I was reading over my school's lit/art magazine, for which I was Junior Editor this year and will be Editor-in-Chief in the fall. My photographs and my best (IMO) short story are all looking good, but I just discovered that one of my other prose pieces is...not. There are little pieces missing - effectively, the published version is an earlier draft.

The worst part is that I was in charge of proofing the magazine for errors like this. L#*U$*#&$JFHDEDH

It's not obvious to anyone besides my nitpicky self, though. The piece is missing one sentence (one I quite LIKED) and the tense shifts in some spots, but other than that, it's not so bad. Moral of the story, always proofread. In a few months when I'm really Edz-in-Chief, I promise to do a better job of that.

Weeks without update: 5 1/2

Yeah, so I'm a bad girl, but I think we all knew that already. I can't pull out the "busy" excuse as usual either, because frankly, I'm not that busy anymore. Finals start in about a week, but APs and my major papers are done. What am I doing then, besides not updating?

Watching stupid videos. Eating junk food. Reading. Going for so-called "runs." Eating more junk food.

Today, I was dancing in my living room. I was wearing socks and I slipped on the polished wood floor, falling square on my back and twisting a foot and a hand beneath me. I have two major ceremonies to attend tomorrow. FML

Thankfully, I didn't hurt myself too badly. I thought I broke my foot for a moment, though. A good thing, since I do have to be formally inducted as Editor-in-Chief of my school's art / lit magazine tomorrow, and receive a few other honors at two ceremonies tomorrow. (My friend accused me of being a cult member when I told him I had to attend "ceremonies.") It would not do to show up with a cast.

Off to work on the next chapter now. Scout's honor.

Hoorah! I'm just a month or several late. [Insert the busy excuse here.]

( More needless suspense behind the cut. )

So here's the scoop, wonderful and few readers.

I'm pregnant. And it's a boy.

Ahaha, no. No, no, that was terrible of me...but really, here's the deal-io. I'm going to be away for a week - in France, actually - and obviously I won't be updating the Novella Legacy or whatever else. Why I'm bothering announcing this I don't know, since I have once again been on unannounced hiatus the last two months, and no one would be the wiser if I was truly away or just away from my computer.

But! I won't make any pinky-swears or blood-vows, but I foresee a 68% chance of update the week afterward. I did all the playing of the "anticipated" Generation 5 college tour, Part 2 almost before Part 1 was on the shelves. Most of the playing for the first real chapter of Gen 6 is done, too. When I return from mon vacances, I'll write up Part 2 and make a spiffy cover. Remember, that's not a pact or anything, though.

Mostly I've been busy writing colossal English papers and trying not to fail out of Precalculus, because *I* would like to go to college, plzthx. And I don't mean rooming at Elsewhere College with Chrystal Colabelli. (Can you even imagine? Horrors of horrors.)

Thanks again, loyal readers! Updating at all is quite a feat for me.

With a tongue burnt from hot cocoa,
Kit

I was playing Sigma Gamma Nu House and I just couldn't resist taking pictures of every room from every angle imaginable, now that Apartment Life has given us glorious ceilings. There's not too much of a "makeover" involved in this, unless you consider what the house looked like way in the beginning and what if looks like now.
( Ever wanted a guided tour of the Greek house? )

What an optimistic way to begin the first half of the college years!
( They came wearing their pajamas. )

I'm going on a short vacation away from home, so this will probably be the last time I post prior to Christmas. I ran the 1600 (the mile) at the NY Armory last night, and I'm so sore! It didn't help that my doofus coaches forgot to give us pins for our race cards, so I had to sprint back upstairs to ask for one. And my friend and I almost got busted for drinking a smoothie near the track. Yup, I'm a troublemaker by nature. I can't even help it.

