Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Pictures, as Promised!

Can I have my kitty back now? Oh wait, she’s just still in her room, meowing to be let out.

IMG_0239

First up, you can see my writing hat over to the right, on my Neo. It’s a $200 dollar hat! Luckily, we got a ton of fireworks with it too. A Black Cat outlet we go to has stuff like that for spending enough money at the store. Last year my brother got a hat, this year I got it, kinda randomly, I don’t even really wear hats! Anyway, I never intended it to be a writing hat. I wore it shooting fireworks and such-like, worrying a bit that I’d stop wearing it, since I don’t usually wear hats anyway. I took it out to the woods with my Neo for writing though, and since then it’s taken over the position. I forgot about it during the Weekend of Insanity, until Sunday, when it was really Go-time. My hair goes back in a ponytail, my hat goes on, and I’m in the writing zone. Kinda like Chris Baty’s viking helmet. I should try and wear this on Day One of NaNo, to help boost my IMG_0240wordcount for a good buffer. Anyway, can I move on to my bromeliad now?

 

 

IMG_0241

 

 

 

This one gets to be extra expositional. I don’t know the actual species of bromeliad this is, but I can at least give an overview.

Bromeliads are plants that hang out in the understory of a rainforest. You know, the ground level. They like to be in the Tree-Fall Gaps, where a tree’s fallen over and there’s a little patch of sunlight. Their root system is pretty much used only to hang on to the tree or dirt they’re in. They don’t particularly get water or nutrients from their roots.IMG_0242 They form a little cup in their leaves, though (which are kind of cactus-like, by the way), and they’ll hold water in there. In fact, in a rainforest, they’ll have entire mini-ecosystems in there. Tadpoles, bugs, all sorts of stuff will hang out in that tiny pool. Anyway, it makes them really simple to water. All you have to do is make sure there’s a little water in that cup. There’s no reason to have their roots be wet or anything.

After a few years these will bloom (we don’t have any blooming right now, so the picture for this is from here). First comes up this kinda spiky cactus-y flower thing, and it’s pretty cool-looking, but then, a day or so later, these little flowers appear on the pink spiky thing! There are flowers on the flower! It’s the

bromeliad flower

best thing ever. Mine won’t be blooming for a while yet, but anyway. After they bloom, the bromeliad will start making pups. They just grow straight off the mother plant. Eventually, the mother dies, but my mom’s has given off something like 6 of them, and it bloomed last year. It might finally be done, though. I don’t know much about them.

Oh, and it should be noted that I haven’t particularly researched any of this stuff. It’s what my mom told me and what I remember from playing “Magic School Bus Explores the Rainforest.”

 

I had more news… oh! Yesterday was a particularly productive day. I got up early, blogged… that afternoon I went out to the woods and my treehouse to do some actual plotting. Now all I have to do is timeline it, and do some chatting with my characters if I so choose. In the evening I went to the lake with my dad, and finally accomplished what’s been my goal for two summers now. I got up on the long line barefooting! And faceplanted about six times in the process. It was a lot of fun though. Less frustrating than usual.

Today, I should make a to do list… the NaNoWriMo site relaunches tomorrow!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Wednesday: Random Musings Day

Not that I usually do anything but randomly muse, but today I think I'll devote an entire post to short, random statements. After the day's news: I got up and actually did some plotting today. Early morning plotting isn't going very well though, so I think I'll maybe to go afternoon plotting out in my treehouse. With my writing hat. My writing hat! I haven't talked about it. Remind me tomorrow.

Whenever I make a particular origami kusudama thing for an event or some such, I seem to have to make 25 or so of the same thing. Since I tend to procrastinate on getting paper and cutting it and folding it and putting them together, I rush through them all near my deadline. I don't suppose anyone else in the world ever does that... anyway, by the time I'm done, I'm so sick of the design that I think I'm never going to make another one again. But then... after a few months, I find myself making at least one more... it drives me nuts. And my fingers have it memorized how to fold the pieces. I hardly have to look.

