Getting My New's Year's Resolutions Done...Near the End of January

So, after having a bit of a rough start, I've decided I will try to start my resolutions. Now, at the very last bits of January. 

Anyway, here's what my resolutions are:

1. Get noticeable progress in KLIYH and OB&H (at least 7 chapters written for each. So 14 chapters in total)
2. Finish at least "Little Pink Book" and Start on "Little Jungle Book".
3. Finish 10 previously started Hey Arnold oneshots (songfics, drabbles, whatever. I have at least 20 in a USB, not counting ideas I have scattered around other notebooks)
4. draw more. Possibly even do a comic.
5. Get back into consistent, disciplined writing (including updating blog posts weekly, and the above)
6. Finish July Challenges
7. Participate in any Hey Arnold contests, starting with the Valentine's Day Contest. (Due Feb 8th)
8. Finish the Gauken Alice Songfics I have mostly completely written (just remembered those Songfics, outside of the HA! Songfics.)

I feel like OB&H's plot and story is finally coming back to me. I'm not really sure how/why, but I won't complain. Lady Knight is stirring and I'm eagerly waiting for her words.

As for KLIYH, I found a draft in my USB so I'm hoping to finish that soon.

WISH ME LUCK!!!!!

~DA1326

Finally Wrote Something!!

Last time on this blog, I talked about how I was having trouble writing something and how I really wanted to get some kind of writing done this Winter Break.

The good news is I finally wrote something! 

However, it wasn't something I was expecting. I was aiming to write either KLIYH or OB&H, but, instead, I wrote a story about Ethan, Ace, and Walter, three brothers who are forced off the land of their parents. Now, I don't know much about these characters, and don't necessarily know what the plot of their story is. 

I know it's not very polished and that the description is in need of serious editing, but, hey, at least I finally WROTE something. I'm hoping to keep the writing up and hopefully have more things to share during my next blog entry.

Anyway, that's it for this entry! I wish everyone a Happy New Year! 2012 was a good year to me, writing wise, as Lyco pointed out. But I have a gut feeling that 2013 has potential to become the best year of my life! >:D 

Until Next Week!

Love,
~DA1326

*Yawns* Time to Update!

Man oh man do I suck at the discipline of writing consistently. Lyco makes it look easy! At least she puts up a temporary post describing why a full update can't be given at the moment! Geez! I suck here! Blogging is a lot more time consuming than I originally thought it was! 

Anyways, now I have weeks! WEEKS! To catch you all up on! So I should probably get started.

OK So last time on DA1326's Blog (haha sounds like an announcer) I left you all off on the fact that my soldier story was to get reviewed the week following my post and would be edited from there. Anyway, here's a brief excerpt of a paper I had to turn in about the editing process that basically describes the entire workshopping process:

On the day I turned my story in to the class, I experienced the true meaning of “fear”. As I saw my story go from desk to desk, my palms began to sweat. I had to wait an entire week for Judgment Day and was at that moment, already expecting the worst critiques possible. Maybe it was because my peers always brutally criticized my work when I was younger. Maybe it was because I felt my story could’ve been better. Maybe it was because I belatedly realized I kept the typo I had about what the boy’s most remembered memory on the bottom of page 10. Whatever it was, I remember shaking out of fear as I got to my apartment.

Although I knew everyone was respectful in previous workshops, I still felt like they would destroy my story. I truly expected one of those cartoon moments where everyone looks at me with their creepy, distorted faces and strike me with daggers of (literal) criticism (I actually had a nightmare of this very phenomenon the night before my workshop day). 

Despite having this nervousness going on the entire day, I willed myself to go to class. I knew I had to face my fear and take every comment seriously; only then would I become a better writer, but this didn't boost my confidence going in either. I was still rather terrified and remembered the hour before the class and how I tried to keep my mind off the matter in order to keep my sanity. 

When it was finally 6pm, I walked shyly into my classroom and tried to remain anonymous until I reached my seat, but, things didn't work out that way. I think I got about three steps into my class before my two friends in that class saw me and called out to me. They were both chiding me, telling me my story was a moving piece and that they loved it. 

Now, you may be asking what I did/said in response. Did I own up to my story and say "thanks for that!" to my friends? Did I excitedly ask with a "what was your favorite part? Did I just answer with a cocky "I know"?

If you guessed any of the previously mentioned answers...you'd be INcorrect. 

My brilliant response was "But I wrote the soldier story". I thought they mistook my story with  another one and had to clarify.

They looked at me confused and replied, "Yeah, we know". At this point, I was sure they were just being nice to me. I thought they were trying to cheer me up; I mean, I had told them I was super nervous to be workshopped. 

