Whell.

It's 6:15 in the morning and I'm just killing time now, until my shift is over. They put me on night audit after just two training shifts. I hope I didn't eff anything up. The night audit thing was a stupid move on my point. I never think before I talk and it always gets me into a world of trouble.

Anywhom, life right now is pretty good. It's been wonderful, really, this past month, and if it weren't for the fact that I can see the end of the road, when the wonderfulness will disappear, I would still be spending all day every day wearing a huge, dorky grin on my face. But I can see it, and it's been a challange to stop myself from breaking down and/or having an anxiety attack every time I breathe or notice that they sky's blue or something like that.

Enough about that; I'm at work and can't afford a breakdown. Good stuff: right now, the offspring is playing on the radio and it's not being censored, and this channel is one of the ones on the official list of designated radio stations we're allowed to listen to at this time, so if guests come in and complain about the swearing, my hands are clean.

Also good, NaNoWriMo is coming up again and I've to decided to participate this year. I'm going to be completely rewriting a story I've been writing little bits of for... I think a year or more now. Don't worry; it's not cheating. Why? Because I'm going to start from scratch and literally rewrite every single word. NaNo is going to let me survive November. It's going to stop me from breaking down - and at the end of it, I'll have a story so emotional and depressing that publishing houses will be beating down my door. That's my plan, anyway. Obviously, there's nothing up there yet, but if you want to check out my story, Eleven Eleven Wish come November 1, you'll be able to find it here, as well as, probably, FictionPress.net.

I think that's it. I have way too many blogs, and I should probably update some of them.

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

I haven't posted one of these for a while because most of the countries that appear in my FictionPress readers list any more are ones I've heard of. Of course, I've heard of Libya, I just didn't realize that its official name was the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya until I saw that I had a reader there and looked it up. It's a country located in North Africa, which borders the Mediterranean Sea to the North, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the South and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The Libyan flag, which is solid green, is the only national flag in the world with just one colour and no other design.

This Cheers Me Up

Ha ha! On a whim I decided to check my fictionpress traffic. I haven't posted anything since I finished Aigaion Girl, so I was expecting my numbers to be kind of cruddy, but they were actually okay - and I got a new country.

Slovakia is a middle-European country that has been around for ages. It became independent for the second time in 1993 and is doing quite well for itself.

I've got a million to do today, or I would write more. This place does look very interesting. More to follow, eventually.

Royal LePage

Ookie.

So.

Editing. It's coming. It's slow, but it's coming. I'm working of WiliamGodwinizing Moloch, which is taking some doing, but I think is turning out fairly well. I'm almost 45% of the way through editing Moloch. Then I just have... well, every single other character... but I don't think they'll be anywhere near as hard to do, in some ways. I thought Moloch would be the easiest, initially, because I'm changing the way he speaks, not the way he thinks... but changing the way he speaks actually is harder, I think, because I have to do it pretty much one word at a time. Anyway, there's nothing much wrong with the way everyone else thinks, except that their thought processes are too similar, apparently. So I just have to clean that up. I want to be done by the end of the month 'cause I want August to be left for actual content. I think that's realistic. I'm buying myself a copy of this book for my birthday. I don't even care.

Also, I'm pretty much done the cover art. I might rewrite the synopsis, and I'm hoping to find an impartial reviewer, so I can have a quote on the back from someone who's not among my fictionpress readers, just to lend a little more credibility to the thing. Anyway, I'm fairly psyched.

What else. I nearly punched my brother in the head last night because he called me the C word. I showed remarkable restraint, and am kind of wishing I hadn't.

Now, as promised, some reviewiness.
I read Jingo after The Fifth Elephant because I liked the synopsis for Elephant better, but since they're both Terry Pratchett books, they were both amazing, and I probably should have read them in order, just because.

Anyway, Jingo was, as is to be expected, pretty amazing. It had a lot of Vimes, a lot of Carrot and a lot of Vetinary, and you can't go wrong with the three of them. It's a blatant attack of racisim and its causes, as well as media spin and almost everything that's wrong with the modern world, while at the same time, managing to make it acceptable to notice and discuss the differences of various cultures.

Seriously, if you don't read Pratchett, start now. Start yesterday. He's managed to surpass Heinlein as my favourite author, and Good Omens, his colaberation with Neil Gaiman, has almost usurped the throne of my number one favourite (still, barely, Pride and Prejudice). He's beyond amazing.

