progress of a crazy writer-chick

moving day.

2005-07-24T22:24:51Z

_paperdaisy

from here on out. and please,
read the userinfo.

blankpaged_book @ 2005-04-07T06:39:00

2005-04-07T10:39:24Z

i haven't written in sing up the wind in three days.

AUGH!

i'll celebrate my birthday by WRITING, hooray.

2005-03-28T17:07:08Z

i decided to do april fools this year. i'm setting my sights for 18K at the least and am going to finish sing up the wind, which i've been working on in bits and pieces but haven't really sat down and worked hard at since december. AUGH I MAKE MYSELF SO ANGRY. so in april, i will redeem myself. i will FINISH.

because elena is so angry at me for abandoning her that she's trying to strangle me and it's taking all four of her vagabonds to keep her off. and i don't blame her. i have been terrible to these people i love and if i were them, i'd dump me somewhere and find a new author. but they're much better than that. sigh, they're so patient.

hm. i'm going to make some tea now.

♥♥♥

2005-02-11T04:00:02Z

i love skally. too bad... whoops, almost spouted a spoiler.

i hate his father. good thing he's not in the book.

i love... i cannot say. more spoilers. but i need to finish posting and finish writing because there are still lovely characters and... and love and things and that beautiful scene i'm dying to write but i haven't made it there yet and why am i still awake?...

sigh.

i love skally.

new year's resolution?

2005-01-01T18:08:14Z

i really need to finish sing up the wind.

my legs hurt.

2004-12-01T04:08:21Z

so i "won"... i hit 50,046 today and am too tired to write anymore. i wish i'd come in a little higher, but oh well.

tomorrow is more writing... and on and on until i finish... sigh.

no excerpt today. i'm going to reward myself with ice cream and swing kids, then go to bed.

oh. my. word.

2004-11-30T05:05:48Z

48,292 MY DEARS. i am back on track. holy heaven, i am back on track. *hyperventilates* look at my blue bar! i think i'm going to die. i only have to write 1708 tomorrow to make the official goal. that's easy. that's pie. none of this mad last-minute rush like last year, jamming in extra sentences everywhere to try to boost up the world count. no, i will make it with room to spare!

i think God loves me. :D

to the rest of you still trying to catch up: KEEP WRITING! if i could do it, so can you. we'll cross that finish line together in a blaze of egotistic glory that is unique solely to writers, that shy i'm-proud-of-myself-yet-timid demeanor, that i-hate-this-with-all-my-heart-and-love-it-with-all-my-soul mentality. i'm exhausted and have yet to read two and a half acts of as you like it for an english test tomorrow and will by no means get anywhere near enough sleep tonight, but i'm feelin' all right because i'm going to make it.

and in december, i'm going to keep on going at this pace (approximately 2K a day) until i finish. i imagine i'll be done before the end of december, but i don't know just how long it'll be. this weekend is an overnight trip to a speech meet in columbus - you bet my trusty notebook will be going along to write in every spare moment i get. *sigh* this feels so nice. best of luck to the rest of you.

so! i uploaded chapter seven (aka The Chapter Of Much Melodrama) and chapter eight (aka The Chapter Of Complete Incoherency). is this sinking feeling i have unfounded, this fear that ch7 was totally predictable? am i over-worrying? blah! i don't care, i feel hungry and tired and elated. elena? good lord. good night. but first, an excerpt!

But Elena's favorite part of the stories, being told by Palagos just as Ragamuffin was handing around plates of food, was the way she told of the great old tree in the center of the town square. Four men could just barely reach their arms around it, she said, and the branches shaded the entire square. Elena nearly closed her eyes, thinking of that old and twisted tree in the center of the woods by her home. She felt a pang of homesickness sharper than she had felt before, and how strange that she should feel it at thinking of the tree when she'd only been there a few times; but she felt it nonetheless. She glanced sidelong at Skally and was somewhat startled to see a far-away, almost contemplative look upon his face. "What are you thinking of?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm not telling," he said, "because you wouldn't tell me earlier what you were thinking of."

"How's this: you tell me what you're thinking now that's making you look so far-away, and I'll tell you what I was thinking of before."

