NaNoWriMo

I wasn't planning on making a whole post about this, but I keep discovering new friends who are doing it that I figured this would be easier. Like I mentioned earlier, I won't be posting often because I'm doing it and seriously this year because I really want to win, but there isn't any rule saying i can't do it with you guys. So if you are doing NaNoWriMo too, then tell me your username so I can add you as a buddy! If you aren't comfortable with saying it here, you can email me at: natasha.cats@yahoo.com. Yup.

I'll tell you my username too, although let me warn you. Don't laugh. I made this a while ago when I couldn't decide what I wanted to go by, and now I;m stuck with the name since they don't let you change it without deleting your account. So just bear with me. My username is: Nat Snowdrop Petal Fira Seth Anakin.  Yeah...remember, don't laugh. Well maybe you can a little. But I don't appreciate it.

Anyway, my story is called Darkness Among the Stars, so if you add me as a buddy I might let you see what I'm writing. Maybe. So yeah. Add me! Or let me add you!

Halloween Fun

I am probably, the biggest idiot in the world right now. At 4 o'clock, merely two hours from when I meet up with my friends to go trick-or-treating, I still have no idea whatsoever what I want to dress up as. How lame is that?

So now I am desperately going through my closet finding something that could suffice. I would ask for ideas, but I doubt I'd get a good response in time.

So what are you all for Halloween this year? Comment your costumes...I should probably start brainstorming for what I should be next year before I end up in the same position again. Right?

Anyway, who are all my Harry Potter fans out there? Honestly, I was never a huge fan, but it is a good series, and I enjoyed it. But a friend recently recommended to me a fan fiction, which in my opinion is good enough to be the real story. It takes place in the Marauder times, focusing on the characters, Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter. Their importance in the story is in that order, from greatest to least. It's very long, twenty-six parts and about twenty pages in google documents each. But despite that, it is worth the read. Ever heard of The Shoebox Project? You can just search it online and you should be able to find the pdf. In case you can't, I could always share it with you on google docs, as I have all of it there.

Ever since I read it, I have been on a Sirius obsession, and because of it I am now rereading Harry Potter. I started last Sunday with the first book, I am now currently in the middle of the fourth.

Anyway, I should probably be getting ready now. So, have a Happy Halloween! Try not to steal too many candies from little kids!

At a Loss for Words

I honestly do not know what to put here. Time flies too quickly, and not just when you're having fun. How could I go a month without posting here even once, without even checking the state of my beloved blog? Not even once! This is shameful even, humiliating. I keep making false promises that I will come here, I will post, I will write. And what happens? I don't even open the site for a month. Embarrassing.

I suppose the time has to come to end the false promises. I cannot promise you anything. I will most definitely try to post and write, but the past month, or more actually, my mind has been painfully uncreative, a fact that truly bothers me. And school...school has been tough. Teacher assign a lot of homework, and I hear this year is the easiest and and starting sophomore year, things get really tough. Yay. Pleasant thought, right?

Another reason for my not posting is that every moment I'm not doing schoolwork or sleeping, I am at dance. I still have my at least two hours a day going on, not to mention I TA for younger kids' classes now. And whenever I'm not doing those, I'm out in a slightly less light-polluted area, with our telescope studying the stars, constellations, and Messier objects. Astronomy is fascinating, I'm a total nerd when it comes to it. If anything is astronomy related, I want to learn it. Did you know that in globular clusters, the stars don't move in elliptical orbits? Instead, they move like a needle pricking something - in a straight line and directly back. Like I said, fascinating.

And I would start writing and posting now, but NaNoWriMo starts up again in two days. I really really want to win at least once, so I probably will not be putting any attention at all into this blog for the next month. But I do have a widget up, so you can always see my word count and how far I am into the seemingly endless voyage of 50,000 words.

That's all I have for now, I've been trying to think up ideas on writing, and who knows, maybe I'll put in a little treat every now and then. My deepest apologies!

Mark of Athena Update

Well, I finished Mark of Athena yesterday afternoon. I won't post spoilers here, because the words I saw in that book...just read it yourself. I cannot spoil this for you. All I will say, is that since yesterday I have been feeling broken inside, which of course is an exaggeration, but is nonetheless true. A year I waited for this book, and all throughout it I had been happy because everything was going according to my thoughts. Just the right amount of fighting and injuries, which is a little more than most people prefer, the perfect measure of emotions, and the tension leading up to the end of the book.

Then came the end. I stopped breathing for a moment when I turned the page and all I saw was the glossary. How could it just end there? All authors love to torture their readers, but nothing has ever been as shocking as this. I declare Rick Riordan plain evil.

