Olivia Junior

“I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

This is a pretty accurate analogy of writing. First you conceive the idea. Then it grows and grows inside of you until the bulge of it is hanging there right in front of you whatever you do. You experience strange cravings and sensations. It keeps you up at night. Then the birth pangs come, and there's nothing you can do--you just have to sit and write and write and write and write, all the while wondering if you're going to survive this--until finally, the whole thing is out of you. And when everything is through and you cradle your creation--your own flesh and blood and tears and sweat--in your arms, you forget the past hours and days and weeks and months of pain, and all you know is joy...

Okay, so it's not quite as great as that, because the next morning when you read over what you've written you often realize it's a whole lot more terrible than you remembered. I hope a mother doesn't do that.

Anyway, you witnessed the childbirth process a month ago in my post Stages of an Essay (don't worry--it's nothing graphic) and now I'm following up with the result.

I'm applying for a camp this summer held by a vet school for incoming juniors and seniors interested in the veterinary field. As part of the application students had to write an essay five hundred words or less about what area(s) of veterinary medicine they were interested in and why.

So here is my child. 499 words. And my firstborn essay*.

Unfortunately, they aren't interested in artwork, so my little masterpiece was not included.

***

     When we were young children, my friends and I had a vast array of plastic and plush horses. We formed racing stables and cattle ranches and wild horse herds, and whenever a horse fell ill or hurt itself,  I was the one to prescribe various cough syrups and poultices, or experiment with some innovative procedure made up on the spot. Over time I acquired a small library of books like The Complete Equine Veterinary Manual, The Horseman’s Veterinary Encyclopedia, and The Comprehensive Guide to Equine Veterinary Medicine. I lugged these volumes to our play dates and referenced them to give more accurate treatments to my plastic patients.

    I was unperturbed by the graphic images in those manuals of festering wounds and animals mid-operation with their bowels splayed across the table. Each morning I poured my cereal in a rush to make it to the TV in time for that day’s episode of Emergency Vets, and happily munched Cheerios while watching a cesarean section performed on a Labrador Retriever. I failed to understand why my mother was so disturbed by this.

     When I was eight or nine, I was given a little money to spend at a used book sale held by our homeschool group. As I browsed one of the tables, my eyes fell upon the heftiest volume: a tenth grade biology textbook. It was love at first sight. The best part? It was just fifty cents, perfectly within my limited budget. Passersby grinned as I proudly staggered off under its weight.

     Over the years, little has changed. My vision of an ideal Friday night still involves curling up on the sofa with a science textbook. To my parents’ dismay—and that of their wallet—my love of horses didn’t wane either. At the age of eleven, after years of riding lessons and horse camp, I adopted the pony I had gentled at a local horse rescue. She was a spooky mare that had run feral on a mountainside for nearly a decade. Over time I had earned her trust, and I taught her a number of tricks, including giving kisses, swishing her tail on command, answering “yes” and “no” to questions, and dancing the hokey pokey. The two horses I’ve acquired since then have learned a few things watching her, but so far they haven’t quite figured out the hokey pokey.

     The veterinarians around me have been very supportive, perhaps empathetic to what others see as a  slightly disturbing fascination with animal innards. I was invited to sit by and watch a foal at a nearby riding stable undergo surgery to repair an umbilical hernia, following step-by-step in a surgery manual. When it was time for my own colt to be gelded, our veterinarian handed me the emasculator and allowed me to perform one half of the operation myself. My horse still hasn’t forgiven me for it.

    I would be happy in any field of veterinary medicine, but I feel equine practice is what I’m meant to do.

***

Yep. I'm a homeschooler.

*That's right, I never had to write a formal essay before this. Aren't I lucky? I did write other scholarly stuff, but I wrote those of my own accord, which made them nerdy.

Stages of an Essay

1. Think. 

And think.

And think.

And think.

2. Write.

And write.

And write.

And write.

3. Read what has been written.

"I seriously wrote that?"

"That will never do."

4. Despair.

5. Regroup.

6. Employ Little Brother's hair-plucking services.

7. Practice aim.

8. Refocus self on task at hand.

9. Blog about it.

Well, now you know what's been holding me up lately. Maybe if I ever get this thing finished I'll start posting again.

It's times like these I'm glad I'm a self-directed learner and I never was forced to write papers of any sort. I wrote so much on my own about what I was learning my mother saw no need to constrain me to assigned essays and thereby squelch my creativity. In fact, as a child I compiled books about my studies, so why should I have been limited to mere essays?

