Flute!

I bought a new flute today!
I've been on a student model since before the 6th grade. And I've wanted to buy a new flute for several years. I finally felt like I could afford one now. I even spent a bit less than I expected.
Oohhh, it's so easy to get a nice sound out of it TT^TT
I can't wait to get to know it better~


Sumatran tigers (My favorite old married couple~)

White-Tailed Kite

Something I haven't talked about on my blog recently are the Magic-Folk. And now that I'm thinking about it, I really should give them a better name. I already renamed a lot of my other old, bland terms.

The air Magic Folk called Anjels, as a take off Angel, because they have wings in addition to air magic. It's pronounced a bit different though.
Where I am in the story, she's been mentioned, but she hasn't made an appearance yet. So I didn't really have any idea what she'd look like, other than being a Miwok girl.
But this month, I've seen a lovely bird on many of my drives home. A white tailed kite, hovering over the fields near the highway in search of prey. I've always been fascinated by these birds. They're similar to a hawk, with stunning orange eyes. And unlike most birds, they can hover in midair. When they do so, it looks like their wings are spinning. You should look for a video.
So I took that as a sign to give her kite wings.
One more step forward XD But she'll be cool when she hovers~


(Not a kite! This is a pink-backed pelican XD)

My uncle wrote a book!
It's not published yet. There are only three solid copies in existence, and I've currently got one of them. I just started reading it today. I'll post when it's officially published~
I've heard a bunch of his wacky stories before, but it's fun to read about them.


Sumatran tigers

Temporary cop-out: Writing a chapter of my fanfic instead of Arrin's story XD
I need something simpler for at least a few pages.

Fairy Encyclopedia

I got a new book for my birthday: the Encyclopedia of Fairies.


I like to use spirits and creatures from mythology in my stories. I thought this book would give me some good ideas. There are a lot of interesting nature spirits from all around the world.
Though honestly I don't care about the ones that look like humans. I like the ones with interesting features, like horse legs.
And it seems like about half of the entries are just names of Greek nymphs. Those haven't been too useful for my purposes, but overall it looks like an interesting book, even though I'm still in the A's

Unearthing Notes

I don't know why it took me so long, but I finally remembered to look through my notes on Arrin's story.
I have a large file of story notes, either about vague ideas for characters, items, themes, plots, ex. It doesn't even include my notes about the worlds and the way magic works.
There are a few partially developed story ideas that have stacks of notes. Arrin's story is one of those.
I wish I could say I magically stumbled on the answer to all the sticky bits of the story, but my notes are almost never like that. They're mostly little scraps of ideas about character interactions or other such things. The plot stuff is usually so vague that I don't even need to look it up to remember what it was about.
But it was fascinating to read through. I kept going, "oooh, that would fit really well! I'm glad I wrote it down three years ago."
Yeah, it takes me a long time to accumulate ideas before I actually get started on a story XD
So, I've unearthed some more depth of characters. But I'm still struggling through the actual writing.

I'll get there eventually.

Okay, I didn't even think of this until a day ago, but I have been totally forgetting to add zoo photos to posts @_@
It was like I got caught up with all my photos back in October and my brain told me I was done.
Well, some things in life do not have an end date. Like work. At least not until you retire XD
So I'll try to stick smoe more photos up from time to time, especially on those boring posts with no pictures XD

Komodo dragon

The Character Nearest to my Heart

I'm always talking about my favorite characters.
But I don't think I ever talk about the characters I relate to.
It happens a lot in little ways. As one of many examples, I like to be organized, though not quite as much as Wasabi in Big Hero 6. Or Pearl. And I feel about animals the way Newt Scamander does.

But there's one character I relate to more than any other.
Connie, from Steven Universe.


Sitting on a beach reading a book (Something I was literally doing not long ago)


Getting excited about other cultures


Geeking out about my favorite books to people who have no idea what I'm talking about.


Loving it when mysterious magical stuff happens out of nowhere


I have the same reaction when someone has a wildly inaccurate comment about a story (or anything)


How many times have I been so excited about a series only to be so let down by the ending. TT^TT


Okay, after we read Hatchet in middle school, I went out and found a used copy of a survival book. It literally has a rubber cover and everything. I wanted to try everything out. And it was a fat book. I read the hole freaking thing.


And of course concern for the environment.

Duuude, the beginning of my new story is driving me crazy XD
It's taking me so long to put anything together. And I keep finding more weird things I have to untangle.
What's the deal?
I keep having to dig into reference books. And I can't even name some of the characters until I know what ethnicity they are. Which is one of the many things I've been trying to read about - what kinds of people I need in my story.

Writing at Work

Ooh, I finally get to do some writing at work XD
For now, it's a script for a new tour. My two bosses were amazed at how fast I could type, which was funny.
And I'm going to see if I can write a couple pages for the zoo website! For conservation and gardens and wildlife and such.