Regular Schedule

This is a biggie for me.

One, we are three days into November, which means National Novel Writing Month. Again. Since starting in 2006, I have successfully completed a 50,000-word novel in the month of November a grand total of one time. That was back in 2006. I'd like to change that this year. Currently, I'm off to a good start. I hope to keep it up for the next 26 or so days.

Two, I'm still trying to revise my novel that I've trying to revise for way long than I should be trying to revise it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I know that once I submit my novel to an agent and/or an editor there will still be more revisions. I understand this. I try to tell myself this on a regualr basis as a way to encourage me to get through my revisions faster. And yet, I can't seem to move on until I feel that what I'm working on is perfect right now. It may not be perfect later. In fact, it most likely won't be, especially not once I get an agent and/or editor involved. But for now, I need to make it as perfect as I can.

Three, in the realm of wanting to move from being an amature I-write-when-I-feel-like-it kind of person to I'm-a-professional, I want to create a blog schedule and stick to it. We'll see how that goes. Currently, I have one or two blog post ideas I'd like to write. I just need to decide if I want to post them somewhat together or if I want to try separating them into the first two posts of my new schedule.

So. Scheduling. So I know I should stick to a Monday to Friday schedule, even if I only pick one of those days and post. Why? Because most people read blogs during the week instead of on the weekend. Or if that's not when they're being read, that's at least when they're being written and posted on other blogs. I have a couple blogs I like to read during the week when I get the time, but with points one and two above, I don't always get time to read them. Add to that my two kids, one of which is still nursing, and I have even less time.

What I'd like to do is post every Sunday. I know that seems to be the least likely day to post on blogs, which is why I like that day. Because my kid doesn't only eat Monday through Friday, he needs to eat on the weekends too. So in that regard, I think it'd be nice to have a regualr update on Sunday for those who might be in a similar position as me. If nothing else, for those who only read blogs during the week, it'l be waiting Monday morning for them.

One other factor is that I tend to write blog posts when I'm thinking about them/ when I feel inspired rather than writing them at a specific time. One nice thing about having the iPad is that I can write notes in the Note program when I'm thinking about them, then copy and paste them to the blog at a set schedule. Or I can figure out how to post-date blog posts, so I can write it when I"m thinking about it, then set it to post at a later time. We'll see. I'll probably go with the first option since I'm a little more comfortable with it.

So.

I have a lot on my plate right now.

But I have a plan.

Let's hope I can make this work.

Vampire Questionnaire

This was originally posted over at the NaNo message board, but I thought it would be useful to post here as well.

This doesn't cover everything there is to know about my vampires, but it's a pretty good start.

1. Are your vampires "alive" or "dead?"

My vampires are very much dead. The world allows for "living vampires," but I haven't dealt with them yet.

2. Can your vampires eat or drink? How about sleep?

They can't eat or drink except blood. They don't need to sleep, but they need rest because their minds are still active and resting/sleeping allows their minds to process everything, same as it does for humans.

3. It's pretty standard that sunlight and vampires go hand in hand. Is sunlight fatal to your vampires? Does it just bother them? DO THEY SPARKLE IN IT?

Sunlight is not fatal to my vamps, it just weakens their vampire powers/abilities. Most newer camps tend to stay indoors during the day just because the sun bothers their eyes and because they're pretty weak. But the older and/or more powerful vampires don't have as much of an issues with the sun because they have enough extra vampire power to make the sun's effects not seem like a weakness.

4. More myths! Do your vampires have to be invited in to a private residence? Do they have shadows? How about reflections? Are they harmed by Christian objects like crosses or holy water?

They don't have to be invited in. They do have shadows and reflections. And they can be harmed by any religious symbol, Christian or otherwise, so long as the person wielding the religious symbol knows that the vampire is in fact a vampire, believes in vampires, and believes that holding out a religious symbol will actually protect him/her from the vampire. It's possible to kill a vampire with a religious symbol, just not that likely because most people don't have that high of a belief in all three categories for it to be effective.

5. Blood. All vampires need it. Do your vampires drink human blood or animal blood? Can they drink both?

Yes, vampires can drink both human and animal blood and survive. But their preferred blood source is that of other supernaturals (like shapeshifters, witches, etc.).

6. IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE...NO, IT'S A FLYING VAMPIRE! ...Can your vampires fly or levitate? Do they have any other "special" powers? Are the super fast? Super strong? Telekinetic?

Most newly created vampires are nothing more than ghouls, who only care about getting their next meal. They barely even have a human consciousness. If they survive long enough they can eventually become more vampire-like. I don't know what their abilities are like because I haven't really worked with them much, but they are faster and stronger than humans. Plus they're dead, so not much can hurt them.

My strongest vampire is stronger and faster than other vampires, can "melt" into her surroundings, and has the power of her Beast (which I don't really know what that is yet either). And these are while the sun's at it's brightest. She also has some other abilities that I have written down but can't think of at the moment.

7. Speaking of dhampirs, does your novel have any? Oh, and for those of you that don't know, dhampirs are half human, half vampire.

No. Even though they could potentially exist in the world.

8. Okay, I gotta know. Can your vampires reproduce? Are they fertile? Can they "mate" with humans?

No. With the exception of "living vampires," but then I don't think those are really vampires to begin with.

9. Hey, you're almost done! Anyway, what do your vampires look like? Any defining characteristics? Are they more Count Orlok than Lestat?

The main characteristic of my vampires is that they all have ruby/blood red eyes. Also, they have a severe allergy to wood, so they tend to avoid things like toothpicks, wooden chopsticks, stakes, and pretty much anything else that contains wood.

10. Yay, last question! How were your vampires made? Virus? Evil warlock? Can they bite people and turn them into vampires?

The original vampire was created by the Angel of Death. He figured since the other gods were creating their own supernaturals that he should be able to create his own. So the Angel of Death created the first vampire, who changed his wife into the second vampire. Then the first vampire got cocky and wanted a priestess for his mistress even though she was married and had kids. But he changed her into a vampire anyway. When she changed her children into vampires, because she didn't want to spend eternity without them, the first two vampires tried to kill her. She killed them instead. Now she's the most powerful vampire. And her kids are responsible for making all the other vampires, except for one (my MC).

In order to become a vampire, you have to die (usually quite violently too), and loose over half your blood in the process. This is from a vampire trying to feed on you and/or kill you. Then either that same vampire or another vampire has to give you enough of their blood to make up for the blood you just lost. Since this severly weakens the vampire who gives you their blood, most are against actually doing this. Yes, my vampires would rather just let you die than turn a dying human into a vampire themselves.

NaNoWriMo and Pregnancy 2

Here's another pregnancy related topic from the NaNo message board. This was posted on October 10 in the thread Anything and Everything About Giving Birth.

1. My delivery was painful, but I opted for the no drugs option. I don't know about nation-wide, but in my city (southern Minnesota) about 80% of women get an epidural, which is a shot in the spine to numb everything from the waist down. Lucky for me, the whole labor and delivery thing lasted only a couple hours.

2. I read that it's possible to know the gender as early as 12 weeks. However, most places do a 20 week ultrasound where you can learn the gender then. I haven't heard of anyone actually learning the gender before the 20 week ultrasound. 20 weeks is about 5 months.

3. Gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and eclampsia that I know of. (Note that this used to be called toxemia because they thought it came from a toxin.) These are all part of the same thing, just to different degrees. It starts with gestational hypertension, which is increased blood pressure while pregnant. That's what I had. And for the first part of my pregnancy my blood pressure was normal, then in the last couple months it started going up and up and up to where they had to induce me because that's the only way my blood pressure would go back down. Usually when the mother-to-be has this, shell give birth early. How early depends on how severe it is. I was induced two and a half weeks early, but I know someone who had pre-eclampsia and was induced a month early. Some symptoms include sudden swelling of hands, legs, feet, and especially the face. More severe symptoms are blurred vision and headaches (I think), and seizures. Actually, I suppose I don't know if this is fatal or not, but I do know that the doctors take it pretty seriously. Even thought I felt fine, I couldn't have the lights on, the shades drawn, or even the tv on, or a radio while Ii was in the hospital e they thought any of those things could lead to a seizure. And I had the mildest form of this possible. I also had to have bumper pads on my bed in case I did have a seizure.

