A Long Absence

Well, I fell off the face of the earth for awhile.

It was just, well, it wasn't a very good time for me back then. There was a lot of stuff going on and I was a bit depressed. And then so much time had passed that it seemed awkward to try to blog again. Plus I was never really good at it, always having trouble thinking of what to blog and what not.

But, NaNoWriMo is upon me (us!) again and I just couldn't stay away any longer. I remembered how much I enjoyed the blog at the times when it didn't feel like an obligation and thought, why not?

So here I am! NaNoWriMo will be here in eighteen days and I can't wait for it!

Also, as a wrap up for last years Nano, I barely squeaked by with 50,570 words. I hope to do better this year, but I'm also more busy this year so I'll just have to wait and see.

(Is anyone else about to burst with anticipation for NaNoWriMo or is it just me?!?!?)

:D

(Oh, and on a side note there was a lot of spam comments on my blog so I've changed things so that if you want to comment you've gotta do the image identification thingy. Sorry, I know it's annoying , but there was like hundreds of spam comments. Also, I apologize if I deleted any legit comments. There was so much spam it was difficult to really look at each individual comments.)

The Two New Puppies!

Say hello to Alistaire:

And Grimm:

The two new additions to the doggy family! They are only 11 weeks old but they are nearly as tall as their mother! Grimm is supposed to be my brothers dog but I think he's mine (after all, I'm the one who usually takes care of them :P). I absolutely adore them but sometimes they get on my nerves, they're more than a handful and they are constantly trying to play fight. It doesn't sound like play fighting to me though.

The three little dogs are still getting used to them. Giggles is the one who is the most friendly with them, he loves to play with them, but even he snaps at them sometimes. Honey B is more or less indifferent and Roxi (my girl :) wants absolutely nothing to do with them. Sometimes she'll just barely tolerate them if the come and lay next to her but that is the extent of her tolerance. She doesn't try to attack them or anything, just avoid them.

Here's a pic of the three little dogs:

 

The Chihuahua on the left is Honey B, the Pomeranian in the middle is Roxi, and the Pom on the right is Mr. Giggles

And while I'm at it, I got a nice pic of Bugs:

And I couldn't help but make a couple gifs of the puppies!

Alistaire walking.

Grimm waggin his tail :)

All the puppies (except Roxi, of course :P) together.

So there's the over abundant cuteness for the day! Hope you enjoyed! Now to go and cuddle them :D

Puppies!

(Pics at the bottom!)

We have the puppies! To be honest I was starting to think that they might have died because Bugs was starting to spend what seemed to be all day under one of the cars. It'd been a couple weeks since me and my dad checked out the cave and so this morning me and him went to go check it out. I was expecting to see and hear nothing just as before but we were going back into the brush, Bugs in front of Dad and him before me. And then we heard barking! There were three of them, a white one, a black one and a brown patterned one. They were outside the cave and dad got them and all of a sudden, we had puppies!

We brought them back and showed my brother and mom and they were so excited! So about an hour later my mom urged me to go back to the cave and see if there were any more puppies and so I did, taking Bugs with me. I didn't really think there would be any more but when bugs went into the cave I though there probably would be. She was down there for a minute or two before I began to call for her and she came back out and three more puppies spilled out behind her! I grabbed them all but I had four puppies in my arms (I had brought a puppy with me thinking that if there were any in the cave they might come out if they heard a puppy outside) and after getting a few feet away from the cave I set them down to rearrange them in my arms but the new brown one ran back to the cave and inside before I could catch him. I brought the two new white ones and the brown one I'd brought with me back to the house and set back out to get the remaining one.

Bugs went down in the cave again and the brown one came out with her but didn't come out far enough and ran back inside once it'd caught sight of me and my dad. But for the moment it was out we could hear another puppy whimpering inside. So there were two left!

Bugs wouldn't go near the cave after that but I finally thought to get Bugs on a leash and get her over there. She finally went down into the hole and out came the Brown one and I snatched him up. And there was a little white one behind him but this one was even more wary than her brother and she stayed down where I couldn't reach before going around the corner and deeper into the cave. It took two or three times more of Bugs going back into the cave before the white one came out far enough for me to snatch her.

