Category Archives: General

Writing Can Be Hard

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It was a struggle to write last week.  I’m not sure why, but it happens.  I managed to work on something different almost every single day, but I had to force myself to get it done a couple times.  It was a good reminder, though, that writing isn’t always easy, and sometimes I don’t want to write.  But I usually feel better after I write, so it wasn’t a total loss.  Plus, the fact that I’m still writing 5 months after the end of November is a pretty big accomplishment.  Ususally my writing is limited to the month of November, and while my pace has considerably slowed since then (no more 5000 word days), I am still writing.   

Not taking a break helped.  The couple times I tried to work on anything NaNo-related, I always waited at least a month before going back to working on it.  And it failed.  I still have some momentum going which is keeping me going. 

I’ve had no problems researching my historical fiction, although it’s pretty much been reading about Henry VIII at this point.  It’s been helpful, because it gives me insight as to what life was like when he was king.  But it’s been slow reading, because I’m taking notes as well.  Plus, it’s a little tedious, but thankfully not as bad as when I read Wars of the Roses.  That was tedious, but I’m totally willing to read it again, mostly because I’m considering doing something related to it.  Plus, it sets up the Tudors, so it’ll be good to have that background, even if I never use it. 

I managed to write during the morning, which worked really well.  It was nice to get it done early, and know that it was out of the way.  

I think I’m going to try something different this week and write for 10 minutes 5 days this week, plus finish up my character profiles.

I’m slightly frustrated that I gained 3 pounds over the last week, but it wasn’t a surprise because I ate way more than I needed to.  It’ll be hard to not turn to food as a way of dealing with things, but at the same time, I really need to change that.  There are better ways of coping than to eat.       

To all the mother’s out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

No Shortage Of Bizarre Writing

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I thought I’d share some of my more recent nano-isms.  Apparently, I’m still in “just write, and edit later” mode, which is fine, and works rather well for me.  Today’s nano-isms are from my fred and hermione fanfic.

  • “It’s time for dinnger,” sje said.  “Come on, you need to help.”  (Dinnger?  Sadly, it goes downhill from here)
  • “ron, shurt up,” ginny said.  (I had to giggle at this.  I have this image of Ron doing something funny with his shirt)
  • “Because she also doesn’tr trsut thw with harry or Hermione,” ginny said.  “She thinks you lot will good off.  But I’m much more likely to kill you so it isn’t that great of an aidea.”  (I don’t even know where to start with this.  Perhaps I need to go find that cliff I’ve mentioned a few times)
  • “You and fred and trwins, so if he can, it sohuldn’t be problem, George” mrs Wesle said.  (Where is that cliff?  Seriously, I need to go find it)
  • “Did you have a nice time exploring the area?” mrs. Weasley asked.  “I’m sorry, I forgot you were hgere draco.”  (I totally forgot about draco, and remembered he was there when he randomly appeared in the paragraph before this)
  • “Right, because there are so many pensieces laying around,” Hermione said. (Pensieces?  Are you kidding me?)

I remember when I would painstakingly edit everything I wrote.  Editing has so gone out the window at this point, and you can tell the difference in writing.  Most of it’s very nice- no typos or weird grammar, and then out of nowhere, there are red and green squiggly lines everywhere! 

I hope you enjoyed the randomness that is called my writing!  I’m sure there will be more to come.

Two Days In…So Far, So Good

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May is my least favorite month of the year…you’d think it would be a happy month, on account of my birthday being in May.  But May will always be associated with my grandpa’s death.  And since it was about 10 days before my birthday, I always associate the two, probably because I was still grieving. 

Last year, for pretty much the whole month, I randomly cried, felt really depressed, and didn’t want to get out of bed at all.  So far, nothing out of the ordinary, and hopefully it’ll stay that way.

I’ve been listening to this one podcast called Greetings From Nowhere, which I heard about on this other podcast, and it’s hysterical.  It’s these 2 women who live in Wenatchee, Washington, talking about their lives in Wenatchee and what it’s like living in a small town.  I’m slowly starting to catch up, but they make living there sound like so much fun!  The Viva La RLF, Schwanbeck Stories, and the CBS, you rat bastards episodes are my 3 favorites episodes so far.  I totally find myself responding to what they’re saying, and other times, I’m laughing hysterically at something they’ve said.

