Writing with Weird Names

In Which I Start Getting Nervous

2012-02-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

So... school. Things keep happening. Western Civ is going ok, I think, we're reading Italian Journey by Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, which is a beautiful book, but I'm not sure how well I'll discuss it. The past two have been pretty heavily philosophical books, but this one is just a guy on a trip and his musings. He gives great description though.

Also on the subject of Italian, after having backed off of Italian I now need to put the pedal to the metal again, at least until I take a placement test to see what class I should start with at KU in the Fall. It'll be soonish, but now I have a list of things I should study, so I'll get to writing myself discussions and things about those and bother anyone who will listen so I can remember everything.

What else... I'm giving a speech in public speaking (who'da thunk?) on Tuesday, but now that my outline's done I'm not so worried about it. Papers come up due in Composition II rather often... at some point some of these classes will cool down a bit, but the others will heat up (Western Civ will get harder around midterms, for sure), so I guess there's going to be this balance throughout the semester. Except for Italian, which will be really hard for a bit here and then just go poof! gone.

I find I'm already looking forward to June and Camp NaNoWriMo, since a friend and I started creating yet another language, and the people are just begging for a story so I can get ahold of their culture so I can work on their language some more. And that winds up taking more time than you might think, what with the two being intertwined.

But for right now, homework + Italian studying. Non stop. Should be fun. Maybe I'll blog something again someday.

Oh, I'm Supposed to Blog Again!

2012-01-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

Right, that goal of trying to post twice a month. It's nearly not January any more, and I've only posted once. Guess I should fix that.

School's been going on for a few weeks now, but I'm having a hard time finding a routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm up at the college late, maybe, but it's never predictable. Late may mean until six, or maybe until five, or sometimes not really all that late, if someone's hanging around at about three. It messes with my homework routine, though, if I don't know when I'll have to leave. That's probably why I hit burnout with my Italian. Trying to work out two lessons, six days a week, along with accomplishing all of the school I want to doesn't really work, I've found. Since unfortunately school has to take priority, so I'm backing off of Italian and going to a few lessons a week along with a little more time spent on native materials, which at this point can be more entertaining anyway. At this point I think it's what I need to push me to a higher fluency level anyway, as textbooks can only get me so far.

The class that will be heaviest on homework (I think) starts today, since for some reason it was a late-start this semester. I'll lose a few hours of homework time to class, and I get a fair amount of more homework: not exactly the nicest arrangement, but I suppose we work with what we can get.

Oh well, I guess that's all for today. I may have had some somewhat interesting musings before, but I've forgotten them in the rush of getting a post up. Ta!

Huh... 3000 Pageviews

2012-01-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

Happened to see on my dashboard today that I have exactly 3k pageviews on this blog. That's not a tiny number, as far as numbers go, but when it's applied to a blog it doesn't mean much, considering how long it's been hanging around and whatnot.

Not that I particularly mind. I've hardly gone out of my way to promote this thing or put any sort of sensational content to draw readers, and it makes me no money regardless seeing as I haven't hooked it up to adsense. Just an interesting bit.

At any rate, I've been working on catching up with Italian work and finding myself considering what language I want to work on next. Swahili? Japanese? Spanish or French? Right this second I'm thinking something a little bit useful, which in all honesty means probably Spanish but currently in my head means Japanese because... IMPORTS! I guess.

At any rate, currently my Italian listening comprehension still stinks, and until I improve that I doubt I should really move on to much else. Grammatically I'm improving day by day, though, I'm still working through my Assimil course and recently I was blessed with an Italian email penpal, someone I actually get along well with, seeing as we share a lot of common interests. Which brings me back to wanting to learn Japanese for the sake of watching more Anime and reading more Manga and getting newer video games, although anymore everything is region-locked so there's no real bonus on that front, if I'm honest...

Current plan is to resume making concerted effort with listening comprehension, probably utilizing my previous recordings and the constant input of every other kind of audio I can get my hands on. It gets boring to me, listening intently, I'm more of a reader to be honest, but listening is what I need, and there's no other way to fix my comprehension than just listening and comprehending. And speaking. More of that.

I'm All Out of Post Titles

2012-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

I think a new shipment of blog post titles comes in later this week. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Anyway, one of my goals this year is to blog regularly, according to a schedule I set as opposed to just whenever I happen to remember long enough to write one.

Turns out that schedule is going to be twice a month. Not so often I get tired of it and start writing really boring posts, but often enough that maybe I'll keep it in my head to post once in a while.

I've already listed out my other goals, I suppose, but there's not been a whole lot of other things going on, as early as it is in the year. I've been chugging away at my Italian, and I should finish my book in late February, after which I'll have to move on to something else, I suppose. By that time I hope to be able to read books and newspapers and things like that in Italian. What gets tricky is that I have to get it through my thick head that it's not just for fun. When something is easy enough just to be fun it means I need to move on to something more complicated or difficult. If I'm not getting anything wrong it means it's time to move up.

I remember hearing about an article (classic internet-infused teenagerism: "I read an article... well, the majority of an article, about how...") that said the people who keep themselves from reaching a plateau on their knowledge or ability of something is that they force themselves to a level higher than they really should be, allow themselves to make mistakes, keep themselves from getting comfortable. That's really the hard part, getting yourself to try something new and move on.

Let's see how that goes.

Huh, It's Late December...

2011-12-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

It's that time of limbo where the Christmas rush is suddenly over, you're still on winter vacation, it's not the New Year yet, but you feel like you're about ready to leave the current one behind. Or maybe not. I wind up considering by New Year's goals and figuring out what I want to do next year.

Of course surviving college is on that list, since I'm taking 19 credit hour next semester and then transferring to a four-year university in the fall, and that goal is probably going to stay on the list until I'm out of college, in which case it'll probably be changed to finding/keeping a job or something.

I've got a few Italian goals, little things to count as milestones: finishing up my current Italian course, achieving a B2 level of fluency, finishing the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Italian, writing a short story in Italian (that last I feel would signal to myself that I have a reasonable mastery of the language that I can construct a thousand words or so of comprehensible script, which in my opinion is an accomplishment). I'd like to start a new language as well, maybe Swahili or something, but those Italian goals come first.

Also linguistically related, I'm sort of putting my created language, Ganyi, on hold. It doesn't appear I'll have too much time to devote to it, and I didn't even complete my goal for it this year (yes, I technically have a few days left to work on it, but I have plenty of other things to do at this point as well, like catching up on my Italian work). So for now it gets the goal of adding at least 100 words to the language and we'll just sort of go for a slow but steady pace of improving the vocabulary, which is largely what it needs at this point. I can't just randomly assign words though, I want to have my etymologies straight and common roots and all of that jazz, so it's not as simple as just any little algorithm to work it out.

Piano playing makes the list, in the spirit that I don't want to drop it. I want to improve my jazz and blues playing skills (I'm not adding a great quantifier to that, no, but as my jazz and blues skills are currently non-existent, I'll know when they're actually there, and that means they've improved. I'd also like to work up at least ten pieces to, well, I guess performance level, even though I don't expect to perform them. Maybe offertory or something at church.

What else... I would like to blog somewhat regularly, maybe weekly with a few excepted weeks. Maybe I'll shoot for twice monthly. Also a little fitness goal, and something fun like memorizing "Fox in Socks," and then something NaNoWriMo-esque: I want to participate in either one of the Camp NaNoWriMos (I'm thinking June) or else the original flavor of NaNoWriMo, in November. It is not on my list to do both a Camp NaNo and the regular one, since I doubt I'll want to try a NaNo challenge in November when I'm away from home. August is when school starts and I'll be moving and such then, so I'm thinking ideally we'll go for June, when school is out but there's not usually a whole lot else.

So that's about my plan for the next year. We'll see how it holds up under stress. It's not that I care much about planning the whole thing out, but the lists I make up are sort of reminders of things I'd like to accomplish, things I want to perpetuate, an organizing exercise, of sorts. So, yeah. I'm off to enjoy my time of limbo!

Hardest. NaNo. Ever.

2011-12-02T15:15:00.001-08:00

In which I finally get around to updating my blog again. Anyway, since we've last left off, I finished Camp NaNoWriMo the 2nd (did I mention I did two of those? I don't remember anymore), headed off to college, and managed to win another November rendition of NaNoWriMo.

Now, unless I've messed up on my time keeping (not all that unlikely), that means I've edited one novel and written three more this year. At least. Well, I haven't finished last month's story yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'll bother with it. I had the goal similar to last year's NaNo that I wanted to describe the heck out of everything so I could actually maybe someday remember to describe the fun little worlds I come up with. I did ok, I think. Mainly I'm just glad I managed to win the challenge this year. My first ever NaNo in college, and it was killer; I don't know how you school people do it. I knew it was going to be harder than before, but I guess I wasn't exactly prepared for how much harder it turned out to be. I did manage to win, though, and I've also managed to keep my grades up, which was sort of the goal.

As for the other goings on, I was sort of keeping up on my Italian course until November hit, and then I don't think I did anything for the whole month. The goal for Christmas break is to catch up on that and maybe after that I can actually keep up with the system. I may wind up going through it again, just for refresher and the like. Or else I'll just move onto all native materials and forget courses altogether. I do feel like that will be the next step, once I finish this. After about B2 level (where I hope to be) it's not so much learning grammar rules or basic phrases, but it's building vocabulary and assimilating from whatever you read and listen to, naturally.

I say all of this, of course, but I don't honestly know, and I never will unless I get my rear in gear. The last week of school doesn't promise to be all that terrible, one paper due that I've got written, a rewrite to hand in, and preparation for finals. Oh, an essay test. That's the major point of stress, and probably why I keep forgetting it. Finals week will hold only two tests for me, and one discussion in the class that has the essay test next week. Oh, and one of those tests only requires me to get a 22% or better in order to get an A in the class. So there's that.

I was thinking today, though, how maybe it would be fun to write a single story in a series. As it is I sort of have a series thing going with my stories in Yavn, but they're all mostly stand alone, which I like, in some ways. But I think maybe it would be a good exercise to see if I could keep a storyline alive through multiple books, a sort of pacing exercise. I'm not sure how I would want to go about it, or if I even have the wherewithal to manage it, for that matter.

I might take one of my bigger stories, like Crystal Glare or Crystal Frontier, and expand it. As the plot is now, I guess I would make that my core plot. Then I take all the freedom I want to expound on some of the background characters, take a few rabbit trails, weave in more backstory, add more elaborate subplots. That means making several points of suspense, though, as each book in the series needs to sort of have its own climax and etc.. And it means about a thousand more strings to tie and probably retying all of the ones that I had before so they work with those thousand other strings. Yikes stripes. It sounds like fun, but I'm not sure I could ever make it through the drafting process, much less editing the set of monsters that will come from that plotting session. But it might be something to try, just to see if I have any interest in that direction.

Thoughts would be appreciated, if I still have any readers (I probably don't; that's ok).

Summer is Fleeting...

2011-08-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

So school starts in just over a week, and do you know what I did Monday? I started a new Italian course. Brilliant of me. Oh well, it's one I've heard great things about, Assimil, so we'll see how I like it. The first few lessons are pretty easy, as the book is for beginners and "false" beginners, but they do seem pretty in depth, and for now I'm going over them for any vocabulary I may have missed and to get used to the style of teaching, so on and so forth.

Camp NaNoWriMo is going on again this month, and I'm still writing, but I should be done by school starts, if I can just finish up the story. I have just over a week to get to the point (which I only figured out a few days ago) and resolve it. Woo hoo! I should really be spending a few hundred more words each day to build buffer and move the plot along. I tend to have a bit of an aversion of moving the plot much until I have my words for the day. Odd, huh? Oh well, back to work! Writing and/or Italian!

I Feel Somewhat Foolish...

2011-07-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

So here's the new plan! Finishing up Italian on August 11th (dunno what was up with my counting earlier. It was off, suffice to say). Writing 2.5k every day for 50k by the 20th. Starting school the 22nd. Getting shopping and organizing done before that. Translating July's efforts into Ganyi, preferably before school starts. No plans past school starting other than finishing up any other unfinisheds as quickly as possible, and then I can re-evaluate how tough things are and see what projects should be tackled next. School is pretty much first priority though, so homework must be accomplished before projects may be done. Having never really done homework, I don't know how that'll work, honestly. We'll have to see.

I'm not going to drop Italian, but it may just be on steady hold, flashcards and what little listening and/or reading I can get done. Ganyi may be on hold somewhat after I get the translating done, too. Writing, well, I'm still going to try NaNoWriMo this November, but like I said before, school first. This is a new lesson for me. Before I can write or make a ton of origami or even probably talk to my spiffy cupcakes, I must do my homework. Study for tests. Etc. etc.

Gah! Right now I have to plot though. Just a few hours to August!

It's Amazing...

2011-07-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

...how quickly 50k drops down to just 11k when you cut out the tangent stories. It'll probably be down a little bit more once I finish translating and line-editing. I'll start on that tomorrow, I think. That's gonna take days, though, with most all of the words needing fabricating, I imagine. I'll simplify all the sentences, though. No sense in using really fancy words for things when I don't even have the normal or simple ones. The real question is whether or not I can get it done by the end of the month. If I can, I guess there may be a short little Augustian novel in store for me...

I have a few more days to decide and cobble up a plot, or not. In the meantime, I'll be coming up with TONS of words for Ganyi, and maybe actually get it functional after this. Cool. I guess.

Language Focus or Another Novel Challenge?

2011-07-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm back from vacation I guess I should figure out what to do with my almost-month left before school starts. I'm mostly caught up on Italian, although I've been skimping on those exercises. I have a lot of material in the language I could work with: things to read, things to listen to, probably I could even find a language exchange partner or someone to kinda tutor me over Skype. I have almost a whole month to be awesome at Italian!

Yeah, not really awesome, as such, but whatever. Alternatively, there's another Camp NaNo in August. So writing, or language... another language option is to work on Ganyi. Another writing option is to edit my July CampNo (totally just made that up. Probably not the first one), and translate it into Ganyi, as was the plan. Also I just found myself yesterday on a website for another conlang, a supposedly very logical one. It's a good thing I don't have a job, I guess. It could get even worse, remember that.

