Halloween

So I love to dress up for Halloween. And every year I dress up and go shopping. Sometimes people come with me and sometimes they don't. This year Joy came with me and she dressed as Nurse Joy from Pokemon. There was a guy at Hot Topic that said he loved her for dressing up as that character lol. I wore my Black Cat costume again. I totally love how it turned out. I want to wear it to ComicCon if I can go this year!

Joy happened to have her camera with her, so we have a few pictures. She thought it was funny to take pictures of me shopping for boots. Black Cat needs new boots! Furry ones with pompoms!

Shoes 1

Shoes 2

Shoes 3

Then we walked through sears and they had these headless manikins. So we had to take pictures there.

Joy

Me

Then we stopped by the comic book store then Noelle and P-Chan's place for lots of good food and monster movies.

We watched Sharktopus! It's about a half-shark-half-octopus that kills people. It was freaking ridiculous and AWESOME! It could walk on land and stab people with its tentacles. I have never seen so many people die in a shark movie before. It was amazing! Go watch it!

Birthday

So on the 23rd of October, it was my birthday. And I never do anything for my birthday so this year I decided I would do something different. I decided I was going to rent a pavilion at the park and invite everyone out and have a super hero themed birthday party with lots of fun games and stuff. It was pretty crazy. I almost didn't have it in me after planning for Banzai, but I managed to get it somewhat put together. It was combined with Chu Chu and Skyler because both of their birthdays are in October as well.

Also, my friends Jackie and Emily keep talking about us all getting together somehow. And I just happened to mention this party and they decided to come out for that. These ladies live like on the other side of the country. (PS, if you want to travel, go into animal sciences. These two have been all over.) But they decide they're going to just travel on over to Utah and play around with me for the weekend, just for my birthday. Okay ladies, if you really think Utah is worth it.

But it was a lot of fun. Jackie insisted I take her bird watching so she could check off more birds in her little bird guide. And I took them to the zoo.

Emily and I at Subway. We are so happy to have cookies!

Here is the three of us with monkeys

Outside the leopard pen

The zoo was Friday. Saturday it freaking RAINED like nobody's business. I was a sad panda, it looked liked my birthday was going to get rained out. Then a little ray of hope shined through the clouds around 1 o'clock. Yes! The sun is out again! So we drive to the park and then it RAINS again and brings the COLD with it! It was so miserable. There was no way we could have a party. And everyone was cranky cuz it was hard to see and the park was hard to find and then we couldn't BBQ or anything. So I had to make an executive decision to pack it all up and go to... Wendy's.

So yeah, I had my super hero themed birthday party at Wendy's. I guess... it could have been worse, right? We still had fun. We played a make your own super hero game and got some GREAT characters out of that. Then we played a trivia game and had CAKE. And I totally forgot to take a picture of the cake, but it was a Spider-Man cake and it was awesome and delicious. But here's a few pictures from the party. Again, my camera is a piece of crap so the quality is lousy.

Emi dressed as Batgirl with Skyler in the background as Captain Hammer. Emi's boyfriend, now fiance Tom in the middle. And you can see the back of Kim and Shannon's heads.

Alison and Aleatha dressed as characters from the Sandman comics I'm not too familiar with it. Danny was V for Vendeta.

P-Chan, Noelle, and Jose

Jackie, Emily, and Heather Jackie and Emily were girl Robin and Starfire.

Joy, Sara, and Carissa

Skyler as Captain Hammer and Julie as Dr. Horrible ordering at the Wendy's counter.

Skyler and Emi looking at some of the super heros people drew.

Me dressed as Black Cat From the Spider-Man comics Jackie and Emily took me to Build-A-Bear, which is a place I have been wanting to go like my entire life. I will love them forever for getting me that bear. I totally got him a Batman outfit so he could come to the party. They make you name your bear, I did not know this. So the bear's name is Bruce. It's his secret identity. Sh-h-h, don't tell.

Robin trying to decide between Starfire and Batgirl

Group shot

So despite that it was at Wendy's it was still a fun birthday.

Banzai!

So the next big thing that was taking up all my free time was Anime Banzai. This is the anime convention my friends and I built from the ground up and it has easily sucked all the life out of me which I probably could have used to do so many less stressful things.

This is our sixth year. We had a new venue and it was probably our best year yet. The word from the street is we finally hit our 3,000 attendance mark. I'm quite proud of that fact. We've been aiming for that number for the past few years. However, despite our highest attendance, we had the lowest number of volunteers this year which really made me worried. I have never worked so hard or got so little sleep at Banzai as I did this year.

Stories from the convention: Friday night was our formal. We were running extremely late do to the live show before it. And not only did it end late, but then the hotel staff was supposed to then remove all the chairs from the main events room. We're talking a massive, massive space full of chairs. How many hotel staff show up to move chairs? Two. All the others were attending the other rooms because we were behind schedule. So I had to scare up people to help move chairs pronto.