But now I am applying for a camp, and I must write an essay to turn in with the application.

Woe is me.

Counting Blessings

I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And will glorify Your name forever.

Psalm 86:12

and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 

Matthew 15:36

always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;

Ephesians 5:20

There is just one little problem with counting your blessings.

I can't count that high!

So here are just a few of the things I have to be thankful for.

***

A God who loves, protects, guides, frees.

A family that is stable, and parents who are willing to sacrifice for my education.

A little brother who smiles when I wake up each morning.

The wonderful, godly friends God has given me, who encourage, support, and uplift me.

The older friends, from whom I draw wisdom and guidance, and the younger friends, who are a delight and keep me young.

The internet, telephone, and post, which allow us to keep in touch though distance may separate us.

For sunshine, and for rain, both metaphorically and physically.

For the details which prove God lovingly and thoughtfully fashioned every facet of Creation.

For the hardships that strengthen us and teach us to give thanks, if we let them.

For a warm home and plentiful food and clean water. It's cliche and often spoken without real meaning, but it is truer than I can begin to comprehend.

Being homeschooled.

Pianos, and the knowledge and skill to play them.

For language, for words and their power, and the ability to use them.

For horses.

Wind in my face.

Sunlight seeping through the treetops.

The gift of modern medicine.

Books!

And a thousand other things for which I will spend the rest of my life giving thanks.

I hope each of you has a blessed day spending time with your loved ones.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The National Pi Writing Month

Because I have waited for the last minute to post, I am copying and pasting last year's post so that I can go to bed.

This month I'm participating in an utterly pointless, very silly, and rather nerdy event known as National Pi Writing Month, or NaPiWriMo for short.

Inspired by the National Novel Writing Month, NaPiWriMo is a challenge to write a 500-word story during the month of September.

The catch? Each word has to have the number of letters as the corresponding digit of pi.

For example, the first word must have three letters, the second one letter, the third four letters, and so on.

No, there is no point in this, aside from a good many laughs (PiWri stories have a tendency to be extremely silly), and no, you don't have to like math to do it (in fact, I rather dislike math).

Last year's attempt was rather a failure, but it was a fun failure.*

Even if you haven't begun, it's not too late! I... erm... have not started either. And I'm going to be rather occupied this next week. And I have no ideas for subject matter. This is off to a good start.


*So was it really a failure? This is a deep thought.

Today is the Day

Today's the day. For better or for worse, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to read my Script Frenzy manuscript.

Wish me luck. In my three Screnzies, this is the first time I've summoned the courage to go through the result (shameful, I know). I have no idea what I might find.

I'm a little scared. I found after reading my NaNo novel that the parts I felt when writing them were absolutely horrid weren't actually so terrible as I remembered. The parts, however, I thought at the time were kind of good... made me want to scream. They were so bad.

Throughout April I felt for the most part that what I was writing was pretty good, sort of. But that probably just means that when I look at it again I will pluck my head hair by hair.

So, if you don't see me around for a while, I'm probably still recovering from the trauma, and shopping for wigs on Amazon*.

When I'm back together, you might get to see some amusing Screnzyisms.

When you reread your first drafts for the first time,** do you find it's better or worse than you remember? Have you ever come across any particularly amusing errors or typos? If you're not a writer and you're reading this post, do you like pie?



*Okay, I couldn't resist. I just did it. I think this one would look really natural on me, don't you think?
**That sounds sorta funny: reread for the first time. Hehe. Anyway.

Vict'ry!

(In using an apostrophe and exclamation point in the title, I am distancing myself from ZNZ's very similar post. =P)

I just won. In the past thirty days, I bled and perspired and cried my way to 100 pages. Some of it was actually okay, and some of it was an embarrassment to screenwriting, that's what revision's for, right?

So now it's time to go watch a movie, relax, and celebrate. Congratulations to everyone who won! Here, have a virtual cupcake. Even if you didn't win, it's probably safe to say you've written more pages of script than most have. You get a cupcake for that too.
 

As I was typing this post, Christian fell asleep in my arms.

<3

I Think This is the Title

So, I’m trying out this feature where you can post a blog post through email. I’m assuming the subject of the email becomes the title of the post, but I’m not really sure.

