Last-minute fear and introductions

It is two hours to the launch of NaNoWriMo, and I have to admit, I'm getting at least slightly anxious and scared. Of course, I'm still excited, but...!

The thing is, I just looked over my plot outline and like plot outlines are supposed to be, it's quite vague. I'm just afraid I'll run out of ideas or something, especially since I'm coming to my hormonal time of month, meaning that I will be swinging like crazy (moodswinging, not actually swinging, even though that WOULD be nice), which means I will be depressed at points, and Following the Gay Umbrella is most definitely not a depressed sort of story, but lighthearted and snarky at times.

The other thing is that I was reading the forums and, you know, I'm not a stressful sort of person and I'm going to this month in a whole I-can-do-it, no-problems sort of attitude, i.e. very relaxed and not scared at all, but... but somehow, reading the forums and having people assure that THERE WILL BE DIFFICULT TIMES BUT IT WILL BE OK is just making me more stressed. Will it really be that difficult to write 1667 words per day?

EEEEEEEEEEEK.

I guess I never really got to introducing my little characters, did I... I should at least mention the remaining three: Sebastian, who is that "oh please" sort of bad boy, who could have been a bully and who is silently loyal, even though he doesn't display his affection and believes in only platonic love; Sophie, who is the animal-loving girl of the group (though not vegetarian), horseback rider and the one who asks all the questions, and freaks out and complains a whole lot; finally, Nicholas, who is the techie of the group, the one who works entirely too much and thus is having problems passing school - he is the one who gathers all information, tries to classify it and offer his knowledge on different aspects, and the one who is addicted to caffeine and who falls asleep on soft things.

Two more hours!

Unbelievability is not believable

Today my post won't be entirely too long and I know I promised to post character profiles, but I've been to busy "trying out" Kingdom Hearts 258/2 Days to get anything done properly and so on and so forth, and right now I should probably be sleeping so that I would be happy tomorrow at work, but---

Okay, I'll slow down a little. It is thursday, therefore I am tired, therefore I should be sleeping, because tomorrow I have school (and a French SAC I didn't study for, even though I was going to) and after that, work. However, I got up from my bed to explain to any unfortunate soul who may stumble here (yadi yadi ya, you know my complaints) about the amazing feat I have done - I finished my plot outline for Following The Gay Umbrella.

Yes, the plot is now set, finito, finished, at an end. I can't BELIEVE it. I mean, I know it's not perfect and it's got a lot of strings that don't actually tie up (but I guess that's one of the things I try to emphasise - some things just don't concern you at all and you won't see the end of it, so why should you see the end of everything in fiction?), and a lot of things that happen numerously and things that shouldn't happen and suchlike, but... it's done. It's a plot, a storyline, from start to finish, and I've never done that before. Never. I mean, I've not written it or anything yet, but I've just never had this much of a complete story.

I can't wait to actually get to write it, it's such an adventure my fellowship has ahead of them.

TWO MORE DAYS.

And after that, I will invite you to the magical journey through Crazyland, as corny as it sounds!

Posting synopses

Rather than telling about a character today (two down and three to go), I will rather post the synopsis I have also included in my user tab of the NaNoWriMo forums. So, as follows, the synopsis for Following the Gay Umbrella:

It's not Crazyland that made them that way - they were so to begin with.

The story for today begins with a mistake involving mysterious doors: a mistake which leads to five teenagers' arrival to a less mysterious but more absurdly unpredictable alternate dimension. Curious, they are directed to follow the trail of an even less mysterious but more infuriatingly elusive character named Narrator, who, they hope, will explain this madness. However, as they travel through cities governed by magical ducks, escape the furious Lady of the Wind and explore libraries that are really shrines of four specific deities, the fellowship comes to realise just how odd the dimension they have arrived to really is.

While Narrator continues to dodge their attempts to find him, the fellowship is further drawn into the curious realm of Crazyland. As slightly more mysterious and oddly powerful creatures such as Destiny, Chance and Time step (even though the motion may seem less like stepping and more like magically 'poof'-ing) into the picture, the fellowship of five begins to understand that there is more to the apparent madness that meets the eye. That is, to be specific, when already incomprehensible things begin go wrong and, as is bound to happen, potentially dangerous. Before they quite process what truly is going on, a group of these oddly powerful creatures and self-proclaimed deities, carrying the banner of The Great, come to the conclusion that while it is not the most desired course of action, the fellowship must be proclaimed the Tentatively Picked Ones In a Case Where Nothing Else Worked and No-One Could Think of a Valid Objection.

