Thing I've Learned #36: Sometimes Your Costume Decides What it is For You

Best. Sleepover. Ever. Nora, Brittany, EB, Emily, and Sarah all came, and did...well, writerly things! We made shirts, which OWN. They all say This. Is. NaNo! somewhere on them, because we decided that that should be our catch phrase this year. Then we went around in a circle and talked about our novels for a few minutes. (EB decided to tape this.) This was rather amusing, for me, at least, considering I had just had a bottle of Mountain Dew and could hardly get a sentence out, much less and entire, cohesive summary of my novel. By this time it was nearly 3:00 AM, at which time I climbed up onto my desk and finally wrote my timeline. Why on top of my desk? Because it's the only way I could reach the paper taped up behind it. We slept like logs.

Sarah had to leave early the next morning, but the everyone else stayed for breakfast, and later, making the Facebook pages! Oh my gosh, most fun thing I've ever done! Mine currently reads:

Bailey Baudelaire Wow ;)

Marce Ancelet doesn't really mind washing Bailey's hair.
Bailey Baudelaire Oh, sure, as long as you get something out of it! =3
Marce Ancelet Damn straight.
Ma Marce, you have tonight off, but Bailey does not!
Bailey Baudelaire Killjoy.

Sanvi Isadore is reveling in the sunset.

Ciro Montecalm is enjoying a little quiet time with a friend.

Ha'ri had a nice day with one friend and is looking forward to a nice evening with another.

DeLacey Windsor is off to a ball. Oh, joy.
Kit Greene dislike
DeLacey Windsor No kidding.
Kit Greene No chance you could skip out? And come see me instead?
DeLacey Windsor No, and if you keep begging I'll never come.

I swear to god it is not me who decides what gets written there! They dictate, I write.

The aquarium yesterday was awesome, by the way. EB, Sarah, and I spent, I kid you not, approximately 20 minutes staring at the seahorses. I love seahorses! Truthfully, my love for them started as a mpreg fangirl fetish, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask. That aside, they're adorable. Especially the teeny tiny ones. They're oh, and inch or so long? CUTE. Then we stood in front of one of those awesome panoramic tank windows for a while. EB and Sarah were facing each other with their sides to the tank, and I was looking straight ahead at it. An enormous moray eel swam up behind them, and I tried to point it out to them, but they were talking. When they finally turned around, it opened it's mouth and bared its sharp, mean little teeth at us. We screamed. It was pretty funny. :D

My friends are coming over to go trick-or-treating in about an hour. Meanwhile, I'm starving and I have to straighten my hair. Apparently, I'll be Lucrezia Borgia. I'm not sure how this happened, but I assure you it wasn't MY idea! I really hate her. She's Princess Brat. But hey, I'll get a golden opportunity to make fun of her. "Oh Chiaro, I loooooooooove you! Chiaro, don't leave me, I'm a wimpy little girl who can't take care of herself! Waahhhhh, I have to marry that man and brother wants to hurt Chiaro! Wahhhh, my life is terrible because all the men I love don't love me, and the few that do just want to rape me! Wahhhh, I should jump off a balcony and put myself out of my misery!" Oh, please do, and put us out of our misery as well.


TOMORROW IS NOVEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thing I've Learned #35: Entropy is NOT a Good Thing

Today being the last school day before Halloween, I wore a medieval dress complete with corset to school today. Sarah wore a southern belle gown complete with hoop skirt. We were by far the sexiest girls in the whole damn place!

I had another lesson today, this time on James, and oh my god my thighs scream every time I move. Tessa is a helluva lot wider than my little pony, so I had a hard time wrapping my tiny legs around her. And you cannot move your leg at all when you canter on James, or he will switch leads. Hence, I feel I must die now. James was really good today. He only refused twice, and it was my fault because I steered him crooked.

This is going to be the best long weekend EVER. Tomorrow Sarah, EB, and I are going to the aquarium...well, just because. And tomorrow night we're having a pre-NaNo sleepover! Which will be amazing. We're going to eat pizza, drink caffeine, and make t-shirts for us and facebook pages for our characters. (Ones on paper, so we can stick them up on our walls or something.) Saturday is Halloween, and Sunday...IS NOVEMBER!!! I'm so ridiculously excited it's sad. I'm absolutely dying to write about these poor guys that have be cooped up in my head since August.

Speaking of them, I'm especially in love with DeLacey and Kit today. Couldn't tell you why, I just adore them at the moment.

Mom made me clean my room today, in preparation for having my friends over. And guess what? There's a DESK under all that crap piled up around my laptop! Who knew! I couldn't care less if the rest of my room was clean or not, but I HATE when my desk is a mess. I just never do anything about it when it gets bad. So it gets worse. Stuff just kind of accumulates, and never goes away. Until a mother-imposed cleaning frenzy, that is.

