Showing posts with label When the Stars Fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label When the Stars Fall. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

School...and I'm in pain

So, 3rd day of school.  I'm awake!  I'm alive!  Now I know what I believe inside! Sorry, have been listening to too much Skillet this morning.

So, I had my first day working yesterday- I'm a writing tutor at my community college, and I tutored my first student!  I think it went really well.  And that's all you'll get out of me because I have to keep confidentiality, so yeah.

I'm taking Intro to Theater, Nutrition, Ancient and Medieval World History, and Environmental Ethics and Career Development online.  Spent an hour and a half outlining yesterday for History and only got through 5 of the 20 pages in chapter 1. yikes.  Haven't even looked at Ethics or Career Development yet, but I did finish Nutrition.

I went riding for the first time in a very long time on Sunday.  Horseback riding.  It was fun, though the horse I usually ride, Angel, is limping, so that's sad.  My neighbor has horses and she lets me ride them sometimes.  Anyway, the saddle I usually used when I rode more was broken, so I had to use a different saddle.  Well, the reason why I used the one particular saddle was because it was the only one with the stirrups shortened enough for me.  Well, the saddle I used Sunday had one of the stirrups (the right one) short enough, but the left one hadn't been shortened enough.  I could still reach it, but it was harder and I could only get my toes in.  So whenever we galloped, I lost my left stirrup and ended up holding on for dear life, bouncing all over the saddle.  I've also been having issues with gripping things-I played one song on the guitar and my hand just about killed me it hurt so bad.  I also had an issue writing half a page of Calista's character profile.  Yeah.  I don't know why.  So, I'm gripping the pommel or horn of the saddle and my hand is protesting in pain.  I knew I was going to get saddle sore, but because of all the bouncing, I bruised my legs and may or may not have done something to my lower back.

That pain may have more to do with my 23 pound backpack. (Yes, I weighed it)  So now just about every part of me hurts.  I feel like an old lady.

In good news, I finished Twice Upon a Time!  You can like my facebook page, www.facebook.com/3kingdoms2girls1fate My mom was visiting her mom last weekend and my grandma had just finished When the Stars Fall.  So my mom told her about me finishing my screenplay, and she was really impressed.  She says to me, "You know, my friend knows Dan Disney.  When you get it edited, I could see if he'll take a look at it"
ME: OoO or something like that.  Trying to keep myself from screaming in excitment.  Hello, DREAM. COME. TRUE.
Everything's extremely iffy so I'm not getting my hopes up too far, but still- MY GRANDMA'S FRIEND KNOWS DAN DISNEY!!! What?????


Yeah.

I got a laptop.  I found a mac (I need one for the music program at Concordia if I go there) for less than $500, so yeah.  It was about $370, but my dad wanted to get a warranty, so we got a 2 year warranty for $105.  It's coming Tuesday and I'm so excited.

Oh, am Disneybounding as Flounder today.  Having too much fun with this.  Tried to get Elli to be Ariel, but she was too lazy to figured it out.  Thinking I'll be Terence tomorrow and Marie (from Aristocats) Friday.  I have a flourecent yellow and aquamarine striped tank top on right now with a blue shirt thing over it.  Two of the three items I own from Aeropostale.  My mom decided I needed to get them.  Didn't realize at the time how perfectly they'd work for a Flounder Disneybound.

OK, gotta go.  Class in an hour and I need to read through some history.

My random project of the weekend: a mock-up cover of Beauty is Blind:

I love the black background- it really shows her living in darkness.  And the purple text is perfect-am not a fan of the font, but Createspace doesn't offer much for fonts.  And the painting is one by Diego Velázquez so it's now public domain since he's been dead for a long time.  I'm still going to credit him.  It's called "Portrait of a Blind Woman" and it looks EXACTLY like I imagine Calista.  The only thing I don't like is the fact that her eyes are closed so you can't see that they're purple, but still. It's perfect.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

NaNoWriMo Moments and A Name for M


Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us again, and I am knee-deep in the chaos.  I discovered a facebook group (now that I have facebook...whohoo!) and have started a series of "NaNoWriMo Moments" my personal form of procrastination, (well, one of them, anyway) I have 13 so far.  It all started when I realized I had to eat dinner and found myself craving sourdough bread and baked beans- the same thing Connie had been eating in my screenplay.  I've seen things like this on facebook before, so I decided to make my own.  And spent the whole day doing them, (wrote at night)









 

Guilty of most of these, especially 4 and 5...

On another random note, my hair, if you don't already know, is pretty short.  It's layered (because it's super thick) and just brushes my shoulders.  Usually it's puffed out, like this:
I'm the one in the teal t shirt- this is from mission, so it's even worse than usual.
Anyway, my mom spends most of her time trying to make her hair pouffy while I spend the day I take my shower trying to tame my wild locks.  The day after the shower, it looks like I want it to.  But then I have to take a shower again, and the whole cycle starts over.  Anyway, today I just said "to heck with it" and had my mom pull my hair back into one french braid (regular braids are impossible, but I can pull off a french) just so that it was not around my head like a lion's mane...and I would know:

Well, the payoff for tidy hair is that what's left at the bottom of the braid is this teeny tiny tail of hair.  It's about an inch long and is very thin.  I feel like one of those princes or pirates with their little ponytails.  It's very fun to play with...okay, I'm done.

