A Statement: An Artistic Statement

For my Creative Writing class, we had to write an essay on things we learned this semester, what we liked about writing our novella, etc. Because I love my writing almost as much as I love myself, I wanted to treat you to reading it even before my teacher does. Enjoy.


All my life I've been a story teller. Throughout my formative years, teachers, parents and other adults would call me a liar on occasion, but I never used my gift of gab for selfish gain. Well, practically never. I used to invent stories about wicked dragons and good monsters for friends. I told tales that those creatures were the original residents of our neighborhood and mysterious shapes in rocks and esoteric carvings in trees were remnants of their primordial battles, or records left by storytellers of times past. (This was in Southern California's foothills north of Los Angeles). I came to find out that my friends/ storytelling audience took these tales as fact, and I never corrected them. This was around the time when I was in Kindergarten, and I hope they figured out the tales were fictional by now, although a part of me enjoys indulging in ruminations that I was such a skilled story weaver that they all still somewhat believe. Writing just grew as an extension of my storytelling, a way to remember 'facts' or at least things I said, and a way to cultivate my budding creativity. "We owe it to ourselves to tell stories," said Neil Gaiman. I continued story telling throughout growing up, sometimes reading another wordsmith's writings to a sibling or other child, other times reading my own, or making stories up on the fly, whether about dragons, pirates, giants, the color indigo, popcorn, shoes, Australia or spacemen.


I still tell stories. This semester in creative writing I was assigned to write a twenty thousand word novella (as no doubt you're aware). Rather than stick with something I'm comfortable with, namely humor, or something I'm familiar with, fantasy, I decided to dust off an idea I kept in the shelves of my mind for about three years. So for February and a half I typed up what would become a Western ghost story. My first draft emerged as bloated and unintelligible and pointless, and those are the positive things about it. But, I wrote the tale in about six weeks, an hour a day for about 3 days a week only. Not too bad. Then came the rewrite, and it felt like it took a few more hours and many additional cursings and yelling than the original. It was definitely more difficult, not least of all because I waited until three days before the assignment's due date to begin the rewrite. I knew what I needed to do, but I had never rewritten anything, let alone never written anything of such breadth as this novella. I knew I needed to eliminate one character since he was meant to be a secondary character and exposition giver instead of the one who swoops in like a God in a machine rescuing the "heroes" not once but three times. I knew I needed to make the threat of a evil ghost/vampire/zombie man more immediate and more terrifying, as well as many minor edits to make narrative threads more connected and make more sense. But knowing you need to change something and actually changing are two different things. I can say "I want to write the greatest novella ever written" for example, but that won't write the story for me, any more than saying "I need to quit drinking" can cure alcoholism. Usually, it will just make it that much more daunting. Rewriting was a new thing to me, I've never been good at it. Before rewriting I'm always unsure of where and how to begin, how to tell if what I rewrote was an improvement or just a substitution of one problem for a new one; like putting out a fire and causing a flood. But, like telling made-up stories to believing peers in childhood, once I actually tried, it was possible. Not easy and not as fun as the stories of a two headed dragon whose fiery breath formed the crescent La Crescenta, California took its name from, but I could do it. And I did.

The new draft is about ten times better than the first draft, but it's still not anywhere near where I want it to be. It's not that interesting and the dialogue hardly "pops," if anything, it "plops." As I said before, the story is different than anything I've written. Being deeply attracted to strong opinionated women, (and married to one) I often include several such characters in my stories. But in this story there's only one female character of note, and I'm sure reviewers (if I ever get any) may think I treat her unfairly if not misogynistically, (that's not a word, but you should get what I mean). The story as I mentioned before has little if any humor, whereas a common feature in practically everything I've written is some amount of comedy, whether highbrow dry wit or lowbrow jokes concerning bodily emissions. I'm talking about farts here. It's not the darkest thing I've ever written, probably second or third, and I've never been much of a fan of the Western genre. Exceptions would be the movies Maverick and Blazing Saddles, though to be fair that's more comedy with a Western setting, isn't it?

