Writing:
After finishing MirrorGirl I intended to move on to a fun project that has two different working titles that I’ve thrown around ‘that mascot story mom wants me to write’ and ‘Disney-Channel Original Movie script’. It’s middle grade, which I haven’t done in a while, featuring cute little thirteen year old girls, silliness and magic and fun… so, I made a discovery whilst trying to draft a summary for this story.
I have a REALLY hard time writing light and cheerful things during the colder months. I don’t know what the sky outside has to do with it, but not seeing the sun for months must affect me. All I want to work on right now is dark, edgy, horror-laced macabre tales. I came up with another such idea a few weeks ago—but I don’t really want to work on it, because it’s still pretty much a blatant rip-off of both Pandorum and Pitch Black, two movies I liked but desired to tweek… I’ll wait until I’ve fleshed it out into more of an original story. Maybe some dark Autumn/Winter a few years from now it can be my nanowrimo project.
I had planned to start the Salvages sequel by now, but I want to wait until I've finished the third draft before I start work on the second book. I'm mostly trimming... it's gone from 170,000 words to 130,000 words in the past few months. Much more reasonable, I hope.
Because of this Wintertime blue thing, I've been drafting the sequel to The MirrorGirl, which is looking for a new title, by the way... suggestions?
I’ve also been doing my first round of massive edits on Rosenrot, which will also receive a new title as soon as I can think of one.
Health:
I’m so over it. Ever since getting pneumonia, I seem to catch every little bug. Teaching small children, probably doesn’t help, to be honest… Anyway, I had Shingles. Go figure. That wasn’t quite enough misery however, because shortly after the last of that cleared up I got the flu (I didn’t get a shot this year because… I’m lazy) then I developed a nasty cold that turned into bronchitis.
What makes me feel the worst though, is the month of not working out that resulted from all the sickness and medication.
Going back to Crossfit is going to be murder on my lungs, and I’ve got a Kung Fu test that I need to prep for. Getting back into shape after my hiatus is fun in a masochistic kind of ‘why-am-looking-forward-to-this?’ way. I did my first official work-out in a month last Monday. When I’m not actually in Kung Fu or Crossfit, I like to do some of the Bodyrock workouts. This one was pretty fun. My legs were nice and sore the next day. It’s a good feeling:)
Christmas:
Homemade this year. I learned to crochet, examples to come...
Working at an LDS private school means getting to watch my adorable little students participate in a classic nativity pageant. Everything was perfect. Boy in their daddy’s bathrobes, paper angel wings, and a narrator with a slight lisp. I could have died of cuteness overload.
Read Best Christmas Pageant Ever to my class and cried big tears.
Star Trek:
Between getting sick and needing to learn to crochet and make Christmas presents for people, I spent a lot of time lying in bed with a crochet hook and yarn, hopped up on whatever the doctor gave me and pouring hot lemon/honey/cinnamon water down my throat by the quarts. Star Trek was on almost constantly. I can’t believe I never watched this show before—my parents are Trekkies. They’ve told me for years that I’d enjoy it, but I just never got around to it because it seemed like such a massive undertaking. I mean… there’s five separate series, plus the movies… That’s a lot of time. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start something that I might actually be compelled to finish if it meant literally losing months of my life.
Well. I started. I’ve still got a long ways to go, but I’m hooked. I’d throw in a cute line like ‘Beam Me Up, Scottie,’ or whatever, but I’m not enough of a dork yet, and at the same time I am enough of a dork to know that no one ever actually says that in Star Trek.
California:
I went to California for the wedding of Landon and my beautiful prima Lauren! I’m writing this as I’m there now, on my way to their dinner the night before the sealing. They are such a fun, gorgeous couple. It’s been nice to be here with my dad’s family for the event. I luuuurve sunny California. The simple everyday things here are awesome, like waking up and having someone ask, “Hey, where’s Clay?” and hearing someone else answer, “He and Landon decided to get up early and go surfing.”
Sigh. I love this place.
We got to visit the Aquabats set and check out some of the early cuts of the episodes that they’re putting together.
Okay, you guys… this show looks awesome. I’m not even joking—I can’t wait to watch it in its entirety. These guys are hilarious. Lauren got to work there in make-up, from what she told me and from listening to Christian talk about how they put everything together, I’ve been led to believe that this is probably the best job ever. It’s all about being creative and silly and putting your best effort into making it all look and feel good and fun. Their effort has produced some great stuff.
Disneyland!
Did you know that between Christmas and New Year’s day is one of the busiest weeks of the whole year for Disneyland?
I didn’t.
Wednesday, I found out. By going to Disneyland. It was CRAZY! Rides breaking down left and right, people, people, people, ZOMBES! Por todos lados! Absolute insanity. I think I got run over about four times by strollers, which has led me to the conviction that I will not bring my children to Disneyland until they are old enough not to need strollers. We have lots of funny stories from the insanity of the crowds. I thought I was going to be trampled…
AND WE HAD A BLAST!
All five of us hate crowds and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid them, so we should have been miserable, but we just went with it—and we had a really great time. The Blue Bayou is delicious, Pirates is still my favorite ride although Haunted Mansion is a close second and it looked great all decked out Nightmare Before Christmas style. We waited in line for Space Mountain for TWO HOURS, ate a lot of churros and didn’t make it on Indiana Jones because it was one of the rides that broke down. (Happens every time, amirite?)
Also, I spotted David Boreanaz. I almost cried out "BOOTH!" in shock, but my words stopped working long enough for me to think better of it. We didn’t go up to him or anything.
I don’t do that.
Also, he was with his kid and looked exhausted and like he really didn’t want to be recognized, but it was kind of hard not to recognize him. This year the show I watched for weeks at a time while I was sick was Start Trek, but last year it was Bones. I know that face. That handsome, handsome face:)
For the rest of the day I periodically dissolved into sighs and gushed "Sooo good-looking!"
It was good to be with my family, more than anything else. We did some new stuff that we haven’t before… Pirate Island, the Steamboat and the Buzz Lighter Blasters. Jensen’s score made the rest of us look like we couldn’t figure out which end to point, but that’s to be expected, she is a natural sharp-shooter after all.
So, we only go to Disneyland once every five years, but we make it count. My family is good at having fun together. Other fun moments: spying on the faeries and giggling incessantly at arguably inappropriate comments and innuendo. Jogging from Cinderella's castle, through Tomorrow Land and to the Matterhorn with Lane on my back pretending like she only weighs eighty pounds (whatever Lane-ifer) planning our apocalypse contingency plan for if we happen to be in Disneyland at the world's end. Discovering our family name in the crest-book (that kind of surprised me) chatting with total strangers in line. Being able to spot other Mormons from fifty meters away over open range. Dancing:)
My family totally gets me.
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