tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31097000507109399812024-02-01T20:45:48.557-08:00My Writing Log (for "G4:O")Continue with me on my journey of writing a 5-book series. Finished G3:DF (book 3), now onto book 4!
Notice: This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies.Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-10603775925762927842017-03-11T13:41:00.000-08:002017-03-11T13:41:16.727-08:00February 2017 I haven't blogged since mid-January, and it's March 11th now, so I'm just here catching up on filling in the writing log days. Nothing much happened in February. It was a boring month. And cold. Plenty of snow, rain, and clouds. I stayed indoors. I don't like cold weather. I like the sounds of rain on my umbrellas, and I'm indifferent to rain on most days, but sometimes I get sick of the rain. I live in the rainy part of Washington state (not D.C.), near Seattle, so it's always rainy most of the winter. It's been unusually snowier this winter, though, but no large accumulations. Maybe it did once or twice, but it's mostly been less than an inch.<br />
As for February being the month of love: I'd rather have a cat than a guy for the rest of my life, so my Valentines Day is always spent giving my mom and sister Valentines Day gifts. I'd just rather have guys for friends because it's more secure. Breakups are hard, friendships can gradually fade away by moving far away and not talking much to one another. Although that's sad, it's sadder and heartbreaking to lose someone you've felt closely connected to. I just never want to go through that. I have dozens of other reasons besides that, including never wanting to have children due to health/genetic issues, but I don't want to list them all. Why waste my time? I'd rather write!<br />
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February 2nd:<br />
Document 5: 12,532<br />
<br />
February 5th:<br />
Document 5: 12,533<br />
<br />
February 7th:<br />
Document 5: 16,321<br />
<br />
February 8th:<br />
Document 5: 17,153<br />
<br />
February 9th:<br />
Document 5: 18,378<br />
<br />
February 15th:<br />
Document 5: 19,473<br />
<br />
February 16th:<br />
Document 5: 20,114<br />
<br />
February 20th:<br />
Document 5: 22,722<br />
<br />
February 21st:<br />
Document 5: 23,478<br />
<br />
February 22nd:<br />
Document 5: 23,743<br />
<br />
February 23rd:<br />
Document 5: 23,845<br />
<br />
February 26th:<br />
Document 5: 24,911<br />
<br />
February 27th:<br />
Document 5: 25,340<br />
<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-28759553333502847752017-01-06T15:14:00.000-08:002017-03-11T13:01:37.337-08:00January 2017<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">January 1st:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Each page and word count of book so far:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Document 1: 98 pages, 53,883 words</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Document 2: 103 pages, 65,415 words</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Document 3: 104 pages, 60,462 words</span></span><br />
Document 4: [I forgot to record the page count], 50,409 words so far<br />
Total book word count so far: 230,169 words<br />
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January 2nd:<br />
Document 4: 52,011 words<br />
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January 3rd:<br />
Document 4: 52,928 words<br />
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January 4th:<br />
Document 4: 53,073 words<br />
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January 5th:<br />
Document 4: 53,843 words<br />
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Starting next week, I have to work on Fridays from now on. That means less writing late at night. But at least it's one less night.<br />
I'll try to stress the importance to my family once again how they need to be more considerate when I'm trying to write, they're talking to each other at an unnecessary volume nonstop, and they're wanting to talk to me every 5 - 10 minutes. It probably won't work, simply because they're impulsive and lack the empathy of normal human beings (Then again, with the lack that I see in the world, maybe the whole world is breaking), are forgetful, and obviously don't understand the importance of what I'm making. All they see me do is sit in a chair and look at an inanimate object for hours. *sighs* It's too expensive for me (and them, especially since the rent and other bills were recently raised) to move out into my own place, so I'm stuck with these chatty squawkers.<br />
But I should no longer complain. What benefit is there to be bitter about what you can not change? Dwelling in a way that makes your heart bitter only leads to you becoming a bitter person overall. I'll just have to continue finding ways that deter them until a company out there starts making non-writer human deterrent. Lol. 😄<br />
Edit: Woohoo! I added some new features I think you'll like!<br />
<br />
1. You can comment on posts without needing a Google+ account!<br />
2. You can search for previous posts.<br />
3. You can subscribe to the blog via email whenever I make a new post each month. Tip: Be sure to save the email you get at the beginning of the month, as I add to it until the end of the month. I only make a new post once a month. (Personally, I don't like getting a ton of emails, and I think you'd appreciate it, too.)<br />
4. Poll. Personally, I love polls. It stems from my love of multiple choice questions in school. (Funny thing: I used to hate them when I was in Elementary school!) This month's poll is: What's your favorite Fantasy creature? The choices I give you are but some of the creatures you'll find in my book series. Of course, they're not your typical kind of dragons, etc. All of my creatures have several things about them you'd never dream they'd have or be able to do. Especially the Elves. ...And yes, I capitalize the E in Elves for an important reason. ...No spoilers! Hahaha! 😁<br />
But really, think about it. I don't want to wreck the surprise for any of you. I love watching people's reactions. They're the best parts of giving gifts: Suspense and watching people's reactions.<br />
...But I don't prolong the waiting for that reason. It takes a long time to write a story! I'm not a slow typer or anything, as my wpm (words per minute) is an average speed.<br />
It's just a combination of things: The average time I write each day is about 2 hours. During that time, I briefly stop and imagine what should happen next. That can be anywhere from a few seconds to 5 minutes at a time, depending on how long or complex the following scenes or dialogue is going to be. If I'm having trouble problem-solving for my characters, or otherwise figuring out the specific sequence of all that should happen next, sometimes my thinking overheats and I have to make my mind go blank so as to prevent a total shutdown caused by frustration or an anxiety attack. This doesn't happen often, but when it does occur, I usually get up and eat/drink [not alcohol, mind you], go to social media to get my mind off it temporarily (*Twitter, Pinterest, DeviantArt, etc.), stare at the screen, or... most likely, I go back and read 1 - 3 pages before where I left off. Sometimes 4 or 6 pages, if I'm really stumped. But I do that whenever I sit down to write. I read a little before where I left off. That way, my mind's fully into the story, and I'm less conscious of the real world around me (But that's often interrupted when my family talks or makes too much noise, which is why I find it difficult to write when they're still awake, thus why I like writing late at night.). It prevents writer's block, and it makes it run away and cry for its mommy when it threatens to settle in.<br />
*pandiculates* But look at me! I'm rambling again! Good thing I don't write my books like how I talk, or I'd get nowhere! Haha! 😄 Enjoy the new blog features! And please feel free to let me know what you think<br />
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January 7th:<br />
Document 4: 57,798 words<br />
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Woohoo! I'm roaring through! Plenty of words has been written since I was able to focus and write all day. Avoiding social media first thing in the morning helps. It prevents procrastination.<br />
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January 8th:<br />
Document 4: 58,850<br />
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January 9th:<br />
Document 4: 58,982<br />
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January 10th:<br />
Document 4: 60,022<br />
Pages: 100<br />
Since I want to keep each document to a limit of approximately 100 pages, time for Document 5! (December 10th continued into Document 5)<br />
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January 13th:<br />
Document 4: 59,943<br />
Take that back about starting Document 5. I didn't like the last scene because I wrote it half asleep and the informative dialogue of a character didn't make sense. I just thought it was stupid and unnecessary, so I deleted a good 100 - 300 words, rewrote it, and make it much better. I don't often delete scenes like that. I hate doing that too early, but it was necessary because it would have affected future scenes.<br />
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January 14th:<br />
Document 4: 59,947 (100 pages, just a few touch-ups, and then on to Document 5)<br />
Document 5: 229<br />
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January 15th:<br />
Document 5: 304<br />
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January 16th:<br />
Document 5: 2,951<br />
<br />
Nothing much happening in life. Rent went up by $50, and my mom is freaking out because she's also making payments on hospital bills from a couple of months ago, as well as paying a little extra on a phone bill we had to make payments on in December.<br />
Many people tend to make payments on their bills in December for the sake of saving money and buying Christmas gifts instead. We don't normally do that, but our electricity bill went up because it's been an unusually cold winter here so far, and we've been running the heaters more often. Thankfully, the day temperatures are going to be in the low 50's (Fahrenheit) this week for the first time in several weeks. (Brr! I hate it when it's in the 40's and 30's! My hands and feet get cold easily, and that's when I can't focus well on writing! I get too restless, trying to get warm again between writing "bursts". Even though my main character loves cold temperatures, I don't! ...Except when it snows. I can spend a long time outside making snowmen and snow sculptures, taking pictures of snow falling, etc.<br />
Now then... I need to get ready for bed. I'm going to start going to bed earlier for now on. I'm tired of being tired at work. Not a good thing to feel in such an important place. I take my job seriously, but since I barely survived during an especially busy day last week with my now-shorter hours barely giving me enough time to finish my duties that day (At one point, I was feeling a tiny bit faint), I really gotta start taking my health seriously, too. ...Haha, and that includes my weight. I don't look it except for my face (I have unusually thick cheeks, according to a few dentists, so any slight bit of chubbiness is noticeable) and one other area, but I'm actually getting a little bit overweight. Since lack of sleep can make you heavier, I'm going to try getting at least 8 hours of sleep each day. 7 isn't enough, but it looks like tonight it will be approximately that much.<br />
And don't get me started on taking a nap after work. After that one time I had a seriously bad nightmare after school back in high school, I've rarely had the courage to take a nap during the daytime. And lately I've been having uncomfortable dreams. Dreams that are sort of bad dreams, but they're more unsettling than scary.<br />
Like that one I had just the other day: It was a short dream just before I woke up, but I was looking closely at an old table with ants eating at the center of it. There was one unusually large termite in the mix that had been trying to eat the table, too, but the ants killed it and had since continued working. The environment I was in had a disgusting, sticky feel to it, the kind of feeling you get when you touch something sticky like dried, sticky apple juice that had been sticking to a table in a filthy, abandoned house, or like being in someone's filthy, smelly house. ...I swear, out of all homes I've ever visited, most were filthy and smelly.<br />
I suppose mine is smelly a little bit. Having a cat litter box and a smelly dog does give this place a musty smell. But it's mostly the dog. Even a week after giving her a bath, she has a musty, greasy dog smell to her. Whatever she sleeps on ends up smelling like her. I've had to wash my robe a few times from forgetting it on the couch. One time, my mom had just pulled out the laundry out of the dryer, and she thought it was okay for Sandy to lie on my robe while she folded the laundry! I was a bit upset about it that time. I had been anticipating wearing it on that cold evening (I wear my robe all the time when it's cold), but the smell that had basically been stamped on made me gag.<br />
Oh, I just remembered yet another bit of proof as to why I can't take a nap during the day. As I was saying a little bit ago, I've been having sort of bad dreams lately, right? Well, this morning, I guess this can be called an actual bad dream:<br />
I was high up in an apartment skyscraper in Tokyo, and I was looking outside, staring in shock at the skycraper across from me rocking back and forth, the building having a split down the center, opening and closing. My building was rocking, too. We were having an earthquake. I finally took action and told an unknown person, "We need to get out of here, NOW!" and ran across a small living room. In my mind, I knew it would be a bad idea if I tried taking an elevator down, but I wondered if my building had stairs. I don't know why I even questioned that possibility.<br />
I can't remember what all that happened in the dream, but it was so detailed, it was beautiful. I don't often have dreams that have many things like countless cars, buildings, people, voices, and the individual waves of the ocean glittering in the sunshine of a sunrise or a sunset, so it was breathtaking.<br />
Down below, on the street, people were running and panicking, and several exclamations could be heard. I couldn't understand any of them. My brain didn't even form whole words in my head. Maybe except for one lady exclaiming, "Ichiohua!" According to Google Translate, it means "Position off." Well, I hope that's what it means. I don't want to be accidentally cussing on here just because Google Translate decides to make mistakes, like it always does. ...But I don't know. Maybe my memory is failing to remember what the lady was really saying. It could have been "Tichio" or "Hichio", but since I don't trust Google Translate to be translating my words correctly, I'm going to stop guessing.<br />
Anyway, time is dragging me down, and I'm going to have about 6 hours of sleep now. (Oops.) So, I'll try to make this quick: The rest of the dream involved me trying to locate my family (For some reason, I switched from being me to my male cousin-in-law) by going through crowded road barriers, climbing over fences, and climbing up steep hills away from the city. I eventually found L (my cousin's name abbreviated for privacy) and the three kids. Oh, and I was the only one who had our van keys for some reason, so L and the kids had to wait until I made it to them to drive us out of there. But I woke before we went anywhere. I think it was my sigh of relief of finally seeing all three kids and L together safe and sound that might have woken me up. Oh, yeah. And I had called L on my cell phone several times during the long trek. And I was wearing a grey-blue business suit with white cuffs. Maybe my apartment doubled as my personal office? Either way, my suit and the apartment/office looked snazzy. Too bad there was a small split in the floor. ...That's right. I remember that now. I had to jump over that in my wooden living room floor. And there was a circle of floor cushions near my feet.<br />
Agh. I knew I shouldn't have blogged tonight. I stopped writing at a decent time, thinking I was doing so good so far. Oh well, tomorrow night is another opportunity.<br />
Good night, and stay safe! If you live in earthquake country, put together a survival pack near your front door. I need to do the same, too. A deadly earthquake is due to hit this region any possible day, according to experts. Then again, if the predicted earthquake were to hit here, I'd be gone in seconds. This whole area by the coast would be liquefied. So, if you hear of Seattle and the coast stretching 30 - 40 miles north of it being wiped out or having severe damage from an earthquake, call me gone. (P.S. I'd live anywhere else but here, but I love my job, and my mom and sister would find it impossible to keep up with the bills. Plus, they're too stubborn to leave this city, and I care too much about them to leave them unprotected. Neither of them have much of a head on their shoulders. Most of their heads have been hacked off. They're both like a Nearly Headless Nick from the Harry Potter series. ...But enough with funny/weird similes. Time to force myself off the internet to tackle Life and win one of its clever, unpredictable games: A game called "tomorrow."<br />
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January 21st:<br />
Document 5: 6,162<br />
<br />
January 22nd:<br />
Document 5: 9,374<br />
<br />
January 23rd:<br />
Document 5: 10,867<br />
<br />
January 24th:<br />
Document 5: 10,913<br />
<br />
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Oops. It's March 11th, and I haven't been updating this blog. Nothing bad has happened. Blogging just takes away portions of my writing time. I'll try blogging at the end of every month at least, so this won't happen again. I can't perfectly guarantee I will, as life can be unpredictable, but it's now my goal. So, sorry for not blogging this long. Now to catch up....<br />
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January 26th:<br />
Document 5: 10,935<br />
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January 28th:<br />
Document 5: 11,589<br />
<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-31855697914954422362016-12-02T01:20:00.000-08:002017-01-01T14:03:13.255-08:00December 2016December 1st: Document 3: 60,350 words total<br />
Words written in this 24 hour day: 41 words<br />
<br />
Each page and word count of book so far:<br />
Document 1: 98 pages, 53,883 words<br />
Document 2: 103 pages, 65,415 words<br />
Document 3 (currently in progress): 104 pages, 60,355 words<br />
Document 4 (where I left off): 54 pages, 32,586 words<br />
Total pages count so far: 359 pages<br />
Total book word count so far: 212,239 words<br />
<br />
For comparison, it's longer than any of the Harry Potter books besides The Order of the Phoenix. Does it sound dauntingly long? Probably, but this is not the first book in the series, nor has it gone through much of any editing. Although I could remove some scenes, I choose to do that later, so I can look at the overall picture and decide which scenes are best omitted or shortened.<br />
You never know how important a scene can be until you finish writing the book. So, if you're writing, don't worry about excessive word count for now. It's harder to fix things once you've taken too much out or the wrong things out. Plus, it's just a good way to distract you from writing and make you forget what you were going to write, which results in writer's block. That's one of the reasons why writers, teachers, etc. encourage you to just write your book or paper as a rough draft to get your thoughts to come out and not stop, then revise it and pretty it up into a final draft.<br />
Anyway, I'm having trouble staying awake at the moment (It's 1:20 AM of December 2nd, but I had to get up an hour early yesterday morning on December 1st). I'm wiped out. Good night!<br />
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December 2nd:<br />
Document 3: 60,369 words<br />
<br />
December 3rd:<br />
Document 3: 60,462 Finished Document 3! Onto Document 4! 😃<br />
Document 4: 32,689 words<br />
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December 4th:<br />
Document 4: 32,733 words<br />
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The word count is creeping along rather slowly because I haven't been needing to edit or add in much. It's getting towards the end of my task. I'm on page 35 of 54. Once I have read (and edited where need be) down to where I left off several months ago, then I'll finally get back into actually writing again. I'm both excited and nervous about it. Will I know what to write, next? Will I hit a wall of indecision with a variety of choices? Several things have yet to happen, and I'll have to decide what order they'll be in. I usually just write and let things happen as the story goes along, but I'm always afraid of getting writer's block.<br />
If I let myself be indecisive and not do anything for too long, I might sort of give up or get lazy (get too comfortable with doing nothing), then hit the wall of writer's block. For me, when writer's block hits, I can't write for a long time. When I think about writing during writer's block, I picture writing as an exhausting and difficult feat, and moan in my thoughts, "Too hard!" Then I force myself to do or think of something else. Guilt tears me down over time, so I try not to go without writing for too long.<br />
Okay, time to write! 😄<br />
Oh, I forgot to mention: Yesterday, I visited a mall I haven't seen in 7 or 8 years. It was when I was living with my abusive aunt, so the trip was... um.... I can't quite place it in one word, but I had a flashback passing by a certain store she took me to when she was shopping for her own clothes. That day she was very angry and unpredictable. I can't remember what she was angry about, and I don't want to remember. All I know is she was so angry, I never liked passing by there. I would close my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at it. Well, I closed my eyes yesterday for the same reason, even though I didn't remember doing that years earlier. I guess some old habits never change. Anyway, I didn't have any more flashbacks for the rest of the trip, but I did have countless feelings of strange, unsettling, and somewhat uncomfortable deja vu. Certain other stores, streets, buildings, etc. Thankfully, so much had changed in the mall over 7 or 8 years (There was a lot of construction going on at the mall at the time, which made the mall become even bigger.), I had very little memory of the inside. I kept getting lost. Only a fountain, four stores, and the food court seemed familiar to me. But I had fun. A friend of mine was supposed to meet me there later, so I browsed, shopped, and ate food by myself, which allowed me to shrug off feelings of limitation. You would not believe how strict that woman was. My aunt did not let a living, breathing moment go by with me being alone in public, and she never let me go hang out with friends anywhere. I always wanted to go to the mall or theatres with a friend. I never had friends who were the rough dangerous type. Being a quiet shy girl, I had few friends, but they were all good, caring friends. But nobody knew what was happening back at "home". They had no idea I was living in total isolation for months at a time with few but a grandma who didn't want to get involved, a cousin who kept to himself, and an aunt who was verbally abusive, controlling, and ...dehumanizing. It's a harsh word, but I often felt like she was trying to limit me so much as to limit my very identity.<br />
...Oh man. I just had a flashback just now. My mom was unlocking the front door behind me, and I felt like my aunt was opening my bedroom door. I can't type about this anymore. I need to stop thinking of these past things. It's too soon. Yesterday was a mind-bending event in my life, and it's too early for me to start thinking of the old memories again. It's always too early. It would be best if I never thought of any of it ever again. Just let my past be thought of as just a nightmare. Like it never really happened. ...But I won't go crazy thinking this. I know it all happened for real, I just want to not let it be part of me. Just as my mom used to say when I was a kid: "Don't worry, honey. It was just a bad dream." The bad parts of my past are not to be worried or thought about, only to be forgotten as though it was all a bad dream.<br />
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<br />
Yahoo! I did it! I read and editing the book! Now I can finally get back to writing the book in its proper order knowing exactly what to write next! ...I think. Heheheh. 😄 I might have to make a list of things for my characters to do before they leave a certain place. That day is coming up fast.<br />
...Hey! I haven't done that in a long time, have I? *smirks* Given you <i>little</i> hints of what I'm currently <i>writing</i>? Hahaha! Old habits die hard, don't they? X'D It's 10:53 PM of December 5th right now, so once I hit midnight or decide to stop writing before then, I'll put in today's word count.<br />
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December 5th:<br />
Document 4: 33,477 words<br />
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December 6th:<br />
Document 4: 33,738 words<br />
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December 7th:<br />
Document 4: 34,426 words (So far. It's 1:34 AM. Time for a quick shower, then bed. My cat had a nightmare that involved whiny growling a little bit ago, so I woke her and gave her catnip. She was happy and rolled in it. Since then, she's been sleeping in my lap as usual, but she's gotten so heavy, it's cramping up my leg! She's not fat in the least, though. I think it's just a little winter fat, since this started in Fall. ...I can't stay awake typing this. Ugh....)<br />
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P.S. My grandma went to the ER this evening after falling in her house, but there are nor broken bones to speak of, and she's back at home resting.<br />
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December 8th:<br />
Document 4: 35,169 words<br />
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It finally snowed! The weather forecast this week kept predicting 1 - 3'' of snow for a few days this week, but I kept getting disappointed with nothing. Then, a more certain prediction said it would definitely snow tonight. I kept waiting, looking out the window, waiting, looking out the window. Then, after I had given up most hope, I looked outside one more time and there it was! Light snowfall and gusts of strong wind!<br />
Knowing how this area is reputed to have short-lived snow, I thanked God for the little cheer-me-up, not caring if it only lasted 10 minutes. I was glad it snowed. It ended up snowing lightly for about an hour, then it stopped.<br />
Otherwise, not much else happening in life. I went to a dollar store and was able to find a bunch of stocking stuffers for Christmas. Everything from candy to toys. It's great because the energy and phone bills have gotten higher lately, so there's been a need to save money. I'm not sure why the phone bill has gotten so high (I think it's because the phone company decided to change its costs a little bit, but we'll call them and find out.), but the energy bill has gotten higher because we've been running the heater more often. It's been cold lately. Last night, it was 19 F (-7.22 C).<br />
It doesn't usually get that cold here, so we're not used to it. My mom and I both get cold easily. For instance, I've been using hand warmer packets to keep my hands warm. Otherwise, my hands feel like ice and get stiff. When I feel cold, and my hands feel cold, then I get uncomfortable and restless, resulting in less writing. Because not only am I distracted by my bodily discomfort (reality), but my brain can't think or focus as well as it needs to (slower brain function = little imagination).<br />
My way of getting warm at home: Fuzzy pajamas, fuzzy bathrobe, slipper socks (fuzzy or knitted), heater, warm-hot tea (I don't like food and drinks too hot. Burning my tongue ruins taste, and I prefer to enjoy flavor over trying to be tough.), holding my hands under running hot water, and I just recently started trying hand warmers.<br />
...I just looked outside!! It snowed a lot more!! 😃<br />
...I can barely type this. Or read this for that matter. I was on the porch taking pictures and videos of the snow (It's supposed to rain in the wee hours of the morning), so my fingers are numb and my glasses are fogged up. ...Okay, I put my glasses back on. It's just a little fogy in the corners, but I can still see out of them.<br />
Brr! It's 30 degrees! Yep, I'm a wimp compared to most of the rest of you. Western Washington is known for its mild temperatures, so I don't doubt many of you are used to much colder temperatures.<br />
But I love snow. I don't care if it gets cold, I love seeing and playing in snow. I'm a 24 year old woman who loves building snowmen, and I plan on trying new things with it. Two years ago, I put a little glitter on mine for an extra sparkle. Maybe if I get more snow that will last longer, I'll build a snow dragon! Last year's little bit of snow didn't stick very well (It was that annoying powdery kind), but I hope this year will be my opportunity to explore my abilities.<br />
...I'm too sleepy to upload you pictures of the snow! I was sitting here looking through the video I took of the snow and making still images within the video, but I can't continue. I have to go to bed now. I can't stay awake. Goodbye, snow! 😞 The rain will probably melt it all before I wake up tomorrow.<br />
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Guess what I did? I built a snow dragon! 😁<br />
4 videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF07Q8clXG4SllWxBBjy4yTp8LE6m4HGl<br />
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The spiked tail and hips:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3C7E2ttoU0yhhxUaUresju8a_iQp2z0One52pWicEHrQDG-vUvKM-R5bPAWuS6QRrkhslV88ZfYetuu3a0x8VprljLd8MxB2RgttFDZCN4f6NCN5H0wjVuZ0exkkmyumSiPc5akTaUU/s1600/DSCN9946.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3C7E2ttoU0yhhxUaUresju8a_iQp2z0One52pWicEHrQDG-vUvKM-R5bPAWuS6QRrkhslV88ZfYetuu3a0x8VprljLd8MxB2RgttFDZCN4f6NCN5H0wjVuZ0exkkmyumSiPc5akTaUU/s400/DSCN9946.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The finished dragon (with a bucket head):</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXr28lgst0STpCXRav8LtYtVQuwe1dBJ5YZWKPMUGZ7eBswtcTp12UnlCV9iJ-g3SMuAW_UKtOF1h0B1a_D9jE0AQFraRzOGjJ8Ob0MEOWjnmgSLsGuA7joKKc2QaOUdyPVB4IhDnCrA/s1600/DSCN9934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXr28lgst0STpCXRav8LtYtVQuwe1dBJ5YZWKPMUGZ7eBswtcTp12UnlCV9iJ-g3SMuAW_UKtOF1h0B1a_D9jE0AQFraRzOGjJ8Ob0MEOWjnmgSLsGuA7joKKc2QaOUdyPVB4IhDnCrA/s400/DSCN9934.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I couldn't finish it because I was cold from being outside for 3 hours, and the temperature was rising, which was making the snow clump up. That's why the wings look so lumpy. It was hard to make it stick together. The bucket head? Same reason. I knew if I started on it, I wouldn't be able to stop until it had high detail. Maybe next time. This was the first snow dragon I had ever made. All others I've ever made were snowmen. It was fun. 😊</div>
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Oh, and that day (December 9th), I did not write a single word. Oops! After I was done with the snow dragon, I went home and made myself some genmaicha tea. </div>
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It's probably my favorite tea. I also like pu-ehr tea, but only if it's high quality and very expensive. I only tried it once, at the Seattle Tea Festival, but I loved it.</div>
Anyway, it took a long time for me to get warm again. My fingers were almost impossible to get warm again. That's one of the reasons why I couldn't write. I was also too cold to think, and I only had 6 hours of sleep the night before. I didn't remember that and didn't mention it in any of the videos.<br />
But yeah, I had fun anyway. Oh! I almost forgot! I made one other thing:<br />
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Before I started on the snow dragon, I made this with the bucket (before the wind knocked it down):</div>
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December 10th:<br />
Document 4: 36,574 words<br />
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December 11th:<br />
Document 4: 37,313 words<br />
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All of the snow melted by the next morning, by the way. 😢 But that's usually what happens around here. It snows once or twice a year, and it usually doesn't last long, either. We usually get a lot of rain in fall, winter and spring, and if it isn't raining, it's cloudy or windy or all three at the same time. I wish we had more snow! 😫<br />
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And nothing new much happening otherwise. I've been doing a little Christmas shopping, including going to a dollar store for stocking stuffers and taking my sister to the mall to find gifts for our mom. She bought one thing for me, but it doesn't take much to make me happy.<br />
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I was going to bake some cookies tonight, but my left arm is sore from pulling a bunch of board books from the shelves for inspection. Since babies are prone to making messes, chewing or sucking on books, and ripping lift-the-flap board books, we check for damage or yucky stuff. (P.S. If you ever come across a damaged or yucky book in a library, or you accidentally damage it or make it dirty or sticky, always feel free to notify library staff so they can clean or fix it. Don't try to do it yourself! 😊 )<br />
Even though it can be gross or sad seeing damaged books, I find the task fun. I like prettying up displays and making things better, organizing and cleaning and the like. It's something that's hard-wired in my brain. It's largely because my mom had so much trouble with my brother making messes and throwing tantrums all the time, I'd end up being the one fetching items and doing favors for her. It was really the only times when I felt noticed, loved, and appreciated as a child, because all other times I was slow-minded, clumsy, a coward, and wanted to help when I couldn't. It was hard watching the world around me fall apart all the time.<br />
Anyway, tomorrow and the next day will involve plenty of cookie-baking! 😁 I'll be baking peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chip cookie Christmas trees. The trees will be simple: Bake cookies of differing sizes, then "glue" them together in a stack from large to small with icing. I saw the idea on Pinterest, and I loved it for its beautiful simplicity:<br />
<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/451274825146428527/">https://www.pinterest.com/pin/451274825146428527/</a><br />
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If you can't see it in the link:</div>
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I'm not sure if I'd add that much icing, though. I don't want it to be too messy when friends separate the cookies. I might add the sprinkles. I'm not sure, yet. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">¯\_(ツ)_/¯ </span>*shrugs*<br />
I'm not sure if I'll be able to write the day after tomorrow (I'll try to write tonight past midnight for tomorrow's writing), but we'll see.<br />
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December 12th:<br />
Document 4: 37,578 words<br />
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December 13th:<br />
Document 4: 37,643 words<br />
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December 16th:<br />
Document 4: 40,889 words<br />
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I made these (and this video)! Details later. I'm busy writing at the moment.<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/nY93ZK1TBsA">https://youtu.be/nY93ZK1TBsA</a><br />
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December 17th:<br />
Document 4: 41,213 words<br />
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December 18th:<br />
Document 4: 42,199 words<br />
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December 19th:<br />
Document 4: 42,422 words<br />
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The cookies were for some friends. I don't know if I mentioned that, but I'm too tired to care at the moment to check.<br />
I know I keep saying this, but I'll share you the results of the chocolate chip cookies very soon. It just takes time to upload it via a memory card, and I'm running low on energy. I had 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night because I was writing, not paying attention to the time, took a shower, and had to figure out why my cell phone alarm wasn't setting on vibrate instead of stupid ringtones.<br />
I get major panic attacks when I'm startled awake by loud noises. Many times in the past, I've hyperventilated, had heart palpitations, suffered massive confusion, and had a sense of unreality. In my confused state, I'd freak out and fumble with the buttons trying to figure out how to make the cell phone shut up. It first started happening to me when I was about 14 or 15 and had an alarm clock with super loud bells inside it (My cruel-as-always aunt thought it work to make me unable to fall back asleep after my alarm would go off. She was wrong.). It's pitiful. Reminds me of my grandma when she'd jump at the sound of her old house phone howling "GOOOOOOOOO!!!" super loud when she'd accidentally set the phone to speaker phone. Although I felt sorry for her when she fumbled with the buttons a second or two more, I'd also laugh the next moment when she'd snap at it, "OH! SHUT! UP!" and slam the phone down on the receiver to silence it. ...Come to think of it, I think I've told you that same story before. AGH! I really <i>am</i> like a grandma! *facepalm*<br />
Despair aside, it's getting late, I want to write just a little before I head to bed, and I could have had that picture up by now with the amount of time I spent writing this. Oh well. Here's the picture of the peanut butter cookies I baked, though. The picture is on the very bottom of the post: <a href="http://pumpkinsrandomprojects.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-best-peanut-butter-cookies-youll.html">http://pumpkinsrandomprojects.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-best-peanut-butter-cookies-youll.html</a><br />
P.S. Those who tried the cookies all said they loved them. Yay! ^_^ 😊❤ Making others happy makes me happy. It's one of the biggest things in my life that helps keep me going.<br />
Oh! I almost forgot! I might be too busy to write until after Christmas. I have to run a ton of errands and do so many things.<br />
Tonight, I went through the gifts I bought, and it ends up most of them are stocking stuffers from the dollar store. Eheheheheh.... 😓😖😩 Only 5-ish gifts each, and all but one each are small. Sooooo, I'm going to have to get some last minute things. But don't worry. I know where to go.<br />
I also have to buy myself new shoes. I'm not a shoe person, as I only have three pairs: One pair of sneakers I wear every day, one pair of dress shoes (I rarely wear dresses and skirts because there are too many creeps living in this city, and because I want to be able to run or get on my knees at any given time without worrying about a wardrobe malfunction. I used to live on farms, after all. I have no patience for pretty things getting dirty or damaged.), and one pair of snow boots (and it rarely snows more than 3 times a year here). My sneakers are worn out and are hurting my feet. I've been too busy to go to the shoe store, so I've been having to stretch out my agony for a few more months. What's crazy is these shoes only lasted me 4 months before they started hurting my feet and wearing out. And they're Sketchers! I remember when Sketchers used to make excellent, long-lasting shoes. But the good old days are called that for a reason, right? Nothing is ever like what it used to be. Everything made by big companies is over-industrialized, and they have money on their minds more than the hearts of their customers. It's sad, but I figure I'll just keep searching for good brands and boycott the bad ones. Not this time, though. I want to save money for gifts, so I'll go to the cheap Payless Shoesource and buy the only brand of sneakers they sell: Cheap, old Champion shoes. It's better than paying $50+ for shoes that will last 4 months. Champion shoes last me about 6 or 7 months before they wore out and abuse my feet.<br />
But first, tomorrow (Ha! Today! It's the wee morning of December 20th, after all. Speaking of which, it's 2:01 AM. Ack!), I have to go to the post office to send my brother's box (He's disabled and lives in a group home for adult men with disabilities), as well as a box to a... certain friend in Renfrew, Ontario, Canada. ...Okay, I'll tell you. It's Matt McDougall. He's the one-man-show behind the YouTube channel, "50 Ducks In A Hot Tub" (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/moviematcanada/videos">https://www.youtube.com/user/moviematcanada/videos</a>). My family watches his show almost on a daily basis, so we feel like we've become good friends with him. I've sent him a package before, and he appreciates gifts and donations from fans all around the world. He's had European chocolate (His favorite!) sent to him, duck slippers sent from a random person, cute things sent to him from somewhere in Asia, even a drone sent from a fan from the USA. He recently broke it by crashing it in his trees, though. I feel so sorry for him. He tried fixing it, but something is damaged in the motors, so no more drone footage. For now. Maybe someone will send him a new one.<br />
Anyway, I could rattle on, but now I definitely need to go to bed. No writing tonight. ...I ...I don't want to close it. I really want to write. But last night, I got 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Time to be more strict with myself. *closes book document* It makes me feel bad not writing, and I definitely act differently on social media when I miss a night of writing (I either get super wordy and come up with wild ideas and jokes and puns, etc., or I get restless and not know what to say to anybody). We'll see what I'm like tomorrow (daytime).<br />
...But again, I'm going to busy until after Christmas, so I'm not sure if I'll even write between now and then. We'll see where the waters of life flows and go with the flow of it.<br />
Oh, and if in case I forget that day: Merry Christmas! 😃 And it doesn't matter if you don't celebrate it. It's a holiday about love, and one way to show you my love is to tell you I care about all of you.<br />
Unless nobody reads my blog. Then I guess I've been writing to my imaginary friends and future self. It <i>is</i> like a diary, after all. I tell you about my day, what has happened, what I expect to come, what ends up happening instead, what I learn, what I hope, what I dream about, all kinds of personal things. But figuring how Google Stats tells me otherwise, that I do get views, I'll keep believing I have some very good listeners who listen to me ramble and don't interrupt me, no matter what. Lol.<br />
*Ahem* Time for bed. It's 2:39 AM, dummy! 😲<br />
Anyway, I wish you all happy and safe holidays and the rest of 2016, no matter where you are, who you are, or what you celebrate! ^_^<br />
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December 26th:<br />
Document 4: 46,878 words<br />
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December 27th:<br />
Document 4: 47,652 words<br />
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Sorry I didn't update you on how my Christmas went. I've been tired lately. It went well. Better than last year, when my sister was a selfish snob who complained of having fewer presents than Mom, even though I gave them the same amount. This year, I didn't have as much money to spend (The bills have gotten higher.), and I didn't know what to give them, so there were fewer gifts, and a lot less "wow" to the gifts.<br />
I gave my sister owl pajamas, a small "mermaid" pillow, and dolphin-shaped slippers. The rest were smaller, insignificant gifts I can't remember. Mostly candy, I think.<br />
As for my mom, I gave her new slippers (Her old ones were making her feet itch), several pairs of Christmas earrings (She loves Christmas year-round. They were on clearance at the mall, too!), an Alice in Wonderland DVD, and a nice cheese cutter. It's made in Germany. The handle of our old cheese cutter broke a long time ago, and since she's the one who most often cuts cheese, I knew she would love it. This should save her hand, which has been hurting lately.<br />
You know what's funny about that? I had plans of throwing away or hiding our old one Christmas Eve night, and wouldn't you know it? I forgot to do that, and yet she couldn't find it anywhere a day or two before Christmas, anyway! 😄<br />
And the day was pretty relaxed. We stayed home all day, enjoying our presents and the company of each other.<br />