But, when my story was up for worshopping, I expected a quick round of "this story sucked because of this this and this." But I didn't get that at all.

I got lots of POSITIVE feedback, which quite literally left my mouth somewhat ajar. I got many compliments from the writers in the class I thought wrote many more times better than myself. They complimented the flashback, the plot, the ending, the dialogue, the description, even the fact that I brought back the train-stamped shoelaces. I did get a few things to fix up, but the vast majority of my peers really enjoyed the story. 

I swear I was walking on sunshine the moment I got out of class. I WALKED home at night, just to think about and soak up every compliment I received. I was a mix of happy and shocked. As I told people that this happened, many told me it was something that was to be expected, because I write well.

Now, the compliments didn't stop at the end of workshop. Part of workshop was getting written responses from your peers about your story. When I got home, I started reading these responses and they got more and more flattering. Someone told me my story had them in tears throughout majority of it. Now that is some serious business! Most others repeated the same things, but few strayed off from what others said. One person said my ending was similar to that of another story, but I honestly don't think I would change the ending; if I did, the story would feel too rushed and unrealistic. I know because I previously tried doing so and failed coming up with something I was proud to call mine. Someone else said they got confused with the flashbacks, however, I somewhat disregarded this response since this person tended to get confused easily. 

All in all, the workshop ended well. And it was a definite confidence booster. So much so that I volunteered to read my story in front of other Writing: Fiction and Writing: Poetry classes.

The re-write, from the excerpt that I read, gained the approval of my classmates easily and the other classes at least responded to the words I spoke. But I still think this story could use some work, so I'm sending it to Lyco for some editing, and we'll see what she says, whenever she gets to it.

As for writing, I haven't gotten into the kick of creativity. It's not that I have no ideas or time; I have plenty of both, actually. I just haven't been able to fully commit to an idea and write it. I mean, 33 HAUNTS my living days and nights with his presence  (I mean that whenever I notice a time it's some hour and 33 minutes. It takes me 3:33 minutes to beat a round of solitare on my phone. Or something costs $33 bucks and some change. Or the change will be 33 cents. It's EVERYWHERE) but he hasn't spoken to me in a while. Hell, Lady Knight has said nothing to me in months, and she doesn't keep quiet about anything! Poetic musings come and go through my mind but never linger long enough for me to grasp (unfortunately) and KLIYH...I don't even know if I should continue it. I know it's loved by many but I'm just not sure where to go next and it's been a while since my last update... 

Which brings me to this blog. I told myself I'd write a story (anything, really) when I updated my blog. Why? Because, although my phone is all cool and techy, it still can't do things like go on livestream channel chats, watch anime on an anime website or update blogger. So I knew updating my blog meant writing on my computer. So hopefully this will inspire me to write (or at least do something somewhat creative).

I hope to have something done soon! I really do! 

Until next time! Have happy and safe holidays! 

Love
~DA1326

PS And by the way...WE SURVIVED THE APOCALYPSE!!!! >:D






 

Finally an Update!!!

I bet you all thought I'd just left the internet for a while! The truth is, I kind of did. You see, I had two midterms this past Friday and tried to restrict my Internet use as much as possible, so I didn't post any blog related things up to be able to study more. But, I finished my last midterm and am free until the 1st of December, when I start studying for finals :'( 

LOL But I thought, since I'm free right now, that I'd update. So let's see what I have to tell you guys.

Firstly, I FINALLY finished that soldier story I was talking about! YES!!!! It gets workshop-ed on Tuesday, so I'm anxiously awaiting the opinion of my peers. I really hope they like it and don't find it too simple. If nothing else, I hope they find the narration consistent. I think that's the thing I'm hoping they like the most; the narration, because I spent so much time trying to make it flow with the story...

I won't know until Tuesday at 8PM, when class is over and my story has been workshop-ed. When I get their comments on my story and finish revising it, and make it really really good, I will post it on Fictionpress and post a link of that story here for you!

Secondly, well, since I'm finally done with midterms, and have Thanksgiving break right around the corner, I am gonna have some free time to indulge in something I have deeply missed. Poetry!!! :D I know I said in my last post that I thought I might get back into poetry soon, but, I was really busy with school, and Presidential club duties. I had to (sadly) put poetry on hold to get some things done. But, since most things are now done, and I have a break coming very very soon, I will FINALLY write poetry and come out of that unintentional hiatus!!! 

