Les Miserables and other wonderful things.

Today I was listening to my music on shuffle and Phantom of the Opera came on. I had to go back and listen to the whole album while I was driving, and it was then that I realized how much of a sucker I am for musicals. I watched My Fair Lady over Thanksgiving break, reminisced about how much fun I had seeing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with my sisters in the summer, and I even put the release date for Les Miserables in my phone calendar! 

I can't sing or play any musical instruments, so maybe that's why I appreciate a good musical so much. I love Broadway musicals, classical musicals, and listening to Pandora stations with musicals. When I was dating my husband and found out he was musically talented, had been in choir his whole life, and even play Dodger in Oliver when he was little, I swooned :)

I know I should be counting down the days until the Hobbit (and I am excited for it), but I can't wait for Les Miserables to come out. 

I love The Phantom of the Opera, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Wicked, and West Side Story, and I've been lucky enough to see them on Broadway. I haven't seen Les Miserables live, but I hope to one day have the opportunity. For now I'm just excited to see the movie. 

What are your favorite musicals? 

If you haven't seen it yet, here is the trailer for Les Miserables. 

A little Random, but always Fun.

Hello! How was your Thanksgiving? I had a great time, so much so that I wasn't a very dedicated blogger. I did however keep getting little sparks of inspiration for blog posts that I wanted to write. I'd hurry and scribble down, Write blog post on Christmas recipes, or Reminder: write blog post about magic, basically a lot of random stuff. I even made a note about doing a post while I was watching my favorite Boy Meets World episode...but now that just seems weird...well, maybe I'll just post one picture.

Hee hee. Okay, moving on. 

So during the break I had a great book signing, started reading two new books that I'm loving so far (more on those later), and I got to spend a lot of time with family. Honestly this Thanksgiving was one of the funnest I can remember. 

My family is pretty silly, and I loved spending time with them while watching old home videos and laughing--and eating pie, can't forget about the pie! Though I try and tell them, I feel like I never can say enough how truly thankful I am for all of them. 

I love this boy so much and I'm so thankful that I'm married to him!

I also love all these crazy, cute, fun sisters of mine and had a blast spending time with them. 

I have so much to be grateful for, and I try to always keep that in mind.

 Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well and that you're looking forward to December as much as I am!

P.S. I've been listening to Michael Buble's Christmas Album for weeks now and it's been great. What other Christmas Albums can you recommend? I hope to make the ultimate Christmas music playlist!

Books

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” 

― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

Breaking Dawn Twist! What did you think?

I'm posting about Breaking Dawn Part 2, but before you read any further please know that this contains SPOILERS. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read this! I don't want to ruin the ending for you.

Also, if you don't like Twilight or Vampires that is perfectly fine. I read the series when I was in college dreaming about becoming an author and I always admired Stephenie Meyer's imagination. So if Twilight isn't your cup of hot chocolate (my preferred beverage), then please don't feel like you have to read this. I've read the books, seen the movies, and been involved with the series for a long time, so I like talking about them.

All right, am I safe to talk about the ending now?

SPOILERS ahead. Sorry, one last warning!

So all that's on my mind is the battle scene! WOW. WOW! Ahem, sorry, I'll try to stay collected here.

I remember seeing the trailer for Breaking Dawn last week when it advertised a "surprise" ending. I thought, how can it be a surprise? We all read the books, we know what happens, right?

Wrong! How very, very wrong I was. The beginning is a little slow, then there's the gathering of the vampires across the world, which by the way, I LOVED the cast.

At the end, everyone lines up to potentially battle the Volturi.  Every vampire and every werewolf is ready to attack, even though the books tell us no battle ever takes place. But then, TWIST. *GASP* Alice tells Aro that it doesn't matter what she shows him, the volturi will fight against them no matter what. Then the mind blowing battle begins...

Every vampire and werewolf faces off. Good verses the Volturi. Good verses evil. The BIG ENDING. The fighting, throwing, and limb tearing leaves you in shock. I kept thinking, this ins't in the book, this isn't in the book, this isn't in the book!

Then the ultimate shocker. Carlisle dies. My jaw dropped and my heart raced. Suddenly the movie theater felt much too warm. The girl next to me started bawling. Even though my husband denies it, I know he was surprised!

Next Jasper dies. Carlisle and Jasper? Come on, they can't die! I felt a little numb at that point, I thought, okay, well then, they just decided to rewrite the whole ending. But the only part that almost made me come to tears was seeing the werewolves fight. When Seth died I was so disappointed. Why did he have to look like a dog?! I'm such a dog person and seeing Seth whimper and die just broke my heart. I had to pull a "it's not real, it's just a movie."

Luckily though, with all the sadness and shock of losing such lovable characters, you also get the satisfaction of seeing Volturi members go down. When Jane (Dakota Fanning) died brutally, the whole movie theater broke out into applause. Then, the ultmiate Volturi death: Aro dies. The face of evil is finally gone!

Still in shock, and wondering why the ending was so different than the book, everything ends. Suddenly a new scene flashes. NONE OF THE BATTLE REALLY TOOK PLACE. It was all in a vision.

Everyone in the audience cheered again. They all took a deep breath (and secretly wiped their eyes). No Cullen or werewolf died! YAY! Everyone realized it was all a vision between Alice and Aro. AMAZING.

But, wait, a vision!? I thought one of the biggest rules of writing was NEVER ever have an epic scene and then flash back and say, never mind, it was all a dream (or a vision). I thought that was against the rules!

It worked though. Everyone was so sad with the battle that it made it that much more marvelous when everyone was still alive. Best of all, we got to see all the vampires fight and use their gifts. An awesome battle scene, plus no one really got hurt? Yes, I believe that qualifies for an epic twist of an ending.

The Twilight series is far from perfect, and there are a lot of scenes I could do without. But lets all admit that the ending of this movie was amazing. At least that's how I felt about it.

I want to hear your thoughts! What did you think? Were you as shocked as I was with the ending?

P.S. I'm sorry if any of the names or events are mixed up or out of order, it was midnight after all.

Sequel, sequel, sequel!

I'm happy to announce that I've signed the contract for my sequel, The Siren's Secret, and it will be released this summer! Woohoo!

Get ready for more adventure, romance, werecats, and....sirens! 

Interview and Giveaway

Writing Snippets is a wonderful site with lots of great advice for writers. They were kind enough to interview me for a podcast and also host a giveaway for The Shapeshifter's Secret. Click the link below to listen to the podcast and enter the giveaway. 

http://writingsnippets.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/podcast-interview-author-heather-ostler-talks-about-networking/

These ladies are such talented authors as well as great friends of mine. Enjoy!

P.S. I get really nervous listening to my own voice, in fact it makes me cringe. Does that happen to anyone else?  I've got a lot to learn about interviews and public speaking!