This! This! This!

Read this. Now.
And now I finally realize how much of an idiot I've been for the past... er... ever.

Now excuse me while I go and read every book about animals that I can find.
(And so this doesn't turn out to be the shortest blog post ever, allow me to share some thoughts that have been building up in my brain for quite a while.)

Writing. Of course. What else would I talk about? (Would you prefer me talking about how I helped rake the yard today? No? Then you'll have to bear hearing about writing. Humph). Anyway, here are some thoughts accumulated about NaNoWriMo and book writing in general, and while I certainly don't feel qualified to say "this is how you do it, and this is the best way of doing it" (since, after all, I failed NaNo, not to mention that that failed novel is the longest thing I've ever written), I will still babble on about this because I think it's worth a listen and it's a worthy novel writing plan.

So, first of all, my thoughts on NaNoWriMo.

Well, I'm a bit torn about it. On the one hand, I hate it. On the other, lots of people like it, and it gets people writing, not to mention that it creates friends and little mini novel writing communities.

I guess hate is probably really overstating things. I don't like it, I guess I should say. Well, it's not even that. As I said, I like it because it manages to get people writing and finishing their novels, and it gets people going out and socializing with other writers who are attempting to do the same thing as them. But I guess the problem I have with it is the fact that I don't do well with deadlines, nor the concept of writing 1,667 words every single day for a month. Most of the time I was writing I just barely squeezed past the goal and a lot of the time I wrote nothing until the last possible moment (and stayed up until 2 AM because of that). While NaNoWriMo did really kick me into action and stop me from just thinking about writing and worlds and plots and make me actually write and plot- and world-build, it also was very tiring. The day that it really went downhill was the day that I didn't write anything, not even three words. The concept of 1,000 seemed too horrible to think about, and I felt like if I was going to write then I'd have to at least write 100 or 200 or 500 or 999 (*insert dramatic violin music of doom and a long scream*), or else it wouldn't really matter anyway. After that I just let myself write less and less until I realized that TRWW needed a huge makeover anyway, and I would have to start over again so what I wrote didn't even matter.

You see, writing every day and not necessarily taking too much care for small details and little typos (that can be ironed out later in the editing process) is good. The only thing that's bad is writing so many words every day. Any worries you may have about the wrong word placement or a clumsy and hard-to-understand sentence are dispelled -- and replaced with worries about reaching your word count and finishing your novel on time. You stay up too late, eat too many chips and other snack and convenience foods, and drink more coffee than every person on earth combined drinks in a month. You don't care about typos or misspellings or incoherent sentences, and you don't take notice when you fall asleep on the keyboard and start typing whatever is happening in your dreams. These things are not good habits, for your writing or yourself. And after I quit NaNo, I had to take a few days of doing nothing but surfing Failblog and doodling before I felt like writing or even thinking about writing again.

NaNoWriMo is great. It makes people start writing. It makes someone who was stuck or spending too much time on the details of a world or a character or a plot stop worrying about stuff and just jump in. Heck, it rekindled my excitement for writing and now I'm feeling like TRWW could be a really good book if I put enough energy into rehabilitating it. If I hadn't joined NaNoWriMo, I probably would still be lying around on the floor watching TV and thinking only half-interestedly about what to do with the wreck that is Thenew, and how else to rip off Warriors, and instead I've started working on a completely different book and world and really feeling like I have an idea of what I want to write about. Plus, I got a chance and a reason to write a really specific, structured plot, and all of this has really helped me learn and grow, not to mention that the link above might not have been read or found if it wasn't for NaNo.
But NaNoWriMo is still a lot of work, and I think it could even tire someone of writing if they forced themselves too much. I like the NaNoWriMo method of writing, but it takes a lot of time and energy.

So, I've thought of what I think is a better way. A bit like NaNo, but much easier, and probably more fun.

The only thing you have to do?

(Drumroll, please)

Write ten words every day.

That should be your word count goal. Ten words.

Why? Why such a measly amount of words? Why such an unhelpful, tiny number of words?
Because this way you can work on many projects at once. You can have a social life. You can stop drinking coffee and 5-hour energy drinks faster than the world can produce them. You can stop staying up until sunrise writing, and you can stop feeling like writing is torture. You won't burn out as easily, and you won't run out of time to think about other projects and work on other things. And when you get stuck, you don't have to force yourself to write. If you're stuck, ten is a good number of words to write -- not very hard, and rather than stopping writing altogether (and that probably means you'll just give up on the book), you will still be making progress and getting past that block, no matter how slowly. On good days your word count will soar even higher from ten to 1,000 to 3,000 to 5,000 words; and you will never, ever have to torture yourself to achieve such a number. Because ten words even when you're stuck is a breeze, and 4,000 when you're not is even less work.

Then again, I haven't written using this technique before, but one thing is for sure: I will. Once I figure out this whole TRWW mess and get that plot and those characters cleaned up and sensible once more, of course.

So, tl;dr, I suppose, is that you should really read that journal by *Droemar, NaNoWriMo is good but a bit too much work, I think that a good way to write a book is to have your minimum wordcount goal ten words, and you should take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't tried writing a book by writing ten words everyday, so there is still a liability of my theories exploding (or imploding).

-Willow


P.S.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is awesome.

Long time no see, blog.

30,146 words.

And the quote for today is:

"He blushed and wished he had not thought of that and embarrassed himself infront of himself what am I writing oh god."

