Day Zero

...as in, the day before Day One. 

NaNo starts tomorrow and my biggest fear is school (when is it not). I'm so worried that it's going to get in the way and that I won't be able to write. Plus, there are two days I'm hoping to take off: Thanksgiving and my birthday. If I'm desperate, I'll write on those days too, it wouldn't bother me that much, but it would be nice to take a break on those days. 
But let me introduce you to my characters, since I'll probably be talking about them a lot this month and for the month following. There's Anna, my protagonist, short for Annamarie. There's Jamie and Klara, the twins, Paisley, Ginnifer, Myles, Jiminy, among so many others. I really like Anna, though it's a struggle to make her very different from Miette because I've been writing Miette's story for so long that her personality is kind of burned into my brain... But Anna is pretty different from Miette, and that'll become more apparent as the story goes on. Jamie and Klara are sooo much fun, I can already tell ;). I like Ginnifer, even though she kind of jacks stuff up a lot and almost gets a bunch of people killed (yup. It's that kind of story). 

So after school on Thursday, Grace and I went home with Em to help set up for her sweet sixteen/Halloween party which was Friday night. The 24 hours before the party consisted of ice cream, lots of baking and cleaning, music, Disney, and stabbing pumpkins with Dumdums (don't ask)(my arm hurt so badly)(pumpkins are hard to stab). We took breaks from baking and cleaning to sleep, eat, and go to school, of course. School on Friday was a half-day, and it was all just a big All Saints Day party. There was a seventh grade play about Joan of Ark. Each year, the seventh graders do a play on All Saints Day about a saint of their choosing. My class likes to turn everything into a comedy, so our seventh grade play was kind of amazing. I mean, it wasn't disrespectful, but we got the biggest laughs xD. It was so great. 
Em's party itself was Disney/Pixar themed, so I went as Snow White. It was a lot of fun, and I stayed afterwards to help clean up and we had kind of an "after-party", which was basically me and Em smashing cupcakes in each others faces. We made a video, but I can't figure out how to put videos on here, so just take my word for it, it was fun and we were crazy. xD I didn't get home until near midnight. 
Also, I've had "House Party" stuck in my head all day because of this party. But I mean, if I have to have a song stuck in my head, it might as well be country, right?
Here are some pics of me and the beautiful birthday girl on Thursday night when we were setting up: 

I can't smile normally. I think it's against my nature.

"Abby, I'm stealing your hair."
"'Kay"

Photo booth props

More photo booth props and MY WEIRD SMILE.

And tonight is Halloween. What're y'all dressing up as? Blaze is a hobo, Penguin is Revis from the New England Patriots, Rosie is a skeleton, Lilian is a ninja, and Ronnie is the most adorable reindeer California has ever seen x). 

I think tonight I'm gonna do the same thing I did last year: stay home alone with tea and chocolate and occupy myself with who-knows-what. Possibly getting ready for NaNo, but how can you really prepare for it at this point? 
So to all you 'Mericans, Happy Halloween! Stay safe! (I'm such a mother)(I saw the cutest little kid today and if I do become a mother, I want my son to look like him)(I really like to go off on tangents) And to all you writers out there about to undertake an amazing journey, a.k.a., NaNo, I wish you the best of luck! And have fun with it! And wish me luck too, as a first-timer! 

I might not post very much over the next month, but I'll definitely be back for Thanksgiving and my birthday. 
Until then! A very merry un-birthday to you! (My brain is still on Disney mode) 
--Me

Sing, goddess, the cleverness of Abby, who thoughteth up this title...

Today I have a day off from school. Allow me to set the scene for you: 

I'm still in my pajamas and I haven't brushed my hair. My room is a mess and just to get to my desk to blog a few seconds ago, I tripped on like five things. I had a doughnut for breakfast and I haven't eaten lunch yet, which is probably bad. It's kind of cold outside and gray, which is nice. Lilian and Rosie are at school and Blaze and Penguin are playing video games and I spent the morning singing, doing homework, prepping for NaNo which is in four days, and trying to put together a costume for a Halloween party on Friday. And I'm so tired that I had to google how to spell Halloween. 