The other good news is I think there's really nothing major happening from now until school starting on the 22nd of August. I need to get up to the school and return a book and get my student ID card. And some shopping, clothes, supplies, etc. I hate clothes shopping. School supplies may be slightly more fun. I can work around that, I figure.

So here's the question: extra language work, or writing something new? I don't exactly have an idea for anything in particular to write in August, but that's not much of a problem. Actually, what was I thinking about just yesterday? It made me marvel at how easily I can get sidetracked into Yavn. I was looking at the clouds, I think... and... nope. Don't remember. I do remember that I was looking at the stars on vacation and thinking of creating little legends or stories around groups of them, but in Yavn they'll be said to represent different moments of the Elements working together, depending on the shape. That was it. I could write a collection of those. Maybe in like 20 days. That might be nice. Have at least a few days break before school. 50k in 20 days makes for an even 2.5k/day. I kinda like that idea. And that's not so hard compared to writing 3.5k a day like I did this month. I could probably keep up with my Italian then, and I think I'm going to be done with that on like the 11th. Wait. Earlier, I guess. How'd I get ahead of schedule? Oh well. The remaining time can be spent either working on what's next or getting through the stuff I skipped. And/or translating July CampNo into Ganyi, as was the original plan for August. Maybe I can do it all before school starts. That'd be cool.

It's Camp NaNoWriMo!

2011-07-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

So... I'm a little late writing about it, but oh well. The wonderful people of NaNoWriMo are bringing a NaNo to us now not just in November, but in July and August as well! Anyway, I was planning on participating in this camp-themed NaNo in August, the second month, but next thing I know I'm starting July 1st, despite the fact that it means early mornings writing, interrupted by a bit of work, then late night shooting fireworks... and I decided to finish by today, because tomorrow morning I leave on vacation. Woo. WriMos make me crazy. So anyway! I kept planning on blogging from the time I heard about Camp NaNo being ready for July until now, when I'm actually getting the dang post written.

Anyway! A 14-day writing adventure requires 3,572 words per day. It was higher stress than I thought, since I usually go for 2,000 words per day, and 3,000 means it's a pretty good day. Of course, there was that weekend where I wrote 10,000 words every day, but that was only for three days and there was pretty much nothing else going on... anyway, I managed it, even with a day off and finishing a day ahead. Now I just want to finish my story before I leave, and pack, and... yeah.

It was originally going to be kind of a crash course/tourist's guide to Yavn, the country I made up. Of course, that hardly makes it to 50k, so it's full of tangent stories and things. That's fine, one of the main purposes for this was to do some worldbuildng before I go off and focus on the neighboring countries, and I get a lot of that done while writing a story. I'm going to do a quick editing swipe, getting rid of fluff and the like, and then translate it into that country's language so it can be used as a reader, and get me quite a few words made up for that, since I need to be building the vocabulary. But before I can do any of that I need to wrap up the storyline I have and get quickly through the language portion of the book. Just a rundown of Ganyi grammar and some vocabulary word placeholders and the like. A few thousand words. I'm not going to be done by the time we leave, especially since I keep chatting on Skype with all of the spiffy cupcake Camp NaNo people.

So anyway, I've managed to write 50,000 words in 13 days. Personal best, even if the words per day isn't, you can't expect to sprint a whole marathon. Back to writing!

Happy Towel Day!

2011-05-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

Towel Day is awesome. And it's today! So yeah, Don't Panic, grab a towel, and be a generally hoopy frood! Huzzah!

Oh, uh, things happen every once in a while. I've been working on Italian, but the passato remoto isn't making much sense to me, really... English doesn't much have it, and apparently even in Italian it's a literary-only tense, pretty much. So yeah... Anyway, I haven't been good about getting words and stuff onto flash cards, so I'm taking this week to do some review and stuff. I should still be on track to finish within my timeline, before school starts and whatnot in the fall.

Um, not a whole lot else to say. Towel Day!

Ganyi Has an Accent Now!

2011-05-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

I've been figuring out exactly what a Ganyi-speaking person sounds like if they were to speak English. I found some speech therapy diagnostic passages online, that contain all, or at least nearly all, of the phonemes in English. I wrote it out anew, making notes of the sounds and emphasis. I'd use phonetic markings, but I don't know them, so... anyway, it unexpectedly turned out to sound most Jamaican, with a few differences, but mostly Jamaican. Kinda cool.

May is going to be extremely busy. Tomorrow is that LARP thing, which takes all day, and I'll be missing a cousin's graduation for that... not a big deal, it's just that I'm taking a few friends and I already paid for it and all, so I didn't want to skip it. And I'm missing a practice for next Saturday, where I'm supposed to play piano in a band made up of my brothers and a few friends for one of those friends' mother's wedding reception. Yikes stripes.

I've had to self-dictate my piano practice for my senior recital lately, since it looks like I might not get any piano lessons at all this month. Speaking of, I need to get some practice done today... 31 good practicing days and I think 9 songs to whip into shape. Yikes stripes. At least I'm nearly done with school. Today is my last day of science, and then there's just a little reading that needs to be finished up, and I'm done. The reading may or may not get completely finished, I dunno. Hard to say.

Onward and upward!

Well, That Was Quick

2011-04-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

So... yesterday I finished Crystal Glare. Highest daily wordcount was yesterday, nearly 3,000 words. 21 days of writing, for a total of about... 44-45k, I think. I'll let you know when I get it all uploaded into the computer.

It's vaguely worrying that all of a sudden my stories are so short. Crystal Frontier was written in '09, and came out close to 100k. I edited it down to about 60-70k. I don't mind. That's a good length. NaNo '08 ended up at about 60k, which was good, for as little of a plot I had. But things have kinda gone downhill since then. NaNo '09 was pretty long, I think, Crystal Glare Draft 2. But I haven't enjoyed a whole lot of my stories since. I've stressed over them one way or another, which is a problem. I enjoyed Enori. Whatever summer that was. Late summer '09? I don't remember now. I'll check. Ah. Summer 2010. More recent than I thought. Last summer doesn't feel all that long ago. Anyway, I enjoyed Enori. It wasn't based in Yavn, though. So I think maybe I should take a step back from Yavn, for a while. I've got exploration plots in Shorion and... does that other country have a name yet? Oh well. I think Yavn is getting a little old. I tracked its origin, as well as Shorion's, roughly, but I don't know hardly anything about Shorion. It might breathe new life into both of them as far as relations between the two. I mean, eventually either one or the other is destroyed or they come to some sort of peace.

Anyway, it's nearly May. May holds graduations and a LARP -- Live Action Role Play. Should I write in May? It probably wouldn't start until the latter half. If I wait until June, that's got my senior recital. Now, the question there is whether having a project will help distract me from the stress or just stress me out more. I'll take a few days and think on that.

I also have that language I'm creating, Ganyi, that needs some work. There's a lot more vocabulary to work on, and maybe an alphabet to polish up shiny a bit more. I wanted to get a short story or somethin' written up in Ganyi before NaNoWriMo this year. And then there's Italian, and a little more science yet, and literature... I might just see if I can take a break. I have various other things to do while I wait.

All right then!

I Killed a Man Today...

2011-04-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

I really should plan that sort of thing out better. I ended up kinda prophesying that my hard-hearted Arantos would die. That was Saturday, I think, that I wrote that in. So today I had to kill him off. I don't know that he was a sympathetic character to the reader, but his cousin Parika is, I think, and she's going to be all sad about it. I guess I never get to have his heart melt... one way or another it was going to be kind of sad, since if he realized what he'd done he would probably be nearly suicidal anyway. I don't mind killing him. I just mind that I forgot to plan it in while I was plotting, again. Oh well. I may edit it a few more redeeming features if I get to the point of editing. A line or two here, a flashback there, not too hard.

What's really handy is that Parika now is a source of thousands of words, because of her mourning. Very sad, but I get my word count pretty easily today. If I could just keep from being distracted by things like blog posts and piano sheet music.

I have a lot of cleaning I need to help with today, and then a piano lesson this afternoon, and then I'm gone all evening. Grar. I still need a job. The YMCA needs front desk people, I could do that, probably. I should go in and fill out an application. Bleh.

College O.o

2011-04-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

It's vaguely exciting, I guess, going to college. I came up with my brother to take an assessment test and see a counselor and such-like, and now I'm waiting around, and therefore blogging!

The assessment test went fine, I got placed even higher than I was aiming for, so that's nice. But then why didn't I get the right score on the ACT? I don't know... less stress, I guess, or something. Anyway, I can take College Algebra, and English with honors, if I like. I dunno. Thursday is an enrollment party, to try and arrange schedules and whatnot.

I've found that I'm not only more motivated to get up early and write when I have things to do, but I write faster when I feel like I might have less time. Maybe I should schedule all of my days like that. But that's high stress, unless of course half of my day gets cancelled, like it did today. I can't exactly arrange that, though.

So yeah, productive day! Not quite over yet, but I'm gonna see about doing a little Italian and playing some Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past.

Summer Jobs and College

2011-04-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Today apparently is a day to be grown-up, or something. I hate growing up. It stinks. Ah well, così è la vita, I suppose. Oh yeah, Italian's been going pretty well, too. I feel like I'm learning at least a little. Anyway, I got my acceptance email from the Community College today, which means figuring out when I'm going to go in and take the COMPASS math test. The whole test thing frustrates me, since I thought my ACT score was high enough that I could go straight to college algebra, but it appears that I'm still a point short for JCCC to let me straight into the class without an assessment test. What's annoying is that I'm that same point short from going straight to Calculus, if I were to attend KU. What's up with that? Whatever. I'll go in Monday or Tuesday, before enrollment, and take their stupid test. I'd like to get that done before next Thursday, when enrollment opens.

I also called around a little bit today for some summer jobs, the library, pharmacy, maybe a local restaurant/catering place. I'll call them in a bit. I guess. Meh. I don't even really want a summer job, but the powers that be decree that I shalt have one. Blech.

My words wrote themselves early today, my motivation being that I needed to look for a job. Good thing, too, or else they might not get written at all. It's one yucky day outside. Rainy, cloudy, coldish. I thought we were about done with this. Oh well. The story progress, with bickering characters that are really fun to write. I need to remember that.

Productive Day Is Productive!

2011-04-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

I barely managed to haul myself out of bed and write my 2,000 words, working a few more characters through their quest. Now really interesting stuff can happen! I wonder if it's still too linear. Oh well, I'll deal with that later. I found out I don't have a piano lesson after all today, so that frees up my whole day, without even writing that need be done. I'm determined to keep it up today, just for the fun of it, so I need to look up when and where I can take a test at the Community College, fill out a scholarship application, and... practice piano, I guess. Also science and many much Italian studies. I think there was something else... I dunno. I did get through Invention #13 from memory without huge major mess-ups. Some some minorish ones. And it needs to be faster. FASTER FASTER!

I'm a little hyper. I'ma go do something productive now. Or maybe watch Full Metal Alchemist. There's always that.

Projects!

2011-04-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Oh, and I have someone who actually read by blog! Huzzah! I started Crystal Glare on Monday, getting back into the groove. I get to write my story of reclaiming a country from invasion. All sorts of handy dandy fantasy stuffs.

I got up early to write the first few days, but for some reason my alarm didn't go off today, I have no clue why. I even checked last night that it was on, but the dang thing didn't wake me up or somethin'. Oh well, it's a nice day, so I'll probably head out to the woods this afternoon and write in my treehouse. That makes everything better.

I think I have senioritis, I'm so lazy about school lately. I think I'll actually take this science test, just for the practice. Electric potential and all sorts of fancy stuff this module.

It Begins Monday

2011-03-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm grumpy today, I dunno why, for sure. I'll have to just get over it, yeah?

Monday I'm gonna start Crystal Glare. I think typically I start with the start of a month, just for the fun of it, but I looked at the calendar and saw that the first was a Friday, which means only two days before the day off, and it makes unloading it a little awkward. Anyway, Monday. I need to clean my room and organize everything, finish up my plot, things like that, I guess. I have all weekend to do that. Or only the weekend. Something like that.

I need a project again; I feel awkward without it. It'd help if there was sunshine, though. It's been gray lately. Is annoying.

I Wonder If I'll Get It Right This Time?

2011-03-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm actually a little nervous about writing Crystal Glare again. This is a bad thing, since being nervous is not something for the drafting stage. Not that being aware of it is ever very helpful for me, that I know. It's like the ACT: I was nervous, knew it was stupid and unhelpful to be nervous, but it hardly helps, it just makes me frustrated at my nervousness. I do wonder if I managed to check it at all, though. Anyway, I guess I just don't want to have to draft this thing again. I don't know for sure why I've kept poking at it for so long. I guess 'cause it's a worthwhile idea, and a chapter of Yavn's history that should be written, but written right. It's a cool plot now. Really! I think. I plotted out the timeline of events, it came to 10 chapters -- which appears to be my new magic number or something. Crystal Science was 10 chapters, too. Well, I suppose it might be ten sections, or something. The definition of chapter is fuzzy for me, just a little.

Anyway! I was just writing out my plot as if I was explaining it to someone -- like I usually do -- and things were looking pretty impressive. I had character backstories, subplots, everyone had something to do, never really just tagging along like those annoying characters can. Then I put it into a timeline, and I wonder if I scared myself with over-simplification or somethin', cause now I feel like my plot stinks. It doesn't stink, dangit! I like this plot! I'll get over it. And I think I'll start writing it in April, so I have a little time yet to think about it and modify the plot -- though I don't think I will, at this point -- and generally prepare for the project. Today I have a cold. I'm not starting today.

The Difficult Questions of Weird Names...

2011-03-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking how I hardly ever get last names written into my stories. Do you know why? To be honest it's too much trouble to come up with not one but TWO unique names per person. I mean, come on. But I was thinking that I probably should start having these dang last names or something similar if Yavn is going to progress much father. The question is, how do I make it work?

