Close

Considering that I've already got several months with under 10 blog posts, I should probably give up the 10 posts a month.
But I don't want to. TT^TT
It forces me to write things other than just my stories.

My classes are giving me ideas for blog posts, but they're mostly in-depth posts that will take a while, so I'm avoiding writing them.
I read my first Katani chapter in my creative writing class. I was actually really mad about how that went, because I turned the chapter in 3 weeks before I read it. And when I finally got to read it, less than half of the class was there! There were only about 10 people to give me feedback. And almost all of that feedback came from one guy (who I'd already talked to about my story).
#@$@#!
I just hope there's more people there for the next thing I read.
I have to turn in my chapter revision on Thursday, so I'd better get back to work on chapter 1 again. Sigh. I'm kind of sick of Chapter 1. That's the chapter that I've been over more than any other.
But the first chapter is the most important. So, I gotta do it.

The Star Boy

So, usually I don't spend too much time on my "future stories" when I already have a main story that I'm working on. But I do get random flashes of inspiration for these future stories sometimes, and that happened recently. And it happened for one of my more vague ideas, so now I have some more shape to give that story.
And once I got started, I found out how to link some of my other ideas into that story too.
Yaay!
Which all started with the idea of a new character. He's actually the spirit of a star that took on human form.
And - I'm so predictable - since he's not a real human I immediately got very attached to him...
XP
I'm working on a picture of him now, but I still need to color it. Hopefully it will come out decent.

And I'm still going over the debate about whether to make Kon female.
I am leaning towards that.
Sigh. It will mean changing so much stuff though...
But it worked very well for Toph. She started out as a guy.
My three viewpoint characters have a little too much in common (like how they're all males, and their first names all begin with K for some reason and... yeah. All of which just sort of happened without me thinking about it.
Changing Kon will help mix that up some, and hopefully get rid of some of the snags in the story.
Kon will need a new name too.
Every time I think I have all the names sorted out, I have to change something again. Bleh.

There are things that have been bugging me about Katani's design too. But I've been resisting those changes, for reasons that might not make much sense.
But it's stuff to do with his name and his families names and his appearance.
But all that stuff feels so fixed in place now. It hurts to change it! TT^TT

Thinking About Stopping....

So, as you've probably noticed, I am a big fan of taking public transportation. I've been taking the train to my class, even though it takes much longer and costs more than driving does.
But after yesterday, I just don't know if I'm going to take the train anymore.
I'm sure you remember 2 weeks ago, our train hit and killed a person.
Which was bad in many many ways.
And yesterday on the way home, exactly two weeks later, there was another huge, major delay. There was a fire near the tracks. Except this time it was during train commute time and caught up probably close to 10 trains. And, just like 2 weeks ago, we were stuck on the train for about an hour before they kicked us out again. At exactly the same station that I got kicked out at 2 weeks ago.
And so once again, my family had to drive waay down to pick me up as I waited outside in the cold, dark windy night.
Even with this happening 2 out of my last 3 rides, I probably still would have taken the train. I mean, theoretically those were just 2 freak accidents... that happened while I was riding.....
Except for the final blow.
The card ate my last day of rides that I'd paid for. The time that my pass was valid for was cut in half. No one had told me that in any way. Plus train tickets are more expensive every freaking semester. And I don't use my rides fast - just once a week.
It's all just absolutely ridiculous, and I don't know if I can take it anymore...
Why is our public transportation so horrible?

Kittens=Happiness

Thanks to the kittens at the Humane Society.
Nothing like playing with a bunch of fluffy, playful kittens to help you feel not quite so lousy.
Kittens should be readily available as a cure to... everything.

I'll hold off on complaining about bad drivers and how the people in charge mess with our awesome wildlife staff.
I hope I'm not getting sick on top of all the other crud...

I forgot what I was going to write about.
Oh, yeah!
Been writing... and I just started thinking. I wonder if I should make Kon a girl...
But then should I switch Thorn around too? I guess I don't need to change her though.
Sigh. Gender changes. So many things to consider before making my character undergo one... He'd need a new name too.

And then there's that moment where I realize "...holy crud. I'm older than Kon..."

So.... kittens!

(Ed is immune to kittens)

Gaah! Characters!