It's an incredible blessing to have a computer that works with the printer, and networks with the other computers and such like. But... I miss one particular program I had on Ubuntu: Rhythmbox. It was a pretty simple interface thing, but what I loved about it was that I could listen to an internet radio station (Final Fantasy Radio, actually), and it would pop up briefly with the song title when the next song came on. You wouldn't believe how irritating it is to go back to listening somewhere without live updating of that kind of thing. You wouldn't believe how few music players actually do that. Right now I'm using RealPlayer. It doesn't pop up a little box or anything, but at least all I have to do is highlight it to find out the song name. I don't have to have a browser window open for it. Too bad Rhythmbox doesn't have a Windows distribution... I'll find something eventually, I guess, or just deal with it.

I've picked up my flute again, off and on a bit. I think I'm improving. I can typically hit the highest C (uh... C8, I think. Second-highest C on a full 88-key piano keyboard), and I can even remember the fingering for it. If I could just remember the fingerings for G7-B7... It really helps that I've found a website with flute sheets for all levels and pretty much all genres, so I'm never short of practice material. They even have a few video game tunes. Of course, I can play vocal sheets and quite a few piano melodies too, but it helps to have music written particularly for flue, especially if I want something a bit more challenging. Say, for practicing those really high notes? Time for The Queen of the Night Aria!

Tomorrow: pictures of my bromeliad and my writing hat, as well as exposition about both objects.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

For the Record...

I have the most awesome mother EVAR. Seriously. Guess who's computer works! My mom took the thing into her room and made me leave her alone until it was fixed. It was a surprisingly short time. I have Windows 7 Starter back on, and I think I have everything set up again... wait, I forgot to add the wireless printer. Well, other than that, everything's all happy.

And since my computer works with an OS that I should have no problems navigating, and nothing is broken on it, there's absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be able to get up and plot tomorrow. Seriously. No reason.


Who wants to bet I sleep in tomorrow, too?

Grar, Again.

I hate my spiffy little netbook right now. Not only have I been unable to restore it to what it was before I put Ubuntu on there, and subsequently wiped the drive, I haven't been able to get any kind of Windows OS on it. I finally wiped the drive, because my mom and I were told that was why the restore disks we got from Gateway didn't work, but we're still getting the same error message. A Windows XP disk won't work, my mom's Vista disk is an upgrade and therefore can't be used for a clean install, my brother's Vista and 7 disks are both 64bit and therefore can't be used at all with my computer, being only compatible with 32bit.

I don't know why the XP disk won't work though, or why the recovery disks from Gateway won't. All I know is that it's driving me (and my mom) absolutely nuts. I'd be content with Ubuntu, if I could just get it to work with the printer. I hate having to email anything I find on my netbook to another computer just so I can print it. I know there's a way to set it up, and to get it to network with the Windows computers, but I'm not smart enough to know how, and at this point I just want the thing to work.

Grar.

I still haven't done any more plotting, and I haven't been able to get up early very well either. It would help if I didn't go to bed so late. The weather's been cooling off, bringing to mind memories of October, and therefore NaNoPrep. Also last year's NaNoWriMo, where I spent the first morning out in the car, with the cold, and with a cold, in the dark. I got to see some Seka though, when it got a little lighter. NaNo started on a Saturday that year, as I recall. We were in Southeast Kansas for a fun Halloween parade thing called Neewollah. It was fun, at least I got my words that day, I think.

Is it weird that I remember the Novembers because of NaNo? And that October instantly makes me think of NaNoWriMo? And that I tend to plan my entire life around November? Well, not my entire life. But even so... I'm insane, I'm sure, but it's a good insane, right?

Right?

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Maybe I Should Make a To-Do List...

To Do Today:
  • Get up early -- check.
  • Plot -- uh...
I awoke to... What random song played on my mp3 player? I think it was "Tears in Heaven" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I listened to it for a while, some weird dream logic drifting through my head.

