Right when I’m thinking about new beginnings for myself, I saw the quote above retweeted by someone I follow. It really hit a chord with me, so let me tell you why.

Nothing is easy in life, but it is very easy to be led astray. Plans you made years ago just don’t work out, friends come and go; life happens and it can be ugly. Back when I graduated high school, my plan was to go to college, get an English degree, marry my high school sweetheart and then travel overseas and teach English in Japan. Looking back, only one of those things happened:  I went to college. But it’s ok. I did graduate – even if it was with a degree that’s done jack besides getting me a job.  A job at which I made new friends, and settled me into a new city that I didn’t really feel at home at. Now I can say, even though I still miss Florida, North Carolina is home. While none of all those other plans worked out for me, my life is pretty decent with a roof over my head, an awesome husband, and a job I love.

Life is full of ups and downs, and as one of my favorite artists sings “You can’t have the nice without the mean,You can’t have the good times without the hard times in-between.”  I’ve heard this around before but and I take it to heart: how are you suppose to know when you’ve got it good, if you haven’t had it bad? Bad things don’t always happen for a reason, but they can lead you to a change in your life that you may have needed.  I don’t want to promise that everything will be fine in the end if things turn badly because sometimes, they don’t; but most of the time, life can get better – if you’re willing to work for it.

My views on fate and destiny are very skewed. Yes, I believe that we each have a plan/fate/destiny that we’re working to fulfill, but if you want something, and want it badly enough, there’s nothing stopping you from accomplishing your dreams but yourself. Dreams are hard to reach. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be dreams that are out there with the stars. They’d be leaves, or lint balls, anything that’s a dime a dozen and so common you don’t think twice about.  We have to work hard and put effort and energy into our dreams or one day it’s too late, and you think back “I could have done this or that. I really wish I had…” Live and work towards your goals and try your hardest, so that you have no regrets.

Dreams that I’m working towards:

• Being a healthy weight - this is my hardest dream, and the one I struggle with everyday.  I’m 50 lbs overweight and I’ve been trying to lose this weight for the better part of two years. I don’t have the money for any of those fancy programs like Jenny Craig or Weight Watcher, and definitely not able to afford a personal trainer, so all this has been on my own. This is usually what happens: by mostly watching what I eat, and I mean strictly, I’ll lose 5-9 lbs. But when I see that I’ve done so well I think, “Well, I can have just one cookie. I’ve been really good, one cookie won’t hurt.” But that one cookie turns into five, a box of doughnuts, fast food runs – and it’s all down hill from there.  I’ve been going back and forth like crazy, and just a few weeks ago, I nearly hit 180 lbs again. My goal weight is 145 lb. I’ve finally said enough is enough! This is what I’m doing about it: I watch what I eat, but not to the point where I’m crazy about it. I try and make healthier choices, smaller portions, and NO soda. I keep fast food and fried food to a minimum. I snack on almonds and sunflower seeds, I carry a water bottle and USE it all day. The Hubby and I go down to the gym (provided by our apartment complex, no extra charge) every morning. 15 – 20 minuets of cardio, my favorite is the treadmill, followed by a circuit of the weight machines.  It’s difficult trying to lose weight, but if you fall and gain some back, just find where you went wrong and try again, and again, until you reach your goal.
• Finishing a novel - I enjoy writing, but I find it hard to continue through and complete one project. I tend to jump back and forth between three or four of my WiPs. I’m trying to complete Grimm right now, but NaNo plots keep popping in my head. I just jot down these on a notepad and keep on typing.
• Going to Japan – While I no longer wish to teach English in Japan, I still really want to visit, and maybe even move there. It’s a dream that I’m afraid to lose. But it’s just another of life’s ups and downs. We save and save, but something comes along and takes a nice chunk out of the money. It’s kinda like the beginning of that Disney movie UP, minus the baby bit. The hubby and I are afraid it may not happen. What we’re doing about it? We try and save what we can, before we make big purchases we weight the options and ask ourselves: do we really need it? could we live with out it?

I find living life one of the hardest things I do everyday, just dealing with all the ups and downs, the crazy twists and turns. But even though it’s hard,  I’m happy to have this chance at life. Because I know that there are others out there that don’t have this chance; that don’t have the option or abilities to fulfill their dreams. I’ll help those I can and I’ll live my life to the fullest, enjoying the good times and all the hard times in-between.

Music above is Matt Butcher & The Revolvers “On My Mind”

In preperation for NaNo, I’ve been thinking about plots. I had a few picked out with two leading the group as great possiblities. Those two were:

• Sequeal to Grimm Aspects: Grimm Mistakes – All I’ve got for this idea was that I’d be introducing werewolves to the story line and the war between the factions insue. Main characters switch to Lucas and Auburn, with Lucas being the POV focus.
• Character inherits a house and it’s current tenent: a demon or a vampire. 

