2011 no more.

So the year is running out fast and in danger of sounding too much like a bad Christmas song, what have you done?
2011 was year I:
- Got married twice to the most wonderful man I could have ever found (yes, yes I know it is cheesy but it has to be included)
- Started on a long and dangerous route to becoming a vegetarian that has meant many failed meals, but also some new classics.
- Got my Masters degree (yay) and went directly to being unemployed (boo)
- Finished NaNoWriMo!
- Gave up on my first book ever because I am unsure if even rewrites can save it.

But most of all this was the year where I found some sort of standing in the world. Now that the year is almost over I can view my facebook friendlist with a good conscious. I might have lost some people along the way to become who I am today, but I am also embarking on wonderful relationships with new people in a creative space where I feel like an equal. I know I can contribute with vital skills in the writing community and that they give me so much in return. Without them there would probably never had been a Maz or a green cow, no space travelling aliens would have been conceived on my behalf or a story of parallel universes colliding.
2012 is waiting for me with more weightloss, more work, more fun and more love in my life than ever before and that is not a bad thing right?

NaNoDoNo!

I did it.
I am a winner.
50433 words are now floating around on my computer. (plus various other places, because lets face it, you don't want to lose that precious work do you?)
Did I finish my book? No not even close. But this has pushed me in the right direction. I now know that it is possible to write a small novel in a month and this is a very encouraging thought. Maybe this will never become my best work, but at least it is written. I can keep working on it and yes, this is with the acceptance that it might still be shit after revising it over and over.
http://www.salon.com/2010/11/02/nanowrimo/singleton/#comments Is an old article (2010) which pretty much sums up what most people that I have shared my NaNo project with and who I do not count as close personal friends have pretty much been saying for the last month. Her manner might be brute, but in essence she has a point, although a very snotty one. Few of the NaNoWriMers will ever finish, let alone ever publish their stuff. It is kind of a chicken and egg discussion. Is NaNo good for starting these creative processes that will in time make you a great writer? Probably. Will we be using these methods of stress for the rest of the year, probably not. Doesn't mean that all 300 k people do not have a valid reason to try this out. Only by trying will we learn as they say.
Here is a last few wise words from my side on this project and then I will stay silent on the subject until I start spamming you with quotes etc from my book. If you are considering getting on the bandwagon for next year, here are some tips:
- You are the one writing it! It will happen in your own time, so do yourself a favour; use the community for encourgement, inspiration etc. but don't ever measure yourself up against others. People have different ways of working, NaNo is not a method that works for everyone. So stop beating yourself up when half of your writing buddies are done mid-november.
- Turn off facebook, twitter, google + and all those things while you write. Don't offer yourself the chance of distraction.
- Remember that it is only 1000-3000 words a day. There is a life outside of NaNo and it is quite possible to maintain this life while writing your grand masterpiece. Most authors can manage tours and writing at the same time, so don't let your child/pet/alien friend suffer during november. It is a sad month for them too, they don't have NaNo to brighten their day, they have you.
- Consider at the latest in october what kind of author you are. If you are the kind who needs character lists, maps, a plot structure and so on before you can start writing, then make sure you have it before november starts. There is no point in wasting the first couple of actual writing days by writing lists.

I could probably say a lot more, but I will forever rest my peace. See you next year fellow WriMos!

NaNoWriMo all year round?

So we reached the half way point in days... I am not half way through my novel. Although I can now boost of 22000 written words my novel in itself is probably more like 1/3 through the story-line that I had planned. So far I am still not decided on how the complete novel will look. Will I have to split it into 2 books because there are many more ideas for characters that I want to use? Or do I just stick with one very long novel? I guess time will tell when I get to the other end. Right now with some growing of a spine I will be ready for putting this into the editors by late december/early january which is more than acceptable. The big question on my mind now is what happens after NaNo. Should I make it a bi-monthly thing where I just sit down and force myself to write those pesky 2000 words that authors are supposed to be able to produce a day to call themselves succesfull? Maybe it would be less intense if I lowered the word count pr day and instead tried to create something that was actually worth reading. All these questions can only be answered with; time will tell.

Oh btw. Played and finished Space Marines, meh...

20k!

Yep that's right. The 20 k mark is reached and I am finally down to being done on the 4th of december with my current writing speed opposed to 14th of january when I started this week.
Watching the cat sleeping next to me at the moment fills me with much needed calm and happiness. It is my birthday in 2 weeks and everyone is asking what I am going to arrange, I have no clue what to answer them as I am not sure I want to celebrate anything. It is just another candle in the cake after all.

