NaNoWriMo: November of 2010

The difference between November of 2010 and November of 2009 was preparation. I mean this in the biggest way possible. I FORGOT ABOUT NANOWRIMO WHEN IT STARTED IN 2009. I totally forgot, so I didn't do it, even though they encouraged you to try, even if you were late. I don't even remember the idea I had for that NaNo.

In 2010, I was sitting around on a Sunday (probably in between the sessions of General Conference) and I had the fleeting thought that November started in a month and that maybe I should think of an idea. I originally based my novel on a dream that I had, though, after I finished preparing it, it was extremely different, but almost similar.

For the first half of the month of October, more out of boredom than anything else, I started jotting down ideas that I had. The second half of the month, my story began to take shape and seem actually possible. Having been a failure for my whole life as a writer, I got pretty excited and more than a little obsessed with the idea that I could actually finish a novel if I wanted to (Sounds dumb, but this was a foreign idea to me at the time). Becoming obsessed in advance was one of the things that carried me through November.

The last week of October, I had filled out a billion character charts and sheets and I'd completely mapped out every scene of my novel, except for the end. I knew my story so well, that I dared have a tiny shred of confidence (until the night before November actually started. I was pretty nervous and I couldn't sleep. I was scared out of my mind).

I don't really remember much about November except for that it was easy and hard at the same time. It was easy because I was so prepared that I knew exactly what was going to happen. I even had some of the wording ready to use. It was hard because it consumed every second of my time. I went to school in the morning and wrote as furiously as I possibly could until school started. I was so obsessed with this that I had to stop myself from not paying attention in Seminary so that I could write. The only class that I had a problem in was Human Biology. It's not that I neglected my work, it's that I put it off because my novel was my number one priority all month. Mr. Cox was NOT okay with me writing while we were watching movies (that I'd already seen, might I add) or coloring diagrams (lame)(I also recall him being the only teacher in all of Intermediate school that ever gave me a "green slip" which I ended up getting out of because Mrs. Lynch thought that I looked innocent enough.... okay, she didn't say that, but she said that I sounded pretty sorry and that if I stayed out of her office for fifteen days, she'd just throw the green slip away..... YEAH!...... I don't even remember what it was for... whatever).

Of course, during Orchestra it was impossible for me to write during class. Plus, Miss Dunn outlawed books and homework during rehearsal. Anyway, the rest of my day probably doesn't matter (I'm too lazy to type it), but the point is that I took my NaNo binder with me EVERYWHERE. I didn't put it in my backpack, I carried it in my arms. Even when I had to set it down and concentrate on something else, it was still a presence in the back of my mind (cliche) and I thought about it a lot.

On the bus when I couldn't write, I familiarized myself with the next spot I was going to write. I played it out in my head, imagined dialogue, talked to myself. When I got home, I locked myself in my room (Not really, my bedroom door has no lock) and I continued to write until eleven or twelve. Then, the next morning I would start again. I only had one moment of real writer's block during the whole month and even that only lasted about a half an hour, so it was fine. This was able to come about because of how well prepared I was.

The writing part of it was fun, that's why I do it. I liked the imagining and the planning (see Paper Towns for awesomeness surrounding the idea of the fun being in the planning of a thing). I REALLY liked the finishing at the end (new experience). I liked the weaving of the story. I really liked NaNoWriMo.

So, doing it again for my June NaNoWriMo should be easy, right? Not in million years. I'm not as prepared, I've failed to write two novels since November and I'm even more ready to fail again. Of course, I'm not going to let this stop me, but it might keep me from succeeding, seeing as I keep hesitating. I need that confidence and I need that obsessiveness. This is going to be...

Emily Talks About Writing While She Procrastinates Writing in Her Novel

I'm going to talk about writing, because 1) it's something I talk about a lot, 2) It's something that's easy to talk about, 3) it's on my mind, 4) because I'm putting off writing in my novel because of issues that I will most likely outline sometime in this blog post, 5) I like typing and this is a subject that I could probably go off about forever. So, allons-y.

I'm not sure if I should start at the top of my list or at the bottom... So, I'll start at the top, for fear of being cliche (of course, starting at the bottom as an act of rebellion is also cliche... LIVE IS ONE HUGE CLICHE!). Not a lot of people think that I talk much, but you should go talk to Leslie, because she will tell you that sometimes I cannot shut up. Especially if I've had an idea in my head for a few days. I won't stop talking about it, but Leslie is just awesome and sits there patiently. I'm sure that sometimes she's just ignoring me, but that's okay because she always nods in the right places. When Josh was still living in our house, I would talk at him a lot while he was on his computer (I probably talk at Leslie more now because I don't have Josh to talk at... sorry Leslie :P). Anyway, as you may or may not know, I am extremely insecure about my writing. If I even have a sliver of doubt (Stupid cliches xP) about something, I usually obsess about it. I am a very anxious person. At the same time, when I get a really great idea that I'm sure will never EVER fail, I can't stop thinking about it, and because Leslie is the only one who can make sense of my disjointed thoughts, she's the only one to whom I blab mostly.