The reason why I'm coming out of this hiatus? There's a lot of reasons for it, really. The reason to sum up all reasons is because I'm finding the poetry in everyday life again. I hear it in my music, see it in the cascading autumn leaves, feel it under the chilled handles of buildings during cold days, smell it in the crisp, damp air that remains after a rainstorm, and taste it in the hot chocolate I sip while looking at the water pound by my bedroom window...

^Obviously, I just have a drive to write poetry. I've been dying to write more after midterms because I have a new inspiration, a new muse, if you will. And what kind of poet ignores their muse?

Will I continue the "Little _____ Book" series's? Possibly. In general, I'm just going to write poetry. Depending on what comes out, I'll either use it for that poetry series, use it for a new series, or keep it as an original. 

Either way, I'll be sure to post it here, for you all to read (especially those of you who are desperately waiting for poetry *cough*LycoRogue&Angelblood666*cough* 

I'll also try to work on KLIYH soon. But I make no promises of an update soon, so please don't assume I will update within the week. You've all been warned! :3

Well, I think, writing-wise, that this is all I have to say...Yup, it's been a pretty uneventful pair of weeks when it comes to writing. Whereas other aspects of my life are finally starting to awaken.

Life-wise, I'm a very happy happy person. Writing-wise, I'm even happier. :)

So, in case I can't update for another pair of weeks, I want to take the time to give a shout out to my readers and tell you that I really appreciate you reading this blog and occasionally writing your thoughts! It makes me feel happy whenever someone writes a comment, because it helps me realize that I'm a good writer/poet. And helps me persevere to become a better one. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for listening. I'm really grateful you listen, and I'm really lucky to have people who listen.

Hope anyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving this week has a good one! And I hope everyone has a good time with their families, or even the people they care about. I know I'll have a good time home.

And with that, this update is over :)

~DA1326

Writing (Almost) Accomplishments

As embarrassing as this is, I don't have many things to write about for today, when it comes to writing.

I was going to start my soldier story today, early in the morning up until the wee hours of the night, but, sadly, life had other plans which kept me occupied majority of the morning and part of the afternoon even. 

When I got home from this errand, I'm not going to lie, I ate something and watched a movie. Then, I watched the subs of Sword Art Online (SAO) (my new anime addiction!)

When I finished that, I went on tumblr, as is my usual habit on Saturday and saw this picture. 

D': It was touching enough to remind me that I have a story to write. 

So, now that I have the inspiration to write the story, and the story idea to write, I WILL finish it this weekend, and have it way perfect by the time it gets peer-reviewed. 

Until then, no real update as far as progress in writing. :/ Who knows? I may do another update after I finish a few more pieces of writing :D

Two Weeks Worth of Blogging In One Post @_@

Man, where to start? So much has happened in the past two weeks, both personally and writing-wise, that I'm seriously struggling to figure out where to start.

I guess the best place to start is the conference I went to two weeks ago. I know I already mentioned it earlier in the temporary post, so I won't go into too much detail. Just know that I had fun and that going to this conference has made me feel more energetic and alive than I have been this entire school year. So I tried to bring this enthusiasm to my club, but, there was a bit of resistance from some people. However, I think they've warmed up to the idea, making me all happy ^_^

Now, you may ask how in the heck this conference has anything to do with you and my writing (which is the reason you read my post). Well, on the way to and fro the conference, I had a limited amount of things I could do. Mostly, I had about an hour (if used correctly) with my phone, less than 1 minute on FB every three hours (because my phone has been weird lately, and says it has low battery if I use the internet for two minutes, even if it is fully charged) and about 16 hours of music. 

Guess how I entertained myself? Yup, through music. Now, my awesome friend JiffyFrose, sent me many things as a belated Birthday present.(For those of you that didn't know, my birthday was on September 6th. LycoRogue has offered to write me one story, any story of my choosing, as my present (which I still have yet to "redeem". But I wonder what I'll end up asking her to write for me :3 The person I beta for, AngelBlood666 wrote me two Legend of Zelda/Hey Arnold crossover stories, which were AWESOME. And Chopfe, my buddy, drew me a card, which I love!) 

Anyway, Jiffy sent me a CD she has named my "Super Special Awesome CD". In it, she gave me 19 tracks (because I am 19 years old) of music she either knew I liked, or songs she was sure I would like. And, of course, Gangnam Style was there too. 

So I listened to the songs from the CD she made me via music player for a while. 

There was this one song that I was obsessed with that weekend: it's called Every Heart by BoA. It's a really lovely song and the translation can be found here. 

I listened to this song many many times on my trip back to my college town and even fell asleep while listening to it.

