What's Your Favorite Thing To Do On A Saturday?

Me, I'm headed off to the library. And then I'll attempt to tackle as many links as I can for the Pay It Forward Blogfest . . .

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But before I go, I wanted to let you know I will be posting tomorrow for Blog Action Day, and have signed up for yet another blogfest (because it sounded awesome. And after all, I am so not busy with, um, two others):

Hosted by Carrie Butler at So, You're a Writer....


So, what is your favorite thing to do on Saturday? Or over the weekend? Are you participating in Blog Action Day or the Casting Call Bloghop?


-----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.

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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)

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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. :)

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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!

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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

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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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

-----The Golden Eagle