4. Since I was induced, I knew the labor would be coming. I was annoyed that they wouldn't let me get up and walk around. I felt fine, but because of the IV and the magnesium drip I was on, they wouldn't let me get out of bed. I was glad mine was very short.

NaNoWriMo and Pregnancy 1

For some reason there's a lot of threads on pregnancy over at the NaNoWriMo message board. That or I'm just more aware of all the pregnancy topics being that I'm over halfway through my second pregnancy. Either way, rather than repeating myself or just because I want to keep that information available here for other people, I'm going to cross-post my responses here. Since some of them are pretty long, I'll probably take a couple blog posts to do it.

This one was posted on October 18 in response to the thread Not knowing you're pregnant/pre-eclampsia.

The first thing with pre-eclampsia is that it starts with elevated blood pressure. For me, it didn't get above normal until I was around 30 weeks along or so. But even then, that wasn't enough to say I had pre-eclampsia.

From what I understand, a lot of women who don't know they're pregnant are on the heavier side to begin with. And the heavier your are, the less weight you're likely to put on while pregnant. And I'm pretty sure that some heavier people already have blood problems to begin with, so its not that uncommon for them to have higher blood pressure.

But having high blood pressure isn't enough to have pre-eclampsia. It's a symptom, but not the only one.

Other symptoms of pre-eclampsia include having headaches, seeing spots or having blurry vision, and swelling of your face, hands, and feet. So I'd imagine if someone came in with these symptoms, that a doctor might think to check if the woman is pregnant, but that also depends on what other conditions might share these symptoms.

Also, note that I'm not a doctor or any other type of medical personnel, just a woman who had gestational hypertension with my first pregnancy.

To determine if it's more than hypertension (high blood pressure), you have to do a protein test. For this test, they give you a large container where you have to keep all your urine for 24 hours (you also need to store the container in your fridge so the urine doesn't go bad). If you don't collect all the urine, then you have to start all over, so it's highly recommended you do it right the first time around. Once you have all the urine collected, you take it to the lab and they test it for proteins. There's something about pre-eclampsia that makes it so you can't properly process protein and that shows up in your urine. It also doesn't matter if you eat a lot of meat (have a high protein diet) or are vegetation and eat a low protein diet (like I do). (I asked about this, because I thought it might interfere with my results, but it doesn't.)

My protein test came up as negative for pre-eclampsia, but they still had me keep track of the other symptoms. I also didn't realize how much of a blimp I had become (like how swollen my face, hands, feet, and legs were) until after I had given birth and look at the birth pictures. My sister said I looked like a football player with how swollen I was.

If there is swelling, they'll suggest you go on bed rest and try to put your feet up whenever you sit down. For me, my "bed rest" was to lay down for six hours a day (in addition to sleeping at night) and this could be broken up into two hours, three times a day. They also suggested that I sleep with my feet up, which meant putting a pillow under my feet, which is a little uncomfortable when you can only sleep on your side. (Sleeping on your side only is for any pregnant woman more than 18 weeks along.)

Though just because the swelling goes down doesn't mean your blood pressure will go down. I was able to get some of the swelling down in my legs and feet, but my blood pressure still went up.

As to the differences between pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, I'm not really sure what they are. Eclampsia is more severe, but even with gestational hypertension, they still treated me as though I had eclampsia when I was in the hospital to give birth.

Actually, I think one of the biggest symptoms of eclampsia is the seizures. When I was in the hospital, they wouldn't let me watch tv, listen to music, open the window, or even turn on the lights brighter than a low lamp because they thought any of those things could give me a seizure, thus making it so I had eclampsia. They even put bumper pads on my bed and added an extra pad over the mattress to make it extra soft in case I did have a seizure.

With me, they had to induce labor because my blood pressure wasn't going down and they figured the only way it would go back down to a healthy level would be to get the baby out of my body. I was about 37 and a half weeks along. (But then 36 - 37 weeks is near-term, 38 - 40 weeks is term, and 41 - 42 weeks is post term.) I don't remember exactly what my blood pressure was, but whenever I told health care professionals what it was, they were pretty shocked/horrified by how high it was.

I don't know if there's really a length of time in which it goes from pre-eclampsia to eclampsia. I think it just depends on the woman and what are symptoms are.

