Visit to Nova Scotia

by tag Posted on February 28, 2016

*gives everyone a guilty look*

Yeah, it’s been a while. Sorry about that. I’ve ended up fairly busy with a bunch of things, including becoming part of the ASD Advisory Board of the recently formed Autism Canada, and also of the Canadian Autism Partnership Project. The latter of which was what let me come to Nova Scotia (see tagÂûght’s Blog: Leaving, On a Jet Plane; Two Wonderful Sisters; and Nova Scotia, How I Love Thee for the details and explanations).

The important part is that in coming here to Nova Scotia, I got to spend a great deal of time with my middle sister and her children, and meet her friends, and it’s been great. I’ve even tonight got to see my older cousin for the first time in ages.

To read the details, continue on.

Posted in Cousins, Family, Nieces-Nephews, Pictures, Siblings, Trips | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Update: Apt, Exercise, Camp NaNo July ’15

by tag Posted on June 30, 2015

So, it’s been a while. Since early May, in fact. Sorry about that, and hi, everyone! I hope life has been treating you as well as it’s been treating me.

This is going to be a fairly long post, which a number of different sections: about my new apartment, about Imber, about Camp NaNoWriMo for July 2015, and about exercising and how I’m doing with that. And pictures are included! (Luckily, I figured out how to do them as a gallery.) So I’m definitely putting it behind a “more” tag, and as you can see, I’ve added internal links to each of the sections to make it easier if you only want to read one or two of them at a time, and not have to go all the way through everything else….

Read onwards….

Posted in Accomplishments, Camp NNWM, Cats, Exercise, Life in General, Newfoundland, Science Fiction, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

#CampNaNoWriMo April 2015: Not A Winner….

by tag Posted on April 30, 2015

So. It seems this was not a good month for writing for me. My concentration has been shot most of the month, and I’ve written less than 4,000 words of There Be Dragons. Definitely not enough to win, even when I lowered my word count goal to 20K words.

On the other hand, I always count any writing done during NaNo or Camp NaNo as at least a partial success. As is often mentioned at the end of the month, at least there’s however many words more written than you had at the start of the month!

Not sure exactly what I’m going to do with There Be Dragons at the moment; I suspect that at the very least, I’m going to let it sleep for a few weeks while I try to get rid of the brain fog I’ve been in most of the month. With any luck, May will be better – I’ll likely be at least somewhat more active, for one thing, now that the weather is finally starting to warm up here. (Not that you’d know it from the drizzle and wind today, but….)

If nothing else, I suspect I’ll get back to work on TBD for July’s CampNaNo. 🙂

(meh’ing) tag

Posted in Camp NNWM, Creativity, NaNoWriMo, Plot Bunnies!, Science Fiction, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

#NepalEarthquake Donations – Canadians

by tag Posted on April 27, 2015

Not something I would normally post on my blog, but it’s a relevant topic at the moment, and I just found out something that can make it a bit easier for us Canadians who can’t afford to donate cash but may have an Airmiles card to help.

For those of you in Canada who have Airmiles, you can chose as a Dream Reward for 190 airmiles to donate $20 to the Canadian Red Cross Relief Fund for the Nepal Earthquake.

There are also four other charities you can donate to (with links) – WWF Canada, Kids Help Phone (this is 175 airmiles), Trees Ontario, and Motionball in support of the Special Olympics Canada Foundation, but given that the Nepal Earthquake is a sudden, recent event, I thought I should probably advertise this. It means that even if we can’t donate money or food, we can still help.

A copy of this post is going up on tagÂûght.

*hopefully yours* tag

Posted in Community | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Aunt-To-Be, 5th Time Winner!

by tag Posted on April 26, 2015

So, as can be seen by the title, I’m going to be an aunt for the fifth time, come around about the end of August! Yay! Congrats to my brother and sister-in-law, and my younger niece – who announced to me via Skype last Sunday that she was going to be a big sister!

Continue for details and a lovely, heartwarming video….

Posted in Family, Nieces-Nephews, Siblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

#CampNaNoWriMo April 2015: Progress? Bit Not Good

by tag Posted on April 11, 2015

So, it’s the second week of April, and what have I done?

Not much, I’m afraid. Started out okay, though not great, on the first… and then didn’t write, and didn’t write. *sighs at self* As of yesterday, I only had about 1,028 words written. That’s not much for being a third of the way through the month!

