If you like writing or drawing, you'll love this fiction contest! Ink and Fairydust is holding a competition for short stories, art, or poetry, and the winners from each category will be published in the November/December issue of Ink and Fairydust!

Can you believe that the holiday season is only six months away? In an attempt to keep the festive spirit and to encourage creativity, all short stories must include the carol "Ding Dong Merrily on High" in some way.

If you like poetry or art of any kind, you can submit pretty much anything! I think that artsy photographs might count for the art category.

If you have any questions, email ask@inkandfairydust.com. I'd really encourage everyone who is interested to submit! I can promise you that we don't bite. :) Deadline is July 31st. This is geared for writers in the 13-25 age range, give or take.

Please feel free to save this image, print it out, email it, share it with your friends and family...

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Also, if you have a writing knack and would be interested in writing one article every two to four months, please email submissions@inkandfairydust.com to inquire about becoming a regular contributer. You'll have the chance to be published in a growing online magazine and the ability to work closely with our proofreaders and a young newly-professional editor, Ellianna, who is the sweetest person to critique articles, period.

The May/June issue is slated to be released within the next week or two! :)

Oh, and have I mentioned that I love my software? I discovered four spectacular features in Illustrator and InDesign while working on the fiction contest poster. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

Me and the article. For some reason I actually managed to get a good photo of myself with the self-timer. Score!

I wrote this post on the second day of November. Since then I've realized that I will not be able to keep up with the 30,000 word goal I originally set. I likely will change my goal to 10 or 15 K and only work on it during the weekends and Thanksgiving break. There is something called school... and major tests... and life being busy...

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is the Ultimate Challenge. Every year, thousands of writers sign away their sanity and aim for the goal: 50,000 words in 30 days!

The goal is to get you writing... just writing. Leave your inner editor behind the in dust. Revel in typos. And never stop writing.

{Go to NaNoWriMo.org for more info}

Last year I participated with my first novel, Nevdroonia. It was, um... a bit of a flop. I had no idea what I was doing. Never before had I written anything longer than 3 pages, and here I was shooting for 175.

I was also not prepared. My goal was to write what came to me.... Nevdroonia began as an imaginary land that I made up, and my friends and I spent long afternoons jumping off the neighbor's retaining wall, swinging on the rope swing, and landing in a war-torn fairyland. Nevdroonia, the Novel (lol) was my attempt to combine various adventures we had in my backyard. I slapped on some characters and thought I was ready to go.

I had no plot.

That's bad news for any writer.

And did I mention last year was a flop? I finished my 50,000 words and left it.



This year I am going crazy again-- but not to the same degree.

YWP NaNoWriMo (can you tell these people love acronyms?) stands for Young Writer's Program. It's for those 17 and under, and lets you choose your own word goal.

{Go to YWP.NaNoWriMo.org}

I'm starting with a goal of 30,000 words. However, I'm seriously considering lowering that, because I have so many other responsibilities keeping me busy.

Priorities are no fun. Look what order mine are in:

1. Getting caught up in schoolwork
2. Doing OK on all my midterms this week
3. Exercise
4. Settling into the new city
5. Staying ontop of my Shoppe
6. Writing

Family time gets to trump all of that, since we've had so little family time while we were trying to move. My parents are trying to convince me that "cleaning up" belongs at place #4 or 5. And sometime in there I need to sleep.

I'm still not prepared... But at least I have a plot. I am working on my novel Colored Eyes, which I planned out over the summer for the Inkling's Resolve. Unfortunately, the Resolve kind of dissolved after a couple of months, right about the time that I became insanely busy with life.

I found a fun plot and make character sketches... I scribbled down 5 pages of notes...

September came around and all my friends on the Fairy Tale Forum started getting hyped for NaNoWriMo. I loved my Colored Eyes story and wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but knew I was too busy.

I found the Young Writer's Program, and on one fateful October day signed away all my free time. (I mean, I'm still free to quit. But that would be giving me guilty free time. :D )

I did no planning in October. There's something called life and it happens and keeps you from having days of free time. I DID review my notebook, however.


And now it is November! I've been writing during most of my free time (I have writer's block/headache at the moment, which is why I am posting on my blog.) I'm behind because of my first couple days.... I'm seriously concerned about how to advance the plot...


But it's all great. Someday I'll have a novel to show for it.

(Oh, and did you know that my 9-almost-10-year-old-brother is doing the YWP, too? His goal is 2,000 words [aLOT for him] and he is writing about him being the youngest astronaut to go into space. His story is very, very awesome. I'm trying to convince him that I need to be an alien princess who kidnaps him for ransom. He's still thinking about it.)

A few months ago I wrote this article for Ink and Fairydust. I thought I should post it on my blog-- I'm a little proud of my photography, graphics, and making sense of Miss Wendy's typos. :)

I'm going to take a moment to add that I draw a monthly comic and write a monthly art column for I&F.

