What a Week

So glad it's over. Friday Dalila hit her head and had a dizzy spell for like 30minutes after we came in. Then Sunday she was sick. Monday she seemed to be getting better. Monday night and Tuesday morning I was writing like a fiend, and stayed up until 3:30am writing. Felt sooooooo good. Unfortunately Dalila had another 'bout of the runs, so I spent another 30 minutes cleaning that and her up and wasn't asleep an hour before being woken up by Dalila. She spent all of Tuesday morning vomitting, I couldn't get to the vet until 10:30am and I pretty much was operating on no sleep (not that I'd been sleeping well before Tuesday either). We were so frantic we didn't think to keep her in the kitchen where cleaning would have been easier until like 9am, but once we did I went to lay down for a bit. A bit being like 30 minutes but I managed to grab 10 minutes of sleep. The vet tested for parvo (she's been innoculated against that, but the vet said sometimes they can still get it) which thankfully was negative, it turned out she had a bug. So three different meds later, we went home and I kept her in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon. Not ten minutes after being home she pooped a whole lot of blood. Called the vet again and the receptionist asked the vet about it for me, and he said it would be normal for the next 24 hours. So long as she didn't get lethargic (I had her explain that to me just to make sure I knew what to look for :) ) she would be fine. Thankfully there was no lethargy and by Wednesday she was back to her old self again. Of course then I got a little sick, my wisdoms decided to move which was kind of agonizing - I usually have a pretty good pain tolerance but this had me ready to take a lorazepam or two just so I could sleep through it. I didn't though, and I think I found a dentist I can go to. It's hard when you're not covered by insurance. Also on Tuesday I found out that GACKT's coming to Toronto for TIFF, and I of course can't go. The setup at the venue doesn't allow the public to get near the red carpet, and even in the very unlikely event tickets are avaliable to the public I now haven't got the money for one. So close and yet so far. Ugh.

Some good news though! Cesar Millan is doing a seminar tour, and one of his stops will bring him my way which I think is totally cool! I have no idea if he's bringing any of his dogs, I hope they let him bring Junior though. I say hope because my stupid city has a pit bull ban which I think is by far the stupidest thing in the world. Dogs are work, big dogs are a lot of work and if you aren't prepared to exercise them right you have no business owning one. I'm sick of dogs being penalized for people's stupidity. Anyway, I'm going to try and get tickets to see him, but at the very least I'll be scooping out downtown :D He's the only reason I actually made that step to own a dog. I'd love to thank him for the great tools he gives dog owners and for giving me the confidence to even own a dog.

Wordcount Update

Yay, I passed a milestone! The way I calculate it, if I keep to 7k every day until my deadline I can easily make the 1 million goal. Until then, this is where I stand:

Path of the Hunter - 13,652

The Dragon King - 19,390

A Game of Nobles - 1,000

untitled warlord story - 1,000

untitled historical - 1136

Revenant - 4,056

Redemption - 4,634

untitled dark fantasy - 8,000

Grand Total: 52,868

August Blog Chain - The Colour of Writing

I wasn't sure if I was going to dive into this one, but I like the topic so thought I'd give it a go. Even though the idea is supposed to be a fun topic, it's kind of got me thinking and all insightful and such. Mainly because I've never actually given any thought to what colour my writing would be. If I were to look at it from a story point of view, that would so differ from story to story; Path of the Hunter for example would mostly be a dominant green, with hues of blue or sickly red depending on the scene. Revenant would be a much darker, almost sinister sort of colour with just hints of light. Then there's Redemption, which is fairly colourful but always bright in its colours. My mood kind of changes depending on the story I'm sitting and writing to, I'm of the type who can't work on a certain story if I'm not in the mood for it. I just end up frustrating myself. But if I had to pick based on my writings lately, I'd have to say my writing colour is grey. Not a dull grey, but that stormy grey thunderclouds are. I'd say my whole mindframe can be sort of like a thunderstorm. The darkness varies, and you can never be quite sure just how it's going to turn out. Either really dark with an amazing show as a result, a misleading little shower, nice steady downpour or completely uneventful. Got to love the joys of writing dark fantasy :)

Do be sure to check out the other participants in the awesome blogchain - you might find some new ones to follow!