I also have been working on an English project. We're almost finished reading the Iliad, so my teacher told us to do some sort of artistic, Iliad related project. I'm doing a pencil sketch of Achilles. 

It's not finished, obviously, but I did this much and I'm satisfied (ish) with how it's turning out. There are feathers coming out of the helmet, but the scanner didn't catch that I suppose. I was going for a dramatic expression, but he looks scared, which I wasn't going for. Achilles is always angry, he can't look scared. I mean, the first line of the whole thing is Sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles. He's like the Hulk. He can't be scared. 
Oh well. 
Also, I'm horrible at shading.

Today is really quiet and really gray and I'm in an artistic mood now, so I'm going to go make new binder covers for school. 

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I'm back! That took longer than I thought. Here they are: 

English, History, Latin, Biology

Geometry and Theology

I love them. I've been wanting to do this for a while. 

Okay, mom just went to go pick up Lilian and Rosie from school, so the house isn't going to be this quiet for much longer. I'm going to go enjoy it while I still can. 
--Abby

The Burger that Killed My Evening.

The gala was last night at the Ronald Reagan Library in Air Force One, which was so awesome that I can't even express it in words. We got to use all three levels and... Okay, excuse me, my brain is still on wow-Air-Force-One-is-so-amazing-I-can't-handle-it mode. My mom and I got there early to set up, then we went out to lunch and I got a cheeseburger. 

...
Well, the cheeseburger made me sick and I threw up. 
During the gala. 
What even. 

Luckily, it was in the back hallway that was reserved for the student workers, and I amazingly didn't mess up my dress (same one as last year, the black, Audrey Hepburn style). The only ones who saw were Grace and my friend Therese, so that was good. Grace was so amazing, she helped with everything and cleaned up half of the mess before the maintenance crew got there. 
I threw up at the Ronald Reagan Library. 
I am such a sad person. 

Before that, I felt so sick, I couldn't even do my job. My job was stand at a table and answer questions about the artwork that was being auctioned off, but I felt so sick, I kept running back to the greenroom to sit down. I couldn't do it. Before the event opened, all the student workers had to go up to the third floor to take a group picture. When I got up there, everybody was looking over the railing and when I went to join them and looked over, a wave of nausea came over me and I had to sit down. 

I cannot believe I threw up. My first words when I did it were, Are you for real?? 

But I got up on stage and sang anyway!! 
Like. A. Boss. 

Okay, since it's Sunday, I think I should do a real weekly wrap-up.

Best moment this week: 

Probably the second half of the gala, which was a ton of fun since I was feeling better. During the speeches and the live auction and everything, I sat in the back with some friends and basically felt very thankful I wasn't nauseous anymore. 
Most random moment from this week: 

Singing songs and reciting quotes from Veggie Tales Jonah in Latin class. "My father was a caterpillar, my mother was a worm. But I am okay with that now." -The Caterpillar (If that didn't go through your head with the accent, you haven't had a childhood) 

Shame moment of the week: 

I think we all know what that is, so let's move on. (But first, let's look at the bright side: how many people can say that they've thrown up at the Ronald Reagan Library before going on stage to sing in front of a good 300 people?? It's a first, right??)

Something that made me happy: 

Umm... Grace taught me how to correctly apply foundation, because I don't usually wear makeup, but I had to put some on before the gala. I'm embarrassed to say that when it comes to makeup, I'm very lost. 

Something that made me freak out: 

I have a theology exam tomorrow... Yay. 

Things I pinned this week ;) : 

Hair, hair, hair; I'm obsessed.

Everything I love about this season! If this weren't SoCal...

I want to try to draw this sometime.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE BEST

I love lettering lyrics.
(Also, fun little tidbit about moi,
this was the first TS song I ever learned)
(When Maddie and I were little,
We learned this word for word.) 

You should see my Pinterest, there are pineapples everywhere.
I don't know why I love pineapples so much, but pineapples are life, okay?

I hope your weekend involved less throw-up and more pineapples than mine did ;)
--Me

New Scanner, Mouth Pain, and NaNo.