I have some reservations about starting the sequeal to Grimm Aspects when the first draft of that piece isn’t anywhere near finished. I feel that the elements of Grimm could change so drastically that starting Grimm Mistakes would be a bad idea.

The second possiblity wasn’t much, but it’s hit a strong chord within me. I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out what I could do to spice it up. Divorcee with kids, family issues, a whole nest of vampires; none of it seemed to fit. So the other night, I took a trip through the Adopt a Plot thread to see if anything I read would spark an idea, and it did.

Here is my idea for NaNoWriMo 2010: The Set of Skeleton Keys

After accepting the inheritance that her grandfather left her, Mary Brooks must pass a series of tests to prove that she is worthy of taking her grandfather’s place as the Grim Reaper’s assistant.

Mary is an antisocial young woman whose only real “friend” is her social butterfly older sister and her trickster mentor-ish grandfather, who has recently passed on. Her grandfather leaves her his shop, which Mary can’t recall ever having seen before with the instructions to “have fun.”
She then finds out that her grandfather was a sort of Grim Reaper’s assistant, and now that he’s dead, she has to pass a series of tests before she can take over his job of helping Lost Souls to move on. Her only assistance comes in the form of a few cryptic clues her grandfather left around the shop and one less than helpful demon who has managed the shop in the grandfather’s absence.

I’ve got my rough outline finished and currently, I’m working on completing character sheets for the main characters, Mary and Apollo (the demon- though, I’m not sure if that’s going to be his name or not). After these are completed, I’ll start work on a phase outline, reward system, and graphics for the NaNo site.

Here’s a quick definition from NaNoWriMo.org:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

It’s July now and it’s time for me to get to planning! I will make the 50,000 word count this year. I WILL!! Well, I hope that I will. Last year was a success and a fail at the same time. I made it as far as ever have into NaNo, 16,000 words, but that was still 34,000 words short!

So here are my calculations for 2010:

November 2010 = 30 days =50,000 /4 weeks =12,500 words a week (6 days) = roughly 2,000 per day.

If I can break my story into the 4 Sequences (parts) of 12,500 words each, that will be my weekly goal, with me trying for a daily goal of 2,000 words.   …Yikes.

My first step to preparing for NaNo is to start thinking about what story ideas I have lurking around my brain that I’d be comfortable writing for a month. My second step is kick up writing on my current Work in Process, and start trying to hit 2,000 words a day.

Is any one else going to do NaNo this year? Let me know and we can start planning together!

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• A and J, thanks for always listening to me gripe about the crap that goes on in my life.
• S and E, you girls give me strength when I have none and inspire me to work towards my biggest dream.
• Josh, thanks for putting up with me being so fickle and for those long nights you let me write in peace.

A change is coming in my life.  I’m switching jobs and I suddenly feel so much lighter, happier than I’ve been in a while. I’m excited too because my new job is closer to home and means that I won’t have to spend so much time driving to and from work!

I also got comments back on the rewrite of the first couple of chapters of Grim, and well, S and E said it’s ‘45.2 million times better’! There are things that needs to be tweaked, like with all first drafts, but now I know I  can move on! I can’t wait to sit down and write, and I’m plan to spend most of the weekend doing just that!

Thursday, Apr 1st, 2010 – Although nothing seems easy today, you are able to draw energy from a deep well of confidence. You might not even know where you are getting your self-assuredness from, but you don’t have the time to get lost in endless analysis. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have a long-term plan; just aim high and do the best you can. It’s more important to be doing something productive than thinking about what you could do in the future.

I don’t know what’s been happening lately, but my horoscopes have been dead on. Crazy…

As many of you already know, I went down to Florida for the Mega-con convention.  It was, needless to say, a blast.

I flew down to Florida on the Wednesday before the con. Kri’s husband was very nice and picked me up from the airport – saving me from an extremely expensive taxi ride to the hotel.  After a quick stop to drop off some books and pick up Kri, we went to dinner at Wa before they took me to my hotel. Wa was an amazing experience and the food was absolutely to die for! Definitely going there again on my next visit to Florida.

Thursday was set-up day for the con.  After a 2 hour wait in line (and we were there early!) we finally got our truck up to the loading docks.  We had a little help in unloading the pallets, but once we got everything to our booth location, we dug right in and worked straight through to 8pm – when we just about collapsed from exhaustion and hunger! Let’s just say that the hot tub came in handy that night!

Friday morning we finished setting up and the doors opened at 1pm. From then on – it was non stop. Just a whirlwind of activity! I got to meet Mr. Picardo on one of my breaks that afternoon! It kinda surprised me because I was just walking around the dealers room with my camera,turned a corner, and there he was sitting at the Vulcan Event’s booth.  He was really nice and I ended up getting a signed print and photo of him.

Later, after the dealers room had closed for the night, I went out with my in-laws to Tijuana  Flats and Coldstone. It was fun catching up with them and seeing them. I got to hear a bunch of new stories about my new little nephew.

