Programming Languages

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.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

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...

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.

Thoughts in the Middle of Editing

I've been ever so slowly line-editing CG, but all of a sudden yesterday it struck me that the beginning just needed plain rewriting. And the next thought is that I should just rewrite the whole stinking thing and turn it into a series, 'cause all of the stuff I can imagine putting in there would make it way too long for a single book. But I'm thinking I really want to just trash at least the beginning and restart. If I were to do that, I would probably set this aside and really worldbuild and carefully and fully plot the thing out. If I'm going to rewrite the thing I want to do it right. But the thing is, I was planning on line-editing and then coming back when I was a better writer (I'm hoping I'll get better) with maybe a little perspective and rewrite it then. But... now I'm wanting to rewrite it now. Which I don't know if I should do it or not.

Ouchy. Ok, so I think I might take today off and think about it (or not and let it just stew in my head), and make my decision later...I have another novel waiting to be edited, and I'd like to get to it sometime this year if possible, and to be honest I think it'll take less work than this monster. For one thing, it's shorter. For another thing, I plotted it better and managed to stay on track more with it.

Blechy.

My Bad!

-smacks self- I've been meaning all day to write a post and I've never gotten it done. I feel like I have to write how my line-editing went, so I'll just jot this down before I trot off to bed.

This morning I got up and printed off the first part of my book, and settled in with some different colors of pens to start marking it up. Red was deletions and grammar/spelling, Purple was for inconsistencies and fact changes, Green for overused words and phrases, and Blue for stuff that needs rewriting, whether it be something that doesn't sound right or something that person wouldn't say or do or think.

There's a lot of blue. And I'm sure there's more to be seen. Now, I edited on paper today, but I think maybe I'll try editing on the computer a bit, to see which I like better. Computer saves trees, but I wonder if it'll kill my novel...

I just have to remember to always ask: is that the very best way to say that?

And this is going to take several trips through each scene I'm sure. I've already gone through my first ten pages once or twice, and I keep finding new stuff. I need to put it into the computer soon though. Tomorrow!

Dun, dun, DONE!

So! This morning I FINALLY finished writing in the scenes that needed to be writing in. So now I can begin line-editing. I think.

Actually, there might be a few more spots that need to be redone or maybe split up and stuck in other places. But I don't want to bother with that now. I think I'll just deal with that when I come to it.

But now I come to a billion choices all at once. Do I edit on paper or on the computer? What exactly do I look for? Do I highlight or underline what's wrong first and then go back and correct it later? Or do I just correct it as I see it? At what point could I give it to my friends to beta-read? On and on it goes.

Let me see how much time I spend thinking about this I can count as editing.

Almost done!

I'm just about finished writing in my missing scenes. It's taken me long enough. I mostly just have to finish this one up, write one more that shouldn't be too long, and then I think I can start line-editing.

Which scares the snot outta me. I'm not the most grammatical person, and I'm little afraid of what I'll skip over deciding "oh, that's good enough." Or maybe I'll just end up rewriting the whole thing scene by scene when I read it's awfulness with a critiquing eye. I suppose that's what multiple passes are for. These things still scare me though.

Off to the internet to read about line-editing!

Thoughts on EdMo and Editing

So now that I'm a few days into NaNoEdMo, I thought I'd post a little of what I'm experiencing and what I think about my editing so far (as if I haven't talked about that at all).

So far things are going all right. I've gotten two hours done every day so far, and right now I'm 1 hour and 19 minutes ahead of schedule. It's strange going by hours instead of words or something like that. It's strange...usually I have no problems sitting still for two hours to write in the mornings, but now that I'm paying attention to the clock I find myself turning into a little ball of cramped-ness after an hour. I don't know, I probably get up around then when I'm writing anyway to get a snack or something, but I have to think now to stop my watch to avoid cheating.

I'm still working on writing in scenes, but I'm getting close to being done with that I think. I have about... two and a half scenes, not counting the epilogues? If I can finish that up this week, I'll be happy.

And then I have one more decision to make...I'm thinking of moving the very beginning of my novel to a little past the beginning and splitting it up into flashbacks or internal thinking flashback-type-things (like a flashback without the flash). That would involve yet more rewriting... but I'm thinking it would make things flow a little better. You know how someone said that to find the beginning of you novel you just rip off the first 30 pages and what's left is where you should actually start? I guess that's the kind of thing I need to do.

But I want to start line-editing! It would make a mile-stone for me. Of course, if I work on the first few scenes and then end up deleting them and splitting them up and putting them elsewhere, I'll be kicking myself.

