A long and drawn out farewell. (oh look, a title which pertains to my post!)

Hello there. It's been a while, hasn't it? 

Now, you know how I said how dedicated I felt to you, blog, and how I would stay with you forever? Just kidding, I never said that. But I can't help but feel bad about how sporadic my posting's been. I think that there's a reason for this.

This is exactly my 50th post. Blog, I need a break. I can genuinely say that it's not you, it's me. You have served me perfectly for the last year, helping me hone my writing skills, learn a little bit more about catering my writing to an audience. I still haven't learned to write on a schedule, I must admit. That's too bad, I guess. But still, I've learned.

Problem is, I've grown. My obsession with crazy socks has waned and been replaced by other strange obsessions. My rabbit has gotten fat. 

Not all of the ways I've changed are for the better. I care less about other people than I used to. Somehow my religious beliefs are even more whacked out than they were when I wrote my first post. I think I've gotten stupider. 

What am I saying, blog? I have to move on. I will probably start a new blog in the future. If it makes you feel better, I'm not leaving you for a tumblr. Thanks for everything. 

P.S.  If you need any empowering breakup songs, just let me know. :)

***********************

. . .My anthropomorphizing abilities have just outdone themselves. 

Yeah, I'm leaving. I'm sorry it's so sudden, I just don't feel as if I have the energy to write any entertaining posts, at least not ones that fit with the theme of this blog.(Not that I know if anybody cares.)

This isn't because of any sudden crisis or anything, I'm just done. 

Coincidentally, this is my 50th post, so at least I've hit a minor landmark. If I start another blog, I will certainly link to it here. 

Thank you so much to all of my lovely followers. I'd single people out but that would feel too sappy, so I just want to thank each and every one of you. I've read and thought about about all of your comments, even if I suck at replying, and they have never failed to brighten my day. I'll still be reading your blogs, and I'll try to keep commenting on stuff. I feel like I've made a bunch of dysfunctional friendships through comments sections. 

Keep being awesome, and when you're a best-selling author I expect, at the very least, a curt nod of recognition as I accost you, begging for an autograph. 

<3 Gabi (every part of me)

Unrelated Quote of the Day:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  - Albert Einstein

Teens Can Write Too! (See, even this title proves my point. Well, I suppose this is typing.)

Today's post is set to be magnificent, awe-inspiring, edge-of-your-seat exciting, and free of seizure-causing childbirth scenes. Man, poor Stephanie Meyer.


What was I talking about? I think I was about to mention how this post has to stay on topic, as today I will be writing for the lovely Teens Can Write Too blog chain on the subject of developing and relating to my characters.


Now, as you may have noticed, I have trouble keeping to just one subject while writing. This carries over into my creation of characters. When conceptualizing protagonists for my stories I often get really into their entire personalities, but to kick-start that, I like to use basic character templates  like the one around page 15 of this workbook to hash out my characters.
In theory that works nicely, but realistically? I'm me. 


I get distracted halfway through with the strong urge to begin on another character who will be the perfect complement to the one I started with, and then the cycle keeps continuing in a downward spiral and then I am sitting in the middle of the office supplies store in my pyjamas cradling the last box of my favourite brand of pencils in my arms. 


Maybe that isn't exactly what happens. I generally just get frustrated by the planning portion of my writing and delve straight into my book or short story or whatever I am writing. 


Weird things happen to my characters when I haven't thought about them hard enough. I shouldn't like the loss of control, but for some strange reason, I quite enjoy it. I get to see which ones become three-dimensional and which ones fall flat. If I took myself more seriously as a writer that would hurt, but it's sort of just interesting for me.


Some characters have surprised me by being much less exciting, though. I put a ninja into my NaNoWriMo book this year. She was the most boring character I have ever written, perhaps only excluding some Mary Sues  back when I was younger.


Is this boring? I always feel as if my posts that are actually normal are boring. 


Teenage Gabi: You know that you could have talked about your multiple personalities. You know, how you're made up of a cast of characters that make up your personality, and so is the world and that's why the world should live in unity and stuff.


