Monday 14 December 2009 - Hot tea and cold days - and the trouble with plots
Recently I have faced many ups and downs with my writing, mostly with the Hemlock books. I have had far too many plots and characters for the series and, after much work and arguing – which included death threats and dagger pulling, making me long all the more for my sword – I have come to terms with everyone and we have settled on many things.
Hemlock is now a six book series. I completely took out Trisli's plot and am using it for another series I am planning – which just had a cool title and a character with a cool name. Trisli is still in the books but I do not go into the story of – oh wait, that would give away a plot. Moving on.
Also, I am pleased to announce that, as I have finally finished the final version of Despair and Hope, it is now being edited. I am in the hopes of completing editing by May at the latest and seeking out a publisher soon. Among changes in this book is the change in title which now appears as:
The Tales of Hemlock
The Stranger
A Story of Despair and Hope.
Another quirk I am trying to work out is Theobald's hood. I have been debating changing it to a mask but have yet to find one that suits him, me, and the plot. It is terribly hard to de-mask a guy, ten times easier to de-hood him. Not to mention I have been having interesting dreams about the Lone Ranger since then.
Book two has also changed in that it is now book three and there is a new book two. In this book Reid returns out of the blue. Need I say more?
Then there is that death scene I wrote for Maddock but which was strongly voted against by many of his adoring fans. I still determined to use it on someone and made a character for it, only when I wrote it it was lacking in something. Roderick could not pull it off. So, Roderick lives – and Quentin has offered to take the scene. Rather he was voted in to it being I would not be killing off one of the main heroes while at the same time making it sad – yes, that was an interesting debate.
While book one is coming along very well book two is struggling. I am uncertain about the plot and am therefore going at it more slowly then I normally do. However, I have not stopped writing all together and am reviving a story that was about to be sent to the black hole. The character in it gave me some major problems – kidnapping the muse I share with my best friends and holding her hostage for a whole night. However, I think everything is better now – at least I hope it is. I shall keep everyone updated on that but for now I have to be off as the character is calling
Dec. 4, 2009 - SNOW!!!
It snowed!
Rather it's snowing!
I went outside and this little tiny snow flake landed on me and I watched it as each little bit of it melted on my sweater... If you lived anywhere else besides Texas you wouldn't think twice about it. After all it was a snow flake here and a snow flake there... but it's snow!!
We went out back, the kids had left the sand box open and when it rained a couple days ago it had filled up with water. Now it's frozen over with a layer of ice. I'm so excited. Well I have to go but I thought it was worth a blog post.
There I'm happpy!
Now you know.
~Anna 
Nov. 30, 2009 - Indiana
Katherine: Anna, your name should be Indiana, you know Indi- ANNA!
So are trip started out.
It wasn't that great a car ride, actually it a pretty nasty car ride. I was sick the whole time! It was awful :P
Then the first day when we arrived at my Grandparents house in Indiana I was still sort of sick but by the next day (thanksgiving) I was better. It was fun, and then we stayed one more day and went home on another two day car trip wading through standstill, or almost standstill traffic, of people coming home from Thanksgivng trips. 
So here's some pictures of us with our cousins. The last time I saw Emma she was seven and I'd never seen Caroline before.
Katherine, Caroline, Andrew, Elizabeth, Emma
Emma and I
cousins
Caroline loves to pose =)
Katherine and Caroline had so much fun at the playground!
We all had a lot of fun on the playground. Playground tag, so awesome...
An Alex quote from the car ride home, in IHOP :
Mom: Alex you should get some vegtables
Alex: I've eaten lots of vegetables, all week, sweet potato and chocolate...
It was really cold up there the weather forecast said there might be snow, but there wasn't :(
HAPPY THANKSGING !!!
~Ness
Nov. 19, 2009 - November is a long month
Unless you are trying to finish a 50,000 word novel in that one month. Well if that's all I were doing it would be easy! There's just so many other things! There's so much school, and orchestra rehearsals, and speech and debate, and other things that are just fun.
It's near the end of Novemeber, almost Thanksgiving. This time last year I was on the point of realizing that I only had 5,000 words in my novel. about four days later I was writing solidly trying to make the 50,000 word mark before the end of November... which even with all my valiant work... I failed :)
Well, so what's happened since I last posted? I went to my first practice tournament of the year (and only one unfortunately) It was really fun! I won must of my rounds, whcih I wasn't expecting. My impromptu speech wasn't very scary, and I didn't mess up on my DI, it was completely memorized :) It was a really fun practice tournament, and I had a lot of fun. I don't have any pictures... oh well... Afterwards we went out to eat, that was fun too :-)
For thanksgiving we are going to visiting my grandparents. The whole ride up I will be writing on my NaNo novel, furiously trying to finish it :) When we get back it will be December... think of that. November will be over... We will have our Orchestra concert and the Messiah concert, my first piano ****** (ever!) and Christmas will be approaching...
I also just finished reading ' 'Till We Have Faces ' by CS Lewis if you've read it tell me what you thought of it! =)
~Ness
Nov. 11, 2009 - Free sheet music
Have you ever heard a song that you liked and then looked it up online to see if there's a piece of free sheet music for it?
Often you can find a piece of free sheet music for that song, such as 'The Spinning Song' for piano. But more often than not you can't find what your looking for... At least I can't.
Below are links for four sheet music sites, which don't come up when you google 'free sheet music', they never have for me anyway.
http://imslp.org/ A project to put all out of print music online for anyone to use. This website has a lot of classical music on it.
Music Scores Has a lot of free arrangements and solos ranging in difficulty levels. Some songs are not free. Also the site has a limit of downloading three files every twenty-four hours if you are not a member. To become a member it costs thirty dollars a year.
