Massive Update: Narnia Party, NaNoWriMo, Snow, Etc.

I have been putting off updating for a bit, but now I shall. So, it may be a bit massive.



I made Potato Soup with much difficulty and also with a cementing of if I need to spend over 30-45 minutes making something, it is more than likely not worth it. But hey. Live and learn I guess. :)



My sister threw her first movie night where people came with Narnia: LWW. She made Turkish Delight among a couple other oddities, and I proceeded to bawl my eyes out anytime anything remotely interesting happened. This may or may not be why I was not too fond of the movie (except for the phoenix, which is worth the entire thing). However, I still like it. :)



Food that Joelle prepared and others brought.



People!



This is our home theater. In SV, the entire living room was pretty much designed to accomadate this system. However, here at our new house the basement was most definitely not designed for a theater. My Dad did an amazing job setting it up all the same (though he's been cringing over the wires showing). My picture is crooked, but the screen is straighter than it looks. :)



The following Friday, we had a Prince Caspian movie night (to which, yes the typical jabs at Ben Barnes' accent were made). Now that we've had our build-up, we're just waiting for when VotDT tickets will finally go on sale at Regal. (Due to adventures in the snow and ice and "what's that?" responses to a request for buying a midnight showing ticket. Whole 'nother world here.)

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We had a fun Thanksgiving with my cousin and her family. She had prepared the most delicious turkey ever (this coming from someone who is not a fan of turkey), and overall the meal and company were absolutely delightful. =) Jaiden, Khristian and I played monopoly in the basement for an hour or so, upholding tradition. B) And yes, I believe I was creamed. Again. But hey, old habits die hard.



Also on Thanksgiving, I completed NaNoWriMo. The earliest I have ever finished and after having never gotten behind once this November! I am quite proud of myself. However, although I managed to maintain a. er. semi-flowing story, the story itself is not finished. But it will probably be left forgotten for a while anyways due to the apathy I feel toward it.

My final word count: 50,935--however some of this was written after my word count was verified.

My official final word count: 50,022.

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As for other misc. odds and ends, it is currently snowing so much we can barely see the road from our house. While this is awesome if we don't have to go anywhere, I sincerely hope we...don't have...to...go anywhere...






Otherwise, today's agenda includes potentially throwing the cat in the snow at some point (that's always fun), plotting/writing (*egasp!*) my story I give a hoot about, and vegging. A lot. And justifying my vegging with tv shows by knitting a Christmas present (a phrase I can honestly say I never thought would come from my mouth). Though it might be an "oops I forgot about Christmas and I'm broke, have a scarf" type of thing but who knows. :)

Parting Pic:



Trouble outside while it's snowing for possibly the first time. He can hold on really tight when he wants to.

NaNoWriMo Update

Note: I made a soup a few days ago, which I will post about, but for now this is just a NaNo update to motivate myself to actually write. I will also make sure to post Narnia party pictures eventually. =) They are coming!

It is November 20th, and my word count is roughly 34,000. My goal for tonight is 37k. The finish line approaches. :) Hopefully I'll finally be able to make it to a write-in tomorrow, and it will (again hopefully) be quite successful.

As I am currently stuck in an alternate dimension resulting in boringness (lame, right? I mean you can do anything in an alternate dimension. The laws of physics are in the palm of your hand!--sort of), my dear friend Lamb gave me some ideas to push my story forward before they all sit around and start arguing for thousands of words until inspiration hits. So bring on reversed directions and lots of rain. When in doubt? Make things explode or rain. :)

Timed Writings:

5 Minutes: 203
5 Minutes: 212
5 Minutes: 249
5 Minutes: 264
5 Minutes: 205
5 Minutes: 254

10 Minutes: 459

NaNo Day 12

Maybe I lied when I said this blog would pick up pace during NaNo, but oh well!! Here is my second post. :)

I have, to my utter glee, managed to not get behind all month so far--and we're almost at the half-way mark! We'll see if I manage to, somehow, survive Week 2 with my current track record.

Joelle has her first Narnia party tonight (which people are showing up for right now, so I should probably go downstairs already). Tonight is Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, next week is Prince Caspian, then thanksgiving, then Dawn Treader comes out!! Woot woot!