Poetic Gabi: That was very deep of you! 


There's a problem there, as I don't actually have multiple personality disorder. My readers just enjoy having someone insaner than them.


ADHD Gabi: That's like how the best literary characters are really weird! Like Luna Lovegood. I like her radishes!


Whoa. That was actually pretty deep.


ADHD Gabi: I know, right!? I felt like Yoda or something.


*******************************
Thus concludes my Teens Can Write Too blog chain post. I don't know if it fulfilled any of the requirements, but hopefully it was at least minimally entertaining. 
These are the lovely bloggers who are also doing the blog chain! You should check them out.

December 5– http://correctingpenswelcome.wordpress.com — Comfy Sweaters, Writing and Fish

December 6– http://taystapeinc.wordpress.com — Tay’s Tape

December 7– http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com — This Page Intentionally Left Blank

December 8– http://alohathemuse.wordpress.com — Embracing Insanity

December 9– http://noveljourneys.wordpress.com — Novel Journeys

December 10– http://sporkattack.blogspot.com — Crazy Socks and Ninja Bunnies

December 11– http://kirstenwrites.wordpress.com — Kirsten Writes!

December 12– http://herebefaries.wordpress.com — The Land of Man-Eating Pixies

December 13– http://delorfinde.wordpress.com — A Farewell to Sanity

December 14– http://estherstar1996.wordpress.com — Esther Victoria1996

December 15– http://thewordasylum.wordpress.com — The Word Asylum

December 16– http://teenagereader.wordpress.com — Teenage Reader

December 17– http://biozarre.wordpress.com — Missy Biozarre, Young Adult Author

December 18– http://greatlakessocialist.wordpress.com — Red Herring Online

December 19– http://incessantdroningofaboredwriter.wordpress.com– The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer

December 20– http://herestous.wordpress.com — Here’s To Us

December 21– http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com –Teens Can Write Too! (They will be announcing the topic for next month’s chain)

I noticed that every blogger here except for me is a Wordpress blogger. Thankfully, there is a widget in the sidebar that allows people who don't have blogger accounts to follow my blog! Not that I'm shamelessly plugging or anything. (laughs nervously)

<3 Gabi

Actual Stupid Teacher Quote of the Day

"You know, I can't believe the stupidicity of some people." - Civics teacher, referring to public transit workers

Body butter is misleading. It should be edible.

(ADD Gabi sits alone on a park bench, quietly singing to herself.)


ADD Gabi: Birthday, birthday, having fun on birthdayyyyy. . .


Musical Gabi: You can't harmonize with yourself, you know.


ADD Gabi: I was singing a birthday song!


Coah Gabi: YOU HAVE NO TIME TO SING! YOU HAVE A TOURNAMENT ON WEDNESDAY!


Sports Commentator: Score! Gabi has successfully spelled Wednesday correctly for the first time! And she does it again! The crowd goes wild!


Honest Gabi: There is no crowd. Does anybody else see the crowd?


Scholarly Gabi: I agree with you! And we can even use Occam's Razor to disprove the crowd if it gets really down and dirty.


Girly Gabi: This is why I don't have a social life, guys!


Poetic Gabi: But you wrote a novel last month which you can easily turn into a metaphor for society!


Overachiever Gabi: Why do you need a social life when you are an executive member of three clubs, an active member of five, have wrestling practice six times a week, are an executive member of a youth group and organize monthly events, have a babysitting job, and need to get good marks? This is your future, Gabi.


Girly Gabi: One of my friends greets me every day with, "Hi Gabi! Hang out with us more." I need a social life.


Coach Gabi: I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING. NO. YOU MAY NOT QUIT WRESTLING, DO YOU HEAR ME?!


Gabi's Body: Can we go to sleep now? Please?


ADD Gabi: In a minu- OH LOOK IT'S A LINK THAT THE ATTRACTIVE BOY FROM DRAMA LAST YEAR POSTED!


20 minutes later


ADD Gabi: Who would have thought that he was trolling?