So we have seven in total. One black one, two brown patterned ones, and four white ones! The black one and three of the white ones are female and the rest are male. They were five weeks old Tuesday and already eat hard food and drink water, though not exclusively.

I think I'll keep one of the brown ones and maybe a white one if I can manage it. My brother is keeping the male white one and I don't know which one my moms gonna keep.

Also, last night bugs wasn't around. I believe she went back to the cave so that makes me wonder if there are still puppies in there. . . I guess I'll have to try and find out!

Here's some pics of Bugs, Ghost (the father), the cave and the puppies!

(Warning: Many pics ahead!)

Bugs and Ghost

Ghost

Cave entrance with my Dad and Bugs

All the Puppies

Bugs with the Pups

Bugs Had Puppies!

I can't remember if I've blogged about my dad's dog (really more of a family dog) Bugs, a Border Collie/Labrador (I believe) mix. Well she started to hang around the shop about 3 years ago. She was a stray and my dad ended up bringing her home when it got really cold that winter and we've had her for about two years now. Anyway about two months ago she got pregnant.

We're hoping that this White German Shepherd/Chow Chow mix is the father. We call him Ghost. His owners a neighbor a ways down the street but we haven't met him so we don't know what the dogs real name is, but he comes to 'Ghost' just fine now. :)

So two months later I've been eagerly awaiting the birth of the puppies and she disappears suddenly. And I'm like "Oh, great. She went and found a place outside to have them. Well it was too dark to look for her yesterday so I looked for her today. I didn't find her under the shed or around the shop or near the edges of the corn field. I was starting to get really worried. And then this evening I went out to check around again and she comes trotting from across the street. I was so happy. You could tell that she had given birth cause her stomach was gone, she looked so thin compared to when I last saw her!

She drank a lot of water and ate some food and then me and my dad followed her hoping to find the puppies. Bugs lead us across the street into a bunch of really tall grass/bamboo like stuff that like 12' high. We pushed our way through the brush after her and she eventually lead us to the other side at the field. At this point we figured she wasn't going to show us where her pups were but then she went down the tall grass a few feet and plunged in again. We followed and ended up at a tunnel that went into the ground. And that's where her pups are!

But the most unfortunate thing is that we cannot get to the puppies to bring them inside, or even see them. The tunnel's too small to crawl into (though you can probably wiggle in a bit. I'll have to try to get my dad to do that :p and it goes down about two foot before turning a complete turn to the right so it would be impossible to see anything without squirming in there.

Needless to say I am completely annoyed by this turn of events. I have to wait even longer to see the puppies!

Now I just gotta figure out when Bugs will probably lead her puppies out into the world. . .


I might post later with pics of Bugs and Ghost and the hole.

Internets!!

Internet!!

My gosh it's been too long without internet. It felt like. . . like there was just not as much to do as usual. I hope I don't have to deal with that again. Downside is that there's only 1gb of speed so it takes a bit longer for some things to load than I'm used to. And videos? Omg, if it's not in the lowest quality setting I have to wait longer than the length of the video for it to load. But I can browse pretty okay so alls. . .okay.

In other news: We're halfway moved to the shop. We got all the important things, beds, fridge, other stuff that we use often. We pretty much just have the craft room, garage and other small spaces to move, and the garden dirt, then we're done! I can't wait till then, I hate, hate, hate! moving. And then. . . then we start putting up the walls for the new house in the shop. I can't wait until that either!

Anyways, while I was away from the internets an amazing thing happened! I read and finished (the finishing part is very important here) four, FOUR books! I read Crank by Ellen Hopkins, finished Shatter Me by Tehereh Mafi, which was awesome, loved it!, and read the last two books of the Hunger Games series! Which was really awesome as well! I can't believe that! It's been so long since I've read and finished any books and it feels so great :D

And then I found out that the Hunger Games movie comes out next month! I mean, I knew they were making the movie but I thought it would be coming out late this year cause they always seem to talk about the movies like two years before they actually come out. So I will hopefully definitely be seeing that movie in theaters when it is released if I can scrape a bit of money together.