"Mm... all right. I was thinking of the place where I was born. I didn't live there very long before I came off for this life of wandering and all, but I know there was a great tree there, even huger than the one they saw in town. Not all my memories of my homeplace are fond, but many are, and I was thinking of those fond ones just then." He grinned at her. "Now tell me what you were thinking before."

Elena pushed some tomatoes around on her plate. "Are you sure? Like I said before, you might think it kind of rude."

"Oh come along, Elena, just say it."

"Well, I was only wondering about your family."

Skally blinked in surprise. "Is that all?" She nodded, and he shook his head. "Here I thought you were pondering some great mysteries, by the look on your face."

"I just don't know a thing about where you're from," she said by way of explanation; "I only wonderd."

"Hm. Well, it's not much to wonder at. I do have a family, but they're not much worth mention."

"Skally." Palagos' voice was vaguely reproachful.

rollin' rollin' rollin'...

2004-11-27T04:40:20Z

you wouldn't believe how much i'm writing. yes! i'm so excited, you have no idea, and the story keeps coming out and coming out in waves of ideas, rolling along so splendidly that i think i can easily write another thousand before bed if i get my other duties done soon here. oh heavens, i'm so excited, i think i'm going to make it!

of course, there is the fact that i wanted to finish the whole story by the end of the month, but seeing as we've only just reached the first Major Plot Point, i think that's unlikely. 50K? i think so. entire story? no way.

sigh. oh well. at least i'll "win." to type "the end" on november 30 is of course the ultimate goal, but i won't be too disappointed if i'm not there by then.

anyway, i uploaded chapter six for any of you who are reading. i don't quite remember, but i think that chapter was overall rather light-hearted (sorry about the stupid little game they played, i know that's all dumb but it sure boosted my wordcount!), so beware, for chapter seven holds much, much heavier stuff. i think. X_x;

until then, an excerpt!

Her words stopped short there, and she realized how hard she was breathing. Her head felt light. Looking up, she saw at last her vagabonds' faces, and she was not prepared. Ragamuffin was staring at her with a tenderness exceeding that which had ever been there before, a motherliness that was warm and inviting beyond her usual maternal fuss. On the other side of her, Palagos blinked slowly, almost dumbly, as though she couldn't quite believe what she had heard. Mister Pockets' brow was furrowed and his eyes clouded in precisely the same manner they had been before, when he had said he was thinking of the things they had had to leave behind, and it killed Elena to see him looking at her that because of her own words; and Skally, though always pale, was so white now that his hair and eyes seemed darker than the night, swallowing up light and leaving him washed-out and thin.

Timidly, she asked, "Did I say something wrong?"

Nobody answered her at first, but finally Ragamuffin cleared her throat and said, "No, dear. But you don't look well. Maybe you ought to get to bed soon."

The relief at her casual tone was enough. Elena knew there was more to the matter than that, but she grabbed that calmness and clung to it; so even though she wasn't tired, she nodded and finished eating quickly and was curled up in her blankets before much longer. Darkness was just settling in then, and with her back to the fire Elena lay open-eyed, listening to see if the conversation went on without her, but there was nothing. Nobody spoke a word. They didn't even sing that night for the first time since she had joined them.

maybe i'll catch up these weekend. oops, i HAVE to.

2004-11-23T03:50:48Z

so i'm too far behind for my own comfort, but i know if i push myself i can make it. i did not feel like writing today, but i forced myself to and ended up cranking out about 2000 words. not enough, but enough to satisfy me for tonight. i finished chapter five and uploaded it, for those who might care to read.

i'm just glad i wrote as much as i did. thank the good lord i was feeling verbose today, even if chapter six is pure stupid angst. ah well. it also contains two damns, one right after the other. oh ho, you can tell my mood is pleasant.

people: damn? shock. horror.
me: shut up.

anyway, tomorrow's the last day of school for the week. using my handy-dandy sunbeam kitchen timer, i plan to crank out the other 20K in the next seven days. HA HA! which totally shall not happen, but whatever, it will. oh dear, i'm contradicting myself, it's time for bed. but first, an excerpt!

Mister Pockets had taken out his pipe and lit it; the smoke twisted up into the night sky, a wispy pillar parallel to that of the campfire behind them. "Sounds as though your imagination's gone running off," he said. "Can't say I understand how it bothers you so much."