So, I'm at that same point where it happened before.
I've reached the editing point in my story where I really need to get the Green Team introduced.
During my first draft, I passed this point without realizing it. Instead of going back to add it in, I decided to finish my first draft and go back and add all the character development in later.
Except "later" is now.
Gaaah! There's too much!
Too many characters, and I need to introduce them all in ways that aren't lame, and that make everyone kind of start to bond.
And it doesn't help that the two characters I'm working on are hard to get across. One is incredibly quiet, and the other just kind of goes along with anything and doesn't really get excited about anything (usually).
But I don't just want to have totally random meetings and conversations between the missions. The meetings should have actual meaning.
But hooow? TT^TT
I'll probably send the Green and Red teams to a festival, which will help some. But I have to time the festival right. I want to do New Years. But in the story timeline, that's several months away. Plus I'm not sure exactly where to put New Years, since the Asian New Years is different from the European New Years. But in my world, everyone would celebrate New Years on about the same day. So I guess I could do a smaller festival thing on the Asian New year, and keep the big festival on the usual new year... or maybe visa versa?
I'd like to do a day of the dead thing too, possibly. Because I was thinking about working that in. Maybe If I go through with that, some of the other character stuff will fall into place. And some more culture stuff.
Sigh.
But either way, the festivals would still happen after most of the people had met already.
Which brings me back where I started...

Comic

Another attempt at a comic.
This is my least lame one so far.
Usually I get sick of drawing a bunch of people several times in a row.
I actually made an effort on the people.
Just finished yesterday after starting at least half a year ago.



So, let me know what you think.
This thing took far more effort than it should have. >-<

Trains

So, yesterday I was riding the train to class.
I noticed that our train was honking, and slowing down in an unusual place. Then it came to a stop.
Our train hit and killed someone.

Talk about being freaked out.
I guess it must have been suicide? Because it was in the middle of 2 stations, 2 miles from either of them. And it was a part of the track that was elevated and fenced off. No one could have ended up there by accident.
I wonder if they found out anything about it.

And then we were stuck in the train for over an hour as they got the body out from under the train and... I don't know. I have no idea why it took so long.
It was sort of fascinating to see all the different reactions.
Lie everyone started calling people, saying that they were going to be late. And there were calls in Chinese and German, and another language that I couldn't catch.
And then three guys sitting in the seats nearby started chatting. They obviously never met before, but they talked about school and work and stuff. I like it when people get to know complete strangers. We tend to not care enough about the people around us. And it's fun to talk and laugh with a person you don't know.
And there was a group of guys that were goofing off, teasing about why it took so long to get the train moving. They drew the conclusion (jokingly) that the medics had to try to revive the dead guy because he wasn't "dead dead," he was just "dead."
I actually could have gone to the next car down and seen the body, but I decided not to.
--_--
Apparently some people were taking videos of it...

So, lots of various reactions.
And it amazed me how "commonplace" the whole thing seemed.
"Yeah, another guy got killed by the train."

It's strange to me.

Finally the train moved on to the next station and kicked everyone out. So Dad picked me up and I drove to school instead.

The conclusion: I left before 12:30 to get to a 3:00 class. I was half an hour late.
And my story as to why I was late was shocking to my classmates. They seemed as shocked as I had been. Or, at least they showed their shock more than the people on the train did.
In America, one guy can mess up the schedules of a few hundred people who were relying on the train. Everyone was probably delayed by 2 hours or more.
If that delay had saved a life instead of taking a life, I would have been happy. But not the case. I still wonder why it took so long though.

Waste Plot

Okay, finally getting started on a new environment plot thing. Hopefully this one won't be too long.