3 DAYS 3 DAYS OH MY GOD!

Thing I've Learned #34: I Am a Messy Person By Nature

Well, it's still not pink. But I switched it again, because the other one was far too blah.

I got to make something on the pottery wheel in art club today! It was pretty much the highlight of my life. ;) Took me eight friggin' tries, (all during which Emily yelled at me for not wedging my clay enough, for making the wheel too fast, and then for sucking in general. =] ) but I made a pot/jar thinger. It's pretty awesome. I, and everything in the immediate area, was covered in clay. I consider this a success.

I rode Tessa in lesson today. I guess I forgot to mention, but I rode her last week too. She's the cutest little chestnut quarter horse mare. And oh my god, she doesn't refuse! I get so excited when I point her at a jump and she just goes. But good lord is she slo-ow! I'm so tired by the end of lesson I feel like I'm going to slide off her side into the dirt, haha. And James' nose is getting better. I didn't say he ripped it open on Saturday, did I? Oops. Yeah, we went to a horse show, and when we took him out of the trailer his nostril was torn open. I don't know what happened. I don't want to know what happened. But the inside of the trailer looked like a murder scene. He's perfectly fine, though. He didn't seem to be hurting too much, and now it's healing up just fine.

My novel became slightly more political. I am pleased, because you can only get so many words out of gooey romance and relationship angst. This is what I learned:
DeLacey is not DeLacey's last name after all, but his first.
Why is this significant? He's the youngest son of the prince.
To clarify:
The king, DeLacey's grandfather, has two sons, DeLacey's father and his brother.
The brother is jealous of DeLacey and his two brothers. (Why is it always the evil uncle? Why? Why?! Maybe I should name him Scar...)
DeLacey's older brothers are Lindsay and Ainsley. Yes, they are British.
Evil uncle AKA Scar has Lindsay assassinated.
Boom, DeLacey is now third in line for the throne.
Assuming the king, who is ancient, dies soon, DeLacey's father will become king.
Which makes DeLacey second in line for the throne.
Which puts his life in danger.

DUN DUN DUN!!!! The plot, she thickens!

Holy mother of God, FOUR DAYS!

Thing I've Learned #33: Good Girls Are Just Bad Girls That Don't Get Caught

I was sick and tired of pink. Can't tell you yet what I think of the new layout. I might change it again tomorrow. But at least it isn't pink.

I discovered a new website, via the NaNoWriMo site, today called textsfromlastnight.com.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.

Now, I was raised to be a good girl, and despite my...guilty pleasures, a good girl I remain. But god, I have never wanted to get drunk as much as I did reading those. Here's a few:

"All I remember from last night is puking up a box of cheeze-its and the building catching on fire."

"You were licking his little sister's water colors and trying to paint with your tongue."

"I'm pretty sure there's seven mailboxes in our bathtub."

I don't know about you, but that sounds like fun to me. ;)

And speaking of guilty pleasure, Sarah and I got a hold of Cosmo yesterday. I hold to the theory that slutty magazines are a girl's RIGHT, be she slut or not. Besides, they're great research for my story. Or that's what I tell myself, at least.

My characters like to play a game called "dress up." This is where they magically pretend to exist in modern day. So, for example, the Phoenix is a night club that doubles as a brothel (think Moulin Rouge) and Aisha wears satin Christian Louboutin pumps. Marce was complaining loudly and obnoxiously today that there's nothing fun to do while drunk in 1400/1850, and so a round of modern dress up began, in which Marce wears leather pants and dances on the bar, and Bailey has to hold his hair back when he pukes his guts out the next morning. Glamorous, no. Story fodder, yes. And the clothes are much more fun. Because there are no motorcycle jackets in historical fiction. Nor are there low rise jeans or the previously mentioned designer shoes. Nor is there shower sex. I don't know how one can write a smutty novel without shower sex! And you know, Bailey looks surprisingly sexy in a sweater. So you know what? Because it would be an utter catastrophe to have to rework everything in my novel to fit modern times, I'll just go back and write parts of it later. Like Marce getting drunk off his ass. Because he's a total slut while drunk. Which can be WAY fun. ;)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a math test tomorrow that happens to be the last grade of the nine weeks. FML.

6 DAYS. LAWD A MERCY!

Thing I've Learned #32: DCS Is Nothing to Sneeze At

Once again, it's 10:30 on a Sunday night, and I have yet to start my homework. I should really stop this, it's bad for my sleep patterns. (What sleep patterns?!)

