In Which I Spazz About Three Things

Contrary to popular belief, I am not dead. I've just lost my motivation for blogging. In fact, I've lost my motivation for a lot of things right now. A quick hint: tags help me blog more often. *wise nod* Very inspiring.

In other new: YC ALBERTA 2011 STARTS IN LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I'm excited about this. Since I can't be there this year (and there's only three reasons to be there anyway) I guess I'll have to take the next best thing: watching it live on the website, where they'll be streaming it all weekend. I'll post the link either tomorrow morning or afternoon.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S BEEN A YEAR SINCE WE WERE IN ALBERTA!!!!!!!      Creepy...

Leauphaun's line of the day: You know you have too many drawings when you forget you have some.

I did this the other day with my writing. I went back and read the half-completed short story-turned-novella I've had on the go for several months and read the second half again (as I can't stand the first half). I was pleasantly surprised at my writing, even to the point where I'd completely forgotten that I'd written several thousand words. It made my, uh, night.

Several months ago, I got an idea for another story, the summery of which sounded something like this:

Two characters (Eldra and Daymond?) must protect a family from a corrupt government that is persecuting them for their faith.

Okay, so the entire summery was a bit longer than that, but you get the idea. Two weeks ago, I woke up one morning and had huge chunks of plot fall into place. I wrote almost half the plot and four character bios on my iPod before I even got out of bed. As of today, the basic outline is over five hundred words, and I'm about half way through the plot. I've decided to cut Eldra from the entire story, as I'm more interested in Daymond right now. (And once more I fall for the bad boy.)

The unusual thing about this story is I'm hoping to focus more attention on character development and the spiritual aspect than the crazy action/fight scenes that I seem to be so fond of.

Two songs in particular seem to be inspiring me: Fades Away's "Right Now (We'll Stand), Skillet's "Hero". If you listen to the lyrics in both songs, the first one is talking about not being a hero, while Skillet's song is about being a hero. That's the direction I want to take with Daymond in this story (and his overall life). Plot details for this new novella will emerge soon.

Also, I have received an award from Barriss!!! Thanks!

To accept the award I need to list seven interesting things about myself.

1. I CAN'T WAIT for the new RED music video to come out. (clip #1 here and #2 here)

2. If rock music wasn't invented, LOTR music would be my favorite, specifically Concerning Hobbits.

3. I've seen Skillet in person one time and twice online, all before Ben Kasica left. *teardrop*

4. I've discovered that Daymond (my anti-hero with heroic qualities) is a more complex character than I'd ever dreamed, even surpassing Eldra (my main character and protagonist).

5. I could live with snakes, if only I never had to see another spider again in my life!

6. I prefer supper foods for breakfast. Leauphaun is the exact opposite.

7. CLU has officially become my favorite TRON: Legacy character, surpassing Sam by miles.

I must pass this award onto 15 other people. I won't list anyone in particular, but if you haven't received this award yet, you are free to take it, as long as you comment with a link to your post.

And speaking of CLU, Leauphaun completed another music video yesterday to Skillet's remixed song "Monster, now titled "Monster: Unleash The Beast". Check the video out below.

This song fits CLU perfectly. I dare you argue that point with me. *disarming grin*

~God Bless~

10 Things On My Mind - A Tag

Squeaks' post of 10 things on her mind inspired me to do the same thing, so here are ten things currently on my mind.

1. RED. I've been rockin' to RED's latest album, Until We Have Faces, since we got it almost two months ago, but I've been listening to it even more this past week, due to these two videos.

2. Birthday parties & chocolate cake! There are five birthdays in my family in just over a month's time, and they're starting this week. Woo-hoo! We get to eat lots of cake!

 

3. Knitting. I've been working on a scarf on-and-off for the past couple of months, and it's getting very close to being completed. Unfortunately, my left pointer fingers is too bruised to continue right now.

4. Writing. Like Squeaks said, writing should always be on a writer's mind, but sometimes it seems to be closer to the front of my mind than other times. Currently, I am actually (and please don't hurt me for this) out of ideas for how to keep pushing the tension higher in my current story. My characters seem to want to work together (and they never want to do that) and I'm not sure what else I can throw at them to make things worse. I'm sure my devious mind will come up with something, though. *malicious grin*

5. Lego Star Wars. The Goose is renting the game for the Wii right now, and we've been challenging each other to see who can get more of the game completed before it has to go back tomorrow. I already know that I won't win, as he's over 50% and I'm only at 39%. At least we know what game we're buying next.