A Western, to Austin.

So why did I write a western ghost story? I think for the same reason I made up fantastical stories for kindred Kindergartners in my youth: for the challenge. To see if I could do it. Maybe the concept my subconscious conceives is that if I can create a Western story I find interesting when I don't care at all for the genre itself, then writing about things I do care about should be easier than writing a story about sparkling vampires. Similar to running at higher elevation where the air is thinner to make running at sea level a breeze, if the hardest task can be accomplished, what can't? Whether or not writing this Western story has turned out good for me or bad for me, I can only say that the best news is I'm eager already to start writing something else. Not to distance myself from this story, but to get right back and snuggle next to my Muse and keyboard and start plucking out a new tale. Writing and rewriting this story, I haven't lost my love of writing, far from it. I have gained a greater appreciation for creating a cohesive narrative and I've gained confidence that I can at last rewrite. It only took me 29 years of storytelling to go back and correct my mistakes made in the first draft.

Now that I've accomplished the writing goal I've had for several years, that is, learn how to rewrite, I must reflect on new writing goals. Publication? Certainly a nice goal, but I think my level of proficiency will never reach quite the heights I'd like in order to have my work read professionally. I tell myself that if I aim for publication then writing and storytelling will lose much of its magic, so I avoid it for now. I have no reservation having it read or printed, but I do refrain from allowing myself to imagine I'll be a world-renowned writer ever. This is both for ego protection and realism. For my next writing journey, I'd like to write something completely different. Something silly and witty and creepy and immature and philosophical with strong female characters and no attempt to be anything more than a darn good read. But, like the goal to rewrite is different than the act of writing, the desire to write "something" witty and creative is a different animal altogether than actually writing it. However, thanks to this class I am completely up to the task and ready to rewrite my next story before I even write it or know what it will be about. Maybe about a young boy who makes up stories of dragons and monsters in his neighborhood that the other children believe and start coming true. Nah.

Franklin Gothic

For my Typography class, we were assigned to a certain font, write 300 words about it, and make a poster using only typography.

I'm not quite finished but here it is so far:



Those of you interested in learning more about Franklin Gothic or if you would just like a helping of my witty sense of humor, here's the essay I wrote and included in the poster:

Franklin Gothic is a sans-serif modernist typeface created by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902. It was named in honor of the American printer Benjamin Franklin. Hence the Franklin at the beginning. “Gothic” is a term for typefaces which originally meant sans-serif, and is becoming increasingly out-dated. Much like the contemporary Gothic culture.

Types of Franklin Gothic include: Franklin Gothic, Condensed, Extra Condensed, Italic and Condensed Shaded. Types of Franklin Gothic not included: Diet Franklin Gothic or Franklin Death Metal. (Although there is Hot Metal and Cold Metal). Franklin Gothic has been known by many different names such as the imaginative Gothic #1, Gothic #16, Square Gothic Heavy. Variations/copies of Franklin Gothic have been implemented by such companies as Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Star/Photon, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper.

Distinguishing features of Franklin Gothic are such things as (apart from being a bold sans-serif typeface) the double story g and a, the ear of the g (is it not cute?) and the tail of the Q. Franklin Gothic fell out of use around the 1930's, however, with fonts such as Futura and Helvetica, sans-serif fonts like Franklin Gothic experienced a revival and it is still popular today.

Franklin Gothic appears in many places, such as New York University, ROCKY, The Dark Knight, (the movie, not Batman), and Cardiff University. It was once believed to be in the famous opening crawl of Star Wars, but later it was said to be News Gothic. However, News Gothic is based on Franklin Gothic, and Franklin Gothic is still used in the subtitles of the Star Wars Films. Other places you'll find Franklin Gothic are the computer/quiz game You Don't Know Jack, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, section headlines of the N.Y. Times, the Showtime logo, and the Onion magazine's printed publication. In the 1980's, it was used in Nickelodeon's intertitle and in CBS Sports. Finally Franklin Gothic can be found in many places most of us may not have heard of like Frederator Studios, the art of Lawrence Weiner, The PBS Series “The Electric Company,” and many more.

