Clearly...

I am not very good at blogging.

To be fair, though, I've had two relatives die within less than six weeks, I've had short stories due for my fic class, and I've been trying to get to the gym more. I don't even have the energy to blog about what's going on in my life, because it's (a) depressing, (b) boring, or (c) both.

I'm finished with chapter nine of deAngelis... sort of. I decided, after finishing revising the ninth chapter, that this book has got to be written in third person. It just has to. Jim Butcher and Kim Harrison do really well with first-person narratives, but I just haven't figured out how to do it, yet. My main characters are always full of spark and life and personality, but the supporting "cast", if you will, of my novels just isn't doing what I need it to do, and that's because I'm spending more time with my main character than I really need to be. So it's back to chapter one and changing everything to third. This should only put me a couple of weeks behind schedule, although I can tell you right now I'm not going to have the thing done by May 1st.

(Also, speaking of Jim Butcher, for those of you who haven't read Changes yet - don't be afraid! I know you may have heard some bad things, and while it is definitely going to rock you in ways you may not want to be rocked, the fact of the matter is that Jim isn't doing the things he did in Changes just to screw with us. He's a wonderful writer, and whatever you think he's screwed up, trust him - he's going to remedy it in one way or another. I mean, seriously, remember the out-of-the-blue romance with Anastasia Luccio that all of us were kind of like huhwaitwhat about? Yeah. He was doing it on purpose and there was a reason behind it, and we found that out after a while. So yeah. Calm the flip down, haters.)

I seem to have gained a few more pounds since my last post (sitting at 170 now), but I'm fully committing to my new workout regime, and while I'm not watching what I eat, I'm definitely more aware of it. My sister turned me on to this site called www.caloriecount.com, which is helping a lot both with being able to visualize what I'm doing and encouraging me to be more active in my daily life. It's only been one week since I started this new regime, but I'm determined to make this the one that counts. Yes!

Now for some wonderful internet finds!

I've been craving sushi for a loooong time now, and especially cupcakes (since I've cut down on sweets in my diet... but not entirely cut them out!), so these wonderful little things just made me all giggly on the inside. I will definitely have to try these over the summer! I've never worked with fondant before, but it shouldn't be that hard... should it?

This guy kind of rocks out loud. For those of us who can't WAIIIIIT for some of the films-based-on-comics to come out, this guy is friggin' awesome. All of these are "fanedit" trailers, with scenes, soundtracks, and music spliced together from different movies to make a "trailer" for an upcoming film. The guy has talent, and while clearly they are not professionally done, it is difficult not to try and watch them all in one sitting.

Also, I really really really want this lady to make my next birthday cake. I mean seriously. Hmm. I seem to be thinking about sweets a lot more today than usual.

And, for the last Cool Internet Thing of the day, I just have to point out that I must have one of these.

Did I mention that Adam made me the best shirt ever? It says "Team Edward", but has the blood sigil or whatever on it that you see all over the place on Fullmetal Alchemist. So clearly I am referring to Edward Elric.

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Otaku: A Love Story

Okay, so that part where I said that I was gonna go to bed? I lied.

Instead, I tried to make my speakers work on my computer, which they won't, so instead I started making a Writer's Notebook, a place where I can jot down ideas like character names, novel titles, things I want/need to read, novel ideas, etc.

And I came up with an idea for a new novel. Something to keep me from getting burnt out on deAngelis, which is awesome, because I really just need to step away from it for a while. There are a couple of people who will be pissed that I'm deciding to put it on hiatus, but the fact of the matter is that I care about deAngelis too much to let myself get sick of it. I want to finish it, and get it published, and if I work on it so much I want to puke, that's not going to happen.

So, I'm starting something new, something fun, something that I haven't been stressing out over since I started college.

Instead, I'm going to try my hand at literary fiction. I take a fiction writing workshop class that is all based around short literary fiction, and my prof says that I'm ready to be published. Also, I need something that isn't so depressing and dark. Let's face it, that's what all of my fantasy/sci-fi is.

Image via Wikipedia

This new novel currently has a working title of Otaku: A Love Story, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Mainly I'm just going to be writing a story about two people trying to forge some sort of relationship. One of them, the chick, is relatively mainstream about her fandoms. The other guy, though, is an "otaku". Maybe I'm using the word wrong, but essentially he's a huge anime and manga fanboy. Alek told me the other day that his obsession with certain anime characters probably caused him to spend more time in his room watching anime and reading manga and going to cons than learning how to relate and deal with real-life girls, and that's apparently why he doesn't have a girlfriend. I decided I wanted to write a book about it.

I've already put a couple of posts up on message boards asking anime and manga fans (preferably men, but women are okay, too!) to volunteer to fill out a questionnaire that I'm going to construct, or to (preferably) agree to a Skype interview. We'll see how that goes.

I'm pretty excited about all of this! I can't wait to get started!

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Last Morning at Home

After staying up until 3am to watch a ridiculous amount of Fruits Basket, which is, embarrassingly, my guilty pleasure among anime, I managed to drag myself out of bed six hours later, since I knew I needed to get a jump on packing and asking my stepmom if she would pleeeease write out a check for 300 bucks or something so that I could buy my textbooks for school. After getting an answer of "of course!" from her, I promptly made a cup of tea (earl grey), and plopped down in front of my computer to read my feeds and to blog.