Today, I took a different tack. I went back to my NaNoWriMo roots, and went to a coffee shop. I figured the change in scenery would help get things moving. (And I also reduced my word count goal to 35K words for the month, but if I can keep at the rate I’ve started going today, I’ll be able to bring it back up to 50K….)

It’s just after 19:30 hrs here, and I’ve added another 2,010 words. And I’ve just started a new scene, with so much fun to play with…. So I’m doing well now, and came up with a good way to break the block I was running into.

Which leads me to a piece of advice, for any others doing Camp NaNo who are reading this. If you’re not getting anywhere with your story, or you keep running into roadblocks… try changing the scenery around you. Sometimes we need to get away from the everyday.

Also, you may notice that my theme has changed. Yeah, I was running into a few problems with the old theme, so moved it around. The original menu items are now under the “Main Pages” menu, and I’ve added more menus for other things that I figured people might be interested in. 🙂

‘Later, all!

🙂 tag

Posted in Camp NNWM, Creativity, Science Fiction, Stress, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

#CampNaNoWriMo April 2015: The Start

by tag Posted on March 31, 2015

So, April starts tomorrow. And with April comes many things. (The worst being Autism $peaks’s “Light It Up Blue” campaign. See my autism blog and the links for details.) Among those many things is Camp NaNoWriMo. (Obvious, from the title of the post, I know.)

This year, I’m not going to work on the general fiction autism story I’ve done for the last two years; I think it needs to sit for a few years. Instead, I’m going to work on the science fiction original version of my 2014 NaNo story Here Be Dragons. This version is now called There Be Dragons; it got too confusing otherwise.

So, non-Pernese dragons on a world that’s barely been explored by humanity, whose method of communication (which, yes, is primarily telepathy) drives approximately 99% of humans insane, and an undercover police agent investigating a black market in archaeological treasures found only on this world. Fun!

As usual, I’m aiming for the traditional 50,000 words, and planning to get more. Wish me luck, as I’m wishing luck to all the rest of you who are doing April Camp with me!

‘Later, all!

🙂 tag0

Posted in Camp NNWM, Creativity, NaNoWriMo, Science Fiction, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

#NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 30 – The End

by tag Posted on November 30, 2014

So, we come to end of NaNoWriMo 2014. I stand in the winner’s circle, proud, despite the adversity I encountered this month (for more info, read the post about my winning and last night’s post). And I have successfully managed to reach my altered goal of 60K words; in fact, my final word count is 61,232 words.

And boy, are the Plot Bunnies ever happy. They’ve been crazy all day – I think someone fed them caffeine adulterated with pounds of sugar. They’ve been hopping all over the place, particularly toward my other Sekirei fics and the SF Original Fic version of Here Be Dragons. *sighs*

Anyway, this month has been a good run, and I’m glad I did it. Here’s to all of us NaNoers, whether we got 50K or 5K – we did it! There are now more stories out there than there were at the beginning of the month. So “Yay Us!”

Now, back to your regularly scheduled erratic updates….

‘Later, all!

😉 tag

Posted in Accomplishments, Creativity, Fantasy, NaNoWriMo, Plot Bunnies!, Science Fiction, Sekirei, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

#NaNoWriMo 2014: Day 29, Weekly Report

by tag Posted on November 29, 2014

First of all, I apologize for missing last week’s weekly report. Unfortunately, due to a new dosage of medication, I spent most of last week (including Saturday) lightheaded and unable to concentrate. As a result, my productivity also went way down in terms of my writing.

I have recovered, however, but it’s likely that I’m not going to make the 75K goal. So I’m now trying for getting over 60K as of tomorrow night. (*gasp* Yes, NaNoWriMo 2014 ends tomorrow.) I’ve already won, now it’s just continuing to write as much as I can while I have the excuse of NaNo.

My current word count is 57,077 words; it might go up before midnight tonight, it might not. (Depends on how long it takes to read Vathara’s latest update, and post this.) Either way, I only have to get 3K words tomorrow in order to make that 60K goal, so it’s more than doable.

It’s been a wild ride this month, and thank you to all of those who have followed my progress and cheered me on. There will be one last post just before the end, tomorrow evening, which will also give you my final word count.

‘Later, all!

😉 tag

[Edit 23:50 hrs.: My final word count for the day is now: 57,270 words. Go me!]

Posted in Accomplishments, Fantasy, NaNoWriMo, Sekirei, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment