Halfway.

Here we are, and it's halfway through the month of July. That also means that, if you are on target, you should be half-way through your novel, if you're writing one this month (A bit more on that later.).

I am, and I am not. My goal is the standard 50k words, and I'm past 25k, so in that sense, I am more than half-way, and I'm intending to have all 50k by the end of the month and "finish". But I don't think I'm 50% through the overall plot arc that I have outlined for myself. And that's just fine with me. I'll keep writing when the month is over, and work on this until it's completely done, and then I'll revise it. But first, what am I doing and why?

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It happens every November; the challenge is to write 50k words of a novel in one month. If you can, to also finish the novel, or at least a first draft.

I have classes in November. (Yes, I'm actually signed up for fall classes now. I'll post about that soon if I remember to.)

That means that I almost definitely won't have time to write a novel. To do it in a month with 30 days, you have to write 1,667 words every day. Even excluding planning, re-reading and re-writing, that would take me an hour and a half to two hours every day. I'm just not going to have that much time, mixed in with my classes. I'll still take the time I need to do my MS writing; that chain will not be broken again.

But there's a Camp NaNoWriMo going on this month. It's run on exactly the same principles as the regular NaNoWriMo, except it's in July. Because it's a month with 31 days, you only have to write 1,613 words every day.

I chose to do it this month because Mur suggested it is a Facebook post. It took me all of 15 seconds to make my decision. Also, I don't have any classes, and I can stay up late just about every day this month, and nobody will mind. I have done so; usually I'm up until midnight or 1, finishing my writing for the day. And I've been sleeping in until about 9. For those of you who know me, you know that this is unusual. I'm usually on a strict 10-6 sleeping schedule. But this has been working out for me, and I know I can switch back when I need to for fall classes.

I am currently at 27,608 words. I am more than half-way done, and I've been on or ahead of schedule every day this month. I think that's the big secret: never get behind. Never miss a day's words just because it was a bad day. Just keep plugging away. At the end of the month, you will have your novel.

It hasn't been easy. I've encountered plenty of problems, but I've also had a lot of support and help. I'll talk about each briefly. I'll also try to put up a post at the end of the month with my overall experience.

There was one day where I was gone all day at a school orientation. I think I walked about 5 miles outside, in 102 degree weather, and I had to be back for an advising appointment at 8:30 AM the next morning. That night, I only wrote 370 words. But I had been writing 1700-1800 words on all of the others days, so I had built up a cushion. After writing those 370 words, I was still on schedule for the day, and I jumped back in the next day and have since built myself up another nice cushion, though I hope I don't need it.

Always build yourself this cushion. Especially if you expect something like this to happen. Even if you don't you never know what's coming. Be prepared.

I fall slightly to the discovery writer side of the spectrum between discovery writing and outlining. I started the month with about 5-10 pages of notes to myself, world building and plot outlines, all jumbled together, as the free-writes that they were. I have been going along and doing more detailed outlines, usually just a few chapters ahead. I am alternating viewpoints between my two main characters at every chapter break, and I "finished" chapter 9 last night. I'm at a point I've been at before. I don't know what's happening in the next chapter. I have broad strokes for where the characters need to end up in a few chapters and why, but today I'm going to have to brainstorm as to how exactly they'll get there. Once I do that, I'll know what to do for the next few chapters. After that, I'll do it again. Because I have an overall outline, and I know where and why I want to go to my main plot points, I've been able to map my way along. It's also allowed me to adapt my story as I discover how is is going. I think it's a good balance for me, but it's required a fair bit of work outlining and discovering that I can't actually count as writing words during the month, so I'm working more than just my 1613 words per day.

Those have been the main issues. I've also had some amazing support.

To get myself in the mood for writing, I've been reading every day. Refilling the well, if you will. I've continued to tear through books, like I talked about in my last post. I've also continued to buy more of them. And I'm getting ideas all the time. Some of them pertain to this story, and keep it feeling fresh. Others I store in another file that I'll use later; it's just my general ideas folder. And I'm never short of interesting ideas. Keep reading, keep coming up with news ideas. It's kept me excited and engaged in my writing.