And thus, slightly confused but determined, Ada, Sophie, Nicholas, Sebastian and Donna (though she prefers to be called Dee) reset their bearings and set out on an epic-ish quest to, uh, defeat the Unknown Villain (or so they believe). As anybody knows, the road to an objective as simple as that could never be simple, and as that is how things unfortunately are, the poor fellowship will encounter problematic definitions of elves, be scared by various generic monsters, stumble over impossibly cute fuzzy creatures, crave caffeine, argue about the existence of Author, and follow Ada's gay umbrella.

Height of boredom without procrastination

I should begin this post by stating that I really don't feel like posting at all, but am doing it because I'm so irrevocably and incurably BORED. First time for everything, eh?

Ugh, I don't even know what to say... I haven't been thinking about NaNo a lot today, or yesterday, or any day this week or last week, actually, since I stopped making an active effort on the plot outline. I mean, I almost have a complete story (which really is far from complete, because most of my minor characters don't even have a real reason to be there, not really - I'll give you a list in a moment), and I know what I'm going to be doing for those 50,000 words, I mean, with much precision, so why bother worrying about that?

I guess it's sort of sad that I'm not even making an active effort of trying to bring the whole storyline to a close. What I know is just that it's not a realistic expectation with exams and everything - but then again, maybe I'm just not pushing myself hard enough. When you think of it, at least I have the last week or two last weeks of November free from care, since my exams will be over - most people won't have even that, since they'll be working and at school and doing lotsa other things. So maybe I should be putting in that effort of trying to finish my NaNo...

Ok, the deal is this: once I finish this post, I will open Scrivener (which I absolutely adore, this product replacement is here on purpose, mac user-writers go google it RIGHT NOW because it's just magical and so pretty and *sighs wistfully*) and see what I can do about trying to bring my plot to a close, at least a wee bit less vaguely than it is finished right now.

But before that, I'll talk about another issue I've had when, uh, talking about Following the Gay Umbrella. I mean, I've always had a remarkable drive to tell my stories to everyone and have them read them and have them express their opinion on them and just have had that delight with telling stories (well duh, why else would I be a writer), but the thing is that I don't want to spoil too much. I think at least two people have expressed their interest in wanting to read the finished product, and I don't know, is it alright to completely reveal major plot points when you know the people will be reading the story and it will somehow be spoiled for them?

I mean, it's difficult to interest people in a story they know nothing about, and I would LOVE to tell everyone who might accidentally read this blog some day what I'm going on about, and... Actually, maybe I should, at some point. At least I would have something to ramble about, since there seems to be no problem I can really vocalise here.

Mmmmprh, talking about making things difficult for myself..!

Second introduction

It seems that I have lost most/any of my readers. Again. Oh well, back to square one - all hail anonymity! I mean, you do have to be anonymous first in order to become recognised at some point, right, right?

I'm having a good day today, maybe because there is no false or forced social interaction. Even my family has effectively allowed me to roll around in my room, relatively alone and peaceful, and it's been heaven for my mental state. The morning did start off a little badly, 'cause I was having problems breathing, but it wasn't anything ventoline couldn't fix. Then again, the problem is that I've never been diagnosed with asthma, and on the contrary to the symptoms of asthma, I often have trouble breathing INWARD, not outward. But yet again, ventoline helps, and as long as mother approves of me using it, why should I not.

As my health is probably not the most interesting of topics, I should probably proudly announce that Robert A. Heinlein is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. This I know because - shockingly - I have once again picked up a book other than one of those novels we study at school! Gasp! And I'm loving it, obviously, and I love how it has ideas but isn't entirely too heavy for me to read.