Eventually I managed to get up, but instead of plotting I read a book all morning, and then kinda just lay around... I dozed off eventually I think, but not for very long. It's a step better than yesterday, when I didn't even get out of bed until 10, right?

I need to finish up my plot and do some character-building exercises and worldbuilding exercises, and, and...

Make a list. That too.

I had another topic today... It involves taking a picture though, and I'm too lazy to do that today. Maybe tomorrow, then.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Languages

For lack of a better subject to blog on, I'll ramble about languages in general a bit today. Or maybe you'll get lucky and I'll find something more interesting to ramble about, change gears, and then get tired of typing and give you an extra-short post.

Or, if you're unlucky, I'll ramble about languages, think of something else to ramble about, and just add it on to the end. Hm... ideas come already. Maybe I should save a few for later. Nah.

Anyway, I was talking about languages. At the moment I've been a little obsessed with them. I have a bit of a list in my head of languages I want to learn, in approximate order. First I need to get Italian to a good spot, and finish my Latin course. I don't care a whole lot about speaking Latin, seeing as it's a dead language, but I might as well finish my course. After that... I'd like to learn Swahili, and then German, or maybe Russian. Japanese is in there somewhere too... I think farther down the list though. It may move up or down, depending. Oh! And Spanish and French are both on there somewhere. I'm already on Italian and Latin, so I might as well add a few more Romance languages into the mix. They'll be piece of cake, relatively, and they say every language you learn makes the next one easier. Maybe after Swahili I'll learn Spanish. It'd be a useful one, unlike all the others I've been learning so far.

Oh, and there's Ganyi, the language I'm currently making up personal use. That'll be an ongoing project too. So I have four Romance languages (if I include Latin), uh... whatever German and Russian are, I think they're similar-ish, an oriental language, one based off of Bantu (that'd be Swahili), and one I'm making myself. Yikes. Stripes. I hope I like linguistics.

You know, I think I might. Maybe I could major in that. Not like I know exactly what jobs are in linguistics, but does that matter? I guess it does. Usually a person picks a major on what job they want. Can I pick a job based on the major I want? Will I like that job? I bet I can find something I like in just about any field, right? Well, maybe not fashion design, but you know what I mean.

Uhm... I actually had another thing to say. Oh! I actually got up this morning and did some plotting for this November's novel. It's got an exciting, if perhaps cliche, beginning. I just need an ending. It deals with revenge, and although I try not to care about cliches, I can't quite stand to write a novel if it's not interesting. I'm trying to decide if my character goes through with her revenge or not...

Oh never mind. Resolved. Yay for writing a post over multiple hours! Uhm, whatever else I had to say, I forgot.

More plotting tomorrow!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Grar.

I told Rapa I would blog if she blogged today, and she did, so now I have to. Um... I did kinda have a subject. Oh! I actually did something today. It was awesome.

Well, I did physics, math, latin and read an old poetry book (Canterbury Tales!) all this morning, and went to teach a piano lesson and study Italian in the afternoon. Busier than I'm used to being... Anyway, I'm a terrible piano teacher, and my friend and I are kinda stymied with Italian. We have a computer program we're working on, but I absolutely hate it, and I can't seem to get her to help me decide what else to study. I should just pick something and bring it over to her some week, but I hate dictating what we study, when I already spend the first part of our time giving her instructions on piano...

Anyway, I actually ordered a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" in Italian, so I'll start reading that through with the English copy, for some translation skill. I never seem to get the chance to use my Italian though. I need to just start writing someone. I used to have some pen pals that were also learning or knew Italian, but I've lost touch... Grar.

Maybe I'll start an Italian blog again. I've tried that before though, and always gave up. I keep doing things like that. Grar, again.

Uhm... I'll come up with something. Maybe I'll write a story in Italian. That means I need to plot, maybe in Italian. Ooh...

