Last Post of 2010 (probably)

Well, as usual, I have nothing really to say. I haven't really thought of any New Year's Resolutions, aside from finishing my NaNoWriMo novel and figuring out how to knit for a living (or at least to get enough money to have a decent amount of spending money for Switzerland/ Italy) and actually to FINISH KNITTING something BIG. Like a sweater. Or a dress. Or something. And stuff.
And to be healthier and stuff.
And to work on voice more so I can sing better and get a better part in the musical next year.

And, although I really don't want to, my parents (namely my dad) will probably murder me if I don't get a move on and change into something decent for dinner tonight (we're going to a Japanese place, like we traditionally do for New Year's Eve).

And I really don't want my dad hovering. He hovers far too much as it is.

So I'm going now, and I'll see you all (or at least post stuff to you) in 2011.
If I don't post again in 2010, that is.
Which isn't likely.
Anyway, goodbye for now.

Gold Award :D

I know that it's been several days since I last posted, but whatever. I've been spending the last few days finishing my Gold Award stuff - I'm still not entirely done, but I anitcipate an hour of work left to do before I can officially deem it "Finished" (here meaning "I've done all the paperwork, and now I have to wait for my letter of reccomendation and some signatures so I can send it all to Council").

So I'm very excited because, if you count a Gold Award Speakers thing that my troop did last year, I've been working on this for a year. And counting.

I'm ready to finish, honestly. I spent FIVE HOURS on a video yesterday.

This was partially because, until approximately thirty minutes ago, I had drastically underestimated the time I had spent emailing people, so I THOUGHT I needed eight more hours when I really only needed one. Or something like that.

For the record, it IS possible to spend seventeen hours emailing people for projects. I've done so. It was actually 17.833.

And I thought I'd only done 10 hours. If I spent five minutes reading/ writing each email (for some, that's a BIG allowance, for others, it's far to little, so it balances out), it works out.

Museums and crazy stuff

Well, as I had nothing better to do (and I wanted to go anyway, as it's 20-30 minutes away from my house), I went to the Museum of Natural History today. I've been there many times, but I still felt like going because it's the SMITHSONIAN, and there had to be at least a FEW new exhibits since I last visited when I was ten, right?
Well, there WERE a few new exhibits - there was this really cool one about bones (complete with weirdly healed rib fractures and bullet holes in heads), one about insects (not AS interesting, probably because there were fewer Random Insect Facts than there were Latin Insect Names, and also there were no bullets-in-ribs in the Insect exhibit), and one about the origin of humans, which was really cool. It also informed me of the coolest Fun Fact of the Day ever: apparently, humans are 85% genetically similar to mice and 75% genetically similar to chickens. Now I have a VERIFIABLE excuse for ever calling anybody a chicken.
There were also the regular exhibits - the one on dinosaurs/ prehistoric shindigs, this one on mammals, and the gemstone one (yes, the Hope Diamond is still there).
There was also this really cool exhibit on underwater stuff, and there was this crocheted coral reef. It was perhaps the coolest thing ever - it even had crocheted jellyfish.

the nether time

Now's that weird nether time between Christmas and New Year's when I still have off school but I don't know what to do - I've already discovered most of the extent of the coolness of my Christmas presents, and, as there's no snow, there's no excuse for going crazy for for a while.
I was still planning on going for a walk and stuff, but that would involve getting off the computer and finding my coat.
I mean, I love doing this one hike to the river, but I don't know if I have motivation/ time to go all the way there (I have to "thoroughly clean my room" today, which'll take at least four hours, due to the "thoroughly" part, and the hike's around two hours). So I'm probably just going to be walking around a lot in the woods with a notebook and then sit down and write somewhere that's as non-sketchy as possible (some place that isn't in the middle of the trail).
I like writing after going in the middle of nowhere (here meaning one of the trails in a park five minutes from my house). I don't know why. It especially helps in the winter, because... I don't know how or why or whatever. It just helps. Anyone else have those things?

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings!! I'm EXTREMELY psyched out right now because Christmas was AMAZING!! I got a webcam and a bunch of books I wanted and now I'm trying to figure out how to add contacts on Skype. (I already did the whole setting-up thing).
And last night was awesome, too, because our former Youth Minister was there and I was EXCEEDINLY psyched to see him. Seriously, it kind of made my Christmas when the Senior Minister said he was there. And I was the Cross Bearer. YAY!!
So, overall, it's been a rather awesome Christmas. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!

Anyway, in other news, I really do not have anything more to say, so I am going to go add people on Skype and stuff now. (I really shouldn't have been given caffeine this morning. I'm kind of over-pumped right now. Mostly because I saw people I haven't seen in ages and it made me very happy. YAAY!!)

Merry Christmas Eve!

Greetings, everyone!!! I'm here with nothing in particular to say except for "my hands are cold; please excuse all spelling errors" and "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" I'm extremely excited to be around right now simply because it's Christmas Eve. There's a music service at church that my family always goes to, which is part of the reason I'm majorly excited for Christmas - it's THE REASON I love December. Christmas music. And Jesus.

Also, presents and cookies and Gingerbread Houses. Just putting it out there.

In other news, I know I haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I don't have a good excuse, except one that involves me not writing a lot of new stuff (just typing up old stuff) and having rehearsal.

Once school lets in, I'm dead. Did I mention what grade I'm in? If I didn't, all I'm going to tell you is that it's DIFFICULT. And it's going to be even MORE difficult with January rehearsals - this is the time when they run to seven/ eight/ nine pm (show week is at the end of January), PLUS second semester physics is apparently the equivalent of attempting to learn Swahili (or so I have been told by certain unnamed individuals).
I've done it before, I just don't know whether I'm going to manage to pull it off THIS year. But whatever. I'll manage. I think.

Parodies and Shtuff

So, being bored, I wrote a parody to "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha about NaNo. And here it is!

Wake up in the morning feeling like a writer
Got my pen and my journal cuz I’m not a typer
Before get to my word count I must write some words
Cuz when I’m writing 50 grand I have to write a lot

I’m writing lots of words every day, day
Two thousand words every day, day
No, there’s no other way, way
For me to write my novel in a month
Fifty thousand words to trump, trump
So I can write a novel in a month…

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing don’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing doesn’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

Got some cares in the world of my characters
Without the cares I really would not have any plot
Now my friends are lining up
Cuz they want to read my novel
But I have to tell them that it’s horrid and it’s not done yet

I’m talking everyone asking what’s up, up
Why am I writing a book, book?
And why am I doing it in a month, month?
Now I tell them what it’s all about
And I write till my hand gives out, out
Write till my hand gives out, out
Write till my hand gives out

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing don’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing doesn’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

I build my plot
I break it down
I got to try to figure out what it’s all about
I build it up
and it breaks down
And then I figure out what it’s all about
With my characters
And my evil person
and a magic sword

Now the book won’t be done till I say it is

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing don’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

Don’t stop, write a lot
DJ shut your music up tonight
I will write till I see the sunlight
Tik tok on the clock but the writing doesn’t stop no
Oh wa oh wa oh, oh wa oh wa oh

Fantabulous story

You know what is a truly wonderful word? Fantabulous. I rediscovered it about a week ago and was recalled to my middle school days, and it was sort of fun. I don't remember WHY or HOW I rediscovered it, but it's been rediscovered, and I'm now in love with the word "Fantabulous." And I'm also kind of abusing now...
Anyway, in other news, approximately two seconds ago, I came up with an entirely BRILLIANT idea for next year's NaNoWriMo. Superheros. Pirates. SUPERHERO PIRATES!!! Yes? YES??
Now there is the problem of making sure that the idea STICKS for the next 11 months, the events in which include, but are not limited to:
1. attempts to finish my 2010 novel,
2. doing the school musical,
3. doing the all grades show,
4. living through the SAT,
5. living through the SAT AGAIN,
6. going to Switzerland, Italy, and ASP, and
7. college applications.
I KNOW!!! I'll break the rules and write a beginning!!!
Or something.
Okay, maybe I won't.
BUT THE POINT IS, I have a heading.
And a good use for the name Calypso.
The weird thing is, I keep finding names that are really good, but sometimes it's hard to find the stories they fit into.
Does that make any sense?

math dislike

I have a question for anyone who has an answer, because this has been bugging me for a while: after the SAT and the next precalc quiz, when is it EVER going to be necessary to figure out what the trigonometric identity of something is? I'm most likely not going into any sort of science-y profession, nor am I going to do any sort of math-related profession (unless I wind up being an astrophysicist... cool, but not likely). Yes, I am one of the people who is going into one of the super-competitive artsy fields, and, as super-competitive as many of the artsy fields undoubtedly are, I don't think that there are that many professions in drama, writing, or music performance that involve usinc trigonometric identities. Unless one of my characters is a math whiz or something. Which isn't likely, when you consider my math record so far. Even though I normally get okay grades in math, may I remind you all that my grades in creative writing, chorus, film, and/ or drama have always been far better than those in math and science. Partially because it is difficult NOT to get okay grades in elective courses if they aren't languages. But still.

greetings from the I-Should-Be-Writing Front

Hello! I'm BACK again, and this time, I have a new notebook for the wonderful, fantabulously terrible novel that was formerly known as "Nemesis Quest" or something like that (I couldn't think of a better title for it).
ANYWAY, I'm going to actually TRY and finish it, even though it's absolutely horrendous (as I've come to realize, and yet I love it anyway), and so that's what I'm going to be doing during Winter Break. Maybe. If I'm not trying to, you know, buy/ make Christmas presents, survive the last not-a-full-week of school, or failing to recover my voice (which has been dead since Sunday... not entirely good, as I had a chorus concert last night), or anything silly like that.
Hey... wait... that's what I'm doing! Go figure!

Anyway, the series of Bits of Happy News (I just made that up) now includes the following:

IT SNOWED,
MY BROTHER WILL BE HERE SOON, and
IT SNOWED!!! Hooray!!!

And now I'm off to do homework.

By the way, if any of this sounds like absolute nonsense, that's because it is. This is because the lack of air coming in through my nose isn't letting me think straight. I hate colds.

