100 for 100

This year, I am participating in Go Teen Writer's 3rd Annual 100 for 100 challenge. My goal is going to be to write at least 100 words a day of something, either fiction or nonfiction, that gets published, a day. That means any posts for this blog will count toward that total. Also, any short fiction I write (I hope to write quite a bit), that gets published within two days, will count.



This is where my brand new blog comes in. I didn't want this blog to become to cluttered, so that is where all random pieces of writing, including poetry and flash fiction, will go. Things will continue as normal on this blog.

Head over there to see my introductory post, where I will be listing out the rules for the 100x100 challenge, and what my game plan is.

Life Update! {John Mayer Concert and A Question for You}

This post may be long, and will probably ramble some. In it, I am going to talk about things going on in my life, and some changes I'm considering for the blog. I'm also going to do a little round up of some other posts that fit here. The first big thing is:

Write On! Teen Writing Conference

I started writing this a a short segment for this post, but it got too long, so I published it in a separate post, which you can read here.


John Mayer Concert

In mid July, I attended a John Mayer concert in Vancouver, WA, not far from Portland, OR. I really enjoyed it, and it was a ton of fun. I'm not a huge John Mayer fan (unlike my mom, which is why we were there), but I really like his Born and Raised album, and he sung a lot of songs from it, since this is the Born and Raised tour.

Other Life Stuff

We are getting ready to start school again in about two weeks.  My mom went back to work (she works at a community college, and gets most of the summer off) today, and that always means that fall will be here soon. After school starts, I'll do a post about all the new curriculum and stuff. On Friday, I'm going to kick off the Homeschool Friday subjects posts with English.

Blog Stuff

I hope to participate in the 100 for 10 challenge put on by Go Teen Writers this year. Instead of writing one big fictional project, I am going to try to write and publish a a blog post every day. Regular blog posts like this one will count, but there will probably be some flash fiction in there, and who knows what else. My question for is is this: Do you think I should do that on this blog, or should I create a separate blog of the purpose of doing this. After this is over, I would hopefully still use that blog for flash fiction, non-fiction pieces, and other non blog postish writing. That's what I'm leaning towards at the moments, but I would like to know what you think. Please, let me know in the comments!

*This post contains affiliate links.

Write On! Teen Writing Conference

Way back in the end of June, I attended the wonderful Write On! Teen Writing Conference at a local bookstore. Here are some of my thoughts on the experience.

First of all, I loved all the sessions I went to. The first one, which was run by a local improv teacher, was not one I was super excited about. I am not a huge fan of doing any acting type stuff (or really even talking) in front of a bunch of people I don't know. It ended up being my favorite break out session of the day however, since that was not how it went at all. She (the woman leading) taught us a bunch of great exercises for coming up with everything from plots to characters to settings. We practiced them as group games, which were very nonthreatening, and then she helped us adapt them for personal use. We then practiced writing using each of those techniques.

The second breakout session I went to was a bunch of short writing exercises. He would give us a prompt to write from for 60 seconds (such as "As a writer, I have learned," or "I noticed"), and then he would ask each of us to read a sentence or two that we wrote. We would then briefly discuss each person's writing, or the idea they were talking about. At first this made me nervous, but everybody did it, and sometimes we would have a wonderful, well written,  very articulate observation on life or writing, and sometimes it would be "I noticed an oddly large quantity of apples on the trees for so late in the year." (That was a real sentence I wrote that hour. :)) He made us all come out of our shells a little, and I wrote some pieces I really liked.

The third breakout session I attended was by Nick James, whose book, Skyship Academy: The Pearl Wars, I reviewed here. It was interesting, and he had some good ideas about how to show and not tell, but there was nothing earth shaking in that session. :)

I'm going to end this post with a quote the second breakout session leader gave us, which I really liked, and found thought provoking. Let me know what you think about it in the comments.

It's better to have failed as a novelist then to have succeeded as anything else.

                                            - George Orwell

*This post contains affiliate links.

Personality Type

Have you ever tried one of these tests? I've done them in the past, but not in a while, so I decided to try it again today. If you want to try it along with me, click on this link. To understand your score (if you're not familiar with the Meyers-Brigg's test) click here, and read that first.

 The most important thing to know about the scoring for this test is that there are pairs, of which you have one of each. But, it is done on a scale, so you have between 1% and 100% of either one. The rest of your percentage is the other. The pairs are: Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I), Sensing (S) - Intuition (N), Thinking (T) - Feeling (F), and Judging (J) – Perceiving (P). Again, for a more on how this works click the link in the first paragraph.


Now that you (hopefully) understand the scoring, and have maybe had a chance to try the test yourself, I'm going to share my score with you. I am an ESTJ, which is what I have been in the past when I took this test. I'll break down the percentages for you.


I am 1% Extroverted, 25% Sensing, 62% Thinking, and 44% Judging. Interesting...

Just for fun, if you do the test, once on the results page click on the "Self Growth and Personal Awarness" box. It will bring you to a page with all sorts of descriptions of your personality type. Here is mine. 

Here are some famous ESTJs. :)

Carrie Nation
Elliot Ness
John D. Rockefeller
Bette Davis
Robert A. Taft (U.S. senator, son of Pres. Wm. H. Taft)
Sam Walton, owner and founder of WalMart stores
Barbara Stanwyck
Rev. Billy Graham
Dale Bumpers (U.S. Senator, D-Arkansas)
Phil Fulmer, head football coach of the U. Tenn Vols
Pat Head Summit, head basketball coach of the Lady Vols
Bill Frist, M.D. (U.S. Senate Majority Leader)

Fictional:

Lucy (Charles Schultz's Peanuts character)
Mrs. Harbottle (Herriott, All Creatures Great and Small)
Mrs. Rachel Lynde (Anne of Green Gables)
The Mayor (The Music Man)

In the comments, tell me what your type is! Does it surprise you, or does it seem about right? Mine seems almost exactly right!

