YouTube Rocks.

Dude. Watch this. I laughed so hard I cried.

Discovery

I found this

Really powerful photos. I cried. Check it out.
I can't get the photo to load onto this... but it's Flower Power because it's more about hope, then terror.

My morning.

It's been an eventful morning so far (and yes, I realize it's only 8:00 am).

(Note: I haven't been to sleep yet...)

I got a text at about 5 a.m. from my friend saying her mom was in the hospital, with what they thought was cancer. So, I threw on some sweatpants and drove over there. This friend was the first one I had when I moved to this town. Her mom was like my second mom for quite awhile. I sat with her until 7:30 a.m. and then her parents came home. They still couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. I almost cried. Mary, my friend, just wanted to go back to sleep so I headed back home.

The drive home, reminded how much I hate living in Minnesota during the winter. I barely went over 40 mph the whole way there and back. And it's like a half hour drive. I almost had a panic attack during the entire drive. It was awful. I would miss the snow and even the cold, but driving in the winter makes me wish I lived in a place like Cali, where it was hot all the time and I didn't have to worry about slippery roads. Or maybe NYC, where I could still enjoy the snow, but could just take taxis everywhere and not have to drive.

For those of you who have never driven in Minnesota in the middle of the winter, I envy you.

The To-Do List

The To-Do List*:

1. Finish Classic Novels Book List (In no order)

a. Pride and Prejudice
b. Treasure Island
c. Dracula
d. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.
e. Wuthering Heights
f. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. I and II
g. The Count of Monte Cristo
h. Atonement (Don't know if this counts but it's what I'm reading next so I'm putting it here)
i. Emma
j. Frankenstein
k. Grimm's Fairy Tales
l. Jane Eyre
m. The Jungle Books
n. Little Women
o. The Man In The Iron Mask
p. Mansfield Park
q. Moby-Dick
r. The Odyssey
s. Oliver Twist
t. Peter Pan
u, The Phantom of the Opera
v. The Picture of Dorian Gray
w. The Scarlett Letter
x. The Secret Garden
y. Sense and Sensibility
z. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
aa. Vanity Fair
bb. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
cc. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2. Finish College for Witches
3. Finish unnamed story I’ve been working on for freaking ever
4. Buy Christmas Tree
5. Buy Christmas Presents
6. Get nicer camera for the Picture A Day Project
7. Finish that puzzle so I can get it off my table
8. Get a job once school is done
9. CLEAN!
10. Get a life again.
11. Contacted school about second semester.
12. Start second semester.
13. Fall in love
14. Go to New York City
15. Go to Europe
16. Get published.
17. Fulfill dreams
18. Live life, no going through the motions
19. Watch every movie on my Netflicks list.
20. Make blog more interesting.
21. Change the world for the better, even if it’s just a very small part of the world.
22. Save money for own apartment again




*Red means done.

I'm really sick of...

People making fun of Twilight.
Movie and books.
Don't be hating cause Edward is perfect
=]

I know the book isn't the best piece of literature ever to be written, but it's a book for teens. It's not supposed to be hard to read. And I enjoyed it soooo much.

That does not make me some screaming twelve year old girl like people accuse me of being. I'm still a mostly level headed adult who reads more serious books, like Pride and Prejudice. It makes me someone who can enjoy all types of books.


Back the hell off.

Meh.

Well. I didn't reach the goal for NaNo. I kinda sorta lost all drive to do anything in the middle of the month (that's something that happens every year round this time). I was lucky if I got out of bed and showered, much less wrote 1,600+ words.

Don't worry though. I'm not too discouraged though. I'm still proud of the 18,000+ words I did manage to crank out. And I'm going to finish the rest of the story as soon as I can. At least the rough draft part. I'm excited to see how it turns out.



Next year NaNo,
You're mine.

The Things I Do...

The things that I do to get myself through the day at work (a gas station that pays a measly seven dollars an hour) are pretty funny, at least to me.

The other day, a college age looking boy came in. He walked around for awhile then came to buy his stuff, like everyone else. He looked at me strangely, and I returned the look.

"Can I get you anything else?" I asked, a little freaked.

"How'd you get that bruise on your face?" He blurted out rather rudely.

I stared at him for a minute, debating how to answer (just so no one is worried, I got the bruise from getting my wisdom teeth removed). I decided that, since I would most likely never see this kid again, I might as well make it interesting.

I looked at him very seriously and answered, "I got punched in the face." His eyes widen and he looked alarm. I finished it off with a wicked grin and the classic line, "But you should see the other guy."

He stared at me, his mouth slightly hanging open, then hastily grabbed his stuff and left the store. As soon as I couldn't see him anymore I cracked. I laughed for about three minutes, picturing the look on his face the whole time.

I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to keep a straight face. I went through the rest of my shift with a smile on my face.

WooHoo!

I'm actually feeling good at my NaNo. Screw the Week Two Slump. It's gone. I'm behind still, but feeling better about how it's going.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling a little down tonight and my body seems to be angry at me. I don't see myself doing too much work tonight.

I don't even really feel like doing this right now. I'm just trying to get in the habit of doing this every day.

Hopefully, it will eventually get more interesting. I'm new at this whole blogging thing.

Life.