A few things...
1) I'm going to try to get the two Novella Legacy college chapters up over break. I split the kids up this generation, so it's easier to manage them all. As of yet I've mostly played Finny's kids + Scarlett.
( Housing sneak preview. )

2) I just reread the last Novella chapter to refresh myself and I noticed a BIG mistake at the end.
( Finny's/Kit's big boo boo )

3) Admittedly, I've been spending more time playing my apoc neighborhood than Sceneria. So bad of me! But the apocalypse has been in the cards for quite some time...it's embarrassing to say how long (*cough*ayearandahalf*cough*).
( I won't say much, but here are a few teasers. )

I released this chapter over a month ago. I could blame it on NaNo, or just use the old "busy" excuse, but to be honest...I'm lazy.


Novella Legacy XIV: Fortune Favors the Bold

What is fortune, and how has it played out - and how will it play out - in the Novella family? We explore these and other deep philosophical questions in this chapter.

I can't believe it. I won NaNoWriMo 2008? Did I really manage to bang out 50,000 + words of a manuscript in 30 days? YES I DID!

Ah. Thanks, I'm done gloating now. I told my parents and friends I won (and I even showed them the pretty certificate) but I never got a chance to properly applaud myself. Every WriMo - whether she hit 50K or not - really ought to give herself a big pat on the back. What really amazes me is that I wrote a "novel" while spending half the month soldiering through the most grueling weeks of cross country season, and devoting the rest of my evenings to English essays and Biology labs.

And between all of that and NaNo chugging away my free time, I didn't get an opportunity to post weekly updates about November. So, in true Kit form, I'm going to do it now.

 

( So, I hear you wrote a novel? )

 

 

( The plot continues... )
( Doldrums of Week Three )
( My favorite holiday? )

I made a few new BFFs during NaNo: 1) the word count tool on Microsoft Word, 2) tea, and 3) Mollie, my dear MC. But mostly tea.

There are few things in this world more frustrating than the sealing stickers on a new CD.

The kind that comes on the top edge of the case, where the artist name and album name is printed? Yup, that's the one. Those things make me want to bang the case against the wall until the darn disc falls out. Clearly, I'm exaggerating, but really, something must be done about those stickers. I bought two new albums this week (Snow Patrol's "A Hundred Million Suns" and Keane's "Perfect Symmetry") and I was just opening them in prep for NaNo.

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow! [Cue overly dramatic moaning.]


( There, there, get your venting out on paper. )

BTW...you can view my NaNo profile here. I'm Nonsense Facts there as well.

I'm going to start drinking more tea.

Hokay, so I actually uploaded the chapter four days ago, but it was the night before our class trip and I didn't feel like making the complicated LJ entry. The real reason it takes me so long to write "update" entries is because I continually forget my Photobucket password.



You could have seen it coming from miles away, like a UFO -- the sci-fi genre parody chapter. Or maybe not. The Novellas seem to be going in a new direction....with a crop of new book zealots? The kids grow up, but Leper doesn't. Beam me up!

Novella Legacy XIII: Take Me To Your Leader

Ooo, good one.

Hmmm...maybe Gemma Doyle from Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty (and the other two books in the trilogy). She and I would probably get along.

Another update two weeks after the last one? (The recap chap isn't a real update.) The regular legacy doesn't take as long to play or write as the college chapters...provided I have the time to do either.



Novella Legacy XII: Naught but a Curse
Outtakes/gag reel under the cut.

( We're talking about Leper, you know. )

The general consensus after my last update a week ago was that it was tough to remember what exactly had happened five months ago. And even who these characters were. So I decided that I would have to release a recap chapter a generation earlier than I'd been planning to.



Recaption! Part One

An abbreviated (but not too abbreviated) play-by-play of the happenings so far. I narrate, as usual, and Serafina tries to add side entertainment that pales in comparison to her rapping.

Or at least I'll try.

In the five months since I updated the Novellas, I did have loads of things going on: The usual homework (including chemistry, the bane of my existence), regular track practice and then meets where I didn't get home until 7 PM, essays and a huge research paper, weekend errands and events, final exams, a writers' workshop, and a conference of sorts. Besides, I usually don't do a lot of recreational computer use during the week.

