Happy Advent!

Hoo boy. Long post coming up.

First off: I did not win NaNo. :( 42,618 was the final count.

*A big than you to everybody who commented and supported the frenzied author during the time of need, you're the best!! :) *


The weekend was ghastly. I went for 46 hours without sleep.

My second all-nighter on Sunday night did not go well. I decided to hole up in the pantry because my room doesn't really have a door and my parents would probably have heard the tapping at the keyboard.

The parents did not go to bed til kind of late so I sat up in my room writing notes on paper. Then I snuck downstairs with the utmost furtiveness and ensconced myself in the pantry.
I soon learned that it is very very hard to use a laptop without any other light in the room. I ventured forth in search of a lamp; failed to find one (this was about 1 AM). FInally I absconded with an electric candle-thing which worked passably. I also learned that it is almost impossible to read pencil by the light of the little flashlight I had taped to a baseball cap, miner-like.

Went out to get carrots, cheese and bread, and of course more coffee. I have come to simply loathe coffee, chiefly after the first all-nighter.

I kept banging away at the keyboard, engaged in a lot of sprints and word-wars on the NaNo forums where a small group of nocturnal peeps attempted to up the lagging word-count.

As I gulped down more coffee I had an occasional qualm about how much caffeine one can ingest before effects set in.... o_0

Around 4 AM I was dead, absolutely dead. I think I may have been falling asleep for nanoseconds between words. I believe I was beginning to hallucinate slightly. I left the pantry to go to the bathroom or maybe get some more coffee, I forget which. In the hallway I encountered my mom. She did not see me at first (I was so disoriented that I had turned into the wall believing that the hallway ran the other direction). She did however see the light coming from the pantry which I had failed to turn off. FInally saw me and made me go back to bed.

I got four hours of sleep and faced the next day with renewed energy (sort of). Went through school in a daze. Wrote crazily all Monday.
Around 3:30 that afternoon I had a rather brilliant idea to have another character come into the story. This did not boost the word count as much as could have been hoped however.

I degenerated into having one of my characters reminisce over how she did NaNo one time...got about ten pages out of that...every fifth word might have been spelled right.
Parents made me go to bed at 9:30 or so; truth be told, I was not unwilling, I was exhausted.

The story is maybe 75% complete at this point. I'm fairly happy with it, there were some rather nice scenes and quite a lot of side-splitting humor. I'm fairly attached to my characters. Won't have much time to work on it though :(


Other stuff: Yes, happy Advent! Can't believe it's so close to Christmas! The excitement is filtering through from Kendra, I think :P

Theatre news: I'm likely going to audition for Romeo and Juliet at CHS!!! I'm really excited. Auditions are December 14 and 15, the show is at the end of February. I'd love to have an acting part but I don't know if I can fit it i, I'd really like to do robotics at my dad's school and it's during the same time-window. Might be able to do tech or costuming or something though. I have to memorize some Shakespeare for the audition.

Weather: is awesome. COLD and sunny. It started to frost almost as soon as the sun went down yesterday, and there are rumors of impending snow at the end of the week! I love this weather, I ought to move to Montana or something :)

Hay bales: I had to move a 60-pounder today, and I had the brilliant idea of backing up to the trunk of the car (where it was) and rolling the bale onto my back, holding it by the strings.

Yahoo: I got yahoo IM, me address is bethie_forty_two :)

2012: Shardhana left a comment inquiring my views on 2012....a very thought-provoking subject, hehe. Let's just say I am attending "2013" ;) I don't believe it will be the end of the world, BUT I think there could certainly be unknown repercussions, for one thing I've heard about solar flares picking up then, who knows. I don't know if that could result in some form of EMP which might knock out power/communications, in which case we would be in rather epic trouble.
I'm not worrying about it too much. Would love to see the movie, though! :)

no sleep

Pulled an all-nighter. Was going to go to bed at midnight (did, in fact) but then realized that I was going to be awake for a while anyways, weighed a few more considerations and went for it with a mug of coffee and Eddie.

I was forced to write in the spare bedroom above the kitchen, and in utmost secrecy, lest I fall afoul of a parent, who would doubtless insist on bed.

Got pretty chilly around 5:30. Very foggy, frosty. Not one wink of sleep did I get, but my word count is up to 24,046.

Actually am not suffering much: was able to stay awake in church. However things are striking me as way too funny and I look ghastly.

Please say hi, somebody!!

pretty much insane right now

cAffEine and NaNo....got over 11 hours of sleep last night, went into town with my dad and Eddie (laptop) and got some writing done whilst taking stuff to the recycle, books to the used-book store, Co-op, Staples for a laptop cover and rubber bands and a flash drive.

Have been writing sporadically all day.

word count is over 15 000.

GONNA DO THIS!!!!

around 3 i decided to go for the caffeine.

view my progress here!
cheer me on, kick me, hug me, rub my shoulders which are REallY sore for some reason, comment please!, make my a cup of cyber-coffee, etc.

Friday the 13th

Interesting times :)

I had to rise at an unseemly hour in order to go to this craft show with my mom. I didn't want to go but had to in order to get to class on time. It was in an old grange, filled with middle-aged ladies and holiday crafts. I was outta there in about ten minutes. Went directly to culinary class.

