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  Noyoki's Blog. This is where I'll keep my responses to Blogging challenges, and stuff. |
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| “Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.” - Chinese Proverb October NaNo Prep – Day 13 We worked up our second round of outline today, and I found a new beginning and a new end. Yay! It’s good to know where to begin and have an inkling of where the end will be. The cool thing is that I wasn’t at all happy with how the end was going before yesterday, and now it has a great happy ending. Fantastic. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Describe three sounds that are important to you, and one sound that drives you absolutely nuts. Or, answer this the other way around, if that suits you. Sounds that are most important to me: my son’s laughter, my cat meowing as I meow back, my husband saying ‘I love you, always and forever.’ Now for a sound that drives me batty, the sound of my teeth getting drilled. So much ick. Blog City Prompt: What would you do if you suddenly found yourself in a terrifyingly dangerous situation? Could you keep your calm? What would be the first reasonable thought to occur to you? Well . . . I’d probably die. Sucks, but such is life and death. I’m not the survivor type really. I know how it feels when I walk too fast, running for any length of time wouldn’t happen. I suppose my first reasonable thought would be: I hope this doesn’t hurt too much. Give it 100% - Day 44 Today was an abject failure. Not only did I not get up and exercise or write, I just got done eating crap. Husband threw temptation my way, and since I was already having a craptacular day, I pounced. He didn’t want to eat real food, but offered to make us supper before he went out to buy some fast food. In the end, I gave in and had him get me Taco Johns. Though, still trying to be somewhat helpful, he kindly omitted the pop. So it wasn’t totally 100% terrible. Tomorrow we’ll begin again. I will do better. I must. |
| “I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not “true” because we’re hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. – From the Introduction.” - Orson Scot Card, Ender’s Game October NaNo Prep – Day 12 Today was a brainstorming day, and super productive. I learned that my story doesn’t end where I thought it did. So now I know where it really ends, and I’ll be able to develop that more when we work on our outline next. Blog City Prompt: Where do you think fear of failure comes from? Was there ever something that you had feared you’d fail at but didn’t? I think it’s rooted in instinct. In the distant past, failure didn’t mean we got scolded, or lost or jobs, or failed a test, it meant we and our families didn’t eat that night. It’s ingrained in us that failure can be life or death, and though we’ve moved on from it, the internal wiring hasn’t changed. Two weekends ago I did my first formal interview for my NaNo novel. I was talking to a Priest about homosexuality and zombies. Before the interview I was terrified I’d end up with someone who’d get angry and damn me to hell before kicking me out of the Church. It turned out far better than I expected. He was open minded and willing to answer all my questions. From the interview, I learned a great deal about the Catholic faith and how it will impact my main character. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Monday: Sight. Prompt: Children are often scolded "You see with your eyes, not with your hands!" Why do you think it's important that we see with more than just our eyes?   One of the best reasons not to rely exclusively on sight is that our eyes lie to us. Sometimes what we think we’re seeing isn’t true. As our eyes take in the world, it’s akin to a movie: Multiple micro photographs that give the illusion of movement. But guess what? Much of our sight is made up of blank space. Our brain bridges the gap between each still frame. It makes it up. What lurks in the black spaces where our eyes don’t see? Give it 100% - Day 43 I made it through another day. Yay! This morning was a bit of a challenge. I’d had a late night last night, and only got four hours of sleep. My mind fought valiantly to get me to give up and let it sleep for an extra couple hours, but I refused to give in. So I got up, did my exercises, and got my writing done for the morning. *Cheers* |
| “Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.” - Unknown October NaNo Prep I went to Church again today, and it went well. How they go every week and do all the kneeling, I have no idea. My knees still hurt. Instead of working on my character sheets, I took a nap. >.< Well you can’t win all the time, and today is going to be a lazy day after all. I did finish my 2k words for my fanfic, so I’m happy about that. Since I’ve started, I’ve written 29,070 words from 9/28/15 to 10/11/15. Not bad. I’ve been writing 2k a day and I’ve learned that I write best in the early morning and that I can get my word count done in an hour and a half. All good things to know for November. 30 Day Blogging Challenge The Prompt: In the Official 30 Day Blogging Challenge Sundays are typically days where challengers are encouraged to write a blog entry about stories in their local news, or talk about how they spent the day. It's also a good day to visit the blogs of your fellow challengers and share a review, and or, add your voice to their comments box. Well... In the "UnOfficial 30 Day Blogging Challenge we'll do the same thing this Sunday, BUT...Our muses will write our blog entries for us today. Hmmm, what should spark an idea today? She wondered as her tiny hand swiped over the screen of Dana’s cell, flipping casually through the different news feeds. I already gave her the seed for her NaNo project with that story about the diseased Reo water, but how can we add to that? Why did the news always have to be so negative? Couldn’t there be a happy puppy story? Then again, happy puppies probably wouldn’t work in a zombie apocalypse novel. The poor thing would probably be eaten. Then again . . . maybe we can work with that. Let’s see, we know dogs are carrion eaters, maybe they can eat zombies? That could be a unique twist! Maybe we’ll even make zombie dogs that prey on the living and dead alike. Packs of zombie dogs! It’ll be perfect. Uh oh, we kind of got away from the cute puppy thing again didn’t we? Oh well, we’re not in the fluff business anyway. Bring on the hordes of Zombie Dogs, and only we’ll know that the inspiration was a wish for cute puppy stories in the news. Give it 100% - Day 42  Well, looks like I didn’t gain weight, but didn’t lose much either this week. Far too much extracurricular snacking I suppose. Anyway, I did a short bike ride today. Husband tried to fix my bike, but it’s a mess. The chain won’t stay on, and we don’t know why. I tried riding his bike, and the seat might be a left over torture device from the middle ages. It was a little slice of hell. So I only rode to the end of the street and back. Meh, guess it’s back to walking until we can figure out how to get it fixed. |