So when I did play the sims, I gave priority to the SSI Joint Legacy because I wanted to hand it off to the next person in line in a timely manner. I would get bored the times when I did play the Novellas -- I couldn't get past the mundane aspects of Uni. I was unable to put on my "photographer hat" to look at the things the kids did from another perspective, so I barely took photos. I had a spot of writer's block and couldn't think of anything interesting to say for whatever pictures I did take. And of course there was this issue of seven sims on one lot. Granted, it wasn't a very large lot and it didn't lag, but I have a tendency to micromanage.

Obviously, I wasn't getting much done on the Novella frontier.

After about a week of vacation, I got the creative juices flowing again. I applied my coach's motto to playing Sigma Gamma Nu: "let's get this done." I began viewing ordinary happenings from a creative standpoint -- suddenly I could write something funny about the most average picture. Plus, I taught myself to micromanage less.

Right now, among other things, I'm thrilled to just have this chapter done and the kids out of college. I will be updating again very soon with a recap chapter. Several people have mentioned that they kind of forgot who everyone was. Even I was playing a lot yesterday and Gemma (Pippa's sister) walked up and I literally went, "Who are you?" (laughs)

From the first slide:
Welcome back to the Novella Legacy! Wait, did I hear that right? Did I just use the words "welcome back" and "Novella legacy" in the same sentence? I did.



Novella Legacy XI ii: I Can Haz GrilledCheez?

( YES! Oh, yes, yes, baby! It's finally over! )

Ta da! Here it is, the final installment of my share of the SSI Joint Legacy! I uploaded it a week ago, but it was 11 PM and I had to leave for a conference-type thing (which was fabulous) the next morning and I was too lazy to get everything on LJ. Yup, that's pretty much me in two words: lazy and busy. What a combo.



SSI Joint Legacy 2.2

Preview: The Islanders go on another island vacation, experience a streak of success, and Marshall meets a strange character. More candid photos under the cut.

( Sink or swim! )

Ohemgeez, I posted an update! No wai! Maybe I'll update the Novella Legacy sometime before the turn of the next century?!




EDIT: I've got all the broken links working. Apparently other people were having the same problem. Love ya, Firefox.

SSI Joint Legacy 2.1
Marshall takes up more than one wheel on the Islander ship of life. The ocean's a sailor's dream so far, but are rough waters ahead? Meanwhile, Kit attends a writing workshop to learn how to stay away from bad analogies.

Candid photo dump below the cut!

( All the stuff that I wanted to print (somewhere). )

No, no, I don't mean *real* college. I'm only a high school sophomore...but I do get loads of college spam email and brochures in the post, thank you for asking.

What I mean is playing sim college. I'm home on spring break, and most of my friends are gone, so there's not much to do most of the time besides reading, running, writing, and playing sims. I have three projects I'm working on: a) the Novellas (bien sur), b) the SSI Joint Legacy, and c) the pre-doomsday part of my Apocalypse Challenge. And I have to play Uni for all of those. The Novellas are about halfway through their first semester of Junior year, the Islanders have recently started Junior year, and my apoc boy (more on that later) is almost done with Sophomore year.

They're all fun and different in their own ways - like I have to play 7 sims for the Novellas and just one in the Apoc - but college is college. Supposedly, I'm really good at spicing up the college years in my stories. There's definitely unique features about each college experience, even with the Novella Legacy. Like for Generation 2, Seasons was brand new and the kids were spazzing out about the snow, and now in Generation 4, everyone's cuckoo for coffee.


But sweet God, if I have to listen to any more college rock, force my sims to their freakin' term papers, watch the cafeteria worker burn any more mac n' cheese, or see the guy in the fugly llama mascot uniform, I'm going to rip the nearest dormie whose BO emanates from his body in visible green waves from the computer screen and grab him by his throat. And that is a threat. 


Yes, methinks that Kit needs some Advil. Maybe a picture teaser will make things better?