Happy Christmas!

Or whatever you celebrate/if you celebrate.

Quick update because I am freezing!

- My grandma got two new video games and spent a decent amount of time playing them today.
- My grandpa asked if my mum and I were having a 'super sparkly day'. (Keep in mind that the man is 80.)
- I received:
-- The box set of the entire series 'Six Feet Under'
-- A Casket Ring (you can hide things in it)
-- A small hearse necklace
-- A casket key-chain
-- And a DVD called 'The Undertaking' (It's about funeral science, in case that wasn't readily apparent.)

So. I'm probably going to do one or several of the following:

- Finish reading a fan story that I still haven't gotten to the end of.
- Start reading 'The Girl Who Played With Fire'
- Watch a DVD/Watch a creepy YouTube video/Watch anime
- Reorganise my Excel spreadsheet for the new year
- Play around in ZenWriter
- Try to complete a soundtrack for a story
- Plan a war (It's for a book, I swear!)
- Plan an emotionally scarring crime/drama novel
- Sleep

Actually sleep is probably going to win. All of this just became by 'To Do' list for tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be fun.

Okay. I hope you all had a wonderful, wonderful day and I will see you all later on.

Bye for now, everyone~

Rambling

(Really. That's all this is.)

I have, like, 5k left to write and all I want to do is go edit something else.

Or write something else. Or do something that proves to me that the first draft is not a complete train wreck. I mean, there are some very good bits and there's one scene I'll get to today that I think I'll want to keep but still. Plus I'm not sure if I want to wrap things up or leave his fate, as it were, undecided.

So there's that too.

Grandma goes in for cataract surgery tomorrow. She doesn't seem nervous at all now but I'm pretty sure that'll change by tonight (not that I want her to be on-edge or anything, she's just usually fine right up until the night before something big happens and then she starts getting nervous. Me? I fret and fuss and puff right up until and then I just go and do it. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah...) so that's gonna be fun. We have to go to a place that's about an hour (I think?) away so that means 'up early' and 'I should probably bring a book'.

We also have a lot of food around here that we need to use up before mum and I leave. Which is a problem because I've gained about eight pounds. This is not okay. But when we move, our diet will change. It always does. It was a fair bit healthier up there, all in all.

Do I need an 'Editing Bay' section in that sidebar? (Only if I'm going to use it. *headdesk*)

Oh, that's right. Did you hear about Casey Legler? She's working as a male model. Awesome, right? ^^ (If you don't think that's awesome, we are on two different wavelengths.)

I really think that the world is on the verge of a major shift. I mean, I'm not with the doomsday crowd by any means but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of major change that happens around that time. There have been stirrings for years.

So, yeah. I woke up, cleaned up cat vomit and now I'm going to go back to writing. I have ideas. And those ideas spawn more ideas. It's like an idea rabbit-garden. Or something a lot more coherent.

Bye for now, people. Just wanted to update you on the pointless ins and outs of my life.

(*headdesk* I need a plan! *rolls around in self-pity*)

*waves*

Thirty: Don't work for less than you're worth.

Just... never do it.

I don't work for less than a dollar a page.

I just don't.

And that's really the take-away here - don't work for less than you're worth.

It might limit the frequency of your jobs but I'd say it's worth it to avoid working for a fraction of the acceptable rate.

Also, NaNoWriMo this year is Lit Fic (Literary) and there's a fascinating (italics for sarcasm) thread on the NaNo forums about whether or not Literary is a genre. Sometimes I just want to grab people by the scruff and shake them. Calm the fuck down.

I would argue that Literary focuses on a much larger scale. It encompasses all genres, often by deconstructing them. In that sense, it's much like Speculative. It is not so much a genre in and of itself but rather a collection of smaller genres viewed through a social microscope.

But that's basically what I think of when someone says 'Literary'.

...

I'm in a weird mood again. Like, I want to DO ALL THE THINGS and do absolutely nothing at the same time. Very annoying, actually.