This one's talking about Waste.
We waste a heckuvalot.
Waaaaaay more than we need to.
We buy sturdy cardboard and metal cylinders for just a few fake potato chips. Toys you buy at the store are encased in a veritable fortress of plastic. You get disposable Styrofoam cups at the coffee shop. And all of these things end up in the trash. And hey, at least you didn't litter. That's good.
But I've got news for you, people.
the garbage can is not the end of the line for that styrooam cup.
Fleets of garbage trucks have to come and haul all that krayp away to the dump.
And there a few things might happen to it. It might get buried of burned. In Japan they burn some stuff. In America they bury it.
Neither is a good solution.
Some stuff like paper isn't too bad to burn. But burning anything releases stuff into the air. And burning some things, like plastic, releases really nasty stuff into the air. But sometimes burning trash is used to generate energy, so that's something, at least.
Burying trash isn't much better. Obviously, it creates massive landfills (which no one wants near their homes). But the conditions in the landfills are such that the stuff inside never actually decomposes. You could find intact newspapers from when the landfills were first started. That trash isn't going anywhere.
Landfills often release methane gas. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon (though fortunately less plentiful). If landfills decided to put in the money and effort, they could collect this methane gas to burn for energy. But they usually don't.
But a bigger problem is leaching. Landfills generally have a layer of plastic (or something) beneath them to catch all of the nasty juices that drip off of all our trash. But those layers of plastic are underground, buried beneath mounds of trash. If there's a hole, no one would know. So all that nasty stuff leaches out of the landfills and into our ground water. This is one reason why it's really important to keep electronics and other toxic stuff (paint, oil, ex) out of the trash. Recycle everything you can, and dispose of everything else in proper ways.
Now on to recycling. Recycling is good. You want to recycle. A lot of garbage could be avoided if everyone recycled what needed to be recycled. Especially plastic.
Plastic is nasty stuff. So is styrofoam. That stuff never really decomposes. At least, not in any time that humans will see it. It just breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces and often ends up in oceans. Out in the middle of the ocean, there are huge patches of water where the plastic gathers. Little animals eat the plastic. And then bigger things eat those little animals that are full of plastic. So, plastic (along with other chemicals) build up in the bodies of bigger sea animals. Bigger pieces of plastic can entangle animals and strangle them, or drown them. Some animals think plastic looks like their food, so they eat it. Baby birds that are fed plastic can die of starvation because their stomachs get filled with bottle caps and garbage.
Keep your plastic in the recycling bin, where it belongs.
But recycling doesn't fix everything.
For example, disposable plastic water bottles. For the sake of every god in every culture, DON'T USE THEM! (Unless you live in a country with unreliable tap water). In America, tap water is actually more highly regulated than bottled water. So buy a reusable water bottle, and get a water filter.
Because when you recycle that plastic bottle, it does NOT go to making new bottles. It goes to making other stuff. So, they go on making new bottles of fresh plastic.
And there's a reason that the phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is in the order that it is.
The first thing you should do is reduce your consumption. If you don't need to buy that giant tube with a few pringles in it, then don't.
Reuse is second. Instead of throwing away that paper bag, use it for something else first.
Recycle is the last option after all of these. A good thing to do, but not the only thing you should be thinking about.

So, avoid products that have too much packaging. Don't throw away things that you can still use. And recycle everything that you can.

Well, that wasn't as quick and simple as I'd hoped. That figures. No wonder I've been avoiding these. @_@

So, using this in a story.
Pollution and litter are easy ways to go.
Maybe people live on landfills because there's no space anywhere else. Landfills would make excellent scavenging ground for people that are desperate. A lot of good stuff gets thrown away.
Maybe people use all the plastic floating out in the ocean to make a floating island to live on.
Yeah, I don't have many ideas this time. My brain is still stuck in "trash mode." I'll let you use your imaginations, and I'll add more ideas if I think of them.

Who's used this idea?
Ponyo
Future Boy Conan

Blog Neglect

I can't think of anything fun to write about on my blog. I could do more of those "environment plot" things, but those require a lot of thought. I want to write something fun.
I could complain about the wolverine anime, but I should probably stop talking about movies and series and such, since I seem to do that a lot. I guess I can justify it by using it to discuss sucess and failing of plot and character and stuff. Although I seem to analyze movies and series more than actual books. (But seriously... starting the anime out with Wolverine and Mariko exchanging sweet nothings... that just seems so not right... And Mariko just stares off into space the whole time, and then they go and kill everyone...) I know you told me it wasn't very good, Ellen, but I was curious. XD Wolverine's design was at least okay.
So, I'll spend more time stalling before I write more of those environment posts.

Battle of Thrones

Yeah, just because I didn't want to title the post "Game of Thrones."
Why?
....
I really have no idea.
Maybe I've just been seeing the title around too much recently?
So, yeah. I finally finished reading Game of Thrones today. After hearing about it forever
It took me freaking long enough.
It seems counter-intuitive that unless I have school, I read my own books verrry slooowly. So while I'm always in the middle of one or two books, unless I have class or something it takes me a long time to get through them.
This is because I always bring a book to school to read before class, and during break, and on the train, and everything. One of my teachers often teases how he never sees me without a book. As a matter of fact, I ran into him today and he said the same thing.
And while I have only one normal class this semester, it involves a very long train ride. And that train ride requires me to arrive an hour early.
Hence, I was finally able to finish Game of Thrones after starting it while I was in Japan.
It was good. Definitely very well written. And while there were certain parts I could have done without, I enjoyed it. The world and character sand everything were really well done.
#$!@#@! They killed him! I'll fly in there and kill that little snot face.
I was wondering about the eggs too. Although that was ultimately spoiled for me.
Hopefully it will magically make my own fantasywriting better.
So... I still have 4 shelves of books I need to read. I don't know how they keep multiplying, but I really need to get through some of them before they eat my closet.
So, on to the next one.