| “One day you will hear the sound of time rustling as it slips through your fingers like sand.” - Sergei Luckyanenko October NaNo Prep – Day 10 I haven’t tackled the assignment for today yet. It’s a challenge day, so it isn’t due until noon tomorrow and I don’t want to miss blogging for the day since time is an hour less here than on the site. I’m going to work on it next. It’s a short story featuring my antagonist. I’m kind of thinking about doing a story from his childhood. In it, I’ll show why he’s terrified of bats. During a camping trip, he gets bitten, and they have to rush to the hospital for rabies shots. It was a horrible experience all around. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Do you have a muse? - Write about your muse. Have you been asked this question too many times already? - Tell us something new about your muse. If you don't have a muse, and have been asked this question too many times before - Why don't you have a muse yet? And finally would you support a group or activity that is exclusive to muses only? “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” – Herman Wouk. I’ve never been questioned about my muse before, and now I’m forced to think about it. Hmm, well I don’t have a little person sitting on my shoulder, whispering ideas into my ear, but I’ve found that if I sit down every day and write, the ideas start to come. Call it a muse, or inspiration, or sheer determination. Either way, it works best when it’s done often and at the same time every day. If you want to entice the muse to you, let her know where you’re going to be. Show up, and she’ll come too. I wouldn't mind spending a week exploring muses. Blog City Prompt: Name one thing you wish your cell phone did for you that it currently does not. I would love it if my phone could be used to record interviews. However, I bought a super protective case that doesn’t come off, and it makes recording apps not work. The sound is too muffled, so they’re useless. I had to go out and buy a recording device to do my interviews for the novel I’m writing in November. Give it 100% - Day 41 Time got away from me today. I spent more time visiting with my parents than I thought I would. When I got home, it was too dark to go for a walk or a bike ride. Riding or walking at night freaks me out a little. You never know when someone might leap out of the bushes and attack. Since I couldn’t walk or bike ride, when I got home, I went down stairs and jumped on my little trampoline for a while. As a kid, I could jump on one of those huge trampolines for hours, now after a few minutes I feel like I’m going to die. It’s crazy. |
| “It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” - Eleanor Roosevelt October NaNo Prep – Day 9 Sigh, my antagonist is going to equal a lot more research. I know enough to know how much I don’t know. Still, I was able to get the basics down, and his voice came easy to me. So easy I had to write down the blip in his voice first because the lines were hovering there, and I didn’t want to lose them while I messed with the profile. I’ve downloaded yWriter, and I’m going to play with it this weekend to see if it’s a tool I’ll be able to utilize. Blog City Prompt: Vladimir Nabokov is noted for his playfulness of his language. One example "Do not be angry with the rain, it simply does not know how to fall upwards." Describe something in an unusual manner by forming an unexpected association, let's see some playfulness in your writing. We learned the hard way that ash wasn’t akin to rain after all, though it fell in drifts around us. Trying to brush it away left us streaked in black and dusty white, and we danced like wraths in the false snowfall while ignoring the destruction of everything we knew. We survived, and the day was a blazing glory. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day Five Prompt. Wood - It's everything from food to fuel. Its biggest enemy is plastic. Where would you rather live, in a world without wood, or a world without plastic? If I had to choose, I’d live in a world without wood. Not because I hate nature or anything, but because plastic is more versatile, and saves more lives. We can’t create flexible tubes and such out of wood. Without plastic, many surgeries would be impossible. Anything requiring a tube wouldn’t work out, and our lives would be quite different. There’s only so much that can be done with wood, whereas the application of plastic is limitless. Give it 100% - Day 40 I learned something new this morning, my phone doesn’t like playing videos when its battery is lower than 15%. Thankfully I was almost done with the work out when it quit. This week is a total loss when it comes to eating right. My bosses believe that the best way to tell people they’re appreciated is to feed them fatty, delicious foods. Breakfast on Monday, cookies and candy on Wednesday, a giant cookie, popcorn, candy popcorn, and M&Ms today. >.< Yeah, totally ate too much of all of that. Next week shouldn’t be so packed with temptation, so I’ll get back on track. Hopefully I’ve lost some weight this week and not gained instead. That would be disappointing. We’ll find out Sunday. |
| “I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.” - Jennifer Yane October NaNo Prep – Day 8 Today was a bit difficult, and I’ll need to spend a lot more time on this assignment over the weekend. It was Character List day. So many characters >.< I got a list going, picked out names, and figured out how they relate to the main character. That’s as far as I got. Well, that and giving them each a page in my "Invalid Item"  . Sunday I’ll fill out a basic character chart for each, and add anyone I missed. Putting all the names in started to overwhelm me, so I’m calling it a day. Since I worked on the assignment for over an hour, I’m counting it. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day Four Prompt: Water is the most precious of all the elements. We can't live without water. Write a rant or a rave related to water. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. In the distant future wars will be fought, not over oil, but over clean water. That will be the battle ground of tomorrow. We spend so much time worrying over oil and everything else, when one of the most finite resources we have is clean drinking water. The frightening truth is that only 2.5 percent of all the water on earth is fresh. The rest is locked in oceans and too full of salt to be of use to us. Of the 2.5%, only 1% is accessible, with the rest locked in glaciers and snowfields. Oil is the major cause we turn our eyes to, but it should be water we worry about more. Blog City Prompt: What kind of music did your parents listen to? Did it influence you to listen to the music you listen to now? According to my dad, there are only two types of music in the world: Country and Western. Mostly, I wasn’t too impacted by this. There’s some music of his that I enjoy and listen to, but overall I have my own tastes when it comes to music. Give it 100% - Day 39 I was super tired today for some reason, but I still managed to get my work out done and to walk for both breaks. When I got home, I cracked down and got writing, finishing up my 2k words that I couldn’t quite manage this morning, and putting together my character list for NaNo. Even on tired days, we have to keep pushing along. |