And of course, this poster.

Twenty thousand words- I did it

Roland is celebrating for me.

Draft one of "The Friends of Henry Paris" is complete. Is it genius? Hardly. Is it coherent/cohesive? Occasionally. Did I write every word? You bet your sweet bippy I did.

The longest thing I've ever written and completed, My old record was around 30,000 words but it was only practically the beginning, and was so bad I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

This story I think has a lot of potential, it is very rough and inconsistent, but that's what first drafts are. I'm just grateful it's complete and now it's time for me to start rewriting. Since I've never been very good at revision, I'm hoping this class will do a good job teaching me the technique.

But I did it! I really did it!

For those of you who don't know or forgot or would just love to hear me explain it again, The Friends of Henry Paris is a novella I've been thinking about for something like 3 years now. I've tried writing it as a novel once before and gave up, I tried writing it as a screenplay once before and gave up, I've plotted most of it out several times but found it boring each time. This class made it possible/necessary for me to just plow through it and I did it.

The plot of Henry Paris is a good but not great one, but frankly I'm a bit tired writing it out, if you want to know you can go to glassofrandom and read the synopsis there from 3 years ago, (exactly 3 years ago, in 2 days, to be specific) it suffices me to say it's a Western ghost story/coming of age story/mystery and I don't care what anybody else says I'm proud of it, I wrote it, I did it.

Now to make it coherent...

I DID IT!

I finished my 200 page 1/2 hour a page sketchbook for "Drawing for Illustration." This meant skipping most of work today and only getting about 2 hours of sleep last night (by last night, I mean 9 am-11 am) but I finished it! Now that I'm done with that infernal sketchbook (technically 2 sketchbooks) I don't know what to do with myself. I'm currently at work so sleep is out of the question, (my manager is lenient but sleeping at work is a bit too lenient.) I'm too tired to read much but apparently blogging takes less brain cells because here I am!

I haven't felt this tired in awhile, I was actually mildly hallucinating at one point, and all my dreams involved drawing. It was a great class, I thought it would be my easiest this semester, but it turned out to be the most work, probably more than any other class combined. However, it was also the most rewarding, funny how that works. The only exception is that I don't think I'm going to want to doodle or draw for awhile/a few more years.

My skill has visibly improved over the semester, at least in my opinion. The sketchbooks have been turned in and I can go get them after December 20. (This is me making a mental/bloggal note of when I can pick them up.)

I am sleepy. A part of me is worried (the very small conscious part) that I think I'm typing coherently but when I come back to reading this blog I'll see yhsy o etpyr s;; yjr eptfd eoyj ,u jsmfd pmr lru yp yjr tohjy/

Now I've got another hour and a half of work to do, and a lot of caffeine to drink so I can do it. But HALLELUJAH that notebook is done.

Touchstones

Austin,

We are pleased to inform you that we have accepted your piece "Origin Of A Crazy Cat Lady" for publication in the fall 2010 issue of Touchstones. We would like to invite you to attend My Word, the Touchstones release party, where you may receive your complimentary copy of this issue. My Word is at 7 pm on November 30 in the UVU Student Center, rooms 206 a & b. Congratulations.


Sincerely,

Editor-in-chief,

Touchstones
Website: research.uvu.edu/touchstones

Deciding to Draw

No Nanowrimo for me for 2010. I have 150 more 1/2 hour sketchbook drawings to do before December, so I'm going to spend my spare time doing that instead of writing a story. This will be the first time I've not attempted NaNoWriMo in 3 years.

So, to my writer friends, you have to do Nanowrimo for me. No excuses, unless they're as good as mine.

Writing about Writing

Just wanted to say hi. Hi. Life is good. Our house is such a mess that I have trouble finding places to sit or walk. Partially (mostly) because we have a curious little 1 year old munchkin living off us, partially (mostly) because I haven't been doing my share of the housework lately, which is partially (partially) because I have so much school and work taking up so much time, and partially (mostly) because I have too much fun playing video games.

