Day 2 of NNWM 2011

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Written by: on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Well, that was rather painful. I spent much longer today trying to meet today’s daily word goal. I kept opening word count to see how close I was before calling it quits for the day. I don’t understand how an idea that has pestered me for two years feels like trying to pick the meat off the remains of a Thanksgiving turkey that has been demolished by the family.

Maybe it’s because I feel little to no passion for the idea? Two years is a long time but I know that the idea will surface again and again if there’s no other story idea. Maybe I feel cornered because it’s a whole new fantasy world instead of using my favorite go-to fantasy world. I do need to get passionate about this idea and start cooking up some scenes, otherwise it’s going to get worse as the days go by.

Story-related pages I glanced at while trying to write:
Marten – Opted to use a weasel instead since I wasn’t sure if Marten was well known or not.
Deer Calls (youtube)
Sparrow Chirping (youtube)

Maybe I’ll have more luck tomorrow that it won’t take so long to meet the daily word goal.

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Location: The Green Room
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Day 1 – Check!

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Written by: on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

After staring for hours at a blank white screen (MS Word), I finally forced myself to start out with a scene. I then spent the next couple hours trying to figure out what happens in this scene and how it can affect things later on. After hammering out 1,719 words, I have officially met today’s daily word goal. Now that I got the opening scene out of the way, maybe it won’t be so hard to keep going.

Ah, who am I kidding? It’s going to be painful for the next 29 days! I do look forward to the story unfolding before me once I figure out what’s going on next.

On a side note, my eyes are blurry and I still have to paint gingerbread people. Anyone want to paint them for me? No?

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Location: The Green Room
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NaNoWriMo has started. Day 1.

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Written by: on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

NaNoWriMo has started! If you’re just hearing about this for the first time, NNWM is basically a personal challenge. You’re challenging yourself to write 50,000 words through the month of November. It gives you that extra oomph to start a novel.

This year’s NNWM, I have decided to write a story titled “The Coming of the Second Phoenix”. It’s an idea that’s been pestering me for the past two years. Right now I have Word open… It’s been open for a few hours now… Not a single word typed in yet. It’s sort of odd that this idea has been pestering me for so long and I have no clue how to begin it.

Last year was easy. It was about a creator that came to his fantasy world. I knew where to start the story. This time, I don’t. I don’t have a clue. It’s hard to decide where to pick up the story but I’ll meet my 1,667 daily word goal today. I’m sure of it. I’ll force myself to start somewhere.

Just… I’m lettering it simmer for the moment. Yeah, that’s it. Simmer.

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Location: The Green Room
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Happy Halloween!

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Written by: on Monday, October 31st, 2011

Carve your pumpkins yet? Got your costumes picked out? Hope so. Halloween’s here. Heh! I haven’t gotten into watching any horror movies though… but does “The Walking Dead” count? I couldn’t wait for the second season but is it me or is it moving awfully slow? I wish they’d find Sophia and get back on the road. Everyone’s doing an awful lot of whining so far. Anyhow…

 

Took this picture yesterday after I got everything covered with one coat. I got the second coat on and then remembered that the brown paint tends to be finicky and requires a third coat in certain areas. It won’t be long before I get these three outlined and sealed and I can move on to the next couple bits. It turns out that there’s seven more pieces backed up, possibly one more.

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Location: The Green Room
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Painting Gingerbread Wood Cutouts

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Written by: on Thursday, October 27th, 2011

It’s that time again. My father makes wood cutouts and I paint them. While I’ve painted various themed cutouts for them, my true passion is the Gingerbread Village for Christmas. It’s been slowly growing over the past years. I had completely forgotten about it until a catalog came in and my father asked me what patterns I wanted to try. I wasn’t sure because we are rather late in the year and I have plans of doing NaNoWriMo.

After discussing it a bit, I told him to order ‘Playful Gingerbread People’ (Five gingerbread folks doing random winter activities) and cut them out first so that I can try and get them out of the way since they’re the most detailed. The second pattern he ordered was the Flower Shop since it really wasn’t too detail-oriented and I could try to glide through that during November. The patterns finally arrived and he cut out three of the gingerbread folks so far.

Sand them.

Prime them.

Trace patterns on.

And then start painting…

Last year I made a video of the Gingerbread Village all set up in the front yard.

And for those wondering, the patterns can be ordered at: The Winfield Collection.

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Location: The Green Room
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Writing Non-Fantasy?

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Written by: on Thursday, October 20th, 2011

There were all these people living on Earth… and then a wizard showed up! What? No wizard? Darn.

After talking with a friend, I realized that the only thing I write is fantasy. Everything I write just drips with fantasy. You can feel waves of fantasy coming off any story I write. I forced myself to sit back and ponder the idea of actually trying to conquer a story that takes place in the real world. I did have one idea that popped up but there was no way to pull that plot off without some sort of paranormal/fantasy scheme behind it.

