Hey! The title rhymes! Anyway...Week 2 of NaNo is upon us (and I have failed again...my updating of this blog leaves something to be desired...) and my word count should be about 17,000...however it is only a mere 8,316...
Compared to how I was doing by this point last year I feel pathetic! My characters have been stuck in chapter 3 getting almost kidnapped and trapped in an alternate dimension for about four days now! (Um...four days in our world...in their world it's only been a couple hours.)
But the kidnapping isn't the problem, the bad-guys didn't get away with it and are currently doing what minor-villains do: running away. The alternate dimension isn't the problem either, two of my characters practically take afternoon strolls through the place on a regular basis (character #3, my current point-of-view character, however, is mildly freaking out because he doesn't know what in the world is happening...Oh yeah. He's the one who was being kidnapped).
No. Those things aren't the problem.
Do want to know? Do you REALLY want to know what happened to get me so far behind? I'll tell you.
It was......THE STOMACH FLU!!! *cue dramatic thunderclap, lightning bolt, and music-of-doom*
Yes. The stomach flu. Here's what happened.
It was last Saturday and we hadn't been home all day so I had missed all writing time (I had missed all of Friday too for the same reason) and I was planning to do at least a little catching up when we got home after church that evening.
During church my stomach started to feel a little...blech-ish, but it wasn't any worse than some normal indigestion so I dismissed it. After church and on the drive home I felt better so I didn't think about it. We got home and I did a little writing but other people wanted some computer time (we have two computers, my mom's laptop and my dad's laptop, and there are five currently in our house).
So while I had some brief writer's block (grrrrr!) I left the computer to whichever of my family members would claim it (probably my brother want to play World of Warcraft or my sister wanting to email a friend) and went to talk the writer's block out of me by giving a not-entirely-brief summary of what I had written so far to my dad. My dad's a great listener and when I'm stuck he's a huge help, pointing out things I'm not noticing, giving me facts, all that good stuff, so I talked while he finished making dinner and then we all sat down together in our library (it's not like an enormous library, and it has our TV in the room so it's kinda like a rec room where we do family movies and stuff) and we watched True Grit while we ate dinner.
I was still feeling fine (we ate bowtie pasta with marinara sauce and meatballs, by the way. It was good) until the movie ended and we were getting ready for bed and I suddenly started to feel nauseous. I took something for my stomach but by the time I laid down to sleep it was worse. Way way worse. I thought it was probably something I ate. I tried not to think about it but I eventually had to flee to the bathroom. You know how normally after you've thrown up you feel a little better? (except for the whole...throwing up thing...) Well I did feel better so I figured it had been something I ate (my parents said so too) so I drank some water and went back to bed feeling a lot better. However, not more than fifteen minutes passed before I was up again. I figured that now I would be better and could get some sleep so after some more water I went back to bed.
This cycle repeated about two more times before my parents gave me some anti-nausea medicine. That didn't work though, and after the fifth time my parents decided to take me to the emregency room because I couldn't even keep any water down.
I should mention that by this point my dad had started feeling the same way I was (no puking though, so bonus for him) so he drove me.
I have this sort-of-bad habit where I apologize for everything so while I was shivering in the passenger seat, wrapped in a blanket, holding a large, bucket/container on my lap, and starting to run a fever I say "I'm sorry."
My dad looks at me and he asks me why and I say "Because you have to take me to the hospital." (...yeah...it sounds even more stupid when I type it...)
So my dad kind of laughed and said, "Hey, I'm feeling the same way. If I start vomiting all over the place and passing out then the emergency room is the best place I can be."
My response, "Oh."
It was about midnight when we left so we got there about 12:20-something.
After getting called out of the waiting room we went with the nurse and she weighed me and then we we to a room and she asked me some questions.
One of the questions she asked was "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, how bad is your pain?" which seemed like an odd question because I wasn't really in pain...I was really sick.
