Good Morning! Good News!

Well, not exactly good morning, as it is the middle of the afternoon, but Good Afternoon! Good News! does not a pleasing post title make. Anyway, I'm absolutely 100% positive that in the future someone will be reading this in the morning.

Maybe it's you. Are you the one?

If you are, hi! If you aren't…still hi!

Despite the rest of my week being rather irritatingly crappy, or perhaps just irritating, today has been Le Awesomés.

==>End egregiously warped French.

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that NO SCHOOL FRIDAY! :) Yeah, teachers' meeting or something. Don't know, don't care. However, the fact that I got to sleep until, er, six thirty instead of six fifteen was incredibly pleasing. Also, I got to lay in bed with my laptop—

"Don't you do that every morning?"

I was about to say, I got to lay in bed with my laptop for much longer than usual. Also, I received a coffee from my dearest, darlingest mother.

Oh! And I went clothes shopping and didn't hate every last minute of it! That's incredibly unusual for me. Maybe it had something to do with my successful discovery of the missing pieces of my Rose Halloween costume. No, not Rose Tyler. Rose Lalonde. (Major spoilers there, though! Do not click link if you ever have the slightest urge to read Homestuck! It is an extremely spoilerific webcomic.)

"But Omnia," you might protest, "Halloween is a month away! Surely you could have waited a little while?"

"No," I would tell you. "No, I can't. Because Saturday, September 31st is Archon, and I will not be going to my first real con without a suitable costume."

Also, I got Coraline on DVD and Psychology for Dummies from the library. Today was a good day.

Another Dream

Last night, I had a pretty cool but very demented dream. All right, it was this morning during my 10 AM catnap.

Anyway, I went to this restaurant with a group of people. The only ones I can remember were my dad and this kid in a pastel blue-and-yellow striped shirt, like he just stepped out of a Dr. Suess book. Maybe my mom was there too. I can't remember.

From the outside, the building just looked like a normal, one-floor turquoise house, without a sign for the restaurant or anything.

Just after we were seated, I got up to take a look around, because apparently there was a whole mall-type place in that one little building. After wandering about for an unknown amount of time and going up and down so many staircases trying to find my way back to the group, I walked out onto a balcony above a store that looked suspiciously like the Guinness Brewery gift shop, except it sold everything you could ever need. Creepy, right?

I asked a clerk how to get back to the restaurant, but even after following her directions I still hadn't found my way back to the restaurant, but then my dad and Dr. Suess guy appeared, looking for me. They led tried to help me get back to the restaurant, but then we came upon a Haunted Mansion hallway that we had to run through, although it was strangely empty.

But then a giant freaking powder blue train came out of nowhere—veeeeery slowly—and for some reason the little boy had to…drive the train, I guess? I don't know what happened. Then I got a magical artifact that I have no recollection of whatsoever, and then I woke up.

No, no, I didn't really wake up. I wasn't even in my bedroom. And now a fairy was there, too.

I don't remember exactly what happened next, but then Daddy Dearest and the little boy showed up again, and apparently the fact that the train had been moving slowly was important. And soon after that, I woke up.

That's it. It was pretty cool, if pointless.

How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing

*pokes blog* 

Well, I haven't really updated in a while. I must rectify this by telling you a fabulous (and pretty long) tale of adventure, writing, heartbreak, and revenge. The title of the story is How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing, which also happens to be the title of the post. Fancy that. 

Still have no idea what those numbers mean. I got the picture off Wikipedia.

Yes, a few years ago I was in 4-H. It might just be me, but it wasn't quite as exciting as TV would have you believe. But then I found out that there was a category for the fair for creative writing, and everything was happiness and rainbows and smiling clouds.

And then I found out that for a first year in said category, the word limit was 400 words.

400 words. 

I couldn't write squat in 400 words. Well, it was a long time ago and my writing skills weren't that developed yet. I could write pretty long stuff, but short stories were kind of beyond me. What a foolish, naive child I was.

But I tried. In the end, I had to count some of the words as images and leave a few things out of my word counting in order to stay within limits. I think I had maybe 399 words after that. There's no rule against cheating a tiny bit, is there?

"Actually, there is. That's why it's called cheating."

I slid past the judges at the township fair, which qualified me to go to the county fair. My general outlook on the situation was "W00T! I'm the best!"

After judging was over at the county fair, I skipped into the fine arts building to receive my enormous trophy and check for $1 bazillion dollars. Imagine my surprise to find that my story—the one I had worked so freaking hard to make the most brilliant 400 word story at the whole fair—had gotten a red ribbon.

"Lacks character development," they said.

"Lacks brain cells," I said.

To be fair, it was pretty crappy. Probably the stupidest thing I've written since the Little Kitten books. *shudder* I just couldn't see it through my rose-tinted pride-glasses and childish hubris.

The next year, I was determined to win. I had been left a bitter husk by the critiquing of my little Cinderella story. Contributing to the bitter-husk-factor was the fact that the drawing that I had worked on for hour had gotten a freaking white ribbon. Because the stones were uneven. That's how they are in medieval castles. Geez… Looking back on it, I probably could have done the stones a little better. I think my nostalgia goggles are falling apart.

This year, I could write 500 words. Apparently, a hundred little words can make a huge difference. Or maybe I was just better at writing a year later.

I spent hours—or maybe it was only about twenty minutes, as I was quite an impatient child—writing up detailed character bios for characters I ended up cutting. For those of you keeping track at home, this makes the most character info I have ever written before actually writing the story. In the end, I didn't actually use most of the information I invented. I cut swathes of details, leaving me with three major characters and two minor, which is two more characters than I had the year before.

It paid off. I would have gone to the State Fair, that unattainable epitome of 4-H prowess, 'cept creative writing doesn't have a State Fair category.

Oh well. I got a purple honor ribbon in photography, at least.

We here at Newfallen Mystery Enterprises hope you have enjoyed this random and fairly self-centered excursion into Miss Clepe's backstory while she procrastinates on writing. Cheers!