And what else, what else... Maybe I should mention that as of now, I've given up on my plot outline for NaNoWriMo. Oh, don't take it the wrong way, I'm not giving up ON NaNoWriMo, I'm just too much in a hurry to actually finish the whole plot outline, and thus will leave it where it stands (at 51,000 words and maybe two thirds into the novel), because I do have a vague idea of what is going to happen after that point, and if I do reach that point in the novel (as it would be, in writing, far past 50,000 words) in November, I will just improvise or let earlier revelations while writing dictate what happens next. To put it otherwise, I've stopped stressing (gotten past my "hump", to quote Heinlein and Starship Troopers) and am now just eager and happy that November is so soon.

As promised, I will introduce another character, today:

Her name is Dee, and she is the type of person who will take advantage of you when you sleep. Raised by solely her mother and only acquainted with her slightly older sister, Lucia, who lives with her father, Dee has become very sure of her own ways. She is a loving sort of person, a very touchy-feely type, and as stated, will not stop at anything to have a little grope at you. She finds most people attractive, and doesn't give a damn if you're a guy or a girl (she's not into animals just yet, however). Her only aspiration currently is to become famous; how will she do that, she doesn't know, and frankly, doesn't care - she will become famous and rich.

First introduction

Ohh dear me, I never got to updating, did I? As every time this happens, people might already guess that I was, again, having some issues with, well, self-esteem and mental health and so on and so forth. I'm such a difficult person that I'm making life increasingly difficult for myself. It's reeeeeally got to stop at some stage.

Nevertheless and on a related and unrelated note, getting close to that point I was trying to do last time I posted, yesterday (on a friday, that is), we had a French excursion to the city to the National Gallery of Victoria to see some paintings of French artists and to hear about them, because we're supposed to write about them in a SAC NEXT Friday (completely unfair to have a SAC that soon, but at least it's the last one of this year), and since I don't especially like my French group (oh, I've got nothing against it in a hypothetical fashion, it's just that I don't feel very, well, how should I put it... suited to that group), I left to the excursion in a bleak fashion. But as my father told my some Finnish philosopher once said, and whose words (probably paraphrased - yes, I still like brackets) have stuck into my mind, you make your own fun. This is to say that no matter the circumstances, you can either decide that you're going to have a great time - or a very bad time, and that you will have.

So halfway through the trip travelling to the station from my school, I stared at the ground miserably, and then started thinking of what my NaNoWriMo characters would tell me if they were to hear or knew what I was feeling like. Not only did this process of imagination conjure a huge grin on my face, but it also reminded me of how awesome my characters are. I know I was supposed to introduce minor characters, but since I know the major characters more and have not told you about them, I will introduce them to you one at a time (since I'm lazy like that). Today, I will introduce you to--

Ada, I believe, is somewhat of our main protagonist. She is an eccentric of sorts, and a dreamer - she's not very interested in the human life forms around her, but more in the inanimate objects and their possible names and personalities. Currently, she is utterly fixated on an umbrella which happens to be in the colours of the rainbow. While she does insist on the fact that her umbrella is gay (as in the homosexual sense), she does not insist so because of its rainbow colouring. She is in love with cute architecture, and apart from her umbrella, doesn't really care about sexuality. She's more for love. And she's addicted to fruit juices. Small things and trinkets make her happy.

Apart from that, 7 DAYS.

"Bleh, I say: Bleh!"

Bleh, why are early mornings so damn early?

Because my brain isn't functioning and I incidentally forgot I have a French SAC today, I will update this post later to introduce some of my minor characters of my NaNovel, because I've been steadily talking about other stuff than that.

OK OFF TO SCHOOL NOW

damn school.

p.s. I'm in my winter uniform again. *shakes fist*

On the weather

This will be such a brief update, but I will say as much as I have gone past that bout of angst (for now) and come back to other topics, like the weather.

And what a weather it is! Earlier today, when I began walking to the station from school (ALONE AND FORSAKEN), I was ready to curse spring, since I was wearing my winter uniform, complete with black, thick tights, mainly because in the morning, it had been something around 10 degrees celsius outside, and my school is not exactly known for its heating or air conditioning. So, I was sweating and uncomfortable and annoyed about the fact that first it can be so damn cold and then it'll be really damn warm because you've dressed in your winter clothes and can't just begin stripping in the middle of the street (even though some people might think that awesome), so you will just have to suffer. Screw spring, I thought - make up your mind.

