She's Leaving!

Alright, we all know those fabulous stories of Hollywood nannies who are taken on vacation, and flown all over the world to watch some celebrity's kid- my best friend IS ONE OF THEM. Okay, she's not being flown to some deserted island, anddd she's only babysitting for her aunt, BUT, she IS being flown down to MIAMI just to watch her cousin. How awesome is that? She's flying just for a babysitting job. Why can't we all be that lucky?

I don't like it!

I tried. I thought, "Streamlined! Simple!" but I just don't like it. I thought that my new layout would be nice, slightly soothing (not like, *snore* soothe, but, Oh, this is cute! And not neon! soothe.) It's boring. So, I am going to change it. *Stomps foot in determination* Right now, I'm going to stick to a general (probably widely used) template, but in the future, watch out! The next will WOW, I assure you. Some things to look out for:

My favorite (FREE) programs for Mac OSX
A book review of one of my new favorite novels EVER
Update on MY novel
Annnnnnddddddddddd

More of my life in general.

:)

Miss Marple at Glamis

My English course for this year is Shakespeare. So far, we have covered Henry V, Hamlet, touched on a few sonnets, and now are working on Macbeth, a work of which I am incredibly familiar. At the end of each play, we are assigned a paper or project. One of the options that I have, is to write a fictional story involving the plot of Macbeth, and what would happen if a famous detective visited the castle in order to solve the murders of Duncan and/or Banquo. I have chosen the fabulously British Miss Marple as my detective! This is why, instead of more educational tasks, I am going to be watching Miss Marple DVD's, and reading a few of the works by the creator of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie, instead of, say doing another lesson of French. (I can order coffee, so what else is there?) Isn't the castle lovely?

Haiti Relief

Anyone with a television, internet or radio knows about the dire situation in Haiti- this is not a place for me to beg for support, I'm merely supplying a really quick and easy way to help out. If you read regularly, you'll notice the new red cross image with "HAITI" written across, located on the upper right side of the page, in place of the poll. Clicking on the cross leads directly to the Red Cross website's PayPal donation page. All you need to do is type in your donation amount and PayPal account information, and you're all set! Keep praying for this nation and her people as they work on rebuilding their lives, and finding lost loved ones.

-M

My 2009 Accomplishments

Alrighty readers and bloggers alike, finally, I’d like to talk about my accomplishments for 2009- that way I can stop this from hanging over my head, and move on to more fun things, such as my sore lack of cash, or my mind-boggling, dizzying choice of colleges, all of them swimming around my head, saying, “Pick me!” Ultimately, it will all come down to cost... I’m in a finance class for school, and while I don’t like limits, Student Loans are not going to be part of my “college experience” if I can help it. Ramen Noodles yes, high interest rate payments lasting until my 30’s or beyond, no. If I was going to medical school, law school, or maybe something in engineering, perhaps loans would be more of an option. But I’m not a science or a math person, and even though I’ve been told by many people manymany times that I should consider law, my,“But that’s not practical!” mindset would not work well in the courtroom. I want to write in some capacity, somehow, which is not a clever cover for, “I want to get rich quick!” MOOOVING on!

My 2009 Accomplishments

1. Seattle. This was a big step for me- moving away from home for roughly four months, leaving behind my family friends, and four, two day old puppies. I was forced to make challenges, balance some form of budget, and push grocery carts in 108 degree weather. But was it worth it? Absolutely.

2. Kennedy! Kennedy, for those who may not know is my 13” White MacBook laptop. This is important largely for one reason. When I was twelve or so, I told my friend Abbey that I had three goals in life. (Hi Abbey! Was it three? I think it was three!) The first, was to go to American Girl Place- which I did in July of 200something (around 3 or 4). The second goal was to buy a laptop. I thought it was SOOO cool that there were these really tiny computers that you could CARRY WITH YOU! It took five years, but she is proudly what I type on today! Number three was to go to Hawaii, but that really isn’t something that I want anymore... Think Europe!

3. March. Until mid to late 2009, writing a novel was not something I had ever thought of doing myself. I’m a reader, always have been, always will be. Sure there were ideas in my head, but I never actually thought to myself, “Hmm! Lets write a novel today!” and actually wrote. But come September, when I accidentally stumbled upon NaNoWriMo via Facebook (yes, Facebook) I walked into November with an idea, no plot, minimal sanity, and lots and lots of coffee. 30 days later, I had a novel.

4. Macbeth! Shall I compare thee to a horror film? A Sudoku puzzle? Thou hast the capacity of a challenging terror, not a terror which cannot be overcome, but one conquered like a knightess, plunging her gleaming silver sword into the breastplate of the fire breathing and bone crushing dragon, ending the sorceress’s life and saving the kingdom. I greatly enjoyed my reign as “The Second Witch,” stumbling through Shakespeare’s complicated, albeit beautiful script, emerging whole with an excess of hairspray still stuck, streaks of fire in my tangled and sprayed mane, a cast of colorful characters I am proud to call friends, and an experience to last from here to eternity.