So last names probably first came from your father's name, or in some cases your profession (like Smith and plenty of others I'm sure). But what do I do with Yavn? I have the possessive prefix vu-, so maybe I can use that, but how is the name determined? Father, mother, some older ancestor? By city, perhaps? By founder of the city? Do last names vary by Element?

Well, probably not the last. I'm thinking most likely some important ancestor or something, much like they're done here on earth. Maybe it only matters if you're of the Nobility. Low Nobles and newer Nobles therefore command less respect, since their last name will be the same as their first, for a generation at least. That's where genealogy tends to matter, anyway. But then how do I identify families? I mean, that kind of thing can matter to people, you know? Ach, such a puzzle. I suppose it could've originally been held by the nobles, but in a hundred years or so it trickled down to the common man or sommat. And now I have to have enough names for everyone -.- great. Nice work, Rena. Give yourself a little more work, why don'tcha?

Oh, and I just got my hours for NaNoEdMo. I call Crystal Frontier about as done as I want it to be, so THERE. I cross it off the list. I move on to my next goal, focusing on Italian, maybe some Ganyi work, things like that. The summer hastens toward me, and then will hasten away.

Plotting!

2011-03-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

I decided to bend the rules a little, since I so very much wanted to be done with Crystal Frontier, and I'm waiting for feedback from my readers. I still have five or six hours left, so I'm bending the rules a bit and plotting for Crystal Glare and counting it as editing time. I don't think it's actually breaking them, just bending them. After all, I've written Crystal Glare twice already, and I'm keeping careful track of what I did the last two times in order to fix everything -- or at least most things -- I did wrong. Eh, whatever. I don't care a whole lot.

The only problem is that I don't like to rush or push myself on plotting. Drafting, yes, get the words written regardless of the quality. But plotting... I have a general idea of what happens, but it needs to ferment. I've only edited for about an hour today, working on character profiles and the like. I just hate to... You know, I don't know what any more. Oh well. If I draw a map of Yavn as of Crystal Frontier, that counts as editing, right? Yeah, I think so.

Can I Be Done Now?

2011-03-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

They say works of art (if I may be so presumptuous as to call my story "art") are never completed, only abandoned. Well, I feel about ready to abandon this thing. I finished typing it up, read through it again for flow and such-like, sent it off to a few readers who wanted to read, read through again in order to write chapter summaries (that actually took almost exactly my two hours today), but what next? I don't want to line-edit through it again, that might kill me. But I have to have 6 hours and 51 minutes more before I can win stinking NaNoEdMo. Three or four more days of doing... something. I'll run it through EditMinion, which means reading through it again. Sigh. That might take me a day or two. It's lacking in description, but I don't really want to go through it and put stuff like that in. I probably could line-edit again, but I just really really don't want to. The answer is no, I can't be done now, I have to get my hours. You know, if I had just waited until March to edit the thing at all, I wouldn't be having this problem. I'd probably only be barely done scribbling on it with my red pen, or maybe halfway through typing it at most. I'd not have to worry about this whole time thing.

Tomorrow: EditMinion. After that... hope I got some input back from someone I guess. I'm about to go crazy here.

To Cut, or Not to Cut...

2011-03-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

...That is the question.
Whether tis better to labor through the unsavory scene
and make do with what is there,
or to take scissors to the page
and oppose my draft ramblings, to cut...

I ended up cutting it mostly, but not before I wasted most of my editing time reading ahead. That's ok. I needed... uh, a better look at what was coming ahead. Yeah, that's it. And since I cut, I went ahead about 20 pages anyway. I worry my novel isn't exciting enough, but "così è la vita," I suppose.

Yes, I do feel a little bad for doing yet another parody of the most famous Shakespeare lines ever. I couldn't resist. Probably won't happen again... for a while.

Sundays Make Me Lazy

2011-03-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

And it loves to bleed into Monday. Anyway, my brother was home for the weekend, so instead of doing much editing I decided to hang around with him instead. As a result, I got an hour and twelve minutes done, which isn't I guess a huge deal, I was plenty ahead -- I'm still ahead, as a matter of fact -- it's just the lapse in routine. I have 28 or so hours, and I only have to be at 22 or so hours today. I'll be ok. I just have to make sure I don't let myself keep slacking off. I'm nearing the end of the manuscript, though I think it may need more editing toward the end. Here I am, with battle looming, and people are just wandering around talking and discovering things. I'm not sure that's appropriate. Well, maybe I just need to tidy things up to make it more succinct and maybe more focused on what's actually coming. I have a few lines of "it wouldn't be long now until they went off to battle" or whatever, but maybe there should be more anxiety, or something. I have great worldbuilding notes in here, but the reader doesn't so much care about all of that, do they? They want to see if the good guys win, not every thought that passes through their little skulls, right? This is supposed to be an adventure novel, I think. I don't know what else I would call it. Fantasy, yes, but that's just my basic term. I could say "Speculative Fiction," which I probably will start saying once my world advances to more mechanical ages, where it may start looking like Sci-fi. Anyway! There are fantasy-romances, fantasy-adventures, fantasy-horror, fantasy-political-thrillers, the list goes on. Fantasy is largely the setting, I hear, and actually agree with. Some themes may come up more often in fantasy and/or sci-fi, but there are all kinds of stories in the genre. Historical fiction is that way too, I think. The story is whatever you like, but the setting turns it into that kind of genre. That's probably why I can be happy reading basically only fantasy and sci-fi. There are a lot of other stories inside those, it's not as if I read only romance or something like that, where there are I'm sure plenty of variations on the theme, but it's still all one theme, or mostly anyway. Not that I usually spend a lot of time reading romances anyway, but you know what I mean, right? Maybe not.

... Dang that's a long paragraph. Sorry about that. With all the thoughts rambling around, I should split that, shouldn't I? I'm not gonna, though. I'll save my editing juice for my novel.

As I predicted, the Italian Pokémon movie didn't get watched. Maybe tomorrow. Not today. Too much going on today.

Sigh...

2011-03-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

I hit page 112/212 today, passing the halfway mark. I'm at about 42% of my hours I think... I'm still not sure what to do after I get those last 100 pages done. I've reached a new echelon of worldbuilding though -- I know have my own wiki! It's actually on the internet, though there's virtually nothing there. It's mostly just to keep my stuff organized. I feel all fancy, though.

I've been playing Pokémon White the past few days, but so far I've managed to go slowly enough and get all my school done. Even reading, since it's "A Tale of Two Cities" for now. Interesting book, so far. Anyway, the game is interesting. It's actually a little difficult since I don't know any of the Pokémon. N very nearly nailed me last time I fought him. I find I like this set of baddies. They have the most plausible goal I've seen so far. What was Team Galactic after, anyway? I don't even remember.

Anyway, I guess that's it. Italian starts Monday. Editing and worldbuilding goes on.

Oh Hey, Stuff Happens This Week!

2011-03-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

I mean, Big Fun Scary Goal stuff. Stuff always happens during the week. School, video games, sleeping, etc. but this week I also get to finish up my Latin book, hallelujah, and next Monday I start my Italian book. Yay! Speaking of, I took my Italian Bible to church yesterday, and followed along in the verses. It was slow, but I did manage to understand it, I think. It helped that it was a fairly well-known passage to me. Wow, I sound pathetic now.

My grammar isn't awful, I think, I still don't have an idea for the more complicated tenses, but I can figure those out I think. What kills me is my vocabulary. I have virtually none. It's just that there are so many words, and there's thinking of finding it, then remembering it, and then continuing to remember it. Grar. I guess I need more interactive stuff or something, to keep me going and using words. I downloaded a copy of a Pokémon movie in Italian, but I've not yet set aside the time to watch it. Maybe I'll do that later this week or this weekend or something. I'll need to get some time for it when there's nothing going on in English that I need to pay attention to (Ha! Ended a sentence with a preposition, didn't I? I hate that rule anyway. Is stupid).

Oh wait, Pokémon Black and White came out yesterday. I should get it... tomorrow. So much for getting anything done this week or the next. Well, I'll discipline myself to get editing done, probably only by bribing myself with said game. School might get done. Watching an Italian Pokémon movie? Don't think so. Not paying close attention. I'll be playing White while it goes at least, which means I'll understand approximately... nothing of what's said.

I'm up to 14 hours of editing today, by the way. I could take a day off and not be behind. Not that I will, of course, but it's nice to know. I'm on page 81 of 212 after day 7. Numbers still contradict my bored head. I should get a plan on paper for after I line-edit. Read through it again of course, check to make sure all of my structure is ok, maybe go chapter by chapter and actually make notes. Kick myself for not doing it before. That all counts as editing time, yes? I'll make a note to myself, eventually.

Is school time, methinks.

I'm a Bad Person...

2011-03-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

'Cause I didn't get up early this morning. My alarm started up, and I went to turn it off, but accidentally snoozed it. I took my five minutes, and then when it went off again I actually did turn it off. I was lying there a bit, telling myself that I was getting up, but I guess lying to myself the past few days that I could go back to bed after editing finally caught up with me, and combined with staying up later than intended last night left me with a head that didn't want to take any more sleep procrastination. Sheesh. And it turns out my mom got up late too, so tea was ready late. If I'd gotten up in time I'd be done editing and in bed therefore with a happy head and finished editing by the time tea was ready. Alas, for the roads not taken. Oh well. I got it done from something like 9 to 11.

I typed into OpenOffice today and copy/pasted to Google, which made me a little happier of a camper. I hate lag when I type, don't you? I also got to track how many words I ended up typing in those two hours. I think it was about... 5k? I forgot now. I've got about 25k up in the cloud now, which is approximately 1/4 of the whole thing. Yikes. I have almost 10 1/2 hours now, and about 43 pages, at an average rate of about 4 pages/hour. I'm 1/5 done, hour-wise! I have 150 pages to go, though. Somewhere around 75k. 37.5 hours of work, if I keep my average page count up. Somewhere around 19 days of work left for me, I guess. But what's after that? I guess reading it again counts as editing, that'll take some time. I have one little part that'll need to be rewritten, I know. A tidbit that needs putting in... I didn't think of these until recently, or else I wouldn't have line-edited first. Oh well. I'll just have to spiff them a few times. Um... If I really need time after that I guess I'll think through Crystal Glare again and focus on what I did wrong, and maybe start plotting. It's not breaking too many rules...

Sometimes this stuff feels so slow that I can't imagine that I'll even get through this dang story before month's end, but my numbers all add up to say I'll need to do additional work afterward if I want to win. It's so curious, how the human brain can perceive things to be so totally skewed.

The new Pokémon game comes out Sunday. I don't get it until the 9th. It's for the best, I think. The more days before I have it suck my time and attention away from anything else the better. I have piano practice too, you know.

And Another Spark.

2011-03-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

The timing hasn't really improved. This one concerns Yavn's neighbor, Shorion. I have a little insight into their magic system now, which will be helpful during Crystal Glare, I suppose. Now I have more ideas with that, and I'm not supposed to be plotting that either, dangit!

Editing goes yet slowly. I have 20k typed up now, not much of it done this month, of a 100k novel. This isn't going to be done this month, methinks. The chapters get really long from here on out, so maybe I need a better method of doing this. Google Docs types slowly, probably because of it's live updating thing. It's not the only reason things are going slow, but waiting for it to catch up to my fingers is annoying. I might type it somewhere else or something and then upload or copy/paste it into Google Docs. I'd like to at least get this whole thing typed up before the month's out. I have over eight hours logged and only a few thousand words written. Oh, turns out more than I thought. I can't remember exactly where I left off, but I've typed up somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 words. I guess that's more than a fraction of 20k. Well, technically it is, since any number smaller than 20,000 is a fraction of 20,000, but we're speaking of- ok, stopping.

I guess the point is editing feels tedious today. I have the plotting bug. I will not allow this bug to make me sick and quit editing, because this story must be edited. I don't typically want to give up in the middle of a novel, but editing is different. I guess. I dunno. I'll get over it, carry on, wotwot?

A Plot Sparks...

2011-03-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

At the worst possible time. This isn't even Crystal Glare work, the project coming in April/May. No, this is something either late summer or November. I'm thinkin' November. Late summer, if noveling is finished, should probably be devoted to linguistics. And school starts early, so...

Anyway! Plot idea should be written down before I forget it, yeah? Problem is, the magic system for this place was gonna be chanting I think, but what am I gonna do if I don't have my language for the country figured out yet. It's gonna be an isolating language (for example, Mandarin), but I know next to nothing about them, and I was gonna try and pick up a little Mandarin before I created a language like that. Not to mention Ganyi still isn't really operational. Grar. So what do I do for the chants? They'd probably be in a different syntax or something (if that's even possible with an isolating language?) from regular speech, but I can't exactly do any of that if I don't have the regular speech. Double grar.

Editing still goes on, but it's getting harder and harder to get up each morning. Must be fixed. I could also draw another map draft or sommat. That might help. Or, the other day I heard about this thing called "school," and a lot of kinds spend most of their week doing school. Kinda weird. Maybe I should try it out sometime.

Statistics

2011-03-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

Two days doesn't really get me enough data for much predictive stuff, but I can't help it. I wrote for 2.15 hours both days so far (or 2 hours 9 minutes, or 129 minutes), which is kinda funny, but totally accidental. Yesterday I got through 10 pages, today only 8. That makes for a 9-page-per-day average so far, and about 4 pages an hour. 4 pages an hour or so, times 50 makes for about 200 pages or so. The problem is, I don't have that many pages left in my manuscript to type up. I have... 176 pages left, and 45.7 hours left, but at the end of those hours I'll have 18 pages-worth of time left to work, which, assuming a constant rate (which all of these are), leaves me with about 4 hours. right. How long does it take for me to read through and format that again, I wonder? It's at least a good two hours... and I remember I have a section that needs rewriting, so that will take me a while, i guess.

Anyway! I'm in chapter uh... 5 I think. Exciting stuff. I'm not satisfied with the way one formatting came out, though. It's very confusing to read I think. I'll fix it later. I have to do some school first methinks. This month I finish up my Latin and get to start my next Italian book, and... huh. That's maybe about it. NaNoEdMo takes up my project juice quite nicely, honestly.