I guess I have until I finish the rest of these other scenes to decide. And pondering this counts as editing time, right?

Let the Games Begin!

Can editing be considered a game? Anyway, I got up at 4:45 (eepers! That's early for me at least) and started to continue to fill in the scenes. It seems like having an aim definitely helps. I had no troubles getting up this morning. Maybe it helps I had definite timeframe that I could edit this morning.

After I got two hours in I went early to church, and now I'm home...messing around on my computer. I should see about making myself edit some more today. Buffer = good. And I don't actually know how much I need per day to make it. Let me think about what math that would take...

I don't know why that's always so hard for me. 1 hour 36 minutes per day, so I've already got a little bit of buffer. Sweet.

And now I go dashing off to make a spreadsheet to stay on track! AWAY!

Monthly Summary

Summary...I guess that's the right word. I keep wanting to use synopsis too, which I'm not so sure if it's as fitting.

• Grow closer to Christ - Again, it's hard to say as I'm going through my growth whether I'm actually growing or not, but youth group started up again this month, and it's been a wonderful experience. We've had more people than I ever remember before there, and things have changed a lot (for the better I believe).
  
• Win NaNoWriMo 2009 - I still have my inkling, though it's in no way set in stone yet. Waiting for November to come and scream at me a bit more.
  
• Edit my 2007 NaNo - I think it's coming along... NaNoEdMo starts in March, so I should have at least 50 hours with that. Surely that's enough to finish writing in those scenes and start line-editing?
  
• Edit my 2008 NaNo - Hoping to start on this one by about June. I'll start as soon as I finish my '07 NaNo for sure.
  
• Learn Italian to a conversational level - Going to do lesson 10/15 next week... Maybe I can finish sometime before the end of April? It's hard to say sometimes. And of course that's no guarantee that I'll be able to carry out a conversation with anyone.
  
• Learn at least one fancy musical piece for flute - Um...not picked out yet? Still?
  
• Get up early (6 or earlier) at least 60% of the time - I dunno about this one... I might have already missed too many days, and I've totally failed to keep track as well. I might just mark this one missed.
  
• Learn to drive (driver's ed, permit, restricted, license) - No change in this one, unfortunately.
  
• Get to the point on my flute that I'm capable of playing in church - And I need to practice my flute some. I've barely played it this month. Although when I did pick it up a bit ago I somehow magically had vibrato, which I never had managed before. Maybe the ocarina I got is helping me out (I have been playing that thing quite a bit).

So, my plans for March are mostly EdMo, maybe get another driving lesson, keep attending youth group and having daily quiet time, actually practice my flute, keep going on my Italian. Maybe things can settle into a bit of a routine. A good routine.

Breaking

So, with all of like 3 days left before NaNoEdMo, I've finally decided to stop feeling bad about the editing I'm not getting done and take a break before it starts. And hopefully then I'll be able to be focused and such and get some work done.

Or maybe I'll just stay re-obsessed with Twitter and get absolutely nothing done whatsoever.

-pokes new Twitter widget-

To Break or Not to Break?

So EdMo starts in about a week. And hopefully I can get my rear in gear during March to get the hours in.
But the question is: should I take a break, relax for a week, before going at it with a fresh mind? Or do I try and finish up these scenes so I can work on prose-polishing next month? It's so hard to decide...

Committed

Well, next month is NaNoEdMo, and now I'm all signed up. I think I do want to try and have this storyline finished up, so I can be line-editing through March. Or maybe not... I'm not sure how much longer this is gonna take.

I need to clear some stuff off of my plate. I have Crystal Glare, and my '08 NaNo waiting for me, and then I have that start of a fanfic going, and then that other story I was working on before NaNo, and now somehow I stopped thinking and went and decided to do a big collab story with a friend of mine.

And none of this is going to be short. The thing I have closest to being done is my pre-NaNo story, but I haven't been working on it 'cause I've been editing as much as I can. I might try and finish it up so I can leave it alone and stop worrying about it.

But March approaches...

BFS Update

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

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

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

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

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

I like my ocarina though.