However, right now I am forced to eat my earlier word-- er, thoughts. With the window open just half a meter away from me, with the considerable warmth (I can feel fleeing gradually, however) and everything else combined, I'm so very comfortable and hope that spring would just continue. That said, if it's cold tomorrow, I am seriously going to.. going to... write an angry letter to the meteorologists' department, or something.

... Does such a place even exist?

NEVER MIND! NaNoWriMo in less than two weeks.

SONOTREADYOHMYGOD

but I can dooooo it!

More to reality than realism

I think I've worked out at least a partial reason to why I don't read as much as I used to before. Similarly, there are some things that I just don't get...

For me, literature has been always essentially about escapism. It's been about wonderful worlds and wonderful characters who lead wonderful lives that balance out some of the less-than-wonderful aspects of this world and allow me to disregard them, leading a daily life in peace and if not ignorance, then in the act of avoiding looking things I know about.

And then came along our delightful school and I stepped into an age where the general mentality is that books and stories should mean things, and should have a clear message and should convey images and make readers think. We have studied novels such as Montana 1948, All Quiet on the Western Front and other such depressingly accurate descriptions of the anguish of humanity, and then forced to look into them in an even deeper level, that I am beginning to feel slightly sick. Maybe this is because of an overdose today, having that lecture on Gattaca, a film which is based on the use of eugenics, today, alongside with some deeper peeks into a few short stories that talk about the aimlessness and hopelessness in youth.

It just seems that in each literary subject, the curriculum is thrusting more and more misery at the students, this being us. How am I supposed to keep a smile on my face and a positive outlook on life when I'm told that some kids have it really hard - that most kids have it really hard in their heads - and that the future may turn out grim if we don't do something about it (and that something we've got to do about it is never told), and that we're supposed to find some universal answer to all of this through wracking our immature brains for great answers.

I don't know if other people are having such a problem with the context essays, but for me, questions such as "multiple realities can exist in one society" and "justice is incidental to law and order" make me want to cry. Of course there are other realities, but there's no need to go into deeper analysis about it - let there be other realities, and leave the other realities in peace. The question on justice is an even more abstract one, something that caused me even more heartache earlier in the year - I do not even know what is right, and here I am, having to write a discussion about how the truth and some order I do not quite grasp (oh, it seems that a prevalent theme is the whole the-government-is-watching-what-will-you-do; maybe the curriculum is obsessed with freedom).

All I'm asking is what's the point. What does the curriculum want me to do? Do the people who write up the curriculum not understand how mentally challenging and impossible tasks they set for us? Is it just me that's having such a huge problem with it, and what's wrong with me for having this problem with it?

Also, why is it that the world seems to be such a crooked place that high schoolers under the physically mature age (and in an mentally very unstable and immature age - maybe the figure of rapidly increasing pressure in education and the rapidly increasing rates of depression in youth have some correlation) have to be taught that there are things fucked up and there are things that are more fucked up than others and all that is left is to choose the things that are the least fucked up.

I don't want to live in a world where I need to be enlightened of this. I don't want to have to listen to this at school, since I've always known - I've cried to my mother, how can they go to wars, how can they just kill each other like that? So maybe I'm a softie, and maybe I laugh and cry because of the most trivial of things, but how honestly could it ever be possible for one human being to kill another? I may be naïve, and I may be well and truly innocent, but I seriously do not understand. I don't understand the hatred and malevolence that goes on here -I mean, I do confess to hating some people because of their opinions, well, "hating", because my temper flares abruptly and then settles back down, and my rational mind reminds me that not everybody sees things the way I do. But I would not want to hurt them for that. It aggravates me, people with opinions that are narrow-minded but very loud and articulated (and sometimes opinions like that happen by accident, for the lack of a better way to describe it, and I understand that), but I wouldn't want to shut them up just for speaking their mind. In most cases, it's not their fault they don't know any better.

And I don't know if or not I know better than them, since I don't know what they know and I'm not entirely sure of what I know, either.

