New Year's Eve

The old year is about to pass, a new is already standing on the door step.

Looking back, 2007 hasn't been too bad. I got a great new job (and more money *g*), have deepened my contact with some of the Forumites, have worked on my story (plot, characters, wordage), had no mayor catastrophes, had a wonderful and hot spring (although the actual summer could have been better).

And as one does at the end of a year, I made resolutions for the new year:

• I will put more effort and time in my writing
• I will lose weight and get fitter
• I'll save money for a nice autumn holiday
• I'll see my friends more often
• I will win the lottery *g*
• I might do a language course (Spanish adult education course)

These are fairly managable, so I'm optimistic with sticking to them :)

I'm wishing all of you a nice evening and that you won't stumble while stepping from 2007 to 2008!

Fireworks

Some idiots have been using their fireworks since yesterday. Fireworks were available since Thursday and there are always those people who cannot wait.
Which causes other people's insomnia...

We have a parking lot behind the house (this sounds horrible, but it is not; it's not in use much and mostly by those who live nearby) and the noise is carried perfecly loud to my living-room window. And I startle everytime one of those things goes off... (nice excuse not to write, I know *g*)

Terragen

I discovered Terragen sometime agaon on the internet while searching for world building tools.

I always do landscape descriptions better if I have an illustration before me. I already tried paintings by Hans-Werner Sahm (you'll find a lot more paintings if you google him).

They were good for inspiration, but after some time I wanted to have something... something that was... an image of my thoughts.

So, Terragen. You can practically change everything. The texture of the landscape, the height, how much water, how the sun rays come in, how much the water reflects them, the density and colour of clouds and so on and so on. Virtually everything.

Here are my very first (very rough) tries:

This is a bit how I imagine the Dragon Island to look like. Only the egg-like mountain-thing really is a vulcano

Laptop II

I'm still trying to get used to the new Laptop. There are a lot of things to discover.

And I haven't transferred any of my files... I've been playing around with Terragen the last evening.
I wanted to use this tool ever since I found it, but my old laptop was just too slow. But now I can! I have been playing around with it and done two landscapes yesterday (more on that later).

Anyways, since this is a fairly virgin system (no old files to look at, no bookmarks etc. etc.) I should, could and will write a bit. Who knows, perhaps this is inspiring?

Laptop

OMIGOD!!

I just bought myself a new laptop. It's a late (and rather expensive) Christmas present to myself.

I just started it and already noticed that it will take some time to get used to Windows Vista. Not to mention transfering all of my files and programms... :)

Names

Over the last half year a lot of names have progress from [fillword] to an actual name, since I roughly decided on what defines the two tribes.

Tribe A is technically developed, names are European-like, they live in a prosperous country. They live in a few big cities, so the rest of the land can be used agriculturally.
Tribe B is not so technically developed, the names are based on arabic names, the country is dry but they have developed a wheat that only grows there. They live in small settlings, mostly only one clan at one place.
(Woho, see, conflict! *g*)

I know all this, and cannot, for the life of me, give those tribes names. They are still A and B everywhere.
I have checked books with names, have searched google for names of arabic tribes and such, but nothing took my fancy. *sigh*
(The world has no name yet, either)

I'm rather fed up with this. Maybe I will spent this Friday with google again UNTIL I FIND NAMES...

Progress

I didn't make any progress on story wordage, but I wrote about 600 words for a few paragraphs on the plot.

Surprisingly I know a lot more about Ella now, and what conflicts and obstacles she has to face and overcome in the course of the story. Conflict is what has been missing from my story so far. I have a bit of conflict in the plot - not nearly enough - but almost no internal conflict. I still do not know how to go about it, but at least I've found the problem.
And while I was on my way home yesterday I had a few more ideas about the relations between the two main tribes, how they are different and where they are dependent on each other.

All this is promising for the new year and I vowed to myself to make more writing time, even if I don't really have the time. I want this thing to get somewhere already! :)

Work

I'm back at work.

