Updates and Stuff

I know that I've been slacking on posts this week. I apologize for that. I'm taking most of this week off for holidays and things, so I'm going to post again NEXT MONDAY with the full plan for next year. HUZZAH!

On Plans for the New Year

So I've made a few decisions for the new year with regards to this blog.  Hopefully they'll work!  Right now they're just in the "MAYBE THIS IS A THING I COULD POSSIBLY DO?" category.
Firstly, I'm going to try and do three posts per week.  For a whole year.  Though the whole Blog Twice A Week isn't going so well this year, that might just be due to my scheduling.  Or my laziness.  Or both.  Either way, keep an eye out for POSSIBLE NEW POSTING SCHEDULE????
Secondly, I've been thinking about doing some sort of long-term, overarching theme with the blog.  Less of a "HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED IN MY LIFE" blog and more of a "HERE ARE COOL ANALYTICAL THINGS" blog.  There are a few major things I can do with this; one of the things I was thinking was a "read along with me" series.  In order to get through the books that I want to read, the first books on the list would be A Game of Thrones.
This is all in the works, though. I'm going to figure things out and let you all know.

I'm Done With Finals!

Firstly, I apologize that this post is so late, and that I didn't post on Monday. This was finals week, so I was studying and doing other things of that nature. I'm glad to be home, to be honest. The food is better, the running opportunities are better, and I have a better chance of getting a good night's sleep. It's great! I'm excited!
Three weeks! AT HOME! HUZZAH!

I will be celebrating (and sleeping and eating well) over the weekend. We will resume regularly scheduled programming on Monday.

Things I Learned This Semester

So today was the last day of classes before the end of the semester, so it's time for the Semester Roundup, where I write about what I learned this semester and stuff.

ACADEMICS

1. In Shakespeare class, I learned that there are a bunch of different ways to insult people. One of those ways is to address someone as "thou," as opposed to "you." (I already knew this, but it's worth repeating). I also learned my new favorite oath: "OUT, VILE JELLY!" (from King Lear. Someone's eyes got poked out).
2. In Greek Historiography, I learned that Herodotus is allegedly the Father of History, but he was far more mythologically inclined than Thucydides. Thucydides is far more fact-based and wrote history in a manner that is closer to what we see today. Also, Xenophon wrote the Anabasis, or the March Up Country, which is about Cyrus trying to do some conquering, but gets killed 1/3 of the way through. The rest of it is about how people try and not get killed by residents of places where the army doesn't reside. Also, that Shakespeare drew some inspiration from Plutarch.
3. In Uses of the Bible in Literature, I learned that pretty much everything is a reference to either the Bible or Shakespeare. And sometimes Shakespeare alludes to the Bible. Also, Satan was never explicitly stated as being the Fallen Angel Who Was Mean To Everyone. He was referred to as The Accuser in the book of Job. He took over Judas's brain in the book of Luke and John. He is never described in detail, however, so the whole "Satan is Evil McEvil, the fallen red demon with a pointy tail and horns" description isn't entirely Biblical.
4. In Journalism, I learned how a proper news story (PUT HUMAN ELEMENTS FIRST), and how to write a personality profile. I learned that, as a blogger, my professor thinks I am narcissistic. I learned that there are two kinds of ledes (the lede is the opening paragraph or so): the hard ledes get the WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY out of the way immediately; the soft ledes tell a bit of a story about a person affected by the thing before you get to the news about the thing.

OTHER THINGS

1. It's possible for a college student to write a novel in 30 days.
2. That student may or may not doom themselves to carpal tunnel syndrome later in life.
3. back up your files. You never know when your computer is going to crash on you.
4. Sometimes, it's important to take a break and play with puppies.
5. It's hard to let people go - from relationships, from organizations, from life. That doesn't mean you can't talk to them again. That doesn't mean you have to be on horrendous terms with them. You still need to be civil, and it is possible to be so.
6. It's important to have someone to talk to, but it's also important to act. If you need to go on a tangent, do it. But when the tangent is over and your friend offers a solution, do your best to take it.
7. Talking to authorities can be intimidating. What could wind up being more intimidating is the consequences - is it worth freaking out now to have a terrible resume/ GPA/ whatever later?
8. Losing someone in a romantic capacity could lead to the romantic partner you never realized you liked.
9. DILIGENCE, PEOPLE.

On Surprising Spare Time

For five years, December 1st has felt weird. It's one of the only days guaranteed to feel a bit... too open. WHAT DO I DO WITH MY TIME?
I'll leave you with that until I figure that out.

NaNoWriMo Day 30: On Winning And Thanks

Current Day: 30
Current Page: 166
Winning Page: 166
Final Line: "Eva and Galen lived reasonably ever after."

I feel like that's a bit of a cliche ending. It could very well be too cliche of an ending. I don't really know. Right now, I'm just happy I won. I've validated, and I've written a story that concluded within a 30-day time frame. (By that, I mean that I finished it in 30 days. The last novel I finished took over a year, and that's partly because half of it was in my friend's trunk for six months). I'm excited, but I'm also terrified.
Why?
Now I have to type the whole thing up.
And then I have to edit.

NaNoWriMo Day 29: Apologies and Nearing The End

Current Day: 29
Current Page: 154
Target Page: 160-1
Pages Until 50,000: 10-13 (Depending on how much I fudge my averages)
Place in Story: Goal has been achieved. After persuading, cajoling, bribing, pleading, stealing, and getting really mad at princesses; after Eva kicking Jasper in the ribs on purpose in an act that may or may not wind up being the real climax of the novel; after three days and three nights of Eva not sleeping and Ekito the Fairy staying up with Eva to make sure she finished the unicursal hexagram, the work is finally done.
My work isn't done, however. I still have around 3,000 words left to write. The trouble is, I don't know if I have 3,000 words left of story. I'll be able to wiggle a little with the word count averages (um... of COURSE I've been writing at an average of 305 words per page, not 300... that was just a miscalculation... obviously...), but that still gets me to the 3,000 remaining words instead of 4,200.
I've achieved several of the goals I set for the month, however (or I will by tomorrow, anyway). Firstly, I will probably write "THE END" before midnight tomorrow. I have surpassed last year's word count, and possibly the year before's as well. I'm pretty sure the story is concise, and it just needs to be edited for themes and consistency. (That's a whole different matter, though.)

I apologize for not posting at all this week - it was partly because I have been busy with school, but I've also been busy writing a lot. I had a twelve-page Tuesday this week (10k is not very achievable when writing by hand), and another 3,000 word day this week as well. My word count, in other words, has been climbing a lot thanks to Thanksgiving break. I'm very thankful I have such a good home to come back to and for the ability to create so much.
I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully, for the FINAL COUNTDOWN.

NaNoWriMo Day 22: Relying A Lot on Thanksgiving Break

Current Day: 21
Current Page: 111
Target Page: 116
Page I Should Be On: 120
Place in Story: Still Looking for gemstones. Nothing new here.


I'm moving way more slowly than I should be, but that's college. I have to wake up early to work on homework tomorrow, which sucks, but I need to do work.
That's all for tonight.

NaNoWriMo Day 21: Winds of the End

Current Day: 21
Current Page: 109
Target Page: 114
Likelihood of Hitting That Page: 1/3
Place in Storyline: Three weeks since Eva entered the palace.  Three weeks until Winter Solstice/ New Year/ That Time When Eva And Jasper Must Be In The Same House And Not Try To Kill Each Other.  Four of the gems have been obtained, out of six that are needed.  I know Jasper's got one of them, and I just need to figure out how to get the other one without underdoing my word count.
HUZZAH!

NaNoWriMo Day 20: Pushing On, Because Why Not?

Current Day: 20
Current Page: about to start 104
Target Page: at least 107, but hopefully 108-9
Likelihood of hitting that: 37:82.
Place in Story: 3 gems achieved, 4th in the process, 2 left to go.
This is starting to feel like a higher fantasy novel than I intended, but I like it.
My word count isn't what it needs to be - it's about 2,000 words behind - but I'm going to target 6-10 pages a day. I'm near the end of the Week of Terribleness, and I've got a strategy to work out my last two things. (Today: major things on Bible essay. Tomorrow: major things on Shakespeare proposal. Saturday: edit proposal. Sunday: edit Bible. DONE.)
Next week, I'm going to mostly focus on Really Big Targets. I have an entire list worked out:
Surviving The Weekend Sunday (write at least 1000 words)
More Words than Yesterday Monday (write 2000 words)
10k Tuesday (target 10,000 words or get carpal tunnel in the attempt)
Write A Lot Wednesday (target 2000-3000 words)
3k Thursday (target 3000 words, even though that might not happen)
5k Friday (because this is really the only day I'm going to write over break, so I'd better make it a good one)
6k Saturday (to compensate for the lack of writing over break)
Schooltime Sunday (in which I write a lot and validate)

I HOPE THIS WORKS.

NaNoWriMo Day 19: On Revising Goals

Current Day: 19
Current Page: 100
Target Page: 104
Likelihood of Hitting That Number: 22/85
Place In Story: MORE RETRIEVAL OF GEMSTONES!  Also, fancy-dress shopping.  I'm not quite sure why Eva has consented to buying herself a fancy dress to impress a man.  She stopped growing a few years prior and has barely bought new clothing since then.  She's the sort of person who doesn't see the point in dresses, and walked out of three stores because she doesn't want to pay that much for a dress.

In reality, the situation is mostly that Eva's not really comfortable in dresses. It's not a bodily discomfort problem. Eva doesn't have a problem with discomfort; the only discomfort she feels is when other people are obviously uncomfortable with her body. Eva's main problem is that she doesn't see the point in dresses. As someone who lives in trousers on a daily basis and never goes to fancy parties (and she wears trousers when she does because it's normally cold out), Eva just doesn't need to buy fancy dresses. Also, she travels a lot. Though a fancy dress could come in handy in the off-chance you need to be acceptably dressed in front of a king, a fancy outfit is not necessarily part of the Average Adventurer's Checklist. Since "Make A Good Impression on a King" isn't on Eva's regular to-do list, she doesn't exactly carry around fancy clothing all the time.
This shopping trip should be interesting.

