Yesterday, the Punmaster attacked her Word document and added 3001 words to SF. Yes, that one extra word was important. It was... "bleeding", actually. Miss Laura and Miss Katie, stop squinting at me. It's not what you think... this time, at least. *eyes wander up to ceiling*
Word count for Sven: 6652. Divide that by 5, and that's ~1330 per day. Yes, I know I'm behind by 170 words/day. Yes, I have excuses. No, I'm not going to give them. So there! Ha.
Page count total (because word counts are so vague): 138!
And now my awesome word meter. Lookit! I'm almost halfway there! *dances with joy* Root beer all around!
One of the most precious gifts you can give a child is music, specifically hymns. Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada believe that so strongly that they put together a book of their favorite songs, along with the stories behind them. Bobbie tells the stories and Joni gives a personal story about it. They have also chosen a Bible verse to go with each song and wrote a prayer.
You'll find old favorites (A Mighty Fortress is Our God, This is My Father's World, Amazing Grace, How Firm a Foundation, etc.) and maybe even a few you didn't know. This idea does not apply to Miss Laura or Miss Katie, who (I am convinced) know every hymn ever written.
You can learn the songs you aren't familiar with, too! The book has music included so (if you're unlike me and actually know how to play an instrument) you can play it yourself. Or if you're like me and can't tell one note from another on the piano (although you're fairly sure you can find middle C if your life depended on it), just pop the CD in and listen to Bobbie and Joni sing it! :-)
I thought it was a wonderful book. And it was written to be read aloud to kids; how can you go wrong with that? If you're interested in this book, just click on the picture above for the book on the Good News / Crossway website.
I have a stack book reviews to post here at some point in the near future! You want to know a few of the titles? Okay... The Door Within series (3 books by Wayne Thomas Batson), each Andi Carter book (4! books by Susan K. Marlow), and a few others. Stay tuned for more!
I came up with 1700 words, and the ideal is 1500. The 70 Days of Sweat (Sven IV) runs for the next 76 days (we get a week off for Christmas).
My goal is to finish Sword of Flame (SF) and put at least 10,000 more into Return of the Phantom (RtP).
I find myself proving that I was brought up in part by Grandpa. SF has a significant underlying theme of leadership. I have no idea why it's so natural for my characters to discuss a few elements of leadership. *shrug* I'm not sure if LM has any underlying themes. If any of you can think of one, let me know.
Finally, I got a word meter for SF. Here 'tis:
Sword of Flame
34,174 / 90,000
(37.0%)
Now a question. I plan on writing updates fairly often. Do you who get email updates want me to send the updates on Sven posts?
Oh, in other news, I am hopefully going swing dancing tonight with Michael, David, Jonathan (the not-our-Jonathan), and a whole bunch of other people. Joey told me it's not too hard and that I'd probably be okay at it. *crosses fingers* We'll see... There's a reason my middle name is Cora and not Grace. ;-)
The Punmaster is sad to have to announce this, but she guesses it was inevitable. From this point on, any comment with inappropriate language/content (as decided by the Punmaster) will be deleted, regardless of the relevancy of the rest of the comment. Otherwise, her mom will make her quit blogging, and you wouldn't want that, would you? Basically the items put on the contraband list are:
Any version of a swear word,
Any British swear word that is 'okay' in America,
And anything else that the Punmaster decides is in poor taste.
So! Feel free to comment but please think about what you are writing.
The news has been strangely silent about the Middle East these past few days. They're pre-occupied with the election of our new President. We, on the other hand, are watching DEBKAfile closely. If you haven't bookmarked that site yet, do it.
How many people know that the Palestinians were bombing Israel two hours after the election was called for Sen. Obama?
Apparently, Al Qaeda is going to test the mettle of President Obama by starting a third front of the war in North Africa.
I'm going to refrain from further comment, because I don't think you want to READ my further comments. Suffice to say that I'm not thrilled with all of this news and the election.
