New year, new projects!

Sometimes life can catch up with you a bit without you actually noticing until it is too late. This week I was fortunate enough to be able to set up play-dates with various friends that live far away, so that we could finally catch up on all the things going on in our lives. One friend is getting married and I wish her all the luck in her marriage, but with another wedding-invitation and her wedding being the 7th in the last year alone I have slowly come to the realization that we are all getting older a lot faster than I thought it would ever happen. I have always hung around a crowd with slightly older people and didn't put much thought into the fact that they were getting married and having children, but now people my own age are tying the knot and I find myself astonished that I got to this age so fast. If the first 1/3 of my life has already passed before my eyes how fast will the last 2 parts zoom by? A friend comforted me with the fact that today you are not truly that much of a grown-up when you get married or have children, but when you get divorced or re-married. Guess I still have a couple of years until I am a grown up then ;)

2012 has already been a good year for meeting new people and honor my oath to various gods that I will try and share more of myself with others. This also entails finally sharing some of my work with a general public. Together with the talented photographer Rabbich I will be undergoing an attempt at a very ambitious project from this week and a year onward. The following is his DA page that he will hopefully be able to continually update during the next couple of months:

http://rabbich.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24

What the project is I can't reveal yet, but it will be grand, it will include creative parts from both of us and it is free for everyone to enjoy. We will encourage people to give us suggestions for themes and the like later on, but right now we are plenty caught up in finding new and wonderful sides of each-other's art to even contemplate bringing in other people.
This coming week also marks the first time I will be doing official work with my husband as we are photographing an Anime con, something that will hopefully bring us loads of experience in working together. All in all this week seems to be sizing up to be busy with a deadline for the first draft of characters for my new book coming along, a couple of projects I have yet to finish lurking around in the back-ground and various other menial tasks to sort out during the week.  

Flash-fiction: Sandpalace.

This is a story for http://bonyfingeredlimbs.blogspot.com/2012/01/flash-fiction-challenge-sand-palace.html
A weekly challenge, that I have meaning to enter. As I found my muse a bit late, the story is also a bit messy and would probably do well with an edit or just a delete. I share it with you anyway:

Sand Palace:

When she woke, she wasn’t sure if the previous night had been a dream or not. Her body felt sore and oddly heavy, like she had been wandering for days without rest. When she heaved herself up into a sitting position she saw at once, that she was being watched by a pair of green eyes.

Lilly jumped to her feet as soon as she noticed Eline was awake.

“My lady, you have slept for more than a day! I have not left your side since the Duke carried you in here in his arms. You should have seen his face my Lady. I have never seen him so determined or youthful. Cook wagers that he is sick with worry for your health, he has hardly eaten anything since you returned. I have been bringing him plenty of food while he has been sitting here by your side. He has been here almost all the time besides when his duties have called him away.”

Eline swung her legs over the edge of the bed, noticing how bruised they looked. She would have to put some salve on them later.

Eline held on as the ground shook under her. The last couple of hours the tremors must have gotten worse and she knew in her heart that it was only a matter of time before the flooding would make it all the way to the upper levels of the castle and take everything she loved away. As she held on to dear life she thought of Nathan and their baby, she thought of the lifetime of dreams yet to be dreamt and all the adventures they were still to have. The oracle had warned them that this would happen, their world was fragile and could just as easily be taken away as it had been built so long ago by the blonde divine being that was their creator. But after so regularly appearing time after time, the maker had disappeared. The people had lost hope in ever seeing her again and with that hope also came the fear of what would happen when there was no longer any Goddess to protect them.

The lower levels had been taken first. People she had known and loved her whole life were suddenly taken away from her in a heartbeat. On the second turn of the hourglass the water had reached the gate swallowing everything up in its path. It had cracked the foundations of the beautiful castle and the people knew that the end was near. The creature that had once made their world must have lost her imagination, maybe it had been replaced by something more, something that the people of the sand castle could not comprehend. They understood the sun and the moon, they understood what it was to love and be loved. The only thing that they did not understand was why their Goddess had decided to be so vengeful. They had tried hard to never wrong her, never complaining when she in her rants destroyed half of the city with her own hands.

The ground shook again and before she knew it, the ceiling was coming down around her. Pulling her dress into a bundle just over her knees she ran through the castle in search of her beloved, although she suspected that there was no time left to find him. As darkness descended she wanted to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. A hand gripped her in the dark and she held on. He was with her now at the end of all time and she would not let him go. Around them the walls were coming down, flooding the room with a dusty sunlight. Eline could hear the water working its way through the levels below them and she held on to Nathan and their baby. She held on as the terrible wail of their Goddess filled the air and tears of joy fell on Eline’s cheeks. The Goddess had not punished them, she would save them and remake their place of happiness in another time and space.  With that the sand castle that was their beautiful world finally collapsed and Eline and Nathan were swept into the sea with the rest of the sand people.