Also, the no internet thing gave me a jump start on my art as well. I got some stuff in the works for my book which I think I'll post here soon!

So, till next time!

:)

Nano Day 5

So today was great! I went to another write in and wrote about 5k words today. I've got a total of 14,441 words, 10k of them in my story Sun Touched. Things are going pretty awesomely with Sun Touched really. I didn't know how far I'd get with the idea before I got stumped but ideas are popping up like crazy and the general idea of the plot, saving the world from a dying sun, is coming along nicely.

I'm really glad I switched from the Chronicles to Sun Touched because when I had been writing the Chronicles I was getting stumped and I wasn't even 5k into it yet. With Sun Touched? Bring. It. ON!

I'll go ahead and explain a little bit more about the characters (because I can).

Dalon Av Baen is 159 years old and lost his power a century ago when the sun began to die. His outlook on life is predominantly negative and memories haunt him. He's pessimistic, sarcastic, and I like writing him :) I view him as the main character of the story even though his POV time is split with. . .

Nara Belvene. A sun-touched around 20 years old. She is rather optimistic and this irritates Dalon to no end. She thinks she might be able to save the world and drags Dalon from place to place as she tries to figure out how to do this.

I like writing about both of them because while Dalon is very negative, Nara is more positive and I like the contrast between their POV's.

Anyways, I'm getting to a part of the book that will be exciting. I think I may be getting close to the first plot point. They're about to come upon the ruins of a sorcerer city. There will be some rather nasty surprises there, and some good ones too. But for some reason I can't wait to write about the nasty ones. I almost feel bad for my characters, they have such a cruel author. *evil grin*

My grandparents are coming to visit tomorrow (Sunday) so we'll see how much writing I get in. If I wake up early I might be able to get some writing in but somehow I don't think that will happen. Seeing as I'm writing this at 1 o'clock in the morning. Cause that's how I roll.

Goodnight everyone! Have happy dreams of making things unbearably difficult for your characters! :D

The First Few Days

Augh! I was wanting to post everyday but I didn't Dx Well, here I am now so. . .

Day 1, I went to the midnight kickoff. It was a bit subdued, probably cause it was midnight or something. I got in about 2.5k before I left at about 2:30am. And then after sleeping I wrote about 2-2.5k more. So all in all a pretty good day :)

Except, well, I started out writing The Chronicles of Siron like planned and then I had a sudden plot bunny about something totally different about the sun dying and stuff and now I'm writing that instead because it has a simple but - what I think is a - compelling plot. Compared to The Chronicles which is endlessly complicated and I'm very indecisive on many points of the plot.

Day 2, I wrote about 2.5k more. (what's with all the 2.5k's?)

And then today, day 3, I wrote nothing until the write in at a coffee shop near by, where I wrote about 3k and won both 15 minute word sprints by writing more than 700 words both times. That's, like, the most I've ever written in that amount of time. I usually average at about 1k every half hour if I'm really writing, but 700 every 15 minutes? That blew my mind.

Today's write in was fun. We all laughed about milking sheep and dolphin cheese XD It's nice to write with other wrimos in real life. I can't wait to go to more!

So my total wordcount so far is 9,189, so far so good!

As for my 'new idea' I'm calling it Sun Touched and here's the synopsis:

Dalon Av Baen, former sorcerer, lost his power 98 years ago when the sun began to die. Now with winters growing long and cold, he has done his best to blend with the others and forget his former life, waiting for his death. But when he meets Nara - a sun-touched - and her foolish ideas about saving the world, he reluctantly begins to have hope.


How's everyone else doing? I hope everyone's got good inspiration. Sending writing vibes your way! :D

My Dream Writers Desk

Last post I mentioned that me and my dad had built a custom desk for me. Well, it's finally finished.

