December 19, 2010

Snowy!

Why, yes, writing can be snowy!
This time, the first snow fell in November, and the freshest is from yesterday. I took a walk today with my camera. Thought I share some photos with you.
Nature is so marvelous! No matter how cold it is outside, it's simply beautiful!

Enjoy! And have lots of inspiration ;)

in November

in November

end of November

yesterday; this is a kindergarten

today; one of our neighbour's pine tree

today

today; it seems we had some uninvited guests ;)

today; my cactus and winter in the background

Have a nice winter!!!

December 18, 2010

The Fantasy of Surviving

Somehow, I managed to survive this week. I'm still pretty exhausted, but at least I'm done with the worst of it. One more exam on Tuesday, then three in January. That means that I can finally decrease my coke-intake!

Browsing through my latest posts, I've realized I'd abandoned writing about my creative writing class, in favour of NaNoWriMo. It's understandable, but I feel like I still should've paid more attention to it.
Nonetheless, let's continue with the next genre: Fantasy.

For my surprise, it started in Romanticism. Typical fantasy creates new mythology, or uses old mythology that is reframed by the author's mind. Mythology should be balanced in term of sex (the gender, people, what were you thinking?) and ought to include hierarchy, fight for dominance, miracles, artefacts, etc. Actions and facts (can) contradict physics.
Last time, I wrote about magical realism which has fantastic elements, too. The most outstanding difference between magical realism and fantasy / sci-fi is that while the former doesn't explain even the most unbelievable things, fantasy and sci-fi tell us why those fantastic things can occur.

But why is there fantasy? There's this thing we call 'frame of reference' which hints at mankind's common knowledge. For example, if you look around mythologies or fairytales of different cultures, you'll find some common symbols, motives and course of actions. This indicates there's something in the background which connects us through these common patterns in various cultures. Social psychology engages in this, if you're interested in it.