Right now, the title of "REVISING GOALS" comes at the time in the month when I'm getting really discouraged. I've barely written today, and I've got a long way to go if I want to catch up to the word count. I don't know if I'm going to make it to 50,000 words, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up. I might revise my standards of success.
I'm currently at 30,000 or so words, and I've decided that if I get past 33,550 words - the word count I stopped at last year - then I will consider this year a Not Failure. (A "Not Failure" can also be "Not Necessarily Success," which it very well might be, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.)
Right now, I could run into the Not Failure becoming the Success.
Before I work myself into a loop, I'm going to go change and write and go to bed.

NaNoWriMo Day 18: Lagging, exhaustion, and discipline

Current Page: end of 95/ top of 96
Target Page: 100-101
Pages left: 4-5
Pages written: 3
Place in Story: retrieved the emerald from a princess who thought she deserved to have it because she spent six weeks NOT LIVING IN ABSOLUTE LUXURY (OMG THE HORROR!).  Now, Galen and Eva have split up (because Galen deserves more words).  I think he's going to another vain princess and she's going to one who died the year prior from venereal disease.

This morning, I woke up early to write.  I didn't write.  I am now very tired, sleep deprived, and running behind on writing and homework, and possibly coming down with something.
I know I need to push myself in order to get everything done on time; it's going to be a long road to Thanksgiving.  I'm looking forward to the break, but I'm also looking forward to the chance to write a lot and not get distracted by silly things like homework.  (That's not true.  Do your homework, kids!).  EVERYONE wants to assign things this week, though - I have a paper proposal due over the weekend, a paper due next Monday, and a test and a presentation in two different classes this past Monday.  Right now, I need sleep.  I can't get it until Friday night, though.  Probably not even then.
I know it's important to eat and sleep and go to the gym, but it's a difficult cycle to break, when you're exhausted and don't want to work, though you HAVE to work late into the night because you took so long to start the work in the first place.  I'm not trying to make excuses for the lousy work I've put forth so far with my writing.
On that note, TO WORK!

NaNoWriMo Day 17: On Vain Princesses and Sex

Day: 17
Current Page: 91
Target Page: 95
Place in Story: Eva is going to break into the palace/ mansion/ super nice house of one of the people who stole a gemstone from Galen, with the help of the princess's younger brother.
Favorite Quote from the Last 24 Hours: "She promised Judas a drink and hot sex the night after the break-in, with the intent to leave gold with the bartender for Judas to buy two rounds and hire a high-class hooker for one night."
I NEVER SAID EVA WAS THE ONE WHO WOULD HAVE SEX WITH HIM.  She wouldn't do that sort of thing.  She's not into drunk fifteen-year-olds.  (In other news, Judas probably has a problematic background that we don't now about yet.  I might have to write one up for him once NaNoWriMo is over.  Why else would a fifteen-year-old drink so much?)

NaNoWriMo Day 16: On Apathy, Sleep Deprivation, and too much homework

Current Day: 16
Current Page: 86
Target Page: 92
Pages Written Today: 0
Place in story: getting people drunk to steal things. Yep.

I've finally figured out why my word count has started tanking halfway through NaNoWriMo.  This is a trend that started when I was in college, and it's because every professor wants us to do homework, take tests, turn in papers, write essays, and do projects before Thanksgiving.  (Why not after Thanksgiving?  You want us to take a break and then study a LOT MORE?  What's the point of seeing family if we're panicked about finals?).
Anyway, I know that I'm not getting much writing done today - I have a book report and a test tomorrow, and I procrastinated a lot this morning.  I really need to get my life in order, but this is Hell Week Part One, so it's not going to be easy.  Like, I should have started finishing my book 45 minutes ago, so I'm probably going to get a sandwich and eat in my room as I desperately try and read 100 pages.

NaNoWriMo Day 15: Livin' on a Prayer (cuz we're halfway there and we'll make it I swear)

Current Day: 15
Current Page: 85
Target Page: 85-7
Location in Story: first gem retrieved. Second gem in the works. How? By persuading the drunken younger brother of a super vain princess to steal an emerald from his sister. I'm a little disappointed that Eva's established pickpocketing skills aren't going to come into play here, because Judas is the one who will actually do the stealing (yes, his name is Judas... don't judge me), but I might have her tag along and actually do the stealing. Drunk Judas is talking Judas, and talking Judas might wake sleeping sister who likes beauty sleep.



CAUTION: SLIGHT SWEARING AT THE END OF THIS POST. (I don't know if there are any actual readers who want a caution on that sort of thing, but it's worth it)



Now that we're halfway through November, the end is in sight. There are a finite number of days between now and the end of the month, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because I'm over halfway to making a habit of writing more (what is it, three weeks to create a new habit?), but it's also less of a buffer zone - if my word count suddenly tanks, I have less time to make it up. That being said, I took the opportunity to look back over some of my old stats. Though my word count is nowhere near as good as it could be, and it's nowhere near where it was in 2011, it's definitely better than it was in 2013. Currently, my word count is approximately 25,200 words (or it will be by the end of page 85, since I'm not done with page 85 yet). The Wild Card Overachiever target would be 30k-31.5k words, but the NaNo Official Word Count is 25k; as long as I stay above that number, all will be okay. I hope.
The danger, of course, is that I reach the end but not the word count of 50k. If that happens, I'm going to count that as a win. I don't know if my word count is actually 300 words per page; though many of my pages have over 300 words on them, about 1/4 of them have less than a full page written (my chapters are about 4 pages each). My handwriting has gotten smaller than when I did the test page, but I'm also writing a lot of dialogue that might get edited out later, but there might be more than 300 words per page.

In the end, it's not about how much I write, but whether I write. I think that's true for a lot of people. There are a lot of quotes on Pinterest about WRITE BETTER, NOT MORE, and also DON'T STOP WRITING, but I would like to say to those people: GET IN THE HABIT OF WRITING AND MAKE IT SOUND PRETTY LATER.

I'm going to use a makeup metaphor. (I never thought I would say those words, but here we go).
Makeup is an attempt to make people look prettier. Sometimes it enhances a pretty feature. Sometimes it just makes that one zit less prominent. There is one thing that every makeup wearer has in common, though: THEY ALL HAVE A FACE (unless you are a faceless makeup wearer, in which case I apologize). Some have blue eyes and some have brown eyes and some people are Southeast Asian and some people are from Iceland and some people are some interesting mix of their Cherokee mother's cheekbones and their Turkish father's eyes. Not every face is the same, but everyone has a face on which to put makeup (again, my apologies to the faceless makeup gurus).
Similarly, there is one thing that every first draft has in common: words. Like makeup on a face, you can't pretty up the pretty stuff if there's no pretty stuff to begin with; you can't take out the shitty stuff if there's no shit in the first place. Blank pages are the things that go in the back of books whose page numbers aren't in a multiple of 8 or 12. Blank pages only go within the the novel if there is an artistic choice or a printing error.

I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'm just going to write about a drunk prince and then go to bed.

NaNoWriMo Day 14: where writing gets interrupted by boyfriends

Current Day: 14
Current Page: 75
Target Page: 80
Pages Written Today: 1
Pages Left to Go: at least 5
Place in Story: the first gem has been obtained. Now for all the rest.

I haven't had time to write much today because my boyfriend came to visit me and the rest of our friends, so that was... distracting.  Here's to trying to write more on Saturday!

NaNoWriMo Day 13: When Early Mornings Turn Out To Be Beneficial (also, princesses)

Current Day: 13
Current Page: 72
Target Page: 73-5
Place in Story: so there are these gemstones, right?  Ekito the Priestess gave them to Galen when she gave him the materials to built the unicursal hexagram; she was sort of saying, "everything is here, now good luck finding someone to put it all together without magic!"  Galen captured princesses in an attempt to make them build the thing; when they left, they each took one of the gems with them.  Now Eva and Galen are on their way to track down the princesses and persuade/ cajole/ threaten/ steal from the princesses in order to get the gems back.

I was up really early this morning to work at a candlelight vigil for my fraternity; since nobody is doing much at 7:30 AM on a college campus, I was able to get a lot of writing done; aside from getting down a few pages, I was able to name and motivate each of the princesses.  I'm not putting those here, because now isn't the time for that, but I'm glad with the level of diversity there is.  Some are vain, some just did it for shits and giggles.  Anyway, I need to read a book for Greek so I can do a fiction report on Monday.  That's been taking up most of my time today.

NaNoWriMo Day 12: Suddenly, a PLOT DEVIATION OCCURS!

Current Day: 12
Current Page: 64
Target Page: 70
Place in Story: Eva and Galen have gotten the center stone in place.  That's the most important stone to have in place.  The other stones that are supposed to make up the six corners of the icon are missing, probably stolen by Abducted Princesses of Days Gone By.  In the meantime, Eva found a weird box in a scene I might cut later.  (I NEED WORDS, OKAY).
So the plot deviation comes in the fact that the princesses stole the gems: I wasn't planning on that.  I want to keep it, because it gives Eva and Galen something to do that doesn't involve sitting and talking as Eva does some sort of mechanical labor.  I was running out of Character Building Conversations for them to have.  Also, I should have thought this through better when I decided to WRITE AN ENTIRE NOVEL WHERE THE MAIN ACTION WAS JUST TO BUILD A THING.  Seriously, that was kind of dumb.  There are only so many interrupting actions that can happen in the middle of building things, and I went with the one that I would think is most interesting (it's also the most convenient and the one that popped into my head first): that the valuable objects that are essential to the project got stolen by someone who isn't involved in any other way.   Of course, that means I have to figure out what their names are and when they stole the thing and which one they stole and why and how and where they are in the first place and who they ended up marrying.
You know, this might not be the most convenient answer to the NEED MORE WORDS problem.  Well, too late.  This is NaNoWriMo, and that means WORK WITH WHAT YOU WROTE.
Now, TO LAUNDRY AND WRITING!