| “Fake it till you make it.” - Everyone October NaNo Prep – Day 7 So my quote above is dedicated to NaNo today. I made it through the interview with a Priest, and it went pretty well. Considering the fact that my two lines of questioning were homosexuality and zombies, I’d say it went as well as such a conversation can. The Priest gave me a lot of excellent information, and he got a good laugh when I started asking about zombies. It surprised him, and overall, it was a great experience. The interview lasted an hour, and I got permission to e-mail him if I have any other questions. Lesson: Interviews aren’t as scary as you think they are. If I can interview a Priest about gay zombies, you can do it too! When I got home, I took care of today’s assignment. "Invalid Entry" Blog City Prompt: October gave a party. The leaves by hundreds came. The chestnuts, oaks and maples and leaves of every name. Write your thoughts on this. In October, we walk in a shower of leaves. Orange, red, yellow and brown, they’re a living confetti spread all around us. It’s like the last great show before winter sets in. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 3 Prompt: The third element on the list is metal. Robots are made of metal. Let's talk about robots. What, if anything, do robots do for you, to make your life a little bit easier? Are there any tasks you would prefer a robot perform for you? I’m longing for the day when cars drive themselves. Seriously, I loathe driving. It will be a wonderful day when I can plug in the address and spend the drive time doing anything I want. Napping, writing, reading, playing on my phone. Anything but driving. Cars that drive themselves are going to have a huge negative impact on the insurance companies, but I’m okay with that since we’re all being fired anyway. Spiteful? Maybe a bit, but such is life. When cars drive themselves, there will be no need for collision insurance. Give it 100% - Day 38 Exercises, check! I’m proud of the fact that I made it through the whole 10 minute exercise without having to stop and take a break, though it was one of the easier workouts. Now for the fail. How can someone say no to yummy cookies that are hand delivered to their desk, followed by a cup of candy? >.< My will power isn’t so great. Though I did throw away half the candy. I snarfed the other half. Our bosses gave us snacks to show how much they appreciate us, so it would have been uber rude to say no. At least, that's what I tell myself. Meh. |
| “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.” - Thomas Edison October NaNo Prep – Day 6 Today was outline day, and this time I was smart enough to write it on the site so my formatting didn’t get all wonky. It’s pretty sketchy so far, but it’s a start. At least I know more or less where things are going and I have an end in mind. That always helps. "Invalid Entry" 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 2 Prompt: The second element on the list is earth, let's do this in order then. I've often wondered if we are the only ones, if our planet earth is the only planet which supports intelligent life. Then, it was confirmed in the 'tag line' from the TV series, X Files... We are not alone! Convince me that this is true by describing meeting the people from one of these other planets, while you visited there. My eyes cracked open, slitted against the blinding light. The last thing I remembered was seeing something, a shape in the sky . . . It wasn’t a circle, like all the movies showed, and the things that took me weren’t skinny or grey. How can I begin to describe the fantastical? They are large, much larger than humans. I can’t tell if they’re wearing space suits, or if that’s the way their skin is supposed to look. Either way, it’s beyond creepy, and the more I look the more the skin seems to move in ways flesh isn’t supposed to move. Unlike the creatures of earth, their configuration is nothing like ours. They don’t appear to have a head, for one. Or if they do, it’s so entirely different from ours that I can’t begin to guess where it is. I’m not the only one they’ve taken. We’re each being kept in a small glass cubicle, like Chinese Fighting Fish packed onto a shelf. The aliens watch us sometimes, I think, I’m not sure if they have eyes. Anyway, they stand in front of the cages. We haven’t been probed, or anything like that, not that we are big enough for them to do such a thing too, but still. Why were we collected? Are we destined to be pets? Food? Lab animals? I don’t know. Blog City Prompt: Which things inspire and aid your fictional work? Do you use arts or music other than the writing craft itself in order to come up with storylines, symbols, characters, etc. for your fiction? I have Amazon Prime, and there’s a playlist I use when I start writing every day. That puts my mind into the proper mood for writing. I’ve used like the bell for Pavlov’s dogs. When I hear the start of the playlist, I know it’s time to write. As for ideas, I get a lot from random what if moments. Great example: The other day I was walking on my break at 7 in the morning. One of the street lamps flickered, and I thought “What if the lamps were captive pixies, and it was someone’s job to tend to them?” Story ideas for me are found in those random moments. Give it 100% - Day 37 Today was great. I got my workout in, also walked for both breaks. As an added bonus, for the first time since I started, I’ve managed to get everything on my to-do list done today. When I got home, I went back out and got the shopping done. Then I tackled the kitchen, the laundry, the cat boxes, and my Nano prep. Now I’m finishing off my blog. All in all, a good day. |
