Long time, no post.

Wow, I've been gone a while!  Let me quickly catch you up on what I've been up to lately...

• I went to a summer music camp at local college. I played flute in 2nd chair of the Honors Band (hardest band to get into) and was one of the top 9 flautists so I got to take master classes with the flute professor at the college.
• I got an alto flute. It's EPIC.  I got the alto because the college I'm planning to go to needs more alto and bass flutes in their flute choir and I want to have experience playing it solo and with an ensemble before I get there. Also, because it's EPIC.
• I turned 18.
• I joined the flute choir at a local college and I'm playing my new alto flute and my regular concert flute in it. 
• I won first place in a harp competition.
• I started taking some online college classes in addition to my current high school courses. It's been... stressful...
• My trusty laptop which has served me faithfully for 10 years got a bad virus and is no longer functioning until I can either find time myself or get somebody else to make copies of all my files, completely wipe the hard drive, reinstall the Windows XP operating system, reinstall all my programs, and load my files back onto it. *sigh* Our only other option is to buy a new laptop, and we can't afford that right now. :(
  
  Right now I'm using my dad's "spare" laptop that goes to some of his medical equipment that he doesn't use very often. Thank goodness most of what I need is online, but I can't download any of my programs on it, like Celtx or my school IM program. *sob* I miss Celtx so much!!!  Google Docs just doesn't cut it for me anymore!
• I had my first anniversary of playing harp on October 10. Wahoo!
• I went to a harp camp run by Maeve Gilchrist, a Scottish harpist and singer/songwriter.  It was lots of fun and I learned a TON!  It was so cool to have over 10 harps all in one place!
• I took SATs.
• I had to take NECAPs.
• I took ACTs.
• The last 3 bullets happened within a 2-week time frame. My brain has been turned to mashed potato and I don't want to hear the words "test" or "exam" for a very long time.
• I'm now getting ready to audition (on flute) for All State in November. This has also been stressful as the online school I take classes through wasn't considered an actual "school" by All State until a few months ago. I am confused by this because my online school is entirely funded by government grants and you can't get much more legit than that! So, I didn't find out that I could participate in All State until about a month ago... and most people started preparing at the end of August.
• I've been trying to reconnect with my inner child by re-watching some of my favorite animated movies.  I have been inspired with more story ideas.  Yay!

Sadly, my demanding school schedule and extensive music practicing time will really cut into my writing time.  (Right now, graduating from high school is MUCH higher on my priorities than doing much writing.)  I have hardly written anything in the past few months, and my stories are really suffering.  Languishing, abandoned, in a dusty corner of the vast plane of Internet now dubbed "The Cloud".  Let me tell you, I can't WAIT until I graduate and I have more time to write and practice my music and stop feeling like a beheaded rubber chicken running around dropping feathers everywhere.  Wait. That's not it... like a chicken with its head cut off. Yes. That's it. 

So, now that you're all caught up on some of the things that have been going on in my life lately, I'll talk about NaNoWriMo. It's coming up in 6 days.  I have been thinking about my new ideas and trying to flesh out the characters and get a feel for the plot and conflicts.  I've made some progress with one of the stories.  I'm planning to work on it for NaNoWriMo this year.  

I'm going to do the youth section of NaNoWriMo this year again, because they changed it from "17 and under" to anybody still in high school and I LOVE being able to have a very small word-count goal.  Small is the only thing reasonably achievable right now when it comes to writing.  If I tried to write 50,000 words in a month at this point of my life, I would either fail miserably or my head would explode.

Another thing... through NaNoWriMo this year, I have been introduced to Figment.  You make a profile and can use it to write stuff and put things out on the web, meet up-and-coming writers, check out new books from people like you and me, and chat with other writers on the forums.  NaNoWriMo has a group that you can request to join, so you can chat with the other NaNoWriMo-ers.  You can send links to your stories to friends and teachers.  If you have something still saved as a draft and not "published" (available to view by everybody) you can still let your friends see it by sending them a link and a unique access code. I only signed up today and haven't done much poking around, but so far, I really like Figment.

If you'd like, check out my profile. 

All right.  That's it for now. I'm off to write a midterm paper for my college English class and learn some new Spanish verbs.
Happy writing!