Anyways, I just did a five minute word war while waiting for the second group to arrive:

Timed Writings

5 Minutes: 296 words.

6 minutes: 277 words

5 minutes: 290 words

5 minutes: 306

5 minutes: 399

10 minutes: 552

With a final word count for the night at 22,051.

A good 3500 words for tonight. Not too shabby! =)

First 3 Days of NaNoWriMo

Well, I have been procrastinating on updating my blog--but not on NaNoing. It is day 4, and while I haven't written yet today, I have yet to fall behind. (If you're thinking "of course not, it's week 1. Really." I'm usually behind by day 2.)

My average per day is 2k, and an average I am perfectly happy with. I hope after this three day-long headache goes away, to potentially up that.

Day 1:

Was a nightmare. Okay, a nightmare is a bit of an exageration. However, I still had no clue on what I was going to be writing about. I went through maybe three story beginnings ((which are strikethroughed so the words still count :P)) before finally landing on one that flows. :)

I managed to get in that 2k with some word wars with the awesome Miruial, Mangy and Yukioh. And voila, the story is flowing.

It is nothing special, which before would have made me cringe, but after taking a year long break from rules and in general writing, I'm thinking this story might actually come out non-barf worthy, even if it is cliched to no end.

My setting is an scientifically advanced city amidst an outer jungle, and the government is a monarchy. My MC has qualities of the 40s noir detective, and has been having problems with a certain mole in government. He has three personas, that one, that of a master thief and he is unintentionally engaged to the princess--who he has grown to love, but is not exactly sure how to explain to her her actual fiance died months back. He is pegged for being the mole, resulting in being arrested, and the villain revealed as pretty much insane.

The alternate plotlines I tried were 1) a world of silence and a pseudo-peace and happiness and 2) Rune's retirement story. The latter will be written at some point in time, but I am uncertain if I can write that. I'll probably use the idea dearest Joelle gave me and loophole. :)

On Non-NaNo News, my Aunt Mary and cousin Chelsea from Texas arrived on November 1st! It has been about ten years since we last saw them, so this is very exciting indeed. I haven't been with them too, too much, but it has been lovely having them visit. :) I will be muchly sad when they leave, they're so awesome to have around.

Day 2:

This was another difficult day to get started, due to only recently learning my story, and having introduced my MC I knew almost nothing about right before going to bed. Those few paragraphs from the night before got strikethroughed and thrown at the top with the axed plot ideas. However, I finally learned more about him and my villain and was happy with the results.

Day 2 eventually flowed fairly well. =)

Day 3:

Aunt Mary, Chelsea, Mom, Joelle and I all left the house (!!!), and headed over to Target, then Wal-Mart. There was this uber nifty jacket at Target, but I decided against getting it due to the large amount of jackets we have. Spending money on clothes makes me cringe unless it's just the most perfect thing. I was also going to get some of those amazing whale crackers and a calendar (all in the $1 section), but decided against it. I just didn't feel like spending money there. I did get an Eggnog Frappe at Starbucks (my Mommy got it for me :) ) as I was waiting for everyone else to be done, due to my headache. It was extremely good, and I will probably be getting it again in the future before it is gone again. Yay eggnog!

I sat there at one of the tables, poking away at The Vanishing Sculpture, and like any book I procrastinate on reading, am enjoying it. =) It was a bit odd because I felt stared at by this one guy who was sitting there, just watching people almost the whole time I was there. It's so fun to watch people, but when you are seen as watching people then it is kind of creepy, unless you are constantly smiling.

The next stop was Wal-Mart, where I made my mandatory dig through the $5 Bin--found nothing. I fluctuated on James and the Giant Peach, but then found part 1 of Soul Eater for $10, and went for that instead. I am still utterly shocked that was so cheap. And rather suspsicious. Hm. They had a lot of good anime in their "Featured Films" section (it was actually all anime. O_o) However, $10 for one volume of something when you can get the whole series in ONE boxset for 30-60, is not a screaming bargain.

At Wal-Mart, I also finally got my bottle of Mountain Dew for NaNo, which I just now broke into. But I don't foresee needing it much. :( So far NaNo this year has been a breeze (for the most part) but not exactly fun.

Today:

The only thing to report for today is that Jpeg keeps running off with Chelsea's jewelry and bobby pins. Bad cat. It's funny though...