| “Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” - William Blake, The Tyger October NaNo Prep Desperation is sometimes the nudge we need to learn something new. I forgot about the formatting problem…again. When I’d finished my half hour of brain storming I tried to copy/paste my work from Word to Writing.com and saw to my horror, all my careful tabs in outline format were ruined. Just a line of useless symbols along the side of the page. Well, I didn’t have an hour to fight with reformatting the whole thing. That’s when I noticed we could drag and drop documents into Writing.com now. I’ve always seen that, and I use it for uploading pictures all the time, but I’ve never tried it before. I learned that you can save a word document with all its formatting, but you can’t edit it in Writing.com. You have to edit the document and upload it again. So I was able to preserve my formatting, which is awesome, and my assignment is complete for the day. It was a great exercise, and it’ll make tomorrow go a better. I’ve been having a bit of trouble figuring out how the story’s going to go, so I did my brainstorming around that, and now I have a pretty good idea. I’ll flesh it out more tomorrow. "Invalid Entry" Blog City Prompt: Being hard on yourself: Write about the ways you are hard on yourself and the ways you aren’t. Were you always the same with this approach or did it change over the years? For the longest time, my inner self was a toddler I’d spoiled outrageously. Like a young child, all it had to do was stamp its little foot, and I’d yield. I’d feel bad about it, but that wouldn’t stop me from playing the tomorrow game. I don’t want to go shopping: I’ll do it tomorrow. I don’t want to clean the kitchen: I’ll do it tomorrow. I don’t want . . . You get the idea. Procrastination station all the way. Lately, I’ve been working on that. It started with my new exercise program, and I’ve begun to learn how to tame my inner monster. There are still days when I fail, like today, where I needed to go shopping and clean the kitchen, but I was able to get my writing done in the morning instead of rolling over and going back to sleep. I got my exercise done. I got my new card from the bank. I’m writing my blog now, and I got my October NaNo done instead of taking a nap. It’s a slow process, but I think after 30 years, I’m finally getting a hold of myself. I might even be *gasp* growing up at last. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day One Prompt. We may as well start from the beginning. Today the theme for your blog entry will be 'Fire' the first element listed. Find a creative way to talk about fire in your blog entry. Here's a little twist - Write how the element of fire relates to the five senses. Enjoy this feeble stab at poetry: To Taste the Flame What does fire taste like? How would it feel to sip from a stream of lava? To dip my toes into a lake of flame and bask in the blazing warmth. Would it be like swimming in a giant’s blood stream? All heat and vital life. Energy. Destruction and rebirth in the licking flames. Give it 100% - Day 36 Good news, bad news kind of day. I got my workout done. Yay! Eating today…not so great. We had a food day at work, so I ate a muffin, half a bagel, a donut, and some fruit. For dinner, my husband didn’t feel well enough to cook (the cold we’ve been sharing around the family hit him hard today and he stayed home) and I’m horrible at cooking, so I gave in to evil desire and we ate Taco John’s. I know, I know, but such is life. All we can do is keep moving forward and forgive ourselves minor slips. Or not so minor slips. Tomorrow will be better. |
| “You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breath, trust, let go and see what happens.” - Mandy Hale October NaNo Prep We’re given Sundays off, but I’ve decided to use them for research excursions. My first outing was to go to Church. Since I’m not religious, it was a fascinating new experience for me. It went pretty well, and Wednesday I have an interview with the Priest to get a few questions answered. If you want to know how it went, check it out here: "Invalid Entry" 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Finish this story... More than 35,000 cheering fans are standing on their feet, chanting your name. You step up to the microphone and... And an imaginary spot light pins me in place. My heart is captive thunder in my chest, and my throat squeezes down to the size of a straw when I try to speak. Come on! You have to do this if you want to move forward, just talk damn it. I take a breath, and the first words of my first novel spill from my lips into the crowds waiting ears. Give it 100% - Day 35 Sunday Weigh in:   DOWN 10 POUNDS!!! Yes! Five weeks in and I’m down 10.9 lbs. *Cheers* Okay, today was pretty good. Better than yesterday anyway. Since my bike is still broke, I walked with Shane as he rode his bike. It was a lot of fun, he’s getting better at it and not so insecure, though he still makes me hold the back of his shirt on the way back because he’s still afraid of going too fast down the hills. Here’s to the next five weeks and losing another 10 pounds. |
| “Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.” - Napoleon Hill October NaNo Prep This morning I got my short story written for the Challenge prep day. I thought it turned out alright. It’s not super long if you want to check it out and maybe drop me a line on what you thought. "Invalid Entry" . This short story was set about 5 years before the whole world comes crashing down around my characters heads. It is about the birth of Mark’s daughter, and I did a bit of foreshadowing, showing how the relationship isn’t the greatest while also giving a good sample of Mark’s personality. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Write a short bio for yourself in today's blog. Tell us all of your likes and dislikes. “I'm Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate… I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future… never really thought about it. As for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies.” ― Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto  I thought about leaving it at that, but I guess that wouldn’t be very nice, now would it? So, all about me . . . the dreaded write about yourself prompt *shudders* Well, I’m a citizen of the world, a.k.a the United States in a corn happy state known as Nebraska. Here the corn fields and cows outnumber the people. We live in Lincoln, which has the feel of a small town even though it’s a pretty large city. I’ve always found that odd. Lincoln doesn’t feel as big as it is. My husband used to be a Stripper, and then he moved into Boxing, and now he’s an Operator . . . in a box factory. You perverts, what were you thinking? Ha, love giving out his job titles like that. Stripping is when you take the extra material off the boxes when the shape is cut out, but it’s fun to see peoples’ faces when I tell them I married a stripper. I work in an insurance company who’s decided to downsize in the most haphazard way possible. We aren’t getting fired until 2019, and my department is the only group of people in the whole damned company that knows how to do Remarketing work. As you can imagine, we’ve lost a few people. Kind of a lot, actually. Now they’re trying to replace us with people in another state, who’ve never keyed insurance before, being trained by one of our leads, whose never trained people before. I’m sure that’s going