November Flies By

Well, as many of you may know, I did NaNoWriMo this year. What you may not know, however, is that I lost. Badly.

I'm not grouching about that, though. I set into NaNoWriMo with a purpose in mind: Get my book rolling again. I fulfilled that goal. And I enjoyed it. Writing new scenes is so much more fun that rewriting scenes from previous starts. Writing a scene from the beginning has started to rival the pleasures of editing.

Sure, I didn't even introduce the main conflict of the story. But I got pretty ice close. I didn't write more than 12,000 words in the course of the month, but I reached 20,377. I never fulfilled my daily quota, but I did 1232 words in one day.

And that isn't even the best part. This is the best part:

Sarah (reading my book): I am not weeding. I am perusing an excellent book.

Though the first line only made sense to the two of us, the second line planted the seed of warm fuzzies in my heart. In the course of November, my book transformed from something so hopeless I would cry about it, to something that Sarah enjoys to read. That is what I got out of November. Characters I hadn't known existed leaped from my fingertips. Bridges were burned (figuratively), main characters were tortured by bitter enemies (really) and chunks of time I thought would bore readers turned into awesome skirmishes.

I didn't make Mom cry with sweetness. (The ultimate goal.) But I don't think a main character who allegedly cares for no one and swears incessantly at those closest to her is going to make Mom cry... yet. Neither is a twenty year old war general escaping from enemy camps. I didn't make Mom cry, but Lia's callous quips made her laugh. I'm happy with that.

My writing still isn't quite where I want it to be yet; I had to rewrite several out-of-character scenes and spent full days with my face buried in my hands, trying to figure out scene to scene inconsistencies. But I did it. And I loved it.

May I just end with saying that I am satisfied.

Actually, I'm not. I'm EXHILARATED!

I Believe In Fairytales...

And that would be why I write them. But that is not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is this gorgeous piece of artwork:


Stunning. Amazing, flattering and wonderful, Lisa made this banner out of my picture and didn't tell me until tonight! I just about died of ecstasy when I saw it and requested permission to post it here. As you have probably assumed, she gave it and I am now writing a blog post in favour of her awesomeness.

Lisa. Is. Amazing. Did you hear that? LISA IS MIND-BOGGLINGLY AWESOME! And I thank her here for being my friend. Thank you, Lisa!

Not As Long As It Looks

Seriously, it isn't. I know that this blog post looks terribly loooooooong... but it isn't. The length lies in pictures, and you don't even have to look at the pictures you don't like, so I predict it won't take longer than five minutes to go through the whole thing. (Unless you pause to have conniptions over adorable animals, that may take some time.)

Thursday before last, went to the Calgary zoo with our homeschooling group. (Or, well, I went. Lizzie changed her mind at the last minute.) And did I say that the Olivers' backyard was a photographer's heaven? It was only the Garden of Eden, the zoo is heaven. (A heaven that I could only spend four hours in, unfortunately.)

I went through two sets of batteries in those four hours. And I got 100 good pictures out of it. Here are the 29 pictures that I painstakingly picked out of the pile of tempting options to put on here:

My first successful attempt at: 1) taking a picture of a bird 2) having a sharp foreground and blurry background

My first truly successful attempt at a silhouette

Ooh! Birdie!

Awww...

Not entirely sure what this thing is, but it's cute.

I don't know about you, but I definitely believe that zoos encourage laziness.

"Hey! I can touch my nose with my tongue!"

(Conceited sniff.) "Well, I just won a scholarship."

"Huh?"

So gloriously pristine.

I know gorillas are probably horribly violent animals, but doesn't he look sweet? (Happy squeal)

Run, run, run, little piggy.

Stomping Prohibited

I always knew they were evil

My Book....

It has come to my attention that many of those who read my blog know practically nothing about my book. Before, I tried to be noble and talk about things other than myself (no, I actually just didn't want to take the time to try to explain it all) but I have decided to stick my mind to it and write this blog post.

Here I go:

And now I want to say something silly. Just for the sake of it. But that will make you irritated with me. So I will just point out that I format my sentences the same way I format them on chat. That means short. And incomplete. And way too many periods. It causes dramatic effect. To my mind, at least. (Don't worry, I use punctuation in my book.)

Anyway... I started this book when I was nine. Yeah, it stank. I would seriously post my first start on here except that it contains major spoilers. I really didn't know how to format a story back then. Or create a character.

No worries, my writing ability has developed immensely. To this day, I have been through nine starts - the longest was like thirty manuscript pages - and I am currently on my tenth. I feel quite sure that this is THE DRAFT. THE DRAFT that will actually be finished because my writing ability has not changed much in the last year.

It is coming slowly. I started on February nineteenth of this year. I am now at 8, 162 words. But my pace is picking up. I wrote scene six in one day, 782 words. That is a record for me. (Unless you count NaNoWriMo, which was awesome, but really didn't count. I wasn't going for quality there. It was helpful, though. I now know the characters of that book.)

And now, I will stop with the explanations of my failures and tell you about my darlings. My books. I currently have five planned and three more ideas, two of which will be jointly written with Sarah because we came up with them together and she loves me. We are best sisters. And best friends. I don't see how other people make a distinction there.