Hello!/ Literature

Greetings!  I have been super non-finishing-novel-y, and I have started SOMETHING ELSE! (NaNo 2011, anyone?) So here's what I've written. Yes, I dreamt something VERY similar to this. It happened on Saturday night. I don't remember the details very well, except it was a mix of really scary and really cool. I didn't wake up at the same point, but the scene did change at the same point. So here it is.

The enterprise began in the late afternoon. Every year near the Winter Festival, the dragon comes and terrorizes our town. It has happened for hundreds of years. Nobody really knows why, but everybody is powerless with terror to stop it.

Except for now. My friends and I have decided that enough is enough. This dragon – we do not even know his name, he’s just The Dragon – has caused enough damage, enough pain, enough suffering. Every year he comes and causes enough damage to take the rest of the year to fix, and yet he comes again the next year and destroys it all again.
Every year, he takes a few young women as well – teenage girls normally between the ages of thirteen and seventeen – to take back to his lair to either eat or torture.
My friends and I, we’re sick of being sick with terror. We have made a plan.

Early in the evening that the Dragon is destined to arrive, we all meet up at my house. Everyone – all seven or eight of us – is armed with some sort of heavy weapon. Jeremiah carries a battle axe. Samuel is armed withhis great-grandfather’s magic sword. I carry my bow, a small pouch of pine sap, and a torch in order to fight fire with fire.
Although I am the only girl in the group, that is no matter. All the boys know that I am the best shot in town.
We’re all nervous as the time ticks onward. Although we’re frustrated with the Dragon, the large beast still holds the spot of “Most Feared” in all of our hearts.
Soon we hear the normal, terrifying sounds of the Dragon’s approach – his roar, his heavy footsteps, his deep breathing. We spread out. My heart pounds.
Jeremiah, Samuel, James, and Damian are going to be the close-range fighters, while Max, Hector, and I are going to be the long-range fighters – I have my longbow with the fire; the boys have their crossbows. The sounds of the beast grow closer. The time is nearing midnight.

The screams start when the beast has reached the top of my street. I see the house of the Millers go up in flames at the top of the hill. That was Jeremiah’s house. He’d just finished rebuilding it from last year.
I stand behind the shrubs in front of my house and draw an arrow from my quiver.
The Dragon’s nearing us now, breathing heavily.
The smell of smoke from Jeremiah’s house comes down to my nose.
I dip the tip of my arrow into the pine sap and then dip it into the flame of the torch until it lights. I keep the arrow pointed downwards until I’m ready to draw the bow.

And suddenly, there’s the Dragon. He’s massive, with bright green scales and spikes all down his back and around his eyes and mouth and nostrils.
My heartbeat quickens. I’ve heard the commotion this dragon causes many times, but I’ve never actually seen the beast until now.
I draw my bow. The flames from the arrow burn my hand slightly as I take aim.
Soon the beast is near enough so that, if I plan my shot correctly, I can hit it right in the eye.
The dragon turns its head, fixing one yellow-orange eye on me. I’m paralyzed the moment our eyes meet.

And that’s when the loud beeping of my alarm clock pulled me out of my dream.



Every other night since summer break began I’ve been visited by the same dream of fighting a dragon that has been terrorizing a town. And I’ve always woken up right as I draw back my bow and meet the eyes of the beast. My feelings about it? They’re in a delicate balance – on the one hand, I’m glad I’m not about to shoot a dragon in the eye, because, even in Dreamland, that thing is absolutely petrifying. On the other hand, however, I’ve been terrorized by the dragon so much – oh yes, I meant to use the word “terrorized” – that I want to shoot it already so I can stop having dreams about killing dragons and start having dreams about eating peanuts in the Amazon and finishing my college applications.
I mean really, is it normal to have a lot of dreams about dragon-slaying? I don’t think it would be for someone my age – unless, of course, the dragon is some sort of subliminal reference to college applications and my fire arrow is a pen or something. But I doubt it.

oh, the craziness of showbiz...

Well, I had musical rehearsal today, and I have obtained ANOTHER BIT PART! This means I now have a total of twelve entrances, and, for about half of them, I'm a different character from when I walked onstage the last time.
For example, I start out as a pickpocket. I exit and return three times as a pickpocket being chased by authorities (four entrances so far).
Then in Havana, number five is the first waiter job.
Entrances six through eight are the SECOND waiter job less than five minutes later at a different restaurant.
Number nine is where I'm ANOTHER waiter who tells Sky where Nathan isn't (at the restaurant), and number ten is me bringing him his drink.
Eleven is me being a missionary for "sit down you're rocking the boat" and, finally, number twelve is the pickpocket again for the finale.
In other words, I have perhaps the coolest bit of the musical ever.
I have a total of five character changes, which is a little less than half of my total. It's going to be horrid doing all of the costume changes so quickly (especially for Havana), but still. I'm excited. Because it's going to be awesome. Although it's going to be extremely annoying, I'm still excited.

Writer's block and stuff

I'm back! And there's nothing really for me to say, due to the fact that it's only 9:38 in the morning. But whatever.
Well, except for the part where I was late ish to school this morning (I arrived at 8:22 instead of 8:20, but the teacher was kind of late as well, so it doesn't really count). And stuff. Anyway, there's nothing else of significance that's happened recently that I should tell you about, except for the fact that I finally ran out of room in the journal I was writing my NaNoWriMo novel in, so, as I didn't have anything else to write in because all the spare journals we have are at home, and I have plenty of filler paper, I continued the novel in my school binder.
But it's not going too well. I'm having a supreme lack of motivation because Tuesday was the first day I had made any forward progress in a week (or written anything at all since last Wednesday).
So I'm having writer's block.
Again.
Because I lost all motivation and rolling of the motivations and stuff.
AAAHHHH! Oh, well.

GAAH!

Hello! Here I am again! And I've nothing really to say except REHEARSAL IS TAKING OVER MY LIFE! (And I think I might actually be sort of enjoying it). Yesterday I found out in chorus (after getting the New Rehearsal Schedule) that I have rehearsal every day this week (including Saturday) and a few days next week. And by "a few" I mean every day except Wednesday and Thursday (I think... maybe it's Friday... will have to check). Anyhoo, that's the main reason that I haven't been able to post a lot (and if I have, I've been so busy that I've forgotten about it).
ANYWAY, general poll to all ye peoples whose Winter-y Celebrations That Haven't Happened Yet That Involve Gift-Giving: am I the only one who's way behind on their Buying of Stuff To Give People? Because it feels like it. (p.s., happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish amigos! Not sure if it's too late to say it. Even though I have several Jewish friends I'm really lame and haven't asked them much about it yet...)
Okay, I'm going to go be productive now.

A bit

I chose not to do the ten-page option, but one of the little bits that I had to do instead was to type up one of the scenes. So here's one. YAY!

King Shakkan, like all over-confident kings, had long believed that the only creatures that could penetrate his hideaway were the ones that lived and worked there, and, like his fellow over-confident kings, had not bothered to listen to the warnings that the guards had been trying to give him and had chosen to throw a one-man party instead.
These choices being what they were, the group of travelers that strode into King Shakkan’s large, torch-lit throne room found the leader of the goblins in a state of complete and utter drunkenness, having raided the very last of King Acherna’s wine stores to supplement his one-man celebration of his stupidity.
Since the Goblin King had decided upon this course of action rather than one of alert defense, he was utterly surprised to see that there were five very large creatures in the throne room, and they looked too big to be goblins. In fact, that one creature on the end looked like a human with WINGS, but that couldn’t be right, could it?
“I… I am… I am… King Shakkan!” The king babbled in his drunkenness, swaying as he attempted to rise to his feet, a large bottle of wine in his hand. “What are you doin’ here?” Although he was the king of the goblins, Shakkan appeared to be just a really short human – no taller than around five feet.
“Um… you are the king of the goblins, right?” Nemesis asked uncertainly. It was kind of unnerving to see Shakkan swaying on his feet so much, so obviously out of line that it was almost pathetic to watch.
“Um… am I?” Shakkan mumbled, stumbling as he tried to stand up straight. “Oh… yeah, I s’pose I am. What can I do for you?” He took another drink from the container in his hand.
Nemesis hesitated. She wasn’t entirely sure how to say, “Well, you can start by dying, if you don’t mind. And, if it isn’t too much trouble, please sit back and relax while we do it for you,” in a polite enough that still get through to the drunk king’s brain and stay in there.
“We’re here to kill you, sorry,” Kaibom said, before Nemesis had figured out how to say it to him nicely.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Nem corrected.
“Wait, there’s another way of putting it?” Kaibom asked in surprise.
Before Nem could reply, the drunken king wondered, “Kill me? Why’d’ya wanna kill me?”
“Well, there’s the fact that –” Nemesis began, but the king cut her off.
“I DON’T WANNA DIE!” he wailed. “I’m not ready to – I’m too young to die!”
“You’ve been around for three thousand years, Shakkan,” Nemesis said.
“I have no sons!” Shakkan wailed. “No heirs! Who will watch this place when I die! NOBODY! That’s who! Why must you do this to me?”
“Shakkan, you’re drunk,” Nemesis told him sadly. However, Shakkan was too busy wailing about how he couldn’t die just yet to listen, going onto his knees in desperation.
Finally, Zazan was the one who decided that enough was enough. Striding forward, he gave Shakkan a hard backhand slap on the face, adding to it a little malicious electric shock that nevertheless brought Shakkan to his senses a bit more. Shakkan stopped wailing and clutched the hand-shaped burn on his face.
“For your information, Shakkan,” Nemesis said, striding forward, her mind made up, “There are more than a few people who have been monitoring your behavior for the last three thousand years, and they think it’s time that your power was removed.” She drew Fenn, her Aerian blade.
Something ticked in Shakkan’s head. Aerian blade.. girl... prophecy... stars...
Before Shakkan had entirely put the pieces together in his mind, his life had been snuffed out in a stab right through the heart.
It was the first time that Nemesis had ever killed anything in cold blood, the first time she had spoken to one of her foes in such a calm manner before taking their life.
She wasn’t sure she liked it, but she gathered herself and looked at the two guards standing on either side of the throne. “Stay here and die, or take the knowledge of this death to your grave and leave at once,” she told them, her face pale and deadpan.
The goblins, terrified at what had just occurred, chose to run, though they were not entirely sure that they would not have preferred to die immediately more.

bleh

Well, I'm here. And I have very little to say except for "HELLO!" and "I'm really tired!"
I'll hopefully be posting some shindigs from the NaNo novel in the very near future (aka tomorrow), due to the fact that I have to submit 10 pages or something about it (i.e. cover art/ review/ summary, etc).
So that's that.
I haven't written anything new for my NaNo novel since last week. This is partially due to the fact that I have no TIME, and partially due to the fact that I'm almost out of room in the notebook I'm working in and I don't have any more room in my backpack to fit a new journal as well as everything else that goes in there. (I carry it everywhere. It has all my stuff for all my classes). SO yeah.