I actually lied. Writing is not easy to talk about... in a way that makes sense to anyone besides Leslie, I mean. It's hard for me to make sense when telling a story, so trying to explain the way that my mind works is next to hopeless. The best I can do is wave my arms and hands around wildly (which you can't see because I'm typing) and hope that it makes sense... One of my former Seminary teachers, Brother Black, made fun of me once for waving my hands so wildly around. I don't remember exactly what kind of discussion we were having, but I was trying to explain a question I had and he told me to calm down or I might hit someone.

Writing is on my mind because my friend, Amanda, wants me to do NaNoWriMo in June with her, since she was unable to do it in November. This works out because the OLL is going to do it again sometime during the summer anyway (YES!!!!). I'm trying to decide whether I want to use my time-travel novel idea for it... but I can't really decide. Also, I finished the book I was reading yesterday and found myself (momentarily) without reading material, so I pulled out my book and was unable to think of something to write in it for almost an entire class period (until I found that I, indeed, had an extra book hidden in my backpack. HOORAH.).

Another issue I have is that, when I write, it's like I'm opening up my soul and pouring out the story... or something like that. Also, I prefer typing to writing on paper. My computer is in my living room so as to connect it to the internet, but when I write, I like being in my room where it's more private. Also, my mother has a nasty habit of watching over people's shoulders whilst they write. I would drag my heavy, old desktop into my room, but then I forfeit my internet and IT'S HEAVY. So, I don't want to start typing in the living room, simply because I don't feel comfortable doing it here, but I also have to start doing this at one point or another, so... Procrastination is the answer for now. :P

So maybe I can't go on forever with this topic, but it did occupy my attention for a while and I do like typing............

Emily Rants

I was ranting via Twitter, but then I decided that not having a character limit would be less stressful. This will just be me complaining about all the mean things that have happened to me today, so, ignore if you want. I'm going to make a list, because I think lists are cool. HA:

1) I had to carry my violin all around with me because I have to practice my unfinished duet that I will be playing with my mother (accompanied by Leslie) in Sacrament meeting at some point in the near future. After carrying that thing around on your shoulder for a while, you will porbably get severe pain somewhere in your upper body, most likely your head, shoulders, or neck.

2) I didn't get very far with my final project in Web Page Design because I got distracted by Photoshop. I would LOVE to own Photoshop....

3) I had to ride the bus home for nearly an hour... those seats promote bad posture and are rarely comfortable after ten minutes of sitting on them... headache worsened.

4) I got home and I literally had to swim (okay, not literally, but... whatever) through a pile of papers to get from the living room to the kitchen to my bedroom and then back across the living room to turn my computer on.

5) Our internet usually take about fifteen minutes to turn on. [The people told us that we didn't need to turn it off, but my parents are paranoid that someone is going to sit on our back porch and steal our internet... which is a joke because we can't get wireless connector thingies to pick up our internet...ness.... so I don't know why we don't just leave it on... it would be easier. MY cousin Sam and I have a running joke. We decided that the only people smart (stupid) enough to try and steal our internet would be homeless people who had nowhere else to go to get internet but the middle of nowhere....)

6) While I was waiting for the internet to turn on, I made myself a bagel, and I was pouring myself some milk and I spilled it.

7) While I was cleaning up the spilled milk, my bagel got cold (I had toasted it).

8) I decided to go practice the one song that I can (sort of) play in the piano: Late by Ben Folds. I fail miserably at playing the piano, so that did next to nothing for my mood.

9) I then decided to play Guitar Hero, which is what I like to do to relieve my stress... although I haven't played it since Christmas when my older brother moved out of the house. (I'm probably, secretly, horribly depressed... The only reason I'm so good at Guitar Hero is because I wanted to be better than Josh. We used to play it all the time.... *sigh*)

10) I logged onto my computer and then opened Firefox, which promptly was "not responding" for about ten minutes.

11) My mother was watching a movie right next to me, and you'd think she were deaf, the sheer volume of sound that emanates from the TV when she's watching it. I had to turn my iPod up all the way just to block out the sound. It's not that I don't like watching movies occasionally, but I don't particularly watching movies during the day, every day, or with other people in the room (due to the fact that I legitimately talk to myself... especially whilst I am driving and talking to yourself is kind of distracting to other people in the room, so I watch movies by myself so that I can talk to myself without disturbing anyone else).

12) I was talking to my father, telling him a story about my day and he walked outside and closed the door.... Of course, my parents frequently leave the room when I'm talking to them, so I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise.

