Er...

I must be a really bad person because I haven't even attempted to figure out what to post here for the past two months.

I'm not going to attempt to explain why (it's a mix of plain laziness and a lack of will), but I will say that I'm not going to worry about it.

I'm seventeen years old. I've decided I'm not going to bog my life down with things until I absolutely have to. I'm on the road trip of a lifetime and I'm not going to worry about anything except writing my worlds and reading all the books I can before college.

Which brings me to the fact that, even though I've finally almost-kind-of gotten out of the Riddle Rose rut I've been in since early January, and though I haven't read The Absentee, which has been on the to-read list since late January, I'm not going to worry about it.

Instead, I'm going to focus on finishing the books I've picked up in New Zealand backpacking camp book exchanges. These are the greatest inventions known to mankind.

And I'm going to focus on reviewing those books.

And then I'm going to figure out how to make them qualify as proper blog posts.

Or, in another turn of events, I'm going to finish Riddle Rose. And then I'm going to drop it for a while, perhaps pick it back up in a year or two when I feel properly fortified enough with forgetfulness to read it through. When I finish Riddle Rose, possibly by the end of April, I'm going to work on Pirate Prince. And when I finish that, possibly by the end of May, I'm going to get ready to write a proper novelette. I'm going to aim for 60,000 words for Camp NaNoWriMo, I'm going to figure out what works for me best-- I'm not going to plan the ending, I'm not even going to plan out the first chapter-- just a few characters and a basic plot line. Once I write the first chapter, I'll figure out what happens next. I might even blog about the writing of it.

Or, perhaps, I'll just stare at my laptop screen and reread the PDFs I have on it. It may not be a particularly productive use of time, but... I'm still seventeen, and I won't have the time to do this when I'm eighteen next time this year.

I'll be in college. I still have no idea what I want to study-- perhaps something with education or development. It seems so much easier now to just head off to college than it was five months ago.

So?

What's the fate of this blog going to be?

- Temporary updates on my reading life, rants on reading life, ideas as to why I want to read so many books, books people should read, books I've read and reviews of them... etc.

- Temporary updates on my writing life, rants on writing life, rants as to why I think I can actually write a story... story ideas, possible other stuff.

- Temporary updates on life in general-- like stuff I'm going to do with it.

Falling Apart

I just lost this entire post.

It is a lovely feeling in a way... a very sad feeling in others. So I'm rewriting it all very quickly with a couple of notes on the side.

Crazy internet. ^_^

The gist of it?

I'm behind in everything except reading. The reason is because I started reading romances.

The catch-up plan is to do it slowly. The logical priorities are Writing, Learning, and Reading. The emotional priorities are Reading, Learning and Writing. The emotional priorities always win out.

I'm 20k behind, a few books ahead (okay, a lot), and behind on learning.

BUT I shall prevail.

Please don't expect any new Riddle Rose chapters-- I'll be editing Chapters 1-8 because I've gotten a few new ideas and I don't want to reveal new chapters without explaining or foreshadowing those ideas. Hopefully within a month I'll have new chapters up again. At least 2 weeks though, because of the editing.

Pirate Prince will probably get a few new chapters within the month. Hopefully.

At the moment I'm focusing on getting a few Paa'nik stories out of my head. (I should change the spelling of that to Paanik, as it's more accurate, but I like the look of Paa'nik more, and I can always change my grammar rules.) So no short stories either. Sorry again... but I have cool things on my mind and those always win out. My self-discipline is not good in creative endeavors.

I had a talk with my mom that setting high goals and not achieving them has a way of undermining your self-consciousness. I don't doubt that, but I'm starting to wonder when that undermining starts. I've been not-accomplishing for years, and either I finish it or decide I don't care about the goal any more. Maybe that's the exception, eh?

ANYWAY... expect real content soon. ^_^

Goodbye, 2011! Hello, 2012!

It's been… a great year. I can't remember anything past… yesterday, but I'm very sure that it was a good year.

Scratch that. I can't even remember yesterday. I remember disjointed occurences, of course, but other than that, I can't think of many things that made this year the best ever. I think when I was one was the best year ever. So many new things!

Some highlights of 2011:

• Taking care of a three-year-old for 3 days.
• Taking the ACT
• Spending a weekend with my best friend, walking in the gorge and studying
• Leaving on the trip (and all that it entailed)
• Reading 150 books

What will be some of the highlights of 2012:

• Writing 1,200,000 words
• Reading 150-175 books
• Finishing Khan Academy material
• Reading Les Trois Mousquetaires and Don Quijote in their original languages
• Visiting China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and more
• Being super productive
• Turning 18.

And quite a few others. I've got my plan set out for 2012's writing schedule. I'll be working on two projects at all times— in January this will be Riddle Rose and a rewrite of my NaNo'09, In Which There is Edward (I'll also be working on a NaNo swap every day, but it will not have a posting schedule.). I'll be updating all the blogs once a week (at least), reviewing books, and critiquing pieces from my critique group.

The posting schedule is:

Sunday: Post a blog post.

Tuesday: Post a chapter from Project #1 and #2. Post one critique.

Wednesday: Post another critique.

Friday: Post a chapter from Project #2. Post short story.