Since my blog has been posted on *ahem* sparingly of late, I thought I'd bring you all up to date. Just so you know I haven't died or something. I'm blaming being behind in Algebra. Just a little, though. :-) And pre-election stress.
As a follow-up from my last post, Dr. Jocelyn's prescription of water, bananas, and Dr. Pepper is helping a lot. :-) I've been fine since then (albeit for a few days I wasn't even strong enough to open one of the doors at school). The little bro has strep throat now, so we'll see how long I'm fine.
But on to something interesting. I think it's interesting, at least. A friend of mine gave me a 'slap in the face' and got me writing again. I was moping along doing relatively nothing and making whiny excuses about it. She wouldn't hear of that and gave me a piece of her mind. Now I'm back on track and ready for the 70 Days of Sweat to begin on November 10th. Woohoo! Think I can do it? Hey, don't shake your head... have a little faith... I even have a title for this one. Sword of Flame.
It is now sitting at a comfortable 113 pages/30,000 words.
And don't ya'll want to know what it's about? Keep on wondering. :-) But you can bet one or two of my trademarks will be in it:
Someone is tortured
Someone is killed
Someone throws up
Someone says a very sarcastic line
A 5 point bonus if all of them are accomplished by the same person. Which, actually, considering who my MC is...
Have any of you been writing or doing something equally fabulous?
You know those goggles that you put on and makes it so that everything you see is mixed up, just like you're drunk? They had those at the college and an obstacle course that you were supposed to walk through.
I tried it. About halfway through (I was doing really well, actually), my stomach started to hurt. I finished it and collapsed against the table, shaking like nothin' I've ever felt before. To make a long story short, I ended up lying on the cafeteria floor, not able to get up or even move very much. My hands and arms felt like they were under really high pressure and tingled so badly. I was really scared (doesn't it sound like it?). I thought I was going to have a seizure. After about fifteen minutes (it seemed like years), someone went and got my brother out of his classroom, someone prayed over me, and someone else called 911... And I went to the ER.
Within 2 hours, I'm pretty sure everyone in the world (or at least in my area) knew what had happened and were calling to see if I was okay. Some of my friends from school came to the hospital to pray for me there... Michael announced that my new nickname is: "Goggles"
Of course all the EMTs and Paramedics knew my family. "Oh, so you're what Michael would look like with a blond wig!" Yeah. Sure. Apparently, Dad was listening to the short report of the call on the radio (didn't know it was me) and was laughing himself silly. :-/
So I was dehydrated, had a potassium deficiency, and low blood sugar. Add the goggles to that, and... :-/
*sigh* Busy day. And that means I skipped class for the first time in my life. I feel really bad about that. It's also the first time I've been in a hospital since I was born.
Well, that's it. Whew. Survived another adventure...
Mom joked that I only did this so that I would have something interesting to blog about.
And, Miss Laura, one of the guys who worked on me was named Jade. *grin*
As my 234th post, I wanted to write something "of purpose," instead of just some random, boring comment. (You guys have seriously hung around for 234 posts? Amazing...)
I remember being a little kid watching Star Wars. Return of the Jedi, in fact. Darth Sidious (Darth Hideous, as we used to call him) intrigued me. I felt certain that if I could get into his mind, I could see the world from his point of view and decide whether he was actually evil or not. Because, obviously, he thought he was doing the right thing. I wanted to know what he saw in the Empire that was right and what about the Rebellion that was so wrong.
Lovely picture, no? Like I said: Darth Hideous.
Anyway, since then, I've always thought about "the other side" in stories. Why was the evil bad guy evil? Was the bad guy really the good guy, but we're only seeing it from the side of the "good guy" and therefore think like the good-but-really-evil person?
Has anyone else ever thought about this?
And another thing I've wondered:
Why is it that the bad guy often gets people to follow him because of lies and deception, instead of people willingly joining him because they believe what he believes? And why do the bad guys treat their allies and subordinates so badly, while the good guys are the exact opposite? Why does strife always accompany the hordes of the bad guys (see the orcs in the LOTR movies)?