First let's take a look at the desk I had before:



This picture was taken before my desktop was completed so my 27'' monitor isn't up there with a keyboard and mouse. Now imagine how little space there was up there :-p

Building my new desk took a lot of hard work. It all started in August. My birthday was coming up and I decided that I wanted a desk. So I got drawing my dream desk, looked at some pics online of some desk styles that I might like and stuff. There wasn't much to see really. The only things I found were the average plain jane/john desks that can be bought from staples or ikea. But I eventually found this:

That's a picture of Charles Dickens desk. I couldn't really make my desk look just like it, what with having a computer and all and plus it's not much bigger than the desk I already had. But I really liked the way the top was done with distressed wood and framed out. And the color.this was enough to get my creativity going.

So with that to go on I began to draw. I knew I wanted a space for my desktop and tower, speakers, some books and still have plenty of room for papers and my laptop and drawing tablet and anything else I might need.

This is what I drew:

('Tay Tay' courtesy of my mom)

I know it looks nothing like the Charles Dickens desk but this is what I needed.

Anyways I didn't get my desk on my birthday, things were too busy and then next month we were preparing for vacation so early this month my dad taught me how to use cabinet vision to draw up my cabinet and then the next day we went up and started building it.

I don't know about you guys but when I see pieces of wood on the floor like that I just can't see a cabinet. But  we started to put them together and got this:

And my uber awesome counter top!

(My dad is there for size scale :p)

Anyway, that was day one. The next day we built the face frames and and drawers and long(er) story short this is what happened:

It actually took 3 days to build because even after we got it home we still had to touch up the counter top and stuff.

And then the stain took like 2 weeks to choose and then apply. It was horrid having to do all that work and more than once I wanted to rush it. There was so much sanding and staining and with the cabinet so massive on top of it all it took forever!

But we eventually finished it (yesterday) and here's what it looks like!

It's so awesome but it gets better. Here's a pic of it with all my stuff on it:

So there it is! My dream desk from fantasy to reality. I can't wait to really start using it come next month during Nano.

And speaking of Nano, I'm going to a Nano kickoff party tonight. It'll be the first write in I've ever gone to so we'll see how it goes :)

Four Days Till NaNo!

NaNoWriMo is almost here!! Four more days! I can't wait :D

Actually, I still don't have a scene by scene outline yet, I have to do that in the next few days, and some of the parts of my plot are still fuzzy but I still can't wait. And guess what? I'm going to have a new desk!

I don't think I've ever mentioned this but my Dad is a carpenter and owns a cabinet shop so me and him went and built me a HUGE desk. It's got paper trays and a book shelf and a place for my desktop and room for my laptop to sit up there and spread papers everywhere. It's so awesome. Me and my mom are staining it right now and it should be done before the first of November. I can't wait! Right now the counter top, knee space, drawers, adjustable shelves, and the inside of all the cabinets are stained so there isn't too much to do. I'll post pictures when it's done :)

And for the first time, I will have distractions during Nano. It's a scary thing I haven't really had to deal with before. I've got violin and guitar lessons and then have to keep up with practicing them every day. The video game Assassins Creed Revelations is coming out next month on the 17th and I know I'm going to loose 3-7 days until I win it. And then, of course, there's Thanksgiving. And I know there's something else I'm forgetting but I can't seem to remember. . .

I'm also thinking of attending write-ins for the first time. I'm thinking of going to the midnight kick off party to start with but I'm not sure. . .

Well, can't wait! I hope this year will be just as fun as the last two! :D

ROW80 Update

Things are going really good! Actually better than good. I found something that totally makes world building easier.

I made a wiki about my world.

Yep, that's right. I wiki'd it.

I got the idea from the Wicked and Tricksy blog where they recommended tiddlywiki. And while I initially liked it I began to dislike the way it looked and worked and there was no way I could find to at least changed the color of the font. So I instead found Google Sites where you can make a pretty awesome wiki. And it's easy to link from one page to another and when you're writing you can instantly create a new page right from where your writing so you can link a word, even if there's no info on the page.

And every subject gets it's own page if you want it that way. And you can keep your wiki private to just yourself or share it with a handful of people you want to share it with. And it's free. That's always a plus ;)

So, it makes it so easy to keep all the information about your world, or even your plot, all in one organized place. No longer in journals where you have to endlessly flip through things and rediscover things you've forgotten. No more piling it in one or more computer documents. It's all in one place. In your world wiki! :D (If you can't tell, I absolutely love this thing :D)

And I've been keeping up with this August's Camp Nano, except for the first day, it sort of snuck up on me and I was all amped up about the pottermore thing. Well, scratch that, I'm still amped up about the pottermore thing :D

To find other ROW80 participants:

Pottermore!

