Experimentation....

So. As of late, I have been experementing a great deal with varios types of art... okay... digital art. ;)

I figured a lot of things about using my photoshop program and I am very proud of these...


This is the first one I tried. It is my character Eliot Hampton, who I actually like quite a lot.

This is my friend's character, Kay, who has a newfound obsession with evening dresses.

And this is another friend's character Melody Hinojosa, who loves band. I failed and didn't finish the flute, but other then that it looks good, I think. :)
(Also, I looked at about a million photo refrences and still managed to get the number of figers right. Oh, woe is me. :P)


And I've also been practicing *cough* writing *cough* romance. Yes, ROMANCE. Am I turning into some kind of angsty romantic teenager? Please tell me no. PLEASE.

Brief update...

Well, here at ye olde chicken housee (okay, that was random) we have already begun putting up christmas decorations. (Apparantly, one of the things about living in a B&B is that you put up lights and trees and stuff Thanksgiving night.)

Anyways, just like always, I did the lights on our tree, which took me a full three hours and was not, by any stretch of the imagination, easy. What's more, I'm short enough thatI had to get up on one of the kitchen stools to reach the top. Still, it looks gorgeous, and I am right pleased with my work.


Anyways, regarding NaNoWriMo, I do not remember if I already annouced this, but I finished my novel! Since I still had 15,000 words left, I've been working steadily on short stories and other novels I've started. :)

Also, I worked on my characters for a group I'm in. Above is a drawing I did of my character Eliot Hampton, who is quite possibly my most egomaniac character of all time.

And now, my friends, I retire. I'm eating chocolate brownies with coffee whipped cream stuff on top. It is incredibly good. Be jealous, please. ;)

19,875 words later...

Well, my dears, I have finished my NaNoWriMo novel. This is actually a very not-good thing, because I'm only a little over halfway to my 35,000 word goal at 19,875 words. I don't know what I'm gonna write now, but I just have to make my goal.


And this is totally unrelated... but did you know that Pixar is coming out with a new movie? I am thrilled, quite honestly. :)
Here's the trailer. (Click!)

Art and Photo Dump

Hey people!! Here's a very expansive dump of stuff... mostly pictures of me goofing off with makeup. :)
Be warned: I actually feature in all of these photos, excluding the drawings. XD

First... me with blue makeup. Not my best picture. :P

On to the next picture! I'll start by saying that I did this particular makeup job in the middle of summer. It was over a hundred degrees up where I was doing it, and I was HOT HOT HOT!!

Here's me again, wearing the "liney" makeup.

And again. I did the lighting better this time.

Close-up on the eye.

Me being serious again. D:

And finally me, wearing a creepy expression. I was very releived to finally be done with my photo-taking-ness.


And now, some drawings: here's my character Sylvia Peters dressing up as her friend Jake Thomson:

And there's Jake Thomson, who she was dressing up as. This is a kind of old drawing of him. XD

My character Phoebe talking to her friend/half-brother, Trent. (I didn't finish this one... grr multiple light sourses!)

My character Jillian North impersonating the Coca-Cola bear.

My characters (from left to right): Meredith Chandler, Malcolm Davies, Phoebe Adams (again), and Jillian North (again), this time wearing their fall attires. Thanks Aurelia for helping me color Mal! :)


Okay, back to photos...

My creepy hand numero uno. I did this during school last year because, let's face it, school can be boring. Afterwards, I had random people grabbing my hand and staring at it. XD

Creepy hand again.

HOMECOMING!! (I think.) Anyways, my friend Calvin invited me to a school dance and I had a lot of fun. I think I looked pretty good, too, considering the fact that that day I'd been working in our old house all day, and only one hour before it was time to leave, I had to take a shower and dig all my clothes out of boxes. I didn't even know what I was going to wear. :P

Oh, another picture. These were Calvin's pretty awesome friends. And me.

a poem

wooded hill
edged on all sides with
black iron fence
crumbling
gravestones recording
the lives and deaths
of men
one, from France
Germany
McCall, Ireland
here lies an ambassador
from Mississipi,
here, a baby
Camille
strange how old
this earth smells

The joys of fire.

Yesterday we went over to our friend's house, where we partyed for no reason over fish tacos (those things are yummier then they sound) and pecans, which we gathered fresh from the back yard ten smashed with wrenches. We also sat and poked a fire with sticks, which was seriously fun. And we listened to Calvin play guitar. And we also read the funnies before we fed them to the flames.

All in all, a very satisfactory evening. Except it started to rain, so then Calvin had to drag a hose out and spray it into the fire chimney thing, so we all got really wet while trying to put the fire out. And it also washed away all the beautiful smiley faces I'd drawn with my charred stick.

Oh, well. :)

Only 1 hour, 37 minutes....

