Music in My Novels

I didn't get a post up yesterday. I'm sorry about that. I was busy with Current Events class all afternoon, then our final choir performance for the season that night at the Homeschool Christmas Show.  Anyway, I'm back on for today.

Two of my three NaNoWriMo novels feature a particular song at the very end. This song also lends it's lyrics to the title. While I am quite sure that if I attempted to publish them I could not do that, it is fun now that I am not planning on publishing right now.

The first year I did NaNo, I used the lyric to this song to close out my story:

I love this song. It's a lot more country than most things I like, but Iris DeMent is someone we listened to a lot when I was little, and this one is definitely special to me. I felt like the lyrics really resonated with the story, and it felt like a good ending. I called the book "Nothing Good Ever Lasts."

This year (my third NaNo), I used this song at the end.

This song was so perfect, it was amazing. The song could have been written for my story, that's how well it fit with the characters and the plot. I like this song, and I think it is the perfect mood. I called my book "At the Edge of the Ocean."

While I'm sharing music, here is another song. This one has nothing to do with NaNoWriMo, but it is one of the songs our choir sung this year. This version is a little different than ours (the beat is a little different, and we sing a capella), but it has all the same parts and words.

That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow.

Busy, Busy, Busy {Life Update}

Today, I don't actually have time to write up a fancy post, so this is all that is going up. Life has been insane lately, and it's not slowing down. On Friday, we had our first choir performance, which went fine. On Saturday, I also danced with the Scottish Highland Dancers at the holiday festival at the port, and I took part in an Irish dance as part of that.

The Irish dance we did was one that a friend and I put together ourselves, the night before. It went really well, considering, but I do wish we could have practiced it a few more times. Today, I have another choir performance, and then a Christmas party, which should be a lot of fun, and, hopefully, somewhat relaxing.

Last Tuesday, our World Lit group got together to read the play, A Doll's House outloud together. It was a lot of fun. We each took a character to play. It took us over three hours, but we made it. I'll post a book review (and more about our reading) soon. My upcoming week is just as busy, with something (or multiple things) happening every day. According to Google Calender, the first free day I have is Dec. 17th. That's one of just three empty days between now and Christmas, though I'm sure they'll fill up quickly.

Anyways,  I don't need to just tell you how busy I am. This is just an update on what I'm up to, and now you at least know a little bit of it. School has been a little hard to fit in lately, but I'm planning on doing a comprehensive Homeschool Friday post this coming Friday. I'll talk a little about what's been going on and how things are going.

I've had a lot to do and think about lately, so this is all I have time to write at the moment. I'll be back tomorrow!

Life Update {Illness, Dancing, Singing, and Writing}

Hey guys! It is way past time for me to write one of these. The last month was INSANE, and I know that the one coming up won't be much better.

I have been really sick this last week, and in fact had to stay home while my family went to Thanksgiving with relatives. As a result, I did no school, and am quite behind there, and not a lot of writing. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was going to be the year I didn't win NaNoWriMo, but I managed to pull through in the end, which was a bit of a miracle.

Since I know that there are some of you in the Bellingham area who read this (and some family and friends who may be interested in coming), I thought I would post the dates and times of some of my performances for choir and dance over the next week or so.

On Saturday, December 7th, our Scottish Dance group will be performing at the Port Festival at from noon to 1pm. There will also be an Irish Dance or two from those of us who do both types of dance.

On Tuesday, December 10th, our Homeschool Choir will be performing as part of the Whatcom Homeschool Association Annual Christmas program, which begins at 7pm, and includes many performers. This will be at Kulshan Middle School and is open to the public.

There will probably be more choir performances, but they have not been finalized as of right now.

I have a lot of practice for all these, and overall I am swamped. I am really glad that NaNo is over, because if I am this overwhelmed with out writing 2k each day, I would be going crazy trying to fit that in too!

In the past week, I also saw Catching Fire (review coming soon) and Ender's Game (read review here). I also watched 5 episodes of Lost on Thanksgiving, and I am finally up to the beginning of Season Five. It's only taken two years. Oh well. At the current rate, it'll take almost another year to finish.

Also, this might sound a little crazy, but I want to try to put up a blog post every day for the rest of December. I really want to see if I can manage it. It will be a mix of holiday stuff, book and movie reviews (I have a ton stacked up waiting to be finished), some school stuff (I haven't done a HF post in weeks!), some other fun things I don't want to talk about yet, and some general chatty life update posts for the days I don't have anything else.

It should be fun, and crazy, and I might not make it, but I also might. I really just want to see if I can manage to do it. On that note, I have some ideas of ways things may be changing a little around here in the new year, but I'm going to wait a little while to talk more about that.

I hope you are all had a good Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the coming holiday season!

A Life Update

I haven't done one of these in a while! I've been pretty busy lately, and I haven't had time to sit down an write up one of these in several months.

School is going pretty well, though you already know that, since school is the one part of life I manage to consistently blog about. :) Here are some other random things I have been doing and thinking about lately.

1. Our little homeschool choir just started up again, and I am really excited. This Sunday, we started working on our first song, The First Nowell, and I thought it went amazingly well. I moved from the Altos to the Tenors this time around, and I am really happy with the switch. While I can sing both parts, singing alto was often a strain for me.

2. Emma Approved just started!!! I loved, loved, loved The Lizzie Bennett Diaries last year, and I'm thrilled that they are keeping going with the idea. Unlike with Pride and Prejudice, I am not familiar with the story of Emma, which is a bit exciting. I actually don't know what is going to happen this time around!

3.  November is coming very quickly, and I am trying to get prepared. Mainly, I am writing 750 words every day (750words.com is what I use. It is no longer free after the first month, though I was grandfathered with a life time free account in since I was using it before it went to pay only)to get myself back into the habit of writing.

4. Halloween is coming just as quickly, and I am trying to get the last of my Sam (LOTR) costume together. I still need pants, a backpack/sack, and to decide what to do about the feet. Since there is a group of us being the Fellowship, us four hobbits kind of need to be in agreement about how to handle the feet. Some people are saying just go barefoot, but since we will probably walking around outside quite a bit, I'm not fond of that idea.

5. I'm about half way through the Joy Luck Club, which is this month's World Lit book. So far, I am really liking it.

That's about it for now. I don't have time to do a longer post today, so this is it. I'll try to come back tomorrow with a sponsored book review!