NaNoWriMo Day 11: Sisters, Secrets, and Plot Slumps

Current Day: 11
Current Page: 59
Target Page: 63-5 (I don't actually know how far I'll get on that)
Current Place in Story: Eva's sister, Clara, turned out to be a pretty nice individual.  Eva also may or may not have some jealousy issues because of that.  If she does, it would stem from how people treat Clara in comparison to how they treat Eva.  They're very different - Eva is short, picked on, "less able than other people," and eternally angry because she's different.  There's a vicious cycle with Eva of people not treating her well because of her attitude, and she has a bit of an attitude because people don't treat her well.  (It has gotten better, since she's gotten to leave and earn a reputation instead of being given one based on how much of a left arm and magical ability she has).  Clara, on the other hand, is tall, conventionally pretty, fairly compassionate, kind, well-liked, and treated well in the community.  Eva might wonder why CLARA got treated so well and she herself didn't, despite all efforts to act like Clara.  (Eva probably would have wound up not doing anything like Clara, which is probably why Eva is on the road and Clara isn't.)
I think Clara might have envied the independence that Eva garnered when she left.  Eva had a really good reason to leave, and it wasn't as if the town really wanted to have her around in the first place, Eva could go wherever she chose.  Clara finished her training as a healer in her hometown, and stayed in her hometown because she was the only one trained in setting bones and doing surgeries.  Clara really likes what she does, but she probably regrets not going out and about before deciding to stay - if only because then she could have learned more about healing with and without magic, and maybe gotten certified in a few other things.
Also, as a subtle sub-plot, Jasper may be a manipulative butthead and hexed all of Clara's apprentices.  Clara had promised herself that, once another person completed the training to set bones and do surgeries, Clara herself would take a years' leave to go out and find out cool things with her sister.  When Clara and Eva interact for the first time in a long time, Clara mentions that the person she had been training dropped out suddenly.  This might truly be due to a family crisis, but I might make it due to the fact that Jasper is manipulative and mean and possibly a sociopath.  Or a psychopath.  I still need to look those things up.
Now, TO WRITING!

NaNoWriMo Day 10: Periods and Catchup

Day: 10
Current Page: 52
Target Page: 58
Place in Story: For some reason that may turn out to be important later, I'm including periods in my novel.  Like, menstrual cycles.  Like, the thing that people with vaginas get every month from their crotch.  (that was probably TMI.  Sorry about that.)
I think I'm including that just to get Eva out of the palace for a little while and possibly to have her run into her sister and establish the way they interact.  The way Clara and Eva talk to each other is very different from the way Jasper and Eva interact, simply because Clara was actually nice to Eva when they were kids and didn't try and transfigure her into anything, like Jasper did.  (Jasper claims that it's because he was curious about how beetles and newts and other small creatures act and also to practice human transfiguration, but in reality it's because he's mean and a bully and wanted to pick on someone smaller and weaker than him.  There's probably some degree of sociopathy/ psychopathy going on, but I'm not knowledgeable enough in the MAJOR FACTORS OF BEING A SOCIOPATH OR PSYCHOPATH to write Jasper explicitly as one of those.)
Since I've only written a page or two today, it's time to WRITE A LOT MORE!

NaNoWriMo Day 9: Where I write about Judas and not Eva

Current Day: 9
Current Page: 48
Target Page: past 50
Current Location in Story: attempting to figure out construction details. Noelle completely ships Galen and Eva. Sam doesn't buy it. I need more plot.

Today, I gave up writing (mostly) for a day-long fraternity event (it was mandatory) and the draft of an essay about Judas. I'm glad the draft is happening, but I need to step up my non-procrastination game, because I need to stop procrastinating. I have nearly fallen behind on my word count, and I have some reading for Shakespeare to do as well.
This is going to be a long night.

NaNoWriMo Day 8: Where I attempt to use my lead to do homework

Current Day: 8
Current Page: very top of 48
Target Page: 49
Place in Story: Noelle thinks Galen and Eva have romantic chemistry. Samuel doesn't. Dragonfly hasn't made an appearance in a while. Neither have Jasper or Clara. WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS FAKE? To be discovered after I do a required draft of an essay on Judas...

Right now, I'm mostly trying to keep up. It's been busy - I was on a bit of tight schedule today, I'll be on a tighter schedule tomorrow. My word count is safe, but it's not very much so. Right now, I'm just trying not to fall behind. I'm going to go write an essay now in order to get my word count up later.

NaNoWriMo Day 7: attempting to get farther ahead for the weekend

Current Day: 7
Current Page: 42
Target Page: 45 (But, realistically, I'm probably going to hit maybe 44 if I'm lucky and stop blogging now).
Location in story: Eva is having weird dreams, the basic materials have been purchased, Jasper the Older Brother is an asshole, Clara The Older Sister is reasonable, and I actually need to have stuff happen now, because PLOT. This could happen through backstory, but it might not. I don't know.

Right now, my biggest issue is making sure my word count is good, because I'll be very busy this weekend. Tomorrow, I have to write a mandatory draft for a term paper and Sunday I have a day-long fraternity retreat. I don't know how much I will be able to write this weekend, so I'm going to stop blogging now and write.

Fun story from this evening, though.

I helped my friend collect donations for Relay for Life, because she's on one of the committees. A typical interaction, especially in the male-dominated dorms, often went like this:
Me: *knock knock*
Them: *Vaguely scrambles about and opens door half-dressed*
Me: Hello, do you have any spare change or dollars that you would like to donate to Relay for Life?
Them: um... no... sorry...

In one dorm, though, I must have accidentally woken someone up some people and a boyfriend. The boyfriend stepped from one of the lofted beds onto the dresser to open the door from a weird angle. When I looked surprised, he just said, "Sorry, I thought you were one of my friends." I'm not sure why he thought his friends would crash, but this was a freshman dorm and we all know that freshmen get up to a lot of weird things.

Right, to writing!

NaNoWriMo Day 6: FALLING BEHIND AAAAAHHHHHHHH

Day: 6
Current Page: 34 (very top)
Target Page: 38
Deficit: 5 pages
Location in Story: THEY'VE STARTED DOING THE THING. THEY'RE PLANNING THE BUILDING. EVERYTHING IS A GO.

For real, though.  The most important thing about the plot: Building the UNICURSAL HEXAGRAM.  Right now, Eva and Galen are trying to figure out logistics.  After all, Eva is only five foot three, and the hexagram is supposed to be around ten to fifteen feet tall.  Right now, they need to figure out HOW TO DO THAT THING - specifically, if they're allowed to use magic on a pulley system to get Eva up and down and around on levels.  Am I overthinking this?

NaNoWriMo Day 5: Double-Named Characters and Mean Siblings

Current Day: 5
Current Page: 30
Target Page: 32-35
Place in Story: the villain has been introduced. Who is he? Eva's brother. (He was introduced way earlier than I intended, but I like where he is right now.)

One thing I realized as I was writing today was that I broke one of my only rules of writing: I accidentally gave my villain, Joshua, the same name as an important good character in my 2012 novel. The rule I generally give myself is DON'T SHARE CHARACTER NAMES BETWEEN WORLDS. The short explanation of how this rule works is that there's only room in my annals for ONE Joshua.
Of course, I don't want to change the name of either of these characters. All my character notes for 2014 call Eva's brother JOSHUA Thompson. At the same time, my 2012 villain is called Jericho, so I intentionally called his counterpoint Joshua because of the Biblical reference. It would be easiest to change Joshua Thompson's name now, while it's still early on in the process. Part of me doesn't want to - it would be really simple just to keep the names as is. The 2012 novel may not see the light of day, after all. The 2014 novel might not either, for that matter. Still, the fact remains: in the showdown between Joshuas, there's only room in the annals for ONE of them.
Though I do want to make sure that each name gets its own association, it's difficult to simply turn to a generator for answers.
Since all the names except one (and she's a fairy that only shows up in backstory, so she doesn't count) are in the typical realm of English names - Evangeline, Clara, Galen, Samuel, Noelle - it's a bit more difficult to figure out a new name than it could be. If they were all fantasy-style names, I could easily combine a few random objects around me to create a name for him, but most English names don't do things like that. I've been writing so many common-name characters, however, there are a few issues with most male names: I've either used them as characters, know someone with that name, or the name sounds unfitting (Euseibo, Frederick, Carl, Willy, Wilford, etc). Hopefully, I'll be able to sort this out.
Until then, TO WRITING!


UPDATE: Eva's brother is now named Jasper Thompson.

NaNoWriMo Day 4: a Slow Catchup

Current Page: 21
Target Page: 28 (to modify it because I'm behind, it's 24 or 25)
Pages Written Today: 4
Pages Until (modified) Target: 3 or 4
Location in Story: Eva is about to begin The Right and Proper DOING OF THE THINGS.  Involved in The Right and Proper Doing Of The Things is reasoning with a dragon, building the dragon's character, and eventually (hopefully by the end of the night) getting the dragon to consent to Eva building the icon anyway.  Right now, though, she's hanging out in the library and trying to find things on religious iconography.  I'm not wholly sure why I'm having her do that, exactly, but she's there and that's what she's doing.  I might have her look up in-world religious iconography to give symbolism to the stones they're putting into the unicursal hexagram.

Speaking of STONE SYMBOLISM IN UNICURSAL HEXAGRAMS, there will be some of that going on.  Unfortunately, I lost the bookmark that had all my character notes on it and the stones I plan on putting in, so hopefully I can find that before it becomes necessary.  Mostly, the stones have to do with balance of passion and energy.  I decided the fairy changed Galen into a dragon because of her religious order: the order is all about harmony, balance, and unity, and dragons generally are none of those things.