What I know is that English and Literature are making me steadily depressed. I hardly read anymore, because I am scared I will run into one of these great discussions of life - I am afraid I will be run into this mode of thought I am caught in, right now. There's nothing good in the depths of realism in the dark way everybody really wants to portray it. I say that the whole definition of adding realism into your work is bullshit. Everything that is "real" is defined by how you see it - and if you want to paint it in an overly complicated and a black hue, of course it will turn overly complicated and hopeless and pointless and otherwise difficult.

There's more to reality than realism, goddamnit! It's just that everybody is so much in love with their own voice nowadays, and it's popular to hate something and love something else and to spark hatred over the things you love, because nationalism is losing its grip. I'm a part of most of these movements, of course, how can I not be - I wish I would not be, and I wish it wouldn't have to be this way. I wish people could realise that there's more to it than they can see and I wish they could glimpse the same potential to happiness as I can. It just doesn't help, all this talk about depressing imagery and... and...

My God, please give me strength.

p.s. to some of my readers who cannot read emotions from between the lines, don't tell me I'm a softie or that I'm taking something too seriously, because I really don't need that right now.

Are norms normality?

You guys know what really annoys me? Society.

Well, not exactly the whole of it, because I can't blame my problems on the guy three doors down, but nevertheless! There are just some values here that I don't understand. Like, I think I was reading the thread on autism on the NaNoWriMo forums (to which I am addicted and so much in love with), and most of them said that a psychologist had told the person/their friend or someone with autism that feeling comfortable while naked should not be natural and is a sign of some mental weirdness.

Excuse me again, but what? How is not being naked around other people not natural? Especially if you think of it in the biological sense of being? It's what we were born with, and if the climate does not actually require clothing, we should technically be comfortable with it. Why are we not?

Because being naked is not a norm. Everybody in this day and age has grown up in an environment (excluding, of course, the minorities in which nudity is the way to go) where we have been taught that the moment you leave your house, you're supposed to be clothed. Right.

I can understand that to a certain sense, but I sometimes think that the values of today are going back to the, era (I can't remember the technical term for it) in which you just had to be covered from head to toe, and showing little skin would be extremely shameful. However, I remember times in primary school in which the girls would all have showers together in the seven or so showers in the change rooms, I remember undressing and dressing in the presence of 27 girls (in skating) and going to saunas in which there were entirely unknown people to me naked. I don't think that would be possible in the environment in which I am now.

What is the psychological reason for being uncomfortable when naked?

I don't geddit.

Oh, and I thought of this post only because I was going to run through the house to get something and then thought that maybe I should get dressed, since my parents always tell me off if I run around without clothes on.

.. Then I wrote this post without actually dressing. Hmmmm.

I'm looking, too

I had Literature about an hour or an hour and a half ago. Currently, we're watching (in order to study) a movie named Looking for Alibrandi, apparently based on the novel of Melina Marchetta, an Australian author.

I won't even begin summarising the plot and feeling of the movie, since I'd have to tell the whole story, and right now I just can't be bothered. Suffice to say that it's a vivid story about a lot of things, and that it gets really sad at one point. Well, I guess it just was a disaster pending, honestly --

and it's normal for me to cry when I see a movie. Any movie, basically: happy or sad, I will cry during it, because something happened that called for it. But, I don't know, I've seen this movie before - once - and don't remember it being a really good or memorable movie. That, though, might be because we watched it at school in a time before I became at least somewhat comfortable with watching movies.

I don't know if it hit a nerve or something, but, like always, I started crying during the sad part of the movie - and then I just didn't stop. The period even ended and I fled to the library to do some math, hoping to be left alone - 'cause alone it's easier to control - but someone walked up to me and I pretty much broke down. What is with me and public crying?

And why the hell am I still feeling like someone hit me with a baseball bat or something?

Accomplishing thoughts

This is a random spam/spastic productivity post, but my plot is starting to make even more sense currently. I thought I was done for earlier today, when I started yearning after worktitle Horizon, (which has currently transformed into 'Till Horizon Do Us Part) instead of my NaNovel, but! Alas! My creativity has come back in the form of Clever Elephant, Fworr and the Gay Umbrella is taking form - and history, and the huge conspiracy theory is forming, and...

Gotta love being a writer.

Sensibility is not insensible

Before I totally forget about it, I had to sign on and rant.