6. Lord Of The Rings. On Saturday, my siblings and I got to see all three extended movies in less than twelve hours. I threw my back out due to lying on a church pew for that long, but I think it was worth it. I'm also in the middle of rereading the trilogy.

7. King Cenred from Arthurian legend. 'Nuf said. Actually, he reminds me of Daymond, only with long hair. Love his double swords! I hopeless, I know.

8. TFK/Skillet/RED/other bands that scream. *pokes Squeaks and Jake* No, I'm not doing this just to bug you. I really do love screaming in CERTAIN songs. I don't think I'd like Bluetree or Third Day if they had screaming in their music. Actually, this should be labeled "epic guitar rifts" because that's the part of the song I enjoy the most.

9. Tuna. Tuna has been following me around all day. I thought the grocery list said "digestive tuna" not "digestive tea". And now the tuna are following me around. I think they're in league with the rabbits.

10. Awesome music videos. This one is made by Leauphaun using (what else?) LOTR clips set to the Iron Man Soundtrack song Gulmira.

Now, because I'm bored, I'm turning it into a tag. Followers of this blog, you have been officially tagged. Get moving. What's on your minds?

P.S. The contest ends this Saturday, so hurry up and enter!

~God Bless~

Long Promised Drawings & Some Sad News

I've been meaning to post some of my artwork up here for at least a month, but either haven't found the time or the inspiration to lug my huge sketchbook upstairs and scan it into the computer. Well, I'm finally bored enough (and have a big enough headache) to do just that. So here's a piece from April somethingorother 2005.

A bit frightening, although I remember being very proud of the saddle when I first drew it. This wasn't drawn fully freehand, as I traced the very basic outline of the horse.


This one's from December 2005. Once again, it wasn't completely freehand. I always did like it, though, especially the unusual way in which I did the bridle.
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Oops. How did this get in here? Haha. Anakin Skywalker, from when I could actually draw better than Leauphaun. Not a chance of that happening now.

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This is probably my favorite drawing of a (race)horse I've ever done. Not sure why. Probably because it was the first freehand horse I actually liked. As you can probably tell, I removed the jockey, 1) because she was WAY too small, and 2) she was only half finished. Only the boot and the hand remain now.

The only thing I don't like about this drawing is where the saddle is positioned, as it's too far positioned on the back, plus the girth curves the wrong way -- toward the front of the horse instead of the back. This was done in August of 2008.
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And finally, I'd like you to meet Zorro, my masked Arabian. I did him in late 2008, and was probably the last horse drawing I actually completed. I couldn't get his cannon bones (the leg bone directly beneath the knee) right to save my life, so I cut his legs off at the knee.
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The second part of my post is about Skillet. I'm sure that some of you have heard by now that Ben Kasica, their guitarist of ten years, has left the band to pursue other interests. That's sad news, especially since Leauphaun didn't get a chance for him to sign the drawing she did of him.

I'm sad to see Ben leave Skillet, but I'm also glad that I got to see him last May. Ben, you were amazing. I wish I could play guitar even half as well as you. (Or even play guitar at all. . .) God bless you with your clothing line, recording studio and whatever else you decide to do.

So in honor of Ben Judah Kasica, I thought I'd sign off with my four favorite Skillet songs of all time. (That isn't true, my favorite songs are always changing order, as anyone who loves music knows.)

A Sonic the Hedgehog AMV, as Shadow rules.

Savior, one of my all-time favorite Skillet songs. Epic guitar, Ben.

I've watched this music video far too many times already, and it never seems to get old. Sorry for the subtitles; couldn't find one without them.

And, of course, I have to end out with Monster, which has some of the coolest guitar ever in the chorus, but you need to have your volume set really loud to catch it..

I always laugh when I see this video because John Cooper hates bare feet, yet he runs around in bare feet the entire video. Strange.

This is the behind the scenes from the filming of Monster. Pretty cool.

Now I have to wonder who their next lead guitarist is going to be. Maybe Ty Dietzler. . .? Now that wouldn't be cool at all.

NOTE: I couldn't get the formatting right to save my life, so I apologize if it looks weird. It looks great on one computer but horrible on the laptop. I've tried several times to fix it, but it hasn't worked, so I'm just going to leave it. Sorry if it looks strange.

~God Bless~