I've mentioned before that I'm a bigger fan of Pratchett's newer stuff, and Equal Rites is only his third novel. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed it. It was printed in 1987 and has a lot to do with women's rights and other social issues but, as is always the case with Pratchett, the issues are adressed sideways, so you're paying attention to the story, not the message behind it.

The story follows Esk, a young girl, on her journey to become the first female wizard. Wizards in Pratchett's universe are not only chauvanists, but misogynists as well... and everybody, it seems, is of the opinion that there is men's work and women's work, except, of course, Esk, who is too young to understand why this would be the case, and spends a large portion of the book asking really inconvenient questions like, "Why?"

Another good one, anyway. I'm not as huge a fan of Granny Weatherwax and the Ramtops as I am of Vimes and Anhk Morpork, but there you go. Can't have everything, and this was a nice diversion from the big city.

And now... I'm out of Pratchett!!!!! :( Most of the stuff in the house was my sister's and is now packed away in storage or at her boyfriend's house; everything that is still in the house, I've read. I suppose I could reread it, but I want something new. I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of Pratchett for real... I think I'll just die.

Well, this has been fun, but I suppose I should get back to editing now. I have to clean the kitchen tonight, work out, edit some more and pack up for tomorrow, for I'm off to spend the week with my friend Sarah, which should be super fun.

Gimmie a break, gimmie a break, break my off a piece of that KIT-KAT BAR

I've been editing today, and now I feel like taking a break. I'm about 4/5ths of the way through my second editing of one of the characters from Aigaion. It's written in first person from the perspectives of a bunch of characters, so I'm editing one character at a time, so I can stick to one voice. So far, I think it's working pretty well.

I'm having fun with him, because I get to use a thesaurus pretty well constantly, to maintain his weird, old-fashioned, slightly backward way of talking. I love using big, random words that no one has ever heard of and not having it feel unnatural or pretentious, because it fits the story.

This is one of my main characters, and I feel like he needs more page-time, but I don't think he's going to get it. The story could stand to be fleshed out a little bit, but the fleshing out is more in information than events, so it's only going to happen where I can slip it in unnoticed.

Agg, I am SO sleepy. I did get to work out today ♥, so I'm in a fairly good mood.

Hopefully, I'll get my stuff out of random dude's* barn soon, so I'll actually have summer clothes, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to wear my green sundress to Conor's party. Conor is a friend of my brother's who's lived across the street since before we lived in our house, his party is an anual BBQ that I've attended every year for six years, and my green sundress is one that I've owned since I was 12 and almost fit in again. Just to clear that all up.

I have to go home soon and clean the kitchen, but I'm trying not to let that bum me out. Plus, I'm super damn hungry, but hopefully, I can make/ buy something within the next hour or so.

I think that covers everything. I don't really feel like finishing this editing right now, so I guess I'll leave it for tomorrow (or later tonight?). I have to buy some sort of folder to keep all this stuff straight in.

Damn it; now I want a Kit-Kat

*Random dude is the son of a man who was friends with my grandfather, as well as the neighbourhood dowser and the person everyone in the area went to if they wanted a good deal on kitchen appliances. He was cool. I've never met Random Dude.

XD

I never see that as a face. As I mentioned on Devereaux Court, I always just see an X and a D, and in my mind it's a short form for eXciteD. Kind of like how I look at the big E of the Internet Explorer button, and think of it as the Everyone button... because the Internet connects you to everyone.

The reason I'm so eXciteD is simple: I finished my book. I had a very fun day today, the majority of which was spent floating down the river on a hot pink air mattress. I came home, had a two-hour nap, then got up and started writing... and continued writing for nearly four hours, at the end of which, I'd finished Aigaion Girl.

I'll post it on FictionPress tomorrow. Right now, I'm just going to enjoy the happiness that is going to sleep, because two hours is not enough to make up for being woken up by the police hammering on your door (a long story, which I'm graciously making interesting by the omission of any of the pertinant details), plus two or three hours of walking, plus four hours of writing. I is sleepified.

50,000 words!

I made it to 50,000 words!!!!!! Of course, I didn't do it in a month, like you're supposed to for NaNoWriMo, but I did it. 50,000. Eat it, naysayers.

It's Not Technically Its Own Country, But...