I only had gestational hypertension and was induced about two and a half weeks early. I know know who had pre-eclampsia or maybe eclampsia (I didn't talk to her that much, only that when I said I only had gestational hypertension she was like oh, well that's nothing, which was kind of insulting to me because what I went through wasn't "nothing") who was induced a month early. He baby even had to spend time in an incubator whereas mine didn't.

If this were to go untreated, I don't know how long the baby could survive. But I'd imagine that a doctor or someone might get the idea to see if this woman is pregnant or not, be able to do a pregnancy test/ultrasound, and then get the woman induced if they were that afraid of her having eclampsia.

Depending on how good the hospital is (like how week equipped they are, whether they're in a large city or a small town, and whether they specialize in babies or not) depends on how long a child can survive. Like I heard about a baby surviving (I don't know how long) when it was born around 22 weeks, but it was connected to an incubator and various medical things to keep it alive. But that never would have happened at the hospital was in, because it's just smaller and not equipped to deal with a situation like that. Also, this story happened at one of the children's hospitals in the Twin Cities, which specializes in infants and children.

And if the induction doesn't work for a woman, depending on how severe the pre-eclampsia/eclampsia is, she may need to have an emergency C-section.

I don't know if I actually answered your question, but I hope you find something useful in my long post.

What I'm Working On

Well, I've been trying to revise my vampire novel (my '06 Nano), and it's starting to bite me in the butt. When I started, I did the chapters that were easiest to revise, which were chapters 1 and 2, and then chapters 20 to 25 (the ending). All I have left is chapters 10 to 12, and am having difficulties remembering when different events and character revelations happened. Really, I should just read through the first nine chapters, or at least the chapter summaries I wrote, to figure out how to revise the remaining three chapters.

Other than that, I'm also finishing up my '08 Nano, which is about werewolves. It's been a while since I worked on that one, but it doesn't seem as difficult to write as I thought it would. So that's at least a good thing, since I wrote the first two acts and never got to act three when I stopped working on it. (I'm still not sure why I did that.)

The writing's going good and I'm excited to be working on something again rather than sitting in the funk I had been in when I couldn't figure out what to work on. I knew I wanted to work on something, I just had no idea what. And I went through idea after idea, trying to work on something, but nothing really clicked. I'm past all that, and I'm feeling much better.

Lack of Internet Equals Lack of Posts

As the title says, I am without internet. Unless, of course, I get creative and go place like coffee shops (which I haven't yet), the library (which the internet sometimes works for me), or out at my church (where I am now). Though of course, getting creative can be a bit of a challenge with a ten-month-old.

Anyway.

I've been trying to figure out a story to work on and revise and submit and all that. And I've finally settled on the young adult vampire story I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2006. I've worked on this story on and off for the last three years. It's good because I have more notes on revising the thing than I know what to do with. But at the same time, there's things that in one revision pass I deleted, then in another revision pass, I decided I wanted them put back in. So it's a bit of a challenge, and yet this time around it's been easier to revise than any of the other times I've attempted to do so.

I also came to the realization, which could account for this revision pass being easier than the others (both for this story and for others I've attempted to revise), that I way overthink things. Of course, back when I was in tae kwon do, my instructors kept trying to drill that into my head. So we'll see how well I listen this time.

I Heart Apocalyptica

Normally, I'm pretty self-centered on this blog, talking about my writing and occasionally about other things like life in Japan or my son. But I found a new band today, so I'll make an exception.

Instead of writing my NaNo novel, I started making a playlist on Youtube for another project I want to work on (Standard Issue). Feeling guilty about that, I decided to add to my playlist for No Leaf Clover. Most of the songs for No Leaf Clover are from Metallica and Linkin Park. Linking Park because it's one of my favorite bands, and Metallica because one of the love interests is based off a guy I knew and Metallica was his favorite band. Plus, the title comes from a Metallica song.

So, I came across this band. And they are amazing. Okay, partly it's because I like Metallica, but mostly it's because the violin is my favorite instrument in the entire world. (Yeah, yeah. I know they're not actually playing violins, but still.)

