Thoughts on Trans Matters, Duct tape pens and Lazy girl's Grilled Cheese

I wrote 100,000 words in 29 days. Why? Because I am a psycho. And I'm going to take the rest of the month to not stress about these kinds of things...which really doesn't work because I'll be planning and making things and sketching and working on a short story for the next two days until the next cycle of insanity kicks in. Next month is AugNoWriMo, which means another 100k goal for me. Yay?

I usually try not to talk to much about gender and sexuality matters since I know some people don't agree (and that's fine). But I got to thinking about this today. I'm not transsexual but being bigender does technically put me under the Trans umbrella. Some people have a little trouble reconciling Christian beliefs with a desire to change. I do understand why although I look at the world very differently. In my mind, God doesn't make mistakes. So, why are there transsexual people? To me, it's just a test. And to me, you can pass that test by changing. Because it shows that you care about yourself on the inside where it really matters. But that's just me.

Sorry, I just kind of had an epiphany and wanted to share for some reason.

Now, to avoid this getting too serious, I just spent most of the day making duct tape flower pens. And now it feels like my hands are about to fall off. But that's okay because it was actually kind of fun ^^ I have a dozen now and might make a few more in a little while. They make me smile.

And what else was I going to ramble about? Oh, yeah. I was too lazy to actually make a grilled cheese sandwich today so I actually got it in my head to throw a piece of cheese on a bun into the microwave for about ten seconds and eat that. Yes, I really am that lazy.

I didn't actually have much to say this time. People are on my nerves left and right today about all kinds of things so I think I just wanted to type for a little while about something other than a WriMo. Of course, now that AugNo is about to start, I'll be back to rambling about them by the next post but that's not really the point right now.

I've just been feeling bad lately. No real reason for it, I just have. I'll get things straightened around here pretty soon but until then I'm gonna try not to whine at you guys. It bothers me when other people do that so I'll try not to.

I'm just having one of those weird 'You get the choice between being a good person and being successful. It's fine to alter your choice but you cannot be both' moments. I'm also having one of those weird, 'When it's hot like this, you know what I do? I keep my nightclothes in the icebox' moments. I'm pretty sure these two are not related.

This is my 30th post and I know you don't care but read it anyway.

I kind of just said everything in the title.

You know, this is how you can tell I finished a project early. I can't seem to stop typing. I somehow decided that it was a good idea to use a different project for Camp NaNoWriMo than I did for JulNoWriMo. So, clearly...I'm an idiot. This leaves me with 100,000 words total to write next month. Whut.

BUT on the up side, it gives me more material I can spend the next few months not revising.

I have so many ideas from sci-fi horror pseudo-boy's love to something from the 'Magical Boy' genre to things that really shouldn't see the light of day because they are likely to burn their eyes out since they've been locked in the basement for so long. Though most of these ideas are more of a 'sleep on it before you kill yourself' kind of thing. They're either going to drag on and on for me or they're gonna fly by and be awesome.

Either way, I have about 7 more hours until the bus to Camp (NaNoWriMo) gets here 8D. I'll really have to watch that I don't slack off on JulNo, though. My withdrawal symptoms are not pretty.

Well, I really need to start planning a little more so I'm gonna panic in the general direction of the Camp and then calm back down and try to work once midnight hits. (Just because I'm really weird, Camp feels like... well, going away to camp but still having classes (JulNo) to keep up with. It's kind of cool and makes me question my sanity at time. Oh, well. At least I'm enjoying my insanity ^^)

Anatomy of a June WriMo

Step One: Start on project like you didn’t do last month. Get paranoid about it going so well and stop.

Step Two: Play around with project for the next three days. Don’t get very far.

Step Three: Start talking with people on forums. Have idea.

Step Four: Make up websites for this idea. Realise you’re a total geek.

Step Five: Start wearing a Creative Unity Bracelet and acting like you’re living in a world where being creative is a crime and/or punishable by being locked up in an asylum.

Step Six: Realise this is probably really stupid (but fun). Create forum for other crazy people like you.

Step Seven: Get depressed for no reason. Flop back on your bed and stare out the window.

Step Eight: Notice you have eye floaters. Make a game out of looking at them and knocking them around until you get a headache. Realise just how dumb that was.