13) The duet I am writing for the song If You Could Hie To Kolob (the one which I am going to play in Sacrament meeting) is unfinished because Finale Notepad won't let me change key signatures or time signatures in the middle of the song... which I need to do. All production on that has stopped until I have figured out what to do.

14) I've been meaning to write in my current book, but I can't figure out whether character development is more important or plot development. I kind of hate going off on a tangent in the middle of the story (especially when it's at the beginning), but in this case, a tangent would be helpful in developing the independence of my main character, which is important, in my opinion.

15) Kailey and I were supposed to make a slideshow for the Orchestra party next week, but she didn't come over today and I don't have access to most of the pictures that we would be using.

Well, that was incredibly stress relieving. I guess you're supposed to follow up these sorts of things with lists of good things, but I'm really sort of lazy right now, so... maybe a future blog.

Emily's Super Interesting Life (Not) and Plans For The Future

At first, I was thinking about blogging about the end of school, but I realize that I have nothing to say, except for that I object. Then, I decided to blog about the future, and I don't mean, like, robots and space/time travel. Today, Leslie was revising her plans for her future (which I do practically every week). Last week we decided that we were going to be roommates in college, which is cool because her grandparents live quite close to Weber State, so we're going to use their spare bedroom. Sometime in between now and our graduation from high school, we're going to go to her grandparents house, somehow obtain bunk beds (awesome), and then repaint/re-carpet the room. Carpet is cool, I suppose, but the painting should be fun. We're going to paint the walls as if they were bookshelves. Leslie took Interior Design last trimester, so she's getting all prepared by planning out all the different color schemes for all of the different "shelves". We'll probably pencil everything in with rulers (or something) first, and then just paint over it. THEN, we're going to obtain many real bookshelves and as many books as is possible, and we're going to turn our room into a library.
Whilst trying to decide what she should do (she was going to be a nurse, but decided not to), I suggested that she just get a degree in English, like I am going to, because that's pretty much the only thing either of us are any good at. This morning, we decided that we could get into publishing/editing and then maybe, someday, we can make our own publishing company. We're also going to be ridiculously famous (not) for the book that we're planning on writing together this summer. It's a pretty good idea so far, even better than my current project about time-travel.
So, these are our plans for the future. Exciting....

Tramping a perpetual journey through this labyrinth of suffering

I'm really having a hard time deciding what I'm feeling about the end of school. I'm not excited for summer, because I never do anything during the summer, but, then again, I also don't want to be perpetually in the tenth grade for eternity. I've kind of got a bunch of finishings of projects scheduled for this summer, and I'm going to try to get more creative, but, if last summer is any indication, I'll probably end up doing nothing. Then again, I want the summer to come because after the summer is school again. Apparently, high school is easy as a squashmore, but gets infinitely harder as a junior. I'm hoping that this is true because the tenth grade was super easy and kind of boring, with some fun exceptions (Orchestra, Seminary, ect.). Of course, whenever people tell you that something is going to be REALLY hard, it always ends up being super easy, and my expectations are not met. I'm not sure as to whether I'm going to do NaNoWriMo camp this summer. I know that my friend Amanda is going to do NaNoWriMo in June, but I have a lot more going on in June than I do in November, so still undecided about that. Then again, I don't really have any new novel ideas besides the ones that I'm collaborating on with Leslie, so I would have to come up with a new idea to write, or cheat and just write the time-travel book I'm working on, which is definitely appealing... I also think that this summer I'm going to get a little more into poetry. I've never been a poetry kind of person, but I think it's because the third grade ruined me. We were always forced to read/write all of this stupid, cheesy poetry and I hated it, but I know there's better stuff out there. I just have to stop being lazy and go find it. Another thing I have to do is come up with a new, clever answer to the age-old question, "What's up?". Up until now, I've been saying, "Up is relative." Which it is, but Brother Black and I argued about it for weeks before I proved him wrong with the power of the internet, so to continue saying it would be really mean. :P Leslie and I are thinking that we could find a really cool line from a poem to recite, but neither of us know anything much about poetry, so we're going to do some research.

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Screwtape Letters was a really good book, but it's hard to explain why because I'm not feeling very wordy today. It was pretty enlightening, and mind blowing. The only problem being that it never tells you what happens to the human guy at the end. Does he die? Brother Mickelson says that he thinks he did. It's another one of those books that just ends so abruptly. This was also added to by the fact that the book was written from a weird perspective. There wasn't a story-line to follow, but there was at the same time. Super-confusing, but it also made sense... Despite being written weirdly, it was easy to read because it was so short. The book I'm reading now is something like 800 pages long, so it's really hard to get into because it's just so daunting. I'm going to need some more book recommendations soon.... I'll have to talk to Brother Black sometime...