"It's only that I can't understand why it's like this," said Elena. She kicked at the grass and muttered, "I don't like not understanding things."

"Lord knows, child."

"Oh, stop it."

He sighed and glanced over at her. "... My advice is to not worry over it. Things'll sort themselves into their places soon enough, and you think too much anyhow."

"So do you. Tell me what's wrong with you."

A low laugh escaped him. "Not tonight, love. Get back and have a sit with the rest. I'll be along in short."

She glared a considering glare at him. "Do you promise there's nothing really the matter?"

"Like I said, it's only the thoughts that come to me in these parts. Maybe another day I'll tell you." He smiled, and his moustache bristled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes crinkled up. "Inquisitive as a little sparrow," he murmured, half to himself, "with eyes as bright." Then he seemed to remember that she was there, and he nodded his head towards the fire. "Go on. They'll be waitin'."

despair and anguish.

2004-11-22T04:00:12Z

i have not written a word in two solid days.

not one. pathetic. word.

mew.

so tired, augh!

2004-11-19T03:19:04Z

only wrote 1225 today, so i'm still behind, but only by 1906. i'll try to pound out 3000 tomorrow and get caught up. everything i did write is crap, but at least i wrote. ah well. i know we're all having a hard time, so i wish the rest of you the best of luck as well.

i could quite easily stay up and write about 1000 more, which would be awesome, but i'm trying to get to bed early tonight. i'm off to do so right now.

anyway, i uploaded chapter four at last! it's half utter garbage, one-fourth simple crap, and one-fourth fairly decent, but it's not completely vomitous, so all's well. i'll finish out with a light snippet for the fickle reader. or whatever. (PS: i know it's dry and dull. i was going for something stylistic and failed. sorry.)

Willow began to take long walks outside town when she had a spare time, and Pommie would go with her. ... She loved her husband and children, but there was still a seed of wildness deep down inside her heart, and she also loved to wander in the countryside. It was on one of these wanderings, rare though they were, that she met Moona.

This woman appeared as a small figure standing atop a hill along the path Willow usually walked. Willow did not notice anything unusual at first, until Pommie began to act strangely. It seemed distressed, and Willow's guard was raised. Then she saw Moona standing on the hill and went near to her. "Who are you?" she asked. "Where do you come from, and for what purpose?"

Moona was scarcely taller than a child, with skin even paler than wan Willow's. ... "I," said she, "am the Mistress of Shadows, and you are the child of the trees."

"What is your purpose here?" Willow asked once again, now becoming mildly frightened.

Moona smiled a dark smile. "To scatter your stars," said she, "and trample your gardens. To decay your temples and uproot your trees." She lowered her hand and turned to the side, and she began to sing in a harsh strange language. The wind seemed to catch her voice and carry it, and as the words came to Willow she became even more frightened. The song was cold and bitter, and it seemed to reach inside her and stretch its fingers towards that wild thrumming seed in her heart---

"No!" Willow broke free of Moona's song-spell. "You cannot take me."

Moona only smiled again, icily. "We shall see," she said. "We shall see."

Fear gripping her, Willow turned and ran back to her town, Pommie flying at her heels.

psalms and joy, what ho!

2004-11-18T04:07:06Z

after two sessions of eggtimer-writing, i'm currently only a little less than 1500 words behind! how perfectly awesome. my wrists hurt and i'm tired, so it's time to break out the braces and head to bed, but first i must spread my happiness all over the place.

ooh yes. i am feeling good.

i'll try to format chapter four tomorrow so i can get it posted for any of you who might be reading, but i can't promise anything. i have to finish catching up then and might have to stay after school and will have to go to my puppetry practice, so we'll see what happens. ah, i'm just so glad to have broken through the Wall! i was at a very difficult point in the story, and i think i finally got things moving past it. it's repetitive and dull, but i'm writing, and things might start happening soon, so i'm excited. woo!

i'll leave you with a chapter five snippet until tomorrow. all my love!

Elena knelt down and peered into the grass suspiciously. "Are you sure they won't come out and crawl on us while we're asleep?" she asked, watching a tiny black beetle scurry along the dirt.

