Habit

I've come to the conclusion-- perhaps a bit late-- that the only way I stick to posting on blogs regularly is by setting a small goal every single day on a very very wide topic, like "my life."

Which means that this blog and the travel blog, http://noi6.blogspot.com , fall by the wayside.

It's bad. But there's got to be something better.

The trouble is, habit can only go so far with unpredictable schedules. Today we stayed in till 11am and then rushed off to the airport and got onto an airplane to get to Antananarivo, the Malagasy capital. (that's Madagascar).

Tomorrow we'll be up at who knows what hour to do who knows what-- i'm really hoping for autonomy, but that's not likely to happen. Oh, well. I'll have autonomy for almost the rest of my natural life, which is saying something.

But let me get back on track. While the content on Write Your World is slightly astounding… most of it is, shall we put it nicely, crap. The first few posts were good, and that was it. It doesn't bother me. It's more a writing exercise at the moment than anything else, and to be perfectly honest I'm a lazy person. If it got any harder I wouldn't be updating as often— of course, if it were 'a day in the life of Character X,' we might start talking. I'd be happy to write 500 word snippets of story every day.

… I am going to do that in 2013. It will be wonderful practice. A scene a day, or something. *Shrug*

As to goals. I made quite a few last December— 101 for the time period of 2012-mid 2014— but I haven't done any of them, and frankly I'm not too interesting in doing them. I tend to get slightly obsessive when confronted with challenges, though. I mellow out about a month into the year, and start setting slightly less crazy goals.

But now I'm starting to think. Why not stop setting goals and start creating habits? It's habits that are most important, right?

So, the habits, in order, to be performed daily:

- Write a 500-word world.

- Write at least 500 words of fiction.

- Edit fiction for 15 minutes.

- Write 100 words for a blog post, either outline or actual blog-post words.

Total time shouldn't be more than an hour, but will be more like 45, 50 minutes a day. And it shouldn't be too complicated to devote 45 minutes of my day to something. I tend to have a bit more time as it is.

It's going into place today, and it's going to stay in place until next January. You eat an elephant one bite at a time, and that's exactly how I'm going to catch up with all these blog posts. I'm still writing about Alice Springs, Australia— that was in early April, if I remember correctly.

So, onward! 

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.

Some Thoughts on Editing

Up until two weeks ago, if asked whether or not I liked editing, I would have replied with a most definite no.

Now, I'm not so sure.

See… I've been writing Riddle Rose, and when I reached Chapter 9 I realized that there were a few things I wanted to change in the first three chapters before I posted Chapter 9.

And so I went and rewrote all of Chapter 1. I feel a lot better about it now, but I still have Chapters 2 and 3 to edit.

And all of a sudden, I don't want to keep writing until I've hammered out the first eight chapters.

This has never happened to me before. I wrote part of Chapter 10 because I had this lovely idea… but after I finished it I realized it really had nothing to do with the main story line, and that it was probably better off out of the book.

When did this happen? When did my inner editor suddenly get so much power? I don't remember the muse letting him in. I don't remember letting him in.

I never used to edit. Maybe a cursory typo check… but never for real, except when I tried to edit the disastrous remains of what was NaNo'09 (it was so disastrous it didn't have an acceptable title, which NaNo'08 did have). And that was painful. There was no story line beyond following the very strange story of Edward.

But now Riddle Rose does have a story line. It has characters and they have actual motivations now (I think. I was always crap at figuring them out), with a plot that might be somewhat predictable. But I don't care so much if it's predictable— it's fun to write.

It's just that I have this very real fear that if I finish it, I won't want to edit it. It' s happened this way with every thing I've written— I finish and then I don't want to edit.

But Riddle Rose deserves a chance, so I'm editing as I go.

And now I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I didn't make the wrong choice. On the one hand… I've finished writing at least six novels, and edited none of them. 

That's going to change in March, with NaNoEdMo coming along, but I'm trying to figure out how I can edit.

But now I'm starting to wonder… editing at the cost of writing? I'm still writing, but does it really work to write so little on a story? I was writing maybe a chapter a week at the beginning, and now I've put even that on pause so I can edit.