Saturday: Post a chapter from Project #1. Post a third critique. Post book review.

I'm not exactly sure how I've got Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday with two or three submissions and Monday and Tuesday with none, but I'm writing about three thousand words a day (what with 750 words of 'morning pages,' 500 words of Write Your World, planning for the chapters…), which means that I should be able to stay on top of things word-count-wise.

Time-wise, I'm not too sure if it's possible. It should be— I can write 3000 words in forty five minutes to two hours to a whole day, and I can read a book in two hours to twenty four hours to forty five days.

I'll be posting updates on my Day Zero Project's goals on there, but I'll also be updating here. At some point before January 31^st, I'll have posts with goals separated by year an category (growth, reading, writing, official learning, unofficial learning, random, and travel). Those should be posted by Saturday, acutally.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what else to mention, besides a happy new year! Let's hope that those of us attempting crazy schedules and goals in 2012 will not burn out before January, Feburary, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, or December are through!

Turning 17

Turning 17 is an interesting phenomenon. While 16 is widely celebrated in America, and 18 is celebrated in Romania (as well as 14, but that's another story), I like 17. For one thing, it's a prime number. For another thing, the numeral 7 is probably one of the most elegant. And I like it. For another thing, 'seventeen' has more syllables than any other year from one to sixteen, and from eighteen to twenty. And many other things I could mention but don't want to clog up the post with.

I'll be posting all the details of what we saw on Noi6, because it's a bit more public and that one needs views too, and focus on more writerly/readerly things here, because no one goes on an Around the World blog to read about my word count and book total.

The Liebster Blog Award

Lemme start off by saying I have no idea what the Liebster blog award is.

But it was a wonderful birthday present, from Coffee of The Land of Man-Eating Fairies. THANK YOU!

Receiving the award meant finding out what it is.

The Liebster Blog Award is awarded by bloggers to other bloggers whose blogs have 200 followers or less. (I think I have... 0. 0 is also a beautiful and elegant number.)

The rules ARE:


1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.

4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 3-5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.

5. Let them know they have been chosen, by leaving a comment at their blog.


Now, let me also start off by saying I don't exactly follow blogs. In fact, I never read them.
THAT IS NOT TO SAY that I do not have friends who blog. I do. Here they are. They're all writing related. You may hate me or love me because of it. XD

Kaedekit's Thoughts of a Paper Dragon hasn't got too many posts yet, but she's doing MilWordy. Instant win and instant follow. There are not enough people doing MilWordy in this world.

Katie G's MilWordy & Beyond is also about MilWordy. It hasn't started yet, though, so there's only an introductory post. BUT THAT'S OKAY! I only had one post once... and it was a terrible one. Katie's is a good one. It explains things. Mine didn't.

Bouchra Rebiai's Pink, Purple, and Fuchsia is awesome. For one thing, Bouchra (Boosh-rah) sets insane goals... just like me! For another thing, her blog is bright pink. Now, I like pink. And, she's been doing the Day Zero Project for about... 14 months. So... instant triple win. She's not doing MilWordy. She's studying her ... ICGSE's or some other strange acronym.

The Thoughts


Seventeen doesn't feel much different from sixteen, with the exception of the fact that instead of being in a plane this year, I was on my feet. I'll have the details of the things we did on Noi6, but suffice it to say that it was an AMAZING birthday.

But I've also got a couple of thoughts on what I want to do with the next year... more personal wise than writing goals:

1. Stop drinking carbonated drinks. In the two months since we left home, we have drunk more soda than we have in the past year. It needs to stop.
2. Start working out. I haven't done anything since we left, and I'm starting to wonder if my muscles remember what a split is or not any more. They definitely don't remember push ups.
3. Count to ten before yelling at any one. Unless there's a rhinoceros charging them and they won't move... this means that before calling peoples' attention to things... I count to ten. This will hopefully stop me from being such a terrorist to people I know well.

And that's it! Three, simple, easy things that I'll be able to remember.

Also:

1. Don't have more than 7 things on the to-do list for one day. This, of course, doesn't include things I haven't finished from days before. ^_-

The End of 2011

2011 is ending, and that means that I am making New Year's Resolutions. Pluralized by a lot. I'm taking on the http://DayZeroProject.com , which means that I'll be able to plan things out to my heart's content.


Of course, there are a couple of things that need to be finished in 2011: reading, for one-- I'm not about to lose the GoodReads challenge because of having to do a lot of things.


I'm also going to have 365 dares on http://WritingDares.blogspot.com before Dec 31st.


And I'm going to finish writing the Blood Feud; Riddle Rose is delegated to January 2012-- I'm not about to overload my schedule more than it has to be.


I also have to finish a spreadsheet for MilWordy, preferably before Christmas. It's going to have a looong list of challenges, books, and a word count spreadsheet.


Yeah... I don't know what I'm thinking either.


Anyway, what this means for the blog is that it's going to have a lot more updates.


For one thing, I'll be posting 1 book review here a week, as well as weekly updates (or more) on my progress in each goal. I'll also be revamping the Writing Schedule for 2012, and the Reading Schedule for 2012 will be created.


As well as a lot of other things.


Stay tuned...


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