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On a normal day my phone sounds like a ver aggressive mosquito, angrily buzzing every other minute. Nowhere else are my real life and online life as intertwined as here: I receive tweets from blog buddies while checking the results of my final exams and pictures of my friend's lunch are next to pictures of pretty flowers on the other side of the planet. Most of the time I love it. Sometimes the constant stream ofmessages annoys me. That's why I couldn't care less about not having internet access most of the time during my four week trip to Germany and France.

At first the silence on the campground was deafening. Obviously no mail from college, but also no tweets from blog buddies, no endless conversations about Hodor with a high school friend. Nothing. I felt a little uneasy... until I realized I wasn't mindlessly staring at my Facebook newsfeed, I wasn't looking at badly written blog posts about make-up (sometimes I get so bored I even look at make-up blogs- I always regret it). I wasn't bombarded with messages from friends and foes alike. I wasn't getting distracted by the wonderful world of the internet, I was living in the real world for 100%. And it was awesome.

Suddenly I found myself staring at ducks in a river for hours at a time. I got overexcited at the sight of certain rocks. The geologist inside me spent hours thinking about the geology of the area and the part of me that's a writer kept coming up with plots for fantasy stories set in the woods I'd been walking through all day. I didn't miss the internet at all in those first two weeks. We spend too much time staring at screens and too little looking at the world around us. That's a shame. It's a beautiful world and it has too much to offer to be ignored. Turning your phone off for a couple of days won't kill you - if anything it'll make you feel more alive.

I came home on the 13th, ten days ago. I haven't posted since that day. I went online to catch up with some friends, but the internet had lost some of its appeal. While I was away, I'd started to miss being in touch with my friends, but back home I missed the woods, I missed the conversations with my dad. And so I decided to stay away a little longer. Spent some more time in the real world. I don't know what pulled me back in. I was probably missing you guys and all of the awesomeness you have to offer. Still I seem to turn my phone off a little earlier every night. I try not to spend too much time browsing site I'm not interested in. But most of all I try to enjoy the real world more and so far I'm enjoying it a lot!

Stay Awesome!

It all began as a way to mock Twilight: my very own vampire story. I started writing it when I was 15. For years I ignored it. Then I told two of my blog buddies about the story. They said they were interested, that they wanted to read it. I felt flattered and translated the first chapter for them. That chapter was published at the very beginning of this year. A second chapter followed. Then... nothing.
I didn't stop posting on purpose. The third chapter was the biggest mess I'd ever seen. There is a reason why 15 year old girls never make the best seller lists and this chapter was the perfect example of this reason. It needed so much rewriting and revising that I couldn't find time between writing and college to sleep ot eat. I had my priorities straight this spring: I focused on college. But now it's summer and over the past few weeks I have been working on chapter three, even working past that point, I've written some new chapters and soon I'll finally be able to post chapter three.

When I discovered Young Adult books, I was 12 years old and YA was still new and original. The Potterheads still ruled the fandom world and Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games took the market by storm. Okay, it was also the start of the Twilight era, but back then vampires and dystopian fiction were still original
A little over six years down the road all YA seems the same. Maybe it's just me: I'm 19 and I've seen all the big trends come and go. I'm not as easily impressed anymore  as I was when the YA world was still new to me. But deep down, I know it's not me. It's the whole genre.

There's a simple recipe for writing a best-seliing YA book these days: We start out with a strong female main character who's 16 years old. She is very special, a special little snow flake, but she doesn't realize it. Of course she'll have to save the world.
Now we need two love interests. Not just one, that's boring. Every best-selling YA needs a love triangle. These two guys must adore our strong and special female lead and will follow her everywhere like orphaned puppies. Of course they think our beloved main character is absolutely perfect in everything she does.
So we've got our characters, now we need a plot. Thinking of a more or less original plot is too much effort. Why do that anyway if you can recycle a plot? If you want to write dystopian, you can recycle The Hunger Games, if you're writing romance Twilight will help you out. The closest you'll get to finding originality is writing a ripoff from a ripoff.
While you're writing you have to keep in mind that things happen for no reason at all.Characters don't need any motivation or background. The principle of 'show, don't tell' is a crazy idea you'll have to get rid of as soon as possible.
That's how succesful YA is written these days. Well, at least 95% of it. I am too old to stalk the bookstores, hoping to find a book from those other 5%

Okay, I did read some amazing YA a few months ago (you can read the review here). But I almost wanted to slam the door to the YA fangirl part of my life shut, when I thought about what every aspiring author says at least once in their lives:

Source

Without realizing it, that''s exactly what I was doing with A Vampire's Mistake. It ticked literally none of the boxes I listed above.
Strong female lead: Nope, main character is a dude.
MC has to save the world: Nope, he's too lazy for that. Besides, he's a bit of an ass.
Two love interests: Nope, not even one.
Stolen plot: If this has been done before you could say I stole the plot, but as far as I know it's original.
Things happen for no reason at all: Nope, there's a problem causing another problem which causes a huge conflict. I put a lot of effort into making things logical and scientifically correct.
I'm doing the best I can for this story, but when it comes to reading YA... I think I've moved past the cliche-filled drivel phase we all seem to be going through.

