Rather Useless and/or Unusual Skills

Since I haven't written a post in a while, and there's not that much for me to say, I'm going to do one of my "fun" rambles. Topic: Useless Skills.

I recently acquired a new one actually. Now when my alarm goes off I have this magical power to not fall back asleep. It's amazing! And annoying sometimes when I forget to turn it off and then I can't sleep in... And it only took me... what? About 8 months to train myself this way? Next up comes waking up at about 5:30 without an alarm. Or maybe not.

Next month I'm going to do a little personal NaNoWriMo with a friend of mine, since I'm having such a hard time focusing and writing or editing. I was going to work on a story that's been asking to be finished, but silly me decided to write a drabble as an exercise and now it's turning into a whole plot of it's own. Why do I do this to myself?

As for Italian, my friend and I are almost finished with our current book, and I've been browsing online for what we wanted to do next. We wanted something with more grammar, since that's what we struggle with most, but then I also think we need some vocabulary expanding books, and and and... The list could go on. Basically, we don't actually know very much Italian yet. So next up is more studying!

Maybe I had something to update on after all xD

Outside Again!

It's our first nice day in a while here in Kansas, and so I'm trying to spend as much of it outside as I can. It has nothing to do with wanting to avoid cleaning the house. Nothing at all.
I read my last NaNoWriMo effort the other day, and I have good news: my writing has improved since writing Crystal Glare. It's bad news for CG though, since now I've looked at what I can maybe do. At any rate, NaNo 08 doesn't need any shuffling I don't think, and although I forgot to follow up on a small detail I started, the only major rewriting that needs doing is one scene that somehow got lost as I was uploading it from my Neo. At least, I think everything's ok. The first read-through was just such a relief that I might need to read it again. And then there's line-editing. I need practice on that. I do have some drabbles I wrote sometime last year, maybe I could do those for practice. They're each well under 1k. I think I'll warm up on those.

Changing Gears

Only slightly I guess. I got tired of waiting for responses from friends who have no time, and I think I’ve got to rewrite Crystal Glare anyway. I’m just so unhappy with it…

I started reading through my 2008 NaNo (which badly needs a title, don’t let me forget that), and it’s made me realize all the more how bad Crystal Glare is. I guess it’s a good thing that my writing’s improved, but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me on that monster.

I haven’t finished reading through it yet, but I’ve been thinking that’s it’s not going to take as much work. It won’t need shuffling around as far as I know, since I planned it out way better. I need to check on my characters to make sure they’re realistic, and of course just everything in general, but I might be able to go almost straight to line-editing. That’s my hope anyway.

Crystal Glare… I think it has some potential, but it just needs so much work that I don’t want to think about it right now. I want to write out the plot again and remember what I want it to be, and then I think I’ll just draft it again. For the most part anyway. I’ve got some stuff that ended up popping up later that would be better if I meshed them in with the beginning more, and my characters just are… more cardboard than I think I have the skill to fix just line-editing. Some of the stuff I inserted might be able to be left alone fore the most part though. If I’m lucky and don’t change things too much in the beginning.

All in all, I think I want to warm up on my more recent writing attempts before I try to really tackle that thing.

Or am I just wimping out?

March Summary

Sorry I'm late! I keep thinking of it, but never at a good time, and so I forgot... anyway, on with the routine!

• Grow closer to Christ Like I seem to keep saying, this is just hard for me to judge on, no? I like to think I grow closer day by day, but it's hard to know if that's really true.
  
• Win NaNoWriMo 2009 Still waiting on working on my plot inkling, although I'm about to start working on it just out of boredom.
  
• Edit my 2007 NaNo On a standstill. I really want to rewrite the thing, but I'm still waiting on my second opinions. I need to pester those people into finishing up.
  
• Edit my 2008 NaNo Still waiting, although I'm about to just go ahead and start on this, or my plot. I need to keep moving on something.
  
• Learn Italian to a conversational level Moving along I suppose, though I only got like one lesson done in the month of March. I couldn't get together with my learning partner for most of the month, so it was difficult.
  
• Learn at least one fancy musical piece for flute I still haven't picked out my piece yet, and in fact haven't practiced my flute hardly at all. I need lessons and time slotted for practice.
  
• Learn to drive (driver's ed, permit, restricted, license) I'm going to make a point to study for that test and get my permit this month. Hopefully.
  
• Get to the point on my flute that I'm capable of playing in church See above flute goal. Practice practice practice. I think I'd do way better with formal lessons than as a self-taught flutist.

So, all in all, I need to put more effort into my day. It didn't help that I caught a nasty cold last month, but I'm out of excuses for that by now. So my list includes the driving test, flute practice, editing on something, and hopefully I can keep up/catch up on school doing all of this. I also need to make more effort to putting some real posts on here...

I will feel happy about my Italian though. Despite not getting to review and learn with my friend, I feel like I've advanced in my Italian some. I'm nowhere near fluent, but I think I can make sentences on my own. I just hope I'm not doing it wrong and messing myself up.

Maybe sometime this year I actually will be able to carry out a conversation in Italian...