I listen to the song "Misty Mountains Cold" from the Hobbit movie every day before I start writing. I don't know exactly why, but it so perfectly evokes the sense of mystical and daring adventure that I so love about fantasy. It is just... I love it. It's beyond words. It's just a feeling that I get when listening to it. Like... Heck yes. THIS IS FANTASY. I also have a copy of the words of the entire song, copied from the book, pinned to my wall where I can read it from where I'm sitting. That always helps disconnect me from whatever mood I'm in during the day, and get me into a writing, adventuring mood. Find whatever it is that helps you get into the zone, and use it. If you're in the mood, writing is so much easier, and sometimes, it's exactly what you need to snap yourself out of whatever mood you've been in for the rest of the day.

But I think the biggest help of all has been the friends. In a Camp NaNoWriMo, you're placed in a cabin with 7 other writers who have all signed up. You can request cabin mates. 5 of mine are also from the Magic Spreadsheet; we all requested each other. The other two are randomly placed people. Those who are active (About half) are amazing. We have been talking to each other, posting updates and support, and being generally encouraging. I love the atmosphere of the cabin, and I think these people are awesome. Seeing their progression, seeing that it's possible, yes, it gives a sense of competition. And that's fine. It's perfectly friendly competition. But it also gives a sense of companionship. It's been amazing, and I'm definitely keeping in contact with some of these people after the month is over. We've already discussed forming a critique group, and we've already looked over what one of the members has done so far this month. So get yourself a group of like-minded writers, and communicate with them. It makes everything easier. Writers are not meant to work in complete isolation!

So that's been my month so far. Of course, I've done plenty of other things, and I'm starting to feel more like myself again. I think that the writing, the 2+ hours daily spent living in and creating my own world, has helped tremendously with that. I'm glad that I chose to do it. I'll post another feelings/update at the end of the month when I meet my goal. Because I will meet it.

Refuge.

I've been depressed lately. And by lately, I mean since about 9:30 P.M. Wednesday, June 19, 2013. And that's about all I'm going to say on the subject. The stuff I said in the last two posts about being happy and having the time of my life? Ignore that. It's gone. Done. Finished. *sigh*

But I'm not here to wallow in my depression. I'm here to talk, at least a little, about how I'm handling it. You have probably seen the pictures of books in previous posts, the stack that I have been accumulating since the beginning of the semester, which I will be digging through viciously once I get a chance. Well, that chance has come. My stack, as of Wednesday afternoon, was at 26 books. I went out Thursday afternoon and got 7 more, bringing my total up to 33. Yes, when I'm depressed, I go to the bookstore. I don't go out drinking or gambling. I go buy books.

My stack is now down to 27. I've read 5 books in 5 days. And they weren't easy books, either. All told, easily 2200-2500 pages combined. And I'm not going to stop. I have 27 books and 2 months, and every single one of those books is going to be finished by the time I start the fall semester.

But why? At least in my mind, the explanation is simple. I don't like my life. I don't like the world I'm living in. It sucks. So, I leave it. Not permanently. Suicide is never the answer. And not in any way that harms my body--never alcohol or drugs. No, if something has a lasting effect on me, I want it to be positive. So I leave this world for the world of my books. I've been to three alternate Earths, and two other planets. I'll talk about them in a moment. But they've been my refuges, my escapes from this Earth. If I could, I would go live on one of them, somewhere else.

First, I read the second Alcatraz book by Brandon Sanderson. It was probably just as funny as the first one, which I have decided is the funniest book I've ever read. And this one actually made me laugh out loud at least three times while I was reading it, no mean feat on the worst day of my life. Thank you, Mr. Sanderson.

Then I read WARP, the new book by Eoin Colfer. I loved his Artemis Fowl series, and so I got this one in hardcover, new from the bookstore. It was good. It felt a lot like the Artemis Fowl series, which was fine by me, because I love those. It would be nice to get something that felt different from an author, but I'm just fine with the same stuff, because I have plenty of different authors to pull from when I need something else.

The Crimson Crown, by Cinda Williams Chima, was excellent. It was a powerful finish to her Seven Realms series. It felt fresh and new, and at the same time, utterly familiar. The rooftop scene was painful for me to read. Her books feel a lot like Tamora Pierce, to me. I'm really looking forward to Chima's next book. I'm moving more lately (Not that you can tell from the books I've already listed...) into fantasy, and away from the YA, but there's a few authors that I will stick with, and she's definitely one of them.

