Tag Archives: glad

Today Is The Day!

Posted in NaNo, Progress by

No writing was done yesterday, however, that changes today because I am going to be writing again!  I do feel inspired and ready to start writing! 

Since I didn’t write yesterday, my word count is a little behind, but I’m sure I can catch up today.  If I don’t, I’ll do it…sometime this month. 

I feel a little relieved, like I’ve gotten everything down to a manageable level.  Don’t get me wrong, I love writing 2 novels in a month, but this year, it’s just not going to happen.  Just because I have 2 novels doesn’t mean I have to stick with it for the month. 

Today is going to be a good day, and it’ll be great to get some writing done!

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

Posted in Books, Harry Potter by

Book: Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Pages: 341 (Paperback)

What Did I Think? In Chamber of Secrets (CoS), the Chamber of Secrets is opened.  Harry gets a visit from Dobby, a house-elf who works for the Malfoy family.  He warns Harry that something terrible will happen if he returns to Hogwarts.  Harry makes his way to the Weasley house after Fred, George and Ron come to get him.  He finally makes his way to Hogwarts, with Harry and Ron taking Mr. Weasley’s flying Ford Anglia since they can’t get to the Hogwarts Express.

Several students, plus Mrs. Norris get petrified by the monster in the Chamber of Secrets.  Hermione, Ron and Harry brew the Polyjuice potion to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin is.  People thought it was Harry after the school learned he was a Parselmouth (one who can speak to snakes) after an incident at the dueling club.  Moaning Myrtle is a girl who haunts the school after being killed the first time the Chamber opened, most notable the bathroom where she died.  Let’s see…we also meet Aragog, who is a spider that Hagrid found.  Everyone thought that Hagrid was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets and so he was expelled.  Aragog isn’t the creature who was in the Chamber.  In fact, Aragog is scared of the monster in the Chamber.  We find out that the monster is a basilisk, who travels the pipes…and those must be some pretty big pipes.

Ginny, Ron’s younger sister, is taken into the chamber, and Ron and Harry go to rescue her, along with Professor Lockhart.  However, Ron and Lockhart get left behind after Lockhart’s attempt to obliviate Ron and Harry backfires.  Harry saves Ginny, destroys a diary that belonged to Tom Riddle, kills the basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor, and Ginny realizes that she was possessed by Voldemort and was the one behind the attacks.

There’s a lot of adventure, and some mystery.  It’s amazing how many clues are in the book, and how a lot of the places and creatures seen in this book are important to later plot points.  There is a lot going on, and I wish could throw in every little detail, but I can’t.  Especially I want to try to practice condensing HP to a few paragraphs…this will be especially important for books 4 through 7.

Back to CoS, though, Lockhart is hilarious, and completely useless as a Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher.  Another favorite moment in CoS is when Hermione transforms into a cat (on accident, of course) after drinking the Polyjuice Potion.  While I like CoS, I think I would place it behind Sorcerer’s Stone.  A lot of the things and places and people do make another appearance somewhere in the series, and I love the details.  I love how things that don’t seem important and are insignifcant in this book show up to be more important.  One of my favorite things about CoS is that there’s still a sense of innocence.  There are some very bad, evil things in the wizarding world, but it’s far off in the distance…at least to a certail extent.  There’s no Voldemort, not really, anyway, and things are solved easily.  Things are still pretty black and white, with no real shades of grey.

Rating: 4 out of 5.  While not one of my favorites, it’s still really good, and sets up some stuff that’ll be revealed in later books.  And there’s a little bit of everything in the series, as well as this book.

I Think I Have Decided Something…

Posted in Other Projects by

I’ve kind of narrowed things down a little.  I’m thinking of giving her the ability to heal, read minding, being empathetic, or manipulating time.

With the ability to heal, I’m thinking that in order to heal someone, she somehow absorbs the illness or injury from the person she’s healing.  I’m not sure how, maybe she ends up with illness/injury herself, or maybe it presents a lot of colds or something.  With the empathetic thing, that could go hand-in-hand with her ability to heal others, in that people could always be coming up to her and telling her their problems, and she just keeps absorbing it until she feels sick enough to die. 

I’m not really sure how I could work in mind-reading or manipulating time in, but manipulating time (or even time travel) could be really interesting.  I mean, it could age her really fast or something.  Mind-reading, on the other hand, I have no idea. 

I also like the idea of her having faerie blood, or at least the blood of some similar creature.  I like the idea of her slowly being killed by eating processed food, and breathing in polluted air.  Stuff that isn’t good for the average person, but takes years to have an effect is super toxic to her.

I think those 2 groups are the most interesting to me, but that’s the most thinking I did yesterday.  While it’s not a lot, it is something, and more than I’d normally do.  I definitely need to take a closer look at faerie’s and stuff.  I didn’t really do anything else, but small steps seem to work really well for me.  I don’t know what my next step is…or maybe I do and just don’t want to think about it.

Why Is It So Warm?

Posted in Camp NaNo, General by

Goodness, it’s been a very warm summer.  It’s annoying, and all I want to do…is nothing!  Which is something I’ve been doing a lot of.

I’ve been writing, and I’m currently at 48,554, so I’ll be finished today!  Thank goodness.  As much as I love NaNo (and Camp NaNo too), I’ll be glad when I’m done.  I don’t know which is more exhausting, 2 straight months of NaNo or 3 novels in one month.  Maybe they’re on the same level…I don’t know exactly.

I’ve been going back and forth between the sims 3 and pottermore.  I’m still trying to get the hang of potions, but at least I have a couple of them down.  And all the comments on the website too!  It’s cool talking to people, and I’m definitely interested to see what they’ll be adding as each book comes out.  And the more time I spend there, the more I feel like a Hufflepuff.  Which I always was…so don’t huffle the puff!  Seriously…badgers are scary.  Don’t mess with us!

I think that’s it for today, so have a great day!

Good Weekend For Writing

Posted in Camp NaNo by

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about writing, so today is the day for talking about it!  Because a few days is a really long time and all. 

Things are going along pretty well, and I’m finally all caught up!  Hopefully I’ll be able to get to 50k.  Actually, I’m sure I will, since I’m very determined to finish.  I’m not going to be working on this idea anytime soon, but I might pick it back up in a few months.  Most importantly, though, I need a break from writing.  Not completely, but I definitely want to slow things down.

I’m currently at 35,136 words, and wrote a total of 8,299 words on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get my word count back to normal!

Speaking of slowing things down, I think I might really slow things down.  Last week, I wasn’t in the mood to work on all 6 of my “side projects,” so I just did 3.  I think I’ll the other 3 this week and see how it all works out.  I’m not sure if that’s something I want to continue in September or October, but since I won’t be writing any 50k novels in the next 2 months, I might do all 6. 

It is something to consider for November, though.  I feel like I could handle 2 50k novels plus the 1500 or so words per week for the other 6.  One novel plus various projects is a lot different than 2 novels and various projects.  I was hoping to have at least one or two finished by November, but at the rate I’m going, I’m not sure if anything will be finished by then.  I guess I won’t know for sure until November.   

It’s weird though.  I’ve been writing something pretty much everyday, and it’s been fun.  But at the same time, weird too.  I’m definitely not used to writing so much, and it’s really different writing in a month that isn’t November.  And not the 15oo or so a week, but writing an actual novel in a non-November month!  It’s been hard to find the motivation the last couple months, but I manage to do it…somehow.

I’ll be back with more tales from my camping adventure!