Bethjoy.com

There has been a great disturbance in my room. Almost as if millions of dust particles had cried out at once and were silenced…

On a more cheerful note a great deal of vacuuming and reshuffling in my room. My old curtains and blinds have been taken out and new blinds and curtains put in.

My new curtains are beautiful! I have embroidered white sheers now and a beautiful pink/rose valance that is very elegant. I\’m also getting a new bedspread. it\’s been ordered and when it\’s hear and my room is all cleaned up I\’ll probably have a picture to post.

I have just been reading a book entitled “The Wouldbegoods”(a very good book by the way) and at one point in the story it mentions a “jar of pickled onions”. I did not know until now that pickled onions really existed. It is wonderful news! You see in one of my stories pickled onions factor very highly. But I didn’t know if they existed or not. True, things not existing do not stop me from using them in my stories but it’s nice to know that oak trees really do grow from acorns and flamingoes actually can fly and things like that that I’ve put into my stories without really knowing whether or not it really was like that in real life.

This was such an exciting discovery that I decided to write a post about it.

The star fleet was rapidly flying towards the planet Zoink.

“Come to me my prey” the evil Emperor of Zoink laughed maliciously as he set his super turbo laser jet gun to incinerate. Little did he now that the entire star fleet was covered with burn proof barbecue sauce. All, except for one star cruiser…

“GABAM!!!” the super turbo laser jet gun hiccuped as it hurtled its deadly bolt towards the star fleet.

Captain Diardin firmly used the controls of his star cruiser to avoid the blast. Calmly he informed his followers “Avoid the blasts”. They were not remiss in following this order. Indeed the rest of the star fleet followed his orders so much that they went right back to their secret base many thousands of light years away to avoid the blasts.

But despite this, the Emperor of the planet Zoink glowered for a music box behind him began playing a happy tune. He reached for something to through at it and a peanut butter sandwhich met his grasp. He flung it rapidly at the music box. The music box fell to the ground in broken glory covered in a sticky layer of peanut butter and bread. But the heroic little music box still tinkled on!

In a fury of rage the Emperor of Zoink turned his attention back to the lone star Star cruiser and was about to once again fire his super turbo jet lazer jet gun when the daring Captain Diardin buzzed low and shot the focal ending point off with his laser guns.

“Blast!” The Emperor of Zoink said emphatically and his evil minions heading the order, even though it really was just an interjection, began blasting.

Their aim was poor but they did manage to shoot some peanut butter of the music box, shoot the emperor’s crown off, and hit the starboard engine of Captain Diardin’s star cruiser causing it hurtle into a death spiral.

The Emperor of Zoink was pleased until his chief engineer pointed out that the trajectory of the star cruiser’s death spiral was aimed right at where the Emperor was now standing.

With swift but solemn motions the Emperor of Zoink rapidly crossed the floor and ducked under his desk just as Captain Diardin’s star cruiser crashed into the command center.

Boldly the noble Captain emerged from the wreck of his ship as the little tinkling music box played cheerfully “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood”.

“Surrender foul fiend!” Captain Diardin said as impressively as he could, standing nobly on the remains of his star cruiser while all there looked up on him.

“Never!” said the Emperor of Zoink as impressively as he could crouching under his desk.

“Then suffer the consequences!” Captain Diardin said as he calmly drew his destructo stun blaster out of his belt and aimed it at the desk.

In one shot the desk disintegrated!. But Emperor of Zoink was not through yet. He pulled out one of those plastic containers of mustard that you stand on the cap so that the mustard is always ready to be squirted and whipped of the cap and squirted!

Captain Diardin’s immaculate uniform was covered in mustard!

“What sort of vain fool do you take me for?” Captain Diardin said in disgust for their being no beautiful heroines in the room at the moment it did not bother him at all that his uniform was now covered in mustard.

“The type that my pet Gagle would eat! He loves mustard!” The Emporer of Zoink said cheerily as the sliding woosh doors opened and in came the Emperor’s Gagle. He ran straight at Captain Diardin holding a giant hot dog bun.

It was at this moment when all hope seemed lost that Isildur, son of the king, took up his father’s sword and cut the ring from Sauron’s hand. Or actually, that was the message transmitted in code for what really happened. What really happened was this. Captain Diardin shot the Gagle with his destructo ray which, while it didn’t kill the Gagle, caused him to turn hastily around and decide to become a vegetarian.

The Emporer of Zoink saw that the jig was up and sadly shook his head as he dropped the container of mustard. The cap was still off and as the mustard hit the ground it squirted out and firmly enveloped the music box in a sea of yellow stickiness so that it finally stopped playing, but it was poor consolation to the Emperor.

Captain Diardin handcuffed him and was about to put the Emporer in his star cruiser and shuttle him off to jail when he remembered his star Crusier was broken and even now was lying in smoking embers on the floor of the command center.

“Blast.” Captain Diardin said. Again it was an interjection. Again, the Emporer of Zoink’s minions didn’t know the difference. Again they fired in all directions. Again the Emporer of Zoink sought the refuge of under his desk but his desk was blasted into smithereens and there was no refuge for him there.

