Cori: 31 Days

As of right now, I have thirty-one days to finish editing Caged, write a query letter, and write a synopsis. Cue panic!

The reason why I only have a month to do all of those things is because I finally found an agent that suits me perfectly: he likes dark/horror fantasy, which is what I write. His name is Brooks Sherman. Unfortunately...he won't be accepting unsolicited submissions until January 21st. He's fallen behind and wants to catch up with what he has at the moment. So I came up with a plan.

Since he's going to be accepting submissions on January 21st...I'm going to sneak attack him with a submission the very second I'm able to! Hopefully I'll be the first one, and he'll look at mine first, fall in love with the idea, and decide to represent me. Woot!

I even wrote a new summary of Caged for the occasion. (I hate writing summaries, essays, and letters, so this was hard for me.)

Artificial: Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural.
Altrius Dial is a demon living in an artificial utopia, fifty-four years after the tragic nuclear war. The world is finally settling back into everyday life. But when Altrius is forced to find and destroy a lost prophecy, struggling to keep his sanity intact during the search, the mask of perfection begins to crumble.

Is it any good? I worked hard on it. It fits Caged much better than my old summary, which was kind of half-assed. This one took hours upon hours to write.

Now I have to go in and completely rewrite my old query letter, which was also pretty half-assed. Then I have to write a synopsis for the first time ever. Ugh...anyone want to help me out with that? Nah, just kidding. I need to do this on my own. If I can't do that much, then I'm definitely not ready to be published.

I really should be rewriting chapter three of Caged right now. Meh. Then I have to rewrite chapter four; after that, the editing process will be mostly finished. Then I'll have to go and get other people to read it, and check for mistakes and plot holes. Caged needs to be as close to perfect as possible.

All right...time to go write. I know I'm going to procrastinate at some point, so I'm going to go get a head start on everything.

Cori: It's the end of the world as we know it~

None of us have posted for a while...I was kind of waiting for someone else to post first, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen so I decided to post. You know, because it would be kinda cool to be the last one posting if we really do die xD!

I've been making wisecracks about 12/21/12 all day long, wishing people a happy death and telling them that we needed to hook up in Hell. I even made one girl cry in French by saying something along the lines of, "Don't worry, honey - I'm sure they've got a special place reserved for whores like you down in Hell."

It gave me a pretty evil sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, though...I could see her nipples through her shirt. And she pulled a knife on me in 8th grade.

Since there's a 0.01% chance that we actually might die tomorrow, I took it upon myself to unleash the full force of my personality on my classmates. At school, I'm thought to be a very shy and quiet girl...so it's understandable that they were all a little shocked when I started going around implying that most of the girls in school are whores, and the boys sexist pigs.

Strangely enough I didn't get in trouble at all.

So, now you know what I'm truly like. I'm honestly not a very nice person, and I'll admit that freely. So if we all die tomorrow...or today, depending on where everyone lives...you'll die knowing that I'm not a hyper kid that's nice in every way, but a magnificent bastard that holds grudges for five years straight.

I love you all! <3 p="p">
My Facebook post: I love some of you!
That's the last 'I love you' you'll ever get from me (and possibly the only one you've ever gotten from me), because we're supposedly going to be slaughtered by (a) flood/comet/sun/meteor/earthquake/tsunami/hurricane/tornado/cyclone/terrorists/ourselves/My Little Pony/etc.

Heather: And My Bro, Saladin. Oh Wait...

Right now I am trying to write an essay for my history class on Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria that defeated the Christians in Jerusalem in 1187, but was totally chivalrous and awesome about it. Sadly, I've written about 3500 words on this assignment today alone (I'm almost at 7000 in total) and I really don't have it in me to write another essay. Especially not an essay with in-text citations.

Thus, even though I've been working all day, I still have so much to do and I can't bring myself to start this essay. Which is bad, because it's the most important part of my assignment, and ... fudgcicles, I just got distracted again.

...I'm going to go do my homework now. :/

-H

Kamie: Rise of the Guardians...

Is one of the most AMAZING movies ever! I saw it twice in one day. I have also decided Jack Frost will become my future husband... sigh. Oh well! I love the voice actors too! Hugh Jackman played Bunny and Chris Pine played Jack Frost! It was AWESOMMMMMME! Also on other...erm... incidences? Also, I have deduced that I will never... ever buy from Best Buy again. I'm just saying. I'm having terrible drama right now with it. I also do not want to start talking about it at the second. Let's see. I have school tomorrow. School sucks, I hate every grueling moment of it. I literally feel like I live in my own person bubble of Hell while I am in it... anyways off of depressing matters. My mom gave me an early Christmas present because she knew how much I've wanted one, she got me the Japanese Rosetta Stone... It is AH-MAAAAZING! I really love it. It's a lot of fun! :D Um... anything else? No... I don't think so off the top of my head. I guess I'll end this post for now.

-Kamiella Maze

Cori: That crazy old cat lady.

I used to have one living by me...we actually called her The Crazy Lady. She went around the neighborhoods and picked up all the trash in people's yards, and tried to steal my cats a few times. But anyway...she's not what this post is about.

Looking at the status of someone more than a year younger than me, and reading about how they're getting laid and wasted every Friday, makes me feel kind of old. I swear I'm going to be that crazy old cat lady someday...and seeing as I love cats (and bats), I don't think I'll mind it all that much. I really only like cats, bats, and the occasional dog though. Animals kind of annoy me. But I'll never let them be hurt, and I'll always end up with some weird animal (mostly cats) following me home when I take walks haha. If I didn't know any better I would say my hair is made out of catnip.

So I tried vodka for the first time the other day. You know that hospital smell? The disinfectant-and-people-have-just-pissed-and/or-died-in-this-place smell? Yeah, that's what vodka tastes like.

It's kind of funny. When we were younger, my older brother and I stayed up until ten to play with Beanie Babies while our parents thought we were asleep. Now we stay up until three to drink vodka and watch disgusting videos.

...We haven't changed much, now that I think about it.

Honestly...I'm bored out of my mind. I have to have something occupying my mind at all times or else I'll get so bored that I'll do nothing but lay on the couch for twelve hours, too bored to even blink, and think depressing thoughts. My grandpa got sick of it when I was six so he taught me Sudoku. My best time is three minutes on easy, and eight on extreme. He's teaching me how to play chess, poker, and rummy now. I'm going to have the best freaking poker face in the world by the time I'm eighteen.

So, uh...Caged. That sounds like a fun topic. I didn't do NaNoWriMo this year, because just thinking about it makes me want to scream (I've really burned myself out lately. Blah), but I have been writing quite a bit. Mostly just random little scenes...and mostly in French class. Madam Marsh wants me to write my latest one in French. I'm screwed. (I don't know what 'blood' is in French. Or 'scream,' now that I think about it. Quelle horreur!)

I think I'm going to go play Sudoku now...or write...or lay on the couch. Oh, look, Jamie is online...I think I'll go bother her.

Nat: Wanna help me?

Hi. I just posted this on Facebook so you may have seen it there, but I'm posting it here again in the hopes that someone will see it and maybe decide to help me out. ;) 

I'm working on a video project for my YouTube channel, and what I was wondering is if you'd help me by recording something and sending me a video/audio recording. What I'm looking for is either a personal story about someone that's important to you [the time you went to the beach with them, or why they're important to you, a list of reasons that you love them, or why you're glad their favourite ice cream is chocolate, I don't know, just something personal], or something that you wish you could tell someone but are too afraid to/would never tell them. 
I'm not going to be using the video, just the audio. So it honestly doesn't have to be good quality, film it in the dark for all I care. And I'll edit the audio, so you don't even have to worry about that. Also, if you could keep it anonymous, with zero names, that would be excellent.

Let me know if you want to help me out. 
Thanks ladies. 

:) 

Cori: Unfortunately...

I won't be able to finish my NaNo novel this year. Which makes me feel like a terrible writer. But I can't find my layout for the book (which was really good, but was destroyed by the virus), and I'm so behind that it's not even funny.

Anyway, enough about my problems, because they really don't belong anywhere on this blog (or anywhere else, for that matter). I think the Tumblr idea sounds great (I actually made a Tumblr yesterday, in the name of stalking some writing agents).

Speaking of writing agents - I found one the other day that I had overlooked a few years ago, seeing as how the genres he's interested in didn't fit with mine. Well...now they do. He's interested in horror/dark fantasy, which is what I write (I used to write light fantasy. Even the bad guys - who were cheerfully called 'evil' and 'sadistic' - were okay people. It was kind of disturbing.). His name is Brooks Sherman and I think he could be the guy; I'm going to write a query letter soon (my old one was terrible, I realize that now) and send it in to him. Wish me luck!

First I need to finish rewriting the third chapter of Caged, though. Bleh.

Nat: I don't have a witty title for this post...

Hi ladies!

Ready for a rapid-fire rundown of my life?

A. I'm doing NaNoWrimo, and so far it's going really well. I'm at 15, 961 words, which means that I still have to write 705 words today, but I've hit my daily word count every day so far. :D

B. I've been posting a lot on my personal blog lately, so if you're interested in reading that you can go here. If not, that's okay too haha.

