…. in my new kimono.

Meanwhile, I’m so behind on NaNo its pathetic :( I’ve been ignoring all my e-mails, SL jobs and RL crap just to try to catch up.  Its full of so much inconsistencies, plot holes and bullshit its starting to look like the Bible.

BUT the story is there.  Its just hard to tie to all together.

At least I’m feeling normal now after Friday’s dental appointment.

So Yesterday’s appointment went as well as you’d expect it to go when you’re watching the dentist putting weird things in your mouth.

It was crown lengthening. So so I’ve got some stitches along the gums of my bottom teeth. I swear this guy that does this is obsessed with perfect teeth and gums :-p

So I slept all day (it was a short appointment I think, just a few hours) and woke up…. I don’t know when. It was still dark. I think it was today. My face is all swollen up and gums are sore (umm duh?) and hurts to eat blahblah. All in all its expected and I feel fine about it. I have to get the stitches out in 2 weeks which means PUTTING OFF EUGENE FOR TWO FUCKING WEEKS! >.<

And I went poking around on SL and got myself a bunny av for my alt…. ZOMG she’s so cute.

AND I’ve been eagerly awaiting Katie’s package ^-^ It should be here very very soon, if it gets here today at all…

On the NaNo front: I’m almost 5,000 words behind! Which wouldn’t panic me so much if I actually know more about what I was writing.

Normally, writing a novel is like walking through a dark cave with a flashlight. You go along with your light pointed ahead of you and you can see some of whats coming. This year, I’m like the retarded OCD jerk (Mr Bean?)… slowly working my way through the cave but my light isn’t pointed ahead, its pointing down and I’m wandering off to the side and poking at rocks and… you get the idea.

Whitepaws keeps joking that I should just write a 50k porn novel.

I’m SO very tempted!

… that Regina Spektor piano song I started teaching myself. I have been playing next to zilch for piano lately but figured I should tinkle a bit here and there. So I fired up that song today. It took a few minutes to figure it all out again. Its pretty cool how it all comes back to you like that :)

man the expression is a very fascinating thing with this song…

p.s. if i didn’t know any better, i’d say the powers-that-be don’t want me to do NaNo. they are denying me my muse, they’re throwing an unexpected dental appointment at me, a trip to eugene and now, of all things, my right thumb is killing me (from piano, it seems). so to you, powers-that-be, i give a big FUCK YOU!

told ya ;-)

Its weird.  I opened my book to work on the doodle and found the page to be almost completely blank, and some really ugly stupid stuff on the opposing page O.o  So I doodled out most of what I thought I had and did a little trail to the opposing page which isn’t as sad and bad-weird as I thought it was.

This was doodled in the book I originally was going to do something else with, thus all of the pages are purple.  It really makes the whole book really cozy and stuff… I have pics of that in older posts.  Somewhere.  *is lazy*

Other than that, I need to start trying to decide what in the world to pack for staying in Eugene.  Looks like I might be haeding out there this week or next.  If my mom had her way I would have been there, like yesterday :-p

Since there won’t be much space there for my crap I’ll prolly end up with just some clothes, my book, journal, oodles of pens… the laptop.  That’s prolly it.  I’ll be completely cut off from all my junk! :-p

Ohhh yeah I prolly bring my jewelry makin’ goodies since it packs away easily and my crappy acrylic socks I’m knitting.

Okay that’s it I hope :-p

I swear I’ve done NaNo tips before.  I’m not going to look before I write it though.  I want to see how my tips differ, year to year ^-^

I think this is my 5th year doing this.  I won the previous four years and though this year’s novel is one weighty bitch, I know it’ll be my 5th win.

So these are tips that I can think of off hand for word count or otherwise.  I hope they’re useful for you.  At least give them a try.  Let me know what you think.

So welcome to Xeen’s School of Tough Love: NaNo Edition!

1. You have to want it.  Don’t do it if you don’t want to.  It’ll be harder and no fun.

2. Write it out.  Don’t be afraid to write your novel on paper and then type it up.  You can write it out during the day, type it out at night.  This is good for word count because as you’re typing you can add things because you’re rereading it and new things ideas, characters, scenes will spark.

3. You have the time.  I have seen some amazing finishes by people highly pressed for time and energy.  See number 2.  That helps for that too.

4. Do the Time Warp.  If you get stuck, make some sort of line break thing or note and move on to the nearest scene you can write for.  When you get stuck again, browse back to a previously stuck point and see what you can do.  Sometimes scenes just remain unfinished but its quick and easy word count when you go back to something, you get an idea, and it comes spilling out.  This is my yummiest way of getting it done.

5. Just do it! While I do not have my inner editor turned off, some of you may need to do so.

6. Write Write Write.  Write as much as you can at every chance you get.  Even if you sit there for an hour staring blankly… don’t leave that chair unless you have to.  Milk your brain for everything you can get.  Its in you, I know it is.

7. Be ahead.  When you start out, try to get ahead of the game by a day or more.  If something comes up in real life, you’ll have a buffer zone to fall back on.  You are absolutely not allowed to use this buffer zone as a means to rest.  There’s no rest for the novelist.

8. Listen to your ‘Stinks.  This isn’t really for word count or whatnot, maybe just a writing thing in general and it kind of goes hand in hand with Time Warp.  If you have to skip a scene because you’re stuck and you’re worried about writing a scene later on because you don’t know what happened in a previous scene… just listen to your instincts.  Things will work out in ways that will amaze and entertain you.  Let your ’stinks guide your writing.  It will come more naturally and feel less like a struggle.

So its not news that I’m hooked to Second Life. But why am I hooked?

Because I can get a god damn fucking job! Because I can make money, because I can buy things, because I can get a house, property and pay for it. Because I can dance and have fun. Because I can make clothes and stuffs.  I can do photography.

So I want to show off my current look to those who care. Yes I have a million furry avatars (I’m really hooked to my tigress right now), but I’m focusing on my human here for this particular moment.

I’ve had all sorts of shapes and hair and skins on SL. I have been using the same skin for awhile (XP Marisa) along with the tall model shape that came with it. But somewhere along the line I got really sick and tired of having a million different hairs. For those that know me you’ll prolly think I’m out of my mind. I LIVE for change, right?

Well yeah.

But this is what happened… I found a hair, Entice by Bish. Its expensive hair. 200L for one color. I really fell in love with the hair (other fav was Emily II from Calico). I ended up with Entice in… I dunno, four colors? I noticed I was using black the most.

Then somewhere I picked up a shape that came with a free skin (the later will be fab for a goth/vamp look). The face of this new shape looks really doll-like. The body was not the typical tall, skinny girl. That was just awesome to me. Then I decided to shrink the belly and butt a little and give her some boobs (normally my SL rock isn’t that impressive).

After having that for a couple days I decided to try my AnthroXtacy tiger shape with the face that I liked so much. It took awhile but I transfered the face to the tiger shape for use with humans. Its a nice, short, muscular body. Its not perfect but its not exactly average.

So I went and put my black Entice hair on this body and fell in love. Her face even looks better with a face light on. (which I can’t see on my puter so I only look pretty on Whitepaw’s puter). I went and took alllll my human outfits, replaced all the shapes and hairs with my creation and the Entice hair. There is no more random oddness now. I feel more collected and “real” on Second Life now. So then I put the shape and hair on my Aventity black fox, love it. Looks good on my AX purple house cat. The hair… I dunno if I like it on my gray and black tiger. I’m not particularly fond of my Prototypical anthro… thing… anymore so I haven’t tried the shape and hair on her.

But here is my new look, me all bound up and being a sub:

I’m totally in love with that harness outfit thing and the boots are to DIE for.

And, one more pic to prove that I’m not an SL slut (its true, I have never had cyber sex!):

I have a huge thing for witches.

Anyway, the outfit is from Bare Rose (which is da bomb).  The shoes are from an RMC sexxy ravenclaw outfit I bought (and LOVE).  The broom is from a place called Illusions… I think.  They specialize in masks but that broom kicks ass.  And you can’t see my wand but its smexy and from Wyvernclaw.

Yes, my cape is in the floor.

Oh, and here is my mom modeling a dress I made (short and long skirt option).

Yes, I am totally stoked about making stuff in SL.  I want to do clothes and buildings.  I have a ton of stuff I wanna get to help with the clothes :-p  And sculpty furniture.  I have a ton of textures now, more would be really nice, but there’s some awesome stuff out there for clothes making.  I have some nice templates, there’s one more I want (for upper) and a skirt kit and there’s some sculpty bits I want to get.

Oh, I SO want to make some fancy hats, especially witch hats! I don’t know why but I can see myself totally going crazy and having fun with that.

BTW, isn’t my mom pretty? Oh yeah in SL she is too :-p

If anybody has any interest whatsoever in finding any of the items you see here, I’ll look ‘em up.  I’ll try to be better about it from now on.

Yessir. I’m doing it -again-. Both Whitepaws’ and my 5th year.

I’m kicking it off with an unhealthy dose of severe female cramping and MUSE! Yes, you -must- listen to Muse when you do NaNo, and for writing and for everyday life needs.

I am picking up where my last NaNo left off, which was actually the end of Rayna’s Story (nice title, eh?). It was technically four books but I’m calling it three.

So this new series is Zander’s story. Same timeline, same characters, lots of the same stuff going on. Its just that things have shifted. Rayna got what she needed (hahahaha… you’ll have to read it hehe) so its Zander’s turn now.

And on that note, I realized the other day that the song on Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations album that I thought was an Blacktail to Captain song is actually Zander to Rayna song. Its even going to be a wee bit narrative to whats going to happen in this series and or book of his. This song is so brilliantly perfect for them and whats coming up that I hate myself for not seeing it before!

Here’s the lyrics. Read ‘em and weep:

Muse - Invincible

Follow through
Make your dreams come true
Don’t give up the fight
You will be all right
Cause there’s no one like you
In the universe

And during the struggle
They will pull us down
Please, please let’s use this chance to
Turn things around
And tonight we can truly say
Together we’re invincible

BTW Katie, I miss talking with you. Why’d you let me turn into a bum? :-p

… to tell you the truth i was feeling like shit.
i remembered you (not that i had forgotten)
and doodled a million little hearts.
they somehow magically represent my feelings for you
in a basic, primal way.

then i drew cute little box houses all on a hill.
in my little world maybe we live together in one of them.
your pick.

or i’ll let you doodle your own.

do you love me back?

[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Maybe

Music

… because if we could have crawled into each other at inception,
don’t you think my world, our creation, could have been better?

… because at the end of the day,
we can do our business in front of each other.

I don’t know… you tell me!

Playing Second Life, that’s about it.  No Suziblu, no Stewart and Colbert, no writing, knitting, crocheting… not even any sunlight.  No painting, no stamping no caring.  No shit.

Though I have been busily trying to plan what to do for NaNoWriMo this year.  I really want to write about somebody else’s story on Q’lanth but I have a feeling I’ll just be starting the next story, leaving off where I left off with Rayna… poor Rayna.

…. poor Zander O.o

I’ll try to start giving a shit…. stupid blahs :(