So far this month, I wish I could just hide in my room with coffee, my laptop, and music and that's it. It's been really hard trying to juggle real life with writing. My friends and family have been far from helpful when it comes to writing. I've wanted to do nothing but writing since I was a little girl, but all anyone talks about is needing to have a fall back plan. I don't think they realize how much it hurts to hear that. It them basically saying, "Well you don't have a chance at making it so you better have another plan."

Things haven't been great for me lately. I'm still trying to get the hang of living on my owe. I can't seem to get the hang of budgeting and saving money. There's so much I want to do that I just can't afford. Like, join a gym and actually get in good shape again. That's probably the number one thing on the list. But I can't even afford to buy cleaning supplies for my place, much less something like a gym membership.

I guess a plus is I actually like the stuff that I wrote on my NaNo the last two days. It's still not good, but it's less crap than what I've been prone to writing so far.

Another random thing I'm going to throw into this blog is I've been reading Paperback's blog and she had the idea of doing a photo a day for the year 2009. I think that is a really great idea and that I might try and give it a shot as well. I think my camera bit the dust awhile back though, so I might need to get a new one. But if I can get one in time I think I'll defiantly take a swing at it.

That's all.

Halfway Through...

Well, the month is halfway done. My NaNo, not so much. I'm sitting at 13,563 words and I'm supposed to be at 25,000. Life has been really kicking me in the face. I got my wisdom teeth out two days ago, so I've been spending most of that time asleep. My work hours have also picked back up, which I would have killed for last month. But this month, not so much. It's making me wish I was out of a job. On the bright side, this is probably the longest story I've ever written. I just have to push myself harder so I give up.
As for the actual story itself, I'm not a huge fan of where it's going. My MC is falling for the lead male way to fast and she just won't listen to me when I tell her that she needs to tone it down so she doesn't get hurt. I guess though I've known I was going to hurt her from day one. Most of the story I don't like at all. I'm guessing that's because it's so unedited. Usually, I crazy rewrite everything as I go. Not doing that is making me hate my WIP. But I'm trying to keep my inner editor sedated and I'm doing a fairly good job. I think I just need a little push to get myself going again.
Something I'm hoping to do today, at least for an hour or so, is go to the write in at a local cafe, but the problem is I made plans with some people. The last write in I went to, the one that I basically organized, was fun and did help to see that other people were having as much trobule as I was.
Anyways... Here's a little tidbit for my story, probably the only part I actually like right now,


He thumbed my cheek, coming away with fresh tears.
“Just tell me. It will not chang…” I hastily slapped my hand to his mouth. I think I hurt him, but I did not say sorry.
“Please, do not finish that sentence. I can not bear to hear it. Not again,” tears were streaming down my cheeks once more, but for a different reason. All the people who had promised me that what ever dark secret I was hiding they would be there, they would accept it, flashed trough my mind. “I’ll tell you. But do not make promises you can not keep,” I was reminder of our first date, how he promised he would never hurt me, not if he could help it. I took a shaky breath, and made my self ready to make him a liar. “My parents raised me as… as a Wicca. I am a witch.” I was not ashamed of who I was raised, I was proud and comfortable with my religion. The only reason I kept it to myself this long was because of how quickly fear and prejudice could turn to hate. Hate that could turn violent, hate that had in the past had turned violent.
His hand dropped from my face, “You are a what?” The look on his face would have been comical if it wasn’t so heart breaking.

Remember, totally unedited. And so far form perfect. And with that, I say goodbye.

Good luck to my fellow NaNoers out there =]

Panic has set in.

As NaNoWriMo draws closer and closer, the more it hits me; this is a huge commitment. One that I really want to do. But I am so afraid that I am so far from ready. Plus I have to finish all my school stuff by November 18th. Well, Shit. And then there's the getting my wisdom teeth removed. Aka. Amanda writing while she's high on painkillers. Should be an interesting few days.

I've been reading more and more about NaNo in hopes of reassuring myself, but I think it's making the panic worse. Most people have 2,000 word outlines and know exactly what they are doing. I'm going into this basically blind and praying for the best. Hopefully next year will be better. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna work my ass off to finish this one. But next year I'll know what to expect. And maybe be able to help out with organizing events in my town. There is no way I am going to be able to get through this by myself

Thankfully, I'll have plenty of cigarettes and caffeine and music. Maybe that will be enough

NaNoWriMo

So I'm doing National Novel Writing Month this year. Basically, all November, I have to write a novel from scratch. 50,000 words. Since I've been working on a different story for a very long time now, I think it is going to be really hard to just let that one go for awhile and write a brand new story. It's now two days until it starts, and I just wrote my ideas in my daybook. I think I'm going to write about a witch girl who is just starting college. Do all the things a normal college girl goes through; love, keeping up in class, juggling relationships, then trying throw in some supernatural stuffs; keeping up with her coven, learning new spells, and dealing with this new witch boy that seems to be interested in more than just being friends. I'm hoping it plays out the way it is in my mind, not the way it sounds on paper so far.

Wish me luck.

I really hope I can finish this. It opens me up to being able to be involved next year. I really want to be the liasion for my area but young newbies aren't allowed to. So for now I'm hoping someone will step up and take the job. Next year I'm also going to try to get sponsered and go to the writing dangerously event in San Fransico. I would like to go this year but I didn't learn about this soon enough to plan everything out. I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed. Not great timing. Next year though. Man I hope that works out.

Support through this would be amazing. I know I'm going to need a lot of it. And understanding. I'm probably not going to be too social in the month to come.