"You have nothing to fear," said Palagos. "They don't bother folk much."

"Much?"

Skally smothered a laugh and said, "You're not afraid of them, are you?"

"No, but I don't exactly favor them crawling in my ears or nose."

That was it for Skally. His laughter burst out, and he turned away, trying to press it back down and failing miserably. Elena threw a glare at him, but with his back turned he missed it. "Stop it," she said, "I'm sure you don't like it any better." He gasped and doubled over, and Elena threw up her hands. "I'm not even going to try reasoning with you!" she cried, but there was a hint of humor in her own voice, and in a moment she was giggling into her hand even as she crouched down to help with the fire.

"In all seriousness," Skally said, coming back and still gasping for air, occasional fitful giggles of his own punctuating his speech, "the bugs usually aren't a problem. They oughtn't bother you. If they do, just ask this one," and he jabbed a thumb in Palagos' direction. "She's never plagued by anything, so I'm sure she'll tell you her secret."

Palagos raised her eyebrows. "Lack of sin makes lack of consequence," she said, hiding a smile.

"That scarcely applies to the situation."

"Ah, but---"

"No, it doesn't!" Another hiccuping laugh escaped Skally. "Oh stop, I'm going to be sick. Ha! - my sides hurt... Elena, this is all your fault."

yes, yes, and yes.

2004-11-17T03:56:38Z

i wrote 3178 today, the most since the first day (if i even wrote that much then). i am now only a little over 2000 words behind.

GO. ME. rock rock on.

i'd stay up and try to get the other 2K, but i really need some sleep. it's been a long, long day. in any case, i can make it up tomorrow if i write hard again.

i finally finished chapter four, so i'll try to upload that tomorrow. chapter five is completely idiotic and random so far, but ah well, i'll work with it.

december, december, december.

i'm sorry for not keeping up with everyone else's stories - i've barely touched this LJ, let alone the friends page, in quite a many days. i'm busy and stressed and behind on everything, so please forgive me.

my mother just asked if this was "a real story." i'm hurt.

also exhausted. and incoherent. good night. oops! first, an excerpt:

"Look." Skally lifted his arm and pointed to the stars. "It's hard to see because it's not quite dark enough yet, but there's Gilart, the Queen's Dog. He was the companion of Amila, the first queen of a race which is now nearly dead. Gilart disappeared when Amila died, but you can still find him in the stars." His finger traveled along the sky. "And see, there's Amila herself up there. People used to say that was a warrior, but then they realized he had no weapons, and Gilart was so close to him that he must be in fact Amila. And if you look closely, those faint stars behind seem to stretch out behind her like wings. The myths say she had beautiful wings."

Elena tilted her head slightly. "I guess I'm no good at it. It just looks like random stars to me."

"That's all I saw too, at first. But I learned to see their pictures." He smiled. "I had a good teacher."

"Ragamuffin?"

"How did you know?"

She turned her face towards him, meeting his quizzical expression. "I've dreamed about it," she said. He continued to stare at her; uneasily she looked away, and wrapping her arms around her knees leaned forward to watch the others down in the dip. "How's it possible," she asked, far more lightly, "that you all seem so comfortable and easy with me so soon?"

It took Skally a moment to process her question. Then he shrugged and said, "I don't know. It seems to just be that way."

"I wish it were just that way for me," she muttered.

worst. sentence. ever.

2004-11-13T02:44:36Z

It was comforting, and only old habits of Oh-stop-worrying-because-I'm-fine attitudes made her inclined to pull away in the first place.

dear lord.

anyway, i'm trying to catch up on the wordcount, but i have to get ready for bed in fifteen minutes - speech meet tomorrow. (AUGH!) i'm typing like mad but only coming up with lots of repetitive crap. oh well. i'll just keep up my mantra: december, december, december...

hope everyone else is doing better than me!

blankpaged_book @ 2004-11-12T06:56:00

2004-11-12T11:56:25Z

only wrote about 450 words yesterday.

hate week two.

must write about 2500 words today.

at school.

argh.

what could it mean to a daydream believer?