11-11-11

And so what? Deeply fascinated by all the people getting married today because they felt it would bring them luck from the universe and make them special. I will let in on a little secret; if you get married on a day like today you are not special because you are sharing it with a million gizilion others. Your date of marriage should be important because it is the day you are signing yourself over to that one special person, not just because the numbers were right. Numbers will not make your marriage a happy one nor will it keep you out of discussing the dishes or the toiletseat. Congratulations on making this decision and engaging in what will perhaps be one of the most important days of your life, lets leave it at that.

NaNo score says 12,5k, so working my way upwards and beyond. I had to write a sex scene today that I had not quite expected to write until this morning were it would not leave my mind. I am no good at sex scenes, not because I am prude or anything like that, but because I find myself giggling because describing his throbbing member seems so fanfic. To me my characters should enjoy the same freedom of choice as I have, so they chose to not show the scene in details but just end the paragraph at kissing and start the next one after insemination had taken place. The aliens will definately have a problem with this free will stuff that the humans have. Maybe this is why the mayor is brain-washed? I found out that the reason why Melissa Farley was so angry and evil has something to do with Aelfrec who seems to have started all the mess by leaving her for Cat and now he is hiding out as a cow (yeah he can't turn back or he doesn't want to turn back?)

42

Is the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything.
Greetings Ma Chara (my friend).
Rereading Hitchhickers Guide to attempt to bring some space into my story but sadly my characters have decided otherwise. Maz wants to get drunk, Farley wants to be important and Catherine... Well I don't know what Miss Firefly (Would she technically still be mrs even if her husband is a cow?) wants but I bet you anything that it doesn't involve torture, humiliation or questioning in front of hundreds of people on a cold april morning.
Found out that although I love Gaelic and wish that I remembered it better from my childhood days it comes slowly to me these days and remembering all the expressions is a pain in the butt when you have a druid who insists on using the language all the time. He wasn't planned, the group was not planned, the scene was not planned but I needed Maz to know for sure that Cat was the one he was searching for all along and even now that sounds cheesy in my head.
On a less creative note I am reading about buisness management and optimizing your workforce in a positive way were they can feel they are contributing to the changes that are happening. It is a bit dull so I have to keep telling myself that maybe some day when I have my own firm and need to use my HR back-ground it will come in handy knowing what questions to ask. Anyway, time to finish up the last 60 pages of school work so I can go make these two things:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/toffeeapplecrumble_87427


http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/appleandtoffeemuffin_86119

AND do some swaps I am behind on AND do some wordsprints on NaNo. Will there be enough hours in the day? Only time will tell

Post-Firefly

Very short blog as I am very very tired after 48 hours of constantly being pushed and pulled around by other people. It was fun, not amazing, but fun. Food was nice, most of the people were nice, I got to go to a fancy dress party and wear a mask while sipping champagne and eating Hours Douvers which turned out to be poisoned if you got the wrong ones. (of course only in the game silly nilly, although Salmon snack kills four LARPers would probably make headlines)
Came home to an email from one of the most inspirational people I know; Mrs Amanda Palmer. I linky linked her new song beneath:

http://music.amandapalmer.net/track/ukulele-anthem
<3 Love Amanda Palmer and after this I must learn to play the Ukulele!
And here is her blog about said song:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/12015666698/presenting-ukulele-anthem-a-prescription-for-living

PS: This week we tried something new with ze foodbudget and I am proud to say that we are 10 Euroes under budget!

Day 3 of NaNoWriMo

First off for the people who wondered where the food-stuff/project went, don't worry we are still doing it, it is not going as well as we had hoped, but trying to get it under control in a sense that I know where our money is disapearing to! This blog has been reactivated for NaNoWriMo instead because frankly that is pretty much what takes up most of my spare time at this point. That and the Firefly larp which is pretty much under control.