Is this normal? Is it just because I'm writing by chapters, with a separate chapter per Scrivener document? Is it because I'm writing so slowly? Is it because I've dubbed it my 'pet project' and I want it to be as good as it can be? Is it because I've decided to 'learn' how to edit?

Or is it all of these things?

Or is it that I'm simply more interested in these sorts of things now than I ever was before?

Whatever it is…

I guess it's quite good— at least I'm finally going to have a proper ending to a story. XD

Short Story: The Staircase

This particular story was inspired by Kit's Writing Life post on taking the stairs, which you can read here.

Thanks, Kit!

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I come in through the back door, like I always do— I never got around to fixing the stick in the front door— and I hang up the key to the ornate silver lock on the nail your father banged into the wall when he and your mother moved out.

"Hello." I say to your picture on the wall, smiling at your smile, looking away when I meet your eyes because it's too painful to remember right now.

I go about my usual routine when I come home from work… pouring myself a drink and then pouring you one, just so I don't feel so lonely. We chink glasses together, though you don't say anything, and I drain my glass and then yours, because you'll never touch a glass again.

I watch the news, flicking the channels because I'm bored, letting the drinks seep in and give me a hazy sense of well-being that I know will disappear the second I start climbing the stairs.

I brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom like I have since that, because our two sinks in our bathroom have even more memories than the staircase does.

I linger around downstairs, arranging things in an attempt to stall going upstairs, but then the clock chimes twelve and I know tomorrow will be worse if I don't go to bed now.

I think about getting some sheets out of the closet and sleeping on the sofa, but your eyes are everywhere, and the sofa has memories too, and that portrait of you that your kid sister drew and sent to me last week is there, telling me I'm being stupid.

I resign myself to sleeping in the bedroom, even though it's so lonely without you there I can't fall asleep until two unless I take a sleeping pill. It's too late to take a sleeping pill now, though— I have the early shift in the morning.

The staircase looms over me. The door to our bedroom is on the right as one reaches the top of the landing. I take a deep breath, preparing myself.

Climbing the staircase has gotten harder nowadays. Maybe it's the pain in my knees, or maybe it's all the memories we've infused into them, but climbing the staircase each night gets harder every day.

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you though… you're so practical that way.

The first step always hits me like the first time I saw you across the room. Your eyes crinkled when you saw me staring at you, and your hand raised its drink. I'd never been so infatuated, but I didn't stop to think about the consequences, and in what seemed like years I finally managed to introduce myself. You grinned and stuck out your hand and said, without any sort of artfulness, "Pleased to meet you."

That's the first step. Sometimes it's the easiest, because I can remember you at the beginning, when we had no idea what was coming afterward… but sometimes it's the hardest, because if it weren't for me, you'd still be crinkling your eyes at people across the room.

I shudder today— today the first step will be the hardest— and I move up to the second. The second was our first date. We kissed on this step on our fifth date… the one when your parents were still peeking out the living room to make sure we didn't do anything stupid. The one where your kid sister was looking down from the balcony to see when you'd come up and talk to her. Your kid sister… I can't even talk to her nowadays when I think of this second step.

But I linger… because your lips were always so soft and your breath was always so sweet, and I want to have it near me along with the teasing words you always used to tell me when I said your family was making me nervous.

At the third step things are getting easier. The next few are always easier… these are the good times, the times when we used to laugh and things were such a whirl of happiness I couldn't stop myself from grinning. Not even at work, when my boss was being what you used to call an asshole, without even considering what an asshole I was to the guy in return. You never seemed to notice the bad things about me, though. I always found that sort of strange…

Never mind. The third step is hard too. The third step is our first argument— the first real, drawn-out one. I can't even remember what it was about, except that I wouldn't talk to you for a week afterward… and then you showed up at the door with flowers.

I can't even remember that, to be honest. I can't remember anything but the tulips. I do remember telling you I'd always liked tulips, but I didn't think you'd recall it. It was in a passing conversation, not even an important one, and we were probably dead tired after exams.

You always studied so hard… I never did. You seemed to want to make something of yourself, but I'd always just wanted to be spoiled.

You spoiled me. I remember all the ways you used to spoil me. The fourth step always makes me smile and cry a bit— you used to bring me little trinkets you'd found, or little things you'd made with your hands… I still have them. I have them up everywhere. After… after that, I took them all out of the boxes and the drawers and off the shelves, and I have them all on a shrine.