2004-11-11T01:46:12Z

finished chapter three. GO ME. i'm currently only about 600 words behind, will try to catch that up tonight. i still have other things to be doing, though, so i'll hurry this up.

sorry for my angst as of late. this nanowrimo's just been so much harder than last year, not with the writing itself but everything else. i'm so tired and stressed, this story is so hard to get a hold on, and i feel very lonely in my writing somehow. i don't know why. the forums are sort of boring me and updating about my writing isn't exciting. maybe it's just the week two slump, i don't know.

sigh. anyway. i'll try to get chapter three up tonight before i retire (which needs to be SOON), so until then here's an excerpt.

By the time the day wound itself to a close, Elena was wondering if every day would be like this now, surreal and distant, the only thing that felt real being far away and out of her reach. She wondered if she would ever dream of her vagabonds again, but even as she wondered she knew she would not. They had come to her to give her a last chance to not have to say goodbye, but there was no way she could accept it. She had to stay and watch over and worry.

You don't have to, said a quiet voice. Elena ignored it, but it spoke again: You don't have to stay. The boys are here. They belong here. You do not. Your place is out there among the trees and hills and moors, under the embrace of the sky, walking in the kiss of the wind. You don't have to live being torn in two.

It whispered silkily, You don't have to sacrafice everything for one woman.

The words - though they were not fully-formed words so much as inarticulated ideas - stung so hotly and deeply that Elena dropped a dish she was washing. Thankfully it only fell back into the washbashin with a clatter so that Sanna called, "Please be careful, Elena."

She's not one woman, Elena told the voice, rage shaking around within her. She's my mother and I won't leave her. I love her, and when you love someone you're willing to sacrafice things for them.

But a seed nestled down inside her heart and planted its roots there, though she did not know it.

whatever.

2004-11-09T04:15:27Z

didn't meet the quota for today.

i feel so lonely, somehow. lonely and inadequate. and unworthy to be writing this story. something doesn't feel right.

i need to get a good night's sleep sometime and see if that helps. unfortunately, that won't be tonight.

sigh...

speak, little sparrow, sing up the wind...

2004-11-07T22:44:21Z

so. i started chapter three.

*tremendous sigh of relief* i was terrified of writing this scene, but it's coming along all right. the writing itself may or may not be good, but at least i'm not sitting here writhing in agony at my inability to write anything. it's fairly smooth going. i'm content.

i am not, however, necessarily content with the past two chapters. ugh. if this novel were a dance class, the first chapter would be the clumsiest, most green set of dancers you'd ever see. they have no sense of rhythm whatsoever, no coordination, and step on each other's feet constantly. watching them is painful because they're doing so badly that even the most unskilled person when it comes to dance winces at how awful they are.

the second chapter would be the partners who have danced in the past but since forgotten how to do it, and they're relearning the steps, so they're a bit slow and choppy and stiff, but at least they're not a complete train wreck like the other two.

chapter three appears to be half-decent, except for the fact that elena's burst into tears at least twice in the first 1200 words and she's given more than her fair share of speeches. augh! but hey, this is what december's for. (actually, december is for sleeping and the watching of many rental movies. i have decided to reward myself this year with a big smashin' bakshi-fest, complete with red-and-green M&Ms.)

onward i write! i need about 500 more words for tonight, no big deal. however, i also have algebra homework and a severely overdue art project to work on, not to mention speech practice. gracious! i should be off now.

i love these characters SO MUCH.

2004-11-07T08:19:06Z

sorry for lack of updates - i was six hours away from home all weekend, frantically scribbling in a notebook during those long car trips there and back. i've just spent the past hour and a half writing as well, and i've managed not only to finish chapter two and catch up on my wordcount (i can't believe how much i've written, was it this much so soon last year?) but to bring the story to its first crucial point.

holy. mother. of. edison.

the final scene of the second chapter was very emotional for me to write. it's one of the most important scenes in the story, elena's discovery that, to be cliché, all her dreams are coming true. the poor darling is so much more angsty than i had intended her to be, with all this "wishing i could fly away from here" nonsense, but this scene brings her a fulfillment she's longed for nearly all her life. to say more would be to spoil too much, so i'll leave you with a brief excerpt, for i'm too tired (and have to get up in four and a half hours) to format chapter two and put it up. i'll try to get to that tomorrow, but homework and church dinners might prevent it. we shall see!

