Apocalypse Nigh

Did you guys hear the world is ending? Yeah, if you add up a seemingly arbitrary series of numbers and dates you end up with a sum that vaguely resembles tomorrow's date!
HOLY SHIT.
And I thought the Mayan calendar was a specious connection to the end times.
One question I ask people who believe in the 2012 bullshit again and again and I can never get a reasonable answer: HOW IS IT PEOPLE THAT HAD ENOUGH INSIGHT TO ACCURATELY PREDICT THE END OF THE WORLD COULD NOT FORESEE THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION?
Makes you think-- no it doesn't.
This blog is locked with this message:

My drawings and creative writing are usually public, as are most memes. It's the personal/therapeutic stuff that is locked. If you want to read that too, please comment to be added.

Which I find especially humorous because nothing is locked.
At least, stuff that would definitely fall into the "personal" category is flapping free in the breeze so go fucking figure.

I'm really pretty happy with how this turned out. It's so functional and clean-looking! My first wedding site design was much frillier, but I realized that people will be visiting it to get information, above all else. In this version, you know immediately what you're looking at: it's a site about Jim/Angie's wedding, which will be on 6-30-12 on Orcas Island.

That is next year.
I'm pretty sure the royal fucking wedding had less plan time.

I'm kind of shocked that I pulled this off - I'm usually so bad with deadlines. I got behind on Wednesday, when Eric & co were so intent on having a drinking night. I told him about my self-imposed projects, and he thought it was pretty silly. As you can tell from the ridiculous f-locked post below, I succumbed to peer pressure... and was incredibly sick the next day.

Well I can't tell but I assume someone can.

Anyway, I persevered and finished everything pretty much to my satisfaction. My approach to projects feels very different now. Less stress/anxiety/I-just-want-to-be-sleeping, more focus. Another benefit of therapy?

ANOTHER BENEFIT OF THERAPY? Go fuck yourself, Jesus.

Getting stressed about making a website for your own wedding has to be one of the most banal, self-indulgent, ridiculous things I've ever heard on Livejournal.

If you had to eat the same breakfast everyday for a year (and it would be prepared and served to you), what would you choose?

Just giving you some background for the douchiest response in the world:

Hahaha, I already eat the same thing for breakfast every day. Jim is always teasing me about how simple it is, and meanwhile, I feel incredibly lucky that we can afford to eat this way, not just once in a while but all the time. It's wondrous!

My breakfast: a slice of the rosemary bread from TJ's, a piece of tasty cheese (this changes, but it's often smoked gouda or cheddar), and sliced strawberries. (Okay, sometimes the strawberries do not look good and then I have blueberries or blackberries instead. But you get the idea.) Also, a glass of milk.

I have no idea what smoked gouda is but it gets worse:

I would not change it even if someone else offered to cook for me (though I do enjoy Saturdays, when Jim often lets me sleep in and engages in some cooking alchemy. He usually wakes me up with an egg/potato/cheese concoction which is delicious and sinful, but would not be nearly as good every day of the week).

Something about the phrase "delicious and sinful" seriously sent shivers down my spine.
DOUCHE SHIVERS.
Good grief.

Now here's a post entitled "Hedonism" and my body is ready for a douche seizure.
I sometimes get the sense from my more urban friends that they think people like me - people who want to live on the edges of mountains away from everything - are ascetics of a sort. We are missing out, they say. Maybe for some higher purpose (they are kind and don't evaluate the reward) but certainly at cost.

O ye lives bereft of content to think such thoughts.

And I think, but do not say, that I am the better hedonist. Who cares if you can get a skillfully mixed martini in a stylish bar? Who cares if you can rub your skin against another lonely human? The air smells bad in there. It smells like smoke and sweat. You are neglecting one of your senses, and that is shameful for a hedonist.

I wish there was Warhammer wisdom here but, alas, the writers of Warhammer never considered a steel for such douchebaggery.
Let's check the records, in fact.
"Happiness is a delusion of the weak."
I think that's about as fitting as it gets.

I have to admit, I'm a little embarrassed about this one.

Favorite Cover

It had to be a Glee song. What other choice did I have?

What other choice did you have?
I dunno, any other cover ever?
Or no, let's simplify this:
THIS SONG.

I am beginning to feel many things again. It's like - after you recover a head cold, when the woolly layer of sickness is removed from your tongue, and you take your meals with this sense of wonder. You remember what bitterness is, discover how a seared fish can go down in savory glory, and learn again to love the sweetness of ripe strawberries.

Whatever.
This just really underscores how awesome I am as a writer and how DELUUUUSIONAL everyone else is in my mind.

But what's funny is that I am tasting very little this week, because many of the things I'm feeling are so difficult.

Because when things taste bad you can just opt not to taste at all.
This is where you should check your analogy before it becomes increasingly difficult to follow.
Well anyway that's the first entry so job well done, me.

Let's not update for a week and a half!

Just a fair warning: next Wednesday's forecast isn't looking good for an update, either. Might have to arrange something since I have a few days off this week.
Anyway, here we go.

If you could take an all-expense-paid two-week vacation to anywhere in the world with one friend or partner, where would you go and who would you take?

So many choices.
I could go to Mount Olympus and secretly hope it'd end up what like happened to Lorgar in Warhammer as my faith to the Old Gods grants me augmented powers--
of course Lorgar was already genetically engineered so I guess his already augmented powers were augmented but you get my point.

I would visit Tahiti and take my hubby with me. A french artist landed in Tahiti and taught the islanders his language. To this day they speak the purest form of the french dialect in the world.

>pure
>dialect
All jokes about the Canadian and Southern accent aside there is no "pure strain" of an accent. Compared to Chaucer we all speak bastardized English and compared to the guy who wrote Beowulf we're all crazy.
That said you Canadians really need to learn to talk.

I made a trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday with my husband and son. We were there to exchange the Hermione Granger wand my mom picked up for our son for a Harry Potter wand instead. (She didn't realize they were different.) After successfully exchanging the wand, I couldn't resist wandering over to my favorite section of the store: the Young Adult section.

Let me guess: you fancy yourself a burgeoning author.

I knew I wanted to pick up "Blood Promise" by Richelle Mead. I already have a copy of "Last Sacrifice" but could hardly read it without reading "Blood Promise" first. The Vampire Academy series is one of my favorites so I was antsy to get caught up on it since I've fallen a little behind lately.

So I just finished this Warhammer book called Sons of Dorn and at first I was a little suspicious because I hadn't heard of the author before and I really didn't want my favorite Space Marine chapter ruined but it was pretty good, actually.

I've been feeling the urgency of getting my vampire series out there for quite some time now.

Let's saturate the market further!
Seriously, what's wrong with you people?

So I just read an article about a new company that provides authors a way to digitally sign Ebooks for readers. The technology lets authors sign with a stylus on a tablet like an iPad and then send the page they signed to the reader.

It's called a Wacom tablet. They've been around for a bit, actually.

The page will then be added to the readers Ebook. Apparently, authors can even sign photographs, such as ones taken at signings and meet and greets.

As someone who plans to take advantage of the new digital publishing world, I'm very excited about the prospect of being able to personalize messages for readers in this way.

I'm not meeting fans, I'm not signing their shit-- it's a take it or leave it proposition.

Picking character names is something I love and hate all at once. Sometimes a character has their name from the moment they enter my thoughts, and other times I have to search and search to find the perfect fit.

>Half of all characters I've ever written remain unnamed
Maybe I'm weird?

For instance, Trey was named Trey from the moment I envisioned him. I can't really explain why, it just was. Aurora was a name I searched for and when I read it I just knew it was right.

If I read a book and there's a character named Aurora I'm never finishing it.
At least translate it into another language so I can pretend she's foreign or something.

I experienced this just yesterday when I named a character in the "Blood and Guitars" sequel. I named him Neon, which suits him perfectly.

I'm just going to start naming characters after shit on my desk.
Oh look, it's Swedish Fish. Oh look, it's fucking Pack of Cards.

This will all make sense when you get to read the book and meet him. Until then, I'm off to keep writing it!

How is it I can go like 5 chapters before naming a character and you can't even get started writing without it? It's really not as important as you think.
Oh right, I forgot. I'm not imitating Twilight.

First off, I love Holly Lisle. She's absolutely amazing and inspiring. I'm currently waiting for week 3 of her plot-writing course and I'm chomping at the bit for the next lesson to come. I'm learning so much! I recommend this for anyone who has a hard time finishing what they start when it comes to writing, or to anyone who is new to writing a novel.

How to write a novel for idiots:
1. Make good characters
2. Rest doesn't matter because interesting characters can do boring shit and it's still compelling (nothing at all happens in Catcher in the Rye, for instance, and still it's compelling, while The Scarlet Letter is the dullest thing ever written despite also being about nothing)

Who is your favorite mythical creature/character, and why?

Motherfucking Zeus, man.

Vampires, of course! I think the biggest appeal about a vampire is the fact that they are immortal. They are powerful and secretive, which is enticing in and of itself.

Zeus is immortal and has control of the weather. Also he's crazy as fuck and will kill you.

I've been working on summaries and blurbs for Blood and Guitars since I'm waiting for the book cover to be completed.

Here is the short summary/back of the book blurb:

Oh this will be good.

I never imagined there was something better than thousands of devoted fans screaming out my name. That all changed the night I looked into her poison green eyes.

Before we get into this teenage vampire romance (gender reversal Twilight too, incidentally) I'd like to point out vampires are animated corpses and probably don't smell too compelling.
In fact I seem to distinctly recall a paragraph in Dracula describing Dracula's breath as the miasma of a charnel house. I think any vampire would be picked out pretty quick.
I can't emphasis "animated corpse" enough and any story that handles vampires appropriately they never fit into normal society well because of that.

He shouldn't have been able to make me feel anything, least of all alive. I would be risking everything to be with him. He was human and that was dangerous enough, but for all my moon-given talents I was powerless against him.

There's a weapon in Warhammer, incidentally, that's called an Auto Stakegun.
They use it to kill witches but I image it'd be as effective against the undead.

Since the book is told in 2 first person point of views, so is the summary. I'd love to know what you think. Would this make you want to read more?

You know come to think of it an auto crossbow would be an interesting weapon to use against vampires.
The Chinese had an invention called a Chu Nu Ko that is basically an automatic crossbow that I think would make for a compelling background for a vampire hunter. Vampire kills kid's family, kid goes on a quest like Batman to avenge them, comes back with automatic crossbow and kung fu skills.
Then he goes on an eternal crusade against the undead.
Holy shit my book is awesome and it doesn't even exist.
Everyone should just listen to me for plot ideas.
Oh, and now I've come to the start of this blog.
How convenient.
That really is convenient because I wandered away for about 6 hours to play Dynasty Warriors/watch a bad western/other stuff so I completely forgot what I was talking about. Some cunt who fancies herself a writer? That doesn't really narrow it down.