So far, though, Eva is still not showing any depth.  Well, she's showing a little ability to manipulate and talk through things, which I can hopefully use, but she's in more scenes than Galen and does a lot of things (or at least says a lot of things), but has no character development, aside from being resentful of her older brother.  Kind of.  I know what I'm doing with that, I just need to flesh it out properly.

Anyway, I still have an hour left, so BACK TO WRITING!

NaNoWriMo Day 3: BEHIND ALREADY??!!??

Current Day: 3
Target Page: 21
Current Page: 17
Current Approximate Word Count: 5000-ish words
Place in Story: Galen and Eva are about to meet properly for the first time.

So, technically, I'm not behind on the word count.  According to the NaNoWriMo Official Word Count Calculator, I am right on track.  According to the Wild Card Personal Not Falling Behind Standards, I am WAY behind.  Okay, not WAY behind, but significantly enough behind on my target of 2100 words a day that I'll need to stay up tonight, probably.  The trouble is, I know exactly where I fell behind - I can tell precisely where I had an hour or two here or there and I did not use it for writing.  I really wish I was not at the point of falling behind already, but I hope I can recover from it.
I know that many of my friends are a lot farther behind than me - quite a number of them are around 0, according to their reports.  I cannot afford that if I want to win.  I also cannot afford to keep up with this word count procrastination, but I also need to sleep.  This is a lot of internal debate.
For now, back to trying to pad my word count.

NaNoWriMo Day 2: THE DAY I GOT MY COMPUTER BACK (and also weird dreams)

Day: 2
Page: 15
Target Page: 14
Word Count: 4200-ish
Place in Story: ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE, EVA! DO IT! DO THE THING!

I've just realized a bit of a problem with my plot: Galen might not want to turn back into a human. So, as a solution, I'm going to make Eva very empathetic and do the building for everyone else in the castle. Seeing as she has only ever spoken to a hedgehog and a raven and a weird guy in a dream, she can't really say for sure if she's willing to build for Galen or willing to build for everyone else in the castle. So far, it's looking like she's going for everyone else in the castle, because there are ways for Galen to permanently be a dragon if he wants to.
I really need to improve Eva as a character. I haven't established her voice at all, and she has no real reason for staying aside from a willingness to help people. I need to have a stronger motive; willingness to help is usually secondary. But what should her motive be? This is what I must ponder tonight.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Day: 1

Current Words: 1500

Current Page: 5

Target Words: 2100

Target Page: 7

Deficit: 2 pages, 600 words

Things that have Happened So Far: Eva has entered Galen's palace because it's rainy and cold. Galen's servants welcome her. Galen might not agree. He's kind of a brat.

Things That Should Happen Before Bed Tonight: Galen and Eva should meet. The challenge shouldn't necessarily be issued, but they should meet. 

So far, I feel like this is a slower NaNo start than normal. I need to fix that tonight. That might be a downside of starting NaNoWriMo on Saturday: there's a lot of things I have to do on Saturdays. Homework. Service. Stuff like that.

Also, the NaNoWriMo word count updated seems to have crashed. They should fix that.

As you can tell, I'm tired. I need to go write and go to bed. 

On Fabulous hair

Okay, I've debated on whether or not to show my face here. I don't have photo editing software on my phone, so I'm not showing my face.

The point of today's post is the fact that today, because I put time and energy into looking a certain way (spiking up my hair and wearing satyr horns and makeup), I get a certain result (super spiked hair, a cord with satyr horns around my head, and attention on my eyes).

It would be nice to have great hair right out of bed, but let's be real here: my hair looks the way it does because of patience, eyeliner, and more hairspray than is wise to use on a daily basis. And let's be real, here: many people don't have time to do their makeup and hair gel and hairspray every single morning. I'm lucky if I get out of the shower on time. I think that's part of the draw of Halloween: for one day, get up early to do ALL THREE AND LOOK SUPER COOL. (Or, in my roommate's case, use "hair doughnuts" and a lot of bobby pins and go as Sansa Stark).

The thing is, I do the roll-out-of-bed maneuver when writing. I'm just trying to get through the story. Though I could make it so much better if I took it a bit slower, I haven't lived long enough to see the plain writing every day in order to know how to do the important writing. I should keep that in mind during the next month.

On Reviewing Past NaNoWriMo things

Today, I will do an exercise frequently employed by athletes: reviewing old statistics and figuring out how to improve my game. By "my game," I mean my NOVELING game. I haven't been a competitive athlete since eighth grade.
According to the stats on my NaNoWriMo profile, last year I completely gave up increasing my word count at 33,550 words on November 25th. According to NaNo's Word Count Algorithm, I was supposed to hit 41,667 words that day. Obviously, I didn't. I proceeded to not update my word count for the rest of the month, for a total of 16,450 words behind the target 50,000 words. According to the graph, the last day I was on track was November 11th, where I was 92 words ahead. From there, my word count went up, but it didn't increase at the necessary rate to write 50,000 words in 30 days. In other words, I wrote every day, but I did not write enough.
Looking back at the statistics for my biggest success, November 2011, I noticed something completely different. I finished the month 10,500 words over the target; the biggest disparity between the words I needed to write and the words that I had written came at the end of the month, over Thanksgiving break. My stats were not so impressive through the entire month - I seemed to have a rough beginning, for example. By November 11, however, I had logged over 23,000 words - almost 5,000 words over the target count. How were those two days different?

Part of it was the day of the week. November 11, 2011, was a Friday; in 2013, it was a Monday. In 2011, I was still in high school, and Veteran's Day gave me a three-day weekend. In 2013, I was in college, and Mondays that semester were my longest days. I could have let my homework slip a little until Tuesday morning to write a lot on Monday, but I decided not to.
One major contribution to my success in 2011, I think, was the 11 challenge. When you write out November 11, 2011 in numerals would have resulted in 11/11/11, so some Wrimos sent out some 11-related challenges: either to write for 11 hours or to try writing 11,111 words in a single day. I forced myself to sit down with some snacks, some pens, and a copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare (that year, all my characters were named after Shakespeare's) and write ALL DAY to hit whichever goal came first. I didn't achieve either goal, but I did write over 3,000 words, which got me well on my way to keeping my word count ahead of the minimum.
A third thing that helped me in 2011 that I didn't do in 2013 was to aim to write more than the minimum 1,667 words per day. I always go into NaNoWriMo with the intent to write 2,000 words per day to allow for a bit of a buffer in case an emergency arises and I can't hit the word count. In 2011, I took this very seriously; in 2013, I relied too much on my ability to write 2,000 words per day that I slacked off. Eventually, my word count got to the point where even 2,000 words a day would not save my word count by November 30th.

So what does all this mean for my word count in 2014?
Firstly, it means that I should do my best to write 2,000 words per day without exception. The only day I should go to bed early is the day I have written 2500 words. There are only four times when I shouldn't be writing: when I'm in an academic commitment (class, studying, etc), when I'm eating, when I'm showering, and when I'm sleeping. I should still eat more sandwiches and cut my showers short.
Additionally, I should take at least one day to commit to just writing. I plan to do that on November 25th. I know it's a bit late in the month to do that, but it's the best day I can come up with: I'll be home for Thanksgiving break, and it's early enough in the break where I can take a day to just write and still visit my boyfriend, go to volunteer gigs, see my old friends, do some homework, and hang out with family. I shouldn't let myself rely on that day; as I learned last year, relying on one big writing session to get my word count up is not going to make my novel 50,000 words long.
Next, I should reduce the distraction capacity to the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM. This includes deleting all games, blogging apps, and possibly social media apps off of my phone and computer. I should also store all books not related to class or writing in some hidden place, because those hold a lot of potential distraction. Yarn shall also be hidden for the same reason.
Third, gym time should not be cut, but it should be monitored. I should go to the gym as often as necessary; if I decide my workout time is 8:30-9:30, I should not be starting on the treadmill at 9:15. The only excuse for this behavior is if I get a brainwave for THE BEST PLOT TWIST EVER and, instead of changing into running shorts, I'm changing the course of my novel. Trying to find a good song while I am trying to put my running shorts on counts as procrastination and a generally bad idea.

Hopefully, publicly committing to this is going to help my chances of winning this year. I know I say that every year, but I mean it every year. I hope this works.
To all the Wrimos reading this, MAY THE WORDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR.
AND ALSO THE MUSE.

Posting a Day Early

Well, here I am, posting on a Thursday instead of a Friday. I'm so daring, right? (Don't answer that.)
I have some time, so I'm posting now instead of tomorrow, because tomorrow I'd probably forget to do it, and that would be terrible. I should probably post tomorrow anyway. Just to make sure I actually post. Maybe. I don't know. I'm blathering right now.
Anyway, I'm posting today to give a little heads-up about THINGS GOING ON DURING NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH!! HUZZAH!!
Not much of consequence is supposed to be happening during NaNoWriMo this year.
Let me rephrase that: nothing much of consequence is intended to happen, outside of an attempt to write a novel during the month of November. I plan to win this year. I always plan to win, but it doesn't always work out. I'm hoping that, now that I've gotten the hang of college, I can actually win, but that remains to be seen.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I need to set some goals for myself to (hopefully) do better this year than I have in the past. These goals are the following:

1. Write every day. It doesn't matter if I only write a page. It should probablybe more than a page. I'm dealing with all my knitting commissions before and after November for the sake of BEING ABLE TO WRITE EVERY DAY.
2. Blog every day. Maybe even twice a day. I don't really know. At any rate, I intend to keep you readers updated on the progress of my novel while (hopefully) not providing any spoilers. We at WriterInCollege don't condone spoilers under any circumstances.
3. Reach the end of the novel. This is not something that I've been able to do during NaNoWriMo before, but that's mostly because I'm terrible at containing stories to 50,000 words. The only novel I've actually finished is around 100,000 words and was finished a month before my next NaNoWriMo.
4. Don't let Writing get in the way of Homework. I only say this because I hope to graduate on time and not fail anything. Contrary to popular belief, I am, in fact, in college for school.
5. Actually take time to edit, once NaNo is done. This has been the other difficult thing in my novel-writing career. I write novels by hand, and I don't like taking the time to type them up and edit them. I should probably do that if I want to actually get anything published.
6. Sleep. Sleep is important. I should do it. I should also write. But mostly sleep.