I dug into Mur's book, The Shambling Guide to New York City. I don't do Urban Fantasy, almost as a rule. I don't really have any other books that I would really class in the same category. And that's just fine. It's just not my thing. But this book, this was a good book. Well written, strongly paced, it pulled me along all the way through. And it had a few good parts that made me laugh as well, something I desperately needed. This is definitely a series that I will be following through as more books come out.

And finally, I read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Up until this point, I was at 4 books in 3 days. Alcatraz is middle grade, and I would say that WARP and Crimson Crown are both YA. The Shambling Guide is urban fantasy. Name of the Wind is Epic Fantasy. Like I said earlier, I like to get lost in my worlds. The more richly realized a world is, the longer and more personal the story is, the longer and more convincingly I can get lost. That's why I love Epic Fantasy. Epic Fantasy fits The Name of the Wind like a sock. From page 125, "In some ways, this is where the story begins." It's beautifully done, and quite original. I will be starting Wise Man's Fear, the sequel, tonight. It should take me a good few days, since I have finals this week for the summer semester. I will also be buying the sequel in hardcover on release day. This is definitely one of my all time favorite authors and series, and I can't wait for more.

So yeah. Next time you're depressed, don't leave the world by hurting yourself in others in any way. Rather, let a marvelous and beautiful book transport you to somewhere far away.

Hair Part 2.

A while back, I wrote a post about hair. It's a bit fragmented and scatter-brained, sorry. You can read it if you want. It tells the story of how my Calculus II teacher cut his hair and freaked everyone out. I liked what he did so much that I decided to do the same thing. Here is 17" of my hair that was cut off and donated to Locks of Love.

Not only that, but because I made a school decision--I will be at UT Austin in the fall, I dyed the hair that was left brilliant orange. Plus, I shaved, and all that. It was quite a shocking change, but I like it. Here's what I looked like.

By now, the dye has worn off, so it's partly bleached, partly normal color, while it grows out. I'll be going to get it cut at the beginning of July, so it will look normal for orientation and my ID picture at UT. As normal as it can look for being short.

I cut and dyed my hair the week of finals, so it was like the picture above when I went in for classes that last week. The reactions I got were priceless. I have video recordings of several of them. I don't think I'll ever post them, because some people, shall we say, over-reacted. But they make me smile.

I've liked having my hair short. For the first few weeks, I missed having long hair. But now, I like how easy it is to wash and take care of, so it will probably stay short for the foreseeable future.

That's about all I have to say on the subject of hair right now. As far as life, it's been nuts, but I'm having the time of my life. I'll be trying to write some more posts soon to bring you guys up to speed.

Classes Are Over

So, I turned in my last assignment this morning. I have nothing else to do for this semester except wait for my grades. I hope they're good.

It was a long semester. Very long. And yet, all to short. I could have used at least a week's worth of extra days, sprinkled in there when things all happened at once. But that's the past, and I survived. My grades should be in by Thursday.

But I won't be at home then. I'm leaving tomorrow morning to spend a week in North Carolina, fossil hunting. I'll probably write and post several more times during that time.

This is just a quick post to say that classes are over, and I will be coming back. I've got a lot of things that I want to talk about, and I'm never at a loss for words, so don't worry about that. There will be more posts. Lots of them. :)

I'm finally, finally, finally reading a book. One of like 25 I have sitting here waiting for me. I wonder how many I'll conquer before the summer semester starts. A lot, I hope.

I fell off the rice and planet hunting train during finals week (That's a post in itself, right there.). I stuck with the writing though. My project derailed itself at the beginning of the week, and I mostly did random streams of consciousness and brainstorms on other ideas that I have, but I was still writing. Sometimes on my phone after I went to bed. But I did it every day. I'll decide soon if I want to try to fix the first project, or just move on to something new.

Good things are happening in my life, but I'm not allowed to say anything for two weeks. You'll know when I am. :)

Trophy Wall

Another quick update on me. I'm still doing what I always do, working on schoolwork. Above is a picture of my trophies for this semester--the testing center forms for all of the tests that I've done. In the upper left is the form I had to fill out to petition to take an overload of classes this semester.

I'm quite proud of my trophy wall.

I have completely finished my history class, so these last three weeks, it feels like I only have 17 hours.

I don't have any tests this coming week, although that's fine because of how much homework and whatnot I have.

Next week I'll have 1 test.

