loose piece of material wave in the wind on the moon, which has very little gravity, no atmosphere, and no wind force? Because I'm pretty sure that it isn't moving by itself.

Sibrel, as Wikipedia states, said that it may have been caused by indoor fans used to cool the astronauts, since their spacesuit cooling systems would have been too heavy on Earth.

Multiple light sources. 

So they're on the moon, and the sun is their main light source. It would be perfectly legible for the moon's atmosphere to bend the light into multiple directions, but where's the atmosphere to make this occur? The shadows should all be facing one direction, unless of course they're situated on an artificial lit film set..

I went to see what Wikipedia would say about my theory.

I honestly don't believe what the website says about this, because surely the sun's rays would outshine the alternative light sources? Even so, for my unbiased contradiction post, it says, "Shadows on the Moon are complicated by reflected light, uneven ground, wide-angle lens distortion, and lunar dust. There are several light sources: the Sun, sunlight reflected from the Earth, sunlight reflected from the Moon's surface, and sunlight reflected from the astronauts and the Lunar Module. Light from these sources is scattered by lunar dust in many directions, including into shadows. Shadows falling into craters and hills may appear longer, shorter and distorted. Furthermore, shadows display the properties of vanishing point perspective, leading them to converge to a point on the horizon."

By about this point of research, I had reached the conclusion that my excited astronaut post  - here - was now completely pointless.

Anyway, my next contradiction is based on the lack of stars.

Now, we all know that the stars shine above us, right? But clouds often hide them from our view. So, imagine you're wallowing around on a little satellite called the Moon, a cloudless sparse plain of dust and rock. But, alas, there are no stars.

My theory is that if the film is faked, which I'm pretty sure it is, then they just blacked the 'stars' out as they would be too difficult to replicate.

Wikipedia, naturally, contradicts this (because, despite my theories, I am trying to be unbiased) with, "All manned landings happened during the lunar daytime. Thus, the stars were outshone by the sun and by sunlight reflected off the Moon's surface. The astronauts' eyes were adapted to the sunlit landscape around them so that they could not see the relatively faint stars. Likewise, cameras were set for daylight exposure and could not detect the stars. Camera settings can turn a well-lit background to black when the foreground object is brightly lit, forcing the camera to increase shutter speed so that the foreground light does not wash-out the image. A demonstration of this effect is here. The effect is similar to not being able to see stars from a brightly lit car park at night—the stars only become visible when the lights are turned off. The astronauts could see stars with the naked eye only when they were in the shadow of the Moon."

The C rock.

An upturned prop, perhaps, with the company's logo? Because why would a letter of the human American alphabet be stamped onto a moon rock, thousands of miles away, of an uninhabited planet? 

Both NASA and Wikipedia argue that it is a coiled hair.

A perfectly symmetrical hair just laying on a moon rock?

Please.

The duplicate backdrop.

Call me naive, but I'm sure that these are the same backgrounds just with different materials pasted onto them? The more I compare them, the more convinced I am.

Again, I can't help but be biased and say that I don't agree with Wikipedia's reasoning here, but nevertheless they do say that, "Backgrounds were not identical, just similar. What appear as nearby hills in some photos are actually mountains many miles away. On Earth, objects that are further away will appear fainter and less detailed. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere or haze to obscure faraway objects, thus they appear clearer and nearer. Furthermore, there are very few objects (such as trees) to help judge distance."

Also, another point that I stumbled upon was the fact that The Lunar Modules weighed 17 tons and made no mark on the moon dust, yet footprints can easily be seen beside them. I'm immensely confused here - surely they would have kicked up some mark, if they were roaming around the moon's surface?

Also, watching a BBC (trusted #1 British news channel) documentary, one of the men mentioned the fact that the astronauts would have fried on their journey. Wikipedia, surprisingly, agrees, stating that the astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt and galactic ambient radiation. Even Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, claimed that the radiation levels were too harmful for the Apollo missions.

The documentary that I watched featured a man explaining the previous statement to the journalist, and then saying that they could have survived if they'd taken out suits from a nearby business that made them. However, not a single suit was leased.

Why would this be, do you think?

As the Wikipedia article continues, the website states:

"All six lunar landings happened during the first Presidential administration of Richard Nixon and no leader of any other state has claimed to have landed astronauts on the Moon, even though the mechanical means of doing so should have become progressively much easier after almost 40 years of steady or even swift technological development."

This is a great point, because if there's any theoretical chance for another leap in science, wouldn't physicists be jumping at the possibility for development?

Contrarily, the website then states that so many witnesses of the Apollo take off that it couldn't have been a stunt.
Of all these people to work on the hoax behind the scenes on the computers and whatnot, Wikipedia argues that "surely at least one would have come forward. The alternative is that they were killed, and they couldn't kill that many people without getting caught out. The conspiracy would have to involve the more than 400,000 people who worked on the Apollo project for nearly ten years, the 12 men who walked on the Moon, the six others who flew with them as Command Module pilots, and another six astronauts who orbited the Moon.

HOWEVER, this does not mean that all 400,000 would know about the truth, and not even 100 of those exact people would have had direct communication with the moon landing. 
Wikipedia then lists the NASA personnel who did actually die within a few years of the so-called 'moon landing' - all 'accidental' of course. 

• Theodore Freeman (killed ejecting from T-38 which had suffered a bird strike, October 1964)
• Elliot See and Charlie Bassett (T-38 crash in bad weather, February 1966)
• Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom, Edward Higgins "Ed" White, and Roger B. Chaffee (Apollo 1 fire, January 1967)
• Edward "Ed" Givens (car accident, June 1967)
• Clifton "C. C." Williams (killed ejecting from T-38, October 1967)
• Michael J. "Mike" Adams (X-15 crash, November 1967. The only pilot killed during the X-15 flight test program. He was a test pilot, and had flown the X-15 above 50 miles.)
• Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. (F-104 crash, December 1967, shortly after being selected as a pilot with the United States Air Force's (later cancelled) Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.)
• Thomas Ronald Baron (North American Aviation employee died in an automobile collision with train, April 27, 1967, six days after testifying before Rep. Olin E. Teague's House Subcommittee on NASA Oversight hearing held at Cape Kennedy, Florida, concerning the Apollo 1 fire, after which he was fired). Baron was a quality control inspector who wrote a report critical of the Apollo program and was an outspoken critic after the Apollo 1 fire. Baron and his family were killed as their car was struck by a train at a train crossing. 
• Brian D. Welch, a leading official in NASA's Public Affairs Office and Director of Media Services, died a few months after appearing in the media to debunk the Fox pro-Moon hoax television show cited above. His obituary claims he died of a heart attack at the relatively young age of 42. Conspiracists find his age at death suspiciously young and would note that heart attacks can be induced, for example, through the stress of torture or through ingestion of certain chemicals.
• Valentin Bondarenko (ground training accident, March 1961)
• Grigori Nelyubov (suicide, February 1966)
• Vladimir Komarov (Soyuz 1 accident, April 1967)
• Yuri Gagarin (MiG-15 crash, March 1968)
• Pavel Belyayev (complications following surgery, January 1970)
• Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev (Soyuz 11 accident, June 1971)

To name but a few.

To summarise my ideas, in Wikipedia terms, "Many conspiracy theories have been put forward. They either claim that the landings did not happen and that NASA employees (and sometimes others) have lied; or that the landings did happen but not in the way that has been told. Conspiracists have focused on perceived gaps or inconsistencies in the historical record of the missions. The foremost idea is that the whole manned landing program was a hoax from start to end. Some claim that the technology to send men to the Moon was lacking or that the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays made such a trip impossible"

Do you think that it was all a hoax?

Sources

BBC
Wikipedia
Listverse

What Is Wrong With The World - Animals kept in captivity

Okay so I was reading the Metro on my (ninety minute long - just saying) train journey to school today, when I came across the daily 'In Focus' section. Today it was about animals and their zoo environment.

I personally think it's wrong to part animals from their natural environments just to be shoved into tiny cages and gawped at by humans. And the Metro article just backed up my opinions.

"The two-year-old giraffe, Marius, was killed to avoid inbreeding - there were already enough giraffes with similar genes in European zoos. His death - he was shot in the head with a bolt gun. Despite offers to provide a new home for him, the Danish zoo went ahead and euthanized the animal. Not only did it stand by its decision, Copenhagen Zoo used Marius's carcass to perform a public post-mortem examination. His remains were cut up in front of an audience containing many children before he was fed to the zoo's lions."