Now I want to write about writing, Creative Writing, specifically. I really enjoy the class, it's a lesson in humility. I say this because the last creative writing class I took (about 10 years ago) I felt I was among the best, if not the best, writer in the class. Now, ten years later, I feel among the best, there are a lot of very good writers in my class, of which I am one, in my opinion. It's good to mingle and learn with so many other talented writers as well.

The teacher I greatly like, whether or not she likes me, that is to be decided. Several papers she has seemed upset with either my writing or my criticism of some of the required reading, but she also has always made valid points to my writing or feelings. For example, I emphatically did not like one of the required readings, "The Diamond Mine" by Nadine Gordimer. While I realize now I was being arrogant in my assessment that the author is a "third rate Joyce Carol Oates" and the type of story has been "done before and far better than this writer attempts," I felt that the teacher was also unfair in her statement that I need to "get humble" and "being a critic is not your job at this stage of your creative life."

While a valid point, I was just stating that I didn't like a story and gave reasons why I didn't like it. In case you're wondering what the story was about, it depends on who you ask. One person called it a "beautiful story of a young girl's sexual awakening during wartime," I called it "the story of a horny 24 year old soldier heavy petting a 16 year old before he went off to war, while in the car with her parents." But, we can't like everything or please everybody, and I will not change my opinion or feelings, whether or not I'm at that stage in my creative life.

I still admire the teacher and by the end of each class I look forward to the next class.

Another thing to come out of this class is the story of Nick the Thief. If you've read Glass Of Random lately, Nick pops up twice. Basically, he's someone who can't communicate or form relationships with others in a traditional way. So he steals things from them, breaks into their cars and homes, sifts through their trash to try to understand and connect with people. Nick is now featured in 3 exercises, and I enjoy writing about him, as well as a story that's not fantasy. Not that I don't enjoy fantasy, but I've had it pointed out to me before that that's mostly what I write, so it's somewhat liberating to write one story that isn't.

Several facebook friends and otherwise have introduced me to I Write Like. Which is a website where you can enter text that you wrote, and the website will analyze word choice and writing style and tell you what writers you write like.
I've done this several times, with different things I've written. Final census, my fiction is either like J.K. Rowling or Douglas Adams, my blog is usually like Stephen King. This particular entry is apparently like Margaret Atwood. I was hoping for more along the lines of Neil Gaiman or Oscar Wilde, but the Douglas Adams or J.K. Rowling thing ain't that bad.
The interesting thing, someone else has posted writing from various famous authors, and it gave interesting results. I can't find it now, but it was something like "I posted writing from the Declaration of Independence, and it said you write like Edgar Allan Poe. I posted "The Raven" by Poe and it said you write like Shakespeare. I posted the 18th Sonnet by Shakespeare and it said you write like Charles Dickens, etc etc. Which they then stated the obvious, writers don't always write like themselves.

If you wanna check it out, here's the link (I posted it already, but here it is again in case you missed the link to iwl.me) If you do, let me know who you write like.

I write like
Austin

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Self Portrait of a Mirror

I know what you're thinking. "Enough with the self portraits already!" but it was an assignment. And I know what you're thinking again. "Suuuuuure, Austin. An ASSIGNment. You just wanted to look at yourself some more." While true, I assure you, it really is an assignment for my Typography class (class schedule update and life update and Morgan updates coming soon!) tell me what you think. The only rule was be creative and use typography creatively. First I wanted to make a 3D model of myself with the text bending and bulging to make my form. Then I was going to use different shade text where my face was, but the web tutorials I found didn't translate, either the tutorial was incorrect, photoshop didn't look like the tutorial, or my face broke the design. So I just used a story I wrote as background, split my face into 4 colors, deleted the 2 middle grays and added a few quotes from stories or poems I wrote that I'm more or less fond of. The quotes are (I know you're dying to know)

Let your Imagination think for itself!

