An entry that is different from those I've posted before, but which there probably will be more of.

The last years, due to horrible eating habits and zero activity, I've steadily gained weight. My BMI is over 30, which is a bad sign. It crossed a limit right there and then. To quote my brother: I had enough of holding my breath when tying my shoes.

Misunderstand me correctly, I'm not huge, not morbidly obese. I don't LOOK fat, but most of it is located in the belly area, which is the most risky place for it to be. I don't fit any of my trousers or jeans, I don't even fit most of my T-shirts! And most importantly, I feel completely unhealthy, I feel I can't really combat the last of my mental issues (sounds more serious than it is) when I'm so unhealthy, and I really, really, really feel bad when looking into the mirror.

So here goes. Extra weight, beware, you're going off.

I'm not going to follow a fad diet or any unhealthy regimen; I'm going to eat healthily, make sure I get all my vitamins and minerals and that I eat enough, and get plenty of exercise.

My mother, my wonderful, kind mother with the biggest heart in the world, bought me new walking shoes last weekend. Both my birthday and Christmas is this month, and while I had said that walking shoes was on the top of my wishlist, I had absolutely not expected that she'd just go ahead and buy them for me just like that. Not as a present for Christmas, not even as an early present, but just... "I'll buy new shoes for you." My mother is awesome.

Little did she know that that was the catalyst that threw me into wanting to lead a more healthy life. Not having good walking shoes was my number one excuse for staying inside, and now that I don't have that anymore I've walked every day, at least 45 minutes. I feel good! I've also started tracking calories and exercise on somebody.no, which has a great calculator for that sort of thing. I don't starve myself, but simply logging it makes me want to make healthier choices.

Today I've both been to dancing practice, and then I've even walked for 50 minutes afterwards, just because I wanted to. It feels gorgeous and my conscience is clean.

My goal now is to reach 70 kg (am now 85). My earlier ideal weight was 65 kg, but I don't want to lose my "womanly curves" either, and as I was much younger then I think it's unrealistic to make 65 kg a goal. So 70 it is. And I want my waist to be less than 80 cm, which is the official recommendation (anything larger and you'll run a bigger health risk, which I don't want).

I'm not going to become a health nut, but I feel I need to make this public to commit myself to it. So there will be a lot of talk about exercise and weight here in the near future... Hope you'll manage.

Anyway, I'm optimistic, I feel this will go well, and I look forward to the healthier me. :)

The week after winning NaNoWriMo has been such an anti-climax. I had another story I wanted to start (currently 10k into it, it's finally started to loosen a bit) and which I thought would be good, but then I made the mistake of telling one of my best friends that she would definitely get to read it. Never, ever do that! Your inner editor will come straight out of hiding again. I've told myself that the story will be locked down forever once I finish it (not true, but I've learnt to fool my inner editor), and now it is flowing again. I think this story will be good. I have no plot whatsoever, but it's definitely more fun than the other novel, which is flat and dull. But it took me nearly the whole week to really get writing again.

I am actually looking forward to continuing it. It is really fun. My two main characters have just started to realise that they are falling in love with each other, and my inner 14-year old girl is squealing in delight. I don't know what will happen next, but it doesn't really matter. I might just go to the forums at nanowrimo.org where they post dares and include one or two in my story. Or just find random words in my dictionary and write from them. I don't mind, actually. It can go wherever it likes, I love writing it anyway and it feels awesome. My good mood is coming back.

I don't think I have more to write about now. Maybe I should get better at updating my blogs more often... Anyway. Back to doing nothing at work (it's so great!)