WHY am I tired, as I mentioned earlier? Because I woke up at 6:45. It's part of this whole thing about me walking to school and getting there on time for a change, so in order to leave the house by 8, I have to wake up 75 minutes early. So that's why I'm tired.

Craziness

My school's drama department (at least by my standards) is really freaking good. I saw "The Laramie Project" last night, and it was AMAZING! (And I'm not just saying that because a lot of my friends were in it). I nearly cried at the end, I swear. I think it was hard for anyone NOT to at least ALMOST cry at the end, because it's so sad. The monologue by the guy's dad at the end was really good - the dad of the guy who died, I mean - was what nearly got me. That and one interview from a friend of the guy who died about a protester at the funeral and one of the trials and how she got her friends to dress as angels with really big wings to block the guy out. It was really sad but really good.
Tonight I'm going to see my friend's show - I don't know how it'll compare (mostly because it's a different show and I have no idea what her school's drama department is like).
And right now, I'm waiting for my gold award video to upload onto the other computer so I can finally start editing it - I've been putting it off a lot. And I haven't had a lot of time to work on it, anyway.
So... yeah.

For the record...

Well, for the record, just in case anyone cares (I do!), this is my 500th post. YAY!!! I didn't expect to make it this far, but here I am, writing up my 500th post, feeling slightly awed that I actually made it to 500 posts. Wow...
Anyway, in other news, I've discovered something: reading Tamora Pierce makes me think of Shyasha Rinkari. I don't know why, but reading some of her novels - especially those involving Keladry and/ or Alanna - make me think of Shya. I have no idea why. Maybe because Keladry and Alanna and Shyasha Rinkari have a lot in common or something.
Well, Keladry and Alanna don't have a troubled, 5000-year-long, romantically-disinclined, pissed-and-scarred past (I wouldn't expect that many ten-year-olds to have a 5000-year-long past to begin with, much less one that invloves being scarred, but still), but they all are kind of pissed that girls are not allowed to go into combat, and so they go into combat just to prove the doubters wrong.
And then they all kick butt and take names and make any dudes regret hurting them.
Especially Shya.
So... yeah.
YAY!

What can make a hippopatomous smile?

What can make a hippo smile? Just putting this out there: I have no idea. I just wanted to put that as a post title because that song has been running through my head for about a MONTH. (regardless whether or not I was writing, auditioning, doing homework, or sleeping) Anyway, I'm kind of happy that NaNo is over, because there's far lees pressure.
There's still pressure, but it's not as intense. Now I have the smaller goal of writing 1200 words a week until the end of the year, for the whole 100 point thing for creative writing, which we aren't doing this month, I'm sorry to say. Oh, well.
Still, less pressure is good.
I hate pressure.
But I kind of like this ink tattoo that's STILL on my finger.
And I'm nearly out of room in the notebook I'm writing in, which shows LOTS of progress. YAY PROGRESS! There's still that idiotic little shindig called the ENDING that I have to do, but progress is progress is progress. And some progress is better than no progress at all. And I'm over-using the word progress right now, so I'm just going to go shut up and start doing my precalculus.
(I had rehearsal today. Turns out The Waiter shows up three times, not one. YAY!)

December 1: hang on... it's December already?

Before I say anything major, let me just say this: On my own terms, yes, I did win NaNoWriMo. On the YWP's terms, I won NaNoWriMo. Based on the outlines that are posted on the NaNoWriMo website, I won NaNo.
HOWEVER, last night at around 9 pm, I decided (well, not DECIDED, more like ENDED UP) to try and cram four hour's worth of typing into a mere hour and a half. Needless to say, that didn't end well.
In fact, it didn't end at all. My typing isn't done, and I'll still have a lot of finishing to do. But the point is, the novel is closer to finished than anything that I've ever done that's had to be more than 3000 words. So TECHNICALLY I finished something. YAY!!!
I still have a lot of work to do on all of it, including writing the ending and the last three battles, but I think it should count as having 'finished' something, because I 'finished' NaNo and I 'finished' writing 50,000 words. So that's that. It wasn't verified, nor was it all typed up by the time midnight rolled around last night. So there's that.
So even though I didn't TECHNICALLY win according to the NaNo website, I actually did. Make of that what you will (I don't entirely understand it, either). HOORAY FOR WRITING!!! That's all I have to say on the matter for right now. In a few minutes I have to leave and go to class. YAY!!! (It's creative writing. Creative writing is good).

The Afternoon of Sore Fingers

Well, as I was stupid and didn't email myself the updated and school-network-compatible version of the novel (which I DID create right after I had posted), I wasn't able to type at school today during my free blocks. Which means that today, in addition to doing precalc homework and AP reading and room cleaning, I'm going to be typing for HOURS. And HOURS. And HOURS. I'll only be stopping my typing, in fact, to eat, sleep, and do homework. And probably not sleep. I'll probably be replacing 'sleep' with 'watching Glee for an hour and typing during the commercial breaks, of which there are many.'
This is because I'm currently four words shy of 29000, which means I need approximately 21004 more words before midnight. This, like a lot of the endeavors that I have undertaken lately, isn't going to end well.
For all of you fellow NaNo-ers who are happen to be reading this (I bet none of you are, because at least SOME of you have to be in a similar situation to mine), good luck and godspeed. I think we'll all need it.

AAAHH!

For once I have nothing to say or do. Except for doing homework. And typing. And stuff. The most annoying thing that's happened so far today is that I did a LOT of typing at school and, although I hit 'save' multiple times, the progress wasn't saved. And now I've lost two hours worth of typing. AAAHHH!!!
The good part is that I've won on the Young Writer's Program's terms, and I've technically won on the Official NaNo's terms, but the Official NaNo's page can't recognize it yet because I can't verify it yet because I haven't typed fifty thousand words. Yet.
Am I making any sense here?
The point is, it's frustrating, and I should be typing my story so I can do my homework when I get back from tae kwon do, but instead I'm here ranting.
I also just saved the current version of the story in a public-school-system-network-compatible mode, so I can actually save it properly when I do a lot of typing tomorrow. And I WILL be typing a LOT tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the day that I don't have any activities in the afternoon aside from room-cleaning.
Keyboard, prepare to meet your worst nightmare.

Day 29: Win! (Sorta...)

For the record, I've technically won NaNo. No, I didn't type up 25000 words last night and verify it on the website, but I HAVE written 50000 words. (this is where the 'sorta' bit of the title comes in) I created an account on the Young Writer's Program, set my word goal for 25000, typed about 100 words on a school laptop, and verified it there. So TECHNICALLY I've won. I still want to verify on the official website so I can ACTUALLY say that I've won. So that's that.
In other news, I have a total of around four hours between today and tomorrow to actually do all this typing that I'm talking about. Which means that I'm now going to stop blogging and start typing.
I'm most definitely going to be keeping this story going while I can, but I'm not sure how long it'll take. As NaNo ends tomorrow, I'm not going to actually have to USE all the discipline I needed during the month of November (Well, maybe I will...), because I have an indefinite period of time in which to write an indefinite number of words, and I'm not going to actually have a lot of time (all my writing during school will be thrown out of the window in favor of using my free blocks for homework next month, as the rehearsal schedule will be stepped up kind of a lot).
In short, if you're going to be seeing me regularly next summer, expect me to have replaced my knitting needles and yarn for my journal and pencil case, because, in all honesty, when else am I going to finish it?

General announcement

Hello!! Before I begin my daily rant, I'm sending out a general PSA: If you want to read what I have typed up of my novel (here meaning if you want to read the prologue - I'm not giving the entirety of it out to anybody until it's done), then you can email me.
If you don't want to read it and/ or don't know what my email is, then you are just going to have to wait until the novel's published. IF it's published.
Point is, if you don't know my email, the novel (or parts therein) will be unavailable until you figure out my email and/ or some big-time publisher decides they want to publish my novel. (hint: if you know me, facebook me).
Anyway, daily rant time: I'm a horrible procrastinator and shouldn't be blogging right now because I have some typing and some AP reading to do. Also, I've set a personal goal for this to be the first night since Thanksgiving that I don't stay up until midnight or later. Which means I probably should stop blogging and start doing some AP reading and script typing and novel writing and stuff.
Goodbye.

Day 27: I'm beginning to see a trend...

What is that trend, you may ask? The trend is this: The only forward progress that I've made for the last few days is when, knowing I can sleep in the following day, I've done all of that day's writing at/ near/ after midnight.

Which means that I've had very little forward progress lately.

And also that I'm not going to be able to keep this up after Thanksgiving break.

I also haven't been able to do a lot of typing today due to lack of motivation and lack of time Why lack of time? Driver's ed. Why lack of motivation? Driver's ed. The good news is that today was my last day of driver's ed, though I didn't get my license or my court date, due to a lot of annoying events that I don't really want to go into right now.

But I will (hopefully) get enough homework done before I go hang out with my friends tonight (we're going to see "Tangled..." it looks really good) so I can do some serious typing before I get picked up. Well, serious enough typing that I can say I made headway on typing.

Or something.

Which means I have to go read about some dudes who died in the 19th century. And figure out resultant vectors. And stuff.