OKAY SO WE HAVE A SCANNER NOW!!

Behold, drawings not taken with the grainy, computer camera!! 

Downside: I drew it on lined paper. Oops.

I like this one. I kinda sorta messed up her hair, but I doubt I'm ever going to try and fix it, so here we are! 

(Also, does her hand look too small to you? It looks small to me.) 

Also drawn on lined paper.

Sometimes I tell myself that I can art and I go along with it to humor myself. But I like how this one came out. 

Oh, and remember this one? Well, here it is again, but scanned, so you can actually see what it's a drawing of. 

Graph paper. Dunno if you can tell though.

The scanner kind of cut off her head, but you get the gist. 

So happy with this new scanner! Very very happy, you guys. 

For the past twenty-four hours, my mouth has been killing me. My braces got tightened yesterday and hooooooooly cow, I hate this. But I think I have less than a year left with them though! Ugh, braces are the worst. 

I've been planning out my NaNo story, and wow, I have never written anything like this before. It's something I'd been mulling over since summer, and gradually, the plot had been growing and changing in my mind. The original seed was planted in my brain at (dun dun DUUUUN) a sleepover xD. Don't ask. Then I was at this little cafe one day and I got a new idea and I was like, hey, what if I put this together with that other idea... And then yesterday in logic class, my teacher said something that made my brain click and everything just fell into place. I was up late last night working on it and I think that, if everything goes accordingly, Late Have I Loved You might have met it's match. No offense, Miette. But I'm super excited about this one. 

...On a completely unrelated topic, I've been sitting at my desk writing this post and my knee was jammed against the corner of the computer, and just now I realized that it was giving me pain so I looked at my knee and there's a dent in it. A dent. And it's purple. 

People say that inspiration can come from literally anywhere, and now I'm realizing how true that is. I mean, a sleepover, a cafe, and logic class. What in the world. 

--Me

I should be doing homework.

Ironically, yesterday was pretty chill. 

I mean, if you don't count the PSAT testing that lasted all morning with only two five-minute breaks and my big biology test. 

Yeah. Other than all that, it was a fairly relaxing day. 

Technically,  I don't really think I'm supposed to talk about the test (PSAT, not biology). Nor do I really want to talk about it. Frankly, I'm not very confident on how I did. I will spare you the details. 

It was big. 
It was stressful. 
I wanted to pull every one of my hairs out one. by. one. 

There. Sorted. 

So, I got to school at 7:45 and testing started at 8. It ended at 11:30. But after that, I pretty much had no classes, other than my bio test, but that didn't start until 2, so really, I had 11:30 till 2 to kind of be lazy around campus. We were supposed to have latin at some point in that time frame, but my teacher gave us a day off because of all the testing xD. 
I spent my time wisely, studying for bio with friends, and yes, I did pretty well on my test. Then after the test, the middle school boy's football team had a game, and Blaze is on that team, but the game didn't start until 3:30, so I was bored. So I wrote a hilariously random story with Em and read the dictionary (oh yes. I read the dictionary. It had come to that). 
I'm just sooo relieved to be done with it all. 


In other news, we got a scanner!!! 

I know! I came home from school one day and there was a printer in my room, and my mom was like, "Yeah, we needed a printer. Oh and it's also a scanner." 

YAY 

...

And I may or may not have lost the picture I was going to share with y'alls... Oops? I'll find it. It's here somewhere. 

And since I don't want to do biology homework, and since I don't know how to do biology homework, I think I'll do another end-of-the-week wrap-up like I did last Thursday. Maybe it'll become a new thing. Thursday Weekly Wrap-up. 

Except it's not the end of the week, you say, and I say, DON'T POKE HOLES IN MY LOGIC. 

Best moment of the week: 

Finishing PSATs. 

Most random moment of the week: 

Em and I writing the most hilarious stories!

Shame moment of the week: 

In aerial, I had a total mind-blank/shame moment when my coach told me to get into the hammock a certain way and I just sat there staring into the distance for a few minutes trying to remember how to do it. It was a super simple way too! It was one of the first things I learned, getting into the hammock! 