5. McBolinelli Sweep. This was my third campaign, and I had a blast! It was an accomplishment for me, when several staff members asked for my opinion on lit drops and the like… I also managed to start March during that period, and survive a bus breakdown in really cold weather.

6. Blood donation. If you know me, you are probably aware that I’m not a huge fan of needles. I don’t pass out at the sight them or anything, I just don’t care for long sharp pointy metal objects being injected into my arm to play a modern metal and plastic equivalent of a vampire. Nevertheless, I also know that blood donation is important, and so I walked in, and shortly after walked out, minus some blood, but without dizziness or nausea... I’ll be donating for a second time this week, in fact.

So those are my big accomplishments for the year… There are so many others, but those in particular are events that I’m really proud of. I have several posts coming up that are pre-planned, but I would love to hear what you think, what you want to know, or want to ask me! Comments absolutely make my day, but @ replying me on twitter gets my attention, and I check my formspring pretty regularly. I know you’re out there, readers!

The Novel Website!

I recently threw together a website for March, just something simple and book focused. You can find that page at http://marchthenovel.weebly.com

Go ahead! Visit!

Resolutions.

I will be quite honest and say that I don't really like resolutions. I like the thought of making choices that will affect your year, but I feel as if they are set in stone so that you are set up with almost an expectation to fail. Instead, I believe in dreams. Some of the dreams are much more attainable than others, but dreams are also (I believe) passions. I think that following a passion is always more enjoyable and easier than following something you have resolved to do. So, in no particular order, these are three of my dreams (some of them more goal-oriented than others) for the year 2010.

1. Read my Bible daily. I have found that constantly having the creator of creativity and designer of love floating in my brain, I am more capable of being a decent human being.
2. Edit my novel! If I haven't mentioned it in the past, my writing/editing schedule is as follows:

January: Write, read, edit, rinse, wash, repeat.
February: Let A and B (real people) read it as is.
March/April: Work on their thoughts/comments/suggestions. Write more, not die.
May-Mid June: More outside critique/work. Receive proof copy from CreateSpace
July: support my coffee habit
August/September: Pass proof around to friends, take criticism, work with a local writers group.
October: (This is probably my biggest dream for the entire year) Submit to an agent.

I should also mention that I am hardly expecting any of this to go according to plan. Life happens, which is largely why I believe in dreams. For all I know, my editing could take a bajillion months, and October will get here REALLY fast.

3. Turn old. I will turn 18 in 2010! This means that I can buy things off informercials, and get cigarettes, (no, I don't smoke, and I never will- I'm just saying) and I'll be LEGALLY able to get a credit card (not that I would, OR my mother would let me) and other..schnazzy things like go and... Whatever. I'll be legal. Enough. Now you may be thinking, "How would she avoid becoming "old?" That process involves staying alive through school and novel editing, a feat I hear is increasingly difficult!


Well, that's it for now! I have a list of accomplishments to post, as well as a LOAD more dreams, but most of them are silly, frivolous things like, "drink more coffee!" which will happen no matter what. Please keep reading, please comment, please reply, ask me questions on formspring, confirm in my mind that I'm not just talking to empty cyberspace.... Happy 2010!

This is honestly the longest time I've gone without posting in awhile...

But I have a very good reason- watch and see!



More soon!

Poll!

I added poll- tell me what you think! :D

When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won, ‘ere will be the set of sun.

[This post is long overdue, I realize. But I've been so busy lately!]

I hate to say that this has been an unnaturally good experience, because every show or production should (in my opinion) aspire to run as smoothly as this production of Macbeth has. But the facts are that we started out doing a production of Macbeth, which should doom you there and then. But instead of prickling thumbs and danger around every corner, the biggest drama was in fact not on stage, and had to do with some idiotic production students who happened to decide that they wouldn’t show up for tech rehearsal. Said students were quickly replaced, and the production proceeded smoothly. Nobody was injured that I was aware of, there was one case of swine flu, which the actor recovered from in two days- and this was still in the rehearsal stage! There were no real fights, and the entire cast got along well. I had an amazing experience, and hope to work with the same group again sometime. :)

Curling up with mom, a cup of peppermint espresso, and the movie White Christmas. :)

Timeless Thursday

I know that I did music last week, but this week is worth it just as much! Simon and Garfunkel are hands down fabulous. Not terribly unlike The Beatles, they have paved the way for music makers around the world. Here is one of my favorites of their songs, (mentioned in my novel, actually) called The Sound of Silence. Ignore the Portuguese.

Writing.