Word count update: 39,500.  YAY! (71 pages) Biggest concern:  I'm just about finished with Act 2 (I'll get no more than 5 more pages out of Act 2) and Act 3 is already 1/5 finished (I wrote the first scene of Act 3 first, so that's in my page count) I'm concerned that I'm not going to get 100 pages...MORE MUSICAL NUMBERS!!! And maybe a sword fight or two... more twin switching?  Nolan and Micah have embarrassing moments when they realize that they're professing their love to the wrong twin? *tehe*

Was editing When the Stars Fall today on the way to a family reunion and read a part where Halyn is talking to a guy named M.  Now he's been named M since December 2010, when I came up with the story.  I had no problem with the name until today, when I read her line "M..." as "mmm..." as in yummy.  This is problematic.  Now, M's full name is Martin- I named him and his twin brother after my own brothers.  But I don't like him being known as Martin, so I decided to give him a name.  I'm down to 2, maybe 3: Matt and Max.
Which sounds better: Matthew and Daniel Gailbraith, or Maxwell and Daniel Gailbraith? Matt and Dan or Max and Dan?  Max Gailbraith or Matt Gailbraith? (He would go by Matt or Max for the majority of the book... there are a few moments where he would go by his full name.)  Also wondering about Mike or Gus.  Moe?  He's kind of a quiet guy, and M suits him pretty well.  He doesn't say much, but he's very good at what he does, just doesn't socialize very much.  But "his" scene is so amazing and he knows just what to say.  Except I'm reading it thinking that Halyn wants to eat him or kiss him or something because she calls him "mmm"

So...
Matt or Mat?  I like the idea of the same number of letters. (They are twins, you know.) Is Mat too weird?
Mike
Max
Gus
Ben
Sam

I cannot do Mark or Marcus because Esteban's (my MMC) little brother is named Marcos...
 Ideas?



Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Final Chapter and a New Scene

Oh boy oh boy oh boy... very exciting things happening in my life right now!

  1. I just got a new microphone, so I can now record the audiobook of my novel.  Why is this exciting, you may ask?  The sooner I get it done, the sooner my parents read my novel.  Neither has any time (or in my mom's case) any desire to read, but both spend an inordinate amount of time in the car.  Put my book on CDs and they both can read it.  Plus, I like recording myself playing stuff and my old microphone got lost while we cleaned the playroom.  And this one is much nicer anyway.
  2. Also just got a new book of French horn music- and it's DISNEY! Why wouldn't this be exciting?  I've spent most of the night playing Prince Ali and Go the Distance.  Prince Ali is stuck in my head.  But I love it.
  3. Elli's birthday presents came today. She's going to love them.
  4. I just got paid $121 for babysitting.  Seems my life has been babysitting.  
  5. I finished editing my novel.  Am working on getting it up on CreateSpace.  I also shared it with a few people, which is exciting.
  6. Elli's getting her novel up on CreateSpace as well.  It's a lot smaller than she anticipated, but it looks cute and will be a good beginning chapter book.
  7. I figured out who to dedicate my book to.  And no, I'm not telling.  It's a secret!
  8. In a matter of 2 hours and 15 minutes Camp NaNoWriMo starts!!! Twice Upon a Time, here I come.  (I was acting it out for Elli the other night using a small Mary statue as Jennie, a silver cross as Micah, a wood cross as Nolan, and an angel statue thing as Connie.  I will never look at that silver cross the same way again.  I felt ridiculous.  It was also like 11pm...)
  9. My cousin's getting married this weekend!  Need I say more?
  10. We just got memberships at the Y which is kinda fun.  Did my orientation tonight and discovered that there are machine where you can bike and read AT THE SAME TIME!  Forget the ellipticals and treadmills with the TVs- give me a good book and a crash free stationary bike that is klutz proof.  Lee's so funny.  He's so excited to go there and work out.  He thinks he's so cool.  "Haili, can we go to the Y every day?  I need to *flexes* work out" (keep in mind, he's 11... dear me...)
Reasons why I'm not happy
  1. CreateSpace is being obnoxious with formatting my book.  And I mean OBNOXIOUS.  Every time I upload my novel, it screws something up and I have to go fix it.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

My book cover!!!

So, I finally finished my book cover- and here it is!!!! (drumroll, please) *drumroll ensues*
Doesn't it look awesome??? I spent all weekend on it...I took stock photos from deviantart.com and put them together on Gimp.  (girl is from XNBcreative...I think the background is from inadesign stock... or something like that.  Here are the links: background and girlHere is the picture I got the inspiration from...the girl's hair was too long, though.

Anyway, I'm also on deviantart if you want to find me- I'm Haili73 as well.