I don’t think I could actually hammer out a story that takes place in the real world without any kind of interference from the fantasy side of things. If I tried, I bet the end of the first chapter will have some wizard popping in to make conflict.

NNWM is coming in fast with less than two weeks to go. I already have an idea of what story to write for next year’s Camp NNWM if they plan to host it again for July/August. If they’re doing it two months, I may be tempted to try a “real world scenario” for August to really challenge myself. I suppose. I don’t know.

… and then a wizard showed up!


Location: The Green Room
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Write a review of the last movie you saw. – Day Zero

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Written by: on Thursday, October 13th, 2011

The Daily Post asks: Write a review of the last movie you saw.

This took a bit of thinking… I was absolutely positively sure that it had to be a horror movie since Halloween is making them all crawl out of the woodwork. It turns out that the last movie I saw was “Day Zero”. The title seems to have that whole ‘zombie apocalypse’ feel to it. I mean.. Day Zero? It turns out that the movie is about the draft and it follows three friends that have thirty days to report for duty. It was incredibly slow even though you’re meant to sympathize with how they’re trying to handle it as the days count down.

That’s… pretty much it. Three friends drafted and their varied reactions to it.

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Location: Movies and TV Shows, The Green Room
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NaNoWriMo and Castles!

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Written by: on Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

NaNoWriMo‘s 13th year is coming up. For me, it’s my third go at writing 50,000 words in a month. If you don’t know what it is, NaNoWriMo is where you challenge yourself to write 50,000 words during the month of November. That’s 1,667 words a day! You can do it! Create an account and give it a whirl!

I got the title down. I got some names but still need a whole lot more. Got some plot ideas but it’s still all kind of coming together. Kind of. I think. This idea has been pestering me for two years now and I thought I’d have a lot more by now but I don’t. Eh.

Also! I have been fascinated with the idea of building a castle – or at least the floor plan of a castle. Seeing some friends build Hogwarts in 3D in a ActiveWorlds-like universe got me to wishing I could make a floor plan of my own. I went on a search and found this nifty site: Imaginary Castles Contest. I was going to contact the site owner to figure out where they got the general floor plan stuff but it turns out that the owner passed away in 2006.

I keep being tempted to go on a search and find out what rooms are often in castles, list it all out, hammer it out and have an actual castle floor plan for a character of mine. I just don’t have any characters right now that would live in a castle. Yet.

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Location: The Green Room
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort

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Written by: on Friday, October 7th, 2011

The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge is: Comfort

I didn’t want to take this obvious route when it came to comfort but pets play a huge part in our lives.

I know I used this picture already in another post but it just bears repeating. This is Gypsy lounging on my book of stories. I was writing but she kept attacking the pen, digging her claws into the paper, being a general nuisance until I closed the book and she curled up on it.

 

This is Morpheus. He’s more of a sleeper as can be seen here. He’s my “Halloween Kitty” when I was hell-bent on getting a black cat.  He was named after the God of Dreams.

The two are brother and sister from the same litter. I adopted them on October 22, 2000 so they’re both eleven now.

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Location: The Green Room
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Remembering 9/11

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Written by: on Sunday, September 11th, 2011

Here we are on the day of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

It’s hard. I haven’t been able to watch any tributes or remembrances about 9/11. It’s odd. I didn’t lose anyone so it didn’t hit close to home but in many ways, it did hit close to home. It’s been said over and over that many people will remember where they were the day it happened. To hear people share their experiences of where they were and what they did at the time they found out… I didn’t think I would remember it ten years down the road… but I do.

I still remember sitting down with a big plate of food, turning to FOX so that I could watch Judge Judy, only to discover that Sabrina the Teenage Witch was on. I remember being so annoyed that FOX changed the schedules and that I’d have to find something else to watch at 9am from then on. I remember switching through the channels and every other channel was tuned in to a building that was on fire.

I was more annoyed because I couldn’t find a show to watch. As I kept switching through the channels, I saw a plane flying in and it kept getting closer and closer and closer… and I remember stopping on a random channel thinking, “That plane is going to hit the building!” I watched as the plane crashed right into the building and debris came raining down.

I realized I was staring at the World Trade Center. Then I realized that the other building had also been hit by a plane.  I was so shocked as the reporter kept reiterating what was going on. I immediately went online and started telling everyone what I had just seen! Then a lot of us went to a Yahoo! Group to talk it all out, to keep sharing the news of what we heard on random channels. The shock to hear that the Pentagon was hit and another plane had went down and on and on…

It was scary. To think that a group of people could achieve something of that level…

I remember the surge of patriotism after. I remember the American flag being flown from almost every house and all those red/white/blue ribbons tacked to trees or poles.

My heart goes out to all those who were touched by this event in any way, shape, or form.


Location: The Green Room
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