The world is so much more beautiful when you can't see it properly.

I really do think Cupid has a gun by now.

)Hello(

Revenge is a dish best served with parsley.

Dammit this planet has nothing so grand as lying there whispering and clasping your hand.

Still Alive...

Only very badly burned. No, not really. Just having a full-time job, 9 credit hours, a baby on the way, a book club and now writing group to attend, not to mention a World of Warcraft account, I get busy, things get hectic, and I forsake my poor little blog.

I'll try to keep this short, (ish), at least relatively readable, and post somewhat about the goings on in the life of mine.

Work: I have a love/hate relationship with my job. Some days I love it, some days I hate it. I'm starting to read For Dummies books on Web design, (HTML for dummies and PHP for dummies, etc.) as all my inet knowhow I'm getting from experience, so there are many gaps in my understanding that I'm now trying to fill. We work with a LOT of Graphic Designers, but many of them know embarassingly little about programming or HTML or anything. I'd like to one day BE a Graphic Designer, and so those seem handy skills to have. Also, I can help customers better, which is also good.

School: Taking 3 classes is about 4 times harder than taking 2. I still enjoy all 3 quite a lot. My English class (quick bit of info: I found out my English teacher is the son of LDS Baseball great Dale Murphy). I've yet to get less than an A-, and am looking forward to writing my research paper, something I don't think anyone in the history of ever has said. Photography is good, I'm not very good at it, but the teacher is fun & funny and very enthusiastic about it. I often feel like the "special" kid in class, as all the other class members are professional photographers, in love with photography, and/or very very good at it. When ever someone sees a print of a picture I've taken they very patronizingly say "heeeeeyyyyyy. look at youuuuuuuuu! you're doing so goooooood." Like I just finished eighth place in the special olympics and they want me to feel, well, special. Finally, Human Sexuality is still my favorite. (Insert any number of jokes you want to here.) I'm looking forward to/dreading my presentation in less than a month on Sexual Humor.

Book Club: We still really like our book club, in addition to reading books we'd never before read, we're making new friends as well. This month is "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Haven't read it yet, but I'll let you know. Next month is my book. I've yet to decide what it will be, probably "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as I doubt I'll ever read it otherwise, and it's apparently a good book or something.

Writer's Group: also known as "So you think you can write?" also known as "Better than Bulwer-Lytton," our first meeting is tonight. I'll let you know how it goes, and if it makes me swear off writing forever.

TV: Been watching episodes of Psych and 30 Rock on Netflix, this is the first season we've watched LOST actually on TV, and not on DVD, and of course, American Idol. I'll probably do a post on Idol sometime this week, but now I got to get back to work.

Thanks for remembering me!

Austin! I remember you!

Yes, it's been awhile. Thanks for still loving me. SO, let's get right to it. What was the last thing I talked about. Let's see. The little teaser for my website, uh-huh. The random picture of George Lucas frozen in Carbonite (I don't see Carrie Fisher unfreezing him anytime soon) and the Batman review before that. So, really I haven't had an actual news post since July 28th. How do I live with myself?

Work: Last week I started working at Stores Online. They're a growing company that sells small and medium sized businesses packages, programs and training for their own website. I'll be in Customer Service, talking to the people who need help in something technical or service related. The company is DEVOTED to Customer Service, winning several big awards for their customer service, so that should be cool.

In order for me to provide excellent customer service, they've provided me with my own website so I can learn how to make one, how to market one, and (hopefully) how to profit from one. After some searching, I've decided to make a website for educational video games for the whole family, or educationalfamilygames.com This is my second of three weeks of training, and my website, though less than pretty and functional, is live, as they say. I've already updated and edited it officially 16 times since its launch on August 7, and I expect to do it about 1600 times or so more before I'm happy with it. Right now it's just barely functional enough to take your money and tell me to tell my drop shipper to send you your video games. Eventually I'd like to have reviews, forums, a blog, categories of all the games, about 5 times as many games as I have on there right now (currently around 70).
I've already had 35 unique visitors to the website, which either means I'm getting people from search engines, or everyone who reads my blog checked the link. Either way, that's more than anyone else in training. Hooray for me!

