For many, Christmas, is one of the busiest times of year. I on the other hand, have always enjoyed a laid back Christmas, consisting mostly of lazing on the couch: I am not one, who wishes for chaos on Christmas, rather serenity and relaxation.

Matt, Flickr "Labeled for reuse"

1. Wake up (usually between 8:00-10:00 - although, I usually wake up early, so feel free to adjust the timeframe)
2. Remain in bed for another half hour (I'll usually read something- usually LOTR related)
3. Finally get up, and trudge to the kitchen
4. Have a yummilicious breakfast (something along the lines of: pancakes, waffles, omelette, something a little special)
5. Walk over to the living room, and put something on the TV (try for something Christmasy) 
6. After watching for a while, begin opening presents :) 
7. If there's any present you can 'do' right now, do that.
8. Watch Deck the Halls
9. Eat snacky food throughout the day 
10. Watch LOTR
11. Eat a scrumptious dinner 
12. Fall to sleep in glee 

I am the type of person who collects things. This habit turns to misfortune, when I inevitably lose interest after a couple years. However, a less pricey, and arguably more useful, collection of mine, has been quotes. When I can remember (and be bothered to), I will record quotes from movies, tv shows, and books. Here, for your enjoyment, are a few of them (I can't be bothered to count).

Wikimedia commons "labeled for reuse"

"Where is her case? Did she eat it?" BBC Sherlock Holmes

"Four suicides and a note, it must be Christmas!" BBC Sherlock Holmes

"A storm will blow the evil person away, but a good person will always be safe." Proverbs 10:25

"If I get reincarnated... I wanna become a clam." Monkey D. Luffy

"Weaklings cannot choose their way of death." Trafalgar Law

"Bring on the hardship. It's preferred in a path of carnage." Roronoa Zoro

"The best place to write is by yourself because writing then becomes an escape from the terrible boredom of your own personality." John Kenneth Galbraith

"Don't falter. If you do, then who are we supposed to believe in?" Roronoa Zoro

"An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing." Nicholas Murray Butler

"'Research' is a wonderful word for writers. It serves as an excuse for EVERYTHING" Rayne Hall

"A scholar must not only be capable of hard, often totally resultless work- he must actually relish it." Richard D. Altick

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." Star Trek

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Douglas Adams

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." Maya Angelou

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write." Saul Bellow

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." Ray Bradbury

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie." Stephen King

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." E.L. Doctorow

"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." G.K. Chesterton

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." Joseph Brodsky

"You can fix anything but a blank page." Nora Roberts

"You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club." Jack London

"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you." Leo Tolstoy

"I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose." Stephen King

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." Aristotle Onassis

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living." Dr. Seuss

"The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it." Peter Pan

"Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities." David Mitchell

"Into the sky to win or die." Eragon

Shall we dance, friend of my heart? 

We shall little one     -Eldest

"Life is like a box of chocolates." Forrest Gump

"Give me liberty or give me death." Patrick Henry

To read is to begin to understand, what it means to write. Only then can one attempt to weave characters from words, and stories from ideas.

I've been reading since I knew how to, however, writing has come more slowly to me. Writing and I haven't always had the best of relationships, throughout much of my early years, I didn't believe myself to be particularly good (at writing, that is). It wasn't something I found enjoyable, if anything it was a necessity. For many years this was my attitude towards the art, which at the time didn't seem to be a skill I possessed. However, as I read, and continued to begrudgingly jot down strings of words, I begun to see its beauty. The intricate branches that collided to form masterpieces, I saw that writing, like a painting, requires forethought, imagination, and determined execution.

Wikimedia commons "labeled for reuse"

As I continued (and still do) to hone my craft, I finally found an outlet for the stories dancing in my head. However, now I face a new foe: editing. Having to edit 100,000 words of imagination, is no small feat, and will probably take me a while longer. My hope is, that one day I will be able to publish the book which only exists because I learned to read.

Take courage in my favourite wise words of these, more established, authors.

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

"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very', your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." and "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lighting and a lightning bug." -Mark Twain

"There are three rules to for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." -W. Somerset Maugham

And she walked in the darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back in the deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not daunt her now. 

I realise that the picture is not of a spider. Yes, I realise that this is about a spider. No I will not put a picture of a spider on my blog. Why? They are completely disturbing. The furthest I will go is a dragonfly- although, know this, I'm still not happy about it.

Shelob's description (and portrayal on screen) is, quite frankly, terrifying: and that's for someone who doesn't mind spiders. I run screaming like a headless chicken when I see a daddy-longlegs, needless to say I hope a 'Shelob' never comes to exist. Not only does she have paralysing venom, she'll use it so as to eat you alive. Wonderful.