If she had asked how I felt I would have said...hmm...probably like an 11 or a 12. But I just answered "Uh...I guess...4 or 5?"
Then I got put into another room where they hooked me up to and IV and over the next nine hours or so they gave me like four or five bags of fluids for my dehydration and a couple anti-nausea injections. I guess it was good that we went to the E.R. because I kept throwing up until about 8 or 9-something in the morning when they gave me a different anti-nausea medicine that worked and they let me go home (and by that time I had developed a delightful headache to go with everything else that had begun to be sore: neck, back, shoulder, etc...).
We got home around 10am and I went straight to bed and slept off and on for most of the day. I woke up sometime in the afternoon and couldn't fall asleep so I watched the first few episodes of the first season of Pokemon on my dad's laptop before dozing off again (I was barely coherent for episode 2 or 3 and when I woke up the laptop was gone...sad...).
So there was no more vomiting (yaaaay!) and by Tuesday I was feeling pretty much recovered. However, since I was feeling better right in the middle of the school week I had to take care of all of that school work before I could write, and with minimal energy due to the flu it left me too tired by the end of the day to do any writing. I was feeling fine on Wednesday but we were out so no writing that evening either.
And that brings us to today, Thursday (*looks at the clock*) okay...so now it's midnight which makes it Friday but you catch my drift. Thursday brought me writer's block...and I used my writing time tonight to update my blog (which I know I am failing at...) with this post which, by this sentence, is 1,247 words.
Well, it is way past my bedtime and I plan to get up early to write. I'm determined to catch up! So I shall be signing off for now! I will try to update sooner!
God bless you! (and keep you from the flu!)
And for my fellow writers: Happy writing!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
12 days untill insanity ensues...
In just 12 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes, and 58 seconds (or less depending on when you read this) NaNoWriMo will begin. What is NaNoWriMo, you ask? NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month. I call it NaNo for short. NaNo is a thirty day challenge for anyone who wants to write a novel. Starting November 1st your goal is to write fifty-thousand (50,000) words by the end of the month. All those who reach this goal are deemed winners. Although if you do not reach this goal you are not a loser. Pretty good deal if you ask me. The only rule: Thou shalt not EDIT! (at least not until December)
I will be participating this year. My second NaNo. I participated last year and I am very glad to say I won! My exact word count having been 50,511. I won't soon forget that!
What I love about NaNo is that it forces you to write. No dillydallying. No Spellchecking. No editing. No time. The no time part is what save me. My current novel has been in the works for about four years if I remember correctly. Why? Because I kept dillydallying, spellchecking, and editing. And I had lots of time to do it! I was going nowhere fast (or slow, for that matter). Actually, I was going nowhere.
When I dove into NaNo, however, that changed. I threw my inner editor in a cardboard box and shipped it to the moon. No more editing until my first draft was finished! However, my novel wasn't completely finished last year. Even though I'd reached my goal I still had a lot left to the story but I was determined to finish.
...Then February came...and my inner editor broke in and stole one of my characters away. And that was okay. She needed to go. I had realized that after NaNo had ended. She had exhausted her usefulness in one of my previous rewrites (I changed the whole idea of the story about four times before NaNo) and I was only holding on to her because she had been there from the beginning and I was feeling a bit nostalgic. At least, that's what my inner editor told me. And so away she went. And with her went the entire beginning of my NaNo rough draft. Why? Because even though she wasn't a main character anymore she was the reason all my main characters met up in the first place. And so what was my only option? Rewrite it.
After many months I have finally cooked up what I think is an equally (if not, more) interesting kick-off for my story. So this NaNo I will continue my rewriting because after this new beginning the middle and "end" (it's not really and end because I never got there) don't make as much sense. But I'm okay with that now because I feel that I've finally found a solid base (or at least a less rickety base) for my story.
NaNoWriMo is a time when writers go mad. And when writers go mad we have a blast! It's crazy, but if it weren't why would we do it?