Last night the first clue for the magical quill challenge went live on pottermore.com! It was 3 in the morning (for me) and I was just about to go to bed when someone on twitter said the clue was up and I checked and it was! The clue was 'How many breeds of owls mentioned in Eeylops Owl sign x 49! Hurry!' Luckily I had the first book right next to me so I flipped to diagon alley and found the owls (there are five), got the answer and answered it.

I started to freak out a little when I was redirected to sony.com but then I realized that must be where I should be going and calmed down. Before I could register I had to click on the magical feather whilst it was floating around a bunch of other ones. Anyways, I started to register and omg it said I was magical and that was like so awesome! Then when I got to the very last step and pushed continue it said to verify the two words. There was no two words. I clicked continue again. Still no two words. I even refreshed. Nothing.

So I freaked out completely before realizing that something must not be up to date and then jumping on a different browser and doing everything over again and this time - thank goodness! - the word verification was there! So after that it said I should be receiving an email soon so I happily went to my email and found nothing there and then waited. And waited. And then I started to freak out again thinking I must have typed the email wrong and so I went through the whole verification process again and put in a different email address and went and checked that one and there was no email so I figured there was just a lot of people and waited. I waited for over half an hour with no email and I was becoming resigned to the fact that I probably didn't get in that day. But since people on twitter were still getting their emails I waited, but without much hope.

And then I got them! I got the emails and I'm registered and I totally can't wait for the beta to open!

So, I'm now SwordQuill106 and ScaleEcho47! Yee! :DD

So last night was full of excitement, overjoy, freaking out, disappointment and anticipation! And now I know I should be tired since I didn't get to bed until after 4am but I'm still excited and I think I'm only running off of adrenaline.

But at any rate, I'm glad I got in last night instead of wasting away in front of the computer for the next week and ignoring August's Camp Nano and my Row80 challenge.

So, is anyone else pumped about Pottermore and trying to get in? Or have you gotten in already? So curious friends!!

Camp NaNoWriMo!!

Camp NaNoWrimo! I totally forgot to post about it cause things were happening. It was my brothers birthday yesterday and the day before was spent preparing for it so I didn't find much time to post about but anyway.

I'm so excited about this! I've written about 4k words so far. I'm getting stuff done and it's awesome! Gosh I've missed this! There's people back on the forums, there's word sprints going on at twitter (though I tend to miss most of them) and the energy's great.

For me though, Campnano seems a bit more relaxed and casual then Nano in November. I don't feel the need to push myself so far above and beyond like I did last year where for the first 11 days I wrote 5k words everyday. This time around I just feel like writing at a nice pace, making sure to keep with the minimum daily goal and not pushing myself too hard. I don't know if this sort of tactic will make for a better or worse novel but whatever, I'm going with it.

Also, I've got an outline for my story! I tried using index cards. It seemed sort of cool so I started writing down little sentences representing a scene or something on an index card. The awesome part is that I can move the cards around! Oh, that person should die later in the story? Alright then *move card* it's so easy. I used to read about people doing this sort of thing and moving their scenes around and I never imagined how anyone could possibly just move a scene. But now I get it. I didn't get it until I had some of the index outline written and was all like, 'Wait a minute. That shouldn't happen yet, it wouldn't make sense!' *move*

An odd thing is that I thought my story would be written in third person limited. There's a bit more freedom that way. But as I wrote I somehow slipped into first person without even noticing! When I noticed I was just like 'It's fine. It's a first draft. Maybe first person will be better for this story.' And then, somehow I slipped back into third person limited without noticing. It's really weird. Some parts sound awesome in first person and others in third person and I automatically just switch narrative POV. I've also noticed, reading over the first person things I wrote that sometimes things are in present tense and other times in past tense. That was really, really odd for me because I haven't hardly read any books in present tense except for the Hunger Games. And one time I thought about trying to write it and couldn't really figure it out properly. So. . . That's weird.

