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.

Books I've Read -- August

Sorry I'm like a week late! School started the last week of August and I honestly forgot about finishing this post until like two days ago;; But anyway, since school's started, I'm hopefully gonna have more books in the upcoming posts! I've already finished two books in school within the past two weeks, so that seems promising.

Among the Nameless Stars by Diana Peterfreund, finished 8/4. I read this because I found it online for free. It was a little hard for me to get back into the world of For Darkness Shows the Stars, but I think it was interesting to show what Kai went through. That said, I wasn't all that impressed with the first book in the series, so the little novella / short story didn't seem all that impressive, either.

Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund, finished 8/7. Surprisingly, I loved this book a lot more than I loved its prequel! Maybe it was just the setting and how it affected the storyline -- I really loved the tropical, Polynesian-like-ness of it. I also think the concept of both the main characters hiding secrets from each other worked out pretty well. I kind of wish that there was more to the book, especially since I think there's still so much of the world that could be explored, but I also think it ended nicely. The technology like flutternotes and the Helo Cure were pretty cool, too.

The Slanted Worlds by Catherine Fisher, finished 8/14. I liked that there was more of the concept of time travel in The Slanted Worlds, especially since in Obsidian Mirror it seemed like mostly world-building and angst. The way the book was set up was a little confusing, what with Alicia's diary and the split 3rd person narration, but it did work well in terms of creating suspense. There are still a bunch of things I'd like to know, though, so I'm hoping that the final book will cover that. Unfortunately, Goodreads lists its publication as 2015...

Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier, finished 8/20. I've gotta be honest -- up until about halfway through Emerald Green, I kept wondering why I continued reading this series. That said, once I reached about the halfway point, it got good really quickly. Like, almost whiplash fast. There were at least two plot twists pretty close to each other. I really wish that sort of action had been spread throughout the other two books as well; the end of Emerald Green was the most captivating the series had been for me. All of the questions I had were wrapped up almost simultaneously, and I can kind of understand why it took two and a half books to get to that point, though it had been long enough between the past two books that I'd forgotten a bunch of details that had been established in them. I'm planning to go back and re-read the series at some point, hopefully all at once, because from what I can remember, the series was set up well. It just took a while for it to be apparent.

Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson, finished 8/23. Plausibility-wise, I'm pretty sure Catch a Falling Star is like 99.99% impossible, but it's a pretty cute, fluffy love story. Though honestly that's a little more depressing when you take into account that technically Carter is being paid to like him. I have no idea if any of the details about Hollywood business and stardom life are accurate; it did seem kind of weird for some random girl to just get paid to act as an actor's girlfriend. The character building seemed pretty good though, even if the story followed a typical fluffy-romance kind of setup. It wasn't exactly something to stand out, but I appreciated the fluff.

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil, finished 8/29. I wasn't actually expecting much when I picked this up, so I was really surprised by how much I ended up liking it. I honestly really loved how the romance was slowly built up, and that it wasn't even apparent by, like, halfway through the book. The characters were all really interesting and more multi-layered than I'd expected. It took me a little bit to figure out where it was set, but other than that, I don't think I honestly had any problems or complaints? I think I'd definitely read it again sometime. Also, I think it definitely deserves mentioning that one of the side characters identified on the LGBT spectrum and wasn't treated out of the ordinary. I really liked that.

Otakon 2014

This year marked my third Otakon! It fell the weekend before my birthday again, and I've gotta say it's really cool to consider such a con as a sort of "birthday gift" from whatever luck of fate landed it that weekend.

That said, that luck of fate didn't quite carry over into the first part of the weekend.

On Wed, Emily and I tried to do some last-minute cosplay prep for her. We tried dyeing two different white tops for her rave Snow White cosplay, and both turned out purple instead of the intended blue. Luckily, the one she initially wanted to use turned out indigo when we left both in the dye overnight, so she was able to use it.

Emily and I decided to try Thursday badge pickup this year. And in case you didn't hear, it really backfired for everyone this year. We ended up getting a late start up to Baltimore that evening, getting in line sometime around 8:30, and unfortunately we were one of the thousands of people in line at 10:30 when they announced they were closing the doors. That really wasn't executed well -- while I can't blame the con for computer problems, the staffers were just yelling the news from where they were standing, and we really only heard from word-of-mouth spreading through the line. There were even a few staffers standing in front of the main entrance that had megaphones in their hands but weren't using them. So that wasn't very cool.

So Emily and I woke up early on Friday morning and started again with our usual camp-out until the doors opened. And it went much better. We were much further in the line than in the previous years, most likely due to the people in our situation, so I was a little worried about how long we'd have to wait. However, staff was able to open up registration earlier than planned, so while we were in line since sometime around 7, we were inside with our badges around 9. We were really grateful for that.

All in all, Otakon felt a little more chill than the other two years had. My original cosplay plans had fallen through for the most part, so the most recognition I'd gotten was on Friday as Annabeth Chase. I had a lot more fun than I expected as Annabeth! A lot of people recognized the cosplay or at least that I was from Camp Half-Blood. I didn't complete my Hibiya and Isaac cosplays because I figured the wigs wouldn't come in time. So of course they showed up Saturday while we were at the con;; Saturday I wore my Sailor Moon wig and a cute dress I liked, and on Sunday I went as an OC from my novel using the wig for Hibiya.

While I didn't go to any of the Sailor Moon panels or get any autographs, I was lucky enough to get the special coin! It took me all three days;; The Sailor Moon cosplayer had given both Emily and I the stamp sheets on Friday, so I was carrying around her unwanted one in my bag. I was only able to get two of the scouts on Friday, so Saturday morning I asked Emily to grab the sheet off my desk and she grabbed her empty one instead .... Luckily I was able to get the two I'd missed on Saturday, and on Sunday they were all much closer to the Viz booth, so I finished pretty soon after they'd started the event for the day! I also got pictures of all five scouts. I didn't get any of the shirts that they supposedly had, but I got two different official artwork posters, so I don't really mind.

I also totally overspent on Friday but managed to come in under budget in the long run! On Friday, I really only bought the things that I knew I wanted from artists I followed before the con had even started. Saturday and Sunday I bought less. My haul consisted of mainly posters, but I also came home with a Luna plushie, a shirt with "fight like a magical girl" on it, and a little Tuxedo Mask figurine from a blind box!

TL;DR despite the slight rocky start Otakon had, it was still a really good con overall! My con vlogs can be found here, and hopefully I'll have a new video up every Thursday!

Now begins the prep for Anime USA...