Amanda Hocking

Guys, Blade Runner is a really good movie.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Stephen King sold Carrie when he was 26-years-old. Because of this random fact, 26 has been the bar that I measured success by. I had to be a real writer by the time I was 26 or it meant I would never be a real writer. That’s what I said inside my head.

I’m 26 now. As of today, July 28, 2010, I’ve sold over 10,000 books.

No, my writing career has not been how I pictured it when I was a kid. But in some ways, it’s a lot better.

I’m not saying I’m better than Stephen King. He’s clearly a better writer and has more success than I can ever hope to achieve. I’m never actually going to compete with him, not in any real way. But this was never about being better than him.

But I did reach my goal. I am still reaching it. And that’s pretty amazing.

I recant all the negative things I hinted at my previous review of Inception. (Except Christopher Nolan still doesn’t know how to utilize ladies.)

Okay, sure it took me 11 days, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. But I just now figured out what actually happened in the movie, and it was brilliant. I kept thinking, “Wow, these are holes in the story telling,” but that’s because I didn’t see the actual story it was telling.

And it’s the best. It’s really good. It’s beyond good. It’s way better that I thought it was, now that I figured out what it thought it was.

I just watched this fun Toy Story 3 mashup with Inception, and that’s how I figured it out. It sounds stupid, but when I was watching, I was like “Oh my god, the answer was right there all along! It’s so obvious!” Maybe I was just slow. Maybe Christopher Nolan is too smart.

I don’t know. What I do know, is that I have  to see it again. In IMAX this time. The IMAX isn’t really necessary (although that scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt really should be seen in IMAX or at least a big screen.)

I’m really excited right now. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m a crazy person and a fangirl. But the fact is: It’s a good movie. I gave it 4 stars before. Now I gave 5.5.

It’s like at the end of The Usual Suspects, when the cop figures out who Keyser Soze is, and they go back and they show you all the little signs. And you’re like, “Oh my god!” It’s like that. But better.

And if you haven’t seen The Usual Suspects, go see it. And The Lookout. Those are my film recommendations for today. That, and of course, Inception.

Here’s what I’m listening to on a continuous loop: “Bulletproof” by La Roux, “Your Song” by Ewan McGregor from Moulin Rouge, and “Motorcycle Drive By” by Third Eye Blind.

On a note mostly unrrelated to anything, here are my favorite albums when I was 12:
Third Eye Blind – Third Eye Blind
Our Lady Peace – Clumsy
Beck – Odelay
Black Lab – Your Body Above Me
Pearl Jam – Ten

I stand by all these albums as being some of the best albums produced in the 1990’s. In the case of Pearl Jam, I’d say perhaps one of the best, and both Black Lab and Our Lady Peace being the most overlooked talents of the ’90s.

Third Eye Blind isn’t a great band. I’ll say that. But the last three tracks on their debut album remain some of my favorite songs to this day.

“Motorcycle Drive By” could be the anthem for Alice in Wisdom. Maybe that’s why its been so stuck in my head lately.

Anyway… I’m sleep deprived. My brain feels like mud. So I’ll sleep now.

P. S. Our Lady Peace’s Clumsy is in the top 10 best alternative albums ever. At least according to me. If you haven’t listened to it or heard of them, you should. “Superman’s Dead” is brilliant. I used to listen to that song obsessively on repeat. I’m not sure what they’re last album sounds like, but for a long time, they were the only band I had all their albums of. They’re just that good.

P. P. S. Now the only band that I have their albums is Fall Out Boy. Life is strange.

P. P. P. S. “Your Song” by Ewan is pretty damn sweet.

It’s a month until the release of Wisdom. I’ve been working on it, getting it ready for the big day, and I thought I would give you a little insight into what’s going on.

Here’s the thing: I don’t like “happily ever after.” It’s not that I don’t like happy endings. I do. Everything should have a happy ending. But I don’t like these blanket ones. (Side note: Just because I like happy ending doesn’t mean I wrote one – but I might have.)

Take the end of Cinderella. She gets married after meeting the guy once, and even though he’s supposedly so infatuated with her, he can’t even remember what she looks like well enough to find her without relying on a shoe size? They have a shotgun wedding, ride off in the carriage, the music soars, Disney says “Happily Ever After,” but I’m sitting there going, “And then what?”

How did the marriage work? Did they have anything in common? What kind of things do they do? Does Cinderella make a good queen? What does she do with her family? Did she take the mice with her when she moved out?

At some point, a story has to end, yes. But I don’t want it to end with a “everything will be great every day on now that they have this one thing.” I want a glimpse of what happily ever after will look like. Or maybe it’s not a happily ever after even.

Maybe the Prince beats Cinderella. Who knows? We know literally nothing about him, except he is unable to recognize faces. Maybe he’s autistic. I think I heard once they have a problem with facial recognition. And they can still have a happy life if he’s autistic, but it’s a different one than the one Disney always painted. A more interesting one, too.

So, anyway, I wrote the first three books in the My Blood Approves, and I left a few questions open. There’s some stuff I knew I wanted to answer in Wisdom.

But I got thinking about it – happily ever after is a really  long time when you live forever. What would that even mean for vampires?

What would you really do with forever? I might go insane if I had forever and ever and ever stretched out before me.

All the titles of the books are taken from the e e cummings poem “Since Feeling Is First,” but Wisdom is an especially apt title. Alice has made a lot of choices in the books, some good, some bad. But it’s time for her to reap what she’s sown, to grow up and understand who she is and what she has yet to become.