to go swimmingly. Enough whining, we also have a five-year old son who’s not in kindergarten this year. He’s a bit small for his age, and he was born in July, so close enough to the cut-off date that I decided to keep him for another year. He is going through his third year of pre-school, this one the pre-k class, so he’ll be prepared next year for the rigors of big kid school. On to my likes, writing obviously, followed closely by reading. I love to eat yummy food, but that made me fat, so I’ve had to cut back. I’m a big fan of the superhero movies, action movies, horror, that sort of thing. My movie taste runs more towards Guy instead of Girl. I’m not a big fan of sappy romance or romantic comedies. Give me explosions, hot girls, and monsters any day. As for my dislikes, topping the list would be veggies. Sorry vegetarians and vegans out there, but I never grew out of the eeewwww it’s green stage of life. I’m a meat eater all the way. I’m not a fan of cooking, lie, I suck at cooking, but I do enjoy watching cooking competition shows for whatever reason. As stated above, I don’t like traditionally girly movies or books. I don’t like most girl things, makeup, high heel shoes, or revealing clothing. I’ve never understood how girls can have half their chest hanging out and not feel horribly awkward about the whole thing. So that’s a little about me, or a lot, hope it helps. Blog City Prompt: Just for a minute imagine that mystery drawer....you know the one that collects everything under the sun, we all have one. Without opening, tell us what is in there and why? Do you really use the things that are there? Once you've written what you think, go peek... are you right about what lingers in that mystery drawer. Our mystery drawer is a mess. It’s full of batteries, little nails for hanging stuff up, an assortment of pens, envelopes, stamps, my check book, a bunch of different pairs of scissors and old paperwork that I need to sort through, spritz scents bottles for spraying the dogs, dog clippers, dog leashes, and a lot of loose change. I use that drawer when I need to pay a bill with a check, or need batteries, or scissors. I don’t need to go look in there today since I dug through the whole thing at 4 in the morning. When I woke up today my throat was killing me and I went on a hunt for cough drops. I hoped there might be one or two lingering in there, but no dice. I finally found some in my office downstairs so that was good. It’s a cluttered mess, and I should go through it sometime to organize it, but I do use the stuff in there, so that’s good. Give it 100% - Day 34 Well my attempts at exercise ended badly today. Like most weekends during this adventure in weight loss, I decided to go for a bike ride. It started out great, and then things went downhill, pun intended. While going downhill, I hit the breaks to slow down. Something made a loud clank sound and it became hard to peddle. When I tried to peddle harder to compensate, the chain popped off. Luckily, I didn’t fall off and break my head open. Not so luckily, it turns out something is wrong with the back tire. The chain won’t stay on, and I had to walk my bike home. As all this happy crap was going on, somewhere along the line, my wallet fell out of my pocket. I didn’t even know I’d lost it until I passed it in the middle of an intersection and picked it up. Amazing that I found it. Too bad I wasn’t the first person to do so. Some ass hole had been there before me and took my bank card, two credit cards, and my health savings card. Whoever it was left everything else, so I won’t have to go through the hassle of getting a new license, but still. Jerk. Anyway, I then spend the next hour walking home, pushing my bike, and talking on the phone to my bank to get my cards canceled. Overall, that was the worst bike ride ever. |
| “So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.” - Willy Wonka October NaNo Prep *Wipes the sweat off my brow and blows on my smoking fingers* Okay, so maybe that’s exaggerating a little, but that was a pretty long character interview. I finally finished my prep for the day and I seriously can’t wait until the glorious day when we don’t have to code to format, when formatting can come over with copy paste. Anyway, here’s my entry for the day: "Invalid Entry" Blog City Prompt: Would you ever take a job writing for a gossip rag, dishing about celebrities, politicians or local law enforcement? No, not because I believe I’m above writing such things, I’m just not interested in gossip or celebrities. Politics aren’t my cup of tea. Writing about the law enforcement might be interesting, but I’m too much the fiction writer to stick to the facts and nothing but. I might sneak in a perp with wings or something. 30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT Make us laugh with some classroom humor from your years in grade-school, or write a related poem or story. I don’t have a ton of funny school stories, but I guess there’s one. Those who read my old blog probably heard this one before, but meh, such is life. My husband, back in our junior year of high school, proved that sometimes stalking works. I was a loner back then (by choice) and I would spend my lunches sitting in the hallway reading. One day, my future husband sat down next to me and proceeded to pester me. While I tried to read, he would poke my side. This went on for the whole year, and if you’d told me back then that the annoying kid who wouldn’t leave me alone would be my husband someday, I might have shoved you into a locker. But it worked. Like a fungus, he grew on me and here we are. Married with children and still together after 13 years. Give it 100% - Day 33 Today was a better day. I managed to drag my sorry rump down stairs and do my work out, though my muscles cried the whole time. I also got my 2k words written this morning. Yay! That’s over 10k in one week. So much awesome. I’ll have the chapter finished tomorrow. I’ve also been walking both morning and afternoon break all week, so that’s good. It’s only 10 minutes a shot, so not high impact cardio. All in all, not a terrible week aside from the being sick for most of it. |
