Thursday, November 30, 2006

Reprieve of sorts

No, paper not done but he extended it till Monday night. And both finals are take homes. And unless it's to go to the hospitals, I don't think I'm leaving home this weekend.

Update on the medical as of yesterday because I haven't seen anyone in the family today: Uncle Scott responded well to the steroids and was talking coherently. He has the same type of cancer that killed Savanna. Mom's worried because a) no cancer doctor yet (I'm not about to try to spell that Latin, I can say it though) and b) they haven't shown us the CAT scan and MRI results. I'm probably going to stop in after work tomorrow night.

MaMa Ree (my grandmother) just had a bleeding ulcer and expected to come home today. Mom sent her sister-in-law to take care of that. I left my cell phone number at my parents' house in case they ended up taking my mother to Jackson (where the state mental hospital is) because her mother came home now. No one called so I guess North Oaks Hospital has kept her longer.

That's all I know right now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

So you know what's going on updated

Uncle Keith has gone to my aunt's house with 24-hour care provided by the VA.

Grandmother is having a scope done sometime today. She had 3 pints of blood put in her Monday, and looked a lot better yesterday.

Doctors are saying the mass is a tumor and that means cancer. And that his stroke 3 years ago may have been cancer too. He's only 41 years old. Of course all Mom can think about is Savanna.

I was sent back to work. And I have a 1000 word essay due on Faulkner tomorrow, and finals next week.

The docotrs is going to start removing Chad's stitches in 3 weeks, starting the week before Christmas.

Yeah, I think that's everything for now. I need to write about incest now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

So you guys know what is going on

My mother's oldest brother Keith was admitted to North Oaks hospital Saturday. By Sunday he was diagnoised with terminal liver, stomach, and intestinal cancer. Monday morning, my mother's mother who lives with my parents had blood in her stools and needed to be admitted to the hospital. Not quite as unexpected, since we were talking about sending her in for CAT scans and observation.

What was unexpected in my mother's baby brother Scott was found unconscious by his girlfriend and airlifted to Baton Rouge. The trauma center and ER at Our Lady of the Lake found a mass in his brain. At this point they won't commit to a tumor or infection or a stroke, but "tumor" was the first word a nurse told my mother when she reached him and she went all too peices.

It was midnight before a bed opened in ICU to put Uncle Scott in. And I don't know what's going to happen today.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Weather and a new plan

Cold! 32 degrees F in November is unreal. But the house is warm.

I worked a little on creating Zy's reports on the murders. But it was after class and I didn't get very far. I've also placed needing to create a star map with systems and hyperspace lanes in the back of my head. I'm not ready to draw that with my awful drawing skills.

I should be working on homework and just can't face any more Faulkner. Maybe tomorrow.

Found an empty half-inch binder to expand Zy's Novel working notes into. (As opposed to the rest of the notes that fill a two-inch binder.) And got annoyed with the outline available all over again while packing it yesterday. I need to play with the printout options for yWriter, but I forgot to do it after class and trying to figure out how much Zy knows at this point with seven victims.

Aliens: Make me much happier than Faulkner. Have that out to work on during slow time. So far, I'm developing the describe-the-attributes sheet. Should look familiar to all roleplayers. Yeah, I'm going slow on filling it out, but with 20 aliens at last count, I don't want to have to repeatedly turn back to the book.

Submissions: Finished flagging Page After Page two nights ago, and reread her chapter on submissions and being published. And I want to change my strategy. Current strategy: Tell myself to send out two submissions a month and send nothing out. You can see why it needs work.

I'm thinking of combining Heather Sellars tactics with the one she talks about in the exercise for the chapter. Sellars says she send everything she has out twice a year, which corresponds to the ends of semesters (she is a creative writing professor). The exercise says to follow five days of writing with a marketing day to research markets. I like the idea of sending everything out once you have a list of markets for each work, and I like the idea of taking a day to research.

So let's pick a day in December and June to send out a pile of manuscripts: the 8th (it's my lucky number). What needs to go out in December: The Front Porch, the Rose, Father's Love, Dreams of the Dead, the Blue Man on the Porch, Covenant of the Restless, and Hitchhiking Highwayman. After those are in the mail, it's time to start on a new short story for June. As well as keep working on Zy's Novel. Just occured to me that I can only use the last three in my thesis project that will be soon approaching, maybe along with the "Gingerbread Girl." A vacuum of creative project seems to exist for me now.

The second correlation is to follow five writing working days with a marketing day. Always easier said than done but I want a schedule. I like schedules. I'm thinkg of using Saturday and going to SLU's periodical room. Maybe heavy on the journal side, but I think I have a chance of finding samples to read. Provided I go between 9am and 4pm and starting Dec 1st because they're closed this Saturday because of happy gobble, gobble day.