Stay Awesome!

In my previous post I told you about a writing contest I entered. I had to write about a travel discovery, which was about the only criterium I had to meet. My entry didn't win anything and after analyzing other entries, I think Ik now why: I wrote about feelings I discovered because of the beautiful place I was visiting. Most others wrote about more concrete travel discoveries, like a nice restaurant, a beautiful building, stunning music... I could've written something like that too. The problem is that the only concrete travel discovery I've ever made by myself that I could think of was... a toilet. This is what my entry would have been like if I'd written about that toilet.

The Toilet in Singapore
If you've ever been on a plane for more than six hours, you know what I'm going to say about airplane toilets. Same goes for anyone who's flown for less than six hours but forgot to go to the toilet before the flight. Anyway, if you've seen an airplane restroom from the inside, you won't be suprised when I tell you that I absolutely hate those toilets. The restroom isn't just insanely small, but the toilet itself makes noises  that sound like a dying rhinoceros when you flush it. So when I flew from Sydney to Singapore, I refused to go to the toilet on the plane. Stupid idea, I know, but I really hate the dying rhino sounds that make me fear the plane is going to crash. As a result I literally ran out of the plane when it finally landed in Singapore. I wasn't very happy with the prospect of using an airport toilet, which is usually a bit disgusting, but everything's better than an airplane toilet. I quickly found the restroom - and my jaw dropped.
The restroom looked like a palace. It was very light and modern, with dark wooden doors, a high ceiling and the biggest mirror above the wash basins. There were at least seven toilets, no lines at all, which is a miracle in any women's restroom on the planet. On top of that, the toilets were squeaky clean and there were flowers in the stalls. It was heaven compared to the small compartment on the airplane where sitting down meant banging your knees into the wall.
After washing my hands, I noticed a tablet on the wall next to the door. On the screen was one single question: 'How happy are you with this restroom?' I could rate it through a series of emoticons and of course I gave it the happiest rating I could. This restroom was the best I'd seen on all my travels and heaven on earth after seven hours on a plane.

This is what my entry would've looked like if I'd chosen to describe a more concrete travel discovery. Do you think I would have had a better chance of winning if I'd submitted this one?
Stay Awesome!

A little while ago, I entered a writing competition, hoping to win a US roadtrip and a huge amount of money. I didn't win anything, but I thought it'd be fun to share my entry with you. For this contest I had to write about a 'travel discovery'. I had a hard time deciding which one of my 'travel discoveries' I should describe, but in the end I chose for something I discovered last summer in Peru. I discovered that language barriers don't matter in those special moments that you're truly happy.

A Stranger's Smile
I was not exactly happy while walking the Inca Trail from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu in Peru. On the first day I'd contantly been awestruck by the Andean mountains and ancient Inca ruins. On the second day I came down with food poisoning. By the end of the third day I was so exhausted that I didn't even make it to my tent when I reached the campground.

Great things happen on the Camino Inka

I sat down at the end of the camp ground and let my legs dangle off the steep drop-off. About two meters below was the path to the restrooms. People came and went, but I didn't see a single one of them. Night had fallen and I was looking up at the night sky. Within an hour the stars would come out and the Milky Way would cast its glow upon the snowy mountain tops. But now there was nothing to see in the deep dark sky yet. Nothing but the moon.
On the campground the porters, who carried all our supplies and tents, had set up the dinner tent and were busy cooking dinner. I left it all for what it was and watched the fog rise up from the trees. The air was filled with the chatter of excited tourists and the clanging of pots and pans and dinner was prepared all over the campground. There was a sense of ecxitement and joy in the air, as we'd reach Machu Picchu the next morning, but I didn't feel it. I was exhausted and, for some reason, sad and worried about my future.
One of the younger porters walked by on the path beneath. He caught my eye and smiled. 'La luna,' he said. My Spanish was poor and I had no idea what he meant. He pointed at the moon. 'La luna,' he repeated and he smiled again. I smiled back and nodded. 'It's beautiful,' I said, even though I knew he couldn't understand me. That didn't matter at that moment. He smiled again and in that moment it didn't matter where I came from or where I was going. It was just him, me and the moon high above us, waiting there for the stars to come out.  A stranger's smile in the darkness changed my whole night around. There wasn't a single fancy adjective that could describe how I felt at that moment, but there was one simply word that could: Happy. For once I was simply and truly happy.

Apart from this entry, I also had to name two places I'd want to visit if I won the US road trip. I chose New England as area and these two places to go to. At least my reasons for choosing these places was original.

Maine, because after all the Stephen King books I've read, I really want to know why all the weird things always happen in Maine.

Boston, because my dad ran the Boston Marathon years ago and I'd love to see the place where he got so hungry during the race that he stole a banana from a supporter.

Sadly my originality didn't impress anyone, but at least I had a lot of fun writing my entry.
Stay Awesome!