I feel... anxious. Like, wound up and restless.

Everything is really loud and annoying right now and that's not helping at all.

There's a lot of anger in this house...

Like, if I'm out here for too long, I can feel it. It just latches onto me and gets into my bones. And then I start snapping at people and generally being a bitch when I really don't need to be.

Plus, one of our cats is dying (skin and bones aside from her abdomen, which is full of fluid) and my grandparents refuse to do anything about it. So that's making me feel really good.

All in all, there's a lot wrong with this day. I'm trying to not make this just a place for me to complain but, really, my hair is driving me insane, my nails feel brittle, I'm breaking out again, I just kinda got slapped in the face with at least most of the negative stereotypes of self-published authors and I just want to scream.

So.

That's where that is.

But. It's NaNoWriMo pretty soon and without this to worry about, I can just write for a while. I think that would help quite a bit, actually.

Bye for now, guys. This was kind of rambling but I'll try to be a little less annoyed and wanting to stab someone next time.

Who says the week's out? It's only Tuesday.

First off, we've been adopted. By the Lowe's.

They're nice people. Larry is a contractor and he helped by other grandparents fix up their house when they first moved in. His wife Kathy quilts too and her machine is amazing.

But we got there and met everyone and hung around outside for a while. They had a duck race (with little rubber ducks in a creek in the back yard) and then we sat around and I listened to dad play music in the garage with grandpa. Susi was there too.

The Lowe's have a big dog named Ruby. She's really sweet but she kept trying to steal food from us XD

After the food was ready, we all wandered around and ate (They had grilled corn and awesome potato slices - not chips, actual slices of potato - and macaroni salad.) and Dad found Kathy's sewing machine and we started making a quilt. (It's just a little wall hanging thing but I stitched most of it and I'm kind of happy ^^)

Yesterday, Susi drove us up to the Bison Range. We saw a bison. Singular. One bison. This one:

Bison are big.

But there were other things too, like deer:

A mommy and a baby.

And these things (I think they're antelope) :

But that was about it. It was still a nice drive though.

I've been meaning to text my mom but I keep getting nervous and not sending them. Weird. We might have a house, though. She sent me the link and it's cute and awesome and I want to live there~!

On the way up, Susi stopped at Starbucks. I can't drink their coffee warm but iced is pretty good and their chai tea is amazing. Then, on the way back, there was a wreck so rather than wait in traffic, we flipped around and went to IHop (that isn't spelled right, is it? It doesn't look like it is.). Dad fell asleep in the car on the way back... then he fell asleep sitting up on Susi's couch. I poked him in the nose with a cat toy and everything and he didn't wake up. So we put him in the bedroom and let him sleep for about twenty minutes. Then he was okay.

But I'm yet again in the Darby public library, typing away. I think I might get Dad to check out a few books on sewing. He brought them to me and they look interesting.

I might just watch Marble Hornets again. I need to catch up on everything. There's also a Slenderman game now, free to download so I might wind up playing it at one point or another.

I can't believe it's Tuesday. I can't believe I can still eat with chopsticks. I can't believe I made a quilt. I also can't believe how loud it's getting in here.

It's someone's retirement party so I'd should probably try to be sociable here soon.

Bye for now guys. I'll be back soon. I think it might storm here ^^

Arizona

Yep. I'm in Arizona.

As such, I figured I should proceed to spam you all with pictures. Here I go:

See this? These are mountains as seen from the front windshield. I actually really like how this was kind of framed out by the car...

Also, mountains are BIG. 0.o

I also took a picture of the METROMINT bottle. This stuff is awesome, by the way. It tastes just like chocolate and mint :)

Now for the fun part: Playing 'How High Will the Temperature Climb?'

When we got into the real desert - what we consider the real desert - this was the reading:

Ick. But wait, it gets worse...

Closer, but no. Try again.