Sunday, September 19, 2010

I Guess I Should Update About School...

And other such-like things. I started my senior year in high school this year, and I guess after that I'll have to pick somewhere to go to collage, and therefore what I want to major in, at least generally, and therefore what I want to do with my life. Crud. I hate decisions.

My problem is that I don't really want to commit to doing just one thing with my life. I like a lot of things; I don't know that I'm any good at them, but I like them none-the-less. Writing, languages, origami, music, math is pretty fun, too. I don't want to give any of them up really. I also don't know that I want to take any one of them and make it my job. They say that's the best way to ruin a hobby.

Eh, who am I kidding, I'm just afraid of decisions in general. I have to stick with something, which I've never particularly liked doing. But I'm not there yet. I just hope God will tell me what he wants me to do.

For the time being I have Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus to do this year, Physics, Latin, and my literature course is called Survey of British Literature. It includes a lot of poetry, I've found out. Already I've read "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and next up is "Canterbury Quintet." All of those are old stories in verse.

Latin's not actually going to make me a speaker of the language, but it seems to be giving me the grammar and a lot of vocabulary for learning the roots of words we use today.

What else... oh, it's my last year with my piano teacher too. As a matter of fact, she's retiring after I'm through. Sadness... she's got me on a lot of classical stuff, Invention #13, a Rachmaninoff Prelude, some other things I can't remember... oh! She wants me to learn Flight of the Bumblebee. That one scares me. All chromatic scales and stuff at ultra-high speed...

It's not too heavy of a load though, so the most important event of the year, NaNoWriMo, should still be do-able for me. I'll have to practice my piano more than sometimes, if I want my senior recital to be any good, but I always end up with plenty of time in the month anyway, when it comes down to it.

I finished a first sweep of editing a story I wrote a few summers ago. Originally it was over 100K, but I'm not sure what it is now. I'm in the middle of typing it up, and editing it again as I do. I'm not sure what exactly I want to do with it after that. Probably keep it uploaded on the web for me to forget all about, until I read it again, decide it's awful, and either trash the thing or write it all over again.

Speaking of! I realized what's wrong with my multi-NaNo story. Crystal Glare, the one I wrote first in '07, and rewrote this last NaNo, needs another rewrite. Not this NaNo, though. I think it'll be a project for later on. I'll be changing it rather drastically, actually. Maybe growing up my characters a little bit, splitting them up more. The whole thing has always been way to linear. I don't mind linear in some novels, but this thing read way too much like a video game. They knew where they needed to go, and yet I kept them all together, when they didn't really need them all? It made no sense. I'll throw in more plot and intrigue next time around. I just wish I hadn't already tried this thing twice. Oh well. This November I'll be writing about... what will I be writing about? Oh yeah! Another episode in Yavn. This one will border a bit on Sci-fi I think. I guess it's still Fantasy though, since it's not really Earth's future we're talking about. It'll probably be kinda steampunk-ish, if I ever get my plotting done. I've never been this far into the future of the land before. This should be exciting.

Yoikes and away!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

So Maybe I'm Insane. Who Cares?

I meant to write this yesterday, but I was too tired to think straight by the time I could.

I won! I got all of my story written, and it came in at 30,213. I didn't finish until near 9:00 at night, but I did it.

Overall, the weekend was rather stressful. Getting up extra early, staying up later than I should have. Friday night my family and I went to Olive Garden to celebrate my brother's birthday, and so I didn't get to bed until a lot later than I wanted. I managed it though! I don't want to do that again very soon though. There are people who write 800,000 words in November for NaNoWriMo. How on earth do they do it? They have to write over 26,000 words every single day! I didn't even write half that and I was about to drop dead!

