Life goes on

Life's been pretty much the same the past few days: I wake up, exercise, eat, watch some tv and go to bed. Rinse and repeat.

Currently I'm enjoying my last day of freedom, because my parents are coming back home tomorrow. To celebrate both their return and the easter holiday, I decided to make a smörgåstårta :D It's basically a cake but you use sandwiches for the layers and the filling is usually something salty (in my case I used ham, cream cheese and creme fraiche for the filling and tomatoes, cucumber and creme fraiche mixed with mayoonaisse for the top). Can't wait to taste it tomorrow :D

I also watched Forrest Gump for the first time today (about time!). The story progressed a bit slowly for my taste, but I loved the plot and all the characters nonetheless. I didn't really read the summary of the plot before watching it, so I didn't really know what to expect, but I definitely thought it was different from this - I'd kind of imagined the whole movie to have some kind of heavy action-war-chase story. Heh.

Also been doing slight revisions to my novel. Currently at page 82. It's slowly getting better, but I'm still having very big doubts as to whether it's current state is good enough for an agent to be interested in it.

Pie

Today I've been...

...baking this pie :D

...and revising this book (picture taken last November when I got the novel in physical format). A lot of the scenes in the beginning are shorter now, which I hope will let the story flow more smoothly :).

Exhibition

I was at the opening of an art exhibition yesterday, and the painting I did for art class was on display there :D

Also found out the last preliminary results for my finals today. I'm satisfied with all of them - now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my points won't be reduced in the official results that will be published at the end of May!

As for my novel, I finished the revision of it today :). It ended up 4 pages shorter than before the revision, and I hope that those removed pages will make the book a smoother read. I actually really like the last 100 pages, but still kinda dubious about the first 250 :P. I probably will be doing a second revision soon to see if I can rewrite any of the scenes that still bother me.
After that I'll have to make the big decision of whether to send it to a publisher or not. Eek!

Mudcake :D

I celebrated my newly acquired freedom by making a mudcake :D Yum!

I also borrowed a whole stack of movies from my brother, in case I happen to grow bored. Looking forward to some chillax-evenings in front of the TV!

I did revisions to one more chapter of my novel, but I kind of have mixed feelings about whether to try to publish it or not. I like the plot I created, but I feel I could have implemented it less cliché-y. I don't really want to rewrite the entire thing either - I'd rather just write a new novel with an even better plot and more interesting and consistent characters. But on the other hand, I'm not ready to depart from my two years long project quite yet...

Stress D:

150 pages of my novel are now revised :D (220 to go!). Still not entirely happy with some of the chapters, so I fear I will go through the beginning one more time after finishing the revisions of the full novel. It is moving in the right direction though :) And only 1 more week to go before I can devote all of my free time to this project!

Now, off to do some more math! The exam isn't until Friday, but we'll have to turn in our calculators and the book with all the formulas already on Thursday, meaning I can basically do math exercises only today and tomorrow morning. Eek!

Oh, and also, I've finally sent in my university applications :)! Unfortunately, the points I get from my Swedish and math exams are doubled when calculating the points for getting into my first choice university, and my Swedish exam didn't exactly go great, so I'm a bit worried that I might not get in after all. Of course, most of the points will be gained from the entrance exam, but the exam can't be prepared for, so I'm really afraid of failing it!

My math corner.

GW2

I really can't wait until April, because that's when Guild Wars 2 pre-purchases start (and buying it means that I will get access to all GW2 betas and a head-start when it comes to playing the actual game!)
Four/five years of waiting (can't remember when Arenanet first announced GW2, heh) is finally starting to pay off :D. Once I get my hands on that game, I fear I won't be leaving my computer for several days in a row.

I've also signed up for the March beta tests, but I have a feeling I won't get chosen since I'm competing against 1 million other people.

Revising my novel is steadily progressing - I'm currently at page 100 out of 375. I'm noticing that my writing style at the beginning of the book is more focused on descriptions and details, while the later half is more dialogue-oriented, so I'm actually getting to remove a lot of paragraphs from the beginning to make it more balanced. It feels nice to go back and edit the first parts of the story, because I never really was entirely satisfied with the first 70-100 pages, and because I still hadn't completely developed the characters' personalities by then, so now I get to make them less like generic dolls and more like themselves.

A picture of me in November, when I'd recently finished the novel and got it printed in paperback format:

Now I'm hoping that I'll one day be able to take a similar picture, but with a published version of the book :)

School, writing and sketches!

Had my English exam today. Two down, four to go.

I couldn't wait to start the revisions of my novel, so I've actually already began doing them (even though I planned to wait until the end of my exams). Now that I've had a break from writing/reading/proofreading that story for the past 3-4 months, I'm seeing it with new eyes again and noticing a lot of passages that have to be shortened or changed. I'll probably even have to completely rewrite some chapters toward the beginning. I usually hate having to go back and re-read my texts, as I'm dreading all the mistakes that I know I'll find there, but this time I'm actually looking forward to it because I really want this novel to be at its best when I send it off to agents/publishers.

I've also got another batch of sketches from a few days ago. I only had the energy to do two, because I was suffering from a terrible migraine that day.

Heh, the face sketch completely unintentionally ended up resembling Rihanna.

Art class, intending to publish and cinnamon rolls!

You might or might not remember that I had this huge final project for art class a while ago. The finished work can be found in this blog post.
Today we finally got our grades for our works - and I was delighted to find out that I got the highest grade for mine (meaning 5/5)!
The artworks done during this class will be displayed at our school until the end of the month, and then all of the works that got the highest grade will be displayed in an art exhibition in May :D!

Also, I've decided to start sending my finished novel to publishers soon. After the final exams are over, I'm going to do one last proofread of the story and then start looking into how getting published works. It feels nice to finally be able to move on after having the novel just laying around on my hard drive for the past six months. I'm pretty excited for this, since I've been dreaming about this ever since I first started writing novel-length stories back in 7th grade. My hopes for getting published on my first try aren't exactly high, but I know that this experience will teach me a lot. If nothing else, it will motivate me to keep writing better.

Yesterday I made low-carb cinnamon rolls. Mom didn't really like them, but I'm completely in love with them! Even brought one with me as lunch for the final exam today.

Speaking of the final exam, I think it went so-so. I'm mostly worried that I might have wandered a bit off-topic.

Gonna stop writing now before this migraine kills me.

Done!

The picture for art class is finally finished and e-mailed off to the printing house!

Basically, what's changed is that I polished some details and tweaked the colors and contrast.

And as for writing, I managed to type down 72 words yesterday. It's not a mind-blowing amount, but still better than zero.

Drawing

Started on a new painting today. We'll see whether I'll finish it or not.

Also, I did manage to write today! A whooping total of 350 words. Now I'll just have to coach myself to do the same every day.. :P

School again

Can't say I've missed having to wake up at 6.25 every morning. Why can't school start at 10 :D? Guess I can only blame myself for taking so many classes this semester.

To make the most of my last day of freedom, I used basically the whole day yesterday to finished one of my half-finished paintings. The unfinished version of this painting can be found in my previous post, though beware - I did quite a lot of changes along the way.

Earlier today I had my driving lesson, and we went to a skid pan to practice driving during slippery conditions. There's only one word to describe the experience: horrifying! I seriously hope not to have to experience any of that scary sensations of completely losing control of the car when I start driving on my own.

And now, 597 words of novel-writing later, I'm going to go tackle some homework and then I'm off to the gym. Hopefully I'll have time for some more drawing afterwards :D

Sketches part II

I completely forgot to write on my novel yesterday, so I wrote 1200 words this morning to compensate for it.

And now, here are the rest of the sketches and stuff, as promised :).

2010

For the painting above, I used this photomanipulation by Julia Starr as reference: Click me.

For the next one I just googled a random photo that I used as reference.

