Snow is turning into a four letter word around here.
Author: Laura Highcove
Stories told again
One of the things that always kept me from wanting to ever think about getting any of my stories published was always that I thought I wasn’t original enough for it. All of my stories’ plots are typical. They’ve been done before. Well after seeing Avatar I had a revelation. ALL the stories have been done before. I mean I knew it, but this movie really made me realize it.
I mean Avatar’s basic story is “guy and girl meet and guy is lying to her but eventually comes to love her but she finds out and he has to prove himself”.
The point is that good writers can take those basic stories that we’ve all heard before and give new life to them. They can take the characters in these predictable plots and make unpredictable things happen to them. So while Demonslayer may be typical “woman gathers a group to fight against the forces of evil”, I would hope that I have embellished the characters and the world enough that the story is still worthwhile.
And then there is the ‘500 Kingdoms’ series by Mercades Lackey (The first book is The Fairy Godmother) where she actually gives a reason why the same stories are told again and again. I just had to mention this since I was breaching this topic.
My…horse?
So ever since I was a kid, I wanted a horse. When I was in high school I was able to pay for lessons for maybe a two year period. I loved the time there and I even planned on going to college for equestrian studies. That fell though and I went to college for computer science, but I digress.
For a long time, one of my life goals was to eventually have a horse. For some reason I always assumed I would have to have a yard big enough for the horse to live, and have my own little barn. I think because the cost of boarding a horse seemed so daunting. While in college that dream drifted away.
It wasn’t until we moved back to Blacksburg that I even got back into horses. The miracles that led me to a job at Advantage Ranch then seemed to continue into getting me my own horse.
One of the riders at the barn, Rachel, has always been very nice and expains things that I still have not yet learned about horses. When I found out how much a made, show worthy stock horse would cost, I knew I’d never be able to afford it. She suggested that maybe I get a foal and raise it, which would spread out the costs instead of a lump sum.
So I started, not very seriously, looking for a foal on dreamhorse.com. I found some cute ones, as I really didn’t know what else to look for at the time, but I shied away from ever actually going to Deb and saying “Would you find me a horse?” Mostly I was unwilling to get a horse for myself while I was not bringing anything monetarily to the household.
Eventually I found a pretty colt, almost leopard, for a decent price and the ad had up four generations of his genealogy. I thought there might be some decent breeding in there (I mean if they bothered to post it) so I sent it to Deb.
She brought me in to talk about it, and while that colt ended up being nothing special at all, I happened to be in the office when in the process of looking for a horse for another client, her contact mentioned a mare that was for sale. Her owner was having a baby and selling her. Her sire was All Hands on Zip, a rather prestigious stallion that is also the sire of Rachel’s mare, Ella.
The price was the top of my price range, but still within it, so I asked for more information over the next few days. She ended up being a ridiculously colored 10-year old who had been shown and even earned some points (meaning she placed) in events in which I was interested.
Matthew eventually agreed to the purchase, and it ended up that Deb’s brother was going to Florida (where she lived) on a business trip, so even getting her home ended up being much cheaper than it could have been.
Deb was impressed with her when she saw her, the vet exam went fabulously and a week ago, Tori arrived home.
And on top of all of the things that fell into place to bring this mare home to me, Deb has offered to teach me to teach beginner lessons so that I can even have a little bit of an income. It won’t be much, but it will be actual money. And in working there I am paying off her board and for my lessons so except for the fact that it’s freaking 20 degrees every day, I am entirely happy with my life.
Pictures:
Pictures from her old mommy:
Riding
All the color
Picture once she arrived:
Bad lighting
She is not used to the cold:
Cold
The Night Sky…and stuff
I dunno what it is, people act like they don’t know when OOB has accomplished things unless I put a screenshot here. Crazy people! Can you not just read my mind!?
So yeah, back on the 22 of December, we downed Algalon in 25 man. Here’s a killshot…kinda? Other people are all crowding into the picture. They’re just jealous. I’m just glad I got my title.
And since it’s a Tuesday and I can’t log onto my account in order to take a screenshot of my Algalon achievement I am now stuck waiting for the servers to come back up so I am going to ramble a bit. You may stop reading if you’re bored.
So right now there’s really nothing to work on with all the progression cleared until the servers come back up today. As such most of the guilds on the server have been going back to the old progression content, ie: Yogg+0.
Now I hate this fight, as is most “end boss of instance”‘s wont, it’s an amazingly complex, innovative, and fun fight that 70% of the raid just can’t seem to get. Take away all the “buffs” and it’s just one big mess. But then since Blizzard has given us nothing else to do, we’re all facerolling through the tentacle monster. However, at least it’s something to do rather than canceling raids because we’ve already gotten our Ashen Verdict rep for the week. Told you I was going to ramble. Look forward to actual progression killshots in another two months after Arthas is finally unlocked.
Well some servers are back up, just not Kael’thas yet.
Win!
My Writing
So after Nanowrimo, I’ve really been trying to clean up how I write. Trying to put some sort of order to it (I love order) so that I can once again get that feeling of accomplishment as I had after winning Nanowrimo. To do that, I feel like I want to get some of my more ‘complete’ stories, ie, ones with a semblence of an actual ending, to a posting quality. Not publish quality, but a point at which I’m perfectly happy to have people read.
In order to do this, I first must have the rough draft, which I do for the stories I’m looking at. That would be the first draft. The second draft, which I’m planning on starting soon is where I add in the scenes and ideas that got left out of the first draft, such that everything I want to be in the story is then there, even if it’s ugly. The stage after that will be grammar, spelling, and tweaking everything to the best I can make it. After that, the fourth draft which I hope to reach one day will be when I post the story and look for feedback on the story and any mistakes that manage to still be in the story after the first three drafts.