Anyway's I'm just going to go with it at this point since I don't really know what POV to use. Hopefully one of them will stick by the time July's over.

And now, I've got to get writing! Is anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo?

Pottermore! ROW80 Update 6/23

So this will be the last update until next month! I've got a little break but I feel like I will still do a bit of planning and plotting during the break so I can be more fit for writing next month. I can't wait! I think I'll accomplish much more in the next round than I did this one.

So. . . What does everyone think of the mysterious Pottermore so far? I'm still not quite sure. From what J.K. Rowling said in the video it sounds like a sort of interactive thing to accompany the books, with added content and new information about the Harry Potter world. It's still a bit hazy I think, what it's really going to be.

But even so I can't help but be excited! It sounds like it could be really cool, but I can't help but worry that it may not be as wonderful as I'm hoping.

Nevertheless, I can't wait for October. And perhaps, just maybe, I could be one of the people to get early access to Pottermore on July 31st. I'm at least going to try ;)

What is everyone else thinking about Pottermore? Are you excited about it? What do you think it'll be like?

Other ROW80ers here! Until next month!

Breakthroughs! ROW80 Update 6/19

Hey look, I remembered this Sunday!

This week has been important for my book, I've gotten back to reading my how-to writing books that I had stopped reading for awhile and made two major breakthroughs on the plot! Breakthrough #1 has to do with the villain and I'm super excited about it because it gives him much more depth than he had before and because it's just the sort of emotionally confusing should-I-still-hate-him? thing that I love to read! Breakthrough #2 has to do with a part of MC's character arc which I'm so glad that I thought of it! I mean, that element was already in there but before I wasn't really giving it the attention it deserved. Now I know it's one of the huge things that will evolve my MC from who he is to who he will become. Exciting stuff!

At the moment, I'm focusing less on the writing and more on the planning, so I'm not reaching my daily wordcount goal, but I feel that the plotting is more necessary at this point than the writing is. I feel that I just need to work out a few more key things before I can start writing in earnest and actually know the plot lines and how the story will progress, not having to 'pants' a huge chunk of it.

Sometimes I like pantsing, but I've come to find out that when I'm truly serious I like to know where I'm going before I start.

So, all in all I think it's been a good week for me!

Oh. And it seems that the next check in on Wednesday will be the last for round two of A Round of Words in 80 Days. Round three will start on July 4th! That'll be my first real round, seeing as I joined in round two right in the middle of it. :p

Find other ROW80ers here!

A Super Important Announcement!

Okay, I have an announcement!

Saying that just makes it seem like I shall say Very Important Things! It's kinda fun. Anyway.

As you may have noticed my posts have become few and lacking much passion. The only thing pulling me through right now is the ROW80 updates and this makes me sad. But I think I know what's wrong. Limiting myself to talking only about writing is what's doing it. Not to say I'm getting tired of writing about writing, it's just that there's only so much for me to talk about when it comes to writing. I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination so I don't feel comfortable giving out lots of writing advice, and just talking about my own writing all the time get's a bit boring.

So, I'm going to let my blog span some other subjects of interest. It won't be all about writing anymore, it'll be about other things I find interesting as well. It'll be more. . . personalized I suppose. And less limiting and constricting in the subjects I can write about because my blog will no longer be a writing only blog. It'll be a Taylor Roseberry blog.

I will still talk about my writing and stuff but not every single post will be about it.

I hope that you guys understand and I hope I don't lose any readers but in the end I think it'll be better for all of us. Cause reading a blog without any passion or interest in it isn't fun for anyone.

So, I don't know what the future will bring to my blog, but I hope that now that I have given myself the option to blog about other things, that my passion and interest for my blog will come back.

ROW Update 6/1

Hi! For some reason I feel excited, even though I don't know why. I probably shouldn't feel this way, seeing as I totally failed May Madness last month and haven't been keeping up with my ROW80 goals like I should be. Not to mention that I'm totally behind on reading the blogs I'm following. I really don't have a reason to feel excited.

Yet I am.

And my total wordcount for May Madness was 15,791. I suppose it's more words than I would have written without the challenge.