Although history is cool and all, I've always found other countrys' histories cooler than ours. Maybe it's because their history hasn't been pounded into my head since I was seven. I don't know, though.

nearing the end

As NaNoWriMo has (nearly) drawn to a close, and so I would like to take the time (before my hands cramp up from FAR too much writing) to put up a random list of stuff that's happened:
1. gotten an ink tattoo: yes
2. Days Gotten Behind: a lot
3. Abused caffiene: surprisingly not
4. Stayed up past midnight to write: yes
5. Written more than twelve pages in a day: I think so
6. miscalculated my average word/ page count for handwriting: a lot
7. Hit 50,000 words: I'm pretty sure.
8. Day I'm Going To Verify My Word Count: if nothing goes wrong, Sunday or Monday, Tuesday at latest. Tuesday is the deadline anyway, so whatever.

But I've noticed something, and it's part of the reason WHY I didn't want to type before I got to the end of the novel - I keep adding a lot of elaboration from text to screen, and, while it DOES add to my word count, it also drastically pads my page/ word count, so I'm not entirely sure that is entirely legal in the NaNo sense - does it count as editing? I hope not...

I think the hardest part about it is that, although I don't to stray too far from what I've written during the month, I DO want to get my extra little added stuff in there that I thought of when I was typing it (WORD COUNT EXTRAS!).
However, sometimes, if I attempt to 'step back and think about it,' the 'word count extras' could wind up being turned into ' unintended plot-changing dilemmas.'

This can also happen when you don't go back and read some stuff about the prophecy that you mentioned in chapters 1-10 when you actually WRITE the prophecy in chapter 37.

I guess this is what editing is for. Also, I think it's also the reason J.K. Rowling didn't pull off writing "Order of the Phoneix" in a month.
Or any other of the Harry Potter novels in a month, either.

Day 26: Typing

OKAY, no stats today. Why? Although I hand-wrote a page and a bit last night (it was after midnight. It counts.), I'm going to be doing a TON of typing today. And, unless I'm very much mistaken, this is going to take FOREVER. Why? Because I've made it to page 33 in typing. I'm currently on page 190 in handwriting. So don't expect any forward progress today, just some random stuff about how annoying this typing-stuff-up thing is. On the up-side, it means that I'm ALMOST DONE! YAY! (Well, almost done with the stuff in the NaNo run. I still plan to be finishing the novel by hand when I hit 50,000 words typed).

So that's all I have to tell you for today. Well, aside from the fact that Harry Potter 7.1 is perhaps the BEST MOVIE EVER!!! They did a lot of stuff REALLY well, especially Dobby's death. It was the closest I have ever come to crying in a movie since Will nearly died in Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I was looking at the wands, too - I wanted to see whether my wand was a replica of anyone in the movies's. It turns out that it could belong to one of two people: Kingsley Shackelbolt or Narcissa Malfoy.

And now I am going to go type my sorry little hands off. See you later.

AAAAHHHH!!!!

I know that the NaNoWriMo website SAYS I've written 4,000 words today.

Although I appreciate their prediction that I'll finish the 50,000 word goal by tomorrow, I would like to point out that, for the record, the words-today count isn't entirely true.

See, as I've begun typing up my novel (or beginnings of it, anyway), I've found that my words per page average was not, as I so long believed, 250 words - in fact, it is closer to 260. So, having started on page 176 today, I'd actually written closer to 46,000 words, not 44,000, before I began my writing today. So I updated my word count for that. And I just spent a TON of time writing (nine pages, punks! You do the math of how many words that is, I'm too brain dead to figure it out), so that means I put in another 2,000-ish words.

And that means that, according to the NaNo website, between the 2,000 word sitting and my true word count update, I wrote (not really) 4,000 words today. And that means, according to the When You'll Finish Predictor, I'll be meeting the 50,000 word goal tomorrow.

Even though I'm going to end up going for 60,000, and "Thanksgiving Break" means "Ink-Staining Break" for me, I'm going to stay with 50,000 for now.
Why? Because, unlike most people, I hand-wrote my novel. Which means that, after tomorrow, when I officially get my ink tattoo, I'll have to type the whole thing up so I can actually verify that I wrote 50,000 words. Even I don't know for sure.

And there's another thing: you HAVE to verify between tomorrow and the end of the month. In other words, I can't meet my personal page count during my free blocks and then finish typing up the thing on December 2nd and verify then - it has to be by the 30th of November.

So I'm going to finish this notebook - I'm on page 187 - hopefully by Friday and type it up over the weekend.

Which means that, for the record, although I'm not entirely allowed to say this yet, I'm going to say it anyway:
For all ye doubters, SUCK IT!!!!!

Day 24: the end is near

Pages Today: 3
Pages Left Today: 13
Current Page: 179
Page To End On: 192
Location: Shakani's house is very, very interesting. And big. And has a lot of doors. And is very confusing. And I don't know what to throw at them except for having them split up to explore, which they have now done. This is supposed to be a benign place, but still. SOMETHING has to happen, or else the readers will just leave after Chapter 35 (which is my current chapter. I abuse chapter breaks, I know). And that won't be fun. SO yeah. I'm having writer's block because of this. They need to get through Shakani's house (which is very old and was built in feudal times and is therefore very large and complicated), but I need to have something big happen to them. Like, I don't know, a minotaur storms them or something. But I CAN'T have a minotaur storm them, because Shakani, although she is immensely cool and her house is historic enough to become a national monument, the house isn't big enough to fit a minotaur without knocking down a few walls and some ceilings. Also, minotaurs are Greek, and Shakani comes from the equivalent of an Asian culture.
So does anyone know about any Asian mythological creatures that live in houses without the necessity of knocking down walls and/ or ceilings and/ or killing the inhabitants?

Fall Formal photos

Well, I have FINALLY uploaded my fall formal photos onto facebook. Go on there if you want to see most of them. HOWEVER, I have offically found my new favorite photo:

Yes, that is me, in case you were wondering. And yes, that is my fedora. And yes, if you want to see the other photos, you MUST get a facebook/ have one already. Strapless dress + fedora = love.

Day 23: way behind

Pages Written Today: 2
Pages Left Today: 14
Page Started On: 168
Page To End On: 184
Location In Story: beginning third part of journey, about to enter Creepy Lani Forest. Soon they will meet Lady Shakani (formerly Lady Stella). YAY!! Well, the fact that I'm probably not going to get any sleep tonight again isn't fun. But I like Lady Shakani. Because she's awesome. And stuff. But I also was really stupid and didn't get a ton of writing done yesterday (DARN YOU AP CLASSES! The reading I did late last night didn't even end up being due today), and because I have been chronically behind since last week, I hit Sunday's quota yesterday. And so I'm way behind. And I should be writing right now.
But I'm blogging and listening to my friends discuss Harry Potter. And one of my friends just randomly decided to insult Andrew Jackson right as people were discussing how the guy who plays Fenrir Greyback apparently doesn't look like Fenrir Greyback at all and they had to sculpt his face on. Weird.

I'm EXTREMELY psyched to see Harry Potter 7.1 on Thursday.
And for the fact that my brother is coming home tonight.
And the fact that this afternoon is the beginning of Thanksgiving break. YAY!
I probably won't be sleeping all of this weekend because I'm going to be writing so much.
And watching 'Harry Potter.' And eating Thanksgiving dinner and stuff.

So... yeah.

salmon. how i loathe thee.

Well, for the record, I am NOT procrastinating this time. I'm waiting for dinner. And I'm also wishing it would hurry up so I can stop... not procrastinating. And stop waiting, so I can stop... so I can stop going in circles! That's it!

Although I'm EXTREMELY psyched for dinner, because it means I get to eat some rather awesome lasagna and finally start making progress on stuff that I've been assigned, it also means I have to eat salmon. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the fish that gave its life so people could eat it, as far as I can tell. I totally respect that salmon for dying (although, unless it was caught by a member of some extreme salmon-worshiping culture, it most likely didn't have a choice in the matter). However, it's what my father DOES to the poor creature after it dies that I detest. I don't know WHAT he does to cook it, but I absolutely ABHOR eating it.

I KNOW it's good brain food. I KNOW that it's good for the eyes and stuff. But Dad has only one salmon recipe and he refuses to try a new one and flip between the two just for variety (I would know. I've tried to get him to do this several times).

So I've developed an extreme aversion to salmon. Because of how my dad makes it. He often says, "Oh, I thought you LIKED salmon!" NO, dad. I hate it. I eat it because you make me. That doesn't mean I enjoy it. It just means some poor fish lost its life for someone who doesn't like eating it.

Day 22: pen tattoo

Before I disclose my stats, I'd like to ask a general question: which five of you (out of curiosity) were reading at midnight last night? I appreciate the readings!! But who stays up til midnight, anyway? (of COURSE I don't, because that's just silly... not.) ANYWAY, stats:
Pages today: 5
Pages Left Today: 8
Current Page: new chapter on 168
Page To End On: 176
Location: Just learned new location. Spiss also completely dissed Luke and he is NOT HAPPY about it.

Just a word about the title of the post - yes, I AM writing this by hand. And yes, I'm writing it in ink. And yes, I've been writing so much (even after my shower, which I think has something to do with it) that there is a blob of ink that has very nearly been tattooed onto the left side of the knuckle on my ring finger on my left hand. It's kind of cool, really: kind of like a badge of 'yes, I write a lot, bite me.' Or something.

And yesterday was one of those days where I stayed up super late trying to finish my history reading and then we barely went over it. I HAVE to do some more reading tonight, though, because, unlike the reading in the book, my AP history teacher actually has us discuss the handouts.

In all honesty, it's hard to believe that it's day 22. Where did the time go? Where did the MONTH go? I'm most likely going to be trying to finish this novel - even though I'm probably going to lose all motivation after NaNoWriMo is over. I'm going to TRY. I'm very close to 50,000 words - 42,000. AND I'm behind - 168 is yesterday's quota.