Something that made me happy: 

Having to reschedule my orthodontics appointment to tomorrow during PE. No PE for me! 

Something that made me freak out: 

Taking the PSAT (I know, that's all I talk about now...)

AND FINALLY...

Things I pinned this week ;) : 

YAY SCARVES

I just love this

Why can't I be good at photography??

I just cut my hair, and sometimes when I
look at things like this, I want my long hair back.

So yeah. I'm starving. I think there's spaghetti in my house somewhere...
--Abby, who's off to find food. What else is new. 

Driving Adventures with Abby (minus the driving)

Sooo, I was scheduling my DMV permit test this morning online and this popped up: Next available appointment is Oct. 12, 2015 at 1 PM. 

So, naturally, I had a quick moment of panic, as it was almost noon, but in the end decided to take it. 
The DMV office is intimidating. You go in and there's all these computers and random numbers being recited over the intercom and people waiting around and official people who knew what they were doing and so forth. I was scared because I was worried I hadn't scheduled it right or something. I just knew something would go wrong. 
To my (great) relief, I scheduled it right and I had confirmed it beforehand and I had all the paperwork and my glasses and such. I passed the eye exam and got my picture taken, and then the lady told me to go to the corner and take the exam. 
In the corner were desks with touch-screen computers and separators between each computer. The desks were at different heights, and luckily I scored one of the two that were low so I could sit. That's called skill, my friends. 
The exam itself? Well yeah, I was a nervous wreck. I don't know who was next to me, but I probably drove him crazy, what with my mumbling to myself and the stressed sighs and little gasps of fear when I got one wrong. ((sorry mister, I really am sorry)) 
But it was a touch screen computer and I don't get the chance to use one of those very often. I had some fun with it, dramatically pressing the buttons and making my pointer finger do a couple circles above the screen before pressing an answer if I wasn't sure. 
What I hated was they didn't show where I was in the test. They didn't show me how many questions there were or what question I was on or anything. I think there were fifty questions, but I could only guesstimate on what number I was on. I kept looking around the screen and grumbling to myself. 
What I did like was that if you get one wrong, they show you right away. You don't have to wait till the end to see what you missed. 
I was kind of on fire. I think I only missed five questions. So I was getting more and more confident and was all, okay, I can do this, keep em coming! and I was all ready to keep answering questions, and I'm not going to lie, a tiny, tiny part of me was disappointed when I finished, but the rest of me was relieved and excited because I PASSED!! 

To celebrate, Blaze, Penguin, and I got ice cream. 
Walking home uphill after eating ice cream is never a good plan, btw. Not only that, but it's super hot...

So yeah. I got my permit today. 
Now I just need to find a driving instructor. 
And then I can drive. 
...
I'm not sure how I feel about this. 

Not only that, but I'm turning sixteen in a little over a month... 
WHY AM I SO OLD NOW?? 



PSATs are in two days, and I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of not that nervous anymore. I mean, I have a practice test to study from and I have my calculator and a lot of it is reading and writing, which are kind of my strong suits, and math is only part of it, and its multiple choice. 

What I am kind of nervous about is my big biology test tomorrow. 
.
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I should go study. 
--Me, California's almost newest driver

A Rough Outline of My Week So Far.

The school week's almost over and so I thought I'd give y'all the rundown,  but I thought I'd do it a little differently today; less ramble-y, more organized-y. 

(I know, I have such a way with words. Organized-y. What even.) 

Best moment from this school week: 

Finishing my novel!! I'm aware that this was on Sunday night, so it wasn't really during the school week, but I'm just so happy about it! So yeah, there's that. 

Most random moment from this school week: 

Hiding in one of the classrooms with a bunch of people from my grade and eating pizza.  Ah. That was great. 

Also just now, when Blaze and I were texting from opposite ends of the room...

Shame moment of the week: 

Oh gosh. Today we had choir practice for the gala and I was with Grace, and when my teacher was flipping through the music book, saying, "Okay, let's go back to..." and without thinking, I said, "December." Then I looked at Grace with wide eyes and told her that I was ashamed. 

