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.)

Dude! NaNoWriMo!

It's always about the middle of July that I start thinking, "Wow, why do I do this kind of thing???"

It's the middle of July, and I am so thinking, "Dude! Why do I do thins kind of thing???"

Honestly.... I don't know. But I did finally figure out what I'm gonna write about! It's gonna be a murder mystery set in the present day on an ocean tanker. (yeah, I know that those things are no longer in use. A girl can dream, right?) I made up about half the characters from scratch, but a large portion of them are actually remakes of characters I've had in the past. Some of them are actually personifications of some of my stuffed animals. XD

Anyways, last night I suddenly realized that the number twelve kept cropping up everywhere. There are twelve suspects, the main character is twelve years old, and he's also got two extra fingers, meaning he's got twelve fingers total. (that's gonna be an important clue. ;)) There are a couple more instances, but I just thought that was really weird. :P

So anyways, I'm off to planning!! After all, there are only 113 days and 9 hours until it all begins!!

365 Haikus

Do you know how long it takes to write 365 haikus??? It takes forever!!
I'm not joking. I love writing them, but this is just crazy. I'm not even sure I have a whole 100 of them yet, 'cause I write them everywhere. Seriously... in my literature textbook, on my many blogs, in random notebooks, and a few actually where they're supposed to be.

The hardest thing about writing haikus is actually sitting down and writing them, though. Ideas for my haikus are also hard to come by. Luckily, I've written so many that syllable counting and idea summing-up isn't hard at all.

And now, to end the rant, my favorite one I've written this week:

trouble is lurking
sitting on her chest at night
prodding, whispering...

And also a link to my 100 Themes blog (where I'm writing 100 haikus.)
"A Hundred Haikus"

Motivation

So this morning I woke up, still super tired and ready to crumble into a million pieces. My mother walked through the room with a cup of her "motivation" (a.k.a. Pioneer Woman's Iced Coffee).

About one hour later, I was still ultra-groggy, very sore, and a little bit grouchy. So I sit at my mother's desk and randomly take a sip of her still icy coffee. Then I took another. And another.

Now, about twenty minutes later, I am SUPER MOTIVATED to do anything and everything, and I've already accomplished more in these twenty minutes than I did the entire rest of the morning. Who knew coffee could make me so hyper, right?

(coffee picture belongs to the Pioneer Woman. I stoled it.)

So now, with my mother's coffee in hand, I am gonna go draw some yearbook pictures! Yay for me! ;)

4rth of July!!

Well, it is Independence Day here in the United States of America!! To me, this means a multitude of things:

1. It's time to grab the little red, white, and blue flags!!



2. It's time to finish drawing my holiday drawing (I'm almost done already... I'll post it soon.)



3. It's the birthday of one of my great friends, Zuri S. Snicket (no, that's not her real name...). I made her a card that I'm really, really proud of. :D



4. Tomorrow is the birthday of two of my characters, Jean and Dan LaRue. (twins. ;)) Happy almost your birthday, imaginary people!!!



5. The library is closed. (Cue the wailing and lamenting. I love the library.)



6. The time is ripe to watch that great old Sci-Fi movie, titled "Independence Day !" It used to come on television every 4rth of July, and sort of became a tradition, kind of like watching "Chicken Run" on Thanksgiving. ;)

Updates!

First of all: I like Italy rubber bands much better than Korea rubber bands. That probably makes no sense, but just know that Korea is much more painful than Italy.

Now, for something that is comprehensible: I no longer have a job!! I didn't quit but I didn't exactly get fired... they're just currently in a financial crunch and so can not pay me. As a consequence, I've entirely stopped buying stuff, except for chocolate milk.

And finally, I just found out that my father didn't know the seven continents. He was convinced Australia was a part of Asia. (He can name every country in Asia, though... try it, it's hard!)

Scetch Dump!!

Since I have been all alone with nobody except my mother, two toddler siblings, and WALL-E to keep me company, I've spent a huge amount of time doodling. Here are a few of my more sketchy sketches... I may finish some of them someday. ;)


My favorite on this page is the papillon with the huge ears. :)



I drew a page of some of the "Things that make me say D:". On the list is... errr.... a lot of random stuff.


I-trip. Featuring clumsy Jake Thomson. ;)


A random lady on the left... the personification of my (are you ready for this?) Webkinz Black Friesian Horse, MD. I had fun with her. :P


A new group of characters, the Magee kids. Simon, Paige, Ian, and Theo. Created mostly because I wanted characters with those names. ;)


The four main characters in one of my weirder stories. (left to right, Dion Dickens, Isaac Reese, Variel Wexler, and King Akenhamen III)


I don't know if I've mentioned this... but I've been really really bored. So, while watching Fantasia for the eleventh time, I drew a centaur. :|


One of my favorite fairy tale characters ever.... Queen Cat (from the White Cat)!! (fairy tale here: CLICK.)


My character Malcolm "Mal" Davies. (Athena)

My other character Mallory "Mal" Chandler. (Ares) (I changed her name to Meredith, because her best friend was the other Mal, but I still think of her as Mal Chandler, unfortunately.)




My character Jillian North (Hermes) in her summer outfits.



Yet ANOTHER character... this one's Sonali. (Aphrodite)


And finally, two more characters. Zach (Apollo) and Alice (Morpheus). Originally Alice's name was going to be "Hester", because I personally love the name, (I think it's so pretty,) but Kievan seemed to think it's quite hideous, as did my baby name book (they classified it under "So Far Out They'll Probably Always Be Out). :P Lately I've been holding a poll about whether or not people like the name, and it's gotten a pretty lukewarm response. I still love it, though. :)


So there you go! As you can tell, I've been mindlessly doodling a lot this week.

And, before I go, I'd just like to say that our cat had kittens! There are two of them, and I named them "Sushi" and "the Happy Cookie Crumb." It's been fun telling people what I named them and seeing their reactions. :D Supposedly Allie wants to change the Happy Cookie Crumb's name to "Sharkfin" but when she told Mommy over the phone, Mother doubtfully told her that personally, she preferred "the Happy Cookie Crumb" to anything that had to do with sharks. I'm gonna be taking pictures of Sushi and the Crumb to send to my vacationing siblings, so soon you'll get to see them too. ;)

And then Chloe ran around screaming her head off....

... because that is what Chloe does when she goes crazy. And trust me, Chloe has gone crazy.

Talking about yourself in third person is just one of the many many symptoms of insanity, so I'll stop that not. You may be wondering what has driven me over the edge, though, so I'll elaborate.

1. Allie and Ben and Kiki have gone away to stay with Nana, leaving me to amuse myself. I am very lonely.
2. I've been sleeping on a couch for a month and I'm suffering from sleep deprivation.
3. Most importantly....... NANOWRIMO is in SIX MONTHS!! I'm waaayyy overreacting, I know, but I feel it's very important for me to win this year! I have to finish my novel!!! Which means i have to have a plot, and characters, and a plan for what I'm gonna do, and the time to do it in.... and AGH!!! DEATH! INSANITY! I'm going crazy already!!
   
   

Also.... I fell in love with Pixar's WALL-E. It's so cool the way there's, like, NO dialogue, but it gets the point across so well! Also, I found out that they used a slinky to make the sound of EVE's laser gun firing. Who would have thought, right?

Well, there you go. My (immediate) life in a nutshell.

Flip-Flops

Today my younger sisters and I retreated to the mall (another air-conditioned place) and did our normal things. This means that we went to Target and read books, then we went to the bookstore and read books, then, we ate candy. Luckily, we also did something entirely abnormal: shoe shopping. I hate shoe shopping, but I kind of needed some new flip-flops, and this store had some nice ones for super cheap, and I had my tips from working at the restaurant, so after about fifteen minutes of fruitless and slightly nerve-wracking searching, we finally bought a pair. Why was this lucky? Well, see, as we were leaving Target (in case you were wondering, we were reading books) Kievan's shoe strap snapped, leaving her foot totally shoe-less. We had scissors in my purse, so we snipped off the tags on my new shoes and VIOLA! We were safe!

Anyways, there is the random news for the day. :)

Hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk!

Well, okay. Maybe not THAT hot.

Still, it happens to be very very hot where I live, which is made more obvious by the fact that we've apparently stopped using air-conditioning in our house. Last night, it actually reached 80 degrees inside! Needless to say, we all look forward to lunchtime, when we drive (in our air-conditioned car) over to our favorite fully air-conditioned Asian restaurant.



Happy June, anyway! The second was A.C.'s birthday... she got a store-bought chocolate creme pie (it's too hot to use the oven to make it ourselves) and she had a lot of fun smearing it all over herself. AHH! Four-year-olds...

That's about all, I do believe.

Home Sweet Home

Well, folks, we're finally home! Beowulf and Poppy were really glad to see us, and we were so happy to see them too. We were also happy to see Silva the cat (who was entirely indifferent) and Malfoy the Chicken. (The other four chickens were picked up by the humane society... maybe I'll tell you more about that later.)

Anyway, the longest and most boring reunion was the one between me and the scanner. I had at least half a dozen pictures to scan, and it wasn't exactly exciting. Anyway, here are a few of the pictures I thought I'd upload now.


My little knight guy I draw everywhere, and Susan, my pink dragon. I did this as practice with my Prismacolor markers.... I love those things! I seem to be using them for backgrounds a lot.



And these are my strange twisty wingless gravity-defying reptilian creatures. I think they're dragons. I also drew them with my Prismas, and I think they turned out pretty much okay. :D



I drew this forever and a day ago, but never scanned it. It's the design for my version of the beast from "Beauty and the Beast". In my version, the beast is named Charlie. But enough on that.