All my current books are written in the same world. Which is definitely not ours. This post is dedicated to my Work In Progress, simply called Lia.

Before you exclaim in shock at such a pathetic name... no, it is not permanent. I have been through several names, they no longer work for the mood of the story. The best suggestion I now have is Thrice Bound, which makes hardly any sense but sounds cool. For now, it is Lia.
Lia is the only of my current books that is not a fractured fairytale. It is about a girl named - you guessed it - Lia. (And this is a book written mainly for girls, even if I commonly force Erik to read it; just to make sure a boy could enjoy it, if he set his mind to it.) Lia is a talented eighteen year old rebel and, before you think that is so cliche, know that she has been raised in a rebellion to be a killing machine.

Lia was brought up by Talen, one of the nine Eldests who rule the rebellion with absolute authority, subject only to the will of Father Vaun. Raised by a man of such power, Lia has been destined for greatness since the day he took her in, despite the fact that she was born of the detested ruling race.

This Lia has changed a lot from the girl of my first start. Both have red hair, neither knew their parents, that is about where the similarities end. For example, I have an excerpt from both stories (and Lia's name used to be Fyranna, that will help):

My First Start
(Complete with spelling and grammatical errors)

Fyranna was surprised to see the two men come through the door of her room. Okel she knew very well but the other man she has never seen before.

She saw the other man glance at her and felt him taking in her appearance, the green eyes, red hair, brown ripped dress, grey apron. She thought she was rather plain. But others privately thought her green eyes were like emeralds and her red gold hair was like fire.

Okel cleared his throat Fyranna looked at him. “Peter this is Fyranna, Fyranna this is Peter.”

Fyranna curtsied. “This the girl that burned my soup then,” he chuckled. Fyranna felt her face grow hot. “I've been needing a new servant for some time, I want your kitchen girl how much can I get her for?” Peter asked.

Fyranna stared at him. She did not want to be given away after fourteen years, It was true she hated her life here but all though Peter was plump and cheery looking she did not trust him.

“Please,” she begged Okel, “don't give me away, it's been fourteen years! You can't sell me after fourteen years!” Okel looked at her.

“Too bad,” he said, “I just did.” Then he left the room with Peter in tow. Fyranna collapsed on her bed and slept.

Yeah, that was pathetic. I hope you'll find the next excerpt rather more enjoyable.

My Current Draft
(Please point out any grammatical errors)

Lia paused in the gloom outside the training cavern and tugged her cap firmly down over her hair. Satisfied that not one wisp of red, Terren hair poked out, she strolled into the room.

The sweet scent of exertion, the cacophony of steel ringing against steel, engulfed her. Lia stood in the doorway a moment, soaking it in, then turned to look over the sparring pairs. Where is he?

Of course. Lounging against the wall to her right, Cayle casually conversed with yet another ebony-haired beauty. She ground her teeth. The ego those women gave him would be the ruin of him, even if he refused to notice it. She stalked over to them.

“…Bryn woke us at the beginning of the first watch,” Cayle was saying. “The local lord’s carriage was riding by. He must have turned off the main road at Penathon’s Crossing, probably because of some stone-headed notion of saving time. There were only two guards…”

Lia rolled her eyes and tapped her foot to the slow count of ten. They ignored her. The minx laughed at something Cayle said.

“Woman,” Lia snapped. The girl jumped and turned to face her. “I came here to spar with Cayle, not to listen to him talk to you.”

The woman’s glower melted into a condescending smile. "Lia," Her syrupy tone did nothing to conceal the hostility in her eyes. "I've heard about you.”

“Well I don’t want to hear a blistered word about you,” Lia growled. “Cayle?"

He touched the woman’s shoulder. “I did come to spar, Shalin,” he said. “But do hang around; I don’t expect this will take long.”

Shalin gave him a sickeningly sweet smile and brushed a curl of obsidian hair out of his eyes. “I’ll wait here.”

Cayle smiled at her, then straightened and turned to Lia. “I claimed section three.”

She raised her eyebrows. “An impressive amount of forethought, considering your obvious disinterest in sparring today.”


Comments on that excerpt would be adored. I didn't even need to ask? Aren't you darling! Yes, you are.

I'm not going to tell you anything more about the plot yet, I'm not that stupid. Suffice it to say that this book contains: adventure, abandonment issues, friendship, heartache, personal quests for belonging, adorable toddlers, several martyrs and clean, bright, healthy romance.

Just So You Know...

I saw a humorous circle graph on the computer a while ago that had, 'real photographers' and 'teenagers with a fancy camera who call themselves photographers'. Teenagers, as you may guess, was far bigger.

This made me laugh so hard. I wasn't offended in the slightest because, you see, I don't call myself a photographer. I don't actually plan to sell photos or anything. Mom convinced me to sell my pictures at our family auction and I did it, but it was really embarrassing.

I take pictures for a couple reasons. One is that I like to. Seriously, it's just fun. Here is a picture of the time I first discovered my love of photography:

Look on my face: "Huh? What are you doing? I'm the one with the camera!" (Photo taken by Grandpa at an aquarium in Seattle)

Another reason is that - besides the above picture - I don't have any other photos of me when I was taking pictures. I hate it when people take pictures of me. I have a select few pictures that don't look awful. But no one ever takes pictures of the photographer. Well, except Grandpa.