But in other, better news, MY BROTHER COMES HOME TOMORROW! YAY! And the end of tomorrow's school day means the beginning of Thanksgiving break!! YAY!!!!!! *runs off doing happy dance*

Day 21: ahead and behind

Pages Written Today: 1
Pages Left To Write Today: ~ 8
Current Page: 161
Page To End On: 168
Location: Goblin King is dead. Luke and Sparky are off to find more information. YAY FOR SNEAKING AROUND! And YAY FOR PROCRASTINATION AND PUTTING STUFF OFF! Because, aside from the epic amounts of homework I must complete, I still have to write. Fun!

However, the good news is that I only have two days of school this week, and Thanksgiving Weekend starts wednesday, which means that my brother will be coming back on Tuesday, I'll have minimal homework for FIVE WHOLE DAYS (that must be a record) and if I miss some writing today, I'll be able to make it up with minimal stress about the whole thing because I'll have minimal homework and lots of time to work on NaNoWriMo. As I near 50000 words (or what I think may be 50000, anyway... I still haven't typed it up), I'm coming to realize how little the number really is. Although they have killed the goblin king, Nemesis and her friends still have two more characters to meet, three more bosses to kill, one more prince to save, and one more epic battle to fight. And I've done approximately 40000 words. This isn't going to end well.  (here meaning that I'm DEFENITELY participating in NaNoFiMo).

Day 20: the 20th day

Pages Written Today: 8 Pages Left To Write Today: 4 Page Started: 149 Current Page: 156 Page To End On: 160 Location in Story: Just killed the Goblin King. He was drunk. And now Nemesis is feeling bad about it because there was no a fight nor any challenge, and she's feeling sort of traumatized about it even though he had to die because he was a jerk to griffins and to King Acherna's spirit (King Acherna of Shamaye was the last king, and the Shamytes have an Ancient Egyptian-like afterlife belief system, and the goblin king locked Acherna's spirit inside his tomb right after he died so he couldn't get out to the afterlife). And now I'm getting somewhat traumatized by it, too, and I'm not sure why. Could it be possibly that I'm putting too much of my time and feelings into this novel?
Next to come is the Next God and Star, Aero and Nix (war and confusion, respectively).
And as I have abused the chapter breaks, and if I were going by numbers of chapters rather than word counts about the novel's length, the novel would end soon. But I'm NOT going by chapters; I'm going by word counts. And the novel will NOT be ending anytime soon. Because that would suck. And also it isn't done yet. And I'm babbling. Can you tell?
I'm going now.

Day 19: Weekend lag

I am THOROUGHLY dissapointed by my lack of capabilities of seeing Harry Potter 7.1 today. Stupid driver's education system. :P Anyhoo, udpates:
Pages today: 2
Pages Left: 10
Current Page: 142
Page Started On: 140
Page to end on: 152
Location: in King Acherna's tomb/ Goblin King Shakkan's palace, talking to the 'spirit' of King Acherna. Why is 'spirit' in quotation marks? Because it may or may not ACTUALLY be the spirit of King Acherna. Either way, the dude is pissed. If three-thousand-year-old dead bodies can be pissed. Anything's possible.
Anyhoo, the possiblity that I'm going to follow now is the one that involves watching TV and writing a lot. And wishing I hadn't had driver's ed today so I could have gone to see Harry Potter. Sigh. Oh, well.
In other news, today was actually an okay day. Nobody died, my NaNo notebook was not removed from my presence in any way, and no catastrophes occurred (at least none that I know of, anyway, aside from my turns, according to my teacher). So that's my daily rant. I'm going to go write and watch TV and write and write and write. And watch TV. But mostly write. And maybe knit.

Day 18: A good day

Pages Today: 5
Pages Left Today: 7
Page Started On: 132
Current Page: 137
Page To End On: 144
Location In Story: Sunburned and in the tomb of some long-dead king that also happens to be the home of the Goblin King. Also, Maa and Kela are arguing again. Wait, that's news?

Well, today was a good day for once, and it started last night. What happened last night? I went to bed before midnight! And it made me very happy! So today was actually okay. Even AP. I wasn't called on, nor did I feel excessively stupid, frustrated at my apparent lack of ability, or in any other way entirely annoyed. Which generally doesn't happen. So today has, so far, been proclaimed a Very Good Day. I don't even have a ton of homework! And, even better, the fact that I had musical rehearsal today didn't change the fact that I'll actually sleep tonight!! (Rehearsal actually made the day kind of better - although for some reason I wasn't able to access proper breath support, it was the sing-through. And sing-throughs are fun. Except when they're not.).

So, yes, in case you were wondering, the only bad thing about today is my lack of capability to catch up on writing. But that's why God invented weekends. Maybe. I think God also invented weekends to sleep, too...

Day 17

Pages So Far Today: 5
Pages Until Quota: 7
Starting Page: 124
Current Page: 129
Page To End On: 136
Location In Story: Nem went off to figure out some stuff before dawn after she and her friends spent the night with her former history substitue teacher/ explorer. Now Zack is freaking out because she left without telling anyone where she went because they were all asleep. She had to trade a bit of her hair and buy some fruit to find out what she needs to find out, which is kind of important, but she found it out and the plot is FINALLY moving.

Well, as page 129 is relatively close to the end of the notebook, the potential success of my NaNoWriMo attempts seems to be lurking in the near future, at least in my head. But I probably just jinxed it...

I'm also finding out that getting four hours of sleep is becoming a habit, and I'm not sure that I'm fond of it. School and life are fine. I'm just really pissy while I'm at it. Thanks, AP history teacher. My sleep cycle loves you too. But in other news, I just past yesterday's quota. HOORAY!! A few more sleepless nights - I was actually productive last night - and I just might catch up in time for the weekend. YAY!

and back again from the procrastinator...

I've just learned that you can also play with cool stuff here. It's really kind of lame that I've only just realized that you can do this... I mean, I've known for a while that you can play with color, but I've never really tried to use the other cool shindigs for a while.  I didn't even KNOW I had strike through until today, I don't think... I'm so lame, not realizing this until now...

Yes, I know where I should be

Yes, I know, I'm supposed to be doing homework. But I'm in a particularly anti-homework mood, so I'm here blogging instead. Like usual when I'm in an anti-homework mood. And when I'm hungry. And when I've just finished cleaning my room. But especially when I'm in an anti-homework mood because I'm hungry after cleaning my room, for example, right now. Go figure. Anyhow, I'm also kind of bored because, aside from homework and "Glee" later, I have nothing to do aside from blogging. And maybe going and getting some pretzels or something to eat. Or something.
And as a general FYI, I may or may not be posting an update (probably the latter) on the days when I have musical rehearsal, because of circumstances like the one that happened yesterday with the epic staying-up-late-and-feeling-tired-now-but-normal-ish thing. Especially because I probably won't have time to write a lot of NaNoWriMo anyway (BOO!), so there probably won't be anything to tell you about except for maybe how tired I am and how sorry I am that I didn't post the day before or something. And how I should be doing my homework and that I am perfectly (not) content with staying up until midnight again if I have to.
I've noticed something as well, though.
Unless I get just enough sleep to start dreaming, I don't normally feel tired when I miss sleep until late afternoon. For example, now I'm really tired from the staying up late last night, but this morning I was fine. Probably partially due to the fact that I had caffeine this morning.

Day 16: the day after halfway

Pages Today: 5
Pages Left To Write Today: 8
Page Started On: 115
Page To End On: 128
Location In Story: Unexpected encounter with Nem's former teacher turns out to be beneficial. And Flayan has been introduced.
And yes, I know, I didn't post yesterday. I'm sorry. I had a TON of things to do. First it was the first musical rehearsal, from which I had to leave early (I thought my bit was over, but it wasn't, so I accidentally left before my lines as the pivotal role of The Waiter) to go to a black belt kup test (it went okay, aside from the board breaking. We have to do the sparring next week or the next time we go or whatever), and then I had to eat and sit down and write an AP essay that took me 3.5 hours because it had to be handwritten and it was assigned YESTERDAY and was due TODAY. Yeah, not a lot of time for blogging and writing yesterday. However, the rehearsal and the AP essay were my main sources of panic, and now those both have passed with somewhat success. Well, rehearsal did, anyway. Whether I get good grade on my essay is yet to be seen. And whether she can actually understand my handwriting is another issue. It also happened to be my first super-late night for homework. I usually feel like the only junior who normally doesn't stay up until a quarter to midnight or later doing homework - even my brother did it when he was a junior - but I could be wrong. It's just kind of awkward when people are like, "Yeah, I was up til 3 last night doing my AP US essay/ studying for the AP English test/ doing NaNoWriMo!" And I'm just like, "Um... I did my AP US essay before nine, I'm not in AP English, and I did my NaNoWriMo quota during my free blocks..." It's really awkward because it feels like I'm the only one in my group of friends - or in my grade, for that matter - whose lamp is usually out by 11 on school nights. (However, we were visited by our old middle school friend on Halloween, and she said she felt the same way, so that was kind of nice, especially as she goes to a 'normal' school and is taking all IB courses... not sure how IB compares to AP, but I know it's hard).
And, unless I want to repeat yesterday night (I don't), I'm going to go clean my room and do my homework so I can watch Glee tonight. YAAY!!!

not exactly panicking..

Well, I've written a lot more today.
And yes, mother, of COURSE I'm (not) doing my AP reading.
But, in other news, NaNo hasn't got me as panicked as it did before. Mostly, I think, because I caught up. Sort of.
Anyway, I'm officially declaring my progress with NaNoWriMo. YAY!
Also, that I'm probably going to be participating in NaNoFiMo (yes, it actually exists): National Novel Finishing Month. It's during December. And I'll be participating. Because I can. Also because I'll probably need to. Because, let's face it, even if I DO manage to hand-write 240 Composition Book Pages, that's still only 96 typed pages. And, in my head, even with the extra pages created by page breaks for chapters, doing 96 pages condensed isn't a novel. It's a... non-novel.
It's what John Steinbeck did when he was too braindead after sitting down and writing "Grapes of Wrath" - he decided to do NaNoWriMo and wound up with "Of Mice and Men." Except for the fact that he did "Of Mice and Men" first. And that NaNoWriMo wasn't around in 1937-9.
It wasn't around until 1999.
So... my point is no longer valid.
I'm going to go do AP now.

Day 14: May I panic now?

Pages Today: 1.25
Pages Until Completion of Today's Quota: 9
Current Page: 103
Page To End On: 112
Location in Story: Have their new heading and are getting background of the people/ climate in the area they're going to next and discussing how they're going to get there without going bankrupt.
My question is: Can I panic now?
Why, you ask?
Today is Sunday. I probably have around four hours of homework to do today, because AP is annoying and notes take forever. And, although I was able to get some writing done last night, last weekend I didn't start Sunday TEN PAGES SHORT with four hours of homework in addition. And so now I'm panicking. And I hate panic. AAHH! However, there'll be some hope if I get off RIGHT NOW and start doing either homework or writing or something. I'm just glad I don't have to read the entire AP chapter tonight, because then by the end of today I'd be a total of 17 pages behind because I'd have no time to write whatsoever after that. Which would be even MORE annoying.
And I'm going and being productive now. Goodbye.

Day 13: When it starts catching up with you

Pages Written Today: not even one. 22 words (a chapter title and a line).
Pages Left To Write Today: 9
Current Page: 95
Page To End On: 104
Location in story: Luke and Sparky have found stuff out! Now Sparky has to deliver it to Nem + co. Yeah, not much farther than yesterday.
Today was one of those days that's so crowded with Stuff You Have To Do that there's all of no time to write. Which means I'm totally screwed. I did some service stuff this morning and saw "Oklahoma!" (which was REALLY good, by the way) at the nearest professional theater. And there was about an hour in between when we got home and when we had to leave again. And in about 45 minutes we're going to be leaving again and going to my parent's friend's house for dinner. And apparently I have to call my driver's ed teacher to reschedule some stuff and a lot of annoying stuff like that. So life is really annoying right now. Go figure.
So I'm going to go write now before all hope is lost and I have to leave.

Day 12: The Second Friday

Pages Written So Far Today: 6
Pages Left To Write Today: 4
Current Page: 92 (If it were typed, it would be around page 36)
Page To End On: 96
Location in Story: Dragons have been fought. Now Heron and Stea are free. YAY!! Only four more pairs to go!! Cut to Luke. He's very bored without his best friend around to provide some sort of mischief-making fun for him to partake in. So he argues with the guard at his door, Sir Nikolas Whatzit. Yes, you read that right. The guard's name is Nikolas Whatzit, and he's an idiot. But that isn't the point. The point is Luke's bored and wishing he could help Nem, and eventually Sparky the Star comes and helps him out. So that's that. YAY!!

For some reason, I've had the growing urge to start typing up my novel-in-progress. Why? I'm trying to figure that out. I still want to be able to say I wrote a novel by hand, even if it only ends up being less than 100 pages long, but whatever. The way it's turning out, handwriting it in a composition notebook will make it 240 pages long by the end of the month, if I continue with the whole eight-pages-a-day thing. Which I will. Probably. YAY WEEKENDS!
I'm really glad that NaNoWriMo is in November. The other ideal month would be December, because of winter break and everything. I'm glad it's November, however, because I'm around enough people who are doing NaNoWriMo as well to stay motivated, but we also have enough breaks for me to be able to sit and do nothing but write at like 11 pm. Not that I actually DO that on weekends or anything silly like that...
YAY WRITING!!!

Day 11: are you getting bored yet?

Pages Written Today: 5
Current Page: to-be-begun chapter on page 82
Page I should be on by the end of today: 88
Page Started On: 76
Location in story: just killed Fenn the dragon, about to meet the star and goddess and get the cool shindigs that come with saving stars and goddesses. What are these cool shindigs? I have no idea! I just know they're cool and that the four main people get them, and that Maa and Kela won't, and Maa and Kela won't be happy.

I didn't do any writing last night. I thought I would, but I didn't. Mostly because I'm too lazy, because I didn't want to go and get my pens and then get my notebook out of my backpack and then try to write about dragons after a dance.
Plus, I don't think I could write a very good dragon fight after a dance. Dances and dragons don't go together very well. Unless it's the climax of "Enchanted." But even then, it kind of sucked. I wouldn't want to fight a dragon on top of the Empire State Building in the middle of your average climactic rainstorm.

Back!

Well, although I have no real right to, I kind of feel like Cinderella. I just got back from Fall Formal (which was actually okay for once, despite the fact that I kept having to pull up my *strapless* dress because we couldn't find this special tape we'd bought to help us lesser-endowed people with strapless dresses), and hung out and stuff, and now I'm sitting, blogging, feeling tired and knowing that, although it's 11:00, I probably should be going and finishing today's quota for NaNoWriMo. Yes, I KNOW tomorrow is Veteran's Day. I LOVE YOU, VETERANS =). But I also know that if I don't go and do writing NOW, my Evil Stepmother (otherwise known as procrastination) will catch up with me and force me to fail by eating me, even though the NaNoWriMo predictor says I'll finish way early - early enough to type it up, even. So, alas, I must depart my fun (at 50 minutes til midnight), and write about the Union of the Lesser-Known Creatures, Species, and Beings. And also killing dragons. And finding stars and goddesses. And maybe the Evil Stepmother of Procrastination won't eat me, because I don't want to be eaten. It kind of sucks, from what I hear.
So, farewell, my friends. I hope to see you when I'm *not* published. Or something.

Day 10

Pages Written Today: 5
Current Page: 77
Page To End Up On: 80
Location In Story: About to beat up Fenn the Dragon; have now unofficially started the Union for the Lesser-Known Magical Creatures, Species, and Beings in order to talk their way past the guard at Fenn's door. This is a complete deviation from what I expected to come up with, especially as I had Maa and Kela attempt to talk their way past a different guard by saying they were from the Turman Guard Union, but both parties said they were inspecting the castle. I don't know WHAT the thing is about these Union things, but they come in handy when I need some way to get from point A to point B (point B is usually the Annoying Doom Creature Guarding the Star/ Deity).
I think it might actually come back to haunt the characters in a good way, as they already promised the guard that they'd try and get him published. As all my creatures are pretty much pulled from my own head (except for the dragons, trolls, goblins and stuff), this Union for Lesser-Known Creatures, Species, and Beings could come in handy (if only to give Zack a career afterwards). Karma, anyone?
Also, fall formal at my school is tonight. YAY! Therefore, I will probably not be getting ANY writing done WHATSOEVER after about 5:30 because that's when my voice teacher comes, and auditions for the school musical are tomorrow. YAY!
I have only two issues with the fact that our musical is Guys and Dolls:
1. I've already been in Guys and Dolls (it was a shortened version, but still. It counts), and
2. if I want a good part, which I kind of do, I'll either have to learn how to sing soprano or learn to do an obnoxious New York accent - not sure which is easier.
I can sing soprano, I just can't do it WELL. However, the New York accent is kind of harder - I haven't met enough native New Yorkers who still have a lot of an accent and talked to them long enough to figure out how to do it yet. From the little I have heard, however (I may be thinking of a Jersey accent...), it's kind of like Cockney but more obnoxious. Any thoughts on which is easier, anyone?

Day 9

Pages Written Today: 6
Number of Pages To Write Until I Make It To The Quota: 6
Current Page: 66
Page I have to finish on: 72
Place In Story: Kaibom and Zazan have made themselves known, after Zack and Nem get thrown into Fenn's dungeon. Now Kaibom has an idea about how to get out of the dungeon! Cut to the Annoying Wizards for plot effect. Hooray!

You know, now that I have to force myself to write a lot every day - I missed a lot on Sunday, obviously, so I had to write 12 pages yesterday and I have to do 12 more today to catch up - is that once you get past the exposition, there's nothing really fun about writing a novel except for meeting new characters and killing people and finishing the darn thing. Has anyone ever noticed that? (this goes for those of you who read novels, too...) Well, I guess a good novelist will keep you reading regardless, but I don't think anyone ever put out anything good in 30 days. I KNOW the NaNoWriMo novel shouldn't be good, but in order for a novel to be deemed a Bad Novel (or at least a Not That Good Novel), it has to be deemed a Finished Novel first.
So that's my rant for today. YAY!

Day 8

Pages Written Today: 7
Pages Left To Write Today: 9
Current Page: 55
Current Location: outsmarted the goblin (sort of), now it's time to go INTO THE CASTLE!
Page I'm Supposed To Be On By The End Of Today: 64
Yeah, this is probably not going to work...
It doesn't help that I barely slept last night because I was studying for a history test that I probably failed because I didn't review enough of the older notes to get an 'a', or a 'b' for that matter. I'm also completely brain dead because I was in tears about that and the fact that I didn't get into Districts for the third year running and frustration about the test. I didn't think I'd be so pissed about Districts - I've never gotten into Districts before - but for some reason, I was. I think it was mostly because this is the THIRD FREAKING TIME I've auditioned, and next year's my last year and my last chance, and my score was lower this year. I was also really tired from going to bed at almost midnight and waking up at five til seven and frying my brain for a history test that I probably didn't pass. :P
In other news, for some reason I got a B in AP last quarter. I don't know HOW I managed to get a B in AP last quarter, but I did.
YAY!
(Things don't bode so well for this quarter).

Day 7

Pages Written Today: 1/6
Pages Left To Write Today: 7 and 5/6
Current Page: 48
Page To End On: 56
Location In Story: Is the goblin REALLY dead, or is he just pretending to throw them off guard? The only way to find out would be to enter the gatehouse where he stays and fight the darn thing. And where is Fenn the Dragon hiding the goddess and the star? First they have to go through the gatehouse and fight the goblin, before they can think of fighting the dragon! (No pressure or anything).
Yeah, I haven't had any time to write at all today, even with daylight savings time and stuff. I was a slacker and was on facebook and you tube the entire morning, even though I woke up early to get some work done. It didn't work, obviously. So now, not only will I be studying a lot for an AP test tomorrow (which I'll most likely fail), but I'll also (most likely) be WAY behind on my writing, which is going to KILL me this week because I have MORE AUDITIONS! Great. I wasn't ready to die yet. I hope that all of you will be at my (entirely necessary) funeral, to be held in the coming weeks.