Anyway, next thing to work on is fixing my computer, and plotting for NaNoWriMo. I've convinced a friend of mine to do it with me this year, so I'm going to try and help her out with that, too. Wordcount charts, a copy of "No Plot? No Problem!" to lend her... I need to get things planned out or I'll never do them.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Yes, I Must be Insane... Day 2

Yesterday went fairly well, I suppose. I managed to get all 10,000 words that I needed that day, though I would've liked more buffer. As it was, I was only 238 words ahead of schedule. That's ok though, I'll build it today. My morning went on schedule, not as well as yesterday morning, but I won't be too picky so long as I get the requirement. I'm at 16,000 words for the weekend now, over half done. Today I build buffer for the trial of tomorrow...

I don't have to play tomorrow morning at church, but I'll still be there from 9:00 until 12:30, which is a sizable chunk to steal from me on the last day of a writing challenge. My plan is to have as much extra done as I can handle without killing myself, and then I'll get up early and write before church, and get writing as soon and as hard as possible after. If I could get about 2,000 extra today I'd be on schedule, since I can probably get 3,000 done before church.

I guess that means I should stop wasting words on blogs and get to writing the actual story, huh? There is the secondary goal of finishing the story, but things are going about on schedule there, too. I finished chapter six (marking the halfway point) at 16,564, so I'm not worried about finishing the story. What worries me is that I'll run out before I get to my 30,000.

Onward and upward!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Am I Insane? Day 1

So it's day one of my totally insane weekend of writing. So far I'm at close to 5,000 words of my daily 10,000. Still working chapter 1, though of course before that I had a prologue, and before that I had an introduction, because I like prologues and introductions are helpful to get me in the groove before writing, and they add words. Which helps.

I'm not a programmer, but that doesn't stop me from messing around with my computer. I recently got a little netbook, which came with Windows 7 Starter, which is kind of a lame operating system. I like Linux for messing with, and I figured that since I could install Ubuntu Linux right alongside Windows, I could make a switch easier, since I'm not very good with the whole coding thing. I've done this before, on another computer. So I install Ubuntu, but I see that it doesn't like to boot up very well. I look for a fix, and to do it I go to the root file system, which is where the computer keeps its really important startup files and such like. Actually, everything is ultimately in the root, but certain folders are protected, and certain things you can only do from the root. Anyway, I input the commands like I'm told, and I do something wrong, I don't know what, probably when I was trying to find the command to shut it down again. In the end, I deleted every scrap of data on my computer, not just Ubuntu but Windows 7. Facepalm.

In the end, I lost every file, but not really. I should have my OS and stuff backed up to an .iso CD, so I can restore everything just like it was. Minus some stuff I downloaded since then, but I can get those things back easily. The only thing I lost... one recording I made, and the music editor files for about four more. That's ok. The one I lost I never particularly liked anyway, and I wasn't going to edit the others any more, I didn't think. I wasn't quite happy enough with them for it to be worth that.

Anyway, I'm procrastinating. Right now I have about 6,000 words today, so 4,000 to go. I'd like to have some buffer, too, since I'll be at church about half the day on Sunday, it'd be nice to be ahead.

I shall write my words or die trying! Write or Die!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

News!

I’ll just go ahead and skip the usual speech about habits and wondering where they ran off to, shall I? In fact, I’ve been getting back into the habit of getting up early in the morning. I’ve written another story this summer, a worldbuilding exploration tour of sorts, and now I’m finally editing my story from last summer. Other than that, not a whole lot’s been happening. Language making has been going well enough, I keep coming up with words and idioms, if I can remember to.

The 10th-12th of this month I’m embarking on an insane weekend writing project. There’s a contest that evidently is every Labor Day Weekend, called the 3-Day Novel Challenge. It costs money to enter, but there’s a chance of getting the story you write published. Too bad for them, I don’t particularly care about that kind of thing. A few friends and my mom and I are going to give it a shot the weekend after. There’s no official word goal, only that the story be started and completed in the same weekend, but I’m going to try for 30,000 words. Yikes. I tried to schedule my time for when to write and when to break, but I don’t know how well it’s going to work.

This should be fun.