Alright, that's about all I have to say. Starting to get tired of NaNoWriMo.

BOOK, Y U NO END?!

But it's all good. I am reassured and exhilerated by the fact that this is actually a kind of proper book-like thing that's being written, and it already has so many words! (and I'm just not going to read any and pretend they're all perfect and that's how I'll survive november).

Back to writing, you know, books. Gawd.

-Willow

NaNoWriMo -- Day 5

11,676 words.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how scenes keep changing. I think the plot is a bit too detailed, but that's fine because all I really do is skim through the summary of each chapter and keep that in mind, and I'm happy to say that my characters have been changing the way scenes play out, which is always fun because I was a bit worried (and still am) that they didn't really have that clear of personalities.

I'm still worried about my villain's motives, because in the plot at least they seem a bit vague to me. Nonetheless, I will remind myself that that is only the plot and while writing I will flesh him out more, and I also have to remind myself that this is only the first draft and things are bound to change.

I'm also very happy with my word count. It's nearly twice as much as the word count of the original TRWW 'book'/story/thing/whatever.
BOW BEFORE MY 11,000 WORDS
BOW BEFORE THEM.
Unless of course you have more >:c

I have bipolar chapters

The prologue is somewhere around 3,000 words long.

Chapter One is 700 and something words long.

Hrmmmm... The question is, is this really that much of a problem?

Woundrous Wednesday: I don't have the time.

It's NaNoWriMo, so I'll just give you a link to the Wikipedia page about Lampreys.

Because Lampreys are really awesome.

Werewolve

Feran the blacksmith was a good man. Freckled, red-haired, Scottish and a blacksmith. He wasn't going to be breaking any stereotypes anytime soon, but he was well loved and his weapons and tools that he hammered and shaped were of great quality. He was a perfectionist, only allowing the very best swords, arrow tips, and even hinges to be sold or used.

This is why none noticed when he started to nitpick at even the slightest problem. This link of chain was asymmetrical, this sword's blade was chipped by the tip, this nail is slightly bent.

And then he started coughing. No one's sure when he got bitten, or how, but they know it only started to become suspicious when his occasional cough turned into a hacking fit, and soon he would have to leave the smithy to cough. He was clearly in a daze, the virus infecting him and already starting to transform him.

I just wish someone had noticed! Now there's one more wolf running around, and if I have to go back to Feran's wife and three children with the news that he was killed by poachers... oh boy...

Anyway, the next night, they heard the door creak open, and all they could find of Feran was a trail of blood leading off into the forest. The news spread quickly
"FERAN'S BEEN BITTEN! FERAN'S BEEN BITTEN!" shouted people everywhere, running through streets and alleys full of shops to alert the village.

And then turned up Mrs. Calloway. Or, her coffin, in any case. Ripped to pieces, her grave dug up, no sign of her newly-buried body until the next day, when her half-eaten carcass showed up in the river, face half-skinned and seeming to screech in hate for the creature who'd done this to her.

I sighed, I have to do it now. I could see Feran, or the werewolf formerly known as Feran. He was marking a tree, running his razor sharp claws down it and sniffing the air in an unhappy snarl, and hadn't caught site of me. I stroked the ash leaf around my neck to reassure myself, grabbed shining pair of silver nails I always keep with me, and took a deep breath.
"You! You big-eared, squirrel-tailed slob! C'mere!" I shouted, quite un-lady-like -- but since when have I ever pretended to be a gentlewoman? The wolf turned around snarling and spitting with rage.
"Yeah, you! Y' thick-skulled id't!" He beared his teeth and charged, as angry as a werewolf could be.
I jumped neatly out of the way, adrenaline pumping through my veins and heart beating with the risk of it all. I just told myself that I would not get bitten. I wouldn't let myself. Feran skidded to a halt and spun around, leaping on all fours towards me. I readied my silver nails, glanced down at my ash leaf necklace and drew a quick breath in. It was scary, but exhilarating, this. I sidestepped right in time, and as Feran stumbled past I grabbed his dirty, wiry fur and tugged. He yelped and growled with anger, trying to spin around and bite or scratch me. Again I told myself I would not let myself be bitten, and with a quick and clever move I'd been perfecting since midwinter last year, I had the wolf on his back, my hand on his neck to stop him from rising, my body on his, pinning the werewolf down. I imagined how awkward this must look to someone, and blushed, but pushed the thought away and concentrated on the task at hand.
"Sorry" I whispered into his ear as I bent down close to his head.
I grabbed a nail, pinning down one of the werewolf's paws with it, and in one quick motion pushed the nail down into the wolf's hand.
As a new hunter I would've winced, but I didn't as the werewolf thrashed and yowled in pain as blood gushed from the wound and covered my hand. Quickly switching positions, I instead sat on the wolf's injured arm, hand again across his neck, and reached out to drive the other nail into Feran's other paw. I drove it in hard as poor old Feran redoubled his efforts of howling and yelping. I held the nail there, then quickly got up, grabbing both nails and skipping away from the werewolf. Feran just curled up into a ball, yelping and thrashing around on the forest floor. I took a whistle out of my tunic and blew on it, the piercing sound traveling through the woods and soon I heard the crunching and rustling of Beron and Milter approaching. The two figures, Beron with his white and black speckled hair and strong arms and Milter with his scruffy brown hair and lean frame, pushed through the bushes and appeared with ropes and bandages for the wolf.
"You got Feran!" Milter said with joy. "I'll be glad when he's back to making us silver nails and ash leaves and that sort of thing!"
I didn't reply, just stepped back and let them do all the work of bandaging and disarming Feran. As they bound his wounds and tied his paws and jaws together, I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my forehead -- succeeding only in smearing werewolf blood across my face. But what mattered was only that Feran was cured, or almost cured at least, and I would soon be able to return the poor man to his family, and as a human -- not a wolf or a corpse.

