Goals For February

I gave updates on what I've done, but I forgot to say what I wanted to get done in February!

• Grow closer to Christ - Keep reading my bible and praying, Youth Group is starting up again, and it's always a great experience.
  
• Win NaNoWriMo 2009 - Come up with a few basic ideas on where to go with my NaNo plot...maybe. No rush yet.
  
• Edit my 2007 NaNo - Finish writing the scenes and start line editing
  
• Edit my 2008 NaNo - Continue waiting until I finish editing my other NaNo.
  
• Learn Italian to a conversational level - Keep working on the Italian book, finish this month or the next.
  
• Learn at least one fancy musical piece for flute - Pick out a piece to start working on.
  
• Get up early (6 or ealier) at least 60% of the time - Actually get up more often.
  
• Learn to drive (driver's ed, permit, restricted, license) - Study book and take test, recieve permit. Drive some.
  
• Get to the point on my flute that I'm capable of playing in church - Practice my stinkin' flute. Work on vibrato. Get flute lessons.

We'll see how it goes. I really want to get those scenes written, so I can move on. The other day I think I had some plot ideas for NaNo, but they've fled my mind now...was it going to be something way back in the past of Yavn? That might be it. It wasn't too formulated yet.

BFS Update

I AM still alive, and I'm posting some ramblings to prove it. And also an update on my goals.

• Grow closer to Christ - It's hard for me to say on this one...I hope I'm doing it all the time, but lately I've been bad about having a quiet time. It's not like I don't have time...
  
• Win NaNoWriMo 2009 - NaNoWriMo isn't until November, so I think it's ok that I don't have a plot or anything yet. I might start thinking on it though.
  
• Edit my 2007 NaNo - I've done some work on it, but I still haven't finished filling in the scenes, so I can't start line-editing yet.
  
• Edit my 2008 NaNo - Haven't given it a thought yet. Probably won't until I finish Crystal Glare.
  
• Learn Italian to a conversational level - On lesson 7 of 15 (I think), going well enough as far as I can tell. I don't think I can form my own sentences yet though.
  
• Learn at least one fancy musical piece for flute - Not picked out yet even.
  
• Get up early (6 or ealier) at least 60% of the time - Well, I haven't gotten up enough this month I don't think. And I've forgotten to keep track. Why is it that it's so tough? I've done it for so long now...
  
• Learn to drive (driver's ed, permit, restricted, license) - I've had a driving lesson in the old blue truck, and next up is me studying the handbook so I can take the test for my permit.
  
• Get to the point on my flute that I'm capable of playing in church - Not enough practice. I haven't progressed as much as I want to in my flute. I need lessons, no teacher found yet.

In other news, the ocarina I ordered from Maparam came on Saturday. I've been doing almost nothing but playing it since it came out, and just the other day I found the basic music for this song by Mannheim Steamroller. Well, the song is an old Spanish Christmas Carol, but with the basic music, I'm trying to figure out by ear the variations Mannheim puts on it. So far I've got all most all of it, but the very last fancy bit on my new Double Alto C. I've had to get a lot of help from my mom though, who has a much better ear than I do. Hopefully I can get it.

In the song, that's not actually an ocarina by the way. I'm pretty sure it's a pennywhistle, what I'm pretty sure is originally an Irish instrument. It sounds fairly similar to an ocarina however.

Oh, and as for the rambling part of my post, I was thinking the other day. I live in Kansas, named for the Kansa indians who either lived here, or were chased here after being chased out of the east by settlers. The interesting this is that the name Kansa means "People of the South Wind." The company I bought my ocarina from is called Maparam, which in the pure Korean means..."South wind." So I own a South Wind ocarina in the land of the People of the South Wind. Interesting? Maybe. Particularly useful? No, not really.

I like my ocarina though.

Italian and Plotting and...um...

I guess I don't get to do the "three things and oh my" thing today. Truth is, I've had a cold, which makes me want to do absolutely nothing. I did get into my head that I want to write a fanfic of some sort, and I kinda have a plot for it, and I haven't finished writing those scenes yet so I can't even get started on line editing Crystal Glare, so I can't start editing my '08 NaNo, so I can't go back to the story I was writing before NaNo!

I have found time for Italian though, which maybe is my problem. Anyway, I can't form too many sentences yet, but I'm getting closer, and I don't feel like I'm learning just phrases and such. Syntax is going to be weird though I think...for a while anyway.

Hey, I have a question for people who are good at editing, or have at least done it before. Is it even possible to write a story and edit another one at the same time? Or do they tend to mess with each other? And what's it like to edit two stories at once? Then again...I don't know if I should anyway, since all three of these things are related in their ways...I'm just impatient.

Driving Lesson: Check.

Yesterday I finally got myself the traditional first driving lesson in the blue truck. Now, I have to tell you about this vehicle. It's a '73 Chevy blue pickup truck, bought new by my mom's dad. He was a farmer, and I think that was probably the only vehicle or farm implement they bought new. Eventually it got passed down to us, and we use it to haul wood and stuff like that.
Since this thing is so old, it's a stick-shift, and not the most fun car to drive. It's kind of nice that I'm last because it used to have a problem that the clutch didn't want to come up all the way, and you'd have to pull it up the last new inches with your toe. My dad took the time to get that fixed a while ago, but my brothers had to deal with that. I got a long lesson though, with one driveway to back into and one to back out of. And driving to try not to fishtail on. Fun.
Anyway, it should be easier to drive pretty much any other car now. And I got my lesson.