I don’t really have much to write, except that I have nothing to write. Last night working on Script Frenzy, I was so out of things to write my characters engaged in a philosophical discussion concerning the metronome. It was actually sort of interesting, and rather fun to write. And also painfully reminiscent of my own trials involving the metronome…

My metronome scene is pretty much wrapped up, and I’m not sure what to write next. I’m running out of characters to kill off. I guess that’s what I get for making them die in the backstory. I could write backstory, I guess…

Also, I’ve been looking through my NaNo manuscript. (And Outlook spellcheck told me “NaNo” isn’t a word. That is so not true. NaNo is totally a word. I shall add it to the dictionary.) In November, the scenes I believed profaned literature are upon reread actually not as horrific as I remembered, and some of them are quite witty. Almost good, even, ringing with the little truths in life that are often overlooked. One short scene which I had ended abruptly with the words, “Oh, this is so horrific I cannot go on,” was actually rather poetic. Another scene I had been so horrified with I rewrote it twice and made a note to cut the first take, I actually found to be best in its original form.

Unfortunately, the scenes which I had thought at the time were not so bad, were really, really bad. After reading them I thoroughly rinsed my eyes and consulted Poison Control. After explaining to them that no, by NaNo I did not mean NaNO₃, they let me go with instructions to rinse again just in case and call my physician if I experienced anything out of the ordinary in regards to my vision.

The good news, though, is that in general throughout the month of November the quality of my writing increased, reaching its zenith around the time of the creation of my amoeba poem. This I found to be most pleasing. The blood, sweat, and tears I shed producing what I thought at the time to be utter drivel was not completely a waste. Only 70% of it was utter drivel.

(Okay, so I exaggerate. There was actually only a small portion of it that was entirely unsalvageable. The majority just needed major revision.)

What I fear, however, is how nonhorrific I think my Screnzy (which I also had to add to the spellcheck dictionary) is turning out to be. The vast majority of it I feel is actually tolerable quality for a Screnzy script. Which, if the same proves true as it did for NaNo, means what I’m producing is really quite atrocious.

This is getting long and rambling, and I’m pretty far behind in Screnzy and should be writing, so I should wrap it up. Those of you doing Screnzy, how are you doing? And those who did NaNo, did you find your novel better or worse than you remembered when you unearthed the manuscript from the bottom of the drawer?

Little Amoebae: A Poem

There are those November nights when it's one AM and you're ten thousand words behind in NaNo and you've stepped into a plot sinkhole and you have no idea what to write and so you word-war with a friend and set Write or Die on Evil Kamikaze mode and disable backspace and the result... is something like this:

Dear little ambaoae,
Dwelling in the pond skum
Do you ever seen the sky,
And do you ever come?

Oh, little amobae,
Dwelling in the pond floor,
Have you ever jumped up high,
And hit your head on the door?

lLittle tiny amoaebae,
All of you--aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Have you ever wondered
What word wrhymes with cousins?

Oh you little amoebae,
Dwelling in the pond scum,
The night draws nigh
And into the darkness I hum.

Invisible little amoebae,
Well, I suppose sometimes you're bidg enough to see
But when I can see you with the naked eye,
Still how small are you compared to me?

Funny looking amoebae,
Changing shapes whenever you wish
Extracted by the scientist,
And plotpped onto a dish

Yeah. I worry myself too.

Week Two Woes

Another stunning masterpiece by yours truly.

I'm behind in Script Frenzy, so naturally, I'm here blogging about it. What is it about the second week of these things (Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo, you name it) that is so agonizing?

The first week you dive in to a brand new script (or novel or what have you) aflame with passion for your story, keen to let the words flow into your ink (or pixels). You're zipping along, racing furiously after that fluffy plot bunny*, consistently passing your daily quota, when suddenly Week Two hits. That cute, fluffy, wubbable wittle plot bunny was really leading you into a trap--and you fall into the gaping plot hole it placed in your path. 

The darkness inside the hole is disorienting, and you can't even string together a halfway-coherent sentence. Unable to see, you panic, running to and fro and hitting the hard wall of the hole every time. Your characters ditch you, leaving you to rot and die. You crawl into a hole (wait, you're already in a hole...) and go to sleep.

When you wake, it's Week Three. The morning shines brightly, birds sing, and you're like, "Now wait a minute. I can climb out of this hole. I can climb out of this hole! Why didn't I think of that before?!" And you get up and climb out of the hole.

(At least, that's what most NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy participants seem to claim they find in the third week. I usually find Week Three the worst. But anyway.)

And then, Week Four is usually a blur as you zoom to the finish line. Or, for some, it's blurry from the tears you shed because you didn't win.

So anyway, it's Week Two. I'm not sure I'm all the way down in a hole, but I've hit a rut, definitely. (And I can't form a coherent sentence, which is evident in the quality of this post.) My state of stuckness, though, is mainly caused by my own nerdiness. Chemistry is just too much fun! Who wants to write when one can be learning about matter and its phases?!

The only reason I haven't done any chemistry today, in fact, is because I've been saving it as a reward for catching up to my page-count quota. Which means I really need to close Blogger and open Celtx**, because I am itching to get the scoop on why exactly water expands when it freezes...

But before I go, here's your daily dose of nerdiness.

* If you don't know what a plot bunny is, see ZNZ's explanation.
** Celtx is a wonderful script-writing software and my BFF during April.

[Witty Title Here]

FADE IN:

INT. OLIVIA'S HOUSE - NIGHT
OLIVIA, mid-teens, sits cross-legged on a leather sofa, a dog curled up beside her. On the floor lies a small stack of notebooks and screenwriting manuals. This is obviously a girl in procrastination.

She hunches over to stare at the laptop resting on her thighs. The blank white screen reflects on her glasses.

ON THE MONITOR

The cursor blinks ominously in the empty Blogger "compose" tab, pausing briefly as the draft is autosaved. It resumes blinking, slowly, tauntingly.

BACK TO OLIVIA

Olivia sighs, scratches her nose, blows a wisp of hair from her eyes, drums her fingers absently against the computer. Suddenly, she perks up. Her fingers begin THUNDERING ON THE KEYBOARD.

ON THE MONITOR

The beginnings of several different sentences appear on the screen but are mercilessly hacked away by the POUNDING BACKSPACE KEY each time. THE TYPING STOPS.

BACK TO OLIVIA

Olivia heaves a sigh and leans back, moaning.

Then a sly smile creeps across her face. She leans forward and TYPES SLOWLY, carefully.

ON THE MONITOR

First the words:

"INT. OLIVIA'S HOUSE - NIGHT"

And then, one by one, the rest of the words from this script begin appearing in the text box.

BACK TO OLIVIA

Olivia grins and nods in satisfaction. What she is writing pleases her.

Then she HITS THE TAB KEY. A look of horror crosses her face.

ON THE MONITOR

Olivia's post, now lengthy enough to require a scrolling bar thing on the right of the text box, is scrolled up to the very top. She scrolls back down to the bottom.

BACK TO OLIVIA

Again, she HITS THE TAB KEY.

ON THE MONITOR

Again, the scrolling bar thing has reached its climax.

Olivia repeats the process several times, PRESSING A VARIETY OF OTHER KEYS along with tab, to no avail. Every time, rather than tabbing over, the tab key brings her to the top of her post. She panics.

OLIVIA
What do I do?! I can't format the dialogue properly! This is a crime against screenwriting! Blogger is prejudiced! How dare they?

Looking at what she's just typed, Olivia is horrified and disgusted at the formatting. She TYPES MADLY for several minutes, trying to solve the problem, but her frustration only increases.

EXT. OLIVIA'S HOUSE - NIGHT
A SMALL HOUSE, illumined by a dim security light. A CHORUS OF NIGHTTIME INSECTS CHIRPS, and a pair of ROCKING CHAIRS on the front porch blow in the wind, CREAKING softly.

Suddenly, a CRASH from inside shatters the stillness.

INT. OLIVIA'S HOUSE - NIGHT
COMPUTER PARTS are strewn across the living room. The dog cowers in the corner. Olivia disappears. After a moment, she reenters the room, book in hand. She ignores the stack of notebooks and screenwriting manuals.

Curling up in a comfy chair, she reads.

FADE OUT.

(Yeah, it's really late and I have nothing to post. In the morning I'll see this post and be horrified that I published it for the whole word to see.

And does anyone happen to know if there are HTML tags or something to get it to tab over?)

Gasp! Is It True? Could It Be?

Christian has grown a bit since my last post,
and even this photo is old.

Yes. You are looking at a post. A brand new post.

If you're a follower, odds are when this post showed up on your Blogger Dashboard you stared at it for a minute trying to make The House on the Rock ring a bell. It has, after all, been four months since that name has shown its face in your Reading List.