What is Perfection?

I have so many posts that I have promised to write on all sorts of subject, particularly book reviews. I am getting super behind on posting this summer. Unfortunately, I'm not going to get started on that list today, but instead I have some more ramblings. Bear with me, and things will go back to normal after school starts (on September 2nd).

I have a problem. I worry too much. I plan too much. I think too much. Sometimes those are good things, but more often then not, they hold me back. For example, my mom goes back to work in a week, effectively meaning that summer is about over for me. My first reaction is to freak out. I naturally would spend that whole week worrying about how boring and sad things are going to be when she goes back to work, and I have to get up early and spend the days with my dad.

I need to stop doing that. My goal this week is to not worry about that. I want to enjoy every day of summer, and spend time with my mom while she is home all day. When the day comes, and she has to go to work, it will be sad, and it will be hard in lots of ways, but there is no reason to worry about it now.

Another way these tendencies of mine hurt me is my perfectionism. There are many things I am terrified to do because I am afraid I won't be perfect. When I started dancing last September, I was so nervous because I was sure that other students would be better then me, or would learn faster then me. Over the last year of dancing, I have found that I really love it. It's true that I am not the fastest learner in the class. I don't have the best rhythm. But my teacher has told me that my form is great, and that my best quality is my persistence. 

It is still hard sometimes, because I know that most of the other girls remember the choreography better then I do. I know that they will probably perfect the new steps faster then I will. But I also know that once I learn a step or a dance, I will never forget it. If I put in the time, I will learn it, and I will learn it well.

I need to stop worrying about being perfect. Dancing has helped, but I have a long ways to go. The stress I feel when things don't go according to plan is not right. I know that I don't need to have perfect grades, or the best posture, or the best hair, and in a way, I don't even care. But something in me cares so deeply.

I'm working on it. It may take a lifetime, but I've already made the first steps. What is perfection, anyway, and why should I need to attain it?

I hope that was not too boring. :) A little window into my brain!

Envisioning the Future

Today I am participating in the Let's Homeschool Highschool monthly blog hop! Today's topic is "Envisioning the Future."

When I think about the future, I don't know exactly what to think. Where will I be five, ten, twenty years from now? Today, I'm going to make some guesses, predictions, and ask some questions about the future.

In five years, I will be twenty years old. I imagine that I will be getting ready to start my junior year of college. I think it is likely that I will be going to a small, private, liberal arts college in Washington or Oregon. That, at least, is what I would like to do. It is also possible that I'll be going the college in town and living at home. That would be the more economical option most likely. Where will I be living? Will I keep in touch with my friends? Will I have a job I like? What will I be studying? Will it be English, or something else? These are my questions for my twenty year old self.

In ten years, I will be twenty five. I really don't know what to expect. I hope that I am living in a place I like, and that I have a job I enjoy. Will I have kept in contact with all my friends from today? Will I have a boyfriend or even a husband? Will I be in grad school? Will I be a librarian or editor, or will I have gone in a totally different direction? Will I be living here, in my home town, or will I have gone somewhere else, maybe to a larger city like Seattle or Portland? These are my many questions to my twenty five year old self.

In twenty years, I will be thirty five. By this point in my life, I would like to be settled down, maybe with a few kids. According to family tradition, I have to have a child when I am 31. :) My grandma was born when her mom was 31, my mom was born when my grandma was 31, and I was born when my mom was 31. I hope I have a job I love. Today, I envision that involving books, writing, or literacy in some way, but things can change. Where am I living? Did I stay in my bay side college town, or did I leave for somewhere bigger? Am I still on the West Coast? Right now, I can't imagine ever leaving, but things can change. Am I happy where I am? Have I done everything I wanted to do by this point in my life? This is my main question for my thirty five year old self.

I hope you didn't find my musings too boring. :)

Homeschool Friday: Year in Review {9th Grade}

Today I am restarting (a week late) Homeschool Fridays. I'm going to start this week by doing a quick overview of the school year. I'll go more in depth about each subject in the following weeks.

This year, I did school completely independently. I had no teachers in any subject, and my mom only helped me with things occasionally. This worked out pretty well in most subjects, and (more because of necessity then anything) that is how things will continue next year. There are a few subjects where that was not a great method, as you will see later.

English

Having done eight years of grammar already (1st through 8th grade) grammar was not a necessity, but I love grammar, so I did continue doing it. The program I had been using (more on that in an upcoming post) only goes through 8th grade, so I switched to Rod and Staff. It has a very strong Christian influence, which was a big reason we had not used it before, but it really seemed like the best idea at this point. I did half of the book this year, and will do the other half next year.

Math

For math, I used Life of Fred: Advanced Algebra, but it was not working very well, so at the very end of the year, I switched to Teaching Textbooks. Again, that will have it's one post soon enough.

History

I used History Odyssey Level 3 Ancients, which I loved. It had a lot of writing, so it was most of my English too. I did a lot of reading, including The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and The Boys and Girls Herodotus, among others.

Science

I started the year doing Oak Meadow Biology, but quickly switched to CK-12 Bio. The online textbook is pretty good, and was far more ingageing then Oak Meadow. I did not do almost any expirements, but it does not really matter since I'll be taking Bio again at the community college in a few years with Running Start.

Latin

I did Latin Alive. There is a lot to talk about here, so expect another post soon.

Art, ect.

I took a print making class this spring, as well as a stained glass lantern making class.


I hope you enjoyed this very quick review of the year. I'm in a bit of a hurry today, and we are leaving town in less then an hour, but I'll be back on Monday to add all the links and stuff. What did you do last year?