She realized then how deep in the forest she was, past even the huge old tree where she had found refuge earlier. The singing had again stopped, so she stopped as well. It was colder than she had thought, colder than she remembered late-spring nights being. Her nightdress was modest, but though there was no want for covering it was thin enough that she shivered, standing barefoot on the rough forest floor. What was the matter with her? Wandering around in the middle of the night, not even properly dressed, chasing hopelessly after dreams and figments of her imagination that didn't even want to stay with her any longer... She waited in silence, desparately wishing to hear the voices again, but they didn't sing. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, and an unexplainable despair wrapped itself around her so thickly that she sank to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, biting her lip and lowering her head. She would not cry. She would not cry over something so stupid.

But it wasn't stupid. Never in her life had Elena been lonely, not with her dear brothers and sweet mother always so close, but now she felt such a deep loneliness that it threatened to consume her. It was all the worse because she couldn't understand where it was coming from, unless it was the fact that her dreams were leaving her.

She couldn't help it. She loved her vagabonds as deeply as she loved her own family, and they were deserting her. Even the sourceless music in the trees had vanished. She would go home and go back to bed, and in the morning she would get up and be herself and do her chores, kiss her mother's cheek and hang about clinging to Nick because she really did feel so awful, but none of it would matter. It was like a hole had been carved out of her heart, and she couldn't figure out who had done it or how she could get it back.

The wind sang through the branches of the trees as Elena let out a tiny, tiny little sob. She choked back the rest until her head and throat ached, but stubbornly she would not let any more out. Little fingers of the wind stroked through her hair and skimmed over her arms; its voice whispered gently. Or was that the wind singing?

and so i leave you and bid you goodnight. chapter two in full tomorrow, for those with access who might wish to read.

we won't talk about tuesday.

2004-11-03T23:29:33Z

yeah. yesterday was the most depressing, discouraging writing day i've ever had in my life. no exaggeration. i wrote about 1700 words, most of it in the evening... but all day long i was just sick of what i'd already written. i was seriously considering just giving up.

BUT! today is brighter. i haven't met the quota (not the official one let alone my own), but the writing is going okay. i need to start chapter two, but i have no idea where to go from here. i'll try to write the 700 or so i need when i get home, but i'm not sure what's going to happen about that.

chapter one is finally done, though. 5220! how bewildering! (last time all my chapters were around 2500 each.) mm, it feels nice to think i'm in the 5Ks. i'm actually about 200 words ahead, even for not meeting the quota today, so i'm not too worried (yet). i just wish i felt better about what i've written. it's so... so bland and boring and nonsensical, hardly contributing to the plot, wandering around and being stupid... ugh. why doesn't something more interesting happen? it's just elena and her mother and her brothers, washing dishes, cooking dinner, wandering in and out of the house... blah.

but i suppose things will improve. maybe. anyway, i'll be uploading the chapter shortly, and for those of you not reading, here's an excerpt. yum.

Elena sometimes felt as though she lived for her dreams. (This was typically when she was aggravated with her brothers and feeling resentful for whatever reason towards her mother.) Of course most of her dreams were of the usual variety, simple spewings-out of her imagination and thought processes, but there were occasional dreams of striking clarity which seemed to have definite meaning; and then there were her dreams of her vagabonds, and those were the ones she felt she lived for.

She called them such because they were never settled in one place. Rather, they always seemed to be travelling, living out of bags slung over their shoulders and sleeping in bundles of blankets beneath the stars. Though she couldn't remember what all of the dreams were, she knew she had known their names from the start. The dreams of them came just far apart enough that each was special, and somehow they always came when she felt she most needed them - when her temperamental nature was at its worst. Their familiar faces and songs comforted her.

Oh, their songs! Elena had never heard such beautiful voices as her vagabonds had. From Mister Pockets' smooth deep rumble to Palagos' birdsong trill, there was something unmistakeably special about their voices. When the four of them sang together, it seemed she could almost reach out and touch the music in the air. It surrounded her, supported her, and even in her sleep it lifted her up in a warm, quiet joy. Sometimes when she hovered in that vague place between sleeping and waking she could almost audibly hear them. They did not sing in every dream, but when they did... It was enough that Elena felt each time she never wanted to wake up.