I'm a sorry excuse for a blogger. This is, what, the fourth or fifth time I've posted after a long absence?

At least I can say that I've fulfilled (most of) what I said in my last post. I said I was going to manage my time better to increase my productivity, and I daresay I have. Since my last post, I've read the Bible cover-to-cover in eighty-nine days, finished the first level of Latin, completed my highschool biology course in nine and half weeks and begun chemistry, scored a nice grade under a tough judge in a piano festival, entertained my baby brother countless times while my mom was on the phone or cooking dinner, and kept in touch with long-time friends.

Unfortunately, with all that busyness some things had to be neglected, and blogging was one of them. I need to take a breather now, however, especially seeing as I've caught a cold, which is a perfect excuse to spend more time blogging. I've already tweaked the layout a bit, and that new header is a very simplified representation of Portland Headlight I made in Paint.

Another area that's received far too little attention is reading and writing, which is excellent timing with Script Frenzy starting tomorrow! NaNoWriMo's sister event, "Screnzy" is a challenge to write 100 pages of script in the thirty days of April. It can be any sort of script--screenplay, stage play, TV or radio script, graphic novel, you name it. This is my third year, hopefully my third win, and also my third time adapting.

So tell me, are you doing Script Frenzy? Why or why not? If so, what are you writing?

And is the blog just too busy?

Welcome, 2011



Photo courtesy the Associated Press... I think.

So, it's 2011.

First off, the glasses just aren't the same. If the year doesn't have two zeroes, it's just not right.

Second, Happy New Year, everyone!

Third, I have nothing intelligent to say. Every lovely blogger I follow has posted a poignant, eloquent essay reflecting the highs and lows the of past year, or listing ambitions for the year to come, or leaving the past behind to experience 2011 free of nostalgia and regret for what cannot be undone.

This post is neither poignant, nor eloquent, nor to any degree coherent. Kind of like all my posts. So if you'd rather spend your time reading a coherent post, check out any of the blogs listed on the right.

Meanwhile, I'll ramble on about whatever comes to mind as my readers trot off to more interesting, purposeful, [insert suiting adjective denoting worthwhileness] pursuits.

The highlight of the past year was certainly the birth of my baby brother. (And pie. But mostly my brother. Okay, the true highlight was my brother. Though the pie was good too.)

The worst thing of the year was not anything that actually took place, but all those things that didn't happen, everything I could have said and done and did not. Many of those things were reasonably within my grasp, yet I did not exert myself to attain them out of ignorance, out of uncertainty, and often, out of mismanaged time.

I cannot bear to let that happen again.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, per se (if you think of a way to better yourself, why not start right then and there? why wait till January 1?), but the birth of the new calendar year does cause one to reflect on one's priorities, to sort out what truly must be done and what can wait till another time or needn't be done at all. (I don't know about you, but the beginning of the school year has the same effect on me.)

I feel so sage as I sit here listening to the patter of rain on the roof, sipping tea. Sometime in the future I'll unbury this post and laugh at my youth and naivety. But I suppose it will always be like that, won't it? When I'm a hundred years old I'll find something I wrote when I was ninety and marvel at how much I've grown since. I will never achieve an infinite amount of wisdom. I will never finish learning, growing in love and knowledge.

And I have some goals for the not-so-distant future to help me as I grow and learn.

My main goal is to read the Bible.

In ninety days.

Yes, the whole Bible! Meditations of His Love has set up a wonderful program called the Bible Blast, with two different reading plans, one chronological and one in the traditional biblical order, and some great tips for keeping up with the challenge.

It officially starts today and ends March 31, but if you stumble on the link a bit late, don't worry! It's set up so it can be started any time.

I'm keeping a notebook to record inspiring passages, things I'm learning, questions for which to seek answers when I have the time. By the time I'd gotten three chapters into Genesis I'd filled a page of thoughts and things to ponder.

I will also continue my nonbiblical studies. I will explore science, read as much classic literature as I can, study history, (attempt to) learn Latin and whatever other languages I take a fancy to, practice piano, take up another instrument if I can possibly find the time, and even (most likely futilely) attempt to wrap my mind around the dreaded... math. I've always adored learning (other than the dreaded math) and considered my schooling a top priority, but with college fast approaching it's more important than ever.

Another activity to which more time must be devoted is writing. With everything else in life devouring my time and energy I've written very little the past few years. This needs to change. So many stories are begging to be told I fear I will go mad if I don't start carving an hour or two out of each day to write, or revise, or plot, or revise some more.

And friends. I've wonderful friends I've scarcely spoken or written to lately with everything else going on. I miss them. I need to catch up with them.

I've realized I need to be more helpful to others, as well. I am trying to be more attentive to others' needs, to recognize the appropriate times to assist them in whatever I can.

But my absolute number one priority above all this?

God.

With that, I bring this rambling post to a close. I've Genesis chapter eleven to read!

I pray the new year brings blessings and joy to all of you.

(And a slice of pie to whoever can make any sense of this post.)

Of Gladiators, Emperors, and Brownies

You might remember my post several weeks ago about a crazy challenge known as NaPiWriMo.

Well, I spent the month of September pouring sweat and tears into writing a completely ridiculous pi-encoded story... and I failed epically.

Of the lofty 500-word goal, I wrote 192. I share with you my manuscript, which I have titled Of Gladiators, Emperors, and Brownies.

“Sue, I love a great gladiator in armour."
“Steve, was Rome’s gigantic gladiator actually imaginary?”
“You, uh, see, coliseum acts defied my morals.”
“What are you speaking?”
“Sue, I’m talking purposely about my passions.”
“Actually, once I suspected Emperor J. Caesar, Octavian’s dad, imperator, appointed him supreme.”
“Right.”
“I think Octavian is Augustus’s earlier self.”
“Certainly. Back into great gladiator, if you concede.”
“Augustus I esteem more.”
“Armour is engaging. Boring is Augustus.”
“Decidedly disagreed. Augustus surely is superior.”
“Sue, let’s disagree to agree.”
“Thy hand is a… a… brownie!”
“Please instead gladiator converse we.”
“I like Augustus.”
“Augustus cannot rival.”
“A man in weaponry is not boring, though such violent execution was barbaric.”
“True that. Armour preserves, still.”
“Truly, Steve, covering is so not—”
“I—”
“—capable.”
“—am Roman, and—”
“Steve, gladiators were tortured.”
“I do perceive that, Susannah.”
“A…a…a… brownie!”
“Girl Scout?”
“No, brownies!”
“What?”
“I am certain I recognize the brownies.”
“Where?”
“It… I… I… there!”
“Where?”
“There!”
“Delicious!”
“Steven, back into Romans.”
“If we discussed good Augustus, gladiator would stay forgotten.”
“But—yum, brownies!”
“I decidedly prefer root beer to brownies. Augustus I decidedly loathed.”
“Rome’s leader

 Alas, yes, I stopped in mid-sentence. I could not go on...

Day 7: Five Things I Couldn't Possibly Live Without

I'm so sorry I'm late again! I was gone most of yesterday, and the night before when I was about to open Blogger... the internet died.


So anyway, five things I could not possibly survive without*:


 1. The Internet
Ah, the internet. The source of all knowledge... and much procrastination.

2. Books!

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel

I won't be growing a beard anytime, but I do love my books! I just don't think I could live without them, fiction and nonfiction alike.

3. Horses

Whether it's riding, grooming, petting, crooning, training, or just admiring from afar, I am in heaven whenever I'm around horses. I can't imagine life without them.



Photo by nayukim on Flickr



4. Notebooks and Mechanical Pencils

I grouped these together because one isn't very useful without the other...

As a writer, notebooks are a necessity. While I compose the actual manuscript primarily on the computer, notebooks are perfect for jotting down notes, tidbits of research, character sketches, and everything else that comes to mind.

My favorite writing utensil is a mechanical pencil. I can erase my mistakes, and then retract the lead when I'm not using it so I don't accidentally scribble on random things. Or poke myself...



Photo by Mourner on Flickr



5. Piano

I would have a very hard time living without constant access to a piano or keyboard of some sort. A few days--or hours--without playing, and my fingers twitch with the yearning to pound out a Beethoven or dance to a Chopin. What a wonderful way to glorify God!


(For whatever reason, the majority of this post is showing up in bold. It's normal in the text box in which I write the post, but bold when I preview it. I have no idea why...)

* Obviously, there are much more important things that truly are crucial (Jesus, food, shelter, etc.), and, as 1 Timothy 6:8 says, "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content," so I could actually live without these things if I had to. But I certainly am thankful that I have them!