Step Nine: Try to write and get a little closer to back on track. Get distracted and decide to rearrange your desk.

Step Ten: Start using your desk for its intended purpose. Realise your keys clicking sounds really weird and hollow on it.

Step Eleven: Snag three cookies from the tin in the kitchen. Realise you probably shouldn’t be eating cookies at 1:58 in the morning. Decide you don’t care.

Step Twelve: Notice you’ve been getting more done while you’ve been sitting at your desk. Make your desk your new ‘writing zone’.

Step Thirteen: Lounge back in your chair like a diva while munching on a cookie.

Step Fourteen: Get quite a bit done and decide you can go play Amnesia without getting freaked out now.

Step Fifteen: Realise you were very, very wrong. Go back to writing where you feel safe.

Step Sixteen: Spend the next few hours on YouTube and debate with yourself about doing Let’s Plays.

Step Seventeen: Work here and there. Fall behind but not enough to panic over. Work on other things.

Step Eighteen: Get pulled into forum chatter and the daily chat threads. Spend a few days making a proboards forum and other pointless internet things.

Step Nineteen: Get into a Word War. Decide you really like them. Notice your word war companion really likes them too. Decide with them to do a word war every day.

Step Twenty: Use the word wars to get closer to caught up. Get almost caught up and get freaked out by a scene you’re writing. Be paranoid of mirrors for the rest of the day.

Step Twenty-One: Realise your computer had a glitch-fit and you missed your writing buddy’s messages. Apologise all over the place.

Step Twenty-Two: Change your blog theme. If you have project blogs, change their themes too. Spend the rest of the day looking through blog themes for suitable ones.

Step Twenty-Three: Lose the last day’s worth of work when your computer glitches out. Panic and catch up. Party when you reach the 30,000 mark.

Step Twenty-Four: Search around for fitting desktop backgrounds. Find one of Death on his horse and use the hell out of it. Decide monthly themed wallpapers are a good way to keep on track.

Step Twenty-Five: Get caught up reading Starfighter again. Realise you really love the story and want SciFiWriMo to get here already.

Step Twenty-Six: Get slowed down around 35k and get depressed. Keep working until you get closer to 40k. Have to change stories around the 37k mark.

Step Twenty-Seven: Start playing with Windows 7’s Sticky Note feature. Love it.

Step Twenty-Eight: Listen to Silent Hill songs, watch Let’s Plays and write like crazy all day.

Step Twenty-Nine: Get three chapters done and finally hit 50k at about 1 AM and party like a psycho (but quietly because, you know, it’s 1 AM).

Step Thirty: Start planning JulNo and being glad you can be crazy in good company.

Step Thirty-One (optional): Start working on Clarion project and enjoy the mental image of a formal party with girls in suits and guys in Victorian-style dresses.

WriMos start with a single blank page

A single blank page?

A single blank page!

And the single blank page goes onto the file as a title page

And the WriMo team then carefully moves to the planning stage

‘Cause when the clock ticks down, our team should be ready for scribbling, scribbling.

On all kinds of things

First and foremost, WriDaNoJu.

Apparently, my project this month wants to be a novella. That's fine; I can totally respect that. Things is, it didn't tell me this until about a little more than halfway through the month. So. I'm now having to scramble to make up the word count I will almost surely lack on the other stories that will most likely wind up in the collection that 'Praying for Death' with likely take up a large section of. Speaking of...

I'm moving back through the ranks basically. I'm doing short stories again and unfortunately, they're very fun. I have several I want to do, mainly horror/sci-fi/mystery/LGBT stuff. Now it's just finding the time to write them.

JulNoWriMo will see me try for a full novel but I can't be sure how successful I'll be. Well, I might get to the word count but once everything's edited down, I'm not sure it will wind up over the cut off word count for a novel. I think that one really deserves to be, though. It's very Faustian and I think it would work well as a long-form narrative. But that's just me.

I've picked up links to a few markets I think might be worth submitting to so wish me luck there. I've never done that before so it'll be an experience. They're mainly magazines but there are a few print markets and publishers that might be a good fit. I don't know what I'm going to wind up doing, really.