First, I grabbed as many staff members as I could find. It was like five people. So chairs were moving slowly but surely. Meanwhile, the line to the formal dance was massive, trailing clear out past the bar in the hotel. I had to do something. In line was a large Axis Powers Hetalia cosplay group all in military formal uniforms. (America was dressed in an old Civil War Uniform. They looked quite awesome.) So I walk up to them and was like "Do you guys want to get into the formal early? Do you mind moving chairs?" And they were stoked to help. We got those chairs swept out like nothing else. The dance was saved by Axis Powers Hetalia!

Saturday night, two cops show up, saying someone reported there was a vendor in our exhibit hall selling pornography to minors. *sigh* Stupid Utah. Thanks for calling the cops.

In most anime conventions, it's quite normal that some vendors dvds and comics with adult content, though they are legitimate businesses and they do card everyone they sell these products to. Because we are in Utah, we have it in our contracts that the vendors aren't allowed to bring 18 plus material at all. But sadly, it doesn't stop someone from bringing them every year.

But these cops came at 11 o'clock. The doors were locked and the vendors had gone to bed. Jose was the night chair so he took care of it and I was informed after they were gone that police were going to show up the next morning at SEVEN AM which ticked me off royally. Who gets up at 7 am? Really?

Long story short, I was also working that rave that night so I went to bed at like 3 am. Got up a little after 7, panicked because the alarm didn't go off, stumbled into some clothes and ran off to the convention hall with my sisters glasses before I realized I had the wrong ones. The cop was waiting for me and I had to explain to him 7 am was not a useful time as the exhibit hall was not open nor would the vendors be here until about 9:30. But I still took him into the exhibit hall and showed up the adult content that had been found the night before. He was really surprised about the adult dvds and managa that were there. I don't think he realized such a thing existed. He even called his supervisor. I was quite embarrassed. I promise not all anime fans are pervert freaks.

Anyway, we had a good talk with the vendor to ensure this doesn't happen again next year. And then I went on to work Sunday on about 3 hours of sleep with only 4 hours the night before. I FELT fine, but my sister Emi insisted I wasn't acting fine. I was not allowed to drive anywhere that day. >.>

Here's a collection of pictures from the convention. I'm just doing text link because there's so many.


Members of our staff: Chu-Chu, Jessica, P-Chan and Eli. Taken on Thursday, our epic set up day of huge delayness. We were up so late and everyone was so tired.

My sisters and I Emi is The Great Seiya Man (DBZ), Addy is Yayone (Saiyuki) and I'm Cassandra (Soul Calibur II). These pictures are so grainy, it makes me sad. My camera is a pink piece of crap.

My sister made us Bubble Bobble Pajamas for the late night pj party. This is me laying on the floor because I was so tired and my sister took a picture of me. >.>

Addy and I Dressed for the formal. The wig I wanted for the dress did not come in the mail so I was stuck wearing this doll wig that's cute, but totally doesn't fit my face shape. I was Sakuya from Okami and Addy was wearing a uniform from Suikoden that she borrowed from Chu-Chu.

Making silly faces at the formal Julie, Heather, Addy and me.

More silly faces. Me making old lady face while Shannon is being derpy.

Shannon and Joy Dressed as Nurse Joy and Princess Tutu.

Diane dressed as Amy from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Catching up--Reunion

Man, I have meant to post so many things that I never got around to. I'm going to do some quick posts just to sort mark a few main events these past few months. They have just been a whirlwind of days and weeks. It's all gone by so fast!

Since my last post was about my spider roomie, I guess I should mention how that went. A few weeks after that post, I found another spider IN MY PANTS! >.< That was enough to end all spider shenanigans in my house. Once again, life is how it has always been and eight legged creatures found on my territory are dealt with with extreme prejudice.

On a different note, in August, I got together with some people from high school for a 10 year reunion type thing. I can't believe it's been 10 years since high school. I still feel like I just got out of there sometimes.

We had it in a campground up in the mountains in hopes it would be a bit cooler. No such luck. It was boiling, but it was still fun to be there. I was actually a bit nervous. I didn't have the best time my last years of high school, I wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine and I'm not really sure what these people even thought of me any more. Also, all of them were now married with nice cars, houses, and even some with kids. I worried I was just going to kind of be an outsider and it would be awkward.

So I was hesitant to go and I got more nervous the closer I drove. But the whole thing was really fun and we all had a good time just talking and eating good food and trying not to boil in the heat. I totally made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting that I made myself. They were delicious. I was quite proud of them.

Here's a few pictures from that day:




Here's me and Haley doing stupid poses because David told us to.


Traditional group shot with everyone but Debbie and her husband because they bailed out early.