The next day the child made another castle and when that was taken by the sea, she created another and so it will always be as long as there are children in the world, that castles of imagination will be built on fragile ground. 

2012 here we go.

So far 2012 has been pretty uneventful in many ways, still no job/babies/published work of any sort. But I will always look back at the first month of January 2012 as the time when I realized that I am really grown up now. Turning 18 or 25 didn't really do the trick for me, I mean it is only a number after all. What really got me was the realization that I for the first time in my life have started looking at houses, seriously considering starting my own buisness and have actively moved to make plans to have things published, including a serious plan for when I have to have things written.

http://www.edc.dk/en/Sag/?Pid=50231301&res=2fc3704d-2cfb-40c2-9d59-b1a780c37e81&type=List&searchFrom=1

Is the house I have fallen in love with and although it won't be that we will be moving in to, it gives me a good idea of what I will be looking for in the future. It is on a quiet road, 2 mins away from 3 different food stores, an organic farm sale and a school. Sadly the roof would need to be replaced completely and the basement is in danger of flooding, so not going to happen.
Anyway, the next couple of months will be busy if I am to complete any of my projects. Of books I am currently working on:
My NaNo novel which has been left to die and needs to be revived or I will never finish it. Then I will leave it a couple of months before editing I think, because...
I am also working on a draft to submit to Black Library in their open submission window. I know this is very ambitious, but at this point a no will probably fail to make me very sad. It is a long shot with a firm that I know   very well by name and reputation rather than spending eons of time trying to find a publishing agency that print my genre.
Last but not least there is an erotic paranormal thing brewing in the back of my mind that I don't quite know what to do with and the Star Wars story that I have been writing for me and the husbands characters. Much writing, not so much editing (have to take advantage of this whole being unemployed buisness)
I promised a list of what I have done this week so here it is:
- I went to the gym!
- I just cleaned the spare room!
- I had no red meat what so ever, not even at the birthday party (okay lying as I had approx. 2 bites of the Mousakka) I had chicken once, fish twice and then vegetarian the rest of the week.
- I was socially active and went out 3 days in a row plus I had my sister visiting me the rest of the time.
- I took on an editing project for a friend for free (yes I am that much of a sucker) to create an international editing career which would suggest that I should start looking more into buisness plans for setting up homepages and paypal for future clients.
- I finally saw the end of a very long struggle with the department of financial dealings and got my inheritance from my grandfather, just to be told that I can't spend it because they haven't figured out tax reductions yet. But with that in mind it should be over pretty soon, which deeply pleases me as I am not sure how long I could deal with the bastards dragging it on. I still miss him on a big scale and constantly being reminded of the fact that his loved ones can't get closure has not been very helpful in the whole recovery process.I hope this time we will see the end of it and be able to get some of the well deserved closure we need.
My creative project this month might very well end up being this;
http://www.anettelyskjaer.dk/2917-2/  (sorry for the text being in danish, but you get the drift)
It is a imagination catcher and I think it is cool!
My cooking project will be this when I find some canned pumpkin!;
http://www.madejustright.com/post/vegan-pumpkin-cheesecake-filled-gingersnaps
This page is my new favorite place to eat with my eyes btw! Most of the recipies are a bit advanced for me, but they look sooooo good.
Anyway, toodles!

2012 can we try that again?

So the first week of 2012 has passed and what have I done? Absolutely nothing...
I don't know if it is my inner rebel telling me that if I really mean to go through with life changes I should not make them new years resolutions or I am just plain lazy. I would like to think that it is the first and not the latter, although further examination of the subject might be in order.
Fact of the matter is that these lifestyle changes are not a product of 2011 ending, but something that has been brewing for a long time. I do want a healthy lifestyle, I do want to publish a book and I do want to find a job I like. I don't want to make promises to myself or others that I can't keep and thought most of my goals would be easily doable without much of a change to my life. We will see if I was right! But instead of focusing on the negative I want to make a list every week of what I actually did manage to do maybe so I can encourage myself with sweet words to do more. This week I:
- Wrote 1038 words on my novel.
- Didn't use added salt or sugar to my diet when I cooked for myself.
- Managed to meditate 3 times!
- Bought weights for doing training at home.
- Got out of bed most days before 10 (woot thesis brain go away!)
- Made a birthday present and bought another two despite the fact that we have no money
- Edited a friend's book for free because I wanted to and didn't feel obliged to do it.
- Finished 3 books on the Kindle instead of starting new ones.
- Went out to socialize 2 times and one of them I actually took the initiative to do!
- Finally took the christmas decorations down.

Join me in celebrating the things that we did manage in this first week of 2012, instead of all the new years resolutions we didn't quite keep. It makes for a much happier world if we at least promise each-other that for every coming week of 2012 we will try to reach our goals a little harder. Afterall the turtle won the race, not the hare ;)