Fin

9,724 Words in October. 214,023 words total. 362 word processed pages.

Today I wrote the end of my novel. Again. So anyone who knows me well knows this is not the hardest part. The real celebration can begin once I send it out, which is not until after editing. The job of editing looms before me, a task I've yet to complete without breaking down and rewriting. But since I started this draft when I was 21 and not 10, 12, or 14 my hopes of having produced a viable work of fiction that should only need a few tweaks are far higher. So while I'm not out of the woods yet, this is definitely an important day. A heartfelt thanks to all who have stood beside me and this novel and borne with my obsession all these years.

Also, if you're interested in reading it to help me edit, let me know....

Numa Numa!

I Know What I Want In A Man

Hank is married to the lovely lady featured briefly in this video. But if any single man out there can dance like that with as much unselfconscious joy then he can call me any day.

Long Live Porky!

Here's a picture I took during better days but right now he isn't looking quite the same.

My favorite puffer fish possibly has a parasite along with many of the other fish in the tank. The fish caretakers told us what to do but they think it's a possibility that Porky could die. This makes me really sad because on bad days Porky has always cheered me up. He always has a smile for everyone and I truly hope the medicine does the trick and he can keep on smiling for many years to come.



A video I took last year of Porky at his finest...

September Words

In September I wrote 6383 words. Not as lame as some other school months but certainly a disappointment in comparison to the summer.

Extra Cherie points if you find where else I put up a picture of this tree.

And Tim sent me this great comic from: http://xkcd.com/

RenFest '08!

I love going to RenFest and today I went with a girl I work with and some of her friends and had lots of fun! Above is a picture of what I bought this year. I set aside a certain amount of money to spend at RenFest and I was able to but these pretty earrings. If you know me very well, you know my ears aren't pierced but they're really clever really comfortable clip ons that can be worn in pierced or unpierced ears because it's a wire that holds them on. I've always loved dangly earrings but can't pierce my ears so these make me quite happy.

Here's where the fun begins.

And here you can see my mad skills as an archer. Actually, I only hit the target once. The other 14 arrows were pretty pathetic. But, oh well, I had fun.

This is what happens to bad festival goers. Oh, the tragedy... Actually this was the end of the joust. Unfortunatley, I missed the math (as in before the aftermath...).

There was the Queen.

An owl.

And Captain Jack Sparrow was in attendance.

Goodbye RenFest!

Cherie Cooks!

I don't cook very much and so I'm ridiculously proud of myself when I do. Part of my aversion to cooking comes from my aversion to learning recipes, spending a lot of time on them, and then finding out that I don't like them. So I tend to stick to a small amount of recipes I know I like but I'd gotten rather tired of those. I wanted something vaguely mexican but not the fajitas that I'd normally make. So this is chicken cooked in lemon and lime juice (mostly lime) with some black pepper (wasn't in the mood for any other kind). I didn't put any salt on it at all and it tasted great in my opinion. The sour cream and green onions made it mexican enough for me. Then I just had sides of wild rice and pinto beans.

A New Video On Why Yemen Rocks!

The Name Cherie Needs Your Help!

Hey all. I just posted this picture on babynames.com and I'm the only Cherie picture which is cool. I like being unique. And clearly I'm the best Cherie, so I ought to define the name. It's a bit like having your own entry in the encyclopedia.

But the rating of my name is NOT okay! Two stars and a sliver? Please, go and vote for my name. It deserves at least three stars.

Even More Vlog Updates!

Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox Review (SPOILERS!)



Trickster's Queen Review Part 1 of 2 (SPOILERS)



Trickster's Queen Review Part 2 of 2 (SPOILERS)



What do Wyoming, Montana, and Yemen Have in Common? (Otherwise known as Cherie News)



Response to Phil

New Vlogs: Book Reviews and News!

It's been a long time and I was going to do this last night but found out my batteries were dead so I couldn't. But I managed to do a couple after I got home and before I did more work on my database of death. So here's three new videos! Since I can't edit I just do multiple videos on one focused topic since I can ramble on for quite some time if I talk about random stuff.

So here's the Trickster's Choice review with NO spoilers:



Here it is with spoilers (and also spoilers from Trickster's Queen!)




Below is the Nawat picture I mention in my video. I envision him much better than this but I'm an impatient artist. Still it's vaguely like what I see in my head. I based the picture off the Arab guy in The Mummy since I see Nawat as looking a little like him only younger.


And here's just a random news update. Not real news but Cherie News. I promise you won't learn anything about the world at large.

Okay, maybe it is a little like real news...



Speaking of news my August word count is 9309 in case anyone's interested. I was lazy this month, and I can't really imagine things getting better when school starts, but the story really is nearing the denouement. I just hope it's worth 13 years of my life. No pressure, though. Although, the low word count might be good because the total word count is 195,914. Urk...