Also, chain books. For people who don't know what chain books are, it means that one person writes the first chapter, the next person writes the second chapter and so on and so forth until the end. They look insanely fun.

Not sure what I'll do with Wattpad but I'll leave it up for a while until I decide.

Well, right now, I'm still a little behind on the word count front and I just got hit with the Story Idea Brick so Ink-Slingaria I'll see you later.

I am now paranoid of exploding ants

I also changed my theme. And now I think it's awesome.

You may or may not agree with the above statement. Either way, this isn't your blog. >.>

BUT. I do have some news for you guys, this isn't just a random post like a little while ago.

First, off, reason behind that title: There is this ant that, if it's in a fight and it notices that it's about to lose, instead of fighting to the death, it gets as close to its opponent as possible and blows itself up. It has poison glands all down the sides of its body and when it gets close enough to its opponent, it contracts its abdominal muscles with such intensity that it, I'll say it again, blows itself up and sends the poison flying. How awesome is that?!

Also, my website (the weebly one that's actually my site and not something for Ink-Slingaria) should be up... fairly soon. Once I get everything, you know, written for it. Ugh, I'm so lazy.

There's also this site right here, which is both fascinating and terrifying. It's called 'Breathing Earth' and it shows in real time when someone is born, when someone dies, when a certain amount of C02 is released into the atmosphere by a certain country and all kinds of interesting data from all over the world.

Fourthly, WriDaNoJu is (almost) officially back on track which means 'Praying for Death' is (not nearly as depressing as the title may suggest and) almost half-way done! W00T! And project blogs for some of my higher-priority and longer-lived projects should be going live sometime fairly soon and when they are, I'll link the heck out of them and spam them all out to you, my loyal...people who stumbled across this blog. I <3 you ^^

The UIE/PWMWG Accord and Also Billy Franks

First off some news from Ink-Slingaria:

An accord between the Union of Internal Editors (UIE) and the Pro-WriMo Writers Group (PWMWG) has officially been reached at the 2011 International Year of Writing a Damn Lot Conference held earlier this year.

As the write-up in the Ink-Slingaria Post-Intelligencer put it:

Mark Stanly from the UIE made a convincing argument at the opening of the conference but was ultimately talked down by the Pro-WriMo representatives on the grounds that time was much more a factor than plot in times of WriMos and that structure and pacing could always be fixed at a later date. The ultimate blow to the argument came when Miss Tina Sullivan of Wisconsin brought it to the attention of the committee that editing often decreases word count, being the opposite of the overall WriMo philosophy and in particular the International Year of Writing a Damn Lot itself.

After several smaller debates spanning the next few hours an agreement was finally reached: criticising the first draft of your work is no longer permitted by the official IYoWaDL councils.

So it's official.

Adding to my excitement is this: Billy Franks is about to have a book published. If you don't know him, go here. It explains everything a lot better than I can. His book ('A Far Cry from Sunset') goes through the experience of making the film 'Tribute This!' as well as some stories from his musical career. I think this thing is definitely on my reading list ^^

Ink-Slingers and Nerdfighters

Hello, all. Currently, I'm in planning stages on several different projects but the one I am possibly most exited about is the little WriMo community I've only recently become a part of.

Now, I and a few others stand at the front of the 'Pro-WriMo'/Pro-Creativity movement and since it's little known right now, I decided it might be a good idea to build a little site (because I totally love building sites for some strange reason) for us.

It should be up in a couple of days (depending on how my writing's going) so be on the lookout for that. It has a lot of information on us and on projects I'd like to get started. So, yeah...

Until the next time, guys. DFTBA

Let's Confuse Google + Project Update

and the rest of the non-writing world while we're at it.

Start using the phrase 'Pro-WriMo' when you talk or write about writing. Start using #prowrimo on Twitter posts, mention it on FaceBook, blog about it, start a forum, make a video, do something to spread the word. The only thing that comes up for my searches now is my own stuff so I want to see if we can't sneak a new phrase into the collective consciousness here.

I had an inspiration fit and made this: here Please come sign up, if you want to. It looks lonely. :'(

Also, if you can, please go here for me and donate a little. Or maybe sign up as a writer yourself and get people to donate. Clarion is a really cool organisation and I think they deserve all the help they can get.