Yet Another Goal?

Dunno for sure yet...but I feel like I really want to do it, so I might add this to my list. I want to work on pixel art and then maybe start using it to illustrate one of my stories. I do enjoy it so far, and I seem to be better at it than drawing. And I've been doing it when I should be writing/editing -.- I'll have to fix that.

And just because I seem to be better at it than I am at drawing doesn't mean I'm good at it all. So far I'm...lacking in the skills department I guess. We'll just have to see.

And my new ocarina still hasn't arrived...of course nothing get delivered on Sunday, but still.

Second Thoughts

I've been thinking about the CreateSpace offer I was thinking of going for, and about what I've heard about it and it's terms and such. And I don't know if I really want to do it. I mean...I want to do it. I want a paperback copy of my book, it would be awesome to think of myself as published, but...is it smart for me to be published at this age?

I mean...if I do this, I'm published. On one hand, that's awesome. I'm published at the age of 15. On the other hand, it's going to stink. There's no way around it. Anything I write today won't be as good as what I write when I'm older, almost certainly, especially if I keep writing. So if I publish now, I probably won't get a chance to return to my stories and rewrite them into more masterful pieces of art. It's happened before with something I wrote years ago, and rewrote last year. It went in a different direction, but that's ok. I think it's better now.

So if I go and get the ISBN, all of that goes away for that story. Getting my book in print would be fun though...but there are other ways for me to get a book bound than publishing.

So I guess I need some advice (from the all of three people that read by blog). What do you think? Should I do this, or not? Personally I'm going to pray about it more to know what I should do, but advice is welcome here.

Progress

I've gotten up early a few days now...and I've gotten the scene's I've finished writing into yWriter. So I just have a few more scenes left to write really (a few as in five or six...), and then I'll be done with that and I can move on.

I also got my flute back from the repair shop since I dropped it before Christmas. And I got some information that's interesting to me. I didn't go along when my mom dropped it off, but when she came back she said that the guy said it was a student line flute, but it had a solid silver headjoint. Which actually greatly increases it's tone next to just a silver-plated headjoint. But when we went to pick it up, he amended his statement. All of the tubing on the flute is solid silver. He says it's unusual, because really the only flutes that are solid silver are open-hole flutes with a B foot. Only professional flutes. So this is a student flute that's solid silver. It makes the tone much better. He said that it wouldn't hold me back certainly. And that someone had paid a lot of money for that flute.

So anyway, it sounds much better now, even before I dropped it. He replaced some of the pads, and he said the others would probably have to be replaced in a year. It's a lot easier to hit high notes now, and it just sounds sweeter.

Also flute-ish related, I've been really back into my ocarinas lately, and yesterday I ordered myself a professional-grade double ocarina. This one actually. I've never played a 12-hole (a double ocarina like this one is basically an extention of one), so I've got a lot to learn, but I think I can do it. Whenever it arrives.

Oh, and another goal! I want to get to the point on my flute so that I'm actually deserving of playing in church. Capable...whatever the word is. The way things will probably go is I'll play even though I shouldn't be, because there are people on the team who like to add all sorts of things in. But as I am now I have no business playing flute in church every Sunday.

Um...what else is there...no progress on driving, no progress on editing my '08 NaNo...a little progress on my '07 NaNo...no progress on picking out a flute piece. Italian...I have yet to get together with my friend again, and I want to see where she is before I go on, so I'm just flashcarding right now.

Planning

So here's what I'm going to do. I've figured out how many days in the year I have to get up early in order to make 60%. It comes down to me being able to miss 146 days in the year. Taking out what I suppose is 52 Sundays that I'm scheduling as my day off, that means I can miss 94 other days.

As for keeping track of what days I get up and what days I don't...how about I keep a widget on my blog saying how many days I've missed and such. What's disappointing is that I've failed to get up every day so far this year. I'm defining early as 6:00am or earlier. Ok, one less thing to sort out.

I got some good writing done the other day in the car. I was in the back all by myself, and just plugged in my mp3 player and wrote a good chunk of a scene. It felt nice to do all of that really. I need to finish that beast up so I can go on to my micro-editing. Which will probably still be kind of macro. I still need to hack at a few places before I can start in with the nail file.


And then when I finish this one I can start on another...if I don't get these done in time for their CreateSpace deals, I at least would like them done by November...we'll see though.

At any rate, at the end of each month hopefully I can post and say how I've gone about completing my goals and see how I want to progress in the next month. This month...I'd like to finish the scene set I have to rewrite, and then start with the micro-editing. Once I think I have the biggest kinks out, I think I'll send it for someone else to read it and tell me what they think about the thing and what my issues are, and then I'll keep on going with it. I dunno if that'll happen this month though.

I'll probably ask for a driving lesson from my dad this month, if I can muster up the courage, work on finding a good piece for flute, and keep getting up early. Quite a few of these are kind of on-going, aren't they? I guess that's good though. Maybe it'll help me keep them in my mind.

And now I'm off to see about maybe doing something productive! Or maybe I'll just sit and play my DS. Who knows?