Fashion Day

Ah, New Year's Eve, a night renowned for tuxedos, fancy cocktail dresses, heels, parties, and Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve.  Which reminds me... I need to go tape that.  Taylor Swift is performing!

But on another front, today is fashion day.  At least, in my head.  I got my February Teen Vogue in the mail, and I'm loving what I'm seeing.  Some of the trends from 2012 seem to be carrying over to 2013: classic '40s and '50s styles and bright colors.  And then of course the usual craziness on the haute couture runways.  That's why I prefer Chanel and Elie Saab.  Although their haute couture is still out there, it still looks semi-normal, especially Elie Saab's.  Many celebs have worn his couture on the red carpet! (Including Taylor Swift.)

Four fashion bloggers were featured in this issue of Teen Vogue, and I wanted to share one of them with you.  I checked out her blog just a bit ago.  And I think you should, too. ;)

http://www.abentpieceofwire.blogspot.com/

Her name is Justina Sharp, and she has a wicked cool sense of style.  It actually reminds me of some of the things Taylor Swift might wear on a casual day.  But she gets my j'adore stamp of approval.  I also liked reading about where her blog name came from.

Quoting from page 55 of Teen Vogue: "I was trying to decide on a name for my site, and my brother said, 'A clothing hangar is just a bent piece of wire.'" 

Cool, huh?  Well, I need to sign off.  A couple friends are sleeping over tonight, and I need to finish cleaning my room.

My 2013 Goals

I was just reading one of Mollie's latest blog posts, and she listed 5 goals of hers for 2013, so I decided to do the same!  Except, it might be more or less than 5.

1. Finish my NaNo novel.  I still haven't finished my 2011 NaNo novel, so I'm more determined than ever to finish my 2012 one.
2. Begin querying agents.  I can only do this once I've finished my NaNo book and self-edited.
3. Finish the school year with at least an A- in every subject.
4. Make several uncharacteristically brave decisions.

Writing Round-Up

So it's time for another writing round-up, where I list all my writing projects and my progress on them.  It's good for me because it lets me know how much I'm trying to tackle right now, and hopefully, it's interesting for all of you.

Active
Mixed Feelings
Teen Author
Cursed
Forever Mortal
MDBC fanfiction #2
Le Revenir (means The Return in French)

Dormant
Warrior cats fanfiction
Diary of a Homeschooler: Cassie
Competition
Shakespeare Retold

I'm working hard to finish up a couple of the active stories so I can work on the dormant ones again, and also start a couple new projects.  Teen Author is moving along fabulously.  I'm up to chapter nine, and the main plot problem is starting to really become evident.  I know when the book is going to reach the climax and sort of how things will resolve.  I just need to get to the point where they're all written.
Cursed is my Sleeping Beauty retelling.  I'm struggling a bit with it, to be honest.  I need to develop some more ideas for it before I go on.  It might become dormant soon.
That's all for now.  I need to go work on my history and algebra II homework.

What An Adorable Blog! Award

Another award, woo-hoo!



Now to answer the four questions...

Q1  If you were stranded on a beach in the middle of no-where, which three people would you have with you? 
Kate because she's good for pretty much anything, Hannah since she makes me laugh, and Heather Vogel Frederick so we could write awesome books together.

Q2  Which celebrity would you love to meet?

I'm sure everyone knows the answer to this.  Taylor Swift.

Q3  If you won one million ponds/euros/dollars - whatever, what would you spend it on?
College; a trip to Paris, London, Denmark, Finland, and Italy; Taylor Swift tickets, One Direction tickets, a nice house, fund some missionaries...

Q4  Pick two people you can't live without. 
My mom and one of my friends, but I'm not saying who, because I don't want anyone feeling left out.

Nominations
I'm too tired to have any reasons for nominating them, so this will be short and sweet.
Gabby's World
Hannah the Banana
Mollie's Musings
Hilda's blog

The Very Inspiring Blogger Award

So Seana nominated me for this about a week ago, and I'm finally getting around to doing something about it. xD

Rule 1: Thank the blogger who nominated you.

Thank you, Seana. :)

Rule 2: Place the award on your site.

To be done shortly.

Rule 3: Share 7 random things about yourself.