NaNo saved my novel. But if I ever get my hands on the creators of this thing I'll have a hard time deciding whether to thank them or chew them out for organizing this thing in the middle of the SCHOOL YEAR!!! Seriously! "Thirty days has September, April, June, and November"! Why not June? WHY?
I will be participating this year. My second NaNo. I participated last year and I am very glad to say I won! My exact word count having been 50,511. I won't soon forget that!
What I love about NaNo is that it forces you to write. No dillydallying. No Spellchecking. No editing. No time. The no time part is what save me. My current novel has been in the works for about four years if I remember correctly. Why? Because I kept dillydallying, spellchecking, and editing. And I had lots of time to do it! I was going nowhere fast (or slow, for that matter). Actually, I was going nowhere.
When I dove into NaNo, however, that changed. I threw my inner editor in a cardboard box and shipped it to the moon. No more editing until my first draft was finished! However, my novel wasn't completely finished last year. Even though I'd reached my goal I still had a lot left to the story but I was determined to finish.
...Then February came...and my inner editor broke in and stole one of my characters away. And that was okay. She needed to go. I had realized that after NaNo had ended. She had exhausted her usefulness in one of my previous rewrites (I changed the whole idea of the story about four times before NaNo) and I was only holding on to her because she had been there from the beginning and I was feeling a bit nostalgic. At least, that's what my inner editor told me. And so away she went. And with her went the entire beginning of my NaNo rough draft. Why? Because even though she wasn't a main character anymore she was the reason all my main characters met up in the first place. And so what was my only option? Rewrite it.
After many months I have finally cooked up what I think is an equally (if not, more) interesting kick-off for my story. So this NaNo I will continue my rewriting because after this new beginning the middle and "end" (it's not really and end because I never got there) don't make as much sense. But I'm okay with that now because I feel that I've finally found a solid base (or at least a less rickety base) for my story.
NaNoWriMo is a time when writers go mad. And when writers go mad we have a blast! It's crazy, but if it weren't why would we do it?
NaNo saved my novel. But if I ever get my hands on the creators of this thing I'll have a hard time deciding whether to thank them or chew them out for organizing this thing in the middle of the SCHOOL YEAR!!! Seriously! "Thirty days has September, April, June, and November"! Why not June? WHY?
Sunday, October 2, 2011
When I was in Portugal...
So. It's been almost a week since my last post...I'll try harder to update with something at least a couple times a week...
This post is meant to be a review of a restaurant. My creative writing teacher has given me this assignment and I must oblige him.
However, there is a slight problem. The assignment is, and I quote, "to review a restaurant you go to this week or have been to recently. Describe everything from the food you like and didn't like, to the tables and seat cushions."
This wouldn't be a problem if I had actually been to a restaurant recently. I'm assuming he isn't talking about the McDonald's where I sat with my mom using WiFi so I could read the beginners version of Beowulf (...that's another story).
If you want to define "recently" as "having happened within the past year", then yes. I have been to a restaurant recently.
In August.
In Portugal (also another story).
This is also a place where I'm hitting a snag. The restaurant we went to in Portugal was in a building that attached to a couple other restaurants and because we were all so hungry and tired I hadn't bothered to see what the name was. I hadn't known it would be useful information. I just wanted whatever Portuguese food they had (I was determined to eat authentic food while in a different country). So this assignment shall also be a test for my memory.
Commence the review of the nameless restaurant!
There were four of us from our group there for lunch. It wasn't very big (probably about medium-smallish), but it was nice and it wasn't crowded.
My sister and my mom ordered salads and I can't remember what our friend ordered...it may have also been a salad. The name of the meal I ordered was in Portuguese and I can't remember it but it was a plate of rice, different beans, and pork. It was delicious! There was enough of it for me to fill up on and then let everyone else try some.
Then we order dessert. Two tiramisu-like desserts and one chocolate mousse. I think it was the best chocolate mousse I've ever eaten!