When I got back to the hotel, I ended up in the bar with my booth manager. We talked about the day, and how the show was going. I got a bit tipsy, but had tons of fun when we ended up  talking with some of the top names in the comic industry who’d ended up in the bar that night too!

Saturday night was the night of the Rave – which was alright. The DJ wasn’t the greatest, but I enjoyed getting to rave again. Rave dancing is one of my favorites, probably because it’s such a free form of expression.

Sunday was the longest day of them all. Not only did we have to get up early after a long-ish night at the rave, but after the show closed at 5pm, we had to completely breakdown our booth and load our truck back up.  The good news was we’d sold a pallet and a half worth of merchandise at the show, and that was one less pallet we had to pack!

Overall, I felt like the show was a success. I got to meet a fair number of artists, make some new contacts for work, I even ran into a few friends from college that I hadn’t planned on seeing! I loved getting to see some of the stars that were there and all the cosplayers in their inventive, and sometimes revealing, costumes.

Once I get through all the business cards and flyers I got, I’ll post a new page with links to my favorites. I have to share the love,  ‘artist’ is a hard career to follow!

I think I may just need to concede to the fact that I am NOT a morning person.  Let me stay up to all hours of the night and I’m fine.  That’s actually the best time for me to write, surrounded by the dark and quiet apartment.  I don’t know, I usually write about vampires, so maybe that also has something to do with it. Anyway, I’m just going to end up pushing everything back until I can get it done.

I receive my Horoscope everyday by email, and today really just hit the mark so I thought I might share with you.

General Daily Horoscope Influences

We may still be floating in the boundless fantasies spurred by the early morning conjunction of beautiful Venus and dreamy Neptune. But Venus and the Sun each make tough aspects to passionate Pluto, demanding that we give consideration to emotionally intense consequences of expressing our desires. But the Moon continues her visit to uplifting Sagittarius, helping us overcome the negativity that can temporarily stand between us and our success.

Aries : Monday, Feb 8th, 2010 – You might not be willing to justify your feelings today just because someone asks for an explanation. The truth is that your emotions are not subject to logic and analyzing them only detracts from your experience. Instead of attempting to make sense of your desires now, just share them when it’s appropriate without trying to get others to voice their approval. Remember, you don’t need anyone else’s permission to be yourself.

Fun, huh? Though, to be honest I’ve always had a very hard time applying logic to my feelings and expressing them to others.

On another completely random note: Fate is something that I believe in. I believe that everything happens for reason, but I also believe that you have the power to change your fate if you out forth the effort to. Nothing can be set in stone, and that if you will it to it be, what ever you wish for could come to pass.  I don’t mean to get all metaphysical on you, but things from my past are finding their way to my present. They remind me of who I used to be and add to who I am now.  I believe that I’ve found something that I’ve looking for.  And if I can straighten a few other things in my life, I will be very happy.

I spent my chilly weekend indoors mostly, watching TV with Josh and anime on my computer. I caught up on Tegami Batchi which I’m really liking, and I started and finished Nabari no Ou. I was bawling at the end of it. THAT is how awesome it was. I completely fell in love with Yoite’s character and Miharu’s evil side. If you’re into anime I would highly recommend watching Nabari.

The AMV I’m posting today is a Nabari no Ou AMV, because I’m still craving more of it. >.>

[AMV] Nabari no Ou – Meant to Live by AlaenaNight

Anyway, on to Grim Aspects update. I’ve figured out Gabrielle and Adrian’s characters for the most part. I’m currently working on Nathan’s (antagonist) and I’m also trying to work out my Three Act Structure – which is not going so well…hopefully I will get it figured out soon.

In other news…well, there isn’t much really. This week has just been another cycle of work, house work, and anime. I’m currently watching Shugo Chara! which is just complete crack.  And I’m slowly compiling a list of anime that I want to see/need to finish.  Here it is in the order I’m goin gto attempt to watch it in:

• Shugo Chara! – Currently watching
• Nabari no O
• Darker than Black: Ryusei no Gemini
• NANA – seen some, would like to finish
• Skip Beat!
• Spice and Wolf
• Pandora Hearts
• Zero no Tsukaima – I’ve seen the first and part of the second series; would like to rewatch and finish.

Progress with my novel is going slowly. >.> I’ve been too caught up in anime but, I don’t think this is too much of a bad thing.  I do this shuffle between different activities, (writing, art, craft, anime, manga), I work on one, move on to the next, and by the time I get round to, let’s  say writing, again my mind is fresh with ideas for the story and characters.  So, I don’t see it as a waste of time but, I did wish I could complete this little cycle faster.  Gabrielle’s character sheet is almost done. There’s just a few more questions that need to be answered.  Then, I think I may do one for Adrian.

Anyway, on to the AMV. I know that’s what you really want. I’ve chosen Empty Motion by Nikolakis because of it’s upbeat nature…really need to kick up the enthusiasm today. This AMV has a total of 75 different anime and is to the song Love gun by Aya Hirano ???. It’s very well made, so enjoy!