Is it November Yet?

I was babysitting for a friend today. She has a lot of health isssues and just really needs someone to help her out with her rambunctious, adorable 18 month old baby girl. I was sitting with her daughter and she was out in the kitchen getting breakfast.

"So, have you gotten much writing done lately?" she asked.

I tried to force a smile, even though I knew she couldn't see my face. "No. It's hard, with school and all. It's pretty crazy."

"Yeah." She laughed. "Hey, have you ever heard of this thing called NaNoWriMo?"

"YES," I replied, almost before she was done asking the question. "I actually did it last year. It was so fun! I think the most words I wrote at one sitting were about 5000."

"Five thousand?" she exclaimed. "How long did it take you to write that many words?"

I paused, nostalgic. Those were the richest three hours of that November. I sat on the floor at my sister's friend's house while she and my sister talked. They talked. I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote until it seemed like my fingers were going to fall off. But when I was finished, I looked up with bloodshot eyes and triumphantly announced, "I'm back on schedule." My sister and her friend gave me the weirdest look and kept on talking. But I was saved. That little blue chart now matched the curve I should be getting for that day. I felt fulfilled. "Three hours," I told my friend as I twisted her daughter's little mop of hair into a curlycue. "It was amazing."

I can't wait until November.

NaNoWriMo emails are flooding my inbox. I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to start. I want to write. I want to write fifty-thousand words. I want to write a hundred thousand words, if I can. These short spurts of creativity each day are driving me insane. I want to tear down the dam and submerge myself in all the pent-up ideas floating around behind the barrier I've put up to keep my life somewhat normal. Even if it's for only a month. Even if it was only for a day.

I can't wait until November.

I think I have the story for this year's NaNo. It's the story of my great-great grandmother, May. It's not fantasy, but it's a GOOD story. And, depending on how much research I get done, most of it will be true. I'm so excited. I want to show it to my grandmother when I'm done, to thank her for sharing those stories with me. But first I have to write it.

I can't wait until November.



Is it November yet?

~God Bless

Elisabeth (who is on a different computer and thus cannot stamp her awesome signature onto this blog post :( )

Elisabeth with an "S"

 It doesn't sound quite the same, but it's true. Elisabeth with an "S" is a much more interesting way to spell the name ^_^ Biased? Nooooo, not I.

Well, this is getting to be a trend, I think. First Little Women ate up gobs of my time while thoroughly delighting me; now Anne Shirley has captured my attention. That's right--I finally made good on my promise to read the books. And now that I've finished the first one, I don't know how I can bear to read the second one. I just know the characters are going to change.

Anne of Green Gables has an intriguing premise. As the sister of two former foster boys, Anne's plight captured my heart. Just thinking about arriving at what you assumed to be your forever home and then be faced with the prospect of being turned away is heartbreaking. And L.M. Montgomery writes with such maturity that she actually makes Anne's plight become real. The result is breathtaking.

Besides the characters, who deserve a blog post all to themselves on account of their incredible awesomeness; and besides the storyline, which is as simple as can be and yet held me captive for about four hours straight; and besides the fact that this book is set in a real place that you can actually visit (you can certainly tell that Montgomery was a Canadian--she describes every detail in Avonlea to perfection!), I loved the fact that after 100 years (YES! 100 years!) Anne's story is still as believable as ever. The writing is not over-wordy and doesn't use terms foreign to a 21st century teenager (namely, me).

If you've read Anne of Green Gables, I hope you share in my joy. If you haven't, I hope you pick it up and read it sometime. Even if you don't particularly like it, it's a great story and Montgomery was quite accomplished in her craft. I found it almost too easy to read Anne of Green Gables in under four hours, and I definitely plan to read it again in the future. The sequels? I'm not too eager to read them yet. I still have a perfect picture of Anne's life after Green Gables in my mind, and I don't really want her to grow up just yet :]


Besides my latest literary raptures, I've written a bit in the past couple days. College website surfing and college applications have been eating up my time and my insanity. It's hard to believe that I could be in COLLEGE this time next year o_o Scary is a better word, actually.
I wrote a poem, and a muse, and some random outbursts of frustration at my inability to express my joy at being able to write again. None of them passed the "blogworthy" test, however, and thus I have nothing to show to you. Lord-willing, I will. Soon. VERY SOON.