This is the paragraph in which I talk about my day at school and say that well, the morning was a bitch but otherwise it was just like I left it and it wasn't as bad as I would've feared and five weeks to exams and so on and so forth.

And now to the important things! I was going to be productive at lunch today, because no-one has an hour-long lunch and does nothing in it (well, I've done that too, but recently I've been hiding in the library and doing various productive stuff with that hour of my life). In fact, I was going to work on a context piece that is due somewhere around this week, and thus had conveniently e-mailed it to myself. When, however, I tried to access said e-mail from school, the website had been blocked as malicious.

Excuse me, WHAT?!

I can understand the premises on which my school - or any school - may decide to ban websites. I also understand that there's a bunch of students out there that are ruining it for the rest of us (and with the rest of us I mean the minority that actually goes by the rules, like myself. I'm more likely than not a part of that minority, most of the time). But some of these restrictions are just ridiculous - banning google images? How about kids who don't have time to do schoolwork at home/don't have proper access to a computer? How about lessons when we are given time to finish one or another poster and cannot, because the website is banned? Not that I actually support posters, because making them pretty and visual and whatnot is so primary school and doesn't teach us anything. At all. I'd just rather sit through lectures and take notes and LEARN things rather than painstakingly recreate it in a visual manner...

And now they've banned hotmail. I have always had the general feeling that if you allow idiots to begin censoring sensible things, they will sooner or later be censoring even the things you need as "malicious," or something.

No, I didn't really have anything more to add. My brain is short-circuiting at the moment. Carry on!

Down is down

Oh dear me. I was just trying to get down some of my minor character profiles from the scattering of small notebooks I have lying around everywhere, just so that I can have them in one place, conveniently, and I don't have to look for them and then forget that they're there.

It started out pretty well, but then I realised that my minor characters are plot devices and then I started attempting to tie them better to the plot I have and I couldn't, because I feel like my creativity has leaked out from my pores or something, and my mind is blank and I'm feeling generally tired and shit.

God, I hate hormones.

I know that I probably shouldn't be feeling to anxious about this, because honestly, merely the fact that I do have characters that I can insert to the plot at an early stage like this is a good thing. They might not even seem to have real ties to the plot, but I can work that out later in the editing stages, right? I'll just have to shut up my inner editor, right?

It's just kinda hard, when I'm trying to keep the whole thing together in my head and then I see the overall picture and think that most of my plot is full of holes and the rest of it is bullshit, it's a little difficult to keep motivated. Times like these, I really know why I quit stories at certain points.

Maybe I'm trying to chew more than I can swallow? Or am I?

Maybe I'll just have a break, breathe a little, and then come back to it when it feels good. I mean, I've got more than enough to make 50,000 in November, and that's the main thing, right? But I really want to finish the novel...

HERE I GO AGAIN, panicking about things I should just take easily! There's got to be a disease like this, or something.

Okay, off to go play some Mariokart or poke at mother or eat some chocolate. Checking back later...

Academic Girl Strikes Again!

So, today is Sunday. And it's not just any Sunday of any month, but The Dreadful Sunday After a Two-Week Holiday; The Terrifying Sunday After Which Occurs Monday, In Which I Will Have to Go Back to School.

Like previously mentioned, I've been having some problems recently, and most of them originate from school. However, it's not exactly a problem with my performance or anything, more like the problem with my attitude - I stress and panic while I don't necessarily have anything to stress or panic about.

It's been a happy two weeks, all about writing and all my thoughts focused on NaNoWriMo. Now I have to become aware, again, what are most of my problems at school about - and I think the central two subjects are French and Math, currently. Math because I don't know how to do it, because I have a word-oriented brain, and French just because.

BUT. I'll also have to remind myself that high school doesn't kill you, and it mostly doesn't even make you stronger. I've got a lot of friends who are laughing about the so-called importance of high school, and I do concur. There's just something wrong with my attitude - regardless of how unimportant it is, it has to be perfect.