So I managed to clock up 4500 words all in all with the help of wonderful german inspiration. Thank you Angentel! For some reason a mysterious cow seemed to cause me more trouble than it was worth. Still can't quite figure out how it got there or what it wants me to do with it, but I did manage to make a good hiding place out of it. Maz discovered what the Time and Space Consortium was and did not seem impressed, neither by the fancy pink space ship or by Prof. Darwin Willard (still not quite sure about the name, might change it) Think the robots have pretty much fixed themselves now by looking a bit like WoW robots, just bigger. Luckily it will be a while before I have to deal with them, possibly not even during this NaNo.
Spent some time on the NaNo forums discovering more nice people who will make this a journey worthwhile. It seems like the Write-in tonight might actually happen, in any case I will go and see if anyone else shows up. If no people show up I will go home again and have another fiddle with the damned writing program. Maybe I should just stick to Word for now.

The day NaNoWriMo stole my soul!

So this is it. This year I will do it! The last two years I have started the project but never finished or I forgot to sign up and only discovered it after it ended. But this year I am entering National Novel Writing month and I pledge that I will finish my 50k word count by the end of this month (the contest ends on my birthday neat eh?)
My entry will be a post-apocalyptic, New Weird, Sci-fy novel called The Day they Descended. It will be kind of a Hitchhickers guide meets Dr.Who and I am very excited about it and the possibility of meeting fellow writers in my region.

Almost two months

So it has been almost two months since our project started, we have had ups and downs, mostly downs due to really unfortunately and unforseen things and the fact that our cats have been sick and our kettle broke down. Also trying to plan for a second wedding without knowing that kind of money we will have at that point, has proven to be more tricky that we thought.
But how has the 2 months been:..
Well turns out that eating on a budget is very simple because if we don't have money for it, we won't buy it. We are still pushing limits every week with a 25 euro budget, but it means that we use absolutely everything that we have in the fridge and cuppards, because we don't have a choice. We also found a cheaper catfood, that seems to have all the good stuff, but is about half the price of the vet-pro food.
We have both felt a decrease of headaches since we started cutting out sugar and salt in our diet, but coming back from weekends has turned out to be more tricky because we do share a bottle of coke pr weekend and the added sugar means eratic sleepinghabits, late nights and generel annoyance on weekdays because we don't get that sugarhigh. Now that summervacation and final thesis stride is coming up, I don't think it will be possible to completely eliminate sugar or coffee from my diet.

Better news is that my friend Elisabeth has started her own blog without us talking together at all for a very long time and she is doing a similar project in Finland where she lives now. Turns out that organic food is not as popular over there as here, but she seems to be managing most of the time. Here is her blog, which you should go read if you are interested in how organic lifestyles can still exsist in a fairly remote and cold place as Finland:

http://www.ecolisabeth.com/

Recent future thoughts for me has involved considerations to do a PhD in litterature about Generation A, which is the generation that comes after Generation X. It is something I stumbled upon by chance, but found very very interesting as I have always considered what our generation would be called from a socio-scientific perspective. Reading Douglas Coupland really opened up my eyes to this topic, that I am definately going to dig into. ¨
Also considering getting a novel published with Avon, which is a sister department of Harper/Collins that specilize in romance novels in all kinds of genres including fantasy, sci-fi and steampunk.

What friends are for

Week one is done (yay) and easter is fast approaching, which means loads of times for socializing but also budget break after budget break. Challenge one comes with the fact that the shops are closed from wednesday and until monday next week which means that we have to buy everything before wednesday... Yeah us and the rest of Denmark shopping at the same time. We needed to bend the budget a bit because we have guests during the week and they have to be fed something. 

Tonight though we are getting free food because that is what friends are for!

The dreaded weekend

Dam dam daaaaaam. Weekend is upon us and that would normally mean sitting and playing online games while chugging down everything sweet or salty in the house. But because of my unfortunate day during the week, there will be no candy or crisps for me. I am sort of okay with it, but I know it will be flipping hard once we get to dinner time as my husband is not following the same diet as me.
My funk dance class on sunday is cancelled (booo) so might have to just train normally after  my No stress team (yeah lets see if that works)
Watched two very inspirational movies yesterday that the hubby had "borrowed" I do not openly support downloading things, but seing as we are both relatively unemployed cinema trips and movie renting is not something we can afford. So first movie was City of Ember with Bill Murray as a very unsympathetic mayor who ate all the food. It was odd because without having seen the movie, I have often dreamt of a similar city. It was very inspirational to see how people with no resources had still managed to find a way to support themselves and build a city where everyone played an important job. And without spoiling too much, there is the most magnificiant sunrise in the movie.
The 2nd movie was 127 Hours which was disturbing on a very soulsearching level. Not that we live a life in the fast-lane, but one would like to think that one cares enough about family and friends to always let them know that you are safe and such. Sadly most of the people I know who have moved away from home hardly talk to their parents, let alone tell them where they go. It brings it into perspektive that we in our town right now have a psycho running around machinegunning random people down in the local woods. He killed a couple walking completely at random, could have anybody, could have me as I sometimes larp there, could have been my friend who lives 2 mins away or her parents who often walk their dog there. But as it turned out it was a doctor and his wife walking, 4-6 shots each and left to die and be found by a dogwalker. They had no chance of saying goodbye or telling their teenage daugther that in spite of how she acts they still loved her. I recently told my foster-parents how much they mean to me and how proud I am that they would ever consider me their daugther. I was lucky as many people have pointed out, to end up with a nice and loving family and not in a home, but when I was growing up I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have. For me it was lovely having parents who let me roam wild and siblings who just accepted me, but it was also sufficating at times being the middle child out of 4, it was hard getting responsibilities that should have been saved for when I was older. But I love my parents and it would break my heart if something similar happened to them.
So in the true Jerry Springer spirit, take care of yourselves and eachother!