This is my list of Things I Need To Do During National Novel Writing Month. The next time I post, I should have an approximate National Novel Writing Month 2014 OFFICIAL PLAYLIST OF SONGS FOR THE PLOT. By November 1st, I should have my characters named, my plot built, and my motives in place.
Farewell until then.
To all the Wrimos out there, MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR.

Class Registration!

This week, I'm going to register for classes for spring semester. Something that I have become increasingly aware of is that I'm actually in the last half of my college career. In searching the website of Classes You Can Take, I've been writing down the various courses I might take to fill my requirements - and then I've been looking back at the course descriptions and putting a mark in my notes by the ones that say OFFERED ALTERNATE YEARS. These classes have a higher chance of making it into my roster next semester, simply because I won't be in school the next time they're offered. Two of the five classes I hope to take next semester fall under the two categories of "THIS COULD BE IMPORTANT IF YOU WANT TO GRADUATE" and "THIS WON'T BE OFFERED IN 2016, WHEN YOU MAY WANT TO TAKE THEM, SO IF YOU WANT THEM SIGN UP FOR THEM ON WEDNESDAY MORNING." These classes are Archaeological Methods (which counts for a lab science and possibly also on the Classics minor) and Communications 225 (Media Writing) (I KNOW I'm already taking News Writing, but Media Writing is for all media, so it's going to have a broader spectrum. Also, I should probably have another credit on my journalism minor while I can get one).
I still have to get cleared for class registration, though. My advisor might completely nix everything except the required courses for the English major. I could not get the Archaeology course, so I'd have to scramble to find another science course in order to graduate. I could fail a major course (I HOPE I DON'T FAIL), and I'd need to get some more English courses under my belt in order to graduate with a major on time. Hopefully I don't have to do that. I think I'll be able to do everything on time, simply because it's getting to the crunch time where I can't afford not to do everything right and on time while I still can. There's only a certain number of semesters left in college, and that means I need to get good grades. That also means I need to come to terms with my imminent graduation. Also, that I need to get a job after college, which means that I need to get an English-based internship or something in order to look good on my resume in order to GET a job after college.
You know, I should really stop now before I stress myself out too much. I'm off to go and do my homework reading and graduate on time. And by "On Time," I mean "In Three Semesters." Hopefully.

MORE NANO!

As you are reading this, I am on choir tour! HUZZAH! (I'm actually writing this on Wednesday, because this is when I have time to blog and go to the gym and do laundry and not do my homework and stuff like that).

For today's topic, I'm talking about National Novel Writing Month AGAIN! I know that my novel can't start for another two weeks. If you have been here since last NaNoWriMo season, however, you know that I have to do this NOW. (If you have not been here since the last NaNoWriMo season, let me tell you: I need to start plotting early, because I've been really bad at getting word counts otherwise).
Right now, I have realized that I have a plot mostly in place. I still need to figure out my ending, but I guess that will depend on how I build up to it. If nothing else, I can write an ending for the word count, and then write a new ending if the editing sends the story in another direction. I really do hope the editing does not send the ending in another direction, but I don't know what the ending will be in the first place, so that's irrelevant. But it's not the time to think of endings. I need to think of beginnings, middles, characters, and worlds. For example, I finally figured out what Eva and Galen have to build (if I have not mentioned it before, building this thing is kind of the major goal in the novel, so it's kind of important).
The object in question is called a unicursal hexagram. Basically, it's a six-pointed star that can be drawn in one motion. You can find a good image of what I'm talking about here. It's a really cool magical symbol; part of its importance is that it can be drawn without picking the pen up from the page and that the line crosses over itself in the center. The object that Eva and Galen have to build will be a three-dimensional version of this super-complicated star. I figure that it's difficult enough to require patience and interesting enough to figure into some kind of symbolism. If nothing else, the object can be the item that is requested by the fairy that winds up changing Galen into the dragon in the first place, since there is magical symbolism tied up with it.


I may need to set more goals for NaNoWriMo this year. By "more goals," I don't necessarily mean "write MORE WORDS THAN EVER BEFORE." What I mean is that I should set different kinds of goals. For example, I should try to have my ending be as close to the 50,000 word mark as I can - or, at least, hit my ending in November. I also hereby resolve to have at least one really good pun and to have at least two characters that are not romantically interested in each other (if they're in the same family, it doesn't count as 'not being romantically interested in that person.' Incest is not condoned in this world). If I do that, then I guess I will feel more accomplished about it. Or something. At any rate, I think this year is going to be a good year to WIN NANOWRIMO! HUZZAH!

On Writing

First, a quick computer update: I'm at home, and I can take it into the store tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.
Second, another update: I probably can't post on Friday. I'll try and type one up soon and schedule it for Friday, but keep that in mind. (not that my record for posting on time has been stellar this month, or anything.)

Anyway, this post is titled "On Writing" for a reason. That reason is, first, that the NaNoWriMo website officially relaunched today. HUZZAH! I wrote up a summary for my novel this year and put it into my profile. I finally figured out what my title is going to be. Then I fully internalized that I have two-thirds of October to get my notes together. Now I'm starting to get nervous and wonder where all my character sheets are and WHY I NEVER ACTUALLY WROTE THEM UP. GAH.
Somewhere in all of that, I found time to browse around the NaNoWriMo pep talks. And somewhere in that browsing, I found a pep talk written by Patrick Rothfuss, whose major books include The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear. In this pep talk (which you can read here), he included the following Inviolably True Rule:

1. Yay, Verily. You Must Sit Down and Write.

1a. Thou shalt not go see a movie instead. Or watch reality TV. Thou shalt write. No. Stop. You don’t need to clean out the fridge right now. Neither dost thou need to sort the recycling. I’m not even kidding. Go and write.

1b. Thou shalt not just think about writing. Seriously. That is not writing. The worst unpublished novel of all-time is better than the brilliant idea you have in your head. Why? Because the worst novel ever is written down. That means it’s a book, while your idea is just an idle fancy. My dog used to dream about chasing rabbits; she didn’t write a novel about chasing rabbits. There is a difference.

1c. Thou shalt not read, either. I know it’s book-related, but it’s not actually writing. Yes, even if it’s a book about how to write. Yes, even if you’re doing research. You can research later. Sit. Down. Write.

I proceeded to write most of that down onto an index card, which will be posted on my desk at school as soon as I go back on Tuesday.

This rule is important because of the Major Law of Succeeding at Things: DO THE THING. In order to be good at a thing, you need to do that thing. Thinking about the thing doesn't count. Shopping for materials doesn't count. Using those materials for non-thing-related endeavors doesn't count. None of those will actually help you succeed at the the thing. All the yarn and knitting needles in the world won't make you a good knitter. You're not going to be a star basketball player if your gaming thumbs are the only things getting a workout - not even if they're getting a workout on basketball games. It just doesn't work like that.

In all, I really need to start writing again. It's the best way to success, right?

My apologies and an update

Firstly, my apologies for posting ZERO times last week. My computer decided that its hard drive didn't exist, so I've been working on unfamiliar library computers and generally adapting to computers that aren't my own and connecting to things like Facebook and Blogger through my phone. (Yes, I can access Blogger through my phone, but I've had to use my phone for a lot more now, which tends to run down the battery.) Hopefully I'll be able to sort out my computer soon; if worst comes to worst, fall break is this weekend and I can take it to the Apple store.
Right now, though, my academics are taking precedence. It's weird how something like that works. My computer was kind of a big distraction - after all, there were games, podcasts, music, and an Internet connection in my lap! Who wouldn't get distracted? The sudden deprivation of all of those at once was kind of jarring, but it pointed out where all my lost time was going. At the same time, I really want to be able to get my computer sorted out. It's partly motivated by all the music and other entertainment-based things on there that won't (or can't) go onto my phone, but it's also motivated by preservation. I have photos on there that I haven't put online; there are bits of writing and editing that aren't on flash drives. I'm glad I hand-write my novels, because I still have the notebooks; what I don't have is the typed-up versions that have been already edited. The edited versions often have notes on them - the bits, for example, that are highlighted to remind myself that "THIS IS THE FIRST MENTION OF THIS IMPORTANT DETAIL; MAKE A NOTE OF THIS NUMBER BECAUSE YOU DEFINITELY REFERENCE IT LATER."
Luckily, I do have the handwritten drafts of my novels, which is always important, and I've found other writing on the various flash drives in my backpack. I'm pretty sure I have printed out copies of some of my writing elsewhere, too - though now I'm worrying whether I threw those out in the Great Paper Purge of Summer 2014.
If I had to assign a moral to this story, the moral would be in four parts.
The first part is to back up your files in a place that isn't your computer's hard drive.
The second part would be to back up your files somewhere else. If the first layer is your hard drive and the second layer is something like iCloud or DropBox, get yourself an external hard drive or a flash drive or something. Put everything there, too.
The third part, of course, is to take care of your computer. Make sure your software is up to date - both with the manufacturer and with the antivirus company.
The fourth and final part is to hand write or print out at least one draft of all the files you hold dear, especially with something like writing. This is to have a square one to go back to: if your hard drive gets infected, and DropBox crashes, and someone steals your external hard drive, your super important files will still have at least one copy. It might not have the important updates and the edit with THAT REALLY IMPORTANT REVELATION THAT CHANGES YOUR STORY FOREVER, but it will give you a chance to take a second look at that scene that you considered deleting.

