Pre NaNoWriMo 2014

This year will be my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo, and will hopefully be my second win. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

From their website: "National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30."

It sounds hard. And it is. But it's doable. I'm the biggest procrastinator in the world and hardly ever finish anything I start, and I managed to both write 70,000 words last November and finally finish the first draft of my novel about a week ago.

So it's definitely not impossible.

I really enjoy learning about other peoples' "weapons of mass creation", so to speak, so I figured I'd share mine as well.

I don't have a desk in my room, so I use my bed (or the floor) for just about everything. My laptop has been like a godsend. It was incredibly useful during the second half of November last year when I got it, and made it infinitely easier to write. I really should back up all of my documents from last year and clear them off the computer so I have more of a "fresh start" of sorts. 

I've been using the teal binder for the past two years, but it's definitely seen better days and I finally have binders I can replace it with. I just got a whole bunch of relatively unused office supplies from my grandparents and I'm really dying to start using them. 

I write on the blank backs of old school papers since I like to constantly re-organize and work better when I can see multiple things at once instead of having to flip back and forth. And it's eco-friendly. (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑ 

However, I do have an old composition notebook that I haul around at school and write in when I should be taking notes. (҂⌣̀_⌣́) It's really helpful to have since I come up with a bunch of "what ifs" and then forget them very quickly... And it's fun to color the cover in, too. 

I have a whole bunch of different writing utensils stashed about my room. I use the top pencil case the most since it's always with my sketchbook, but last year I relied heavily on the donut one on the bottom. (It smells like the chai tea chapstick I have in there. I opened it up a few minutes ago and the smell just reminds me of writing. So that's very good sense-association right there.) The Pentel pens in the middle are my go-to set when we peer edit in class, and are also what I've been using to color in the composition cover. They're awesome pens and have lasted for about four years at this point. 

However, I did cave a little and buy some brand-new supplies;; I've wanted a more varied set of pens recently, especially since I lost the purple Pentel pen shortly after I bought the set, so I bought an InkJoy set when I got a new sketchbook. I got the pencil case at Anime USA because it was cute and slightly ridiculous.

The pencil case reads: "Nothing happens until something 

moves actions produce genius magic and power."

The tag on it is in Korean. Despite the nonsense English, it still seems like a pretty inspirational message if you think about it. (Also, I have no idea if the InkJoy pens will all fit inside it. I really hope so.)

So those are my weapons of mass creation! I do all of the writing itself on the computer, but I brainstorm much better on paper. And stationery is a huge weakness of mine. If I were a dragon, I'd hoard stationery supplies. 

I'm hoping to do at least one other blog post regarding my NaNo attack methods, so please look forward to that! And prompt me if I forget to do it. Because I'll probably forget about it. 

Anime USA 2014

The con was three weeks ago, oops;;;

This year marked my third Anime USA! This was my first convention that I tackled completely on my own, without any adults, so AUSA is kind of like my "freedom con". It's easily accessible by metro, so I enjoy it for the fact that I didn't have to involve my parents (much) in going to the convention.

Pre-con was a little bit of a mess. There was a lack of planning on my part, and like last year, there was the threat that I wouldn't have anyone to go with. Thankfully everything worked out! I also finished my Hibiya vest in the week before the convention, which was really poor planning on my part. I'm very proud with how the vest turned out in the end, but two sewing machine needles died for the cause ;o;

The lack of planning kind of carried into the con itself. I ended up changing my Friday cosplay plans last minute after deciding I didn't like how it looked on me. There were a few issues regarding communication and synchronizing metro, also because there was track work on the Red line that weekend. (That always seems to happen.) I also didn't vlog as much as I wanted to :(

Other minor bad things that happened: I accidentally spilled my water bottle in my backpack on Sunday and soaked through my lunchbox and electronics bag. I was very fortunate that none of my electronics were ruined!! Seriously, it was a miracle. I did lose my short camera / phone charging cord, most likely in the "oh crap I got everything wet I have to assess the damage" panic, but I have a much longer cord as well. I'm hoping to re-buy the short cord since it's so portable, but since it came with my camera, I'm not entirely sure I can :|

Very good things: I got the Iwatobi Free! jacket I wanted, I got a lot of cool stuff (and still came home with money!), had lots of fun with my new 3DS and checking streetpasses, got to be part of the super cool impromptu Kagerou Project photoshoot and got a couple Hibiya hall photos taken, and I got to wear my Annabeth cosplay down to the Mall and the museums! (Even though my camera died right as we got there.)

