I'm also on FanFiction.Net, where I like to write about Avatar: The Last Airbender, Les Misérables, Once Upon a Time, and Peter Pan, among other things. Check out my profile there: http://www.fanfiction.net/jackiestarsister

This is my DeviantArt account, where you can see my photography, artwork, and collages of pictures from my favorite movies and television shows http://jackiestarsister.deviantart.com

11-3-11: I've set up a forum, my very first. Here's the link: http://www.fictionpress.com/topic/5744/2209896/1/

I plan on submitting some of my poetry, possibly a couple essays, and maybe a few short stories. I won't be posting any multli-chapter fiction stories, even though I'm working on a bunch, because I hope to publish those as actual copyrighted novels. However, I might post a few short stories I've written that are kind of excerpts of my future novels -- like the unaired pilot made before an actual TV series starts.

Rachel Joy Scott was the first person to be shot in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. A compassionate, spiritual girl who left behind several journals and essays, Rachel has been compared to Anne Frank, my personal hero and inspiration as a writer and journal-keeper. Here are the rules of Rachel's Challenge:

1. Eliminate prejudice by looking for the best in others.

2. Dare to dream. Set goals. Keep a journal.

3. Choose your influences. Input determines output.

4. Kind words small acts of kindness = HUGE impact

5. Start a chain reaction with family & friends.

A year ago, in November 2010, I went to a media festival and took a writing workshop about "spoken word," or "slam poetry." Definition: A form of poetry specifically designed to be heard. It can incorporate music and dance. Slam poetry is all about delivery; you have to be confident and visually attentive. To get a feeling for what it is, we watched several YouTube videos with good examples, and I wrote down the names so I could look them up later. Check them out, get inspired!

Alvin Lau, “For the Breakdancers.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjqqZyfpeUQ This is an example of incorporating dance into poetry. This particular poem makes me think of the Step Up movies.

Mayda Del Valle, “Elemental.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTqHrYx8lK4

Suheir Hammad, “What I Will,” Def Poetry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFbE8RBhSDw This may be my favorite spoken word listed here!

“Corner Boys,” Brave New Voices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vGE-AiVqQc

Devin Murphey, “Tourettes,” Brave New Voices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eN_iXWCgzQ I can relate to the speaker because I have ADD, and when I was in elementary school I sometimes had tics or kept clearing my throat, things like that.

I went to a different poetry festival in April 2011. It started with an assembly in which Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay (no relation) performed some spoken word poetry for us; you can find videos of them on YouTube as well. They're awesome!

Please let me know if you enjoy these videos, or if you know of any good ones that I haven't seen.

My eighth-grade English teacher had a poster hanging in her classroom that listed the following:

The Only 12 Writing Rules You'll Ever Need

1. If you write every day, you'll get better at writing every day.
2. If it's boring to you, it's boring to your reader.
3. Get a writing routine, and stick with it.
4. Poetry does NOT have to rhyme.
5. Resist stereotypes, in real life and in your writing.
6. Writers read. Writers read a lot. Writers read all the time.
7. Make lists of your favorite words and books and places and things.
8. There doesn't always have to be a moral to the story.
9. Always bring your notebook. Always bring a spare pen.
10. Go for walks. Dance. Pull weeks. Do the dishes. Write about it.
11. Don't settle on just one style. Try something new!
12. Learn to tell both sides of the story.
12 1/2. Stop looking at this list. WRITE SOMETHING!

The Seven Laws of Writing, from Anybody Can Write by Roberta Jean Bryant

1. To write is an active verb. Thinking is not writing. Writing is putting words on paper.

2. Write passionately. Everybody has loves and hates; even quiet people lead passionate lives. Creativity follows passion.

3. Write honestly. Risk nakedness. Originality equals vulnerability.

4. Write for fun, for personal value. If you don't enjoy the process, why should anyone enjoy the product? Pleasure precedes profit.

5. Write anyway. Ignore discouraging words, internal and external. Persistence pays off.

6. Write a lot. Use everything. Learning comes from your own struggles with words on paper.

7. Write out of commitment to your ideas, commitment to yourself as a writer. Trust yourself.

Here's something you can copy and paste into your profile. (The parentheses are ME talking, please delete those.)

