And The Winner Is....

I would like to humbly announce that I HAVE FINISHED MY NANOWRIMO NOVEL! That's right, dear readers, I am a winner! The Threshold, draft one, is complete, with 50,882 words! I am on quite the natural high right now, I feel so accomplished and it's wonderful. I am celebrating with some chinese food tonight and that lovely Thursday night television including Ugly Betty, CSI, and ER. It's a good day. A gooooooood day.

This is the Reason

As I mentioned in my previous post, I love the feeling of positively effecting someone's life, and I was just recently informed of a time that I did, through my photography. I'd like to share with you all a message that I recieved from a member of Buzznet, the photo community to which I belong. This is the reason I do what I do...

"melpixie, I've admired your work for some time now and would like to add you as a friend, instead of just one of my favorites.

I have to tell you that your pix have a special place in my heart, particularly your shot of the Monarch Butterflies.This past June, my wife and I lost our son, Ebban, 40 short minutes after his birth. When we had his services in the backyard of our home, my mother-in-law noticed that for the entire ceremony, a Monarch sat on a tree limb above our circle. When it concluded, it flew off. In many different mythologies, butterflies represent the souls of the recently deceased.Either my wife or I have seen a Monarch every day since then....Your photo of the side resting Monarch is my wallpaper now. A beautiful reminder of our son.

I just thought you'd like to know how your art has touched me & my family...I can only imagine how many others you've affected in some way. Please keep doing what you're doing. You have an incredible gift... :)"

What a blessing it is to be able to touch someone's life like that.

Life List

I just got done entering my Life List on the Ellen DeGeneres Show website. I could enter up to fifty life wishes and then I got to explain the reasons for my top three. I submitted the whole thing before realizing that it might have been a good idea to save a copy for myself, but I'll write this off of memory.

My list of 21 included things like, bungee jump, meet Wil Wheaton, see a Broadway play, etc. but I'd like to tell you my top three and explain them. These are the things that I'd love to happen in my life:

1. Star In a Movie
Ever since I was nine years-old I have wanted to be a movie actress. I've dreamed of playing adventurous, yet challenging roles like those of Marty McFly or Peter Pan, but the closest I've gotten is the female sheriff in the community melodrama. Oye, melodramas, you shall be the death of me.

I've always been an artistic soul, going through stages of wanting to draw, paint, sclupt, and sing, but along with photography, acting is a passion I will never be able to let go of. It's too deep in my heart. I want to make movies with heart and prove my skills as a convincing actor. I know I have the talent, but I've never had the means to just go out to Hollywood, search for an agent, and begin the gruelling audition process. I've always been a little afraid of it too.

2. Have My Own House and Income
By many definitions, I am a bum. I live with my parents and I don't have a "real" job. I make a minimal amount of money with my photography and off of my CafePress site, but that's it. My parents have been wonderful in supporting my dreams and allowing me to live off of them at the age of twenty. I'd love nothing more than to be able to support myself and have nice little house with my dear, sweet pets.

3. Be a Positive Influence and/or Save Someone's Life
It's the ultimate selfless act. I'd love to change someone's life for the better just by doing what I do. I'd love to touch someone's heart with my photography (I have been blessed to do so recently, but that's another blog). I'd love to save another's life. As a Christian I'm taught to love everyone and be selfless toward others. To be able to effect someone's life for the better would be so rewarding and such a blessing.


Apparently this whole Life List thing is so Ellen can make some people's dreams come true. I know it's quite the long shot to be one of those chosen, but I can dream, can't I? That's what it's all about, after all.

NaNo Update and More...

You may have noticed that I titled my previous blog to imply my intention to post daily updates on my NaNoWriMo progress...and that it obviously didn't work out that way. Surprisingly, I've kept crazy busy throughout the past couple of weeks, not only with NaNo, but with photography, a trip to see my sister and niece (including an ugly run-in with a freakish tumbleweed on the interstate--you cracked my momma's windshield, ya crazy Christmas tree!), and general exploration of the local surroundings with my cousin.

This upcoming week is going to be a doozy as well. There will be preparation for the next week's trip to Texas for Thanksgiving, two photoshoots with my cousin, a little bit of carving, and trying to keep up the pace with my novel. It shall be hectic, but I knew that coming into this whole NaNo thing. I really like it, but I'm also really tired. It's interesting.

So, here's my current National Novel Writing Month status. I am currently at 20,010 words, a count I just got to a few minutes ago after putting off noveling since Friday. I wanted to devote all of my attention to visiting my sister and GORGEOUS niece this weekend, so I got ahead a bit, reaching saturday's word count on Thursday. I am now only six words ahead of today's minimum word count, so I'm hoping to get myself about a thousand words ahead tomorrow so I can have that comfortable in-case-of-emergency pillow of novelling fluff.

As far as the novel's quality? Well, it went from promising, to fixable, to barely recognizable pretty quick, but I'm fully aware that this exercise is about the word count, about just getting it done so I know that I actually can do this, and it feels great to say I have written over 20,000 words in the time span thirteen days. The story still makes sense, but is full of unneccesary fluff, a couple of plot holes, and plenty of scenes that I'm already telling myself are going out the window come December. But it's all good. It's all good.

NaNoWriMo Day One

My cousin and I began our NaNo journey at 12:01am November 1st. Ellen was pretty nervous about it it seemed, but I just felt like letting it come, confident that I could easily make the word count. The only thing holding me back was the fact that I was dead tired from a day outside the house, exploring the countryside, running errands, and finishing up Halloween decorations. I really just wanted to go to bed and beging writing at a more decent hour, but I decided to stick with NaNo spirit and begin as soon as possible.

Ellen got off to a quicker start than I did, she was a typin' away as I struggled with a writing style. I deleted after two or three paragraphs of beginnings at least twice. For some reason, probably my fatigue, the story was coming off as really juvenile, not something I wanted. But finally, things began to fall into place and I was on my way. By around 1:30 Ellen and I had reached, even exceeded our minimal daily goal of 1667 words. We entered our word counts up to our NaNoWriMo pages and went to bed.

I woke up at 11:00am very happy that I didn't have a big word count goal ahead of me, I was feeling quite leisurely, happy that my day was free. Around lunch, I did decide to bump up my count to my ideal 2500 words, knowing that if I kept that count up each day, I'd be finished before the chaos of Thanksgiving and a trip to Texas. Plus, I had to catch up with Ellen who was up a bit before my and added more to her novel.

So, by the afternoon, the two of us were glad to have a free day ahead of us. We got ourselves ready and took my dog Pepsi on a nice walk, cameras in hand, and discovered a serene little wood on the edge of my town. It was so quite and so pretty that we decided to take Pepsi home and come back with some wood we found the day before to whittle "wands" (another project of ours, we hope to sell them). We perched on a large downed tree in the early evening sun and had a wonderful time in the quietness.

So now, here we are, relaxing in the living room, our night free for television. I for one am very happy with the way NaNo is going so far. Hopefully it will continue to go this smoothly!