Oh, I forgot about my gifts: I received several slipper socks (I love those because my feet get cold easily, and my old ones had worn holes in the heels), flexible slipper boots (I hate the popular slippers nowadays that have rubber bottoms. I understand they enable you to walk outside, but why can't it be easier to find the other, non-rubber kind? The soft, flexible slipper boots keep my legs warm where they would otherwise not be completely covered by my pajama pants, and I'm able to wear them in bed, too. I used to have a pair when I was a teen, and I've never had a love for any other kind of slipper since. I'm really thankful my mom found a pair.), soft blankets, a large bean bag chair identical to my sister's (Because the little brat gets jealous all the time.), a Howl's Moving Castle t-shirt (Calcifer: "May all your bacon burn."), a glass mug for tea, an arm-knitting kit with instructions (I really want to learn how to knit, but I've failed to see where my knitting needles need to be and in which directions to move them. Book diagrams are often poorly illustrated, and video tutorials move too fast, so maybe if I didn't need needles, I'd understand the concept better? ...But I still want to learn how to knit with needles. I've been wanting to learn ever since I was a teenager. I think I need someone to help guide my hands and needles so I can see the directions with my own eyes. I'm spatially challenged, I guess. But I have a couple of friends who knit, so maybe one of these days when they're not busy, I can bring my yarn and needles with me and ask them for help. ...I'm a wimp when it comes to asking for help. I'm too afraid of inconveniencing people by taking up their "Me" time.), a 2-DVD set of the first season of The Amanda Show (which is a show I loved growing up), and I can't remember what else. But I loved everything given to me. (Last year, I was given several things that I never ended up using, and I feel bad about it. Example: Money origami book. I'm not good at making origami, so making complex creations using non-square-shaped paper sounds like a daunting challenge. I'm hardly much better than when I could hardly make an origami cat 8 years ago. I just have a 2D mind. Even when I write, it's often difficult for me to get sizes, shapes, and proportions correct in my head. But thankfully this time I didn't have to feel bad about anything other than one pair of slipper socks I know will be too tight on me, and I think I know a smaller, less fortunate friend who I can give it to who needs it far more than I do.)<br />
My sister had never watched it before, and I was excited about watching it for the first time in many years, so I was able to introduce that to her. I had very little memory of what was in the show, so in some way I was a little afraid that I might not like it as much as I did when I was a kid. I already felt horrible about my disappointed impressions of Rugrats, CatDog, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and a few others, but thankfully my love of The Amanda Show was renewed. Some elements of the show finally came back to me, awakening memories I thought I had long forgotten.<br />
So, after unwrapping presents and cleanup, we watched The Amanda Show, ate candy and cookies, and relaxed the rest of the day. After The Amanda Show was over, I went on my computer to check on family and friends who lived abroad, my mom baked turkey (We don't normally have a Christmas feast, but somebody gave the frozen turkey to us, so we figured we might as well eat it on Christmas), and my sister watched a movie I gave her (She loves The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe).<br />
Sweetie, my black Siamese-mix writing companion and best friend, was (and still is) in heat, so she hasn't had a clear head to enjoy her new toys, yet. Sandy, our black Labrador retriever, gobbled up the treats I got her, loves the big bone my mom found at the health food store, and loves sleeping on her new bed (She has hip displasia, so it's becoming hard for her to jump on the couch to sleep, so my mom gave her a bed to sleep on the floor.). Tree, our pet mouse (so-named for a tree design in her fur), loved the goodies in her tiny stocking and loved her first adventure inside her mouse ball. She had fun running around the apartment for a while until I put her back in her cage so she could have water and food. The silly mouse didn't want to come out of the ball at first, because she was having so much fun! But it had been about an hour of play.<br />
...Okay. I need to head to bed. Last night, I was up late, and I only got 4 hours of sleep. I wanted to write last night and tonight, but I must hold myself back one more day. I wanted to focus on this blog post so I wouldn't keep you waiting and so you wouldn't worry that Christmas turned out horrible for me or something. It's 2:09 AM, Thursday, December 29th. Good night. ZZZZZZZZZ 😴<br />
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December 29th:<br />
Document 4: 49,311* words<br />
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*Approximate. I forgot to stop at 11:59 PM or 12:00 AM and record my word count. I removed a few hundred words at 12:30-ish, so this word count comes close.<br />
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December 30th:<br />
Document 4: 50,382 words<br />
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-34718586316945123952016-11-06T16:08:00.001-08:002016-12-02T00:22:51.259-08:00November 2016 Big announcement: I'm doing NaNoWriMo with G4:O!<br />
Of course, I'm not cheating the targeted word count by counting what I've already written, so I made a separate document containing only what I've written in November.<br />
In case you don't know what NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's basically a challenge for anyone who's ever thought of writing a novel. From 12 AM November 1st until 11:59 PM on November 30th, you write as many words as you can. The challenge is 50,000 words, but you don't have to make it. Last year, I didn't. It's just a way to see how far you get.<br />
For me, the fun part was updating my word count and watching the column chart grow. I don't know why, I just like graphs and charts. They make things look fun, and they're easier and faster to understand by a quick glance, too.<br />
Last year, I tried writing a side story (not related to the G series) for NaNoWriMo, but I made the mistake of forcing myself to do what I didn't want to do. I kept feeling like writing G4:O. It was pure torture not writing it for an entire month. That's why I missed so many days.<br />
But this time is different. I figured out how to write G4:O without cheating. I had a writing buddy who told me that she was using a story she already started, and her word count was ginormous.<br />
Personally, I don't like cheating, lying, being fake, or anything like that. I got lied to when I was a kid by adults too many times, and kids hardly ever played fair games with me, so I've grown sensitive to it and conscious of myself. But it's not a bad thing. Most people have a bad habit of lying a lot, and they either have difficulty breaking it, or they give themselves the notion that it's totally okay to lie.<br />
But anyway, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. It's not too late for you to join. You can even be my writing buddy. My username is SlugDiaper. <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">http://nanowrimo.org/</a><br />
Oh yeah, and on October 29th, I took a train for the first time. 65 miles from home to stay the weekend with some cousins. My cousin Sara got married on Halloween, so most people were in costumes of their choice. I wore a dress and a horse head mask, my cousin wore a wedding dress handmade with 100% pure silk by her grandma-in-law, and her husband was the 13th doctor from Doctor Who. It was fun. Later, at the after party, we played a Mario Kart game and a hilarious (though, rather inappropriate) card game of Superfight. Everybody else but me drank mixtures of hard liquor, mostly vodka and juice.<br />
I'm not a fan of hard liquor. I've never been drunk, and never plan on it, either. I'm more of a red wine or ginger beer kind of simple gal. And I rarely drink, especially now that I'm on allergy medicine twice a day.<br />
Other than that, nothing much new other than a little bit of health problems. A week before I went I on my train trip, I had a sinus infection. I got better just in time for the trip, but I had a little bit of allergies during and afterwards because both places were a bit dusty. And since I didn't have much sleep (3 1/2 hours of sleep on the first train trip), my body's resistance went down, so now I think I have a cold, passed over to me from my 2-year old cousin. It doesn't feel like a sinus infection, so I'm sure it's a cold. I've been feeling crummy for the past few days, and my nose has felt like it's been stuffed with a wet sock. Fortunately, today I'm starting to feel better, thanks to chicken noodle soup and a few drops of oregano oil in a high vitamin C juice mixture.<br />
Usually when I have a cold, I feel too fatigued and miserable to write, but thankfully that's not the case this time.<br />
You can keep track of my word count each day (or hour, especially in the evening and night when I usually write, as I like updating it frequently) via the NaNoWriMo website or on here.<br />
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*November 2nd: 166 words total<br />
November 3rd: 1,330 words total<br />
November 4th: 1,484 words total<br />
November 5th: 3,714 words total<br />
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26,094 (very beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 189,680 + 3,714 (NaNoWriMo total) = 193,394 (absolute total)<br />
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Maybe to give me more time to write, I'll do these calculations in threes. Which means less blogging. I'd hate to do that, but it would make it more fun to see in threes. Unless you like seeing math problems all the time. Lol. If you want to see more updated, daily word count totals, you can see them here: <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/participants/slugdiaper/novels/g4-o-title-abbreviated-i-can-t-reveal-it-on-nanowrimo-spoilers-this-is-the-4th-book-in-an-unpublished-series/stats">http://nanowrimo.org/participants/slugdiaper/novels/g4-o-title-abbreviated-i-can-t-reveal-it-on-nanowrimo-spoilers-this-is-the-4th-book-in-an-unpublished-series/stats</a><br />
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P.S. Here's a selfie of me wearing the mask at the wedding:</div>
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And the Doctor Who themed wedding cake:</div>
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And my cat this morning: </div>
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I was starting to make the bed and was about to pull back the brown blanket when I saw this! She was underneath it! I let her sleep. Minutes later, she was still asleep when my mom got home, despite the noise. Only when my mom went in the bedroom to reset my sister's clock for daylight savings time did she finally wake up. Here's a video I took. Oh, and my voice sounds weird and nasally because I have a cold, as you may remember: https://youtu.be/8xDzIOacc4I </div>
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*Edit: At first, I couldn't find the place on the NaNoWriMo website where I wrote on November 2nd. I could have sworn I did write on that day, but for some reason the graph wasn't showing it. I later found it.<br />
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I can't remember the original reason why I delayed posting here, but it's mainly because I've been too tired and didn't feel like posting here. It just takes extra time to type here. But really, I don't *have* to say much of anything here. I just feel obligated to. It's a blog after all. Aren't blogs supposed to be fun to read?<br />
...Wait. I remember why! I can't believe I forgot to mention it here. I've been running errands lately because my mom had some blood and mucous, along with lower abdominal cramping, went to the ER and found out she has cysts on her right ovaries and "likely polyps" in her colon. They highly suggested her to have a colonoscopy, so she's going to have one on November 29th. Due to her pain, she had to stay home with a heating pad while I ran errands. I don't have a drivers' license due to my own health issues, as you already know, so grocery shopping involved pushing a cart home (one of the times was with our own plastic shopping cart, but one of the double wheels broke off a long time ago. I was sore for a few days after I tried not lift that side up all the way home (to reduce the change of breaking the last wheel in that corner), while pushing it home.<br />
So, yeah. And then it was worrying about my mom, because it's the fear that she has colon cancer. Her dad, my grandpa, died from colon cancer. Well, he had a heart attack and died, but he also had untreated colon cancer, so it could have been caused by the cancer. He didn't want to tell his family. He didn't want to treat it and leave his family with having to pay huge bills after his death. And my mom likely will want to follow his footsteps. She thinks that low of herself. She's said she'd rather live on the street than live in a retirement center, and she's not saving any money for retirement. It's a huge frustration on my part, because she's lived through some serious stuff, and I don't like seeing bad things happen to people. I'm sensitive to that thanks to watching her get physically abused and seeing other bad things happen. It's things kids should never, ever see.<br />
Anyway, I don't want to talk anymore about it. It's too dark. It's too stressful. I don't want you to worry about it. This is why I've been loathe to go on here and blog to you guys. <br />
It's where I open my mind and don't have to worry about my family and friends commenting on it on Facebook. But I'm not asking for anybody's help. Nobody can help me. People's comments of "I'm sorry hon" and words of encouragement are just words. I read it, and it doesn't improve my situation. They're words meant to hamper fear, but since they're not words that give solutions, I feel more fear because it means I'm alone. Since I was a kid, I learned the hard thing about life: Those who say "everything's okay" is not feeling okay. Those who say "I'm sorry" for your bad situation is distancing themselves from you and basically saying "don't ask me for advice, I'm not going to do anything because that's your life and this one's mine".<br />
Adults couldn't be trusted to tell me the truth when I was a kid. But they didn't realize that I always saw something and heard something there: I saw the clues that something was wrong. And the fear of not knowing was the worst thing. The fear of the unknown is like being afraid of the dark when you hear scary noises, because there could be something there, but you can't see what it is.<br />
I'm stopping here. I need to write, and I'm just in a depressed mood at the moment. Later I'll be in a better mood, read all this, and regret it. My cat has even sensed my heavy heart, as she's sitting on the table in between me and my laptop right now (black cat on the right):<br />
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She's a sweetheart.</div>
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Anyway, here's what I've been writing. I've made it a goal to write at least one word each day, just as long as I'm writing every day.<br />
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Month, Day: Total<br />
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November 6th: 5,477<br />
November 7th: 6,461<br />
November 8th: 7,417<br />
November 9th: 7,434<br />
November 10th: 7,474<br />
November 11th: 7,475<br />
November 12th: 7,504<br />
November 13th: 11,695<br />
November 14th: 13,311<br />
November 15th: 13,669<br />
November 16th: 13,741<br />
November 17th: 14,044<br />
November 18th: 14,048<br />
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November 19th: 16,482<br />
November 20th: 17,737<br />
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I've been getting myself confused here. I forgot to add a couple of scenes. Minor, but important. But yeah, I foresaw this. Getting confused. I knew I'd get to this point about a month or two ago. It's just because I've reached that point where I have to join two pieces of writing together, which were written over a year apart.<br />
It's like holding two long tiny chains in each hand as though wanting to join them together. But! knowing you have some individual links that fell off the longest link a long time ago, due to being lazy and doing a sloppy job in the beginning, you look up and sigh as you put down the two links, not ready for a delicate challenge. Unfortunately, since you were impatient and didn't feel ready to do some hard work again, your sigh blew away a couple of links. You look down and suddenly realize with dread that you lost some and didn't know where they went because you weren't paying attention, so you look around until you find them. Once they're all together, you try to be more careful with your work and focus harder so you don't mess up again.<br />
Remembering what is supposed to happen both is and isn't the problem. It isn't, because I basically already wrote the scenes and events that are to follow. It is, because when I get nervous or panic (or both), I have difficulty thinking and have trouble with my memory. (I was especially that way when I was being abused, but we won't focus on that.) And when I was getting out of writing the simple, incomplete sentence summary part, I was starting to make slightly more complete sentences in addition to skipping over some scenes, as well as vice versa. And the parts where I didn't quite make complete sentences, I now have to make them make more sense.<br />
I'm not sure if you understood my metaphor about the chains and links, but that's what's happening with me and my writing. From now on, there probably won't be much of a word count.<br />
To put it in a different way from the chains and links bit, I need to sew rags together to join two halves of blankets together. ...Uh, I don't know why I need rags to do that! Hahahaha! Maybe the blanket halves are crooked and I don't want to cut the excess fabric on them because it'd make the entire blanket smaller than it's supposed to be. There we go! Now it's making more sense! Though, you're probably reading this with a funny face right now. My family doesn't understand me either. That's why I write. Also why I've made a few characters talk this way. Because they're somehow able to explain themselves better to others than me. Or that others don't judge them and think they're weird.<br />
If you still don't understand my meaning, I'm sorry. In real life, I'm a worse communicator than this. I'm bad at talking because I have difficulty thinking. I have difficulty thinking because my brain is literally slow at processing thoughts. Even simple thoughts. I used to be much slower when I was a kid. I was called a retard by kids all the time. I was so stupid back then (4th - 6th grade), I didn't even know what retard meant! I just thought "retard" meant "stupid, hyper weirdo" or something. And the thing about my thoughts that makes me even slower is when I, most all the time, pressure myself to think as fast as I can. It works when I'm working and making sure I get things done and not forget things, but when I'm talking to coworkers, friends, and family? (Especially those I know.) I'm often overwhelmed by how quickly others think and talk, that I'm left out in the cold waiting for an opportunity to speak.<br />
There aren't many pauses or gaps in people's conversations, let me tell you. And I'm not one to interrupt people. I don't like seeming rude and brusque. I want to be seen as polite and automatically deserving respect, just as anybody should be treated: Fairly.<br />
From time to time, I do interrupt people, and it makes me feel bad, but it's usually when I feel that what I want to say is important and should be heard. Sometimes it's just a phase, when I'm tired of being interrupted and talked over and ignored all the time. No gaps in people's conversations when I really want to talk frustrates me. Sometimes, that frustration leads into impatience and turns me into a rhino with a long horn (interrupting tongue). Oh, did my horn push you to the side? Sorry. I can't help I exist. (I have to be heard, too, right? We all deserve a chance to speak. I'm not a robot.) Sometimes I've done that to more important people. I've wondered why I do that, and I think on a psychological standpoint, I guess it's because I'm afraid of being treated like I'm just a slave. Just their robot. Just a peasant who shouldn't be respected just because of their low status. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm afraid of being treated like poop. I was abused by adults (the important people, compared to me, a kid at the time), and they treated me like I was a useless animal. And seeing how my mom has been treated by previous bosses, employers, managers, higher-status coworkers, etc., I want to make sure that doesn't happen to me, too. Because I'm afraid of letting others go too far and get comfortable and then think they can get mad at me and try to beat me down when I least expect it.<br />
My aunt, being a bipolar (P.S. I'm friends with two people with bipolar disorder, so I have nothing against those suffering from it) nurse who worked in an adult psych ward in various hospitals for several years, was strange in that she'd get angry for even the littlest things, especially when I let my guard down. If I wasn't silent or if I was having any sort of fun, she'd find ways to shut me up and make me shut down.<br />
I don't want to think of any examples. I just want to move on and forget it all happened.<br />
I have to take a quick shower and get to bed now. I could spend all night talking to you, but it's 3:18 AM, and I have work tomorrow. I did alright getting 8 hours of sleep this weekend, but tonight I'll have approximately 4. *sighs* I originally wanted to make this post short, but maybe you'll appreciate the information I spilled out on you. I was feeling too restless and uncomfortable to get ready yet, anyhow. But then, that's often been my excuse for getting very little sleep, and I need to fix it by forcing myself to get off the computer and do what I need to do.<br />
Stupid anxiety, taking over my life. I need to pick up my sword and start fighting it for once.<br />
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November 21st: 17,743<br />
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It's not midnight yet, but I'm heading to bed early. Last night, after showering, it took me hours to fall asleep. It's happened to me a few times before, but it was still agonizing. I was desperate almost to the point of crying to fall asleep, but my body just wasn't listening to me. My mom's alarm clock went off at 5:00 AM, so it was another hour or so until I finally fell asleep. My cat, Sweetie, wasn't faring well with it either. She's in heat (Yes, once I save enough money, I'll have her spayed), so it was bad for her, too. She waits for me to go to bed to go to bed because I'm her bed. (Say that ten times fast!) She sleeps on my legs, and she won't sleep long knowing I'm still awake. Poor little girl. I can always tell when she is super tired. She doesn't get bags under her eyes, but her eyes get slightly droopy and the outlines of her eyelids get tight, especially her lower eyelids. Just a few minutes ago, she was having difficulty staying awake in my lap, and she looked like this (I took these pictures a few minutes ago):<br />
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I look as bad, but not as cute, so I'm not sharing you my ugly selfies. No. Really. I have an acne problem right now. I recently saw a dermatologist, so I've been trying out a cream to help bring down the acne. It's two different kinds of acne, so I need to use two different kinds of cream. For some reason, my local store pharmacy didn't have the other one until today.<br />
My face will hopefully improve in two months. I'm tired of looking like the surface of Io. ...No, that moon looks worse (and gross). Maybe that should be labelled as zombie skin.<br />
Whatever. I need to stop writing and get to bed before Sweetie releases a death rattle on me.<br />
😖 <-- Oh! I didn't know I could make these on this blog! Cool! 😃<br />
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November 23: 17,941<br />
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Yeah, I broke that daily writing streak. Sorry. I just couldn't write on November 22nd. I was going through a short bit of anxiety that day. No doubt it was mostly because I only had 2 hours of sleep, but I also couldn't get my thoughts together as to what to do next.<br />
I was stuck with a hard decision: What to do first? Go back and write the missing scenes, or continue and carefully incorporate (partially write, partially keep what was already written, and partially rewrite whatever scenes don't work out [while being careful not to do that too much]) where I just left off?<br />
Anyway, I'm getting a better and more sure idea of what to do first: I'll keep going until the two frayed ends are woven together, then I'll go back and write those missing scenes. Because I see it now: I became indecisive when I realized I missed those scenes. The guilt of leaving those friends behind (figuratively speaking) made me screech to a halt and spin out in all directions. I've started to reorient myself, so once I get back in the right direction again, I'll be heading on my way.<br />
Unless November 23rd was going into progress? I can't remember much of yesterday. I had a little less sleep last night because I went to bed at [I think?] 2 AM, and got up for about 15 minutes this morning at 6 AM to watch the Thanksgiving parade (Yep, that's today. Happy Thanksgiving! Even though some of you don't live in the United States, I wish you a happy and safe day/weekend/rest-of-your-life. <-- I didn't want to keep it just to one day, then I didn't want it to be just a weekend. Hahaha!<br />
I also have some difficulty remembering yesterday because I had a long, complex, realistic dream this morning before I woke up. I was having some kind of family reunion, and I was meeting distant cousins for the first time. Although I can not exactly remember much of the dream now, it had to do with me seeing a threat and giving warning to one of my cousins, saving his life several times. In return, when I was in danger, he rescued me. Even though he was such a distant cousin, there was something that I still didn't want to do, just because he was family: It was hard not to be attracted to him and fall in love with him. I kept thinking of his personality and personal qualities, and how he was... um... hot. I've never felt this way about a family member, so this was very strange to me. And I don't normally think this type of thing (guys, relationships, etc.), let alone use that word, believe me. I've barely been attracted to any guy.<br />
Since I went through traumatic things when I was a kid (abusive men), I have had trust issues. It started with me being afraid of men for many years. Boys I wasn't afraid of at all. I can't say I acted normally around them, though. I used to freak them out by being hyper and weird all the time (It was fun giggling and snorting on purpose as I chased them around at recess and in between classrooms in Elementary school. Their reactions and faces were funny when they ran away from me, and that's why it took me so long for me to learn the meaning of "retard". I thought the word meant something like "hyper weirdo".). Anyway, after I grew out of my fear of men, I still didn't trust them. With good reason, too: I hear of men cheating on women all the time. Sure, it's often the other way around, but I used to watch a lot of Divorce Court (a TV show that had a divorce judge finding out why one or both in a couple wanted to divorce), and the majority was that men couldn't keep their thing in their pants and their eyes away from other women. Then, in high school and beyond, I've had so many friends who've broken up, and I shake my head at the thought and say, "No, I can't risk going through that. I have a sensitive heart, easy to hurt, and I've already been hurt by adults when I was a kid. I'm a one-time love. A swan mates for life: If its partner dies or goes away, that's it. It's done. The swan never finds another mate ever again. Therefore, I am a swan. But a scared swan. If I ever feel loved, if I ever learn the feeling of the opposite of alone, I would never be myself again. A part of me would be torn out of me. I want to be whole. I want to be preserved. I want to be left alone. I'd rather make myself feel happy and find satisfaction in life in what I do rather than depend on others. Like some needy puppy. I already had to watch my pathetic mom not be able to stand it anymore, seeking for a mate again like an animal in heat. I already had to watch my mom look lost and confused by herself. Like she lost something but can't remember what it was and where to look for it. She never was able to find it. She tried several times. She still has hope of finding it one day, but I have a strong gut feeling that she never will find it again. I'm relieved she isn't actively seeking, being too busy for a relationship, and being more careful than she was before. But yeah, I've never actively sought for a relationship, myself. I'm never planning on it, either. I'm staying in my comfort zone, and it only takes a look and a short sentence to make a man afraid of me and grow silent. I'm glad I'm ugly, too. You can't convince me from saying I'm not a hot chick, as I don't feel very bad about it. Sure, I wish my acne wasn't so bad and that my smile didn't look so much like I'm baring my teeth, but overall I'm happy with my looks. Many women are so uncomfortable with themselves these days, they compare themselves to others and strive for being thin, hiding their face with caked-on heavy makeup, and wearing clothes from the latest fashions. That's because they can't find satisfaction within themselves. Until they do, they will forever be in that vicious circle of changing their looks, constantly seeking to be perfect enough to be noticed by others and loved. No one likes to be invisible. No one does. I wish I could hug all of them and say they are beautiful and that I care about them, even though I've never met them, nor heard of them.<br />
*wipes away tears* Pardon, I got side-tracked. ...But I suppose some of you need an explanation to my sign of emotion. Needless to say... I once felt invisible to the entire world. Nobody should ever have gone through constant isolation like I did in my bedroom at my aunt's house, but the one thing I had to do to comfort myself out of my depression and extend my sanity was to open my mind to the entire world.<br />
Doing that was scary and overwhelming, like a sort of spiritual meditation, I suppose. I imagined myself surrounded by billions of people living their lives around me, oblivious to what I was going through. Although that gave me a deeper sense of loneliness and helplessness at first, my personal emotions quickly turned off and it was silent where I was, while the rest of the world, wherever there was a person, there were emotions, thoughts, and voices. And everywhere there were people, there were also situations. Some were okay and safe. Others were afraid and in various terrible situations: Witnessing terrifying things, car accidents, people or animals getting hurt. Them being so scared, they're all screaming, crying, or both. Then there were lonely people, angry people, sad people, even people in similar situations as me. It was then I realized I was not alone. I was never alone. Someone out there is still living in isolation and abuse, and I'm simply having my turn of peace. Whatever peace is. The world is an ever-moving, flowing, unpredictable ocean. Anything can happen anytime, anywhere, anyway, anyhow. There are all kinds of possibilities in everything that happens. And when things don't happen, other things are always happening.<br />
When I became conscious of the screams and crying and other terrible things happening all around me, all around the world, I realized the world was a terrible place. You hear all the time of bad things happening in the news, and there are far more things that are not reported. If the news was on 24/7 with no commercial and just reported bad things happening, not even all the channels on TV would cover everything. The world has always been bad, but the more people there are, the more bad things happen. It's just due to hardship from the constant competition of daily life. City people in traffic are more compulsive and competitive than people on empty roads in small towns. And when people can't stand it anymore, they break and don't make good decisions. It's just the way it is. When I realized that, only then did I finally calm down. Because at first, I was overwhelmed and was so dismayed at seeing the world so corrupt, I thought it was close to the end of the world. Thing is, we don't know when the end is, and neither should we. Can you imagine how much worse the world would act if everybody knew when the world would end?<br />
Once I was calm, I finally looked at the entire world as just an ever-moving, flowing, unpredictable ocean.<br />
The world was the world. It was what it was. I was just one person. I can't change the world. The world would be the world the way it wanted, and there was no stopping it. Sure, you can talk to a lot of people, and you can slow them down, but they will still forget or think it's okay to do the wrong thing a little bit. They'll do the wrong things again and again until they give up doing the right thing and just do what they want. Thing is, they're used to memorizing information more than their meanings.<br />
It starts in school. They memorize information in their minds for tests, but they don't memorize the importance in their hearts.<br />
...Okay. That was a coincidence. Just now, my mom told me she was going to have a "tiny bit" of sweet potato. She can't eat it because she's going to have a colonoscopy on Tuesday. I told her what I wrote two paragraphs ago, and she argued that it was "just a tiny bit" and that she didn't think it would affect the procedure. Another reason why I don't believe I can change the world. I can't even change one person. Although my mom <i>is</i> a very stubborn person, other people can be stubborn in some way, too.<br />
Anyway, after school, people live as adults and work at their jobs. Information changes all the time, some more than others, but there is always new information and new things to learn. Taxes, laws, money, paperwork, rules, etc. And when people are busy enough, running errands and otherwise living life at a fast pace enough to not have time to care for anything outside their own lives and what concerns them and those they know, eventually they lose their inner sight of the meaning of things. There may be moments where they will wonder what is the meaning of life.<br />
My answer: The meaning of life is meaning, not information. People are so used to information, they expect the answer to the meaning of that kind of question is information, but they will not find it that way. The answer is meaning, and they will find it in themselves. What they feel, what they will understand inside their hearts when they see the world as a whole as I did.<br />
The meaning of life can not be put into words, it can only be understood.<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
November 24th: 18,272<br />
<br />
It's 2:04 AM, Friday, November 25th. The book is now joined. O__o<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
Last night (or rather, 2:04 this morning), I was going to finish spreading out the G4:O files (because the majority of the writing was in one file, and it takes a long time for a large file to load), but my laptop was having charging issues. It happens a lot. I'll be using the laptop while it's charging, and then the lights will start blinking on and off. Then a notification pops up saying I have only a certain percentage of power left, as though it wasn't charging, even though the charger is plugged in. Some odd months ago, I had that problem, only worse. It wasn't charging at all. I called customer service, and they said it was either the battery or the charger or both. I followed their steps and did a hard refresh, which killed the battery completely. I bought a new one, but ever since I bought it, I have still had trouble charging it, so it might be the charger. *sighs*<br />
Anyway, I shut the lid last night and charged it, keeping it asleep because I decided to keep myself logged in more often, rather than log off every night. It doesn't make sense to do that anyway because nobody else uses my laptop, and I rarely take it places outside home.<br />
So, that's why the 2:04 AM post left you hanging wondering what in the world I was talking about.<br />
Now for the great news: I finished joining the documents together. The writing part (weaving together the frayed ends) and the dividing of the documents. Each document has approximately 100 pages, depending on where the end of a chapter is.<br />
They are as follows:<br />
<br />
Document 1:<br />
97 pages, 53,275 words<br />
Document 2:<br />
99 pages, 62,715 words<br />
Document 3:<br />
102 pages, 59,561 words<br />
Document 4:<br />
54 pages, 32,586 words<br />
<br />
Total page count: 352 pages<br />
Total word count: 208,137 words<br />
<br />
Since Document 4 isn't full at 100 pages, I'll be calculating the first 3 documents + Document 4 = total word count from now on. Oh, and what am I going to do with NaNoWriMo, you wonder? Well, I won't be authenticating my word count, but what I will do is just subtract 208,137 or an individual document word count from the total word count I'll be doing each day up until the very end of November (one minute before midnight).<br />
However, on November 29th and 30th, I'll be busy taking care of my mom after her colonoscopy. I don't know what the doctors will find in her colon, so I don't know how busy I'll be (a.k.a. I don't know if I'll be writing at all during those days). I'm hoping it isn't anything bad like a large polyp or a tumor, where she'll need surgery or anything more than a colonoscopy. Since her dad had colon cancer, and she seems to have no muscle tone down there (she doesn't have to push to go "number 2". Everything just comes out on its own, often leading her to have an accident.), it's worrisome. So, please keep her in your hopes and prayers. Thank you.<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
November 25th: Document 1: 53,796<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 20,013<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
November 26th: Document 1: 53,883<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 21,335<br />
<br />
Onto Document 2! ...Yeah, I got carried away reading and couldn't stop afterwards. I've taken note of all I need to fix and add in (the missing scenes) later on. I might even do that tomorrow. Not sure. Right now, I feel unpredictable. I might any day force myself to stop reading (and editing a little here and there while I read), and fix those spots, but for now it looks like I'm reading onward. Oh well! *shrugs*<br />
<br />
_______<br />
<br />
November 27th: Document 2: *Eh?<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 23,464<br />
<br />
*Yeah, I got myself confused with the two word counts. I wrote this down on a piece of paper. I'll figure it out later:<br />
<br />
Doc 2:<br />
62,715<br />
63,662<br />
63,700<br />
64,836<br />
64,864<br />
64,957 (last night's earlimorn of this day, which is not over yet, 11/29/16)<br />
<br />
Several of these were in one day, so that's why I have to figure it out later.<br />
<br />
The NaNoWriMo word count is already recorded, so I'll use those to help me figure out my math problem.<br />
<br />
November 28th: Document 2: jkgw9e8r6397er3wo689fije64g (gibberish for now)<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 23,475<br />
<br />
At least I can trust NaNoWriMo with my word count. Hahaha. But it's a pity I can't use it year long. Once the end of the NaNoWriMo challenge comes, then I'm not able to add to my word count and see their wonderful graphs. 😞<br />
I'm a visual kind of person. I like seeing projects from different perspectives when I'm working on them. It makes me feel like I'm actually doing something. And when I see not much has been written, I give myself a push and bump up the wordcount to see how far up it will go. Take a look for yourself!<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBCcGhbGH3AnQ9pj4AYWCyIYpiRAXf7Sj8xACM2cvgKR6XNjY-dbqI25SqfDsWYtJZAZfBDy2ryeAiWIbll1tN_mDndLjw9EnzFich9jMYydZ-kIMU6eWemriFSjZ64tpfwm26r0NG1Rc/s1600/Screenshot+2016-11-29+at+2.08.21+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBCcGhbGH3AnQ9pj4AYWCyIYpiRAXf7Sj8xACM2cvgKR6XNjY-dbqI25SqfDsWYtJZAZfBDy2ryeAiWIbll1tN_mDndLjw9EnzFich9jMYydZ-kIMU6eWemriFSjZ64tpfwm26r0NG1Rc/s400/Screenshot+2016-11-29+at+2.08.21+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Up, level, up, level, up, level, up, level. The graph looks like stairs. I guess that's how I write. It's cool to see it, and that's why I love NaNoWriMo. I've tried doing my word count on Plotly, but I can only have one graph. If I want to make more, I have to pay money. Nobody likes paying a bunch of bills, so I'm not paying to make more. What I could do is make one graph, download or make a screenshot of it, delete it and make a new one. But I won't pay for anything I don't professionally need for a job. A writer's life is like a hobby until you get published. I like thinking a writer is someone who just writes and isn't published, and an author is someone who writes and is published. It just doesn't feel right calling myself an author. I'm just a writer. I'm not ready to publish. I just write, so I'm a writer.<br />
Anyway, if any of you happen to know of a good website you can make graphs on that doesn't cost anything, feel free to comment below. I'd love to try it out.<br />
Oh, and about my mom's colonoscopy? She had an allergic reaction to the laxative, so she has to reschedule the operation. She drank two glasses of the laxative last night, but then an itchy rash appeared underneath her ear and an itchy bump underneath her armpit, an itchy bump on her head, and a small feeling of tightness in her throat. Since the pharmacy label said to call the doctor if those signs of allergic reaction appear, she stopped drinking it and called the doctor. She cancelled the appointment, and she plans on doing a home colonoscopy test the clinic can send her in the mail instead. And if the test says she has something in her colon, she wants to have a colonoscopy in the summer. I don't like the prospect of her waiting that long, but I'll try to convince her to do it earlier than that.<br />
I can understand why she wants to wait, though. Our weather gets nasty in the winter. Always rainy, cold (It's mild here compared to other places, but it feels cold to us when it hits the lower 50s.), and constantly cloudy.<br />
She's feeling better now, but she didn't have much sleep all last night. She finally stopped having accidents at 6 AM. I slept through all of it, having been used her getting ready to work at 5 AM.<br />
I lost my train of thought at the moment. My mom and sister are talking (they have loud voices), and I often get distracted. Time to put on headphones and listen to music! (My writing music playlist: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqOSidSfqbI&list=PLF07Q8clXG4QwU-dVaKRxG_ZeIP1PKryn">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqOSidSfqbI&list=PLF07Q8clXG4QwU-dVaKRxG_ZeIP1PKryn</a>)<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
Okay, I figured it out, now. Seems I got the numbers wrong when I was calculating the two word counts, just as I thought.<br />
<br />
Corrections:<br />
<br />
November 27th: Document 2: 63,700<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 24,449<br />
<br />
November 28th: Document 2: 64,864<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 25,613<br />
<br />
November 29th: Document 2: 65,415<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 26,164<br /><br />
Although November 29th is not over yet, I'm putting it here anyway because I just got done with Document 2. Onto Document 3! 😃<br />
<br />
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1.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAl6fHxV5srh2zQqcbuMpxebbW1jBavaCHsu1Ta7hXZlOpXNmKyJlTacZJYqbDxDfdXcZnJprEoKbSIF98yCo6X6NtS6fQjktdsBSWim4GbNtAKUpFz2akPiuYUNJpMw7OT-l-CTG_o60/s1600/IMG_1154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAl6fHxV5srh2zQqcbuMpxebbW1jBavaCHsu1Ta7hXZlOpXNmKyJlTacZJYqbDxDfdXcZnJprEoKbSIF98yCo6X6NtS6fQjktdsBSWim4GbNtAKUpFz2akPiuYUNJpMw7OT-l-CTG_o60/s400/IMG_1154.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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2.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fsf50f1eVWALR3LnsScEuqCkXzsRfenxQGgsvv5PoPF4gn2L5Ui9ru_ceNNDqmcj-fEE_rF49XDCtwNnomJ5aA7IKSsdrz0TmxS9Zss1LHN07pnRZ_1qoa4-E_FD1VwoOKldJ4lGt7k/s1600/IMG_1155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fsf50f1eVWALR3LnsScEuqCkXzsRfenxQGgsvv5PoPF4gn2L5Ui9ru_ceNNDqmcj-fEE_rF49XDCtwNnomJ5aA7IKSsdrz0TmxS9Zss1LHN07pnRZ_1qoa4-E_FD1VwoOKldJ4lGt7k/s400/IMG_1155.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm better at figuring out math problems on paper and calculator. And those weird zig-zag marks are my way of adding or subtracting numbers together without taking up space on paper and "showing my work". I just wanted to make lists right where I want them and yet make something that will remind me how I came up with those numbers, so I made this method in high school. It wasn't what my teachers wanted me to do, but it worked for me. I'm not good at math, yet I come up with my own system. Whatever works, right?<br />
