Penguins Don't Let Their Plots Simmer.

It's my 92th post, and I feel that we know each other well enough for me to finally show you what I actually write about. All of my following works are fiction, and the covers were made by me (except for the last one. That one was designed by the amazing Fena).

1. Mermaidens.

 

Believe me when I tell you that I just spent the past ten minutes making this cover, specifically for this post. So I expect you to feel like a privileged blog reader, okay? Because I like to spend my time entertaining you. 

......

Also, I just needed a cover for it.

So anyway, this story is about two twin sisters, whose mother was killed by mermaids when they were younger--and their father runs the country they live in.  And there is a slight infestation of she-fish living in the lakes and streams around the country, but the dad blatantly ignores it, in favor of a new healthcare bill. 

There's also a boy named Calvin, who has a pretty decent role in the book. 

Remember when I said in the last few paragraphs that the country has a slight pest problem? Well, they kill young women. And Calvin's job is fishing these girl's bodies out of the lakes. Creepy, I know, but I just love it.

He also has a big black horse named Minos--which makes me like Calvin slightly more.

2. Space Girls

I definitely (take note of how I spelled that) love this storyline--but if I didn't love it, I wouldn't continue writing, would I? I don't think I would. There are quite a few things in this world that I finish, and a story I don't enjoy writing in my free time sadly isn't one of them.

This novel is about three girls and a smattering of alien men-type creatures, and love, and pickled vegetables. 

That's all I'm going to say, because if you look on my about page, you will find the link to go read it somewhere else online. Keep in mind that there are only a few chapters yet, and that it's not finished.

Thank you.

3. Flowerhead.

I also just made this cover for this blog post.

I swear, the things I do for you guys. 

I started writing this story yesterday, a few hours before bed. It's my intention that this piece will only be a few thousand words long, and I expect to have it completely finished and up on Figment by the end of this month. 

So far it's about a boy named Liam, who's a writer. He's writing about a girl with flowered hair.

And that is all I have. I'm only about a thousand words in so far, and I'm still developing the characters and setting and foreshadowing and minor stuff like that. I think it's going to be fun to watch play out. 

4. First Spark.

I've put this novel on hold right now, while I write Space Girls and Flowerhead. I can't wait to return to it, later, but for now, I have no plot in mind for it, so I'm letting the story simmer, like one of my very favorite authors Jackson Pearce said I should do last week at the liveshow. Her being an author, I decided to take her advice and just let it sit.

It's a dystopian about these creatures who have killed almost the entirety of the human population. The point of view is from one of the few thousand remaining humans; a teenager named Tessa. 

I'd tell you more, but as I said earlier, it has no plot yet, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. 

So yeah. Those are all of my current projects. As you can see, I've thrown myself head-first into the pile of shredded ideas that is my mind, and I've pulled out several stories that might or might not work. 

Who knows?

Penguins Also Hate Comic Sans.

It seems mediocre, that I find the time in my [busy] day to hate something as simple as the font Comic Sans--and also, Papyrus--but I am mediocre.

I hate Comic Sans.

In fact, I hate Comic Sans so much, I decided to write in it for the rest of this blog post, just to make it grade against my nerves. 

Everybody, at one point or another in their lives, has written something with this font. 

My  sister once wrote a chapter book in Comic Sans--and I started to, right until I quit the novel I was working on on the computer, and stared writing it out by hand.

My hatred has heightened by 95% percent since then, so much so, that whenever I see it out in the open (perhaps on a certain adoption form for some little boy in Guatemala. *cough cough*) I defiantly cry out: "Comic Sans!" and then I think the phrase: It's taken over the world. 

So why do I hate it?

First, it's overused by everybody. EVERYBODY. 

Second, it's repetitive. The handwritten lettering becomes boring, and because no handwritten letter is exactly the same when written with a hand, it makes Comic Sans look sort of cheesy.

Third, it's a poorly designed font. 

Fourth--can't I just hate a font?

So yeah. I hate Comic Sans. There are worse things to hate, like Joseph Kony and Rebecca Black's Friday, but there are tons of people to hate those. 

 

 

Penguins Don't Hit Walls.

I have officially hit a wall.


I don't have the faintest idea what to blog about.


Sure, I have future blog posts in mind, but first I have to write the posts to get to them. Like, say, I need to get to the lucky number of 94 blog posts, where your dashboard will be flooding.


But for now, I'm in front of a wall.

 And just like the characters on Dora the Explorer, I can't go around it for some reason. I have to get over it.


And so, if you feel inclined, will you please give me suggestions?

Penguins Don't go to Narnia.

The first place we stopped at in Colorado Springs was Focus on the Family. Other than fulfilling part of my childhood by sliding down that big twisty slide, and it being generally awesome, what with the planes and stuff, it also had an exhibit:

Namely, Narnia.

