All was well.

EDITED: I remembered that I’d seen another movie.

Last book I finished reading: Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? by Louise Rennison. It was okay, although Georgia, the main character, is so stupid that she’s unable to realize which guy she really likes…

Writing Progress

The Way Wars Are Won

Word count: 61 966

Excerpt:

Maeve never thought she’d miss the sensation of blushing—cheeks burning, like a fire beneath her skin, heart pounding, head dizzy. She closed her eyes. “But I miss being human.” William’s hand still touched her cheek, and his right arm was still wrapped about her waist. If she were human, her body would react in so many different ways to his touch. “You’re wrong about things feeling better. I felt more when I was human.”

Kenna’s Choice

Ideas for new, improved plot. Might add a POV. Will be awesome. Too lazy to start working on it though, because I’d have to go through every chapter and write a mini-summary for the Plotting Spreadsheet. Argh!

Word count is same. No excerpt.

Movies (as per usual, bold=better than the others)

Webs

Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

Vampire Bats

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Day of the Dead

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2: Wow… I laughed, I cried, I felt nauseous (because of the tension). Maybe on second viewing I’ll find plenty of things wrong with it, but, having seen it just once, I’m 98% happy with it. The 2% mainly stems from the epilogue. It was way too short to my liking. The Battle of Hogwarts was very epic.

Whip It

Satan’s School for Girls

The Usual Suspects: Amazingly, the twist wasn’t spoiled for me. (If you know me, this is quite an achievement–I’ll usually spoil it myself…)

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Huge blog post of craziness

The second week of NaNoWriMo 2010

• Monday 8th: 516
• Tuesday 9th: 1002
• Wednesday 10th: 305
• Thursday 11th: 1719
• Friday 12th: 103
• Saturday 13th: 162
• Sunday 14th: 939

Total for week 2:

Current NaNoWriMo total:

Total for novel:

Total NaNo-fail, I know. A mix of school, being sick, having homework and plain ol’ procrastinating got in the way of writing. Also: a problem in chapter 27 that I haven’t been able to overcome. Last day I wrote: Wednesday the 17th of November. And thar was 79 words. FAIL.

But tomorrow morning, I might get up an hour early and write. And I’ve done some homework in advance. *GASP!* I almost NEVER do that.

Movies

• Bandslam: MUCH better than I expected. What I expected was a cliche-ridden film. I expected the nerdy boy to fall for the bitchy girl and not realize that the quiet outcast was THE ONE for him. I expected stereotypical characters and stupid insults. Guess what? There was only one cliche (that I noticed anyway) throughout the entire movie. And it was a small one. Most surprising part? Almost crying. This movie really seemed like a typical Disney movie. And later, I looked it up on IMDB. Turns out they advertised it by comparing it to High School Musical. That’s exactly what I thought it was going to be like. But that was based on the DVD cover alone. Okay, I’m rambling…
  
• A Sound of Thunder: Not a fantastic, brilliant, genius movie, but it was entertaining. And I love that whole “survival” aspect. If you ignore the obvious plot holes, it’s entertaining. Or you can make fun of them, like my sister and I did.
• Tout ce qui brille: French movie. Sad/funny. The thing I hated the most was seeing this one character pretend to be someone else, all to fit it with rich people. Rich people who didn’t even give a shit about their own kids. And the other main character who DOESN’T do that still pissed me off with some of the things she did. Do not recommend.
  
• The Condemned: Kinda like “A Sound of Thunder”: not brilliant, but it’s entertaining. As long as you don’t mind violence that is.
  
• Nicotina: Mexican movie. Very similar to Pulp Fiction–characters, dialogue, plot. I liked it.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1): Being a HUGE HP fan, I SHOULD write a whole post about it, but it’s late. For now I’ll say this: HP7 part 1 surprised me. It was dark, sad, funny, and a 1000 times better than the previous 6 movies. I only hated one scene in the movie: when Ron explains how he found Harry and Hermione, with the ball of light from the deluminator, I found it cheesy/corny/sentimental. Totally unlike Ron. And the music didn’t help either. Apart from that scene, I am VERY pleased with it. And is it just me or was Daniel Radcliffe much funnier in this movie?
• Simone: Okay, I’m too tired to think of anything to say about this movie. Average. Some funny moments. Definitely the worst out of the 7 movies on this list of movies I’ve recently seen. You’ll be fine if you don’t see this.

Books (this is gonna be short–I have to go to bed SOON)

• Alpha by Rachel Vincent: Last book in Shifter series. Loved it. Cried. Averagely happy with ending. Want more.
• Break by Hannah Moskowitz: Devoured it in one day. I was half-happy with the ending (though a lot of people HATED it), the writing could have been better, but she was only 17 or so at time of writing it. Her blog and the excerpts of her new novels she posts show that her writing has improved. (She’s now 19.) I intend to buy all of her books.
• Fallout by Ellen Hopkins: Last book in trilogy. Loved it. Also devoured it. Very happy. (I own ALL of Ellen Hopkins’ books.)
• Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead: While I enjoyed reading it, and I definitely want to read the rest of the books in the series, I don’t desperately NEED the next book NOW. Very funny, though. Very interesting to see what writers look/are like to non-writers. Made for some funny scenes.
• Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles: Some of the writing/dialogue was corny (like some of Brittany’s inner monologue, or her dialogue. She actually says “I’m completely grossed out!”–seriously?), but I tried to ignore the writing and focus on the story. That was the interesting part. Alex (Mexican) and Brittany (rich white girl) fall in love. At first they hate it each other. Hated that Alex and Brittany judged each other based on where they came from–they both knew better. Brittany knew people thought she was a rich bitch with a perfect life and body and boyfriend–and she knew those people were wrong. Alex knew people thought he was a bad guy, involved in drugs and murder–and he knew those people were wrong. And yet what do they do? They judge each other. Shouldn’t they know better?

