Happy New Year!

I love writing, but I love reading even more. And this past Christmas, I got the best gift ever: a first edition and autographed copy of Laurell K Hamilton’s “Bloody Bones”.

I am ecstatic!

So ecstatic, in fact, that I made a video about it in which I rambled ecstatically about my ecstatic state of being. 😀

I won it in a Facebook post contest a few weeks back.

See me opening my package with sheer joy and cool background music!

View below:

The Sims 4 CAS Demo: I Made My First Sim!

The Sims 4 Create-A-Sim Demo is a tricky thing to use, but extremely simple. It’s the free download coming to everyone just weeks before the full game is released on September 2nd.

The Sims 4 base game itself features events, activities and objects that previously only appeared in expansion packs, omitting other base game options in favour of these. It’s an interesting take on the next generation and I’m eager to try it out.

Here is my first Sim: Geneva Lasky!

More Sims 3 CC

Within the past year, up to today, I’ve amassed a total of 864 Custom Content downloads for the Sims 3. I know, I know. My laptop hates me. Though I did recently clean out the vents with a can of compressed air to minimise overheating. So now we’re back to playing the Sims 3 – with less lags and more cool times. ;D

On the panel on your right, there are now pages for my favourite cc downloads from my favourite sites, all tested in my own base game.

Remember – if you like the pictures, you can check out the sites and download free from the original creators in .sims3pack format. Other than the fact that some outfits may not have pregnancy morphs, and one or two furniture sets require the cheat “move objects on” to be placed properly – all the cc downloads appear well in the Sims 3.

Big plus: they’re free!

Sample:

Cazy Hair ArtificialLove, re-textured by the JenniSims site
http://tiny.cc/twbcuw

See HERE for info and pics on many of the CC that I possess.

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Max4Love

I’m Back! (Kinda)

So I’ve been addicted to TS3 since I got it last year. I’ve also been addicted to downloading Custom Content for it. On the panel on your left, there are now pages for my favourite cc downloads from my favourite sites, all tested in my own base game.

If you like the pictures, you can check out the sites and download free from the original creators in .sims3pack format. Other than the fact that some outfits may not have pregnancy morphs (except mainly for Anubis360), and one or two furniture sets require the cheat “move objects on” to be placed properly – all the cc downloads appear well in the Sims 3. ;D

Sample:

“Elegant Children” (18 item set), by Shino&KCR
ItemID 1168515, thesimsresource.com

See HERE for info and pics on many of the CC that I possess.

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Max4Love

Happy New Year!

 

– A whimsical drawing from my friend Yaya to start off the new year.

Peace,
max4love

Happy Holidays!

I want to wish a belated Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope that a great holiday season was had by all. I was just browsing YouTube and I came across some videos I had previously “liked” that are not exactly Christmas-themed, but are still Jesus-themed. I wanted to share them with my readers.

It has annoyed me for ages that Christmas has a very different meaning to many than it has for me. I mean, the new Christmas has a jolly man in a red suit taking all the credit for presents bought by loving parents (or not-so-loving parents, but you get my point). Add to that the fact that the Christmas season is the most profitable time of year for stores, boutiques, supermarkets, malls… when the family should be celebrating the birth of God with each other – instead of potentially spending their retirement funds.

But I digress.

Here is a wonderful, heartfelt video from artist Britt Nicole, broadcasted on K-Love:

 

 

Peace always,

max4love

A Comeback

For my IB courses, it’s crunch time, which means less blog time. However, I still manage to waste a lot of time, or should I say that if you’re having fun then it’s not wasting time?

Researching myself recently, I found ‘me’ through Bing.com (Because It’s Not Google, but better):

1) The time I was a valedictorian of my high school

2) My YouTube channel with my video diaries

3) Since I was logged into Yahoo! Answers, I found some questions that I got picked best answer for:

4) And, My new educational website, SXM Civics, among others:

So, I’m still online, even though I haven’t been blogging as much as I love to. But have free reign to miss me, any one who enjoys Max4Love, but hasn’t seen her here lately.

With peace,

Maxine “max4love”.

My Adventure in Haiti

Hey! Long time no write!