Aheïla - direct link to her post
Ralph_Pines - direct link to her post
AuburnAssassin - direct link to her post
semmie - direct link to her post
Anarchicq - direct link to her post
CScottMorris - direct link to his post
PASeasholtz - direct link to his post
LadyMage - direct link to her post
orion_mk3 - direct link to his post
DavidZahir - direct link to his post
aimeelaine - direct link to her post
FreshHell - direct link to her post
sbclark - direct link to her post
Bettedra - direct link to her post
Guardian - direct link to her post
M.R.J. Le Blanc - You Are Here
Alpha_Echo
laffarsmith

Growing Momentum

Was feeling very off-kilter yesterday, but the reason why was so worth it. I was up late (as usual), trying to work on this untitled dark fantasy I've got going. I really shouldn’t be, but I don’t want to forget the scene ideas. Usually if I can just get them out of the way, I can return my focus back to the stories I’m working on. So around 3am...I don't know what happened, but I just starting writing. Between then and nearly 5am I managed to belt out just over 2000 words like it was as natural as breathing. Today, another 2k, not quite as easily but easily enough. That is the writer I remember myself being. That is how I spent my Novembers when I first started NaNo, pouring out words like that daily and reaching my word count goal a few days before the end. I wish I knew how I let that slip. Not this year. 5k a day, I’m coming for you. And if it kills me this year I will achieve a 20k word weekend.

Trying to get writing done during the day is getting a little frustrating though. Pup can’t seem to entertain herself for more than a few minutes before she’s whining at me. My brain feels like it’s ready to implode from the sheer frustration. I wonder how many ice cubes it’s going to take to trigger her nap – that would come in handy right now!

A journal I just started following (over on Blogger) had an interesting entry. The author was talking about how she was cheating on her current story with another story. I don’t know why it stood out to me considering it’s something I do all the time. Hmm. Maybe that’s why it stood out to me. I’m a story serial cheater. And I’m pretty lax about that. On one hand that isn’t such a good thing because I’m not focusing on one project at a time, and that sort of affects my discipline. On the other, my big goal for this year is to hit the one million words mark so if I’m inspired to write several thousand on another story, why not go for it you know? Maybe it’s an excuse, but at this point because of how far behind I am I’m in more of a ‘whatever works’ mode than ‘pick one and stick to it’. Maybe once I catch up some and am closer to where I want to be I’ll settle and focus more, but right now it’s the All Words Are Good Words mantra.

I’m going to need a lot more caffeine.

Clothing Love

Just saw these at HolyClothing.com, which I found on FB awhile ago. I'm a fan of the more unique things, which you just can't find in a lot of the stores (and when you can, they're more for the tiny population!) These are some of their newest, and I am in LOVE:


Ariana


Persephone


Roxy


Mona


Alyssa


Meriel

Oh I should stop there, before the wishlist gets any bigger. Have a look if you want something a little different. Judging by the customer pics their stuff looks and fits just perfectly. I so need to do some shopping soon...

Dog Days

I think my summer cold is back. I'll never understand why a winter cold is so much easier to shake, but I'd love to know why. This thing has been off and on since June. Blech.

Despite that, it’s been a beautiful few days. Well, aside from the water being off for about seven hours for repairs on Thursday, but that's been happening so often in this building you hardly notice when you prep for it. The muggy heat is still kicking around, but there has been a gorgeous cool breeze that actually made it pleasant to be outside. Plus mostly clear blue skies with some beautiful sunshine...yes, very lovely day. It was a little easier keeping Dalila out longer, when it's muggy I don't enjoy being out there and she gets too easily overheated, so I limit it to 30 minutes. Less if she's constantly stopping. Today we were out almost an hour mostly waiting on my mom who we ended up missing anyway. She was later than I thought she'd be. Anywho. While walking around the building I came upon this guy who owns a rottweiller wandering around the back grass behind my building. That in itself isn't unusual, there's a few dog owners in the general area who pass through there and so long as they pick up after their animals no one minds. And I've seen him around, and he has by far the best behaved dog out of all the dog owners I see. His dog doesn't pull, doesn't try to wander, doesn't try to go up to people uninvited and is always right beside him.

So we approached and I tried to get Dalila to just walk since she's started a habit of barking her goofy head off at any dog around, and I'd like her to learn that we don't do that. She was good until the rottie saw us and started sort of rearing up and getting all excited. Not aggressively, not all that excitedly but you have to admit, when you're a dog that barely stands 15 inches tall a rottie doing the dog equivalent of 'hey you're another dog! I want to come say hi!' can be a wee bit intimidating. He's a good owner though, made his dog lie down and kind of chuckled at Dalila's barking as I tried to calm her down - it's comforting when you see another owner who kind of 'gets it' and doesn't try to just walk away - and tried to coax her over to see her. Of course he gave me the standard 'oh you don't have to worry about my dog' but I could tell even before we walked up to them that it really was okay. Some owners will give you that line will either being clueless or ignorant that their dog actually is something to be worried about. I didn't realize just how big this rottie is! I stand at about 5'5, 5'6 and the top of his head came to my abdomen. Really friendly dog though, immediately sniffing out the treats in my pocket that I use for Dalila's training. The owner and I chatted a moment, and then we both went our own ways. Naturally when the rottie starts walking away from her, Dalila kind of looks at him like 'where are you going?' If anyone can tell me how to say ‘learn to properly meet dogs and they won’t leave early, silly’ in dog I’d be so grateful.

Quiet Again

Been a bit silent around the old blog, but I have reasons I promise :) Cleaning off the hard drive, as I've been steadily losing disk space especially over the past year. WoW is slowly eating up space on this very old thing, I don't think it's going to take the next expansion very well. There'll be Cataclysm all right - in more ways than one. I'm going to miss vanilla Warcraft though. The only issue I have with the next expansion is that it's going to permanently change the landscape, so there's no going back to the old version if you ever wanted to reminisce. The changes have their perks - new quests, high-level zones brought down to low level zones (and vice versa), the ability to use flying mounts anywhere, previously ignored zones getting new life, and even a heroic Deadmines. Though, you kind of have to be a longtime Alliance player to sort of get why a heroic Deadmines is funny. But anyone who says Blizzard doesn't pay attention to its players needs to go have a look at the Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins! achievement and the story behind that. One player's stupidity becomes a popular achievement. Go figure. Though I learned that Baron Rivendere, the last boss in Stratholme (undead side) is going to be removed permanently from the game upon Cataclysm's release. Probably because something is finally going to happen with that city (I heard that there's a possibility the Plaguelands is going to end up restored to its original state before the plague, which would include Stratholme). On the downside this means his mount will no longer be ingame, and it's hard enough to get as it is. I've killed him 3 times, still haven't seen it in the loot table. Hopefully there's still time. Blizzard's established a sort of tradition of releasing expansions in November, but considering this is now August and Cata is still in beta, a release this November sounds like a bit of a rush. I guess we'll see, and it'll depend on how many issues (if any) show up in the beta.

My daily writing momentum is picking up. I'm getting closer to maintaining 1k a day, which isn't bad. Isn't where I'd like to be, but it's a start. I have to keep that balance of pushing myself, but not pressuring myself. Is that even possible? I don't like pressuring myself because I have a hard time maintaining myself when I stumble while trying to be where I want to be. I have to kind of 'trick' myself psychologically, like I did with my 'resolutions'. I hate using that word, I don't know anyone who's ever kept their New Year's Resolutions all the way through. It's funny how a simple change of words can affect you, and I'm proud to say I'm nearly halfway through my goals/resolutions list. You do what works.

Ah, the culling continues. Maybe I should rename my computer to Stratholme :) A lesson from college, renaming the computer and the admin account. It makes it a little more difficult for hackers to find your system and hack into it, as most count on a generic name and the standard Administrator name to access your system. It isn't 100% foolproof, but it was a layer of security added to many layers. That and good passwords. I always make sure mine are extra-lengthy, anywhere between 19-29 characters. Though I make sure to have a hard copy of all of my passwords near the computer in the event that I forget them (and I often do!)

Really, I did have a title...

I have new hair colour!

I've been a redhead for YEARS, I love being a redhead. But now that I'm growing my hair out red is just going to be too costly to keep up, so I went back to my natural colour. I nearly forgot what that was lol It's dark brown, but it's so dark that it almost looks black (and does in some light). I actually quite like it - hopefully I won't get bored of it anytime soon (like I did with blonde oh-so-long-ago).

Tried to take a pic, but the damn camera won't stay on long enough to do so. Damn cheap batteries.

Samhain has an open call for an anthology they're publishing next spring. I think I'm going to go for it. Max wordcount is 25k, I think I can manage that. Novellas were never my strong suit, but Samhain is one of my dream publishers and it would help any future submissions I make to them. Plus their covers are gorgeous! Deadline is November, so I do have time. I don't want to waste it though, I want plenty of time for edits and hopefully to have a few beta readers look it over.

Just checked the status on my CDJapan order, and it is officially in Canada now! I love tracking numbers. I'm going to hope it'll be delivered today, but considering yesterday was a holiday and the post offices weren't open it might not be until Wednesday. Which is still fine, I'm not going to lose sleep over a day. But if they do what they've done in the past, deliver the notice without having made any attempt to deliver the package I'm heading over to the post outlet and complaining. I don't understand why a delivery person would even do that (or rather not do that), but they've done it to me before. Once I even got the delivery notice with my regular mail - the day after it was 'delivered'. Such bullcrap. At least that day I was able to just walk to the outlet and pick it up, but it still bugged me.

Wordcount Update

Path of the Hunter - 13,652

The Dragon King - 18,668

A Game of Nobles - 588

untitled warlord story - 450

untitled historical - 1,136

Revenant - 1,528

Grand Total: 36,022

Yes, I am woefully behind.