I have other ideas for websites in the future, but I'd like to work on this one and get it more the way I'd like it before moving on.

Car: Tracie talked about it in her blog, so I'll just mention it again. Yes, my car Ella died. About 4 days after I got fired. But, I've complained about that car and that job for so long now that I'm looking at it as a blessing that I don't have to stress or hate about either now. It's also been a blessing that Tracie works from home most days so I can take the car to work.

Writing: We're FINALLY ALMOST done with the Pirate Sketch we're writing for Troy & Jen's activity party thing. We'll put it on Glass of Random soon. Also, I've finally bitten the bullet and jumped the gun and mixed my metaphors and submitted a bunch (about 50) of my old poems to poetry magazines and websites (about 30) around the country. So hopefully I'll get at least ONE printed somewhere besides a High School or College poetry magazine that I also happen to be one of the editors of. I'll keep y'all posted on that too.

Special thanks to my Tracie for staying with me after ANOTHER job change and the death of a car. And to my writing partner and hilarious writer-in-her-own-right and everything she does.

That's about it, come back next time and I'll post some more!

Epic Struggle... to write

I’ve written 22 pages in my writing journal I started. I have 2 more pages to write today, but I thought I’d just blog them. The writing journal so far has been fun, I didn’t write on the weekend, but I wrote every day last week, yesterday and today. (I also wrote 6 pages yesterday, so that makes up for it a little.) So far I’ve just written stories I have no interest in publishing, editing or letting anyone read, except I got one good idea that I’m going to turn into a story someday. I’ve meditated about every day, read at least a few verses of scriptures and haven’t gone on a walk with Tracie for about a week. So, 3⁄4 goals are going well. We’ll get back on that walking one soon, I hope.

School is going well. My collage was well-received, Biology, though early on Saturday, is fun, and is now 1⁄4 over, can’t argue with that!

Work is a roller-coaster. I’ve been enjoying myself more lately, as well as making a bit more money than usual, so that helps as well.

I guess that’s about all I have to say. Well that was a crappy blog entry. This won’t even count as 1⁄2 a page for the goal!

We finished watching Lost Season 3, and started watching Arrested Development Season 2. Quite a bit of a leap, there. We’re also watching the countdown to American Idol’s finale. Wheee! I’m also excited, as we ordered 3 of the CD’s I wanted, (BNL, Degraw, Mraz) that just came out, so my life will have a new soundtrack to accompany its awesomeness. Yup, digging at the bottom of the barrel here. I know I’ve asked in the past, but give me suggestions/requests on what you’d like me to write about! Who knows? I may actually listen! Exciting, I know!

Tracie is always getting after me for writing a blog entry when I have nothing to say, pointing out that I have nothing to say, then having a big huge entry anyway. Yeah, I’m awful. But she loves me.

Well, this didn’t get me very far. Guess I better get back to my story I’m writing in my journal.

Update of Warp & Weave

So, after going to the unveiling/opening/whatever of Warp & Weave I learned 3 things that I will now pass on to you. 1) It's harder than I remember reading your writing in front of other people, they're double judging you. 2) I'm the only writer out of 12 with more than one story in the magazine (there are 13 stories). And 3) You can go to it online here, or you can wait until fall, when they'll print it with the next edition of Warp & Weave. Oh, and my stories are about 1/5 the size of all the other stories. But they're like 5/1 times better. Ask Tracie. Or me.

Ambrosius, turn around or I will never feed you again!

Anyone who can name what movie that quote is from and what character says it, gets a special prize.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm sure you're dying to hear how it was, unless you're McNeil related, because then you already know. It was wonderful. True, it wasn't the most relaxing trip, but it was one of the best.

First of all, I must say Heather, thank you again for opening your home and hearts to us. We really felt very welcome.