Alas, it's time to say goodbye. Take a look at my new siggie as you leave. I made it HERE. You should all grab one, too!

God Bless!

(GRAHH. It has a white background DX Oh, well. Another thing to tinker with ;D)

I Said I Would, and So I Shall

"I shall conquer the beast that hath overtaken me and destroyed the happiness I once enjoyed. Though mine helmet be a thimble and mine sword a pin, I shall bravely ride forth and pop this bubble of drudgery. TIME, THOU SHALT NOT HAVE ME.
And I shall rescue the fair damsel of writing from Time's loathsome jaws."

~ Yours Truly, about two minutes ago


What can I say? I was in a knight-ish mood.

Anywho, I've decided to get back into my old habit of going to good old 750words.com and writing those words each day. I keep getting their emails and it's really prompted me to get back on the horse and ride into the sunset (even if they sunset's really fake). Did I mention it's eleven o'clock? Writing, tomorrow I come for thee.

~Elisabeth

Pumpkins, Hemingway and Questions

What can all these things have in common, you ask?

Nothing much. They just happen to be the things which have consumed my brain over the last few days.
First up: pumpkins. I love pumpkins. They're round and huge and orange and such fun to paint. We don't celebrate Halloween (in fact, we take great cares to be out of the house and enjoying a meal at the nearest Cracker Barrel when the Trick-or-Treaters start coming around). But we buy pumpkins every year for our front steps, and this year my siblings and I decided to have a pumpkin-carving party. In the dark. With sharp knives. And an eerie pumpkin-candle glow.
I had so much fun.
First, I tried to pose as the headless horsewoman, but my pumpkin was pretty heavy, and I could only hold it up for so long (thus the fuzzy picture up top there). Gutting the pumpkin was the hardest part--it was sticky and slippery and gross inside, but the seeds made excellent missiles. In total, I carved three pumpkins--mine, my youngest brother Jude's, and my brother Issac's, who succeeded in slicing his finger before he'd carved out his pumpkin's leering mouth (don't worry, he's fine. But he did convince my dad that he needed bedrest and extra ice cream that evening).

When we were finished, we took a little candle and lit up our pumpkins. The result was pretty cool. That's my pumpkin--with the huge, hollow eyes and only one tooth. Our back porch is covered with seeds that stick to your feet, but it was a fun night. Maybe we can do it again next year.

I recently started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. My mom's book club read it, and she gave it to me. I have seen the old Gary Cooper movie, and the story intruiged me, so I started to read it. It's funny how different literature was written sixty years ago. The writing is immaculate, but very hard to read. I don't know exactly why. Hemingway is brilliant in his use of dialogue--he has the characters speaking Spanish, but their lines are written in English. The result is a strange word order, a lot of thees and thys, and a very respectful feel to the conversations. I'm enjoying the book so far, and I plan to finish it (even though I already know how it ends).
The hard part is finding time to read. I'm basically on my own school-wise this year--all of my homework is from classes and it's on me to get it done in time. I actually have a lot more time, and I've started setting aside an hour (or however much time I can find) a day to read. Some days, it will be impossible to find an hour, but on other days, I might be able to read for two or three. I really want to read more--there are so many books I want to get through. Hopefully this new pattern will help me do it.

Questions have been consuming me for the last few days. Unfortunately, they're not the deep, life-changing questions that I should be pondering. They're all from memes. That's right. I'm in meme mode and I can't get out (I need a Life Alert button).
Memes are great. But after a little while, they all sound the same. And then you're sitting there asking your poor characters the same questions over and over and over again. And they don't like that, no sir. Several have committed mutiny and refused to appear in any more memes X3 So I'm going to write--I'm going to write scenes in my book until my fingers fall off or until my laptop dies. A meme or two will find its way in, as will some poems. But I want to write stories again. I want to write my characters, not just interrogate them. So that's my resolution for the next however-many-days-I-can-keep-this-up. I'm thinking two. But two days of nonstop writing will be better than twenty of nothing at all.

By the way, how did you like that meme I left you last time? It's my favorite so far :3

Signing off,

Elisabeth