(This entry is double posted with ciuva.blogspot.com)

I did it! I officially did it! I have written an entire novel, in 7 days, beaten my writer's block completely (isn't it great?), written 50 000 words and... yeah. I'm a bit incoherent right now. Writing went really well yesterday and the day before, the novel seemed to almost write itself, but the last 5 k was hard - especially the last 2,5k. I had lost pretty much all the inspiration I had and didn't want to write the story anymore, it's dull and boring and bad anyway, but I was determined that I wanted to finish it. I am really so surprised; I didn't even get close to winning the last two years, so I feared it would be the same way this year. I guess that was what gave me the drive to finish so fast. I am not sure I will use this novel for anything, it isn't good at all, but I might expand it so that it becomes three or four novels (three or four different storylines) and expand the stories so that they become interesting. Maybe. Who knows.

Now I am going to start working on another novel, with absolutely nothing planned and no set place to go (I think that was what killed the inspiration with the current one. It is a background story for my novel, so certain things needed to happen, but I didn't feel that those things were right anymore. But it just had to happen that way anyway. It's great to be done, and I already look forward to next year!

Sorry for being incoherent, I seem to have forgotten how to write properly now that I've written so much the last week...

Happy writing, everyone!

Edit: By the way, a little something I thought of after publishing: Why is it that when anyone finishes fast, they are immediately accused of cheating? 50k in 7 days is far from impossible, I didn't feel that I wrote all that much really. I mean yes, I spent quite a few hours writing if I look realistically at it, but I wrote effectively and when I wrote, I wrote. I didn't cheat. I didn't write every minute I was awake. Sure, I sacrificed some things, but who wouldn't, doing the one thing you really, really, really love?

It just feels so damn good to be writing again! I wish I had the time to write the entire day today. My NaNoWriMo story is, after 20 000 words, finally flowing and I have finally starting writing about a main character I actually like. The others were rather flat. It is a saga type story, telling the story of a magical artefact as it turns the world upside down. It is a background story that I really wanted to have in place for my normal novel project.

Notice I actually dare to write novel project now, instead of "story project"?

In danger of sharing some things that are too personal, this November is a great personal victory for me. The past three or four years I've been clinically depressed. I thought I was stressed, and ended up cutting out everything that I liked doing. Writing was one of the first things I cut out, I did not have any energy nor inspiration to do it, and I was just completely miserable during that time. Well, now that I am writing again and really feel my creative juices flowing (as well as having received treatment and sorted out things that needed sorting out), I feel completely well. In fact I am overjoyed, ecstatic, energetic, so damn happy. Life is good! Writing again has in all aspects turned my life upside down again.

I have decided to follow what was my lifelong goal all the way until I got the depression, and which I now have gotten again. I am going to do all I can to become a published author and be able to do that for a living. (My language is better in my native language Norwegian though, to have that said) It feels nice to have a goal again. I also feel that the goal is doable, as I am now in day 4 of NaNoWriMo and is nearly half way through. And my story is in no way finished!

Anyway, back to writing!

NaNoWriMo is going far better than recent years. I am currently at 15 523 words, and I haven't actually written anything today. My inner editor is thoroughly beaten down and has been mostly silent. The novel is dragging along, it doesn't have... well. anything it should have, apart from a lot of words.

Welcome to the Reduncancy Department of Redundancy, is all I'm saying.

Back to writing! (Or work, officially...)

Only a little more than 1 day left until NaNoWriMo starts! I'm super excited. I have no plot yet, but who cares? I'm also super motivated , so hopefully it will go well anyway.

Second on my agenda is the games on facebook. If you're making a word game, don't you think it'd be smart to make a point out of having correct spelling? The exact quote was "A game of *game name* consist's of..." There's no apostrophe in plural! It's not really all that hard... I, who have English as my second language (you can probably tell, I have some mistakes here and there) can get the plural right.

I forgot the rest of my rant... :P Anyway. Back to worldbuilding for my novel. Should probably try to think of a plot, too...

For the last week I've been going through my old story files to get the worldbuilding consistent and in order, and the last stories have been a painful experience, to put it that way. I haven't read them since around the time when I wrote them, apart from one or two which were actually quite good. The others from some years back... Oh God, it actually HURT reading them.

