Spell Check Leads the Pack!

Woke this morning to discover that Spell Check had a huge lead in the votes for Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews. Friends, family, and fans have updated me throughout the day as they cast their votes. The contest continues through tomorrow, Sunday, July 1st. If you haven't cast your vote yet for Spell Check, here's the link: http://aurorareviews.blogspot.com/ 

I hope you'll visit me on Facebook and lend your support by clicking on "Like."

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ariella-Moon/280422935311235?sk=app_4949752878

Love and Light,
~Ariella

Vote Spell Check for Book Of The Month!

This Saturday and Sunday, June 30th & July 1^st, you can vote for my sweet teen romance novel, Spell Check, for Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews. I would love (okay, desperately need) your support. The voting link will go live this Saturday, June 30^th: http://aurorareviews.blogspot.com/ 

Below is an excerpt from the LASR 5 Star Review by Lotus. Thank you in advance (and cyber hugs) to any of you who take a moment this weekend to vote for Spell Check. 

~Ariella Moon

amazon.com/author/ariellamoon

www.AriellaMoon.com

Ms. Moon tells a wonderful, entrancing story... The descriptions of Evie and her friends made me laugh because their actions and speech were so similar to teenagers who I know (and love). Then the feelings that Evie had for Jordan reminded me of how first love feels, giddy and sweet.

Spell Check is a great story for the young adult or the young at heart. I enjoyed the vicarious experience of falling in love, dealing with secrets, and working out best friend issues. Evie’s father dying young does punctuate the need for Evie to live life to the fullest and go after what she wants once she wakes up from her sorrow. It’s food for thought for the rest of us as we enjoy Evie’s spell binding adventure.

Safety Not Guaranteed

"WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid when we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

This is the most intriguing and brilliantly written classified ad ever! No wonder it inspired writer Derek Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow to create Safety Not Guaranteed, winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance.  I, for one, cannot wait to see the movie.

As a writing tutor and teacher, I talk about the importance of making every word count and having a great hook. The author of this ad could teach a master class on writing. "I've only done this once before" may be the best hook since Carolyn Turgeon wrote the first chapter ending in Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story. With Safety Not Guaranteed, like Godmother, I can't wait to discover what happens next.


Save me an aisle seat and pass the popcorn.

~Ariella Moon

  Spell Check

Spell Check Up for Book of the Month!

Spell Check Received a 5 Star Rating
From Long and Short Reviews -Young Adult

"Ms.Moon tells a wonderful, entrancing story..."

I'm thrilled to announce that Long and Short Reviews gave Spell Check a 5 Star Rating! On June 30 and July 1st you will be able to vote for Spell Check for Book of the Month. 

Meanwhile, here is a link to the review:

http://aurorareviews.blogspot.com/2012/06/spell-check-by-ariella-moon.html

~Ariella

Katniss Everdeen and the Goddess Artemis

Part Two: Bold and Impetuous; Moral and Immoral

Katniss and Artemis both gain reputations for being highly skilled archers. Both are bold and impetuous. Katniss, angry at being ignored by potential sponsors whose largess can mean the difference between life and death in the Hunger Games, shoots an arrow into their midst. The arrow pierces the apple in the mouth of the banquet pig. Katniss then stalks out. The rash act seals her fate and reputation. Later in book one of the series, when Katniss is plunged into the Hunger Games arena and knows she must kill or be killed, her morals prevent her from directly murdering anyone. Instead, she acts in self-defense, protects a tribute that reminds her of Prim, and eventually joins forces with Peeta.