So, what you see here in 2. is me subracting 62,715 with everything below it, because that's the word count that Document 2 was originally. The bigger numbers below it were the times/days I was writing and editing/writing more to it. After subracting, each resulting number was then added to 23,464, which was the word count before I started working on Document 1. Now that I've finished Document 2, the same method can be done while I'm writing Document 3. ...At least, until the end of tomorrow. NaNoWriMo officially ends at 11:59 PM on November 30th, so after that's over, I don't have to worry about calculating two word counts. NaNoWriMo is just a challenge to see how much I can write in a month. So far, I've only missed two days of writing (If I don't write a single word tomorrow, that will make 3 days, but I'll try to keep that from happening by writing a little past midnight tonight.).<br />
<br />
Oh, and I must not forget the corrected NaNoWriMo graph:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9M8RzAuOscccKCip-9QwnN3JhBw4Fx8uMMTXnAlhRpNFr50lCh5TwWEvSyspbqz9AFVAVnt4-lQxuh4Y2kij1SF1jumJo6pG7-Y2RYPlp2Bre7ShUTSywqQ-Ju47qK32RLbtdUjhIdAk/s1600/Screenshot+2016-11-29+at+10.32.52+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9M8RzAuOscccKCip-9QwnN3JhBw4Fx8uMMTXnAlhRpNFr50lCh5TwWEvSyspbqz9AFVAVnt4-lQxuh4Y2kij1SF1jumJo6pG7-Y2RYPlp2Bre7ShUTSywqQ-Ju47qK32RLbtdUjhIdAk/s400/Screenshot+2016-11-29+at+10.32.52+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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NOW, onto Document 3!<br />
<br />
...Here's the total word count of Document 3 on November 29th:<br />
November 29th: Document 3: 59,610<br />
NaNoWriMo word count: 26,213<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
November 30th: Document 3: 60,309<br />
NaNoWriMo word count (final): 26,912<br />
<br />
Woohoo! I did it! ...I mean, I didn't make it to 50,000 words, but I made it past halfway, which was my personal goal. I didn't want to share it with you in case I humiliated myself by writing well-below 25,000 words. After I hit 25,000, I forgot to mention it to you because time was running out, I forgot, and I wanted to see how far I'd get in the end. But I wasn't seriously planning on sharing it with you, knowing I'd still be happy anyway.<br />
<br />
<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-80984945844972446642016-10-09T02:36:00.000-07:002016-10-23T02:55:45.367-07:00October 2016Ah, yes. Your immediate thought is: "Where have you been, Jennifer??"<br />
Well, here's a list of reasons:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li> Once I finished rewriting the absolute beginning of this book (I thought I could summarize it, but then the story swept me off my feet and made me just write it.), I took a short break because my pinky knuckle was hurting. (I broke it back in 2008, and my witch of an aunt had no care in the world when I begged her to take me to the ER. It was hard to even get her to glance at it, and all she said was it was fine. It was swollen! At least she finally gave me ice after I begged her enough times. It healed wrong, but I can still use it when carrying heavy loads. I just can't bend it in a certain, less-commonly needed position, and I can't write longhand or draw for too long or too fast at a time, or it will hurt like somebody is twisting and pulling on it hard.)</li>
<li> My mom witnessed a shooting that happened right in front of her. She's okay now, but she occasionally has flashbacks of it. How it happened: My mom was walking to work early in the morning, when she noticed that a man was following close behind a woman. He started harassing the woman to give him her money and cell phone, she told him to leave her alone, he started rushing closer to her and yelling at her demandingly, then she spun around and yelled, "Get away from me!" She pulled a gun out of her coat pocket and shot him once in the hip, then ran. My mom stood there in shock and heard him fall to the ground. It sounded like someone dropping a big sack of potatoes. She called 911 from her cell phone and waited for police and paramedics to arrive on scene. While she waited, she had to listen to him moan and cry over how much it hurt, which really bothers my mom to think about. When police arrived, my mom filled out a witness report, then was filmed and questioned by our local news station. She ended up on TV. There were other witnesses, but since they were not as close to the scene, they got facts wrong. Then the newspaper got facts a little more wrong from there. She was not wearing a "white hat", she wasn't wearing any hat. Her hair was so light blond, my mom could almost be certain she bleached it. It was also not "shoulderlength". It was longish. And where it says her coat was "red or blue", it was red. The man ended up in the hospital, of course, but he's expected to recover. Police could not find her, but she did leave a purse or backpack behind, I later heard, so I suppose they'll search it for her DNA and find out who she is. Anyway, when my mom finally got to work, she was crying, so her supervisor, having had also heard about the incident (It shut down a nearby high school and had many people around worked up from hearing about it), had to heart to send her home for the day. I was still asleep when she got home, but I was having a fitful sleep from an uncomfortable dream I no longer remember. My mom woke me up a little bit before my alarm went off, and told me all about what happened. She was pale and suffering from nausea, but was strong about it. I was reluctant to leave her alone at home, but she told me that she would just go online and talk to friends and family on social media. I was getting off work early that day because I was going to have my flu shot, but I'd still have free time once that was over, so I was able to get home earlier than normal. During work though, because I suffer from having a vivid imagination, I kept having clear visions of the incident happen again and again in my mind. It didn't affect my work quality much, though. I was determined to not let it take over me. I focused harder than usual, listing out everything and looking around for anything I missed in my list of things to do. I kept briefly forgetting things and not doing them in my usual order, but I finished it all just in time for when I had to leave for my flu shot. When I got home, my mom was feeling a little better, but she still had waves of nausea that would come and go. After a while, she laid down for a nap. She felt better afterwards, but then a family member called, which made her have to talk about it again. The nausea came back, but it was gone by the end of the day. The second day was just a little better for me, but I was more scatterbrained. I guess I was mentally and/or emotionally exhausted. It took me about 3 or 4 days for me to feel okay again, but I extended my break afterwards from writing. I didn't have the mental and emotional energy for thinking about other peoples' (my characters) troubled, exciting lives. My own life needed a little vacation. Peace, quiet, and relaxation. My mom and I have gone through so much, it's unbelievable we've made it this far, but our life stories will make an amazing, inspiring read one day. My mom is slowly working on writing the story of her life when she's on break at work. I haven't started on mine quite yet. As you can see, crazy things are still happening, and I really want to write this book series. So much happens that interrupts my writing, I occasionally wonder if I'll ever get the chance to finish it. </li>
<li> When I was feeling better and not thinking about the shooting anymore, I considered jumping back in the wagon of writing, but then I realized with anxiety that I was done writing the absolute beginning and had to Cut and Paste that document into the second (middle) chunk of the book, which was a later part of the beginning in a separate document. I knew it would take some extra thinking power and carefulness to make sure I was doing the right thing in putting what where, so I decided to wait until I was up to the task.</li>
</ol>
<div>
So, as you can see, that day was yesterday. ...Er, well. The other day, that is. It's 1:27 AM of October 9th, now, but it was the afternoon of the 7th that I was finally ready to take up the delicate task. I couldn't get it wrong. I've already been there. In a slightly different way.</div>
<div>
I once was converting G3:DF to a newer file (because I was using a Sony VAIO that was manufactured in 2005, which used an old Google Docs version) and somehow the computer was messing up the copies and pastes, so parts of the book was missing. I had to backtrack countless times throughout the whole book (We're talking over 422,000 words!) to find and fix where the book didn't make sense. That was brutal, frustrating, and time-consuming, so that's why I was being overcareful yesterday.</div>
<div>
Oh! You know what? There's a 4th reason why it took me this long to write again:</div>
<div>
Art. I took to art to get the bad dreams of the shooting out of my mind. It helped. I took up the Inktober challenge on DeviantArt, so I was making pen drawings and submitting them on a daily basis. The past few days, though, my imagination has cut short. I guess I'm back in my writer phase again. Ugh. I wish I could make art and write regularly on the same days, but unfortunately my muses don't get along with each other very well. But I already warned everyone on DeviantArt that I would probably not do art for every day, mostly because I'll be getting ready for my cousin's wedding on Halloween. I'll be taking a train for the first time, as she lives far away, then I'll be staying the weekend over there doing whatever I can to help them get ready. Her husband-to-be will be dressed up as the Doctor from Doctor Who, she will be a surprise, and I (her maid of honor) will be wearing a dress and a horse head mask. It's going to be hilarious.</div>
<div>
*yawns* It's 1:51 AM, I'm getting sleepy (but still eager to write), so without further ado, here's the word count you've been eager to see. (Seriously, I wonder about this. Which are you most eager to read from this blog? My unpredictable life story, or the word count? No offense if it's just the life story that keeps you coming back. It's more exciting reading about something interesting than seeing that I wrote xxxx number of words a day. "Woop-dee-doo. Word count. Give us a published book, already!" In due time, my friends. In due time. It's twisting the nose of my patience, too. Believe me.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Oct 7 thru 8</div>
<div>
19,058 (beginning) + 163,450 (body of story, approximate) = 182,594 words total (writing and editing)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
__________</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Oct 8</div>
<div>
19,419 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 183,005 words total (writing and editing)</div>
<div>
11:59 PM</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To get the feel of the story again, after so long of not writing the second part of the beginning (middle document), I'm reading the book from the very beginning and working up to where I left off. Once I have the rest of that written, then I can connect that into the body of the story by copy and pasting it into the main document, then divide the document into more than one because it takes a long time for a document to load when it has a lot of pages. The "body of story" document is 926 pages long, and it takes too long for my patience for it to load.</div>
<div>
...Whoops! I'm failing asleep at the computer! Time to publish this blog post and jump into bed.</div>
<div>
__________</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Oct 9 - 10<br />
21,103 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 184,689 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
1:32 AM</div>
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Whoops! I got the 3 and 5 mixed up and made Oct 8th's word total 185,005. It's fixed now. It happens when I'm tired: I get 3's and 5's mixed up because they look similar and they're my favorite numbers, which switches them around in my brain.<br />
Other than that, I don't have much else to say. I was originally planning on going to a local pumpkin carving contest and participating in it, but I just felt like having an easy, laid back weekend where I didn't have to go anywhere and just write. I've been suffering from allergies this weekend, too, because we haven't found an opportunity to vacuum our carpet. I'm terribly allergic to both species of dust mites. I'm on an allergy medicine right now, and I'll go up to two pills soon (Zyrtec), but it woud be good to find a way to vacuum without anybody getting in the way of that.<br />
My sister has been listening to music on her computer, and I'm too nice to make her stop in the middle of her music zone. She's also like a ticking time bomb and is hard to convince sometimes, so I often leave it up to our mom to deal with her. Maybe I'll take my chances tomorrow. She's been less emotional lately. You never know with autism, but I'll see what kind of energy level she's at. It's the only way I can see into her.<br />
Three weeks from this day until my cousin's wedding! *claps excitedly*<br />
I was listening to relaxing music while I was writing today. Sometimes my family was distracting me or my legs kept needing to move (Sitting all day does that to you), but I feel like I was able to get quite a bit of writing done. At least, it felt like it was a good amount written. Let's see.... *does math* I wrote 1,684 words. ...Yeah, I guess it was an okay amount. But I had to read and edit before where I left off. That took some time. Also, my talkative family was interrupting my concentration or talking to me a lot, but this time I didn't get upset or emotional. They weren't bugging me constantly, only continuously, which is not their usual way, but I was glad to see a little more respect from them. Maybe it was because I was sitting on the couch instead of my usual place at the table? I'll have to do some experimenting to find patterns in their behavior and my location....<br />
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Oct 10 - 11<br />
21,930 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 185,516 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
1:47 AM<br />
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I'm too sleepy to write anything right here. Other than this, of course.<br />
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Oct 18 - 19<br />
22,871 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 186,457 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
1:26 AM<br />
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Oct 19 - 20<br />
23,883 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 187,469 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
12:57 AM<br />
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Oct 21<br />
24,836 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 188,442 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
6:00 PM<br />
<br />
In the past two weeks, I started seeing an odd change in drivers' behavior on the road.<br />
First, I started having unexplained fears of getting hit by a car (with me as a pedestrian). <br />
That next week, I witnessed a woman not paying attention to oncoming traffic and started turning at a light, so the oncoming car (which was very close) screeched to a halt just one foot away from hitting her. <br />
Then, when it rained, people started driving too fast, spinning their wheels from hitting the gas petal too hard when the light turned green and almost spinning out on the wet roads when turning.<br />
When crossing the street, I had three close calls of getting hit by cars turning.<br />
For one of those times, I was tired that day and was eager to get home, so when they barely stopped in time and waited for me to proceed to cross, I irritably waved them on with a stiff, swift arm as though sweeping them from my sight, shouting "Go!" and thinking "I'm so sick of this!". When that didn't work, I stomped away to the crosswalk button pole, crossed my arms, and waited, looking away. They rushed onward, and I grumpily waited for the next light. I was tired of seeing stupid drivers.<br />
But the worst was yet to come.<br />
About four days later (5 days ago), my mom's coworker was walking to work and was going to cross the road at a crosswalk, when she saw a truck wanting to turn. She saw the man stop, so she proceeded to walk across the street, because the light said that walkers could walk.<br />
But the man didn't see her, starting to turn.<br />
He hit her mostly from behind, knocking her down flat on her face. She suffered hairline fractures to her ribs, a broken nose, broken jaw, broken arm, and scratches on her face.<br />
The man was very apologetic and polite, admitting that he didn't see her (not looking both ways), and bringing flowers to her hospital room.<br />
Two days later, the daughter of another coworker got into a car accident: She was hit from behind... hit-and-run style. She just suffered a little whiplash.<br />
Speaking of hit-and-run, a friend of mine who lives in another town, her grandpa got hit on foot by a car... hit-and-run style, which is worst of all. That happened about 6 or 7 miles from here.<br />
So, what is wrong with drivers, lately? Nothing I can figure out, but I hope people can grow their brains a little more, and quick. Because this is not something I want to be constantly afraid of. Sure, I see stupid drivers all the time, but this? This is an unusual level.<br />
It might be a change in the weather. I see it in people a lot, and I feel it, too.<br />
It might be that people are exhausted and not getting enough sleep because the holidays are coming up fast, so they are either less patient to get home or too out-of-it to focus correctly.<br />
Either way, I wish drivers would be tested more frequently for their knowledge in driving etiquette and be given less pity in court when they do stupid things on the road. When I was a kid, I met a guy who had seven DUIs in a row and still didn't have his driver's license taken away. How in the world...?<br />
Anyway, enough of me talking on and on about this. I hope the best for the healing of those injured, and I hope drivers will be more careful with their monster machines and remember that pedestrians still exist.<br />
When I was a kid, I had nightmares of being the passenger in a car and seeing someone's body hitting and breaking the windshield. It was bloody and terrifying, and it sounded loud and realistic. Sometimes I have fear of being that body.<br />
But fear is not welcome here. Not yet. I've been through enough worse things to say this is nothing.<br />
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_______<br />
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Oct 22<br />
25,500 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 189,086 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
3:33 AM<br />
<br />
_______<br />
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Oct 23<br />
26,062 (beginning) + 163,586 (body of story) = 189,648 words total (editing and mostly writing)<br />
2:49 AM<br />
<br />
_______<br />
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Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-45533978031557926952016-09-04T03:16:00.001-07:002016-09-04T03:52:42.614-07:00September 2016Sept 1<br />
<div>
347 words (writing and editing longhand)</div>
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___</div>
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Sept 2</div>
<div>
422 words (writing and editing longhand)</div>
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___</div>
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Sept 3</div>
<div>
394 words (writing and editing longhand)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Oh, I can't believe it! I typed a bunch for this blog, and I copied it, meaning to paste it here (instead of in the August 2016 post), but then I forgot and copied something else. The whole thing is gone. Oh well. I remember the basics of it:</div>
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You know how I had to stop where I left off because I hadn't exactly written the beginning of this book (I meant to summarize it, but then it slowly won me over and I started actually writing the book), and how I had to go back and actually write the very beginning of the book so that I could know what my characters were doing in the beginning and to pick up where they left off? Well, I'm close to being done with the beginning. The book is currently in three pieces right now because it was too hard at first to initially start the book from the beginning, but I'm getting very close to being able to connect the three together into the original file. Heheh, the notebook I've been writing in has only 21 blank pages left in it. Three pages were used for notes, 21 blank pages are left, and the rest are written in. Which means I wrote 46 pages longhand. Whew! Thankfully, I've been avoiding traditional ballpoint pens because they're hard on hands. You'd have to apply a lot of pressure in order to get the ink out, which would give you hand cramps. In the past, I've suffered from hand cramps, and having a bad knuckle that didn't heal right after breaking it makes me even less willing to get hand cramps again. That's why I've been using a Uni-ball Signo medium point pen with black gel ink. </div>
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...Haha, I sound like I'm in a commercial! Know this: I didn't mention the brand because I'm being paid to promote it. I just merely bought it at my local grocery store, tried it out, liked it, and am now telling you what I've been using. I'm rather fond of this pen. I have another favorite pen, but I haven't been able to find it for a while. I like it for its ease of use and because it makes a funny high-pitched squeak whenever I click it. Actually, it doesn't click at all. It just squeaks. It's my favorite squeaky pen. I love how it's so easy to squeak it rapidly a bunch of times without my thumb getting sore. All other pens that squeak are annoying. </div>
<div>
As for the paper notebook, it's just a standard 70-page wide rule paper notebook. I didn't have a college rule notebook at the time, but I'm glad I used wide rule: If I make a mistake or want to squeeze in words when I don't like a sentence and want to edit it with little room to spare, I can use the space above the original words to fit them in.</div>
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...It's 3:16 AM, Sunday, September 4th. I am tired. I must sleep. I must fight the urge to write. *moans*</div>
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Oh, I forgot to mention: Once everything written is back in one file, I'll then continue to give you the total word count of the book each day I write.<br />
And here's a funny picture of Sweetie sitting between me and writing this blog post:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHXxXgEgH1C3ZZ-kRHESB4DDv2STrWaVhlLJhXWfhlD1ZVcklCbBn3vM6KpNsEK1XJUAw6_YelpRtyZMZEYIoqJTUUJYZI3AMhUQsTEl9orOjuO1t5cONVRhzJVsuaCM0YNJjsgnlgWs/s1600/sept4meandsweetienightblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHXxXgEgH1C3ZZ-kRHESB4DDv2STrWaVhlLJhXWfhlD1ZVcklCbBn3vM6KpNsEK1XJUAw6_YelpRtyZMZEYIoqJTUUJYZI3AMhUQsTEl9orOjuO1t5cONVRhzJVsuaCM0YNJjsgnlgWs/s320/sept4meandsweetienightblog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><br /> She wanted to let me know that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. Initially, she laid down and rested her head on my arm, making it difficult to type with my right hand, but then she sat upright and stared at the mirror with huge eyes as though she saw a bug hide behind it. She has a freak talent for knowing where a bug is. We mostly get small spiders the size of your thumb nail, but sometimes they can get to the size of your palm. Hobo spiders get pretty big when you let them, but with her around, we've been able to capture or kill them before they get that size. I try to catch and release them whenever possible. They're good for getting rid of other unwanted bugs.<br />
They're also good for scaring my mom. Just kidding. I'm not mean, and I don't like mean pranks. She screams when she sees them loose, but she just gets freaked out when she sees them in the bug jar. Her screaming hurts my sensitive ears, which is why I'm forever grateful that Sweetie notifies me when she sees one. Most spiders that don't make webs in the air hunt on foot at night, which is why Sweetie and I are the perfect spider-eradicating team: We're both nocturnal!<br />
Uh oh! It's 3:51 AM! Time for bed!</div>
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___</div>
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</div>
Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-4648539319457788722016-08-04T01:54:00.000-07:002016-09-04T01:50:40.164-07:00August 2016 My apologies for my absence in these few weeks. I got sick with a cold, and just when I thought I was all better, I was hit with a sinus infection, a sore throat, a cough (I still have it), congestion (I still have it), and finally... an ear infection. Just today, I got prescribed antibiotics. My eardrum tried to rupture a few times, leading to some bleeding from my ear. It's okay. I'm fine. Even if it does rupture, it'll heal on its own. Freaky, though. And yes, I can barely hear out of that ear. Annoying.<br />
<div>
Neither one of my ears have ever bled before, even when I had a bad earache in both ears, an infection in my right ear, and a double ear infection in my left ear. That was when I was 9 1/2. I have never experienced worse pain in my entire life, but this morning? (Actually, that was technically yesterday. August 3rd. Now it's August 4th.) It came close to that level of pain. I woke up from an ear-piercing pain around 7:30 AM, and I couldn't fall back asleep again. So, I got up, took 2 Advil, and looked up on the computer what it could be. I can't remember much, but all I remember was finding a forum that contained a father telling a story about how his 4 year-old daughter going to school with an ear infection she didn't tell him about, and having to pick her up from school because her eardrum had ruptured and there was blood coming out of her ear. He said that her doctor said that it would heal in 3 months on its own, but that antibiotics would keep it from getting infected in the meantime.</div>
<div>
Anyway, what else is terrible? Oh yeah. That cold I mentioned? I got my mom sick with it. What's so horrible about that, you ask? Well, it just so happens that this week is my mom's first vacation in 7 years! But at least it happened on a non-work week. She doesn't like taking off work, so much that I suspect she dismisses her colds as "just allergies" a lot. She still struggles with allergies, but it seems unrealistic that a mid-aged woman who gets 4 - 6 hours of sleep all the time, hasn't gotten sick with a cold for at least 2 years.</div>
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But enough of this. Let's hear about my writing progress! </div>
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One word. </div>
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You: "What?"</div>
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Hahaha! It's just for this month! Don't worry! I wrote a fair bit more than that in the last part of July before I got sick. I just have to go back and count the words, because I was working on the hand-written part that happens in the very beginning of the book. </div>
<div>
Yesterday, I did have an idea for a song a character sings. So far, I'm ten lines in. But I don't count it as part of my writing until I go over it and decide not to change words around anymore. I tend to do that in songs/poetry. </div>
<div>
I think, "Oh, wait. This looks better over here, and these three words are unnecessary." </div>
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Editing is fun. It reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle. </div>
<div>
Speaking of which, I've been having a little fun on a jigsaw-solving website on and off for several months: Jigidi. Isn't that a cute name? I couldn't decide on what to make out of my username, so I called myself "PuzzleToothbrush" and made my profile picture a Photoshopped cross between a fish head and a half-peeled banana (not made by me). Why? It's just amusing. </div>
<div>
I like to amuse myself and imagine making a person grin, then I laugh by imagining the look on their face. I'm the kind of person who laughs at a joke, suddenly stops and stares at a friend (trying not to laugh), then sputters back into laughter again. I'm also the type who, after everybody, including myself, laughs at a joke, I end up hearing it playing all over again in my head (especially if it's a funny sound) and laugh again and again until I manage to force myself to shut up into a dying last choke/giggle. I have a good audio memory when it comes to humor, but it's hard to make me truly laugh with a long, complex joke, or one that requires too much thinking. (I think and process information slower than the average person, so it takes me longer to get a joke. Sometimes I forget details in long ones, and I end up not getting it in the end. I don't like annoying people or making them feel bad or think that I was insulted by their joke, so I just pretend to be amused. I end up feeling stupid or super awkward because of that.) Or jokes that require asking me questions. (Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was lame, too-short, and puny!) Puns and nonsensical comedy (Silly things and whatever doesn't exactly make sense. Examples: YouTube Poop, Gmod videos, movie spoofs and parodies) never fail me. I find it hard not to grin in public when I hear a guy trying to imitate the high-pitched voice of a woman/girl. Things that catch me by surprise at the least expected times? Classic.</div>
<div>
But enough about what amuses me.</div>
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I totally lost track of time writing this post, so it's already 1:50 AM. I have to get well, so please pray/wish/hope that I do very soon.</div>
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Thank you for staying with me on my writing journey so far! :-)</div>
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___<br />
<br />
It's August 10th, and I'm pretty much all better. My hearing is returning (near normal now), and my nasal congestion is almost nonexistent (I have morning and late night allergies at home.).<br />
Yesterday and today, I was working on playing catch-up here because I was editing and writing in late July and early August, but hadn't documented it in this blog, yet. So, my game of catch-up: Counting how many words I did each day. Manually. Because, as you know, I'm writing the very beginning of this book long-hand until I reach the part where I started it in the electronic (typed) document of G4:O. I've just finished and updated the "July 2016" post, so you can see the days you have not seen before. Not much to look at, to be honest. Since I didn't write much more than a bit of editing one or two words, and how I didn't post them the same day I wrote/edited, there isn't much of my usual rambling towards the bottom.<br />
One thing I forgot to mention, however, is that I bought a few pet fancy mice on July 23rd. Unfortunately, one of them was chasing and biting the smallest one. From the answers I could find, it was either displaying dominance, or their home was too small. Since we didn't want a mouse that had a history of aggression, regardless of the reasons, because you never know if nothing works, I took it back to the pet store.<br />
Bad news, though: The smallest one, a black mouse named Luna, died yesterday. She was sneezing the day I got her, but I just thought it was food dust because she was eating at the store. Wrong. She slowly got worse, and I looked it up and determined it was likely a cold. It seemed likely at the time because I had a cold the week prior, and mice can get sick with many of our illnesses. I didn't think about how she was sneezing at the store. Her symptoms even seemed to be a cold, and I learned in a pet mouse forum online that colds in mice would end on their own but that the flu was deadly to them. So, I guess it was the flu, instead? Odd thing was that she seemed to be getting better for her last two days; more lively after several days of sleeping a lot and barely having her eyes open. Then she straight out-of-the-blue died. I'll call the pet store tomorrow, but I doubt anything could be done about it now. I don't know actually. We'll see. What I do know, though, is I'll never buy the runt of a litter, let alone a mouse by itself in a tank, ever again. It didn't seem to make sense at the time why Luna wasn't in with the others, but I get a hunch now that they separated her because she was sick and getting picked on by the other mice. But since I'm guessing and don't know the full truth, I won't be dead-set sure just on that information.<br />
(Ramble, ramble, ramble. I'll finish this blabber tomorrow)<br />
*Next earlimorn, Aug 11th* (Nope. Not tonight. Too tired. Maybe tomorrow.)<br />
*Next earlimorn, Aug 12th*<br />
I haven't called the pet store yet. Maybe I'll do it this weekend since I'm feeling better.<br />
Man, illness after illness around here. I got a cold, then a sore throat, cough, post-nasal drainage, and an ear infection so bad, it made my ear bleed a little for a few days. (There was so much pressure, my ear drum tried to rupture, but it didn't.) Then there was me getting my mom and sister sick, and the mouse dying after getting sick. Thankfully, the other mouse, whom I named Tree for her markings (I'll post a picture here later of her. There's a tree on her side, so I named her Tree. I'm not good at naming pets.<br />
Characters are a fair bit easier to name, but I still haven't decided on one particular character. I created him 9 years ago. I think once it gets close to writing his first appearance into the book I'm working on right now, I'll have a name for him. Many of my characters were named like that. I don't know him a lot, yet, so it's hard to match a name to his personality. I don't really have hugely important scenes with him (as originally planned when I daydreamed the whole book so many years ago). He's rather quiet and solitary, wise but leaves younger folk to take care of most problems. People respect him, so he doesn't have to talk much.<br />
I like him. Even though I live in a technological world where people's faces are super glued to their phones and other electronic methods of communicating, I have reason for not liking to talk. Speech problems, slow mental processing, people not understanding, people being too chatty, being sensitive to being interrupted all the time (I'm more patient with people other than my mom, but with her? It's countless times a day! She has problems of her own, though.), lack of self-confidence, beating myself up for my failures to be a normal human being, and social anxiety.<br />
Why in the world did I want to work in a library with social anxiety, you ask? Well, I knew it'd help me in the long run. The only way to tackle a problem is to run into it. I've actually been slowly improving.<br />
Eye contact is my main issue, now. I'm afraid of looking at a person for too long, afraid people will think I'm staring at them or something. People around here are paranoid. I remember it as a kid especially: When anybody would look at me, I'd wonder why they're looking at me. Remembering it now, since I had nightmares of people staring at me wide-eyed without answering me ("What's wrong? What is it? Please! <i>Tell</i> me!") on many occasions, it's probably because of those, too. I'd always start crying in my dream because I despaired from their torment and wanted them to stop. I'd wake up choking and sobbing myself awake, only to find my eyes soaking in tears. ...Come to think of it, I think it all started because of those nightmares. Good to know.<br />
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August 2nd<br />
1 word (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
___<br />
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August 3rd<br />
49 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
___<br />
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August 7th<br />
83 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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August 8th<br />
Half-midday, half at night<br />
1,068 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Woohoo! Look who's back! *strikes imaginary illness flat with a cartoonishly large hammer*<br />
But I'm falling asleep with a cat sleeping on my lap, so I bid you a good night/day.<br />
___<br />
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August 10th<br />
12:27 PM (15 minutes)<br />
202 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
<br />
I haven't been getting much sleep since I started working again. Grr. I'm glad I'm back to writing again, but must it also come with my usual restlessness at night? Going to bed and getting up in the earlimorn isn't my cup of tea, especially when I wake up, and it's a habit I'm struggling to break from ever since I finished writing G3:DF. Trust me, if you don't have a job and/or get out of school, <i>don't</i> get into an awful habit of going to bed around 4, 5, 6, or 7 AM and getting up at 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 PM. Besides waking up bewildered at seeing a sunset instead of a sunrise and not seeing and enjoying the light of day for long, you'll also be inclined to gain a little weight (depending on your genetics and many other factors, of course), have less energy (odd levels of melatonin, perhaps?), have uncomfortable dreams, sometimes feel like the waking word is a dream, and have difficulty re-regulating your sleep cycle (even after 2 years). Just... <i>don't</i>... do... it. I don't care what Shia LaBeouf says.<br />
P.S. In case you've forgotten, "earlimorn" is a word I made up to use in my book series. I occasionally like making up words when I find the means "early morning". That's normally 12 - 8 AM. If you think 8 AM isn't early, then you aren't an early bird. I normally wake up on weekends anywhere from 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM, depending on how much sleep I get the night before. My main characters are early birds, but I'm not. Lol.<br />
___<br />
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August 11th<br />
12:50-ish PM<br />
25 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
<br />
I had a long, busy day. Nothing really new. Just busy. On 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I had to do a bunch of things before bed. And trust me, this little sleep is not about to be a habit. *moans*<br />
___<br />
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August 15th<br />
Approximately 12:30 PM<br />
12 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
<br />
My little cousins came to visit yesterday! (The 14th. Today's really the 19th, but I'm writing here for the 15th.) At first, we thought they were coming over on Saturday, so I was busy rushing around all day to get the place cleaned and organized.<br />
My mom and sister are slobs. The kind of people who drop stuff on the floor like shoes or books and leave it sticking out in high-traffic areas. I don't know how they don't trip. Er, well, they do stub their toes a lot at least, but they don't learn. I'm always the grumpy one who stops before a thing or two (or three) in my way, shoves it aside with my foot, and gripes about the obstacle course they somehow don't mind being there. If I had my own place, it'd have half the junk, be organized using containers, and own little more than what I do now. (I keep my possession count to a minimum due to lack of room thanks to the two clutter clowns. Lol. But I'm happy doing that anyway. It doesn't take much to make me happy. Having once lived with an abusive clutter clown that had too much money and always bought me mountainous piles of gifts for my birthday and for Christmas, I can whole-heartedly say that money does not make me happy. It's being with a family that loves you and knowing what you love most and sticking to it. My mom and sister aren't perfect, but at least it isn't near as bad as when I lived with the aunt of terror and torment.<br />
Anyway, about the fun day with the cousins: Who came: My cousin L (names abbreviated for privacy reasons), her three children: K, age 8, girl. D jr., age 6, boy. D, age 2, boy. Also who came over: My cousin L's sister-in-law (can't remember her name) and her little 18-month-old boy. (I can't remember his name, either. It was noisy and chaotic, and it takes me several days of meeting a person and re-learning their name to actually learn it. Same or worse problem with their face. I can't place a face if I've only seen them weeks or months apart, and it has to have a name and memory attached to it that stands out in some way, or it simply becomes just a stranger, a face that's part of the crowd called "the rest of the world." For the longest time, I felt bad about it. I still have an awkward moment now and then, but I've come to accept that it's just the way I am. I'm not a "normal" person. I don't have a "normal" brain. I learn at my own pace. If I tried to force myself to be what I am not, to do what I can not do, I would simply be frustrated at myself to no end and hate my life. Just like I did countless times before for years. I struggled through school imploding all the time. It didn't help how my teachers got frustrated, too, but my inner struggle didn't help me, either. I'd get so frustrated trying and trying to concentrate and understand my schoolwork, I'd implode. Little did I know that anxiety and stress made me partially shut down so that the words coming out of the mouth of my teacher were little more than the "hwa-hwa-hwa-hwa-hwaaa" of the adults Charlie Brown heard in Peanuts. As the seconds passed by, the pressure built up higher and higher until I'd totally shut down. Nothing in the world was able to come in and be processed by my brain. Nothing in the world around me made sense. The world itself made no sense. I would sit there in a void with a moving image, as though in a movie. It was simply there because it wasn't there. It was just a burned-in image, as though you just shut off a TV after it showed the same thing for hours on end. Nothing existed anymore but yourself. Not until I was 17 did I truly feel confident when I was learning things new. After I had the dream that inspired the " G" book series I'm currently writing, I strove to improve myself. I had a goal to "at least learn a little about a lot of things", and I firmly stuck to it. I started to find ways to help myself learn, to find the right perspective on learning. I had the drive to improve myself, to augment myself, as though adding more blocks to a Lego robot to make it look bigger and cooler. Reading books and textbooks helped the most with this. Sometimes I wouldn't do my homework and would just read well beyond the stopping point. Because things were just so interesting. Everything. It was there that I learned that it was knowledge that was interesting. History wasn't interesting. Literature wasn't interesting. It was <i>knowledge</i>.)<br />
...Okay, I think I got carrying away there quite a bit and went way off topic, but that's okay, I guess. I got it out of me.<br />
...Nope. I have a thought to add to it:<br />
...That's why I think teachers shouldn't ask all the time, "What is your favorite subject?" It makes kids choose. It separates different kinds of knowledge into categories which allow them to be stereotyped. "History is boring." "P.E. is fun!" "Literature is boring." No. Knowledge is fun. Learning is fun. That's the message that many teachers are trying to get across. If you are just as enthusiastic as each other about teaching, if you make it known that you are passionate about teaching the subject and that you love it so much, and you are excited about it, they will see it and will get so jealous that you're having fun and they're not, they'll want to get in on what you're so excited about. They'll think, "What is so cool about this? Come on, tell us!" And then they'll be on a search by themselves to discover the fun in the subject. Learning is a journey, not an assembly line.<br />
I've had teachers who taught like they had to just so that they could get paid. I've had teachers who've put a lot of energy and effort behind their teaching. Even if you really don't have much energy inside, fake it. It will do wonders on your students' behaviors and grades.<br />