Narnia, everybody.

 Narnia.

 Narnia.

 These photos don't give the place justice. It was SO COOL. 

If I ever have a spare room, in fact, I've decided to turn it into Narnia.

Colorado Springs

This is the actual post, as yesterday I wasn't thinking straight (it definitely had something to do with me smelling like a dying camel--but don't worry. I resolved the issue by standing under hot water for about ten minutes), and I was procrastinating, and...

I don't have all of the photos I'd like to make this post yet, due to the fact that Hope's iPod is a pain in the buttocks to plug in and download media from it. And also, due to the fact that if I blow this off for too long, then my anniversary will have passed--and you will have lost interest. As will I.

So here goes:

We drove. And we drove.

And then, in no particular order, we stopped at these places, and I nearly got fined for climbing on rocks that I wasn't supposed to, and I petted a greasy, dirty giraffe (my fingers were covered in wettish soot when I walked away from the long-necked animal), and Hope and I sung Hank Green songs to each other on the ski lift, and I stayed at the bottom of seven falls and read Paper Towns while the rest of my siblings climbed 224 steps to the top, only to come back down when they got tired of the view.

Trelawney was very, very interested in the stuffed cougar.

As close to my actual face as you will probably ever get.

 Also, I might add that I am not taller than my elder sister Hope. I think I was standing on something at the time, or I was standing on my toes to pet the dirty giraffe.

I'm not wearing sunglasses, either. In real life, my eyes are forced to be forever stuck behind a thin wall of rubber and-or glass. It's a mixture of my glasses being situated above a giraffe spot that makes it look like I'm trying to look cool underneath a shaded patio.

The view of Colorado Springs from the ski lift.

The wallaby that I never got to see, because Hope, Noah and I decided to ride the ski lift another time.

This porcupine was just sitting there in the tree.

Seven Falls.

There might be more pictures when I finally muster up the energy to upload some of the photos off of Hope's iPod. But for now, this is it.

Penguins Have Middle-Names.

I'll come out and say it: About a month back I was cleaning my room.

I know Mom, you're flabbergasted. You've probably fallen out of your chair in surprise. You're probably making fish-out-of-water motions with your mouth.

"Huzzah!" you cry, pumping your fist in the air, scaring the cat you were previously stroking, causing him to fly off the end of the arm rest and run off indignantly. "Hannah Rachel is not as much of a pig as I had so wrongly assumed!"

I'm here to celebrate with you. Let us throw the confetti bombs and sing Auld Lang Syne--and yes, I did have to Google what the name of the song was. 

But when we're done celebrating, I will once again be cleaning my room. Which, conveniently, brings me back to my story. 

I was scraping cat hair off of my favorite sweater, thinking about pseudonyms.

Now, for anyone who doesn't know what a pseudonym is, I'm here to explain it. A pseudonym is like a pen name; something that isn't your name, yet can be referenced back to you. Dr. Suess (real name: Theodor Geisel) is a pseudonym. J.K. Rowling (real name: Joanne Rowling) is a pseudonym. And please, if I must elaborate into pop stars, Lady Gaga (real name: Stefani Germanotta) is a pseudonym.

Are you good?

Anyway, I was thinking about pen names.

My pen name on here is Hannah Rachel. Though it actually is my real name, I still consider it a pen name, because nobody calls me Hannah Rachel in real life. To everyone else, I'm just Hannah. Not Hannah Rachel.

Which got me to thinking about middle names. 

I don't know if I'm the only person who does this, but when I'm thinking of words, I usually visualize them in my head. The way they are spelled pops up immediately.

I've lived a good, solid fourteen years with the same middle name. But for the life of me, I couldn't decide how Rachel was spelled.

Is it Rachel, or Racheal? Or maybe it's Rachael. My brain mused, folding the sweater and stuffing it into my top dresser drawer, later to be worn with a black-and-white striped skirt. Or maybe it's something weirder, like Racshel.

It got to the point where I just about asked my mom about the matter. But at the last minute, I pushed it down and continued cleaning my room.

But my point is: How important are middle names?

Are they just a blip on the radar?

Lots of people don't have middle names, and they live nice, long, happy lives just like the rest of us. We don't even put them in zoos and gawk at them.  We don't discriminate against them or anything. 

Heck, penguins don't have middle names! And they don't even care!

All Caught Up

I'm (finally) all caught up with my word count for NaNoWriMo. It took all day to do it, but...

I accomplished it!

And now I have to work on tomorrow's word count, of 1,667.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm on my school laptop, which has no photos besides the default pictures on it. So enjoy these penguins, while I go do some of my animal chores.