Gabi's Body: It is bed time. Go to sleep. Your birthday is over and you have no excuse any more and I am tired and soon I will fall asleep on the keyboard and get little key indents on my face.


Girly Gabi: Not the face! 


*******************************************


That was yesterday. 


Scholarly Gabi: A good part of it was this morning, actually.


I don't care. 


Gabi's Body: Can we sleep again?


It's only nine p.m.! I really would like to produce an entire post. Anyway. I could go through my birthday presents, but since people know me, I mostly got Chapters/Indigo gift cards. I also got a couple of unicorns, but hey, you know. Those are pretty standard these days.


Nice Gabi: Maybe you should write thank you cards! And the journal your brother got you was sweet!


Honest Gabi: It had skulls on the cover. It has the words "chaotic," "poetic," "frantic," and "romantic" on it. It's ugly.


Teenager Gabi: It even takes itself too seriously to me.


Creative Gabi: Oooh, can I make a collage on it?! It will be a pretty collage!


I should have mentioned at some point that notebooks have personalities to me. My notebook has to be my friend. Strange Gabi is strange.


Alright, I am going to go now. 


Oh! I will be participating in the Teens Can Write Too blog chain. I encourage all of you to check it out! I've never really written on this blog for a set date before, so I am sort of nervous, but hopefully it will go well.


<3 Gabi


Strange captcha word of the day:
Cookines (v.) Being so excited about freshly baked goods that one misspells words like cookie.
Gabi cookines each and every time she smells chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

Are my titles too long? I think that they are too long.

These posts aren't my regular posts, just so you know. My regular posts are much smarter, funnier, and fun for the entire family! Well, maybe not. IT DOES NOT MATTER, OKAY?!


Basically, I don't even have 30 000 words and November is almost over. BUT I WILL DO THIS!

Disclaimer: This template is from hyperbole and a half by allie brosh. I do not own it.

I may have written this post because I'm proud of making this picture. Like, way too proud.


I even used a Ticonderoga pencil, because that is the best pencil in the world and papermate is taking over the market which is really upsetting. 


I WILL GO WRITE NOW. 


Bye!


-Gabi


P.S. As an update on my warning about backing up, you should also be careful about losing USB keys, because you might have to spend three hours making up the programming project and the 1700 words that you lost. 

I got really nice glasses. I really like my glasses. I really, really like my glasses.

Harry Potter Meets Metal is quite possibly my perfect novelling song.


For some reason, my YouTube playlist for NaNoWriMo also includes Nyan Cat. I don't get it either. It's like my brain only writes well to music that is kind of crappy.


How is NaNoWriMo going, you ask? Erm. Not so well.

Those are my lovely (or not so lovely) word count stats. I will be catching up quite quickly, hopefully.
Time to go write, nurse my wrestling bruises, program, and write some more.


Side comment: I googled "girls wrestling" to see if I could find any photos to illustrate my point, because apparently I'm really stupid. Suffice to say that I am glad that I have my safesearch on.


Regular posting should resume after November, or when I get a new laptop, or when school stops being a pain in the arse.


Best of luck to anybody else NaNoing!


Byeeee.


-Gabi


P.S. I lost my USB key. I had a dream that I found it again and then woke up and almost cried. 
Please, please, please back up your files regularly. This goes to everyone. I lost 6000 words of my NaNoWriMo book, all of my Java programming from school, numerous photos, and tons of my writing. 
Take this as a cautionary tale, and back up dem serial buses, b*tches. 
WHY DO MY ATTEMPTS AT BEING COOL KEEP FAILING?!

My NeighbourBestFriend is Calling Me Schizophrenic. (I should've seen this coming.)

Hi there, g-

Overachiever Gabi:  Hello, blogosphere. Gabi is busy right now and for the entire month of November. She will no longer be eating, sleeping, laughing, or updating this blog. This is due to a number of commitments, including wrestling practises 5 times a week and National Novel Writing Month, a questionably responsible and inaccurately named international writing event. But, since she signed up, no sleep for us. I mean, nobody realizes what a contribution I make. I work so hard, and for this?! She only has a B in science class! It's a traves-

Coach Gabi:  POSITIVE IMAGERY! YOU MUST USE POSITIVE IMAGERY! YOU WILL CROSS THAT FINISH LINE AND YOU WILL SURVIVE NOVEMBER!