I think I would probably rate that place 4 stars.
That's the best review I can come up with (pitiful, I know).
Now I'll probably head off to bed. It's pretty late.
Until next time!
Oh! And a note on restaurants in Portugal. If you eat the appetizers they have sitting out on the table you have to pay for them. I don't know if that's all of Europe or even other places too, I just thought I'd point that out.
God bless!
This post is meant to be a review of a restaurant. My creative writing teacher has given me this assignment and I must oblige him.
However, there is a slight problem. The assignment is, and I quote, "to review a restaurant you go to this week or have been to recently. Describe everything from the food you like and didn't like, to the tables and seat cushions."
This wouldn't be a problem if I had actually been to a restaurant recently. I'm assuming he isn't talking about the McDonald's where I sat with my mom using WiFi so I could read the beginners version of Beowulf (...that's another story).
If you want to define "recently" as "having happened within the past year", then yes. I have been to a restaurant recently.
In August.
In Portugal (also another story).
This is also a place where I'm hitting a snag. The restaurant we went to in Portugal was in a building that attached to a couple other restaurants and because we were all so hungry and tired I hadn't bothered to see what the name was. I hadn't known it would be useful information. I just wanted whatever Portuguese food they had (I was determined to eat authentic food while in a different country). So this assignment shall also be a test for my memory.
Commence the review of the nameless restaurant!
There were four of us from our group there for lunch. It wasn't very big (probably about medium-smallish), but it was nice and it wasn't crowded.
My sister and my mom ordered salads and I can't remember what our friend ordered...it may have also been a salad. The name of the meal I ordered was in Portuguese and I can't remember it but it was a plate of rice, different beans, and pork. It was delicious! There was enough of it for me to fill up on and then let everyone else try some.
Then we order dessert. Two tiramisu-like desserts and one chocolate mousse. I think it was the best chocolate mousse I've ever eaten!
I think I would probably rate that place 4 stars.
That's the best review I can come up with (pitiful, I know).
Now I'll probably head off to bed. It's pretty late.
Until next time!
Oh! And a note on restaurants in Portugal. If you eat the appetizers they have sitting out on the table you have to pay for them. I don't know if that's all of Europe or even other places too, I just thought I'd point that out.
God bless!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
My first blog post: About me.
My name is Emily Perpetua. I am 16 years old.
I am in 11th grade (high school junior) and I'm home schooled.
My family includes my Mom, Dad, oldest sister (Jessica, 22), second oldest sister (Katie, 21), younger sister (Anna, 13), younger brother (Samuel, 12)
My favorite colors are green, black, silver, blue and purple.
My favorite seasons are Summer and Fall.
My favorite movies are The Princess Bride, DragonHeart (but not the sequel!), Inception, How To Train Your Dragon, Tangled, Megamind, and Toy Story 1, 2, and 3.
My favorite television shows are Doctor Who (long live the Whovians!), Merlin, Phineas and Ferb, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and some different Anime shows (though not many because it’s hard to find anything clean…)
My favorite books are Dragons in our Midst (series), Oracles or Fire (series), Children of the Bard (series), Dragons of Starlight/Tales of Starlight (series) (all of those are by Bryan Davis), The Chronicles of Narnia (series by C.S Lewis), Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series by Rick Riordan), Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath (trilogy by Cornelia Funke), The Tale of Despereaux (by Kate DiCamillo), Harry Potter 1-7 (by J.K. Rowling), and The Inheritance series (by Christopher Poalini).
Books that I want to read are The Hunger Games trilogy (by Suzanne Collins), Echoes from the Edge trilogy (by Bryan Davis), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (by J. R. R. Tolkien), and many others!
My favorite video games are Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (PS2), Eragon (PS2), The Hobbit (PS2), Pokemon (Gameboy Advanced. Currently playing Fire Red version), World Of Warcraft (online) and Neopets (online…not technically a video game but it doesn’t fit anywhere else.)