If only Beron or one of the others could've done that for me. Me and poor father and Viola...

I sighed.

Wondrous Wednesday: Indian Pangolin

Alright, I admit it, I forgot. Yesterday I was all: OH MY GOD TOMORROW IS WEDNESDAY FIND AN ANIMAL TO WRITE ABOUT. And this morning I was like: OH MY GO-- what what was I being excited about yesterday?

Yeahhhh...

Welp, better late than never, eh? I present to you: THE INDIAN PANGOLIN!

The Indian Pangolin (Manis Crassicaudata)
Or Thick-Tailed Pangolin
Conservation Status: Near Threatened

The Indian Pangolin is a Pangolin that lives in the plains and hills of India, Sri Lanka, and some parts of Pakistan. It's not common anywhere in it's range, and is hunted for meat, blood and for making medicinal oil.

"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."

Pangolin populations have also suffered from illegal trafficking. In May 2007 31 Pangolins were found aboard an abandoned vessel off the coast of china.

The name Pangolin derives from the Malay word "Pengguling", meaning "Something that rolls up". There are eight species of Pangolins alive today, living in parts of Africa and Asia. Pangolins have large Keratin scales covering their skin that are soft when they are young and harden as they age, and are the only mammals with such an odd feature.
Pangolins are nocturnal animals and use their good sense of smell to find insects to eat.

Pangolins were classified with various orders, including Xenartha, which includes Anteaters, Sloths and Armadillos, but new genetic evidence suggests that their closest living relatives are actually in the family Carnivora.

Pangolins can curl up into a ball when threatened, much like an Armadillo, their scales acting as armor and extra defense as they are quite sharp. Their front claws are so long, being meant for digging into termite mounds and climbing, that it is hard for them to walk with them, so they instead walk with their forepaws curled over to protect their claws. Pangolins can also emit a foul smelling acid, similar to the spray of a skunk.

In Pangolins, the section of their brain that relates to problem solving is highly developed, and while this is usually used to find food in the wild, captive Pangolins are extremely good escape artists. Pangolins also lack teeth and the ability to chew, so instead they rip open ant- or termite-hills with their claws and lick the insects out. Some species also use their claws to tear away the bark of certain trees to get to insect nests underneath.

Pangolins reach sexual maturity at two years of age, and the Indian Pangolin usually has one to three babies in a litter.

In Kerala, the Indian Pangolin is called "Eenampechi", in Sinhala it is "Kaballewa" and in Tamil it is the "Azhungu" or "Alangu". The lifespan of any Pangolin in the wild is unknown, but they have been reported to live for as long as 20 years in captivity.

--
Images from Google
[More about Pangolins]

Well, this was a hard one to put together, seeing as there is little known and even less on the internet about Pangolins, but hopefully I've made someone aware of this crazy little creature and how odd and cool it is.

Until next time, unless I forget, happy odd-animal-hunting!

Inspiration

You can't force inspiration, but you can push it away. You just have to wait for it, and when it comes, you better be damn well ready with a pen and paper and some harsh self-critique. You can invite it -- by reading books, or talking with other writers, or listening to soundtracks to music... but in the end, you just have to wait, not impatiently, not even consciously, maybe. You just have to wait. And when inspiration comes, you have to write like crazy -- that first burst of energy and ideas is something rare, precious, and ephemeral, even if it is riddled with typos and cliche' things. So once you have an idea -- write, write, write! You can edit and spell-check and develop characters later, but right now you just have to write!

You can wait as long as you may for an idea, but once you have even the slightest bit of inspiration, write it out and think about it and develop it. You can again wait as long as you want -- none will steal your idea or write it before you --, but none will write your idea for you. Stop saying 'one day I'll write about this idea I have' and say instead, 'today I'll write about this idea I have'.

And if that's too much to say, then instead say, 'today I'll write ten words about this idea I have', and soon you'll have written 1,000. All you have to do is break down large, menacing tasks into smaller, more inviting ones.

Instead of 'writing a novel', 'write a chapter' and soon you'll have a novel anyway!

Mouse traps

I made a bunch of ratty, previously-yogurt-and-cereal-box live mouse traps. Set them in the chicken coop, baited them with peanut butter and we'll see how well they work, if at all. I was inspired by my awesome skill in catching a very unafraid and perhaps partially blind vole, and while I don't have the patience to sit in the chicken coop with a net all day -- or the desire to look insane --, I just decided I would make some mouse traps instead and see if they work.

Also, we may be getting a frost tonight, who knows. Most of the tomatoes, peppers and a few other plants have been covered with blankets and cold frame roofs -- hopefully they'll survive and we'll get a few ore days of zucchini, bell peppers and cherokee purple tomatoes.

There's really not much else to say, not much else to update on -- not much else is happening around here. Just the usual. Catching voles with nets, drawing, and making mouse traps.

Real life too boring? Create a custom-made 100% pure yourownimagination world!