And again...

Well, here I am again. YAY! I've done some writing and some homeworking, and I feel like blogging right now. So here I am. Hooray! You know, I've noticed something. I just noticed how easy it is to fall into the habit of going back to re-word stuff to make it longer until I started working on NaNoWriMo (or how much I do so). I know that it's completely against the rules of NaNoWriMo, but I'm finding myself doing it anyway. (by the way, you aren't supposed to be editing during NaNoWriMo. The point is to just crank the darn novel out of your head and say you did). I'm not entirely sure, though - IS it against the rules to edit if it makes a phrase longer, and therefore makes you, the writer, more likely to succeed? I think it kind of works? Maybe?
Mind you, this whole extra-wordiness thing doesn't come without benefits. I just had to write up a physics paper about Why Our Egg Drop Project Failed, and using the extra amount of elaboration capabilities I have acquired, I was able to make it actually three pages long, instead of, I don't know, half a paragraph, maybe? Okay, it wouldn't have been THAT long. But I AM in more practice of not writing compound words unless it's in dialogue for characters who are not likely to not make compound words (blog posts excepted), so that did help. And also, our project was terrible. And there was a lot to fix about it. But it was longer when I hand wrote it. So I had to use the elaboration skills to make it work. YAY TIM GUNN FOR MAKING THAT PHRASE REMIND ME OF HIM!
I'm feeling really random right now. I'm out of it. I didn't take my meds this morning so I had to have coffee at around noon, and I intended to take a vitamin only, since the coffee's caffeine would work well enough for the time being, but I accidentally also took my meds. I'm going to be up LATE tonight...
Well, at least I can get some more writing done.

Day 6

Pages Written So Far Today: .5
Pages To Write Until Done Today: 7.5
Total Pages Written So Far (counting page breaks for chapters): 41
Page to Stop At Today: 48
Location in Story: prophetic dreams give Nemesis and Zack their first heading for Where To Go To Find The First Star And The First Goddess
What's happened since I last Posted: Nemesis and Zack went to the shrine; Maa and Kela have begun arguing and Maa's moods have begun to affect the weather. They discovered where the first pair (Heron and Stea - healing, home and hope; healing) are hidden, but they're held up by Maa's moods pissing off the minor rain gods and having rain dumped on just the two of them. The end.
In other news, I had an audition today for District Chorus. I think it went okay, except for sight reading. I kind of killed that. But I think the main part of the audition went okay. I was also the room monitor for the tenor 1's and the freshman and sophomore soprano 1's (those are the higher parts of the two voice parts). I basically gave their sheets to the judges (who are behind a screen during the audition) and pressed 'play' on the CD player for the backup music.
I felt really sorry for the people who messed up out of nervousness and the people for whom I accidentally caused the CD player to have technical difficulties, because until the terror kicked in they were doing fine.
There was this one girl who was freaking amazing, though - she hit all the notes perfectly (even the really high jump to a high G) and got her sight reading nearly perfect on the first attempt during the practice session (they get 30 seconds of practice before performing it), and she did it perfectly during the performance. It was insane. I'd be depressed if her score doesn't make the cutoff, because she was really good.
A lot of the girls were really good, even though some got off-key after the jump and/ or were really quiet the entire time. A lot of the guys were good too, but I noticed that a higher percent of them messed up. The percentages were probably fudged because there were probably twice as many girls as there were guys auditioning in our room.
So that's that for today. :D

Day 5: The Day In Which The Post Has More Substance

Pages Written Today: 7.5
Pages left to write today in order to be on time: 4.5
Location in story: left Zack's house around midnight. Now on the way to the shrine to get important information because the Gods say so.
Other noteworthy things: I've officially ruled out the possibility that Zack and Nemesis will fall in love because Zack's sister can communicate with the stars/ knows all about astrology and such, and so she basically ruled it out because Zack is a Scholar sign and Nemesis is a Warrior sign (those are their horoscope-type things. I'd been playing with the idea, and I may change it to them being the exception to the rule and all). So that's where I am.
I started today 12 pages behind because I had to go to a chorus thing right after tkd yesterday so I only had time to write about four pages. And now I have to write 12 pages to make up for it. 12.5, really.
I've also noticed something: the only day that I was ahead was the first day, and then I had only done about nine pages, instead of the eight per day that I plan to do. Now I have to do 9-12 pages just to make up for my slacking off on Tuesday. Funny how these things all decide to snowball all at once.
Well, not funny. Annoying.
Which reminds me that I should probably be writing now.
Or doing something else productive.
Like writing.

Day 4

Basic Stats: (Will do proper update later)
Pages today so far: 6
Total Page Count: 27
Location in Story: Nemesis has regained consciousness; Zack has tried a sword (which is a complete deviation from my initial plot thing); they will leave within the next two pages. Zack's mother does not want him to.
What may or may not be coming: stuff.

Back again

I know I should be cleaning my room, doing precalculus, working on my thing for NaNoWriMo, or doing something else productive. But instead, I'm here. Procrastination by blogging. About how I shouldn't be blogging and doing something else instead of being a procrastinator, like usual. What's new? I know what I'll do! I'll be a procrastinator by writing the end of the NaNo novel, in the style that I was ranting about earlier today! YAY! And all of you who want literary updates (I know there has to be at least a couple of you... anyone?), I'll do some updates when I get some stuff to post. In the mean time, READ MY OLD STUFF! It's under that little link to your right under the archives that reads "story." It goes in chronological order, newest first. So do some reading and some commenting, because you may or may not be hearing any sort of literary things from me for a while. Unless it is a rant about how annoying and/ or difficult I'm finding NaNo. And progress updates of the things thereof. :P
goodbye for now.

Also...

Okay, just an official location update (I will attempt to remember to do this every day from now on) of how many pages I have written and where the characters are and how much time I spent writing today:
I have done twenty-one pages.
Zack has just come into the picture. He will eventually be the BFF of Nemesis and the Savior of the Day in one way or another. He is very smart and generally made of awesome.
I wrote for a little more than two hours today, plus the time I will hopefully be putting in tonight.
YAY!

Day 3

Well, if I'm able to write tonight, I'll (hopefully) be able to make up for the six pages that I didn't write yesterday. HOORAY! (I wrote for almost two hours today. It made me very happy.).
I began to think about the end of my novel today in creative writing (as I so often do when I'm only a few thousand words into a story), and that led to a discussion/ brainstorm with my creative writing teacher about who should wind up falling in love with whom.
The annoying thing is that, although I greatly enjoy writing romantic scenes (I'M SUCH A GIRL), I'm also absolutely horrid at having the scenes not be completely made of cheese. This may also be because I've never actually been in one of the numerous situations that my characters have been in, including the ones where most of my semi-romantic scenes take place, involving a dance/ ball where the only dancing you're allowed to do was partner-ballroom dancing, and the implication in said dances was that if you danced with someone, it meant that you actually sort of liked them, that you wanted to just torture them because you know they hate dancing and dresses (as in the case of Shya and Tel. However, Tel does like Shya, so that doesn't really count), or you just have to be polite and suck it up and dance with that person because your mother told you to.
So that's what I have for today.
I am extremely psyched to work on this shindig. Except for my hand becoming extremely writer's cramp-y today (as will probably happen every day I write for two hours. This doesn't bode well.).

Day 2

Well, today I've only written about a page (as opposed to the 8.75 that I did yesterday), which is killing my steam here. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I think the lack of school is a major contributing factor. Also, that I had to walk around in the cold as if it were a school day and shepherd young girl scouts to the next freezing cold station. Outdoors. Did I mention it was cold? (It was for a fundraiser. We're going to Switzerland next summer. And I think it's the last fundraiser of this type that we're doing. I hope so, anyway.)
If I want to make the page count necessities for today, however, I need to go SHOWER and then WRITE and then SLEEP (especially SLEEP and WRITE, not exactly in that order). Is it bad that I'm writing smaller than I thought I would? I guess this means that I'm technically ahead of schedule, but I still don't like the fact that I'm on page 10 instead of page 16 like I thought I should be... Okay, leaving now. To sleep. And shower. And write. And write. And try to keep ahead of my writing schedule and not die under the load of homework, driver's ed, and the ton of other things I have to do during the month of November.

Day 1

Well, so far I've survived the first day of NaNoWriMo. If my calculations are correct (please let them be correct!) I've written more than I need to today, probably due to the fact that I have more dialogue than I thought I would. BUT I'm also writing smaller than I did for the initial word count per page calculations, so there's that (I think it evens out).

Also, I'm quite sure I'll be getting writer's cramp tomorrow afternoon at around 3 or 4 pm (or whenever I get a chance to sit down for a few hours and write). Which will suck, by the way. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in an earlier post. But it'll suck even MORE because although I have written more than I thought I would write today, my characters also haven't gone anywhere yet. Okay, there's been mention of a prophecy, and Maa and Kela have decided to go after some stuff when it comes, but Nem and Luke haven't gone anywhere except down the hall and out the door and down memory lane a bit.

I should be starting chapter two tonight or tomorrow, depending on time constraints today or tomorrow or whenever. So that's that. YAY WRITING!!

(FYI, if I had gone by the initial plot outline, Maa and Kela would not only have decided to go after the things when they fall, Nem and Luke would already be at the palace, Spiss would be beating up Nem, Luke would be getting captured, and the whole thing would generally be more exciting. However, Nem and Luke have only just now left battleschool. Way to pace myself.)

YAAY!

Happy halloween!

Happy halloween!

I'm here with nothing in particular to say to you except for Happy Halloween and, if you're an adult, please give out loads of candy (particular crunch bars, Reese's, Snickers, and Milky Ways) to teenagers in purple masks with dragon wings and digital cameras. Thank you.

And I should be going to do my AP notes now.

I thought I had lost my NaNoWriMo notes, but I found them. YAY! I'm super psyched for NaNoWriMo tomorrow. I've started getting a lot of extra ideas for extra conflict, which isn't good, as the whole thing STARTS tomorrow.