On being backup

It's time for story time with Wild Card!

I have a friend, J, who is going on a first date tonight with a young man whom we shall call D. (This isn't supposed to be a sexual entendre. We're going by first initials here.)

In order to be good friends, I went with another friend, S, to meet D with J. S and I were functioning as a cross between J's parents and her backup mob in case D turned out to be some sort of creeper that made J really uncomfortable.

So we all went to the commons to meet D, and it turned out that D is very nice. He greeted J with a hug and then awkwardly hugged S and me as well. We all hung out for a few minutes to get acquainted with D.

It got to the point where D mentioned that maybe he should have brought a friend too - that was my cue to turn and let J and D do some date-y thing.

I turned to S and proceeded to gently pull her away towards our dorm.

"Wait, no, I haven't threatened him yet!" She protested, pulling out a key.

"S, we don't threaten nice people," I told her, and I started to pull her away again.

"I do!" She said, and I kept pulling her out gently.

When we finally got out of the commons and into the dorm, we grinned at each other. "I liked him," I said. "I liked the exit. We should do that more often."

And that was how S and I became the resident Romantic Partner Screening Committee for our group of friends.

Late post

I'm sorry this post is so late - I lost track of time last night. I'm also running out of topics to blog about.

EXCEPT PLUTARCH. This guy essentially created the biography as a genre and heavily influenced SHAKESPEARE. (Some guy called North translated Plutarch's "Lives," and Shakespeare read it, and then wrote things like "Anthony and Cleopatra.") so that's kind of cool. I feel like I should check out Plutarch in Greek on my own, just to see what the guy's writing style is like. That's probably only going to happen after NaNo, or at least after I get my homework under control.

In other interesting news, I have none. Farewell. 

On the planning of zombie apocalypses

Today in Greek class, we started out talking about Thucydites the historian and ended up discussing a hypothetical zombie apocalypse in Athens.

See, Thucydites survived a plague in Athens and wrote about it in a very clinical way. In class, we decided that this plague was the thing that started the Peloponnesian wars - that Sparta had to wipe out the Athenians in order to stop the zombies. Thucydites recovered from his bout of zombieness in order to write about it. Others, however, were not so lucky. Either Socrates or Plato (I don't recall which) became a full zombie but was cognizant of it, which inspired the quote, "I know that I know nothing."

We also decided that the classmate that came up with the idea is going to write the bestselling novel based on the premise. Our professor is going to adapt it into film, and Samuel L. Jackson is going to play someone important.

This is what we do in class, in case you were wondering.

On NaNoWriMo

So I got my idea for National Novel Writing Month 2014 last week. The plot is basically like Beauty and the Beast, except Beast (actually named Galen) is a former inventor (currently a dragon) and Beauty (here named Eva) only has one arm. Currently, I have about four ideas about how it can end, and I can't decide which of them to use. Two of them involve some sort of dramatic, Disney-style reunion where all sorts out okay, and the other two involve the female lead's memory getting wiped and nothing working out because of it. (At the same time, her memory getting wiped could wind up with a sequel.)
So that's my idea. I'm working on plotting the middle, which is always the hardest part for me. I know how I want the beginning to go. I know that someone in Eva's family is not going to like the fact that she is developing a positive relationship with a dragon. I know that person is going to inevitably react poorly when they find out that Eva is willingly staying with a dragon. I know I don't want Eva to have any magical ability, but I don't know how big a deal that is in her world yet. I do know at least one member of her family will have magic - most likely, that person is the one that reacts poorly to the whole dragon thing. I know Galen is rather self-centered for a while, but I don't know how self-centered and for how long. I don't know whether his human form has magic.
Also, I may have Galen try and make Eva a new arm. But that's only a maybe. After all, it's kind of difficult to build anything wood-based when you're a dragon.

So that's all I have for you right now. What's your favorite fairy tale?

Communication is key

Something that amazes me is the human ability to interpret things. There's a wonderful and hilarious game that shows (in a really bad metaphor) how interpretation can change things depending on what the message is, who is doing the interpreting, and who is receiving it.

Here's a photo:

It starts with "Hitler gets so angry his toupee falls off." Then the person next to me reads the sentence, draws a picture, and folds down the paper so the next person can only see the drawing. The third person writes a sentence based on the drawing and folds it down again; the system repeats with alternate drawings and sentences. Somehow, the last sentence is "Hitler with Antlers' toupee falls off and he calls lightning on people."

though the results are frequently hilarious in this game, it can also show how much you really need to know the facts in order to actually know what is being communicated to you. Though the humor in the game is dependent on misunderstanding someone's artistic ability and/ or penmanship, you need to actually communicate with your peers in order to be effective.

The Return of Classes

One thing never changes about going back to school: the first day is all about getting to know your classes and seeing your friends again. (Of course, in college, it's a lot easier to do the latter earlier than the former.)
Of course, classes in college are different than in high school. The only time my class schedule has been the same from one semester to the next was when I was a freshman, and that's only because the freshmen don't have many options when it comes time to register. This semester is the most imbalanced schedule I've had so far; most semesters, I've had one or two classes on one day and two or three on another. This semester, I have three classes (plus choir) on Monday, no class on Tuesday, four classes on Wednesday, choir on Thursday, and two classes on Friday. Needless to say, Wednesdays are not going to be fun. (I've had good Wednesdays before, but the prospect of those happening this semester are rapidly decreasing).
I'm really excited about the semester, though. I'm doing courses in Shakespeare (commence epic fangirling), Greek Historiography (we're reading Xenophon), Uses of the Bible in Literature (which, as an English course, has more emphasis on the literature and less on the Bible part of it) and Basic News Writing (this is the one that's happening on Wednesdays only. It may be the reason that Wednesdays are terrible, but I don't know yet). I'm also doing choir, which is a lot of fun.

Also, here's an update on THINGS WILD CARD IS READING RIGHT NOW.
As some of you may know, there's a very popular YouTube series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which follows the story of Pride and Prejudice in the form of video blog posts on YouTube. Well, now it's come full circle, and The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, the companion novel to the series, is the book I'm currently reading. It's written diary-style; while you could probably understand the book with some decency if you know the basic plot of Pride and Prejudice, it's definitely a lot easier to take out a few hours to watch the series before you read the book. (I realize that this may be the only time I advise someone to watch before reading, but the vlogs came before the book.) You should all go check it out on Amazon. I may do a proper review of it later.

But, for now, it's time to prepare for a lot of academia.

The Question of Eggs

I recently saw the 1999 chick flick, "Runaway Bride." It's not very thought-provoking, but it definitely works if you're looking for a few hours of humor financed by the wedding industry.

Richard Gere plays a reporter doing a story on Julia Roberts's character, who has run away from three (going on four) weddings. When he's asking her ex-grooms about her, he asks them how she takes her eggs. They all say different things, but almost all end with the words, "just like me." Richard Gere's very serious theory is that nobody should be getting married to someone else if they don't come to an independent conclusion about how to eat their own eggs. This is supposed to be the major insight into Julia Roberts's psychology. 

I don't understand this logic. For one thing, I don't think egg preparation should be telling about someone's personality. For many years, I would only eat scrambled eggs. Then I discovered the omelette bar at school. Now my favorite way is to have a single egg fried so the yolk is hard and put into a whole wheat toast sandwich with buckwheat honey. Maybe I should change one more time just to make sure my Egg Preference Change Score is even with Julia Roberts. Maybe I should act like my friend W, who takes his eggs "cooked." (Since my new favorite kind of egg prep is so specific, I feel like I should adopt this response to the question; I really will take my eggs most ways that will prevent food-borne illness. Also, I never realized buckwheat honey existed until about two weeks ago.)

The other reason the egg question doesn't quite make sense is that it's supposed to be the big revelation about how Julia Roberts is not quite in fine tune with her own preferences - she just goes along with the standard order of her partner. The thing is, you can kind of tell that she's not quite in fine tune with her own preferences if she's had three weddings and zero marriages. That might be indicative of other things as well, but I'm not a psychology major, so I wouldn't know. 

In the end, the question of eggs might be out of place a little, but it's worth pondering for college students with blogs. 

PACKING!!!

Well, as I approach my two-year blogoversary here, I must make a bit of a confession: I haven't spent time to think about my two-year blogoversary here. I've been thinking about packing. I leave for school on Wednesday, and most of today has been dedicated to two things: laundry and packing. The latter is a bit easier now that the former is done, but it wasn't very difficult in the first place. Aside from sorting out what yarn and books to take back to school, most of today has been waiting for my laundry to finish in order to fold it and figure out what to take. (to be fair, I haven't done much of that, either. I still need to take down most of the hanging laundry, which still hasn't dried yet.)

To be honest, packing for stuff is not exactly my strong suit - specifically, packing for college. If it's something like a J-term trip, I've got it handled. Even though this is my third year of college, there's always something I feel like I should have taken or some other thing that I should have left. Of course, by the time I actually get the chance to make the dropoff of the unnecessary goods, I've forgotten which ones I actually want to leave at home.

There's always that risk, though. There's a lot of guesswork - for example, there's the eternal question of "how many pens do I really need?" (I must constantly remind myself that the answer is probably "the amount you already have in your pencil case, Wild Card.") Then there's the frustrating moments after I buy a brand-new notebook or bag of menstrual products, only to realize, far too late, that I definitely had plenty of that product with definitely enough material left to last at least half the semester. (Knowing me, though, I can always find a use for notebooks and menstrual products.)

This is also my first year without baggage of a different kind. I returned from summer school and my boyfriend promptly broke up with me. This is my first term in three years - we'd been dating since I was in high school - where I don't have to coordinate my class schedule with his in order to plan Skype sessions with him. I hope I'll be able to effectively use the extra 30 minutes every week that would have been occupied by talking to him. (In retrospect, if we got to the point where we could Skype for barely 30 minutes once a week, then it might have been the loudest signal that the breakup was going to happen.)