I love creating fictional worlds. It's so fun. You know just how everything works, you can make up your own rules and customs, and you can show glimpses of that world to your readers. When you're reading about a fictional world, it's so cool whenever a character says "when frogs grow fur" instead of "when pigs fly". It gives the story and the world that extra bit of depth -- whereas if you just explain every thing that every character says, or use normal sayings and real-life flora and fauna, the story and the world starts to lose it's mysteriousness and appeal. The world also looses appeal and my respect if you just slap on a different animal and have your character say "when hedgehogs fly", or "oh foxdung!" (I might add that both of those sayings are from the Warriors series and utterly lame). At that point, it would probably just be better if your characters just said "oh crap" and "when pigs fly".

Moving the focus on from different sayings to different plants or dishes, it's also cool and funny if your character gags at the mention of some foreign dish that they dislike, or makes a poultice of Hertease, Bristlebloom and Icetem leaves for a burn. Your not sure what these herbs are, or maybe you've got a faint idea, and you know what these sayings mean, yes, but everything is different and strange. Just like in cultures in real life, there are different sayings, foods, animals, dress codes and styles in every part of the world. Adding this into your story really gives everything more depth and makes your readers a bit curious as to what things are.

I, personally, love making up herbs and medicinal plants -- you can get away with lazy combo-names like Paperbloom or Spinewort, and you get to make up what the plant looks like, what it does, and where it grows (and since I'm a really bad herbalist in real life, it's fun to be able to know exactly what this does and what this character would use to cover a wound without doing a ton of googling and bashing-my-head-on-my-desk-ing).

I like less, however, making up animals. It can be a bit of a pain and plus, if you really have something against squirrels or geese, don't you want your main character to be able to eat them for dinner? (That squirrel might not taste as good as that goose, though).
In my opinion, a mixture of real-life animals and made-up things is just as good or better, and a whole lot easier to invent.

Nonetheless, in order of importance according to my opinion, the best and less-best made-up things to put into an alternate universe:

Sayings and swearwords! Take various sayings from real life and re-word them, or make up new sayings for things that you think need them.

Herbs and plants! Unless you are a master herbalist yourself, or willing to go through all the work of actual research (oh god the horror D:), then I recommend making up your own plants for ease of writing and whatever else. Especially if your character is an alchemist or an herbalist or a healer. Plus, it's just fun making up plants!

Building styles and fashion styles! Now, I'm not really one of those people who's really into fashion, so I prefer to design clothing for species or climates that focus mainly on what is logical for that species or climate to have or need in their clothing. Anthropomorphic, rabbit-like, fighting species? They'll need armor for their ears, and a fairly open-faced helm to let them use their entire range of vision. A culture living in a thick pine forest surviving mainly off of game? They'll need camouflaged, warm, hard-to-snag (no fluttery capes or needless laces), hard to penetrate clothes.
Then there's the buildings, of course. That anthropomorphic, rabbit-like species? They'd live in hobbit-like houses close together and probably farm wheat and oats and carrots and the like. That pine-forest-dwelling hunter society? Big, log-cabin-like houses made of pine and cob, with underground root cellars for storing whatever food they farm and any salted or smoked meat they have. See? It's fun!

Animals, etc.! Now, I actually kind of like having real-life animals like rabbits, deer, salmon and whatever else in my stories, which is why this is so low on the list, but it can be quite cool to have a mix of real and imaginary -- or completely imaginary -- animals in a world. It is, however, also a big pain and that's another one of the reasons why I don't usually do this. I also don't know much about animals and all their bones and organs, so I'm afraid my species wouldn't come out that realist-seeming, and I could actually probably describe how to gut a rabbit better than any imaginary animal I invent, just because I don't really know what organs it would have anyway.

And there's probably some other things I'm forgetting, but that's about it.

Now, the next step (though it probably should have been the first), figuring out the very most basic basics of your world. What does it look like? What's the climate? What people or creatures inhabit it?

The answer is easy. Whatever you want. And whatever you want is generally what you like writing about.

Like cold weather? Cold planet or place.
Like rainforests? A wet, lush foresty planet or place.
Like big skies and cacti? A dry, deserty or plainsy planet or place.

Then you just narrow things down some more...

Like cold weather but hate empty, barren places? Cold planet or place with lots of cold-resistant plants and animals, or lots of stone formations, or anything, really.
Like rainforests but hate man-eating insects and spiny plants? A wet, lush foresty planet or place with tall trees, little undergrowth and very little bugs. Or, even better, a bunch of insect-eating birds, small mammals or lizards.
Like big skies and cacti but don't like empty, quiet places? A dry, deserty or plainsy planet or place with lots of unafraid and loud animals.

From there, you can narrow things down even more, and then start to flesh out your world. Is there anything you're certain you want to include in this place? Farmers, travelers, knitters, fortune tellers... it doesn't matter as long as you want to write about it.
The nice thing about creating a world from scratch, or mostly from scratch, anyway, is that you can include anything you want. Anything at all! If you don't like hackers, then there's a strong digital police force. If you don't like snakes, there are none. If you don't like horses, you never have to mention one again in all your life as a writer -- your main character could ride a pig or an aardvark back and forth throughout their journeys.

You should always write what you want to write, and in my opinion, creating your own world really helps you to do that. Unless you want to write about the real world. That's fine. But for those of you with a strange love for writing about this, that, those and the other thing (but those things don't really have that much of a connection in real life), then why not combine everything you love into one world, fully controlled by you and made custom for you, with anything you don't want edited out with the wave of your imaginary hand?