I personally think that this is a horrible thing to do. Even though an online petition to save Marius generated almost 30,000 signatures, the zoo blatantly refused to change their minds or accept any offers (despite the fact that one person actually offered £400,000). 

I completely disagree with the keeping of animals in zoos because, really, there is no benefit. The only thing they show is depressed animals, and children don't learn anything about how the animals would be naturally. Because, naturally, lions don't pace back and forth, and polar bears don't walk around in circles over and over again.

Copenhagan Zoo also murdered a lioness and her four cubs because they shared "genetic defects caused by inbreeding." Now don't get me wrong, I'm not an animal rights extremist like the nutters at Peta, but even so I don't think it is right to just casually kill animals like that, let alone whole families. But then again, I don't even like people killing spiders, so I'm probably not the best unbiased person to write this post.

Even so, it's pretty sick to keep an animal in captivity and deprive them of their normal needs like hunting, raising their cubs naturally, and most of all having the freedom to roam about.

Am I right?

Help

I have just realised that I've somehow managed to disable comments from my blog. Please bear with me, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Two hours later..
UPDATE

Comments are back - I fixed it! I am so happy, I thought they'd be gone forever... I was trying to be clever by adding labels and tags to my sidebar and posts, but for some reason that automatically disabled my comments. I promise that I will no longer attempt to be smart and computer savvy when it comes to my blog.

Sorry for the confusion!

Freely Adapted Movies; Twilight

So I've started reading the Twilight novels again, only to find myself comparing the books with the movie adaptations. And honestly? The films suck.

I mean, seriously. I never realised how strong a relationship Bella and Jacob had until I read the books. Before, I thought Jacob was clingy and whiny, but I was judging his story out of context - he really did love Bella in the novels.

And then, what happened to Embry and Quil? They were barely mentioned in the film, when they were pretty vital characters in the beginning of the novels.

Image credit; Google images

The books featured no field trip. No St Jude bracelet. No apple. No Waylon Forge. And you know what? It was probably for the best.

Either way, I've decided that I will try to read the novels before I watch the film adaptations.

Like me, have you ever been let down by a film adaptation? Or regretted watching the movie before reading the novel?

Steampunk Ring by Duangkamol ~Review~

A massive thank you to Duang of Duangkamol for sending me one of her gorgeous resin rings for review. It is absolutely stunning.

"I am a self taught jewellery designer and working from home. Through small workshops and learning media channels, I started experimenting with different beads and techniques. 
I love working with gemstones as I am fascinated by the incredible journey of their formation under the earth, hence its natural energy, beauty and our spiritual meanings. Nonetheless, I am very conscious about the impacts of heavy mining on local communities and environment through growth of jewellery business. Hence some of my pieces are made with recycle materials which are mentioned in item description. With care I source my materials from a reliable sources via internet and also through my trip back to Thailand and India."

I am going to come straight out and say that this is now one of my favourite rings, and I wear it every day. The design is flawless, and I absolutely adore all of the sharp bursts of colour within the resin. They change as my lighting status changes, and illustrates every single colour imaginable, from greens to purples to yellows. The holder part of the ring is of a bronze colour, and doesn't irritate or stain at all. The quality is outstanding, with not a single blip or error. 

The sizing is perfect, and I wear it on my third finger on my lefthand, because I find that it fits perfectly there. I am not exaggerating when I say that this is probably the best piece of jewelry that I have ever come across in my fifteen years on Earth.

The ring came in a gorgeous little bag, and had been extremely carefully packaged, so there really is no reason to worry in the slightest about it not arriving in perfect condition. I received the ring quicker than expected, which was great as I could wear my new ring on my first day back at school after break. Customer service was brilliant, and Duang's Etsy provided me with all of the information that I would need to write the review.

"There is no rigid style of what are created from my shops and I believe most of the inspiration comes from within.
I'm a Thai by birth but had been studying and working in the UK. I living in a beautiful coastal town in Norfolk, Gorleston and share a little cottage with my husband James and a brindle greyhound called Amber. She is 6 year old and is our baby.
I practice Reiki, meditation and is a Buddhist."

