Starting to get back to me.

Last night my suspicions that my art block might be finally be getting over have been confirmed. I was given a special mention in an art contest that had many lovely entries. :}

I personally loved how the crescent moon turned out so I was over the moon -or as I said to a friend 'So I'm happy as a beaver on Meth and as High as a kite with rockets.'-  that it was also appreciated by the judges. :D

This morning I was still very much up in the clouds that when I read a post in my suggest some words for me thread I could not resist to write a little story with them. 

The Words; 
Color; Aquamarine. I like all the 'a' sounds in it. Also, "aqua" and "marine" are both related to water. I like water. ^^" 
Animal; Hippopotamus. It is fun to say because of all the p's. 
Day of the Week; Sunday. Because it is.. sunny? 
Piece of Clothing; Knickerbockers, because it sounds hilarious. 
Emotion; Delight... it's a cute word, and reminds me of the way Hamish & Andy (radio hosts) say it. 
Word in general; Philosophical? Or monotonous? I suppose I like the repeat sounds in them. 

The story; 
Once one sunny Sunday afternoon in the Land of Aquamarine, a boy named Hippopotamus Graze ran down the embankment that was kept to keep the waters from the bay flowing into Town. Hippopotamus -or Tamus as he was mostly called- was the most flailing little boy one could ever lay there eyes upon. There was not a second to be seen to him he was not moving about or -as this moment- away from something. 
He tossed himself down in the grass in a movement so grandeur it was completely beyond what his form would make you believe he could. He knew his mother would complain about the stains on his Sunday's best jacket and knickerbockers. He was even more certain that she would give him a Speech of great Philosophical meaning, that by now she had said so many times she said it in quite a monotonous way he could recite it himself as was it a nursery rhyme. But lying here looking at the clouds Slowly moving in and out of Town was such true delight for him. When he did that the voices that always plagued him would subside and let him be there just being him. :}    

Now I can't help but wonder what other mischievousness dear Tamus might be up too. :D

Happy (Not) Ending of the World. Now go Back to Work.

As stated above, the end of 21-12-2012 is approaching. So unless something major happens in the next few hours, we can safely assume that those doomsday thinkers that interpreted the ending of the Maya calender as an indication to the destruction to life or even the world as a bit of the candle. 
Plus I had one conclusion today, as of today I have run in to every single one of the people that were in my class the year Frankie died. And I'm good. :}

Even though I'm a fantasy writer I have always failed to understand peoples obsession with the end. I prefer to focus on the here and now. Even if that means I have a whole lot to still finish. Still working on planning everything for my story's ... never knew so many stories existed over there. I will seriously have to sit down in the new year and draw all of the world maps, that way when I place people at a certain location it isn't miraculously placed on the other end of the continent. Plus clothes, weapons, technology, housing, places and culture will all have to be documented. So I fear I'll have a whole lot that needs to be done before I can really write scenes again. What won't be stopping me from writing random things down, even if there is like a 6000 year gap between the one story and an other. Guess that really is half the fun. :)

Also my snooping about on the MagicTales Forum is really helping me with getting some tips and tricks I never even thought about using but who are most likely great tools to get everything done. And if I don't like them or they don't really help nothings lost.

My dream for the next year is to have at least one short story finished of this world.
Now all I have to do is figure out which of the hundred of stories I'll do. :}

So between these stories and my life as a whole I'll have one heck of a job to do.

I made it and I failed

In the end I was able to claim a winner bar at Nano, but I had to rebel to make it.
As in total I've written nearly 100k of words in November but not even 25k of that was in my story. So making it has left me with mixed feelings and a drive to do better next year. :}
Poorly as I am still getting tired really fast my writing speed is still not up to par with what I expect of myself. I swear if I develop chronic fatigue because of this stomach flu I had I'll be really peeved.
This also had as a result that I was unable to finish my manuscript for Luitingh / Magictales manuscriptwedstrijd.
I will keep a track on the site to see how my fellow writers that did make it to the deadline are doing.
This does mean I will have more time to spend on making my story, my world and all the nutcases that sojourn over there, do as i say. :D
I know I'll finish this story and all the other ones in the world, for crying out loud I finally understand why there is a petrified ship on top of that mountain. How can I not write it down. :)

A year of nothings everything and a lot of planning.

It's been nearly a year since I've posted here last. Not that nothing happened, it's more that too much has happened what made me not find the time to type it all down. :}
So here I am trying to write nano again. I say trying as the moment I was planning to start writing on the first my subconscious decided that it didn't want to write the story I had planned. No it wanted to write something completely different. After battling it out for a whole week getting a whopper of a migraine to prove it, I finally gave in and asked my sub why the change in plan. It told me that where Markater's Elysium is a prologue to 7th crossing, Birth of the Chrystal Witch is the first real story in the world that explains the essence of all the powers. Realizing this made more sense, I shelved Markater's for later and started to plan out the Chrystal Witch. I had everything planned on the 12th what gave me more than enough time to finish, then I exploded... Or better said I was struck down with a massive case of the stomach flu. 
Now with only 6 days till the deadline of nano and 12 days till I want to have this story done I have a word count of 0. 
But I will prevail, I want that winner bar.
Wish me luck. :D

Did Nano again.

Apparently what I needed to get out of this rut I have bin in ever since March, was to just plant my ass in front of a laptop and hammer 50 000 of the nearly 700k of words that were all clogging up in my head. I feel almost light headed now even though I know I have only scratched the surface. The MC's of this nanovel had no intention to do, say or be the characters I thought I had thought up. I mean my Eager, Smart, Cocky, single-child Male protagonist ended up as an Easy, Somewhat Idiot, Overly Friendly, Older Brother who at most times made me yell 'How can you be 21 and that stupid' to my screen. I mean it, I yelled.

Once again I made it, with a day to spare. :)

And as I promised myself last year I took more than 10 days for it. 17 is a good number too.

This is one of the sequels to last years novel *I Promise*. I say one as this is book 6 in the series and it was supposed to be the last but I already know what is going to happen in books 7 and 8. I still need to finish this one, re-write I promise and put down more than who has sex with who about books 2-5. Seems I have found my life's work.

A little late update.

Although a lot has happened in my life, I realized that I had very little interest to actually put it in a blog. :)

So I'll give a small recap of the last two months and I'll try a better attempt in keeping thins up to date.

First the Open Air Painting festival was a blast. I only went for one day and made three small pieces. As it was being held in a City that I know really well so there were spots that I have always wanted to paint.

I went to the gallery that was 'Festival Center', there I registered and got my participant card,my cap and a number 12 brush that I desperately needed. So for me it started as a good day. At first I decided to paint Town Hall. After spreading all my stuff around me I just zoned out the world around me. What makes it fun is that Town Hall is a big tourist attraction so a lot of people came by and ask me what I was doing. I explained and continued.

Than out of the blue, I was mixing colors to get the right shade of gray for the column's, this one woman leans over and just snaps at me. "That is not the proper color." Being insulted I snapped back. "Well it's also not your painting." The woman turned a very interesting shade of red and after an apologies from her husband I finished the piece.

By the other two locations it was more that the first spot was a busy tourist location so I kept getting questions about the statue behind me. Good thing I had paid attention. :)

The final spot was in front of some restaurants and there were some drunk students getting there blood alcohol content up to illegal levels. There were some very interesting things yelled at.

But the most adorable of the third location was that at a certain moment this, I believe two year old, kid walks up to me and says "My Daddy says you are a painter, I think you are an artist, who's right?" I couldn't help but smile. "Well although I'm painting right now the correct thing is to call me an artist as I am being artistic." The kid looks at me for a second nods then turns back to his father and yells over the plaza. "Daddy you are dumb, Painters are artist. So it's both, I won. Now I want my ice-cream." That will learn that parent never to bet with his child ever again.

Two days after that the Festival organizers held an auction for all the pieces that were unsold. As I work in acrylic and not in oil paint I knew the interest for my pieces would be less. Take in account that they are really small and I knew there was only a very small chance for them to be sold. What I also had not suspected is that even though I had clearly put my alias on the tag and paintings the organization had put my real name on the name-tags under them. You loose a lot of fun in things if the one thing you keep hearing is "Hey I thought that name belonged to that guy that paints those nature pieces?" mostly followed by a "Well the style's completely different don't think anybody will believe they are related. Pretty sad if you need to use a known name." I do not use that name!!! I just happen to have it, I also paint and I have my own Style. Deal with it.

So I took my mom to the auction, she was raised in that world so I knew she'd like it. We took our spot n a corner, watching the auctioneer go through the pieces and trying to get people interested in buying. My mom asked me why I hadn't invited my Best Friend to the event and I told her I hadn't thought she would have the time, but after I called she said she'd come right over. At a certain point while waiting for my friend to arrive, I told my mom that the worst part about them putting my real name under it was that most people would probably mispronounce my first name. I Had not yet finished saying that or the auctioneer leans towards one of my pieces and indeed says my name wrong. I thought that to be so funny I started to laugh out loud.

The man recognized my mother and asked her how her name was supposed to be pronounced, she pointed at me and said. "This idiots name is pronounced Like Jazzy not like Easy." The man felt so embarrassed that he decided to make it up to me by having me go around the crowd to show it to everybody. I hate having to do things like that.

Nobody bid, I think it was more because of the faces I was pulling than because of my work.

Once my piece was back on the wall and a small break was announced my friend arrived and of course the first thing my mom had to tell her was that.

The rest of the auction we joked about a bit, I told her about the pieces I really liked and she told me which pieces she thought were best. She introduced herself as my 'girl'friend to most people, I told her that I was a bit uncomfortable with people assuming that we were dating so I kept saying "We are just friends, she lives with her boyfriend." My friend has the tendency to claim everything what is usually fun, but not if you are trying to show yourself as a capable single adult.

That was it for the Painter festival I will do my best and add the other things later too.

The next step.

After getting in contact with my Beta and going over most of my story's, I sent her a piece that I would like to see some improvement.

To be honest any painting and writing and drawing has all bin done at night in the back of the living-room. I never used to be scared of the world and it's view yet since I came to realize that the images in my mind are the pieces of me I want to devote my life to will make me put there where everybody thinks the right to judge.

So at first I made a Deviantart account and started to put some of my doodles online. The positive feedbacks that I got on those made me feel a lot more comfortable in my artistic skin. The conversations I had with some made me get the feeling to create.

Now I have decided to also try and get my name out and put my foot between the door on my painting. So I got myself accepted in an Open Air Painter Event and I am scared stiff. I haven't painted in the open air in years. I'll make an update with my stuff.<3