Plus, making up plants is really fun. Trust me.

Wondrous Wednesday: Eastern Quoll

I've decided that there are some animals that need more attention. Not like those "rare" or "unknown" or "misunderstood" animals like the Red Panda or the Hyena, but those real "rare" and "unknown" animals, like the Lamprey or the Bush dog.

So, without further ado, I present to you, the first Wondrous Wednesday animal! *drumroll*

The Eastern Quoll (Dasyurus Viverrinus)
Or Eastern Native Cat
Conservation Status: Near Threatened.

The Eastern Quoll is a medium-sized, carnivorous marsupial, one of the 6 extant species of Quoll. Native to Australia, the Eastern Quoll is now considered extinct on the mainland, but are still fairly common in Tasmania. This is probably because of the lack of predators such as foxes and dingos, though even without these hunters they are still in danger of being out-competed or predated upon by feral cats and killed by illegal poisons and traps

The Eastern Quoll is usually about the size of a small domestic cat, weighing roughly 2 pounds on average. Their coat can be any color from a pale tan to a dark brown or even black, with a cream or off-white colored belly and white spots all over their body save for their tail. The lack of spots on the tail and the skinnier build and slender snout of the Eastern Quoll helps distinguish them from the bigger, fiercer Tiger Quoll; also known as the Spotted-tail Quoll.

The Eastern Quoll is a solitary predator, usually hunting only at night and preying upon small mammals, birds and insects. They have also been known to scavenge food from other predators, mainly the Tasmanian Devil.

The breeding season begins in early winter. After mating, the female will then grow a pouch for her young, and will give birth to up to 30 tiny, hairless, helpless babies. However, only the first 6 to start nursing on her 6 teats will survive. Weaning takes place at around 10 weeks of age.

The last mainland Eastern Quoll was collected as roadkill in Sydney's Nielsen Park on January 31st, 1963. However, there have since been many reported sightings, some as recent as 2006. However, it is still unconfirmed whether or not there are any Eastern Quolls surviving outside of zoos and research facilities in Australia.

--

Images from Google
[More about Quolls]

Alright, well there's not much on Quolls to find on the internet, but I hope this has at least shown you about this under-loved and largely unknown animal, and maybe you'll read up a bit more on them and perhaps spread the word about this little marsupial.
-Willow

I take that back...

You know when I wrote about how I think super-detailed plot lines suck and how I feel bad for the Erins and anyone else who writes with really detailed plots because there is no element of surprise or guesswork?

Yeah...

I take that back.

Heh.

I'm gonna be doing To Run With Wolves for NaNoWriMo and I think I'm gonna try writing a pretty detailed plot. I even think it will be fun. And easy to write -- no more gaping plot holes to stumble around or fall into and die in.

So, yes. I take that back.

But I might take that take back back by December. We'll see. I like the idea of a long journey of self-discovery, adding things on a whim, and interesting characters with a mind of their own that shape the plot rather than conform to it.

But I also like the idea of only having to fill in the blanks, the descriptive scenes, and the words, when all of that pesky "what has to happen next?" stuff is already taken care of and the direction -- start, ending, middle and all -- of the plot is clear.

So I don't know. But I will. Perhaps. By the end of NaNoWriMo.

It's all about seeing which technique is best, eh?

Heh.

So... in any case, I take that back.

-willow

The Raccoon Skull

Finally, an update! And what's this? Wellll...

This is what me and my dad have been working on for so long. I found a dead raccoon in the marsh near our house last winter/early spring (not sure what month it was, but it was cold and icy) stuck partially under the ice. The tail and rump were frozen, and there wasn't much we could do with it, since I don't know anything about taxidermy or even skull cleaning (well, now I know plenty about skull cleaning!), and the tail was frozen so it's not like we could try and cut it off and do something just with that which was what my dad suggested. So, having seen people with their shiny skulls all over dA, and read some skull/bone hunting/cleaning tutorials just out of curiosity, so I suggested getting the skull to clean/etc.. We watched it carefully as it decomposed, and maybe a month or two ago me and my dad went out to the marsh to draw and check on the raccoon. It was pretty much just a mat of hair and bone, so we took the skull and mandibles and went off to clean it (it's only missing three teeth, too!). We first just put on some rubber gloves and got some scrub/snake whatever things that my dad uses for machines/etc. and scrubbed what dirt we could get off the skull and mandibles off, and then we put each mandible and the skull and the teeth which had fallen out of them into their own containers and went to ask our taxidermist/bone hunter neighbor (who actually found a huge ram skull once) what to do with the skull to sterilize and whiten it. He confirmed that hydrogen peroxide was the right thing to use, so we went off to wall-mart to buy a bunch of the stuff. After probably around two weeks of soaking the bones in the peroxide, they'd whitened up considerably, and we decided they were good enough to be rinsed and dried (along the way we had to use the hose, a wire, and different positioning of the skull in the peroxide so we could get all the beetle pupae out of the brain and nasal cavity). So we rinsed it out, getting the last of the pupae out of the skull, soaked it in water for two days, and set it out to dry in my dad's office. Then we didn't do much with it until today, when we got the super glue, hot glue gun, and everything else together and finished gluing the teeth in (the hot glue was only to glue the mandibles together, and worked like a charm). Now we have a completely clean, 100% genuine, shiny, white, sharp-toothed raccoon skull that's only missing two teeth and in excellent condition otherwise (there's even a healed scar on the bone on one side of the forehead, which, if you ask me, only adds character, not imperfectness).

