7:Introduction

The music swells, reaching a piercing crescendo as the sun filters through the stained glass window, the frenzied  musicians bathed in glorious light. 

That sentence probably aptly captures how may people are feeling around this time of year. Why? you ask. The answer is simply. NaNoWriMo. 

For any of you who may not know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is an even pretty much described by its title, though now this event has become so popular that it is INTERnational. Run by The Office of Letters and Light, NoNoWriMo takes place all during the month of November, and is a great chance for everyone who loves to write.  

The basic idea of it is to get you writing, to challenge yourself to write during a time of year when people are officially challenging themselves to write. 50,000 words is the goal for those who dare this month. Why 50,000? Will apparently it is the smallest length that a manuscript can be and still be considered a "novel." Less and it is a novelette or novella. It doesn't matter the quality of what you write. During NaNoWriMo, it is all about the quantity. Revising and editing come later, when you're not preoccupied with writing about  1,667 words a day.

It is a community and challenge and event all rolled into one. I, as you may have guessed, am planing to partake of NaNoWriMo this year. I did last year and it was AWESOME!!!!!! Being extremely excited, I have taken upon myself to count-down the last week before it officially start. So every day, I will be posting something equally NaNo-y as the days tick off. 

Hey, I could be worse. There are actually people who stay up all night before the day NaNoWriMo starts and begin writing right at 12:00 AM the first day of November. Where as that would be fun...my typing would be even more riddled with mistakes than usually and I would...be...going...very...slow...ly. 

So join the insanity, or at least check it out. 

Words, words, words

As you have probably assumed, today's Writer's Block is all about words. It probably won't be the last post about words, as I have a deep affection for words, and most of the Writer's Blocks are based on writing exercise. I have two today that I would like to share.

First, find five words you did not know the definition of, them use them to write a few paragraphs.

The words*

lassitude-weariness of mind/body; a condition of indifference.

indolent-having a disposition to be lazy; causing little pain/benign.

adust-scorched/burned

biblioclast-someone who destroys books.

gelid-very cold

The paragraph

 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is the story of a certain biblioclast named Guy Montage who must face what destroying books really means. At first he views what he does as most of his profession, as a favor to the world. But when he meets a young girl, Clarisse McClellan, he begins to realize that in truth the way he has been living is marked with lassitude. At first indolent, but soon growing to a dangerous proportion, Montages feelings of revulsion and disgust at what he does grows. Much like the he has burned laying in scorched heaps, he feels his living in a word adust, marked by burned out lives. As things come to a head, Montage must leave his home, and step out in an abandoned world that at first feels gelid to him, empty, and without hope. But as he finds some unexpected companions, he realizes that is the very place hopes lies.

*All definitions are paraphrases with Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary from 2006 being the original source.

Second, make up definitions for five words you did not previously know the meaning of.

kibitz-the child version of a monkey. 

The kibitz would often play rough with the others around his age.

nabe-a foolish and often mean person.

The bully was quite the nabe.

perdition-being a person/object that fills a prophecy.

In the fifth book, Percy Jackson realized it was in truth Luke who was the perdition to Delphine's prophecy.

regrate-a piece of art that only became famous after the artist has died.

As sad as it is to say, most of Van Gogh works ended up regrates.

sumac-a move in karate

John surprised his attacker by taking him down with a powerful sumac.

Furthering my Education

Perhaps, if you can recall a little less than two months ago, the blog post, My First Day of Not School, you will remember me mentioning something about a GED test happening the 1^st of October.

Well, obviously, since it is a couple weeks past that nefarious date, I have had my GED test. It went well, in case you are wondering. The actual test was fairly easy, easier than the practice tests I found.  As the test went on, I became more relaxed even. Not only did the test start with subjects I didn’t like as much, making it so I ended with the subjects I enjoyed more, they went much faster than I expected them to.  On the following Wednesday, I received the test scores. Apparently, I am superior in everything...but science. (The GED’s wording, not mine.) Grrrr, science. The problem with science is the test seemed to delight in asking Biology questions. Don’t get me wrong, I took Biology, and even anamaty physiology, but it wasn’t my favorite subject in the world, so quite a bit of it was in one ear, out the other. I made an honest effort to retain it, but I would be studying, and suddenly realized it had been several pages since I knew what the book was talking about.  (Regardless I still scored over 80% in science, but to be superior you have to score 90% or over.) Still, if the test had bothered to ask any chemistry questions...I would have been superior in everything ;)

Then just this Monday I went to my community college to take a placement test. I scored well on that too, scoring for the highest classes a freshman can take. (Because I really, really, need a head which is even more swollen. It isn’t near big enough yet.) Unfortunately, the next step is counseling.

Why is that unfortunate? you ask.  Well, there are several things I want to check out and consider before taking classes, and I wanted to start counseling as soon as possible, so I can get all my ducks in a row as soon as possible.  The soonest counseling is avaible though, is the month before your first semester starts.  Grrr, again.

A Weekend with the Kids

This last week end, while my mum and older sister were away at a Christian woman's conference, I was in charge. While I could have taken this time to invite all my low life friends to party it up, and then chip in to hire at least a dozen maids to clean up after the party, I instead spent the time having quality time with my little siblings, and enjoying time alone, (as much as a paradox as that sounds, I really did manage to do both.)

Mum and KatySue left early Friday morning, leaving me with the job to do school with the kids, all three of them. Gulp. It actually didn't go too bad(ly? my gut says no, my mind says yes, and the grammarian is confused and on vacation) though. I managed to get it all done in the morning, even the science experiment.

The afternoon to me was spent reading, writing, and a little bit of job hunting, and answering the phone. A lot. Still, nothing too exciting; just doing the everyday things, but doing them in a house that I almost had to myself. The little kids were downstairs, so except for the occasional shriek it was like they weren't even there.

Mid afternoon though the kids come up waving a Lego magazine in the air, asking if they could call Hero Factory, saying they had found the number in the magazine. After looking at what they were talking about, I decided they could, at 1-888-4HERO-FACTORY. They were taken to an automated answering matchine where they could hear reports from their favorite heros, or villians. They could even leave a mesage.

That night I made the most Delicious thing I could think of that all the little children liked.

Grilled Cheese!!!

We ate dinner in the living room while watching Fantastic Mr. Fox. I had picked it up at the library the other day. I remember having wanting to see it when it came out, but never getting around to it.

Well, except Abi. She thought it looked weird so she watched Spirit on my laptop.

After they went to bed, I sat down with a bowl of pop corn and a soda...and read. Hey, I'd already watched a good movie that night.

Then Saturday was chores in the morning, and playing a couple of games with the kids in the afternoon. I forget exactally what we did, but I know the game Snap was involved...

...this picture...

...and a lot of being locked in my room, (by said children,) and being fourced to play with them.

The Journal

Blank, empty, soulless, nothing but page after page of lined paper pressed tightly between my covers. My patterned cover attracts a young girl. She picks me up, and runs her hands across the cover and along my spiral edge which binds me. She flips me open and ruffles my pages. I revel in the caress of air around my still leaves. She traces the tips of her fingers along my lined pages. Suddenly I realized something lacked within me, and it pains me to be without it. I still did not know what it was. I only knew, as the girl ran her fingers across me, that she could give me something I needed.

I was expecting to be fill up right then, my pages nearly rustled with my excitement, but the girl closes me with a harsh "snap!" I am placed in a bag that rustles and crinkles. I stay there for a while, wishing for the girl to pick me up again. Eventually she does, but not to open and fill me, but to give me to another, who waves me around under a  red light. I am handed back to the girl, and placed once again in the bag. I swing, sit, jerk, and tumble in the bag as I am taken somewhere. I know not where.

Finally, being taken out of the bag, I am placed on a shelf by the girl, and that is all.

I wait.

Before the girl, I had sat on a shelf, my only knowledge of the world the other books which were around me, which I know realize where just as empty as I am. It makes me wonder if they too feel the emptiness inside of them and wished to be filled. Now though, I am surrounded by all sorts of companions.

I wait.

They are very worldly and kowledgable, these other books. Some are story books. They are full of character and plots. Other are picture books. They show amazing scenes of the world, capturing a singe moment of life on their pages. They whisper things to me, telling me of the world. Some laugh at me, mocking my bare pages, tittering about the dullness of my repetitive lines. They say what point can there be in a book like me?

I wait.

Others comfort me. They search their own pages for clues to what I am, and how I am to be filled. They never found out though. The books come and go. Sometimes I lose a friend, sometimes I gain one.

I wait.

And then...

Then girl picks me up, only she is different, unlike me; I have not changed at all. She opens me and I think she is going to trace my lines again, but instead she lays me on a table. Gently, she places the tip of a pen a little above the very first line, on my very first page, and then she writes...

                    I had forgotten about his journal, lost among the regular books on my

                    shelf. I needed I new journal, and I happened to find you...

The girl was filling me! Filling me with words, wonderful words she means for me and only me. Line by line and page be page.

The girl places me back on the shelf and I show the others the few pages the girl had filled with her messy script. I can talk about nothing else.

I grow thicker, as if the words the girl writes in me somehow add substance to me. It isn't everyday the  girl writes, but she does several times a week, filling me with more of her words.

Then the day comes when the girl writes upon the last line of my last page. She closes me, and places me on the shelf again. For a moment, just before she put me down, she ran her fingers along my spine and cover, like she had done the day she first picked me up.

I never felt the girl's touch again. A few other people picked me up casually, even flipped open my pages, but never with the tenderness of the girl.

But it doesn't end there, for I tell others of the girl who filled me. Like a picture I have captured her, and like a story I tell her adventures. But more than that is laced through my pages. The girl herself lives in me, her heart beating and her laugh echoing. I am her dreams, her fears, her sorrows, her joys, her wishes, triumphs, failures, life, losses, and loves. Even as the girl changes and fades, I will hold her, young and vibrant.

Forever.