Anyone who has read any of my fiction would be more than a little confused if they found out that I've spent a ridiculous amount of time watching Fruits Basket and d'awwwing over the characters. Let's be honest - it's very shojo. Very. And my choice of anime to-date has generally been things like Deathnote, Full Metal Panic!, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and FLCL. I did watch Blood + for a while, but there were a lot of "everything is my fault" and people not expressing their feelings (which I guess is the thing in Japan, but still, half the conflict could have been avoided if people would just fucking TALK to each other), and three episodes away from the end I finally gave up and just started watching Law & Order: SVU. About as shojo as I really get is Kino's Journey, which really isn't that shojo at all. Okay, yes, part of me is something of a hopeless romantic - or something - but I think really what appeals to me most about Fruits Basket is the whole concept of all of these guys being protective of her, and not just because half of them are in love with her.

From the time I was six years old, I desperately wanted an older brother. I'm the oldest of three girls, and while I've always been kind of a take-charge-and-get-it-done sort of girl, even from that age, I wanted someone strong to care about me, too. Or something. At any rate, if ever I form a relationship with a male, it tends to be on the level of family. My best friend Alek and I are... special. As time goes by and I relate stories of our gallivantings, I'm sure you'll come to see that our relationship is a bit past "just friends" but quite below "lovers" and hanging out somewhere in between, which I've decided to dub "family." Luckily (I guess?) I don't really have that many close relationships with anybody, so really the only people I actually give more than two damns about are Adam, Alek, and Colt. Everyone else has pissed me off at some point. (Not that Adam hasn't pissed me off, but I'm actually, you know, engaged to him, so he gets a little more tolerance than other people.)

So really, Fruits Basket has me more or less hooked for that reason. Also, I like cats.

But enough about anime! I have other things to talk about this morning besides anime!

Cool Thing: apparently some divers found some computer thing on a shipwreck from 150 B.C. I know that completely fails to explain it, or even convey how awesome it is, so just go read the freaking article.

Next order of business...

I like movies. A lot. I also like my fandoms... a lot. And there are some pretty awesome movies coming out in the next couple of years that I'm probably going to pee my pants over at least once.

From Paris With Love looks pretty awesome, even though I am definitely not a fan of John Travolta ever since he went L. Ron Hubbard-style batshit crazy, and the last movie of his that I enjoyed was Michael. However this movie just looks ridiculously fun. Of course, I could be suffering from action-withdrawal, given that I've been more or less drowning in shojo for the last week. At any rate, the NOT WORK SAFE trailer looks awesome, and I have a lot of faith in the director... I really liked Taken. Also, John Travolta with his shaved head, goatee, and big earring looks a lot like my cousin Jon, whom I'm particularly close to. Also, so far the characters seem relatively similar.


NOTE: Imagine my uncontrollable giggling when Adam saw the poster for this in the theater and thought it was a James Bond movie. I, who have only seen the new Casino Royale, had to explain to him, who has watched every single one multiple times with his father as quality time, that the movie he was thinking of was From Russia with Love.

NOTE 2: I really can't mention James Bond without mention Prince Philip, either. This man makes me laugh, but aside from that, I actually admire his ability to say whatever is on his mind. He isn't malicious about it, and really there's nothing wrong with what he says... it's just kind of shocking that the husband of, you know, Queen Elizabeth would say the things he says, in public.

Moving on...

Kick-Ass just looks cute, is really all I have to say about that. I love superhero films - I'm a Marvel girl at heart - and one of my first loves was Mystery Men (although that may have possibly been helped by the fact that I had a crush on Kel Mitchell... also people say I remind them a lot of Janeane Garofalo in her stand-up...). Nicolas Cage is generally pretty good, and Mark Strong is still on that aforementioned Top Ten List of mine. See the also NOT WORK SAFE trailer here.

Clash of the Titans looks epic, which may be its downfall. As long as they get rid of that stupid owl from the original movie, I'll be happy, but I'd be ever so pleased if Sam Worthington turns out to be a better actor than he proved to be in Avatar. At any rate, Liam Neeson rocks my freaking world. Also, supplemental music by Massive Attack? That's gonna be pretty cool, too.

Daybreakers looked vaguely interesting, although I'm pretty sick of the vampire genre right now. Most I just have a huge crush on Willem Defoe, and Ethan Hawke was amazing in Gattaca way back when.

I can't say I'm nearly as excited about Iron Man 2 as I was about the first one, but then again, that could just be because the trailer wasn't put together nearly as well as the first movie. I would still totally do Robert Downey Jr., let alone Anthony Stark. Robin Hood looks vaguely stupid, but I'll wait for a new trailer before I make any decisions, and even though I am very afraid of Disney and Jerry Bruchkeimer butchering it, I am still pretty stoked for the Prince of Persia movie that's coming out in May. Last summer I picked up Rival Swords (or whatever it's called) for the PSP and still haven't gotten past the second-to-last boss. Let's face it, my PSP is, in my hands, an MP3 player that also happens to play games, and the last time I beat a game, it was Blazing Dragons on the Sega Saturn. Hell, it took me two and a half years to get my main toon on WoW to level 60. My guild bestie, Boom, says that I'm possibly the most casual gamer he has ever met, and by casual he means "almost dead."

Speaking of Blazing Dragons, I really wish I had the cash to see this movie...

Enough of that, I guess I should get a shower and then actually start packing. Writing this has taken a good hour out of my day and, let's face it, I actually would like to get to school. :-)

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