I used to have high, high hopes for my novel Nevdroonia. Such as having it entirely finished by now. Such as having it edited by now.

Bah.

As many of you know, many things have been going on in my family, and in addition to that I have an incredible amount of schoolwork. Whoever said that homeschooling must be easy don't know a thing. I put in seven to eight hours of hard work a day-- no sitting in boring lectures or chatting to friends by the locker or watching movies in class. I've been escaping more-- reading or doing simple art/craft projects in my free time.

As a result, my writing has suffered. I am only 80% done with Nevdroonia. I finally got over a huge writer's block, when I couldn't figure out what would happen next. (You see, I started this project with no definite end or outline, something I'm not likely to repeat on a full length novel). I now know how the climax will work.

But it is so hard to find time for writing, and I wonder when I will ever finish. Oh, my big dreams still carry on. I have a sequel formed in my mind. I have another-- much better-- story planned, which may or may not take place in the land of Nevdroonia. (If it does, Nevdroonia would be changed around quite a bit.)

But if things carry on in the way they have been wont these past few months, I won't be done by next NaNoWriMo. Arugh.

What you will need:
A Bic pen, or similar pen with a removable ink/tip. Do not use a hard plastic one; it combusts
Sculpey clay
Clay tools (toothpick, hands, etc)
Oven

What you do:
Remove the ink/nib from the pen. You don't want that exploding in the oven!
Decorate your pen with sculpey clay
Make a "holder." Use the pen to shape it, but make the whole extra-big, twice the size as needed.
Bake according to clay instructions
Cool
Put some unbaked clay into the "holder's" hole. That will let the pen stay put much better.
Insert the ink again
Use until your ink runs out; pull out ink and put more in!

These pens are remarkably sturdy. I've made around ten of them; the three above are the ones I haven't given away. The pen on the far left was my first ever. I made it five years ago, and its still holding up. It has a slight crack because I put a chair leg ontop of it one time, but still works. The middle was about three years ago, and I just made the right one a few months ago. Its much prettier than the picture makes it look.

Just letting you all know that I have many, many little crafts I have finished recently-- I just haven't gotten them up yet. I'll do so when I can get on the computer that has paint shop (because for some reason, the lighting in the pictures is terrible!!!). I also plan on fixing the blog so it doesn't look like a random bunch of discobobulated pictures and bits of text. :P Slightly more organized. Have patience!

While you wait, why don't you read my funny little essay on lembas bread and Twinkies? It is not even edited yet but I thought that it wasn't fair for you to go without something to do. :P I wrote it for my composition essay.




Oh, don't forget to learn a bit more about Tolkien! This one is not funny-- but it will teach you a bit about his Elvish characters.

I have decided, for simplicity's sake, to remove the Read More option on posts. I've found it sufficiently difficult to navigate the blog with these little jumpbreaks hopping around like mad hatters, and I do not want to get rid of the "You may also like" widget. As I get more time, I will set about removing the Read More from previous posts. Beware of very-long lists full of pictures and instructions!

As mentioned several times, I am participating in NaNoWriMo. I must say that my first day of literary suicide succeeded. I reached 1,929 words. I was hoping to get somewhere in the 2,200 word mark, but that was not accomplished for a variety of reasons. 1) I was not allowed to stay up until midnight, November 1st and begin writing at the first moment, and 2) I fought with my brother (...we all do that, don't we?...) and nearly lost computer privlages for two days.

As a special teaser-spoiler-thing, I am posting my summary (which is subject to change as the my mind changes innumerable times):

Nevdroonia

While playing pirates in a deserted attic, quirky Claire and shy Edmund stumble upon a mysterious door. On the other side, they find a land ridden with wonder and danger, friendship and enmity... and rumors of the Balmung, an evil sword that gives power to the corrupted ones. Claire and Edmund are unwittingly thrown into the middle of a conspiracy to undermine a witch's power. The conspiracy evolves into a quest to find the legendary Seeing Masks... and the fate of the world could rest in the hands of four young children.

I have to admit that my storyline is rather cliche... but if I have fun writing it, then what the heck? :)

Also, the latest issue of Ink and Fairydust came out! Here is my post about the October issue, which explains what I&F is.
Our awesome fourm administrator, Elena, found herself sick with far too much time on her hands. As a result, our three-month-old monthly newsletter is now in magazine format! She is still working out the kinks in it (all capital "N"s are invisible...) but I hope you enjoy it!
This month's theme was Shakespeare and Writing. It is also forty-four pages long. :P
For those of you (I'm thinking my grandparents here) who really don't care about Shakespeare, but only want to see what I have written, I have two articles on pages 34 and 35 and a comic strip on page 42. However, I suggest reading the entire thing! Or at least the articles that catch your eye!
The entire article on Elvish writing was not included (I feel this is a good thing as I gave a rather long winded and confusing explanation), so at some point I will post it on my blog. Just in case any of you feel like learning Tengwar!

Anway, here is the latest issue!

Ink and Fairydust, November 2009