If it was not obvious from what I have been saying, I am extremely unhappy about the end of Mark of Athena. No, don't assume that it had a sad ending or a painful ending. If that happened I would be leaping for joy because I love those types of endings. No, what I care again is the heart-stopping cliffhanger. Son of Neptune left us a cliffhanger, which annoyed me so much, but this, this was a million times worse. Honestly, I'm still not recovered from finishing this book.

Life Lesson: Do not get involved in a series before all the books are out. Chances are, it will take approximately a year, if not more, for a book to be released, and you'll be pulling your hair out for twelve months just waiting for what happens next.

Mark of Athena

Words cannot describe how ecstatic I am right now. The Son of Neptune came was released last year in October, and being the obsessive person I am, I finished it on the day it came out of course. I have been waiting for this moment ever since.

It has been a whole year that most of us obsessed fans have been anticipating, and finally it is here. The Mark of Athena is released tomorrow, at exactly 12 o'clock. I know that sounds a bit strange, like why would they even care about the hour? But it becomes available to the public at exactly midnight. And because I am a person who needs books right away and who reads way too much, I own a nook, and I've already preordered it. At 12 tonight, I will own my own copy of Mark of Athena!

I can't wait. I'm tempted to stay up late just so I can start reading it, but that would be disastrous, considering I'm already behind on sleep. And for my high school, it actually matters unfortunately. So even if I do stay up, I'll have to sleep right away anyway. No, I will most likely just wake up early tomorrow morning and start reading and get late for school, resulting in detention from my French teacher, which is alright considering the circumstances. It is totally worth it.

Anyway, that is all I wanted to say, a book I've been waiting for for a year is coming out tonight. And those who are reading the series who never keep track of release dates (like me) can be enlightened by my amazing news worth a whole post about.

So...yay! :D

I was bored, what do you do?

  My heart thudded furiously as I skirted around the corner of the street, my worn out shoes sliding on the wet cement. Wrapping my arm around the lamp pole that towered above me, I regained my balance and continues pounding down the road to the edge of the woods that awaited me. I could hear the clapping of footsteps behind me, and from the unmistakable sound of steel I realized they had taken their swords out. My best chance was to escape into the undergrowth and hope they don't bother to follow me there.
  Just when I thought I had reached the safety of perilous trees, they came out from in front of me and shoved their blades toward me, forcing me to a skidding halt if I didn't fancy being skewered. Without a moment to breathe, I was surrounded in a circle of guards, the streetlamp's yellow light casting an eerie glow on their faces. "Lay down you weapons," the tallest one commanded, taking a step forward.
  Come on, think fast, think fast, I muttered in my head, my gaze darting in between the guards and the forest that stood only a few meters away. It was not like I had any weapons to give up, save an old rusty pocket knife I had scavenged a few days earlier. Quickly, I slid the knife into my sleeve then lifted my arms, ignoring the sharp pain on my skin as the blade slid down my sleeve until it rested against my shoulder. Now if matters went badly, I at least had some sort of defense.
  "I have no weapons," I gasped, recovering my breath after holding it for so long. "I don't understand what you want me for. I'm merely a beggar, whose home is in the depths of them trees over there." I nodded my head to the thicket that awaited me at the edge of the woods with another desperate glance."
  The guard who had spoken smiled, although it was one of contempt. "I might have believed you if your right arm hadn't just begun to bleed profusely." He made a disapproving clicking sound as he turned sideways from me. Then his back greeted me. "Seize him." Before anyone could move, I launched myself on him, one arm grabbing his shoulder and the other pressing the knife against his throat. Then, knowing he would have a way to escape my grasp, I slit his throat and jumped off.
  "You may want to tend to your leader," I announced, bowing, then taking off into the trees. Darkness closed in on me, and I could no longer see anything, until I stumbled against a familiar feeling tree. Leaning against it, I caught my breath, then staggered around to the other side where an opening lay. Without a moment of hesitation, I plunged underground.

The Nutcracker

So last night I received my parts for The Nutcracker that I will be performing this year. It had been an endless suspense, the mystery making me pull out my hair for two weeks. We auditioned last Sunday, and I'm been going mad every single day until last night when I finally got the paper. Yesterday we were counting down the hours and minutes too.

Finally, I got the paper. I got reindeer, snowflake, flower, and Russian. No lead roles, but all of these are the hardest and best group dances in the whole thing. So you can imagine I'm really happy right now.

Unfortunately, three of my friends were really unhappy. I won't say why, and I won't name names, because what if they manage to come to this blog anytime soon? No, that wouldn't go well. But they had good reasons for being upset and I feel really, really bad for them. :(

Otherwise, this year is going to be so much fun! :D