My Desktop

The picture on my desktop is something I generally put a lot of thought into because I don't change it a lot. But I have changed it a lot recently, so for those interested, (or maybe just looking for good desktop pics) here's the evolution of my desktop in the past month and some of the thought that went into it. The first picture is the one above that I had up for quite some time ever since I saw the Jane Austen Book Club and fell in love with Grigg (played by Hugh Dancy). I've got several other pictures of him because I went through the movie and took hundreds of screen shots with the aim of using them for desktops (or if they were just really good pictures). I picked this one because I generally like my Desktop to be bright and cheerful and the colors were good and made me feel I was in a comfortable place. But I decided that I didn't want to to have a guy up for reasons that are no longer valid so I may even change it back to a different Grigg pic after my post.


After Grigg I changed it to this which is a lovely Japanese style park I went to in Nantes. It was a good photo I took that didn't make me miss the place too much despite reminding me of its beauty, but it wasn't as sharp as I would have liked, and I felt like a change again, so I went with this:


A very nice shot I got of the Louvre if I do say so myself. It made me feel classy and reminded me of what is, for me, the happiest place on Earth. But while looking through a very different sort of internet art at I Can Haz Cheezeburger I came across this:


It is a hilarious picture but blown up it wasn't as sharp as I would have liked and the contrast with my icons wasn't enough so it made them hard to see. Plus, it was a little too weird going from such high class beauty to lolcats. Much as I love both. So right now I have:


Probably the best picture I've taken of my favorite sculpture in the Louvre, Cupid and Psyche. Aside from the obvious beauty and passion in the form of the sculpture, it's my favorite sculpture because I studied it in art class before going to Paris for the first time, and it wasn't like the Winged Victory or the Venus de Milo that you already expect to see and you really only see to say you've seen them. I was not expecting to see it at all because I didn't know it was in the Louvre (I'd only seen the sculpture in a picture and done a master study of sorts) and it blew me away how moving it was to see in real life. It's also in the most perfect spot by the window so when I first saw it rays of sunlight were on it and it was the most perfect thing. But I like the contrast in this photo and the fact that you can see some of the courtyard outside. Normally I prefer pictures that fit to my desktop but I made an exceptin for this one and just have it centered. The extra black just kind of adds to the ambiance.

July Words

I slacked off this month, so I have a less than impressive 12,641 words for July. However, I am drawing near to the end of the novel which at 186,604 total words is definitely a good thing. The writing at the end is especially difficult, and I'd like to say that's the reason I've written less this month, but in truth I was just too lazy, or perhaps even too legitimately exhausted, a few too many nights to pull off 500 words.

Also this picture is complete whimsy. I only wish I could write my novels by hand, but my hand writing is generally so ugly that it frustrates me to look at it for too long, and I hate retyping things, so I'm pretty much chained to the computer to write. I had one English teacher tell me she envisioned that I wrote in some natural place like under a tree by some body of water I suppose. But at that time I used to write in my cave-like unfinished basement on an old Packard Bell I'd named Greg (because he made "greg, greg, greg" sounds as he ran) with a little figurine of ET dressed as a woman that acted as my muse for unknowable reasons. I suspect this was horribly disillusioning for my teacher.

Now Greg is in a likely permanent retirement and I've no idea where ET went, but I still write at a computer in a less than natural environment, unless you count the organic evolution of the mess in my bedroom. But I'd argue that the environment around you matters less than the one inside your head.

Punishment/Challenges #3-4

I did both of these on my birthday but only because they were actually fun.



The above video is where I interview three guys for Tim's punishment to interview someone I didn't know. It wasn't so bad, though which is why I did it on my birthday. Can you guess which one I thought was cute?

Also I know it cuts off abruptly, but I really just said bye after that and ran away, so you don't miss anything interesting. I'm sure they thought I was some sorority girl being hazed.



This was for Dejah's punishment to go somewhere I've never been.

Trickster's Choice

I'm listening to Trickster's Choice on audio right now which is the follow up to to the Song of the Lioness series. I've only just finished the first CD but so far I like Alianne much more than Alanna and George is awesome as ever.

Below is a spoiler of a part that made me laugh out loud. I'm writing it now rather than wait to finish the book because my memory isn't what it used to be and it was never that good to begin with:


(spoiler in black so it doesn't pop out as much)

Alianne gets captured by pirates and she's going to be sold as a slave. Rather than become an unwilling sex slave, she half starves herself and allows others to beat her so she won't look appealing. Once at the slave market her efforts pay off. NO ONE bids on her! She can't help but be just a bit insulted. They end up giving her away for free in a buy one slave get one free deal!

June Words and the Outdoors

I've written 14,764 words in June and my story is now 173,783 words in total. The characters refused to all spontaneously die at once no matter how I prodded.