I still need to catch up on Inside The Podcasting Studio, which will happen after I catch up on Greetings From Nowhere.  There aren’t as many episodes, and they’re about half the length, so it won’t take as long.  From there, I’ll probably alternate between Accio Potter Wizard Radio and the Jane Austen Podcast until they’re both done. 

I have a nice stack of library books too!  Most of them are by Alison Weir, plus a David Starkey book.  And I checked out the first two books from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, to balance all of the long, non-fiction books I decided I needed to read.  Yay for being busy!

So Now What?

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I’ve been reading The Lady In The Tower: The Fall Of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir, which is about the last 3 months of Anne Boleyn.  It’s pretty interesting, and so far, the information is relatively new to me.  I’m finding that the more I read, the more vague ideas I get.  I might need to read about the ideas I’m interested in, but for now, I’ll stick to a general overview because getting different perspectives would be really helpful.  Besides, I need to remind myself of the different things going on.

Writing’s going okay- I went a little over 175 for a couple of the things I worked on, and wrote almost double what I expected for the 3rd project.  I had to re-read my snape and tonks story and my draco and hermione story, since I had completely forgotten what they were about.  They’re pretty short, so it didn’t take too long.  I also had to re-read the NaNo from a couple years ago, but I decided to read the last few pages of it instead of reading the whole thing.  I think I’ll work on 4 novels this week, and write 125 words for each of them.  Plus, I’ll continue working on my characters.  I definitely want to be working on something pretty much everyday, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself or anything, so I’ll attempt to slowly increase the number of things I work on every week.  The number of words might change week to week, depending on my mood, and what I think I can handle.

I’m back to using sparkpeople.  I’ve used it off and on for the last few years, and have found it to be a great resource…when I don’t get bored with keeping a food/exercise journal.  For a free weight loss website, it’s actually really helpful, and has a lot of information on it.  I tend to get bored with the food and exercise journal aspects after a few months, hence why I’ve used it off and on.  Going to the gym yesterday was a struggle, and I was debating whether or not I should go, because I was still really tired.  I got more than enough sleep, but apparently not as much as I needed.  I ended up going, mostly because it’s on my way home from my writer’s group.  Unfortunately, it didn’t give me the energy boost I thought it would, but at least I can say I went.

Have a great day!

More Thoughts On The Royal Wedding

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Now that I’m much more awake, I thought I’d talk more about the royal wedding.  I wasn’t all that into it, mostly because the amount of coverage going to it was insane, and I was really sick of it.  I did watch it, pretty much because I couldn’t sleep, and it was a nice distraction from everything going on in the world.  I was completely exhausted by the time I went to bed yesterday morning, because I had been up for nearly a day at that point.  At least I slept well.

Anyway, I loved Katherine’s dress- for the most part anyway.  I didn’t care for the lace. but overall it was a really pretty dress.  I didn’t care for the coverage before the wedding, so I attempted to sleep but I couldn’t, so I figured I might as well stay up.

Is it weird that I was bored?  I know people were all excited about it, but it’s a wedding.  Of a prince (with a bunch of other titles) to his college sweetheart who’s now a duchess of…somewhere.  I can’t keep track of all this duke and duchess and viscount and earl stuff, which means that I am going to have major issues when I get around to writing that historical fiction I’ve been researching.  Anyway, it was just a wedding of two people who just happen to be well-known.  Yes, it was nice to see, and yes, it was a nice distraction from everything else going on, but at the same time, why on earth are people so excited about it?  I.  JUST.  DON’T.  UNDERSTAND.

If only we had a DVR at my house.  Then I could have recorded it and watched it at a more reasonable hour.  But alas, I found myself awake for nearly 24 hours to watch a wedding.  My grandma was sad she missed it, but she ended up finding a replay of the wedding on some random station…and the commentators were translating everything into spanish, so she didn’t know what they were saying.  I guess she thought all the coverage started at 4 am, but didn’t get the whole 4 am on the east coast thing, so she ended up missing the entire wedding by a few minutes.