I definitely need to save some project juice for piano practice though. I mean seriously. That whole NaPiPraMo thing is sounding better all the time. Maybe that's next month. I might need a quick break before writing a novel, or something. April NaPiPraMo and plotting, and then May starts a summer novel. Yeah. I like this plan.

What I Really Need...

2011-03-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

... is more NaNoWriMo-style months. I haven't gotten up early for weeks or months or sommat. Today, I get up, read my Bible a bit, and do two hours of editing. Got a little boring toward the end there, but I got it done. Finished just before tea. Read webcomics while I waited. Drink tea, read the paper. Go down, do school, watch recorded TV shows. Take shower. By ten o'clock, I've done just about everything I can outside of schedule today. I can just feel so dang productive when I get up early. I get my projects done and it even kinda helps with everything else I gotta do. If I could get up early more often maybe I'd get more piano practice in.

Wait, I've tried that. I end up playing video games. That's right... or I just don't get up at all. It stinks. I need a project to get up early. Project defined as "something I can psych myself up to excitement about." February was National Album Writing Month. You write like 14 songs in 28 days. Ouch. I didn't participate, in case you didn't know. But maybe I should get myself more of those. I have a recital coming up in June. Maybe April or May should be "National Piano Practice Month," or NaPiPraMo. I get up and practice piano for two hours in the morning. Or something. I would probably define it as 50 hours of piano practice in a month. Music majors typically do that in a week, by the way. I guess it could be NaInPraMo, for any instrument, but that's kind of hard to say. What about Python Month? Code a program in a month. You can figure out what program you want to write, but any flowcharts or whatever you want to do has to be done in the month. Or... Origami month? An origami model a day, preferably a new one. That'd be handy next time I want to sell them or something. I'd end up with 30 or so models on hand, which is plenty. The possibilities are endless, really.

The problem remains that one needs a support group. Extra people to at least cheer me on, preferably join in the madness. Code-a-website Month, Learn C++ month... I could find people to help me out with that, right? Right? Maybe not. But it's handy to have a spreadsheet. But how does keeping track of hours or programs really track my progress? I don't honestly know. How does keeping track of words show how good of books I've written? Doesn't really, I guess, but they do get written. Some of them aren't even vomitous masses. So we keep track of something fairly arbitrary to what we actually want done -- we track words, not chapters or reviews -- and yet the rest of it turns out ok. I guess tracking reviews on a first draft it too far into the future, but that's still what people try to do. They read through, they imagine what people think, but they're tracking the wrong thing. I'm not honestly sure what the right thing is. I do know that measuring the words of a novel doesn't tell you how good it is or how long it took to write (no seriously, it doesn't. People write 800,000 words in November sometimes. That's like 26,000 words a day), or even what it'll look like when it's edited and done. But I suppose at the stage of drafting that's about the best you can measure by. You could also measure in chapters, I suppose, but then when you have a bad day, instead of ending up with fluff that has to be removed later, you end up with scenes that are just barely there and have to be filled out later. I dislike going through and adding in things later. I can't keep straight what I've added and what I just thought about adding and whether it should be here or there or- yeah. I suppose that's a matter of preference, though.

Editing is going well, anyway, and so I'm hyper enough to write a rambly blog post. Yay. I should sometime start thinking about who, if anyone, gets to read this once I've decided it's at least a little fit for human consumption. I should get a list going I guess, and ask them. Yes. That'd be the thing to do.

Yoiks and away!

Tomorrow is March!

2011-02-28T15:19:00.000-08:00

And therefore NaNoEdMo. All I know is that this month has gone on way too long. So tomorrow I have to get up early and get my editing done, though I've not gotten up early in months. It's no longer an option to sleep in, since I have school to get done in the morning, a piano lesson in the afternoon, then house cleaning and babysitting. I won't be able to get any time in until 9 PM or so, which isn't acceptable. Probably. No. It ISN'T ACCEPTABLE.

I'm procrastinating royally, by the way. I should be cleaning my room and setting stuff up. Making sure I have everything in order, picking out an editing hat. I'd use my writing hat, but I worry that mixing tasks may disrupt the use of my writing hat. Maybe I'll go without so far, and only break it out if I absolutely need it.

Um, that's it for today. BEWARE!

Return of the ACT Scores

2011-02-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

This should be the last post obsessed with my ACT scores. They came in the mail yesterday, and although I didn't get the score I kinda hoped for, but I got what I needed. A 29 composite. I wish I could've gotten a 30, but oh well. I did get a 25 in the math test though, so I don't have to take Intermediate Algebra and waste the time and money. That means straight to College Algebra and then probably Calculus or something for my second semester.

What's funny is that I typically find the English test the easiest, but I never score the best on it. My best score this time was actually the Science test, which is always a total joke. All reading and interpreting graphs. Oh well. Math was still my worst, but that's ok. The stupid thing doesn't matter as soon as I'm in a college. Seriously. Torture that matters once. Doesn't make a difference after that. Annoying.

Good news is now I get to pre-order Pokémon White for myself! And then I need to figure out how I'm going to bribe myself with it during NaNoEdMo. Probably something like no Pokémon until I'm done with my time or some such.

Let's see, I should probably update on my goals... I'm getting tired of Latin, but at least I get the notes taken. I can't wait to move on to Italian or something. I'm still going crazy waiting, and last night I finished the project I had been working on for a friend last night, so now I've got nothing I want to do for a few days. Grar.

What? There's such a thing as school? Nah, that's just a myth.

EdMo in a Week!

2011-02-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

New rule: I'm not allowed to bore my (non-existent though they may be) readers with such repeat annoying topics as the anticipation of this month being over already, please.

NaNoEdMo is in a week, which means being concise and non-repetitive, and things like that. I have cleaning to do, studies to work on, writing styles I can brush up on, video games to play, Python to program in, even stories to write on, if I like. I should make a to do list.

Instead, I'll talk about my goal list again! Here it is, for all to enjoy, again:

~~Take ACT again (February 12th)~~
~~Finish Fictionpress story (February 25th)~~
~~Participate in NaNoBloMo (January)~~
Edit Crystal Frontier (about to start, deadline May 25th)
Finish Latin (March 11th)
Write a story in/translate a story into Ganyi (Tentatively October 31st)
Complete Italian course (Window: March 13th - August 11th)
Participate in NaNoWriMo (November)

So pretty with those unsavory tasks crossed off the list. I could use a game plan for what's next though, and it's about time I really cleaned my room and got stuff organized again... A friend just recently asked me to give suggestions on a story she's editing, which serves the double purpose of project and helping me get my editor's hat on for next month.

Hooray! Stuff gets done.

Maybe I've Been Looking at This Wrong

2011-02-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe this isn't an intolerably long period of waiting between things to do. I should be calling this a refreshing between wearying projects. Ok, "wearying" is overkill. How about... A refreshing break to catch up on things before I launch into another project. Doesn't roll of the tongue as well, but it's more accurate.

Anyway, it's getting kinda hard not to just go ahead and start on something. I finally busted out my "I'm bored" story for something to do. Not that I don't have anything else I can do. I could clean and organize my room, get some actual piano practice done, get ahead on math, science, reading, etc. But what I really need is a Minecraft project. I think my brother and I were going to make a replica of the Roman Colosseum with buttons to open doors to creepers and zombies and the like, in case the battles get boring for Caesar. That means building a cylinder out of cubes again. Noooo! Oh well.

Let's see... what else could I do? Maybe resume my Python course, if I'm so bored. Nothing like typing code to while the time away. Maybe I should add something active to the list, too. I've already been an idiot and managed to get both my kite and the spool of string stuck in two separate trees, though. Maybe something not involving wind, yeah? I could rig something to get my kite and string out of their trees, and probably fail and kill myself in the process. Sounds like fun!

Is It Really STILL February?

2011-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I try to make it a habit not to complain about time going slowly or anything like that, what with life honestly going fast enough as it is -- seriously? 2011 already? I'm graduating this year? -- but for some reason February seems to drag by for me. Maybe it's the Groundhog day thing, which gets my thoughts on spring, and the traditional Kasnas teaser-days, where we get some 50-degree days in the middle of all of the blech. We've had a fun winter so far, lots more snow and ice skating than usual, but when it starts to melt off, I'm ready for it just to be warm. Of course, we're not done with the yuck yet.

Anyway, usually time only goes this slowly if I'm waiting on something, but what? Pokémon Black/White to come out March 6? NaNoEdMo, so I can work on Crystal Frontier? Latin to finish up so I can work on Italian in earnest? My ACT scores to come back? Probably some mix of the things. I do want to get started on writing something again, but I'd sure like to get at least a little editing out of the way before-hand. Besides, I'm no good at getting up early in the winter.

Oh, yeah... Pokémon Black and White come out next month. I'd kinda been set on not buying them, but then while I was looking at some site for other information I saw that one of the starters was a sea otter, and that kinda snagged me. I had no particular reason to buy in, and a few reasons why it'd be a waste of time due to the lack of desire. I don't get that much enjoyment out of them, right? The new Pokémon look kinda stupid. Why do I need to spend money on yet another Pokémon game? I've gotten a game out of nearly every set since Generation II. I skipped... FireRed/LeafGreen. My brothers got those. I did get both Ruby and Emerald though. I also got Diamond and Platinum. I have HeartGold. I've never completed the Pokédex, ever. I've beaten the league in all of them though... but... I don't get that much fun out of them... Or maybe I do. It's fun exploring new areas and fighting with new trainers... maybe I'll get it. So now I have a deal with myself. If I get my ACT scores back by the time it comes out, and if my scores are up to par (math in particular!), then I can pre-order the game. If I don't get the scores I need... huh. Haven't though about that, honestly. I guess I have to wait until it comes out to order it or something. It's my money, so whatever, I guess.

When is February gonna be over?

Is It Really STILL February?

2011-02-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

ACT: GO AWAY.

2011-02-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

So because I don't have much else to chat about, we'll talk about how the ACT went. It's comprised of four tests over English, Math, Reading and Science -- in that order. The English is the longest test with something like 60 or 65 questions, but it's also the easiest. A few of the questions strike me as somewhat subjective, as far as sentence placement and wording and stuff. Whatever. It was still easy. The math section was what I was after a better score on... I don't remember exactly what score I need to get out of Intermediate Algebra. I'm still not sure if I did well enough. I don't know much about matrices or... some geometry stuff. If you have a circle circumscribing and equilateral triangle circumscribing another circle, and you know the radius of the outer circle, what's the radius of the inner circle? I have no clue. That was one of my tests. I gave a guess.

Reading is easy. Scan the article, read the question and options, find the answer, answer the question. Science is... annoying. I think it went better this time than last time. Reading and interpreting graphs doesn't count as real science to me. Oh well. It's done. I don't have time to take it again, so if I have to take Intermediate Algebra, whatever. I need a... 22 for College Algebra. I think my last test got me a 20 or something. I should check. A few points shy...

In other news, my desktop computer, with all of my Minecraft stuff on it, broke the other day. Same problem as it's had before, it stopped sensing the hard drive. Last time we ended up taking everything apart and dusting it with canned air. After that we didn't get the drive hooked up again right, so it was somewhere near a week before it was turned on again, when I finally had it plugged into the power source again. It worked happily for a while, until now. I know not why. I never did solve the problem before, so I don't know how to solve it now. My mom thinks it's probably the heat sink, and it overheats because I leave it on too much. Maybe, but then why doesn't it work when I leave it off for a few days? I don't know how the heat sink on the motherboard causes the hard drive to malfunction, or the motherboard to malfunction ONLY in sensing the hard drive. I don't know much about hardware, though. I just don't want to lose all my Minecraft work. That'd be annoying. Wiping the drive wouldn't help, I think. It's not been the drive itself in the past. I won't lose my work to corruption, at least.

Another goal down. I get a little break this month until March, which is NaNoEdMo. I'll work on Crystal Frontier, hopefully get it done, and then... I guess I'll go ahead and plot my next idea. I dunno what for sure. Maybe Crystal Glare. I don't want it to take a NaNo again. It's probably at least... 70k or so, and I don't care to extend NaNo into December, thank you. Not sure why... I don't mind a multi-month project in the summer, but not around November. Oh well.

I'll be finishing up Latin next month, then is Italian, which will hopefully boost me into some better skills. I should listen to Italian audiobooks again. Podcasts, videos, anything with spoken word would help, I think. Onwards!

Nerves

2011-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

The other week I was talking about how things are almost never as bad as the anticipation of them. Crud. Tomorrow I get to go to the high school and take the ACT, which stands for something something test, but I don't remember any more. Stupid test, stupid math score.

Actually, I didn't find the test too hard last time I took it. My math score was low, because I hadn't taken any trigonometry or Algebra 2 at the time. Every time there was an absolute value equation or anything mentioning a trigonometric function... hey, I don't think I've picked that letter for a while. We'll go with that one. I just had no clue what they were talking about. Without the education, I couldn't even make an educated guess. But the test isn't so hard. I won't get a perfect store, I'm sure, but it's not a hard test. I think I'm more nervous about driving out to an unfamiliar school early in the morning, by myself. Stupid nerves.

Better news is I'm caught up on Latin now, and I'm enjoying my Italian kick. Two whole days now! I've been poking around the Italian internet, particularly looking at Pokémon stuff. I don't understand a whole lot, but it's kinda that immersion thing I think. We'll see if it actually does me any good. Sherlock Holmes is interesting, but the language is a little old. Blogs and newspapers provide me with a little bit newer diction, even if it's not magnificent literature. That can come later, yeah?

Another Goal Down!

2011-02-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

I uploaded the last few chapters of my Fictionpress story today. Now I'm done messing with ancient stories I hate! For now, anyway...

So that's... two goals down so far. NaBloPoMo is finished, story uploaded, Saturday I'll take the ACT and that'll be finished. That leaves editing Crystal Frontier next month, finishing Latin and starting Italian next month, writing/translating a Ganyi story eventually, NaNoWriMo in November. My list is ever-shrinking! It's awesome.

