Merry Christmas! Thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas to all my readers! Thank you so much for checking out my blog! Best of wishes for the new year!

Finals Shenanigans Remembered: Part 2, We Are Champions

Look! I found a chalkboard!

Well, I actually didn't find it. This was in the classroom where I found one of my friends right after I finished my take-home final a few Tuesdays ago. 

How often do you see chalkboards anymore? This was even a pretty modern building. The majority of the classrooms has whiteboards, but there are a few study rooms that have chalkboards like these.

My friend was doing practice math problems for one of her business classes. She was being a very responsible student and practicing for her final exam the next day.

I took over a third of her chalkboard to do that. I had just finished that take-home final, man. Before that, I took a final exam about women in Ancient Greece. Before that, I was studying women in Ancient Greece. Before that, I slept for a few hours. Before that, I was studying historical women who didn't live in Ancient Greece. Before that, I was trying to write a take-home final. Before that, I was panicking about my GPA. Before that, I was panicking in general. Before that, I was trying to write a take-home final. Before that, I was studying women in Ancient Greece. 

I'd been running on caffeine and the fear of failure. There's a certain euphoria that comes with final exams being lifted off your shoulders at last. Sometimes it manifests in the form of giddy and slightly nonsensical messages doodled on a rare chalkboard in a business building on a college campus.

I have to say again: I have nothing against John Keats. Nothing at all. The guy was great and wrote great poetry.

Finals Shenanigans Remembered: Part 1, Keats out of Context

Finals are done! They've been done for over a week now.

I really didn't get up to a whole lot of shenanigans this semester. At least, not any as creative as my usual final exam shenanigans. They were mostly boring. Like Facebook, YouTube, whatever.

I also actually didn't have a lot of time to get up to shenanigans. I had only one final exam, which was on Tuesday of finals week, and then I had a take-home final essay-ish-thing that was due the same day. I also had a creative writing assignment due, but... it was due "sometime during finals week." I love creative writing teachers.

So I didn't have a lot of time for creative shenanigans, but I did do a few silly things. And I will post them now! And over the next few days, as I think of them.

Here's a sketchy cartoon thingy of me quoting Keats out of context:

That's how I felt while studying and writing. I actually said this out loud at least once. I've really got nothing against John Keats. In fact, I enjoyed studying a great deal of his poetry this semester. I just didn't really appreciate writing papers and essays and stuff like that. I never do. I would probably like it all a bit more if I could learn to write papers before the last minute, but... yeah.

I haven't drawn much on my tablet in a while. I'm trying to get back in the swing of it. I'll be practicing on it, not necessarily doing finished cartoons. I might post a few of the sketches up here for the fun of it.

Forest Notebook Doodles

I haven't posted on my blog in a long time, so, as is my custom, here are some doodles I drew in my notebook to prove that I'm still alive.

We were talking about John Keats's poem "Ode to Psyche" in class, so I doodle Psyche and Cupid frolicking by a snowy forest.

I don't usually doodle in that class. I was having a hard time focusing that day and was trying to occupy the daydreamy part of my brain so that the other part of my brain could focus on what the professor was saying.

At the end of the class, he voiced his displeasure at the lack of focus in our class that day. I hope he wasn't personally mad at me. I was trying so hard to pay attention.

I have to write a 15 page paper for that class and I'm trying to figure out what to write it about, so I was going through my notes, and that's when I found the doodle. I'm particularly proud of the trees.

NaNoWriMo is limping along. I'm up to 5806 words. I think it'll probably be put mostly on hold until after this paper is done. Thanksgiving break... if only I could fast-forward through the paper-writing process so I can get to Thanksgiving.

But not fast-forward through all the other stuff I'm doing. This semester has gone by really, really quickly. I'm a little shocked.

Brace Yourself

National Novel Writing Month is held in November.

October is almost over.

Snuck up on me again, didn't ya, NaNoWriMo?

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30. Afterward (ideally), you have the rough draft of a novel to work with.

I've technically participated for the past three years, although I think only the last two count. I've never won. Could this be my year? Could 2014 be the year I make it to 50,000 words?

Eh. I don't have high hopes. November is the busiest month of my fall semester. There's all kinds of papers and stuff going on this month. But I'm going to try very hard to beat last year's score.

Last year, I started a semi-Victorian, semi-steampunk, semi-romantic, very adventure-y novel that I called "The Night Rider." I got up to 12,360 words.

I'm going to work on a different novel this year. Night Rider is still very near and dear to my heart, and I hope to finish it sometime, but it's no longer the most prominent idea buzzing around in my mind. Also, the NaNoWriMo rules say that you have to write all new words, so I figure I'll just start over with a new idea.

That said, I'm having a hard time picking between two story ideas. They're both fantasy stories, although one has a bit more supernatural stuff and the other is actually a bit more scientific. One idea is fairly recent in my head- I think the grandfather of the idea popped into my head over the summer and gradually developed into the awesome thing it is right now. 

The other idea is one I've been working on since roughly last Spring Break (although it has nothing to do with Spring Break, I swear). I'd like to say this one's a bit more developed than the other one is, but I'm actually not sure about that anymore.

A major factor in the decision will probably be the fact that I actually have names for most of the characters in the newer idea. I have the hardest idea coming up with names. But I've been writing up chunks of the story for creative writing assignments, just to sort of test drive the characters, and I managed to come up with some names for them. They felt weird at first, but after a three-hour writing session on Monday night, I can officially say they've grown on me. 

So that's my dilemma. That's the update. I'll make a decision about it by Nov. 1.

I'm definitely supposed to be reading workshop pieces for creative writing. I'm definitely procrastinating. Back to work!

A New Page on the Blog!

Hey, everybody!

Quick! Look at my blog! Do you see something different? Something that wasn't here the last time you looked at this page?

There's now a tab next to the "Home" and "Digital Portfolio" tabs that's labeled "Intern Blog."

If you click on that tab, you will be taken to the Intern Blog page of the Alabama Heritage website.

Alabama Heritage is the magazine I'm working with as an editorial intern this semester. The magazine office is in Northport, Alabama, just across the Black Warrior River from where I live and attend classes at the University of Alabama. Alabama Heritage is a quarterly magazine that focuses on Alabama history. I do a great deal of fact checking and copy editing for the magazine, but I'm also responsible for writing a blog post every two weeks. My work is featured on the Intern Blog alongside that of current and past AH interns. Take a look!

And here's the link again, just because:

http://www.alabamaheritage.com/intern-blog

Hand Czech

I diddled a doodle. And then I practiced drawing hands. And there's a Czech proverb for no extra charge.

I'm trying to get in the habit of writing or drawing for 15 minutes a day. Ideally, I'd do both for longer periods of time, but I get awfully busy during the week, so this is a good start.