Whoops!

Every once in awhile when I am writing my brain glitches and I confuse words. (I'm still saying haste-post instead of post-haste.) Sometimes, it can be pretty hilarious, and sometimes it's just plain weird. I'm going to start sharing these random sentences with you, because I can. Mwahahahaha... >:)

“like a wind blown in the leaf…”

How do leaves blow wind around?

I don't know, but this is some interesting bedroom.

Random Words

I had an idea the other day (and yes, I know my ideas can be dangerous, but calm down, this does not involve knives or juggling) and I thought I might see how it works.

Because I am having difficulties with Thanet's Curse, I have decided to ask for your help. If any of you fine folks would like, give me a word: it can be a noun, verb, adjective, etc. (but not articles, prepostions, or most adverbs, because we want to be interesting here). Once I have collected these words I must integrate them into my manuscript, at least once, preferably twice.

Last October when I was doing Nano I had a couple of random words I found through the forums there, and I decided to find a way to incorporate them into my story (like defenestration.) Currently I am trying to find a way to use 'antipode,' and already used 'proffered,' so I would like a couple of new ones.

The novel is set in a fantasy world of little islets (think Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy). Remember, there are no such things as giraffes or wombats in this world (*tear*), and please keep it clean. I am not going to put the word 'poop' in my novel. Just not happening.

Anyway, I am going to go do homework, and if any of you would like, feel free to comment a word for me. Yay! I'm excited to see how this works out.

Oh! And because I love pictures:

He is picking out random words. See his lovely wrinkled hand.

This is SO pretty. Love, love, love.

For any of you who post a word I thank you in advance and am showering butterflies on you in my head. Though... I suppose that might be gross, but in my head it is lovely, so you'll have to take my word for it that I am not insulting you.

Awards Make Me No Longer Depressed

I am having issues writing the sequel to Blackburn's Prisoner (which I think I have decided to call Thanet's Curse). The problem is a) I got waaay behind in word count, 2) I don't care about the characters or the situation they're in (I seriously am trying to figure out what happened to the people and story of Blackburn's Prisoner that I loved so much.) This may not seem like a huge problem, so what if I FAIL entirely? Well, the problem is I am planning on querying an agent for Blackburn's Prisoner, and if I can't write this stupid sequel, that will be a big problem if I ever sell the first one. For some reason publishers want an author to be able to write a sequel if the first book ends in a major cliff-hanger. *Shrugs*

A cliff hanging Robot! My story is not as cool as that.

And I really don't want this book to hang-over into March, because I was planning on writing something else, something that I am really excited about. Usually, this would not bother me, since I'm a pantser I just go with the flow and write whatever I am excited about. This does not finish novels. This leaves me with a ton of beginnings (many of which I love), but not a lot of middles, and even fewer ends. (<-- Except for this one story where I have only been able to write the ending scene. What is up with that?) I do not want Thanet's Curse to end up wallowing in the mud somewhere without me. I want to finish it. I must! I must! (Oh, another issue I'm having with it: it is sounding way too much like another story I wrote. No. That is so not allowed.)

Wow.. There is a whole book description of this over HERE. Bizarre.

---

I just got home from work and went back on blogger to finish up this post, but before I did I ran over to Musings of a Palindrome, because I thought I was following her already, but I wasn't, so after I finished gasping in astonishment I clicked on the follow button. Then I read her post. And nearly died.

I didn't even know she knew I existed!! Well... Not enough to give me an award. I nearly cried my eyes out.

Seriously. This came up under "cry my eyes out."

Someone out there understands the evils of high heels. I applaud them.

But the Award specified Slumpvis Musings, so I will post more fully about it over there, even though I have something in dire need of posting over there. Gah. Too many, many things.

The Fine Print I

Today two of my friends asked me to join them (as well as a group of other people) to read through the Fine Print submissions. Every year the little college I attend collects students' short stories and poetry, a bunch of nerdy people read them, and eventually some get collected into a book-bounded form. It was the best thing EVER. It reminds that I totally want to be an agent, even if none of them screamed PUBLISH ME NOW, but there were a couple that said "I actually know how to write, I have potential, please read more of my stuff." Especially the one dude. I probably upped his scores a little bit, just 'cause his was so much better than anything else I had read. There were just a couple of parts I think he could have written stronger, and I know he would agree, so I don't feel bad posting it on the web. Especially because no one knows who I am talking about. (Raspberry Moose!)

This is a moose. He is made of Raspberries.

The thing with poetry is either I love it, or I hate it. There was one poem that I loved, and the other person who looked at it did not love it. So we passed it around. And around. And there ended up being a whole discussion about whether or not it was good enough to put in the Fine Print. My opinion? If you can write anything that gets people choosing sides and trying to persuade others to agree with their point of view, you have done something special. No one else discussed any of the other works. Just that one. So I say publish it. If it gets us talking... Well, you just did something no one else achieved. I take my invisible hat off to you.

This is the antipode of an invisible hat

There was one thing disturbing about the whole event. The one dude and I kept scoring things scarily close. For poems there were four options: clarity, content, form, and impression. I freaked out when we did the one EXACTLY THE SAME. Very weird.

Also, I decided today that I need a new college. [Because as far as I am aware one cannot become an agent without having some form of degree. Sad face.] As depressing as this sounds, it is true. I am tired of being one of the smartest kids in class. Ugh! Disgusting. I am not that good people. I am bored. I can pass a test I did not study for. I can get A's on papers I finish right before class. I refuse to get a degree simply because I can. I want a degree because I worked for it, because I slaved over it, because I nearly died from pure stress in order to achieve it. Maybe that's what graduate school is for? I don't know, it just seems that a senior in highschool is at a higher education level than a freshman's first year at college. What is wrong with that picture, I ask you?

Seriously, what IS wrong with this picture?

Moving on to actual writing things: Today I wrote 4,ooo words. Hoorah! I wanted 8,ooo, but we all knew that wasn't going to happen, so I kept my hopes at 2,ooo. I beat my score! Hopefully this means I can finish the sequel before the month ends, but I don't know. I still got a ton left. I still have about half the novel left. Sadness. Despair. Lack of cookies.

This fish is sad he has no cookies

The kitten is sad he has no brains

(Take THAT EB! I have your kitten trapped, trapped I say, bwahahahahahaha >:)

In conclusion all I have to say is that I MUST send out a query this month, I must, I must.

Let Me See...

Today was a bad week in writing. It was chock-full of good things, nonsense, and white noise. (White noise is for the parts of this past week that I know happened, but I can't remember anything but a white fuzz. You'd think I took drugs or something, but I hate even sudaphed, and I never take advil or tylenol. They're of the DEVILLLLLLL! Ok. Not really. But if in the end they do end up being of the devil, I totally called it.)

The closest I could find to devil tylenol. Sadness.

All this to say my word count is low. I forget exact, but I'm pretty sure I haven't hit 20,000 yet, and it's pretty much half a month over... Wait.

I promised myself I would not be all whiny-whiny, I'm a baby! I hate my life! Kill me now!

Stormtroopers hate their life too. We will commiserate together!!

So here is the good news: 22,038 is my word count! yay!

Here is the bad news: 30,362 is where I am supposed to be. FAIL.

Good news again: I can write today!

Bad news again: 8342 is how many words I would need to write to make it up. That's at least 17 pages.

So what am I doing here instead of writing like a banshee?

This is a banshee.

What I am doing is waiting to tell you a story! Just a quick one...

I was scrolling through what I had written last night when I saw one of the *gasp!* red squiggly lines letting me know I had spelled something wrong. Death! dying! Destruction! Yeah, no. Writing fantasy or anything fantasy-related means that there are squiggly lines all the time. it doesn't matter if Nadra, Cynferth, Cenweard, and Braeden are all real names (Afrikaan, Welsh, English, English) the dictionary does not recognize them. And in order to make my book more friendly all curses are in a language that doesn't exist, so there are squiggly lines under Yila! Kriev! Yuksiy! etc. (Although Yila doesn't count, I just like saying it).

So when there was a squiggly line I wasn't too worried, but I read it anyway just to make sure. And it was a good thing I did. It turns out my one character, Damaria, was sitting on a pile of plankets.

Yup. Instead of soft woolen blankets, she was resting on a whole bunch a' slabs of wood. How comfortable.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Plankets are REAL! Check this out:

I just had a #8 E-o-M experience

The description is hilarious, so check it out here. Oh my puppy dogs and windshield wipers. Incredible.

Another Contest!

Elana Johnson is a new author I learned about through Falen. I think. Yes. And she is having a contest! Yay! Through confetti everyone, just throw confetti. And then check out her blog and enter and stuff. (Oh, and mentioning Falen Formulates Fiction, she is cool, and stuff, so you should check out her blog. Unless you already do. Then you beat me. And. You win. An invisible hug. From my invisible friend Ted.)

Oh, and the contest involves Post-it notes. Who doesn't love Post-it notes?


I will be posting tomorrow (hopefully) about the magical appearing words that have saved my sanity.

Odds and Ends

This week I got some exciting things in the mail. They are small, they are pieces of paper, and they have pictures on them. What could they be, you ask? Why! They are these:

Business Cards!!!

I just love moo.com. I heard about them through Rachele and I checked out the website and they gave you ten cards for free. Free, people. I am poor, and free is good. Now, when I actually get published, and when I am not longer poor (these two things don't necessarily go together) I will buy some more. I was quite impressed with the quality. And they let you upload your own pictures. How sweet is that? I will tell you how sweet. How sweetly exciting: #3.

And also I got these:

Books!!

And not any books, but books by Jessica Wagstrom about Xlormp. They're a parody of the Twilight books, and they are absolutely hilarious. She does take some cheap shots by using crude humor (I call it cheap, because anyone and their dog can do it. It takes much more creative juice to be funny without just mentioning something considered 'taboo' by society) but over-all she is so funny I can't help but bust out with snorts and "GHK!" while trying to breathe.

And one day I may tell you what I think about Twilight, but for now I am going to go write a thousand words or so.

Oh! And there is a contest over at: Falen Formulates Fiction. SonshineMusic told me about her, and she is a super cool person, so I thought I'd let you know :)