O.o JUST now on Amazon saw "Le Avventure di Sherlock Holmes." Wow. Might need to get that one... it's on Kindle, too. Pretty simple. I should get myself some Italian readers or something. I did order "Lo Hobbit" once, but instead of a copy of the Italian book we got two copies of "The Hobbit" in English. The mistake never quite got corrected... Oh well. Oh, and "La Guerra dei Mondi," or "War of the Worlds!" Awesome. It's kinda fun to read the titles. I also saw "Pinocchio," which isn't surprising, and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." I'm supposed to read that later this year. This is kinda fun...

How I Become Behind on My Goals

2011-02-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

People on forums and the like explain unexpected absences with things like "real life got in the way." But what do you say when the internet gets in the way of real life? I wonder if I should be asking this question somewhere other than the internet...

Anyway, I'm now a week behind on Latin, because I was way too lazy to work on it last week, honestly. I'll blame the fact that I lost my fountain pen that was with it, a disposable one that it might be. What's that? I have a whole box or two of them in my room? Yeah, but I just feel so bad... that fountain pen that went springing off I know not where... it was almost out of ink maybe, but even so...

Ok, so I guess I'll be a week behind starting Italian, or I'll get two lessons done in a week sometime (ouch!) or something. I won't just give up on the thing. That's just stupid. Seriously. I actually kinda like Latin, to be honest.

In other news, I finished writing out that Fictionpress story the other day, though I'm sure I left a lot of loose ends going. I don't care. It's DONE, dangit. Now I just have to edit it and get it uploaded. No problem, right?

Oh, and the ACT is this Saturday. There's that too. I'm a little nervous. Instead of working through my Pre-calculus book, I decided to just write a report on the functions using internet and my Geometry book and whatever else I could scrounge up. I put in how they applied to the physics I knew too, though I doubt I'll need that. It helped cement their use in my mind, anyway. Maybe I'll send the report to my brother or someone who could grade it, or at least check that my facts were accurate.

So yeah... things humming right along.... I can't wait for spring....

Last Day!

2011-01-31T19:36:00.001-08:00

It's the last day of NaBloPoMo, and the last day this month I can forget (or nearly forget, like today!) to post. And I had this post half-planned...
Well, I started my Pre-calculus book today, and I hate it already. There's a lot of CD or online stuff, which I knew, but what I wasn't aware of was that even though my brother worked through this thing, even though my mom paid for this set, I have to register for the "class" so I can get to the quizzes, which costs me $150. No. Way. Logging in as my brother allowed me to buy a 30, 90, or 180 day extension, but I don't even really care to do that. Stupid thing. I think I may just write a research paper in the trigonometric functions and call it good. That or go back and finish my geometry.

It was giving us a bit of freezing rain today, so I got an unexpected afternoon and evening off. I'd have rather gone to small group, but that wasn't my call.

As for this National Blog Posting Month, it's a good idea, but not for me. I'm not a professional blogger or anything, and since I don't have a topic in my head every day, I don't see why I should post every day. It does help me remember that my blog is here, though.

Um, other news... oh! Last day of blogging, first day this year that I got up early and wrote. A good 1500 words I think. I could have gotten more but the chapter was done and I was far too lazy to start the next. That's a job for tomorrow morning.

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Trig Functions

2011-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

I'm actually writing this on Friday night, but I'm setting the post time for Saturday, so whatever. It counts. I had a thought, so I thought I'd think about the thought before I forgot it.

Ok, so I'm taking the ACT in two weeks (really? yikes stripes!), just so I can hopefully get a better score on the math section (the second of five, there's also English, Reading and Science sections). If I don't... I have to take Intermediate Algebra in college, which besides covering stuff I already know (having just finished my Algebra 2 book), costs money without giving me any credit. Blech. I really shouldn't be that worried, I'm pretty sure I have enough trigonometry to get a good score, but I'm the kind of person who gets nervous about it anyway. I need to work on that.

Anyway, I'm brushing up on my trigonometry for the test, since that's what I had no clue about when I first took the test. Most of my knowledge of trig comes from my Physics book, which didn't help me a whole lot with knowing when to use which, since the book told me what situations use which. Oh well. I can't remember very well what kind of trig questions are on the test, since I hadn't the foggiest idea what they were talking about every time that came up, I just picked whichever circle I liked. Oh well. So anyway, the trigonometric functions tell you the ratio of the sides of a right triangle. That doesn't seem all that useful right away, does it? Anyway, you take an angle, and you apply a function to it, which gives you the same ratio as if you'd divided the lengths of two certain sides of the triangle. So there's sine, cosine and tangent, and a few others that I have no clue about and have never heard of before. We'll skip those. I don't even remember their names. At any rate, the sine of an angle gives you the ratio between the opposite and hypotenuse sides of the angle, the cosine gives you the ratio between the adjacent and hypotenuse sides, and tangent gives you opposite and adjacent. There are only two angles in a given triangle to do this to, what with a right triangle having a right angle and all.

They used to have charts for all of this, now they use calculators. Now, the ACT says all of the math problems can be solved without use of a calculator, though it can speed things up to have one, so I won't really have to use any of these numbers in a problem -- which is really too bad because that's what I know how to do. Instead I have to remember what I just said above, which I probably won't be able to remember. I guess that's why I'm writing it down, so I can remember a little better. I'm weird like that. I really hope I do ok on my Pre-Calculus, even though right now in the middle of my winter funk I don't care about much. But as long as I do ok on my ACT I guess it doesn't matter much how I do on my Pre-Calculus... well, it does a little. It could be interesting. If I don't get myself confused I may just move on after the trig sections, instead of going back to the beginning. I just finished Algebra 2, I don't really feel like going through three quarters of that again starting next week. Is that unreasonable? I hope not, because I'm skipping to chapter 4 or 6 or something, where the trig is.

Another Day, Another Post...

2011-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I don't have anything witty to say today. I'm glad this thing is almost over. Um... I finished my Algebra 2 book today, which is nice, now I start Pre-Calculus which at least might be interesting for the inevitable change in teaching style. It's a lot more CD stuff that I might prefer, just because my netbook doesn't have a CD player and it's a bit of a pain to load the stuff up every time. I wonder if I can get by with just the textbook... we'll see.

I have less than half of my science left, quite a bit of reading (I got a few weeks off because I finished Emma early, but that's over now), Latin... Italian... writing. I still feel uninterested. I guess this is the closest I ever get to bored, in the middle of winter. I don't really want to do anything, but I know there's plenty to do. I never really feel like there's absolutely nothing to do. I wonder a little bit what's that like. Maybe I should try lifeguarding, I've been told that's the most boring job ever, particularly on the shifts where no one's there. Eh, I think I'll pass.

So I Miss a Few More Days

2011-01-27T11:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday and Wednesday I was out of town, resulting in non-blogging. I did think of something to ramble about, though: why is it that so often anticipation of an event is better/worse than the actual event?

It reminded me about some thoughts on fear I've had before. I don't think any emotion can be bad by itself, we have them for a reason. If a person is afraid of something they usually have a reason. Snakes actually pretty dangerous critters. Or if a person's hurt you, emotionally or physically, you're a little afraid of them, so you can avoid them. It's just when it gets out of control that fear is so bad. Of course, that's pretty easy to do. I have an irrational fear of spiders, which I didn't used to have. When I was little, I didn't really care. In Africa, I didn't really care. We came back, just about everyone I know is scared to death of spiders. And snakes. I still like snakes, they're awesome, but spiders freak me out a little bit any more. It's frustrating.

Anyway! I figure dread and anticipation are somewhat similar principles. When you dread something you think about it, all the ways it could go wrong, you speculate. That's not a bad thing, but only when it gets out of control. I guess this could be applied to every emotion though, even the ones like affection and the like. Of course, it's not appropriate to be totally without emotion either, it's just a moderation thing, I guess.

I Forget Another Day

2011-01-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

This time I do not want it on the record that I blogged today. Wait, actually blogging puts it on the record... Hum. Oh well.

I may or may not get posts written for the next few days, what with real-life stuff going on. Maybe I'll be able to think of something interesting to talk about during the break. I do have an idea for a future post, but it has to wait until the end of the month I think, for maximum efficacy.

I was thinking about something the other day... it's kind of annoying how I'll pondering things that can often go into blog posts, but then I can't remember them when I get the chance. It's like a dream or something. It occupies my mind while it's there, but vanishes pretty thoroughly afterward. I can think about things over and over then, I guess. When I'm on a certain topic I can usually remember if I've given it serious thought before though. I guess I should write these things down or blog them as I think them, but that's a little boring, in my opinion.

I got some sunshine today, but I still feel a little listless, which doesn't make much sense since I have a list right on my phone, full of things to do. Clean my room, finish the chapter of the story I'm working on... I need to edit and upload a chapter today too. So why do I feel listless when I have quite a nice list?

I Miss My Ice

2011-01-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

Snow is great and all, but sledding's only ok, honestly. I much prefer ice skating, but that's not really possible with a few inches of snow on the pond, and it's not like there's a skating rink in the city or something. I mean, seriously.

I think I'm nearly done with my stupid story, if I can just get my rear in gear and finish it up. I plotted out the last few chapters yesterday, so maybe now I can color in my lines and get this over with. March is NaNoEdMo, and I plan to spend it working on Crystal Frontier.

I did not forget to blog today. I wish it to be on the record as such.

Progress Progresses

2011-01-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

I have three different windows open that I'm supposed to be typing in or working on -- blogging, editing and writing. We got a ton of snow last night, and I think I'll try and get out for a walk for before it gets dark on me.

I think I can feel myself hitting a bit of a wall in school. I have all the normal stuff to work on, but it's stopped being quite so interesting. I'll get over it, I suppose. It's not unusual for me to get into a mid-winter funk, I think. I'd like to actually finish school on time, so I'd better not fall behind. At least I'm not behind yet.

Hmm... maybe instead of a walk I can take a nap.

Music Theory Thoughts

2011-01-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

Haha! I have something to ramble about today. Um, what was it again? Oh yeah! While ice skating one more time before the snow messed up my skating rink, I was considering the structure of your average hymn, melodically speaking. And since I can use some fancy music theory terms and explain them it should make things extra long and rambly. Ok, here we go:

So I was thinking that most hymns use a binary melody system, following the pattern AABA. What this means is that there's really only two melody lines, probably four to six measures each. You sing the first line twice in a row, then go to the next melody line, and the first line ends the verse again. Uh, think "Come Thou Fount" or the more recent "In Christ Alone (My Hope is Found)." This is actually a pretty classical technique, though I'm sure a lot of classical music connoisseurs wouldn't consider hymns particularly works of art. Whatever. I was thinking onward, about a Negro Spiritual (just about the only one I know) which uses a modified version of this. "Wayfaring Stranger." The first two lines are actually a call and response, with very similar melodies. Call and response is another classical music thing, where there's a melody, and then a variation to kind of complete the musical thought. The chorus is a second melody, also call and response. This segues into a little bit of variation of the first call and response, which has the best ending on it.

This covers one kind of hymn, but I haven't thought much about hymns with more of a chorus to them, to try and classify them. How Great Thou Art has a verse of call and response (at least that's what I'm calling all of these, there may be a more specific term), and a chorus that I want to call a period, but I'm not quite fresh on that bit of music theory. I need to ask my piano teacher what book that was again and pick up a copy. I quite liked it as a reference and all that. I'll add that to the note I had for my piano lesson goal-things.

In other news, I'm looking for the right Minecraft map editor to get my terrain in order to create Yavn. I need something that maybe could generate mountains and hills and stuff where I want them without me having to make everything block by block. That'd just be annoying, yeah?

Now THERE'S an Idea!

2011-01-18T13:35:00.000-08:00

So I've mentioned before that Minecraft is incredibly addicting, not to mention fun, all because you can build anything in it. Seriously. Anything. But here's what I didn't think about before: Why am I not replicating Yavn in Minecraft? I'll probably make in a new world, instead of working on my own. This'll involve some spacial calculations... I'll probably start by finding a suitable place for the Capital, and from there I need to figure out exactly where I want my other Capitals, and the town and such... I have a few cities, and I'll have to figure out just how far away they are. Then there's the issue of sculpting the place... I might end up using a map editor to at least roughly generate my landscaping, but after that I think I might as well build in-game. I prefer it that way.

I'm all excited about this now, but of course I get the idea just a few hours before babysitting...

Aaaaand I forgot.

2011-01-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

I realize I never posted anything on Saturday. I thought of it late that night, having whiled away my afternoon watching Full Metal Alchemist with my brother. I decided I'd write on Sunday to make up for it, and even had half a thought on a ramble, but I can't remember it now. After church yesterday was lunch with friends, followed by a much longer nap than I meant to take -- 4 to 8. I forgot totally about it after that. For some reason I'm still sleepy from all of that. I slept in a bit this morning, but not more than usual, really. I don't really know why I'm so groggy. Today I just wish I knew what interesting topic I had to ramble about, but I've got nothin.

Anyway, I don't think I've got much else to talk about as it is.

I Like Weekends

2011-01-14T13:15:00.001-08:00

This week wasn't particularly busy, but I'm happy for it to be Friday. Fridays are nice. they come right before Saturday, which is usually nicer yet. It's too bad every other Friday holds a science test (this one included), but that's half over now. Wow. My school-year's about half over. I'm to take my eighth module's test today, out of sixteen modules... my literature goes a month longer though... my math is almost finished, I'll move on to Pre-Calc in February. It's kinda scary... I'm too spacey today to think that much about it. I just hope I don't fail that test.

Um... there's still snow. I think I'll go skate a little more today, after my test. Maybe while I listen to my audiobook. I've already done far too much work on my Minecraft house today, it's put me a little behind in school for the day. I guess I'll go finish that up now.

I Nearly Forgot Again, Didn't I?

2011-01-13T20:30:00.001-08:00

I'll try and get something interesting done tomorrow, I promise.

We still have snow hanging around, and the pond froze good and solid today, so there was ice skating. I did school, had a piano lesson that wasn't all that enjoyable, since I haven't practiced the right stuff. I really need to get my rear in gear, what with my senior recital coming up. If I can just decide to do something, I do ok. My problem is that just having someone tell me to do something isn't usually enough. Not that I don't appreciate direction or that my own motivation is always enough, it's just that I need a little of both sometimes.