You know you're a writer...

If you talk to yourself
If you talk to yourself about talking to yourself
If, when you talk to yourself, you sometimes speak as if talking to another person
If, after uttering a profound piece of wisdom like that above, you stare at the cookie in your hand in awe and say, ‘Wow, this is good stuff for sugar highs!’
If you live off of sugar and caffeine
If people start to notice that you tend to check your e-mail every day for a week, then suddenly disappear off the face of the planet.
If your e-mails tend to be pages long and incredibly random
If, when replying to someone else’s e-mail, you are sometimes so random that you fail to address the original message altogether.
If you tend to collect the Bic Stics people leave lying around, kind of like picking pennies off the ground. (Sometimes I do.)
If, no matter where you are in your room, you never have to so much as get up to reach a pen/pencil and paper.
If the letters are starting to wear off on the keys of your keyboard.
If people think you might have A.D.D. (Yes, I do have A.D.D., and it bothers me just a little bit when people who don't have it lie or joke and say that they have it when they really don't.)
If you start constantly talking in third person, past tense.
If you think about making lists like this, and start giggling for no ‘apparent’ reason.
If your friends don’t even bother to look funny at you anymore when you start giggling for no apparent reason.
If you worship English 101.

(I'd like to add to the list:)

If you get words stuck in your head, especially big vocabulary words you may not know the meaning of (like "clairvoyance" or "promiscuity").

Here are some of my favorite quotes about writing. I found most (but not all) of them in a book I have, "Quotes for Writing" compiled by Janet Alexander Pell. If you like any of them, feel free to copy and paste them into your profile.

The chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore. Harlan Ellison

In every bit of honest writing in the world … there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. there is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other. John Steinbeck, 1938 journal entry (quoted in the Introduction to a 1994 edition of Of Mice and Men by Susan Shillinglaw, p. vii)

Don't waste your time on the obvious things. Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else. Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. Willa Carter

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. Barbara Kingsolver

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. Tony Morrison

Nothing you write, if you ever hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped. Lillian Hellman

It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them. Anne Tyler

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. Cynthia Ozick

You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life -- the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it. Doris Lessing

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. Cyril Connolly

To keep writing talents strong and sharp, nourish the space where they came from.…See fine art, hear soothing music, taste wonderful foods, touch fantastic texture or smell exotic aromas. Joyce Locking

The writers of today, even I, have a tendency to celebrate the destruction of the spirit and God knows it is destroyed often enough. It is the duty of the writer to lift up, to extend, to encourage. John Steinbeck

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive elements in your style. Kurt Vonnegut

An artist should not wait for inspiration … but must work continually: then when inspiration comes, he is ready. Kenneth Hayes Miller

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients. Samuel Johnson

Like wind for a sailboat, inspiration for creative work is vital but undependable. Unknown

What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in! D.H. Lawrence

In every man's writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded. Thomas Carlyle

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all. Voltaire

Our best thoughts come from others. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I quote others only the better to express myself. Michel E. de Montaigne

A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a chord of association with his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Francis George Fowler

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. - Terri Guillemets

Easy reading is damn hard writing. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. - James Michener

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. - Sinclair Lewis

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes. - André Gide

Stories are true to our common experience; they are statements which concern the human condition... Stories are not subject to the imposition of such questions as true or false, fact or fiction. Stories are realities lived and believed. They are true. N. Scott Momaday

A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

… Javert, being an artist, liked surprises. He hated those vaunted successes that are deflowered by talking of them long in advance. He liked to develop his masterpieces in the shadows, and then unveil them suddenly afterward. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from the human lips; - not be represented on canvas or marble only, but carved out of the breath of life itself. Henry David Thoreau

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it. Jesse Stuart

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Albert Einstein

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. Jane Austen

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. Ernest Hemingway

A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper. E.B. White

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. Isaac Asimov

Jesus answered them and said, "My teaching is not my own but is from the one who sent me. Whoever chooses to do his will shall know whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on his own seeks his own glory, but whoever seeks the glory of the one who sent him is truthful, and there is no wrong in him." John 7:16-18, The New American Bible