The only person in my family and circle of friends that has to work between Christmas and New Year.

And seemingly the only person in the whole building...
Of course, that's not true, but there are and will be very few people in today and tomorrow and it's very quiet round here. My boss is in for half a day although he is on holiday still, but from 10 people in my department, only 2 are here.

I should be glad about a bit of quiet time, to write. But when I came in today I had 190 unread e-mails, not to mention those read but not yet answered. Aaaand it's statistic day today, meaning I will have to spend a good hour on compiling that.
And since nobody's here, I have to do all the work alone... *sigh*

Presents

After I had received many books for my birthday, my family obviously thougth that that should be enough and didn't give me books for Christmas. My godfather and my godmother however did. :) I got Tintenherz and Tintenblut (that would be Inkheart and Inkspell for you). I will buy Tintentod (is there a translation for the third book yet?) as a late Christmas present to myself in the new year.

Together with the books my father (the His Dark Materials series) and my sister's boyfriend got, and those I'm currently still reading, I should be fine for the first... three months? ;)
Oh, and not to forget Jo's book, Spymaster's Lady, being released in January.

(I won't mention my other presents. Not because they are not worth mentioning, but because they might not be of much interest)

Christmas Menu

Oh boy did I get nice food today!

Yesterday was spent with my mother's side of the family at my aunt's and the food was delicious there too, but today...

My grandmother invited us to a three-course-menu.
The starter was apple-pumpkin-soup with curry. But as it was more a curry-soup with apple and pumpkin and since I cannot tolerate curry I didn't have more than one spoon of it.
But then, then came the main course. I had ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta cheese on rocket salad, doused with molten truffle-butter. Oh I was in heaven! :)
The dessert were little puff pastries filled with marzipancream, chocolates in various forms and fruits, all decorated nicely on a plate.

I will dream about that for a long time :)

Merry Christmas

I'm wishing all of you a very merry Christmas and restorative holidays!

May all your wishes come true in this magical time, full of wonders and lights.

Christmas Cards

Here's the collection of the christmas cards I received this year (5 more than last year *yai!*)

Thanks to everyone!

Christmas Cheers

Check out the wonderful and funny clip Jen posted on her blog: here

Bakery

Although I wanted to stay low with baking this year, I of course didn't. I just love baking and trying new recipes too much. :)

So I thought I would share this year's favourite cookies recipe:

Cranberry Spekulatius (I have no idea how to translate that; take a dictionary, look it up and tell me if you are any wiser *g*)

Ingedients:
40 g(rams) dried Cranberries
125 g butter
150g sugar
1 egg
300g flour
4 teaspoons almond buskuit spice (OK, now I had to look up what Spekulatius means - only not sure if it's what you would say... The spice mixture you can buy over here contains: cinnamon, organge peel, lemon peel, cardamom, cloves, coriander, nutmeg)

Preparation:
Chop cranberries. Stir butter, sugar, pinch of salt and Spekulatius spice till well mixed. Add the egg. Stirr in flour with dough hook. Add cranberries.
Wrap the dough in saran wrap and place somewhere cold over night (the fridge is just fine).
Roll out the dough until 5mm thick. Cut 4x4cm pieces.
Put on baking tray. Bake for approx. 10-12 minutes at 200°C (392°F)
Enjoy!

Cats II

The lady came, saw and fell in love. And took the cats with her today instead of Saturday.

And as much as I wanted to give them away, I'm in tears now.

Just as they were our the door, thousand thoughts assaulted my mind: you didn't cuddle them one last time, didn't tell them that you love them and they will get a nice new home, didn't let them sleep in your bed one last time, didn't take a few last pictures, didn't, didn't, didn't...

Just yesterday I was yellig at them and fed up because they had broken something. And now all I can think about is that I will never cuddle with them on the couch again, never will take Rocco in my arms again when he looks at me with those adoring eyes, never again will romp about the flat with them. And no one will enthusiastically greet me when I get home and wait impatiently for food anymore.