ADHD Gabi : I ran like a mile at fitness practice yesterday morning! Or, like, more than a mile.  I can do push-ups now! It's so cool!

Overachiever Gabi: You don't have time for this! We have to plan for NaNoWriMo! WHERE ARE OUR STORYBOARDS!?

Nice Gabi: It's okay, sweetie! At the Toronto NaNo kickoff, tons of people didn't even have plots yet.
ADHD Gabi: They had really good ice cream there.

Scholarly Gabi: And did you see the old typewriter? And the encyclopedias from the 1800s? And the old-fashioned stained glass windows? IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.

Poetic Gabi: I especially liked being around kindred spirits. It was like all of our souls were bound togther by the common bond of writing.

ADHD Gabi: LIKE TERMITES. They're like, all like  MUST SERVE QUEEN. and then they don't really think much else. . .

Girly Gabi: Did you see the cute guy there? We shook hands and everything! His name was --

Honest Gabi: You realize that anyone who frequents the NaNoWriMo forums can easily read this, including members of your region? And it isn't interesting to talk about cute boys who you've  exchanged 15 words with on a blog.

Teenage Gabi: We can write about his unattainable smile in our diary, right? And how we're destined to never be together?

Grumpy Gabi: SHUDDUP, I'M HIBERNATING.

Musical Gabi: Can I sing you a lullaby?

ADHD: SING THAT ONE ABOUT THE LADY WHO DIES BECAUSE SHE EATS A HORSE!

Scholarly Gabi: That reminds me of a book I've been reading. . .

Overachiever Gabi: Or a book which you have to plan? GET OFF OF THE INTERNET.
**********************************************

So, at this point the parents of the children I was babysitting finally got home and I realized that there is not much of a point to this post. I'm posting it anyway!

You may have gathered that my life is busy. That explains why I haven't been posting nearly enough.
NaNoWriMo begins in 31 hours, so I'm kind of sort of in panic mode.

I got asked by someone on the clergy of my synagogue to sing a duet with him which is awesomefantasticexcellent! It also cuts into my writing time.

I have had the same song stuck in my head for the last 5 days, so I figured it out on the ukulele.

- Gabi

Wacky Mac is basically kosher Kraft Dinner, except in cool shapes.

Soo. It's been a while. No, blog, I don't hate you. I just felt like I needed a break, okay? 

Yeah. I'm kind of busy too. I'm sorry that you don't have any friends, but I spent last weekend with four different people. 
Me and Friend 1 and I made a castle out of boxes of Wacky Mac and watched Grease. Because I'm really popular.
And then I went to see Friend 2-4, and they're all boys because I'm really attractive and stuff. 
We watched Dodgeball and talked about A Game of Thrones (see this link too) and religion and played with Friend 3's 4 bit calculator on Minecraft, because we're really cool and interested in normal teenager stuff.


Okay, blog? I have a life. So suck it.


I was also spending a lot of time programming, which is really cool too. My grade 11 computer science credit is going to get me hot guys, mark my words. 


What is this obsession with hot guys? It's like something in my head thinks that making constant sex jokes is funny, but then another part of my brain is like "Noooo, that isn't appropriate and only Jessica can get away with that," and then turns all of my penis jokes into hot guy jokes.


SHUTUPWORLDICANBESOCIALLYOKAYTOOSOMETIMESYOUKNOW




Anyway. I got awards. A long time ago.


I'm going to start with this one from Mercy (at Not At All Stupid), which isn't really an award, but a passing on art thingamajig. It's funny, because I'm not artistically talented. Mostly because of my hand-eye coordination, and a bit because of my short attention span. BUT ANYWAYS. 
Here.

I spent a really long time cutting out little letters from teen magazines (which my mom buy for me in the hope that I'll be a girl for her) for the smoothie part, but then I got really frustrated and uploaded the picture into my free trial of photoshop and put a beautiful an interesting background on it. 