A shout out to my awesome teachers through the years: Mrs. White (I've had two in my life: 1st grade and 6th grade, at different schools, both with husbands in the military. This one's for 1st grade Mrs. White.), Mrs. Mace (also 1st grade, same classroom), Mr. Davis (4th grade, Aniwa Elementary in Wisconsin, now closed down. I was only there for a few months, but it was pleasant knowing him, learning how to make my desk organized [I had poor organization skills.], and learning to sing "Jolly Old Saint Nicolas".), Mrs. Mitchell (5th grade. Boy, did she have a love for teaching! She taught all kinds of stuff. And she had us do a lot of hands-on things, including making and painting plaster masks on our faces similar to how the Ancient Egyptians did long ago to the bodies of their dead that turned into mummies. I still have it. I'll take a picture very soon and share it to you. Oh, and she also took us on a field trip to Camp Casey, directed class plays in the school library, and played the piano while she sung in a sweet, cheery voice that still makes me smile to this day. I can still sing most of the Fifty Nifty song. Her singing it sounded way better than any YouTube video that's ever been uploaded. Trust me, I've tried. They all sound corny. "Fifty! Nifty! United States from thirteen original colonies! Shout 'em! Scout 'em! Tell all about 'em! [etc.] Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut. [etc.]" There's about five or six states I've forgotten over the years, but it's otherwise stuck in my head all these 14 years. I've found quite a use from it. Everything from school assignments in later years to online quizzes. And <i>that</i> is how you teach, teachers.), Mr. Ayers (12th grade, Washington State History. He looks, sounds, and acts like an enthusiastic military guy. Not strict. He had a voice loud and firm that slightly echoed in the room, but he never barked or screamed at us. He was like everybody's dad. He loved teaching. I'm pretty sure he's still teaching the same class, too.), Mr. Weiner (Pronounced "winer" to those of you snickering. 12th grade, same school, World History. Hands down, the best history teacher. Except when he gets mad at you for talking over him. There was one dude that kept pushing Mr. Weiner's buttons all the time. Mr. Weiner would either yell, smack a yard stick against an empty desk next to him, or both. One time, he hit it so hard, the yard stick broke in half. It was loud enough to make everyone jump. He taped it together later, but then it broke again not long after, so then he stopped using it altogether. But about his teaching: He would make bulleted slideshows for us to copy down and take notes from. Even though he could have printed them off, it made us memorize it better by writing it by hand. Plus, the length of each of them would have taken millions of expensive printer paper to accomplish. What was funny was how he'd do the slides: Funny pictures every now and then that were still on topic, and one sound effect whenever a leader would make a big mistake [and history repeats itself, so there were a lot of them]: Homer Simpson shouting, "DOH!" Mr. Weiner would also talk in a casual way, pointing out the flaws in leaders' decisions in a critical point of view. Like when a country would stupidly try to invade Russia on foot in the middle of winter "not once, but twice in a row! You'd think they'd learn the first time, right?" *clicks a button* Homer: "DOH!" *we laughed* Oh, yeah. One more awesome thing about Mr. Weiner: He had an obsession with Star Wars. In fact, he had huge Star Wars posters on every wall of his classroom. It certainly kept the room cool when the morning sun would shine in. He had the upper windows covered in posters, too. When we were quietly working on tests, he'd play instrumental movie music, with a few Star Wars songs mixed in. Then he had his idol, Yoda, sitting atop the projector. It was a vinyl plastic decoration about a foot tall. He was so old, his hair had fallen off in places. Mr. Weiner would sometimes joke that he was watching us, so we'd better be working. Yoda is his favorite Star Wars character.), and finally...<br />
Mrs. Watson-East (Everybody called her Beth. She was like everybody's close pal. Sometimes like a mom, too. If I had a favorite teacher in all my life, it'd have to be her, followed by Mrs. Mitchell, Mr. Weiner, and Mr. Ayers. 12th grade, same school, Simplified Algebra A and B. Yep, I still struggle with math to this day. I can't multiply in my head beyond 2s, some 4s, 5s, and 9s. I forgot for the umpeenth time how to do division on paper. And I can't add or subtract high numbers without doing it on a calculator or on paper. Thankfully, I'm not required to do it a certain way anymore. It's not like I didn't like Beth's class and her teaching. Math just doesn't stick for very long. I just don't have a mathematical sort of brain. Maybe my imagination stole a chunk of that space in my head. My imagination section is beefed up and muscular from frequent use and my math section is a skinny wimp. When I was in her class, though, I did do well. Sometimes, I even figured out alternative ways to solve questions using methods that I made up that worked for me. Whatever works, right? I still have plenty of papers I completed. I used to be a C and F student, especially for math, but in her class? She rocked it, therefore I rocked it. It was a smaller classroom, so she was able to come to me sooner when I needed help, which kept inner frustration at a minimum. I wasn't one to internally implode or anything, but I would have felt bad about me being stupid and gotten restless from having to wait too long. That was one word that I was no allowed to say around her: Stupid. When her kids grew up, she never allowed them to say the word, "Stupid". For any reason. It's understandable. Stupid can be directed at a person to be mean, it could be directed at the self to beat oneself up, or it could be used to increase or promote ones hate towards something. "Math is stupid! This is stupid! This stupid zipper is broken!" Nothing is stupid. You can tackle anything. You can fix it. You can improve. I think that's why she didn't like the word. I use it a lot, and frankly it barely has much meaning to me. Sure, sometimes I'll beat myself up with it, and that's not healthy, but I've been using it for humor and all sort of things. It's just a funny sounding word. It was once one of my alternative cussing words (I once cussed, but then I got bored because everybody says the same things all the time. It's also bad and frowned upon in general, so I fixed it by making up my own "curse words". I've been making new ones ever since. But, yeah. Beth genuinely cared about all of us. Individually. She'd stay as long as three hours after school ended for the day just to help a kid with his/her homework so that they could improve their grades and help them learn how to do something. She stick around and listen to someone's story about a bad day they're having, or about chaos at home. She'd give great advice, give out useful numbers to call to help them out, even tell stories of her own hard childhood. I stuck around often because I couldn't concentrate and do homework at home. I'd fall behind in a class, too. I only failed one class because it required me to read a bunch of books I did not have time to read. AP Literature. Reader's block is a real thing, too. Oh, and I'm never reading Huckleberry Finn ever again. Reading that book was like trying to read in another language. Too many words and terms not commonly used nowadays, and the speech took me forever and never to read and understand. Making a bunch of quizzes and a major test that affected the majority of a student's grade was a huge mistake. It make me so upset to hear that several of the students in my class failed to pass the class, too. But I made up some of the credits lost by volunteering in my school library. Which marked the beginning of my public library life. With the things I did in the school library, it was basically equal to a library page position at a public library. Checking in and checking out books via the computer and book scanner, pushing a cart, etc. Of course, I did more than that. I helped out with a bunch of extra things such as helping with setting up a long poster, fetching textbooks from a storage room, running errands, and I can't remember what else. It was quite fun. I like feeling helpful. Always have. Ever since I was little. I often felt left out or unimportant, still do, so I've always like running errands, fetching things to solve problems, finishing things, etc. I guess by keeping busy, I feel more accomplished. I prove to myself that I am important for some things.)<br />
...Uh, I'm getting way off track again. It's 2:36 AM. The mind train has derailed. I don't know where I'm going here, so I bid you a good night/morning.<br />
...No, shut up, Jen. You totally forgot that you were originally talking about your cousins coming over.<br />
<br />
To make it short and quick, lest I ramble off topic again:<br />
My cousins came over to visit, I gave them some baby books, clothes, and a giant floor piano mat I found at a yard sale a couple of months ago. I had a bunch of [exhausting] fun running back and forth with the kids on the piano. Even the babies loved it. It went home with them 70+ miles away. I wonder how long the batteries will last? Hahaha! <br />
Oh, and my sister gave them each a giant stuffed animal she was getting rid of. Cousin L said they slept with the stuffed animals that night. ^_^ So adorable.<br />
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Aug 16<br />
Approximately 12:30 PM<br />
-5 in editing, 40 words in writing (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 17<br />
Approximately 12:30 PM<br />
34 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 18<br />
Approximately 12:30 PM<br />
139 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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It's going to be in the lower 90's (Fahrenheit) this weekend. Ugh.<br />
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Aug 21<br />
[Who knows what time? I'm getting a little fed up with keeping note of the times. I'm writing all over the place. I'll write a little midday, stop, then do a bunch more at night. I'm going to start not recording the times I stop writing, because it's just not practical anymore. I write when I will, and I write when I can. It was fun for a while, but I was doing it for myself because I thought I'd find it interesting to see my writing time patterns in the future. It was for a while, especially looking back in G3:DF, but now I'm a busy lady who doesn't stay up as late as 4, 5, 6, or 7 AM. I'll only pick it back up again if enough of you complain in the comments section below. Honestly, I don't think anybody is reading this blog. Blogger, a.k.a. Blogspot, is rather unpopular compared to Tumblr, Wordpress, etc. But I don't mind. I originally made these writing log blogs for my own records, just for fun, and to give me an extra motivational push to keep writing. I went from a cute sticker chart to this, and now I might soon start recording it elsewhere. Actually, since some of you might not like saying goodbye, I'll keep this blog running and do my initial writing here, making you still the first ones to read a new post as it's posted or edited. I like the simple style with all the tools in full view.]<br />
114 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 22<br />
51 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 23<br />
83 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 24<br />
247 words (writing and editing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 25<br />
139 words words (writing and editing beginning of G4:O longhand)<br />
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Aug 29</div>
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157 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)</div>
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Aug 30</div>
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420 words (writing beginning of G4:O longhand)</div>
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Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-39122948004330860222016-07-01T03:45:00.003-07:002016-08-10T01:01:17.976-07:00July 20163:17 AM<br />
7,711 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 1st<br />
<br />
The story is at a fast pace right now, making my keyboard sound like a hailstorm. It's making it hard for me to stop for the night, but I think I've found a semi-suitable place to stop.<br />
Last night I had 4 hours of sleep, and that was a bit too much for comfort. I woke up feeling okay, though. The day went well. I only started feeling sleepy towards the very end of my workday, which was a good thing. But it's not a habit I want to adopt. I like keeping track of how much sleep I'm going to get each night. Let's see... if I go to bed at 3:30 (It's in a few minutes, but it's approximate), I'll get 5 hours of sleep. I like to get 6 or 7 at least. I do best on 8 or 9 hours of sleep, but that almost never happens during the workweek. My mind is somehow more busy during the workweek, which means my imagination is more awake and my inspiration factory is running fluidly.<br />
I am yi[ong this with my eues c;sed/ = I am typing this with my eyes closed.<br />
Sorry if I accidentally cursed in your home language (if applicable). I couldn't keep my eyes open. They felt heavy all of a sudden and it was too hard to open them for a moment, so I decided to experiment to see how how I could type with my eyes closed when I am this tired. As you can see, not very good.<br />
Let's try it again:<br />
I am yo[ing this whith my eyes cloed. = I am typing this with my eyes closed.<br />
Mind you, I'm normally fairly good at doing this when I'm not falling half-asleep. Get more sleep, kids! I'm not your sleeping role model! I have problems. I am not a normal living human being. I am a zombie (sleep-deprived person) with the knowledge on how to cure my zombie disease and turn back into a normally-functioning human, but I am not curing myself because I have a craving for brains (writing).<br />
It's 3:42 AM now. I must... *dozes off for nearly two full minutes, having a dream I can't remember* squish my pillow with my face. Good night (and day!) to you.<br />
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1:24 AM<br />
8,068 words total in separate document (so far) <--Haha, I originally pasted a jpeg link to a video game character here! Oops. Sorry about that! (That was funny, though.)<br />
July 2nd<br />
<br />
I felt very sleepy, so I decided to close my eyes and relax. Unable to open my eyes again, I started to fall asleep. A long moment later, my head jerked up from dipping low to the side.<br />
I am wiped out. Pooped. Done. Exhausted and tired. All this week, I've had little sleep and still done alright at work, even on the busiest days. Today was brutal, but I had loads of energy. I always get a strong thrill from being busy like that. Rush, rush, rush! Do all sorts of things! We need you! Without it, I doubt myself and go over my failures, awkwardness around certain kinds of people, and my embarrassing moments.<br />
Anyway, I finished work today feeling like shelving several cartloads of books (equivalent to feeling like running a marathon!). ...Which is exactly what was there. Why? It's the 4th of July weekend. This Monday is the 4th of July, and people are returning their books, DVDs, and other library materials all at once because they are making room to have several family members coming over to celebrate with them, etc. Last year, it was crazy. The morning of July 5th had in store for Circ (Circulation area of the library. That's where we check in and check out books, as well as get them ready on book carts to be shelved.) a surprise: A huge mountain of books spilled in from the outside book drop! This is why it's best not to turn in your CDs and DVDs through the outside book drop on the day of a holiday, when the library is closed, if you can help it. It's understandable when you absolutely can't, but keep in mind that CD cases might crack.<br />
This is the sixth or seventh time that I dozed off and jerked my head up, so I think I'll this right now. (It's 2:02 AM, and I get to sleep in tomorrow. Hooray!"<br />
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2:20 AM<br />
8,613 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 3rd<br />
<br />
I don't know what to type here. as I am very sleepy right now. I'll try to post a picture of a sunset or something interesting here tomorrow.<br />
For most of the day today, instead of a lot of writing, I had to do a lot of research for a couple of things in the book I'm currently writing. I'm satisfied with the results. In addition to the research, I also daydreamed several of the scenes I'm currently writing until I was satisfied.<br />
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3:25 AM<br />
8,719 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 4th<br />
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[Either my computer was being slow for no apparent reason, or Blogger just wasn't working right. I can't remember. It was late at night, so I wrote down July 4th's log.]<br />
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I'm about to write, now. :-) Check back in a little bit for July 5th's log. I won't write very much tonight because I want to go to bed early. Every holiday is the same: People turn in a ton of books and other materials in the outside drop box, so I'm going to have to really work fast shelving tomorrow. The weekend was already busy because people were returning their books, etc. before they left for the Independence weekend to visit family, etc.<br />
How was my 4th of July? Relaxed, cold, and sleepy. Living in the Pacific Northwest comes with the perks of cool, wet weather. It was mostly cloudy for most of the day, and it rained several times. Since I've seen the same, boring parade every year without seeing much of anything new in it, I chose not to go see it with my mom and sister. It was early in the morning, too, so I definitely did not want to go. (After all, I was awake until almost 4 AM last night. Lol.) It was cold and breezy outside, so I never took foot outside. I later hooked up my laptop to our new flatscreen TV so that we could watch the Orlando, Florida DisneyWorld fireworks and the New York Macy's fireworks live stream online. It was a treat compared to our city's budget cut funded firework display. Again, my mom and sister went to go see it tonight and were disappointed. It was even shorter than last year's display. Oh well. At least we got to watch the good stuff.<br />
Besides from that, my head has lately been sparking with ideas. I've been writing side notes. I can't tell you much, only that it has to do with... I'll give you a one-word clue... instincts. You may not think that is a big hint now, but you'll understand later. ;-)<br />
Alright! I'm off to write!<br />
...<br />
<br />
And I'm back to deliver tonight's word count, etc.:<br />
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2:01 AM<br />
9,134 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 5th<br />
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I hope you had a happy and safe 4th of July (for those who apply)!<br />
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Teaser: I can't say I didn't write today, but it wasn't where you think I did! ;-D<br />
...Okay, it was the very beginning of G4:O. Yeah, so I'm writing all over the place, now. But I'm not keeping track of how much I'm writing for the very beginning, because I'm writing it longhand while I'm on my break at work. So I guess you can say that I am writing all over the place literally and figuratively. Heheh.<br />
So, I put a halt on writing the main body of G4:O (where I stopped) so that I will know what has occurred in the very beginning and where things left off before certain characters left the place they were at in the beginning.<br />
...That might have been a tiny spoiler. Oh well. You won't have any idea of what's going on when you start reading G4:O, even if you do know it.<br />
"But you just revealed that these characters will be leaving this place for a while!"<br />
But you don't know anything else, do you? How long they are actually gone, for instance? Because even though I've technically been working on this book for a while now, I'm still far from being done. Actually, I don't know where G5:? (I'm not telling you the abbreviated title yet) even begins. I think it might just turn into the same issue that Christopher Paolini had when he was writing Brisingr and Inheritance: Brisingr got too long, so he had to make another book.<br />
Only difference: I already know G5:? will exist. I just don't know how long it will be and where to cut off G4:O. Yes, I don't know when G4:O will ends and G5:? will begin. There are some things I no longer remember when I was planning G5:?. After all, I daydreamed the book series (from G3:DF onward) several times without being able to type anything down (when I was age 15 - 17).<br />
All I had was pencil/pen and paper. It's much slower-going when you're writing longhand, especially when you've got a pinky finger knuckle that suddenly starts to cramp and hurt as though someone were twisting it hard. And no, I still haven't got it x-rayed, yet. I know it healed wrong. My aunt was such a heartless creature, she simply took a lightning quick glance at it and waved it off, saying "You're fine! You don't need to go to the hospital!"<br />
Anyway, there are many things I don't remember, and some things I remember and choose not to keep. I'm sometimes thinking about it, though. It has to do with one important character. He drives me nuts, really. Think of it like this: You don't want your readers to know much about a character, so you make yourself not know much about him, either. It doesn't make sense, does it? But that way, he/she remains a mystery. Which is just who this person is. And why he drives me nuts. And if I feel this way, you definitely will feel this way. It's like a torment, but it's also like a self-challenge of patience. ...Okay, I need not say anymore. I'm probably driving you nuts just talking all cryptic here. Sorry about that.<br />
It does make you eager to read it so you can understand what I'm talking about, though, right? But that's not why I said these things just now. I just wanted to torment you. Muahahahaha! ...Just kidding. No, I said all this because I felt the need to give you another clue as to what I'm writing and what kinds of problems I'm having currently. Because every once in a while, it's good to keep people interested in whatever projects you're working on. It also gives a future reader insight into what they're waiting for so that it's worth reading my writing log blog posts. I don't like making it too boring for people. Patience is worth rewarding. :-)<br />
-July 7th<br />
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2:24 AM<br />
9,138 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 8th<br />
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Yes, I just wrote only 4 words tonight. It might not have been worth it to log here, but I did it anyway. I can't stay awake and am bound to doing anything stupid like this. Avoid getting only 5 hours of sleep, folks! I can sleep in tomorrow, though.<br />
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2:17 AM<br />
10,609 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 9th<br />
<br />
Yay! I reached the 10,000+ word mark!<br />
How I'll reward myself: Sleep tonight, cookies tomorrow. Yeah, I'm a sort of Cookie Monster. Lemon cookies, sugar wafers, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin (A lot of people I know don't like it, but it's good for you.), anything I can get my hands on.<br />
Just no coconut. I don't like coconut anything besides green coconut water.<br />
Why: The favor and texture just don't fit well together for me. That strong, perfume-like, soap-like flavor when you bite into something that crunches similar to shredded carrots, but combined with the noisy, watery pops of a million tiny bubbles (like eating styrofoam).... No thanks.<br />
But I've heard about how oftentimes a person will have a strong dislike of a particular food and end up allergic to it anyway. That was me in case of becoming allergic to lemongrass. I first tried it in Thai food. It has a similar taste and texture to coconut, only stronger and more lemony and minty. Remembering that, I recently looked it up and re-learned that coconut was in the palm family (Duh!). Then it clicked on in my head: "Oh, yeah. I'm allergic to [some other food I can't remember right now]."<br />
...Oh! I remember why I looked it up! It's because I recently tried dried dates (for the second time in my life, after many years) and had the same loathing for them. Dates and coconuts are both in the palm family.<br />
...I've been dozing off several times, and my cat is right next to my computer purring like a nut (pun intended). I must obey her commands.<br />
P.S. Sweetie just said "go to bed" the clearest I've ever heard her say it! "Oh-oo-beh?" I'm so happy! Now I must <i>really</i> go to bed! ^_^<br />
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<strike>2:07 AM</strike><br />
<strike>10,811 words total in separate document (so far)</strike><br />
<strike>July 10th</strike><br />
<br />
Happy Birthday, Cousin Sara! :-D (P.S. To those who don't know: I have 9 cousins! She's one of my closest ones, despite living 70 miles away.)<br />
I would have written more (I always feel like writing more), but my mom went to bed late and I got distracted by a TV show she had fallen asleep to (Stupid science! Why do you have to be so interesting??).<br />
Sweetie is on my leg, and although she looks very comfortable, her 7 pound body is making it start to cramp and hurt. I often sit criss-cross-applesauce (Hey, that's what I call it, okay? It's much better than calling it "Indian style", which is how my mom learned it in school.) ...Okay, she's off. She drank some water and is now grooming her face in a chair nearby.<br />
<br />
...Nope! I had a newfound burst of wakefulness (likely because the part where I'm writing right now is getting a little more exciting.). That rarely happens, I have to tell you.<br />
Here's the real writing log info:<br />
<br />
3:18 AM<br />
11,241 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 10th<br />
<br />
Good night/morning!<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
3:04 AM<br />
11,770 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 11th<br />
<br />
I was waiting for a private video to upload from my camera, so I wrote while I waited (But I wanted to write anyway). Unfortunately, I got carried away and ended up writing a whole hour after it was finished uploading. Oops. Off to bed!<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
2:43 AM<br />
12,104 words total in separate document (so far)<br />
July 12th<br />
<br />
I sneezed 7 or 8 times today (2 because something floated into my nose. Yuck!), and right now I'm blowing my nose a lot. I hope it's not the beginning of a cold. I most always feel too miserable to write. (Sometimes it helps to make a "tissue walrus", but it eventually gets to my head, where I can't think and focus. I'm the kind of writer that needs very little distractions. Night time is perfect for this, but colds? A writer's worst enemy.) But it might be irritation. Last night, I was stupid enough to clean the bathtub with non-watered-down vinegar and without the bathroom fan on, so my nose and eyes stung for several minutes until my mom came in and was like, "Whew, Jen. You need to have the fan on. It's very strong." ...Where. Was. My. Head? So, of course, I ended up being nasally and respiratorily miserable for several hours afterwards. This might be a result from it, too. We shall see what tomorrow brings....<br />
P.S. If I do end up sick, I will try my best to write as much as I can.<br />
P.S.S. If you happen to be sick right now, my Auntie Martha recommends putting a few splashes of Tabasco in chicken broth soup (I'm often too hungry for just broth, so I add a little broth to chunky chicken noodle soup and splash Tabasco in it). It works like a charm. Lots of fruit, too. And pineapple, horehound, natural licorice, and natural ginger (I like ginger chews/candy) help with a sore throat. I don't have a sore throat right now, but I know how miserable it feels, so I'm adding that in here for those of you who have it. :-)<br />
P.S.S.S. And yes, I do suffer from allergies. Food, chemical, <i>and</i> environmental! My current allergy medicine is slowly not working as well as it should, so that might have something to do with it. Ugh!<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
Update (next day, July 12th): Yep. I have a cold. It's a good thing I stayed home today. My nose is a leaking faucet! :-~(<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
July 13th<br />
552 words (handwritten, very beginning of G4:O)<br />
1:51 AM<br />
<br />
Yes, I decided to finally log my longhand writing, as well. It just takes up time to count each word. Sometimes, when I start daydreaming or get distracted, I forget which word was which number, so I end up getting frustrated and have to count all over again. I make note every 100 words, but it's still irritating when that happens. I should be counting by 50's instead of 100's, but either way, I end up feeling just as frustrated. It didn't happen this time, so that's good.<br />
Since I didn't put in how many handwritten words I did before (It's 3 pages long, which is just slightly fewer words than I did here, so it's probably about 500 words I haven't recorded here, yet.), and when I wrote them (They were 10 - 15 minute intervals during my break, so I didn't think the amount I'd write each day was significant), I'll have to put the word count in here as one total number instead of bits. I have no idea how many days I wrote. Something like two weeks. No more than four. Heck, I'll just call it three, since it lands in between the two.<br />
I don't feel like going back and counting the words right now, but I'll do it soon. And don't worry, I'll separate it from the honest word count of whichever day I share it here. Example:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Month #st/nd/th</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i># words </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>?:?? AM/PM</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>And here is the word count of the unknown days I hand-wrote the beginning of G4:O: </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i># words"</i></div>
<br />
Now, for an update on my cold: Yesterday, I was miserable. Today, I've probably improved by 20% - 30%. It's a slow cold. Normally, I have the majority of a cold for three days, and it significantly improves on the fourth day and is nearly gone or gone by the fifth day. I can tell right now that it's probably slower by at least a day. Ugh-ly.<br />
I hate being sick. I hate not working. It's make me feel unproductive, like I'm not accomplishing anything important in life. I actually love my job. To those of you who hate your jobs, I apologize for saying that. I have friends who have had absolutely terrible jobs, too. I can imagine the horror stories you have about yours.<br />
One of my friends finally just found a job to replace her old one (though, being a babysitter having to watch a bunch of kids all at once, during the busiest time of the year, might not be the best choice....). Her old one was at a Michaels craft store, and her manager and the customers alike treated her like filth.<br />
Customers were mean, rude, demanding, judgmental, and they blamed her for the store's problems. People, just because a worker represents a store by working for it doesn't mean that they actually make the company decisions. Talk to a manager or write a letter or an email to the company and professionally work out your problems with them. Squabbling and yelling at a cashier won't get you anywhere. They just go home crying and talking to their family about their bad day. There are human beings everywhere around the world, and the less human beings are the ones who don't do a lot of thinking.<br />
Her manager, on the other hand, was mean enough to make several people quit. Her manager made her work on Thanksgiving <i>and</i> Black Friday for <i>long</i> hours just because he/she couldn't hire more workers fast enough. She couldn't sit down and enjoy Thanksgiving with her family, she had to sleep. And it was very little sleep. I can't remember, something like 3 - 5 hours of sleep. Brutal. Basically like slavery. And this happened in the United States.<br />
Anyway, bottom line, I boycott Michaels crafts stores. Something that's allowed to slip by like this is a good indicator that something seriously needs to be fixed within the company.<br />
So, I understand if you hate your job. I'd hate it, too.<br />
If there's a problem, go to HR (Human Resources). If there is none, do some research and find out who can put the bully in his/her place. Talk to your local government and ask them who to call about it, if nothing else. Remember: No matter how important they are to the company, you are important as a respectable human being who deserves being treated like everyone else. Your caring about and concern over others ("If it's possible to bully me, others could be next. And I don't want that to happen to anyone else.") is your best defense.<br />
P.S. At every single job my mom has worked at in her life, including her current one, she has been a victim of workplace bullying, discrimination (just because she's a woman), and unfairness by bosses/managers/owners/supervisors and coworkers alike. She hardly ever listens to my advice because she keeps being too afraid and wanting to wait until problems are actually bad (which "bad" seems to have no limit....), so maybe you can. You're strong. I believe in you. Be your own hero. Don't stop until it's done.<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
July 14th<br />
11:55 PM<br />
49 words (editing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br />
I only wrote as much as I edited tonight. I like to go back and read a little before where I leave off before I continue writing. I saw some sentences that needed to be rephrased and more specific, so I fixed them. Then midnight happened, which means the next day (July 15th).<br />
I don't know how much I wrote afterwards for these early morning hours of July 15th. I'll count them tomorrow (one of the most annoying things about handwriting your written works is counting how many words you wrote.). I'm too tired, because I write until I can barely stay awake anymore.<br />
My cold is almost gone. I sneezed five times today. The nose-blowing happened mainly during the first half of the day. I've been able to breathe out of one nostril through most of today (besides the sneezing and nose-blowing sessions, of course). For most of today, I have felt a bit dizzy, especially when I look around, get up, and walk around. It's probably just from fluid in my ears or sinuses. I was quite dehydrated the other day. My lips were so chapped, they shrunk and split in two places. Painful. I was drinking plenty of water throughout the day, though. Only slightly chapped today, and the splits are healing surprising fast.<br />
...I don't know why I'm sharing all this to you. It just makes me feel like somebody out there cares about my health, I guess. I don't have that much of a social life.<br />
*starts to fall asleep in chair*<br />
*gets startled awake by Sweetie getting up from her chair (small scratching sound) and looking at me intently*<br />
I know she did that on purpose. She wakes me up nearly every single time it happens. Sweet little girl.<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
July 15th<br />
Approximately 12:30 PM<br />
220 words (editing and writing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And here is the word count of the unknown days (about 3 weeks at 5 - 15 minute intervals midday) I hand-wrote the very beginning of G4:O (three handwritten pages): </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
711 words </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
P.S. I'm not writing about basic things (from here till the end of July on this blog post), such as how my day went, because it's actually August 9th right now. I was sick with a cold, and just when I felt all better, I was hit with a burning throat and cough, then nasal congestion and some sneezing, then an ear infection that temporarily wiped out most of my ability to hear out of my left ear. I was so exhausted, I could not possibly bring myself to write. Whenever I get sick, my head is usually not clear enough to write. Plus, it's not convenient to have to cough or blow your nose a gazillion times in a matter of minutes. But don't worry. I'm about 90% all better, now.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
___</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
July 16th</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Approx. 12:30 PM</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
4 words (editing very beginning of G4:O)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
___</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
July 17th</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Approx. 12:30 PM</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
59 words (editing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
___</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
July 20th</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To be continued... (I was in the middle of counting words and lost track at 63 and 52 because I kept falling asleep.) *next day passes by (It's the earlimorn of August 10th, now.)* (I spent the day counting the rest of the words I wrote up until now.)</div>
</div>
82 words (writing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
July 21st<br />
412 words (writing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
July 22nd<br />
1 word (editing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
July 25th<br />
2 words (editing very beginning of G4:O)<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
^Referring to the last two days above<br />It's weird how even before you experience symptoms of illness, your brain begins to struggle concentrating or thinking clearly. I was having trouble with inspiration at that time. Then I think Tuesday (July 26th) was when I started having a burning throat and trouble talking, followed by a dry cough.<br />
<br />
<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-89026267582265623722016-06-16T05:30:00.000-07:002016-06-29T02:46:02.451-07:00June 2016 Phew. I'm so glad that's all over. Well, except for when I visit with an aunt and several cousins this weekend.<br />
What am I talking about, you ask? Birthdays. It might have not been a great idea to carry out old, dusty, moldy furniture out of my bedroom and organize everything into plastic containers, but I really wanted to do it before the birthday parties just in case anybody poked their heads in the bedroom and saw the pile of clothes and junk everywhere.<br />
I don't like being judged for my messes, as you can tell. I like having a clean, organized home when I have people over, even when they're not my own guests. If I live under a roof, I'm fully capable of helping my family clean things up. Unfortunately, my family doesn't have as much of the same preference that I do. They throw their junk and shoes anywhere they like when they feel tired or lazy, which is basically all the time. What drives me crazy the most is when they make high traffic areas an obstacle course, most commonly with their shoes. <br />
Personally, I don't enjoy watching other people get hurt. I watched enough of that when I was little. And I don't like feeling that rush of adrenaline, sudden anxiety, and fear of being unable to get my footing and that I'm about to fall down. I'm not accident-prone, nor do I have a knack for falling down, but I do remember what it's like to live with both problems (I was a clumsy kid and later learned to avoid bumps, bruises, and scrapes by being too slow. Once puberty hit, I got clumsy again and often bruised my then-wider hips, so I had to re-learn my old method.). <br />
So, I've grown into a hyper-self-aware, alert, and perhaps over-careful, individual. Since I don't like disasters (and watching disaster movies, a.k.a. horrible-things-happening-and-everything-going-wrong-throughout-the-movie "comedies"), I sometimes can't stand it anymore and get frustrated when I accidentally kick or trip on something. But I do nothing more than "Agh!" and "Argh!" like a human-wookie crossbreed, shove things over to the side, and growl a sentence or two of my extremely-wanted request to "Can we please just...!" and "That way, nobody has to trip and smash their face on anything!"<br />
I don't like being angry. It's not a good feeling, and it definitely doesn't feel good. Many people like the feeling because it gives them a [false] sense of power, simply because they see others cower down, give them fearful looks, and obey them. But it always feels empty in the end, like it was stupid to throw a fit in the first place. Some people are blind to that realization, however. They simply think and act by the motion of emotion. It's basically like stimming when you have autism, which is what my brother has. <br />
For example, when he doesn't want to do something, like following the rules: His simpleminded thoughts are, when asked to turn down his headphones in a public place: "I WANT to listen to my music on my headphones!" His feelings: Stubbornness; "I want what I want"; "I don't WANT to give it up!"; "But I'm having too much fun, and I refuse to give it up!"; "I just started, so I'm not going to listen to you." (regardless of the actual time duration, even long periods of time feel like a few minutes. It's kind of like sleep, where they lose touch with reality and when they block things out due to stress.); and "I feel too comfortable to leave my comfort zone."<br />
I have a character that basically represents anger. Mind you, it's very different from that new Disney/Pixar movie, um.... What's it called again? (I haven't watched it, yet, but I know as a matter of fact that he's not like my character.) *looks it up* Inside Out. Anyway, the character is nothing near like him. And yes, I'll be watching it soon. I bought the DVD for my sister's birthday. She'll want me to watch it with her just as much as how one of my best friends wants me to watch it.<br />
Does this mean that I have other characters that represent emotions? ...More or less. Yes and no. Maybe and sort of. It's a long story to explain how my story world works. It would probably take me about 30 minutes up to an hour to go over just enough to explain that one single thing, just to answer that question.<br />
<br />
4,011 words total (separate document)<br />
1:30 AM<br />
June 15th<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
Well, my sister caught a 24-hour flu bug this morning. Just a bad headache, nausea, and little upchucking this morning. I wasn't sure whether it was the chicken teriyaki I got her yesterday, but I didn't want to risk going to work today because:<br />
1. She can't really take care of herself or know what to do because of her autism. For instance, I had to give her water because she was dry heaving.<br />
2. Since I ate a ton of sushi and chicken yakisoba from the same restaurant, I didn't want to risk hurling all over books, toys, and people. (Yes, there are toys in libraries. You didn't know that? Pick yourself up and go to your nearest public library, unless you live many miles away from it. Also, many people still think that librarians are cranky old ladies whose only form of communication is shushing. Another thing that many people still think is that libraries are boring and full of books. Good grief. It's the 21st century! Libraries also have DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, free internet access on computers, WiFi, laptops, iPads, and fun events going on each month. The toys are in the play areas and a bunch of other ones are played with during Storytime. If I've mentioned this before and I don't remember, it's probably because I tend to write in this blog when it's late at night. My apologies. I have no clue how many people are actually reading my blog. Whenever I look at the Google Analytics (a feature that shows me how many people in each country and at each approximate time that people look at my blog and blog posts), I just figure that most people take at glance at this blog and move on. I mainly write in here as a sort of diary and writing log, only thinking that at least one person I know in real life is reading it. I don't feel bad if nobody is actually reading it. Personally, it reminds me of looking through a calendar at the end of the year, or looking through an old calendar from several years ago: You see what exciting things you did on certain days. I guess not all people do this [and, in fact, I admit to not doing this as much as I used to], but I once wrote the details of what happened each day at the end of each day noteworthy. For example, if I went to Wild Waves and Enchanted Village [a theme park I used to go to often with my aunt], I'd mention things like: "I got a big ice cream cone!" or [At Fright Fest near Halloween, same theme park] "I wore my Scream mask and people liked it!" Some days were bad days and I'd write, "I fell down and sprained my ankle. :'( " Eventually, I didn't write anything on bad days, especially when my aunt would verbally and mentally abuse me. Instead, I'd cross out the day not with a straight X, but with a wavy X, as though it were a drawing of tears running down a person's face. Anyway, at the end of the first year of treating my calendar as a sort of diary, I realized how fun and interesting keeping track of my life really was. This blog is a form of that, with me writing down significant events each day [Well, almost. But I recently decided to change that, as you know.], like a diary. Anyway, back to this list. Lol. I get so sidetracked when writing letters and blogging. Don't worry. I don't write my books like this. I'm more strict on myself with my books. I just ramble, don't judge myself, and feel free and comfortable when I write letters and blog posts.)<br />