I actually learned that Haley and Dave live like right down the road from me. Kinda crazy. Every time I heard about them they were in a different part of the world. It kinda blew my mind that they were like 5 minutes away from me. I do hope to see them again. It was fun.

Spider Early Warning System

So to tell this story, I need to explain a little background first. I have this friend Emily who is way into animal sciences. Like, she goes into the field professionally all week every week. And I told her once that I was VERY territorial about spiders in my living space and I kill them on sight with extreme prejudice.

She seemed to think that was a bit violent. According to her, she leaves toilet paper rolls on the floor of her bathroom so spiders can hide when she comes in. So we are so not on the same page of this issue.

However, I decided to try and see it her way when I found a small, brown spider already setting up camp in the corner next to my bathroom. Since he already had a web, he wouldn't be wandering around the place and I would know exactly where he was at all times. And since he's just a little guy I figured I could deal with this. So he's been my roommate for the past couple of weeks. I've fed him a few times since I worry he's not getting enough to eat. There are many spiders but not much prey at my place.

So I work up this morning and immediately check to make sure my spider is still where he is supposed to be, as I do every morning. And, instead of hiding in his corner, he is right on the very edge of his web as if in full alert. That worried me. I thought he might be packing up and moving somewhere else and that doesn't work for me and our arrangement.

But I go into the bathroom to do my thing and I see another spider that is 2 or 3 times bigger than my spider. It was ridiculously ugly as well. So I kill it with extreme prejudice as is my custom. Right after it's dead, my spider happily goes back to his corner and waits like normal.

And that's the most interesting thing to happen to me all week. Yay my boring life.

Update

Ugh, I'm tired. This might be short.

Basically, I haven't been doing much lately. I think my muse gets personally offended when I try to keep tabs on its progress. So I'm just going back to writing like normal. Which isn't too bad. I write every week, usually from 4-10 pages depending on how I'm feeling. So it's not like I'm stopping completely. But lately I have lost my passion for my original projects. I'm going to give it some time and see if it comes back. I'm sure it will. And then I'll just hit it hard as long as it lasts.

In other news. I got a new car! Well, new for me. Here is my baby. I love it.


And I bought it all myself so I'm an adult now! I'm so proud of me! No one else's name is on this baby but mine. Of course. I've got a few years of payments, but then it will be all mine.

I went hope to Roosevelt last weekend which is while I am still so tired and hung over now. My whole family (aside from my mom) stays up until the wee hours of the morning and I did the same. So going back to my morning job SUCKED. I'm still feeling it. But I loved going back home, despite the bug infestations. It was just nice.

I got to see my nephew and my brand spanking new niece. Oh my nephew Carson is freaking hilarious. There's lots of great stories, but my favorite was when my brother took him to the park. He was playing with sticks, but Blake wanted to get him to go down the slide. So he goes down the slide himself and calls "Look Carson! Slide!"

And Carson, who is almost two, just looks at him "Good job, Dad" and goes back to playing with sticks. That kid cracks me up. Sadly, I do not have any pictures because I'm a moron when it comes to getting out the camera when I'm supposed to. But he's freaking adorable and I'm sure Kennedee will be, too when she's no longer all wrinkly.

Writing report week 1

I meant to do this every Sunday, but last week kicked my butt like woah. It was a very physically taxing week. So by the time Sunday came around, I was too tired to do anything. So I just vegged in front of the tv at Noelle's house with all the lovely animals (and Noelle, too, of course). It wasn't a bad week, just a lot to do all the time. I stayed very busy. But there were also fantastic body lotion sales all over the place so I have a life time of lotion scattered around my living room right now. I just want to roll in it. Soooo good!

So anyway, current progress report:

Page numbers: 15.5 YAY!

Query Letter: None. :(

I also worked on some character designs for Alice. I'm still trying to figure out how I want them all to look, but I'm getting closer, I think. I'll post something if I can ever get them finished.

Goals

So currently, I have two people (hopefully) who are actually going to read Alice and give me some much needed feedback and typo checking.

In the meantime, I've got two other stories I'm working on. Both are in the beginning stages. I'm just mucking around in the first two chapters, waiting until one of them takes off, then I'll probably focus all attention on that one to get it done.

The first one is Fisherman's Paradise, a project I had during my college animation class. It's a fantasy setting, but with technology. I'm not sure what genre that is. But it's a treasure hunting adventure story that doesn't take itself too seriously. The characters are all really high energy. They make me tired after I write them, but it's fun.

The second one is called Red. This story is based off of Little Red Riding Hood and I consider it my "werewolf story". It's a little bit more serious, but I'm still having fun with the characters.

Right now, I feel like I need to start setting some goals for both working on these stories and taking further steps to get Alice published. Otherwise, I have a tendency to let things fester under the pretense that I am working simply by keeping them in mind. It's not very productive.

Goal number 1: 15 pages of writing per week, no matter the project.