In all, though, it's hard in any situation to pack up one's life, even - maybe especially - for college. Since I'm going to school in-state, it's easy to get into a mentality where it's safe and easy to go home and get more stuff or drop off some stuff. After all, it's a three minute walk and a two hour train ride, and there's guaranteed to be clean underpants at the end of it. At the end of the day, you have to make sure that you've packed in your laundry detergent to clean your own underwear.

Shopping Experiences

I had an interesting school supply shopping experience yesterday.
Okay, I wasn't only looking for notebooks. I was also looking for ingredients for soup and an umbrella (I was not looking for these in the same store, mind. I was looking for the umbrella in the same store that I was looking for school supplies, because it was RAINY and I've known that same exact chain to put out umbrellas when it's rainy).
So I got my ingredients. I went to get school supplies. I found the notebooks and pencils easily enough. I went all over the store looking for an umbrella. Were they by the lawn chairs - perhaps to shade the pale vampires from too much sun? Nope. Were they by the school supplies sale aisle? Despite the fact that there were lunchboxes and mascara wands in that same aisle, there was nothing with which to keep your perfect eyelashes dry.
I eventually gave up and went to the counter to actually purchase the notebooks and pencils. Classes start soon; I need this stuff.
As I was leaving, I glanced to my left. There were the umbrellas, tucked away unobtrusively in a corner of the MAKEUP AREA. On a RAINY DAY.
I was unaware that umbrellas were supposed to make my face prettier. I'll keep that in mind the next time I try to purchase an umbrella.

A Review of Exercise

Exercise is one of those things that I don't like doing, but I like having done. I might not necessarily enjoy "running" up really long hills. It might really suck having to clip my stride to attempt to do it. And don't get me started on non-running exercise - it sucks. I don't really have patience for yoga or ab-specific workouts. (Mind you, it's been a vicious cycle of not liking it so I don't do it, but the only way to like it is to do it). And, of course, I'm also really self-conscious about my abs.
Exercise is necessary. Physical exercise, for sure, but also mental exercise. Memory games and all. Maybe that's why I appreciate the daily crosswords I have access to on the Subway - there's free newspapers in there. (The city provides the free, quick paper by every Subway station I've been to. It's small, and provides short articles and a crossword, a SuDoKu, and a Scrabble thing.)
So, what do I think of exercise as a whole?
It sucks, but do it anyway.

More Harry Potter

The Weasleys are a huge family. There are established interactions: Fred and George are definitely the jokesters; Percy is definitely the uptight academic. It's fairly clear throughout that the twins have potential that they direct towards joking, and few people in the family actually like Percy as a person. Part of me is curious about how the lesser-known Weasleys interact. How does Bill feel about Ginny, since he's the oldest and she's the youngest? Ginny might not have even been around when Bill left for boarding school - how does he view her, as someone who only interacted with his sister on holidays? How often do Charlie and Bill see the rest of the family? What does Charlie think of his sister joining the Quidditch team? How does he feel about Ron being a lousy Keeper in Quidditch? What do they think of Harry and Hermione marrying into the family?

I feel like J.K. Rowling knows all these things, and I would love to know these answers.

On Harry Potter characters

I'm really into audiobooks. Lately, I've been listening to the Harry Potter series again, and it's kind of interesting to go back and relive the experiences. Right now, I'm on book 3 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Since I've read the series multiple times, there may be spoilers in here. You have been warned.

The first two books, I've realized, are very structured within themselves. Each scene drops hints and clues, explicitly or implicitly, about what happens. The Mirror of Erised shows the deepest desire of one's heart, for example. As it turns out, if the Deepest Desire of Your Heart is to get the Philosopher's Stone and do nothing with it (as opposed to make the Elixir of Life, create gold, cause severe head injury to one's enemies, etc), then you can get the stone.
In the third book, however, there are a few more subplots, and I think this is an area where character development shows itself. I know that there are other characters that are far more frustrating, but Ron is really bugging me in Book Three. Admittedly, it's easy to get defensive when a cat seems to be intent on killing your rat in particular (especially if that rat is one of the only things you can call your own), but I feel like he shouldn't have been so annoyed at Hermione over it. I feel like he should have had someone make him take a step back and think about Hermione's feelings. If Hermione Granger, the know-it-all who gets perfect marks in everything, is so disoriented that she misses classes, that should be a heads up. It could be everything from a first period to time travel, but picking on someone in that situation is not going to make it better.
I know characters change over time, and I'm definitely not the person I was at 13 (if only because I have a pixie cut now, as opposed to waist-length hair). I'm starting to see, however, why J.K. Rowling said that Ron and Hermione would have a very tumultuous marriage.

On History

You know those time capsule things that people do sometimes? I think they were popular in the early 2000s. I know my mom had my brother and me put one together when I was around six or seven. We wrapped a Quaker Oats container in a piece of construction paper, drew all over the front, and put things that we liked in there. I don't remember much of what we put inside - I know a Pokemon card was one thing, but I don't remember what else. After we had put stuff in, we put the top back on and put it in a closet. (of course, a week later I wanted my Pokemon card back, so I tried to dig it out of the time capsule and put it back in my binder. I'm not sure where that card is now.)
There's a project I've been working on that has similar implications as a time capsule, but you can't dig it out of the closet and quickly find your Pokemon card. This goes back thirteen years, and the Pokemon card is at the center. (no, I don't start my yarn balls with Pokemon cards).
Yes, I have a ball of yarn scraps that dates back to when I first started working with yarn, when I was around 7. It's now around 28 inches around, not counting the bits and pieces I haven't put onto it yet. It's bigger than my head. It's almost as big as my waist. (It probably will be as big as my waist by the time I'm done with it.) What's great about this, though, is that you have to make an entire project with it in order to peel back the years. It's crazy.
Part of me doesn't want to do anything with it - keep it rolling until I'm an old granny, and then when I have grandkids I'll make each of them a going-off-to-college blanket, because I'll have enough yarn in it by that point. At the same time, I kind of want to start now.
Don't believe it? Here it is:

The beauty of it is that if I have to add more, there are plenty of points where I can stop the main flow of yarn, untie the knots, add in whatever I need to add in, and then keep going. It's a continually growing project.
Of course, the continual growth does affect the time-capsule nature of the project, but if it's a changing project, it needs a changing set of yarn to go with it.
The beauty of making anything with a scraps ball is that nothing is exactly the same. Of course, all the knots lead to a lot of frustration, but the variety of textures adds to the whole experience.

Late Post on Fun Times!!

So I've decided something interesting. And by "interesting," I mean TOTALLY FUN AND AWESOME.
I'm going to go to a show thrown by YouTubers. People who work on YouTube. For a living. (Well, who have it as their primary income). They do other entertainment-based things, too - that's why they're going on tour with a comedy show right now.
This is the first time I'm going to a show like this. I know they exist - I was going to go to a show by Miranda Sings, but then emotions and romantic breakups happened. Instead, I'm going to do the #NOFILTER show, and I'm excited.

I'm also going to try a new thing. I'm going to see if I can actually do two posts a week (maybe even three) and put ads on the blog. It'll be for a bit of a trial run in the beginning, but if it works, I'm going to keep it.

Volunteering Things

There's an interesting thing that I've noticed about going out and doing things and being productive - I feel more accomplished if I'm going out and doing stuff. I've started volunteering at a historical building that's about half an hour away from where I live, but it's still a situation where I have to go out and do something at a specific time. There's a preferred dress code and I'll have to deal with people on a daily basis. I have to do things! I must confer information! I need to make sure people are satisfied in less than half an hour! (That can be construed the wrong way in the wrong context.)

But there's something about going off and doing things that makes the day better. And I like it.

BOOK REVIEW: "The Professor and the Madman" by Scott Westerfield

Right, I know this is really late, but it's not as late as the Hitchhiker's Guide review. I should probably not judge as harshly until something is promised for a full month until it is delivered upon.

Anyway, this is the review of The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Scott Westerfield. Don't be daunted by the title. It's probably the most incomprehensibly rambling part of the book. The book is, indeed, about a bit of murder, a good chunk of insanity, and pretty much entirely about how those two things contribute to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The Madman (also the murderer, but that's not important.... not really, anyway) is Dr. William Chester Minor, an American who served in the Civil War as an army surgeon. The madness led him to delusions, which led him to the unfortunate path of murder and being subsequently locked up in an insane asylum for most of the rest of his life.
The Professor is James Murray, who eventually takes on the project of defining all the words in the English language. Not some of the words. Not the super rare words that are only interesting for people who want to sound smart. Not the remotely vague words for people who need to learn new things. The goal of the project he took one was to locate and define every single word in the English language. This includes regular words, new words, old words, words that are super obscure, and words that came about in 888 AD and were never seen again after 1000 AD. Though the project's editor kept saying, "Oh yes, it'll be done in ten or eleven years," you can see why he had to say that seven times over.
How these two relate is interesting. The professor sent out a general call for assistance; after all, defining every single word ever in the English Language is not something to be taken on alone. Dr. Minor saw the summons and, since he was one of patients that got really nice treatment (he got several rooms, lots of visiting hours, and was allowed to have a whole bunch of books with him), he responded to it. That's the short story, anyway. Read the book for the full story; it's really interesting.

I really liked this book. Westerfield puts the story in a narrative sort of style; he tells this as a story instead of a series of facts. I don't know if this is standard for a history book, but my familiarity is more with textbooks that do the series-of-facts approach. As a cool addition to the narrative, Westerfield starts every chapter with one or two vocabulary words in the form of a dictionary entry; frequently these words (or some action associated with them) show up int the chapter. My new favorite word came from one of these entries - sesquipedalian (it means "polysyllabic" or "loquacious," depending on the context.) I appreciate this book mostly because it contextualizes the massive effort it would have taken to write a dictionary. People don't normally think of dictionaries as being written; they just seem to be there, and then you add words like "selfie" to them, but Shakespeare didn't have any dictionaries to look up new words. (This could be why Shakespeare made up so many new words).