C. I really like the idea of Tumblr, because I'm a bit of a Tumblr-addict, though I'm not sure how you link up all those accounts. But I'm sure someone tech-y can figure it out. :) I also think we should bring back the vlogs. [also if any of you have personal Tumblr accounts, you should tell me so that I can follow you.]

D. I'm going to this party next weekend and I'm so excited because this really hot guy that I like is going. XD My apologies for the girly-ness of that sentence. [sometimes I'm grateful that it's only girls on this blog haha...]

E. Congrats to the US ladies on the reelection of Mr. Obama. (I guess maybe not congrats, depending how you feel?) I got super involved in the US election, it was very stressful and I don't even live there haha.

F. We had a crazy snow day here on Wednesday and all the buses were delayed by at least 3 and a half hours. It was ridiculous. And then my bus stopped running altogether, leaving me stranded on my uni campus.

Alright, that's all from me. I've gotta go write 705 more words to get caught up. ;)

Until next time,
A

P.S. If any of you are also doing NaNo, let me know how you're doing, and here's a song for some inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78mvUeBw7MM   

Kamie: Random talking

I really like the idea of Tumblr. It should be a lot of fun. I really like Tumblr, I think I need to get on it a lot more often. I'm happy to say that I'm enjoying being inspired to write again. I just wish I could jump in already, since I'm really behind on my NaNo count... But oh well, I'm still trying to see if I can reach my word count at the end of the month. I might, I might not. Oh well. Anyways, I'm so excited for college next year! UNT bound, never thought I'd see the day where I'd be heading to Texas. However, it should be amazing! :D Anyways, I guess I'll let y'all go, just wanted to give a small update. :)

-Kamiella Maze

Heather: MIA... Oops.

Hey ladies!

I'm sorry I've been gone so long! (Again).

I was just sitting in front of my computer when a new idea struck me. And so, now I'm trying to figure it out... But I'm also finding I need a name. Because I don't like the one I've got. Any ideas for a girls name so I don't go and spend hours pouring over babynames.com like usual? The need to know: I really have barely anything on her... But she's strong willed, because I clearly am incapable of writing about anything but a strong willed MC, but I was also thinking I'd like to make her less typical, you know? Not the usual bad-ass-that-acts-like-she's-not-afraid-of-anything type that I often end up writing about. Though, I don't know how possible that is, considering it might involve aliens, and a day of... taking. And frankly, a really pissed off MC. And my god, this idea is already sounding like every other teenage sci-fi novel in the world. SOMEBODY HELP ME BEFORE I PULL OUT ALL MY HAIR. AHHH. Hehe, oh boy...

It's so exciting to write again, since I haven't really since we finished Silver. :)

And, Nicole, if you want to make a really awesome looking tumblr (because frankly, I'm totally inept) I say go for it, and we can use it too. Maybe not give up the blog completely, but I'm up for a tumblr. And vlogs. Those are fun, even though all I ever really do is show off how I'm such a socially awkward being on film. But, you know, it happens.

:D I promise to post soon!

-H

Kamie: Happily Inspired Again.

First I'll start off with saying I like Nicole's idea about Tumblr, but maybe we can keep it on here also. And the Vlogs, I've wanted to do that for awhile! :D Second thing on my agenda is that I changed my NaNo book in a spur of a moment. I decided to go off an old idea off of my ex-friend and mine's old book, but I'm adding my own twist and there will be a lot more. Once I figure out how to better describe it I'll give an explanation. Right now I'm IMing my friend, while working on my NaNo, and watching This Means War, so... I think I'll make this a short post for today. Toodles!

Kamiella Maze

Nicole: Thoughts of Tumblr

Sorry for making another post so soon, but I thought I'd make another one in case it's in with my other one and no one reads it.

I know this blog has so much of our history, but what does everyone think about maybe moving over to Tumblr? It could be a completely fresh start with a clean slate. It might get people posting and excited again, because I miss coming on here to a bunch of posts about your lives and your writing. Maybe it's just my obsession with Tumblr, and I'm also not sure how to create a blog on there with numerous accounts but I'm pretty positive it can be done.

It's just something I've been thinking about. Also, another thing that might get people re-interested: what if we did some vlogs again? I'd love to know what you guys think.

Nicole: You all suck!

Where is everyone!? I can't really talk, but I have been MIA because of my exams. I miss you all! Congrats to the American girls too on getting Obama as a president again!

Howdy, I was going to make a post after I'd finished exams, but I came on and saw that hardly anyone had been posting so I thought I'd make a quick one. I have my last exam tomorrow! It's English Lit, so it should be fine, but I still have a quarter of a book to read for it *wooops.* I'll do it, it's all okay.

I finished up school for good. It was all sad and wearing my uniform for the last time and all that jazz, and then I realised I never ever have to go back there or see those people. We had our muck up day where we go crazy, pull pranks, dress up, trash the school and be really really loud which was super fun. I'm starting to get excited for it to be over completely, and be able to start fresh without school for a bit.

I haven't really been writing because I've been attempting to study for exams, plus my Joseph Gordon-Levitt obsession is getting a little hard to handle. Can you blame me though? I haven't really been writing either because I showed my work to a friend (and I rarely show my writing to anyone but you guys because I'm so self conscious about it) and he gave me some pretty negative comments, which I understand and I appreciate the criticism, but it was hard because I do get so private and shy about it and I do respect him so much. So there was that as well, it really put me off writing for a while.

I think I have something new to write about though! I had a weird dream the other night that I could hardly remember, and my mum kept interrupting, but I jotted down what I could from it and I think it might be interesting. Along with that, this Ryan Gosling quote about the movie "Drive" (watch it if you haven't, it's a little gruesome but I love it) really tickled my fancy: "Cars can have a hypnotic effect. You can get in a car and get out and not really remember the trip. We tried to make this film about driving, not about driving fast or stunts. When you drive, you can kind of put your identity aside in the passenger's seat, because you're not being watched, and you can just be the watcher."

I'll wait until my final exam is over and see what I can come up with. I hope everyone is going well.

Also, how was Halloween for everyone!? I love it, but Australia doesn't celebrate it (well, you can but if you do you're kind of a tool) so if you have any pictures of your costumes I'd love to see them.

Kamie: Uncertainty...

I'm very unsure with the idea of writing this post right now. I honestly have no idea how the heck the idea of getting on this blog sank into my mind... But under random reasons, here I am. I just read through all the posts that have been on here since my last post, and I have to say I'm inspired to try and stay on the blog again, if 1) I can... I'm not fully dedicated but seeing people still on here made me decide to try and 2) if I'm still welcome... I know it's been forever since I even thought to write a post even though it was to say goodbye. I've vaguely wanted to write or anything, but now... Now NaNo's here and I started writing off of The Clan... well somewhat, and I decided to check this blog... In many ways I"m glad I did. In other ways, I'm still disappointed of not seeing some of the more regular faces on the blog. Yes, I'm ecstatic to see Nicole back, and happy to see posts of Rachel, Cori, Nat, Kas, and Heather, but I still wonder what happened to everyone else... I'm almost certain Chelsea won't be back, and it's understandable. She's off in her own little world, so I'll talk to her about deleting her part of the page, unless she decides to really jump in and start working on this blog again... I don't know what else to say... This is sort of like my way of asking if I'm still welcome... so... am I?

I'll try and be on more often. Maybe I'm not done with this blog yet after all...

-Kamiella Maze

Cori is not ready for NaNoWriMo.

I'm really not. I'm still recovering from my computer virus, and still haven't gotten around to getting (most of) my books and other documents up again. My computer is kind of...empty.

Halloween was great. I wasn't actually planning on trick or treating, because none of my friends wanted to go with me, but I went with my dad and little brother and got lots of candy. I didn't have a costume so I did a ten minute makeup job and went as a vampire: the first thing I could think of. It actually didn't look all that bad. I did break out a day later though...ick.

Some lady thought I dressed up as Justin Bieber. My hair has grown a few inches since my last trim a month ago, and it's kind of made a bowl-type look on my head...and I was flipping it out of my eyes when she opened the door...I don't know why she didn't see the trails of "blood" on my face. She just assumed I was Justin Bieber.

I just thought I might share that bit of awkwardness with you. I have to go now...I still haven't finished my word count for today and I need to get a move on xD!

Rachel: Blah

I honestly have nothing to post about, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and whatnot since it's been forever since I made a post last. I'm ridiculously tired from a Sweet Sixteen/Halloween party that I attended last night--we stayed up until five and I got up at seven--so I'm less than inspired right now. I basically just wanted to say hi to everybody, so, HI! I might be on again later to make a real post.

-Iridian

Cori: My computer is stupid...

I miss my favorites and my pictures. My computer looks kind of different now and it bothers me...and I really miss the huge amount of documents I had. I lost one of my books. :(

I have to leave soon to hang out with my friend Emily (and get soaked from rain), but I thought I might take five minutes to leave a post for you guys. You know...just so you know that I'm not dead.

During club today we had a Halloween party. There was candy and salami-cream-cheese wraps, and this dip stuff that tasted really good...even though it has mayo in it. Mayo is the epitome of all that is evil in our world.

Today in Biology we learned history and wrote our own laws on the cloning of human beings. Vivian (a good friend) and I used our made-up world called Kish Fingdom (fish kingdom) and created its very first law. We also made a dictionary of sorts.

Kish Fingdom was kind of an accident. During Biology we were asking questions and using a table to figure out what kind of kingdom the thing belonged to (fungi, animalia, plantea, etc), but Vivian and I weren't listening the first time and when the teacher told us to raise up our white boards we wrote the first thing that came to mind: Fish.

"Fish isn't a kingdom," our teacher said. "Sorry, try again."

After that we were Team Fish Kingdom. Then, because I stumble over words when I'm excited or nervous, I kept messing up and saying Kish Fingdom instead. So now we're the Kish Fingdom - the domain of Kishland.

Anyway, I have to go. Bye!

Nicole: Writing prompt generator

Just a quick little thing before I have to head off to work, I thought you guys might like this:

Writing prompt generators

I haven't tried any yet because I'm forcing myself to not read or write anything while I'm trying to study, but I hope you guys find it useful, even if it's just to get an idea of something to write.

Cori: Virus.

If you were wondering where I was...yeah, I had a virus. Couldn't turn on my computer without a fake FBI warning coming up and telling me they were going to kill my family in five days if I didn't pay $2,000. But my dad went ahead and wiped the thing so...here I am. Chester (my darling laptop) has been fixed for about twenty minutes. I'm glad to have him back.

So like...I lost everything. My book is on my Nook but I don't know if I'll be able to put it on my computer. (Perfect chance to do another rewrite...we shall see.) I lost about 3,000 pictures, which I'm pretty darn upset about. I was really proud of my collection.

What has everyone been up to?

Heather: Long Day.

Today just seemed to go on and on and on.

In the morning, my basketball team, and I had a guidance session because of the accident (if you don't know, I decided I'd rather save it in drafts, because while I wanted to tell you guys, I didn't feel the need to tell the rest of the world) which was very awkward. Understandable, but awkward.

And, yeah, this post was pathetic, but mainly just to say that my other post is a draft on purpose now, and I'd like it to stay that way. But go read it and wear your seat belt! Haha.

-H

Kas: Sorry.

Hey guys. I wasn't able to get on after my last post last week. I had three midterms and a paper due all on Thursday, and then Saturday was the OU/Texas football rivalry game, which is really important to us. We beat the hell out of them, though, so that's good. I never got a chance to write my poem into a short story thing, I'm sorry. But apparently neither did any you either. Haha. This week isn't as busy for me, but I'll probably still only be able to get on a few times. I'll try to make a few more posts. I'm never really near my computer anymore these days, honestly. It's in my dorm room, and because I'm not really very fond of my roommate I don't spend much time in here. I'm only on it now because I have a paper to write before I go to Italian. I don't even sleep in my room anymore, usually. Last night I slept at the Pike frat house with a guy I know from their parties. I sleep at Pike most weekends, and now that I'm.. uh, 'seeing' this guy, i'll probably sleep there sometimes on the weekdays. I'm never quite sure if i should write some of the more 'adult' details of my life in these posts, because i'm still used to Cori being 13 years old, Haha. I know you're aren't anymore, Cori, but I still feel like i'm corrupting you sometimes. I should probably just get over it, though. Haha. So, yeah, I'm having sex with this guy. And it's still weird to say that on this blog. His name is Travis. He's a sophomore and he's extremely funny. He also has a really, really big heart... and by heart I mean penis. Hahahahaha. Oh god, I can't do this. So, yeah, there's a lot of other really complicated parts to this. Heather knows some of it, but there have been quite a few new developments since we last talked. I'm pretty sure she just found out about me sleeping with Travis along with you guys. Anyways, I might give you more details about my college life later, but it usually turns into a really long story when I try to tell someone. So, yeah. Uhm, it was really funny earlier as I was walking back to the dorms from Pike to watch people trying to decide if I was doing a walk of shame or not. Since most people don't really expect that on a Tuesday. Haha. Anyways, so there are a few things about my life. They're probably inappropriate for the blog, but oh well. I can't really talk to anyone around here about it because of some of those really complicated details i'll eventually have time to tell you guys. Hopefully. So, yeah, you guys might get some of my more personal updates. So be excited for that! Haha -Kas (Also, I had to write this in the HTML page version, because the compose one wouldn't work, so that's why its all one big block of text.)

Heather: Well, it was nice while it lasted.

I've waited this long to post again, simply because I was waiting for someone else to say something. Also, a little caught up with life, but I did keep checking and as soon as I saw Rachel's post I started planning out this one in my head.

But seriously, I guess it's just too much to ask for a post every day. Oh well. It's also been a shitty day/week, so I'm rather irritable, which has probably just shown through... haha.

Well, I'm up for Rach's new girl.

Also, this week just so happened to be the week from hell, so I have no short story to post on here tomorrow; but the next challenge I will absolutely be involved in. This week was just really busy.

This isn't much of a post, and it took me two days to write, but at least it's something. I should have a better update tomorrow/Sunday. Lots to do this weekend, haha.

Later ladies!

-H

Also, Kas, Silver?

Rachel: I'm a rebel.

So I'm at school right now, but because I'm not doing anything particularly interesting or important, I thought that I might as well get on here and chat to you ladies about something. I really don't have that much to say, but I was feeling inspired because I was just working on planning out Soul Debt (which is what I have decided to call that nanobook that I have been blabbering so much about) and, as usual, I felt like talking to somebody about it.

Sorry to those of you who have missed most of the posts where I actually tell you what it's about. Now that I think about it...I'm not even sure that I ever have told you all what it's about. That's mostly due to the fact that I don't really have a super established plotline yet, but I can tell you the rough details that I DO have. So I know it's about this ficitonal village on kind of a different version of the Earth that we know. Everybody's pretty primitive and they believe in gods and goddesses and what not that actually exist and are characters in the book. The main characters are all from the village Samot, and are sent out on a mission (all teenagers are sent out on missions that are a ceremonial part of the transition to adulthood) to gather intelligence about what is responsible for the mysterious muders that have been taking place for the past few months/years/whatever. It is suspected that the mountainous village of Ticnamor is resposible, so my characters embark on a journey and whatnot. They get to Ticnamor and it turns out that Ticnamor ISN'T killing people--the God of Death, Morrah, is. He's freaking out because people worship Bion, the Goddess of Life, too much; he is resentful that humans are content to let the world fall out of balance, so in order to punish them and show them what it feels like when things are out of whack, he plans to throw them into chaos where death is rampant, not life. So basically my characters have to figure out a way to stop this before the world is plunged into darkness. It's a lot less lame than it sounds...I swear. Especially with the little twists and things that make the plot more complicated and interesting. I'm just trying to give you all the gist of what goes on since I'll probably be talking about it a lot more, and I wouldn't want you all to be confused.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to planning. I just kind of wanted to spaz about it for a few minutes. It's fifth period at the moment which I happen to have free, but I still probably shouldn't be blogging. Sorry about the spelling erros that this post is certain to be riddled with; for whatever reason the ancient computer that I am using does not seem to want to spellocheck me. Which is awesome. I hope you're all doing well! Sorry about your computer, Heather...not to make you feel worse, of course, but that's awful. Know you're in my thoughts! Maybe in some bizarre way it was for the best. How, you ask? I have no idea. I'm just trying to be optimistic for once in my life.

I'll go ahead and sign off for now. I'm going to try to be on here more often--the last few days have been rather hectic, hence my absence, but we have some three-day weekends coming up and it should be better soon.

Oh, and hey, are any of you opposed to letting a new person on the blog? I'm not entirely sure she's interested and she's not as big of a writer as all of us, but she's very intelligent and quite creative, and I think she'd fit in just fine. She wants to do nanowrimo this year, so maybe we can poison her mind with the ways of writing. Just throwing that out there.

-Iridian

Heather: My Computer is Back.

With none of my files. Heartbroken.

I guess that's what you get for not backing yourself up.

Speaking of, Kas, I still need you to email me Silver.

So, it was my hard drive that failed. The fix was free, which was good. The files gone... not so good.

But beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

I have this song stuck in my head: "It's Sunday morning, rain is falling, but you are all I need." That's like, two lines that might not even be in order... but I can't stop singing it, or remember what it is called.

Damn.

To those of you who are celebrating thanksgiving this weekend, have a good one! And to the rest of you... well, I suppose you guys too. Maybe.

I'm sorry this post is so incredibly lame.

frshdijpkae

I had stuff to say and I started writing and it all ran away, so I guess I'll post again tomorrow.

IGDSHREWAFIHDJSTERAO!

Just remembered: MERLIN SEASON FIVE STARTS TOMORROW.

Very important, I tell you. Very.

Oh, and I also really like Kas's challenge idea! Even though I really don't have a favourite poem.

-H

Kas: I've missed quite a lot.

Well, Hi.

Haha.

As you all know, I'm at college now. Which is the most hectic, time-consuming thing of ever. I think this is seriously the first time I've sat in my room for more than like ten minutes in the past two weeks. I never get online anymore, because i don't have any time. Thats why I've been so MIA for the past month and a half.

Anyways, I'm glad to see that you're all back to posting again! I've honestly tried to make a post four times over the past two weeks and I always ended up having to leave and go do something, or go to class, or whatever. But, I'm going to try getting on here every day from now on, since I have a 1 hour break between my classes everyday.

Vague update on my life: I'm loving college, the classes are extremely hard, though. I've decided to change my major, but I'm not sure what to. Maybe International Business. I'm also now getting a minor in Italian, because it's not only my favorite class, but I love the language so much.

There's lots of drama with my personal life, which Heather knows all about, but its a super long story. I've also lost 10 pounds since starting college, so that's awesome. It's mostly just because I walk everywhere and eat so many vegetables that the boys actually make fun of me.

Heather, I'm so sorry! I completely forgot about your Facebook post. When I first saw it i was in class, so I didn't respond, and then i forgot. I'll send you the Silver stuff now! It will come from my OU account, though, so don't overlook it.

Nicole, I'm so glad you're back. We missed you. I loved you're short story, too. It actually gave me an idea..

Since pretty much everyone but Cori is in a writing funk as of late, I think we should try a new challenge. Pick your favorite poem, or a completely random one, and re write it as a short story. Its a pretty vague challenge, you can do whatever you like.

And then, if you want, we can continue to do weekly challenges, things that won't take large amounts of time preferably, as a way to get the blog back up and running.

Now, you all know how I like to make prizes, so I have an idea. Maybe we should do three challenges a month, and each week we submit our piece in a post up on the blog. And we vote, anonymously of course, in a draft-post. The winner of each challenge will get one point, and at the end of three months the person with the most points wins some kind of prize. Haha. And we make a spot on the blog with the winner of each week.

And, honestly, I think that it should be a sort of dedication to the blog. I mean, we have all taken so much from this blog, why not show how much we appreciate it? By uploading at least something every week you show us all how much you appreciate this site, and the people on it. I know everyone is busy with their lives, but we have to realize that we almost lost this blog forever a few weeks ago... which shouldn't happen again.

No more dry spells.

So, I'm not saying its mandatory or anything, but we should all try our best to do the challenge every week.

Alright, so since it's Wednesday,  I'm going to give everyone a little more time on this challenge than there will be for the others. You all have until Friday of next week to upload your short story, and then we will use next Saturday and Sunday to vote. And then each Monday we will start again.

Sound good? Nicole you can re-use the story you already posted if you want. :)

Tell me what you think.

-Kas

Nicole: An Atheist on a Date

Two posts in one night, I'm on a roll. Like I said in my previous post, I haven't been writing very much. I've also been pretty dry with ideas and inspirations of what to write in a really long time. I have decided that I might start trying to focus on writing more short stories, rather than attempting to write whole novels like I used to which never worked for me. Maybe my brain is too scattered to be able to focus on one thing for that amount of time.

Anyway, I wrote this after reading this poem. I hope this isn't plagiarism! I do steal a few lines, but the idea of it really intrigued me and I wanted to expand it in my own way. I hope the little "read more" thingy works too, I just didn't want another giant post after my last one.

Edit: I hope I don't offend anyone with the content! It's nothing to risqué, but I can't remember who's religious on here and who isn't, because it does involve religion and a little bit of sex. I just wanted to comment on the contradictions of modern people who are religious and embrace their faith, yet they also go against it, almost like picking and choosing. Just a little context and this was just to explore my own curiosities.

Nicole: A little update

It's been a long time since I've updated on here. The little in my title is meant to be ironic, in case you didn't notice.

Well this year I've hardly written at all, except for school, which when I think about it I'm pretty disappointed. I'm excited and very scared though because I only have two weeks of classes left as of next week and then exams, and it's over forever! No more fricking school uniforms! I've been doing really well in my English and English literature subjects though, so I have still been forced to still write, whether it's just essays or a few creative pieces (I really don't mean to brag but I'm so happy I got 96% on my essay about "On the Waterfront", and my creative piece in lit which was the one I wanted to do well on got 90%. I was so shocked because I'm the worst student ever, I hate studying.) It's lucky I am going well in those subjects though, because my maths and psychology scores have been pretty bad all year.

I had to put in my Uni preferences the other day, and every time I thought about it I felt like I was gonna projectile vomit everywhere. I've been so caught up in working on my photography and going on to study that (or tourism if I didn't get the right mark or have my portfolio ready), that I hadn't really considered many other options. Plus, I'm doing a Certificate in photography this year instead of one school subject, so it takes away from my end of year score (which wouldn't be that great anyway.) I really ended up not being keen on doing photography anymore, because I absolutely hate the course I'm doing. The teacher and course are just so lazy, I feel like I've taught myself more than I've learnt. My biggest regret is choosing to continue it this year because I feel like it's stunted my creativity with photography so much.

Anyway, so back to my point: I was putting them in and just having a look at the other courses, because we get twelve choices, and I stumbled across a Bachelor of Arts in Creative and Professional writing. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to slap myself across the face because I couldn't believe I'd forgotten that for so long that's exactly what I wanted to do. So I had a little look, and I can do an elective in Literary studies (and the description sounds so amazing) and another one, which will be a heap of work, in anthropology and possibly go onto anthropology when I turn twenty one and this god damn score is irrelevant. I only need 55/99 (to put our scoring system simply), but I'm just not sure. I've applied for special consideration for my anxiety disorder, so I just hope they have a look at that if I don't get the mark I need.

So I really hope I can keep focused on knowing that I want to do that, because it really was one of those moment where everything just seems to click and fall into place. I'm hoping that coming back on here will help with that though!

As for writing, like I said, I haven't really written much just for myself all year. I'm trying to get back into just some short stories for now in case I need a portfolio for the course, and I've noticed that what I want to write about has changed a whole lot. I think I really want to use writing to explore my own questions about religion, different people and life in general and I'm straying away from supernatural and fantasy. I just finished a short story that I might upload soon, actually.

Wow this is getting long, I don't mean to ramble! There hasn't been a lot else going on. I'm still desperate and dateless, there have been some boys, but I'm so picky when I really shouldn't be, I probably should just take what I can get hahah. I really shouldn't be either because my town really has two types of boys. Bogan and gross, because I don't live in a very fabulous town, and by bogan and gross I mean they wear those stupid snapbacks and jeans half way down their asses, drinking and smoking most weekends - actually probably during the week too. Or far too Aussie, if that makes sense, and by too Aussie I mean these typical boys that drive utes, drink beer  and camp and live on farms and are fairly small minded.

I want to date a writer God damn it! Alright, I'll be honest. I want to date a writer from Ireland who will read to me and go on adventures with me. I'm going to be a lonely old woman with cats, I can see it now.

AND has anyone else got the new Mumford & Sons album Babel. OH LORDY I AM SO IN LOVE I WANNA DIE EVERY TIME I LISTEN TO IT AND RIP OUT MY HEART AND SOB. It's so flipping perfect.

Also, do we want to change the look of the blog? Something fresh for our fresh start? If nobody else wants to do it, I'm happy to. It might take me a while to figure out how to work this new website layout though... ugh. Anyway, I'd love to hear how everyone else has been doing too! Goodbye all.

Nat: We're bringing sexy back...

Them other blogs don't know how to act. :)
[to steal Heather's idea and begin with a song hehe]

But any who - the future is looking up once more for SAAWAKM. Hooray!

Quick update-y type stuff, since I haven't told you much in quite a long time - since, like, July.

I got a new job!! I'm working at a daycare with the kids in grade 1-6 and I absolutely LOVE it. I also work in the preschool for part of the day and the kids are just so adorable. :)

School: definitely not easy or breezy or cover girl (to steal from Heather once more - what can I say, Heather? You're brilliant). It's so much work...I have 2 midterms tomorrow and a paper due...yet I'm sitting here writing a post on SAAWAKM...Priorities, eh?

Family type stuff: My sister's having her 2nd baby, so I'll be an auntie to another little rugrat in May!!! ;P

Writing: has been a little scarce lately, what with the whole school thing. But I've been working on it whenever I get a chance.

Books: I'm reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower right now. So good, if you haven't read it, READ IT! also I can't wait for the movie.
A Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling is also sitting on my shelf waiting for me. So excited! No spoilers please if you've already started it.

Other than that, not really much to say.
Nicole, I'm super glad you're back, and nice to hear from everyone else.

Til next time,
A

Rachel: Mewko!

.......I just wanted to post some more about my book. Not extensively like last time (because, let's face it, that's seeeerious overkill) but I was just feeling inspired and needed to type to SOMEBODY. For the hell of it. I'll just make this sort of an update on what's going on with my planning process right now instead of a full-blown let-me-tell-you-every-detail-of-everything-ever. So here's what's gone down since my last post. Don't worry, this will be short; I'm going to be eating dinner soon, and then I have to go to "old man band."

Okay, so I know more about Mewko now :) Which definitely makes me happy. Ketta, unfortunately, is still in the works, but I'm sure I'll figure him out before November. I've decided that Mewko is pretty cute and sweet, but she has a dark side. Not much of one but...well, you'll see what I mean. I think I mentioned that she spends a lot of time caring for children, and therefore would have developed sort of a harsh motherly instinct that shows itself whenever people are getting ready to do things that could potentially hurt them. If they look like they're going to be dumb and go through with whatever potentially dangerous thing they're doing, she threatens them with a knife until they settle down. Just so she doesn't sound like a total psychopath, know that EVERYONE carries around some sort of weapon in my book, not just her. But still...she is mostly really nice, but she has an edge. Which I think makes for an interesting character, maybe.

I promised this would be short, and ta-da, it is! You are welcome. I'd like to get into the habit of making my posts so short, but we all know that probably won't occur any time in the foreseeable future. I hope you are all alive and well :)

-Iridian

Heather: A Day Late.

Sorry guys, my computer got a virus and now I have to lose all my files and all that jazz and use my mom's when she doesn't need it. Thus, I missed the post yesterday...

So, hey Nicole and Rach, what's up? Just chilling? Oh yeah, me too.

I was off in my post before, and Merlin doesn't start until October sixth, which is depressing, but hey, I've got a week to prepare myself for the sheer awesomeness of Merlin. And that's a lot of awesome, let me tell you.

Rachel, I have seen your super efhivgobjscbaskl\mlfsjhvaipjskldsf,bhvoesidjavklajdljhvdshdfjvnje-ing long post, and think it is wonderful, but I will comment on it later, because right now it makes my eyes hurt. :P

Silver: Has gone no where, as all my files are now gone, and I have no way to contact Kas aside from facebook, but she still hasn't answered my wall post so foewgfhoejdhavj.

Scholarships: Bloody hell, so much to do, so little time. Not to mention applying to universities.

School: Easy, breezy, but not covergirl. That was neither witty nor profound, but I'm too lazy to edit my joke.

And I think that's about it... but if any of you have twitter, will you please follow BGAMillionWays? It's part of a scholarship contest my friend and I are entering to become egg carton entrepreneurs. And no, the egg cartons were not our choice, but it happens. If you follow us that would be amazing! :) It will be  an important part of the ''social value'' of our project. :)

Love you guys! ... er, ladies.

-H

Rachel: Characters...yes :)

I just woke up, and, even though I REALLY want to continue sleeping, my brain won't let me; it immediately made me start thinking about my nano book, which I have decided to call Soul Debt (I'll explain that title all in due time :P.) Anyway, I decided that I feel like rambling about my characters for a while, since I want to make sure I have a really good grasp on them by November and typing about them to other people gives me ideas. I'm not going to go into appearances right now (it's possible that I never will, unless one of you left on the blog is dying to see what they look like or some such thing), but I will talk personalities. Which I'm still developing. Actually, I don't even know what I have in terms of personalities so far. I guess I'll find out RIGHT NOW.

Anilom Salinikera: As previously stated, Anilom is my main character. Weirdly, I probably know the least about her than I do about any other character. I know that she is fiercely loyal to her village. Oh, and that she's independent and possibly confident, since she grew up without her parents. I kind of see her as being sort of serious, but I want to steer away from that if I can because that's no fun! She's best friends with Mewko, so maybe that will bring out a playful side in her. I don't know. I have a feeling that I won't know too much about her until I start writing, and then I'll have something to tell you guys.

Fell Ko: Okay, so I was thinking that Fell would be kind of a sweetie and MAYBE not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm not sure how prominent I want this to be in him, but I'm considering making it his foremost characteristic. If I do that, I think he will be good for providing comic relief, and he will also be a prime candidate for character development. I can see him loving flowers and other cute pretty things, and also being the type of person who will laugh at ANYTHING. But he is also very loyal to his village, and he will do what he has to to protect it and to preserve his way of life. As a result, I think he'd be a surprisingly good fighter. We'll see. He's still in the works, like everybody else.

Inlilia Lit: Inlilia is one of those people who is quick to anger and quick to fight about it. She can be very impulsive, which can be both a good and both a very bad thing. She doesn't seem to want friends and doesn't let people get very close to her, but I'm pretty sure this will change by the end of the book. I think she will be a lot nicer and much less of a fighter than she pretends. She rarely ever has to actually hurt anybody--acting like she will is enough--so her reputation is preserved even though it's not an accurate representation of who she really is. She will become much more of a personable character by the end of the book.

Mewko Monroe: For some reason, Mewko is kind of tough for me. She's tiny and feisty, but feisty-ness isn't  the meat of her character. I can see her as something of a motherly character, mostly because I have decided that she takes care of orphans that are too young to take care of themselves in her free time. I think she's someone who thinks a woman's place is with her family and children, and she really has no interest in hunting or fighting or anything. In fact, she thinks it's barbaric. But I don't want her to be a total wuss or girly-girl. When someone she cares about is in danger, I think she can prove to be a total bad-ass. She's good at medical things, which will definitely come in handy. Man, I still have to do some work on Mewko :(

Senn Mehr: Senn is the classic strong, silent type. He's training to be a warrior, and is extremely serious about it. He rarely speaks, but when he does, what he says is important. He never smiles, but I'm thinking that he will near the end. I don't know much about his story, but I'm leaning towards the idea that he is following in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather and so on, and that that is very important to him. He can be cruel and heartless when the situation calls for it, but on the inside he has this kindness and softness to him that is sort of reminiscent of the person he used to be when he was a child, but deeper. Like, when he's alone, he might silently appreciate and understand the intricate beauty of a flower (where Fell would roll around in them.) If that makes sense. Though outwardly he expresses little to no emotion, I think that he would feel very strong emotional ties to people, which is what drives him to protect and fight for them. He's actually very loving, which I didn't know until I typed that just now.

Stim Nyznik: Well, Stim is super annoying. There's no way to tiptoe around that. She's very self-confident and bossy, and she thinks she knows what is best for everybody at every given time. She infuriates everyone, but she has a way of passive-aggressively silencing anybody who challenges her authority because she feels like she should be in charge. I think she secretly has pretty low self-esteem, which is why she feels like she has to be the best at everything; if she's the best, she's worth something. Sadly for her, though, I think she has some training to do before she can call herself good at fighting (which is very important to survival in Samot.) She doesn't handle being wrong very well, and she refuses to take blows to her pride. That actually ends up getting her killed. She has the opportunity to save herself and accept help from someone else, but she consciously chooses death instead. Kind of tragic.

Chek Hartford: Chek is the mischievous one of the group. He is witty and has kind of a biting sense of humour, and he takes great pleasure in playing tricks on people just because he is very amused at seeing them annoyed. It's this that makes him arguably the best fighter in the group (except for probably Senn); he loves to use people's impulse and anger against them. He thinks he is positively hilarious, and he laughs hysterically at his own pranks even when no one else does. He's essentially a pretty selfish person, which is why he has no troubles with making people mad just to make is day more interesting. Needless to say, he's most dangerous when he's bored, especially if you're on his bad side. Outwardly he seems rather impartial to anything or anybody, but his secret fear is dying alone, despite his natural inclination to make people hate him. So, yeah. That's Chek.

Ketta Wolefnoll: Ketta's another one that needs some work. What I know about hims so far is that he's albino, which is fine when he's underground (most of Samot is underground), but not so great when he's out in direct sunlight, so he wears a blindfold around. He's an excellent archer, though, even with his blindfold on, which I think is fairly bad-ass. Anyway, personality-wise, I've got some holes. I can see him being pretty manipulative; he can get people to do things for him without them even realizing that they're doing him a favour. Strangely, though, he's oddly gullible himself, and very trusting. But...ugh. Like Mewko, I have hard time with Ketta. If any of you have some ideas, they would be greatly appreciated.

Cossm King: Okay, I DO know a little bit about Cossm. He's the chief (or whatever)'s son, and so he is expected to be in charge of Samot one day. The problem with that, however, is that Cossm was TOTALLY not cut out to be a leader. He's related to the goddess Bion, who is the most revered of the gods, but he has none of her characteristics. He's a total wimp and very easy to bend to someone else's will. He tries to step up and be strong, but it just doesn't seem to be in his personality. He's sort of the joke of the village, though nobody would ever say so in a place where his father could hear (but they would where HE can hear.) He has a lot to live up to, but he knows that he can't. He ends up dying in a very epic, heroic way, though, and he is respected far more in death than he ever was in life. So it turns out that he does have what it takes to be a leader--he just never had the chance to show it.

Seddo Egglian: Seddo's Samot's version of a nerd (though he's not scrawny or anything like that.) His father was exiled from the village for endangering people's lives with his bizarre experiments, and Seddo lives with him (he's allowed in Samot, though.) He is really in to "science" (Samot really knows nothing of science) and completely worships Rideltra (god of knowledge). As is to be expected, he's very inventive and innovative, and has a knack for inventing just as his father does. He likes people and is personable and friendly, but he sometimes turns people off with his enthusiasm for...well...everything. He's very intelligent, but sometimes he can be the most naive; he is so fascinated with everything in the world that he can be blinded by it. He's also one of those people who misunderstands sarcasm frequently, which I think is funny, and so do lots of my characters--they take pleasure in seeing him confused every once in a while.

So that's everyone! It only took about fifty thousand hours, but I did it. And it helped, except in the case of Mewko and Ketta, who I am still somewhat stuck on. I'll end this post before it gets any longer and continue my perpetual nano planning.

-Iridian

Heather: I Won't Give Up.

On us, even when the skies get rough. I love Jason Mraz.

But ladies, my last post was something of a goodbye, this one, this is something of a hello. Maybe it was Rachel's enthusiasm, Cori's persistence, or Nicole's, our resident missing person (and I mean that in the funniest and nicest way possible), post.

I was almost afraid to check back here today, but I'm glad I did.

Maybe, maybe some of us are done with this blog, or maybe this blog is done with some of us, but it's certainly not done with me, and I am absolutely not  finished with this blog. You have all (just about) been a part of my family for the last three years, and while some might let that go to waste, I've realized something lately. I won't.

In fact, I flat out refuse.

I challenge everyone that still follows this blog to comment on my post: whether cynical or otherwise, to let me know you're still here.

And even if I'm alone (and I already know I'm not) I'll still do my best to keep this place alive, because you all mean way too much to me to fall to waste.

I'll be posting again tomorrow night, when I'm not so tired.

-H

Nicole: What can I even say?

Okay, it has been a very long time. Far too long. I ended up not coming on here for so long because I kept putting it off, because I felt so guilty for not coming on in the first place. I also stopped coming on because I had no motivation whatsoever to write. I felt like I'd lost my spark for writing, but I think it may be coming back after a very dry spell. It's really late so this is a very quick post, but I read some of the last posts and had a dreaded fear that this was over. I hope it's not, because I miss all of you so much. I'm not even sure what made me come on tonight. Hopefully somebody is actually on here to read this too. I want to start using this more frequently again though! I miss everyone so much, and I miss how much fun I used to have with you all. I would love if this didn't end. I would love for everyone to come back and enjoy it again. I'll update more tomorrow when it's not this late.

Rachel: Nano book!

So, I'm aware that there aren't really that many people left on this blog and so very few people will read this, but I had to blab about it to SOMEBODY. As usual, I am posting obsessively about a book, but this time it isn't Death List. It is my currently title-less nano book. I'm reviving an idea that I toyed with last year during nanowrimo, but this time it's actually panning out. I don't have too much in the way of a plot yet (I can summarize what I know about that in about a sentence, which we'll get to :p) but I am rapidly becoming a master of my characters! Would you like to meet them? I'll assume you said yes.

My main characters are:

Anilom Salinikera (F) (the story is told through her.)
Fell Ko (M)
Inlilia Lit (F)
Senn Mehr (M)
Ketta Wolefnoll (M)
Seddo Egglian (M)
Mewko Monroe (F)
Stim Nyznik (F)
Checkillion (Chek) Hartford (M)
Cossm King (M)

I included their genders, since some of their names are kind of ambiguous. The book takes place in the VERY distant future, millions and millions of years from now. Most humans were wiped out during a nuclear war that took place ages ago (from the "present" that the book takes place in) and those who survived became the ancestors of my characters.

Here's what happened. Most humans were killed, right? And those who weren't and were near one another kind of got together (humans are social creatures) and attempted to survive as part of a new civilization. They disagreed on how to protect themselves from radiation, however, so they split into two different groups. One group headed to the mountains, and the other group headed underground. Obviously there were still a lot of deaths either way,  but some of them survived and the human race essentially started over. The characters who I have listed up there are descended from the people who took refuge underground. They live in a village called Samot, which is almost completely in a bunch of tunnels and things under the surface of the Earth. Because their people has been living in darkness for so long, they have certain adaptions: excellent night vision (though not quite as good vision in daylight) and very good hearing. They only come up to the surface to hunt and gather food and during the nighttime for certain special ceremonies and celebrations. They have their own religion and customs, which I am still developing, but have a pretty good grasp on. They pray to multiple gods, which are:

Bion--Goddess of life, prosperity, and basically everything that is good. The most celebrated god in Samot.
Morrah--God of death, destitution, and lots of bad things (I'm not going to bet to specific here; it's all
               still new.)
Rideltra--God of knowledge and anything similar.
Sisela--Goddess of ignorance and innocence and such.
Gamis--God of hate, anger, ferocity, and anything similar.
Xilia--Goddess of love, temptation, jealously, and powerful emotions and things of that nature.
Kurbra--God of illness.
Eadi--Goddess of heath.

So these are my gods, and they eventually become characters, since this is one of those books where the gods actually exist. I'm still working out the kinks with all of that, but it has to stay because it is the source of the main conflict in the book. This sort of leads me into what I know of the plot so far, so here we go with that.

So the people of Samot and Ticnamor (the mountain village) hate each other because they are convinced that  deaths that have been taking place in each village are the doing of the other village. The people in Samot have a custom where teenagers are selected for missions before they make the ceremonial transition into adulthood, and my characters are selected to embark on a journey to Ticnamor to confront and possibly fight the Ticnamorian warriors who are wreaking havoc on Samot. Long story short, they make it to Ticnamor only to find that the Ticnamorians aren't responsible for anything that is happening in Samot, and it becomes clear that there is a darker force at hand. It turns out to be the workings of Morrah, who is freaking out because he is the least liked of all the gods and is tired of being able to bring nothing good into the world. He won't listen to any of the other gods, so, of course, it falls to my characters to bring her back to him senses before he destroys all of humanity. What's kind of neat about this is that Anilom, who is my MC, doesn't have parents and doesn't know anything about them (this isn't all that unusual in Samot, since people are being killed all the time), and it turns out that Morrah is her father. I'm not sure what happened to her mom, but the important thing is that Anilom is the living example that Morrah IS capable of bringing life as well as death, which sets things right again and blah blah blah. It's going to be far more epic than that, of course, but that's the general gist of it. Oh, and Anilom isn't THAT unique with having a god as her father, and she doesn't really have any special powers or anything because of it. Morrah has just never successfully fathered a child before, which is why it's a big deal. So, yeah.

I'm sure I'll blabber more about this later, but for now, it's bedtime.

-Iridian

Rachel: So I've been thinking...

I heard that this blog was dead, so I haven't been on in a while. For no particular reason I decided to check up on it today, and, you know what? I think I'm going to continue posting here. Even if there isn't anybody to read what I write, really. I just really miss being able to blabber on about my book endlessly! I may be on here later, or maybe not, but expect to see more of me.

-Iridian

Kamie: I don't know...

I personally think, unlike Cori, that tend to one my time is up. I've was with this blog for a year or so now, and it is dead. I hardly ever check it anymore and whenever I try to contact anyone besides Iridian and Cori, I get no response... I'm sorry. I might try a little longer, but I think I'm done with this blog unfortunately. :/ All it does is depress me now. Here's my short post for today. Hope everyone's well.

-Kamiella Maze

Cori: I'm staying.

I know perfectly well that I'll regret it later, because SAAWAKM is dead now matter how we feel about it, but...I've decided to stay. I just won't be posting much (seriously, there's no point. No one posts, no one comments, no one clicks on reactions, no one looks at the blog...), but I'll be here and checking up on the blog every other day. Even though I know it'll be empty and barren and dead. I'm going to regret this...

This post is small. I know. But I have a migraine and the only thing I feel like doing right now is bashing the Twilight Saga. So...I'm going to go do that now.

Heather: Wow.

It's been so long.

Really guys, I am sorry. I was away so long this summer, and then I kind of became afraid to check back; afraid of having so much catching up to do, but more so, afraid of not having much to do at all.

Kas, very soon I will be online, and we will work on Silver. And we will get her edited. And published. And I'm especially sorry I haven't been online to talk to you either.

Nat's post really made me remember, and then (the old) Rachel's comment made me think of how writing oriented it was... and now, I think, while I've always known, I'm really realizing how much this blog means to me. Like Nat, I will be a SAAWAKM-er until way after I'm too old to use a computer.

And I will be a writer for just as long, and I contribute that to SAAWAKM, and all you SAAWAKM-ers, past and present, that have helped me, laughed with me, and (yes, you Kassy Pants) actually exercised the patience involved in writing with me.

If, like Nat wrote, this blog has taken it's last breath, then so be it. I'll be honest and say I hope not, I'm back now, and I still love SAAWAKM as much as I did when I first joined, but if it has, you all will always be my friends. More than that even -- because that's what this blog has always been about, writing, yes, but friendship so much as well.

I love you all.

And by the way, MERLIN SEASON FIVE STARTS IN TEN DAYS OMFGSDSGRJNYTBVCWEDGR!

-H

Nat: Try and remember.

I'd like you to do me a favour. All of you. Right now. It's not even a hard favour, I promise.

I'd like you to think back to February 2010, [or if you weren't an original member of the blog, then whatever day/time you joined] and just think about the person you were at that point. Do you remember that girl? Her hopes, her dreams, her terrible fashion sense, and her significant lack of writing experience?

Do you remember the girls that we all were? The ones who did challenges, and wrote poems, and made book covers for each other...the ones who planned a road trip that never actually happened, obsessed over Supernatural together, sent each other gifts, and made each other laugh...do you remember those girls?

I know what you're thinking.
You: Yeah, yeah, Nat, cue the sappy music. You're making me want to vomit.
Me: Yeah, I'm kinda making me want to vomit, too.

But seriously. This isn't my attempt at reviving SAAWAKM. No. Frankly, we've had a lot of attempts at reviving SAAWAKM, and it's kinda looking like its heart has beat for the last time. It appears that there will be no rising out of the morgue for this blog. At least, not in the same vigorous, bumping-with-energy way that the blog used to be.

Maybe it's best this way. I don't know, I don't have any of the answers. I just want to say all this before you all leave for good, and stop checking for new posts every day or commenting or posting anything of your own.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying my goodbyes. I'm going to be a member of SAAWAKM until I die, probably even longer.

I guess that this is just the post that I've owed to this blog, and to you guys, for a long time.

A post to say thank you.

Thank you for letting me be a part of this. Thank you for the years that I've spent here, the things you all have taught me, and the friendships that we have made.

I love you all.

-Nat

Cori: Information on my books!

So I've decided on what to call all three books in the series. Caged, Frayed, and Shattered. It hints at Altrius's progressing insanity. The series is called the Angelic Threnody.

Angelic Threnody is planned out and ready to go. Now to start on the series that comes after: Angelic Serenity (name might change). Between the Lines, [Insert title here], and Negative Zero. Between the Lines takes place 26 years after Shattered ends; Altrius is now 100 years old, and Mirabelle is 49.

Before the events of Caged there was something called the Sickness that killed off five million people in the span of a month. When someone caught the Sickness they were dubbed the Lost; a new brand of cannibalistic, poisonous demons that killed and ate anything it could get its hands on. During Caged some people create a chemical that, when injected into the bloodstream, sends the body through a series of changes and turns them into one of the Lost. That chemical became a a virus that only the natural demons are immune to, and is highly contagious to humans.

They call the new disease the Blessing.

In Between the Lines a new job has opened up: something called an Inquisitor (name might change), something only a demon can be seeing as they're immune to the Blessing. It's their job to spot and kill any human that has caught the virus, eliminating them before the transformation becomes complete and destroying everything that might cause it to spread.

So there's a little bit of information on what's going to happen in the next series. I already have the prologue of Between the Lines written out...it's a bit of a guilty habit; as soon as I know what the beginning or the end will be to one of my novels, I have to either write it or just outline it in extreme detail.

I will willingly admit that I talk to myself - I have long conversations with myself when I'm alone, planning and arguing and developing. And sometimes I'll pretend to be in the scene I'm writing; I'll say the dialogue, and as soon as I know enough I'll get some paper and a pen and write it all down. If there's no computer or paper nearby, I'll text it to myself and copy it down later.

I think I'll go ahead and show you the prologue. Seeing as I'll be leaving in three weeks and have no idea if I'll ever come back (I will stay in contact though, I promise), you probably won't know anything about what stuff is going on in my books. So I'll go ahead and do Show And Tell now, while I'm still able.

A radio sat on the far end of the counter, playing a country tune that no one cared to listen to. The bar was hot, nearly ninety degrees, but the civilians wore thick and concealing clothing. Coats and hats hung over the backs of chairs, stained with sweat and reeking of sunshine. The bar seemed like cheap beer and sweat. Most of the patrons were large and tough, well-armed and ready for battle. They all wore light colors in a futile attempt to keep the heat away.

There was only one exception. A man sat in the corner with the radio, feet up on a table, his hat tipped to cloak most of his face in darkness; there was a hole in the side of it. The majority of his black hair was cut to chin-length in a nod to practicality, and his ragged boots had long ago been replaced with sturdy new ones. Otherwise, everything about him was the same as it had always been.

His high collar was held in place by a series of clasps, just barely hiding his mouth. He wore loose black clothing underneath his thick red coat. Three belts wound about his narrow waist and at his side hung a holster with a massive gun in it.

His eyes, black as pitch, were fixed on one man sitting at the bar. They absorbed every detail of the target's face—the subtlety of his movements. His skin, in stark contrast to everyone else's, was pale.

His name was Altrius Dial.

He was a hundred years old.

It's very rough right now...I'll probably rewrite it five or six times until I'm satisfied with it. I don't plan on getting comments, views, or anything...because no one ever comments or looks at the blog anymore...but how do you like it? I'll just pretend that I'll get an answer, and say thanks haha. Because I know that none of you are even going to read this xD! I'll just say thanks for the support, guys. I'm really going to miss all of you.

Cori: Three weeks.

A few days ago I made the decision to quit SAAWAKM. As in, see ya, au revior, buh-bye. But Heather (just a few minutes ago, actually) convinced me to stay for three more weeks and see if it gets any better before then. If not, I'm out of here; because this is just ridiculous. I know you all have lives and things to do, but it's not that hard to get onto the computer for five minutes and type out a quick post, unless you don't have internet. I'm not all that innocent either, but at least I'm checking the blog every day to see if anyone has posted, commented...anything. It's like you're all dead.

So I'm either leaving SAAWAKM in three weeks, or I'm staying. No offense but I'm inclined to believe that I'll be gone in three weeks.

And if you guys haven't noticed yet (I doubt it), I delete every post I make when I'm in anything but a neutral mood (which is most of the time). I'm in a neutral mood right now but I'm sort of leaning toward pissedoffedness. So this post will probably be deleted in a few hours. And then you'll have absolutely no warning when three weeks go by and suddenly I'm gone. Sorry 'bout that.

Okay...well, seeing as this is a writing blog, I might as well talk about writing. I've been working on Skin Deep lately - my gay romance novel. I've fixed it up a lot; it's quite a bit different than what it used to be. What was one a cute romance between two high school boys in a modern setting is now a disturbing love-hate relationship between a young demon/serial killer and his target, in a Victorian Era type setting.

I finally figured out the ending to Skin Deep. From the very beginning it's obvious that my main character Ciaran (the serial killer who eats the souls of his targets) is going to die. I just had no idea how I was going to pull it off.

The reason Ciaran dies is because in order to keep most of his powers locked up, he made a deal with the devil and used Blood Magic to create tattoos on his body. The tattoos keep his powers under lock and key, giving him the freedom to do what he wants. Unfortunately the price for the Blood Magic is death.

In the end when he dies, Ciaran tells Riven (his target and lover) that he'll eventually see him again, seeing as it's only his body that will die. His soul will go to Hell and he'll reside there as a demon. Earlier on in the book Ciaran offered to make a contract with Riven, who refused. But at the very end Riven goes to Ciaran's grave and accepts the contract, and Ciaran wakes up again. Then the book ends on what's actually kind of a cliffhanger.

...Kinda like the movie Avatar. Jake wakes up and it's like, "Ooh, wonder what's gonna happen ne--DAMMIT THE MOVIE ENDED!"

In other words, I enjoy pissing off my readers.

Cori: School is insane.

Sorry I haven't been able to get on, guys. School is absolutely insane...I can barely think with all the stuff I have to do. It's very overwhelming. They're getting us ready for the OGT test (Ohio Graduation Test) already...I've taken two pretests so far, in Biology and U.S. History. Insane, I tell you!

French II is pretty crazy too. My teacher, Madame Marsh, kind of scares me. She makes me laugh at the same time though. Honestly, I'm not too sure how some of the people in my class got into French II...or even passed French I for that matter. But I hope none of them drop out: I really love indulging in America's favorite pastime: laughing at idiots. We spent about a month working on numbers in French I, and went over it about three more times throughout the course of the year...and yet some of the people don't even know what 15 (quinze) is! It drives me crazy.

Surprisingly, I think Art is actually my favorite class right now. Which is kind of shocking, 'cause...uh...I kind of failed Art in 7th grade. It was kind of embarrassing. I'm sure I'll hate Art tomorrow though, because we're beginning a really hard project. Honestly, Mr. Kuntz (it's not pronounced like 'cunts,' I promise! xD! It's coontz), we're in Art I and you're having us do crazy crap already?

Well...school is pretty much overwhelming me right now. To be honest I haven't been on my laptop in four days...which is almost unheard of...I've mostly just been reading and doing homework.

But I'm on today, and actually being productive for once! Jamie and my little sister Beth talked me out of writing an eighth draft of Caged, thank...whatever is up there. We compromised on letting me rewrite two or three scenes...which has turned into five or six. They're good rewrites though, I promise. I fixed up Mirabelle, who was getting kind of close to a Mary Sue, which freaked me out...she's very original and unique now. I took four Mary Sue tests to make sure! She got good scores.

I've decided to make Mirabelle blind in one eye, due to an old injury. She's from a group of tribes that believes in punishments like stoning people to death. Her family screwed up bad and was stoned; she and her brother got away, but a rock hit her in the eye and rendered it completely useless. And...that's pretty much the only bad thing that has ever happened to Mirabelle. She's had an okay life.

The thing that made Mirabelle most like a Mary Sue was her eyes. A long time ago I was into crazy eye colors, so for whatever reason I made her eyes purple. (It was kind of hard to admit that.) So now they're a really foggy gray color, which I think is much better. I'll be slightly changing Khardan's eye color too...bright green to yellow-green.

So, I think that's enough for now. I'll make a post about the sequel to Caged, Frayed, soon.

...10th grade is going to devour my soul.


EDIT: Oh, by the way - here is my schedule. I thought I should tell you guys what classes I'm taking xD!
1st: Geometry
2nd: English II Advanced
3rd: French II
4th: U.S. History
Lunch
5th: Study Hall
6th: Art I
7th: Biology
8th: Biology (biology is a double-block class. I have it for an hour and a half.)

Rachel: For once this is about my life, not about my book.

As promised, I'm going to spend a few minutes ranting about school. It started on Monday, and I already hate it and am working on switching my classes. If you're reading this, Jamie, don't worry--I'll fill you in in person. But for the rest of you who don't have any other way to hear me complain, here's what's going on right now.

First of all, here is my schedule. It is severely messed up:

Precalculus (not honors?!?!?!)
Biology II (not honors, not AP...why???)
English (everything's good here)
Government (not much i can do about that one)
Spanish 4 (I was originally going to take this, but now I might drop it to be replaced with something else)
Band (ME GUSTA MUCHO)

I seriously almost threw up on the first day of school when I saw what they put me in. I am aware that this makes me sound like a major snob, but I've never not been in an honors class before and it was a very unwelcome surprise for me. I also hang out with a lot of very intelligent people who are all in exclusively honors classes, and, though I love them, some of them are the type to look down on me if I am not also a brilliant supergenius freak. I actually am a genius (the stupidest genius EVER, if you ask me, but whatever, that's a different rant) but in this world it's grades and classes that seem to define how intelligent you are, not how intelligent you actually are.

The honors deal is not the only thing that sort of threw me here. In fact, I could live with that and with being judged by my friends if I did not feel so strongly that this is not what is supposed to happen to me this year. I don't know if that makes any sense or makes me sound like any less of a jerk. What I mean to say is that...well, it's hard to explain unless you know about the kind of "unorthodox" (for lack of a better word) things I believe in, but to put it simply this schedule is not part of my game plan. I could settle for it and be just fine, but I WOULDN'T be just fine because this is not supposed to happen and it must be changed!

I don't know if any of you have ever felt an overwhelming sense of wrong, especially about something as silly as classes that the school signed you up for because you were to dumb to turn in a class request form, but this is wrong in a deep and unsettling way. I know that sounds ridiculous, but...again, hard to explain, but I know what I'm talking about. Or at least that's what I'm going to continue to pretend.

Anyway, I'm fighting hard to switch my classes to some unlikely crap. I want to drop precalculus and take journalism instead, I want to get rid of biology even though I like it and take physics and somehow magically get additional credit instead of it being just like I'm retaking the class (working on that...probably not going to happen at this point, which is to be expected), and I want to replace Spanish 4 with an independent study period in which I will take calculus online. So there.

"Why," some of you may exclaim, "That sounds ridiculous! How irresponsible you are! Are you not aware that your senior year is the last chance you have to prove yourself in high school?"

I am aware of these things, and they are noted. But for once in my life I am going to get what I want, goddamn it! I refuse to be pushed around by my mother or the system or myself. This time I am doing my life my way, because it's mine and I am in charge of where it goes and I think I deserve even the small happiness of enjoying my education. I will still be able to get into college and achieve my dreams if I grant myself this one, short, school year to LIKE WHAT I DO. I am so tired of waking up in the morning and dreading school. Education is a wonderful thing and I love to learn, so I don't see why I have to hate something I love when it is SO EASY to fix the problem. I do not believe that changing these classes will damage my future. If I am mistaken in thinking this, well, I'll damn well find out, won't I? And I will accept those consequences. But at least I will have tried, and I will never regret that.

Sorry to make such a big deal out of high school. It's not a big deal. At all. But me standing up for what I want kind of is. So wish me luck.

-Iridian

Kas: I Love College.

Seriously, college is amazing. Also, this will most likely be a super long post about dorm life, just to warn you. :)

I'm sorry I haven't been on lately, my life is extremely hectic right now. I just realized that I never told you guys when I moved into college. It was three days ago, on the 16th. I'm on a co-ed dorm floor, but my roommate and suite mates are girls.

I know i told you guys i was a little worried about how my roommate and I would get along, because she is really reserved and shy. But, i'm happy to say that we're alright. We're never going to be best friends, but we'll be okay living together. Honestly, she is a huge push over so I just do whatever I like and shes fine with it.

So, Thursday we moved in and spent the entire night getting our room situated. I didn't have time to really meet anyone else other than my suite mates that night. So, as i was going to bed i was really home sick and kind of worried that I would hate OU. But, the next day I took my roommate around campus and showed her where her classes are, since i know all the buildings from spending so much time her with my sister. I was still kind of bummed, because i didn't really like my roommate and she was the only person I knew.

Anyways, we went back to our dorms and Kassandra, which is her name, got on her computer and did her whole "I'm socially awkward and I'm just gonna sit here in our room all day" thing that she tends to do. So I decided to go hang out with one of my suite mates in her room. We talked for a while before deciding to go around and meet all of our floor mates.

It was going okay, I liked the people but didn't really think I would hang out with many of them. Then, we meet two guys about three doors down from us named James and Andrew. I'll just start by saying, I Love Them. I've only known them for about two and a half days, but i've spent every hour, except for the 8 or so that i've slept, with them. They're my new best friends. My roommate tried to come hang out with us yesterday, but she just kind of sat there and watched us all talk, so that was a bust. I'm pretty sure she thinks i'm a sleeping with them because i'm in there room until three or four A.M. every night... she's judgy like that.

I've met pretty much all of the people on my side of the floor, which is Walker 5 East, for future reference. I'm so happy I picked the co-ed floor, because I get along so much better with guys.  There are a few girls who are nice, like my suite mate, but I don't spend much time with them.

Anyways, I love Walker 5 East, and I love College. Classes start tomorrow, which is why i had any time to write this. The boys went to bed early cause they have early classes. I'm getting up to eat breakfast with them, though, so I should go to bed too, i guess... Haha.

Well, this was just an update on whats going on with me. Heather, I'm sorry, you're going have to give me about a week to get everything figured out to see when I'll be able to get on...

Night, guys!
-K

Cori: Car wreck.

So my dad and brother got in a car wreck yesterday morning. My dad was dropping Max off at the King's Island amusement park so Max could go to work, when some idiot came speeding down the 45-speed-limit road at about 70 mph. He slammed into my mom's brand new car (with heated seats) and completely crushed the back, flinging our car about 40 meters across the road and into the grass.

Then the bastard spun, hit someone else head-on, spun again, and hit someone else.

Max and my dad are okay. Max has some pretty bad muscle bruising in his right leg, which is pretty skinned up, and his elbow is all cut up. My dad was hit in the gut by the steering wheel, bruising some organs, and his elbow is also cut up. He has a big gash on the back of his head and a bruise on his forehead. They're okay though, and miraculously Max's brand new $400 cell phone survived with nothing more but a streak of paint across it from where his seatbelt holder snapped off and dragged across the back.

No one died in the crash, which is actually kind of a miracle. They were all taken to the hospital and my dad had to get a CAT scan to check for internal bleeding, but he has a clean bill of health and now they're both home and very sore. Max is now terrified of driving.

Thankfully, the idiot who hit them has insurance, which is going to be paying for a new car, new cars for the other two people who were hit, and the hospital bills of everyone he hit. While out in the hallway, I heard the bastard refuse a drug test, quite violently. He was talking in a very...slurred voice. Obviously, he had been under the influence of something. A police officer forced him to take a drug test, but I didn't hear the results...we'll see.

So now we're hiring a lawyer; everyone who was hit is going to sue the guy for all he's got. I'm rather looking forward to a trip to Florida - er, I mean, a new car.

My dad says that he looked up a split second before the car hit them and saw a flash of silver in the mirror, before there was a really loud smashing noise and everything went white for a moment. Then all he could hear was Max screaming.

Max says they were both screaming. He told me that when they both calmed down, he got his phone out and called 911 as a worker at King's Island came running to see if they were all okay. As soon as Max was done calling 911, he went ahead and took a couple pictures of the crash for the rest of the family to see, and as 'evidence.'

If someone had been in the back, they would be dead now. The back seats are crushed against the front seats...the entire back of the car is destroyed. All my baby brother Preston had to say was "Can I come?" and he wouldn't be here anymore. Here's another one.

You can see my dad there, in a neck brace. There's some blood on the seat but not as much as there was on his pillow in the hospital. You can also see Preston's car seat there. He would be dead now if he had come.

And there's what it looks like from the side. And to think that it had been a really nice car just a few minutes before that was taken...

And this is what it looks like from where Max had been sitting. Pretty freaky, eh?

But everyone is okay. Everything is going to be fine, the idiot who hit them might to go jail, he's going to lose a lot of money soon, and we're going to get another car. But my grandma says that the real tragedy is my dad's attire while he was in the hospital. He was wearing a hospital gown, Batman underwear, and dress shoes. I have recovered from the horror of seeing my dad in those clothes.