Then I have 4 in class finals the last week. Because two of them are each spread out over two days, it's going to feel like 6 exams.

I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably make a post sometime near then about what scores I'll actually need on the finals to make an A in each class.

Rice and writing are going fine. I've broken 100 days in a row in writing.

I have at least 20 books on my to-read pile now, so... Yeah. I'm thinking that I'm going to try to review them when I finally get around to reading them. I need to find a direction for this blog; I'm thinking about going with book review+chronicle of my journey to becoming a writer. Because I will be a writer, dang it.

If you have any other suggestions for things I could blog about consistently, things that could be themes for my blog, post a suggestion in the comments. (School goes without saying.)

Quick Update

I'm still here, and I'm alive. I'm not depressed or anything, just crazy busy. I'm going to give myself permission to take the next 5 weeks off from this blog, so that I can finish out my semester, and not fail any of my classes.

I'm doing awesome in school. I turned in my history book report this weekend, after getting my essay approved the weekend before. That means, unless the teacher has something he wants me to change about the report, that I'm completely done with that class, making the end of the semester that much easier.

Easier? Ha. I have a government test tomorrow, as well as two math tests this weekend. I am scheduled for a total of 9 tests in the last five weeks of classes. And I'm going to get As on all of them, darn it.

I just wanted to let you guys know (I'm not sure why I bother. Nobody actually reads this.) that I am still alive, and will be returning to posting regularly as soon as I can.

Writing and Rice are going well.

Until later, bye all.

Priorities.

Priorities. They're important. I have them, and I know what they are. Some people might disagree with me, but in my personal opinion, I have them straight. (Then again, most people do, in their personal opinions. But that's not what this is about.)

I'm going to quote Dan Wells here. This quote comes, not from any of his books, but from an episode of Writing Excuses. I can't remember which one. During the episode, the podcasters were talking about motivation, and finding time for writing. Dan said, "When you do not have time for something, that is not an issue of scheduling, it is an issue of values."

Now, this seems a simple and obvious statement at first glance. And it is. But sometimes, seeing things so simply and clearly stated is what we need.

When you don't have time to write, it's because you don't value it, don't prioritize, it enough.

When you don't have time to do your schoolwork, it's because you don't prioritize it.

It's not because you have issues with scheduling your time efficiently. It's about what you prioritize.

Once I came to that realization, I accepted that there are just going to be some things that I'm not going to be able to do. Other things, I'll be able to do when I have the time for them. And some things, I'll prioritize, and make time for. I value these things more highly than anything else. Let me give you a list of what's at the top of my priorities, how I decide what absolutely must be done, and what can slide.

1. School.

2. Necessary Body stuff. (eating, etc.)

3. Writing.

4. Sleeping.

5. Everything else, in various orders.

Note that I list school first. That's because it is. If it means that I have to miss a meal to be in class on time, or finish a test, I'll do it. If it means not sleeping one night to finish homework, I'll do it. School, and doing well, is that important to me. I've done all of the above several times.

Writing in this context means creative writing, not this blog. That's why the blog sometimes slips, even though I'm still writing everyday. I'm sorry for that, but I'm not going to bump it up on the priority list.

Now, I won't miss a meal to write. But I will stay up late, even if it means I only get 4 hours of sleep instead of 5. I've decided that writing is more important to me, and suddenly, I've been able to write every day. It's amazing what setting your priorities - your values - can really do for you.

Take a minute to ask yourself: What are your values?

Then, stop and ask: Am I telling myself the truth?

If you are, you will truly prioritize those things at the top over others, even to the detriment of others. But if that's just what you say your values are, then that won't be reflected in what you actually do with your time. It's worth thinking about and examining. I created my list, and wrote it down, and I constantly remind myself of what my priorities are. I still have to remind myself of what my priorities are, and I do so all the time. But because I do so, I stick to them. I suggest that if you're having trouble finding the time to do something that you say is a high priority for you, you do the same. It's what worked for me, and it might just work for you.

Beautiful Torture

This post doesn't have a lot of words, because a picture is worth a thousand words. Note that I'll still talk a bit because, well, that's how I roll. I'm super busy with school, I don't get to read a lot lately. Here's a picture of the books I have sitting, waiting for me to read, that I'm not letting myself touch until I have time to read one cover to cover. Because that's also how I roll.

