The flock

We don't have a big flock, we don't have many fancy breeds of chickens. They don't really go on adventures too much, but will that deter me from writing about every single bird? No!

So get ready to meet the flock.

We have two buff Orpingtons.

The one on the left is Mini Max, though she might even be a bit bigger. The one on the right is Maxime. Maxime is the Alpha chicken, the top of the totem pole, and has a good mothering instinct - unlike the rest of the birds, she treats Molly and Shycra, the youngest and lowest-ranking of the flock well, and even roosts with them at night.


Mini Max isn't as nice, even to her nest-sister, Hawk - I've seen Max pull on Hawk's feathers pretty hard when they get into scuffles. Maxime and Mini Max are the trickiest birds to tell apart, and it's easy to see why.
However, once you learn how to tell them apart, it's easy to see how.

First off, Maxime is always a bit ruffled looking. Her feathers stick out messily as if she was in mid-moult and are more contrasted in color than Mini Max's; Maxime's nearly-white body feathers next to her darker, yellower neck feathers look very frankenstein-ish compared to Mini Max and her better-transitioned and overall more even-colored feathers.

As bad as the light in this picture is, it's easy to at least see her ruffled and messy feathers.

But, in my opinion, one of the best ways to identify Maxime is by her eyes. While Mini Max has a sort of stern to normal expression most of the time, Maxime... always looks rather....




Alarmed.

...Whereas Mini Max is sleeker, calmer, and all-around more healthy-looking than Maxime.


Then there's Sybil, bullier of me and the rest of the flock.

She's a Naked Neck, or Turken, so don't feel sorry for her. She's not the henpeckee, she's the henpecker.


She also hates people, shoes, me, other chickens, cats, dogs, anything living or formerly living, and cameras.


"Whatever the cluck that thing is, I want it out of my face, and I want it out of my face now. I will peck, I tell you, I will!"

...And that's why I have so few pictures of her, those I have managed to take mainly featuring her loathsome 'I'm going to kill you' face and/or a messy blur as I jerk the camera out of the way of her razor-sharp beak.

She pushes me around, pecks me, challenges me and goes after my swampy green crocs (I suppose no one can blame her there), but recently I've been trying to show her I'm not afraid of her and not a lower ranking chicken like she thinks I am. I think it's working - if she tries to peck me or challenge me I give her a swift (but not too hard) bop on the head, like another chicken would do to a lower-ranking one. Of course, there are good days and bad days, and at the moment I have a half-written post about the long battle we had a couple days ago, in which she actually drew blood.

Then there's Minerva, who has the softest and prettiest feathers in my opinion. She's quiet and doesn't have much of a personality, but I like her and her mild-mannered-ness.

She's a black Australorp, and not very interesting as far as chickens go, to be honest. She picks on Hawk and the two little girls, Molly and Shycra some, but she's not a very bad henpecker compared to some of our birds.

Hawk, on the other hand, has a very interesting story to tell, as ridiculous as she looks in this picture.

"Hom nom nom"

She is an Easter Egger, or some breed like that. She's very pretty, lays brown eggs like she's not supposed to do and Survived a fox attack (unfortunately, her nest- or perhaps egg-sister, Luna, didn't). The story's rather long, so I won't write it out here, but it was quite dramatic and traumatic for both the humans and chickens involved.

Unfortunately for me, hawk is rather camera shy, so getting a get picture of her is tricky. Nonetheless, I'm sure that such a pretty chicken like her makes the whole species she was named after proud (or perhaps just hungry).

Here she is, a bit more elegant looking.

Look at that pretty beard and those beautiful orange and brown feathers! She could be a chicken model! Just, uh, wash the straw and dried milk out of her beard...


"Hey! Are you taking pictures of me again?! You know I don't like cameras!"

She's a sweetie, but very shy. Her and Mini Max are inseparable, and even then Max henpecks her, sometimes badly. She's a lapchicken, too. If you sit down she'll hop up on your lap and hide her head under your arm and sit for as long as you can put up with it. If she wants someone to snuggle with she'll call and call and call, a loud, insistent "Bup bup bup bup bup bup bup bup bup bup bup bup-" on and on until you come in to sit with her. But, being so low in the pecking order she does whatever it takes to stay where she is in rank, pecking Molly rather hard whenever she gets close (Shycra's just too skittish to get near Hawk in the first place).

Next up is Molly, the annoying, persistent, quick, reckless bug-hunting Red Sex Link.

She's also rather camera-shy. But, being the most relentless and aggressive hunter in the group, she'll dart in past even Sybil or Hawk (the ones who henpeck her the most) just to get a bite of food. She has grasshopper-seeking invisible glasses on, too, I'm sure of it (how else on earth would she be able to find them so easily?), and she's fast and fearless. She's rather gluttonous, too.

She's one of my favorites, because she's just to darn good and hunting! Unfortunately - and I think this is why she's become such a successful bug hunter - she has a habit of not just pecking, but grabbing and holding. Needless to say, It can be rather painful if she sneaks up behind you in the coop, so I always keep an eye on her when I'm sitting with Hawk or feeding them.


"What's that? Can I eat it?"


"...Wait a second... you said that was a grasshopper generator! You lied, didn't you, it doesn't make delicious food, does it?! Is it that darn picture-taking thing again?!"

And, last but not least, there's Shycra.

She's a White Leghorn, I believe, and her name fits her quite well. She's the lowest-ranking of the flock, extremely shy and skittish and runs away at anything. She's afraid of cameras, dogs, other chickens, humans, and pretty much anything new. Funnily enough, though, that doesn't stop her from being almost as good of a worm-eater as Molly is (it's especially funny to watch her regal comb flop comically around as she darts back and forth to gobble up worms).

She's the only bird in the flock who lays white eggs, too, and she's quite the beautiful (and stereotypical) chicken when her white feathers aren't cream-colored from dirt. But that's the downside of having anything that's white, I suppose!

Oh, and I know I said that's the last, but I can't forget Zen!

...Sure, she's not technically a bird even, but she must be part-chicken, because whenever she has the chance to get into the chicken coop, she does. I think it's the abundance of mice.


"Oh, hi. What're you doing here?"

Whatever the reason, the chickens don't mind enough to drive her off. They mainly make alarmed and confused clucks and avoid her as she slips by, trying not to be pecked by one of the braver hens.
Sometimes she even catches a mouse, and then, oh boy, the chickens have a ball. Well, the one who eats the mouse does, at least.

Oh, and the pecking order goes like this, as far as I can tell:

Maxime
Sybil
Minerva
Mini Max
Hawk
Molly
Shycra

Oh, and apparently it's the second annual draw-a-centaur-day. Hrm, I suppose I should go do that.
-Willow

Oh how long it's been...

I've totally neglected this blog.

Soooo... quick update here.

Going to Ireland and England for two weeks; leaving around the end of June (I believe).
Got some new ideas for what to write about -- One involving rats and one that's just a flicker of an idea about feral chickens.
Kinda stuck in art but also learning a lot (I'm just really impatient).
I like rabbit meat; I've been checking Craigslist daily for rabbit cages and supplies.
Watching and loving a ton of Psych (Terriers is really good too).

Yyyyyyyyyyeah I think that's it. Might write a blog post tonight or tomorrow or some other time in the near or distant future. I have some ideas.

-Willhurrr

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.