Completed Kitten Stocking

Finished just in time! Now to deliver it.



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My Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

I hope you realize what you mean to the world, I hope you represent the wonderful things you represent. You exemplify generosity and giving of yourself and to others. You encourage children to be good but do not expect perfection, and often overlook small transgressions in order to give children joy. Most importantly for me, you represent hope. The hope that the world can be a better place. The hope that all people can be charitable and giving, not just at Christmas time but year round.

I have thought long and hard, and there is nothing I want for myself this year. I have a very loving family and two silly pets. We have enough to meet our basic needs and a little more.

As with most people, I wish for general good for the earth. I wish for the end to all wars, clean forms of energy, the end of pollution, cancer, and AIDS. I am aware that these are problem you can not fix for us, and that we must see to ourselves.

Of all the holidays, this is the one that is most about family for me. I think this is true for most people. The greatest sadness people feel at Christmas time comes from people not being able to have their families near. Some are separated by death, others by distance, and yet others by hurt feelings. I believe the worst pain is the parents that are far from the children that they love. My Christmas wish is that all loving parents get to spend time with or hear from their children that are far away. I know parents that are unable to be with their kids, and it is the worst pain in this life. Christmas expands this hole in their heart from barely manageable to a ragged, gaping cavern that sucks their joy away with the intensity of a black hole. So my Christmas wish is to have parents and their children to be reunited.

Love always,

Harpy

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

I have been eagerly awaiting this book since I finished the first book in the series, Leviathan. His cliffhanger ending was quite effective in getting me to want to know what would happen next. The adventure resumes almost immediately after the end of the first book.

The Leviathan makes it to Constantinople to complete it's secret mission. The ships that damaged it have already arrived, and have offered themselves in service to the Sultan. The Sultan has stayed neutral in the war so far, and they are hoping to sway him to enter on behalf of the Clanker forces. Dr. Barlow follows through on the arranged meeting with the Sultan to offer the apology gift to replace the ships that were ordered but not delivered due to the start of the war. Understandably, this breach of contract had angered the Sultan, as he had paid quite a bit of money for them. However, the meeting is sabotaged by some of the court when the egg that was to be the Sultan's gift was crushed. In order to ease the Sultan's anger and buy time to stay in the city, Dr. Barlow offers him the Leviathan itself. It also gives the Darwinists a chance to come up with another plan to reach the enemy ships.

In the mean time, Alek and his men know that they must leave the Leviathan before it departs from Constantinople or face being prisoners of war. Deryn assists them in this effort, though it is technically treason. Since Deryn is aware of Alek's secret, she is also aware that he could bring an end to the war. She has also fallen in love with him, so that is also a factor in her decision. After the escape Deryn is called before the Captain, she is terrified that her treachery has been discovered. Instead, she is surprise to be awarded a medal of honor and given a top secret mission.

While Deryn is fulfilling her mission, Alek is making contact with a group of rebels that wish to overthrow the Sultan. Deryn's fellow soldiers are captured during the mission, so she heads into town to find Alek. Together with the rebels, Alek and Deryn hatch a plan to defeat the Sultan.

Once again, Westerfeld's descriptions of the unique machines and creatures that populate this world are stunning. The combatants are much closer to each other during battle in this book. The Orient Express even makes an appearance. The climax of the novel is built well, and stops at a very satisfying moment. It lets you know that there is more to come, while not dropping the audience as roughly as the end of Leviathan did. This series is entertaining for adults and kids alike. I look forward to reading the final chapter of the tale, Goliath when it comes out.

4th Period Gets a Reward

My fourth period class chose a chocolate Cookie Monster cake for their reward. If any of my fellow teachers would like to stop by at the end of 4th period or the beginning if 5th for what's left, please feel free.


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My First NaNoWriMo Experience

This November I decided to take part in a great experiment: Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month. This event is online and creates a goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Nanowrimo encourages writers to kill their inner-editor and just get the words on the page. Writing is usually very lonely business, you toil away alone in a room, Nanowrimo lets authors morally support each other, be aware that others are writing with them, and even allows for a little friendly competition. If you are an aspiring writer, I really recommend that you participate in this event.

Nanowrimo is not the experiment, in and of itself. I refer to this November as an experiment because I am not a writer. Many of you may say, that can't be right as I write a blog. Many people write, but not all people that write are writers. At least, not in my book. To me a writer is someone that has a passion for story telling, someone that wishes to make their living writing. This writing can be fiction or non-fiction, they can be a poet, a novelist, a journalist, or a freelance writer, but is must be an identifying part of their personality and character. My husband is one such individual, as are several of my other friends, to call myself a writer would be an insult to them.

I joined Nanowrimo primarily to gain insight into my husband's writing world, to understand the pressures and challenges he faces when it looks as if he is doing nothing but staring blankly into space or mindlessly watching TV. I can tell you, after 30 days of writing, he is not doing nothing, neither is any other writer when they appear to be lazing about. I wanted to bond with my spouse over the writing experience and challenge myself mentally. I only vaguely had an idea of what I wished to write, this likely added to the challenge of putting 50,000 words on paper. I just had a few pieces of a story that repeatedly and randomly would pop into my head in dreams or as I lay trying to sleep. I am proud to say that despite having a long term anxiety about writing, I was able to expand on my kernels of story and complete the 50,000 word challenge. I even finished a day early, which turned out to be very fortunate as our internet crashed on the last day. I am sad to say that I wasn't able to wrap up the whole story in 50,000 words, but I completed the challenge.

Nanowrimo is well planned. 50,000 words divides up to be 1667 words a day. This is a manageable amount even for people that work full time (I should know, I work full time.). There were days when the words came easy, some days they came hard, and some days when they didn't come at all. They offer forums, fun stuff to do when you are stuck, and activities to help you overcome writers block. They also have weekly pep talks from successful authors. Neil Gaiman has written one, authors this year that offered up a pep talk included Lemony Snicket and Mercedes Lackey. Even if you are not a writer,  you might enjoy some of your favorite writers' outlooks on their craft. One of the things I like about Nanowrimo is that the donations they ask for support a Young Writer's Program that is offered to all for free. It's all about getting kids to write and interact with the written word whether on paper or the internet.

I doubt I will participate next year, I don't really have another story to tell. I did enjoy the experience this year, and learned quite a lot about myself and the art of writing. As for the story I wrote this year, I pretending it doesn't exist for a month. After that time, I will deign to reread it, then I will decide if I will work on it some more or erase it for eternity. I may post it here as a serial story, or I may not. It's fate remains in the ether.

Congratulations to all those that won Nanowrimo, especially Don and John. And to those that didn't quite make it, if writing is your passion, don't give up.