*Snort* I need to finish my edits and post "Let Us Give Thanks" pretty damn soon. I forgot my seasons in relation with the story. That will be tonight once I get some work on aliens done today.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

OJ book deal back to a not book deal again

GalleyCat report

I know, I know. Everybody's sick of it already. Last word, unless OJ does go to a vanity publisher as so many are encouraging him to do.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Monday, November 20, 2006

What Tarot card are you?


You are The Moon


Hope, expectation, Bright promises.


The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.


The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.


What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.



Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Good words from J.A. Konrath

Your Daily Motivational

And some more news from Galley Cat on OJ

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Friday, November 17, 2006

Big day for book-news

Boycott OJ's book. Boycott OJ's TV special about the book.

Whether he's guilty on innocent doesn't really feature into the equation. All I can keep thinking is "Gee, she's dead and he's STILL abusing her."

For better summations see these articles at GalleyCat: Point, Counterpoint in OJ Book Deal Reactions, Booksellers React, Adapt to OJ Book Deal, and OJ Book Deal: A Tale of Two Statements.

Happier news: "He's A Pirate - Tiesto Remix" from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest soundtrack doesn't really sound piratey--though there are spots were the use the overall movie them--but it will be fun to dance to. Don't bother if you hate techno. Okay, pulling out the sword mid beat is kind of piratey.

Story work: Took a note while I was reading last night of something I had thought of during the writing conference back in June. Checked my notes for it. Missing of course, which peeved me to no end because I know I had typed it into yWriter. Then I remembered the savings problems I had with the program on the laptop. *Sigh* Luckily, I did remember the detail upon which hangs a damn good deal of the plot, but it serves as a highlighter for my need some sort of system to keep this stuff organizied in. What particular method that organization is going to be, I don't yet. Wanted to find a new folder to separate draft stuff from the notes and apparantly all folders are in use right now. Added to the aggravation. I'm fighting the urge to just turn all my notes into confetti because that will be worse after the momentary aggravated insanity wears off.

Still working on aliens when I can. We had a coworker with a seizure and taken to the hospital. And trying to do our section's Thanksgiving party today. As well as still having to do the paying job work. Yeah, all that before 10am.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Day off

Done with all school assignments, so I've decided to take a day off of narrative and work on background stuff. I'm going to flesh out aliens.

Why? I'm getting to the part where the racketeers are playing a bigger role before they croak. I need to know more than "person in an alien suit and what the alien suit looks like," which is the technique I have been mostly using. That won't fly with the science fiction crowd. The second reason is I think I've been giving the forensics a short shrift mainly to avoid the different biologies. While I don't want to stumble into hard science fiction, I do want to make sure everything gels. Third reason, the blue skinned people who I initially conceived of as filling the place that humans fill in most other science fiction space stories (Star Wars and Star Trek for example) need to be named. I'm tired of them not having a name. Fourth reason, I'm embarrassed by the section I just finished writing, where the aliens are barely described as well as not named.

So aliens. If the scheduled outage doesn't interfere, I may have something to put on Discipline Under Fire.

8:57 pm update: The paying job conspired to make me do most of this at home along with rereading Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt. The first bit is on planet building though not to the same level as World Building by Stephen L. Gillett. I decied to go with it because it has been onver a year since I read this book, and I take the reader to other worlds. Sketching worlds out now for later fleshing out might not be so bad.

So I what I spent a couple of hours tonight doing was combing the manuscript for alien races. I'm up to 16 named alien species plus three described that I don't think I've named yet. Man, I love my P'kins inserts! IF I managed to finish this thing and get a series published and they make me take them out; I'm so doing her guidebook for the series in her voice with her title.

Moving back to current problems, I copied what I had in manuscript to the new Aliens file, but haven't progressed further than that. And now Mustard is jumping in front of the monitor to tell me to get off the computer. Mez, what I'll probably end up doing is post the alien stuff as I finish a species to Discipline Under Fire and turn the comments on for that post so you can tell me where I'm being really unscientific. So I'm off to bed, with book in tow to at least finish the chapter and jot down the specifics that I will then translate to questions for the file.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Well, I'm done with classes this week at least

Thursday night class is canceled due to professor's confrence, so we moved discussion time to optional Tuesday night. 5 of us showed up. :p So now I just have to do the online stuff and then done with this week. I'll probably end up starting the final paper this week for the Faulkner class. And I need to find out what the expectations are for the third project in History of the Book.