I will very shortly be writing my novel. This means that at the current moment, I am panicing and gulping large amounts of apple juice. (we ran out of tea and milk.) I have come to the conclusion that I don't get out enough.

On the bright side, my looming novel-writing-dom has caused me to complete numorous frenzied novel-related stuff. Above is the cover for my novel, which is going to be a mystery set in Colonial Williamsburg. I had a tiny idea of what I intended the cover to look like, so I went ahead and made it, despite my woeful lack of a title.

Anyway, have fun and good luck this November! :D

8:14:8:21

Do you happen to know what this title means? Well, here it is; that strange string of numbers means that there are only 8 days, 14 hours, 8 minutes, and 21 seconds until November begins.

And it also means that there are only 8:14:8:21 until NaNoWriMo begins.

On the BRIGHT SIDE, I finished the outline for my story, which means I actually have a working road map for this novel. That's more than I can say for my novel last year: I spent all year studying instead of writing a workable outline. This year, I mostly skipped researching and just went straight to the outlining stage. Since it's a mystery, I just killed off all the victims with the plants I learned about in botnay.


So, YAY. MAYBE I'll live! And win! But for now... I think I'll just go crazy with stress. :P

New house, old friends, and near-death experiences.

I might just start by announcing that this is the coolest place I've ever lived in.
It's like... Williamsburg-y!

Not to mention we already have friends living here, which is a definite plus.


So, my friend Calvin got a school project that involves collecting, like, forty different kinds of leaves from various trees. I happen to love to go places, so when my mom offered to go with them, she invited me too, and we jumped in the car and drove to this AWESOME camping park. We wandered around, looking for trees, and we came across this river with a very large rock cliff on the far side. Being unable to not climb the side of that glorious cliff (there were trees at the top) we ran across the river, teetering uncertainly on unstable rocks. Then, we climbed up the cliff, which wouldn't have been too hard except for the fact that we were laden down with various branches and tree books and a pair of scissors, and also Mommy's car keys.

We finally made it to the top and the first thing I saw was a nice little trail winding down the side of the cliff. It even had cute little "trail" signs. Good grief.

And of course, we found the elusive "Pin Oak" tree, which was the whole reason we climbed up there anyways. The only problem? It was hanging off the side of the cliff. So naturally, Calvin climbed up it, with me squeaking, "Um, Calvin? You know that's super dangerous, right?" and stuff like that. And he continued climbing up that tree and yelled back, "Will you speak at my funeral?"
And I was like, "Uh, sure?"
And then he yelled "Tell everyone I died in the name of science!"
And then the branch he was hanging on to snapped.

BUT HE DIDN'T DIE, which is the important thing. And we got the leaves, which is also very very good. So all's well that ends well, I guess.

NEW HOUSE.

We have arrived at our new house, which, after much deliberation, I have decided to call the Rooster House online. :) (We actually have a little wooden rooster that we documented parts of our move with... I'll have them up eventually.)

Having never seen the Rooster House--or even our new town-- in person before today, I was shocked and thrilled by the awesomeness of it all. It's so pretty! There's landscaping and old, cool buildings and even trees! Having previously lived in a place who didn't believe in such things, I can fully appreciate them now. :D

Our friends from our old town came over and helped us pack and fed us hamburgers and fries and cheesecake, and two of our friends from the new town (they were the ones who lured us here) also came over and helped with the packing and the unpacking. This awesome coach dude and all of the teenage runners he was coaching, the two nice people who sold us the Rooster House, and the aforementioned friends were all totally awesome helping us unpack everything, and wonder of all wonders, nothing appears to be broken. :D

So, all-in-all, it was a pretty awesome day. :)

Talk about a near-death experience.

About an hour or so ago, at 12:30 at night (or in the early hours of the morning, if you look at it the right way) we arrived home after spending the day fixing up the little house to rent. Insanely tired, we all got into our pajamas, then brushed our teeth, then our house got hit by a car.

The person driving ran their car through a stop sign, then through a gas line thingy (the city's been doing a lot of weird stuff), then went through our fence, then through the small tree in our front yard, and finally crashed into our house. There was like this huge crash. The entire house shook, making Kievan fall out of bed and Allie and Ben to absolutely panic.

Fast forward about two and a half minutes. Kiki, Allie, Ben, A.C., William, the dog and I were crammed on to our next door neighbor's screened porch, waiting for our house to explode because of the gas leak.

Nevertheless, we've all survived and are now going to bed. It's scary to think that if we'd arrived home ten minutes later, we would've all been run over by a car, though.

Very scetchy scetch dump...

Sadly, in the past month or so I have been in a drawing slump. I simply am not interested in drawing at the moment. **shrug**

Actually, come to think of it, that's not one-hundred percent true. I have been very interested in drawing dogs lately. Here's two of them...