Day 4

So got up early, went to the gym. Gonna feel that tomorrow! Came home and started soup, then our neighbour came around and we let him in on our project, he was fairly supportive, but not quite sure if it could be done. Talked to S about the Kindle today and we are really leaning more and more towards getting one, especially now that so many of our friends have one and they have the added feature of sharing your books with other people.
Faced a new unforseen challenge today. If our budget is stuck on 20 euroes a week how do we account for eventuel guests dropping by and eating with us? We solved the problem today by making enough soup for 4 instead of two, but gods know what will happen next time around. Everyone enjoyed the soup luckily and the greek bread with olives which can easily last us for another night and then some. Tomorrow we are going to have to go buy milk and maybe bread with the last money we have this week, but there should be money left over for it even if it means that we will just and so meet the budget for this week.
Signed up for various sportsactivities and still feel the spark that initially inclined me to join the gym. It was hard seing all the skinny high school girls today, but luckily there was also people who looked a bit more like me.
The lack of sugar in my diet has started to affect how awake I feel at later hours of the day. I feel tired now and it is only 8 pm. Talked a bit with my foster-mum today who seems to be doing well after her last chemo treatment. She reckons that once my bloodsugar has stabelized I will be fine with staying up late again. Fingers crossed!

Shopping as meditation

Use Your Personal Story to Inspire a Movement

Part of the reason one person can make a difference is that one person’s efforts soon inspire other people’s efforts. So inspire other people to get involved by sharing your personal story. Not just the story, say, of the hungry children in the Global South who you are trying to help, but your own story.

In No Impact Man, I share stories of how I tried to keep my food fresh without a refrigerator, how I had to eat mostly cabbage in the winter, and how I washed my laundry by hand. People didn’t suddenly realize that they, too, should hand-wash their clothes. Instead, they learned, not that they should make a difference—which statistics and figures tell us—but that they can make a difference—which personal stories have the power to tell.

It is through the personal that people connect with the political.

No matter what your cause, look for the powerful, personal story about how you got involved and how being involved has improved your life in some way. I’ve heard it said we shouldn’t have to tell these stories—that people should automatically care. The thing is, once they know, people do care. The problem is that they are often overwhelmed by it. So the job is not to shove information at them that makes them feel guilty for not doing something. The job is to give them a story that shows them how to do something

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/advice-from-an-accidental-activist.html

So the observant person might notice that I never wrote a day two. That is because yesterday turned out to be a very bad day for me healthwise. I started of with a migraine that just kept getting worse as the day progressed. So I sinned, I drank some coke to stop my stomach going bonzai. This means that there will be no coke or soft drinks in the weekend, tough call, but I needed it more yesterday.
So now we are at day three. We went shopping again to stock up for the weekend, we are still under budget but not with much. We discussed that it will be hard once our stocks start running low, because we like normal people, did have some surplies before we started this project. But that time that sorrow. When we where walking home we discussed Osho's philosophy of being vegetarian. Basicly vegetarism is just connecting more with your food (not in a creepy way) in a way that people on diets do as well. For us shopping has become a sort of meditation, because a low budget forces us to really consider our basic needs. If one of us decides that we want something speciel in our food that the other one can't have (meat for him, peppers for me) then we are also making a direct decision to prioritise our own individual needs over the couples. How do we get around this so none of us feel cheated? So far none of us have become pissy when investing in things for the other person, but it might change when we get further into the project and the weird cravings start flooding in. Luckily we are still in our "honeymoon phase" so love will hopefully conquer all.