Writing energy has consequently been sucked into school energy for the past couple of days. Today's a good day for getting back on track; icky weather. It's been bad since 3am. That's when I set the alarm because I needed to wash my hair, and it's been taking me an hour to get out of bed. The alarm went off and I was wide awake, not the typical stumbling fog that has been the morning routine for the past few weeks.

...

I hate daylight savings time. Though more factually, I hate the shifts between it and regular time that make my body's sleep cycle screwy. So now what? Force my body to get used to 4am (which it thinks is 5 and hey, you're not going to work SLEEP for 10 hours now!) or keep getting up at 3am and have an extra hour to do something with?

After Holly Lisle's recommendation: I think I want it: WriteItNow. Especially as I'm trying to build a zillion alien races for Zy's novel. Actually I'm pretty sure it's only 12 at this point but it seems like a whole lot more when you start losing notes.

So I'm speeding reading through Page After Page again to flag what I consider important points with the sticky Post-It plastic flags. And when I reread the part on focus; it raised a red flag that I only answered when I abandoned my daily scribble in notebook for blog trawl today.

I've lost my ability to focus without the big honking deadline flashing "danger Will Robinson!" over me.

I'm not so young any more, and I want to have a productive writing career, and the last minute PANIC sessions to get everything done are killing me slowly. I need to rediscover the focus writing grove. She has some suggested exercises that I'm going to start tonight. Right now, I need to struggle with this dreaded exposition in the text. I'm beginning to wish my bad guy wasn't so good at killing people.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Monday, November 13, 2006

Notes for today

Actually, some of this is what I jotted down Thursday and didn't get to typing. Still relevant.

Remember: Zy needs to study Dolbest reports while waiting to report to the Chief.

It's actually moving. It has never been the words, but making myself write the words. Yes, it's okay to suck in this draft. Just get to the end without skipping the major points already outlined and worry about naming aliens later. Just get to "The End" so you can take stock of your writing career and see what you need to be doing for your writing career.

Why is it every time my office is in crazy disarray, my writing life feels the same? Yes, I know external reflecting and influencing the internal. Doesn't change the fact that I need to clean the office and file some written stuff properly. Find the stuff to end out and clean the desk to deal with new work.

Also in this imaginary purge, I need to go over my budget. I hate budgets, mental garbage from growing up poor. I always feel like I'm flunking life when my finances get out of whack. It's a gut reaction that I have trouble dealing with every now and then.

And the holidays: what will happen on the Lafayette side of things is presented to me carved in stone. Oh so that it completely disregards my family's traditions doesn't occur to anyone but me (and my mother when I tell her). And I'm still in hot water for having fucked up last year's. At this point, I don't know which side is more open to compromise and running to Kai's in Texas is looking like a better and better idea. I have two weeks, I just have to believe like Henslowe.

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Philip Henslowe was one of the historical characters in Shakespeare in Love, played by Geoffrey Rush. I forgot to cite my quote.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Just in case anyone is interested

Marvel 1602 is an eight part mini-series collected into one hardback. In it, Neil Gaiman starts the Age of Marvels 400 years early, and at the opening of the story, the world is in danger because it has started early. The Marvel characters interact with historical characters such as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, and Virginia Dare.

The covers of each part become a full page panel. They’re done in a style called scratchboard, which looks like colorized woodcuts. The first real panel is an establishing shot of Dr. Strange walking down a castle corridor. The time and place header is enclosed in tan box with torn edges to resemble a manuscript. The other boxes are overheard conversation between Queen Elizabeth and Sir Nicholas Fury, who are introduced by sight before the end of the page. Most of these panels are action-to-action transitions with a few establishing panels and large panels of tight focus mixed in to add intensity.

The next location and a new set of characters are introduced via a page of aspect-to-aspect panels. The page is turned and you are given the full page panel of the scene given in just pieces before. Motion in one panel shown by phantom figures is used with Matthew Murdoch exclusively. Breaking-the-fourth-wall panels don’t start being used until Part Seven when the Grand Inquisitor reveals himself as Magneto. The use of those increases as the book gets closer to the climax. The artwork is done in a realistic style, almost like each panel is a painting, and supports the 1602 feeling for the entire book.


My week 12 assignment with a lot of Scott McCloud technical language.

The teachers' workshop was a success even though we only had 6 teachers show up. But as Chad pointed out, they were all excited about the Faire and they were all from schools that could easily bring 200 students. We had more sign up, but when you offer anything for free, they tend to decide at the last minutes it's not worth the effort We'll probably have another workshop in February.

Full week this week and I have to get back into the groove. And then next week is Thanksgiving and Chad at my house which will promptly unhinge it again. Oh well.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

How much done?