Second Thoughts

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

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

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

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

Getting My Rear In Gear

And Christmas with my family. Anyway, title first. I've been slacking terribly with my editing, but once I get home I'm putting myself in first draft mode for a while. One scene every day until I write all of these scenes that I need to.
I like first draft mode. It's familiar. Anyway, once that's done, I can start the micro-editing.
And this does tie in to Christmas with extended family, cause we had that today, and I got a few writing books. "Is There a Book Inside You?" by Dan Poynter and Mindy Bingham, and "100 Ways to Improve Your Writing" by Gary Provost.
At any rate, starting probably the 2nd, I'm getting up again and writing until I get this thing done. I want it done ASAP so I can move on to my newest NaNo. And then I also have to work on my other BFS Goals. I think I'll try and do a monthly post on my progress, so I don't forget.
And now I go to read my books.

I Have Non-Motivation...

Or something. Just today is the first day I managed to actually get up early since...I guess December 10th. Blech. I managed to get a little writing done, but not very much. How come I'm still so unmotivated? It's getting quite annoying really.

In other news, it's time to be thinking about Big Fun Scary again! I had kinda forgotten about it there for a while...every once in a while it passes through my head, but I rarely did anything about it.

Anyway, as a refresher, here's my goal list (summaries of how I did included):

♪Grow closer to Christ: I'm trying to think of where I was at the beginning of this year...I think I've grown this year in that way. We had one of the most awesome mission trips ever this year, to Alaska. On our day off in the week we were up there for, we went to a glacier park, and there especially I noticed the incredible beauty of nature again. God's creation is just amazing. I kind of wish we didn't have to go home. I need to get us to go back up there with the whole family for a vacation or something. But I've grown some I think...I certainly hope so. If I haven't grown closer, which way have I grown?

♪Learn Italian to a conversational level: Um...not really. I tried, failed, and forgot about it until recently when I got a friend to partner up with me. So I've started again, and things are going better. So...goal for next year: finish up the course I have in Italian, and not forget it.

♪Learn to sightread on the piano: This one is kind of hard to quantify, and I didn't do it in December, so it's hard to know. I'm certainly not at the level of my piano teacher for sight reading, but I think I actually can do it now. Even when I play a late intermediate song (which is all I can play usually right now anyway), it has some semblance to the way it's supposed to sound. So I guess I accomplished it. Playing out a hymnal was kind of a subgoal here, and it's...I dunno whether to say accomplished or not. It's certainly not finished, since it requires more experience, but I can kind of do it...

♪Finish my CSS course: Uh...not really....kinda forgot about it.

♪Finish my JavaScript course: Also not really. Also forgot about it.

♪Post in this blog at least once a week: Anope. Even with the weeks I had set that I could miss, due to various things, I didn't do it. Whoops.

♪Write at least twice a week: Also anope. I've been writing quite a bit recently, but after the beginning of the year I fell off for a while. Oh well. Maybe writing twice a week is a lot anyway. I do need some days off.


So even if I didn't win, I learned quite a bit over the year anyway. Now I just have to think about next year's goals...I think I know of a few, but I kind of like have a good list. Anyone else who reads this thing do BFS? How'd you do?

Editing Day...um...10 I guess?

I don't see the cold kitty today...but now there's snow on the ground.

I managed to meet yesterday's goal today (which became today's goal, since I can't seem to even write one stinking scene), and now I can send my characters merrily on their way with sidetrack averted. I even managed to have a character take note of a thing or two that I forgot to have taken note of in the first draft. I had a good enough day I guess.

I've also run through my Italian flash cards a few times, all really simple words so far. I started over when I finally got a friend to learn with me. Simple things I need to know like per favore and grazie and the like. I have to know to say please and thank you! And then there are the personal pronouns in the stack too. If I could just remember all of them. I know so many words in English, why can't I remember just a few extremely simple words in Italian?

There's a Very Cold Cat Outside...

There's a little cat (full grown I think, but still quite small) that comes around and we feed it, so I guess it's our cat. She usually comes by at about 6:30 in the evening, but she's here this morning, outside with the cold and the wind, asking to come in, but we're not supposed to let her in really, only if we're holding her the whole time, which she doesn't really like...

And what's with me and post titles that end with ellipses? Anyway, I'm setting a minimal goal for myself this morning: I just want to finish the scene that I'm writing in. That's all. And at this rate I won't even get that done. The poor little kitty.

So slow...

I'm still writing in just one of the scenes that needs to be put in...I can't seem to do anything quickly lately. I can't just get out of bed when my alarm goes off, and I can't seem to focus on the computer. I don't know if I need some time off maybe, or if I just need to get over it and work. This kind of thing happens to me once in a while I think, but I can never remember how I deal with it. Eventually I just get back into the groove, or something. I wish I could remember.