I redrew my character Jillian, and she turned out a lot better this time around, I think. I've improved a lot!


And finally, a nice purple dog thing. I was bored and my Prismacolors were just sitting there, so I happily colored a random creature with them.

If you're wondering why I'm bouncing around in ecstasy, this is it.

My mother just asked if my book was really as good as I apparently thought it was. She said, and I quote,

"I don't remember you gushing about any book this much."

The fact is.... yes. The book I just read was supremely, wonderfully, amazingly awesome and glorious and magnificent and... everything else. What is it you ask? It is the third book in a fairly recent series, titled "Penderwicks at Point Mouette".

My family loves the Penderwicks. I got the second book the day it came out in hardback (and promptly spilled a cherry slushie over it... random fact of the second.) and we all listened to the first book on CD multiple times. We all have a different favorite character; Kievan and Allie like feisty Skye, my mother and I prefer Jeffery, my dad likes decoding Mr. Penderwick's bizarre ramblings in Latin. And we all miraculously agree that it's an awesome book.

Anyway, there's my rant on the Penderwick series. (by Jeanne Birdsall, you gotta give the woman credit) I recommend you read it and then tell me what you thought about it now, before I explode. ;)

Update about the post this morning...

So, you may have noticed that this morning I had a bad toothache. It has now warped into a toothache/dizzy spell, and we called the dentist about it. He says he doesn't know what it is, but he doesn't think we should worry about it.

Anyhoo, I finished my cousin's friend's portrait! She requested a portrait of herself as a Greek Goddess sitting on the moon like the Dreamworks kid. It took forever for some reason-probably the fact that I hate drawing stars-but it turned out really pretty. I used a mechanical pencil, an eraser, a sheet of drawing paper, an old library notice, manga art pens, Prismacolor art markers, colored pencils, and sparkley gel pens. (Maybe some crayons too... I don't remember.)

I'm gonna try to scan it, but I don't know if I can or not. :(

I also made myself a new headband! I was bored and the beads were just sitting there, looking unloved. Naturally, I had to make myself something. I think it turned out pretty. :D

Ouch!

Yesterday I woke up with a terrible multiple-tooth toothache (as in the top right hand side of my mouth, the bottom right side of my mouth, the roof of my mouth, and my head all ached like crazy.) I was taking medicine all day, and then in the middle of the night last night I woke up and had to take more medicine, and couldn't go back to sleep until it kicked in. This morning I'm about to fall over from fatigue, but I can't go back to sleep because my toothache is still here. AHHHHHH!

NOOOOO!!!!

So I'm about to make a very sad confession. I memorized all the TV shows I'm watching and we've all been lying around, watching the finales. Yes. I repent!

Anyways, last night was the season finale of CASTLE and naturally we had to watch that, even though it started at 10:00, thanks to the time change. There were some funny parts, but mostly it was just serious, which is kinda abnormal for a CASTLE episode. At the end I literally screamed, "NOOOOOO!" (Hence the title) Right after that, I yelled the more characteristic "Dun dun dun duuuunnnnnn," while playing my imaginary organ. ;)

ANYWAYS, on to less boring subjects. I've noticed that my entire family totally loves HGTV, which, when you think about it, is really strange. Normal nine-and-seven-year-old kids generally don't like to spend their time watching people gardening, you know? Also, I realized that they all refuse to eat sandwiches with bread, any Jelly Belly thats dominant color happens to be white.

Also, I'm really missing Beowulf and my scanner. Especially Beowulf. (Cue the sigh...)

And there you go. This week's vacation in a nutshell. Yay!

Waves!!

Here are "Chloe's Top Five Tips for Surviving the Beach Experience."

1. Remember to apply sun lotion. Also, make sure that it isn't twenty years old; sun lotion, like everything else, has an expiration date.
2. Wear a bathing suit and bring an extra change of clothes, even if its cold and windy and you have no intention of getting wet. (Kids+Beach=Wet. This is an axiom.)
3. Bring food. Chips and animal crackers are best, and Capri-Sun is awesome, since there are no cups. I'm serious. Food is mucho de importante.
4. Flip-flops are the best shes to wear, as they will inevitably get ultra sandy and you'll have to clean them up before you get back into the car at the end of the day. Flip-flops=good. Tennis shoes=bad.
5. This is the most important tip. Literally. Are you ready for it? Can you handle the news? Here it is... it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY that you scream at the top of your lungs every time something mildly entertaining happens. I am not joking. This is a must for every person on the beach. It will greatly heighten your sense of amazingness and accomplishment at the end of the day!!

All in all, that pretty much sums up my knowledge of the beach. It may amuse you to know that today, I was the only person on the entire beach screaming my head off. :|