Macau is one of the two 'special administrative regions' of China, the other one being Hong Kong. It was the first and last European colony in China, and until 1999 was administered by the Portugese. It's also one of the richest cities in the world. Once again, I'm not really sure how I made it through the last twenty two years without knowing this place existed.

I have a reader there, and from the looks of things, they read almost all of Aigaion Girl in less than a day.

Devereaux Court & Stuff

So, Devereaux Court is doing pretty well. I spent a good chunk of yesterday learning how to split the sidebar into two columns, which I did manage to do. Then I stayed up late writing posting guidelines and stuff.

This evening, I messaged some writers I know and asked them if they would be interested in joining. So far, I've had two takers, which brings our number to four, with several invites still open. I have to say, I'm reasonably excited about this.

I worked out today, obviously. Yesterday I really pushed myself, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't do the same today. It was unbelievably hot and muggy, but that's sort of a lame excuse. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Tonight, I plan to watch House, work on Aigaion Girl and probably teach my dad how to do some basic photo manipulation.

And Another One

I've discovered yet another new country. I realize this kind of makes me sound like some kind of explorer, running around and poking my flag into things, but actually, I haven't left my own country in over a year (with the exception of a brief trip to the US to pick up postage stamps). So, when I say I discovered a country, what I really mean is that I found out about it.

The Republic of Mauritius was entirely foreign to me (see what I did there?) until today. Everyone has heard about Dodos and how they were hunted into extinction within 80 years of the Europeans discovering them, which kind of makes me wonder why I never knew that the island of Mauritius (one of the many islands in the Republic) was the only place they ever lived.

It kind of makes me want to become a geography teacher, so I can force students to learn things about the world they live in - instead of allowing them to dick around colouring in maps with pencil crayons for a credit.

Anywho, this has been another country brought to you by my lovely readers at FictionPress, who never seem to stop supplying me with things to learn and share.

Another Day, Another Chapter, Another Country

I posted another chapter of Aigaion Girl on FictionPress last night. It wasn't the strongest chapter ever, but I seem to be getting decent reviews. Anyway, it boosted my numbers for today.

And I discovered that I have a reader in Estonia - which meant that I had to look up Estonia, to find out what and where it is. It sounds like a very interesting place, one that has been around for ever (at least since 8500 BC), and one that I would very much like to visit.

One of these days, I'm going to have to do a post or two about these countries I'm discovering, not about the fact that I'm discovering them, but about them, themselves.

Until then, I'll just have to keep writing.

Geography

Almost every day, I log on to FictionPress, just to check how many readers I have for each story, from each country, things like that. I'm always excited when my numbers go up, even a little bit, but I find it extra-thrilling to learn I have readers in a country where I haven't before.



Even better than that, though, is finding out I have a new reader in a country I didn't even know existed (I blame our crappy educational system for my complete lack of knowledge in the field of global geography).

I've learnt about four new countries this year: The United Arab Emirates, The Commonweath of the Northern Mariana Islands (which I'm not 100% certain is technically its own country), Slovenia and Moldova.

As ridiculous as it is that I hadn't heard of these places, I'm kind of glad I hadn't. It gives a little bit of wonder back to the world.

Goals

So my February goal of getting more readers on FictionPress each day than I had on the one previous didn't work out so well. Don't get me wrong - I'm still very pleased with my February numbers, but I could have done better.

My March goal, which I hadn't got around to posting yet, was to get over a hundred hits in a single day, which, apparently, I did on Wednesday, so go me.

Also, I'm kind of wondering why I have more readers in Singapore, the UK and Norway than I do in Canada. I'm not complaining, I just find it a little odd. Also, it's 5:30 in the morning and I already have one hit for today. It just makes me so happy ♥~♥

I also put up a new chapter of Aigaion Girl today, which makes me happy. I'd been having trouble getting motivated for that one, so it's nice to finally have it done, and I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

Another Story

I want to write a new story. I have no idea what I want it to be about, but I want it to be new. I don't know why. I have about a million stories already started that I could be working on, plus a folder full of vague story ideas that I could start, but something inside of me is going: No, it has to be new. It's kinda strange.

I've also been in a drawing mood lately. I think it has something to do with the winter; I'm cooped up in the house (especially since I'm still gimping around - although I'm not using my crutches much anymore) with nothing to do. I need a job. Actually, I need my writing to pay. That would be better.