But I had better things to do today, I swear! Sarah and I hung out for a nice, relaxing girl day. If you count beating the crap out of each other with lightsabers a nice, relaxing girl day. And novel chat. Hours of novel chat. We have established that Sarah is the godmother to all my boys, because she had as much of a hand in bringing them into the world as I did. Besides, they like her. She gives them sex tips. Oh, and we finally found a logical career path for Marce. He'll be training guards in hand-to-hand combat. It suits him.

Today I'd like to talk about a little something called Disney Childhood Syndrome, or DSC. DSC is a common, but serious condition where characters have had tragic pasts, often involving the death of one or more loved ones. This can have serious effects later in their life such as depression, desire for revenge, and distrust towards others. If your character is suffering from DSC, don't wait, get help now!

Pretty much all of my boys have bad, bad cases of DSC. Oh, where do I begin?! Aisha was beaten and raped by his father as an eight year old. Bailey's own brother sold him to the Phoenix. Sanvi's mother died when he was seventeen, leaving him alone. Marce has lived on the streets since he was ten, being frequently beaten and raped until he learned how to defend himself. Valentino is the bastard son of a nobleman, who got kicked out of the house when his father got married. The Swan was a sacred dancer for whatever religion it is he believes in, and god knows how he ended up at the Phoenix, but I'm sure as hell it wasn't pleasant. Ha'ri was fifteen when his entire village was slaughtered, and the men that did it took him captive and used him as a sex toy until they sold him to the Phoenix. Kit...I haven't the faintest idea where Kit came from. No wonder they're all a mess!

I baked cookies today. I like to bake. I brought my laptop downstairs to listen to music, and rocked out to Wynona, Disney music, and 3OH!3 while wrestling with frozen cookie dough. And then I watched School of Rock.

Way past my bedtime. And I need to do my homework. Oh joy.

7 DAYS UNTIL D-DAY.

Thing I've Learned #31: Sleep Is NOT Overrated

I have not been getting enough sleep lately. Yeah, it's my fault because I've been staying up late talking to Sarah about plotty things. But still.

This is what my characters are doing while I'm off to bed:

Let's see, midnight and polite society is just starting to wind down...

Ciro is taking a bath before going to bed.

Ha'ri, being a good servant, is helping Ciro wash his back and trying really, really, hard not to think.

DeLacey is lying in bed, fully clothed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about Kit.

Desirata is throwing a royal temper tantrum.

Illari is taking the brunt of Desirata's rage and already thinking about what to put on the bruises tomorrow.

...while business at the Phoenix just starts to pick up.

Aisha is hustling down a hall with his skirts hiked up (cursing the goddamn dress all the while) with a needle in his teeth and a spool of thread in his hand.

Sanvi is whispering prayers under his breath while being undressed by a middle aged nobleman.

Marce is at the top of the stairs, leaning against the balcony railing and flashing seductive smiles at the two or three men down in the parlor.

The Swan (who needs a NAME!) is dancing in his room to synchronize his mind and body and lock away his emotions for yet another night.

Bailey is being felt up by a rather unattractive gentleman, wishing for Marce's hands instead.

Valentino is missing women.

Kit is bent in a way that would break a lesser man, and cannot get DeLacey off of his mind.

Ma is taking money, fluttering her eyelashes, and feeling the slightest bit sick and guilty in the pit of her stomach, because she remembers what it's like.

8 MORE DAYS.

Thing I've Learned #30: If the Notebook Doesn't Work, It Doesn't Work. End of Discussion.

Sheesh. It's not even November and I'm already behind with my blogging.

Speaking of November. I starting taking notes on my novel yesterday! SHEER EXCITEMENT. But on Wednesday, when I pulled out the notebook I was going to use, I took one look at it and thought, "I hate this." So I ran downstairs and informed my mother I needed to take an emergency trip to the office supply store to get one that wasn't revolting.

The notebook conundrum works like this:
One, the writer may choose the notebook. The notebook may be chosen for several reasons, least among them being size, design, or paper quality/design/style. When this happens, said writer often amasses a large pile of unused and unopened notebooks. I myself have 13, counting the one I hate.
Two, the notebook may choose the writer. When a writer has a story in mind and is in need of a notebook, they can go find one. This notebook must fit the story, whether by color, design, symbolism, it doesn't matter. But above all, it must feel right. Now this may sound a lot like the writer choosing the notebook, but it is not! I tell you true, you will eventually pick one up, and it will be the one.
Three, these two points are proven by the absolute, unshakable fact that if your notebook does not feel right, and you write in it anyway, your story will die. There is no way to get around this. It is certain.

Non-writers tend not to understand these things. Hence my mother was rather peeved that I forced her to drive me to the store.

Story notes are breathtakingly exciting. It's when you first began to catch a glimpse of your novel, ugly and awkward as a hairless newborn, but beautiful in it's potential. You start to work out your character's quirks, get inside their head, see what makes them tick. It's my favorite part, aside from the actual writing. So how about a little sample of what I jot down, and also a brief look at some of my characters?

The Girl- Long, silky blue-black hair, huge, huge blue eyes. Long eyelashes, winged eyebrows, fine features, full lips. Delicate frame and creamy skin.

The China Doll- Tight chocolate brown ringlets, glass green eyes. Porcelain complexion and thin, fragile looking body. Soft-spoken, shy, emotional.

The Angel- Perfect blonde curls, sky blue eyes that are slightly almond shaped. Angular features and a charming smile. Sweet, compassionate, and sees right through everyone.

The Fireball- Wavy dark red hair, mesmerizing green-gold eyes, dark, dark lashes and a smoldering gaze. Carefree, sexy smile and an attitude problem. Bold, mischievous, snarky, and foul-mouthed. His figure is lean and rough, but very sensual. Has a temper.

The Gentleman- Ash blonde hair with face framing bangs and gray eyes. Strong build but not stocky. Refined, sophisticated, and classy. All charm and polite speech.

The Swan- His complexion is honey and cream; honey eyes, cream skin, and sheets of honey-cream hair. Narrow face, long neck, and long limbs. Elegant and serene, every move is the epitome of grace.

The Exotic- Long jet black hair, dark skin, and piercing gold eyes. Lithe and animalistic, black tattoos wind across his body. Fierce but sultry.

The Kid- Thick, curly black hair, bright gray eyes. Mischievous, petulant, and trouble causing. Long, lanky, and extremely flexible.

A brief sketch on the boys of the Blue Phoenix, as referred to as stereotypes rather than names. But perhaps you know a little what they look like now? Providing you know which is which, of course. ;) Okay, so I'll tell you. Aisha, Bailey, Sanvi, Marce, Valentino, The Swan (goddammit he needs a name), Ha'ri, and Kit, respectively.

Nothing interesting happened to me today. Aside from the NaNote taking. Sorry. Despite the occasional snips I deign to post here, my life is generally boring. Hate to disappoint you.

Oh wait! Wait! Something interesting DID happen to me! Okay, so last night while my parents were out to dinner, I discovered this lovely show on the History channel called Sex in the Ancient World. The episode being about the sex trade in Pompeii. And I, being a good little writer, decided to watch it. For research, naturally. (When my parents got home I bolted upstairs with a glass of milk and a smile wider than the Mariana Trench.)
This is what I learned:
Pompeii was the home of the world's oldest known brothel.
Lupinara means "den of the she-wolves" in Latin, and was the term used to describe a brothel.
Romans craved sex for power, not pleasure.
Romans, in general, were whores.
The emperors did little to discourage this attitude. In fact, they encouraged it.
Hour well spent. Next was an episode about porn in ancient Egypt.
This is what I learned:
Egyptians thought sex graffiti was just as funny as we do.
Egyptians were, as EB would say, "Male chauvinistic bastards."
Gods are allowed to be open about their sex lives. Mortals are not.
Tattooing a chubby, ugly man on your thigh prevents you from getting STD's.
Egyptians had a serious hair fetish.
Egyptians wrote love poetry to rival Byron's "She Walks in Beauty."
Yet another hour well spent.

They talked about tattoos, which got me thinking about Ha'ri. By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, everything leads back to my word babies with me. Anyway, so I was thinking about Ha'ri's tattoos (and texting with Sarah about this. At 11:30 at night. Oh lawd.) and how sensual they really are. The ones on his upper body are completely innocent, but on his hip and thigh...wow. Even before Ciro and Ha'ri are together, Ciro can't help the little lurch of lust in his stomach every time he sees them. And when they are together, well, Ciro can't keep his hands (and lips) off of them. And it's not what the tattoo is that makes it so irresistible. It's just a pattern of black dots that spirals around Ha'ri's body. It's the places it touches that makes it sexy. The inside of his upper thigh, in between his crotch and his leg, over his hip bone, and across his extremely lower back, about as close as you can get to his tailbone without being on his ass. Hot damn. No wonder Ciro can't help but touch him. Especially when Ha'ri gets out of the bath. And a drop of water just runs down the curve of his tattoo...

This post was super long to make up for all the short ones that I've being doing recently. =]

Quote of the Day: "She's got a face that could launch a thousand ships in the opposite direction."

9 more days! Ohmigod!