So anyway, piano gets added especially to the list of things to do.

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What Happened Today Again?

2011-01-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

Hmm... Not much of import today, or at least not much of comment. I suppose I need to upload a chapter of my Fictionpress story today, to keep on track. Or maybe tomorrow. I thought I had a piano lesson, but I don't. I do tomorrow though...

Um, I finally got the last three songs of David Nevue sheet music today, and played through them. They're nice songs, but I need to listen to them again and work on them a little bit.

I haven't been out to enjoy the snow yet today. I should go do that before I run out of time. Minecraft will pretty much always be there (Thursday we get musical blocks! Can't wait), but the snow won't last forever. Well, this batch is supposed to stick around for a week or so, but still. It won't be so nice after a while. I should enjoy it while it's enjoyable, right?

I'm not making any sense any more.

Last-second Post

2011-01-11T21:47:00.001-08:00

It's late. I'm supposed to have blogged. I haven't. Therefore, I'm posting something quickly from my phone. I'm such a night person, and yet I try to be a morning person, all bright and perky when I get up. Well, that'll never happen. I imagine I'll always be bleary for a half hour or so. I think maybe everyone is. What makes a person a morning person is that they rather get up and over the bleariness before everyone else. At least, that's my idea. I know I feel better for getting up earlier, if I can just manage it. It's almost midnight now, so I figure it's probably out of the question for me to get up at six tomorrow. I gotta end this cycle...

Too late to do it today.

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A Dvorakless Post

2011-01-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking last night about my learning Dorak and whether it was worth it. I mean, I'm pretty fast on Qwerty, and even if Dvorak is faster, how long would it take for me to learn it so I'm as fast as I am on Qwerty now? I think it's probably not worth the effort. Oh well. Right now I'm somewhat slower than usual, what with trying to get used to my old layout again, but it's coming back fast. Just after pauses sometimes I forget where a key is. I'll get some writing done and fix that today I think.

So, two days of typing, wasted. Così è la vita (that's "such is life" in Italian. I tend to want to say it in the French, something like "Ce'st la vie" or something, but since I'm not learning French, but rather Italian, I try to use the proper language). I did get some writing done last night, while my brothers played Minecraft. After a while I went to bed, and they stayed up all night building stuff. I imagine they're about to head to bed though. I'll probably take a closer look at what they've done when I'm listening to Emma again. I'm still in volume two, but I think I'll be finishing quite ahead of schedule, maybe enough so I can listen to Three Men in a Boat or something before I'm supposed to read Wuthering Heights. Hmm... that might be another audiobook one. When I read sometimes I can go for too much comprehension, particularly when it's a style I'm not familiar with. It makes me read really slowly, and it's not feasible that I finish hardly any of my assignments on time. Well, I'm too lazy maybe. Anyway, listening is different. Stuff blows by a little, but in general I just let it wash over me and it's not only enjoyable, but I even understand what's going on at least as well as if I read it, I think.

In other news: SNOW! There was a nice coat on the ground when I got up this morning (an actually reasonable 7:30), and it's still going at it at... 10:40 now. It buys me a day off from giving a piano lesson to a friend, therefore freeing up my afternoon for school and Minecraft and writing, perhaps a little editing. I love unexpected down-times. Well, they're annoying sometimes, when it's really really last minute, but the weather forecast had predicted this, so I kind of had two plans for today, one where I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, and end up picking up extra slack this evening regardless, and one where I'm much more relaxed, get to play in the snow, and get everything else done. Ha. We'll see how much I actually get done.

Yoiks and away!

A Dvorak Post

2011-01-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

And therefore probably typed very slowly. I've worked through a few rows of letters, and although I'm still really pokey while I type, at least it's not all hunt-and-peck. Some keys are, but only the ones I've not worked with. What's curious is that my sudden loss of skill seems to be limiting my vocabulary somewhat.

I got up at a decent hour, but not much has been done today. I'm planning on editing a chapter of that stupid Fictionpress story, and maybe, maybe writing another chapter. Probably not today. I'll take one more day to learn this layout.

... aaaannnd, patience vanishes. Ta!

Nearly Forgot!

2011-01-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

It's surprisingly hard to come up with thing to ramble about, when one's put under pressure. Could that sentence phrasing be more british-sounding, I wonder? At any rate, I think maybe I did something today... well, school, including Latin, what with declensions and all.

Latin has the most declensions I've seen in any language, what with nouns typically declining not only according to number but to five different cases -- though it should be noted that often in either plural or singular or both the Dative and Ablative cases are combined. It's a little scary when you first look at it, but when you think about it, English declines according to a lot of those cases too, but only with our pronouns.

A case and all of the fancy names for them (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative and Ablative) is really just a fancy linguistics term for what a noun does in a sentence. A noun in the Nominative case is just a pretty way of saying the Subject of a sentence. Genitive is talking about possessives ("Joe's" is in the Genitive case), Dative speaks of an Indirect Object in a sentence, Accusative the Direct Object, and Ablative is Object of the Preposition. In English we decline some of our pronouns according to some of these cases. "I" is in the Nominative case, "mine" or "my" is for Genitive, and "me" is for the rest. Pretty much every English noun declines to Genitive case, and almost all decline according to number (words like "sheep" and "moose" and "fish" being the exceptions). At least Latin's regular about it.

There are three declensions in Latin, with five cases and singular and plural each. I suppose that makes a total of 30 individual endings to memorize, though that doesn't take into account the cases that get combined in one declension or another.

Um, what else did I do today? I got a piano lesson, and my British diction is likely from listening to quite a bit of Jane Austen lately. I got a little Python studied... Oh! I also just now started working on learning a Dvorak keyboard layout. I'm not typing this blog post in it, but they say that typing with Dvorak is much faster than with Qwerty. We'll see. It is learning a new layout, but my Neo supports it, and it's easy to change the layout on a computer, so... We'll see.

Um... Hm.

2011-01-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

I had such a nice long post yesterday, I don't really know how I'll live up to it now. Maybe it'll help if I pause my audiobook. Ok, well... my desktop Ubuntu partition works properly now, now that I've reloaded the whole OS. At least nothing happened to Windows when I was making big changes. It's not that my stuff isn't backed up -- well, I'd lost a few weeks of work on Minecraft, but I suppose I'd get over that. Better than losing a story -- it's just that loading Windows takes FOR-EV-ER, and all in all I'd rather not have to do that again. First the OS itself. Then the drivers for every little thing. Plus all my applications and wallpapers and stuff again. Plus removing all the junkware that riddles those drivers and the OS. At least Ubuntu isn't quite so bad. I have a few apps to download, but pretty much everything I want is available from a single spot -- the Ubuntu Software Center, since I'm such a n00b.

Anyway, I feel I should spend some time on the specific torture of loading an OS. We'll skip the sinking feeling of finding out your computer is basically dead and needs to be wiped and re-installed with everything, the futile attempts to save your data, and move on the resignation and defeat as you put in that boot CD. You've probably put it in before for some attempts at system repair, but to no avail. So you go and boot from this CD, and with a tear perhaps finding its way down your cheek, you press the key telling it to format the drive and install Windows.

First you get to decide the partitioning of the drive. If you're like most people, you just let it take all the space it wants. You don't care much right now. It partitions and wipes the drive, and then moves on to asking you information about time zone and naming the computer and whatnot. Then it installs some stuff. Then another question will pop up, and it won't go anywhere until you answer it. Then it goes some more... and then more options to decide upon, so on and so forth, each of these steps taking somewhere from 10 to 45 minutes, but you can never remember which are quick and which aren't, so you have to stay by the computer, checking on it, ALL DAY until the dang thing is finally installed.

Then you look at your fresh new desktop wallpaper, and you promptly get assaulted by the update screen, particularly if we're talking about Windows. Ok, it's got a lot of updates to install, of course. Whatever. Security and whatnot first.

Speaking of... best to get rid of IE as fast as possible. You nearly retch as you open it, but only to download Firefox or Google Chrome or something else that's faster and more secure. After that's done you start downloading your favorite utilities and programs and whatnot, sure that you're never going to remember all of them. You need to download your anti-virus software again, hoping IE didn't already kill you without it. Drivers start going into drives, and you end up restarting the computer multiple times that day. If you managed to keep your files backed up, those have to go back on too.

All in all, it takes all stinking day to get a computer to at least a semblance of what it was before you wiped it. For weeks -- months even -- you'll be trying to find files and programs that you forgot to put back on there. For some reason your browser bookmarks never transfer over right, whatever you do. It's like moving into an almost-new house that looks exactly like your old one, except the paint's different. You paint the walls, get your lights back on. A few light switches got moved around, and when you're unpacking all of your stuff you'll never get it quite in the same place as before. You'll be looking for things for months until you finally get used to where things are again. By that time, you may have to move to another almost-new, empty house.

Computers fail. I love 'em.

Programming Languages

2011-01-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

Uhm... I think I've decided to learn one. It might be fun, right? Wait, I tried this last year, for a little while. I don't think I blogged about it though. It was like a week before my Weekend of Insanity noveling bit, and I was working on learning Python. Everything was happy, until I wanted to download this program for programming called Pygame. Well, at the time (I haven't checked lately) it didn't have a good edition for the Windows I was using. It did for Ubuntu, though. Ok! I'd put Ubuntu Linux on a computer before, it was easy as pie. The thing was happy to do all the work for you. I did that, and my little netbook was on a dual-boot for a while. I started noticing, though, that the Linux portion didn't always start for me. I do a little research, and I think I find a solution. I end up accidentally wiping my hard drive, right before I had to write 30k in a weekend.

I was a little to distraught and busy to mess with Python for a while, and by the time my computer was working happily again (thanks to my awesome mother, who's now fixed at least two more computers than she's broken!), I'd totally forgotten about the thing. I only recently got reminded again, and I figure it's a good way to to get more familiar with Linux, so I'm learning to program there. Yay!

So far not much exciting stuff to report, just learning some of the basics again. Except I haven't logged on to Ubuntu in months, and now that I just updated it, it won't boot. Again. I think this is a different problem than before, though. Instead of giving me an interminable blank screen, this just boots me out to the BIOS again and again and again. Grar. I'll work on it later. Maybe. I really love the idea of Linux, it's just actually getting it to work for me isn't working out. When I do get it to work for me, I can't get it to talk to the other computers on the network, or even use a printer properly. Flash is always slow to update, so I can go forever without being able to access anything that runs with Flash. I'm probably just too much of an idiot to get it to work (anyone out there know what a "tarball" is? It seems like I need that explained to me every single time, and I still can't get one to unzip or unpack or whatever for me right).

Whatever. Latin goes fine, I wrote a little bit on my Fictionpress story yesterday, maybe I'll do some more today. I should at least upload a chapter. If I end up with 30 chapters (pretty reasonable, methinks), I need to be uploading two chapters a week to finish up on time. I'm still getting into the swing of school. Someday I'll get up early again. That'll be nice. Particularly on Mondays. Long post. Disconnected thoughts. Going away now.

Tuesdays Aren't Busy

2011-01-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Not really, anyway. It's kind of nice. If I can still wrap up pretty much all of my school in the morning (like I did today, except for my reading assignment), then that leaves all afternoon for Minecraft and other such non-school related activities. My reading is covered too: for the next month I'm assigned Emma, by Jane Austen. She's a good writer, but I've found with most of my school books this year that good though they may be, I have a hard time reading large chunks of them at once, like I'm supposed to. I've not finished a lot of books this year just because I don't want to fall so behind. I'll just skip it, rather than read eight chapters a day. Anyway, this time I went on Librivox.org and downloaded Emma as an audiobook. I don't usually get audiobooks or podcasts listened to, since I'm usually doing something that requires though that distracts from what's going on in the story. If I'm going to have to just sit and listen, I may as well just read the book. That was before I was playing Minecraft xD now I'm listening to it while I play, since while the game can require some thought, it's not in words or anything like that, as if I was doing math or science or anything like that. I can kind of go on autopilot. If I get this book finished early, maybe I'll download one of the books I'd skipped before and see about listening to it. I gave up early on Gulliver's Travels, and although I enjoyed Three Men in a Boat, I didn't finish that one either. I mostly finished Frankenstein, and it was good, but I think I ended up skipping that last bit. I should find out how that ends, I suppose.

Unfortunately I can't play Minecraft while editing or blogging or writing. It's more a problem with not having enough fingers as my attention. Although editing and writing would be bad to do with only half my brain on them. Blogging, eh, who's gonna notice?

Mondays are Busy

2011-01-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

I wish they weren't quite so. Oh well. I almost shouldn't be wasting time blogging, but since I did say I would blog every day but Sunday, I might as well. I've got to get my school done this morning, before a friend comes over at 1:30 for a piano lesson. She won't have anyone to pick her up until 5ish, and then at 6:30 I'm off to small group Bible study. No Minecraft, then, I imagine. Oh well. I managed to stay off it yesterday, I'll manage another day.

I just hope I don't have a hard time slipping back into my schoolwork. Taking time off never was very good for my brain when I came back. At least Latin should be at least a little fresh. I'll need to take some notes in there, probably nothing too work-intensive. Hopefully Physics is as little. I really don't want to spend a ton of time on it.

If I play my cards right, maybe I can play a little Minecraft...

Merry New Year!

2011-01-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Obligatory wishings of wealth and happiness go here.

Anyway, this month is NaBloPoMo, which means I post every day this month. Except Sundays. I'm going to try and keep Sundays as electronic-free as possible. Anyway, six days a week you should be hearing from me, and hopefully that's long enough to get me in the habit of writing something every day or so for a while.

What else do I have, BFS-wise? I should print of that calendar I put in my last post. Latin, right. I need to finish up that lesson today, so Monday I can get to work on the next. I was at a Christian youth conference Wednesday through Friday, so I'm not quite done with that piece of Latin. The conference was awesome, though, a lot of cool Bible study sessions and stuff like that. I'm still processing quite a bit of it.