There's two more that aren't pictured here, little known things by the names of Ender's Game and A Game of Thrones. They're both on a bookshelf somewhere, but they will get read.

I also have a copy of Unfettered on order. Please also note that there are two sequels to The Warded Man, with two more books planned. Redshirts is a standalone. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first in a trilogy. Gardens of the Moon is the first in a 10 book series, totaling over 10k pages, and 3.3 million words. The sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora is out, and there are what appear to be 5 more books coming. The next book is a writing book. The Shasht war and Doom's Break are the second and third books in a trilogy. The two Alcatraz books are the first two of four, with a fifth planned, and The Name of the Wind is the first in a trilogy, of which two are currently out.

So yeah, if I like the books that are there, I have plenty to read for a long time. Not to mention the Game of Thrones or Ender's Game books. Not to mention that Brandon Sanderson has three MORE books scheduled to come out this year. (Yeah, and A Memory of Light already came out. How's that for lots of writing?) Not to mention that I also have a few more books that I want to order. I want to try out Brent Weeks, for example, and will be ordering his entire Night Angel Trilogy (cheaper than buying the individual books) soon.

November is going to be a particularly hard month for me. I'll try to explain why as succinctly as I can. NaNoWriMo. Catching Fire. Words of Radiance.

And with that, I've tortured myself enough for the day. I'm going to go do some schoolwork, so that hopefully, I'll have time over the winter break to at least start on some of these books. :(

Romeo and Juliet

That title really is just there to grab attention, but I think that it's also fitting for the post - I didn't just choose it randomly.

Warning: Spoilers for Romeo and Juliet. If that's even possible.

Here's a question for you: would Romeo and Juliet either have died if they had had phones and could text or email each other? Wouldn't Romeo have known that she wasn't really dead?

Also, I have major issues with letting myself go on tangents. I just spent 30 minutes reading up history, reviews, etc. of Romeo and Juliet. Wow...

Think on that for a moment. While that delves into the effects of technology on storylines, stories today about miscommunication that are utterly stupid (Seriously. We have phones. Use them, or your characters are stupid. And this is also why we see "Jamming" devices so often.), and some other really interesting storytelling aspects, I don't want to go into that right now.

I want to talk about a real-life situation. My school. It prides itself on communication; they collect phone numbers, send out test emergency system messages, have a FB page, everything. But there's one key area where the fall down.

Cancelled classes.

This semester alone, my physics class has been cancelled twice. (Please note that I'm not blaming my teacher for any of this. He's been sick on and off, and definitely deserves the days off to get better.) It's not the first time this has happened, either. It was cancelled twice last semester, as was my history class.

ACC does not send out any kind of email reminder when class is cancelled. They have everyone's email. They have it in their system that the class is cancelled. All of the information that they need is right there. They put up printed, official notices on the classroom door. They just don't send out emails.

My history teacher sent them out himself last semester when he was unable to come to class. I was able to go home early both days, saving myself a lot of time.

For physics, last semester, I came up to school early (physics at 9, next class at 2:30), and then found out that physics class was cancelled. It was quite a surprise, and I would much rather have gone home and slept in those days. This semester, the first time, I didn't find out that class was cancelled until class time (1:30). I was on campus for my optional government SI session, but that ended at 10:30, and I had been in the library studying since that time. I could easily have been home before lunch. Or, had I known earlier, not even gone up to campus at all.

The second time, a classmate apparently spotted the notice on the door around 10:00, and emailed the entire class (Yes, it's so easy that any of the students can do it - from their phone), and I was able to go home directly after the SI session. I still wouldn't have gone up to campus if I had known earlier, but at least I had the rest of the day that time.

In conclusion (aka, I'll stop rambling here.), it's ridiculously easy to email all of the students in a class when it's cancelled. Heck, ACC, you should have it as part of your automatic system, the same one that prints out a notice and tells someone to go tape it to the classroom door. It saves people a lot of time and stress. And it's just polite. Please?

State of Me, Sunday, 10 March, 2013

It's Spring Break time.

I'd like to take a brief moment here to rant at the government for stealing an hour of out my spring break. Yes, today is the beginning of DST. I've got a post about that here.

Okay, rant over. What's been happening? I've been busy. I know, that's nothing new. I said I would try to get out another post last week, and I failed, so you will be getting an extra one this week, I promise. It is, after all, spring break. Ha.