For one thing, I was quite naïve when it came to how things work in the world. EVERYONE even remotely near the good side were friendly, caring, comforting you if you had the slightest bit of trouble, and generally were kindergarten-style friendly (you know, let's be insufferably nice to eachother and make sure nobody has the slightest hint of any problem). There weren't really any bad guys except some that had one or two lines and then disappeared.

Secondly, there's so much description! I'm on page 4 of a 61-page story, which I stupidly wanted to become a novel (would have gotten only rejection letters, I think). I'm not sure I'll make it through the entire thing. Where was that really good story I remember having written? It really is the same story, but oh my god how terrible it is.

At least I'm a better writer now. Much better, I hope. And the other good thing about this is that I'm finally able to let that story go and delete it. Some recommend saving it until later to see how much you've improved, and while it's a good idea, I just can't bring myself to keeping it. I'm probably overreacting, but it was a shock to see it THAT bad.

Edit: The dialogue! How could I have forgotten to put it in the list! It's so unnatural and stilted and... fake. To think I thought that I was a good writer back then...

Inspired by a conversation I had with addictedgal. I stole some points from her, I hope that's okay.

I probably can’t write this in a coherent manner, but I’m trying anyway. I’m tired today. It will probably also be ranty and rambling…

I have to admit that I enjoyed reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I liked it a little less the second time, and mostly it appealed to the 14-year old girl deep inside me. I’ve been trying to repress her, but I don’t always succeed. However, I’m definitely not one of the rabid fans. Logically I know that the Twilight series aren’t good literature at all. Show, don’t tell, Meyer? Don’t overdo things? Don’t spoonfeed your readers, have some trust in their intelligence? (yes, we *get* that she loves Edward. Move on!) That, and I really don’t like Edward.

There it is, my dirty secret is out. Sorry, Stephenie Meyer, sorry, rabid fans – I don’t like him. He’s not likeable. Here’s a list over what I don’t like and why:

1. Too perfect. Hint to all writers out there: Perfect is not a good thing! Perfect means boring, uninteresting, flat, over-the-top… the list goes on. A perfect character feels like I’m spoonfed opinions. “Hey! Readers! You’re supposed to like him!” And outright writing that he’s perfect while I personally don’t agree is even worse.  EVERYTHING he does is supposed to be perfect. What’s up with that? Which brings us over to…

2. Jealous. Apparently, this is a good thing. I must have missed that memo. Jealous is, in my book, absolutely not good. It’s a necessary evil IMO. Everyone is jealous to a certain degree, but at Edward’s level – I find it unhealthy. I just can’t see how jealousy is so romantic. Sure, it’s a sign that he loves you, but it can also be a sign of many other things at the same time – sign of things that are not so good.

3. Controlling – how is this good in ANY way? I think I don’t need to say anything about this, apart from that I truly don’t understand how anyone can see this as a GOOD character trait.

4. Angsty. Okay, I get that he has a lot to worry about and that there’s a great potential for him doing Bella harm, but still. Does he have to worry about it all the time? Oh my god, I’m so dangerous and I’m going to hurt you! SHOW! DON’T TELL! I would have gotten the point just as well if he’d had an almost-accident at the beginning where he nearly harmed Bella, but of course, he’s too perfect for that, isn’t he? But bottom line, I despise all that angsting. I do enough of that myself.

5. Dangerousness. You know, I rather like badass characters. But they have to BE badass. Don’t just tell us about it, show it! I seem to repeat that sentence a lot today. How exactly is he dangerous? We hear him saying it, but in the end, the only one we feel is dangerous is Jasper, actually. Because we’ve seen him lose control and we’ve seen the beast in him. In Edward? Oh, you know, he’s too perfect, he has too much self-control.

I imagine I had one more point, but I forgot the rest, actually. So this will have to do.