Everything's finished but the page in Zy's Novel. I did write some, just not a full page. And then I went back to reading Faulkner (big, long words don't scare me but was the period key broken on your typewriter, man!), started to pull my hair out, and turned to coloring.

And since no one's heard from London in about a year, I don't mind break my "artist sees it first" rule.


Still not taupe, which means I better hold off on Stoker pictures until I buy the right shade. And take the color pencil with me to the store. I thought up a nifty symbolic reason for the green--the camo colored uniforms that make no sense--they're fighting to turn Mars green again. But I like to be sensible and not get shot at so green very small bit of my uniform. I'm not sure why the pants are rolled up either, maybe I'm in Chicago and not the desert? Or maybe inside the base to piss Carbine or who ever my commanding officer is off?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Civic Duty done

Just in case anyone in America reads my blog, GO VOTE! Your country depends on it.

Now, I'm done with voting and town errands, but no coloring orgies until I've finished this list:
  • daily chores

  • daily ammount to stay on top of homework

  • one full page in Zy's Novel

  • find my office again uder the stacks of reference books

  • hook up printer scanner to computer

Now burning CDs runs concurrent with all this.

And looking around, I didn't do all my town errands. I forgot about taking the laser toner cartridge for recycling and the library books. :p So coloring orgy may get interrupted by that. But everything else, I so totally got to get done.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Monday, November 06, 2006

Assignment is done

No readings, I just had to type up an essay explaining why I did what I did. Now finished.

Oh and I did a goofy thing and added the totals of the Guide and Workbook together. Reason, well, when I came up with my 40,000 word goal they were both together. Separating became a good idea sometime in August. (It's still a good idea BTW.) Got 43,000 words and some change I can't remember. Now I just have to burn 52 CDs tomorrow without any hiccups.

And it's been a LONG time since I colored anything. Once I started printing pics out that I had been saving and making the stacks divided by artist in the living room, I decided I need to add it back in as stress relief. Haven't really worked out the details on that other than "color when you feel like tearing you hair out" or "color when you finish a project."

Anyways, after all that hype about an orgy and I only got one picture finished.



The new mousey version of me from BlackStorm done entirely in Prismacolor color pencils. I think I ended up crispier tan than I intended that color to be. So before I start on anybody else, I need to go shopping for more browns--really need taupe--and metallics--they must have hid silver from me at the store. I'm hoping to find those separate pencils in Hammond some where; I just don't when I'm going to have time to shop for them.

So I will be working on Zy's Novel today, whew! In other writing news, I want to create a vampire. He's actually been popping up in my head for a bit. I think it's probably due to the Hellsing fan-comic orgy I just experienced, but I might be able to work the vampire and his ghoul into my secret project.

So the vampire that's haunting my head wants to be different from the stereotypical vampire. Not inhuman monster; not sauve, sexy man, he wants to be a bumbler. He doesn't much like being a vampire and living forever and watching everyone he knows and loves dies. But he has a strength too, thinking the best way of getting rid of his undead life is to kill off his amoral/immoral sire. And his ghoul really didn't want to be his ghoul, he slipped her some of his blood so she could save both their asses. And he loves his ghoul even though she's exasperated by him most of the time. He offers to turn her because she'd make a much better vampire than he does, but she wants kids and grandkids if she could ever pick up a guy to settle down with while she's stuck with a whimpy vampire master and his sire that could kill them both.

I toyed with the vampire as being a friend of Allie's and Allie as his ghoul. I loved the dynamic, but he needs something beyond fanfiction and a ghoul who is fixtated on the hypothetical because of a lack of pulse yet there's still a possibility of something deeper between them. Then I thought about my special project, which concerns a world of vampires that I keep feeling wishy-washy over because it is so stereotypical. The world as I have envisioned to this point is very circular, dealing with one family of vampires and how it is connected with a family of vampire hunters--narrow focus. And then I got the idea of throwing the bumbling vamp and his exasperated ghoul into this world, with his battle against his sire. I think the world has just cracked open.

Now to copy all that and cross post it in Discipline.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Sunday, November 05, 2006

FINISHED!

Out of the 74 activities I had planned, I got 34 into the 2007 Workbook. 53 pages, 7930 words. Haven't calculated final time spent on the Educators' Guide project yet.

2007 AMF Educators' Guide Workbook Started with 1945 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Other than looming deadline decisions, my scanner died was the other consideration for what activities went in. Anything needing to be scanned in (like the color your own illuminations) has to wait till next year.

Oh, I can get the pictures off the camera now. I really need to do that.