The drive there was very nice. Yes, I had to sit in the back seat of a Honda Accord for 12 hours (I thought the trip to Tucson was 7 or 8 hours) but we got to visit with Justin and HayLee, and though my squished legs were in pain, they were kept warm by Mocha, their too cute Shih-Tzu who sat on my lap for a lot of the trip. I am thankful that I didn't have to do one second of driving for the entire trip.

Once we got there, I felt like a rockstar. All of Heather's well behaved and adorable kids greeted us as if we were. Though I was tired, I think I stayed coherent enough to enjoy their company and unpack.

Thanksgiving was as I expected, fun and deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious. Everything was too good, and so I stuffed myself until I had to go lay down.

Our accomodations were very nice. Not private, but nice. I also learned to ask for things when I need them. We had the office as our bedroom, which isn't the best for privacy, and the light was burned out for most of our stay, and there was no door, just a curtain that people seemed to enjoy walking through when you or your wife are changing or are feeling a bit romantic, but what can you expect when a house of normally 6 people is invaded by 9 more people and a curious Shih-tzu? (Heather, I hope you don't think I'm complaining. I really loved our vacation, and am very grateful you let us stay in your beautiful and well-decorated home. I just found it funny the different circumstances and situations we had there. :)) The next day we went on a hike and picnic to Saguaro National Park, which, you guessed it, has lots of Saguaro cacti, it was very pretty and fun, especially once again, the being treated like a rockstar by Leah and Matthew, Heather's two youngest kids. Who, incidentally, probably liked me so much because I frequently carried one or the other throughout the hike. Tracie just told me it's called Sedona Canyon. Oops. Well, I was right about the cacti though. *Heather told me it's called Sabino Canyon. I'm going to compromise and call it Sbarro Canyon. That day we also enjoyed Alan's scrumptious Turkey soup, probably one of the best soups I've ever had.

Like I said, goodbye diet.

Most of the family (Tracie and I excluded) went to see Beowulf, and nobody liked it. Most of everybody hated it. That dampened my desire to see it, though I'd still like to, as Neil Gaiman co wrote the screenplay, and he happens to be my current obsession. I loved Stardust, I just read Neverwhere, and am currently reading Anansi boys. I highly recommend any and all.
While many McNeils moved to the movie, those of us that remained had a lot of fun with Tracie's early Christmas present, the Leadsinger Karaoke. Basically, a microphone you plug into your tv that comes with over 2000 songs, and you can add up to another 1000 on the thing. Lots and lots and lots of fun, that. I also had some quality time with Tracie in the hot tub, which I would highly recommend, but first make sure that Matthew is in the house, not in the hot tub with you. :)

The next day, we went to a swap meet, most of you (if not all of you) that read my blog read Tracie's. We got 2 churros for a dollar, (each) some Shoupies and gel pens for $5 total. Not bad. It was a lot of fun, it made me remember the swap meets I used to go to with my mom when I was little, and I called them swamp meets. (This made sense to me, as the whole place was so scattered and disjointed, it was like a swamp, get it?) we then went to see "Enchanted," which I highly recommend, if you like Disney cartoons and a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

The next day, we drove back, again squished in the back, but Mocha chose to honor Tracie with his cute little self for most of the trip, so I got some (not a lot, but some) writing on my novel done.

All in all, it was great, mostly because I got to visit with the Powells probably the most I ever have, secondly the food. Yes, I'm a pig. I've lost 10 pounds before the thanksgiving holiday, gained 9 back after the thanksgiving holiday. But, I'm still working on it, and hoping that one pound I still don't have will soon get some friends, or lose his friends, depending on how you look at it.

Writing! NaNoWriMo! (National Novel Writing Month) Or should I say WriNoMo? (Write No More). No, I haven't given up, though the deadline IS this friday, I'm hoping to have half my 50,000 words by then. I'll write the other 25K in December.