This might just come down to this: We want our stories in black and white. Good vs. Evil to the death. Don't throw any gray matter in there that will cause us to use our own gray matter or we won't be happy.
I might be wrong (actually, I probably am wrong). Do any of you have ideas about this? I just thought I'd throw this out and see where it landed. If you have ever read (or written) a novel, I'd love to know what you think. ;-)
My Sunday quote is what I heard while watching Glenn Beck interview Trace Adkins. Ya'll know that famous singers/actors are usually brainless airheads (Thank you, Matt Damon), but a few of them aren't. Like Mr. Adkins, a famous country singer.
Here's a small exchange:
Beck: "You're a global warming activist, right?"
Adkins (in that slow, Southern drawl): "I sure am. Let's heat this puppy up."
And about drilling for oil in the US:
Adkins: "I'd poke holes in your back yard if they'd let me!"
Yep, I like Trace Adkins. He's also in a new movie that's coming out called An American Carol (which is like A Christmas Carol). A version of Michael Moore is the Scrooge in this one, and Trace is one of the 'angels' in it and they go around the future in a Democrat Socialist world. Bill O'Reilly is in it, too. From what I saw of the preview, it's hilarious, but it's got some off-colorness. Phooey!
Before I get to what I want to talk about, I just wanted to say that it's October (in Washington!) and you can still drive with the sun roof open and the windows all rolled down. And the radio up too loud. But that goes without saying. We're still holding on to the summer weather.
Maybe there is something to that poem...
"O suns and skies and clouds of June
And flowers of June together.
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather."
Yesterday, while I was driving home, I was thinking about how differently adult bloggers and kid bloggers interact. If you go to just about any kid blog, you'll see tons of comments on each post, most of them having nothing to do with the post subject. Adult blog posts usually have comments related directly to what the post says, unless the author has commented back to the person.
I think that kids tend to 'visit back' more than adults. Which means this: If you comment on my post, I will go to your blog and comment back to you in one of your posts.
Adults follow up with comments in their own posts and maybe never visit their guest commenter. Probably because they're too busy.
I comment back on my commenter's blog, because I don't generally expect my guest to return to see it, especially back when I was posting every day and a reply might get lost. Which one of these do you usually do? Both? Something else?
I wasn't tagged, actually. Andi tagged Aren. (If you don't know who Aren is, click the link. Otherwise, you might be confused.) The tag is as follows:
Post 6 random facts about yourself and then tag some number of people. I don't remember. Probably won't tag anyone, anyway. :-P
I asked Aren to give me six random facts about himself, and he looked at me like I was from, uh... Earth. Then he remarked that just about all the facts about him are classified. So I whined. And he ignored me. Begging and pleading didn't work. Threatening... Well, what could I really threaten him with? Then he agreed to do it if I had a pun war with him on a subject of his choice. Wish me luck... :-/
So, the tag:
1. I hate it when Jen makes me do tags. She's glaring at me, but it's a fact. This is the second or third one she's made me do.
2. Yes, I know my hat is ugly. Will someone make Jen go away? You'd think if she was making me do this, she wouldn't sit there and make jokes about my hat.
I'm not kidding. Jen, go away. *shoves annoying authoress away*
3. I bit the head off of a venomous snake once. My little sister almost had a heart attack. It didn't taste all that great...
4. When I was 14, I dyed my older sister's hair blue and tied it full of knots in the middle of the night. That almost ended very, very badly.
5. I'm only 5' 8 1/4" tall.
6. I sing tenor. But not very often. And it's not very good. Jen is nodding emphatically. Okay, time for "mass ownage" in the pun war, little pipsqueak. Yeah, I can speak American!
I'm not tagging anyone. I don't know any bloggers here. I do know Andi and Susan, but they've already been tagged today. So, uh, bye...