3. I forgot the third reason. (If you forgot what the heck I was talking about in this list, scroll up a little to check. I just now had to do that, too. Me = Ramblehead!) Ah, yes. Now I remember. I had 3 hours of sleep last night because I was having too much anxiety and restlessness to get off the computer (I tend to go back and forth between Facebook [I only Friend family and friends I've met and known for a while in real life, save for a rare few people who are the only exceptions.] and Twitter [I'm @Jennifer_Fulk] a gazillion times.). I finally got off the computer late at night, took a shower, and went to bed at past 3 AM. I would have gone to work anyway if it wasn't for my sister getting sick, though, which taking care of her is my top priority and reason when she gets sick. I've gone to work before on 4 hours of sleep. Although I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, half the time this happens, I tend to be wide awake and functional throughout the day until I get home. Maybe I run on adrenaline on those days.... Then again, I run on adrenaline all the time anyway because I prefer to not have to lean on a cane at this age (a.k.a. I refuse to have to depend on caffeine. It's healthier, I'm not getting addicted to anything, and I'm not wrecking my body from the inside). Yeah, it's not healthy to get 4 - 6 hours of sleep each night, but I'm working on a plan to fix that by sheer will. Perfect, structured routines are my worst enemy, thanks to my aunt (Mind you, I have 4 aunts, but that one is remembered by all of the family to be the meanest. Yeah, she was horrible as a kid, too. The type that makes even the parents afraid [and lenient! Worst parenting idea - ever!], which is kind of what created her in the first place.). But I don't use that as an excuse for my self-destructive behavior. It was only last week that I finally figured out what is wrong with me: The procrastination and "fear" of doing anything is the result of the constant rush and anxiety I went through daily. Knowing the need to hurry, but having flashbacks of having to rush to bed and the intense anxiety and fear associated with it, I end up putting it off by doing things that take my mind off of it. But where's the stopping point? There is none. It's a vicious cycle. The only way that I can feel comfortable going to bed is letting myself burn out: When I'm very tired and I'm starting to fall asleep. Unfortunately, that isn't the greatest choice when you have to take a shower as well, especially when you have work in the morning. Instead of saying, "I'm screwed for life", I'm going to try to help myself the best I can. I can go through rounds of therapy with some therapist, but therapists don't make much money, and just about anybody can be hired to be one, regardless if you have training or special degrees or not. In the end, it's all depending on me anyway, so I might as well treat myself. It isn't a serious mental condition, I've just got to look inside myself and break a bad habit by fixing my "running-out-of-time-just-before-the-end-of-the-world" panic and anxiety.<br />
Oh, yeah. And my sister is feeling better now. There's a weird, short-lived flu bug going around. A lot of people at my mom's work have been getting it, a friend who lives nearby got on the same day as my sister, and my little cousin caught a similar one about 70 miles away at the same time, too. I think it's the weather. We've been getting a pattern of cool and warm, cool and warm weather lately. A few days ago, it was cold. Like, in the lower 50s kind of cold. Then it got warm in the upper 60s again. I think that day was to blame for all the people getting it today.<br />
Something unrelated: If you have access to YouTube, I recommend subscribing to the channel, "50 ducks in a hot tub". Matt, his ducks, and his dog, Dug, are like one big, funny family. You'll know what I mean when you watch several videos. Recently, Matt got a tear in an unfortunate place, so he's going through a lot of pain right now, but he recently got a huge hatch of the cutest, funniest ducklings you'll ever see. Whenever he goes in their barn, their God-sent therapy immediately takes the pain away. It makes me almost cry (and now the tears finally come. *reaches for tissue, because it always annoyingly drains through my nose*), seeing them rushing over to him, crowding around him, and nibbling on his shoes and legs (They're actually grooming him and treating him like he's their mommy or daddy.). He's never had a hatch that behaved like this. He recently decided to lay down among them to see what would happen, and the result was adorable beyond reason.<br />
Oh, and I forgot to mention: I stayed awake and was on the computer for a bit this morning before I ate a bowl of cereal. My sister was doing better the whole time I was doing those things (an hour or two?), so I decided to go back to bed. I was too tired to go immediately to the store to get her 7Up. I decided to set my cell phone alarms so that I'd get a few more hours of sleep. After all, her loud dry heaves woke me up an hour before I was supposed to wake up. So I had 3 hours of sleep instead of 4. I figured that added 3 more hours would give me 6 hours of sleep total to get by. However, when my alarms went off, I shut them all off while I was half-asleep, deciding that I would sleep for 5 more minutes and wake up on my own (Of course, that never works for most people. It only works for me every once in a while, but not when I'm extremely tired.). Well, let me tell you, I've been feeling utterly exhausted since last Friday. I had to move a load of clothes and belongings into containers, as well as a couple of large bits of furniture in and out of my room that day. The next day, I had to finish up with that project, as well as vacuum, decorate, and otherwise preparing for my sister's birthday party. By the next day, on my birthday, I was utterly spent. But I still had tons of stuff to do. Monday, that next day, I have little memory of. I wasn't too busy, but I guess I was tired enough not to remember how tired I was. Tuesday was terrible. My eyes were heavy and kept going out of focus, and I felt like I was going to fall asleep any minute, all day. Thankfully, I wasn't rushing around. I sat most of the time at work cleaning stuff. On Wednesday, I was unusually wide awake and clear-thinking, but I remember I had 5 hours of sleep, one hour less than the night before. I guess I was running on adrenaline that day. Then... Thursday, today. ...Er, well. Yesterday, that is. It's 2:50 AM, so it's technically Friday right now. Whatever.<br />
My poor cat is yelling at me with raspy-voiced barks: "Eh!!" "Ow!!" "En!!" She wants me to go to bed, but I want to write. She doesn't realize I don't have to get up early in the morning.<br />
Agh! I keep wanting to tell you, but I keep on rambling and getting sidetracked! Here, I'll just say it: I slept for 10 hours! That was 3 hours last night, and, when I went back to bed, I accidentally slept for 7 hours (until 4:30-ish PM. My mom coming home and talking with my sister in the living room woke me up). When I woke up, I was a little afraid that it may be because I was going to be sick soon, too, but then I remembered that it was simply because I had been exhausted. I felt more refreshed, more than I have felt in a while, so it all worked out in the end.<br />
Anyway, it's 3:00 AM. Time to write for a little bit, then I need to go to bed. (But I'm pretty tired, now. I'll decide what to do once I start reading a little bit before where I left off. If I know what to write and my imagination is functioning well, I'll know.) ...No. You know what? I think I'll go to bed. I need to have a time limit, even on weekends. 3 AM, no later. Closing my eyes right now, I know I am too tired. Good night. (I need to start listening to my cat more.... Lol.)<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
3:48 AM (Oops. But it's the weekend. Then again, I overworked my body today. I'll be feeling it tomorrow. And sleep in. At least I feel like I wrote enough, though. I haven't gone far very much these past past several months.)<br />
4,289 words total separate document<br />
June 18th<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
3:07 AM<br />
4,564 words total in separate document<br />
June 19th<br />
<br />
Not much to say. My sister wanted me to watch Zootopia with her and Mom at dinnertime (Dinner was late), then we watched 50 Ducks in a Hot Tub videos late into the night. Oh, and yes. I was sore all day today. I didn't have that much of an appetite, though. My metabolism goes way low on weekends, when I'm not doing anything. I end up eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, snacks throughout the day, and any-sized dinner. That's about it. Anyways, I am falling asleep as I am typing this, so I bid you a good night.<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
Unknown time. Likely around 7:30 PM.<br />
5,267 words total in separate document<br />
June 25th<br />
<br />
Whew! I'm getting closer to where this part of the story will join the main part. What do I mean and how did this happen? Well, I've heard of some writers doing this, and I'm no exception (In fact, I've always been like this! It's rather annoying.): When I start writing a story, I don't know how exactly to begin. I don't know what the first sentence will be, and I don't know what the first few chapters will be like. I have the feel <span style="color: purple;">(The mood of the story? It's hard to describe "the feel", putting it in words, but I hope you can understand. It's what writers seek when they sit down in front of the story they're writing. It's kind of like trying to remember how an orchestrated song goes in a movie in a battle scene. It ain't easy to grasp the movement, the flurry, and the excitement, and forcing your own emotions to feel fear as though you're running around fighting an invisible enemy when you're sitting in a chair. I guess another way to describe it is when you have to stop a Star Wars movie in the middle of it, and, the next day, trying to remember what just happened and how you felt during the seconds before where you left off.), ...You know what? I just rambled after four words in a sentence. Redo! (I hate it when I do that.) I have the feel</span> and I know the most important things that will happen, but the imagination runs dry, so I "make a summary" of these most important events so that I can think over them and daydream a little. Fortunately and unfortunately, I get inspired after several sentences or paragraphs. Once I've started, I'm unstoppable. It's a powerful thrill, as though I were reading a good, fast-paced book. The only difference? I'm not flipping pages like crazy, I'm typing like crazy. I want to know what happens next just as much as a reader.<br />
Soooo, anyway. (I'm getting off-topic and disorganized because I'm falling asleep at the computer again [Yeah. it's 3:29 AM, June 26th.].) That's why and what I'm doing. 39 words turned into 5,267 words so far. *I'll continue this tomorrow. I honestly can't stay awake any longer.<br />
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...I'm back. 2:07 PM, June 26th! That purple section above is what I added in just now. I'm in a writing mood, so I rambled. Oops. But I felt the need to explain what I meant by "the feel". Oftentimes people don't understand what I'm saying, other times they're too afraid of asking and looking stupid, so they dismiss it that I'm stupid and ignore me, pretending that I'm invisible. Maybe it's just that I often feel invisible because people don't talk to me much in real life. But I don't blame them. I'm horrible at talking. I stumble over words a lot, I stutter a little, I process thoughts slower than the average person, and when I don't talk fast and stumble over my words, I talk slowly. Autism sucks. And people make assumptions, they think I'm done talking because I also pause in between 1 - 5? words, I get interrupted, etc., etc. I get frustrated with myself when I pause and have something to add to what I say, and then other people talk and change the subject just when I open my mouth again. Do I have to keep my mouth open, or something? Then again, they look away anyway. It's probably not me. Chatty people constantly talk because it feels good on their jaws or something. Maybe they just like competition, and they're not used to being around slow-thinkers. Chatty people do hang with chatty people. That makes sense. They're adapted to thinking fast so they can can jump in and say whatever they want when they want. But I don't like interrupting people because I know how it feels to be interrupted. It's even more awful for me because when I'm interrupted, I instantly forget what I was just saying and what I was about to say. This is why I give up talking altogether. I'm not very talkative, but when I am, it's when people want to talk to me. I like people who are happy to invite others to their conversations. And asking questions. I'm great with answering them. Advice, too. Figuring out how to do something or getting around obstacles? I love doing that. Using odd objects for tools rather than traditional ones? That's often the right way to do them. It's hard for many people to think outside the box, because they're used to a systematic way of doing things (e.g. "following the crowd"). I used to be stupid and couldn't figure out anything, so don't think I'm some genius or something. We all can learn new ways of doing things if we just look around us and think more independently. And being more careful. Slow and easy wins the race.<br />
...But enough about that. I've probably mentioned the same things several times already. I'm too lazy to go back and look, but at least you can learn a little more about me when I put things in different words. And hey, you could be autistic, too. Maybe you didn't understand something I said before, and are understanding it better since I put it a different way this time? The variety in the things that happen in life are endless. Anything can happen, anytime, anywhere, at just the right time, for many reasons we often can not see.<br />
^And, no. I don't feel like fixing that ridiculously long "paragraph" right now. I'd rather write [in my story] so I can get closer to the day that I can publish it and bring it to you! The long wait is so worth it! (P.S. I'm horrible at writing letters. This blog comes somewhere between writing a letter and story writing. Half-good, half-bad. When I'm writing my stories, it just comes out so naturally. Grammar, spelling, organization, etc. I think it's because I am passionate and love my stories. Everything else? I let myself be lazy. Kind of like the way I talk, only faster-thinking due to lack of anxiety, and a lot more relaxed. I honestly don't know how many of you read my blog, but I'm okay with it. I feel like I'm talking to a person who happens to be a *very* good listener. Thank you for not interrupting me! Hahaha!<br />
Okay, time to write! :-D (P.S. I'll post a random picture here very soon. Something funny or me with my cat. Or a sunset, because we've been getting some beautiful ones lately. ...How about all three! You deserve it.)<br />
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68,165 words. Not in G4:O. I had to go back and read the two last chapters of G3:DF, so I couldn't help but fix some grammatical errors and edit some sentences so that they'd make better sense. That book is so long, I had to divide it into 6 separate documents so that I didn't have to wait forever for one file to load to write. So, the last, sixth file, is the one that has 68,165 words in it. I'm just putting it here to remind myself to add it to the G3:DF writing log.<br />
Why did I have to go back and read the last two chapters of G3:DF, you ask? Well, three reasons: When I initially began G4:O, I didn't know how to begin it, so I summarized it. I knew the most important events, but I just couldn't grasp the feel of the book. Maybe it's because I was excited because I knew when the most exciting events would happen. Yes, that must be it. When I was a kid, I was an impatient reader. I wanted to know what would happen next. I couldn't wait. But it was worse with the ending: I'd flip to the end and read the last one or two paragraphs. Of course, nothing would make sense, but at least I felt calm somehow enough to continue reading the book from where I left off. Perhaps the worst thing was me being so anxious, I'd flip ahead and see if a character is still mentioned. And by that I mean if they were still alive in the chapters or near the end. Terrible, worst thing to do to yourself. If you're an impatient reader, don't do it. Just don't. They don't call them spoilers for nothing. I think I wrecked two books for me like that. Finding out that a character dies prematurely is perhaps more devastating than actually reading their brutal, sad scenes. You end up not wanting to read the book anymore.<br />
Anyway, the second reason is because I had to know where my characters left off in the very beginning. I don't want to say more regarding it, as it would instantly give you too big of hints. I just needed more information so that I could continue off where I just had to stop from.<br />
The third reason is merely because it's been driving me nuts. Every time I open up my G4:O document to write, I see hints in the beginning of it that condense several chapters into a mere 1 - 3 sentences. And each of these hints are color coded, which organizes them as each an important event, a sub-climax of the story, if you will. Think of a story as having a graph with peaks-- ...Okay, I remembered something in school about this, but I couldn't remember how it was explained. I had to look it up so I could stop feeling like a dummy. This should say it all. And they're called rising actions, not sub-climaxes.<br />
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Anyway, I had the 1 - 3 sentences color-coded so I could organize them as rising actions. Staring at the colors have been annoying me every time I wait for the G4:O file to load, and yes, it's getting close to time that I create a second file to reduce the wait. Almost. I've just got to tackle getting the very beginning written. It shouldn't take long. As long as I get more sleep and don't get so irritable and easily-distracted when my mom and sister get talkative and noisy, I might be able to do it within the week. Chances are, though, I'll have trouble concentrating on and off and will take about 2 weeks to write it. But you never know. Last week, I had a lot of trouble concentrating because I had 4 - 5 hours of sleep each night. This week I'll try to do better and be more strict with myself.</div>
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Today has gone by quite fast. It's already 1:21 AM, so I've got to take a quick shower and smash my face into my pillow. Haha, don't worry. I'm gentle to my pillow. It's made of glass. </div>
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Just kidding. It's not make of glass, but I once wondered when I was young what it'd be like to have insulation as a pillow. That wouldn't be so great, having tiny splinters of glass embedded in your head. Sorry, don't think of that. It'd be worse if a kid tried to eat it like cotton candy. I more often thought it looked like cotton candy. My mom always used a scared voice to warn me not to touch it. *gasps* "Don't touch it!!" Traumatizing woman. Enough to give anybody anxiety problems. But I don't have them just because of her. You can't possibly imagine what I've been through. Things so bad, you embrace nightmares as good dreams. Well, no. Actually, my nightmares as a kid were terrible. Many of them would be long-recurring for many years. I don't want to describe the several I still remember, but I'll say this much: They were horrible. </div>
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Nowadays, I remember very few dreams. I didn't say I don't have any, because we all dream several times during our sleep cycle. The other day or yesterday, I had one that was slightly unpleasant, but it didn't last long because I woke up to greet the morning. About 4 or 5 days ago, I had a nightmare of being chased into my grandma's house by realistic, life-sized velociraptors. I had to hide a 7, 8, or 9 year old half brain-dead girl in her white nightgown in the bottom of a weird freezer. I tried to fit myself in, but I was an adult man, so I had to stand around and wait to meet my fate. There was no point in running anymore, so I was ready to face him/her. I knew there was a raptor creeping in from the side of the tiny half living room, but my eye was on the one down the hallway. She walked slowly into view, her large reptilian face looking sideways at me. I was ready to be killed that this one, staring intently into her eye.</div>
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That's when I woke up. I wanted the dream to properly end! Like a story! I *wanted* to be killed by the dinosaur! It's so silly. I was disappointed when I woke up. I was feleing like, "Have at me! I'm not afraid of you! Even if you kill me, I will not be afraid of you!" But I guess I unconsciously made myself wake up because I didn't want to jump out of my sleep. I've had too many dreams like that enough to know when I'm going to jump. Most of them I jump. It's very startling and it takes a lot of energy out of me. I almost feel like screaming away the fear.</div>
And yes, I've sometimes had dreams of being a boy or a man. I think that's why it's been so easy to get into the minds of my male characters. It's quite useful. And fun. One of my favorites as a kid was of one recurring [only twice, though!] being a "jungle boy" in a very green tropical rainforest, and having the ability to leap and glide in the air over lush valleys and from tree to tree. What a breathtaking adventure! The flying sensation was such a thrill. I'll never be able to go zip gliding due to my panic attacks, but that dream was enough for me to feel satisfied. Breathtaking beauty everywhere. Oh, and the dream looked very much like this, just without the guy zip gliding (but imagine gliding through that!):<br />
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Okay, now I really need to stop right here. It's 2:06 AM. Good night! (And good day!)<br />
Oh! And I almost forgot! I wrote in G4:O, too!<br />
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5,309 words in separate document<br />
10:30 PM? I lost track of what time I stopped because I was trying to multitask.<br />
June 26th<br />
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____<br />
<br />
I was just going to go sit and write, but then my brother called. 5 minutes till midnight. Ugh. I hate ending my day like this. Drama, things going wrong, angry and upset people. I bet if his head were cut off above his vocal chords, he'd be expelling more hot air than he'd be gushing blood. ...Sorry, bad mental image. I blame all those weird anti-smoking commercials of the cold turkey talking through its neck. *shudders* It's been several years since I've watched much cable television, so I don't know if those commercials are still around, but I hope not. It really scared me the first time I watched them, and the thought of them still disturbs me and makes me wonder how a turkey would sound without a head. Um... anyway! O_o<br />
My mom tends to talk loudly and scold him every time he calls. There's always something he's mad about. "I'm gonna' go throw that guy's stuff outside and break it!" Retaliation will get you nowhere, diaperhead. He has a roommate in his adult disability home who has worse mental problems than he does, so the two yell at each other like small children. Not your typical family drama, but it would be funny if it weren't my brother and instead a cartoon. But without all the profanity. Actually, replace bad words with funny, random words and sounds. "You honkety-honkety-honk!" "Your mother is a toilet brush!" Classic, nonsensical, unpredictable comedy. I love that stuff.<br />
Anyway, I had to wait 15 minutes for that silly phone call to end, then I finally sat down to write (Actually, I was already sitting down, playing Pokemon FireRed on my Nintendo DS. With my headphones on to drown my mom out.). I just got done at 2:25 AM. This chapter I just couldn't stop in the middle of. It required some outer space research, some hard thinking, then writing of some fast-paced stuff happening. Whew. Now for some sleep.<br />
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6,015 words in separate document<br />
2:25 AM<br />
June 28th<br />
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____<br />
<br />
I was starting to have difficulty keeping my eyes open and my head upright, when my cat, Sweetie, must have sensed this or noticed it and jumped down from the chair she was lying on. She rushed over to me with her small, raspy voice snapping at me, "En! En! En!" (By the way, she's getting better at saying my sister's name, Sarah: "Air-eh! Air-eh!" Of course, cats can't make a perfect "S" sound, so she doesn't even try.) She jumped into my lap, pawing at my mouth and chin, purring like crazy, walking all over me, and trying to bite my nose (I tossed my head back and forth, expecting as much. She succeeded once during this struggle.) When I leaned back, because she was crawling all over my chest and getting her furry side in my face, she kept saying, "Oh-ooh-eh? Oh-ooh-eh?" Every once in a while she'll say "Oh-ooh-beh," but not this time. She wants me to go to bed now, without questions. I told her "Wait. Wait.", so now she's coming and going. Reminding me. ...Okay. Now she threw up a few times. She tends to do this late at night when I ignore her. Oh, hello. Now she's in my lap. ...Just to walk across the table to sit in her chair again. Anyway, these are the only times she throws up: When it's late at night and she wants to go to bed, when she has a hairball, and when she is sick. I never knew cats could throw up for reason #1, but I remember many times when I was little when I'd be so tired, I'd feel sick to the stomach. I still get that way when I'm severely sleep-deprived.<br />
It most recently happened on Monday morning, actually. My mom didn't have her day organized on Sunday, so she ended up doing everything last-minute until she finally took a shower a little past midnight. Since our hot water has to gain back, I had to wait to take mine. Needless to say, I couldn't work on Monday. 3 1/2 hours of sleep is not good for anyone. My eyes were so puffy, I struggled to keep my eyes open. And I had that queasiness that I just described. (She has a plan to take hers on Sunday mornings, now. But since she has the memory superpower that rivals that of a fish's, it won't take her long to forget again. If it does, I'll have to resort to doing it on another day/time. I had such a convenient, well-timed schedule pattern for myself, too. I don't like having to disrupt that just because a dunce keeps jumping off her stool and disrupting my class. ...Metaphorically speaking, of course.<br />
Okay, time to give this little one her reward for being so patient. *looks over at Sweetie, who looks over at me with sleepy eyes* I feel so horrible when I make her wait. I feel miserable in my own skin, anyway. ...Sorry. I'm sensitive to others' misery, inconvenience, and scolding. I'm just an over-feeling individual who grew up feeling sorry for inanimate objects when she was a kid. (When things broke, I'd wince and feel their "pain". Please tell me I'm not the only one who was this weird as a kid. Actually, I'm still a little like that. Only, it's mainly evolved into me being sensitive to people unnecessarily slamming doors loudly. Loud sounds hurt my ears + I'm afraid of things breaking and people getting hurt. Bad daydreams.)<br />
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6,381 words in separate document<br />
2:32? AM (I forgot. Oops! Close enough.)<br />
June 29th<br />
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-18537352853480136032016-05-01T12:00:00.000-07:002016-06-01T02:38:42.460-07:00May 20163:40 AM <br />
May 1st<br />
161,333 words total<br />
<br />
I've been busy with running family errands (Family birthdays are coming up!) and reading a book called <u>New Hope Chronicles: Dragon Flame</u> by Pat Harris. It's a great book so far. It's long, but exciting. If you like Eragon and Star Trek, this might just be your new favorite read: <a href="http://amazon.com/New-Hope-Chronicles-Book-One/dp/1481827421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462099508&sr=8-1&keywords=new+hope+chronicles">http://amazon.com/New-Hope-Chronicles-Book-One/dp/1481827421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462099508&sr=8-1&keywords=new+hope+chronicles</a><br />
I might have already mentioned it in a previous blog post, but oh well. Things happen, especially when your brain is tired and trying to tell you it's 3:50 AM. Time to sleep!<br />
P.S. I'm trying to read more books because sometimes you get to that moment where you feel your writing is getting a bit dull and boring. Reading seems to help a lot with this. (Of course.)<br />
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12:57 AM<br />
May 3rd<br />
161,561 words total<br />
<br />
It was a hot day today. 86 F. The weather can't make up its mind, though. It's going back and forth between 80-something, 70-something, and 60-something.<br />
I'm terribly sleepy right now, and my cat is sleeping on my lap with my left wrist pinned underneath her, so I think it's time to kiss the waking world goodnight.<br />
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2:27 AM<br />
May 7th<br />
161,745 words total<br />
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I have places to go and things to do tomorrow (I'm taking my sister out to go find something for Mother's Day), but I've been wanting to write all day, so I sacrificed some sleep in order to write a little. I've a cat on my lap that grew impatient and fell asleep. Now I must go sleep. Stay safe this weekend, everyone!<br />
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1:12 AM<br />
May 11th<br />
161,890 words total<br />
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Yep, things don't always go to plan. A lot of things. But when my cat, Sweetie, wakes up my sister tonight letting her know that there's a big house spider behind her on the wall? That makes up for everything wrong that happens. I feel like I'm typing gibberish right now. That's how sleepy I am. But the cat story is true. Sweetie loves finding bugs and letting us know. Or if I find it first, I'll tell her, "Bug! Bug! Sweetie! Bug! Look!" and she'll get excited and sound off her bug alarm: "Eh! Eh! Eh!". Cute little girl.<br />
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2:31 AM<br />
May 13th<br />
163,383 words total<br />
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hard to write this. my cat wants me to go to bed. right now. she's hanging herself on my right arm and purring loudly. every ten seconds she yells at me. she is mad. she bit my nose. she means business. i must stop writing before she turns into a dragon and kills me. good night.<br />
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2:18 AM<br />
May 14th<br />
163,424<br />
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I can't stay awake. I keep falling asleep. I had to take my sister to the doctor today in 81+ F heat. She's okay. It was just for allergies and an ear cleaning (She has narrow ear canals, which makes it hard for her ears to properly dispose of ear wax.). She ended up taking a nap afterwards, but I didn't because I can hardly ever take a nap during the day.<br />
Let's just say I'm forever traumatized by a horrible, vivid nightmare I had one time when I took a nap during the day. And yes, it really was traumatizing. Imagine if you're trying to save an old lady from falling down an endless sink hole in a parking lot, and she's hard to reach and hanging by the tips of her fingers. Then you're too afraid of falling in, yourself, so you don't try hard enough and your reaching for her and she falls in. Imagine her screaming. Imagine the overwhelming sense of failure and sheer terror, the feeling that you're at fault for someone's death because you were too afraid to be a real hero. I really felt like it was my fault. I woke up crying for ten minutes that day. It was realistic. I saw her face. Her own terror. It didn't feel like a dream. I felt like it really happened.<br />
Other things happened in the nightmare, but they were also disturbing. For instance, a leaking propane tank, department store workers that were too calm and ignored me when I told them about the leaking propane tank, and a woman and child buried up to their necks in hardened concrete in a parking space repeatedly crying to me for help.<br />
I had this nightmare about three years ago, and I still can't nap in the daytime, afraid my dreaming brain will use my overactive imagination and not be able to control its power.<br />
Anyway, it's 2:43 AM, so I'd better head off to bed, now. Sweetie is sleeping nearby, waiting-- *I sneeze* Nope, not anymore. She was sleeping with her head upside-down, so now she's looking at me upside-down, which is cute.<br />
Pollen count was very high today and is expected to be the same tomorrow. My allergy medicine works pretty well for me, which is good. It's a pity that most of my family suffers from asthma and allergies. I don't think I have asthma. Maybe I'll try getting tested each year, though. The last time I had bronchitis, I had to use an inhaler (The same kind that my asthmatic mom uses!) because my coughing made it very hard to breathe. I felt like I was breathing through two straws, which, according to my mom, is what it feels like when you're having an asthma attack (Difference: She said <i>a</i> straw.). Since I never want to have asthma that bad or ever have an asthma attack, I'll aim to catch it early.<br />
Whoops! Look at me! I'm not listening to myself. I'm rambling on instead of going to bed. Now it's 2:59 AM. Oh well. At least it's the weekend and I can sleep in tomorrow.<br />
___<br />
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5:03 AM<br />
May 15th<br />
[834 words written - Not total, mind you]<br />
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Yes, for some reason, I'm up past 5 AM. I was watching Youtube video until about 12 or 1 AM, so I was late to writing. But then I was looking at dragon art for a long time until I finally started writing at about 4 AM. I really wanted to write, so I didn't care what time it was. Whoops. Sweetie was so mad that I wasn't going to bed when I had to take a bathroom break and walked right past the bedroom. She jumped into my lap and snapped at me ("Eh!") while she petted my arm to get me to pet her.<br />
Oh yeah, so what was I writing? Let's just say that whenever I start writing a story, it's more like a summary in as few words as possible (Because I always end up writing the story instead of taking notes on basic, important events.).<br />
Okay, I'll just tell you: I got tired of seeing a mere sentence in the beginning [of my book's document] that described what happened in two chapters or more, so I figured out how I would write it and started writing it.<br />
Anyway, I need to head to bed. It's 5:17 AM! (P.S. Remember G3:DF? 4 AM, 5 AM, and 6 AM were common hours that I would stop writing for the night. Those were the good old days. But sort of bad because I'd wake up in the "morning" when there was only a few or so hours left in the day. That was the weirdest feeling: Waking to the sunset or near sunset, when my bedroom would glow orange. It's definitely not something I'd ever do again. It was too weird and bewildering.)<br />
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1:48 AM<br />
May 16th<br />
[957 words total in side document]<br />
163,643 words total (main document)<br />
<br />
Wait, what is this side document, you ask? Well, remember how in the very beginning, when I was first writing this book? How I was summarizing it at first, then slowly began to morph it into the book itself (Thus, the reason why I can never summarize anything?) So, seeing it whenever I open up my book's document, I decided to do something about it once and for all. I'll merge it when I'm done writing it. (It takes a while for the main document to the .)<br />
...Okay, I can't type here anymore! I'm falling asleep and just sleep-typed twice, making me delete a weird sentence ("I decided to write it now because it was a beautiful time." and <span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #292f33; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I was reading a certain book by t"</span>). Good night, all!<br />
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1:50 AM<br />
May 17th<br />
1,723 words (side document)<br />
<br />
Hello, I'm tired.<br />
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___<br />
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1:42 AM<br />
May 18th<br />
1,770 words (side document)<br />
<br />
Hello again. Tired again.<br />
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3:39 AM<br />
May 21st<br />
2,474 (side document)<br />
<br />
I got a fair amount of writing done, but it could be better.<br />
Sweetie is going to have to stop grooming herself because I want to go t bed now<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
2:16 AM<br />
May 22<br />
2,481 (side document)<br />
<br />
[I was so tired, I didn't write anything here, just wrote it down and headed straight to bed.]<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
1:51 AM<br />
May 27th<br />
2,487 (side document)<br />
<br />
I've been busy getting ready for three family birthdays that are coming up fast, so it's been hard to find the time, energy, and mental clarity to write lately. Lol. I just wrote six words. Six puny words! Better than nothing? I've been dozing off at the chair several times, so enough is enough. Time to crash.<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
4:08 AM<br />
May 29th<br />
3,444 (side document)<br />
<br />
[This area left blank because I was obviously falling asleep and couldn't write another word past 4:08 AM.]<br />
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***</div>
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...Wow. What an uneventful month. I'm sorry this month sucked for you, reading-wise. It didn't occur to me until now that I need to try a different system. As much as I like to say something for only each time I log in my time, date, and word count, it isn't much fun for you. Reading stuff like "I was too tired to write something here" isn't something you had in mind when you came here.<br />
So, what I'm going to do is write something here as much as I can, regardless of the time. Just telling you how my day went, things new happening, my plans, things I have to do, what I do when I'm not writing, etc.<br />
I don't have much to say for my current life, so I won't be doing it every single day.<br />
What's happening right now? I'm sitting in my usual place at the dining table with my feet on the chair (My legs get restless and uncomfortable when I'm sitting normally for a long time), my right leg bent sideways. My coffee-black Siamese-mix cat, Sweetie, is sleeping on it. My black Labrador retriever, Sandy, just got up to drink water behind me. She just finished and is now lying down nearby. I'm contemplating going to bed, but I really want to write. It's 1:37 AM and I really don't want to be tired tomorrow. I have to go to the store to get hand soap, shaver blades, and food.<br />
On food: Mind you, I eat all the time. No, I'm not fat. I've stayed at the same general weight for many years: 130 - 135 lbs. Muscle weighs more than fat, so that's why using a scale to judge your health isn't the right tool to use. And right now I have a lot of muscle, so I'm okay. I have a few friends that eat like pigs when they eat and yet are super skinny. High metabolism. One of my friends gets it all the time: "Are you anorexic?" "You need to eat more food!" "You need to go to McDonalds!" No matter how much she eats, where she eats, and what she eats, she will always be skinny. The body is weird.<br />
Most of my family are either overweight or obese. It's sad, but I have a suspicion that it has to do with their thyroids not working correctly. Sure, some eat fast food and junk food too much, but as for those who don't and try so hard to lose weight, I'm pretty sure it's their thyroids. My mom and grandma recently found out that they have underactive thyroids (hypothyroidism). They have to take medicine for it daily. Hypothyroidism tends to make you overweight.<br />
...Okay, I've decided. I won't write tonight. It's getting late, my brain is getting sluggish, and I need sleep. I'm looking at 6 1/2 hours of sleep if I go to bed in a few minutes.<br />
One last thing: Wear sunscreen! I was in a hurry to leave the other day, so I brought a tube of sunscreen with me. I was looking for my mom and sister in a big crowd (We were at a local event with music, food trucks, etc.), and when I finally found them, I was in too much of a fluster to bother putting on sunscreen. I thought they had already put some on prior because their skin looked oily as though from sunscreen.<br />
Dummy! It was a combination of sweat and their skin shrinking from dryness! Like grapes turning into sun-dried raisins. Like fresh, spongy, healthy skin turning into shiny leather. ...Okay, sorry. I'll stop. Yes, I'm horrible.<br /> Later, when we got back, the two had ugly sunburns on their faces, scalps, chests, and arms. I have a little bit on my nose, forehead, scalp, and arms, but it's not near as bad as theirs. Probably my lips were sunburnt, too (I don't feel it anymore, so it's probably healed). They felt a fair bit raw. There's a sunscreen lip balm out there, so I'll look around for that. *looks it up for you* ...It looks like there are a lot of options for them on Amazon.com, so if you're interested, go ahead and buy some. Especially if you're going somewhere where there's water. Light bounces off water like a mirror and gives you sunburns like you wouldn't believe. It just doesn't seem like it because the waves are constantly in motion. The reflections off waves are like little rapid-pulse laser guns: Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! <br />"Aaagh! Stop it!"<br />
"No! You must die slowly!"<br />
"Nooo! I'd rather be tortured by my mom's singing than suffer this agony!"<br />
"What's worse: A little sunburn for a few days, or your mom's singing for--"<br />
"On second thought, just go ahead."<br />
<br />
...Okay, I really need to sleep, now. I think I got my "writer's restlessness" wriggled out of me, now. I have no idea where I was going with that joke, but at least you know how corny my jokes are. I tend to like corny ones, puns, short ones, and short-lined dialogue jokes. I guess it comes from my grandpa (Well, the stories told to me of him, that it, since he died 4 years before I was born.), because he enjoyed telling jokes like: "'I see,' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter." and saying funny things when people said certain things: G-pa: "What do you want to drink?" My mom: "Just water." G-pa: "Water's for washing your feet in!" And another: Guest: "Can I use your phone?" G-pa: "Yes, just put your dime down right there next to it." (As though it were an old payphone.)<br />
Agh! I need to stop talking! (er, typing?) ...Now, where is that Sweetie? Probably sleeping with my mom or my sister.<br />
Good night, all! Have a happy and safe June!<br />