Something that made me happy: 

My glasses came!!

Oh yes! Number one!

Something that made me freak out: 

Learning that I have to take the PSAT's next week!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And also I wasn't sure if I had the right calculator and the one I have now was really expensive, and I didn't want to have to tell my mom it wasn't the right one. 

Something that didn't make me freak out: 

Realizing that I do have the right kind of calculator. 
THANK YOU, GOD!! 

{And, because I have such a profound love of Pinterest...} 

Things I pinned this week: 

{Oh yes. Don't judge me. I love Pinterest.} 

GAH, I love this.
If you don't listen to Ed Sheeran, I will kill you to death. 

Yes.

SUCH PRETTINESS

I love photography.

YAY FEATHERS
Have I mentioned my weird love of feathers?
Am I alone in this?
I know I'm not, don't deny it; you love feathers too.

So that was kind of a rough sketch of my week. How's yours been? 

But can we please have a moment of silence for my stressed-out-ness over the PSAT's?
.
.
.
Thank you. 
--Abby

GUESS WHAT (CUE SCREAMS)

Okay, so you know how earlier today I was like, "I'm not gonna freak out I'm just gonna be all deep with no caps lock and blah"? 

YEAH WELL THE CAPS LOCK ARE BACK BECAUSE I HAVE NEWS. 

I FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!!! 

OMIGOSH!!!!! 

Okay, I sat down to do my daily writing, and as I was writing, I was like, whoa, what if I finished this today?? 
So I wrote for like three hours and powered out I think 4K words and I'M FINISHED IT'S ALL WRITTEN DOWN AND I STARTED CRYING AND I LITERALLY SCREAMED AND UGH I'M SO FULL OF EMOTIONS!! 

This is so huge! Like, I wrote a book! What??? I've never gotten to the editing process before and now I have and HOLY COW I FEEL AMAZING. 
Endings are hard to write. I kept wanting to add more. But, oh gosh, when I was getting to the end, my heart was beating so fast!. 

Pages: 113
Word count: 46, 539 
How long it took: A freaking year cuz I'm freaking slow
Chapters: 28 


So, it's a shorter book. BUT IT'S FINISHED AND IT'S MINE AND I LOVE IT AND OH GOSH I'M GONNA GO EDIT LIKE CRAZY!! 

I think I should go eat chocolate to celebrate. 
--ME WHO IS SO HAPPY BECAUSE IT'S RAINING AND I HAD TEA AND I'M WEARING MY GIANT SWEATSHIRT AND THIS WAS A PERFECT DAY TO FINISH A NOVEL! 

The Little Things.

It's raining and I'm so happy! I am wearing a big sweatshirt! And drinking tea! Yay! 
Oh, and speaking of rain, yesterday I was home alone and decided to write, but it was sunny and I wanted rain (and God answered my prayers HUZZAH). Sooo I went to this website and I am telling you, it is amazing. It's whole purpose is to make it sound like it's raining. And if you scroll down, there are beautiful pictures of rain. I mean, whoever created this is a freaking genius.
 Gosh, I knew it would rain, but I didn't know it would like, rain, rain! Last night I was at Hannah's with some people from school and we were running around in the dark in her giant backyard (they live on a ranch with horses and chickens and ducks... it's awesome) and there was a ton of lightning! And it was cold! I'm very happy, you guys. 

Alright, I know that usually, I come on here and blog and I'm usually hyper and sarcastic and I probably drive a lot of you crazy. I try not to blog if I'm moody or if I'm having a teenage girl, the-whole-world-is-out-to-get-me moment. I try to be at least a little bit entertaining, and that usually results in a lot of sarcasm and caps lock. But for today I'm gonna put that aside because something happened and it kind of made me want to cry and laugh and scream all at once. 