And the dreams had always been so clear until now. Until now. She fell asleep that night moody and irritated, and as she sank into sleep she could see the rolling hills spilling out before her, and she drifted gently away, knowing her vagabonds would soon appear.

They did, but only... only strangely. They were walking through the hills, but somehow she couldn't quite see their faces. The wind was blowing fiercely, and as it whipped Ragamuffin's long hair out like a curtain and snapped the tails of Skally's dark scarf, it also seemed to blur their faces, smudge Mister Pockets' quirky smile into a jumble of nothing. And when he spoke aloud to the others, she heard his voice so distant and cold and unlike the usual warm lilt.

Elena jerked awake, surprised to find herself trembling. No, it was only a dream, only a dream, nothing to be so excited about. But she couldn't stop her hands from shaking. She tucked them underneath her pillow and tried to fall asleep, to no avail.

What was the matter with her?

Then, what was the matter with her dreams?

and so it begins...

2004-11-01T11:42:20Z

livejournal just ate my entry, but i don't care. nothing can spoil my mood.

sparks! fireworks! zing-pow!

i awoke early, breakfasted, and sat down to write at ten to six. forty-five minutes later, i had 1385 with the end wide open for finishing when i get home from school. only about 700 more words to reach my personal goal for daily quota! i am enthralled.

i'm also slightly miffed that this story started off precisely the way 100year did: MC wakes up, has breakfast with family, etc. augh. but it's not so bad, i can deal with it later. roan and nick and amer are being absolutely beautiful, i adore them. and i've already discovered something i didn't know! splendid!

i'm just giddy with excitement. i'm so up. today will be a good day.

good luck to the rest of you!

chirp chirp, i am sleep-deprived and thus peppy!

2004-10-28T23:50:23Z

sweet heaven in a bucket! in algebra today i discovered a new character. such a sweet little one, too. i want to tell you all about this so so so much, but it would spoil so many lovely things to come, so i'll control myself. but oh my goodness! i'll only tell you the name: lamb. lamby! i love lamb and can't wait to write the story just for the sake of that character. i'm not even kidding.

seriously, so many tiny tiny snippets of plot-maybes keep dropping on my head, i'm getting excited. which is good, since it's on monday.

monday, folks.

holy cow.

(PS. lamb!)

oo-de-lally!

2004-10-21T21:25:47Z

wow, i haven't logged in here in a while. hum. it's almost november, how strange is that? i'm still oddly apathetic. maybe it's because i've been so busy... i also haven't been thinking of my characters much. how horrible of me... it just... doesn't feel like it's almost time for nanowrimo.

sigh. i added the folks who added me, but remember, just because you're on my friends list does not necessarily mean you can read the novel. if you want to read it, you have to comment and let me know. i'm not making promises, though. i already have five people reading, and that's so overwhelming, especially since last year it was just smaur and me. i'm not saying i won't add you, but chances are unless you're a friend already, i likely won't. it's just kind of weird already.

and! because i have been apathetic, i seek to encourage myself. thus, a survey ganked from innerslytherin (i believe).

BASIC STATS:

NaNo ID: Aiko-chan
NaNo since: 2003

Working title: Sing Up The Wind
WIP Genre: Fairy-tale/Fantasy/Musical?
Projected word count: 60,000 (haha!)

AT THE START: DO YOU...
Have an Outline? No, just a basic idea of how events play out (maybe).
Scene-by-scene? No. Too confined for me.
Know how it starts? I did, but now I'm not so sure.
Know how it ends? I know how I would like it to end, but it would be crazy-difficult to write and may not even work with the plot, soooo...
Have your climax in order? Ha. Hahaha. I have the "fake climax," which was the original climax, but accurséd romantic subplots (and brilliant beautiful scenes that come to me in the middle of algebra class) force the story to continue for acres after that.
Know your main characters yet? Yes. I've know them, more or less, for two years.
Have a particular tone in mind? Not really.
Plan to Draw on your own experiences? Definitely will have some too-wordy description from my treks through Nelson's Ledges and Cook's Forest.

