Poetry Wednesday: Day 30

Well, okay, it's actually Thursday, I know. But this poem was incredibly relevant yesterday, and I WROTE it yesterday, so we're calling it Poetry Wednesday.



Day 30

Holy
crap
my
characters
are
stupid
and
my
plot
consists
of
mostly
kissing
and
their
love
isn't
even
believable
and
I
have
to
write
10,000
more
words
by
midnight.

Frak.




The good news? I TOTALLY WROTE 10,000 MORE WORDS BY MIDNIGHT! So, yeah, I won NaNoWriMo. It was awesome.

I Am Insane.

Today is November 9, 2011. There are *does math* seven and a half weeks left of this year. About five weeks left of this semester. And three weeks left of November. In that time I have to:

-Pass all my classes, getting mostly A's (if I want to student teach)
-Read 26 books to fulfill my 50-in-2011 challenge
-Write 35,000 words to win NaNoWriMo

So, yeah. No big deal. Classes are going (mostly) well. I've gotten back to reading as much as possible (I kinda stopped for a few months there). And I am totally ROCKING NaNoWriMo (I'll talk about my story some other time). But all of those combined? I don't know how I'm going to make it to 2012 in one piece.




Books read: 24
Words written: 15,116
Days until this is all over: 52

Oh, Darlin', Don't You Ever Grow Up

At the end of last year I posted a blog about my goals for 2011. Today I want to look at my progress on these goals.

1. Graduate college- Well, this isn't technically going to happen this year. I have two more classes that I have to take next semester, so I won't actually be student teaching until Spring 2012. But THEN I'll graduate. So I'm only a little behind on this one.

2. Re-write NaNo novel from 2008- This one is mostly going to happen over the summer (which has been my plan since I made the goal). But I HAVE been getting involved with some awesome writers and I'm totally feeling the motivation! This one is definitely going to happen.

3. Upload 100 videos- Heh. Ummm . . . yeah, not doing so well on this one yet. This semester has been pretty darn busy. But it's only April! I think I can still do this one. It's just going to take some diligence.

4. Read 50 books- Doing much better on this one than the video-making one. I've read 10 books so far this year, which means I'm a little behind if we're going with one-book-a-week, but this is another goal that is going to get a major boost over the summer. Also, I decided to make this goal official on Goodreads (which is an AWESOME website that I hadn't used before but now REALLY LOVE), so you can watch me as I read (and usually review) each book that I read this year: Allison's Goodreads Challenge.

5. Exercise regularly- No comment. *insert excuse about schoolwork and stuff*

6. Watch Dr. Who- Hasn't happened yet. WILL HAPPEN. But I'm not worried about this one. When I marathon a show, I MARATHON IT.

7. Start a weekly vlog with my roomie Janice- See #3.

8. Fall in nerdfighterlike- Nope. Nothing at all on this front. There just aren't many LDS guys in Flagstaff that are single or my age. Maybe I'll meet someone this summer! Maybe.

So it looks like I'm actually doing okay on these goals! It's only April, so it's still a little early to tell, but I think it's best to think about them more than just at the beginning and end of the year.

Until tomorrow, best wishes!

P. S. Title is from Taylor Swift's song "Never Grow Up" (because I'm listening to that song right now and I couldn't think of a title and it seemed to fit better than "I Am Not the Kind of Girl Who Should Be Rudely Barging In On a White Veil Occasion" . . . I'll use that one for the blog when I talk about my epic Hogwarts Wedding.)
P. P. S. Check out my blog! I changed it up and it's all cute now :)

*dusts off blog* *coughs*

Er, hi! It's been a while. Sorry about that. See, here's the thing: *insert excuse about hard semester and lots of reading and homework*. So, yeah, that's why I haven't been on the blog much.

BUT THAT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE!

You see, April is a special month. Way back in 2009 I spent a semester in Mexico, and that semester just happened to be the semester that I got involved in YouTube and Twitter and all that fun stuff. That was the semester that I was introduced to Maureen Johnson* and her quirky ways. And it just so happened to be the semester that her novel Suite Scarlett was being released in paperback.