You'd laugh if you could see it, but it's there. I'll never forget you with that shrine.

Sometimes I'm afraid I will… it's when things get too hard to bear and I get cowardly.

And then I can't remember that little scar you have just above your temple— I scratched you once and I've never been able to forget it… you laughed when it happened, but then the blood came pouring.

I'd forgotten how much blood there can be from a head wound. And then you laughed when I tried to wash it off, and you laughed— you always used to laugh so much… but I can't… don't want to remember these things. I miss you too much and nothing's coming out the way it should any more. Everything reminds me of you, dammit. Everything. Even my breakfast cereal. Even that breakfast cereal you always told me wasn't healthy enough. You were always so conscientious… you always worried about my health…

My family's had a history of early death due to— but enough about death. Suddenly I hate this fourth step. What business does it have reminding me of you? Sometimes, when I get to the fifth step, I want to forget. I want to forget everything that you ever were or ever represented, or all the reasons I loved you. The fifth step is when we had our second real argument… it's when you finally stopped shouting and broke down and told me we were getting married.

I couldn't believe you when you said that— I'd been rushing up these steps, and then you stopped me and said, "Come back down. We're getting married. Today. Now. I can't keep waiting for you."

I thought you were crazy and I told you so, but then I sat down on this fifth step, looking down at you, hating you for making me feel as if you meant it.

"I mean it." You said, your eyes smiling and crinkling the way they did when we met… and it hit me just as hard as the first time.

On the sixth step, after we got married and your parents had moved out— they'd always wanted to move out… this damn house probably held just as many memories for them as it does for me now, on the sixth step you kept saying you loved me, and all I could think of was taking your clothes off.

I wish I could hear your voice now… saying those words again. I miss you so much. I miss hearing your laugh at lunch— you always came home for lunch…

And I miss you when you cry at sentimental bits in movies— even more when you try to pass it off as dust in your eye because you think crying's babyish. You always did think that. Sometimes I watch your favorite movies just to torture myself.

The seventh step is the little things. Your toothbrush next to mine, the hairs in the shower and on the sink. The smell of your deodorant.

That stupid way you had of saying hello when you came from work…

The way you slung your clothes off when you were tired, leaving them haphazardly on the floor. For me to clean up. Sometimes I hated cleaning up after you.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel the way you made me feel.

The eighth step is the last easy step. After this… everything falls apart. I try and stand here as long as possible… partially to give my knees a rest, partially to stave off the loneliness that comes with the ninth step. The ninth step is the most painful after the twelfth. The ninth step always makes me shudder and hate everything that's ever happened to us.

But I'm still on the eighth step, and I can't fix anything about what's coming afterward.

Sometimes I want to turn around and go right back down the stairs. I sometimes have… sometimes when I don't have the courage to keep going… but there's pictures of you everywhere downstairs, laughing, taunting eyes that make me keep taking steps, even when all I want to do… all I ever wanted to do, is be near you. 

The eighth step is the bliss when you found out we were pregnant. You couldn't do anything but rush around and tell everyone you knew— "We're pregnant," you'd said, beaming, your arm around me. You always wanted to touch some part of me, especially when you were emotional. 

The baby was supposed to come in May. We spent so much time at the baby stores… you used to pick out everything that you thought the baby would like— yellow, because we wanted to be surprised… you used to laugh at my choices for carriers… always thought they were so pointless. You wanted to hold our baby all the time, you said, and you laughed when I said your arms would get tired.

You made plans, you stopped me from making too many.

It's a happy pain, this remembering, but my heart isn't as good as it used to be— it can't take this as much as it could— and I step up one more step.

We lost the baby in November. I'm not sure who was more heartbroken, you or I, when the doctor came in and shook his head. Your hand was clutching mine, or maybe my hand was clutching yours, and we couldn't believe it, even when the doctor explained that falling down these stairs— damn these stairs!

We didn't use stairs without holding tight to each other for months afterward.

We couldn't, not after the baby. We put away all the clothes we'd bought for our little one at about the same time we stopped clutching hands when we climbed the stairs.

"If we ever try again," you said fiercely, "the new baby won't have this baby's clothes. These are this baby's."