Um... I also have that stupid story I'm putting on Fictionpress. It doesn't fit anywhere into the Yavn timeline now, what with the mission of the MC having already been fulfilled in another story, and because of the rewrite of Crystal Glare most of the facts in the story are inaccurate, and then when you add in the fact that I'm going to radically change Crystal Glare again, the whole thing becomes absolutely inaccurate. So I don't know what to call this dang thing. Fanfiction of an earlier setup? Maybe.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my last day of Minecraft before school starts on Monday (don't forget, Sundays are as electronicless as possible. That means I might be able to finaggle some Minecraft time if someone directly asks me to help them out xD)

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

2010-12-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Surely that makes some semblance of sense. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, which is the day before Christmas, so it's Christmas Eve Eve today. Anyway, I had actual content today, at least a little bit... oh yeah! I managed to tear myself away from Minecraft enough to get my BFS goals sorted out. Here we go, in order of when they're to be accomplished.

Participate in NaBloPoMo (January)
Take the ACT again (February 12th)
Finish Fictionpress story (February 25th)
Finish Latin Course (March 11th)
Edit Crystal Frontier (May 25th)
Complete Italian course (March 13th - August 11th)
Write/Translate a story in/into Ganyi. Say, at least 5,000 words? (October 31st)
Participate in NaNoWriMo (November)

There. That gives me all of December off for relaxation and finals, since I imagine I'll be in college then. That's why the majority of these goals are before school would start. I can only cram so much into those months though, so I've got my Ganyi goal just to be finished before November. November is November, after all.

I should probably explain and quantify these goals. NaBloPoMo will be not quite daily. I'll take Sundays off, but I'll plan to post every other day of the week. The ACT is the ACT, but my goal is to get a better math score, since I now know at least something of Trigonometric Functions. That Fictionpress story just needs finishing, and I'd like it to be done by March, which is NaNoEdMo. I plan to start editing Crystal Frontier then, and I just figured I'd give myself extra time for that.

Wow, the school year's not even quite done for me yet. I'm a little tired of not finishing things, so my latin course will be done before school's out, and then I start my new Italian book, which I would like finished by the time I start college, wherever that happens to be. It probably won't start until after the 11th, right? They already start sickeningly early. Anyway! short summer for me.

My Ganyi goal may be put off for a while, and/or just take a long time. It doesn't have to be long, just 5,000 words, but it's in a different language, and one I'm making up, no less. That doesn't particularly make things easier.

November is NaNoWriMo. This is an invariable law of the universe. I will participate in NaNoWriMo, and then I will pass out, wake up, and most likely begin studying for finals. Thus the empty December.

Just because I want to rehash everything, my month-by-month schedule looks like this:

January: NaBloPoMo, Latin, Fictionpress, School

February: ACT, Latin, Fictionpress, School

March: Crystal Frontier, Latin, Italian, School

May: Crystal Frontier, Italian, School

June: Italian

July: Italian, probably at least start on the Ganyi thing

August: Italian, Ganyi, College

September: Ganyi, College, plotting?

October: Ganyi, College, Plotting

November: NaNoWriMo, College

December: Finals

Ok then! June is empty. That'll probably be when any summer noveling gets done.

Uhm, that's probably enough for now, yeah?

Hmm... It's December...

2010-12-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

Which means I suppose it's time to think about Big Fun Scary Goals. Unfortunately, a year is kind of a vague deadline to finish these things, so I may take a more structured approach. Brainstorming stuff, then. For today's post, we'll start with the stuff I'd like to get done:

Work Italian into an actual conversational language for myself
Begin work on Swahili
Get Ganyi somewhat functional
Finish editing Crystal Frontier
Maybe get a little bit of a plot on paper for yet another draft of Crystal Glare?
Participate in NaBloPoMo (I'm thinking January for this? Maybe a little modified to take Sundays off)
Take the ACT and get a better score
Find a college
Start college
Finish that one Yavn story I've been putting on Fictionpress and get the whole thing on there. That means editing the dang thing too.
Get another summer novel written, I suppose
Of course win NaNoWriMo.
Wait, maybe make that help make sure my mom wins NaNoWriMo this year, whether I do or not.
So maybe I should make that "finish NaNoWriMo in a week or two so my mom can have the rest of the month to write her brains out."
Ouch. 50,000 words in a week.
Oh, and I wouldn't mind actually finishing my Latin course either. It's helpful for language learning and making, I've found. Stupid cases and tenses and conjugations.

Hm, lots of bullets xD anyway, somebody remind me next week or something to get these into monthly schedules or something. I was thinking maybe finishing my Italian and Latin courses by September, and when school starts I start Swahili, under the careful tutorship of my parents and maybe a few more books. Ganyi perhaps should be put into the actionable goal of a novel or so many stories written in the language.

Speaking of! I need to do another worldbuilding novel for another country. I think it's going to be a nomadic people, and their language is gonna be an isolating one. I should learn Mandarin for research on that, I guess.

Oh Hey, I'm Done

2010-11-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

Saturday I finished, just before heading off to see Harry Potter. I took the time to shower, but that was even a close call. As a result, I didn't get to validate my wordcount and all that until Sunday. Oh well. I'm trying to remember... finishing on the 20th might not be my fastest time for wordcount, but I'm pretty sure it's my fastest for finishing the novel. I love it when a plan comes together. Yiridi and Poeyan died, Derad and Antrin got to move on with life... happiness. I probably didn't handle my plot very well, as usual, but it's NaNo, so I don't care. I don't.

I probably missed a few scenes (almost definitely the epilogue) on description, but I did say to the best of my ability, didn't I? So anyway, I managed to include a lot more description than usual. I'm pretty pleased with that. Technically I always have some description in a scene, because whenever someone does anything I describe that, but we were talking intentional appearance description and such-like. Uhm, anyway, I think I might get my map.

Now that NaNo's done, I can resume working on origami Christmas decorations and working on a few recorded songs (which is kind of a secret project for a friend's family so I won't talk about it much, even though none of them read my blog), things like that. I'm taking the week off of school, since if I take off I might as well take a whole week or else mess up my schedule. I need to read a few day's worth of Frankenstein, but that's pretty much all the "homework" I have. I also need to finish up the story I started posting to FictionPress, and maybe work on editing Crystal Frontier a little bit more, since I have a few friends wanting to read that one too.

And Christmas lists. Crud. I hate making those.

Nearing the Finish Line!

2010-11-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

Probably a short post today. My novel is nearing completion (I miscalculated my chapters before. I usually have 12 chapters in a book, but I've only got 10 in this one), and I have... 43,000-odd words as of last night. I was hoping maybe to finish up my word goal and story by the time we head out to see Harry Potter 7 Part 1 this evening, but I don't know if I'll manage it. 6,000 or so words in a day, with a later start than I wanted and an earlier finish than possibly desirable? I'm going to be too tired to write by the time I get home. Hmm... Eh, piece of cake. Six or seven hours of writing are still in the day. If I can just hide and keep myself away from distractions, like the computer and my blog. I owe my non-existent readers an update, don't I? Or maybe not.

Anyway, with the scenes I have left and the words I have left I need about 2300 words per scene or 4600 words per chapter, not including epilogue, but of course epilogues are short for me. My prologues are usually longer than my epilogues. Just a little finishing up touch because I can't resist. I usually should just edit them out. Oh well.

Um, what else... Rapa is planning on doing the absolutely insane thing of writing virtually all of her 50,000 during Thanksgiving break. Oh dear. She's got a few thousand, but that's still 40,000+ to be written in something like nine days, three of which are spent at her mom's. But I should probably poke her into posting that on her own blog, shouldn't I?

Wordwars and candy! And fudge. Lots of fudge.

It's Not Just for Blog Posts!

2010-11-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Did you know that there's this thing called rambling? I tend to employ it a lot when I'm blogging, but I heard something new Saturday: this rambling thing can be used in novels too. So instead of advancing my plot -- which is running out -- on Saturday night, I spent near 2,000 words sending my characters on a tour of the capital city. Since then I've stayed in chapter five, and I'm close to 20,000 words now. Worries quickly vanish in the face of the ramble!

Anyway, it's Week Two!

There May be a Slight Problem...

2010-11-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo is perking along happily (the verb "to perk along" might make the adverb "happy" redundant, but I'm not sure), and the awesome people at OLL even managed to get their site to speed up finally! Poor NaNoSite...

Anyway, all might not be well with my novel. I have a plot. That's not the problem. I love my plot. That's not the problem either (the plot isn't the problem on two counts!) My characters are interesting enough, I suppose, and I've described most of them adequately. I should add more description to Antrin. I forgot, ok? But that's not the problem I'm speaking of.

I've been doing a little under a chapter a day. Nice pace, for when I want to finish a novel, but here's the problem. My wordcount says I'll only be 26% of the way to 50,000 words by the end of today (assuming I write just my usual 2,000 words). With 12 chapters, I'm nearly halfway through my book, but only a quarter of the way to the goal. This is a slight problem, and now is the time to correct it, yes? Usually my later chapters will stretch longer anyway, but now I need to not worry about curtailing conversations and suchlike. Getting bored with them is not a good excuse (well, if they're really really boring.... maybe). I need words!

And it's only Day 5.

I Slept in Today...

2010-11-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Kinda. In truth it was mostly a case of comfy bed syndrome. At any rate, I haven't gotten anything written yet today. So! I have a plan. I will write some 500 words, and then I get to practice a song on piano. Then another 500, followed by another song. Repeat until I have 2,000. After that I get to play just about as much as I want.

We'll see how this works. Other than that, NaNo has been going well. I could technically skip today if I wanted, but I'm not going to. I'm not.

It's Tomorrow!

2010-10-31T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm going through everything, making sure my things are in order for tomorrow, and I remember I haven't blogged about it being so close. Not that people really need reminding about it on my blog, but why not?

Tomorrow I'll be getting up early, reading my Bible, putting my hair back, putting my writing hat on, pulling on hoodie and writing socks, fingerless gloves, blanket, starting music, and pounding out 2,000 words before anything else happens. Well, maybe herbal tea will happen. I dunno. After that I can fling myself into the morning of school work (physics focusing on Newton's Laws, Algebra focusing on imaginary numbers, John Milton focusing on Paradise Lost, possibly Latin focusing on who-knows-what. I haven't done any good Latin in a while), and after lunch it's off to a friend's for piano lessons and Italian lessons and more writing. Home will bring... eh, probably some lazing around or finishing up school, followed by perhaps another small burst of writing, followed by bed.

The idea is that between those two or three sessions of writing, I get 5,000 words written tomorrow, so I can have a good start. Right this second I'm all hyper from a halloween party, so it all sounds like piece of cake. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I'm sleepy. I may need tea of some sort. Or exercise, like a few sit-ups before working. Ew. But whatever it takes, right? Right?

At least my plot's definitely going to hold my attention this year. If it lasts 50,000 words, I'm golden. Or purple, as that's the color of the winner's bars. If I run out of story... well, there are plenty of hallucination scenes that can be stretched into infinity, if need be. Not to mention I'm writing more description this month. I'm not going to forget that. In fact, I'm going to write that on a sticky note or something and put it up where I can see it.

Off to NaNoPrep!

Less Than a Week Left O.o

2010-10-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

My mom hates it when I remind her, but Monday next is November. That means writing like crazy. And hoping my room is clean. And, and... Stuff.

Right now I'm hoping that I can have 5k by this time next week. 2008 was my best NaNo so far I think, and I triumphantly started the month with a 5,000 word day. So technically by this time (11ish AM), I hope to have something more like 7,000 words.

Oh! This year I have goals! Goals are good, right? I...
A.) Want to finish my novel during the month, and
B.) Want to work majorly on description. As stated in my last post, that means I want all my locales and characters described in the manuscript, plus every scene (plot point thingy that I have on my timeline) must particularly contain some description. I can work on quality of the prose later, but for now I just want to put some in. I said that before, didn't I? Ok then.

All that's left for me to do is to really clean my room. And stop eating so much pre-Halloween candy. Oh, and finish making origami for that craft fair thing-a-ma-bob. Three more pieces and I'll call it good, I think.

I Need to Write Better Description

2010-10-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

So maybe November isn't a good time to be working on my writing skills, other than churning out high wordcounts (although I don't know that I need a lot of work on that), but if I don't work on this sometime I'll forget or get lazy. But in the spirit of NaNoWriMo and not editing first drafts, my goal is to just actually write some. No scene should go by without some description. I should actually know what my characters look like.

I'm a story driven person, and so I'll usually end up writing action or dialog or even internal monologue (why are dialog and monologue spelled so differently? Maybe my spellcheck is thinking of a computer dialog box or something), which I suppose is all fine and good, except that a little description helps keep things realistic. I suppose I don't have to be all that poetic or anything (I fail at poetry), but a person should be described, locales should be made more real with description, stuff like that. So my goal is to specifically insert description into my scenes and areas in this November's draft. I suppose that means I need to actually think about what all that looks like...

Prep Moves Forward!

2010-10-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Finally I have my plot finished up. Now I just need to chat with my characters, if I want, and get my room clean. And I need to get most of my origami made for the 12th of NaNo... and I think that actually is all of what's left on my to do list. I have my wordcount spreadsheet printed off, and a sheet for tracking word war scores. Um... I need to make sure I can stay caught up on school and stuff, but interestingly enough I seem to recall I work better when I write in the morning. Rationing my time helps me ration my time better, I guess. I figure I'll be all right. I get Thanksgiving week off, if I'm not at 50k by then already.

I'd like to finish the novel this month. I don't think it'll be an issue, though. It's a pretty short story. I can get it to 50k though. This has at least a little more meat on it than my weekend venture, so I think I can stretch it, if it comes to that.

I should go clean my room.

I'm Lazy...

2010-10-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

I've hardly started on my NaNoPrep... I did make a to do list, but now I need to actually work on the thing. I still have to clean my room thoroughly, and timeline my plot, and keep up with school, and make sure I have enough origami made for the thing... I have more, but now I've lost my to do list. I guess I should find that, huh?