Here's the thing about Maureen: she LOVES the internet. Specifically Twitter, but she also writes FANTASTIC blogs. And in order to get everyone excited for the May 1 release of her paperback, she decided to BLOG EVERY DAY IN APRIL. Originally it was just something she was going to DO, but somehow it became a THING. Other bloggers decided to blog every day as well, and before we knew it there was a Maureen Johnson ning** and TONS of fans gearing up for what we called BEDA (Blog Every Day in April). I made some awesome friends through BEDA and had fun coming up with interesting ways to blog every day without becoming too boring or repetitive. It was AWESOME.

AND NOW IT IS ALMOST APRIL.

Despite my busy semester and all the homework and reading I have to do, I am going to BLOG EVERY DAY. In April, I mean. Not forever. That's a lot of blogging. I'll probably talk about school. I'll probably talk about books. And I'll probably talk about my ultimate Hogwarts Wedding plans***. Even if it's a blog made entirely of pictures or a blog written in haiku, you can rest assured that there will be one EVERY DAY.

CARE TO JOIN ME?

It's easy. Seriously. The only rule is that you blog once a day, and even that rule isn't really a rule because FAILURE IS ALLOWED. So there's no pressure. Just fun, fun, fun****. Seriously. Do it. You know you want to.

SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW!

Allison :)



*The author, not the character from RENT.
**Like a mini social networking site for people with a particular interest (in this case, Maureen Johnson)
***Not that I'm actually getting married or anything. I just like to plan weddings. Seriously.
****BEDA, BEDA, gotta get down on BEDA / Everybody's lookin' forward to the blogging, blogging

It's Official. I'm a Published Author.

YIPPEEEEEEEEE!

I'm excited.  Can you tell I'm excited?  Because I am.  Excited.  Seriously.

WOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

So the anthology with MY STORY IN IT was released yesterday!  It's available at Amazon for those of you with Kindles and at Smashwords for those of you with other eReaders or with no eReader (like me).  And just for good measure, here's the link to the page on the publisher's site: http://www.notreebooks.com/anthology---vampires-zombies-and-ghosts-oh-my

If any of you are interested in reviewing the book on your blog, let me know ASAP and I'll pass you along to the Eve Paludan, the editor of the anthology.  She is looking for as many reviewers as possible!  Or if you don't want to write a big long review on your blog but you read the book and like it, would you do me a favor and leave a review on Amazon?  It can be really quick, and it would mean a lot to me and I'm sure to the other authors featured in the book.

W0000000000000000000000000000000T!!!

Anyway, I just wanted to do a quick update and let you all know!  And, um, if you're interested in the book... would you maybe buy it?  Please?  *is hopeful*  Leave me a comment and tell me what you thought of it if you DO read it.  That would absolutely make my WEEK.

Hope you all have a lovely day!

-Allison

P.S.  Apparently nobody cares about my dream wedding.  I promise to avoid that kind of talk in the future at this blog.  I'll keep it to my BEDA blogs when I have nothing better to write about. :)

P.P.S. I posted a vlog the other day about baking, the Grand Canyon, and my story getting published.  You should check it out.  There is a shot of a DELICIOUS strawberry shortcake (if I do say so myself).  Maybe if you're lucky you'll be able to activate the smell-o-vision :D

Big News! (And welcome back to blogging, Allison.)

YOU GUUUUUYS!  I have something REALLY COOL to tell you.

A short story that I WROTE with my OWN TWO HANDS is being PUBLISHED!  Let me type that again for emphasis: PUBLISHED!

It's going to be in an anthology called Vampires, Zombies, and Ghosts, Oh My! (and Other Creature of the Night STORIES).  It will be published in eBook format, so gets those eReaders ready!

In anticipation of the release, I've launched a WEBSITE.  Because I'm FANCY like that.  You should CHECK IT OUT: www.allisonridley.com :)  It's still pretty simple, because I'm still learning how to do web-site-y stuff, but I'm rather proud of it!

That's my BIG NEWS for the week, but in smaller news I've decided that it's high time I return to the world of blogging.  See, after BEDAugust I was kind of burned-out on blogging, but I miss being able to share my innermost thoughts with the internet on a regular basis, so I'm going to start up again.  I can't guarantee how OFTEN I will blog, but I think I'm gonna shoot for once a week.

Speaking of things that will happen once a week, I've ALSO decided to start* VLOGGING.  My goal with that is also once a week, so I think what I'll do is write my blogs on Tuesday or Wednesday and do my vlogs on Friday or Saturday.  That way they're kinda spaced out.