Goal number 2: Complete query letter by June 30th.

I will return next Sunday with a progress report on these two goals.

Current Status

Alrighty, now that I'm not blogging after midnight, (ignore the time stamp, it lies) I'm a bit more coherent to discuss my projects and what I'm currently working on. Or at least better than last night. My head is currently aching from trying to clean out the Banzai storage space in the heat. It wouldn't have been so bad if we had more than 4 people out of all the staff come to assist. Thank God for Jose and Sara or else it would have just been my sister and I. And I only gave everyone a full two weeks notice we were doing it. Thanks everyone. I still need to go back with some better boxes to organize and label stuff. They are lucky I really, really enjoy organizing stuff.

ANYWAY, back to the topic at hand.

I've really been wanting to write something that could be possibly published for years and years, but I've had such a hard time doing it. A couple of months ago I attempted to do the NaNoWriMo, which is where you attempt to spew out a full novel during the month of November. My project of choice turned out so awful I was scared away from attempting anything else for a while. When 2008 rolled around, I really wanted to try it again and I still have several beginning attempts on my computer. But I kept putting so much pressure on myself to make a perfect first chapter and nothing was working out. I kept discouraging myself.

So finally, over the winter, I made myself commit to one project, a smaller, more simple one. By forcing myself to take baby steps, I felt I would have a better chance in completing my goals and I would have at least one finished product to work with.

I am happy to report my first draft is completed and is now working through several other drafts. It is a mid-grade chapter book of about 60 pages. The title is Alice Through the Ocean Gate and it's an Alice in Wonderland story.

The current problem with Alice is I'm having a really hard time getting feedback on the book or even help getting out the typos. To this date, I have sent out copies to at least SEVEN people. The last copy I sent out was about 2 months ago. Up until now, only one person has read the entire book. And that is my dear baby, baby brother.

Unfortunately, the only feedback he has offered me is "It's good. If you write something else, send it to me". Even though I'm glad to hear it wasn't bad, it doesn't help me too much. Though, I do have to admit, it was a bit encouraging when he read all but the last chapter, then read John Dies at the End. So I thought he would never ask me for the last chapter, as the climax of the story was already over. Because, I don't care what you like, there are very few things as entertaining as John Dies at the End. I thought Alice would seem like a huge snore in comparison. But lo and behold, as soon as he was done, he was asking for that last chapter. So that was a bit more encouraging.

Still, it's a far cry from anything useful I can use. And while I love my friends who are the best friends I've ever had and I completely understand that they all have lives and not necessarily the time to give to my story, it still disheartens me a little to not be able to glean any feedback from them since they're all intelligent, well read people.

But one must keep moving forward if one can. I currently have a beta reader who's been proofreading my "fan projects" that has so graciously agreed to assist me and I'm looking into begging a few other people I've met over the net who I know to be intelligent and useful when it comes to these kind of things.

So I'm just going to keep working on getting the kinks out of that. While I wait for people to send me critiques, I'm already working on two, longer novels for older readers. And I will talk about them in another post. I'm certainly done for tonight.

Steps to a great story continued

Okay, so now you have all the tools you need to start your masterpiece. You are ready to write. Here are continuing steps to ensure your story will succeed.

Step #2: Get yourself a title. I don't care what it is. It doesn't even need to reflect anything involving the story whatsoever. The title is so you can mention it while in company and sound important. "Well, I finished ten more pages of Chairs on Mars today." And people will wonder if they're out of the loop when they have no idea what you are talking about. Then you know something they don't. How important are you?

Step #3: Put some people in there. Like three. Maybe four, if you're feeling adventurous. But two is definitely not enough.

Step #4: Make them do stuff. And make them do it until the end of the story. Also, they should say things. And there should be bears.

Step #5: The story should have a moral. People loved being tricked into learning things they should already know like 'War is bad'. And 'Don't leave broken eggs in the refrigerator'.

Step #6: End it with a twist. No one likes to be able to predict the outcome. Killing off all the characters suddenly with a nuclear bomb or asteroid usually does the trick. Because, after all, your characters will have been doing stuff until the end. And that is what they should be doing.

Getting Down to Business

Wow, so I don't use this blog. At all. Mostly because my life is extremely boring and I have nothing to write about. Here is an attempt to change.

About using the blog. Sadly, I think my life will still be as boring.

But lately, I've really been wanting to get serious about writing something I could actually hope to publish some day. I was thinking if I took some time to document my progress and set some goals I could keep myself motivated and have something fun to look back on as projects get finished.

In theory.

So here we go.

Step #1. Every great story that has every been written started with one thing:

CUTE STATIONARY!

This is my idea book. It currently houses all story titles scheduled to be worked on and their summaries. It is also possibly upside down in this picture.




With preparation like this, how can I lose? They better just get a movie contract ready for me right now.