Recently, actually for the first two weeks of July of this year, I went to Haiti as part of the Heart for Haiti programme!

The experience was memorable. I learned so much, and I feel like I’ve come away changed. Haiti has went through a lot the past years – but it has strength and faith and impossible beauty.

Moreover, I am impressed by the artistic talents of her people.

If you’d like to see the rest of my video diary series of the trip, simply visit my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MaxineAndrew

Maxine “max4love”

My Psyche

I always get excited when I’m talking about my writing.

Due to a well-loved teacher at my high-school, I’ve come across the website of WD (writer’s digest shop), and there was an article talking about dialogue, action and narrative. Here is my take on it:

I don’t use a lot of dialogue, but when I do, it’s because I don’t feel that I have any other way of bringing across a particular character trait (cross, temperamental, curt) to my reader. The character of any person is based on the way she/he reacts, not the way she/he acts. Given a particular situation or someone saying something (be it antagonistic or not), the way a person reacts to that gives an insight – and the opportunity for me – to give the reader a look-see into the workings of a character’s mind.

Now about action: that’s practically my entire story. I sometimes consider narrative and action the same thing, up to an extent.

Inner mind theatre of Maxine: I find it the most boring thing in the world to describe the daily activity of a character. This is narrative truly, for me. To talk about simple things is exhaustive and takes up unnecessary word count. Unless there is something unusual happening when someone is brushing their teeth in the morning – like someone hiding in their shower stall behind them waiting to cut off their head – or walking home from school – like a demented stalker following the character – then I don’t bother doing it.

Well, being an enjoyer of all things Sims, I enjoy describing a character’s features, their clothing styles, their vehicles and personal belongings. I like to describe the layouts of houses, hotels, cabins and shacks. In truth, I don’t usually describe every detailing of a room, such as the intricacies of a specific window type. That is so not me…

Action – now therein lies my true love. There’s not much of anything else I do when I write. I love fast-paced, in-your-face scenes, where characters get into fights, get into arguments, reach a startling conclusion about something. If a novel could be made entirely out of action, I would do it. But an attractive short/long story or novel needs a plot, and that is where planning comes in. Balance is the key.

All three elements have to come together to produce a work someone wants to read. But more important, that I would want to read over. If I don’t like a story, if I can tell the plot is slow, the characters aren’t defined, that the scenes are unrealistic, shouldn’t I expect others to see these things?

On a lighter note, go with God, peace and Vampire Diaries!

P.S. -> If you’d like to see the article yourself, check it out at : http://tinyurl.com/4uzlhmo

A Dutch Memento

The oral part of the Cambridge Dutch Exam required that I talk about something (obviously), and it wasn’t difficult coming up with ideas. There’s hardly anything I enjoy more than writing, so I talked about the various stories I’m writing, among other things. This is part of my presentation:

“Ik ben gek op schrijven. Sins ik was een kleine kind ik had schrijven. Het is magisch; zetten worden op een bladzijde. Ik houd van scheppen de karakters en vertellen over hen. Ik houd van maken mensen lachen, huilen en denken met mijn verhalen. Ik vind de vertellen zijn meer dan amusement. Ik vind vetellen verhalen een manier van lezen. Ik houd van een goed verhalen waar mensen verdragen, verandering, ervaren en houden. Er zijn heel dingen een persoon kan doe met een verhaal. Een persoon kan geven verrijkijken en vreugde…

Ik heb (andere) boeken en korte verhalen. Zij zullen worden gepubliceerd in mijn Forever Algemene Brooke Collection.

Er zijn auteurs die mij hebben geïnspireerd en gevoed mijn dorst om te schrijven. Al hun boeken zijn de favorieten van mij. Zij zijn: J. D. Robb, J. A. Konrath, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson en Ron Roy. Ik kan nooit genoeg krijgen van het lezen. Ik verzamel e-books. Ze nemen minder ruimte in dan romans, hoewel ik een paperback liever een computerscherm elke dag. Lezen is een krachtige en gedenkteken. Ik wil het lezen van mijn boeken impressionable als die ik gelezen heb.”

I aced that exam! Not being a native Dutch speaker, I was very happy with my results. Does anyone know what I said here, concerning the writers I like?

God bless, from max4love