Reason three: Research. Memories. A couple months ago, I looked out the window and saw this picture:

And yes, the rainbow was just as faint in real life.

I thought, "Wow, that's beautiful. I have to remember that so that I can put that in a scene." But how was I to remember it if I didn't take a picture? So I did.

Fourth reason: I need a picture that doesn't exist. A while ago, I was looking through my list of names for the Espritans (think Dryads, tree people) of my book and I saw two names that brought characters to my mind, Peach and Wolf. I thought, "Those names are such opposites, wouldn't it be hilarious if they got married?" And the plot was born.

Now I like to have pictures for my character. Pictures that symbolize them. For one character, I have a picture of a tiny green sprout poking out of a pile of rocks, for another I have a red fox, Peach needed a picture. And it needed to be of a peach, of course. And I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like.

So I looked up 'peach' on Google images. It was extremely unsuccessful. I wanted a soft, sweet picture, not a picture of produce on a tree (or video game characters, for that matter). Dad bought peaches that evening. So my way was clear. I set up my wonderful studio...


...and took this picture (among many others):

So that is why I take pictures. I don't think my pictures look professional in any way and I don't want you thinking that I do. I'm a teenager with a nice camera, a wild imagination, and a very exacting idea of what I want my pictures to look like. That's all.

Oh, and here is the picture I found on Google for Wolf. It isn't exactly what I wanted because I don't actually have the resources to take pictures of wolves. But it works anyway:

Lately

I've been neglecting this blog a lot lately, haven't I? But I have been justified in this neglect. I wrote scene six of my book, which may seem to be an insignificant accomplishment, but when you've been working on a book since you were nine and you're finally on a draft that will actually stay and the whole world keeps getting in the way of writing it... then you can complain about my complaining.

I will make up my neglect now by posting a long update of everything I have been doing in the last long time.

1) Sarah's jaw surgery - True, I didn't actually do this. But I was helping her in the week or two after that when she was a total wreck. You can read about all this here. (And I really hope that link actually works because I have never tried to do something like that before.)

2) Lizzie's Birthday - (I didn't do this either so let's just pretend it said, 'everything that has been happening' instead of 'everything I have been doing'.) My Lizzie turned 12, an age of increased privileges. Not nearly as many as she would wish, she fervently wants to be allowed to wear makeup at twelve like the other girls in our ward are, but it is not to be. Some pictures (and, yeah, I know the cake dominates, but I really liked that cake):

The delicious lemon angel food cake. Unfortunately, I can't claim ownership of its exquisite delights, Mom made it.

Our family has a 'special' way of blowing out the candles. It involves snuffing the flame with our fingers. Some - Sam - find this a very exciting practice.

The last candle...

And the cake is pounced on by children eager to lick the candles.

And the present opening begins! I gave Lizzie a beautiful outfit and stayed up until midnight wrapping all her other presents the night before.

However it may appear, Lizzie is not trying to smash the Anne of Green Gables movies Mom bought her. She is, in fact, shrieking with joy. (And don't tell her I posted this, she probably wouldn't approve.)

Devoured.

3) Josh's Birthday - Josh turned 10 this Thursday. I did make this cake. Unfortunately, I didn't make it very well. We were out of icing sugar so we had to do whipped cream frosting, which is not my preferred medium. And I didn't have the tools I wanted. They mysteriously disappeared. And I was in a hurry. Anyway, here are pictures:

I made him freeze while I took pictures.


Taken just as the candles went out. Personally, I think this shot it so cool because I can still see the little dots of light. But that is just me. You are not obligated to look at this picture.

Josh is very glad that he has no girlfriends and can eat his cake now.

My hastily made cake. (And Erik's arms, removing the candles.)

So those are all the events that have been keeping me busy. Besides those, I have been doing schoolwork, cleaning, writing, talking and daydreaming. (And taking totally awesome pictures of peaches that I will post someday because they are important.)

Perfect Poses

I enjoy taking photos of people when they don't know they're being observed. (That's why it's so nice to have the zoom function on cameras.) Lizzie is the most fun in the family to photograph. One reason is because she's photogenic and the other is that she is constantly posing. Seriously. I will stand in the window and watch her sitting on a bench, amusing herself, and she keeps switching glamourous poses.

So a little while ago I was looking through my pictures and I saw that she had all these unsuspecting pictures in which she was in practically the same situations. (Sarah says they aren't but she doesn't understand this. No one else ever captures in nearly the same positions.) Here are a couple pairs:

Would you ever guess that this picture was taken through hole where the doorknob ought to be? Like I said before, the zoom function.

Kind of funny, isn't it? Or maybe it's nothing to do with her, maybe I just happen to take pictures when she looks the same. Or maybe they aren't the same positions at all and I'm just imagining things.

Anyway, this post is relatively short so I'm just going to add some more pictures of my beloved sister:

That is all for today. Arrivederci! (Yeah, I'm learning Italian.)