I have another funny story too!  My mom comes out into the family room wondering why me and my grandma are up so early, so I tell her we’re watching the wedding stuff.  My mom then asks me what channel it was on.

My response?

Pick one channel, any dang channel, and they’re probably showing the freakin’ wedding.  My mom’s like, okay, cool, and she wanders off.

Like, really?  It’s one of the biggest things to happen, ever, so like…hello.  Everyone’s going to be showing it.  Then again it was early, so she might not have been completely awake.

Have a great day everyone!

Movies And A Wedding

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Yesterday, I saw Water For Elephants, and I liked it!  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was really good.  It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but it stuck fairly closely to the book, from what I remember.  There were a couple parts that were hard to watch, and I ended up not looking, but I got through it.  They left out a good chunk of the book, but despite that, it was a really good adaptation.  At some point I’ll probably give Water For Elephants another read, when I don’t have so many books checked out from the library.

One idea that has popped into my head is the idea of going to culinary school and become a pastry chef.  I have no idea where it’ll go, but I’ve discovered a love of baking over the last 7 months, and it seems interesting enough.

I stayed up to watch the royal wedding, and I will say that the hats brought up a couple questions.

One: How on earth did some of the hats not fall off?  They were at such odd angles for a hat, and yet were firmly on the heads of the guests.  I’m guessing they used bobby pins, or fastened the hats in some way, but still.

Two: How could some of the women see where they were going?  There were several very large hats, and from the camera angle, it honestly looked like they couldn’t see where they were going!  Furthermore, how did the people sitting around them manage to get a good look at the ceremony?

Maybe the weird hat angles were so people could see…like a response to the overly large hats.  I would like to say that I thought most of the outfits were ugly.  Not that ABC really showed anything.  Maybe I should’ve watched it on a different channel- actually there were some technical difficulties with ABC, so I switched to CBS, and the CBS guys weren’t nearly as annoying as the ABC people. 

Have a great day, and a great weekend everyone!

I Hate Lemon Meringue Pie

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It’s evil.  Very, very evil.  At least I tried making it, but sadly I failed.  The lemon wasn’t lemon-y enough because I forgot to add lemon juice.  And the meringue was not cooperating either, because it was not doing what it was supposed to.

So I gave up. 

That’s right, I gave up.  And I was so frustrated that I almost started crying.

And then I was like, why am I crying over a FREAKING PIE?  I mean, it’s a pie.  I’ve never made pie from scratch before, so of course there’s a chance it’s not going to turn out right the first time I make it. 

I think the whole crying thing is probably because I’ve had a weird week, and a pie not coming out right was the final straw in a way.  But I will try lemon meringue pie again one day, and I’ll get better at it eventually. 

I ended up buying a lemon meringue pie, because there was no way I was going to feed the pie I made to people. 

At least the cupcakes turned out okay.

Have a great day everyone!

What Do I Write About?

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I’m not really sure what to talk about for today’s post- absolutely no clue whatsoever.  I was hoping to have a book review done, but unfortunately, the book I was going to review is taking a little longer than I expected. 

I’ve been cooking and baking- I’m making dessert for Easter, which is scaring me a little.  I’m doing cupcakes (which isn’t scary, since I’ve made them before) but I’m also making lemon meringue, which is scary.  It doesn’t look hard, but since I’ve never made pie from scratch, I’m a little scared.  Well, it’ll be partly from scratch because I’m using a pre-made crust, and the rest will be from scratch.

Speaking of cooking, when I was returning a couple books to the library, I decided to go into the bookstore adjoining the library, and found a copy of Mastering The Art Of French Cooking by Julia Child!  I’ve been curious about Julia Child for a while, and so when I saw it, I got really excited. 