1. I'm allergic to sweet potatoes.
2. I have two history buffs for parents, and my favorite time periods are the late 1700s, the Victorian era, and the 1940s and 50s.
3. I have a giant flashlight that I verbally threaten people with on occasion.  If I was a superheroine/secret agent, it would be my weapon of choice.
4. I own around twenty different lip glosses.
5. I am not a Directioner; however, I like 1D's music and yes, I think the boys are cute.
6. I think if I'd stuck with the dance classes I took when I was little, I might've been able to become a dancer.
7. I'm a giant klutz, thus ruling out my ability to be a dancer or to even be remotely graceful.  Oddly enough, my high-heeled ankle boots give me better balance than flat shoes.

Rule 4: Nominate 15 blogs.  Let them know they've been nominated and how to accept the award.

I'm nominating....

Gabby's World: http://gabbyglitter.blogspot.com/
Hannah the Banana: http://hannah-thebanana.blogspot.com/
July A. Emmance: http://julyaemmance.blogspot.com/
Mollie's Musings: http://molliesmusingsblog.blogspot.com/

Well, I failed #4 since I can only nominate four people.  Off to add the award to my blog and notify Gabby, Hannah, July, and Mollie about their nomination!

This is an Uncreative Title...

There are no words to describe today.  It wasn't over the moon amazing, but it wasn't terrible either.  I'd like to think there were more high points than low points.  In Shakespeare, I think I earned my classmates' respect by spelling supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (you are allowed to ask why I had to spell it).  In algebra II, I got my test back, and I got a B, which I'm okay with.  And I got my history test back.  Of course that one's an A+, lol.  But now co-op is over until January. :( At least I have several social events with friends in the next month.  

Tomorrow: Christmas shopping!
Sunday: Christmas cookie baking (perhaps I'll blog about this on Much Ado about Food...?)
Monday: cookie exchange at Hannah's

Today through Monday should hopefully be four happy days.  Fingers crossed, and I'm praying so. :)

Writers: We're Often Inspired by...

Anything can inspire a writer.  But one place a writer can find a ton of inspiration from is his or her own life.

Hmm... ;)

NaNo, Day Twenty-Eight

Here we are, two lovely days away from NaNoWriMo being over for 2012.  And then we have another whole year to wait for it to come around again! :(

Last night, around 9 PM...

That's right, I won NaNoWriMo for my second year in a row!  And this time, I wrote 10,000 more words than last time.  I'm really proud of myself for getting to 50,000 words.

My book isn't done, though.  I'm just hoping I don't get into the same situation as last year where I didn't finish the book by November 30th, but I reached my word count goal.  Since then, I've only written 5,000 more words, and it's only 3/4 done.  Sigh.  I wish I could finish it. :P

Good luck, to all you NaNoWriMoers who are still writing!

NaNo, Day Twenty-Four

So, now I've officially raised my word count goal to 50,000...and I have to stick with that, because I'm pretty sure today or tomorrow is the last day to change it.

Word count: 44,127 words, and I think I might be done for the day
Song of the day: Still "Truly Madly Deeply".  I've listened to it probably about 50 times on YouTube today.

Not much else to say, except that we went to this little gift shop (it's kind of like a Hallmark) in our town, and I got a Christmas ornament.  My mom buys me one every year that kind of marks something important in my life since last Christmas.  This year's a silver, sparkly guitar with Taylor Swift's signature on it.  You press a button on the back and it plays "Long Live".

NaNo, Day Twenty-Three

Wow, NaNoWriMo is one week away from being over.  This month has just flown by!  Here are my stats since I last updated here.

Word count: 38,502 words (that includes some from today, but I'm not done writing yet)
Word count goal: 45,000 words (for a short time, I lowered it to 40,000, but when I wrote so much yesterday, I knew I could get 45,000 words easily by November 30th)
Song of the day: "Truly Madly Deeply" by One Direction.  Ever since I listened to this song, I've been like, "I don't know what life was like before this song..." I love it more than I love Taylor Swift's new album, and that's saying a lot.
Quote of the day: Black Friday: Because only in America, people trample each other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.

Good luck writing, everyone!  I hope you had great Thanksgivings yesterday, and if you're going shopping today...here's to good deals and avoiding injuries!