IS YOUR WORK GOING TO BE:
Funny? I hope so! Light humorous banter, yum.
Serious? Rather.
Sad? ANGST ABOUNDS!
Semi-Autobiographical? No.
Based on another story? There are elements of another story (of mine) that have since worked into the story.
Influenced by any authors/current publications? Robin McKinley. Ugh. So many passages last year were pure Rose Daughter, and since I just finished Outlaws of Sherwood I keep thinking, "Agh, this will worm its way into SUTW."

HOW HAVE MUCH YOU PLANNED? HAVE YOU USED:
A paper journal? Sort of.
Multicolored pens? Mechanical pencil.
A computer? ... Yes.
Index cards? Nope.
Lists? Woo ha ha, indeed.
Bulleted lists? I love bulleted lists.
Plot Charts? No.
Character Charts? Sort of.
Character formulas? No.
Favorite writing resource: Books.

ODDS AND ENDS
A line you would like to use: "Sometimes I just want to stay there, hovering between what you really are and what I've dreamed you to be. Sometimes I don't know which I love more."
A scene you would like to include: That awesome beautiful break-my-heart what's-wrong-with-you scene that came to me in algebra class and forced me to add twice as much plot.
A concept you would like to explore: Dysfunctional families, jealousy, self-doubt.
A cliche you would like to avoid: Oh my gosh, too many to list.
A character you would like to use: Calamica! But I know next to nothing about her and don't know where I'd put her in. I think maybe she died before the story started...

FORWARD THINKING
Do you expect to be able to complete it? I think so.
Do you intend to complete it? Yes.
What do you expect to get out of this month of frantic writing? Tears, both good and bad. But mostly good. Oh yes, and heartbreak, massive wrist pains, and complete overwhelming awe at these freaking amazing characters. (They probably won't be anywhere near as fascinating to you as they are to me; to me, they're the most special, most amazing people I have ever known.)

two points of interest:

2004-10-09T04:18:47Z

[1] i'm considering make a separate journal specifically for the novel itself this year. it seems semi-pointless, but i'm tempted to do so anyway. i don't think i will because it would only mean more work for myself, but i nonetheless wonder what you think. the more i think about it as i type the less i like the idea - it'd inconvenience people and myself, i know i'd get irked having to log in and out of even more accounts than i already do... blech.

[2] anyway, this one is actually important. so if you read this journal, please read the following. we all know november is approaching, and with it comes nanowrimo. durr. if you want to read my novel this year as i progress, please let me know. brief excerpts are available for public reading, but full chapters are only posted in friends-only entries.

however, just because you're on my friends list does not mean you can necessarily read the chapters. those are set in a customs friends group. some of you are already in it, but nonetheless, if you want to read the story you must let me know. if you don't, i won't put you in the group (or if you're in it already but don't express interest in reading, i'll take you out of it). whether you're currently on my friends list or not, you have to let me know.

just because you request to read doesn't mean you can. i consider myself to be generally a nice person, and we don't have to be old friends for you to read it. but if i don't already know you to some degree and you want to be able to read the story, i'd really prefer to only add you if you're participating in nanowrimo as well. i don't really want strangers reading this unless we're in the same boat. i don't think that's unreasonable.

woo, i'm tired, so i hope this makes sense. if not, feel free to throw rocks and ask questions. and please let me know if you want to read Sing Up The Wind!

(i really have more to say about SUTW, but i'm tired and my wrists hurt. goodnight.)

can't believe we're so close!

2004-10-08T02:35:49Z

went to the library today. boom! picked up bird by bird among other things, simply to re-read. i don't always agree with lamott - in fact she often irks me - but she certainly is amusing and has a wealth of good advice, so i'm going through that again. i think i'll start doing the short assignments she talks about... they might be fun and beneficial.

WOO. i just finished an extensive interview with skally. holy cow, i can't tell you how much i love this boy, and he's shaping into an even more amazing fellow that i thought he was to begin with. skally, i didn't know you felt this way about that, or that way about this! it's so exciting, i'm tempted to jump up and dance around.

yet somehow i feel... apathetic about the entire thing. i don't know, i'm just not excited for november. is it just because i'm cranky from my back hurting and school being stupid and my life being eaten up by my schedule? i don't know.

anyway, i have lots of lovely books to read, but i really must go to bed for now. i'm exhausted.