This is Sammy the Papillon, and Pergo, the Great Dane. Sammy is my sister's character Zevi's pet dog, and Pergo is my character Dan's dog. Lately I've been having lots of fun with Pergo, although I don't really know why. (And just so you know, she was named after the harlequin Great Dane in the PERGO flooring commercials.)


On the other hand, besides drawing Great Danes, Boxers, Papillons, Akita mixes and Black Labs, I've hardly drawn anything at all. I did color a few people that I drew a while ago but naver finished, like this STUNNING picture of Toby and Tina:




(it actually isn't finished yet, either...) but I actually find myself unable to finish simple sketches like this one, which features the LaRue household:



Or this one, featuring my character Alex in his natural habitat.






In other words, I am a very sad artist. On the bright side, here's one drawing that I now love dearly. I finally finished it after months and months (it seemed) of doodling on it. It's the bunk-bed belonging to a pair of twins. :)

Moving and Other Adventures

Welcome to the Twilight Zone! I've always wanted to say that. :)


Anyways, I'll cut to the chase now... and I know you're all wondering if we're actually moving this time. The answer is probably yes. We've packed tons of junk, thrown away MORE junk, and have about six days before we toss everything into a truck and drive off to our new place.


That's not even it, though. Not only are we leaving the 'Boro in (possibly) less than a week, Kievan had gashed her foot open. She was chasing the chickens (who we're leaving behind--we already miss them and we haven't even left yet!!) and she was barefoot (like ALWAYS.) and she sliced a huginormous cut in her foot. She limped inside.

Let's just say I was pretty alarmed when I walked into the kitchen and found a bloody footprint trail leading to the bathroom.

ANYWAYS, long story short, she got sent to the doctor, had her foot stitched back together again, and is fully alive. She's hopping around the place on one foot, which makes her sound like she's trying to go through the floor.


Well, hopefully we'll be alive and well tomorrow! Until then... goodbye.

Undoubtedly one of the more magical places on the Internet...

Well? What is it? GOOGLE MAPS, "Where you can become an instant stalker!"

Just kidding. But visit once, and you may find yourself succumbing to my favorite pastime: visiting strange mystic lands like these:

Sydney, Australia. Kind of boring compared to some other places, but cool nonetheless.


London, England, where there are taverns named after Shakespeare and flowers in window-boxes are the apparent height of house decor fashion.


Chicago, Illinois, where they have trees, skyscrapers, AND cool lampposts! Not to mention the Bean... *couch, cough* I mean Cloud Gate! (you can see it in the picture.)


Or even Venice, Italy. I mean, seriously! These people have doors right on the river! Like, you open the door, and water splashes on your foot. It's mind-boggling.



So, there you go. Have fun getting your mind blown by the obvious magicalness of Google Maps. :D

Who Is Zuri Sophilia?

Well? Who is she?
... just one of my greatest allies and most trusted associates.

And now, this genius has made herself a blog! Her fans have eagerly awaited each of her posts (so far there have been three) and now I encourage you to visit and join her vast cloud of raving followers. My only word of advice? Read quickly and don't linger long... if you become too tiresome to Zuri, she'll heartlessly spray you with virtual cheese from a can.

Here's the link: Who Is Zuri Sophilia?

Prepare yourself for a shock.

I have finally driven a car.
And I didn't run into anything.
I drove five miles per hour.
And I didn't run into anything.
(I still panicked, though.)

Still. Wow.

Kievan thinks it's crazy that I'm almost sixteen, and I could've gotten my permit when I turned fourteen, and I've only just now ever touched the steering wheel of a car. Now people are asking when I'll get my license.

My answer (for now): Maybe when I turn forty.

NaNoWriMo.... because I'm sure you want to read about my concerns again!

Well... this November I'd pretty much decided I was going to write a murder mystery. But now... I'm not so sure. I tend to work faster when I've only got the beginning and the end and maybe the middle point mapped out.... and over plotting is actually what killed me last year. Unfortunately, mysteries require a ton of plotting. And I'm really just not quite up to it.

So I've got two choices:

a.) go back to square 1 OR
b.) continue plotting this novel and hope that my brain will be able to handle it. (even though I'm about 99% sure I can't handle it. My brain is slow.)

Sadly, I've got a lot of fun characters planned for this story. I recycled a lot of my old ones that I'd forgotten about (Elsie, Vermeer, and M.D. the Nurse, just to name a few!) and I think I'd have a lot of fun playing with them and re-discovering their quirks. On the other hand, Mysteries are mostly plot-driven, and I pretty much always have more fun while working on a character-driven story.

Therefore, I think I'mma gonna go with option A. Or... at least explore it. If I can't decide on another plot to use, then I might just end up working with my original mystery. At any rate, I'm not just gonna box all my dusty old characters up and stick 'em back in the dusty section of my scull. I bet I can come up with some ways to use them all, regardless of what I ultimately end up doing...