Day 2.1

Found this amazing link that I would like to share with you. It is true we are not supporters of general consumerism, but this seems like an interesting project even if it is at the other end of the scale. I wish all the best of luck for Josh to get through the last month or so of this;

http://liveoffgroupon.com/about/

Best Cassy

Day 1:

So day 1;

Started out with a reasonable breakfast, had a tantrum at my husband because he looked at me funny or something like that. I can already feel the effects of no sugar or caffeine and they are not pretty. Also stomach man disagrees that healthy food should now enter my body, been feeling that I have clock work in there that needs serious oiling. Made a shopping list for the week, based on the offers that I could find at our local supermarket. So far we are way under budget for our week, but that is not accounting for the things we might need to stock up on during the week like milk and bread (I am getting to the whole baking it myself soon, but right now there are so many other things to deal with first) If we can manage to keep those things under 12 euros we should be good and dandy.

After we went shopping half our budget for the week is gone, but we also have more than enough food to keep us going for a while. We decided to go through with the plans of buying a new bed for the money that we got at our wedding and a friend has happily decided that she wants to part with hers very cheaply! Total score.

Talked for hours with my friend B, who is joining me in my weight loss scheme. I enjoy talking to her because she takes the subject of weight loss as something we should laugh about, rather than fret about. We had a long talk about the problems of nutritionists who insist that women our size must down at least 3 liters of water a day. We both find the thought of either of us ever being able to consume that amount of water absurd. We are also trying to motivate each other and reminding ourselves that this is not a flip of the moment, but something we are doing for our families and loved ones, so we can stay healthy and active for many years to come. Sure the immediate benefits are an important factor as well. We both want to be able to wear a bikini to the beach without people starring at us (for other reasons than we are so fabulously sexy of course) and to enjoy our vacation together even if is going to be short.  B and I also talked about the fact that we are both having problems finding pagan books in Danish/Nordic but that plenty of Christian books are translated every year. Maybe that is another line of books to add to the long list of books I want to public and translate when I start my own publishing firm.

Have been met with the first skeptics today who do not believe that our project is possible. Went to dinner with friends, but managed to eat healthy food there as well. Still no soda urges today!

The year begins

The year 2011 will be...
The year I finally go through with my plans to make a commitment to changing my life to the better. I recently got married, we have a lovely home and all that, but things are missing that it was hard to put my finger on. Then we watched No- Impact man and allthough I don't give much for his radical methods of achieving his goals, I still support making a life-long change of how you view the world. Movies like this are suppose to encourage us to think about how we impact the envirrontment around us, how we can make a difference etc. So when we went to bed last night I compiled a list of what I want to change about myself in the year to come. There will be slip-ups, and it will be hard not to relapse into a normal consumer habit of shopping, but it is worth a try and in the end if he really makes a difference for me and my husband, then maybe I too can inspire other people to make small changes in their lifes.

My pledge for the next year is;
No more buying
- Clothes, as our closet is already packed to the limit. It is okay to buy a belt or new shoes if they get worn out or weightloss requires us to do so. Hopefully in the end of the year when we have both achieved the looks we want for ourselves, we can splurge a bit on clothes that fit us better. Clothes that we never wear will be given away to charity.
- Books: We are buying a kindle for our weddingmoney and within a year it should have paid itself off if we don't buy anymore normal books. Other than using the Kindle the next year will be dedicated to using the local library instead. It is good excercise and it is better for the envirrontment if we take part in a general sharing policy.
. Snacks or fast-food: If it is not for both of us, then it is a no no. We are setting a low budget for food and making meal plans to try and save money by not being spontanius consumers. Also included in this is a wish to have a more healthy diet where local foods are our focus and added the additional smaller portions sizes as we both eat more than we really need to! To live a more healthy life-style we are also not drinking any sugary drinks or eating candy on weekdays. As we want to start this project on a realistic level we will cut down to only weekends and then later maybe choosing one day a week where we can have a bit of candy.
Food we would like to make ourselves; Own sauces, bread, jam, cordial etc.
Last but not least, busses are off the agenda and pushbikes are on. I for once wish to excericise for at least an hour everyday.


Hopefully this blog will reach other people and make them consider if there are any small changes they might make, but they have been lacking the motivation to do!