Christmas Post--A Christmas Village and a Song

Well, apparently I didn't realize that the twelve days of Christmas actually begins on Christmas day, but I'm still going to do it as I had planned. First off, a picture of our Christmas village:

There is more to it, but we couldn't get many good pictures of it; that was the best one. My mom has always wanted a little village to set up at Christmas, and last year she started buying pieces that were on sale. Of course it's way prettier than in the picture, but I thought ya'll might like to see it :)

Next is a hilarious version of White Christmas. It's my favorite rendition. Someone sent it in an email to my dad, and we love it.

                                           

Some Quick Updates

Well, I've been gone for a while! At least, it seems that way. My computer was out of commission for a week, needing new cords. On Tuesday, my dad and I took James to the hospital in Iowa City, which is three and a half  hours away. On Wednesday he had corrective jaw surgery, and when he woke up from the anesthesia, he was just so pitiful. His cheeks were really swollen, and he was miserable for the rest of that day and the next. He went home Thursday afternoon, and since Saturday the swelling has been going down, and he's happy and cheerful for the most part. He now has what are called 'distractors' in his jaw, and a screw on each side of his face, just below and behind his ears. 

I tried taking a picture of the screws, but it came out blurry. Anyways, each morning an each evening, we have to give both screws one full turn with a special screwdriver. This slowly lengthens his jaw. We will do this for 14-20 days, after which we will let the jaw solidify for about three months. Then, the distractors will be removed, and not long after that (hopefully) his trach will be able to come out, and they will do his cleft palate surgery. So please be praying for him that there will be no infections or complications. ```  

 

As you can see, his cheeks are pretty swollen, which you can see if you compare this to an earlier picture: 

In other news, I'm thinking I may have to completely re-write and restructure Red Sea Rising. I've been realizing more and more that it basically has no plot. I mean, I can't even write a summary of it because, unfortunately, there's no real point. The main characters (all four of them) don't really even have a goal until 40,000 words have gone by. Before that they are either avoiding the villain (and sometimes escaping from him), one of them is drafted into a foreign military and has no hope of getting back to his own country, and... there's really no real point. This is going to be a hard one to figure out, so I doubt I'll be able to enter it into the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest as I was hoping to do, but... maybe next year? I think the characters and a lot of the ideas are great, I just need a structure.

Mary, over at the Writer's Lair is going to be hosting a Writer's Exposition. Submit your Christmas-themed story and she will post all the qualifying entries on a brand new page in her blog! I am definitely entering, and I already have the idea for a story in my mind, a sort of reverse-Christmas celebration for one of the countries in my world. What do I mean by reverse? Well, you'll have to wait and read it to find out!

Oh, yes! And I'm writing a Narnia fan fiction. For all of you Narnia lovers out there, it's right here.

Also, I've noticed that ApricotPie has been kind of slow lately. Probably because of NaNoWriMo. Well, I'm working on a humorous fantasy story called The Dagger Maiden, which hopefully I can get back into and finish soon, then start posting.

Well, this turned out to be a bit longer than I had intended, but those are the updates on my life at the moment. Starting tomorrow, I will begin doing Christmas posts, for the twelve days of Christmas, with a favorite Christmas song embedded and maybe other things as well :)

I hope you all have a wonderful December, and a Merry Christmas!

I won. I won? I WON!

I'm kind of in disbelief right now. I wrote 10,300 words today; that's the most I've ever written in one day. I did it with eleven minutes to go until midnight, so I'm really tired. There was no jumping around for joy, no yelling, just an, "I did it!" to Emma and Sarah, who are the only ones down here with me. I honestly couldn't have done it if not for the Lord, who gave me the ability to write :) And then Emma, who did lots of word wars and sprints with me, and kept encouraging me and even did the dishes by herself tonight so I could write. Thank you, Emma! And to my writing buddy Rebecca, who also kept encouraging and pushing me on even when I thought I couldn't do it. Thanks a million, both Emma and Rebecca. You've helped me win my first NaNo!
I'm not done with the story; probably another 10,000 words or so, but I've never written a story this long before. It's a very nice feeling :D
And now, good night to all! And thanks to Mary and Kestrel, who both encouraged me in the comments for my blog posts :)

Day Twelve-Wait, Slow Down!

I am ashamed to say that I've let myself fall behind... but I'm not telling you how far behind :D It's only a few days, really, but it seems like a huge amount. So, to distract you from myself, I'm going to let ya'll see something my sister, Emma (14 yr. old) did :)
So, there's this thing called artPad on art.com, and Emma has been going there and drawing. You do it all on the computer, with either a touch pad or a mouse, and I tried it for a few minutes and got bored because it was really hard to make even a simple drawing on it. Lo and behold! Emma had been working at it for several hours, and she did a picture of Snow White from the Disney cartoon (looking at a picture and drawing from that), and then I sent her the link to a picture of Santa Claus, and she drew that as well.
The neat thing about artPad is that you can replay it so that you can see how she did it, basically, just sped up.
Here's the link to Santa Claus: http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?lukd8tvb38c (You can speed up the drawing, or skip to the end if you want).
Aaaand, here's Snow White: http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?luk3j616tga8
Now, what do ya'll think about those? She's a very good artist on paper, as well. She's got really good hand eye coordination obviously, and apparently a very steady hand, too!
Well, I'm off to write more NaNoWriMo!

Day Three Is Drawing to a Close

So, I've kind of been slacking off today, but I did finish yesterday's word count, and today's. I now have 5,005 words (and, no, I didn't devise it like that. It's just how it came out when I stopped writing :)
So, I can sleep happy and easy. Also, I have an excerpt of Red Sea Rising up on my website. So go check it out if you're interested!
Here's to finishing at 50,000 words by the 30th! Maybe even more words than that!
Also, I've decided to reward myself: if, on the seventh day of NaNo, I am still keeping up on my word count, I get to download and play the free trial of Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood. It's a fun game that I've played before. So get crackin', Laura!
Have fun writing!