I felt the same way, so I didn't say anything.

The tenth step got easier, and things went along admirably. We went back to work— started saving up for more vacation time for the next baby.

On the eleventh step it was our fifth anniversary. I loved seeing your face light up in the morning. You looked so happy, so sleepy, and I couldn't stop myself from kissing you good morning longer than I usually did.

"Hello." You said, your eyes crinkling.

Sometimes I wish I'd never met you when I get to this eleventh step. If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't be climbing this staircase. My heart wouldn't be pounding like this, and my throat wouldn't feel so raw.

Sometimes I think I should sell the house, but you made me promise in the hospital — I hate that word now — that I wouldn't. And I haven't broken a promise I've made to you yet.

I'm still keeping my marriage vows after— but I don't want to think about that before I have to.

I ascend to the twelfth step.

The grief is still just as bad as it was when we went over the embankment. I was driving. I should have been looking where we were going, but I wasn't— we were both just as devastated as we'd been on the ninth step, and you weren't looking at me very much. Tears were blurring my eyes, but you were in a worse state than I was, and you couldn't drive.

We should have stayed in the parking lot of that damned hospital, but we couldn't stand the place.

We were driving home, and I looked over at you, and all of a sudden the car lurched.

And then I was awake in the ambulance and they were telling me I had to talk to you… and that's when you made me promise I wouldn't give up, and that I'd not sell the house…

 I remember telling you not to talk, trying to make you be quiet with a kiss, but you wouldn't stop talking, wouldn't stop telling me that you loved me, and my brain couldn't comprehend anything at that moment except that your head was bleeding more than it had when I scratched it.

"PROMISE ME," you said in an awful whisper, "that you won't… give up."

I promised. What was there to give up on?

Now I know.

Your hand went limp in mine, and for a second I couldn't understand it.

And then I did and all this grief came crashing down on me.

I was numb.

Then, when I wasn't numb any longer, when I realized I had to go back to work and pretend as if nothing had happened… but it had happened.

And everyone knew it. Everyone was looking at me with these… pitying stares.

I took a leave of absence and I almost gave up.

Your eyes… I covered them all up. The entire house was black. The only color was in the yellow liquid I poured into my glass every night. Sometimes even the liquid was black.

Sometimes I realized that something wasn't right… that this reeked of 'giving up,' but I couldn't make myself stop.

Numbness was better. Numbness was ten times better than that soul-ache.

You would have laughed, maybe, to hear me say 'soul-ache,' and thinking of that made me remember my promise.

I got back to life. I don't know how I did it, except I had this damn determination to do it so I wouldn't break my promise.

I'm on the thirteenth step now… have been since I realized you wanted me to go on without you.

Without you… they're the loneliest words I've ever heard. I turn around to look back at the stairs. At the bottom your portrait is there, only you're smiling at me as if you know I understand now.

I don't want to understand. Going on without you… I want to be with you, even if it's in oblivion. In numbness I can do that, but I sense sometimes that you'd be disappointed if you knew I was numbing the pain.

But then, you never quite understood soul-ache. You always smiled when you heard about it. You never had it. Your parents are alive… your mother has your eyes when she smiles. I don't see your parents any more, by the way. 

…

Sometimes I wonder what you'd have done if you'd been in my place and I'd been in yours.

Your eyes tell me the answer. You would have let yourself slip down the stairs. I'd have hated you for it. You wouldn't have cared.

I look down at the stairs for a moment, contemplating jumping over the balustrade. My knees aren't good enough to jump, but maybe I can crash down on the carpet underneath.

Then I remember you hated getting that carpet dirty, and I realize I don't have the courage.

It's a dilemma. I don't have the courage to go on living without you… but I don't have the courage to die to be with you.

Maybe some day I'll get out of this limbo… be able to stop contemplating falling down over that balustrade every time I reach the thirteenth step. Every time I reach the landing.

Maybe some day I won't feel so empty.

Battle of the Brains

I do. I really do. If I see something about a book I want to read it.

But I can't read it. I can't read it because I have to write and if I don't write the entire frame of the world will collapse.

At least, that's what my studious left brain thinks. You know, the brain that says, "Hey! You put it on the to-do list, and now it must be finished!"