Is it just me, or has movie Edward gotten all the things I hate in double doses? Or is it just condensed? I absolutely hated Edward in the movie. Really. I don’t even find him particularly handsome. Now THAT is going to get me flamed for sure.

...or the beginnings of one, anyway. I've been spending a lot of time over at deleterius.livejournal.com, reading badfics from the potterverse. Now, in these badfics it's pretty much the norm that Harry Potter is (if he's not changed to a bad guy somehow) made even more special than he already is. Either not completely human (one made him a pixie, as far as I remember, other has made him half vampire), or with far more powers than he already has or than is possible in the potterverse (not to mention the inevitable forgotten sister, cousin, or that snape is really his father etc.). One would think that he was such a genius at wandless magic, we'd already know from the books. But he isn't.

My theory is thus... Is he too normal for many of the fans? Harry Potter, while he has the ability to do the level of magic he needs to fight Voldemort, that's not why he defeats Voldemort in the end. That's got to do with many other things too, and there are many more skillful wizards and witches than him on the "good" side. He's got flaws, both in character and skill, and he doesn't always do the right thing (he's done, in my view, some rather stupid things over his years at Hogwarts).

Do they really need their hero to be more "special", more powerful, more... more of everything? I mean, Harry Potter's good, but he's not the best in everything he does. And yet he's made out to be the best in absolutely everything in badfic after badfic after badfic. I guess subtlety and moderation never stuck with these fanfic writers. (They do write fanfics with more than blatant Mary Sues, after all...)

What do you think?

I was woken around 4 this morning by the radio in the kitchen playing "Happy birthday to you" on full volume. I had no idea why - I had certainly not set the alarm - and I couldn't get it off without taking the batteries out. It was loud enough that I was worried it might wake up the neighbour - when I heard it all the way from the kitchen, behind a curtain and a closed door, it didn't seem too implausible either.

I had gone to bed merely two hours before and this little event disrupted my entire sleep schedule. I woke up with the beginnings of a headache and is only now beginning to shake it off...

It's strange sometimes. I don't know if I've already written it, but I've spent the last week looking through my old stories, writing down bits and pieces of characters, world building and plot points, just so my revised worldbuilding will be consistent and also include things I've forgotten.

I just saw the strangest thing. My two previous NaNoWriMo plots, plenty of beginnings and short stories, a couple of longer stories - they all fit together. One here and one there, they all complete a longer storyline which my novel project is based on (my novel plot happens later). I didn't even know they fit together, they certainly weren't planned that way. Most of what I hinted at in those stories wasn't even conscious, and I had no idea things fit like that.

So now I have almost the entire Saga of the Stone, at least the important points (apart from how it was created). One story describes what happens in another in greater detail, even though they were written at widely different points in time (over 2 years). I'd forgotten the first one when I wrote the other, which was almost entirely based on a dream I had when half awake one night. It really disturbed me. Funny how all the traumatic dreams I had - chases and things like that - end up as key points in my stories.

I also think I know what my NaNoWriMo story will be this year. This time it will be the full saga instead of just one of the events (which was meant to be my NaNo novel two years ago).

It's such a relief, both to have realised that I have the entire story AND that I finally know what to write about this November. I didn't know that at the start of this entry, to put it like that.

It feels kinda funny starting to use my Livejournal again now that I got myself a blog over at blogger.com, but I figure if it gets too much I can always double-post entries. I hate having unused accounts. I figure this journal might be a bit more personal than the blogger.com one (ciuva.blogspot.com by the way)

Who knows, we'll see.

If anyone has any ideas about title for this or the other journal - please comment. I am completely out of ideas and can't figure out anything that fits... Bah. I hate being this tired.

Until next time!

Hopefully this will be replaced by a new entry soon. I did not feel too good about there being no entries in the blog for so long. So here it is. I have to go now, but I will update this tonight. Not that I imagine anyone reads this before I get home, but one can always hope! ;)

See ya.