So, I took a government test on Tuesday morning, and I feel really good about it. I also took a Calculus IV test yesterday, and Differential Equations today. Both of them took me just under three hours each, so I'm mentally exhausted. Because finishing the work/studying for the tests before spring break really wasn't enough, I'm going to work some more Calculus HW tonight. (He assigned homework on Wednesday on material that wasn't on the test, I don't do that kind of homework until after the test is done.) I felt good about both of those tests, too.

Coming up, it's time for me to take a break - not. The real reason that I'm diving straight into more work tonight is so that I can actually get stuff done. I have a large to-do list over the break, not in the least including a few computer labs for math classes, reading 3 history books and writing an essay, reading a 4th history book and writing a book report, reading the last 4 chapters in the history textbook and studying for taking the 4th history exam the day that classes start again, doing a physics homework, preparing for a physics test the week classes start back, and practicing my guitar every day.

So yeah, a nice little spring break. I hope you enjoy yours, too. (I'm not being sarcastic there. I enjoy being busy. I thrive on having so much stuff done.)

Anywho. Life lately has been about priorities. I've had to decide what's important, and when I can do it. I'll write an entire post on this at some point, but I'll say one thing here. If I don't have something done that's due tomorrow, and I'm staying up late doing it, that's not because I was a procrastinator. I just prioritized other things above it. I was still working, darn it.

Okay, end rant. Time for happy stuff. I finished my writing project. It's at 52,985 words, majorly shorter than I want it to be... (Darn, another topic that I have to write about. I just went and started keeping a list of these, so I'll actually remember.) But it's done, dang it. Except, it's not. Nothing's ever done for me, is it? I've had a few people who offered to read the thing, and give me some feedback on it, and I'm planning, after I've had some time to let it set, get back to working on it, make it better, etc. I don't expect it to ever be publishable-good, but it'll get better. Mostly because I'll learn something in the process. Oh, if you want to read my story, shoot me a message. (I'm being delusional here. Nobody reads this blog right now.)

You'll notice that my wordcount on writing dropped dramatically. That's because I reset it for the next project. That's right, I started on something else new, immediately. I've taken a few story seeds that were floating around (I have an entire file of them, most just a sentence or two. I'm never going to run out of ideas.) and I've mashed them together. I threw together a rough rough rough outline yesterday, and I think I'm going to throw in another idea and work a slightly more complicated outline today. You can expect to see the number of words written go up and down over the next few weeks, as I put them into more and more files, all over the place. I'm planning on fleshing out the outline for another few days, then writing up character sheets for all of my main and semi-major characters (I don't know who all of them will be, yet.), and do some detailed world-building. Heck, I'll even welcome a bit of world-builder's disease at this point, because I feel that the world for the project that I just finished was underdeveloped and rather boring.

So, I've rambled here long enough. I'll write one more post later tonight, and post it, and a second one will be coming sometime in the next few days. Here's the numbers, and I hope all of you have a good spring break (whenever it is for you).

Writing:

Mar 3, 2013	49,271	519	300	49,052	498.1	Yes	53	1,432
Mar 4, 2013	49,812	541	300	49,571	498.9	Yes	54	1,486
Mar 5, 2013	50,409	597	300	50,112	500.6	Yes	55	1,541
Mar 6, 2013	51,109	700	300	50,709	503.9	Yes	56	1,597
Mar 7, 2013	51,916	807	300	51,409	509.0	Yes	57	1,654
Mar 8, 2013	52,985	1,069	300	52,216	518.2	Yes	58	1,712
Mar 9, 2013	647	647	300	53,285	-334.3	Yes	59	1,771
Mar 10, 2013	647	0	300	947	-329.0	No	0	1,771

Rice:

Mar 3, 2013	347,240	1814	151	1,450	2	725.0	1064.7	Yes.	72	4,147
Mar 4, 2013	348,390	1812	150	1,150	2	575.0	1065.1	Yes.	73	4,220
Mar 5, 2013	349,540	1804	150	1,150	8	143.8	1065.5	Yes.	74	4,294
Mar 6, 2013	350,950	1799	149	1,410	5	282.0	1067.2	Yes.	75	4,369
Mar 7, 2013	352,340	1795	149	1,390	4	347.5	1068.7	Yes.	76	4,445
Mar 8, 2013	353,800	1794	149	1,460	1	1460.0	1070.6	Yes.	77	4,522
Mar 9, 2013	355,310	1790	149	1,510	4	377.5	1072.7	Yes.	78	4,600
Mar 10, 2013	357,160	1782	148	1,850	8	231.3	1076.3	Yes.	79	4,679

State of me, Monday, 4 March, 2013

I'm insane.

