NaNoWriMo Insanity

I've heard that the definition of insanity is trying that doesn't work over and over in hopes that it will work.

That said, I am apparently clinically insane.

This is the third year that we have done NaNoWriMo. I haven't won yet, and every year after it's over I swear it off and say that intense deadlines aren't for me. Then, come October, I'm swept up in all the NaNoWriMo hype again.

That's not to say this year is different. But this year is different. No, I'm not quitting, folks, I'm just not playing to win, I'm playing to improve. I seriously haven't written anything of substance besides little notes on my phone for nearly a year. So for me I'm just going to be working on getting a healthy writing pattern set up. And if I coincidentally happen to get 50,000 words, that works out fairly well too.

So I guess that classifies me as a rebel Wrimo, or whatever you call it. Trinity, who did win NaNoWrimo last year, is going a different route, but I'm going to let her tell you about all that. Additionally, to all our fellow Wrimos, Trinity's NaNoWrimo username is A Quill In Her Quiver and mine is The Quill Is My Sister.

How many of you are participating this year? We'd love to be writing buddies with you.

The Buck Stops Here

Hannah has writing block. Hannah has not written in ages. Hannah is a terrible person. Hannah is responsible for a three-month long lull in the blogging schedule. Hannah is being a good little girl and posting to get the ball rolling again. 

Starting with The Scribbler Award.

Rules:

Link to the person who nominated you.

Link to your favourite writing blog, so we can check it out, and/or share your favourite writing tip. 

Pass the award along to a maximum of 5 people.

I technically did not get nominated for this award. Instead, I follow the blog of the person who created this award and she asked her readers to help pass it along. You may see the beginning of soon to be writing-award-phenomenon at Ravens And Writing Desks. A lovely writing blog with creative peoples and smart persons. Yay!

Secondly, I must share my favorite writing tip.

You may have heard this one a thousand times, but it is the most true, and the one I need to (but don't) pay attention to.

Now, if I were to pick a bit of writing advice I made up myself, it would be: Forget the rules.

If you know the rules, or if you don't know the rules. When you're writing, forget the rules. You can apply them later. 

Alrighty, I'm going to nominate:

Ajax Cochrane at 21st Century Renaissance Man

Ashley at Cheery-O

Sky at Further Up and Further In

To God be the Glory,

Hannah

Update and the Liebster Award!

It's me, Trinity Lee. Remember me? I run a blog here. Or not, sometimes.
I basically fail at blogging. And New Year's Resolutions.
Because my resolution for this year was to write one blog post a week.

Yeaaaaah. So, lemme catch you up on what's happened since then real quick.

I went to prom with a friend of mine so she wouldn't be bored! (And there was a photobooth!)

I'm the one on the right. 

I attempted to participate in DOOM and only made it to about 15,000 words.

I played paintball for the first time and had a blast, but I'm still getting over the bruises.

I finally took the rest of my preparatory tests so I can take my GED, so I can be officially 100% graduated!

I went on an Open Carry Walk! And amazingly, no guns jumped out and killed anyone!

We were awarded the Liebster Award by Ajax Cochrane! 

Here's the rules, ya'll:

• Thank and link back to the person who nominated you (Thank you, Ajax!).
• List 11 facts about yourself.
• Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 9 bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers (you can’t nominate the blogger who nominated you). This one's gonna be a toughie.
• Ask them 11 questions.
• Let them know about the nomination.

Okay, eleven facts about me. 

1. This last Christmas I went to get my hair trimmed and it got cut WAY shorter than I wanted. Like, six inches instead of the one inch I requested. It was shortest it's ever been since I was a toddler. It's starting to get longer now, but I'm still impatient.

2. I always wake up completely underneath my blankets.

3. I actually enjoy weed-eating and I just got a new weed-whacker a couple of days ago, and it's my lovely baby right now. An Echo SRM-230. :)

4. I have been to the ocean. My grandparents live in California, so I played on the beach when we last went to visit them.

5. I like to dance. A lot. I'm told I'm a horrible dancer, but that doesn't stop me from cutting loose and looking like an idiot. (Reference above photo-booth pictures for proof of idiocy.)

6. I can open a file cabinet with my toes. 

7. I. Hate. Pickles. With a passion. It is the bane of my life. That being said, I opened a jar of pickles once for a sibling or a cousin and it popped open and dumped nasty pickle juice all over me.

8. I do not date. Which means I have never had a boyfriend. I'll pause while you try to get over your shock.

9. Umm... I have very weak teeth. It seems to be a law of the universe that I must have as many fillings/cavities as years old I am.

10. I knew eighty signs in American Sign Language when I was eighteen months old. More than I knew verbally.

11. Some of my friends have nicknamed me TP, which is short for Tiffany Pickles because they knew I hate when people call me Tiffany, and I hate pickles. So. TP. Like toilet paper. I try to insist that they at least spell it Tepee. They don't agree.

Well, that's eleven. Onto the questions from Ajax:

1. If you could choose between a new iPhone, a new fishing pole, or a new Louis L'Amour, which would you pick?

iPhone. I currently carry my 1st gen iPod and my cell phone around and it would be nice to have them rolled into one plus a camera. I sadly don't go fishing that much, and I can get a Louis L'Amour book anytime.

2. What is your favorite pre-1990s car?

Uhhh.... I like the- ones that- um... lemme go take a look.

Okay, yeah. 1968 Corvette Stingray.

3. If you could move to any state in the US, where would you go?

/sigh... Texas. I would go to Texas. Gotta bit of a love/hate relationship with Texas. They're so awesome, but they know it, and I love my Arkansas.

4. Do you prefer taking photos of sunrises or sunsets?
Our house is in a better position to take pictures of sunrises, but I like the richer colors of sunsets better.

5. Rock or country music?
Oh, my... As much as I love country, I'm gonna have to pick Rock at this moment.

6. Finding yourself marooned on a desert island with natives, would you:
A: Make friends with the natives and co-exist peacefully
B: Attempt to subdue and rule these friendly people
C: Most likely find yourself the guest of honor at the Cannibal Island's annual potluck

Probably B. And then end up with A.

7. If you had been forewarned that you would be stranded on aforementioned waterlogged piece of geography, what three books would you take with you, along with your Bible?

A macbook, a massive notebook, and a "How To Sail" book. I know. I'm such a cheater.

8. If you picked one word to describe yourself, what would it be? "Boring" and "Commonplace" are banned.

Bombastic!

9. Who is a better writer, John Grisham or John Steinbeck?

I've never read either of their works, but I was recently reading a writing book where John Grisham's book were highly praised, so I'll go with John Grisham.

10. Do you prefer Windows or Mac computers?
Mac. Because Mac just works. Sadly, I can only afford Windows.

11. Did you have fun answering these questions?

My baseline comparison for fun is going four-wheeling. Therefore, I'm gonna have to say no. Though, I didn't NOT enjoy myself. 

Now for the nominations. 

Ashley Tahg over at Cheery-O! (Technically, she has 204 followers, but only 15 bloglovin' followers, and I love her, so there.)

Siani Delaney at Writing and Wanderlust (Ya'll need to go check her out. She's an awesome writer. And she just started this writing contest type thing that looks fantastic.

Bekah Joan at Found And Cherished

Ashley at Inky Wings

Sky at Further Up And Further In (squeaking in at 198 followers! :P)

Amanda Wikoff at Ramblings Of A Wayward Author

Anastasia Elizabeth at Every Stinkin' Page

Eva at scribblingsofajaneite

Sarah at Inklined

Here are my eleven questions for ya'll!

1. If you could pick one word to describe yourself, what would it be? (Boring, commonplace, ordinary, regular and run-of-the-mill are all banned.)

2. What is your favorite thing to drink?

3. What fandoms are you in?

4. How many ongoing writing projects are you working on? (Novels, essays, short stories, etc. Blog posts don't count.)

5. Of those projects, which has the highest word count and what is it?

6. Have you ever had to go to the emergency room? If so, why? (If you feel comfortable sharing.)

7. If you could live anywhere besides where you're living now, where would you live?

8. Who would you most like to meet in person? (Excepting Jesus)

9. Your family and pets are safe and sound and you have two minutes to grab some things out of your burning house. What do you take?

10. What is your biggest fear?

11. Which is more awesome and would win in a fight, pirates or ninjas?

Well, that's all, folks! I promise I'll be back more often. I'm also working on another blogging project that isn't quite ready yet, but I hope to share with ya'll soon. Until then...

Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass!
-Trinity

P.S. Since it's "Throwback Thursday", I'll leave you 

with a little picture of me when I was three or four.

NaPoWriMo Update

For those who are interested in NaPoWriMo, it seems the website, www.napowrimo.net, is now active.  Seven days 'til showtime!

Sosrin God ignt eht ceallian,

(To God be the Glory)
Hannah

NaPoWriMo

Howdy, howdy, it's Hannah.

While I would love to write 50,000 words in two months like Trinity is with DOOM (it sounds way easier to me than writing them in ONE month), I had this crazy idea awhile back that I would participate in NaPoWriMo.

"NaPoWriMo" stands for National Poetry Writing Month. It takes place during the month of April, which is coincidentally National Poetry Month. How 'bout that. 

Though I don't know much about it, the general idea is to write a poem every day, and at the end of the month you will have with you 30 completed poems (so long as you succeed in your endeavors). It's a creative writing exercise, and though I know I'm not the most eloquent or skillful poet, I'd like to try my hand.

Since DOOM runs through March and April, I would have to focus on both at once if I were to do DOOM. DOOM still sounds like a great idea, and if I'm feeling crazy enough I may do both activities at once. To find out more you might check this NaNoWriMo post about Poem In Your Pocket Day, or the Wikipedia page for NaPoWriMo. The official page for NaPoWriMo, it seems, is not up yet for 2014, but far as I can tell, the address is here. 

Sosrin God ignt eht ceallian,

(To God be the Glory)
Hannah

DOOM! and an Aouthentica Excerpt

Heeeere it is! The long-awaited, barely anticipated excerpt from my NaNo project, Aouthentica. This is about one third of the first chapter, which I'll add the rest of if I get requests for it.

ALSO. Before we get to that, I want to tell you about DOOM. It stands for Definitely O-normous O-uthor Months. It's a variation on NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo.
We'll be writing 50K (50,000) words over the months of March and April.
That's 820 words a day for 61 days. Amanda Wikoff came up with it over at The Ramblings Of A Wayward Author. If you want to do it you should head over there and let her know you're in!

On that note, my goal right now is to finish editing what I already have of Aouthentica by the end of February and then add onto it for all of DOOM.

Onto the excerpt.

Book Recommendations - The Veritas Project

The Veritas Project

 Veritas: meaning truth.

The Veritas Project is a government-funded project investigating supernatural occurrences. The team consists of Nate and Sarah Springfield, and their twin children, Elisha and Elijah, a Christian home-schooling family, who use a Biblical approach to accomplish their missions.

There are only two books in the series, the first being Hangman's Curse, but with this particular series they don't necessarily have to be read in order.

Hangman's Curse: 
Seemingly random students at a school become suddenly sick and begin acting oddly, losing their sanity and believing they see a ghost named Abel Frye. On all of the affected students' lockers, a hangman symbol is placed by a mysterious person or being. Elisha and Elijah Springfield enroll as students to investigate.

Fifteen Minute Story - Number 29

I was never meant to carry the weight of the entire mission. But that's the way it turned out. I never was able to figure out why we weren't extracted when my teammates started dropping like flies. But we weren't, and before long, I was the only one left.

Books of 2013 - Part One

Hello, faithful followers. It's Trinity. All of 2013 I kept a log of every book I read, and I'm here to present it to you with a brief thought on each book, and a rating between one and five stars. Because I have so many (A hundred sixty five), I'm going to split it up. Here's the first forty-four.
Also, I have that creative writing I've been swearing to write forever ready. I just need to type it up.

On to the list:

1. Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow – By The Miller Brothers (A Christian book, for a lower reading level, maybe 9-12. It was entertaining enough for me to read the next one, but not particularly well-written. Three stars.)
2. Hunter Brown and the Consuming Fire – By The Miller Brothers (See previous)
3. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh – By Robert C. O'Brien (I really really enjoyed this. It reminded me
   vaguely of Redwall, and the Owls of Ga'hoole, mostly because of the talking animals. But it was well-written and entertaining. Five stars.)
4. Racso and the Rats of Nimh – By Jane Leslie Conly (Not as good as the first book, probably because it's a different author, but it was nice to find out what happened to the characters. Kind of like an extended epilogue. Three stars.)