So, that is the story of the raccoon. And if there is a way to tell the gender of a raccoon from it's skull, I'd love to know. I'll be googling and trying to figure it out, in the mean time.

In other news, I'm gonna be rewriting To Run With Wolves for NaNoWriMo! It'll get 75% new characters, a much more detailed, long, and dramatic plot, and I will hopefully end up with a close-to-full-length-or-full-length novel by the end of November! We'll see, and my fingers are crossed. Should be fun.

-Willow

Late summer, early fall.

Two completely different ways to say it: one an end, one a beginning.

I am looking forwards to the start of long, unending, cold rains, crunchy leaves, cozy nights by the fire, and the first few flakes of snow (and, of course, the last few flights of mosquitoes).

But I am mourning the warm days, green growing things, and bright, wispy summer sunsets as they fade into fluffy, purple things.

And Zucchini. As strange as that is to say. I really do like that fast-growing squash, though. Grilled, breaded, baked into cookies and cakes. Mmmm! And when the fruits get too big, hiding under leaves and growing into huge monsters like Zucchini are known to do, it's always fun to let the chickens have it, and watch them race around with the seeds and worm-like shreds of spongy flesh that I often cut up just for them. Ah, Zucchini. We will be sad to see you go. I will, at least. Well, I won't be sad to say goodbye to those prickly leaves, hairy, spiny skins and that odd, glue-like juice, but I will be sad to say goodbye to delicious fried, baked and shish kebab-ed Zucchini.

And then there is the rain. I'm loving it so far. There's something cozy about sitting up here, even without the wood stove on, while it's grey and drizzly outside. It's been overcast, damp and misty all day, and I just love it (though admittedly it is a bit chilly. Not a summer rain, you see). Hopefully we get some more storms. None on the weekend though, because we're going to Buckhorn! Another thing to look forwards too, and to think I forgot it!

Still, though, I don't like having things to do 24/7. It feels cramped, even though it can be boring. After Buckhorn, though, everything will be back to boring, old, I-have-to-do-nothing-in-particular-at-all-today normal.

Neglect

Waxing and waning,
Inspiration,
Interest,
Enthusiasm.
With just one halting, faltering stumble,
Spirals, spraying outward like spiderwebs,
Shattering like glass,
And rippling like water,
It crashes quickly out of control.
Neglecting,
Stopping,
Pausing,
That carefully maintained diligence fading,
All because of one small slip-up.
One small forgotten day,
Becoming ten thousand it can wait until tomorrows.

How to Create an Original Species (for Lazy People!)

So, I stumbled upon this really easy way of creating made-up creatures (because often I have a ton of trouble creating original, alien creatures).

My thought process was something along the lines of:

"Damn. I'm bored. I hate creating species. Species are so hard to make original. I wonder how many easy ways there are to make something original... you can slap on horns... wings... hold on, lemme get a list going *starts writing down things* Hmmm... you know, lets just write down anything at all... any variables... *rereads list* hmmm... that wouldn't be very useful to write about... but if you were drawing... *starts making a color chart*. Pink is what you'll most likely need to figure out to write, and blue is for drawing... HOMAYGAWD EUREKA! *runs off to make version on computer and share this amazing invention with the world*"

Soooo.... without further ado, the easy way to create original species (for lazy people!)

--

NOTE: I created this only thinking about large mammal-like or lizard-like creatures, but I think it could be adapted for creating sea creatures, marine mammals, and birds, etc..

Step one: The body. Does your creature have a long slender body like a ferret, or big, strong shoulders like a bear, or a big, barrel-like chest, or droopy belly skin, like some cats? Pick a basic body-type, then move on to the next step.

Step two: The head. What shape head does your creature have? Are it's eyes wide apart like that of a prey animal, or is it a carnivore with eyes set forwards. Flat face, fat chin, curved forehead, or long snout? You can also figure out what type of ears, how many eyes, what shape pupils, what type of nose, and if your species is a carnivore, with long sharp teeth for cutting meat, or an herbivore, with flat, dull molars for grinding down grain and grass.

Step three: The legs. Does your animal have paws, hooves, hands? What sort of legs -- Plantigrade or Digitigrade? How many sets of legs?

Step four: The tail(s?). What sort of tail? Long and snake-like, scaly and rat-like, fuzzy and cat-like, short and rabbit-like, long-haired and horse-like... the possibilities are endless. Dose your species have a tail at all?

Step five: The skin. Does your species have fur? Feathers? Leathery skin like a frog? Scales? Nothing but a few hairs, like us humans? This is a pretty important thing to figure out!

Step six: Extras. Does your creature have wings? What type? Does it have horns? Ram horns or long, slender Oryx horns? What about manes or tufts of fur on, say, the elbows? Is your species covered in viscous spikes, with long, curling tusks or fangs like daggers jetting from it's mouth? You decide.

Step seven: Additional details. These are the small things, the not-so-important-seeming-but-still-necessary things. Does your creature have a forked tongue? A big sloppy one like a dog? Does it have long fur, or short, or any at all? What does it eat? Where does it live? Who does it live with? Who does it hunt? Who is it hunted by? Answer these final questions, and your species is pretty much complete! A touch-up here, a little tweaking and fine-tuning... and your finsihed! :D

Late Summer's Poem

Sparrows are chirping outside the window,
Mourning Doves cooing and contented chickens helping to demolish the old strawberry bed,
The smell of cooking tomato sauce drifting up from the oven downstairs.