As tribute to those that promised to mock or support me, I'll tell a little bit what it's about (as of now, in the 18,000 word area). Two adventurers meet, stalking a creature called a manticore. the male adventurer, Aydane, wants it's pelt because it's so valuable, the female adventurer, Talia, wants the creature dead because it's ready to breed. When manticores reproduce, their offspring is in the 10,000's. Why is that bad? Well, imagine a locust, only the locust has the body of a lion, 3 rows of razor-sharp sharklike teeth, the tail of a scorpion, giant, bat-like wings , the face of a very ugly man, and an attitude like a really hungry, cranky, well, locust. Now imagine 15,000 of them. They encounter the manticore, kill it, then encounter it's mate. Only she's about the size of a house. It chases them to a deep ravine, which is only a few feet wide, so they fall down it, getting bruised, but not eaten yet. It turns out, the female is called Jovocchil, and she's one of the Seven legendary parents of all monsters and evil things, and the king's enemy is trying to awaken or free the seven to cause havoc so he can presumably take the throne.

Meanwhile, a group of thieves lost in some caverns previously occupied by orcs discover another member of the Seven, the giant wolf Luvog (all the names are subject to change. The title currently is Aydane, Talia and the Awakening of the Seven, almost certain to change). Luvog eats most of the group, when one summons fire, the monster stops. Only two are still alive. The creature is trapped by a chain that only fire can destroy. (Lame? a little, but i really liked those two characters, so i had to think of a way to keep them alive after they freed the wolf).

Also, the king and his wizard are heading to kill Jovocchil, as it's believed only the sword of the king can slay her. that's about it for now. Tell me what you think if you like it, if you don't, keep it to yourself! My muse is fickle!

That's about all the news I have for now, though I must give a shout out to Lynette. Stay tuned, cuz the best blogger I know is helping me revamp this ugly, ugly blog.

Til next time, Thanks for reading!

NaNoWriMo!

What rolls downstairs, alone or in pairs, rolls over your neighbors dog? It fits on your back, it's great for a snack, it's Blog, Blog, Blog!

Hello happy people!

It's Wednesday, and you better know what that means: Bloggin time!

The big topic I want to talk about is my NaNoWriMo, (remember, National Novel Writing Month) where I've already started 3 novels, but one of them I'm going to keep writing.

My first novel was going to be a fantasy/murder mystery, which I'm still going to write, but I didn't have a good enough grasp of the characters, and I realized I need to do a lot more research before tackling that.

Also, it was boring to write, and so I assumed it would be boring to read. So I scrapped that idea.

My second attempt at a novel is one I will also be writing someday, it's about a kid who is accidentally sent off to space and makes contact with a peaceful alien race. But again, the story needs much more research before I can write it, and the goal is to write as much as possible (50,000 words in a month).

Therefore, I went with what I'm most comfortable with: humor. The story has little plot as yet, as I've only written about half of what I need to for me to be on schedule, (I've written about 4,000 words for this story, I need to be over 8,000) but I'm enjoying writing it, which to me is more than half the point of writing in the first place. The working title is Aydane and Tlee, it's a typical adventure fantasy with a romantic aspect, and a humorous under(and sometimes over-)tone. Like I said, it may not be published, or enjoyed by the reader, but it is being enjoyed by the author, and this exercise of writing a novel in november is mostly a goal for me to see if I can do it, not to see if i can make it good.

That's for December.

I'm also planning on going to a "write in" with nearly 50 of my fellow "NoWri"s tonight, as apparently there's a big competition with the participants here vs those in Salt Lake. NaNoWriMo is actually a pretty big thing, an international thing, and Salt Lake & Utah Valley people find ways to compete and decide who is better in this way too. (Btw, the answer is Utah Valley).

Tracie and I are starting a new exercise and healthy eating regiment, I already FEEL healthier, though it may take me some time to look healthier.

That's about all for now, school is good, I really like my job, (I'm already making about 2 or 3 more per hour than my last job) the people are really friendly and helpful, I believe in what this company does much more than the last one, and they seem to keep their promises to employees and customers, which is important.

Until next week, or, in the odd chance that I feel like writing again before that, adieu.