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-42571869590241631202016-04-08T05:30:00.000-07:002016-04-10T14:33:54.469-07:00April 2016<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Yes, yes! I know! It's been several days since I last wrote! But things happen in life, especially mine, which tends to be a common occurrence for some dumb reason. <br /> This time, I had to spend some time organizing the bedroom (an ongoing project), procrastinating writing by exploring the entire internet due to writing anxiety (too many interruptions and distractions at home), and family talking constantly (mostly [mild] autism). I've been getting sleepy anytime around 12 - 2 AM, and one of them tends to go to bed around that time, so it's been impossible to find the opportunity to write.<br /> I also got the stomach flu recently, which is no fun at all. I'm close to feeling 100%, but the other day I kind of pushed myself too hard (impatient + wanting to do my usual, physical things), so I was back to feeling a bit unwell yesterday morning. Thankfully, I have a whole weekend to rest up and strengthen myself, so I hope to be 100% by Monday.<br /> I hate not being able to do my usual, physically challenging things. Like carrying a bunch of heavy groceries up a hill for several blocks (I've never been behind the wheel because the drivers around here are dumb and I've already been in 5 car accidents as a passenger, thank you), or running up stairs two steps at a time. Oh well, it's better than many situations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Wow, look at the time. It's 1:48 AM and I'm so tired, I want to fall asleep while sitting (Wouldn't that be nice?). I'd better put my log in here and smash my head into a pillow.<br /> Oh yeah, so I was thinking I might start scheduling my posts so that they are published in the blog during more... "waking" hours. I mean, me being in the U.S. and publishing blog posts during the wee hours of the morning.... Not many who may be interested in this blog would be awake. I may be wasting my time, but I'm going to try it and see if I get more views this way. <br /> I mean, I don't care who and how many see this blog. I don't even care if <i>nobody</i> is reading this blog. I just use this as a way to keep record of my writing so that I can go back later and be like, "Oh yeah! So that happened and that's why I wasn't writing for so long!" Also, I can later put together my word counts, determine how many words I did each day, then create a cool graph or whatever. <br /> Just something fun. It makes a good motivator for writing. Because if I feel guilty for not posting regularly to an imagined "audience", I will end up writing to alleviate the guilt for "letting people down". It's a nice trick to keep my fingers tap dancing on the keys, no matter what kind of day or week or month I've had. I used to be bad at writing regularly, but keeping track of statistics on my progress? Now, that's fun. <br /> See now, if you aren't having enough fun with what you know you love doing, you've just got to make it more fun for yourself or you'll end up not wanting to do it again. Add some spice or more sugar to your cookies. Add garnish to your dish to make it look fancy (Did you know that you can eat the parsley on the side of your plate? It makes a great breath freshener after your meal, and it contains some great nutrients, too. ...Yeah, I'm an herb-lover, as you may tell. Lol.). You get the point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">April 8th </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">156,037 words so far</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1:29 AM stopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Random gibberish: jdbcskdjnvsdjcbsiv<br /><br />___</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">April [8th also]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">159,688 words so far</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">8:45-ish PM stopped</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I had to stop unexpectedly because something required and occupied my attention for the rest of the night (Technology + my mom = gkjgjgdyrdh + "What does this do? What does this mean?" = me saving the day, with some difficulty at first. Because, although I'm better at technology than she is, I'm still a little behind the times by a bit.). <br /> That's okay, though. I got a ton of writing done prior because my mom and sister were out shopping at a couple of stores and enjoying the sunshine. I wasn't feeling up to it, yet, since I was <i>just</i> feeling better after a stomach flu that killed my appetite and weakened me for almost a week. I'm glad that's over! Whew!<br /> I forgot to post here yesterday because I was preoccupied with a different technology situation: We finally upgraded to a flat screen and a blu-ray player. I didn't buy the totally expensive kind, so they aren't that impressive, nor can you do a whole lot with them. I was surprised by how much you can do with the other ones, but since we won't be doing anything but watching movies with it, I bought the most basic one with decent ratings. We don't watch TV because it just keeps people indoors, brainwashes people with hours of annoying, time-wasting commercials, and it can destroy relationships if introduced to the wrong people (The latter being especially the reason why we don't have it: My autistic sister would throw a fit and go mental if she had to stop watching TV when she had to go to an appointment she didn't feel like going to or even going outside for fresh air. She'd also use it as an excuse to not go anywhere. Even without her living here, we'd still not want to watch TV all that much, which means paying the hefty bill wouldn't be worth it. And no, it's not bad parenting. It's autism. It's like having a toddler in an adult's body for the rest of your life. And trust me, having Asperger's myself makes life hard for socializing. Every day is about fighting myself to be as close to "normal" as possible. Everyday is about fighting anxiety and the lack of self-confidence. Everyday is about being stuck feeling like a stupid child while being expected to think and act like the adult that you look like, and fighting to keep your "I think and do things easily like an adult" mask on with your shoulder while juggling "normal, everyday things".).<br />...Whoops. Here I am talking about life with autism again. I suppose it's a good thing to keep you educated on it. It's interesting looking at it from the outside, really. I like wondering what "normal" people see and how they would best understand it in words. And it's most often best if it's explained not from a doctor, but with a person who has the condition. "What is it like for you? What is life like living with it? How would you describe it to a person whose brain developed the right way?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Honestly, I feel like nobody hardly reads my blog more than glance at it, so I don't care much about what I say and I ramble on anyway as though I were talking to someone who's actually interested in what I have to say and happen to be a good listener. ...Okay, that's kinda sad.<br /> Anyway, if you do read my blog: Thank you. You're awesome. High-five yourself. Wait, that's clapping. Just high-five your back, then. Yeah, pat yourself on the back. We're in this journey together. And it's an awesome one.<br /><br />___<br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-3791784764845407842016-03-02T02:05:00.000-08:002016-04-07T01:44:51.916-07:00March 201612:58 AM<br />
March 2nd<br />
184,402<br />
Oof. I am so sore. Mondays are most always busy working in a library, but when you carry a load of groceries home with heavy bags on your shoulders (Panic attacks + anxiety because there's too many stupid drivers around here + growing up traumatized from car accidents galore = Not willing to get a driver's license), and your family wants to get fast food drinks, and you are the only one who can carry the drinks because one person has a back problem and the other person is pushing an upright, folding shopping cart home (My mom can't drive due to health problems worse than but similar to mine), it can take a toll on your body. In this case, mine. It was mainly my left arm and shoulder, but my right arm was sore, too. Being sore and weak especially in my left arm reminded me of just how much I need both arms to function (Pushing book carts, carrying boxes, carrying piles of books in your arms, etc.).<br />
But I like physical challenges. It keeps me strong. I used to be skinny and weak when I was a kid, and I didn't like it, so that's where my love for having muscles originally comes from. I don't want to be weak and feel wimpy again.<br />
Anyway, at least I can still write. But I should stop here because I'm both falling asleep and because I need extra sleep to recover.<br />
Hey, before I hit the hay, here's a picture I took over ten hours ago of the windstorm we had today (er, that is, 3/1/16):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdvSEyQGJEQiqDHlz1C_ycSH0RtJtRyrlU-VYOWqvXmhZDhabKwHZGMW_KvTNFRpmfupDnjfitLgZ8gk-XrIjGY2TSE-E4UBeoRlZIPXHw_uzw9_xgGm8KuAxtjHzJFvdxEHcM-2trfrg/s1600/stormtree.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdvSEyQGJEQiqDHlz1C_ycSH0RtJtRyrlU-VYOWqvXmhZDhabKwHZGMW_KvTNFRpmfupDnjfitLgZ8gk-XrIjGY2TSE-E4UBeoRlZIPXHw_uzw9_xgGm8KuAxtjHzJFvdxEHcM-2trfrg/s400/stormtree.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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As you can see, the wind was blowing hard against the tree towards the right. Wind gusts reached 50 mph. The wind is nearly gone right now. It was an unusually short storm, but approximately 40,000 people are without power. Crews are working hard at clearing fallen debris and restoring power as fast as they can. This wasn't near as bad as the windstorm that hit us in November 2015, but a woman is in the hospital right now with serious injuries after a tree fell on her home. Praying the best for her. </div>
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Good night!</div>
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***March 18th***</div>
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No, I didn't die. But my laptop battery did! I had to order a new one and wait for it to arrive in the mail. </div>
But don't worry, I was still writing during the wait. How, you ask? Well, against all odds, I was able to write quite a bit long-hand. <br />
For those who know me well, you might be squawking right about about now, "What?? But what about your old, healed-wrong injuries on your right pinky finger knuckles?" Well, I don't really know. I was being careful not to apply much pressure there, that's for sure. I think it had to do with the level of the table, how I didn't write for more than 15 minutes most of the time (Most of it was written while I was writing on break at work), and how I wasn't blasting through it (If I am writing very fast and with much enthusiasm, then I tend to pressing hard on the paper with my writing hand.<br />
Stay tuned! I'll be updating the writing log very soon, if nothing else happens.<br />
Welcome to my crazy life!<br />
***<br />
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***March 27th***</div>
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Happy Easter! I'm eating dinner at the moment (Ham, Brussels sprouts, yellow potatoes, sweet potato fries, too many potatoes for some reason, [At this, I freeze for a moment as I remember something, tell my mom that we forgot the sweet potatoes were still in the oven, and we laugh. The oven was already turned off, so it's okay. They're still warm.] and sweet potatoes.), but I'm just here to say: I've <i>just</i> finished updating my book file. *takes bite, chews while typing, takes bite, repeats* I'll be adding each day's log very soon, but here's the total for now: 155,808 words. Yowza! *takes a look at the last log* ...Wait. Somewhere I messed up. March 2nd says 840,402 words. Must be an extra number somewhere. I'll go check February.... *comes back* AHA! The last log in February was a 151,000 number, therefore, that so-called "840,402" is actually 158,402. ...I fixed it now. Heh, you folks probably thought it weird that I'd jump from the 100,000's to the 800,000's in a matter of days, then disappear for several days afterwards. Oh well, it happens.</div>
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***</div>
<br />
Alright! I've got the numbers. Here they are:<br />
<br />
March 7th - 8th (I wrote at night and didn't keep track of the time, but I recall that I wrote quite a bit into March 8th, so this number will count as a whole writing session, where I sat down to write and did not stop until well into the early morning hours of the next day.) -- 969 words written.<br />
<br />
March 8th (During the day, during the hours that the light shone upon this side of the Earth) -- 610 words written.<br />
<br />
March 10th - 11th (Little was written on the 11th, so the majority that was written was mostly the 10th) -- 484 words written.<br />
<br />
March 12th -- 96 words written. (31 words of actual writing, 65 of editing. The story was getting a bit slow and hard to crank out, so I decided to read several pages back and ended up finding some mistakes or things that needed to be less vague. Some words were taken out and replaced by fewer words, others were added in, but most of the 65 words I added in were sentences that needed to be added to make situations in the story more descriptive and understandable. I felt better about the story afterwards.)<br />
<br />
March 13th -- 1,080 words written. (The most done during the time I had to continue the story longhand.)<br />
<br />
March 15th -- 219 words written.<br />
<br />
March 16th -- 75 words written (mostly editing).<br />
<br />
March 17th -- 24 words written (definitely editing).<br />
<br />
March 20th -- 7 puny words written (editing).<br />
<br />
March 25th -- 127 words written (editing).<br />
<br />
March 27th -- 31 words written (editing).<br />
<br />
As you can see, I had difficulty cranking out much towards the end. Much of the editing was done while I was on break at work, most of the writing bit was done at night after my family went to bed, though, in the beginning, I did write a fair amount at work. How much I write just depends on several factors. Including, but not limited to: Noise tolerance, anxiety, stress, distraction tolerance, and the ability to zone into the story, itself.<br />
What I mean by "zoning into the story" is: Imagine seeing a hole in the floor and seeing another world, another dimension, another life, below you. You crouch and watch a person living their life, and other people living their lives. You can hear their thoughts, you can understand their troubles, you are with them through thick and thin. You are with them every step of the way and following their lives without actually being there physically. You are merely a watcher. You can't talk to them, you can't touch them or be touched by them. You can peer through their heads and see and hear their thoughts, you can feel their emotions, you are almost those people. You are hardly aware of your own self anymore. You can't feel cold, you can't feel hot, you can't feel pain. Your own hardships are not existent anymore. The characters that you follow... their lives... are yours. You feel instead their emotions, you think their thoughts, you go through their hardships instead of your own. That's what a book is like. And that's what I'm writing.<br />
When you read a book, you feel all that. But when you write a book, you feel more. It's much more pronounced, because you understand every single part of that character. You know who they are, inside and out, and deeper inside than any reader can ever feel. You know who they are, because they are a part of you.<br />
It's like carving out your rib and making a whole new skeleton out of it. You decide what that piece of you will look like with flesh and skin on it, you get to choose how many arms it will have or whether to give it back hair.<br />
...Perhaps that's too distracting. Too gruesome. If you're more of a literal thinker, you'll hate a certain character of mine. Yep. That's a piece of me that I turned into a character. It's a silly part of me, but it's also an often misunderstood part of me, as well. (At least, to certain important people in my life, anyway. But I doubt those people will ever understand my character, either, so that's what makes the character even more special. He/she has undergone troubles and goes about pleasing people regardless of being understood or not. Just happy-go-lucky and always quirky.) So, I decided to create a character to help make it make more sense. In the form of a character.<br />
Of course, in real life, I'm not as quirky. I'm not especially talkative or outgoing. I'm more like a grandma in a young woman's body, liking peace and quiet, preferring to listen and find opportunities to give good advice or tell funny or interesting life stories. However, I'm different around different people. When I'm with those who are silly, I feel more comfortable in my own skin, as I tend to stretch in all sorts of directions, and I can joke more and talk more, laugh louder, etc. I'm often either too loud or too quiet, which annoys me enough to eat an empty book that spits grapes into a pig's mouth.<br />
...Yeah, I typed that on purpose. No hidden meanings. I'm just annoyed at something else: I just realized I made this post way longer than I anticipated. I think I need to go write, now. ...Of course, I may or may not write tonight. It was a long, busy day on 5 hours of sleep.<br />
I assure you, I am doing a little better with my sleep amounts. It's just that last night I was playing an old video game and wasn't paying attention to the time. (I say "old" because it's on the Playstation 2, and I haven't updated to newer systems. I would like to get Xbox 360 eventually, but I'm currently not playing a whole lot of games lately and love the classics too much. Plus, this is a game I had about 5 years ago and never got to finish playing before I lost nearly everything I owned. I recently bought this again to finish it. ...Okay, gamers. You are probably dying to know what game this is, now. It's Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon. ...Hey! I'm not boring! I like first-person shooters, too! Who doesn't love the Halo series? I also love Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter, etc. And if you throw Pokemon games at me, I'll probably just catch em all. ...Lol That played well. ...And that, too.)<br />
Ack! I'm rambling on again! I need to stop typing here and start typing in my story! But it's so fun to ramble, especially since I feel like I'm actually talking to somebody who's doing a superb job at listening to me and not interrupting. ...Okay, that's sad. Maybe I should start asking you people some questions so I can see who's actually reading this regularly.<br />
Alright, here's a question: What do you plan on having for your next birthday cake? Let me know in the comment section below. <br />I'm thinking I'll just have a vanilla cupcake with homemade carob icing (Carob tastes similar to chocolate. I'm allergic to chocolate.), since I always gain unwanted weight around my birthday (in June). My sister's birthday is the day before mine (4 years and 364 days apart!), and our Auntie Ann's birthday is the day before my sister's, so you can imagine why.<br />
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***</div>
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-48554693869163415532016-02-13T08:30:00.000-08:002016-03-02T02:05:39.961-08:00February 2016<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2:55 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">142,485</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 6 (barely any) & 7</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Whoops. I forgot to write something here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2:34 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">144,707</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 12 & 13</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I ate Top Ramen for dinner while I was writing. That's the only exciting thing I can think of that happened today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Well, I was able to catch all three pukes when my cat threw up this evening (She sleeps in my lap for hours at a time, gets too hot in my lap, and doesn't want to get off my lap until she feels sick from the heat.), but that's about it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I stayed up late last night, so I ended up sleeping late into the day. That's me on weekends, though. Little social life because it's too hard to socialize. Having Asperger's Syndrome makes you different from "normal" people that way. I think too slow, I talk too slow, and I either talk and laugh too loud, or too quietly (I prefer trying not to be too loud, because I'm not a boisterous, "rude" person and don't want to be seen that way. My brother is the opposite of me.). Because of these things, people tend to interrupt me, and that's one thing I can't stand. (I can take a few accidents, but any more than that? Good gosh, wait your turn! I'm not a competitive talker, so don't expect me to have fun battling to see who's the dominant one of the group!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Well, I guess another significant thing that happened was this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> My sister came home and pulled out Valentine's Day goodies her friend gave her today. One of them was this pink pair of plastic sunglasses that was made to fit a little kid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Sweetie is in heat again (Yes, I do plan to spay her soon), so it was hard to get a picture of her with them over her face (She kept wanting to rub her scent all over them). But then I took a video, found a frame that made me laugh, and took a picture within the video. This was the result. She looks so fabulous! You can even see her little teeth! :3 It's so cute!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oh, yeah. Before I forget, here was me tonight, eating Top Ramen for dinner whilst writing:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It makes a good writer's food. Not too messy, and you can shove a bunch in your mouth at a time (In the privacy of your own home, without anyone to judge you) so that you don't have to stop writing many times just to scoop up food before it gets cold. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Of course, this image is just an exaggeration of how I eat. I had the plate on my lap so that I couldn't have a bunch of sticky noodles falling down on my legs like attacking ninjas. In real life, I make sure I don't have too much in my mouth so that I don't choke, and I definitely don't shove the noodles in my mouth and turn my head back to the computer screen and make them swing around gloriously as though they were squid tentacles wiggling in the wind. Also, my face does not always look like this when I'm writing. Most of the time, I look like a bored person sitting in a room full of people telling lame knock-knock jokes. Sometimes I chuckle a little (Not at the jokes. They're still lame.), sometimes I cry a little (Not out of despair of being unable to leave the room.), sometimes I get excited when I get an idea or when I finally hit (Not the people. I'm never physical, no matter how frustrated or angry I get.) a huge turn of events in the book I'm writing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Urrrrrgh. I need sleep. Goodnight and good morning, folks! (It's 3:26 AM, already?? Blah! ...Maybe I'll start publishing these posts during the actual daytime....)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">4:44 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">145,644</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 15</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's really late and early in the morning. Can I go to bed, now? I couldn't stop writing. My family wouldn't go to bed until past midnight. ...Oh, alright. I'll write here just a little.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How was my Valentine's Day? Just a family thing. I'm single, and I'm not open for any suitors. I have too much to do in life, and too many dreams to accomplish. If I got into a relationship, I'd have a lot less time to do those things. Plus, if I had kids, there's a high chance they'd all have some kind of health problem, either at birth, or later in life. I can't bear to see that or make a child live with that. Asperger's Syndrome runs strongly through families, so that means there's a high chance it'd be passed down the next generation. Asperger's has varying characteristics, too. You can get the constantly-talking, interrupting, outgoing type like my mom and siblings, or you get the quiet type like me who can't socialize very well. I can't stand the other type and often get frustrated in all directions, so imagine life with me having kids of that type. No, I've never lost my temper with kids. I worry a lot. Too much. Always looking out for them. --Ohmygosh my cat is climbing all over me! ...My mom's alarm just went off. My mom is up. Hopefully she won't judge me for still being up (It's 5 AM, and she has to go to work.). ...Okay. So far, she's not. But Sweetie is. But I can't guarantee it for long. She's normally like, "You should get to bed! You're going to be <i>tired</i> when you get up!" Every time?? You have to say that?? ...Sorry. I'm ranting. Yep, that's what I'm like when I'm frustrated. Not very extreme, but she always wants to be right, but I hate repetition and people judging me and bugging me throughout the day with the same sentences all the time. It's just part of my upbringing. I lived with a mentally and verbally abusive aunt for 9 years, and she loved to find my weaknesses. I never lost my temper with her, but for some reasons she liked burrowing her teeth inside your brain anyway, just so she could see you suffer, stammer, stutter, grow silent, avoid eye contact, and make your mind freeze up so you'd panic and be rendered a vegetable she could munch on. ...Ah, that was a little raw, but enough about food. Time to go to bed. Why? Sweetie said so: "Oh oo beh?" And she had the biggest pupils you'd ever see. She's worried about me, and has been waiting all night to sleep with me. Whelp, Happy Valentines Day! (Or, rather, I hope you had a happy one!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3:00 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">148,416</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 15 & 16</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Ha! I stopped at 3:00 AM right on the dot! (Or is that "spot"? Sometimes I get my weird speech from my Oklahoma-native grandma. She moved to Seattle when she was 16, so it's been almost 74 years and she still spits out interesting stuff from her mouth. <-- Of course, she doesn't use "spit" as a word to use like this. That's my characters affecting my speech.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It's funny when you've been writing and "living with" your characters for so long, you end up talking like them or using their words. ...Or is that your made-up words?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Years ago, when it started leaking out of me, it just spewed out. People didn't know what was going on; why I was talking funny all the time. <i>And</i> with a weird accent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Do my characters have accents? Yes and no. I made up an old/new language for some of them to use when I was 14, but all of them are fluent enough in "English" as they are with the old/new language, so there's little accent to be heard. Those who are old have more of an accent merely because there are certain pronunciations they still prefer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> So, having freshly made several of the words and practiced a few favorite sentences over and over again so I wouldn't stumble over any of the words, I started developing the language's accent. It was funny, because, at the time, I was also trying to master a British accent. I'd talk to my cats and read out of books like that. Soon, weird things happened. The made-up language started pushing its way through the British accent, and the British accent started pushing its way into the made-up language. But, you know, if the made-up language's accent sounds mostly similar to it, you're going to have to expect that to happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It was around that time that I was having difficulty hiding it outside my bedroom. People started either complaining (My aunt), or asking me where I was from. From the latter, I laughed and had to explain it in full.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I tried so hard to revert back to my old, stumbling "plain" speech (Oh, and here's another thing: I LIKED the accents because it helped reduce my speech problems. I often stumbled over my words - Nay, a LOT - and it's been better ever since then.), it probably got better over the course of a few weeks or more. In the end, I kept some pronunciations. I kept the "oo" and "o" in "soon" and "both". Actually, it's hard to tell in "o". You'd have to listen hard, but the "o" helped me a lot for a lot time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ack! I have to get up at 8:30-ish and it's 3:39 AM now! Time for bed! Goodnight!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">12:47 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">148,816</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 16th (11:00 PM) - Feb 17th (12:47 AM)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Ha! (Hey, second day in a row I start with "Ha!" in a log/post!) I thought the word count looked familiar! Yesterday's word count was 148,416 words, and tonight's is 148,816 words. Exactly 400 words were written. I love it when numbers match or when they make rounded numbers, however far away they are. "Funny little coincidences", I like to call them, and I get plenty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I've come to the conclusion that God leaves them in tiny places to catch me by surprise and make me smile or laugh. I'm always such a nervous wreck all the time (In fact, I suffer from daily anxiety problems), it helps to hit a speed bump to make me slow down and relax.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I'm the functional kind of anxiety-sufferer. I'm mostly good at hiding it, depending on the situation. If I have a huge list of things to do in a certain amount of time, I'm very good at prioritizing and multitasking. In fact, I live for it. Maybe Asperger's Syndrome makes some people kind of obsessive compulsive, or maybe it just naturally turns some into brilliant organizers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Pardon. I don't think I'm actually that smart. I have a friend who often talks to me about autistic individuals she's met who have brilliant minds, so I often fail to connect myself with them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> One of her friends, who happens to have Asperger's, made her laugh by somehow perfectly mimicking the sounds of a soda can tumbling out of a soda dispensing machine with only his mouth. While it's true I can personally do over a dozen imitations of animals and people of different ages and genders (Yes, I can go very deep. I'll make a video of it and show you how to do it, too. It takes some practice, but it's fun when you do learn how to manipulate your vocal chords. I was able to teach my sister how to do it, so I hope to teach you, too. It's a fairly boring, lonely world when you can never meet a person who knows how to do the same thing you can. If you ever find a YouTube video of a lady who can talk very deep-voiced by breathing in and manipulating her vocal chords, please paste her video below in the comments here. I would love to hear it.) ...Whoops. I was rambling. What was I saying? *reads back a little* ...Poop-heads. I forgot! I still can't remember! Oh, well. Time to get some much-needed sleep. (I had 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night. Looks like it will be six or 5 1/2 hours, depending on how much time it takes me to not daydream in front of the bathroom mirror and go brush my teeth, etc.) P.S. It didn't feel like I had 3 1/2 hours of sleep today, but my body will probably catch up to me tomorrow, though! Ugh. I'm not looking forward to that. Oh, well. Life repeats itself. :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2:37 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">149,066</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 20th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I wasn't able to write much this time. I'm just so terribly sleepy. It's just because I was busy catching up on stuff on DeviantArt. Now, without further ado, I must sleep in my bed and not this chair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3:59 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">149,716</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 21st</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Blah. There. I said something here. (Sorry, but I'm falling asleep at the moment. Busy day = late start in writing. I started past 1 AM.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1:46 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">150,824</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 21st - 22nd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Yep, Monday tomorrow. That's why I'm stopping my writing so early. But at least I made it to over 150,000 words! (I like pretty numbers.) I'll try to say more tomorrow, but I've got to go to bed. Mondays are busy for most people who work, and libraries are no exceptions! It's no problem, though. I love working. It feels really good to have big muscles from heavy-lifting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Seriously! I don't exercise. I don't really need to with the manual labor I get at work. Well, maybe I need some abdominal workouts. Maybe I'll go back to yoga. But I'm not that flabby, really. It's just from eating too many sweets. But I'll wait until winter is over. Fat is a good insulator for staying warm. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> My arms know that all too well. There's so much muscle in my arms now, they shiver the most when I'm cold! Oh well, I can't miss having flabby arms. I'd rather be strong than weak. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Haha, that's probably my "giant" genes talking! It comes from my father's side. My grandfather was very tall and strong, and my father was shorter but still strong. My brother and sister are much taller than me and have bigger feet (My sister's shoe size is 12, my brother's is 17.5, and mine is 8.5.). Both of them are well-built, despite their mostly lazy lifestyles (Oops! That's like me!). I used to be skinny for a long time, then age 14 and 15 hit me with lard (Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I was probably slightly overweight), and nowadays I'm muscle-bound and slightly flabby in spots. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I'd like to see how far I can get, though. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> How about this: I'll start exercising and see how I measure-up later (Or each month?). I don't want to mention my waist measurement (It's not that bad, but I still want to keep things quiet unless I make huge progress. Plus, I just want to keep most of it until the temperatures rise into spring-like temperatures, too.), but I will tell you my biceps measurements: Right arm: 12 inches. Left arm: 12.5 inches. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> ...Of course. I say that I can't say much here, and instead of listening to myself, I go ahead a chatter on here and get big ideas. Now it's 3:02 AM, and I have to get up early. Blah! Story of my life! Oh well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> ...Yeah. Come to think of it, I have to fix my bad sleeping habits before I seriously consider on pooping myself out with full workouts. Maybe I'll start on yoga and look into melatonin supplements (P.S. Not recommended for a long period of time. I'm just thinking about it to just honk the horn at my brain to stop being so restless at the wrong time.) or try herbal teas that could make me sleepy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1:26 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">151,572</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Feb 28th & 29th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh, my poor kitty-cat. She's sleeping face-down on my leg, sleeping in my lap. ...Oh! She moved. Yeah, we're both sleepy. Good night/morning!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-77181468025960683092016-02-04T12:00:00.000-08:002016-02-04T12:00:02.669-08:00A Little Spoiler (Not the bad kind)Check out what I made and read the description! ^_^ :-D<br />
http://jennifercocoafulk.deviantart.com/art/Green-Dragon-588608890<br />
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For those of you who don't have access to DeviantArt:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0vxQtjWWfH9rbAm00VQk0pllxg_JPIG3scfO44rRB_9TkTlBZ6gKVhTYr3lX4NToY87PC1XwdrOeKaQRfxDZj-Xh894ByfbOC9HWAGw6tUYOtbBseIcdZocEoOmBfDQa4ZeCksfOuyo/s1600/Gdragon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0vxQtjWWfH9rbAm00VQk0pllxg_JPIG3scfO44rRB_9TkTlBZ6gKVhTYr3lX4NToY87PC1XwdrOeKaQRfxDZj-Xh894ByfbOC9HWAGw6tUYOtbBseIcdZocEoOmBfDQa4ZeCksfOuyo/s640/Gdragon.png" width="640" /></a></div>
I was trying to make a random dragon but accidentally made one of my characters, instead. I've got the book series on my mind as usual.<br />
P.S. Now that's one way to mark the 11th year anniversary since this book series was born! Now to somehow restart writing Book 1 so that you can start reading it...?<br />
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-43047928238860478512016-01-11T03:00:00.000-08:002016-01-30T02:06:24.796-08:00January 2016<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1:51 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 9th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>126,770 words total</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 90</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was too tired to say anything here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1:57 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 11th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>127,730</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 91</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yep, looks like I'm officially back to writing again. I admit I got stuck on the last scenes, which weren't quite feeling right. Although I originally stopped writing because I got busy with other projects and family stuff, whenever I did feel like writing, my mind would go back to how I hated the last part for being annoying. Then I'd procrastinate because I didn't know what to do about it. Well, as always, daydreaming helped me over it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All I needed was a cat that woke me up this morning (Rather, the morning of January 10th) just before my alarm went off, wanted to go under the covers with me because she was cold, and lying in bed daydreaming for two hours while I waited for her to get warm enough. (P.S. She didn't, so I eventually had to get out of bed before she did because my bladder was otherwise going to explode. AND she didn't get out of bed until I was having breakfast. Funny little girl.) Done! Problem solved! You'd think that all cats are horrible to their writer owners for lying down on their computer, choosing their typing hands as a bed, or otherwise being a nuisance, but Sweetie isn't that at all. She just sleeps in my lap while I'm writing and evidently can keep me in bed until I have an idea that breaks writers' block at the right time. I say "right time" because the holidays are over, and because my sister no longer needs quite so much help after her bunion surgery (Her stitches were removed on Friday! Yay!). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Something I'm currently doing now: Reading a book and writing a book at the same time. ^_^ Yes! Success, finally! In case you're wondering, the book I'm reading is called <u>New Hope Chronicles: Book One: Dragon Flame</u> by Pat Harris. It's a huge book, but it's amazing so far. I'm on page 141 right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Something I'm thinking about doing: Writing two books at a time. Yeah, so I've lately been mentally pulling out my hair for not having written G1:TLB. Yes, that's the abbreviation of book one. :-) Excited? I hope you are, because I sure am. The last time I tried writing, I forgot my password for the Microsoft Word file! Fortunately, I did print off about five pages worth of writing I did in 2013 (or was it 2012?) before I had to stop writing and do a ton of important things. Was it stupid for not having written down the password? Very. But, at least I have the hard copy. Very soon I'll type that up again and continue where I left off. Besides that, why am I doing this? Well, I used to be able to write two different books at the same time back in 2007, so I want to see if I can try it again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh my gosh, this is hilarious. I'm literally having to type this with one hand right now because my other hand is holding Sweetie on the chair. She sort of slipped between my legs onto the chair, but she's at the brink of slipping off the chair, too, so I now have to hold my hand against her back so she doesn't spill all over the floor. Her fur is so soft, and she's so little, I swear she could become a great ninja cat and hide in the butt cracks of her enemies and still go unnoticed. ...Oh! Now she's snoring! Hahaha! ...If only I could reach the camera, but it's just two or three inches beyond my reach. ..Ha! I got it! ...by the sacrifice of her slumber, though. I caught a picture of her yawning in the position: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sorry for the jumbo legs view, there. Holidays makes people gain weight. But actually I'm pretty muscular (I'm not kidding you. I walk everywhere and am on my feet ALL day!). It's just when the muscles and fat relax together while being squished down flat on the seat of a chair that makes people look way fatter than they really are. Haha, I recall skinny girls in my 6th grade class giggling as they pounded on their thighs and made them jiggle: "Bwoom! Bwoom!" ...Heheh, uh, anyways. You get the picture. Oh, look! A cat yawning while her owner is keeping her from sliding off the chair! Cute! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Time for bed, kitty. It's 2:51 AM. My head needs recharging, and you need some anti-slip material for that super-soft fur of yours. (Seriously, she's 4 1/2 years old now, and she still feels as soft as when she was a two-month-old kitten!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1:09 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 13th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>127,807</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 92</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Seventy-seven words written. I think it's the weather. So many people all around the Seattle area have been getting sick lately, and today - er, January 12th - people have not been of good mood. My emotions can occasionally get rocky due to the weather, but today (Okay, I'm just going to call it "today" because my days usually end in the wee hours of the morning), it was pretty bad. Besides from only getting 5 hours of sleep, I was not feeling 100%. I was disorganized and not thinking clearly all day, kept stumbling over my words, and had a high level of anxiety. I'm fine now, but that's just because I don't have to talk to anyone. My mom and sister are asleep. The dog is asleep. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sweetie, my cat? Well, she's waiting for me to go to bed at the moment. She can always tell when I really need to go to bed. At first, she sleeps in my lap. Then, she gets up and sits on her belly (Not lying down, not sitting, not crouching: What else is it called? I can't think at the moment.), facing the direction of the bedroom. She swivels her ears around and occasionally looks back at me to see if I'm getting ready to get off the computer, yet. Now she's on the back of my chair, looking over my shoulder. Now she's on my lap again. *she burps* My, what a loud burp that was! It sounded like: "Kurrp!" That was the most satisfying cat burp I've ever heard. Anywayyy, besides me being obviously immature when I'm running on little sleep, I've now forgotten what I was going to say, next. Oh, well. Time to go to bed, kitty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2:36 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 15 - 16</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>129,837</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 93 & 94</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Woohoo! Almost 130,000 words! (Nothing significant about that number, really.) But I'm starting to fall asleep, so I think I need to wrap it up for tonight. Tomorrow I have to go bring some stuff to my brother. He's sick with a cold of sorts, so I have to leave around noon. Poor guy. Anyways, good night!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2:26 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 17 - 18</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>132,629</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 95 & 96</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nothing eventful happening in life lately. Nothing really does, except for personal, family-related problems that occur every now and then. My life is basically working, and later computer time at home. Today, I realized why I feel restless and tend to waste my time on social media: It's writing anxiety. I enjoy peace and quiet with nobody talking while I'm writing. Only problem is, I have a very talkative family with memory problems. Yeah, it sucks, I know. So, if I write during the day, I'm often interrupted with unnecessary questions, constant talking, people getting irritated and disappointed that you were listening to music on headphones while they were talking (How was I supposed to know you were talking to me? Wearing headphones means I'm trying to block out your face noise so I can hear my own thoughts!), and people thinking that yelling silly stuff back-and-forth at each other is funny. Okay, I do it, too. But it's not appropriate when somebody's trying to focus on a writing project, and they ask you several times to keep it down. And yes, I'm buying some sound-blocking earbuds, now. Ahh, but anyway. Story of my life. ...No, you probably don't want to read that story. Then again, if you were entertained by my tiny bit of venting just now, you might end up reading it. ...No, then again, that's not really what the story of my life is all about. It's not like a reality TV show, it's more like a thriller, action movie, and a documentary about a childhood full of all sorts of abuse. Yeah, unpleasant. But that little girl has grown up and survived even a rollover car accident. Okay, so that wasn't checked off my bucket list when I was still a child, but it's certainly the coolest-sounding, right? ...Okay, it was scary. But it was just like an action movie when I had my eyes open the whole time. The top of the car skidding across the road.... Okay, I need to shut up, now. Time for bed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3:47 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 18 - 19</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>134,794</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day [96] & 97</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh, shoot! Time raced with me, hid, and is now laughing and mocking at my having lost it! I have to get up early "tomorrow"!