I've already done my first vlog of this Vlog-Once-a-Week-November-and-December, or "VOWND."




Anyway, that's pretty much my life right now!  School is going well, though I've been kind of distracted the last few nights with the excitement of getting published.  I'm loving almost all my classes, though, which is a HUGE improvement from last year.  I'm a little behind on a couple homework assignments, but I'm not gonna let that get me down.

I hope you'll all check out my website at some point... I'm really kinda proud of it, and I'd love for you to share it with your friends if you're so inclined.  I know I'm not even close to being KNOWN or anything, but I feel so professional now and it's a really cool feeling.  So humor me.  There's a little box on my site where you can ask questions, or you can comment on the "news" section... it would totally make my day if you did.

Thanks for being such great friends.  I love you all!

Best wishes!



*By "start," I mean "start for the first time since the last time I decided to be a vlogger"... which was almost a year ago.  Heh.

Blog? What blog?

Every time I decide to post on this blog I check the list that shows every post I've made so far.  And every time I do that, I come upon the beginnings of a post that I had started weeks before and never got around to finishing.  I always end up deleting that old post (because I'm not really interested in blogging about a topic I had picked out weeks before) and starting a new one.  And half the time that new one becomes the new old-post-from-weeks-before-that-I-never-finished.

BUT NOT THIS TIME!

Oh no, I am DETERMINED to finish this post.  Even if it means skipping all my afternoon appointments!

Okay, that's a lie.  I'm not going to skip my appointments.  But I AM going to finish this post, even if I have to finish it at 11:00 tonight when LOST and Parenthood are over.

So, what is this post about?  WELL.  I think it's going to be about writing.  I just read a great blog on kt literary about teen writing.  I looked back on some of my stuff and CRINGED.  It was horrible.  I had this fanfic that I wrote when I was like twelve, and it's all about how my friends and I go on an exchange to Hogwarts.  Oh, and Harry and Ginny get married.  And I date Draco Malfoy.  Yeah.  Good stuff.

Anyway, that made me think about my writing journey. *cue clichés*  No, really.  It has been quite a journey, and I'm not even half way!  I mean, I guess there's no end to the journey and blah blah blah, but seriously.  I still have a long way to go.  I would love to be published some day, but for that to happen I need to write something that is worthy of publishing.  I wrote a novel in 2008 for NaNoWriMo, but it's still in it's roughest rough-draft form.  I'm thinking about re-writing it completely, actually, because as much as I adore the story, there are some weak plot points that need fixing and I skipped about six or seven chapters in the middle because I didn't know what I wanted to put there.  So I suppose I'll work on that this summer.

But anyway, the JOURNEY!  I've been into reading and writing for as long as I can remember.  I actually remember being four years old and writing a story that consisted of two-word sentences like, "Nona runs."  I typed it out on our Macintosh (back before it was called a Mac) and it was in HUGE font that made the whole sentence take up a page.  (I may have had help typing.  I don't remember the process, only the finished product.)  It was SO COOL.

I remember reading my first REAL chapter book in third grade.  It was called Number the Stars, and it had something to do with a girl named Annemarie who was Jewish and the Nazis came and things... happened... I don't really remember the plot, but I remember that was the first time I ever heard of Jewish people having to wear stars on their clothes.  And I also remember that I thought Annemarie was the COOLEST NAME EVER and I was TOTALLY going to give that name to my daughter some day.  Except... somehow I misread it and thought it was pronounced "an-nuh-mare."  Like Anna Mare.  Like a horse or something.  It was a while before I realized that I was pronouncing it wrong, but even then I still thought Annamare was a cool name.  I was kind of a weirdo.

Anyway, I said I was going to get this blog posted, and it is now Wednesday morning.  I'll just say this one last thing: Doesn't matter what your goal is (for me, it's publishing my work), the best thing you can do is PRACTICE.  I know I have no authority or experience in this area, because I haven't reached my goal yet, but I know that practice is the key.  So, maybe this summer I'll post some excerpts from the story I'm working on so I can get some feedback and continue to practice and improve my writing :)

And with that, I think I'll hit "post."  Because if I wait any longer, I'll just come back in several weeks and discover this unposted blog.  And I really don't want that to happen AGAIN.