So, I'm trying to take new bearings. These new bearings began today, when I also began to do some of my homework - getting back to the mindset of school. Then, just an hour or two ago, I paused, and told myself that I will go shopping now. And shopping I went, to the mall just near my place, and I actually bought a bunch of crap. It may seem kinda of materialistic now, but I think it was something to take my mind of school. I bought hairspray, chocolate, a ruler (because I broke mine before), a set of permanent markers and suchlike. I also bought a binder for Following the Gay Umbrella - I like having things physically, printed off and somewhere, organised.

I think I also needed that trip. It's a beautiful day outside now, and I was wearing long pants, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a t-shirt on top of that (a style of clothing I really happen to like), and when I was walking home in my dark-ish clothing in the sunshine, I was actually getting kind of hot. I've got to love spring, and hope that summer comes soon enough, so that I will only have to worry about getting too hot.

So, the walk was pleasant, and the shopping trip was pleasant, and now I have a pile of crap I don't exactly need but that made me content. It's funny how the human mind works, isn't it? However, I still have some homework that I need to do before I can take my laptop out and continue my plot outline (by the way, I've been insanely productive on that part, too - last night I hit 40,000 words) in the sunshine.

Hurry up, Academic Girl (that will totally be my superhero name once I gain my awesome superhero powers in the near future by, uh, writing over 50,000 words in a month), the sun's gonna go down in a couple of hours or so!

Bannerlicious

Oooooohh!

A very friendly NaNoWriMo participant was advertising that they could make banners of people's novel titles (a common practice on the NaNo forums), and of course I had to commission for one. Here it is, the banner for my novel for this year:

Credits of the title and other text go to me, and the rest of it to wonderful Maemi for making this. Thanksee so muchly!

Un-Cheeterz Anonymous

I've come to, less than pleasantly, realise, that because of my excessive wordcount in my plot outline for Following the Gay Umbrella, some people are, eh, "worried" that I'm cheating. With cheating, in the context of the NaNoWriMo rules, that would mean that I was already writing the novel itself, which, as the most important rule, is not allowed before the first of November.

While I know that detailed plot outlines may look like they might be breaking the rules, I, myself, know that I'm not. I'm not very good at explaining how I feel about certain things, but I'll try.

See, what I'm doing is that I'm writing a detailed description of each scene, including the gist of what each character will be saying (except for the fact that they never actually say it, and I write it in a way that says "commenting upon blah blah in accordance to their feelings which stem on blah blah"), where they will be standing and the general twist and turn of the scene. However, I am not writing said scene. I am describing the scene in order to have the scene clearly on paper, so that during November, I will not have to pause to think about it and arrange something in my head, quickly, but can just keep on writing and concentrate on style and how the text sounds, not what it actually is.

Oh, and I still don't know what I'm going to do with most of the scenes. I only know how the scene will begin, middle and end, but the thing is that I don't really know all my characters yet, since I haven't exactly been writing them yet, and even with a detailed plot outline, you can't see everything happening, especially since I'm a very character-centered writer. My characters very often dictate the direction I'm going to take, and this will change during the writing.

I'm not cheating. I'm not writing the novel itself, but I am creating a tool which, I hope, will make it easier for me to finally come to the end of a novel.

... that is, if I manage to finish said tool before November.

28 days. Ohmigawd.

Productivity IS productive sometimes

Right now I'm supposed to be trying to set my sleeping rhythm right, but I can't help announcing that today I wrote four thousand words of plot outline and realised that with the detailed plot outline I am doing, four thousand is really nothing. But if I write, like, four thousand every single day of October (which I doubt will happen as schools will begin again), I will have a plot at the end of it, unless it becomes entirely too epic and too incomprehensible and just doesn't never end.

Shout-out for productivity, yay!

... And I'm still ignoring the fact that I have a pile of homework due for monday. Once sunday rolls around, I will be SO deep in desperation, oh dear.

Of spinning stories

I know I updated just three seconds ago (or something), but I kinda want to keep my posts separate, because I'm talking about separate things. Also, I can afford to update all the time without having someone whine about it, because -- well, I suppose everybody knows my whinings about no readers by now, so no news here, mwah.