(This post is mostly copied from my other blog that no one reads, anyway. I just did it over there first so I wouldn't have to bother with Imageshack.)
Unfortunately, Mom ran away with the camera to read one of the books I got after about 10 minutes. So I only have two pictures from the book signing. They are...
Wayne Thomas Batson, signing my book! Which I started reading on Sunday as soon as I got up and took it to the college with me every day this week. Just about everyone at the college who knows me has now heard of Wayne Thomas Batson. Heh, I tend to give lots of free commercial time.
I believe he signed Ryan's to "Sir Ryan the Swordmaster." Had I known Ryan would bring his sword and assassin blade, I would have dressed up, too. Ya'll could probably guess that I seriously considered it.
He is also the one who did that fantastic dramatic reading that made me buy the rest of his series. Like Mr. Graham said after I asked him if he was going to read, too... "How could you follow that?" I don't know if anyone could. None of it got on the Motiv8 video, though. Phooey!
Oh, look back at that picture. See Jonathan Rogers there at the edge? This is a random observation, but his costume was terrific! I'd never considered gray furs in a costume, but that was awesome. His books looked really interesting (Okay, all the books there did...). If I was rich, I would have bought all of them. As it was, I came home with only 7 new books.
Speaking of Mr. Graham, Mom got a picture of him signing Zach's book:
I don't have to give him commercial time... He's pretty popular 'round here. We chatted for a bit about Christian fiction and then the end of Beyond the Summerland. *grin* It was, indeed, a very good ending. A maddeningly good ending.
And now a link to the video they made of the day. I'm in it at least 3 times (in the last third of the video, about The Salt Shaker).
You can see the sword fight on the video, too. That was fun. The camera guy had to dive for cover at one point (watch the video until the very, very end and you'll see it).
A bonus picture, because I'm feeling generous. :-)
Susan Marlow and I going over my novel after she'd bled on the first 70 pages:
Notice the red pen she's holding? Yeah...
That's about it for now. Thanks for visiting! Say, I hope it's not too late to throw this in as a Show n' Tell. I'm going to run over to Mary's and enter it quick!
Miss Katie remarked that I haven't blogged very much recently. You might be glad about that.
It is an odd week. A very odd week. Yesterday, I was sitting in the college (yes, college) cafeteria with Joey, Joe, Ryan, and Donald. Joe was distracting Ryan while Joey was trying to pull Ryan's hair with a pair of pliers and Donald was throwing Ryan's unwanted pickles around using the tines of a plastic fork that had been pretty much demolished. Then Joey almost jumped out of his chair when he got zapped by my cell phone when he picked it up, and Donald stole Joey's phone while he was looking at mine, so Joey was trying to pick Donald's pockets to get it back... I laughed for an hour straight. Yep, that's my gang.
On a more serious side (*cough* Me? Serious?), I think I sang my highest note ever on Monday in Choir. And I can't tell you what it is, because... well... I don't know. It's the note that's above the little line thingies and there's kind of a line through it... Yeah, nevermind. I'll have to ask someone who actually knows about music. :-P
But that comes later. First I have to chatter a little. :-) Yesterday was amazing! Side note to everyone I will be seeing at Church today: Chances are good that I will be repeating all of this to you in person. Therefore, you might want to go find something else to do so you won't get bored when I start dumping the story-telling on you later.
First, we drove all the way up to a dear friend's house so she and I could talk about my novel. She's editing it for me (For free. She usually charges $1,200 for that kind of job via Winepress Publishing). There are lots of thing that need to be changed, but she says it has potential. Cool! And the blood-spattered pages weren't too painful. It was actually really fun.
Then Mom, Mrs. Marlow, her son, and I went to a book signing. There were 10 fantasy authors there, and I actually ended up buying seven new books. Two of them did dramatic readings from their books. The first one stood there at the railing and read... Then Wayne Thomas Batson was up. He's an amazing actor. He came prowling through the little crowd with this huge green cape billowing around him, acting out both the part of the boy and the dragon. You could see how much he loved the story! I had to buy his books after that. It was just... wow. He signed them to "Lady Jennifer the Pure," "Lady Jennifer the Strong," and "Lady Jennifer the Wise."