In other news Ann Arbor has something of a famous Summer Festival with outdoor concerts and movies and shows. I have been to none of this. Not because I couldn't but because after some soul searching I realized it wouldn't make me happy. Yes, I do need to get out of the house more but I'd rather get out so that I can get into other places. At the age of 22 I've accepted that I'm not an outdoor person. Now, this does not mean I hate the outdoors or that I'll say no to all outdoor activities. But it has to be worth it in my opinion. I have to have a good companion (or companions) or be going somewhere like RenFest to make me feel the time spent being chased by bugs and aggravating my allergies has been worth my time. I was going to go see the aerialists (some kind of Cirque du Soleil type act of gymnasts suspended in the air) but couldn't find anyone else interested and I wasn't personally motivated enough to go by myself. I also just watched the preview and I'm don't really feel bad about missing it. Not that it doesn't look interesting, just that I still feel my time was better spent lazing around. I think it also did me good because my eye twitch seems to have gone for now. I think it's been at least a couple days now so that seems to support the cause simply being overwork.

Anyway if I really want to see something I will go by myself and not worry about that sort of thing. Just like when I spent three days touring just the Louvre and was quite happy not to have anyone else there to complain I was taking too long. So not going is almost always a sign I'm not interested enough to do it myself.

As for the movie I was thinking of going to tonight I just got that same movie on DVD at the grand opening of our new library branch (an event I am glad I went to) so I can now see it in the comfort of my own home.

So there's my psychoanalysis on why I'm a Hobbit.

Extraordinarily Moving Commencement Speech By J.K. Rowling.

While I love the Harry Potter books I had never pegged Jo Rowling as the world's greatest speaker. She always seemed so shy, and she is not the type to enjoy the attention she gets which tends to dull, in her public appearances, the vivacity that we see so much in her writing. I've also always thought of Harry Potter, and its writer, as having a better story than philosophy. Her themes are not bad--they are timeless--but we take timelessness for granted. I have. And even though she is still clearly shy and still clearly part terrified, I was riveted.

I have greatly underestimated her.

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Friends of the Week: Sarah and Dejah

Return of the Videos!

Friends of the Week: Brian and Dejah (you guys get to be at the top this week due to technical difficulties)

But there almost weren't any more videos ever (or at least for some time) for the reason described in the video below:



And finally another video response! But you might not see it in his responses for a bit because he has to approve it (understandably so because I've seen some really questionable things in his responses before he started making them approve only deals). Anyway, video responses are the best way to YouTube fame (or at least reasonable acknowledgment) and I've been meaning to more for some time, but this is the first one in a while. (The other's still in production as it ran too long and I either have to learn how to edit or make a new one.)

Punishment/Challenge #2: Be Sociable

Or, as put in the words of the sweet and lovely Mag:
ask somebody you sort of know (a classmate? somebody in your department?) for lunch/tea/dinner/a walk or whatever. The report doesn't have to be super duper detailed. Just tell us how it went.

This one's more of a challenge since I actually had (and do generally have) a good time being social. I just hadn't gotten around to it recently.

So this Monday Dejah and I went out and got some bubble tea (or rather I had bubble tea and Dejah just had tea). We talked a lot and then we went over to the grad library and looked for an exhibit they said they had but got sidetracked by several shelves of free books they were giving away. I am inspired by a similar remark Dejah made that passing up free books for most people in our field would be like a drug addict passing up crack cocaine.

So the books I have adopted are pictured above. No pics of our nice outing, unfortunately, because I forgot to bring my camera but if you don't believe it happened you can just ask Dejah.

May Words, Weird Dreams, Flowers, and Birthdays

It's time for a story status update! I wrote 14,253 words in May which is pretty good and more than the other months this year by about 4,000 words, but I'm a little disappointed it wasn't at least 15,000 because I definitely feel like I had enough free time this month to write every day. There were just a few days it flat out did not happen. Like yesterday when I passed out at 7pm after staying up about 24 hours.

Anyway, the novel's now 158,751 words. (Why won't it end?! Argh!) And 268 pages on the words processor I'm currently using (Open Office). But on my Dad's Open Office, if you'll remember, my 800+ page fifth draft was over 1,000 pages, so apparently page count can vary even in the same word processor. I know you can mess with the margins but this isn't something my dad does... Anyway if any of you think I'm worrying unnecessarily about length then I offer something a comparison of just how insanely long this is. According to this one website The Grapes of Wrath was 200,000 words long. My last draft was more than 500,000! AAAAHHHH!! *Bangs head against wall* Steinbeck ain't got nothing on this girl's insanity. And knowing myself I'll be lucky if I only have about 41,000 words to go. That means if I write everyday I should be done in less than three months. I wish I could see that happening.

Sigh...but at least the flowers are all blooming and beautiful. I didn't take this pic but I could have. Sadly I didn't have my camera today or I could have taken a picture of people morris dancing!

In random news, I think my subconscious also tried to give me a nightmare recently but I'd previously watched a whole bunch of episodes of Ouran High School Host Club which is the happiest anime in existence (without being nauseatingly happy) so there wasn't much for it to scare me with and it tried to do so with Ouran characters which admittedly kinda worked when I was asleep but once I was awake I found it hilarious.

Finally, I would also like to extend birthday wishes to my Mom whose birthday is today and to my friend Punya whose birthday was May 30. I already sent Punya something but I thought I'd mention it in my blog as well.