NaNoWriMo is an amazing goal for any writer who wishes to one day write a novel. That novel may be something that they write and then put away in some folder to stumble upon in a few years, or it may be something that they will continue to write, edit, and eventually publish. I hope that my novel will be more of the latter. That being said, I have learned so much from NaNoWriMo about the REAL novel writing process, and this is very limited knowledge, from only one month of real hard core writing... Take it from me, the process is not glamorous or sweepingly romantic- there are moments of course, but those occur on the inspiration roller coaster high, most of the time when you’re sitting in a cozy cafe, coffee in hand and Frank Sinatra softly playing in the background. That’s about the time that you blink, and see that your hair is frizzy, you smell like something slightly burnt, and notice that you have a fantastic 154 words, with only 99,846 words left. You are small, and trying to achieve a goal that many others have tried and failed ahead of you. On the good days you sometimes hear the ghosts of authors past cheering you on, “What’s that Tolkien? Lewis? Austen?” and then other times you just hear the washing machine and the car alarm going off in your neighbor’s driveway.
I learned that writing is largely a process, and less of an inspiration explosion going off inside your head, trickling out through your fingertips. It often times means sitting down somewhere relatively comfortable (or uncomfortable, whichever you might prefer) and writing about your character’s irritation with Zombies (oh, you had better believe I did) or maybe perhaps coming up with a model of your character’s bedroom, which will allow you to accurately describe every detail as it’s right in front of you, but not accomplish any real purpose at all. (Oh yes, I had a productive month!)
It’s hard, and sometimes really, really sucky, and you will absolutely NOT want to write any more.
The process is also REALLY REALLY LONG. Yes, I wrote the bulk of a novel in 30 days, but I still have tens of thousands of words to write before I even complete the first draft.
In movie terms, (who doesn’t love movies?) the first draft is the equivalent of some dude (or dudette) thinking, “hmm. I like this idea that just popped into my mind!” and then scribbling that idea on a napkin, or whatever is handy. The information written on the napkin is changed, edited, unused, tossed away, before it becomes a usable building block. That is the first draft. From that napkin scribble, plot, characters, and a story need to develop; this is REALLY where you no longer recognize the brief note that you wrote down some time before. There is then the arduous process of pre-production, producing the napkin scribble for the screen, finding directors and producers, and people to play your napkin scribble characters, shooting the film, and editing, and... it’s a lot.
The biggest question I seem to be getting lately is “when can I read it?” (it being my novel) My response is to laugh, look down at my napkin, and laugh some more.

Formspring!

Hey everyone- I now have a formspring! What is a formspring? It's a question box which allows you to ask me anything.... Literally. :) Check it out at http://www.formspring.me/theknittingnerd

Timeless Thursday! ABBA edition!

Here is your Timeless Thursday post, even though it's appearing on Friday... :)

ABBA!

I'm slightly preoccupied, so Timeless Thursday will be posted on Friday.

The Sound of Silence

SO. I finished my novel. ... ... ... It's kind of funny to me how I can write 50,000 words about something relatively specific, and yet here I am with an entire blog at my disposal, the world simply at my fingertips, and I can't think of much to say. I have a lot of school obligations, so please forgive my lack of posting- I should be back to full strength by the holidays. Happy December!

At the TGIO party! :)

The second batch of info!

Here are some other facts that you might enjoy!

There are six guys mentioned in my novel by name, four of them have a name that starts with the letter 'J'. I only recently realized this, and it was not intentional.

The official "final" scene that I wrote yesterday (the scene that put me over my 50,000 word goal) involved Chinese food, tubes of cookie dough, and the movies Pretty in Pink, starring Molly Ringwald, Breakfast at Tiffany's, with Audrey Hepburn, Sleepless in Seattle, with Meg Ryan, Vertigo, with Grace Kelley, and While You Were Sleeping, with Sandra Bullock- the scene is only about 200 words long, and is towards the beginning of the book. I actually wrote the ending of the novel, or what I think is the end of the novel, early on in the process, within the first or second week of NaNoWriMo.

My novel is comprised of two dream sequences which make absolutely no sense, a road trip to the beach, a bus ride to Washington, DC, countless emails, it mentions football more than I'm quite comfortable with, and a portion of the book is set about five miles from my house.

One of my dogs is also thrown into the novel exactly as she is, simply renamed.

Roughly 166,700 people signed up for NaNoWriMo this year, and a whopping 32,000 people won, roughly 19% of all participants, a NaNoWriMo all time high!

*collapses*

So, I did it. You cannot imagine the relief and sheer joy that I felt when I looked at my word count and saw my total of 50,011 words, which came out to be 268,544 characters. I also have some other statistics that my readers, who or whomever you/they may be might enjoy.
March was written in three states. I began in Virginia, wrote some in South Carolina, but the bulk in North Carolina where I also technically finished the novel for NaNoWriMo.
There are at least seven more scenes in my head that need to be written down that I ran out of time for tonight. There are some not TOO gaping plot holes, but I definitely have more to do!
I wrote March on my iPod Touch, my Cell Phone, and my laptop. Very little of it was written on paper, I think I type faster than I write, but as a whole, writing it out took too much time to type up later, thus the cell phone and iPod.
I have gained more than 30 twitter followers from NaNoWriMo participation, and finally for tonight,
I have thoughts of a sequel. :)