After that I rendezvoused with Dallan [we'd previously arranged all the details] and started walking towards downtown. Fortunately the rain let up for most of the time. Eva had planned to join us but she called in sick alas. It seems like a lot of people were sick about three weeks ago, they all recovered, and now the next batch is ill. I do hope everyone is recovered by the show....

Anyways, we pottered around town for a while. Actually pottered is not really the right term, we walked quite briskly. On the train tracks, sometimes. Hit most of the literary spots in town: library, The Book Bin [used], Borders, Grass Roots which is celebrating their 38th birthday today. Actually the festivities were supposed to pick up around 6, so it should be quite lively over there about now :) Grass Roots is the splendid independent bookstore in town, a local legend.

There was a nasty sticky bit of business involving transportation. But we worked through it and I am glad to be off my feet, we must have walked over a mile.

Let's see. What else is new. C++: yeaahh, it would REALLY help if my programming book were more recent than 1997....lol. Found a good tutorial online at cprogramming.com and got the classic Hello World program to work!!!!! Awesome!!

NaNo: started working on it again! I still loathe my NaNo Stats page though....hehe.

Theatre: our rehearsal on Wednesday was good. We had a certified Awesome Techie on audio. Am still trying to work out the issues of feedback. And the receiver takes 6 AA batteries in its mouth and goes NOMNOMNOM then ooops low battery.

Theatre consumes my every thought. It's getting obsessive. I look at random attic-stuff and say 'OOH! Audio cables!". Today at the craft show I spied a STAGE at one end of the Grange. Small, but serviceable with two entrances and a curtain. Mmm.

And AWWKKH I just remembered that I don't have the music for tomorrow's dance practice....argh....

Today was Talk Like A Brit Day! [heh..as declared by me :) ] I talked posh at intervals, lol.

could you please take a number and wait for the next mood-change?

ooh wow. Meh. Grahgh. Rowr.

Facebook status as of this afternoon: Bethany can't decide whether to be ticked off, happy, satisfied, excited, sad, in the throes of cold wrath, depressed, or what. Welcome to being a teenager. Factor in school, parents, school decisions, and you get something remarkably close to...eh..something. Crud crud crud.

It's been an interesting day. I got up all ready for a nice light school-load and a pleasant day. Tootled around on the computer for too long and got told off by my mom. I diligently applied myself to my studies for the next two hours. Pwned my bio homework through Monday; reviewed for the College Composition test; reviewed biology, took notes, tried to read notes, with limited success; lunched late. Mum came home. I tidied the kitchen, even doing the dishes as a tasty little extra to appease mom who was appeasement-worthy by this time.

Had a conversation about the scholastic plan. I think the worst part of school is trying to decide what to do. The trouble is always with me. I am not self-motivated enough to study and pass lots of CLEP exams [thus relieving the monetary angle of things]. I am going to have a "wasted year". We cannot afford to send me to college without alternative methods such as CLEPs. I am not self-motivated enough....you get the picture. I am spending too long on theatre stuff and Facebook. I would do school if I were told what to do [insert 1000-word discussion on the pros and cons of this, that and the other option. Including stuff that we discussed last year.] Why the dickens would I want to take Spanish I at a high school when I could be getting credit for it at college? I could spend three hours on Facebook if I were allowed to. Well what should I be doing? I did my biology didn't I?

Drat. I'm not trying to berate my mom. I'm sorry for loading this on you all....but then, what else are blogs for. Jest so's you know, this post may or may not be up here very long.

Eh. Biology is going well. Fungus. [Kendra, I will post something on the discussion board SOON! :) ]

Oh drat again. I just remembered some other schoolwork I could have done....

So you don't feel to sorry for me, please note that I did a grand total of about 3 hours of school today. That's a lot more than usual. BUT WHAT THE DICKENS AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING???!

Had thoughts concerning C++, computer programming, and such. I was reading along in a writing manual when I came to a chart of...."WOW! Computer terms, defined! Ohmigoodness! Cool!" Who cares that they're ten years old....bits and bytes. Haha, nothing above a KB was mentioned. Oh, these are the days of 200 gig hard drives...

Made a fire. I <3 style="">

Am reading Great Expectations again. I tried to read it at the tender age of 11, and failed. It's quite good. Now I must just convince my mom to let me finish To Kill a Mockingbird on my own.....

Oh splendid, I get to be busy tomorrow! [In other words, out of the house...] Dance rehearsal, and then off to Eva's for the evening. :)

Woow I hate the telephone. Every time it rings I jump and sweat breaks out and my heartrate speeds up. I don't know why, I'm not waiting for a call or anything.

I am considering participating in NaNoWriMo. Hm. I do have a story started, does that count if I finish it off? I really don't want this story to wind up in Unfinished Stories, much as that blog needs fodder...I'm working on typing it up even as we speak. My tiny handwriting is a major pain to read. I really, really like this story. But it needs m a j o r work. For one thing the hero is being set up with the wrong girl. For another, there is a mystery/thriller aspect which intruded itself, all unwanted, into the plot. For another...oh why spoil it? ;)

Ah. I just looked up the website and found started stories don't count. :( Oh well, I shouldn't have much trouble coming up with something...after all, it's quantity not quality and I do have plenty of that lol.....

I am really really excited!!! :)