</span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1:01 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 20</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>135,059</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 98</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've been falling asleep several times. I started writing exactly at midnight. (Interesting coincidence. I wrote the first words I did tonight and looked at the time. 12:00 AM exactly.) Unfortunately, I can't stay awake. I blame myself for getting only 4 hours of sleep last night. But I was just so animated, I couldn't easily stop writing where I was! Well, time to sleep, now. Much to my cat's delight, since I'm her bed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Psst! She's sleeping in my lap right now. She was complaining to me earlier to go to "beh" and was going in and out of the bedroom giving me exasperated looks as she did. *I doze off for several seconds* ...Okay, I really need to go to bed, now. This is a sign that I finally need to listen to her. Enough talk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3:50 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 20 - 21</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>138,407</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day [98] & 99</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Agh! Time flies when exciting things happen in your stories! I have to stop now, or I'll just plop over tomorrow. I'm leaving off in the middle of the action, which is unbearable, but I absolutely have to go to bed, now! (P.S. The worst place to leave off writing is when you don't know what's going to happen next. So, leaving off here could be worse.) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh, my poor kitty-cat. I told her "Let's go to bed", and she wakes up and rests her head on my nearby hand. I know, I'm sorry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>3:18 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 23</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>138,501</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 100</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Woohoo! It's officially been 100 writing days since Day 1! Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty staying awake. I'll write some within that hour mark. ...Wait, 'that hour mark'? Haha, I just dozed off and kept typing, having some dream with dialogue in it. I meant to say: "I'll write some within the time frame of this 100th day." Ugh. I need more sleep. It's been catching up to me lately. And yeah, I only wrote a small handful of words this time because I started writing not long ago after playing a Pokemon game (Red version) on my GBA SP for several hours. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>11:58 PM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 23</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>138,691</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>[Day 100]</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Why did I stop writing two minutes before midnight? Well... because, for some reason, a random thought popped into my head that was completely unrelated to what I was writing! Yeah, it's probably from the mere fact that I was multitasking, feeling unusually restless for some reason. <br /> I was writing, uploading a private YouTube video of my brother doing an impression of Wreck-It Ralph in a too-dark place (thus my making it private and not public, because it is pointless to watch. The only reason why I uploaded it to YouTube was simply because I wanted to hear what he sounded like in different pitches.), and playing Pokemon Red Version on my GBA SP. <br /> I stopped writing because I was annoyed that it was taking too long for YouTube to edit my video (I changed the lighting, but it still was too dark for the joke to be understood: My brother looks, sounds, and acts just like Wreck-It Ralph.). I just can't write and get distracted by the real world. I write best when I totally zone into the story, like I'm right there watching it unfold. So, if I'm anxiously waiting for a video to get done being edited so I can close YouTube and no longer have to think about it, there's no point in writing. I played the Pokemon game, checking every few minutes to see if it was done. Being that it took so long, that by the time YouTube finished editing it, I had some off-topic thoughts running into my head. I can't remember what the first video was that I watched, but, ultimately, one video led to another. And another. <br /> Watching videos of natural disasters wasn't really a great idea, either, so I tried watching other videos to get it off my mind. Well, I found something that looked interesting, but it ended up to be unexpectedly creepy. I found myself in the weird corner of YouTube. So, in the end, I ended up watching 3 hours worth of videos with no writing done early in the morning of January 24th! Yay! Hooray for no progress! Oh well, it's just one odd night of restlessness. ...I hope. *gulp*<br /> And yes, I do need to go to bed sooner than 3 AM. Or 2 AM. ...It's 3:29 AM right now. Good freaks. Monday morning is going to be a killer for waking up at 8:30 AM. Well, good night! ... *whimpers* O__O</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>2:08 AM </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 24 & 25</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>140,986</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day 101 & 102</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'm falling asleep again and again and again. I could write all night, defeated only by the need for sleep.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>1:32 AM</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>January 25 & 26</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>141,256</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Day [102] & 103</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Blah. There. I wrote something here. ...Sorry, but I'm trying to fix my sleeping schedule, and it's not getting much better by the looks of it. More writing here tomorrow! Here, have something funny to look at while you're waiting (an old picture of a lady with Grave's disease combined with a recent picture of me):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>1:06 AM</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>January 26th & 27th</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>141,978</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Day [103] & 104</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Interesting. So, it looks like I'm improving by stopping early by the half hour. Approximately 2 AM, 1:30 AM, and 1 AM. Good. So, I'll be able to reach my goal of 12:30 or earlier by tomorrow night (or is that morning? Haha). I have a very busy Thursday coming up, so I'll need extra sleep.<br /> Other than that, I don't really know what to talk about. Oh, yeah. Weather is always interesting to talk about. While the east coast of the US has been struck by a blizzard, over here in western Washington is getting a bit warm. I only needed a thin jacket today. And the wind was blowing. I love the wind. I have super long hair, so it always feels nice, cold or warm. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> ...Yes, it started when I was little. I loved Pocahontas and could just feel how she felt with the wind in her hair. But I don't have black hair. Mine's dirty blond. ...Dishwater blond. ...Okay, is there a nice way to describe it? I hate saying both. *looks it up* Okay. This is much better: Dark blond or sandy blond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Anyway, it turns into a golden blond in the summer, especially if I get a huge dose of sunshine. I remember back in 2004, when I was 12, I went to Disney World and Niceville, FL for the whole month of August. I had my picture taken near the end, and it was a fiery orange gold color. I loved it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But you know what's weird? I have always felt like I'm a brunette, even now. Whenever I hear people talking about blonds, I forget I am one. Maybe it's because I look like a brunette in the dark? Or maybe I am that dumb of a blond, because I have Asperger's Syndrome? ...Whatever. Everybody's got problems, even the ones who deny it. (Psst! Therein lies their problem! They deny things about themselves too much! *imagines someone wanting to argue that statement*)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Whoops. Look at the time. 1:41 AM. Oh well, I did promise you guys with "More writing here tomorrow!" Thanks for reading! :-D (P.S. I probably will not write until Friday night. Wednesday night: Early bed time! Thursday night: Exhausted and sleepy person time!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1:55 AM</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>January 29th & 30th</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>141,988</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Day 105 & 106</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't worry, I wrote more than 10 words. I just had to delete a whole paragraph because I wrote it when I was falling asleep a few nights ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of sleep, Sweetie is sleeping on my hand. She knew it was warm, she was cold, so she hopped into my lap and laid down on top of it so that it would warm her belly. Now she's using it as her pillow..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">...*dozes off while writing this* *leg jerks* *wakes up in alarm* ...Okay, I can't be awake any longer. Good night/day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-57118741375944863712016-01-06T02:27:00.000-08:002016-01-06T02:27:13.806-08:00Where Have I Been? What Am I doing?If you can't stand to read anything without paragraphs, wait to read this tomorrow. I'll organize this into paragraphs then. Too sleepy to keep going. I'm falling asleep, here. ~ Me, 2:25 AM, January 6th, Pacific Time, underwear on sleeping mice too big for it, it's going to be hard getting my cat off my lap, but I need sleep now, blah.<br /><br /><br />
Whoops. I haven't written a single word in this book since October 11th? Ouch. But notice how I mentioned "...in THIS book." Yes, I was writing a side project. You see, I remember promises to friends so well, they tend to hurt over a long period of time every time I remember it. So, after about 4 or 5 years, I decided last minute to do NaNoWriMo. Did I win? No. Did I get close to the 50,000 word goal? Unfortunately, family issues sprung up like Dalmation spots everywhere, so I had to fix them since I basically do the father's role for my single mom. It's fine for me, just not fine for my writing. Oh, well. I wasn't expecting myself to reach 50,000, but I tried to see how far I'd get. Like I was racing an imaginary friend to a childhood tree: I did it for the fun more than for risking despair at not making it. I hate negative feelings. I grew up around people like that, and it's not my cup of tea to drown in it, anymore. Best have sweet things. Sweet tea, sweets... ah, what am I saying? Oh, heheheh. I've been craving sweets lately. I blame the holidays. Oh, and what became of my dental problem? Well, I ran out of time to take off work for that (I blame fear + anxiety + frustration over insurances and places that would take me). Plus, I got sick with colds and bronchitis, so there goes my vacation time. That's okay. I was originally nervous about having very few extra hours to use up if I got sick this winter anyway. It's good I did. But, no worries. My wisdom teeth haven't been bothering me since, so here's hoping I'll make it until this summer to do it. But, really. Much has happened since October, so I haven't been lazy. ...Or have I? Depends on one's perspective, but I've literally been too exhausted and fatigued to notice much. Yes, yes. I'm doing fine. My sister had a bunionectomy (A bunion is too much bone growth in a toe knuckle joint, causing stiffness and pain from walking or even just no obvious triggers, so a surgeon just has to shave off the unneeded edge of the joint and sometimes poke a little in the ligaments to create scar tissue that helps increase cushion in between the bones so they don't have to grind so close to each other), so I've been running around like a chicken without a head taking care of her and taking her to numerous foot doctor appointments. Thankfully, she's healing very well and will be getting her stitches out this Friday. Other than that, it's just been shopping and preparing for the holidays, eating, and procrastinating all over social media instead of writing. There. Now, I finally admit to some of it. But it's not easy to decide things! I've been feeling restless and horribly indecisive! Should I keep writing the NaNoWriMo book (which I got to 10,338 words), continue writing this book, or start writing Book 1 of this series? It's really been bugging me. The more time flies by me, the more I feel like I don't have much time left! It's not easy living a life fearing death will take you before you publish! Yeah.... It's my biggest fear. I've been planning out this book series for... 11 years. Good freaks, time flies! It only feels like it's been a couple of months since I said I've been working on it for 10! You see what I mean, now? If you are a human and you have a life, you live more than you write. I swear, it's my curse in life. I've had a crazy life, ever since I can remember. A little girl with big, half-aware, half-disbelieving eyes. Trauma does a lot to a kid, but I suppose some of that is to be blamed on my half-Asperger's Syndrome. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Actually, it's 1:35 AM, and I'm tired. I don't know what I'm saying. But having been writing this for a little more than half an hour, I'd say it's about time to make a choice, here. Go to bed earlier, as my body has been moaning for me to do, or write, as my restlessness has been screaming at me to do? ...I feel more up to going to bed, now. Today was a very busy day shelving books at work. Besides that, I carried a 20-pound container of cat litter up a hill for nearly ten blocks home from the store this evening because we were out and my mom's week is booked. Also because we don't have drivers' licenses. Not that we failed our tests or are horrible drivers or anything, but we both suffer from panic attacks and panic anxiety. (YES, there is a difference! I'm fed up with overhearing people say they had a panic attack and describe what is actually an anxiety attack. So, here it is: Panic attacks are sudden and render you completely helpless. You can't breathe, you literally have to stop, your body stiffens, you duck your head from the reeling fear of the unknown. It can be triggered by a lot of stupid things like hearing loud voices, when you're in simple conversation, riding in a car that turned the corner or is driving too fast, things like that. Anxiety attack: Oh, no! I locked myself out of my car! But I have to be somewhere important! I don't know what to do! I've stopped thinking! I can't think anymore! It's like that part of my brain has frozen up! *squats, holds head, and cries, blows up, or other odd reaction* I know there are a lot better examples than that, or that if you go through these, you might not have heard of them or experienced them, but there are a lot of different kinds out there and I've either lived it or seen it. Welcome to my daily life of struggle, my friend. Most of the time it's panic attacks when I'm walking, dropping something and expecting a loud sound, or talking to someone. Most of my anxiety attacks are in vehicles because I'm afraid that any moment I'm going to get into another car accident (My body is tense, I tremble, I'm overly alert, I go into a cold sweat, etc.), or when others won't give me enough time to think when I'm replying to them because they think I'm "normal" and can think at the typical speed most people can think when they're talking (P.S. I only cry or blow up occasionally with my constantly-talking, clueless mom, but I just freeze up, panic because I realize I can't recover my train of thought and feel like time is running out before people start to judge me for taking so long when answering, and get hot in the face when I'm with other people). ...Ahhhh, what was I talking about? This has gotten way off-topic, and it is now 2:06 AM. Congrats, Me, for failing to write and be productive. Again. Maybe I should give myself a pat on the back for that? No, I'd rather get a professional massage. I need that. *stretches sore arms* Agh! I'm going to be so stiff in the morning. I should have taken some magnesium at dinner, but I'll just do that after breakfast. Don't worry. I've carried much heavier things. Being a library page has its perks, you know! ;) You get ripped, especially in the arms and shoulders. Seriously, it's a fun job, especially if you like lifting books (a.k.a weights) and organizing (a.k.a. pleasing an Aspergergian obsession of mine. Note: Not all Aspergians are good at or love organizing.). Ah, what am I doing again? Oh yeah. Rambling again. I guess that counts as writing. <i>Procrastinating</i> writing, that is! It's really just a filler, an action or thing that's similar to what you like or wanted to do, so it makes you only <i>feel</i> like you did it when you actually didn't. ....Okay, my eyes are now on protest. They are shutting and sore. I must sleep. *looks at what I just wrote above* Impressive, but I still have to put it into paragraphs. Heck, I'll do to tomorrow. I need sleep now.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-78110682320901204512015-10-03T03:47:00.000-07:002016-01-22T03:50:47.605-08:00October 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Some live, some die, some question the existence of both.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There, that's the only splinter of a spoiler I will give you as for what I'm writing right now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While not intentionally meaning to write out someone's death during the Halloween month, I'm writing this chapter for someone. Which means: I'm not exactly writing grieving scenes from just my imagination: I once lost a third cousin to lung cancer. I know what grieving is like, so it makes it easier to describe how it feels and what you go through. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's not known why she got it: Sometimes cancer happens in places you don't expect, and she was never around smokers or anything that could have caused it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She was a very caring individual, loving people and animals, and equally being loved by them for her sweet kindness (Her neighborhood police department even sung at her cremation service, a few of them singing in tears.). She wanted to become a veterinarian, but she got cancer before she could go to school for it.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She died a month after her 18th birthday. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I never got to meet her. I only first learned about her a few weeks before she died, but in those few weeks, I felt a deep, unexplained connection to her. I really wanted to meet her, but for some reason, I wasn't allowed to go visit her. She was in a coma at the time, and perhaps it would have been hard for her more immediate family to have lesser-known visitors to show up in the room, but it still would have been nice to go. When I heard about her death, I cried long and hard (My eyes tear up now at the thought of it), and I was a numb leg in the world for a while afterwards, stumbling through life, struggling to move on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Although the character I've just killed is hardly like her, the person who loved him/her felt robbed of time. They didn't get to spend much time together, and then the character was gone. That feeling alone is the theme of this chapter. This is for you, Alex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oct 1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:52 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 262</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 126,096</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 88</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I'm sick with a cold. Blowing my nose off. I wish it would come clean off, but then it would be very messy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I know it's very late at night (early in the morning, depending on whether you see the glass half-empty or half-full), but I really wanted to write tonight. It's not easy to write when you get distracted by a storm (much rain, much wind of 25 - 45 mph), "don't feel like it for some reason " and feel restless during the day (I always seem to do this, so I waste hours of my life roaming the internet), and wish your family learned to be less talkative (Sometimes, I jokingly imagine duct tape over their mouths with an "Oh, I see! So this is what quiet is! This isn't too bad, actually!" in their eyes.). Ah, well. At least I get to sleep in tomorrow morning.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> What's my excuse for not writing since October 1st? Family stuff, again. Running errands, shopping for my mom, my sister having bunion and likely acid reflux problems, taking my sister to the doctor, etc. Okay, and another thing is contemplating over how I'll write the next series of scenes. My mind kind of went blank when I had to deal with family troubles on top of character troubles. After all, it can be overwhelming when you practically have to solve the problems of two families at once. (Okay, for some reason, that sounds like polygamy. Let me make it clear, even though it probably is: All of my characters feel like a whole 'nother family I have to care for. Let's hear it: "Aww!")</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Forgive me if my writing is a little weird and compulsive right now. I've had a fever on and off for two days, now. Last night (er, the wee hours of October 10th), it went up to 99.6 F. This evening (October 10th, that is), it was 99.2 F.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hmm. Maybe I'll take my temp, now. <i>If</i> I can manage to breathe from my nose. I hate this old-fashioned thermometer. The digital kind that goes in your ear is my favorite for obvious reasons. Actually, this thermometer is a bit thick. I remember growing up with thin ones that I could easily hold underneath my tongue with my tongue and teeth. Now I have to hold it in place with my hand. *inserts boring elevator music* ...Oh, that's good. It's a perfect 98.6 F. Now, to go to bed. It's 5:01 AM, and my cat is glaring at me (nay, actually, she's having trouble keeping her puffy eyes open. "Sweetie, must you always wait for me to go to bed?" Poor little girl can't sleep unless everyone else is asleep and in bed. Just like me, actually. Sometimes, I don't know whether she tries to be like me or we're just similar. Like using the toilet. I use the toilet, then she uses the litter box. Sometimes, it's the opposite: She steps into the litter box while I'm on my way to the toilet. Personally, I think she's just my alter ego. A mini me, if you will. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oh, look at the time. I've been yammering on for 8 more min- *interruption by Sweetie climbing into my lap with a loud purr and sniffing/touching my nose as if saying [in a 3 y/o girl's voice], "Jen, you really need to go to bed. Remember: Your nose is sick."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Okay, Sweetie. Let's go to bed. (Speaking of which, this is her favorite thing to hear me say, and yes, this is Sweetie in this video: <a href="https://youtu.be/bN7Sr1uxfvw">https://youtu.be/bN7Sr1uxfvw</a> )</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll fix this later:</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-cbe6430d-56d0-4c21-b834-8d5ea4a511b5"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">126,644 total words so far</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4:14 AM stopped at</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oct. 11 date</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Day 89</span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> ...So, talking about death, I lost a good friend at work in the middle of this October. She died. My life works like that, unfortunately. Like identical chains being linked together in bunches. "Is this topic related to this one? Let's organize them and put them together so they happen around the same time." But, I suppose God lets things happen together because He knows it helps me to understand and go through things better and to move on easier. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It certainly helped having a "weird dream" of being in a rollover car accident a few months before I actually had one. It really, super helped me a lot. After 1 1/2 years, it still does. Although I don't actually believe it 100%, I still feel like "it was just a bad dream", just like how my mom put it when I'd wake up from one when I was young. The comforting reassurance that all these things happen simply because it was its time (And for death, there is no easy time for anyone) is like a mother's arms to go to when you want to cry. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> That's why I suddenly stopped writing. Oh, also because a family member of mine was illegally kicked out to live on the streets by his disabled care facility without being given his meds and only being given a tiny amount of money to last a whole week. So, I've been having to take matters into my own hands to get better care for him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> So, yeah. A lot of things happen in this crazy life of mine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Q: Could it get any crazier than this? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A: Yes. Always. Never say you doubt it for any moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Q: What am I doing now for writing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A: Nanowrimo! I've been wanting to do this for several years after being urged by a friend. If you're on it, you can add me as a Writing Buddy if you want. My name is on the nanowrimo website is SlugDiaper. :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-87388295967702509742015-09-21T22:38:00.000-07:002016-01-22T03:48:44.226-08:00September 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Yeah, I'm back to writing again. No, I haven't gotten my wisdom teeth extracted, yet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It's rather hard to make such a thing happen when you finally realize that your insurance forgot to send you your card, have no choice but to call people back and forth, need to find a decent place for the extractions close to home, etc., etc. And since it's now the busy time of year at work again, I'd rather wait until I'm less needed. So far, my teeth haven't bothered me since, and it's my hope they won't again any time soon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> What took so long? To make it short, I was so stressed-out over the whole thing, I wasn't sure at first what my plans were. The rest of it was just rediscovering emotional calmness (a.k.a. meditation and regaining control over my emotions and thoughts so it wouldn't be racing, as I suffer from anxiety), and regaining "the mood" to write again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Now, without further ado, let the writing come alive again!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Sept 20</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Stopped writing at: 3:20 AM</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Words written: 42</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Total words so far: 120,226</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Day: 85</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">[Sept 20]</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Stopped writing at: 11:58 PM</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Words written: 2,745</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Total words so far: 122,971</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">[Day: 85]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"> I wrote something sad, shedding some tears. Then something happened, so I was at the edge of my seat. Well, actually, I pulled the computer closer as though I were but reading a book (Not far from the truth!).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Sept 21</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Stopped writing at 2:00 AM</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Words written: 69</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Total words so far: 123,040</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">Day 86</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"> I can't stay awake. I really want to write, as I haven't been writing for more than a half an hour tonight, but I had a busy day today on about 4 hrs of sleep. I can't hardly keep my eyes open, anymore. I wrote a word with my eyes closed while slipping into a partial sleep. Even though I was sleep-writing (writer's version of sleepwalking), I amazingly I spelled it correctly and didn't combine it with another word coming up next in the sentence. ...Just half-fell asleep while typing this. Time to go! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Sept 30</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.216px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Stopped writing at 1:54 AM</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.216px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Words written: 2,794</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.216px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Total words so far: 125,834</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.216px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Day 87</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;"> It's been a busy couple of weeks. Running errands, getting ready for my mom's birthday (50!), going out to eat, etc. Now that it's all behind me, I finally get to sit down and write. Let me tell you, every single night I have had inner turmoil not writing. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;"> Unfortunately, it was not easy spilling those words out tonight. I kept getting distracted by my noisy, talkative family. I tried white noise, music, both at the same time, finally told them to quiet down, calmed down, chose to listen to music, and wrote. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"> Wow, I keep dozing off while typing this. Time to sleep, I think!</span><br />
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Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-69939051974986418222015-07-19T03:45:00.000-07:002015-07-19T03:45:47.822-07:00Short Break - Why? Dental Emergency<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was going to wait until August to have my wisdom teeth pulled, but it seems they had a different plan in mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They're all impacted, but the bottom ones have now become a bigger problem. Without warning, they decided to cause me pain, lockjaw (At times, I can't open my mouth more than a few centimeters or an inch), and even ear pressure for the past few days. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, I went to an emergency dental place to get a prescription for the infections and have all of my wisdom teeth X-rayed and possibly pulled. The place ended up giving me a prescription for an antibiotic and heavy-duty pain medicine, and also some referrals to choose from for an oral surgeon. The upper teeth haven't even tried to come out, yet, and the bottom ones are too deep and difficult for the people to get to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since I'll be on this medicine for several days, and several more days after the procedure, I think I'll take a break from writing until I'm better. I don't want to write while I'm loopy. Not always a good combination. I'd rather not risk later looking at what I wrote and be all like, "What is this?! Gahhh!!!" Although it could be funny, as my jokes and comedic skits, scenarios, and ideas can be nonsensical and weird (as evidence from my posts in crazyfacebookconversations.blogspot.com ). With those, I like making people like, "What!?" to the point that they're laughing, but I'm not sure if I'd want a serious scene to suddenly turn into a huge joke (I'm currently stopped at the beginning of a serious scene).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh, and one more thing before I succumb to this pain: I just wrote this whole post on half of a heavy-duty pain pill. I think I succeeded to be as normal as possible, but I still can't say what I'd be like on a whole pill. :P<br /><br />Although my cheeks are always rather puffy in appearance due to having abnormally thick cheeks, here's my swollen face right now:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Puffy eyes: It's 3 AM, and it's been a long, hard day. It's also hard to stay awake and keep my eyes open and focused on the camera.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pimples: Who cares. Adult acne is a real thing, and a real struggle because you can literally try everything and still get those stubborn little pepperoni volcanos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Too dark: Everyone's in bed, and it's too hard to try to find a good angle to take pictures because my mom has a love for junk to make our place less boring and mirrors to make it look like there's more space than there really is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, I still live with my mother: Because I want to help out with my autistic sister and run errands they can't do for themselves. Why? Because I care.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...Something tells me I might regret posting that hideous picture of me, but maybe I can remind my future self that I'm human and that other people can relate to the struggles of living a crazy life more than I think. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-62824816513668354002015-07-08T02:01:00.000-07:002016-01-22T03:45:39.727-08:00July 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bah! I'll write something more here later! It's almost 2 AM, and I am falling asleep at the computer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 8</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:50 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,089</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total Words So Far: 113,676</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 79</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">... "Something more here later!" There. I wrote it. ;P</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 9th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:21 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,402</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">115,078</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 80</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sweetie is waiting for me to go to bed. She's sitting and dozing off a few feet away, facing me. I'm dozing off, too. After catching myself falling asleep behind the wheel of this book, I figured it best to get out of the car of wakefulness and-- I just now dozed off twice trying to think of what to end this with. I think it's time to take my cat's advice and go to bed, now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">___</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 12th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:16 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 2,604</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 117,682</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 81</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ahhh.... That felt good. Giving live birth to a big writing. (Sounds painful, doesn't it? XD ) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My go-to-bed cheerleader ended up going to bed with my mom, but I'll let her know that I'm going to bed, now. She's always happy to hear that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Every night is the same adorable routine: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Me: "Okay! Let's go to bed!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sweetie: "Neh?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Me: "Yeah! Let's go to bed!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then she'll promptly get up, stretch in a hurry, jump down from where she's at, and race with me to the bedroom door, repeating a cheery, "Neh! Neh! Neh-eh! Nehh!" She'll look up at me to make sure I didn't forget to do something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Me: "Yes! Let's go to beeed! Go to BED!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll open the door -- (As I type this, she just came out of the darkness and scratched the worn-out chair I'm sitting in. Now she's sitting on the floor right next to me, patiently-- *climbs up the chair* *looks at herself in the mirror for a long moment* *climbs into my lap* Now, she's purring in an upright sitting position with her front arms and head resting on my left arm*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ahem! As I was saying: I'll open the door, and she'll ask me for permission to eat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Me: "Okay! Let's go eat your num-num!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*Sweetie eats a little, purring* *She waits about five minutes after I go to bed to hop up and sleep on my legs*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*I wake up in the morning with her still there*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I once had 3 cats, and I taught them all how to say, "Num-num". Because saying "food" is impossible to enunciate for cats, I thought about it and decided that the baby talk version of "food" would be possible, since I had heard the same sounds needed to say it in cats. That was when I was 14, 15, 16, and 17 years old. Unfortunately, the one cat that learned to say "num-num" the clearest passed away in August 2008. He was an old sweetheart. He comforted me whenever I cried. My little Tiger....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The second one, Fiona, I had to give away because she didn't like my mom's dog. Long story short: I had to move to my mom's, my aunt kept her, she didn't like cats, she gave her back to me years later, Fiona freaked out and attacked my mom's dog and bit my thumb, and we had to take her to the animal shelter to go to a dog-free home. She wasn't very good at speaking what I taught her. She'd sometimes say "num-num", but it wasn't nearly as clear as Tiger's. She had a very thick, purring accent and never lost it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> The third one, Gracie, who was also returned back to me, didn't like my mom's male cat, but she liked my mom's old-man friend and his dogs, so she lives with them. Although unable to say "num-num", she said "Hello!" in a very friendly, cheerful, purring voice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Sweetie? She kind of has Fiona's problem of having a thick, purring accent with a mumble, but she's slowly improving the more I work with her. For the past two months, I've noticed her voice being clearer when saying "num-num" and especially "hello". Her hello's are really doing great. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I think "hello" is the easiest to teach cats: When you pet it, say "Hello" clearly and slowly with each stroke. It g</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ets tiresome, but the longer you do it and the more often you do it, the more they'll remember what it sounds like and what it means. The next step (And mind you, it takes months or years to teach them to say it) is saying hello to them whenever you come home and whenever you or the cat comes into the same room. It's especially effective when you pet them whenever you meet again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Num-num is basically taught only when you give them food of any kind. When they get hungry and know you have their food, they get chatty. Those long wails, cute pleadings, and meowing that almost seem to beg, "Please??" MIGHT just turn into num-nums. "Num-num" right over their noise. "Num-num?" "Num-num!" But don't say it more than five times each time. Making them wait too long can exasperate them. Nobody wants a frustrated kitty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oh, and it doesn't matter how old a cat is. My Tiger was about seven or eight when he learned this stuff. Cats are such amazing, socially adaptable creatures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> But, enough about my cat obsession and experimentation. It's 4:34 AM, now. I'm going to be so tired when I get up. Oooh. XP</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 14th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:17 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 555</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 118,237</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 82</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That's cool! The last word count was over 117,000 words, and the time I stopped writing tonight was 1:17 AM. What's so cool about 117? Just yesterday, I got to (finally!) play Halo 2 independently for the first time. My cousin owned it, so I'd sometimes play on multiplayer on a level or two, but now that I own it (whoop-dee-doo, right?), I found it to be easier than I thought (on Easy! Hah!) and got through 10 whole chapters without stopping until I decided to take a break. And no, I didn't measure how many hours I was playing (Boo!). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To those of you who still don't get the 117 thing (like my mom, for example. Hi, Mom!): The Master Chief is also named John 117 or Spartan 117.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, back to writing: The only reason why I didn't write more than 555 words tonight is because I am tired (Yes. Again. I think it's my allergy medicine that makes me sleepy earlier than I want it to.). And the only reason why I'm typing here and not falling asleep is because I made the connection of the 117 thing and got excited enough to talk about it, here. Now that I did, I'm on the verge of falling asleep again. I now bid you a good night (or day, depending on where you live). :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 15th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:46 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,719</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 119,956</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 83</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lol While I was writing, I accidentally spelled "rape" instead of "rage"!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But that, I think, wasn't the funniest mess-up I made today: While I was at work washing my hands, I grabbed a paper towel instead of soap from the soap dispenser. For some reason, I only do that at one particular sink. I'll have to catch myself doing that again and analyze it for the reason behind it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">July 16th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: Approximately between 5 and 6 PM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 228</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 120,184</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 84</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was having a tough time focusing on writing because each time I attempted to write, my sister would sing a song super loudly while watching the music video on YouTube. She was in the other room, and I dared not complain. She's autistic, so she'd get angry and depressed over it (Meaning: It's already been tested.).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On top of that frustration, the impacted wisdom teeth I've been saving to get pulled this August decided to throw a fit early. Swelling, pain, inability to open my mouth very wide, ear pressure, sinus pressure on the sides, and swollen lymph nodes. This bout (Yes, there have been about 5 or 6 worse times where I had a migraine with the jaw selling/pain.) has been going on for the past few days, on and off, mostly in the evening. It's been going on for most of the day today. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even now, my jaws feel like balloons that have been filled with too much air. Pain meds work somewhat, but I'm looking into a good close-to-home place to have them pulled, since one of the impacted teeth is incredibly close to a nerve in my jaw. I'm not looking forward to the numbness resulting in its damage upon removal of the tooth, but there's nothing else that can be done. Fear kept me frozen in place for too long, so it's my fault for the risky wait. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sorry about that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-31788964423792672732015-06-26T13:40:00.000-07:002015-06-27T04:34:02.054-07:00Happy Belated Birthday, G3:DF!<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It turned 2 years old (from the day I started writing it in 2013) on June 20th. I can't believe it's been that long already. It almost makes me feel like I'm not writing fast enough, but I'm doing my best with the time and energy I have (even if I do sometimes get distracted by other projects and hobbies. But I'm just living my life as a human being, so there's not too much guilt in that).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anything new regarding G3:DF? Nope. Still hammering at G4:O in the forge. I haven't been writing much for the past nearly-four-weeks because many things were happening: Shopping for birthdays, wrapping gifts, running numerous errands, celebrating birthdays, preparing my sister for her high school graduation, fetching my autistic brother from miles away, going to the graduation, resting, finally enjoying my own birthday gifts (including a dragon jigsaw puzzle, a Doctor Who soundtrack CD, and a leather journal), being too uptight to write because my grandma ended up in the hospital (She's 88.), and finally back down to being distracted by the internet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now that it's all over, I can finally write. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hold that thought. My sister wants to go out in the sprinkler right now. It's a hot day. An excessive heat warning is in effect in our area. *wails* I don't wanna' go outside!! Wahhhhh!!! ...But I have to. I can't keep her cooped up in here, forever. After that, though, I MUST write!</span><br />