I have a test tomorrow morning, and then I'll be spending the weekend in the testing center again; I have another round of math tests coming up. I also have a physics report due tomorrow, a physics homework due on Thursday, and a blog post for government due on Friday. Over the weekend, I did 56 pages of math homework.

I'm working something like 16 hours a day on schoolwork, and starting to cut into sleeping time to work on it; that's about the only thing I have left to cut into. I still feel like I'm barely hanging on, and that I could fall behind at any moment, and that if I do, I'll never catch up. I'm doing supremely well in all of my classes, and I feel like I'm always about to fail, that any slip up will lead to utter disaster. I think that's part of why I do so well.

You aren't getting a regular post right now. I have one that I want to write, and we'll see about getting it done tomorrow. If not, I'll put it in extra over spring break.

I got my physics test back finally, 45/47, averages to just over a 95%, so I'm happy with it.

I've gotten even more books for my ever growing stack of things that I desperately want to read when I have the time. It's painful. I got one today that's a little special, I'll give details on that soon.

I'm doing my writing every day; it's very exciting and fun. I've had to consider after midnight as the previous day a few times, but heck, it's before I go to bed for the day, so I'm perfectly fine with counting it.

My story is coming ever closer to the conclusion. I'm going to push to end it this week. I already have a host of ideas for what I can do next. I'll be looking at all of them over the break, probably rough rough outlining each one in a single day, and then selecting one, and doing some serious character and world building before launching in to it. I'm tempted to try one or two shorter pieces, to see how they go, and maybe to have something marketable. Getting a short story published would be a dream.

I wrote 2k words on the last day of February, because it gives me an extra point on the magic spreadsheet, which bumped me up from rank 5 to rank 4 for the month of February. So yes, those words were written quite selfishly.

My story is almost at 50k words, the cutoff for being considered an actual novel. I'll hit that either tonight or tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Rice, I'm doing every day. Not much to say here, other than that levels are getting a lot less frequent. It helps, every morning, knowing that even if I don't get anything else done during the day (HA HA HA HA HA. I wish I could do that, for one day), I've done something that causes net good in the world. It's a good feeling.

I'm signing off now. I have to write two essays for my government test tomorrow morning. Even though I need a 20 on this test, if I make 100s on the rest (I made 103 on the first one.), I feel like getting anything under 90 is failing. I don't know why I do this to myself, sometimes.

Writing:

Feb 25, 2013	44,449	680	300	44,069	461.5	Yes	47	1,129
Feb 26, 2013	45,182	733	300	44,749	466.8	Yes	48	1,177
Feb 27, 2013	45,728	546	300	45,482	468.3	Yes	49	1,226
Feb 28, 2013	47,728	2,000	300	46,028	497.2	Yes	50	1,276
Mar 1, 2013	48,230	502	300	48,028	497.3	Yes	51	1,327
Mar 2, 2013	48,752	522	300	48,530	497.7	Yes	52	1,379
Mar 3, 2013	49,271	519	300	49,052	498.1	Yes	53	1,432
Mar 4, 2013	49,271	0	300	49,571	489.4	No	0	1,432

Rice:

Feb 26, 2013	340,660	1829	152	1,200	4	300.0	1058.4	Yes.	67	3,797
Feb 27, 2013	341,990	1823	151	1,330	6	221.7	1059.8	Yes.	68	3,865
Feb 28, 2013	343,250	1819	151	1,260	4	315.0	1060.7	Yes.	69	3,934
Mar 1, 2013	344,430	1819	151	1,180	0	0.0	1061.3	Yes.	70	4,004
Mar 2, 2013	345,790	1816	151	1,360	3	453.3	1062.8	Yes.	71	4,075
Mar 3, 2013	347,240	1814	151	1,450	2	725.0	1064.7	Yes.	72	4,147
Mar 4, 2013	348,390	1812	150	1,150	2	575.0	1065.1	Yes.	73	4,220