I've loved violin music ever since I was a little girl when a violinist came to my church to play. I even attempted to play the violin when I was in fifth grade, but gave up shortly after seventh grade because I just didn't have the heart for it. So the violin is kind of a symbol of "What if" for me, of a life different than the one I have now, but it's also very nostalgic. Also when I was a girl, I imagined forming a quartet with my friends. Another friend and I both played the violin, and we had a friend who played the viola and one who played the cello.

There are some Evanescence songs that I enjoy because they have stringed instruments in them. The most notable song is Whisper. I also like that song (Whisper) because it reminds me of Rose (from my Hunter series) who's one of the very first characters I created in the Realm of Shadows.

So here's my favorite Metallica song (Nothing Else Matters) done by Apocalyptica, all with stringed instruments. And yeah, I realize it shows them playing cellos in the video, but still. One, it's such a beautiful song anyway. And two, I like pretty much anything with stringed instruments, but especially violins.

Here's another one, called One.

And yeah, I'll admit. I like just about any song that has violins in it.

Comments That Make You Go, WTF?!?

Here's another comment cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

From day 15

My main character is sort of an athlete because she's in martial arts, but that's not really the same thing.

Though I think I finally reached a point in her story where all the characters are acting randomly and without my control.

It probably doesn't help that I tried to read through my notes for some ideas.

I came across this one: What do faeries want with an ancient Korean sword anyway?

Yeah, so I have no idea where that came from. And as far as I know, there aren't any faeries in this story. They exist in the world as a whole, but I didn't think any of them made any appearances in this story.

Also, I have my main character fighting these magical constructs and I came across this other note that they're reanimated demon skeletons.

Yeah.

So I have no idea where it's all going, I just hope that it still makes sense to me once November is over.

More on this later. Hopefully.

More Random Comments

I have a few more random comments from NaNo that are cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

From Day 11

I didn't get any writing done today, but I didn't think I would. What with trying to get a flu shot for my baby only to have them tell me that there weren't any left. And with going up to the Mall of America with my friend so she could get an autograph from some of the actors from New Moon and go to the Q & A session. It was a long and fun day, but didn't help me get any writing done. Oh, well. Hopefully, I'll have better luck tomorrow.

I was at least hoping to get some more planning done, so I had an idea where the next couple chapters are going, but I didn't even get that far. Though I realized that one of the other students in my main character's tae kwon do class has the same name as the main character of last year's NaNo. So I get to decide if they're both the same character, two guys who just happen to have the same name, or change one of their names. I might go with the first one, because it seems like more fun at the moment. But, we'll see.

From Day 12

Things have been going too easy for my main character. I've been focusing too much on the relationship aspect of her life, and now I need to get to more fighting. The next chapter's from my villain's point of view, which should mean more fighting and less romance.

My Little Niche on NaNo

I probably should have posted this before, but I didn't really think about it.

For those curious, here is a link to my little spot on NaNoWriMo.

There, you can read Chapter 1 from No Leaf Clover.

Enjoy.

National Novel Writing Month

I signed up for my fourth NaNo.

I had plans to finish Kitsu's story by November 1, but those kind of fell through when I went a couple weeks without working on her story. Instead, I read. Then I started revising my vampire novel. And since I got through the first half of it in just over a week, I figured it would take just as long to revise the second half of it. Not so. So now I have two partially edited novels awaiting my return.

Originally, my idea for NaNo this year was going to be about the Mage's daughter from my and my husband's Standard Issue universe. I was really excited to work on it too. There was the mage's daughter who is just about as powerful as the mage himself is, and the only thing that stopped her from using magic to screw with people (just like dear old dad) was whether or not she felt like it. I mean, she was going to high school after all so she didn't have as much free time on her hands, what with homework and extracurricular activities and all.

And in response to some of the teen paranormal romances out there that included a vampire werewolf love triangle, my mage was going to get involved in one. Only she would end up with the werewolf instead.

Then on one of the message boards I frequent, people started talking about zombies and the zombie apocalypse. And I thought, Hey, wouldn't that be fun?

So here's the one sentence summary of the novel I'm not writing this month.

Moonlight, A Standard Issue Teen novel
The all powerful Mage's daughter gets tangled up in a vampire werewolf love triangle until she summons her dead boyfriend from his grave and has to stop the impending zombie apocalypse all while going to high school.

What am I working on instead?