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Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-15614539871709728862015-06-02T01:09:00.000-07:002016-01-22T03:38:04.661-08:00June 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yay! My birthday month! I'll be turning 23 on the 12th. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's weird. I've felt like I've been 23 for 6 months, now. It's been driving me crazy for that long, so it'll be a relief when that's all over.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ha! Speaking of a "relief when that's all over", my birthday is not the only thing happening in my family!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As follows:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 5th: My sister's birthday party (when her wild friends come over and party like 3-year-olds).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 7th: My cousin-in-law's birthday and also the day when we celebrate our traditional group birthdays at a restaurant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 10th: One of my Auntie's birthdays (63).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 11th: My sister's birthday (18).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 12th: My birthday (23).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As you can probably tell, by the time it comes to my birthday, I'm sick of the celebrating and want nothing more than a quiet, laid-back birthday. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As you can also imagine, this is the time when I gain the most weight. Not like I gain a huge amount of fat all at once, but it's still uncomfortable and makes me feel gross-looking and miserable. Thankfully, we've decided to make a bunch of cupcakes so we don't end up wasting cake when we get tired of eating it (Helps with body image and self-esteem, too).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh dear. I'm realllly falling asleep a lot tonight. I had a really busy day at work, so that's my reason. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 2nd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 12:29 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 919</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 106,746</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 74</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 8th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:02 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,862</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 108,608</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 75</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sorry. Can't say much, this time. Big, busy day tomorrow. Hope I survive the week.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">___</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 27th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 4:04 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,407</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 110,015</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 76</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A person who doesn't have much sleep is more likely to get heat exhaustion or heat stroke, so what I am doing up at past four in the morning when an excessive heat advisory is in effect, I have no idea. It's going to be 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I think I'll stay indoors as much as I can. Here in western Washington state, U.S.A., it's typically mild weather, so getting 90 degrees is uncommon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People are already complaining at temperatures in the 80's, and many more don't have air conditioners. My little apartment is shaded by a couple of big trees, so I'm mostly safe, but others won't be so fortunate. Next week, there will be several days in the 90s, so I pray for the health of all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In case you're having hot, sunny weather like me, I highly suggest putting emergency blankets (the camping kind) over your windows. It will dramatically reduce the heat coming inside, but you'll still be able to see out of them. It works like a one-way mirror, or like sunglasses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Forgive me if I've already mentioned the emergency blanket thing before. I'm terribly sleepy, and it doesn't hurt to sound like a forgetful grandma if it's for the welfare of actual forgetful grandmas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 28th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:11 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,637</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 111,652</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 77</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Accomplishments today: Stayed mostly out of the heat of the day, re-potted my sprouted plants on the porch, wrote, caught a big spider with the help of my bug-tracking cat, and falling asleep while typing this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">June 29th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:39 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 926</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 112,578</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 78</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ack! My leg fell asleep! I guess that's what I get when I sit criss-cross-legged in a chair for so long. Anyway, beside from the weather being unpredictable as usual, the only thing I have interesting to say is that Sweetie alerted me to two bugs tonight while I was writing: A green lacewing on the kitchen ceiling and a small spider that thought it was safe to hide underneath my mom's luggage case. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-63779329494039718082015-05-01T02:26:00.004-07:002016-01-22T03:32:06.864-08:00May 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yay! It's May! *leaves you imaginary flower on your doorstep*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> You may have noticed I changed the system around with my logging. Yes, it's less statistical and more wordy. That's because it was too time-consuming in trying to make it look like a chart, less fun to write, less fun for you to read, and the thing that frustrated me the most was how I couldn't insert a table grid on Blogger like I could do in Microsoft Word and Google Drive (Take note, Blogger!). But, once I screw on a more wakeful head onto my neck, I'll decide on what to put in and take out, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> Right now? I'm falling asleep on and off again. Thankfully, I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so I can finally sleep in. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 1st</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:59 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 11 </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(Yes, 11 words! I got stuck with a ton of things to do and now I can't stay awake.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 92,152 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 59</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> I'll write more to add to May 1st when it's close to noon or afterwards. <br />...Oh! Gahh! Agh! *coughs and breathes to the side* Sweetie, who's sleeping in my lap right now, just farted! That, or it was my black lab nearby. Well, whoever did it, just woke me up (I was dozing again). The smell that followed was not a delicious smell, let me tell you that. Umm... anyway! Off to dreamland!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(also May 1st)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing: Late 8:00 PM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 839</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 92,991</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: [59]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> I believe I started writing around noon, but it was on and off. I blame social networking and random ideas constantly popping up in my head (a song, some jokes, questions regarding a computer issue, random research, etc.). What a restless day. This is why I don't write during the day. Now it's 2:30 AM on May 2nd, and I really want to write! I normally write at night. Oh! the constant battle between the sleepy body and the overactive mind! ...I think I'll write and see how far I get.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 2nd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:19 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 494</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 93,485</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 60</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> [I refuse to write much here because I am sleepy and my cat is now using my arm as a pillow, which is making me jealous. Can I be a cat, already???]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> *Update on May 2nd: There. I went back on all the daily log-ins I put in that were no longer in the so-called chart form. Looks a lot better! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Oh, and the one thing you may have noticed that I removed from the system was "(Difference from Last)". Not only is it not much needed, but I also get a tiny bit of anxiety when I see negative numbers. "Oh, dear. I wrote less than I did yesterday." Especially when the numbers are big. It's an unconscious reaction that no writer likes to have unless they do better under pressure, but for me, I don't do well at all (It's a good thing I'm writing the latter books to be published far later before I go back to the first two!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All in all, I'm happy with the new system, and I hope you do, too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 5th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:08 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 227</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 93,712</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 61</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I keep falling asleep. My cat just came to check on me. Now she's yawning vocally. Now she waiting on the arm of the recliner. Now I'm going to bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 8th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:07 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 42</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">93,754</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 62</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I haven't written in a few days because I wass stupid. <-- HA! Those last two words I was sleep-typing again! I was dreaming of Dexter from the cartoon, "Dexter's Laboratory", trying to teach me how to say "stupid" in his accent. Not sure whether I should be worried or entertained by this zombified state I slip into. ...Come to think of it, those who have to communicate by sign language can sometimes be found sleep-signing, so maybe this falls into that category. Interesting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Ahem! What I meant to say was that </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I haven't written in a few days because I got stuck a little. I needed to decide on the order of things happening and when they would happen. After a few days' break of being too daunted to go back to it, I finally decided to remove a few paragraphs and move a certain event a little further down the book. Although I did daydream the entire thing in my mid-teens, I have since gone through some crazy and traumatic ordeals and forgotten some things. I can also blame it on too much daydreaming of the most important scenes and of my favorite scenes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 17th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:40 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 384</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 94,138</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 63</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I haven't written for several days because I was shopping for Mother's day and an upcoming family birthday, my mom got sick, (two days later!) my sister got sick, and went grocery shopping for both of them. In the end? Exhausted. They're all better now (Whew!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I didn't write much tonight because I had to get back into the groove and read several pages before my stopping point. I do that anyway, every time I sit down to write, but it's most always by 1-3 pages. It's just like when you finally pick up a book you haven't finished reading and have to read a few pages or more before the part where you left off just because you get lost, you know? This time, though, I also had to fix several little confusing parts and minor errors I made along the way (I think I need more sleep....), which took up time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oh, whaddya know? It's 3:07 AM, and I feel like assaulting an innocent little haystack. I think I'll approach it like the zombie apocalypse has begun and I'm the first one who's been zombified. Wait a second. Why would a zombie try to attack hay when it doesn't have a brain? That was probably The Wizard of Oz's Scarecrow's idea. Wait a second. Is Scarecrow actually a sort of zombie?? It might explain why he was animate from the beginning. Thankfully, being that he was a scarecrow zombie, he had no interest in attacking Dorothy, because his prey was only other scarecrows. But that doesn't explain how he became animate from the beginning. Aliens? Brainless zombie aliens? Brainless zombie aliens whose only craving is hay? Okay, this is getting weird. Time to hit the hay. No, not again! *types up a bunch of Z's that somehow equal the sound of snoring, even though I don't snore, just so I actually end it this time* ZZZZ Ha! Gotcha'! Okay, all I have to say more is: This weird, crazy story-building out of hay, zombies, The Wizard of OZ, and aliens is born out of a perfect, seldom-happening combination of me being tired, having a very-awake imagination, still wanting to be awake, still wanting to write my book just a little longer, and feeling silly. (Did you know that the brain scans of a tired person and a drunk person look similar? So, you can say that I'm drunk from tiredness. Oh, and just so you know: I've never been drunk by alcohol and never plan to be. My great grandfather was a drunk, and besides from that, getting sick and having a hangover don't sound fun at all. Plus, I enjoy having a clear head at all times, thank you.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Blagh! I did it again! (Not a Britney Spears joke.) My "All I have to say more is" didn't work very well. I got off topic, and I didn't even finish. Okay, I'll make it short: That weird story-building thing I just spewed all over this just now? I go through that sometimes, and it's awesome. It mostly happens on my (private, non-public) Facebook. One of my friends will post something, and I'll end up making a joke out of it. People react, and I somehow - I don't know how I do it - make it crazier and crazier. That's why I made a blog out of it, on which you will find other, funnier things I did and said past 2 AM: <a href="http://crazyfacebookconversations.blogspot.com/"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">http://</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">crazyfacebookconversations</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">blogspot</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">.com/ </span></a> . There are a few posts in there that are a bit inappropriate for younger audiences (Rudolph the Red-nosed Zombie Reindeer raping people, for instance. While not too graphic, I nonetheless put up a setting that warns about content and asks if you wish to continue. Basically, the rest of it is okay. I haven't posted in it for a couple of months, but I just yesterday had a funny conversation with someone that I'm dying to ask for permission to share his photo. So, stay tuned!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Enough advertising my other blog! Now, I <i>really</i> got to slam my face into my pillow. It's 3:55 AM. *grumbles* And to think that all this time, I could have been writing in my book, instead.... Oh well, it's entertainment for you. Good night! :D</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 18th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:44 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,253</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 95,391</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 64</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Uh, whoops! Look at the time! Gotta' get up for work in 4 1/2 hours! :/ Time flies in real life when time flies in a book. Wish I had a net to catch it and give it a leash.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 21st</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:55 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,742</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 97,115</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 65</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I'm falling asleep even as I write a exciting battle scene. How is that possible?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...My cat just jumped into my lap, my department <-- There we go again. Sleep-typing again. This time, the dream was about me being at work (P.S. I work in a city library), figuring out something about the printer being down, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*ahem* Let me try this again: My cat just jumped into my lap. ...And I forgot what I was going to say about her. Oh well. *backflips into bed*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 22nd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 1:36 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 226</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 97,341</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 66</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Whoah. My eyes heavy, I shut them for what I thought would be a small handful of seconds, but then I looked up the next "moment" and realized I've been having a full-fledged dream. In my alarm upon waking, I forgot what it was about, but I think I should stop it right here. *writes 14 more words* Right there. *writes in this* Right there. ...Okay, not another word. I've got to.... Okay! Okay! *crawls away*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 23rd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:36 AM </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 118</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 97,459</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 67</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Wrote in bed for the fun of it. A wee bit difficult to prop it up at the right angle, but I keep falling asleep and jolting awake while writing this, and it's really getting on my nerves. ...Wow. Looking at May, I'm writing mostly in bursts of a handful of hundreds in word count. How depressing. Well, I'll have time all day tomorrow to hopefully make another 1,000+ words before the end of the month. Wish me well. ...*jolts awake again, feels like leaving the laptop running all night and just sleep, knows better, ends this to update this blog post and shut computer down*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 25th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:22 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 2,216</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 99,675</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 68</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Nice. I love it when I get a huge writing splurt. Haha, I used "splurt" ever since I was a little kid, not knowing that it was already around since the 18th century. I thought I made it up from the funny sound, combining the words "spurt" and "splat". Maybe it was also inspired by my fat pet Black Moore goldfish, Blurp? Anyway, I'm happy I wrote this much in one sitting. It's depressingly <i>not</i> nice when it's only in the triple digits, which hardly feels like anything to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oh, and today was the very day last year that my whole life turned upside-down. Literally. Car crash of the century. And I had the front row seat to the show, too. It was scary - no, terrifying - and yet kind of cool, like I was in a real-life action movie. Unfortunately, i</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t wasn't an easy job after all, being a Spiderman impressionist. Word of advice: ALWAYS use the toilet before you get in a car. Seatbelts do not feel comfortable on a full tank, if you get my meaning. And n</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">o, I wasn't driving. Slick roads, I can tell you that, though. My ambulance driver witnessed another spin-out with a "Whoah! There's goes another one!" while I was still on the way to the hospital. Funny guys, they were. If they weren't paramedics, they'd do great as comedians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> My gratitude forever goes out to those two people who pulled over just five seconds after it happened. They didn't even know our upside-down roller coaster went out of order that soon before they stopped to help us out. I hope to meet them again one day to thank them again. They could be anywhere near Bellevue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Anyway, I hope to keep my mind busy today with Memorial Day events around me whilst walking in hopefully warm temperatures and no rain. And, oh dear. It's 4:06 AM. I get to see my smelly brother in 8 hours. Hooray! *pinches nose shut at the thought*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 27th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:15 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 467</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 100,142</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 69</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Yay! I finally made it to over 100,000 words total! I think I'm halfway through the book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Busy week. I was sleepy after work, so I took a 4-hour-long nap and woke up around 8:45 PM for dinner. I've been feeling very sleepy ever since I woke up, but I couldn't resist writing late tonight anyways. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I had a dream about Bilbo and the dwarves hiding from evil elves inside this abandoned house full of big, dirty windows. At first, I was just me, and I was helping out wherever I could. During the last part of the dream, however, I was a dog made out of blue patched-up cloth. It was a spell to keep me disguised. I might have been a human, but I think I was an elf seeking out the truth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Okay, I can't write here anymore. I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 28th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:20 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 598</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 100,740</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 70</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nooo.... I planned on NOT writing tonight because I knew I'd end up NOT going to bed early, which is what I originally wanted to do, but I just couldn't help it. It didn't feel right not writing at least a little. Well, at least I had a 4-hour-long nap after work yesterday, but I certainly won't be able to do that today. Poop heads! (Yes, that's how I cuss. I also say, "Thrice blast!" Less often? "Poop fart heads!" But, my personal, long-time favorite? "Thrice blast me to the moon!" I used to say, "Ah, poopy doopers!" Aaand... I can't remember what else. To me, traditional cussing is boring. There was a short time when I cussed at age 14, but I quickly found it to be empty and felt it had a lack of life and creativity to it. Although I sometimes say "dang" and "darn", I tend to use those more in response to something disappointing. Otherwise, I'll make up and use something more interesting until I change and feel the need to change my exclamations to a style more fitting to me.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 29th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 12:22 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 180</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 100,920</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 71</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ugh. VERY tired. It was a hot, busy day (It was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, but it was significantly hotter than it has been for a long while. For those of you who are used to much hotter temperatures, the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascade Mountains, is typically very mild throughout the year, so my body isn't used to this sudden heat.). I had to go somewhere about a mile away, so I took the bike. I hadn't ridden it in months, but it was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get much relief from the wind I got from riding. My life has been primarily indoors, which only made my intolerance to the heat worse. Think I should slow down and enjoy the outdoors again? I miss hiking and biking. Oh, and if you want a fun bike trip experience, I highly recommend the San Juan islands! ;)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Update in evening of May 29th, 2015: I found two lost January sticky notes of log days and one from February. I've just added them and made corrections on the Day numbers for the months since.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 30th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:17 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 682</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 101,602</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 72</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*yawns* Time for some sleep. I've a friend coming over tomorrow, so I'm not going to type much here. My cat, Sweetie, was certainly adorable tonight though. While I was writing:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 30th into May 31st (Sometime during the hour of 3 PM into the next day)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:51 AM (Yowza! That's almost 13 hours straight - again!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 4,225 (WHOAH!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 105,827</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day [72] & 73 (Counting only May 31st, because I already counted the earlimorn log) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I think I need some well-deserved sleep, now. ZZZZ</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Update on Jan 22, 2016: A goof was made in February 2015's post, so I fixed it. And since you can obviously see this, this post is now fixed, too. ("Day 1, Day 2, Day 7...." "...Wait, what??")</span></div>
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<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-15670389865751196672015-04-09T01:46:00.000-07:002016-01-22T03:06:40.458-08:00April 2015<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">*April 9: At this moment, I don't feel like typing up a bunch of stuff here, yet. I just want to delete this from my writing file (I put my April 6th logging into the file where I am writing the book) where I left off:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">April 6th</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 3:18 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 1,128</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 78,872 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 50</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ahh. Now I can go write. And eat marshmallow circus peanuts. At 1:41 in the morning. And listen to my mom snore softly nearby. And now I'm going to shut up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">... *writes* ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">___</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...WHOAH. Long day. Got super sleepy sooner than usual. This is super weird, but as I was writing a scene just now, I started to fall asleep. I was even dreaming random gibberish. But I wanted to finish that part at least, so I kept on typing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well, it ends up that you can actually "sleep-type", much like sleep-walking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I seriously have no clue what this means, but it's totally not what I meant to type. Far from it:</span><br />
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> It took [character's name] several minutes to recompose your lunch.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They're on a battle field, and the guy is injured on the ground being dragged to safety by an ally, his burn injuries making him scream. The ally reassures him in a sort of way. What. The. Heck. "Your lunch" is the part that I didn't intend on typing. I recall sluggishly typing, head drooping, eyes barely open. I also recall the gibberish talking in my half-awake dream. I think a boy was talking in it, but I can't remember.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">kay, this is kinda' freaking me out. Time to go to bed.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">April 9</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stopped writing at: 2:38 AM</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Words written: 142</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 79,014</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: 51</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">April 12</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stopped writing at: 2:55 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Words written: 870</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total words so far: 79,884</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Day: 52</span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The only reason why I can't go much further right now is because my cat came out of nowhere just now and is letting me know that it's time for bed. Literally, I'm lying here in bed with my computer propped on my knees, and my little seven-pound cat is on my chest. It's really hard to write this right now with my neck craned over her back and my other hand as her pillow. I bid thee good night and good morning.</span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Early 3:?? PM, April 12th into 4:04 AM, April 13th (13 hrs of writing)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Words written: 6,698</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Total words so far: 86,582</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Day: [52] and 53</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Yowza! Huge writing storm! I just wrote for 13 hours straight! (Except for brief breaks of taking bites of food, gulps of water, being distracted by my noisy mom and sister, and using the toilet.) I couldn't stop writing. It was just too exciting. Having finished the complicated battle that takes place in this book, I zipped through like crazy. The battle wasn't very thought through 8 years ago when I came up with the book, but a good portion of the rest, I remember extremely well, so that's why it was so fast. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Hmm.... *calculates numbers* ...WHAT?????? 6,698 words in 13 hours. Wowee.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Okay, I'm tired. And - whoops - I have to get up in 3 hours and 45 minutes for work. Oh, dear. Remind me not to write on a Sunday night again. XP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">(Update: I survived work surprisingly well. After getting home, however.... ZZZZ....)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">___</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">April 14</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Stopped writing at: 12:43 AM </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Words written: 263</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Total words so far: 86,845</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Day: 54</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">I'm falling asleep while writing. Can't go on. I regret not taking a nap after work today. *dozes off right now, jerks head up* My cat sleeping on my lap is not helping, either. I bid thee a good sleep. ZZZZ</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">___</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">April 25</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Stopped writing at: 2:03 AM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Words written: 2,256</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Total words so far: 89,101</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Day: 55</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Coincidentally, I'm falling asleep while writing again. My hands are weak and deciding to take their own naps (inspiring something in my book, as a result of this being a common symptom of writing late into the night), my eyes are taking brief naps, my head feels heavy on my neck (like a bowling ball on a bendy-necked straw), and Sweetie is sleeping on my lap again. ...I just dozed off again while typing this. Don't wake up the moon with your snoring! (P.S. I don't snore, but Sweetie often does.) Nooo.... I don't want to wake her! She's having a dream. Akk! She's poking me with her claws! ...Okay, I need to go to bed. I can't stay awake any longer. Thankfully, she understands (and is delighted by) when I whisper, "Let's go to bed!" ...Okay, so she just woke from her dream just before I tried to wake her. Now she got up, turned over, and laid down again. Told her, but she just looked at me as if saying, "I don't feel like getting up." *pause* I just told her again, and she immediately got up, purred, looked up at my face, and squeakily yawned. Nighty-night!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">___</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">April 26</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Stopped writing at: 4:32 AM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Words written: 1,676</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Total words so far: 90,777</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Day: 56</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Ah, whoops! Look at the time! I noticed how late it was about an hour ago (It really doesn't feel like it!), but I had to finish a series of really moving, great scenes. I haven't finished them, but Sweetie, losing her patience, got off my lap and crouched on the arm of the recliner I'm in and watched me write.<br />All of a sudden, she had enough just now and, the clearest I've ever heard her say it, asked, "Go to bed?" </span><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">(Well, of course she couldn't enunciate the g, t, and the d, but she otherwise said it more like this: "Oh oo beh?"). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">I've been teaching her various words ("Hello" and "En" = "Jen" are her favorites), and although I didn't expect her to say it, I always whisper, "Okay, let's go to bed!" or ask her, "Go to bed?" when it's time to go to bed. </span><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">She'll ask, "Beh?" </span><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">And I'll say, "Yeah! Let's go to bed!" It's our common routine. It's adorable. There's not a night we don't do this.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Anyway, during the time that it took me to type this for you, Sweetie acted crazy by climbing around the back of the recliner like a monkey, and now she's crouched on the arm of the chair, waiting for me again.<br />One more thing, Sweetie! Here's a pic of us as of a few minutes ago. As you can see, she's not very happy about being told that we can go to bed, only to have to wait for yet another thing. I'm so sorry!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This picture is so horrible. The color is off. It looks like my lips are bleeding! XO And yes, I'm battling adult acne. It's horrible. One of my aunts had this same problem, too.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">___</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">April 29</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Stopped writing at: 1:11 AM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Words written: 884</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Total words so far: 91,661</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Day: 57</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Sweetie is snoring on my lap right now. And I can't count how many times I've been falling asleep sitting here. Bedtime! </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">___</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">April 30</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Stopped writing at: 1:42 AM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Words written: 480</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Total words so far: 92,141</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Day: 58</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Ooh. I can't wait for it to reach its 100,000 mark. Getting closer.... </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Ooh. On another note, I can't wait to go to bed. Getting sleepy....<br />So much that I'm repeatedly falling asleep at the computer. I had to force myself up to 40% wakefulness in order to type this and be able to drag my feet to bed. I'm such a zombie. Urrrrgh.... ZZZZ *cartoon snorts awake sound effect inserted* That'd be really weird: Giving my book series a sudden twist with zombies in it. Zombie dragons in space? Nope! Let somebody else do it. Hey, that'd be some wild fan fiction or art! Ha ha ha! That'd be crazy. Somebody should seriously try it and post it on DeviantArt. Let me know if you do!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">Update on Jan 22, 2016: I made a goof in February 2015's post, so I've corrected it there as well as in this post, which it also affected. ...Ha! I just noticed another goof in this post by itself, too. Go figure. I wrote all this AFTER I was done writing for the night, when I was at my least-functional and sleepiest.</span><br />
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Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3109700050710939981.post-70431193928597277982015-03-12T02:30:00.000-07:002016-01-22T02:48:43.585-08:00March 2015*March 12th, wee hours of morning -- I'll write as soon as I can, but it's hard to do that when you have a sinus infection and a cold. Not to say I've been that miserable for that long, but, besides from this week, I had other things going on that stole my attention and drained me:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Doctor appointment. (I got a prescription for my sinus infection. I also found out that I'm anemic, which explains my being exhausted and lethargic all the time.)</li>
<li>Planning my brother's birthday, baking his birthday cake (Which I succeeded with flying colors - literally and figuratively), and going to his birthday.</li>
<li>Another, non-health-related appointment.</li>
<li>Then, BAM! A cold to beat up and knock my sinus infection recovery down to its hands and knees so it moves to a sluggish-crawl. Been quite miserable, I must-say, but I'm slowly getting better. Only a few sneezes today, but I could do less blowing my nose off. Oh, well.</li>
</ol>
<br />
While I'm home sick and not working because I'm contagious and don't want my nose to drip on everything, I might feel up to writing tomorrow. I don't know.... I'm so sad when I'm not out there helping out my co-workers. I can imagine how they feel about me being gone: How much harder it is to getting things done quickly, their inner frustration, their wishing that I wasn't sick.... I don't know. I'm just more acute to imagining how people feel when I can't do the things they expect me to do.<br />
I'm a busybody. That's it. Just like my mom and my 87-year-old grandma, whom neither of them can't ever sit still. I focus so much on helping others, that I end up forgetting to just sit back, relax, and know that at least most of them understand. But, I do remember to take good care of myself. I'm doing all I can to get well quickly.<br />
But, with all this imagining of people's thoughts and feelings when I'm sitting in the silence, why not put that to good use and write? I imagine, if I make myself a tissue walrus, I won't have to blow my nose as much.<br />
*laughs* Now, if I made myself a tissue walrus, I could also go to work! Mmm.... I don't think anybody would think I'm mentally sound. I'd best stay home until I don't have to. Heheh<br />
___<br />
<br />
*March 24th - Update: There are some things I need to plan out a bit before I continue writing the battle scene.<br />
Normally, I'm great at planning while I'm writing. I daydream ahead even while I daydream whatever scenes I'm typing out, if that makes sense. Basically, a daydream within a daydream. I know it sounds weird, but maybe another writer would understand better. That, or another person with Asperger's Syndrome. I don't know which.<br />
However, this time, it's very complex. Not only am I trying to remember what I recently have (months ago, actually, heh heh) decided to put in it, but I'm also trying to recall what I once planned long ago. I was fifteen or sixteen when I was planning and writing down bits and pieces of this battle scene, but after losing all of my writing when I was 17, and going through the shock, etc. for a few years afterwards, it's becoming a little confusing.<br />
So... I'm going to need to slow down, step back, look at everything, making lists and charts of major events in the battle that lean back and forth in favor of the good guys and the bad guys.<br />
It's like a raging sea in a storm. Everything is going everywhere, all is chaotic, and at any split-second, you could die. When things are happening fast, that's when I've got to be careful, just like my characters. They could die, I could miss important things to put in there.<br />
That's why I need to do this.<br />
<br />
...One more reason why I've not been writing: I was recently telling a friend about a story I began but that which I didn't finish, and I sort of... started reading it. If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that when I get to the place where it abruptly stops and leaving hanging questions as to what happens next, that's when I want to continue off where it left off. Needless to say, then: For the last four days, I've been writing in this totally unrelated story.<br />
The good news is... I <i>think</i>... I will stop writing in it after a few more days and then go back to what I was previously doing. ...I'm pretty sure I'll stop after a bit. After all, I was singing the "G" series theme song last night. I <i>would</i> add to it with a "So, why wouldn't I?", but I don't always trust myself. My life is so unpredictably crazy, and I can sometimes get so deep into something (Asperger's strikes again!), that I've learned to just run down the hill of life by the pulling gravity of fate.<br />
___<br />
<br />
*Earlimorn, March 25 - I just found this that I entered below. I'll fix it later. (Update: I didn't fix it in the way you expected. See why in "May 2015".)<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">March 3rd</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stopped writing at: 3:25 AM</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Words written: 553</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total words so far: 76,469</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Day: 48</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">___</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*"Past 3 AM kind of earlimorn, March 25 - Ugh.... I'm falling asleep. It's an exciting part, but I must sleep. You do the math for now. ZZZZ (Update: I finally came back here in May and did the math. Sorry for the wait. I was too sleepy, too lazy, and forgot for all the times I thought about doing it.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">March 25th</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stopped writing at: 3:37 AM</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Words written: 1,275</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total words so far: 77,744</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Day: 49
Update on Jan 22, 2016: I finally looked back at this and found a goof I made in February's post that recorded the days (Day: [number]), so I'm fixing it in this post as well as in the following months (posts).</span><br />
<br />Jennifer Fulkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236013671332191932noreply@blogger.com0