Making Music Fun Mostly easy music. Meant for a music teacher resource. It's all free and there's music for a lot of different instruments.
The Session free Irish fiddle tunes. These are arrangements just simple tunes.
My favorite is music scores, except the limitations can be annoying. I also like Imslp a lot but it just depends what your looking for
There you go, have fun! =D
~Ness
Oct. 30, 2009 - picture
This is the best picture I've ever taken with my webcam.
It's not very good as you might have noticed =)
My brother is gone because he's going to visit a college and he took the camera so that's why I was playing around with the web cam.
Recently:
I have been enjoying the cold weather.
Trying to think up a NaNO novel.
Posting on my blog.
Trying to write speeches and failing :(
writing apolegetics cards.
What I need to do:
I need to do some debate research :)
practice violin
Exiting things that have happened:
I have more apolegetics cards than Alex =)
I ate chocolate trufels yesterday :)
okay that's all for now :)
~Ness
Oct. 29, 2009 - NaNoWriMo Troubles Already
In a last desperate attempt she put her iPod on shuffle and decided to take a different path than usual. Turning the corner she walked slowly, listening to songs she had not heard in ages and thinking thoughtfully of why she could not come up with any inspiration - or enthusiasm . Then, she caught her breath. There, just across the street from her there was a little corner of the world where the grass was hidden from veiw by a layering of leaves - pink and orange and red blending to make an unmatched hue of peace and calm.
The tree above still held some of it's precious leaves, which created a roof of the same color. And there, dancing and spinning and twirling in joy was Maud - her muse. She looked enviously as she walked past, thinking of all the ideas waiting there with Maud, and thinking of her characters - wishing the feeling would never leave. But as she looked to the left of her, there was inspiration too. Was it possible to have two muses, she wondered? For there, alongside the cool gray stone mansion, surrounded by pale green grass was another muse - different, but just as inspiring - sitting atop a small pile of small boulders, with a carpet of yellowing leaves at his feet.
That could be Callan's manor, she thought happily.
She walked up and down the street for several more minutes - then took a quick stroll down the middle of a street. It was then that it hit her - or rather, Emily appeared again. For the first time in a year Emily was before her again - begging for a second chance. Willing - even - to become older, wiser, more mature; and, to take a friend along - a chum.
But her authoress could not decide. She had promised Callan a last try - he deserved one, didn't he? But how, oh how! was she to write a book for which she had no inspiration, no motivation - and very little desire?
The above is a creative, rather coded way of saying that I am torn between several stories - Emily's, Callan's and then Bayards (he wasn't mentioned in the above :D). I have no idea which story to do and NaNo is only two days away! *screams*
Should I write a brief summery of each? I think I will:
It's mostly the first two I'm wrestling between. This is my last chance to save Callan, but I'm not inspired for his story, and I am for Emily's. Besides that, I'm not sure if I even want to save Callan's story anymore, but I can't bare to let go of it! Any sugestions would be great!
~ Katie
Oct. 28, 2009 - intresting
When I was little and I cut my finger I stuck it in my mouth because it made it feel better. When I got my braces on, they scratched the inside of my cheek but it always healed pretty quickly compared to if I scratched my finger with my braces.
In the Gospel of John there is the story of Jesus healing a blind man:
"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
As long as I an in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made a clay of the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
Some said, This is he: others [said]. he is like him: [but] he said, I am [he].
Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes , and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash : and I went and washed, and I received sight" John 9:1:18
I heard this Bible story in church when I was about eight and it dawned on me that maybe spit did heal and Jesus used it so obviously he knew that it healed.
Between this Bible story and my own personal experiInce I always thought that saliva had some sort of healing properties. So the other day I was excited to find an article about how saliva can speed the healing of wounds and some recent studies they did on it. Very interesting article, especially because it confirms my own thoughts. That's always nice. =D
You should read the article. (I have to be blunt because hinting doesn't work, so I'm just blunt even though it doesn't look good on a written page :)
It's interesting that Jesus heals the blind man in the Bible using his spit, because often in the Bible when God says things there is more than a moral interest behind it. Such as when God told the Israelites not to eat pork. God was protecting the Israelites. Because pigs have similar anatomy to humans, disease travels easily between pigs and humans. So by not eating pork the Israelites were protected from many diseases.
Isn't that amazing? By trusting in God the Israelites kept from getting sickness.
I hope you found it all as interesting as I did =)
~Ness
Oct. 26, 2009 - Rainy Rainy day...
"Rain Rain go away come again another day..."
For probably the first time in my life I understand how someone could feel this. Not that I do feel that way but I understand how it could be felt :) It's been raining for.... forever. Not quite. I don't really want it to go away but if it was like this all the rest of this fall and winter I probably would. Rain is great in the summer when you can play in it but now it's SO cold!
What else besides rain? I've been memorizing a speech for an upcoming practice tournament, as well as going over my cases. I'm rather excited =) I need to practice more impromptu and apolegetics speeches.
On Sunday I had a violin recital. Then we had orchestra rehearsal which was fun.
Saturday our Youth group had a big angle ball game, which was fun =) Angle ball is a sport that is sort of like ultimate frisbee except with a volleyball. Instead a goal there are posts with basketballs on top that you have to knock off.
Friday I had a piano lesson and then speech and debate. I slept over a friend's house (hi a friend!!) and it was so much fun! She helped me with my debate cases which needed help :)
So there is my weekend now that I have fullfilled my duty to my blog I will commence with my week =)
~Nessy Wessy
Oct. 14, 2009 - Prodigy
Wow! need I say more?
This next one makes me want to cry thinking of my own violin skills... *cries* =D
Check out these other pieces played by Benjamin as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDLgpskt578 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cvfu-K0loc
~Ness
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