shaharw

  tagged me!

Rules of BEING TAGGED:
1. You must post these rules.
2. Each person has to share ten things about them.
3. Answer the ten questions asked to you and invent ten questions the people you tag have to answer.
4. Choose ten people and put their icons on your journal.
5. Go to their page and inform them they are tagged.
6. Not something like "you're tagged if you read that".
7. You have to legitimately tag ten people.
8. No tag backs.
9. You can't say that you don't do tags.
10. You MUST MAKE A JOURNAL ENTRY.

Ten Things About Me:
1.  I count beans for a living
2.  I'm a darn good bean-counter
3.  I'm owned by 3 cats, 2 birds, 9 hermit crabs, 1 betta fish and 1 frog
4.  I play violin, harp, flute, and doumbek (and lots of other miscellaneous noise-makers)
5.  Fabric arts - from making yarn, to sewing, knitting, crochet, weaving, embroidery, needle-point - are also a passion
6.  I write manuscripts every November during NANOWRIMO - and then never go back and re-read them
7.  I'm a self-taught artist - but not really.  After all, there are all those references on the internet and in books that I used to learn.
8.  My husband and I like to go to nature preserves and watch the wildlife
9.  My biggest indulgence is getting a massage each week
10.  Halloween is my favorite holiday


Questions from

1. What do you love most about doing art? 
The freedom to let all those little critters out of my brain and onto the page.

2. If you were to have a choice of vacation spots where would you go:  Australia, The Caribbean, or Europe?
Australia, definitely.  My husband lived there when he was little and I'd love to go take a look.

3. Bike, Car, or Bus?
Car

4. Gargoyles,  Transformers, or Ninja Turtles? 
um...  Scooby Doo?

5.  How did you first start watching me? (I truly am curious!) 
I was reading Riven Sol (I'm sorry Elaine had to stop that one) and SpiderForest did their cross-promotion thing - I followed the link and got hooked.

6. Playdough or Silly Putty? 
Playdough, hands down (snerk, I made a funny!)

7. What kind of books do you like to read? (Specific genre would be good)
Fantasy, sci-fi, 'cozy' mysteries (think Agatha Christie), and my guilty pleasure - paranormal romance.

8. What decade of music do you most associate with? 
...gawd!  do I have to admit that I loved disco?  70's

9. Your favorite animal (real or imaginary)? 
Cat - that Could be an imaginary animal, if you've met some of my cats.

10.  Would you go back to your high school days if you could do it over again? 
Nope - can't say that I miss my high school days all that much.  Never been to a reunion, not interested in one either.

I'd tag someone, but already tagged most of those I know well enough to tag, so I'm breaking that rule, sorry.

I'm slowly improving

May 2010


June 2011


July 2012

Okay - time to review the checklist I put together after going to A-kon 22.

1.  Take time off work so I can do the whole weekend.  DONE!

2.  Prepay my membership online to avoid that on-site registration line.  DONE!

3.  Repeat - take time off work so I can attend more classes/panels/etc.  ABSO DONE!

4.  Take bottled water and snacks with me so I don't expire.  GOT MY LIST OF GOODIES READY.

5.  Wear a costume!  I love costumes and this would have been a prime time to do it.  I hesitated since I thought I needed an anime/manga type of costume but I saw steam punk, StarTrek, a little bit of everything.  OMG, THE COSTUME'S ALMOST DONE!  I CAN'T BELIEVE I MANAGED IT.

6.  Bring a sturdier backpack - I managed to rip a hole in mine.  Luckily I didn't lose anything. I'VE GOT AN ASSORTMENT OF STURDY BAGS ALL READY TO GO.


Some things I did right!

1.  Went real early on Saturday so I could stand in the aforementioned lines.  Also gave me a chance to wander around without so many crowds.  I'M STAYING AT THE HOTEL THIS TIME, SO I CAN ATTEND SOME OF THE LATER PANELS WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT GETTING HOME.  I'LL DEFINITELY BE DOWN THERE EARLY AND LATE.

2.  Took the light-rail train down to the Sheraton so I didn't have to deal with driving and parking.  AND WILL DO SO AGAIN.  LIGHT RAIL IS AWESOME.

3.  Did as much research prior to going so I could plan out which artists to look for and what events I could crowd in. GOT THE SCHEDULES FOR EACH DAY PRINTED AND MY FAVES MARKED.

4.  Brought plenty of cash so I could scarf up books/bows/anything else I wanted.  I WILL TRY TO RESTRAIN MYSELF.

5.  Wore sensible shoes (need to keep this in mind for future costuming) since I was on my feet for almost the entire time.  This was the primary reason I watched that Japanese anime video.  The cool dark room with plenty of seats available was very attractive around 2:30 in the afternoon.  MY COMFY SHOES HAVE BEEN INCORPORATED INTO THE COSTUME - THEY'RE ABOUT THE ONLY COMFORTABLE THING ABOUT IT, ACTUALLY.  I'VE ALSO GOT MY NIFTY HAMMOCK SEAT CANE SO I CAN REST MORE EASILY.  www.fashionablecanes.com/90317…

Now to prepare for A-Kon 23!  -  YEAH, I THINK I'M READY...

So my NaNoWriMo manuscript is finished as of last night.  It's even done a few days early, thank goodness.  I finished up with 50,101 according to their little validator so I had a cushion.  I admit, though, that only the first 45k were the novel,  -Life After-.  The remaining 5k was a fanfic based upon Guts and Sass metraylor.com/gutsandsass.&nbs…;

I ran out of story before I ran out of word count.  

I'm okay with it though.  If I'd continued on -Life After- it would have pushed it too much.  I'll probably let it ferment for a few months before I even look at it again.  Then, if it's worth it, I'll edit and polish and add and probably subtract a lot.  

But now that this one is finished, I'm going back and picking up -Samu Bataar-, the fantasy I wrote during Camp NaNoWriMo this summer.  It's had its fermentation time so I can look at it with fresh eyes.  

I'm glad I decided to do NaNoWriMo this November, although I was worried about having time for it.  As I suspected, though, time is almost always available for the things you really want to do.

Okay, I was struggling with my current NaNoWriMo novel.  I was left with my two protagonists moldering in an alley, keeping an eye on our semi-bad guy/potential victim.  

Then I fell back on a trope or cliche (not sure which it would fall under).  A one sentence paragraph - Suddenly, a shot rang out.  

And suddenly, I have a lot more to write about!  There are people chasing other people.  People rescuing strangers in the alley.  A big, long scene in an emergency room.  And the introduction of another key character.  Yay!  I'm almost caught up with my word count and I have a whole other character to follow around.  And someone I suspect will be instrumental in resolving some of the unlikely situations I've landed both my main characters and my secondary characters into.  Of course, he probably won't be able to help much with the ghost...