My right brain thinks, "EH, we'll get it all done. Don't worry about it! LIVE! ENJOY! READ!"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

And the right brain usually wins out in the end...

OR... worse... I spend all day surfing the internet because my right brain gives up convincing my left brain to read and just says, "Hey, do whatever."

And my left brain does the same thing.

So I do whatever.

The list of books I want to read grows, meanwhile, and I start thinking,

"But I want to read this too! And that! AND... since I've managed to read 18 books this year, it should be completely and totally possible to keep this insane goal going! Why not read 366 books?"

Then left brain comes in and says, "Listen. You are 20,000 words behind schedule. That means you don't have time, NOT that everything's good and you can keep reading insane amounts of books."

So what does my mind say after this battle of the brains?

You've got time. You can make up all that writing by the end of January... you can read 13 more books... you can get up to speed in Les Trois Mousquetaires... you can do the impossible. But you can't also, so don't get your hopes up.


BUT DON'T WORRY! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE, BUT YOU CAN DO IT!




So. If I actually get to 140,616 words and 31 books by January 31st...

You'll know that I've lost against myself again.

You'll also have irrefutable proof that I'm a machine.

A machiiiine!

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. ^_^

Why You Won't See a Short Story Every Week

Though I'm participating in the 52 short stories in a year project, finishing a short story every week (I'm considering a short story to be 2-30k, and anything shorter than that flash fiction, no matter how incorrect it is), you won't always see the short stories posted on WeBook, the blog, or anywhere else.

This is because they have to do with the world I am creating (and have been creating since Dec 4th, 2009), Paa'nik. The name, for those of you who are interested, came when I was doodling that Friday afternoon with my fountain pen... I was supposed to be doing math homework, and instead I was drawing trees. Some day I'll draw another of those trees and post it... but suffice it to say I had a spark of an idea for a world (which changed completely).

The original name was Pen'n'ink (or something of the sort), and the people were two dimensional and were grouped by colors, etc. They worshiped The Great Tree (which evolved into the name of Tegrete), and basically were very interesting.

By my birthday on December 19th, I'd changed that to three-dimensional humans living on their own planet, (as of yet unnamed), and up to now it's evolved into its own country with countries to the east, north, and south (and one which I'm not sure where to put-- not the west, as of yet). Paa'nik is the most developed of these countries, and one of its most important beliefs is that an unmarried person isn't a whole person. Because of this belief, they have a lot of marriage laws, and because I'm a hopeless romantic, this is the most developed aspect of that world. As such, all the stories I write with the riPaa'nik are romances, have practically no description, weird allusions to various laws, etc. They're written for myself, and though I'm supposed to be posting a short story a week... I care less about posting the short story than about fleshing out Paa'nik and its surrounding countries.

So when I'm writing a short story set in Paa'nik or any other of these 'personal' worlds, you won't be seeing any short stories that week.

Until, maybe, I can figure out some of the other things they esteem highly and come up with something other than ridiculous romances. Any ideas?

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!

My First Edit

When I was in fourth grade, we were given an assignment to write our own legend. About how something happened, or why something is the way it is… etc.

I eventually came up with "How We Got Horses," which basically was about a boy and a donkey. Something happened and then there was a pure white horse in the world.

We had to edit these legends, though, and I ended up with one of the teachers that I think taught special education, but had ended up in Mrs. VanSkiver's room to help. He sat me down at a little table. A book about JK Rowling was there, kind of looking at me, and the table was yellow, but that's all I remember.

And he read the story, while I was kind of sitting there, and then he said, "Well, I don't like the word 'got.' So how can we change that?"

That is literally all I remember past the fact that the title was changed to How Horses Came To Be and we eliminated all use of the word 'got.'

During that assignment we also learned to read aloud— don't obstruct your mouth with the book or paper, don't tilt your head down, speak slowly and clearly and loudly.

And these two things have remained with me till now. Every time I read aloud I remember sitting on a stool in front of the class to read my legend out loud, and every time I get a weird thing like 'how we got,' I remember that man in the brown, short-sleeved, collared shirt saying, "I don't like the word 'got.'" And rewriting that thing in pencil in my terrible nine-year-old handwriting, and then typing it up and printing it out on… light blue paper with clouds, I think.

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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