Today, I think, I'll have to lower my daily writing goal. 2,000 words is simply too much for me. So. . . I'm moving it down to 1,000. I'm still going to work the plot, world build and stuff for thirty minutes a day but only write 1,000 words. I  think I'll make up some little progress charts for myself, that stuff usually helps me stay motivated when I can announce on the chart that 'I did it!' so, yeah.

I hope everyone is having a good day this fine June 1st, and find themselves lighthearted for no apparent reason!

:D

The linky for other ROW80ers!

May Madness Update 5/13

Well I'm trying to make up for the missed days of writing. Going slow but we'll see I guess. I'm trying to work out some kinks in my story, mainly the way it begins and the main plot points and such. So yeah, I did start from chapter one again, and so far it's a LOT better than before. More exciting, more. . .everything! I'm really glad I decided to start from the beginning again. Good thing I did so before I'd written anything else. I have to remember that sometimes it's good to start over. And I can't wait to continue writing cause I stopped writing at an exciting part! Maybe I should do that more often, it'll give me more incentive to get writing everyday. ;)

I got to meet my violin teacher the other day and go through the books I'll be learning from. I have a violin lesson on Tuesday and a guitar lesson on Monday. Can't wait!

What is your opinion on starting your WIP over? Even when your, like, half-way through? Would you rather finish it and revise or not?

EDIT: A comment on my last post was lost! From Claire I think? I'm sorry it was lost! (Even though it's not really my fault. mumble grumble.)

Catch Up Month

Well, according to the chart on the right I am majorly behind on my goals. Like, way. I was hoping this wouldn't happen this year. Last year I didn't make my goal either and I really don't want to do that this year. So May is catch up month.

I'm going to call it May Madness! Cause, you know, that makes it sound cool n'stuff.

I'm not sure whether I should do like NaNoWriMo and aim for 50k, or go insane and aim for 100k. I think I'm leaning towards insane since I've got some major catching up to do. The game plan is to do a post on the first to mark the beginning of May Madness and then do an update every Friday until the end of May.

If I aim for the 100k that means 3,226 words a day. I think I need something challenging right now to get back into the swing of things.

If any one else wants to do this with me, go for it! Some friendly competition could be fun :)

How are your goals going? And do you like the new everything look?

My - Real - Map

Good news! I finally - finally! - have an official map for my world!

Drawing a map for the place you write about - a place that doesn't exist on earth - is really really hard, a lot harder than I had originally thought. The first map I posted on here, I thought that one was it. I had the whole entire world right there, and then I realised that the story wasn't going to happen over the entire world, and the map grew sour for my story. So I drew another one. Again, drawing the whole world and then choosing the specific place in the world the story would take place. Didn't work. I drew at least five maps before I gave up. And then, when thinking about my story one day, when thinking about the different countries and peoples, a map came to mind. I hardly even noticed that I was imagining the map of my world and it almost slipped away before I realized what I was seeing. This map was what I saw, and it's sticking. I can imagine the story taking place here, something that I wasn't able to do with all the others.

So, that's one thing taken care of :D

The map doesn't look more realistic like the first one I did, I colored it this way to make it look more map like, more like something you'd see in a book. I'll probably end up doing a satellite-esque one sometime though.

Does anyone else have this much trouble creating a map?

Something That's Not Writing

Three days ago I found a archery bow in the garage, long forgotten about. I managed to find some arrows and a target and have gotten back into archery. So, the last three days I've been doing little else than shooting arrows at a target and desperately trying to find a recurve bow for a reasonable price. I had somehow forgotten about everything else these last three days because of this. Including my blog and my writing.

This is what happens to me when something strikes my fancy. I seem to forget about everything else and devote my entire existence (for a few days or so) to whatever has interested me. And then the rest of my life starts to come back to me and I get into a new rhythm to accommodate my new interest along with the rest of my life.

So I apologize that I don't have anything else to say. I haven't written anything since my last blog post or done anything writing or reading related. And I don't think anyone wants me to suddenly turn this place into an archery blog :p

Please forgive me, I promise things will get back on track by Monday.