The air is cool, a slight breeze ruffling the yellowing leaves of the trees.
And, distantly, as if in another world, cars rumble and growl,
And maybe there are even people arguing.

But why argue or feel angry on such a day like this?
With cool, green grass and clover sprinkled about on the lawn and under bare feet.
Sitting in the shade, so pleasant, the occasional, small gust of wind blowing the hair from your face, as you lazily lie upon the grass, taking in this scene of late summer beauty.
Pumpkins half green and half orange sitting alongside hollyhocks, their feathery petals still bright pink and red, not yet faded as they soon would be.

Leaves skidding along the sun-warmed sidewalk,
Squirrels chattering and chasing one another through the treetops,
The cat laying happily in the sun, watching the birds with only a faint glint of cunning in her eye, too content to get up and chase such silly creatures.
Fluffy clouds skitter across the sky, flitting in and out of your view, changing from solid mountains of thunderhead to wispy, ethereal threads of cotton candy, and back again.
Far, far away, dogs bark and run and wrestle, enjoying the wonderful day.

Fish putter around in their lakes and streams, no longer bothered by those who had, just yesterday, sought refuge from the blistering heat in the cool water.
Rabbits and mice nibble on berries and tender young grass shoots happily,
Birds of all sorts; hawks, falcons, vultures, jays, finches, flickers, all enjoy the cool day and warm sun as they glide calmly over the whole scene.
Snakes sun themselves on smooth granite boulders,
Cicadas resting their voices for a bit before jumping back into song.

And whatever worries you may have,
For the future, or of the past,
I can assure you, today, that everything is as it should be. And tomorrow will certainly be the same.

Free, organic pest control.

Have a bug problem? Ants? Grasshoppers? Slugs?

Then get a chicken. Or two, even!

Today I let Molly out again, and she wreaked havoc on the local grasshopper population, as well as eating a few daddy longlegs in the process, which isn't as good. There were a lot less grasshoppers than yesterday, and the surviving ones were the large, flying ones or the huge ones that live in the raspberry patch, crawling and nibbling among and on the tall leaves and stalks.

Now, this pest control is free, but not free of work. You see, Molly couldn't get up to were the grasshoppers were, seeing as they were hopping around at my head height, were the raspberry branches were tallest. After putting her back in, I got out the net, and attempted to catch some of the sneaky, huge, and tasty (to a chicken, at least, I imagine) grasshoppers that were frolicking around and eating the berries and leaves. The first few times I failed, but once I got the hang of it, they were extremely easy to catch. A foolproof way of catching grasshoppers? First, scare them out of their hiding places. I did this by rustling the branches with the net, trying to get any grasshoppers to jump away. Once they flee, watch them as they jump and see where they land. Get closer to them, and, quickly, swoop the net down over the branch the grasshopper is on, but do try to slow before you hit the branch, as to not do more harm than good. Now, since these huge, berry-eating grasshoppers have survived for so long, you'd guess they'd have quick reflexes to insure survival, but in this case, you'll be using their strength against them. Seeing the net coming towards them, the grasshoppers will probably jump up and away. If you were trying to catch them by hand, that trick would have worked, as someone's hand is a lot smaller than a net. But since the bigger the thing, the harder to dodge it, there's a 99.9% chance that the grasshopper will jump right into the net. A bit counterproductive for the grasshopper, but if you want to get rid of plant-eating pests and feed your chickens at the same time, it's pretty damn useful for us humans.

As if the chickens didn't get enough excitement and didn't eat enough insects, the birds were put to work again, this time helping us with out ant problem. There was a huge ant nest underneath some of our paving stones near the back door to the garage and in front of the stairs near the deck. The ants had started to mess around underneath and inside the garage, and the day seemed as good as any to try and take care of the ant problem. The paving stones were dug up and overturned, and the chickens scratched and pecked away at the amazingly huge, sprawling ant nest. I don't even want to think about how weird it must have felt to the chickens eating the bugs. Yeuch.

So, want organic, free, pest control that actually pays you in eggs, that takes only a little bit of work, some grasshopper catching abilities, and minimal food, water and shelter as compensation for your workers?

Get some chickens.

Threatening to flower

Hey people. Singular. =P Anyway, It's been forever since I wrote a proper blog post, or even any TOSoS, so I figure I'd better post something to let everyone know what's happening.

So, updates!

Writing wise, I'm pretty stuck. I'm making some progress on that horse book and other things, but not much really. I've also made no progress what so ever on chapter ten of TOSoS: I've gotten to the part of the plotline that's so vague and full of holes I don't know where to start, with writing or repairing it. I'm starting to get it to work though, and it looks less like thread bare cloth and more like Swiss cheese.

The garden of course, is the cause of this inactivity. So much has been happening, it's hard to keep up with the picking and preserving alone, even with the help of everyone! There's always tomatoes, chamomile and raspberries to pick, and every so often a crop ripens and all of it is harvested at once, like carrots or the lemon balm that was threatening to flower. We've been freezing, jamming and drying like mad people.