I still have to double check if I'm done with my homework. I think I'm done on the project part, and the way my brain feels right now, I'm going to have to save any reading for tomorrow. The dead scanner only slows down the coloring orgy a little bit. I actually have a spare. Chad insisted on keeping the 3-in-1 printer, scanner, fax machine that my Dad was getting rid of. He thought he could fix the printing part that had gone wrong. Well, he kept it at my house and I should get it hooked up and tested on Tuesday. Day off for elections. I go vote and I can play with the computer and do house work and do homework and burn CDs of the PDF files and WRITE my fiction!

Yes, my brain is fried and I finished off all the leftover Halloween candy this weekend. Why do you ask?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Saturday, November 04, 2006

2007 Educators' Guide Finished

Under my goal, but I still added 7525 new words and edited a lot more than that. And that original word count counts the Activities section which isn't in the 2007 Educators' Guide. So really I added 9470 new words. It's 102 pages, I added running footers along with the page numbers and actually got the Table of Contents is the right font this time.

2007 AMF Resource Guide Started with 27,709 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Next is to create the Workbook out of the previous Activities Section after I eat lunch.

2007 AMF Educators' Guide Workbook Started with 1945 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Read Free!
The BookWorm

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Friday, November 03, 2006

Oh yeah, it's Friday

You know it's a strange day when you have to remind yourself of that fact.

I'm down to the Medieval Vocabulary section, and figured this morning (after getting up late and in my hurry up and get dressed routine), take the stuff to work and rough out the edits on paper. That way I can put them in tonight and have all day Saturday to pretty up the layout, and combine into one huge file, and work on the Activity workbook. Get it all finished on Saturday and spend the rest of the weekend on a coloring orgy to give the brain a rest. I even figured out where to go buy Prismcolor color pencils at in Baton Rouge. (The page that convinced me.)

And I packed everything I needed but my flash drives. And I neglected to print out the latest version of Medieval Vocabulary. So I have no current record of what I have already changed. So all I've managed to get done is research. :p

I do have some other projects. Pages to do in Zy's Novel. Sticking in small Post-it tabs to pages I have highlighted in Stephen King's On Writing and Page After Page by Heather Sellers. Start reading Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud. That's research on the project that keeps tingling in the back of my brain, which I'm think to use as a carrot for Zy's Novel progress. (Yo brain, work on the novel during the week and I will give you a day off to explore the experimental idea.) Right now, my brain doesn't think I'm serious about it. Can't say that I blame it, but it's been putting me into a jam over deadlines lately.

I'm going to stick and read now, and maybe something will jar loose for Zy's Novel.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Tired, Cranky, and Annoyed

So it's a perfect time to STOP working and do some tallys. I did finish Medieval Life section, though, except for the minor details of getting books and illustrations cited.

Well the monthly total looks awful. To explain: I wrote 3429 words (still not a great number but par for my course) and deleted 2148. Need a better way of tracking edits. So far November's total is 75 deleted words.

I've logged in 59.27 hours on the Educators' Guide since July 17th. Now if I could only make that more consistant.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Zy's Novel

Progress Bar from Writertopia

2007 AMF Resource Guide Started with 27,709 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

New Month, Same Plans

Yes, Virginia, there is no more trick-or-treating in Pumpkin Center. Or alternatively, I need to trim my trees because you can't see my porch light from the road. So now I need to roll willpower checks against the bowl of Reese cups that is in the fridge. Good thing I only bought one bag.

On a double goody note, I learned some new spacing tricks with Microsoft Word with headings and paragraph leading. So now I can make changes to the Educators' Guide that the class suggested. I'll give you that it's not a good layout program for the creation of books, but it's all I have right now. And actually it's surprising me what I'm able to do.

I'm stuck on Medieval Life, having corrected the other four sections' spacing and tweaking pictures. With all the added words for the Food and Cooking threw everything off. I've ended up with one paragraph divided into two columns on the last page and it wouldn't let me put the last picture in the right spot. So I think I'm going to have to start using the tricks I was going to put off so I can get the 45 pages into the rest of the book.

After Medieval Life, I need to finish Medieval Vocabulary (Middle English), make sure the lists--Bibliography and Illustrations--are up to date, tweak the remaining pages--cover, thank you, declarations--and shove it all together and create the table of contents. And then get the Activities Book put together. Luckily it's technically already started; it's just not separated out of last year's book. And I have some new activities I want to put in.

So writing so far hasn't changed, other than deadline clock ticking louder and louder. Homework hasn't changed either, but its deadline clock not as loud. All the same I better get cracking on it.

And all my number stuff is at home, where I'm trying to make the words on the page look pretty and I forget about putting them up. :p Maybe this weekend.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/