Wikimedia commons "labeled for reuse"

In the movie rendition, she is made out to be at least the size of a horse, and in the book we are also led to believe she carries quite a bulk. Thankfully, as far as we know, no such giant arachnids, or bugs for that matter, exist today. But could they? And did they before?

During the time of the Dinosaurs, fossilised Dragonflies have been found, the size of ravens. It's been said that the oxygen rich atmosphere (upwards of 30%), led to these giant terrors. Researchers believe the excess oxygen allowed them to grow to astronomical sizes, whilst still performing essential functions. However, a new study, seems to show, that it's the larvae's vulnerability to surplus that catalysed this nightmare enduring growth. The solution to their problem would be to grow larger, thus the intake of oxygen would be lessened, relative to their alarming bodies.

So rest easy, knowing that, Shelob won't be coming to eat you in your sleep anytime soon.

How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dur, and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.  

Deck the halls with boughs of holly 

Enough of that. I assume you're all familiar with the tune: which gets quite irritating after a few run-throughs. Anywho, I've been watching the movie Deck the Halls for at least three, probably four years. Obviously, at Christmas time.

Who moves in the middle of the night, a meth lab?    -Steve Finch

Now, I feel that Christmas movies deserve a whole other genre. It isn't really possible to compare it to a fantasy epic, or a thriller, or a horror film (incidentally, I detest this genre). Thus, I won't do so. This is bound to be one of my favourite Christmas movies, as there's nothing else quite like it, Buddy Hall's interactions with his neighbour have you laughing and fuming at the same time. Whilst you watch, you can't help being in a Christmasy mood.

If you're looking for a good Christmas movie, may I suggest Deck the Halls.

Wikimedia commons "labeled for reuse"

Pixabay "labeled for reuse"

We call it being orphaned. It's the worst fate imaginable.You're trapped inside the reflection.. forever. Got it?

This book, is certainly not one of my favourites, although, I never expected it to be- so it didn't really fail on that point. I point I have to make, the idea of the book is fantastic, although, Rix doesn't create a whole new world, he makes our world a whole heck of a lot more interesting. The issue, is more with the writing itself, it most certainly isn't bad, however, it isn't what I'm used to. The main character, for the most part, is unlikeable, and a number of side-characters are neglected. What's more I deduced the ending a couple chapters before it ended. Granted, this is much better than a lot of books, however, it does lose something when you can figure it out before-hand.

All in all, I'd recommend this book if you want a quick and fun read. If you want a book that you'll never forget, that you can submerse your mind into, may a recommend something else. If I'm ever in the need of such a book again, I might think about another one of Rix's.

Feel free to completely ignore this post, actually please do. I'm merely writing this to remind my forgetful self to change the background of Serenity in a Tea Cup, on occasion. Currently, it should be a semi-Christmasy themed one.

1. Go to template
2. Click on customise
3. Change backgrounds as you please 

Cyan blue bauble background "labeled for reuse"

Wikimedia commons "labeled for reuse"

Anyone who's actually read Tolkien's original masterpiece knows that Peter Jackson has taken certain liberties. Some of them more irritating than others... I thought I'd begin with a rather minor one, but a divergence all the same. The main issue I take with this revision, is its needlessness. The original scene was changed, however, in the books (and the movie) it isn't of extreme significance, so I must ask, why change it at all?

First of, they are supposed to be black. The butterflies that is. In the movie, for one reason or another, they are blue- turquoise if you're a colour snob. This minor change, doesn't really bother me, I can imagine black butterflies, from a distance, may appear too much akin to moths.

However, take a look at this quote, spoken by Bilbo in the movie.

I can see a lake... and a river. And the lonely mountain. We're almost there! Can you hear me? I know which way to go.  - Bilbo Baggins

This is then followed by the spider scene, which actually occurs at a slightly later time in the book- but I digress.

Now look at this quote from the book.

He looked at the 'black emperors' for a long time, and enjoyed the feel of the breeze in his hair and on his face; but at length the cries of the dwarves, who were now simply stamping with impatience below, reminded him of his real business. It was no good. Gaze as much as he might, he could see no end to the trees and the leaves in any direction.

Do you see the discrepancy? In the book, Bilbo doesn't spot anything, the only thing he gets out of his climb, is the feeling of invigorating wind. In the movie, he apparently sees the Lonely Mountain, and is now planning to lead the dwarves henceforth. As the following part of the story, has nothing to do with reaching their goal, but rather getting captured by spiders and then the great Elvenking, why was it changed? It doesn't contribute to the plot, and is thus, in my mind, a completely unnecessary deviance from the book.