That's right! (Sorry for the blur.) Yep. It was an oven out there. And it didn't drop much by the time we actually got to the house. French the llama, that's hot!

The house is still really comforting though. My grandpa built a front porch on it an we all sat outside last night and talked and watched the jackrabbits. There were so many jackrabbits! :D

But it's nice to see my grandparents again. It's been about 2 months since I saw them last.

I've been locked in my room for a while today, trying to get some kind of caught up on Camp NaNoWriMo. Strangely, it seems to be working.

I'm also offering editing services... she says as a way of explaining the 'Hire Me' page. If anyone else has done NaNo - or any other WriMo - and has a project they'd like edited for a reasonable rate, send me a message. I always like helping artists  ^^

I can't even believe my life at this point. I'll probably update again here soon and explain everything but for right now just... wow.

Okay. I'm gonna go write a little more and try to figure out some kind of list or schedule or something to keep me busy.

Until later, then~

Wow...

This was an ordeal. Not that it wasn't fun. It was insanely fun. But it was an ordeal.

And, for an awful few minutes this morning, I wondered if my keyboard was dead. No matter what keys I hit nothing worked. It's fine now (obviously) but it was scary.

In case you were wondering, I was spending time with my aunts these past two weeks and that's why I wasn't here. They're fun but they can be really tiring. They left for the airport a few hours ago and it's so quiet now. Weird. BUT. I don't have to sleep on a cot in the living room anymore!

So I'm working on getting some ideas fleshed out and I have a book to edit in December. That's the main project, since I can get the first three chapters and the outline done fairly quick if I'm on my game. I'd really like to make a run at this author thing come the new year. It sounds fun~

December also marks the kick off of GothNoWriYe and the Ink-Slinger's Ball. Party month! (Seriously, the people I meet are awesome.)

What else? Oh, yeah. I won NaNo! And I feel awesome (so much so that I know I'm over-using the word awesome and I don't actually care). It was late so I didn't have anyone awake to celebrate with me but that's okay. I managed to spell 'Arachnodactyly' right on the first try so I'm happy.

Now I can consult with my editorial fox Vulpes (and possibly Lord Emostabe) for editing. Yes, they have names. Deal with it. >.>

I think that's it so until something else Earth-shattering happens, bye for now guys~

I'm not dead!

But I'm very tired.

I have family over and that means it's six of us and four cats crammed into this house. I'm sleeping on a cot in the living room and Mum is sleeping on the couch. I wake up with cat hair all over me, I get distracted all the time by laughing and chatter, my appetite is way down... and I'm pretty happy about it all ^^

I have Grandma's two sisters in from Ohio and they've taken over mine and Mum's room so we're sleeping in the living room. They're loud and happy and I can tell they're all glad to see each other.

We managed to hide the fact that the other sister (Annie) was coming so Grandma was surprised... to say the least. She shuffled up behind the sister she knew was coming (Beth) and Grandma didn't even see her until she was standing right in front of her. Then it was something along the lines of 'asdfksdjHI!' and then her trying to be angry: 'You do this to me every time!' (since we tricked her last year too) and we all got to laugh and hug and be happy.

So they've been here for a couple days and we're all starting to adjust. They'll be here for about two weeks.

So that's where I'll be for a while.

NaNoWriMo, meanwhile, is... borked. I can catch up, of course. I'm not too worried about that. But I accidentally my word count >.>

And it's worse that I have so many ideas because I'm supposed to be working on one thing. Like, I don't need to be writing about Tiger and Bunny 'Behind the Scenes' like they're all actors. (Even though the thought of Yuri Petrov's actor being very ill and them not being sure he would be able to take the role as 'Lunatic' due to the physical demands of the role and then him showing up with Keith at the airport and getting a bear hug from the very happy Tiger is really awesome to me.)

So yeah... I'm going to go back to work for a while so I don't wind up scrambling so hard at the end. I'm still alive, though, I'm just very busy.