A couple of stories we mentioned:
Jostein Gaarder: Sofies verden (Sophie's World)

~~~ 
I'll write down the list of topics, so you can choose which one you'd like to read about next time. If nobody wants to choose, then we'll go in this order:
- Utopias and Distopias
- Historical novels (Regency novels)
- Fairytales
- Humor

I'd like to post my fairytale between Christmas and New Year - I still need to read through it, translate, then check for mistakes, before posting, though. But it won't mess with what you choose for me to write about in the next post, don't worry ;)

December 09, 2010

Complain Corner - Why you (probably) won't see me posting for awhile

Yes, again. Lately, because of NaNoWriMo and sinking into self-pity that I won't reach 50k, blablabla.

Now, I'm having exams. I mean, next week. Every day. Even on Friday, though I don't have lessons on that day. And I'll get to know this weekend whether I'll have 1 or 2 exams on Tuesday. Wheepee! (Feel the sarcasm.)
It's gonna be a hectic week, and I'm afraid that I'll need another bottle (or two) of caffeine-filled coke :/ Damn exam-periods, ruining my health. Oh, and I'll have one more exam on the 21st, then I'm clear - until 7th January, but I'm not complaining about that one, because otherwise, it'd have had to have been on the 16th or 23rd of December. A little bit of consideration from a teacher - she's doing her PhD studies, so I guess she hasn't forgot the terrible exam periods, yet. Thank you.

On the other hand, I might have a few posts, because - as all worthwile writers, I can be a big procrastinator. But if I do manage to get my wandering mind under control, then you'll probably won't hear from me for a week or two. Just wanted to warn you.

THEN I'll continue my posts about my creative writing class! You didn't forget about that, did you? We still have a few more lessons to go! And I think I'll translate one of my homeworks into English and post it here. An original fairytale ;)

December 05, 2010

NaNoWriMo 2010 Summary

This'll be my last completely NaNoWriMo-related entry this year - I think. I don't know yet, how long it'll be, but if it's novel-lenght, sorry in advance. I promise I don't want to go into details, more like a... eer... draft of the third and last week. Oh, and the last two days.

Third week:
At the end of the second week, I was so happy I caught up with TEH PLAN and was only a few hundred words short and feeding off my last blog post, that I felt confident I would finish on time and content with my progress.
Hence those next days when I only wrote a few hundred words. Not much, it didn't even come close to the daily wordcount goal, but still, I wrote some.

Fourth week:
I continued with my few-hundred-words-per-day progress. I still had a week... A WEEK! First, it sounded such a little time, then I reassured myself that's plenty of time. Besides that, I had an exam(-like thingy), then met up with my oldest friend whom I haven't seen for such a long time, so I didn't really have time to write.
And before I knew it, only 5 days were left. I think that's when I began to feel something similar to panic. But no worries! I knew I won't have that much time on the weekend, because I had a few things scheduled, so I had to write a lot on Friday. I can do that easily, right?
Nope. I could only write 1,5k. Then only 1k on Saturday. But I did write 3k on Sunday, which was the most packed day out of the three. Funny how life works, yes? Though I think it might've had something to do with the rapidly rising panic.
More and more of my writing buddies and other fellow wrimos in my region got that nice, shiny, purple bar under their username. Even those who started NaNoWriMo in week two! They only had half the time and they were already finished! And how shameful it'd be if I only had a 2009 winner T-shirt and when someone asks about 2010, I'd be very embarrassed about it, because I couldn't do it!
Yes, I had more on my plate this year and didn't even write in my mother language. But the others who started late, had been very busy, too and they already DID IT!

Thus came Monday, with almost 4k. I wanted to write at least... I don't know... 5k or 6k? Because I only had 1 class on Monday, then I was free (aside from homework for next morning). And Tuesday is a long day. And last year, I managed to write 6k (my record!), but I didn't have classes that day. So it seemed impossible to write even more on Tuesday.
Nonetheless, I closed Monday with 44 422 words. I had to write more than 5,5k on the last day, as if there wasn't enough things to do!!!
On Tuesday, I wrote when waiting between classes, using whatever notebook (paper-based) I dug out of my bag. Bought snacks. Bought coke (but let's keep this between ourselves; I don't fancy coke, I only needed it for the adrenaline and since I'd been waking up before 6 AM for a couple of days and had to write more than 5,5k on a busy schoolday to finish on time, I decided to buy one).
Luckly (?), my last class was canceled, so I got home as fast as I could, typed up the scenes from my notebook and drank coke. And wrote. And wrote, and wrote. And didn't use the Hungarian NaNoWriMo chatroom, until I got to 50k. In 4-4,5 hours, around 8.15 PM, I reached the 50 000 words finishline.
Then I went to eat dinner, started up the chat and after awhile, I realized I downed all 0,5 litre coke during my writing frenzy. And no matter who opened my door, I directed them at my doorhanger which said not to disturb me under any circumstances.

It was crazy. It was a long chase. And I've transcended many things that seemed impossible to overcome before. In 2009, I wrote in Hungarian, my mother language. I had a passive semester at the University, so I only had two, 90-minutes lessons every week at a language school. I had plenty of time on my hands. In 2010, I had and active semester at the University, packed with seminars, which meant I had to prepare for every class. I decided to write in English. Also, this is the semester before my last <touches wood>, so I wrote this with the thought looming behind that I need to get started on my thesis, soon. And if I don't pass a course this semester, I'd be stuck here for another year.
I didn't know I could do it. And if our beloved Municipal Liasion, Poggi, wouldn't have nudged me and encouraged me to try - I still wouldn't know I can achieve this. I'm truly grateful for you, Poggi, if you're reading this, and I'll never forget that it's thanks to you that I know I can overcome my limits like this.

And thank you for you, who got started in the middle of November and showed us courage and enviable determination, persistence and faith that in spite of beginning late, you could still do it. And thank you for those, who were always a few steps before us, and ended November with unbelievably large wordcounts! And thank you for the others, even those who didn't win, because their determination, encouragement and always being helpful meant a lot to me.

It was a great November, let's do this again next year!!! <famous last words>