But if Nanowrimo has taught me anything, it’s that I need a deadline to get anything done. As such the story I have picked is Shifting Winds and I will have the second draft done by the end of January. That’s my deadline and I will hold myself to it.
The only problem I see with this is that the ending is weak. I know it is, and so I have to figure out how I can fix that, but I have other scenes to add and stuff to change while I think about it. It should be good.
We Pwned Anub!
Get it…cause his name sounds like ‘a noob’? It’s punny!
So exciting week. Patch 3.3 came out, bringing with it the new Icecrown Citadel (ICC) instance and in a few months Arthas will be unlocked! People have been busy with the new LFG system which works fabulously, as well as the three new ICC 5-man heroics which bring some new lewt, rp!!!, and the chance at Quel-delar’s hilt (Yay 251 weapon for casuals! I want one!).
So we’ve been working on Anub for a long time…like a long long time. We’ve been consistently getting to p3 for a few weeks now. I admit the entire raid’s skill with kiting Anub’s spikes surpassed my expectations. I was expecting another repeat of Gorefiend and ‘that guy’.
That being said, the thin ice that is walked in p3 between healing the boss too much and people dying is ridiculous. I know all of the healers ended each night of attempts with progressively worse ticks. Koi is more stressed than I’ve ever seen him before and all around a fight that I enjoyed so much, and was so cleverly put together by Blizzard is now on the same level of hate with Archimonde. It’s a shame it’ll be January before we even have nearly enough of ICC out to keep us away from TotGC.
Oh! But we did manage to down him with 26 attempts still left, so we got that cool chest thing with the heroic tier gear inside and a nice spell power sword. It’s the little things sometimes.
Finally beyond the nightmare of ice, we headed over to ICC even though it was raid end time, and got a bunch of people friendly with the Ashen Verdict (after 10-man clears) and downed Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper (No picture cause all that’s left of her is a stupid ball.). And at that point we called it for various reasons. Mostly so everyone will come back tomorrow for the really cool gunship fight!
Snow!
Snow!
NaNoWriMo Win!
The month was long but I ended up making it. 50,000 words in 30 days and the story isn’t quite finished. It’s really a messy bunch of words, but all the ideas are there. Well except that I’m still not sure exactly how it’s going to end.
Either way, this seems to be the way that I would be most productive writing. Some people (like my husband) have to have a plan before they start, have a nice outline and characters all planned. I think I do better just writing down whatever and then editing once I’ve finished. Perhaps if I try this again even if not for nanowrimo, I might get one of my other stories finished some time.
Movies
Generally when I leave the theater after seeing a movie, I regard it as one of three things. Good, bad, or entertaining. The first two speak for themselves, ‘entertaining’ generally means I don’t think I wasted my time/money, but I probably won’t go out of my way to see it again.
Every now and then, however, I see a movie that leaves me with a sense of…epicness. Batman Begins was one of those movies. Star Trek another. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Probably one of my favorite movies of all time.)
Speed Racer is another ‘epic’ movie in my book. Now I never watched Speed Racer, the original anime, but as any good anime fan, I knew what it was. When I saw the commercials for the live action movie it looked unreal and both SD and myself were very excited about it, knowing it would either be beyond awesome, or a horrible train wreck.
When the movie came out people said it was awful. Not wanting to disappoint ourselves, SD and I never went to see it. But last week, somehow the topic came up and one of our D&D pals, Evan said that it was really good if you don’t go into it expecting an amazing movie. He said they did a really good job translating anime style into live action.
I was intreagued. I downloaded it. I loved it.
The movie itself was so beyond amazing. The story, of course, is rather typical of anime but not bad, and the way they told it and the style of the movie will have it forever etched in my mind as one of my favorite movies of all time.
The reason the movie did poorly, however, is pretty obvious. The style that I love so much is a cross between Pushing Daisies (A TV show which got canceled.) and anime put to live action. Unfortunately the people who like both are probably a small portion of the population. SD and I just happen to be two people who love it.
Even now I have that ache that I always get after reading a superb book or seeing an epic movie.
Horse Clinic
So I’ve been calling all my horse posts ‘horsemanship’ for some odd reason even though I know it’s showmanship. Ah well, I will admit my mistake. Life goes on.
The past weekend we had a clinic at the barn. Two days of riding and showmanship. (Though I didn’t ride.) I learned a lot just by watching. Things to be tucked away until I do get to the point where I can use them. I hope that when Carol comes again in February, I’ll be enough of a rider to be worthy of her tutelage.
In showmanship I learned about backing up, which is rather hard all things considered. I also worked more on my turns and learned about moving when a judge inspects the horse.
I am also tapping in my ‘Near’ persona when working on showmanship. Thus I can set aside the part of me that kind of lounges along and lets the horse do whatever, and become a person who knows what she expects, and expects it out of the horse as well. I don’t have it exactly. I felt rather guilty after one session when I most fell into this persona.
Near is a character that developed from my WoW character. When I leveled her, I already had the plans laid out for her to be my main. When she reached 70 (max at the time) she had gear, rep, and a epic mount waiting for her. So she’s rather spoiled. Though she worked hard to get where she is, she’s not one to act modest. She knows what she wants and she takes it. She’s actually an evil character. The first I’ve created that was not meant to be a villain. But she is Lawful Evil. She makes her own set of rules and she follows them. And because of her collection of mounts in WoW, she, the character, is very knowledgeable about them. Though she does not treat them as companions, but as the mounts they are. Thus why she’s a good persona for when I need to be firm handed with horses.