Today we did some stuff

Today, my mother picked Leslie and me up from school so that we could go dress shopping. (I was asked to Red and White, so.... woo... Anyway, Leslie was super excited for me and wanted to be part of these proceedings because she claims she is vicariously living life through me) We saw some potential dresses at DI, but I was too fat for them, so we're going to the Logan mall on Thursday. Then, we went grocery shopping with my mother and Leslie and I got some soda and Nerds, so we were pretty happy. Then we looked at more dresses on the internet. In the end we decided that dresses looked cool, but look weird on me, and that I'm too weird looking to be a model.

Fifth Grade Amerah and Emily

I sat my backpack on the floor next to my new desk and sat watching the clock. I was five minutes early for class, but I wanted to make a good impression for my first day of the fifth grade. The door swung open and a girl dressed in bright clothing stepped through the door. She had blond hair and was carrying a blue shoulder bag.
"Well then," She said surveying the room and seeing only me. "this is a lively bunch. Fifth grade is going to be one heck of a party!" She grinned. I probably looked confused. I said nothing as the girl looked around then set her bag on the desk next to mine. She plopped down in her chair.
"Hiya, I'm Amerah. A-m-e-r-a-h. And that's Am-er-uh, not A-mare-ah. I'm not a horse." I stared. "What's your name?"
"Emily." Amerah stuck her hand out and I shook it. The bell rang a few minutes later and our classmates trickled in, along with our teacher, a short chubby woman. The teacher talked a lot about how the school year was going to go, but I couldn't concentrate on her, because Amerah was trying not to laugh.
"...and I know that we can all be great friends." The teacher said. Amerah laughed rather loudly. The class stared at her.
"Sorry." Amerah said as she covered her mouth.
We colored a picture for the next hour, which Amerah complained loudly about.
"We're not Kindergarteners!"
The bell rang for break and Amerah pulled on my arm to go outside. We walked to the monkey-bars.
"Maybe she really does want to be friends." I suggested to Amerah.
"Just because she can't find friends her own age, what makes her think WE want to be friends with her?"
"I don't know..."
"Neither do I."
"Anyway, moving on."
"To what."
"Let's just say we are unicorns."
"What?"
"We're unicorns. Come on!"
Amerah started running off across the soccer field. I reluctantly followed her.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This was another book recommended to me by my Seminary teacher. It's hard to describe what the book is about because (as the book is constantly proclaiming) it has no unifying theme. It's really just a bunch of economical questions that are analyzed (not necessarily answered) using data and logic. It was a very interesting book, overall, and I learned a lot about... well, stuff, anyway.
I've always been semi-fascinated by the way that people have been programmed to look at things and the way things seem after looking at them logically. Also, analyzing things without moral biases and without trying to come up with a right or wrong answer.
Though, I think the best part of the whole book is probably the cover.

Stuff, things... you know this schtick

Blogging/doing email quizzes really doesn't work well when you're watching Newsies. Probably because the music is so catchy and they're accents are hilariously awesome. Also, the choreography is just too awesome to not watch, so every time they start singing I either have to type without looking (at my fingers AND at what I'm writing. It's amazing that something intelligible even comes out) or I have to pause and watch. Then I lose my train of thought and my writings don't make sense (not that they did in the first place).
Does anybody else think I should come up with a theme for this stupid blog? Alright, here we go:
I recently (actually, like ten minutes ago, before I started watching Newsies) finished the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. We talked about this book in Seminary. It's the book where the Seminary teachers got the 10,000 hour rule. I decided to read it because several of them said they recommended it (and teachers usually know what they're talking about when it comes to books). At first, I downloaded a PDF file of it and it took me a month to get half way through. Then, yesterday, my mother got the book for me from the Bookmobile, and I finished the second half in less than 24 hours (Yay for real, physical, paper books!).
Basically, the book is about achieving success and successful people. According to the book, success is very little about actual talent. People who are successful aren't so because they are special or because they possess more talent than anyone else. In large, it talks about specific people or studies (or certain series of events) that prove this. It talks about a ton of stuff that plays into how people do things, what they're attitudes are towards various things (like insults and/or math class), how successful they are. They're things like, when they were born, who their ancestors were, what ethnicity they are, what country they live in, what opportunities they had, how much they worked to succeed. All in all, extremely fascinating book. Next, I'm reading another book recommended to me by the Seminary teachers. So far, they haven't let me down in terms of book recommendations, so...

Emily Talks About Stuff Again: Seriously, Why Doesn't She Just Go Away?

I think that these things should be called "Ramblogs" because I am REALLY good at rambling. Usually, I'm just really good at rambling when I'm talking out loud. When I have to have a textual conversation, or portray a certain idea, I tend to be a little more focused (although, not much), but in blogs, I am really good at saying nothing. It's a DARN good thing that no one reads these....... This is seriously why I don't keep a journal. Journals are good ideas if cool things happen to you or if you think you have something to say.
I don't.