*gets shot*

ANYWAY. So, NaNoWriMo is in a total of, uh... 31 days (yes, I had to check the calendar, shut up)! I'm getting really, really, really excited, and simultaneously really, really, really anxious and nervous, too. I'm not nervous about the writing thing in general -- well, that was a lie, yes I am, but more about that later -- but more about the whole combining of exams and writing thing. I've been having serious problems with maths just lately, and I need to concentrate properly on at least a few of my subjects (ok, so maths and chemistry, but so what) to get it right. I'm trying to tell myself that it doesn't really matter how I do in year eleven exams, but the problem is that I don't manage to convince myself of it. And I'd need to pass, anyway.

Now someone (with half a brain, unlike me) would be thinking that why on Earth would I have even planned to do NaNo, if I already knew, from the very beginning, that it would at least half way overlap with exams? That is a very good question, and I have a very bad answer for it. I wasn't thinking it would actually require that much work. Ok, 50 000 words does seem like a lot, but I write a lot anyway and I don't have any other hobby than writing and rolling around at home (I have a job, though, but that's only a shift a week, so I can deal with that), so I thought that well, I'll have enough spare time. I don't think I realised that if I begin planning early enough (in this case it was a few months earlier, I think I enlisted into this year's NaNo already in April or May and YES I HAVE A THING WITH BRACKETS), the story would actually start feeling like a story.

Like a real story.

Like something with a real world and real characters and a real plot.

I've never really felt this way, well, I have (and I will do this with the other idea for a novel I had and hope that it becomes as satisfying a project as this one), but this one is really my first I believe I may finish.

Emphasis on the "may."

Oh, I know I should believe in myself and all, but I just can't emphasise enough about the massive proportions this story is taking. I don't worry about school and generally breeze through it with good grades, but I'm HONESTLY beginning to worry, and that should be indication of how deeply involved I'm with this story. I'm thinking about it all the time, I'm painfully aware of the fact that there are so many things to bring up and tie together before this thing is over.

I mean, just last night I had the joyous feeling, something along the lines of "it's just gonna be breezing downhill from here on, I have a clear idea of what's going to happen, yippee!" and then I realised, in a sudden, dreadful moment of clarity, that I haven't even introduced my secondary antagonists yet in my plot outline.

CRAAAAAAAAP. (excuse me, anyone who is offended by my crude language)

Let's just say that I've been feeling like I'm in the middle point of my story for the past, uh, five thousand words of my plot outline? Or more? For the past four/five scenes?

But! I'm not discouraged! I have a good feeling about this, and DAMN WELL will I at least finish this one, if I have to ignore any coming plot holes, just so that I can say that I have finished a NaNovel. I CAN DO THIS.

... I hop-- NO, BAD ANNA. BAD, BAD ANNA.

Okay, going to plot outline now. Good luck to any fellow NaNoers!

I accidentally a blog

Last night, when I was going to sleep (but couldn't, I ended up staying up until 5.00 am, and yes, I do manage to screw up my sleeping pattern in as much as two weeks of a holiday, because I'm magical like that, thank you very much) I realised that I don't actually know how to write a blog. What I mean is that I come up with something I really want to share with the internets (and solely the internets, I will never get over my complaint about the fact that I never have any comments on here and I feel ridiculous typing solely to myself and still do it), and then I type it down. And then I click send. And then I surf to someone else's blog, stare at it for a long, long time and think "wow, this person really knows how to do it" or "I wish I had something as interesting to say."

Maybe it's just that I know what I'm thinking, so of course I'm not interesting to myself. But it also seems that I'm really lazy and I don't have the patience or resources to, for example, recommend something or rate something or tell about something I did or read or saw or something (I should stop saying "something", I'm not seeming very serious, now am I), because, generally, I don't. I think I just recently complained about the fact that I spend money on books I don't even read any time soon -- which happened again yesterday, I bought two books by Robert A. Heinlein who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, a novel I absolutely adored and then had to flee Borders running, so that I wouldn't spend my money on something else I wouldn't read soon -- and it's pretty much the same thing with everything else, too.

Right now I could justify my lack of activity (and thus lack of things to talk about other than my great and royal self, sorry to any poor potential reader who has wandered so fully away from their intended path) either with my screwed up sleeping patterns, or by the fact that I'm a great procrastinator, or by the fact that it's the FIRST of FLIPPING OCTOBER and NANOWRIMO IS, like, IN A MONTH.

As one of my friends would say,

HOLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE