It's Fall

. . . and this year, the trees seem to have synced up perfectly with the dates. The maple trees around here have turned bright red, gold, and yellow and it's very colorful.

As usual, autumn looks like it will be my favorite season out of the year. Weather to look forward, exciting things to do, projects to be finished, and holidays to be celebrated. Sure, it's busy, yet that's also a good part of the reason why I'm looking forward to the next few months.

What are you looking forward to this season?

*And in case you're wondering, no, that's not a picture I took. But it looks like that here.


-----The Golden Eagle

It Snowed Yesterday. Geez.

It didn't accumulate much, and it's certainly melted away by now, but I usually think of there being more time from the start of fall to the first snow . . .

Ah well. It isn't nearly so bad that I'm going to be singing this again (that I'm reserving for March. Or even April) and a little snow in the morning looks rather pretty.

(SOURCE)

Do you get snow, and if so, have you had any yet? Do you like winter at all?


(And yes, I'm trying to come up with topics for the last stretch of NaBloWriMo. Only one day left in October, which is a fairly scary thing. Got to go work some more on my NaNoWriMo novel.)




-----The Golden Eagle

Awards! And Tags! Hurray!

In the past couple of weeks, I've been awarded and tagged several times . . . and since today was a day when I didn't (miracle, I'm telling you) have a scheduled post, I figured it was time I posted them. :)

First, the 7x7 Link Award!

This one was awarded to me by Siv Maria at Been there, done that. and M Pax at Wistful Nebulae. Many thanks to both of them!

For this one, I have to list the Most Beautiful, Most Helpful, Most Popular, Most Controversial, Most Surprisingly Successful, Most Underrated, and the Most Pride worthy of my posts. Oh, this is going to be difficult . . .

Most Beautiful: A-Z Blogging Challenge: N Stands For: Nebulae
For the pictures. (None of them are mine, of course.)

Most Helpful: How To: Beaming Someone Up Into A Spaceship
All right, all right. So that wasn't what was meant. Maybe this one, then:
How To: Writing
What, you say? That's not really helpful either? Well fine. Here's a serious one:
Do You Have To Like The Setting To Enjoy A Book?

Most Popular: A-Z Blogging Challenge: W Stands For: Water
814 pageviews. The one with the most comments, though, was this one:
First Campaigner Challenge: 200 Word Flash Fiction
. . . with 87 Things People Wanted to Say.

Most Surprisingly Successful: Awards, Deck The Halls, Eclipse, Arctic Dinos, Congress, Christmas
33 comments, but it's my third most-viewed post of all-time. I haven't the slightest idea why.

Most Underrated: It Would Be A Stretch To Call Them Beautiful . . .
5 comments (2 of them mine), on a post about some fascinating birds (I might even go as far to say they're some of my . . . well, if not favorites, then I'm at least quite fond of them).

Most Controversial: In Which We Interrupt The Usual Posting Schedule To Rant About Politics
Just after Gabriel Giffords was shot. I was steamed. So I posted about it.

Most Pride Worthy: The Copenhagen Interpretation vs. The Many Worlds Interpretation
Two words: Quantum Physics.


Emily Rose at mist of the blossom rain awarded me the Lovely Blogger Award. Thank you, Emily!

. . . and technically, I'm supposed to list seven things about myself. But I was also tagged, so I'm going to combine the two into one.

Speaking of which, Susan Kane at thecontemplativecat and WB Terrien tagged me with the meme that's been floating about the blogosphere: listing 10 random things about yourself.

So, here I go:

1. I love fall. The smell in the air, the slight chill, the orange leaves, the start of a new school year. I'm looking forward to September 23. (And Michael Di Gesu's blogfest is another plus, of course.)

2. I have the urge to write a book with the title All the Shades of Gray. With a gray cover, of course.

3. I love cinnamon. Especially the smell, but it's wonderful on things like bread. Cinnamon raisin bagels are lovely.

4. I strongly dislike mint. Strongly. Which makes it difficult when in the dental aisle at the store, because most of the products are Mint. Or Peppermint. Or Cool Mint. Or Fresh Mint. Blech.

5. I'm finding a lot of discrepancies in my writing, for some reason. It's not something I usually do, but I keep coming across sections where I've said one thing at the beginning and wrote the rest like I said something else. For example, this morning, I'd mentioned the character had a breeze on their face as they were moving, but then continued with the character being in an enclosed truck. With all the windows up. (And no sunroof or anything, either . . . :P)

6. I plan to watch The Color of Magic for Terry Pratchett Month tonight and review it tomorrow for the scheduled post. It's rather long (I think it says 197 minutes on the back) but I've been reading some positive reviews of it . . .

7. I have never sent a text message in my life. And I don't intend on changing that anytime soon.

8. My website is coming along nicely. (You probably figured I'd forgotten about that, didn't you? I haven't mentioned it in over a month on my blog, I believe.)

9. I like cold much more than I do heat. For me, crunching through the snow is way more appealing than strolling down a hot, sunny beach.

10. I love my library.

Now, for who I am going to tag and award. I decided to try something a little different this time, just to see. (Don't panic yet.)

Here's the idea: for those commenters who land on a Fibonacci number (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233) consider yourself awarded. Or tagged. Whichever you please. (Basically, you can take any award, both awards, just the tag, a tag and an award, or all three. And can you tell I love the Fibonacci sequence?)

You can panic now.

Or not.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!


-----The Golden Eagle

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

***In case you are looking for today's book review for Terry Pratchett Month, please see below post!***

As you've probably heard or seen or read somewhere, Alex J. Cavanaugh has started the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

Now, I almost didn't sign up for it. Reasons?

1. I've got Terry Pratchett Month (co-hosted by me and Deepali at Evolving Books), the Third Writer's Platform-Building Campaign (which I shall be posting my entry for on Friday!), Alex's Worst Movies Ever Blogfest later this month, and other miscellaneous things that pop up now and then. I'm posting twice today for the first time since 2010 (I used to do it all the time . . . be glad I don't anymore :P) and it was just going to be a lot of content.

2. I wasn't sure what exactly I would post on. I don't have much writing experience, and I haven't gone through the mill at all compared to some of you (amazing) bloggers. My submissions stand at zero, as do rejections, and writing and being published is not the goal I've been trying to achieve for years and years (only for the past couple/one and a half or so have I seriously considered the idea I might see my book on the shelf).

But I decided I would post anyway. And part of the above paragraph would be a nice opener, I just realized.

Because I haven't submitted anything or received rejections, or even handed my writing over to a beta reader or critique partner. Which is a bit of a source of insecurity for me, since I don't know if my writing is good or bad, or if I should chuck it completely and try something else since my style just doesn't work.

Then again, sending my work off to people I don't know really well (I read so many posts on finding CPs/BRs online) and having it read by new eyes is also a source of insecurity. For while it is a small risk at having my work plagiarized or stolen, or otherwise distastefully handled, it all comes down the people factor:

As far as I understand how it works, you don't know the person at the other end of the line. It's a leap of faith that they'll be reasonable and honest and offer good feedback.

And I don't really like leaps of faith. Especially when it comes to things that are close to me (like my writing), and things that are uncertain (people) and things that are of personal concern (Internet security).

So I have to ask you:

How do you feel about sending your work off to someone you don't know beforehand?

**********

*****If I disappear and don't get around to your posts, it's probably because we lost electricity again or something. It's been raining steadily all day long, and there's some serious flooding outside (in fact, the neighbors' yards are covered in water right now which makes me even more glad the house is on a small hill). They're even saying it could get worse, so . . . I might be absentee. I'll do my best to catch up later.*****


-----The Golden Eagle

An Update: Poll Results, Writing, And Random Stuff

I haven't done one of these kinds of updates in a while. Here we go:

As for the poll "Do you think people will ever live someplace other than Earth?" I had up for July, here are the results, out of a total of 62 votes:

Yes--and I think it's important that we do (17 votes, 27%)
It's possible (28 votes, 45%)
No, not really (12 votes, 19%)
No--and I don't think we should (4 votes, 6%)
I don't know (1 vote, 1%)

Thank you for voting, to the readers who did--62 is the most votes a poll on my blog has ever gotten.

I hadn't expected so many of you to think that moving off of Earth was important. Personally, I agree with the majority--I do think it's possible (even likely) that humans will be living on other planets or in spacecraft or in orbit; and in the very, very long-term (should an asteroid hit Earth or there's some kind of other disaster which is not impossible), yes, moving off the planet might be a good idea. Someday. But regardless, should technology reach that point where we can move elsewhere, I hope to be around when we're traveling to new frontiers.

*********

I started a new novel on Monday.

It's going well so far, and I've got the plot for the story set out from beginning to end. I'm excited about the project, since it's in first person, present tense, something I haven't tried before. And in case you're wondering, it's SF, Young Adult, and the main character is a girl. The antagonist is a tyrant who took over the city in a coup de tat over twenty years ago and now aims to control the planet.

Yes, he's just a lovely fellow.

I want to finish this novel by November, so I can start something brand new for NaNoWriMo. (Hey, it's only three months away! Not too early to start planning for it . . . right? I have even come up with a potential idea for that story.)

(SOURCE)

**********

The grass is probably thanking the sky right now. It's been hot and dry and hot and sunny and also warm for the past week(s), and it's finally cloudy and rainy, so the water doesn't just run off without being absorbed.

(SOURCE)

*********

Well, at least the stock market went down only 500 points. It wasn't the enormous percentage drop that happened in 2008 . . . though it came pretty close. Thank you, Washington D. C., for stalling until the very date USA was set to default on its 14+ trillion dollar debt. It certainly helped the stability of things. Not.

**********

I have decided I really like Blogger's new format. It's faster and sleeker than the old one, and while I sort of wish there were scroll bars in the Post Editor, I do like that the edges shift as a part of your window does. The old one didn't go anywhere. I keep forgetting to add tags, though, since they're over to the right and not below anymore.

**********

So: what do you think of the idea of living on another planet, or in space? How's your writing going--have you got any new projects in the works? Is the economy getting better, or do you think we're going into a double-dip recession? What do you think of Blogger, now that it's been around for a while?


Finally, have you done anything exciting lately? :)


Hope you're all having a great weekend, bloggers!


-----The Golden Eagle

Tagged Twice And An Award

In the last couple of weeks, both Marsha Sigman at Marsha's Musings and Lynn Kelly at LynNerd Random Acts of Writing tagged me. Thank you so much! :)

Since I already did the tag before, go HERE to read my answers.

I was also awarded by Susan Fields at the blog of the same name.

Thank you, Susan!

And for this one, there are rules: I must list seven random facts about myself.

I'm going to deviate a bit and put in some facts that aren't about me. Because it's easier that way.

1. I don't like summer. Fall is more my season, or spring.

2. I'm in the midst of learning how to build websites. With XHTML and CSS and whatnot. It's quite fun.

3. N. R. Williams needs your help! She's trying to get Amazon to allow her to put up her book for free, and the only way to do that is to send them links of the lower price at Smashwords--which you can do (but I can't, unfortunately, because I don't have an account). Find out more HERE.

4. Have you heard of Pottermore, yet? I'm interested; I'm not so sure how it's supposed to work, but will be keeping my eye on it.



5. According to the OECD's Better Life Index (set up to find out in which country you would live the best life possible based on what's a priority to you) I should move to Canada, Australia, or Sweden, in that order. Which countries do you get? And isn't playing around with the flowers and ranking just plain fun?

6. Um . . . thinking . . . I've recently been reading the source code of sites I come across. It's interesting to see who uses Strict XHTML and who uses Transitional, and who doesn't use the doctype declaration at all.

7. 43 comments on the previous post, last time I checked! Thank you for responding, everyone--I love reading your opinions.

And I'm going to tag anyone who wants to answer the questions, and award anyone who feels like snagging the Irresistibly Sweet Award. You all deserve it!

*I just realized, in a fit of bloggish insight early this morning, that I put the wrong title on this post. Oops. It's changed, now.*


-----The Golden Eagle

Teaser Tuesday (42)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading--rules are as follows:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week, my teaser is from Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. This book is taking me forever to get through, for some reason.

(SOURCE)

"We just found--he came walking right into the dome--you won't believe this, Dr. Athor--"
   "Slow down, child. What happened? Who came walking in?"
   There were sounds of a scuffle in the hall, and a sharp clang.

-p. 169

*********

Got a teaser, or thoughts on the book you're reading? Feel free to share them in the comments!

Happy Summer everyone!

(SOURCE)

-----The Golden Eagle

Aspiring Author Interview, Awards, Ninja Writing, A-Z Blogging Challenge, and Snow

BREAKING NEWS:

The post in which I am interviewed at Perfecting the Craft--by the awesome Michelle Merrill--is up for you all to read!

Well? What are you waiting for? Go read it! And then come back to read the rest of this post, of course. ;)

*****

I was awarded the the Versatile Blogger Award by Hannah Marie at Distant Hoofbeats:

And the Stylish Blogger Award by Lisa Galek at Read. Write. Repeat.:

Many thanks to both of them!

(Again, because I've already been awarded before, and listed seven facts, I'm going to bypass that part of accepting the awards.)

*****

Ali Cross, at the blog of the same name, has declared February Ninja Novel Writing Month.

What does that mean? It means you sign up HERE and join in with the other Ninja's as you sharpen those writing skills.

I'm going to finish my novel this month. I am. I said that over a year ago, but I know more about my writing limits and what I can do in a month now--not to mention I have the ending set up in my head and I am getting close to the point where I can actually start writing it.

*****

Don't forget! You can still sign up for the  A to Z Blogging Challenge hosted by Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out.

What's the challenge part? Blogging every day except Sundays, with the theme of your post focused on something different each day--starting at A and going all the way down to Z, of course.

There are already 175 people who've linked up--are you going to help bring it all the way up to 300?

*****

It's a little icy around here, but nothing like the massive snowfall some places are got as the storm passed over North America. In fact, the sun's shining right now and everything seems to be dripping--hope the rest of you are safe and warm and that there's no more bad weather, wherever you are.

Have a great weekend, everyone!


-----The Golden Eagle

The Answer! (Plus: Award, and Other Miscellany)

The moment has arrived! I shall now reveal who exactly the kind of person it is in the Through the Keyhole Blogfest entry I posted on Monday.

First off, most of you who guessed said that you thought it was a male widow.

Partly right, although not completely. I wasn't aiming for anything so tragic.

He--and yes, it is a he, you were right on the gender!--is a traveling writer, doing research for his book, going to conventions/meetings, and the computer is what he writes on; the CD-RW has his files burned onto it. The green string is indeed a luggage tag, a remnant of his last trip to the airport. The picture of the couple is an image of him and his wife, but they're not divorced/separated, and there's no sorrowful backstory--he's just traveling abroad, while his wife stays home. They're a happy couple. :) The picture is a reminder . . .

*****

Now, L'Aussie awarded me the Fair Dinkum Award.

So, I'd like to give L'Aussie a big THANK YOU! and  *hug* for awarding me. :) It is much appreciated!

Me being American, I'd never heard of a Fair Dinkum before--L'Aussie apparently anticipated that, and told the award-ees to guess what they thought a Fair Dinkum was. (Read my comment HERE.) Hopefully, I got it at least somewhat right. :P

I also get to pass it on, too, and here are the people I'm awarding next with the Fair Dinkum Award (trying to be sure that no one's nabbed 'em before me . . . LOL):

Robyn Campbell
Brian
Sangu Mandanna
Madeleine
Dominic de Mattos

. . . and there are many others out there--Blogger seems to be a Fair Dinkum melting pot!

*****

Have you heard that the US Department of the Interior wants to strip Northern Rocky Mountain wolves of their Endangered Species status?

Now, look: I have absolutely nothing against saying that they're not on the brink of extinction. Hooray for that, actually. But LET'S NOT HUNT THE WOLVES. Please. If they're going to take wolves off the list, DON'T let them be hunted back onto it!

Remember what happened last time the wolves were killed, and there weren't enough of them out there? The ecosystem collapsed. Deer populations, (which are still issues in some parts of the country) went wild, eating, then starving themselves out as they ate everything, killing their food supplies due to lack of control by predators. We NEED the predators!

*****

You know that site that's been circulating for the past few days, every since Jen posted that awesome interview with Miranda Dickinson? Authonomy.com, set up by Harper Collins? It sound like an awesome site, and a good opportunity for getting your work out there. Publishers, agents, and other people like that will be able to read it, and you get exposure. People get to read your books and comment on them. Publishers have actually published works by the authors there.

Well, apparently you can't use it unless you're over 18.

*sigh* I don't happen to be over 18, which means that option's out the window. What's with the rule, anyway? Doesn't make sense to me.

*****

You may have noticed that I took down the Other Blogs page I had up, with all you bloggers' buttons. I don't hate your buttons--in fact, many of them are quite nice, and I make those kind of images myself--but the format was acting up giving me tons of white space, and it's easier to just add people to the blogroll on my sidebar. So, if you were on the Other Blogs page, rest assured that you are on the blogroll. :)

(I might set up one of the moving, repeating sequences of buttons, if I can figure out how . . . or I may just put up the page again in the future.)

*****

It snowed ALL DAY yesterday. Non-stop. There are several inches on the ground right now, and it's supposed to snow more this week--hooray! Not that I get snow days, being homeschooled and all . . . but it's the symbolic aspect. Plus, I love snow.


-----The Golden Eagle

Random (But Still Awesome) Pieces of Life

Hooray for Talli Roland! She was all over the blogosphere yesterday--so many posts had that wonderful pink cover, spreading the word about her release! And The Hating Game got far on that bestseller chart. :D

*****

Dominic de Mattos at Writes of Passage awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award! I big thank you to Dominic for awarding me! :)

I will award:

Jules at Trying To Get Over the Rainbow

Caroline at A Writer's Life For Me

Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs

All of them are very Versatile, believe me. :)

(Well? What are you waiting around for? Read the rest of this post and follow them if you don't already!)

*****

I set up a playlist at the top of my blog, as you have no doubt noticed. It's entirely instrumental; I tend to like Christmas music better when no one's singing. It's all YouTube video, (made at YouTube Reloaded) since that seemed like the easiest playlist to make, and it has the added bonus of the listener also getting to watch, if they want to.

Many of them have lyrics, and if you want something really cool to see, check out the Mannheim Steamroller videos with the Christmas lights (we have a CD of some of his music--my favorite is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, which is up there.)

*****

It snowed yesterday! And last night, so there's snow on the ground right now. It's not a thick coating or anything, there's still a lot of grass poking up, but it's snow! *smile*

I hope you bloggers in the UK don't have any serious snow troubles, though; the recent bad weather made the national news here in the USA.

*****

You know those brilliant pieces of inspiration that pop up, and then you get that wonderful feeling of know where and when things are going to happen in your story? When things fall into place, after thinking hard and coming up with nothing for the past days . . . weeks . . . months?

I just had a moment of such inspiration, and I'm feeling really excited about my novel. It's a relief, actually, since the story was starting to feel kind of dull. Thank goodness for the mind.


-----The Golden Eagle

Happy Halloween! (Plus: NaBloWriMo, NaNoWriMo, And Random)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Hallowe'en. All Hallows Eve. Whatever you'd like to call it, today's the day! Have fun trick-or-treating, partying, whatever. :)

*****

Today is also the last day of NaBloWriMo! I have posted at least once every day for the entire month of October! Even more reason to celebrate.

But, if you're like me and have participated in NaBloWriMo, don't do party too hard! Because tomorrow is *drumroll*dramatic display* NaNoWriMo!


I know that I've said several times that I wasn't planning on doing this event. For many reasons, I told myself. It wouldn't be good for my novel, I said. It would be better to edit, I thought. I don't think word-vomiting all over my document would be a really great idea, I consoled myself.

*sighs* EXCUSES. But you know what? I've decided to change that. Because of a lot of factors. So, basically, I am going to be doing NaNoWriMo!

(If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is by now, I'm seriously going to question where you've been for the past month.)

I'm kind of pushing the deadline to sign up here, but I did sign up to do it! This will be my first year. But hey, I wrote 40,000 words last month, so it's just 10,000 more than that. So, the thing on my mind right now is, I am going to kill this challenge with everything I've got.

Here's the link to My Profile. Buddy me, if you've got an account. (I can't find a lot of you, because there's no "search" for the profiles or anything like that.) At first I wasn't sure about linking to it, but I managed to disable the Home Region thing, which would basically tell you where I live. Boo. I didn't want to do that.

I'll update you guys over there and on this blog with one of those word count widget-y things. I think I'll use the potato man one:

Anywho. Just get geared up for the absolute writing frenzy--it's 50,000 words, after all!

*****

Interesting, because they don't come around here often, but I saw a bald eagle yesterday! Just perched. It was sort of far away, but I could see the characteristic white head and dark brown body. It would be nice if it stuck around . . . but I doubt that.

Ever seen one?


It was snowing a few days ago. SNOWING. It just wet the sidewalk a little, but it's c-c-c-o-o-l-d-e-r than usual now. Even for the beginning of November, people are not usually shivering in a winter coat. It's supposed to get colder and stay that way for a while, too.


Have a great Halloween, all!


-----The Golden Eagle

Tag, Award, Random

The tag comes from Shaynie at The Book Blog! She tagged anyone who liked Sherlock Holmes. :)

1. Do you like Sherlock Holmes?

Yes!

2. Would you ever like to go overseas and work with a relief agency in a war-torn country?

It would depend on the type of relief work that I'd be doing. It would also depend on where I'd be doing the relief work . . .

3. Do you like foreign films?

I've never watched a foreign film. (Is this bad?)

4. Do you like writing?

No. I HATE writing! I loathe it! The beings who possess my mind and force me to write are cruel enough that they don't even make me like the awful chore!

*ends good-humored sarcasm* Yeah. I love it.

5. Will you be doing NaNoWriMo? What's your book about?

I'm not going to be doing NaNoWriMo, although I will try to write as much as I can next month.

As for what my book is about, it's . . . complicated. Not to mention it has CLASSIFIED written all over it, (even to my mom because I don't want to spoil the plot for her :D), but I can say that there are spaceships. And dictatorships.

6. What's your favorite animal?

I love lots of different animals, although I get the feeling you've already guessed I like birds of prey.

7. Have you ever been to a foreign country?

I was adopted from China, so yes, I HAVE been to a foreign country! Unfortunately, I don't remember a thing. I flew over Korea, (stopped in Seoul), Russia, and Canada. Plus Alaska.

8. Are your ears pierced?

Nope.

*****

The award comes from Rachel Morgan at Rachel Morgan Writes!


It is the Cherry On Top Award.

Thank you, Rachel! :)


I received this award a short time ago, and already answered the question, although it was phrased a little different than this: If I had the chance to go back and change one thing in my life, would I, and what would it be?


I'll answer it again anyways. No, I would not, because I've learned too much and done too much in my life to warrant going back and trying to change it. :)

*****

Now, for the random!


If you visited my blog yesterday, you may have noticed that I didn't appear to have published a post yesterday--when I DID. It was the book review of Krik? Krak! which I accidentally told Blogger to publish on the 17th. Darn. So, if you I slipped up on NaBloWriMo, I didn't!


Only an absolute bookworm would get hyper at the idea of traveling to two libraries in one day and getting out a million books at each, which I will presumably be doing tomorrow. They're both very good libraries, too. Plenty of YA, and MG, and Adult, and even DVDs. Utopia, people.


Which only makes me more frustrated when I learn that the District's representative wants to CUT THE LOCAL LIBRARY'S BOOK BUDGET DOWN TO ZERO. Otherwise known as nil. Zip. Nothing. They may have given the librarians a salary hike, but no new books if this budget thing continues!


They don't do interlibrary loans around here, either. Darn it!

*****

It's supposed to snow tomorrow. SNOW. It's only the end of October! Whew. But I don't mind--I actually like snow. :)


Have a great Thursday, everyone!


-----The Golden Eagle

Flood Watch, Writer Things, and Coffee

I can believe it. It's been raining, raining, raining, pouring, dripping, sopping, and splishing all day long.

I realize that the last word isn't actually a word. Except I'm a writer--I've got creative license, right? Well. I say, very splishingishly, that writer's have the creative license to create new words.

But there is a lot of water. The street's sort of flooded and the gutters on the neighbor's house are pouring water. It's been dark, gloomy, and wet all day, but I'm content. I'm usually in a content mood when it's raining, and also because I've been successful editing-wise.

*****

Have any of you seen THIS POST? Or, THIS POST?

Yes? No?

Well, the second makes me laugh. Actually, the first makes me laugh because seriously, folks? If you're going to date a writer you should expect a whole different can of beans.

I don't actively lock myself up in my room or anything and write like some people do, (do you?) but I do tend to get crabby/irritable/fussy when my writing's not going right. And "writer's will remind you that money doesn't matter so much"? Ahem. A lot of writers go into the business because they're broke. I'll let you decide for yourself whether the other points are true. :D

*****

NaBloWriMo starts tomorrow! Hooray! I'm excited about this. It just seems like it's going to be fun, you know? Well, maybe I'm just overexcited. I already post pretty often . . . maybe it's the fact I won't be alone this time. :)

If you haven't joined yet, my armies are still waiting around for the next victim. (AKA you.)

*ahem*

*****

I never really liked coffee. I am repelled by the scent of coffee, especially really strong stuff; I like the smell of Barnes & Noble (one of my favorite smells) but I don't like just coffee. How do people drink it? HOW?

But apparently people do. At least according to a recent survey done by Careerbuilder and Dunkin Donuts. (I've never been to Dunkin Donuts--or Starbucks, for that matter.)

Huh. Oh, well. I plan on being a scientist; I'll just have to be a non-coffee-drinker one.

*****

End of September everyone! Can you believe it? Another month has disappeared. I think this month has gone rather well for me, since I got some stuff done . . .

What about you?

-----The Golden Eagle

Eh. {What Else Is There To Say?}

DARN IT.

I wrote a nice, long, miscellaneous post and BLOGGER DELETED IT. It said "Conflicting Edits" and said "Please hit the back button on you browser."

So I did.

AND I FOUND OUT IT DELETED THE WHOLE DARN THING.

*sighs*

Okay then. Well, I'll just try writing it again, although it's not going to be as great as the first one.

*****

Right.

How is your Labor Day going?

Good? So-so? Not on holiday? Irritated the the banks are getting another free day to make some profit?

I've been mowing the lawn, writing, reading Foundation (very interesting and complicated; except: no women! GAH!), blogging, and generally whiling away the day.

*****

You know that swamp I mentioned yesterday? Well, it's there because they couldn't build on the wetlands. Also, there's an issue with some toxic waste that they say doesn't harm anything, but they still can't build on it--I don't get that. I'm assuming it's doing damage somewhere.

But anyway. There's this set of stairs that go up high and you can look over the swamp and basically have a good time watching green gloop move with the breeze and the occasional duck dip its head into the green gloop.

Very fun.

Actually, I just liked getting an aerial view (Hello! Eagle here!) and climbing. I love climbing things, and have been since I was little. (I used to crawl out of cribs and bang my head against the bars if I couldn't get out. I also used to jump a lot. In fact, I still jump a lot.)

*****

Has it been cold recently? It has been here. 40-50s at night, 60s during the day. In the beginning of September! Sheesh. It's not fall yet, folks.

But I don't really mind all that much. I like cooler temperatures, and fall is my favorite season. Did you know that the foliage is changing quicker and earlier than in normal years? Yup, it's true. It's not quite that obvious here, but apparently farther north (Northeast, Canada, etc.) the leaves are changing.

I've spotted a few dark-orange trees . . . but nothing like the color explosion that occurs later in the year. It's very vibrant when that happens.

*****

I'd better go write that review of Prophecy of the Sisters. I said I'd post that today . . .

-----The Golden Eagle

5 Awesome Blogs

Here we go again for the 4th Saturday in a row. :)

1. Just a minute . . .

2. @dria cherelle

3. My Nutty Life

4. Quirky Ramblings from a Teenage Soul

5. ~Elyse~Is~Randomly~Awesome

*****

May 1st, people! April for 2010 has passed!

I suppose that I'm not the most enthusiastice person about May, because May means warmer weather, heading toward summer, and I don't especially like summer. I don't like a lot of heat, I don't like UV rays beating down on my skin, I don't like sweating a lot (and I have to exercise), bugs seem to live feasting on my blood (really. I usually get clusters of bites that around 3-10 at a time. Totally sucks, no pun intended) and I don't like the whole shebang in general. . . I pity people farther south. How to they STAND it?

-----The Golden Eagle

5 Awesome Blogs

Okay, I said I'd do this in a comment after Kai gave me the idea, so here are 5 blogs that I think stand out in the blogsphere these days: (I'm following something like half a hundred, so it was hard to choose . . .)

1. Icewolf's Den

At the moment, you may want to check out the Inora/Charry Fest going on, which is hilarious . . . lol.

2. Cori's blog

Right now, she'd hosting a photo contest, so check that out!

3. Fearless

Art is great, isn't it?

4. *Fish Flakes*

Hosting a caption contest, and the blog is nicely fishy . . .

5. Dreamer

Artistic and interesting. She also has another blog, Pages, which is excellent.

There you have it. Maybe I'll do this again sometime, and list more!

*****

IT. SNOWED. The day before yesterday, I was wearing shorts and tee-shirt, and I was hot, and the next day I have to walk around in long pant and a sweatshirt, and then snow came down!! Granted, I wasn't really made at the skies, but c'mon! 80s/30s do NOT mix.

*****

Anyways, can you believe that the Kyrgyzstan government has been booted out of office? The President is somewhere in the south, 70+ people were killed when the government shot at protesters, and the interim government is demanding that the former president resign immediately. And it's not helping that the USA has an important army base there that takes supplies into Afghanistan. We need it, Kyrgyz!!

Hello Warm Weather and Scarlett O'Hara

(Okaaaaay, I just accidentally deleted the several paragraphs I had written for this post, so I'm kinda pissed off . . .)

FINALLY I can go around outside without having to wear a bulky winter coat (though the barn coat I wear is warm and I like it) and I can run without the fear of slipping on ice and possibly losing my brains on the sidewalk, which is a big improvement. AND I can run without sucking in frrrreeeezing cold air which makes my lungs ache. So I consequently ran probably around a mile and walked a little less than that, which is good P.E. for someone's who's homeschooled. (No gym, so I have to do stuff on my own.)

(Spoilers might be ahead if you're a person who likes to avoid knowing the little details prior to reading. Just a little warning :)
Gone With the Wind is an odd book, since the writing style I like, but the characters I. DO. NOT. Let me explain. Scarlett O'Hara is a girl living just before the American Civil War, and since she's on a comfortable plantation, what's there to worry about? Slaves! Land! Beaux! Ashley! But there's the problem. Ashley here decides that he is going to marry Melanie, and and Ms. O'Hara gets REALLY mad. Dejected. Miserable; until she gets the idea that he loves her, but she had been too flirtatious and not shown her true colors. So she goes and tells him that. And it blows up in her face.
Now, I'm not feeling terrifically sorry for Scarlett. She's silly, flirty, and strings the people around her along, so I don't like her. And while she may complain about women not being able to be anything but empty-headed and foolish, I get the feeling that if you asked her, "Well, what else would you do?" she wouldn't be able to come up with anything. That, to me, is hypocritical. If there's one thing I don't really like when it comes to important issues, it's hypocrisy. (I've been hypocritical on some things, we all have been, but I like to take a stand and stay by it and if I change my mind for some reason, I state it.)
I don't know if I'll finish this book; perhaps, perhaps not. But if I do, I'll tell you people about it, and you can hear me rant. (JK! I'll save you the trauma.)

Oh, and has anyone ever heard of this? I think it's cool in its own right, but tell me what you think about it and the rest of this post . . . i.e. please post comments!!