Other

• School: My grades range from average to good to very good. Only one is really bad. Overall, I’m happy (and surprised) with my grades.
• Health: My eyesight has declined a little (yes, I wear glasses–I’m nearsighted) so I have to go to the ophthalmologist the 7th of December; I have lordosis (google it) which means I have to go swimming twice a week and see a physical therapist once or twice a week; I have light aquagenic urticaria, but that’s old news (we found OxyHives–homeopathic and it works). Man, I am NOT a very healthy person… The two fingers I burned the other week are healing though. (Why the look of surprise? Did I not mention I burned two fingers last week? I’m pretty sure I mentioned it on Twitter.)

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Denial, how I hate thee…

So tomorrow I go back to school, and I’m freaking out. I don’t what class I’m in, who’s in my class and if I’ll know anyone who’s in my class. I haven’t finished the summer reading, or started writing my report on my two-week work experience. I also haven’t reached 55 000 words in “The Way Wars Are Won”, which I wanted to do by the end of August.

I also STILL haven’t finished editing chapter 3 of “Kenna’s Choice” or finished reading “Lolita”.

AND I start at 8.30, not 10, meaning I have to wake up at 6.30 a.m. That’s in less than 8 hours people. *gulp* Then again, I never get enough sleep during the school year…

Anyway…

Earlier this week, I truly panicked and abandoned my computer for two days, during which I did nothing by waste time in front of the TV, in total denial of my homework. I also stopped writing.

But tomorrow, after school, I will start reading “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (here’s hoping it’s better than “Dubliners” which is, in my opinion, badly written, boring and each short story never goes anywhere) and do some writing.

Word Count from the 1st of August to today:

1st    Sunday    391
2nd    Monday    65
3rd    Tuesday    114
4th    Wednesday    528
5th    Thursday    33
6th    Friday    672
7th    Saturday    0
8th    Sunday    0
9th    Monday    0
10th    Tuesday    0
11th    Wednesday    846
12th    Thursday    808
13th    Friday    0
14th    Saturday    678
15th    Sunday    859
16th    Monday    160
17th    Tuesday    1405
18th    Wednesday    245
19th    Thursday    1426
20th    Friday    277
21st    Saturday    0
22nd    Sunday    15
23rd    Monday    0
24th    Tuesday    0
25th    Wednesday    1080
26th    Thursday    0
27th    Friday    0
28th    Saturday    61
29th    Sunday    0
30th    Monday    0
31st    Tuesday    0
1st    Wednesday    120
2nd    Thursday    0

Hopefully, September will be a better month. “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.” And I will be busy–homework, school, social life (maybe), reading, writing, editing, possibly critiquing for my critique partner as well as blogging and tweeting.

Movies I’ve seen:

• Mad Max
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
• Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome [I LOVE all three movies, especially the second]
• Cocoon (meh)
• The Shining (AMAZING)

And I think that’s it…

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Kayleigh fails at writing

I don’t know why but lately, well, look at the word count:

18th    Wednesday    245
19th    Thursday    1426
20th    Friday    277
21st    Saturday    0
22nd    Sunday    15
23rd    Monday    0
24th    Tuesday    0
25th    Wednesday   314

As for editing Kenna’s Choice… It started out fairly well, but I haven’t made any changes since… Sunday? I’m not actually sure. All I know is I’ve been wasting time on the internet these past few days, feeling tired and doing very little reading. The very little reading=a few pages of Lolita and the 91-page play “Our Country’s Good” for school.

Yeah. Maybe it’s the heat getting to me, and the lack of sleep. Or lack of leaving the house.

Sometime soon, we’re going to see Ondine, which I think will be good for me. Then maybe I should see my friends.

Words behind on goal for TWWAW: 2279

Depressing thing is that some writer write more than that in one day. I guess I could catch up if I had one or two fantastic writing days.

Zombies vs Unicorns giveaway

Jackson Pearce will give away an arc of Zombies vs Unicorns when she reaches 2500 followers on twitter. Even if you don’t want the arc, go follow her. She’s funny, nice and an amazing writer.

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“Spike follows the smell of Willow and we follow the fairly ripe smell of Spike.”

The Wolfman 2010: Meh. I started watching it a week or two ago and couldn’t get into it. I thought it was because I was tired. Now that I finally finished watching it, I know it wasn’t. So why couldn’t I get into it? It’s not a good movie. The make-up/special effects are really well done, but overall it’s nothing special. I don’t recommend it.

Wrong Turn: I’d already seen it years ago, but I had forgotten a lot about it, the major thing being it’s actually a good horror movie. The characters aren’t too stupid and eventually they realize what they have to do to survive. I recommend it.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End: Because it’s a sequel, it’s obviously worse than the first and way gorier. But it’s still not too bad.

Writing

Playing with Darts

Wednesday I wrote a measly 245 words, but that’s because I was drained from the previous day’s writing. But yesterday I caught up and wrote…

1426 words!

Deadline: 15th of October

In other news, I have found the perfect title for “Playing with Darts”. Ready?

The Way Wars Are Won

It’s from a line in season 7 of Buffy. Good thing I did that marathon, huh?

Kenna’s Choice

I’ve given myself until June to get Kenna’s Choice in shape to start querying. Yes, that means I’m going to try and get it published. It’s weird—I had no intention of getting it published. I thought that my first novel-length story wouldn’t be good enough, but my critique partner said some very good things about it, and I have a list of things to delete (subplot of Kenna’s aunt) and things to expand (Kenna’s sister’s storyline).

Word count for Draft 2:

Goals

• Have edited chapters 1–9 by the end of August.
• Have 55 035 words for TWWAW

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