Artemis fails to live by a similar moral code. Although she is supposed to be the protector of the vulnerable, especially women in childbirth and girls, Artemis sometimes slips into her Shadow Self. The goddess is easily taunted and quick to avenge insults, especially those made by prideful humans. Homer wrote in the Iliad, that Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo, became incensed when the human, Niobe, wife of Amphion, insulted their mother, Leto. Niobe had boasted that she was better than Leto because Leto had born only two children, and Niobe twelve. (In other accounts, the number is fourteen.) According to Homer, “Niobe’s twelve children were destroyed in her palace, six daughters and six sons in the pride of their youth, whom Apollon (Apollo) killed with arrows from his silver bow…and Artemis shaft-showering killed the daughters…”

Bringers of Light

Zeus may have granted Artemis the title, Bearer of Light, but it is Katniss, who, over the course of The Hunger Games trilogy, truly becomes the Bearer of Light. Katniss’s journey takes her from being an impulsive, impoverished, fiercely protective Maiden Huntress, the Girl on Fire, to the Mockingjay, the face of the rebellion. Used as a pawn first by the Capitol then by the rebels, it appears Katniss may never be free. As her definition of family expands, so does her role as protector. Every moment, Katniss faces her mortality and that of the people she loves. Each step of the way, the once untamed child becomes a reluctant leader. As she steps into the responsibilities that come with being a symbol of the rebellion, she sheds light on truths that have been kept hidden.

Although Katniss possesses many Maiden Goddess attributes, in true mortal fashion, she cannot remain an eternal child. She leaves that luxury to those who can afford it—goddesses like Artemis and Diana.

Copyright 2012 Ariella Moon

Katniss Everdeen - The Modern Embodiment of The Maiden Goddess

Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of Suzanne Collins’s popular Hunger Games series, embodies many of the qualities found in the Maiden Goddess Archetype. In particular, she resembles Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Hunt and Protection, also known as the Bringer of Light. Artemis’s Roman counterpart is Diana.

Katniss and Artemis share the following attributes:

Virginal

Young

Highly skilled archer

Fiercely protective

Wishes to remain childless

Most at home in the forest

Brave and impetuous

Bringers of Light

Despite these similarities, Katniss and Artemis perceive the world and react to it quite differently. How could they not when one is an oppressed, impoverished human, and the other is an unconstrained, privileged immortal? 

Virgin Huntresses

When Artemis was three years-old, according to the Greek poet and scholar, Callimachus (305BC-240BC) in his Hymn 3 to Artemis, the goddess asked her father, Zeus, “Give me keep my maidenhood forever.” The young goddess also asked for a bow and arrows fashioned by the Cyclopes, and an embroidered hunting tunic reaching her knee “that I may slay wild beasts.” She asked for sixty daughters of Okeanos, all nine-year-old virgins, for her choir, and twenty Nymphs to tend her buskins (high, thick-soled shoes) and her hounds. Artemis also requested all the mountains to dwell upon, and to be Phaesphoria, Bringer of Light. Zeus granted his daughter’s demands and more, enabling her to live without constraints, free of marriage and childbirth. 

Katniss, like Artemis, is a Maiden Huntress. Her greatest strengths are her prowess with a bow and arrow, and her knowledge of the forest and hunting. Unlike the goddess’s world, Katniss’s world is one of constraint and government oppression. It is illegal for her and the other residents of District Twelve to enter the forest. Katniss and her longtime friend, Gale, risk severe punishment whenever they hunt in the woods. But Katniss cannot resist the forbidden forest, it’s where her most tangible links to her late father—his bow and arrows are—hidden. Katniss feels most free in the woods, but she is never free. She hunts out of necessity. If she fails, her family will starve.

The motivating force in Katniss’s life is her desire to protect Prim, her younger sister. When Prim’s name is drawn during The Reaping, a government mandated lottery in which a boy and girl from each district is chosen to fight to the death in an extreme reality show, The Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place.

Katniss cannot imagine bringing children into a world where they will be condemned to lifelong poverty and oppression. Her unwillingness to subject her future children to The Reaping prevents her from fully committing to Gale, or her fellow District Twelve tribute, Peeta. Whereas Artemis chooses eternal virginity as a means to escape the responsibilities of marriage and children, Katniss views spinsterhood and childlessness as her only moral option.


Copyright 2012 by Ariella Moon

Saturday. Part Two: Katniss and Artemis - Bold and Impetuous, Moral, Immoral

Or, to read the whole article now, go to www.AriellaMoon.com and click on The Monthly Muse.