In all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in gaining a new appreciation for the English language and dictionaries as a whole.

Old Friends in New Places

Today I went to a slightly different area from where I live to go check out some possible places to work/ volunteer for the rest of the summer. (If any of you have any ideas, please let me know.) It's not terribly far; only about half an hour by public transportation.
It was a long day. I got a lot of pretty yarn, two new books, an interesting lunch, and a tour of a historical place where I may volunteer later this summer. (Before you get on my back for buying new books, I did finish the book for this week. The review will be on Friday.)
The book shop was the last place I went - it was a spur of the moment sort of thing. I didn't know whether they were hiring. They hadn't posted anything saying they were. This was the first time I'd ever been in that used book shop in my life. I decided it was worth a shot because... well... USED BOOKS! It turned out to be a tiny store cramped with more books than could probably fit in the space. Well, let me rephrase that. Barnes and Noble probably has more books than this place, but this local shop is doing its level best to show how it can make up the difference. It's tiny, it's cramped, and I got two good-looking books for under $10 because USED BOOKS! (I may sell back old books there, actually).
Anyway, they don't need any help around there, but as I was finally heading back to the subway, someone said my name. Turns out it was one of my friends from the Turkey trip. By that, I don't mean he's a kid from my church or a kid from my college. He's from Turkey. He showed us around Istanbul last summer. And he's staying not terribly far away from me for a while during the summer.
It was one of the spectacular moments where I realized that if I hadn't taken the exact amount of time in the book shop that I did - if I hadn't gone into the bookstore at all - then I would have had no idea that he would be anywhere near me. THIS IS CRAZY.

That is my story for today. I hope you like it.

On Emotions and Stuff

Emotions are weird sometimes. Things happen. Big things happen. Little things happen. Sometimes these things can mess up a day/ weekend/ week/ month/ year/ life. (hopefully those last few don't happen. If they do, please seek help). I did have some super-huge emotional things to deal with this weekend (including breakups and engagements happening within 15 hours of each other), so that's the main reason I didn't post on Friday. This is the last week I'll be trying for the three-posts-a-week deal, since that's obviously not working out well.
Hopefully from here until NaNoWriMo, it'll be Monday's Rants and Friday's Book Review. Hopefully. We'll see how this goes.

My apologies for the exceedingly short post.

SUPER LATE IN THE WEEK POST

My apologies for not posting at all this week. I've just been lazy. Also, finals are this week, so this is the time when I say WHAT I LEARNED THIS TERM.

ACADEMIC
1. Show up to class on time.
2. Second-person pronouns are fascinating. Especially in Middle English.
3. The debate about stuff that is condonable by Christianity has been going on forever. In Old English, the debate was whether it was religiously acceptable to translate the Bible into English from Latin. On the plus side, you could reach a lot more people with scripture. On the down side, THE LATIN TEXT IS SACRED, DAMMIT. (Ignoring, of course, that the text under debate was originally in Hebrew and Greek, not Latin).
4. The environment is messed up.
5. Humans most likely caused the environment to be messed up.
6. There's a thing called the Precautionary Principle. It basically states that the lack of scientific certainty that something is messed up should not be an excuse to do absolutely nothing about a possible issue. Alternatively, this means that if there is a possible issue about conservation, opt on the side of caution and do the conserving. It can't really hurt you.
7. People in government should probably take the precautionary principle when thinking about environmental policy.
8. We're all going to die.
9. Linguistics is cool.

The Long-Awaited Review

GUESS WHAT I'M FINALLY REVIEWING TODAY? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

I wish I could say it doesn't normally take me half the summer to read a book that's barely 200 pages long and fairly enjoyable when I do read it, but it's not exactly a rare occurance. That being said, this review is very much going to be based on what I remember of the bits and pieces of the book.

Hitchhiker's Guide is about Arthur Dent, who gets swept away from Earth by his friend Ford Prefect, just before Earth's destruction by aliens trying to build a highway. From there, the two join up with a bunch of crazy characters - Zaphod Beeblebrox the two-headed ex-hippie, his human girlfriend Trillian, Marvin the brilliant but chronically morose robot, and other crazy characters. They travel across the galaxy on the run from the law, riding on an improbable spaceship obtained by illicit means.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK:

1) the humor.

This book is full of wit that's very dry, quite British, and really funny. Often this can point out important things in general. On the first page, the narration notes that most people were unhappy on Earth, and "many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." There are little asides that add humor to the whole thing - page two sets the date as "one Thursday nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be for everyone to be nice to each other for a change..." Also, dolphins and mice are smarter than everyone expects, and the answer to the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything" is 42, after 7.5 million years and the realization that there was not actually a question posited in the first place.

2) Marvin the Robot.

Normally I don't laugh at sad people, but Marvin is the exception. Many of his statements begin with "Brain the size of the planet and they make me do [insert menial task]." My favorite Marvin quote comes near the end - he waited for the Participants in Main Action to come back, so "I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged into [the police ship's] external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the universe to it... And it committed suicide." (214). I know that's very morbid, but that's very much Marvin's personality. (Apparently he's voiced by Alan Rickman in the movie, which I really want to see now.)

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE BOOK:

1) I don't know if it was just the fact that it took me several weeks to read this book, but some of the middle bits weren't very memorable. It's hard to remember exactly which bits I can't remember, but it seemed to drag a bit in some points. 

2) I would have liked a bit more from the actual Hitchhiker's Guide (it's an actual book in the book), since it does loan the novel its title.

In all, though, pretty good book, even though it took me forever to read. Next time, I'm doing The Professor and the Madman.

MORE LANGUAGE GEEKERY

Today, we're discussing PRONOUNS. I'm not going to get into the politics of gender-neutral pronouns; it's late-ish, and I still have to do some reading and wash some underpants. I don't have time to do that topic justice, is what I'm saying.

The pronouns I'm talking about is the pronouns of Second-Person Pronouns in the Renaissance (Shakespeare's time) - specifically, "thee" and "you." Both were used, but in different contexts.

"Thee" was the more derogatory of the two. It was used from superiors to inferiors, as well as when you were insulting someone. That's why Shakespearean insults are so frequently seen as "thou vile wretch" or something like that - the speaker is implying, through pronouns, that the listener is inferior in status to the speaker. Interestingly, "thou" was also used intimately.

"You" is the more polite term. It's used from an inferior to a superior, or a child to a parent. Sometimes nobles would use it in derision to their inferiors to mock and embarrass them. If someone doesn't know someone else's status, they would normally address their partner as "you" until they could get a better gauge of it.

How was this used?

Well, firstly, it's really cool to tell character shifts. In Desdemona's final scene of Othello, she and Othello address each other as "you" for the first portion of the interaction. Othello's decision to actually kill Desdemona can be cited to the line where he starts calling her "thee" and not "you" - an interesting point of derision, yes? Even though Desdemona and Othello are supposed to be life partners and all, I think Shakespeare has them address each other as "you" - and has Desdemona continue to address Othello as such - to highlight two things. Firstly, the pronouns point out that there's something definitely wrong in their relationship - if they were truly intimate life partners, they would be calling each other "thee" (the intimate one) all the time. But they're not. That leads me to the second point - that they're calling each other "you" to highlight Othello's decision shift. He could have come into the situation thinking he could maybe not do this, but he decides to go through with it when he changes his address.

In Romeo and Juliet, for example, Romeo uses "thou" to Juliet in their first meeting, because he's fallen INSTANTLY IN LOVE WITH HER, but she doesn't use the same for him until the balcony scene. In that scene, she uses "thou" as both an intimate term and also one instance of "WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON MY PROPERTY?? THIS IS MY SECRET DIARY MONOLOGUE TIME!" Of course, the first term is more frequently used in that monologue, because this is a thirteen-year-old girl doing Secret Diary Monologue Time; speaking as a former thirteen-year-old girl, the Secret Diary Time was frequently filled with things that went along the lines of "OMG, this is the most EPIC/ WORST/ BEST/ MOST GORGEOUS thing EVERRRRRRR." (There were a lot of superlatives, is what I'm trying to say, and Juliet is probably thinking they're going to be together forever and always. She gets married to a dude at 13 after knowing him for fewer than 100 hours, for crying out loud. If that doesn't say "I think we're going to be together forever," then you need to re-evaluate your concept of a healthy relationship.)

Sooooooo yeah. That's what I've been learning.

My Theories on Phrases

Ever heard the phrase "A picture's worth 1,000 words?" I have a theory regarding the phrase's origin.

My theory is that "a picture is worth 1,000 words" comes from Middle English manuscripts. These are the ones with fancy calligraphy, a fancy-looking letter to start a section of a work, and, frequently, a little drawing to the side of the text (this is called an "illumination"). Each of these things - the calligraphy, the letter, and the illumination - were done separately. Each person commanded a different fee - the calligrapher was paid the least, the letter-drawer was paid a bit more, and the illuminator was paid still more. Because of this, the calligrapher did his work first (and it was almost always a man who did this); the theory went that if the calligrapher knocked over the inkpot, then the mess would only affect the cheap work and not the really nice work, too.

My theory is that the illuminator was paid the same amount for the one illustration as the calligrapher was paid per thousand words. This is, in fact, a theory, and could be completely wrong.

TO RESEARCH!

According to dictionary.com, unfortunately, I am completely wrong. According to the definition given on the website,

"This saying was invented by an advertising executive, Fred R. Barnard. To promote his agency's ads he too out an ad in Printer's Ink in 1921 with the headline "One Look Is Worth a Thousand Words" and attributed it to an ancient Japanese philosopher."

Ah, well. I hope this post was, at least, a bit informative.