I'm thinking about putting music stuff on my blog... I could probably upload little songs and compositions and stuff right to the blog. If Blogger doesn't have an easy way, it's only a Google away. But maybe that's a bad idea. Too many family members read this thing every once in a while. I'd be all embarrassed... not to mention the fact that anything I've managed to do something that doesn't sound like total and utter crud is at least prompted by a bit a friend of mine has already come up with. I need to get beyond theory, I guess. I always end up just doing boring stuff, and I can't get myself to do anything interesting. Or maybe I'm overly critical. Maybe a little bit of both. I have no problems with first drafts of novels, so why do I care about first drafts of songs? Fail.

The Pictures, as Promised!

2010-09-30T08:39:00.001-07:00

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

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 wordcount for a good buffer. Anyway, can I move on to my bromeliad now?

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. 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

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: Random Musings Day

2010-09-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

For the Record...

2010-09-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

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?

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

2010-09-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Languages

2010-09-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

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!

Grar.

2010-09-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

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...

I Guess I Should Update About School...

2010-09-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

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!

So Maybe I'm Insane. Who Cares?

2010-09-12T18:46:00.001-07:00

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.

Yes, I Must be Insane... Day 2

2010-09-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

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!

Am I Insane? Day 1

2010-09-10T09:10:00.001-07:00

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!

News!

2010-09-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

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.

Looking for Motivation

2010-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ideas have arrived, and yet I have this problem of getting up early in the morning. Again. It's like exercise. I hate starting, but once I get going it's not so bad. The first few days though... I have the hardest time convincing myself it's worth it. Surely I can get that writing done later in the day, it's Summer. I don't have a job right now, no school to speak of... I can do it during the day, or at night or something, right?

Of course not. While my parents will often retire earlier, my brothers don't, in typical teenager fashion. If I stay up I'll never be able to stand not to hang out with them... the only option is to either wall myself away for the months I write (which will drive me crazy) or I can learn to get up early again. Curses!

In other news, things are a bit better. Somehow I stumbled upon a Language Construction Kit (I make it a link so that I feel very fancy). I think it was something about wanting to make an alphabet for Yavn, and wand'ring round the internet for ideas, up comes a link for said kit. Now I'm obsessed with it. I really should learn another language before I try and create my own (say, finishing up my Italian course, or maybe getting my parents to help me learn Swahili or something), but be that as it may, I've already made up most of my grammar. Right now I'm trying to generate some semi-random words to get some vocabulary, so I can move on to translating and writing and speaking it somewhat to find holes in my grammar rules. I've eliminated or combined some tenses, and I'm hoping that doesn't mess me up terribly. I'll never know until I start using it. I found a handy program that will let me define catagories of letters and then put in patterns that I want, and it'll generate random words based on that. It's quite helpful. It could be as vague as just Consonants and Vowels, or as specific as typing the words yourself. I've got fricatives (M, N, V, F, etc.), vowels (vowels), plosives (P, B, D, T, G, etc.) and approximants (like R and L). Using names I've got so far, I'm generating words from their patterns. I can't replicate the entire dictionary in a day, and I've got to assign each word to an English word. The vocabulary of course will have fewer words than English (English has pretty much the most of any language I know of), but even so I'll need hundreds. I've got about 300 printed off on a sheet for easy reference, but I still have to find the best words to assign them to. Some are more important than others, and I'll probably do those first. Right now I'm picking out some for prepositions, and next I'll probably get nice words for the important ideas and objects in Yavn. Wow. Work.

I have another project to work on writing-wise that should help with world-building yet more. If I could just get work done on it... I'm slotted to start today, and I will do it. I didn't get my rear out of bed this morning? Too bad.

Well, no more procrastinating. Music, writing, work.

Ooh, it generated one that goes "umpyiu." How on earth do I pronounce that?

A Summary

2010-02-05T12:02:00.001-08:00

It's strange how I never want to sit down at the computer and blog, and yet I'm perfectly happy blogging by sending a text from my phone (like I am now. My new phone has email!).
Writing has been slow lately. I took a break in December and managed with only marginal success to work on Crystal Glare in January. I'm probably still only... Three fifths through, at most. Had I been able to stick to my schedule, I would be done by now. But since NaNo I've not really wanted to get up early. It happens a lot in winter for me.
I'm still working my way through it, I have bad days and better days, but so far none that could be acceptable during November. But maybe I can't set all year by NaNoWriMo, however much I want to. When spring comes things nay get better.
In other news, I finished my Algebra 1 book, and now I can resume Geometry. I still have no idea if I'm behind or not. I probably am. At least I've made a little progress on Italian, if only I could build my vocabulary.
And that's the news!

It's a Little Scary

2009-11-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

I hit 40k day before yesterday, and pardon me if I say I always find it thrilling and a little scary to have less than ten thousand words left until I reach the month's goal. I'm hoping to hit 45,000 today, and then it's just a short hop to the finish line!

As for my story... I have twelve (long) chapters, and so far I'm on the... fifth or sixth? I'm not sure anymore. It's nowhere near done, wherever I might be. I did accidentally get the wrong character mad at someone, but I managed to turn that around into being some sort of practical joke/helping out thing (with some help from my wonderful mother).

I have another write-in with a friend today, and hopefully I can make some more of that number go up. To 45k and beyond!

Oh, in other news, while I was writing I decided that the word "glew" should be used as the past tense of "glow" instead of "glowed." I just don't like the way glowed sounds, when pretty much every other word in English with that structure doesn't use it. The exception being "hanged," but then, that's only used when referring to a hanging, when you're executing a person, anything the word "hung" is used.

So there! Glew it is! Unless you're referring to a "glowing," where you uh... hm. When you're dumping a person into a vat of radioactive waste in order to give them glowing superpowers? That's a "glowing," and then you "glowed" someone.

NaNo Time is Here...

2009-11-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

...and I guess I should post something. Not that I don't like NaNoWriMo! On the contrary, it makes November one of my favorite months of the year. It's just I haven't been feeling the bug for blogging lately. It's my problem I guess.

Anyway, for a recap: I did very little plotting the rest of October, because it was virtually all done back in June (note to self: do not do that again. EVER). As a result, I had trouble getting all excited and happy like usual. My mom helped me out with that though, whens she finally signed up for NaNo and took me goodie shopping. I got candy (of course) and some fluffy socks for writing. After that... I dunno.

Day one of NaNo was rather interesting. We were out of town for Halloween to see family, and it was me, my parents, my two brothers and a friend of my brothers all staying in this one room guest cabin. I somehow manage to get my Neo and such early in the morning and go out to the car, in the cold, writing by flashlight. The worst part of this was I had caught a rather nasty cold the afternoon before, so I was rather unmotivated. I didn't get all of my words that morning, and had to finish them later. It was cold!

The whole first week I either couldn't get up early like usual, or if I did I couldn't get as many words as I'd like. On Saturday, I didn't get up early, and we mowed on top of that, but from four to seven in the evening I wrote like mad and got a good 3,000 words done. Spurred by this, I managed to write 5,000 words yesterday. 2k in the morning and 3k afterwards. 5k people! On Sunday! With church and junk taking up my schedule! So there! I'm happy.

Victory! Though a Small One

2009-10-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

I actually did some plotting today! I have most of it done already, and I've just been trying to remember what in the world I was doing when I left off. New rule: no major plotting until October 1st ever again. At least I need to plot straight through and then start writing that same story not too long after that.

At any rate, my timeline is finished and my story is divided into chapters accordingly. All that's left is some character polishing and sub-plot that should be added. I need to think of some for that. But that's a job for tomorrow morning.

Let me see, I also have to stock up on candy and other treats, I might write myself a few letters again, and then there's always the getting ahead in school that I'm so happy I can do. Hooray homeschooling!

Of course, getting ahead on school requires me to do at least what I'm supposed to...

Vote for OLL to get $10,000!

2009-10-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

I feel strange plugging such a thing, but I'll get over it I suppose.

All of you fans of Office of Letters and Light (bringers of NaNoWriMo and the Young Writer's Program and Script Frenzy and the like) need to go here and nominate them to win $10,000! Whichever charity gets the most votes wins that cash, runner up is $5,000 and the next ten charities after that each get $1,000.

As for my NaNoPrep, I uh... hmm... haven't really started yet. I was out of town Friday and Saturday, and of course Sunday is a day off... but I did some worldbuilding over the weekend, and tomorrow I'll do more yet, or plot, or something. I have to get my head into that mode. I've been writing on one thing for so long, and now I have to skip forward some 800 years in my world, and there's quite a bit of change between there.

A while ago I got so far as plotting out my timeline, but I'm not sure if I should return to it stright away. Those only seem to work if I have the plot in my head anyway. I'll have to read through my notes - and probably rewrite them - before I remember what's going on. Oh well, I could use the practice. I quite enjoy plotting mode when I get into it. And then there's the cleaning and organizing and setting up and various other things to be done... It's really more fun than it sounds. October is full of anticipation for November, and it's all part of the NaNoWriMo experience. I can't imagine November without any of this. Woo October prep + November madness + December relief!

Happy October!

2009-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Just one month until NaNoWriMo...

I attempted to get up a little earlier than I have been this morning, and it failed utterly. I instead got up at nine o'clock when my other alarm went off telling me it was time to start school. So the getting up thing will have to start tomorrow instead. Except for the part where tomorrow my mom and I head out west to talk at some sort of mother/daughter retreat about some Africa stuff... I don't know exactly what, but my participation will be limited... I hope. I'm not so great at public speaking is all.

I don't know if I want October to go quickly or slowly. There's so much to do, and yet NaNo is so close I can almost taste it. I don't feel at all ready. I should fix that.

Finishing and Plotting

2009-09-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

One thing straight to another... Good news though (that I should have posted before)! On the... 22nd of September, I finished up my current project, at least as far as first drafts go. It came in at about 98k. Not bad for under two months, eh?

I've been sleeping in during the mornings since I finished, as a treat to myself. I'll have to get up again in October to start on my NaNoWriMo prep - aka NaNoPloMo. I've got a to-do list somewhere, I'll have to put it up in a while.

I meant to put up updates with my goals, didn't I? Sorry. Um... I don't like the Italian program we have right now, because despite the fact that it brags of lots of grammer, I don't like when it tell us - after we do all of the exercises. I don't know... I want to be told the rule, and then I'll be all right. I might fiddle with the different modes of it a bit, and we'll see how we do.

Writing's been going all right, since I managed to catch up and all. I'm just taking a nice break, like I said, and I'll put my nose back to the grindstone in October and get plotting.

Speaking of... It's not cheating if I do a total rewrite during NaNo, is it? I won't be saving a single scrap of manuscript from my previous novel, but I'll be using it basically as plot, so I should be all right, right?

Drama: A Rant

2009-08-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'll have an update on my writing in a moment, but first I'm feeling rather ranty, so I'm going to have a nice little rant about drama.

I'm not talking about plays and theater and such, that's perfectly fine. I'm talking about people in life who seem to feel like it's too dull and have to go around hacking people off so that things are harder for everyone, but apparently more interesting.

I find this most at internet forums. People will bring up something about a brand they like or don't like, and then everyone loves to come and join in a big fight about what's good, what's bad, and why. And the original issue brought up was something totally stupid. And all that gets done is people look like idiots, people get mad, and a point is maybe made that's been made many times over on that very forum. Who wants all that trouble?

I guess people on the internet who are apparently anonymous, so they like to cause all sorts of grief. But what can you do with a drama-free afternoon? You can go for a swim, you can talk nicely to friends, you can write a book (or at least work on writing a book, maybe not a whole book in an afternoon...), you can enjoy the product of the brand you like, and stop caring about the brand you don't like. And I'm sure it's better for your blood pressure. It's not boring. It's infinitely more productive than getting people mad who odds are you've never met before, and you'll never meet in your life. Why bring the grief?

-ahem- Ok, now I'm done. On to the update!

I started on that Monday, as I planned, and things went well until the... 11th of August. Then I started getting behind. It took me three days (the 11th through the 13th) to write two thousand words. After that, it took me another three days to write another two thousand words. I have reasons for the second set, what with stuff going on over the weekend, but still. I wrote a few extra words today, so I'm only (only, heh) five and half kays behind now. My challenge runs through September... I can catch up, right? Right?

At any rate, I'm going to do my best not to miss any more days, and to do plenty of extra to catch up. I've never been this far behind before though... I'm just glad this didn't happen in November.

The Start Looms...

2009-07-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

I think I really do like deadlines. This Saturday starts my personal writing challenge... 2k every day. I need to finish up my plotting so I can have a day or two of break before I start.

I had to put a few of them on the rack, but I finally got my main characters to talk to me, and I think I know a little more of what goes on in their heads. Enough to be getting on with anyway. I just need to set up my timeline then, and I should be ready.

Deadlines though... They're such good motivation for me with writing. My deadline for plotting is Friday, my deadline for writing this is every day, in a way. I have to write 2k every single day. That's my requirement. The goal is either 116k by October, or a finished story (preferably a finished story. 116k would a little long of a manuscript for me). Hopefully I can make it.

Plans

2009-07-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

It was about this time last year that I started training for NaNoWriMo. 2,000 words every day, except Sundays. Day of rest ya know.

Anyway, I've been thinking that it's about time I started with that again. Maybe I should plan for JulNoWriMo like I know people do... Anyway, all sorts of things got turned upside down in my head. I've been plotting on Crystal Glare so I can rewrite it, but now I'm thinking that if I wanted to do my other idea for NaNo, I would want to wait until afterwards to write on CG, since I excell at setting stories down and never picking them back up again, or when I do, not remembering what to do, despite my plots.

My brain hasn't been working lately. Usually I'd see the solution instantly. Since Crystal Glare is so long, why don't I do it for NaNo, and this other shorter piece as prep? I don't know what's up with me. My habits ran away, and apparently so did my brain. Anyway, I've set myself a challenge: Even with Sundays off, if I write 2k every day starting the 25th, I should be able to write 116k of story. That should be plenty for what plot I've got right now. So I'm plotting until that day, and then I set off on another insane pre-NaNo journey!