Now, this song, if you read the lyrics in english, is quite poetic. It's pretty and poetic and I just couldn't stop listening to it. So much so that I hear it in my head, even if it's not playing. XD

The reason I bring this up is because, well, lately I'm not really in the mood to write fanfiction (sadly D:) unless its poetry ( :D ) So although I may put KLIYH on the backburner for now, I may continue writing "Little Pink Book" and "Little Blue Book"!!! So that's good news for the people who have been waiting well over a year (oh god. I've lagged writing poetry for almost a YEAR!?) for an update. 

Also, for my Writing: Fiction Class (because, you know, I love that class :D ) we're about to start turning in our original stories to be peer reviewed by 21 other people, while we watch and cannot say anything. I already know I'm probably going to have the most criticized story, because my writing style is weak compared to other writing styles in the class, but I have a problem greater than that. 

WHAT WILL I WRITE FOR SUBMISSION??

I have no idea what the heck I will choose. I have a few ideas, but I can't really decide...

Either way, I'll write them here, and if someone could PLEASE give me a nudge, it would be GREATLY appreciated!

1. The story I talked about a while ago, with the soldier, his son, and the shoelaces. It's one I'm leaning towards, but I have to write the story in 6-12 pages, 12 pt times new roman, double spaced and one inch margins. I don't want to rush the story into the parameters, but, I think this type of story will really show what I'm good at, as a writer, which is writing something tragic, realistic, and slightly angsty. 
2. My second option is writing an excerpt of OB&H, to get feedback on if people would want this story as a book. The problem with that, though, is that no one really knows the plot of the story, and I don't want to write a scene that is important to the story because it won't be seen as important in context. It'll be seen an something part of something longer, therefore making it seem incomplete.
3. My third option is to write something based on that 31 days challenge on LiveJournal. However, I'm not sure how that would come out and plus, it'd have to be original (no fanfiction allowed, sadly), so it might be harder for me to write.

So yeah, there's that. What I AM excited about is that, this year, for Halloween, I am going to read Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber". It's, in essence  Angela Carter's version of Fairy Tales. From the one story of this book that I've read so far, they're dark, with a great voice from the narrator, and it shows that Carter isn't trying to fill her stories with superfluous details, something I greatly appreciate. Me and my roommate ordered the book (because she also likes the story that I read from it) and they both arrived yesterday! So I'm saving it and reading it on Halloween. 

Maybe it'll help me write a belated Hey Arnold Halloween story. You see, there was this Hey Arnold Halloween contest, where the winner would receive a Hey Arnold book signed by Craig Bartlett. The deadline was yesterday and I, unfortunately missed it. Although I had an idea, everytime I set out to write it, I would get three paragraphs into the story then turn off word, because I never started the story good enough. But, it doesn't matter. ^_^ I hope whoever wins the contest has a great time with the book, since they deserved it. Of course, I'm rooting for Lyco and AngelBlood666 the most, but I guess I'm a little biased. I'm also rooting for Chopfe winning the Hey Arnold art contest.

Good Luck guys!!! I hope one of you wins!!!

 

And that's it for me! Whew! Remembering what I did in these past two weeks has been tough (mostly because my mind has been preoccupied on other things) but I promised an update and I hate breaking my promises! 

So Huzzah! :D

~DA1326

Temporary Post from a Sorry but Happy Writer

Soooooooo obviously I didn’t post anything this past Friday night. Which may seem a bit strange to any and all of my readers. Mostly because I’m pretty punctual about updating (yup, all three times prior to this one). But honestly, I was busy this weekend.

Now, as you all know, I usually don’t talk about my personal life unless it affects my writing. Well, this time, as much as I want to keep it on the down-low, I’m gonna share why I couldn’t update until this very moment.

The truth is, I’m president of a club at my school and this club is part of a national organization, split up into six regions. I’m in region VI and this past weekend, all schools in region VI who are part of the national organization were to go to a conference. In Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, I did walk around the strip and see buildings, but I didn’t do much more than that. But I did have to travel all day Friday to get there, and got there around 7:30pm and was in the conference (which, mind you, had started by the time I got there) until around 11:30pm. On Saturday, I was doing conference stuff from 7:45am-7:30pm. After that, we (all the attendees) went to our rooms to get dressed in our “street clothes” and were driven to Fremont. We walked The Strip and got back to our housing location around 11:30pm.

Needless to say, I’ve been really really really busy this weekend, trying to figure out how to make my particular club better with all that I’ve learned in this conference. Today, I set out to travel again and am currently still traveling. But except now, I can access wifi.

Since I’ve been so busy last week, mostly preparing for this trip, and this week, because I have an upcoming midterm and paper, I may not give a cool, writing update ‘til this coming Friday night, when I am liberated. 

Sorry. 

~DA1326