Morning

Morning! (It’s still morning somewhere in the world, right?)

I drew this about 3 years ago.

This word doesn’t exactly represent how I experience my mornings, but more of my idealized view of what a morning “should” be like. Looking out of the window, seeing a beautiful snow-covered mountain (none of which are anywhere near my house) and a calming sunset, while eating a nice, filling breakfast consisting of bacon, buttered toast, eggs, and orange juice.

In reality, I spend my mornings eating un-frozen waffles, staring out of the window into the darkness of the-sun-isn’t-high-enough-yet, and wondering if I can just go back to bed. I’m not a morning person.

Anyway, what are your mornings like? Are they “ideal”, or are you not a morning person either?

Writing: Snow

I love snow (even though there doesn’t happen to be any on the ground where I live… for now), so I thought I’d use it as a prompt to help me write a bit today:

Judging by her headache, inability to breathe, and the pain in her throat, she’d probably caught a cold. She’d also dropped her keys in the snow earlier, so now her hand was frozen from fishing them out. But never mind all that, she was finally home. This day is over, and now I can put my feet up…

But before she could even put the key in the lock, she heard something like a crunch over the deafening silence of the winter air. She froze, and then the back of her neck froze, ice dripping under the collar of her shirt. What-?

Whirling around, she saw the tail end of a group of kids- their laughter shattering the silence that had surrounded her house earlier- as they disappeared behind the house across the street. She halfheartedly glared after them for a moment, but she couldn’t stay mad at the kids she babysat and always had snowball fights with. Nonetheless, she suspiciously glanced around, making sure there were no more kids hiding around the corner, before she turned back.

She shivered and unlocked her door, gratefully stepping into her apartment. Finally, she peeled off her freezing coat, red and green scarf, and snow covered shoes. Humming to the tune of “Carol of the Bells”, she clicked on the radio to her favorite Christmas station. She picked up her favorite book, put her feet up, and sat back- only belatedly realizing that the back of her shirt was still wet.

Having Writer’s Block

Earlier today, I knew exactly what I was going to blog about. Now, I’m having writer’s block. This is what I get for not writing my ideas down earlier.

Well, instead of whatever I’d been planning before, have a short piece I wrote (at a point in time when I wasn’t having this problem) concerning writer’s block:

She glared at the object before her; the useless blank sheet of paper just sat there, blocking all of her ideas from being expressed on it. Angrily, she picked up the pencil that she was sure must be aligned with the paper against her, and violently stabbed its point at the white surface. The point broke savagely, sending splinters flying a centimeter into the air and the broken tip skidding off against the paper until it came to rest an inch away from the point of impact. Unsatisfied, she rubbed the mutilated pencil-top over the mocking blank sheet, creating scratch marks until, suddenly, there was a ripping noise and the pencil scraped through to the desk, slicing messily into the paper where she madly guided it.

When the offending paper was ripped beyond repair and the pencil top no longer able to cause the type of damage she was looking for, she discarded both.

Then, she glared at the object before her; the useless empty desk. She had used up all of her paper and pencils. But she hadn’t been able to express anything other than her inability to express herself all day. She glared glumly at the pile of papers- half were mutilated and half were crumpled balls containing almost-ideas- that sat next to her desk, her wastepaper basket having overflowed sometime ago.

Maps

I doodled this about 3 years ago.

I tried to use a few of the different symbols you might find on a map to draw this. And, of course, I couldn’t pass up an “x marks the spot” like on a pirate’s map.

CHAIR

I drew this around the beginning of September.

This drawing is different from what I normally do; instead of shaping a word from its meaning, I shaped the word into its meaning. If that sounds complicated… well, it was. It became an interesting challenge though, and even when I had the whole idea in my mind, I’m not that great with perspective. This sketch took a few tries, especially the legs.

I want to try it again though. I wonder what other word would be good for this type of drawing?

NaNoWriMo End

I would have posted something on December 1st, but this week has been really busy. It’s nearing the end of the semester, so a lot of projects’ and essays’ due dates are coming up, or past in these last few days.

Anyway, my first NaNoWriMo was a success! Well, by my standards. I got to 30,500 words by the end of November, so about 500 words over my goal, which is great, because at the end there, I was worried that I wouldn’t reach that goal.

Since I altered the “rules” a bit, my novel isn’t finished, it’s about a third of the way through the plot outline I have made up. But it’s leaps and bounds farther than anything I’ve written before (I have at least 50 separate story documents started on my computer- all less than 10,000 words), and I’m going to keep working on it.

I have a plan to add about 500 words a day through December, and see how long I can keep that up.

I hope that everyone had as much fun this past month as I did!