The design is gorgeous and intricate, and I adore the steampunk design. The clogs are from inside of a watch, and fit in perfectly with the design. I am in love with this ring, and have had many compliments on it since it became my new favourite accessory.

This ring would be brilliant for a gift to a loved one (I would be incredibly grateful if someone were to give me something as purely gorgeous as this), or even as a gift for yourself, so you can enjoy such an inspiring design resting on your flesh.

The only thing that I found even remotely negative about this ring is the fact that it is adjustable. Of course, this is a great status for a ring to uphold, but I'm worried that if I stretch it I may not be able to set it back to the fitting that it was originally.

Visit the Duangkamol Etsy page at; https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DuangkamolWeston

Street Style - Red Coats

This post was initially going to be about the fact that Jessie J came to my school yesterday, and me ranting about the fact that it was the one day that I didn't go in to Brit, thus missing her visit. GAH. My life is a sham.

Anyway, waiting for my train home today, I couldn't help but notice the fact that there were a HELL OF A LOT of people wearing red coats. So, obviously, I followed around the strangers wearing these coats to take their photos.

If we ignore the fact that my collage is incredibly blurry as I composed it on my phone on the train, and the photos were of bad quality anyway as I took them on Snapchat to make sure that my flash didn't accidently go off (imagine that), I don't think that I did a bad job of spying on stranger's fashion senses.

Disclaimer - I've tried to blur out the faces.

Red coats were EVERYWHERE. 

Anyway, what's going on? Bear it in mind that I took all of these on the SAME DAY within a THIRTY MINUTE SLOT, red coats might actually be becoming the next big THING. 

I've personally never owned a red coat, and hopefully never will. To be honest, I think they look a bit tacky if dyed onto wool or cotton, but I guess they can be a fashion statement if used right.

So, what do you think? Don't you think it's weird that they're suddenly here, with no notice or warning?

The Fault In Our Stars Is Extremely Overrated

There. I said it.

I had read so many reviews of The Fault In Our Stars, and many people that I'd talked to had also read the book, all explaining to me about just how great it is. So, super-hyped about it, I raced to my local library to take out a copy.

Unfortunately, to my dismay, every single copy had been taken out. So, every day I would go back to the library in the hope that they would have a spare copy available. And finally, after weeks of waiting, they did.

I was incredibly excited to read it, especially after all the great feedback that I had heard about it.

But, as I continued to read through the book, I became very disappointed.

It was just SO predictable. Every single word of the plot had been expected.

And so, I came to a conclusion.

I don't like TFIOS.

I may be the only person in the world who doesn't like it, but I seriously don't.

It was well written, sure I'll give John Green that. But apart from that?

TFIOS is extremely overrated, and a very, very bad book.

Guest Post - Seana J Vixen

Seana J Vixen of The Creative Clique and The Totally Insane Writer has kindly written a guest post for this here blog. Enjoy (:

--

Well hello, you lovely people! The always awesome Amy-Anne decided to let me sneak over here and sprinkle some insanity upon you. (Or maybe I bribed her with chocolate. You'll never know. Bwa ha ha.)

In all seriousness, I've come to discuss something very deep. And serious. And deep.

It's the fact that....Disney gave me unrealistic expectations for my hair, my love life, and my pets.

Don't get me wrong, I love Disney as much as the next girl, but sometimes I watch a Disney princess movie and think to myself, "Man, how in the world is Ariel's hair that voluminous? She's lived in saltwater for her WHOLE LIFE." It's madness. Pure madness.

And each of those princesses has love at first sight. I've hardly ever heard of that actually happening to real people. These are the princesses who also have insane first dates (Jasmine went on a flying carpet. How can you compete with that?). And then they all go along and marry this guy they've just met and live happily ever after. I can honestly say that I highly doubt this will happen to me. (Especially because of the whole stranger danger thing. To quote Elsa from Frozen, "You can't marry a man you've just met.")

And finally, Disney gave me an unrealistic expectation for my pets. My dog does not come running in to help me with my chores, nor can she talk. If I start singing she doesn't see that as a sign that I want help with the dishes or cleaning my room. She just squints at me and goes back to sleep. Not quite what I had in mind.

So.

That was my guest post. It turned into a bit of a rant (oops), but thanks so much to Amy-Anne for letting me pop over her to her blog! 'twas fun.

That is all.

Cheers,

Seana