It's an alphabet smoothie/milkshake/whatever this is, because I always liked alphabet soup as a kid, and I also like cutting up magazines.


Now I tag people?


I think that I'm just going to tag Thais, because she's creative and stuff. (She sent me a package a couple of weeks ago, and there are little paper hearts all over my floor.) I know that she doesn't actually go on her blog much, but TOO BAD. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That evil laugh didn't come out right. Ugh.


The rules for the Travelling Smoothie Award shall be at the bottom.


Okay. That's done. Yayyyy Gabi accomplished something!








Moving on.


The Rambler , whose name makes her sound like a really awesome super-villain whose powers involve going off on tangents, gave me an award called the Liebster Award. 

IT EES SO CUTE. 


Now I write 7 things about myself.


a) I think I'm slowly metamorphosing - holy crap I actually spelled that properly - into a hipster. Most of the music I listen to has under 20 000 views on YouTube. I also discovered this band whose genre is Indie Post-Rock. And then I enjoyed the music. It's really worrying how many graphic t-shirts I own, and I sometimes brag about how I've known about tumblr for a really long time. I understand and enjoy modern art, and sometimes I find myself rolling my eyes at mainstream stuff. It's really scary, because I don't really like hipsters very much. 




2. I watched a full length My Little Pony movie for 81 minutes with two friends last night. I think that I'm very much like Cheerilee.




Three: I have a problem with feet. I just really don't like them. They're scary.




100 - When I'm stressed out, I count to ten in different bases. It helps calm me down. 




Cinq! I have a lot of trouble writing seriously, because I can't take myself seriously. If I try to write sad poetry, I end up laughing and screaming in frustration at the same time. 




Shesh Sometimes I'm really good at math. Like that time last year when I got 3rd place in my school on the math contest, and would have won if I didn't go to such a smart-person school. Sometimes, I suck. I got a 58% on my exam. Same goes for almost every subject. 




public void vii ( )
{


System.out.println ("I was the only girl in my entire school who did the optional programming contest last year. I didn't do as terribly as I expected to.");


}


Okay! Done that! I have to tag people now. You're supposed to tag 7 people who have under 100 followers. All of you guys may feel free to ignore the tags, by the way. 


Ash from The Cheesecake Paradox - He's really cool. He also has 69 followers. I shouldn't have giggled.


Lot's Wife at F*** Salt - On top of the witty biblical pen-name, I think that it's really cool to dedicate an entire blog to such a niche subject. I suppose that's what the internet's for. :D


Jenelle at [I am Unimaginative] - I can't actually tell how many followers she has, because Blogger is silly. But she's pretty awesome, and I'm not sure why I think her name is Jenelle, but I'm just going to go with it and be creepy regardless.


Flyergirl13 at Drizzled in Awesomeness - I really like her blog. I just do. Also, she's a sparkler, and it's kind of cool to see her username both here and on sparklife posts. I'm sort of creepy. Oops.


ZNZ at Jotting Down Notes - This one is kind of creepy, because I'm not entirely sure if she knows who I am. But I enjoy her blog. I'm kind of a stalker. Oops.


Ellen at Defenestrated Feet - She hasn't posted in 2 whole months. But she should post. I like her illustrations a lot. 


AND I DON'T KNOW WHO ELSE TO TAG.  AAAAH.
I have like four hours of programming to do, so I'm just not going to tag anyone else. 




BYE. 


-Gabi


Rules for the Travelling Smoothie: 

1. Put an uncolored copy of the smoothie into the post (for video bloggers, print it out or insert it into your video).

2. Color in another copy of the smoothie. Be creative and color the smoothie, straw, and background, if you wish.

3. Insert your colored smoothie in your post/ video/ webpage. If you wish, you may include the location of the smoothie. Be as general or specific as you wish.

4. Name five blogging/ video blogging/ DeviantArt friends who will then have to fill out the smoothie, too. Also remember to link to them, because linking to people makes sad people happy.

Here's the blank template!