Christmas!

I understand it's almost the New Year, and I probably should do a post on that, but still, it's right after Christmas, and I haven't done a post on that yet, so here we go.

For Christmas I made out like a bandit really. I got No Plot? No Problem! By Chris Baty, Outcast of Redwall by Brian Jacques, and those were the only books I got. I also got a wonderful red toggle hoodie, some nice earrings, um....I know there's more...anyway. That was Sunday, where we got to visit family for Christmas. When we got home on Monday, we had a nice Christmas Eve and then on Christmas day I got...hmm...well, my brothers made me my wooden sword, I got a DS Lite, also a cat book, oh! I also got an AlphaSmart Neo!

That one got me excited actually. I asked for it, but I didn't really expect to get it. I was wondering if I'd ever be able to buy it for myself with me having to pay for mission trip too. So I'm extremely happy that I got it.

Ok, I think I'll have some rambling about New Years in this post too, just for the fun of it. On the NaNoWriMo forums, there's the Big Fun Scary Year thing. Anyway, here's my goal list right now. I might add more as time goes by.

-post in this blog at least once a week (I will have to except one or two weeks out of the year however, as there will be some circumstances that I won't be able to post.)
-Finish writing this year's NaNo.
-Put my shiny new AlphaSmart Neo to good use by writing...say....at least twice a week. (Same weeks will have to be excepted, except during car travels with them I may be able to write in a notebook, but I doubt it.)
-Hmm....I'm toying with wanting to learn French or Spanish or Italian or something...to a conversational level I guess...but I dunno about that one. Shall we say that's a possible goal?
-learn to sightread better on the piano (That's being able to just look at a song you've never played before and play it right there. I can generally do the one-finger melody straight up, but I'd like to be able to do more than that on the first or second go-through)
-another piano related one. This is because my dad really wants me to: Learn to play out of a hymnbook. For me to be able to do this, I need to accomplish the above goal. Sightreading. It's just that sight reading out of a hymnbook seems harder than anything else.
-Finish my CSS self-course. (It's fun, one of those 24-hour things, with 24 1-hour lessons, but I just haven't finished it)
-Finish the JavaScript course (same kind) that I also bought
-Figure out what programming language you need to know in order to program usernames and passwords and all that junk so I can have a more interactive website! And then possibly learn said language.

Those aren't in any particular order, just as they came to mind. So...Do you have any goals or anything you want to get done by the end of next year?

Sunset

This is a picture of a sunset I took the other night. I'm by no means a photographer, butI have a digital camera, and at the urging of my parents and brother (my other brother was at work), I took some pictures of it. This is the best one, fixed up with Picasa. It needed a bit of strightening, but apparently the lightning was good, because when I used those buttons it didn't do really anything. Anyway, I like it, and thought I'd torture you with it while I had it out like this.

While I'm typing, I might as well give you an update on my writing (since that is what this blog is supposed to be about).
My NaNoWriMo novel has slowed down, it's not at a boring part by any means, but I don't know, I just don't want to write on it right now! Thus the procrastination of writing in this blog with the picture that normally would've just stayed on the computer instead of being put on the internet. Anyway, it's at about 56k now, and lately I've only been able to get literally a few words on it per day.
I've gotten out a different writing project however, is coming along beautifully. In that notebook that I took the picture of the fountian pen on (see previous post, the other one with the picture? Yeah, that one!), I'm working that one plot that came to mind during NaNo. I was just going to build on it a bit, but then it insisted that I put it on paper, and so I used my fountain pen to start, and now I'm in love with it. I'm not going to type it up, it'll be my away-from-the-computer project. It's forcing me either away from the computer, or to write on it while sitting at the computer, which is really not what I meant to happen at all. Ah well, maybe I can bribe myself, or threaten, that works too. "Stand away from the notebook, and write on your NaNo, or you'll never see the new story again!"

Great.

All I Want for Christmas...

Is my two straight teeth (sorry, I have braces, so I have to say that)

Actually, I do know what I want for Christmas. (Now that it's weeks after my parents went shopping)
I'd like junk for my fountain pen. Colored inks, or some nice stationary, that would be nice...there's also calligraphy stuff would be awesome.

Now that I've given my list to people who can't get anything for me, I'm off to drool over ywriter4, since I can't have it.
Yes, I know it's free! But I have satellite internet, and we only have so many megabytes of download space per rolling month. In a day or two I'll have the bandwidth back and I'll download it. It looks like fun! And useful...I guess that's important too.

Fountain Pen Ramble (probably Haiku too!)

So, if you will kindly look at the picture over there, ====>
You will see my beautiful Waterman Phileas fountain pen. It's over my notebook, and the snowglobe is there just for fun.
Beautiful, no? For those of you that know what a fountain pen is, skip the following part:
A fountain pen as far as I know is one of the oldest actual pens. For some reason I'm thinking that the nib was at first attached to quills, because the hollow feather allowed it to be filled with ink, and then the nib (the part at the end that you write with) would help it to last longer. I could be wrong on that however. Anyway, the fountain pen is a very elegant writing instrument, and it writes beautifully. My writing is sloppy (that's my writing in the notebook), but I'm sure it'll get better. The thing I really love about it is how it glides over the page. I don't really notice other things not gliding, but if I use a pencil right after the fountain pen, or in this notebook because I'm used to it in this notebook, it seems weird and hard to do.

Those of you who know about fountain pens, here you can start reading again.
My pen came as a nice set for my birthday in August, with the pen, a bottle of ink, a converter, cartidges in several colors, blotting paper and a cloth to wipe with. And don't forget the booklet! I'm really enjoying it, even though until a few days ago I was scared to get it out and use it at all. I got over that quickly as I started writing with it. It's so much fun! I have a medium nib on it, however I've heard that these Waterman nibs run a bit broader than the normal American nib. But what do I know?

Anyway, I love my fountain pen. If you like to write, a fountain pen is a great way to write, it's very elegant, and they write wonderfully. You can use bottled ink or cartridges, either way is great.

Happy writing!

Post-Nano Blues

I have a serious case of 'em. I can't settle down to write anymore. I can get a few words out, nothing really productive though. I've taken breaks, but it's time that I get some writing done again. I've set some goals, and they are:
#1: Write something every day possible.
#2: Finish November novel
#3: Ooh! Here's a fun one: Build on plot that came to mind during November

So, I didn't manage to actually write anything on a novel or story monday, but I oh-so-conveniently (and actually on accident) forgot to put on the first place I posted it what I had to write on. I actually got some writing on a paper on Orthodox Judaism, the assignment I assume was set because we just finished reading a book called "The Chosen" and so I typed on that.