My hobbies are reading, writing, going to youth group, hanging out with friends and family, playing video games, and drawing manga.
Other random things about me: I am what my older sister, Katie, calls a genork (a combination of geek, nerd, and dork) as you can tell from everything listed above.
As mentioned before I love writing and I am currently working on a modern-fantasy novel (which should eventually become a series if I can ever finish the first book) that I hope to publish! I haven’t had much of a chance to write since school started but I’m okay with that as long as I make up for it this November during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ).
I’ve been trying to teach myself how to draw manga but I haven’t drawn much of anything since summer because we've been busy helping my sister get moved out and because of school.
I am in 11th grade (high school junior) and I'm home schooled.
My family includes my Mom, Dad, oldest sister (Jessica, 22), second oldest sister (Katie, 21), younger sister (Anna, 13), younger brother (Samuel, 12)
My favorite colors are green, black, silver, blue and purple.
My favorite seasons are Summer and Fall.
My favorite movies are The Princess Bride, DragonHeart (but not the sequel!), Inception, How To Train Your Dragon, Tangled, Megamind, and Toy Story 1, 2, and 3.
My favorite television shows are Doctor Who (long live the Whovians!), Merlin, Phineas and Ferb, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and some different Anime shows (though not many because it’s hard to find anything clean…)
My favorite books are Dragons in our Midst (series), Oracles or Fire (series), Children of the Bard (series), Dragons of Starlight/Tales of Starlight (series) (all of those are by Bryan Davis), The Chronicles of Narnia (series by C.S Lewis), Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series by Rick Riordan), Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath (trilogy by Cornelia Funke), The Tale of Despereaux (by Kate DiCamillo), Harry Potter 1-7 (by J.K. Rowling), and The Inheritance series (by Christopher Poalini).
Books that I want to read are The Hunger Games trilogy (by Suzanne Collins), Echoes from the Edge trilogy (by Bryan Davis), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (by J. R. R. Tolkien), and many others!
My favorite video games are Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (PS2), Eragon (PS2), The Hobbit (PS2), Pokemon (Gameboy Advanced. Currently playing Fire Red version), World Of Warcraft (online) and Neopets (online…not technically a video game but it doesn’t fit anywhere else.)
My hobbies are reading, writing, going to youth group, hanging out with friends and family, playing video games, and drawing manga.
Other random things about me: I am what my older sister, Katie, calls a genork (a combination of geek, nerd, and dork) as you can tell from everything listed above.
As mentioned before I love writing and I am currently working on a modern-fantasy novel (which should eventually become a series if I can ever finish the first book) that I hope to publish! I haven’t had much of a chance to write since school started but I’m okay with that as long as I make up for it this November during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ).
I’ve been trying to teach myself how to draw manga but I haven’t drawn much of anything since summer because we've been busy helping my sister get moved out and because of school.
I also have had an interest recently in making Japanese food (so far I’ve made Japanese style hamburgers and Miso soup).
I really enjoy acting and have been in two plays: The Importance of Being Ernest (I played Aunt Augusta) and Arsenic and Old Lace (I played Elaine Harper). In the spring I’m going to try out for a musical in our area.
Because of my love for writing, acting, and movies I hope to become a film director one day and I want go to college to study film (I just don’t know where yet…). I also want to be able to write and direct (and maybe even act in) my own movies.
Well, I think I've given as much info of myself as I can. Here are some pictures from this Summer!
Well, I think I've given as much info of myself as I can. Here are some pictures from this Summer!
This was in the airport before we got on the plane that would take us to Portugal before we headed to Spain for World Youth Day.
On the balcony at our hotel in Portugal.
At my friend's Harry Potter party.
Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw! We're nerdy and proud of it!
Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw! We're nerdy and proud of it!
(this one is actually from Spring...not Summer.)
My sister's college graduation.
My sister's college graduation.
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