I think that's it for this post. I'm going to go read some other people's stories on Fictionpress and then listen to some music to get the ideas flowing.

It's Official...

I am on the nominees list for the Fiction Press Supernatural Stories Awards! Aigaion Girl was nominated for the Most Memorable Characters and Best Written categories. I'm super excited. I'd be trolling for votes, but the judging process doesn't work like that, so :( But, it gets me more readers, and is overall pretty darn cool.

Valentine's Day & Some Other Stuff

I hate Valentine's Day. Not just because it was designed by Hallmark as a deliberate cash-grab, but more because people actually fall for it.

Basically, if you're not single on Valentine's Day, you're supposed to make sure that that special someone gets as fat and unhealthy as possible - or buy him/her jewelry. If (God forbid!) you are single on Valentine's Day, you're supposed to sit at home alone and be miserable.

Actually, until a few minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that today was Valentine's Day. I was far more interested in yesterday being Friday the 13th, and spent absolutely none of today feeling sorry for myself because I'm single. Actually, I'm kind of glad to be single right now; the land of men has been a vastly disappointing one of late. It's kind of pathetic.

(somewhat off topic)
Also, it has been brought to my attention that my blog needs still more tweaking. Apparently, for people with certain resolutions, my background gets tiled. I knew this was the case, but thought I had made the image wide enough that that wouldn't matter, regardless of resolution settings. I know how to fix it, but sadly, neither my touch pad nor my mouse are good enough to do proper graphic design work with, which means I'll have to go into my mum's office to fix it. At least I finally got rid of those horrid blue boxes that kept showing up around the edges of my images.

Anyway, today actually wasn't a bad day, as random Saturdays go. I got nominated for an award on FictionPress, posted another chapter of Aigaion Girl, wrote a bit and watched Criminal Minds with my family. Now I'm going to have some hot chocolate and probably turn in for the night. Mmm, mm, sleep.

(Additional)
I'm tacking this on to the bottom of this post because I think posting on your blog more than twice a day is unhealthy. Actually, I just like the way the heart picture looks with my flowers, so I want it to stay there another day.

Anywho, I decided to check my traffic on FictionPress, and was extremely glad to find a spike. Go me.If it's a little unclear, the graph goes in date order right to left, so the far left is today.

Fiction Press Supernatural Stories Awards

One of my readers emailed me yesterday and asked if they could nominate Aigaion Girl for an award on FictionPress. I am unbelievably flattered. Also, I'm doing a bit of a happy dance.

Nominations start today, so I'll post links to the various pertinent websites and stuff a little later on. Right now I have to post another chapter.

Feb 4th: V:10H:10
Today: V5H:15

Remembering Code

It turns out that my mad html skills are only mildly irritated. Actually, the html bit is working fine, but my image files are too big, and they take forever to load. Not sure how to fix this without seriously reducing the dpi - they're already saved as .pngs. Also, the background image isn't physically big enough, but if I put it back to its original size, people will be done reading my blog before the page is done loading. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I love my old paper background, but I might have to change it to something a little easier to load.

What else? Oh, right. My memory (I'm not being funny, I actually forgot). I honestly don't know what's wrong with my brain, but it worries me. I'm at the point where if I have two simple tasks in front of me, I try to prioratize because there is a good chance that I will forget to do whichever one I plan to do second. For example, while I was getting ready to leave my apartment the other day, I found myself stuck between brushing my teeth and cleaning my earrings. I brushed my teeth. Then I made it halfway down the stairs before I remembered that I still needed to clean my earrings. I actually forgot in about it in the course of two minutes - which wouldn't be all that bad if I hadn't been actively trying to remember. Ah well. What can you do?

There was one other thing, and now I've forgotten again. Right. My FictionPress stats. At the moment, I think I'm sitting at one reader, one hit for today, but I have another six hours to beat yesterday's numbers (which actually went up from when I posted), so (assuming I remember), there should be another post around midnight.

A Random Fact

FictionPress has this neat little function that lets you see what your readership has been for every day of the month. As of yesterday, I had hundreds of readers spread over many, many countries, but, of course, today being the first day of a new month, I am down to one country and only three readers. My goal for this month is for every day to have more readers than the last. Let's see how I do. Today I have 3 visitors, 6 hits, which means that between three people, six of my posts have been read.

Generally, I like to have more hits than visitors; it means that some of them like my stuff enough to keep reading.

V:7 H:10