Magical

Last night A.C. and I caught a jar of fireflies. At our house in the Boro, fireflies are elusive and there aren't that many of them. Firefly catching is a very fruitless sport. Here on Chigger Hill with our Nana and Grampy, however, the fireflies are everywhere.

I had so much fun. I haven't caught a firefly since my visit to Amish Country a few years ago, and I'd forgotten how much fun it could be. And the best part, by far, was A.C. trailing behind me, carrying the jar of bugs and whining, "Chloooooeeeeee, you're a bad catcher. I need more firebugs!!"

I missed her a lot.


I spent today sitting in the back of the Gator (it's like a cross between a four-wheeler, a pickup truck, and a golf-cart) while each of my siblings showed me their impressive driving skills. (And yes, this includes A.C.) Beowulf the Hero, who is not on house arrest anymore, rode in the back with me, and seemed quite pleasantly surprised by the gust of wind that flew in his face when he hung his head out the side. (he looked a bit like "Bolt" from that Disney movie...)

I've only driven the Gator once, and that was yesterday. It was actually kind of fun, but I still don't plan to get a license anytime soon, despite the fact that every member of my family is practically begging me on bended knee.


NOW! For ze drawings!!!
.... I don't have any. :P

That DOESN'T mean I haven't been drawing, though! Au contraire, I've drawn a lot of faces, sketched the Hephaestus Cabin photo for a group project I'm doing, humanized my wolf, Homer (I gave him a samurai ponytail, a keyboard, and a suit.... he looked strange, to say the least) and also Jeff and Tunie, my sister's and my twin poodles, and that's only a couple of my projects. Unfortunately, there is no scanner at this house, and no scanner means that I am sad. :( Luckily, my Nana stocked up on Ritz crackers and chocolate milk before I came, and my siblings are present, so I've kind of forgotten about being sad, actually. XD


Last but not least..... I ate breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks!! I'M GOING TO LIIIIVVVVEEEEE! Yay!

Red Scarves...

What is it with my strange obsession with red scarves lately? It's literally pretty much the only thing I can think of. I even felt the need to write a haiku about one:

a red, threadbare scarf
wrapped once, twice, three times around;
smells like cinnamon

Seriously, though, what is it with my bizarre fixation? I don't even particularly like red scarves! (Purple ones are my favorite ;D)

Anyway, I suppose I shall simply have to live with my obsession for now, and get back to drawing my latest book cover which, by-the-way, features a red scarf.

Updates!

Well, I haven't posted in a while! Hello, people of earth.

I'll start by saying that my lovely, amazing, beautiful, perfect, awesome, gorgeous, kind, sweet, innocent and in all other words just really cool siblings, whom I happen to really miss, are STILL with my Nana and Grampy. I literally have not talked to any of them for over a month, simply because they are having such a good time that they can't find the time to talk to me.

Anyways, here's a picture of Ben getting his tooth pulled out. (it was super loose, he couldn't eat, and it really needed to come out.) I miss him (and all his teeth) so much. :(


Moving on.

Okay, so guess what I did last Wednesday? I went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with Kievan and Greta! It was amazing and wonderful and stuff! I'm really really depressed now though, because when you think about it, this really IS the end of Harry Potter. It's like, the end of a great era. It's like, signaling the end of thousands of teenagers' childhood. It's like... the grand finale to a brilliant story.

Yeah. Kind of like that. If you allow for poetic liberties. (Now be careful, the next part has a spoiler warning. I think.)

Anyways, my favorite parts about the movie was... like.... everything. I didn't particularly like the parts where the movie strayed from the books... but those parts were far and few between. I cried pretty much the entire time, which would have been embarrassing except that everybody, including my sister Kievan (who has a heart made of lead when it comes to sad movies), cried at at least two parts. (Except my friend Greta, who actually doesn't cry at movies. Lucky.) After the Prince's Tale (those of you know know Harry Potter well already know what I'm talking about) I dried all my tears, blew my nose, and mentally decided not to cry anymore. I'd actually decided not to cry after that part hours before, and had mentally prepared myself for every sad aspect of the entire movie. (Or so I thought.) So, anyways, there I was, totally ready to not cry any more, when Harry took the snitch out of his pocket, and it said, "I open at the close."

Well, I immediately started bawling. Somehow I'd forgotten the whole resurrection stone part of the story! And you know, that's just about the saddest part of the whole entire story! I'd totally forgotten to mentally prepare myself for the most tear-wrenching scene in the whole movie. I'm seriously insane. But that part was probably my favorite part. :)


Anyways, good night and everything. I am off to watch Star Trek! (At 10:23 at night.)