| “The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” - Chinese Proverb October NaNo Prep Today is the first of October and all over Writing.com authors are breaking out their notebooks, character charts, scribbled musings, and desperation. That’s right, prep season has come around again. Do you have an idea of where you’re going? Are you signed up to play? If not, that’s okay, there’s always more blogging to be done. For those who’re prepping with me, I’m going to include this little blip in my blog every day to track my journey. Next month, I’ll change it to NaNo and continue mapping my progress. So here is my little stone for the day: "Invalid Entry" 30 Day Blogging Challenge Yesterday, I planned on dropping the 30 Day Blogging Challenge for the month. I thought “My Goddess, I have far too much on my plate already.” Then, I remembered the quote I headed my blog with yesterday. Write more to write more I’ve decided to take that advice to heart and continue writing more and more and more. Prompt: What did you do in September? Did you have any writing goals or other goals? Do you have any writing goals or other goals for October? What do you like most about the month of October? September was the first step on a new path for me. I began a new exercise program and I’ve almost lost 10 pounds. During that time, I’ve learned that self-control is an interesting thing. Once you gain control of one part of your life, you start getting control of other parts. I don’t know if this will work for everyone, but here’s a neat little life hack: If you want to wake up early and develop that habit, get your work schedule changed to something crazy early. My previous schedule was 5:30 to 1:45. I would get up at 4, exercise, shower, wake Paul up, get Shane ready, and go. Because of my work schedule, I got into the habit of getting up at four because there was no choice. See the trick? I had to get up, so I did. This is where the hack comes in. Monday, I got my schedule changed to 7 to 3:15. Now I continue getting up at 4. By 4:45 I’m showered, wide awake, and husband is gone. My son is still sleeping. I have over an hour of glorious silence to write in. 1. Monday I got 2,253 words written between 4:47 – 6:00. 2. Tuesday I got 2,001 words written between 4:53 – 6:01. 3. Wednesday I got 1,684 words written between 4:50-5:54 (Note: I wrote another 364 words when I got off work to give me a total of 2,049 for the day) 4. Today…not so great. My son gave me a virus and it won this morning. I’ll get into that more in my Give it 100% section. Anyway, I made up for it by writing when I got home and got 2,065 words. My goal for October is to write 2k words a day on my fanfiction. This will be like mental exercise in preparation for November. By the time November comes around, I’ll already be used to writing 2k a day in the mornings and it will make the month go smoother. All in all, it was a pretty great September. Hopefully October will prove to be as fruitful. As for what I like most…hmmm…Pumpkin everything. We have a restaurant here called Culvers, and they make the most amazing pumpkin cheese cake concrete mixers (think blizzards) Those things are addictive. For October I’ll let myself get a mini mixer every Friday as long as A) I did my exercises all week, B) I got all my October Prep work done, C) I wrote 2k words a day. If I didn’t meet any of these goals, no mixer. *sob* Blog City Prompt: October 1. Autumn and Halloween. Do you decorate for autumn and Halloween? Do you enjoy autumn? I want to know. I’m not big on decorating. This year, we have two pumpkins out on the front steps because Shane’s grandma bought them and they decorated them together. Aside from that, nope. Autumn is one of my favorite seasons. This year for a kind of morbid reason. “The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer’s ending, a sad, monotonous song. ‘Summer is over and gone,’ they sang. ‘Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.’” - Charlotte’s Web Yes! Die you evil little bugs, die! This year has been the season of bugs in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s not that I hate crickets, but they keep sneaking into my basement and chirping. It’s enough to drive you mad. So yes, I’m looking forward to winter and their timely demise. Them and the spiders. I’m not joking, there have been so many spiders this year. So much ick. Bugs and spiders are the only things I hate/fear. Rats? Awww, how cute. Snakes, love them. Mice? Mini rats, sweet! Bats? Ohhh, flying rats, too cool. All of these and more are perfectly awesome. Spiders? Not so much. Give it 100% - Day 32 Swing, and miss! >.< I had to take another day off. The virus won. The horror. I think if the alarm would have woken me up, it would have been fine, but nooo, the dogs woke me up half an hour before the alarm. So I had half an hour to think about how horrible I felt and by the time the alarm went off… Well, such is life. Three naughty days. I’ve only slated two more, so I better save those for a rainy day. |
| "Write more to write more.” - Rochelle Melander, Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About it) 30 Day Blogging Challenge War Chest Wednesday! What is the most annoying sound you have ever heard? There are two sounds I hate most in this world: people using nail files, and getting my teeth drilled. Ugh, both are mild torture. When I was 12, I got my fingernails professionally done. I got the long fake ones, and it was a nightmare. She couldn’t just glue the darn things on, oh no, that would be too easy. Nope, she had to file each nail, and then file them again, and then buffer them. By the time the first was done, I was ready to swear off being a girl. As for my teeth, my dentist is a nice fellow, but I hate his guts. Hate, hate, hate him. The only way I can tolerate getting my teeth drilled is to bring my headphones and to crank the music so loud it makes my brains rattle inside my skull. Blog City Prompt: "Light tomorrow with today." Elizabeth Barrett Browning What do you think this means? This quote is the opposite of procrastination. Instead of putting off what could be done today for tomorrow, you’re taking steps to day to achieve your goals of tomorrow. Instead of waiting to start a diet or exercise program, you should begin today. That way, you set your feet firmly on the path that will lead to your dreams. It’s all too easy to put things off, but that path is no path at all. No dream was ever realized that wasn’t first begun. Give it 100% Today was difficult, to say the least. Shane, my loveable five-year-old son is such a kind and sharing child. He shared his virus with me. It took a huge act of will to crawl out of bed and do my workout, but I’m glad I did. Working out didn’t make the cold go away, but it made my body ache a little less and made the headache a touch more bearable. Tomorrow is another day, and I’m sure the cold will be worse. But, my will is stronger and I won’t be defeated! |