And some more The Crystal fanart. In 2010 me and my cousin started working on another novel called Frost, set in the same world as The Crystal, but with different characters. I did a lot of Frost art this year, and the character on the next three pictures is one of the main characters, Astraea. The last picture features Aivycelon and Treicina.

2011

The picture above is actually the cover that I made for my first (and only) novel Nightmare, which my dad took to his cousin who works at a printing office, so I now have my novel in physical form in my bookshelf :D

 This is an alternative, colored version of the painting that's on my blog header, but I ended up choosing the blue and yellow version instead. The full header-painting can be found on my DA page: Click here

 For the painting above, I used a photo that I found on Deviantart as reference. Unfortunately, I lost the link to that photo.

The image above and on the right is actually only a few weeks old, so I'm still debating whether to finish it or not.

And, last but not least, some compulsory The Crystal fanart :D

Summer job

I sent my first application for a summer job this afternoon :D. I'm going to try to apply to as many places as possible and hope I get chosen for at least one, because I'm in a desperate need of money.

Also, I wrote a total of 2344 words yesterday and today, which means that I finally passed the 50 page mark! I also found a whole bunch of sketches, studies and half-finished paintings on my computer that I'm gonna sort through tomorrow and possibly post a few.

Heading off in half an hour to grab a few drinks with two friends of mine. Tried to curl my hair for once, but I kind of failed at that, so now my hair is kind of half-wavy, half-curly and completely messy. Oh well, practice makes perfect. Better luck next time :D
Besides, I got lazy with my outfit and just threw on the same clothes I used when I went out with my cousin. Shame on me.

Cancelled

My driving lesson this morning got cancelled again. It's not the fact that I don't get to drive that bothers me the most, it's the fact that my driving instructor won't bother notifying me, causing me to make a trip to the driving school completely in vain. Well, at least he had a good excuse for not showing up so I'm not blaming him.

Yesterday's total amount of words written ended up being only 1000, and I doubt I'll write much more today. My goal currently is to write at least 350 words every day, so as long as I manage to do that, the novel should be coming along in a decent pace.

Also, I got my fringe cut today so that it wouldn't be covering my eyes anymore :D. And now I'm just waiting around to get to leave for the gym.

Another regular day

I managed to write a total of 3000 words yesterday, even though I did stay up until 1 am to finish the chapter I was working on. I'm now at a total of 13 000 words, which is a little more than a tenth of what I'm aiming for (100 000 words), so it's coming along really well :)!

I was supposed to have a driving lesson today, but the driving school cancelled on me. Again. I think this was the sixth lesson that was cancelled for one reason or another. Getting a driver's license is starting to feel like a project that will never come to an end.

I also tried out a recipe for home-made ice cream, which turned out a lot better than expected. I've made ice cream before, but I actually think I prefer this new recipe :D.

I ended up making strawberry ice cream even though my favorite flavor is chocolate :P

Monday

I did manage to write some yesterday and today morning - a total of 2900 words, which translates to roughly 9 pages. Was bored in the afternoon, so I did my first painting of this year, a speed paint that took about 2 hours to do, so it's basically just a quick doodle.

I'll be leaving in 10 minutes to get some drinks with my cousins. Really looking forward to spend time with them, since I don't really meet them on other occasions than birthday parties and such family occasions. Hopefully I'll manage not to spend too much money this evening, heh. Pardon my messy room in these photos!

Brownies!

I really wanted to make something to satisfy my sweet tooth, so I found a recipe for low-carb brownies that I decided to try out (I follow the low carb high fat diet). I must admit that I didn't have much faith in the recipe at first, especially since the dough tasted kind of awful, but the final product turned out quite yummy!

Now I'm going to try to get some pages written in my novel. I made a promise to finish my second novel this year, so I'd better get working. Getting started is just always the hardest part - once I hit page 100 or so, the writing process speeds up a great deal. Right now I've been stuck on page 20 of this novel for two months. I've just got to force myself to sit down and start writing, or I'll never get forward in the story.