I haven’t been listening to a lot of music, mostly because I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts.  I may do a music post one of these days.  I’ve actually been looking at a lot of “spa music.”  I’ve never been to a spa, but I imagine a lot of it would be played at a spa.  I’m still trying to find something I like, but previews only go so far.  Plus, a lot of it sounds very similar (if not exactly the same), so I can only preview stuff for so long.  I have to say that it seems relaxing enough, and honestly, if there’s anything I need to do, it’s relax. 

I’ve been doing a lot of reading this week, and with the small stack of library books on the floor, I’ll be doing a lot of reading over the next couple weeks.  And there’s a few books I requested that are on the way, so I have plenty of books to read. 

I think that’s it for today, because I think I’ve rambled on enough.

Small Steps Are The Way To Go

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Setting small specific goals are really working out so far, so I think I’ll stick with that for now. 

I’ve written 692 words this week, and I’m hoping to add on to that today, even if it’s 100 words.  Last week, I ended up doing around 1000 words or so, and while I’m not neccessarily aiming for that, I still have more words than I would have written otherwise.  There’s nothing really new I can odd, other than Harry and Ron somehow ended up in the underworld, and they most definitely were not supposed to be there.   

The character profiles are also coming along okay.  I didn’t answer every question, mostly because I wasn’t sure of how the character would react.  I always want to fill the thing out completely, but at the same time, if I’m not sure of something, it’s easier to leave it blank and come back to it.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back and work on it or if I’ll wait until I actually start writing to go back to it.  Sometimes it’s better to wait and see what unfolds as opposed to planning every little detail. 

I also went to the gym, which was great.  My biggest problem is getting myself there, especially since I spend most of my time at home.  This week, setting a goal (going twice) seemed to work out well, so I will go 3 times next week.

The 100 book challenge is going okay.  I’ve been keeping track of the books here at my blog, plus I’ve been using goodreads.  According to them, I’m 6 books behind, but there’s no doubt I’ll be able to read 6 more books this month.  Plus, I checked out some books from the library, so that’ll help out some too.  I don’t know why I stopped checking books out from the library, but I’ll definitely be doing that more often.

So here are my goals for next week: I will write 150 words for the giant prehistoric chicken, turning point, and a 3rd novel of my choosing.  I will work on the last page of my character profiles that I’ve been working on the last couple weeks.  I already mentioned my gym goal for the week.  And I’ll have 1-2 books read in the next week.

Some of My Favorite Podcasts

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Today, I’m sharing a few of my favorite podcasts.  I finally decided I needed to start listening to them, since they’re piling up.   

  • Tudor Talk: It’s all about the Tudor Dynasty in pop culture, so it covers the t.v. show on showtime, different movies, and books covering the time period.  It looks like it’ll be going on for a while, so that’ll give me plenty of time to catch up. 
  • Jane Austen Podcast: It’s about Jane Austen, her books, movie adaptations and her life.  I’ve been catching up on this one as well, but I’m taking my time catching up on it.  The woman doing the podcast had to stop doing the podcast due to lack of time, which is why I’m taking my time with it.  It’s too bad, because I’m really enjoying it.
  • Accio-Potter Wizard Radio: It’s a podcast devoted completely to playing wizard rock, which is something I’ve been listening to more frequently.  There are well-known bands like Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, and bands I had never heard of before, like The Quaffle Kids and The Hufflepunks.  The band names and song titles alone make listening to wizard rock worth it.  I’ve been catching up on it slowly, since updates are not as frequent as they used to be.
  • The History Chicks: They cover different women, both historical and fictional.  Since it’s relatively new, I only have a handful of episodes to catch up on.  
  • Gilmore Girls Re-Watch Podcast: The hosts are rewatching all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls, and talking about Gilmore Girls one episode at a time.  I actually might start re-watching gilmore girls right along with them, since it’s been a while since I’ve watched it.

The problem I tend to have with podcasts is it’s hard for me to find something I like- it seems like some of the podcasts that are even mildly interesting aren’t updated, and if they are, it’s updated very infrequently.  Or it’s interesting, but for some reason, I can’t get into it. 

Podcasts are good to listen to, in that I don’t get distracted.  Unless I’m listening to Accio-Potter Wizard Radio, in which case I always want to start singing along.