| “I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.” - Brian Tracy Blog City Prompt: Why are works of historical fiction so popular with today’s readers? What appeals to you the most about these types of books, if anything at all? I’m not a big fan of historical fiction, so I’m not sure what this genre’s appeal is to readers. Perhaps it’s because they want to know more about history, but most history is dull to read. By dramatizing it, a writer can bring the facts of history to light, while providing the entertainment of a well written novel. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Talk Tuesday! I know people often joke about TMI (too much information)...but all kidding aside, can too much information ever be a bad thing? Yes. Yes it can. There’s an odd phenomena that happens when you’re pregnant. Every single person you know will have at least one story about themselves or someone they know who was pregnant and how absolutely horrid the birthing experience was. I don’t know why we’re compelled to share these stories with pregnant women, but we do. And after a while you want to smack them to make them be quite. Pregnancy is scary enough, it doesn’t need a bunch of horror stories heaped on top of it to make it worse. Even though it’s been five years since I gave birth, I still remember that. Give it 100% - Day 30 I made it through another day of exercise. This week, I started a new schedule at work. Instead of starting at 5:30, I start at 7. But, I still get up at 4. Now I’m able to get my exercise done, take a shower, wake husband up to leave for work, and then write for an hour in the morning. This is perfect for me. By the time I got home from work, took care of everything that needed taking care of, I had no energy left over for writing. Now I’m able to get my writing done before I use up all my reserves. In the past two days I’ve written over 2000 words each morning. *biggrin* |
| “To embark on the journey towards your goals and dreams requires bravery. To remain on that path requires courage. The bridge that merges the two is commitment.” - Dr. Steve Maraboli Blog City Prompt: Overthinking--Do you think that overthinking creates problems? Has it ever created problems for you, your family and friends, or for the characters in your stories? Overthinking can be a dangerous thing. One of the major problems we find with overthinking is that it paralyzes us. Instead of tackling the problem or doing what needs to be done, we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by thinking too much about it. This has happened to me a few times when I’ve tried to do NaNoWriMo. I did it successfully the first year, and for the past four years I’ve allowed overthinking to cripple me. I start thinking about how impossible it is to write a book in 30 days. I question my idea, and begin to think it’s stupid and won’t work. In the end, I’m defeated before I ever write a word. Instead of overthinking the problem, we need to break it down into manageable chunks. Don’t think “I’m going to write a novel in November.” Instead think “I need to get the character charts done tomorrow.” Break it down into steps, and go one step at a time to keep from overthinking the project. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Music Monday! Do you have any guilty pleasures when it comes to music...something you think no one else really knows you listen to and enjoy, or are maybe a little afraid to admit? (If this prompt doesn't really appeal to you, you can substitute music for television shows, or movies, or food...any kind of guilty pleasure, I suppose.) My guilty pleasure when it comes to music is old country. I love the songs that are stories about cowboys, horses, the old west, that sort of thing. I don’t like the newer country that’s whiny. Here’s an example of what I love. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] There are a lot of old songs about breaking horses, killing outlaws and the west before it was fully settled. This is a guilty pleasure because I got into these songs because my dad loves them. It’s so uncool to like the music your parents do. *biggrin* Give it 100% I completely forgot to do my Sunday weigh in, so here’s Monday morning weigh in instead. I’m doing pretty good. Nine pounds in 4 weeks isn’t something to stick your nose up at. Today’s exercise was pretty good. I only had to rest a few times and only for a couple seconds instead of half a minute or more. I think I’m getting stronger. Also, I’ve noticed that some of those pounds are coming from my belly. It’s flatter than it used to be and my pants aren’t as tight. Yay!  |
| “I’m not clumsy. It’s just the floor hates me, the tables and chairs are bullies & the wall gets in the way.” - Unknown 30 Day Blogging Challenge The Sunday News! What's the biggest story in your hometown this weekend? Not where you're living now, but the place you were born (if they're not the same area). http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/TMFPD-Battling-Fire-Near-Cold-Springs-32967... Looks like things haven’t changed much in my little valley over the past 18 years. The mountains are on fire…again. It happened every few years when I was a kid. One time, the fires were so bad that it was raining huge fluffy flakes of ash down on the valley. They never got to the houses. It did look kind of awesome and terrifying at night, looking at the fires burning up the mountains. At least they got it contained. It’s mostly desert, so nothing major got ruined. Just a bunch of sage brush and giant red ant hills burned. Give it 100% I think I need to rethink what the word moderate means. Today, I was roped into helping my mom clear out a lot of the jungle in my back yard. She cut down the little trees, I hacked them to bits and bagged them. Seven bags later, and we found the old garden. Then we had the joyful fun of moving all the bricks imbedded in the ground up the small hill and by the gate. I’m exhausted, and I can’t even tell you how many spiders crawled up my arms. There’s a reason I’ve been avoiding the back yard. This summer is the season of bugs, and I freaking hate spiders. *shudders* So I got my not so moderate physical activity for the day. Tomorrow I get to go back to the easy stuff…not. |
| “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov 30 Day Blogging Challenge Creation Saturday! An eighth day has been added to the week, and you've been chosen to decide why. The only caveat is that whatever you decide must be done for at least eight of the extra 24 hours, and what you choose will become permanent for all of humanity until the end of time. What would you do, and why? This is a tricky prompt. If we could do whatever we wanted, that would be easier. It’s harder to come up with an activity that everyone in the world has to do, but I think I’ve found one. The eighth day would be entitled “Self-improvement day.” This allows everyone to work on areas where they feel they need to improve. Even children can get in on it. Five-year-olds can finger paint, fourth graders can work on their reading, and high schoolers can spend the day with parents learning how to be adults. All in all, it would work out well for everyone. It would also give everyone the much needed time to get to those projects we know would improve ourselves, but never have time to do. Give it 100% - Day 27 Alrighty then, I think I’ve made up for my earlier lapses this week. Give me a bow please, I rode my bike from 6:15 to 8:00. I’d love to say I powered through and just wanted to have a great bike ride, however, that’s not the case. I got lost. A lot. When I started, I wanted to go a little farther than what I’ve been doing. Instead of turning around at the end of the street and heading home, I turned and there was a bike trail! All downhill, and delightful for coasting. That was the best part. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I turned again. I was on a street I knew, and so I headed back home. Here’s where things went awry. The street I was on had a big hill, and I didn’t really want to try and peddle up it. So I turned again. I thought I knew where I was in relation to the street I needed to get to. Yeah, not so much. Eventually I made it close to my street, when I did the same darn thing. I decided to take a side street with a less steep hill, and my stupid neighborhood was designed by a madman. Instead of streets that are parallel to each other, ours meander all over the damned place. I ended up getting turned around. Then I found another street that would get me home. Unfortunately, I went the wrong way. I figured it out after far too long. So then I turned around again and finally made it home after dark. It was the longest bike ride I’ve been on in forever and my whole body hurts right now. |
| “It’s no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy, Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me.” - Lit, My Own Worst Enemy It’s amazing how easy it is not to do something when you’ve not done it once or twice, then you end up with a whole stretch of days not doing what you meant to do. Thus you end up with a stretch of most of a week of no blogging. Sigh, I must do better. Blog City Prompt: “Our ability to adapt is amazing. Our ability to change isn't quite as spectacular.” ~Lisa Lutz How do you feel about her assessment? Do you agree or disagree? Do you have examples to share? At first, I thought adapting and changing were the same, but the more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind. We adapt to situations that happen outside of ourselves. Say we lose our job, or we have an unexpected pregnancy. Things happen outside our control all the time. Because of this, we’ve learned how to adapt to changing situations, even if we don’t like it. Change is a totally different beast. Change is something that happens within us. Right now, I’m trying to change my eating and exercise habits. It’s difficult and at times down right impossible. I’m also dealing with the fact that I’m going to lose my job in 2019, and while that sucks, it’s easier to handle. The reason? I can’t do anything to stop my company from leaving Nebraska. I can give up on my diet and exercise regimen. Because change is something that has to happen within us, and it’s something we can give up on, it’s infinitely harder to accomplish than merely adapting to a change in circumstances. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Fun Fact Friday! On this day in 1492, the crew of the Pinta (one of Christopher Columbus' ships) mistakenly thought that they had spotted land. Your prompt: When has a trip of any sort not turned out as initially expected? I don’t have an example of a trip that didn’t turn out as planned. With people like my dad and mother-in-law in charge of all our travel plans, there’s no chance of them not going the way they’re supposed to. Though, I do have a different example. When it comes to writing, I often set out to go in a certain direction, only to end up somewhere totally different. Characters will come to life and start acting on their own. Instead of being best friends, like I expected, they might turn out to be bitter enemies. It’s always fun when the characters take the wheel and begin to drive the story, though it can muck up a carefully laid outline. Give it 100% I would love to stand here and say the only thing I neglected was my blogging, alas, that would be a lie. You see, on Tuesday my mom called me at work and told me Shane had a fever of 103 and had thrown up. Knowing it wasn’t going to be something that cleared up in a day, I took Wednesday and Thursday off. After a trip to the doctor, we found out it was a virus and we had to let it run its course. Needless to say, this threw my whole schedule off. Instead of getting up at 4 and doing my exercises before work, the evil me won and we slept in. I failed to exercise for both days I stayed home. On top of that, when I exercised on Monday, I strained something in the back of my left knee, so my evil twin, aka Mrs. Procrastination, used this as a perfect excuse to not get up. I did get my exercise done on Tuesday, but I had to change the jumping jacks to full extensions. I wish this was all I had to report, but I have one more sin to confess. On Thursday I went grocery shopping. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, and was starving. There’s a McDonalds on the way to the grocery store. Instead of passing it by, I stopped in and had a quarter pounder meal with a pop. I’ll admit, it tasted amazing after weeks without fast food, however it didn’t take long for my stomach to complain bitterly. Why do we do things we know we’ll regret? I regretted it before I even turned in, but I did it anyway. So very lame. Anyway, today was good. I got my exercise done, and I did a bit of repentance. At work, I walked for both my morning break and my afternoon break. I also rode my bike when I got home. The major point here is that I have to get back on track. Yes, I slipped up, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up. |
| “The turtle couldn’t help us.” - Stephen King, It 30 Day Blogging Challenge The Sunday News! This week in Texas, a fourteen-year-old Muslim boy was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school ...his teachers mistook the item for a bomb. Was this the right move, or did the teachers in question blow this situation too far out of proportion? Are we now erring on the side of too much caution? I have a son who is about to start school, and one of the things I’m terrified about is the escalating violence in schools. Personally, I think that better safe than sorry is the way to go in situations like this. In this case, it was a homemade clock. What we have to think about is what would have happened if it had been a bomb. If it had, then who knows how many children would have died because of it. There are things we shouldn’t take to school, and bringing a homemade clock in a suitcase is probably one of those things. When you look up the pictures of the clock, it looks a lot like a bomb. This is similar to the rule that states students cannot bring toy guns to school. Give it 100% - Day 21 Today, Shane and I went to the park. He rode his bike, and I walked with him. It was a pretty good walk, and not too hot. It’s also time for the dreaded weekly weight check. *biggrin*, Looking good! Two pounds a week isn’t something to turn my nose up at, so that’s good. We’ll see how next week goes.  |
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