I swear I'm going to get more Annabeth photos in the museums one day.

The only panel I really went to was the screening of the first few episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal. It was really fun to see my friend's reactions to such a girly anime (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑  I spent a good amount of time in Dealers / AA and got to play Portal with said friend (and played Streetpass while he played Diablo), and was lucky enough to play DDR twice.

I started calling AUSA "chillcon" last year, and it definitely was chillcon this year, too. I really just like the feeling of AUSA. It's much calmer than Otakon and was at a much nicer time of year than both Otakon and Katsucon. I think it's a wonderful way to break up the 6 months between Katsu and Otakon.

In reflection: I still haven't learned from bad planning and I didn't improve on my vlogging skills like I wanted to, but I still had a lot of fun. I probably don't have to make any new cosplays for Katsucon, so I'm expecting the next almost-year to be very chill. I'd love to start vlogging from home in that time; I just need to gather the nerve to.

Books I've Read -- September

I'm honestly really happy to get back into the habit of reading during school. It makes class a lot more interesting.

Searching for Sky by Jillian Cantor, finished 9/5. At first, Searching for Sky reminded me of a book I read in elementary school. They both had to do with the narrator adjusting to living in society with other human beings. However, I don't think Searching for Sky was as great. My biggest problem was really just the kiss between Sky and River that seemed to come out nowhere and then a kind of romance, which I think really could've been done without. The ending didn't really seem to establish anything either -- it was a little too open-ended, I think.

Storm Thief by Chris Wooding, finished 9/13. I had checked this book out on my own and never got around to reading it, but then Gigi read it and passed it onto me as a recommendation. And it took me a while to get into. It was a really interesting concept, and I did kind of enjoy reading it, but the beginning was kind of hard to get past. I don't know if it was the amount of world-building needed, or the fact that the words were formatted onto the page so densely. I kind of wish there was an extension of the book, because I'm pretty curious about what happens to the characters after the end of Storm Thief, but it does a pretty good job with leaving an open-ended ending.

Hero by Alethea Kontis, finished 9/16. It took me at least 30 pages to realize Hero focused on a different sister than the first book did;; Which is entirely my fault, since there were definite differences between Saturday and Sunday. I think it's because the names are pretty similar (a difference of, like, four letters) and because it's been a little while since I read Enchanted. Still, I really liked it! I think my biggest issue would have to be with the "Does romance have to be part of the adventure?" on the cover,  since there is a romance by the end of the book, but it's mainly after the main problem has been solved.

The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman, finished 9/24. I checked this out before because I really loved the Stravaganza series by the same author, but I didn't start it by the time I had to read it. So I gave it another chance. And honestly, I struggled with it a lot more than I did Storm Thief. I don't usually read historical fiction, especially not as far back as The Falconer's Knot was, so I didn't have too much interest in it. I really kept reading because I needed something to do in class. It did get more interesting as I got further into the book, but I'd say it was after the halfway mark that I stopped complaining about it;; It was a good book, just not something I usually read.

Earth Star by Janet Edwards, finished 9/27. I saved Earth Star for last out of my library books, and I figured I wouldn't finish it by the time they were due because the font size is tiny. But I was surprised! Despite the pages being so dense, I was able to read through it pretty quickly. I really love the world-building in the series. It was a lot easier for me to read Earth Star than Earth Girl, I guess because of the learning curve it took to get used to the world in the first book.