So far, I've added extra things to be saved and warlocks to be out for them, too. And the fact that Marina is not allowed anywhere near Zazz because Marina's a naiad and Zazz is a walking electric current. That is all I'm going to say on the matter. If you want to read any part of the novel, email me in the first week of December, as I will hopefully have all of it (or at least some of it) typed up by then. YAY! If you honestly think I'm crazy for attempting this, please tell me now, so I can think of a good enough comeback for the next time I see you.

Unexpected Literary Update!!!

Well, since I'm bored, I have nothing to post, and I don't really feel like not posting anyway (and, to be honest, I'm also doing this so I can maybe get some more hits), I'm going to be putting up the next 1200 words of the Nikita story. Why ONLY 1200 words, you may ask, since I wrote 2600 words last time? Why not all 2600? Well, I'll tell you: when the literary catastrophe that I'll be beginning next week (also known as "The Crazy Adventures of Nemesis" and/ or my NaNoWriMo novel attempt) is over, and since it's being written in a composition notebook and probably won't be typed up until winter break due to lack of finishing and ample amounts of procrastination, I'll have to get back to the real world of Passing Creative Writing, and I want to have time to recover from being braindead (as I'm sure I will be after writing 1700 words a DAY) and still be able to pass (as it's probably one of two courses I currently have a good grade in). Case in point, it's only 1200 words to give me a while in December to think of what's coming next.
So here it is. YAY!


“Well, part of it,” I admitted. “Part of it I just figured out on my own.”
“Which parts?”
“Well, the trees told me the part about Sonru and his army…”
“The trees told you about Sonru,” Sparraben repeated bemusedly.
“Yes, sir.” I decided that it would be best to at least address him politely now that he was the one asking questions.
“Trees told you that one of the darkest Dark Lords in the history of dark lords is forming an army,” he stated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you weren’t sleeping?” Sparraben said doubtfully.
“Quite sure, sir. My legs were still hurting from walking.”
“Care to explain how the trees were able to communicate this information to you?” he asked.
“You see, my grandma was an Elemental, and…”
“What was her name?” Sparraben interrupted.
“Rhyda Shynade. She was one of the last full elementals left.”
Sparraben’s expression finally changed to something other than anger for longer than a few seconds. He now looked pensive. “Has anyone told you that you look just like her?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Mum never knew her, and Dad died before he could tell me a lot about her.”
“How did your father die, exactly?” he asked next.
“Blue Fever, according to Mum,” I answered.
“Do you remember whether anyone else in your family caught it that year?”
I paused, pushing my memory back. “No, I don’t think anyone did, no,” I said. “But I remember that he came in from the fields one day and his face was all red, and there was a bloody spot on his shirt near where his heart was. And I remember thinking that it was weird that he had died of the Blue Fever when you get boils and spots on your arms, not your chest. And his arms were clean.”
Sparraben’s face was unreadable, but I could tell he was still thinking. “His arms were clean,” he said slowly, “Because more likely than not, he was killed by something that wasn’t the Blue Fever. Did he have an Elemental trait?”
“Yes, Earth and Water,” I replied.
“Did you ever find out how your grandma died?”
“No,” I said quietly. Why did he suddenly want to know how my various deceased relatives met their ends? It wasn’t significant, was it?
“Hm…” he muttered, more to himself than to me. After a long pause, during which I waited very nervously for his verdict, he said, “All right, I’ll do it.”
I couldn’t help grinning a little bit, but the grin faded as he added, “But under the condition that you do a two-month crash course of Ranger Training.”
“Two months?” I repeated, aghast. “Isn’t that a bit LONG?”
“No; in fact, it’s rather short,” Sparraben replied. “Any shorter a time, and you would miss an important point.”
“But… But…” I stuttered. A million reasons WHY two months would be too long – the mysterious Sonru’s growing presence being a significant factor in most of them – raced through my mind, but Sparraben’s height and obvious strength stopped me from voicing my doubts.
“Well?” he asked.
“is there any way you could make it any shorter?” I squeaked nervously.
“no,” he replied shortly. “It’s this way or I’m out.”
A battle was going on in my head – figuring out where Sonru was, WHAT exactly he was, what he was doing, and how I could stop him, all on one hand, and getting Sparraben’s vast amounts of skill and knowledge to do so, which would probably prove to be the wiser course of action simply because of his experience.
“Um… Okay,” I said.
“You are impatient to defeat Sonru,” he observed bluntly. “I can see it in your face. But the first lesson you must learn is patience. Being too hasty can cost you a kill; cause you to overlook a chance. Moving too soon can cost you your life. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said timidly. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working.
“Good,” he said. “Your training begins now. Remember that this is a crash course – you won’t be able to do anything really well, but you’ll be able to do a lot of things well enough to survive. Understand, girl?”
“Yes, sir.”

And so the real adventure began – the first day of the rest of my life, you might say. The first thing I did as a trainee was to surrender my bag and to begin doing pushups.
 
Chapter 3

Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizeable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”

Novels and Stardust

Well, I know I'm being annoying for bringing up NaNoWriMo again, but I'm getting very impatient with this whole time thing. Six days and however many hours and minutes and seconds will not get here fast enough!!! (I know, however, if I say that, it'll pass too fast and then I won't get anything done because I'm so surprised that it's already November).

HOWEVER, between sitting around bored, procrastinating on homework and doing maps of the Kingdom of Wherever and the Dark Doom Fortress and stuff, I found the time to watch "Stardust," and for the record, I highly reccomend you read the book first, because then you'll know almost exactly what happens in the movie, and you'll leave wherever you saw the movie with the nice feeling that the writers and director didn't deviate from the book as much as you thought they would. And that was really nice, because Stardust was a really good book. The movie did devaite a bit at the end, but that was worth it because they added in a showdown and some good plot points.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!

And now I'm putting stars into my NaNoWriMo novel. And I'm excited. YAY!!

Early release!!!!!

We had an early release from school today. YAY!!! This is very nice, as it gives me ample time to play video games and research the history essay that I should have started on Monday. Anyway, I'm SUPER glad it's an early release.
Now I should probably be going to do that homework or that essay or something productive like that.
I wish it were Friday. I have no idea why the early releases are always on Thursdays. They always feel like Fridays to me. It was nice that 8:20 was cancelled, but I still went in early. And it was annoying. And I still have to do that essay. Darn. I really don't feel like doing any sort of homework right now.
General Poll because I'm bored: have any of you ever tried NaNoWriMo? And do you think I'm insane for trying this?
Well, if your answer was yes to the first one, PLEASE COMMENT AND SHARE SURVIVAL TIPS!
And if your answer was "no but I'm going to try this year," READ THE SURVIVAL TIPS!
If your answer was yes to the second one, suck it because it's a creative writing assignment.
Okay, I'm going to (try) to be productive now.

hello!

Greetings! I'm truly sorry that I don't have a Literary Update for you, but for the sake of grades and due dates, it would be rather annoying to post it. I won't be posting a Monday/ Tuesday Literary Update next week either because of the current assignment in creative writing (which is to read and critique some stuff that the rest of the class has written anonymousuly). The next week, however, I may post what I have (which will hopefully be 2000-3000 words) of my NaNoWriMo novel, which will be very, VERY bad, but that's only because I'd only been working on it for two days. I may not, though, and just wait to type it all up until the last day. THOUGHTS ON THIS PLAN? Anyone?

I'm aware that I could type it all up and come to the realization that "OH NO, I am ___ words short, and I have ___ hours to finish!" However, I'm willing to risk it. I think.

ALSO, may I remind everyone (including myself) of the cool thing called THANKSGIVING BREAK, during which I'll (hopefully) have ample time to write for hours and hours and hours. YAY!

NaNoWriMo again

Well, if I wasn't already kind of pumped for NaNoWriMo, I'm ACTUALLY pumped now (probably partially because I had sugar of the fruit variety, and it probably helped my mood. Also, I found my cross, which I was feeling sad about forgetting this morning, along with my phone and almost my glasses). I was just looking at some other people's "NaNoWriMo Survival Kits" (it's a list in the forums on the website), and so I'm going to be weird and tell you what mine is:
1. a notebook. Haven't bought it yet, but I'll have one. I hope. This is very important because I don't want to type up stuff until the end of the week, so I'm going to have to have a notebook around a lot. Also, I like notebooks a lot.
2. Pens and pencils. Lots and lots of pens and pencils.
3. that seat in the school library in the Manga section. No idea why I always happen to sit there, but it's a corner and it's secluded and I can write my hand off if I want to (or until I get kicked out because the library is closing).
4. iPod for when I decide to be braindead.
5. free blocks and school holidays - if it weren't for these, I wouldn't even attempt NaNoWriMo. But both exist in good quantities. And I am happy.

So that's my list. HOORAY!!!

Na'vi and planets

Oe-l nga-ti kame. Yes, I DID just put in Na'vi. And yes, I did copy and paste it from Wikipedia. How did you guess? Na'vi is perhaps the coolest language ever (aside from Sindarin, of course).

By the way, it's the greeting that the Na'vi do: "I See you." What I copied and pasted from Wikipedia. I feel like such a nerd right now...

But let me explain how I got to looking up how to speak Na'vi on Wikipedia/ Google (I know I'm a nerd, but at least I ADMIT it): the dinner table discussion tonight was actually interesting. It was about life on other planets. Apparently some astrophysicist somewhere found some planet that can support human life, but it's about a bazillion light years away.

I also did some calculations on my phone, and even if the sun explodes in 500 million years, we here on Earth will have about 17 years to ship everyone out of the solar system.
That is, if the sun's explosion travels at the speed of light.
And humans have figured out how to ship other humans at the speed of light by that point.
And people haven't already destroyed the earth's ozone layer by abusing the air quality.
And there are still people to figure out how to ship themselves at the speed of light in order to save themselves from the Sun's explosion.
And, of course, if we haven't shipped ourselves out to this unknown planet already.

But it's a really cool thing to think about, isn't it? LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS. IT COULD EXIST.
And that's how we got onto Avatar.
And that's why I'm blogging about Na'vi instead of practicing for my District choir audition in a few weeks.
YAY NA'VI!!!!!!!