No Leaf Clover
17-year-old Pai must defend the Ancient Korean shortsword, Byung, from a Korean mummy, her new swordfighting instructor, and her crush--all to prove she's the sword's true heir.

It's a young adult novel I started in 2006 during my last semester in college, and I've been wanting to work on it ever since. I didn't work on it in previous years for NaNo because silly me thought it wasn't suitable for NaNo. Apparently, the story is proving me wrong. At the end of day 5, I had just over 15,000 words. that even surpasses my 2000 words a day goal.

Well, a Lot Has Happened

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted anything, so I'll try to be brief, but still cover a lot of ground.

1. Well, I'm no longer in Japan. I had already been planning on taking a one-week vacation in October to go to my friend's wedding, but when I got a phone call that my grandmother passed away, I went home a week earlier. And I've been here ever since for various reasons.

2. With my grandmother's passing I finally acquired a dining room table set. This is a pretty big deal for me since I've never had one of my own. At the last apartment my husband and I had during college, our dining room was more of place to keep all our bookshelves.

3. My friend's wedding was interesting. It was sad because I wasn't able to go to it with my husband, since he is still in Japan, but my friend was happy that I could make it.

4. With staying here for two months and counting, I finally decided I really needed to get a job. I've had a couple interviews and am waiting to hear back. But I've definitely been enjoying my time not needing to work.

5. Part of why I wasn't really motivated to get a job was that November was National Novel Writing Month. This was my third year participating, and my second year not getting to the 50,000 word mark. But I don't care. I absolutely love the book I started in November, and am anxious to finish it in December.

6. In addition, my husband is coming back around December 20th. So we're both pretty excited to be together again. Though it won't be for long since he'll need to go back to Japan in early January. But he'll be coming back again sometime in March.

7. Lastly, my husband challenged me to have a book ready to submit by the end of the year. Of course logic says I should go back to Kitsu's book and wade through the massive amounts of rewrites I have for that, but my heart is telling me to work on the new story I started in November.

8. The new story is called Wolf Eyes. It's a teen werewolf romance about a girl named Nisus Asano and the boy she likes. I'll try to post more info about this story later.

9. I'm also trying to get my husband and I ready to go to grad school, starting August 2009.

All things considered, I should be staying pretty busy for the holidays.

Being Sick, Goals, and Research

I posted this at the Den of Shadows a day or two ago.

I didn't get any writing done at all last week. Mostly it was because I became extremely sick and had to miss two and a half days of work. I only went the half day on the first day I was sick because my boss made me and I don't think he realized how sick I was. But I finally went to the doctor's yesterday, and while I'm not completely better, I'm starting to feel better.

I'd probably try to get some work done today, but I have an English test to write, and besides, I don't think my brain's really functioning at full strength right now, so I'd probably just end up with a bunch of stuff that needs to be scrapped anyway.

Plus, I just got Supernatural, Season 3 in the mail yesterday, so I'm probably not going to get much writing done until I've finished watching that.

As to my weak spot, I'd say it's not actually finishing a project before starting the next one. My plots or my characters may not be that great, but with discussing problems I'm having with my husband, I can usually figure those out. It's the knowing what needs to be revised and fixed, and then not actually fixing it that I have a problem with. I think part of it is that I don't have an external deadline to keep me in line and to keep me working on one thing at a time, so I've considered sending off a query to agents, but then I've read some horror stories that happened to other people and I don't think that's the wisest idea either. So I don't know.

Though I do want to have Kitsune ready to submit by October 31, then maybe I can work on her book 2 (assuming I get the printout of it while I'm in MN in October) or I can work on some of the characters' history that happens in the distant past of Kitsu's time, but in the near future (I think) of our time. I think that history is really important to figure out too before I start doing too much work on book 2. Plus, the history should be fairly short, so I should be able to finish that for NaNo even if I don't make the 50,000 words.

Whenever I go to the library, I say I'm going to get one or two books on this one topic that I want to research, and then I come home with two bags full of books. Okay, so most of the books I get are children's books, but that's just because I find them easier to understand, at least for certain topics. But still, when I was living with my husband's parents, whenever I got home from the library, his dad would always say, "I thought you were going to get just two books." And I always say, "I was."