I asked LB Graham lots of questions about his books, writing in general, and the ending of book 1 (which apparently got TONS of people mad at him). He was really nice. I didn't have any of his books yet, but all my friends sent theirs with me. I came in lugging this big box of books and getting stares from everyone as he just kept pulling out book after book... :-P It was great. I did buy his whole set. Correction: MOM bought the set and gave them to me. I thought we had agreed that I was pitching in $50. Afterward, she wouldn't take the money, saying that she had gotten them for me, not with me. My mommy is awesome! :-D
And then the sword fight... Christopher Hopper and Wayne Thomas Batson did a demonstration of how swords sound when they're clanging together. So Mr. Hopper (whose head is shaved) declared that this was his kingdom and everyone who entered had to have their heads shaved. Mr. Batson happens to like his longish hair. So they decided the settle this argument by fighting a duel. *grin* So that went on for a few minutes. Then they said maybe they should settle it by taking someone out of the audience and shaving them.
When I was looking at Mr. Hopper's books just after that, he said that I would have been their first choice for the head-shaving! :-P (for the record, I have waist length hair)
We got back around 11 to find that my brothers had invited three of their friends over to spend the night. So I jabbered about my day to the visitors. They'll actually listen to me. My brothers said, "Ugh. It's like a Wizard Convention only with authors instead of geeks." and walked away.
And that was the end of the day! :-) Yay!
I must also mention Ryan, Mrs. Marlow's youngest son. I hadn't seen Ryan since he was, um... 10-ish? Now he's taller than me! And his voice got so deep! And... and... That just ain't right. People are growing up on me. While we were at the bookstore, all the little girlies were hanging around him, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the sword he brought along ('kay, not just the sword). I stood off to the side and laaaaughed... "You look sorta like Eragon," one girl told him, and if she'd fallen over in a dead faint, I would not have been surprised. Hehehe! But of course, the sweet little Punmaster didn't tease him at all about it... *innocent gaze at ceiling*
*translation: Today was absolutely amazing, but it's getting late and at the moment I'm too tired to talk about it. You have not heard the end of this post made up of Squee, though! :-P
For my Show n' Tell with Mary, I have this video that is actually a snippet of my favorite cooking show, Good Eats. It's about how to make a Scottish Haggis. :-) Enjoy...
Welcome to the Punmaster's Palace again. In today's Show n' Tell with Mary, we will explore a wildlife park which the Punmaster went to a week ago.
Most of the pictures were taken from a tram.
This is why the Punmaster loves Washington State. SO gorgeous!
Doesn't this elk look fabulous?
And a cougar! Because the Punmaster loves cougars. Look at those eyes... She just want to pet him...
And now the series you've all been waiting for! The snake! Only this one was on the trail! The foot beside it is the Punmaster's younger brother's... Don't be fooled into believing this is a small snake. Jon has size 14 shoes. And this little guy is MAD!
Yes, Andi, the Punmaster's dear mother took those pictures... From a good long distance away. That was an exciting trip! Now the Punmaster is going to travel out into the world and visit some other bloggers who have things to show and tell.
Can Herman Li and Sam Totman score 100% on Through the Fire and Flames in Guitar Hero?
Okay, so maybe that wasn't so deep. Gives you an idea of my mood right now. The funny thing is that I can be completely wired and still look as boring as if I was... normal.
As if I was ever 'normal'...
For the record, I did try Guitar Hero. Not TtFaF/Dragonforce, though. It was Slow Ride/Foghat on easy and slowest speed... and I failed miserably. *shrug*
You have entered the blog of a farm girl, unpublished novelist, avid knitter, life-long homeschooler, and Punmaster. Feel free to leave a comment, even if you're not an HsB blogger! *wink*