Progress

Could someone please give me a kick?

I'm not getting anything (writing related) done...

Cats

Some time ago I mentioned on Facebook that for personal reasons I will have to give my cats away.

On Wednesday a lady - who sounded very nice on the phone - is coming to visit to have a look at the two. She wanted to take them in the new year if there were sympathies on both sides.
Today she called me. She will already get them on the 22nd.

I just don't know, if I'm happy with that. With Christmas being only two days later and all that....

Rocco (baby)

Rocco
Jamie (baby)
Jamie

Christmas decoration

I put the final touches on my Christmas decoration today.

I know, I'm late.

Watching videos

I'm just watching the "Live at Loreley" video (yes video, no DVD back then) by the Kelly Family with the 1995 concert. Haven't done that in ages.

*sigh* What great times those were...

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

OHMIGOD!!

Amazon.com won the auction for JK Rowling's hand-written, leather-bound "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"

They have a link with photos and descriptions here and the permanent link is here.

I'm sooooo excited, I cannot tell you how much.

Narnia

Yesterday I was flipping through a catalogue with books at reduced prices (the books are usually remnants) and what did I find?

The Narnia Chronicles on 14 CDs in a cardboard wardrobe. Way cool! :)

But - if ever - I'd rather read the books than listen to the CDs. The problem being that I have more time to read (on my way to work for example) than to listen to anything...

Maybe I'll just stick to the movies. I saw the trailer for Prince Caspian the other day (Jenny had posted a link on Facebook). Awesome!

Ruckus

I stayed home today due to a killer headache.

So, I was sitting on my couch, trying not to move too much, when suddenly there was loud noise outside. I went to my living room window, and guess what? Just today they are tearing down the old school that's round the corner, and which I have a perfect view on from my 3rd floor window.
OK, we were all waiting for this to happen, because the ruin the school was, was really unsightly, and as far as we now, there will be a new park on the property of the school.

But did they have to do this today? *sigh*

My only comfort is, that the level of noise is kept down by closed windows, so my head doesn't suffer too much...

ETA: Since I stayed home, I was hoping to get some writing done. But no such luck, my headache prevented that. But that's OK. Better getting well again than getting words down. But they are already in my head, so I just need to find some time :)

Progress

Ooookay,

did the organisation this weekend.

A lot of scenes fit together quite nicely, and I will only need a few sentences or paragraphs to connect them. Nothing major.

On the other hand, I noticed that I have a big gap at the begining. I thought about what should go there and noticed that I only have a couple of short scenes. Hmm...

I decided that I should write linearly for some time, to get at least a rough outline for those chapters. I won't be averse to ideas for later chapters, and if something new delevops, I will write that first. But for the time being I will try linear writing :)

So, only to find the time for writing now...

Pre-Christmas Time (meaning the month of December) is always a frenzy of projects, birthdays and meetings, and I'm absolutely smashed and glad to sit down at the end of a day, that writing is unfortunately usually far from my mind. And if it's not, pen and paper or my laptop are too far from my sitting position and I'm too tired to get up :)

I will half my word goal of December to 5000 words and see what I can get accomplished of that.

Fun with Treadmills

I found this funny little clip on Pam's blog:

Progress

I'm still alive, just very busy.

And I haven't made any progress for a long time.

I had a new story idea (see my other post) and my thoughts have been on that much more often than I would have liked.

But I'm refusing on giving up just yet with "Ella" and I thought about what I could do.
So here's the deal:

I will write down a rough chapter plan. Then will take all my scenes and snippets and will assign those to the chapters. Then I will proceed to fill the blanks between the scenes. And I still need an end, so I will have to think about that, but hiopefully that will come to me in the course of the reorganisation.

Wish me luck! :)

November Check In

Didn't really get anything accomplished last month...

5,394 / 10,020 (53.8%)

40,333 / 100,000 (40.3%)