And, on top of that, I'm running every day to try and build up more stamina. I don't like the term 'get in shape', so building up stamina it is. It's more true anyway. I'm also trying to animate things, and failing, because the only 2d, free animation software I can find either doesn't work, is too complicated for me to figure out, doesn't work, or isn't free. Yeah.

I just want to animate something. *sob*

Ermm... anyway. It's been busy here. Oh, and today I let Molly (red sex link hen) out to eat grasshoppers. Man, is she good at catching them. She chased and pecked and ate grasshoppers like a pro, and she even got quite a few big ones (though that may have been because there were lots of big ones rather than the fact that she's really good at catching them, but I'd say it was a mixture of both the fact that our side yard is full of the biggest grasshoppers on earth and the fact that she is the fastest and best bug eater of all the flock.). By the end her crop was bulging, and there were a lot less grasshoppers in the tomato and raspberry patches. A good day of insect hunting.

Better get back to work, or in this case, back to watching Bones and putting raspberries on trays to freeze. They're threatening to flower. Well, not really, but, you know, I'm trying to be all metaphorical or whatever the word is here.

The Other Side of Shrae: Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Talli jumped up, wide awake. She could hear yowls, yelps, hisses and snapping sounds from near the water. Jumping up, she looked around. The others weren’t awake yet.

“Get up!” Talli yelled, afraid and worried. “Get your weapons out and those who don’t have them…” She looked around desperately, “Um… um…” She spotted the smoldering coals of last night’s fire, “Get a stick and light it on fire or something!”

“What?” Briar asked, alarmed.

“Fighting sounds, from the beach! Whatever’s out there we have to be ready!”

Everyone was wide awake then, moods a mixture of worried and scared.

Talli took a deep breath, pulled out her machete, and walked out of the entrance to their camp.

Before her the shore was chaos. The terrifying lobster creatures Ben had talked about screeched and hissed, and in the middle of it all was a creature that looked like a smaller version of the Wolfcoon Briar had killed.

“What is going on?!” Briar asked.

“I don’t know!” Talli shouted back.

The Wolfcoon growled and hissed, snapping at the lobster things, which kept clacking their claws, tauntingly. It lunged, grabbing one of the monster’s legs and snapping it with it’s strong jaws.

“It’s small… the poor creature.” Ashelea said, watching the Wolfcoon.

“But… did you…” Dylan spluttered, “But… Look at what it did to that thing’s leg!”

“Look at what those things did to Ben’s arm,” Talli said, pointing to the barely-healed scar on Ben’s forearm, “And that was just a glancing blow, too, I imagine.” She added, and Ben nodded.

“Well… but…” Dylan protested, then changed the subject “Look! Those things are running off! I bet that Wolf thing’ll attack us next. We have to--“

“Oh, stop your worrying” Ashelea inturrupted, annoyed. “Look, I bet this thing is a pup, an orphaned one. And it’s probably the pup of that Wolfcoon you killed. It’s certainly too small to be an adult. And it’s no harm to any of you. Look at it, it’s scared. It’s defending itself, not charging in there to fight for the fun of it.”

Dylan stared suspiciously at the creature, as it backed away from the lobster things which were retreating as well, clacking their claws together and hissing ‘shreeeeiiissssssshhhkkkkkkk’.

“Look, they’re going back into the ocean!” Dylan said, “And that thing’s coming over here, cub or not!” Drawing his weapon, he held it shakily in front of him, frightened.

Talli pushed his weapon down, forcing him to lower it. “Hold on, Ashelea’s right.” Then, thinking, she wondered aloud, “Should we try and help it? It’s our fault it’s an orphan, after all.” And without waiting for the other’s opinion, she slowly walked over to where the creature had been fighting, and where some of the armored legs and ripped off pieces of tail from the fight still lay. Picking up a severed, insect-like leg, she gingerly cracked off the hard, armor-like exoskeleton one piece at a time. Then, with the meat underneath exposed, thoughts buzzing and mind-gears whizzing all the time as she wondered and put things together and created theories, she held it out to the young, fuzzy Wolfcoon cub. It backed away, cowering, ears flat and tail between it’s legs – body language much like a dog, she mused to herself – then, slowly, it grew friendlier, and inched forwards just enough to snap at the food Talli held out to it. Talli smiled, and let it take another cautious bite, darting forwards to take some of the food and then jumping back. After a few minutes, it realized that Talli was less of a threat than it first expected. Talli also realized the young cub was less of a threat, and while the others also inched closer, just like the cub, she knew they were realizing it, too. She didn’t want to nurse this creature back to health, but it felt like it was the right thing to do, to try and help it, since it was they who’d killed it’s mother. Picking up a piece of tail this time, she peeled away the much softer, more flexible exoskeleton on the tail, and offered it the cub. This time it inched even closer, the chunk of food being offered being much shorter than the last. Quickly, it darted forwards, pulling so fiercely on the chunk of meat that Talli lost her grip, and the cub retreated several yards to eat in peace.

“Well, then, okay.” She said, getting up from where she was crouching and backing away a few steps. “I don’t see why you couldn’t feed yourself, but at least you won’t attack us, right?” She muttered.

Walking back to the others, who’d come a bit closer gradually, she stretched, relaxing the cramped muscles in her back and arms.

“See? No danger. And it seems like it’s old enough to eat solid food, even if it can’t figure out how to get to it.” She said, watching Dylan’s expressionless face for any sign of emotion.

“This.” Briar announced suddenly, “Has been a weird day.”

Talli chuckled, “Indeed it has been.”