As you guys know, I send pretty much everything I write to Leslie because if not for her, I wouldn't be this hooked on writing. And she's an amazing writer and I trust her. I've been sending her my novel a couple chapters at a time and last week I sent her one. It was one that I put a little extra effort into because it was kind of a high point in the plot and I wanted it to be deep and meaningful and, well, sad. I was going for sad. But I was disappointed because it didn't seem sad enough to me and that was annoying, because it was one of the first scenes that I had thought up before I had even started writing this story, and I had been super excited about it. For pretty much the whole year, I couldn't wait to write it and I kept thinking about it and I just wanted it to be good. But when I finished it, I wasn't moved my what I wrote, but I was kind of done so I just sent it off to Leslie anyway. 
She wrote back immediately. 

The scene that I wrote that didn't move me at all? 

It made her cry. 

My story made someone cry. 

It seriously made me so happy, and I know that sounds weird, like, Oh yay, I made someone cry! But it means that I can be deep if I want to, and while it might not have moved me to tears, that's probably just because I wrote it and I've been thinking about it for months and months and so of course I know what's happening and it's not a shock to me. But it made her cry. 
This is big for me, you guys, because Leslie is *such* a great writer, and that fact that I moved her to tears means that maybe this story isn't hopeless. Maybe I'm not as bad a writer as my little shoulder demon's been telling me. 

I love reading books that make me cry. This one, for example, made me sob. It's one of my favorite books. I love the fact that someone can create a character and a plot, and write down a bunch of words about it, but arrange those words in such a way that it plays with the emotions of the reader and can make you feel how the character feels. It brings the story alive. 

I know I have a lot to improve on. But it's the little things that mean a lot to me, like if a scene makes someone cry, or if someone talks to me about my characters like they're real people. It's just things like that that keep me moving. 
--Abby

Happy October!

Guys, it's October. 
The gala is in twenty-four days. 
The first school dance is in ten days. 
NaNo is in thirty-one days. 
My sixteenth birthday is in fifty-three days.  
Exams are in seventy-three days. 
Halloween is in thirty days. 
Christmas is in eighty-four days. 
SO MANY THINGS IN SO FEW DAYS!! 

I love October. It makes me think of scarves and rain and leaves crunching underfoot and everything turns orange and it's just gorgeous. 
Or, at least that's what it looks like on my desk calender picture for the month. SoCal isn't really up to speed on the whole it's-autumn-now-so-it-needs-to-be-colder-with-rain-and-stuff thing. 
The concepts of real autumn and real winter are foreign to me. That is sad. My scarves are hanging dejectedly on my hooks. 
I'M SAD NOW. OCTOBER IS SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY. 
Stupid perpetual perfect-summer weather. I like you when it's summer, but not now, when the rest of the world is being normal and bundling up next to fires. Gosh. 

.........

My dad just told me that he's getting a new computer and getting rid of this one. This one has my novel on it. 

LET ME CRAWL INTO A HOLE NOW AND CRY!! 

Oh, not really. 
There's this thing called a flash-drive that could quite possibly save my life. 
Because writing=life for me. 
Dance is a very close second. Very close. Might even be a tie actually. 

I have to revise an essay this weekend for English. We had to write a five-paragraph in-class essay in twenty-five minutes and we were't supposed to prepare beforehand. Um, thank you for that bucket of stress in my life. I needed that. 
But I actually did pretty well. We were graded with the SAT scoring system, and I got a four, which is better that the last in-class essay I did (last year's English exam was an in-class timed essay...). Only one person got a five, all other Sophomores got fours. I really want to get a five next time I do this, and my ultimate goal is a six, naturally. But my pressured essays can seriously be improved, I'm not good at writing with a time limit, especially if it's only twenty-five minutes. 
So now that my teacher has graded and looked at our essays, we get to revise them at home and time ourselves--yay. 
So that's what I'll be doing this weekend. 
And I get to do another one for the SAT's this year. 
...
I am SOOO much for nervous for the SAT's than I am for exams!! 
Congratulations, SAT's, you've topped exams for me. 
Oh joy of all joys. Just what I need. For something more stressful than exams in my world. 

I WANT IT TO RAIN, HAVE I EXPRESSED MY DEEP LOVE OF RAIN YET TODAY?? 
NO? 
I LOVE RAIN!! 
I have to go now, but I want you all to know that IloverainsomuchandIwantittobeautumnnow. 
--Abby