Captain Diardin, not quite knowing what had happened but steadfastly determined to do something quickly pulled out his cell phone and called a taxi. The taxi came and, briskly dodging blaster shots, he managed to get himself and the Emperor out of there. Then he took the Emperor of Zoink to jail and Captain Diardin, having saved the day, was duly cheered and congratulated and he went to go eat a pizza and celebrate a job well done. As for the music box, it was eventually repaired and it’s pleasant tune was made the theme song of a TV show so it was happy. Indeed, they all lived happily ever after.

And… Well, if you’d like to know where this story came from I will tell you. I was just finishing up my post when the music I was listening to switched to music that seemed to indicate a star fleet flying about and so I wrote that done and the rest of the story sort of followed after. The music box came about because the song playing at that time was about a doll on a music box that’s wound by a key. And that’s about all I have in explanation of this.

I\’ve been reading a very interesting book on writing. And one of the things suggested was to train yourself to write every day, whether you feel like it or not. Well… when I started last night id didn\’t feel like it so I did what I normally do when I don\’t feel like writing, I start a new story versus finishing an old one.

I decided to do another story with myself as the heroine so I started listening to my soundtrack music as I typed my usual rambling opening. I threw in a winged horse and we went off for an adventure and as some of my Dragon(Eragon) music started playing I began having the winged horse fly towards a castle. but I\’d already started a story with a winged horse flying towards a castle and I didn\’t want to do another one and then the music changed to PIrates of the Caribbean music so I switched the seen to flying towards a pirate ship but I didn\’t want to do a pirate story so when the music switched I switched locations again… And thus the story was born.

I am listening to a playlist which has four different soundtracks in it. Each time the music shifts from one soundtrack to another the place where I am changes and I go from one place to another. And, as just started happening today, the stories are becoming connected and I think in the end a problem in each of the worlds will be successfully solved and everyone can live happily ever after! And Captain Dreadgoose will probably be able to get another monocle…

It\’s a very funs tory and even though every few paragraphs the story switches scene it\’s always from the same persons point of view, me, and the switches keep me interested in typing. On this story I\’ve been able to write very rapidly without stopping or losing my interest, which happens a lot on other stories, so it\’s been fun to write. Im not sure how long I\’ll go with it though. A story like that could go on and on for ages. I\’m finally beginning to get the plot down but, which is good because when I started I didn\’t have one. It\’s a fun story though. Imagine being on a pirate ship and then switching to a dragon\’s cave and then going to a huge battle with giants and centaurs fighting an evil queen\’s army of monsters, then going off into space and seeing spacecraft flying around and you\’ve got something of the story. Only since the playlist is random it doesn\’t go in order and jumps all over the place (Pirate, castle, pirate, nanria, castle, Star Wars, Pirate, Narnia, Castle etc.) and being that I don\’t have a lot of Star Wars music the poor Star Wars story has just barely come into the story at all. But the whole thing together is fun and I wanted to write about it and mention it. It\’s also quite romantic:) And there even is a handsome young man character who, so far, is unattached that I might be abel to have a conversation, or something like that, with:)

Today I also wrote a chapter of the \”Rough and Smooth\” story which I\’m now thoroughly tired of but I want to finish it. I\’m really working on writing right now. And I just wrote a post! Now, back to the \”Random Itunes Story of DOOM!!!\”.

I just did some addition. I went through my entire \”Stories that have their own folder\” folder and added up all of the text things therein and the total number of pages I\’ve written(from that folder) came out to be approximately 1,742 pages. I made that folder on Thursday, June 17, 2004 at 12:09 P.M., in case you would like to know. So I\’ve done quite a bit of writing in the past three years. Or even a little less that three years.

As I was going through and seeing how long everything was I kept running across interesting bits of writing so hopefully soon I will go through to my not quite finished stories and finish writing some of those stories:)

It\’s nice to know that I have typed over a thousand pages. Some people can do that in just one story. I\’m not quite one of them but despite all of that was spread out over 129 different stories. Though the number is a bit off since I included both the rough drafts and the final edits of the stories that have such things. So perhaps one could knock of about 300 or so pages from that number depending on whether one was counting just how much i\’d typed versus how much I\’d typed and edited… But still, I\’ve typed up well over a thousand pages and that is NOT including my website Bethjoy.com.

And now… Hopefully I\’ll write up some of the 104 unwritten story folders into finished stories some day.

Slowly the cold is leaving me. I’m not doing much yet, but I’m actually feeling like doing things instead of not feeling like doing anything so that’s a good sign. I’m also now weighing 140.6 pounds today and I’m not upset about that either.

Since Saturday I’ve been giving writing a break. I was tired but I hope to resume at some point. There are a lot of stories I’d like to be writing but right now I’m doing some other things (Like drooling over the next computer game I want to buy that probably will be just as addicting as the one I’m getting over…) and so forth.

So I thought I would post and say hello:) I’m also doing some cleaning. I’m still sick, so I’m not doing much, but I am doing a little. My dresser is now a little cleaner and more organized on top than it was before. My Christmas preset from Andrew is now more easily to be seen. It’s kind of interesting there, a black ninja sword longer than a yard on it’s decorative stand in front of a row of three pink castles. The two dancing ballerina dolls in front of the sword match the pink castles very well but they and the sword don’t exactly match. The array of hairclips and brushes, the scotch tape dispenser, match the sword a little better but the pink handled blunt scissors that I have finally gotten to fly don’t match the sword exactly. But I like it that way:) Of course what I would really like is a sword rack where I could have all fo my swords on display, all fifteen or so of them, currently just the black ninja sword is out on display as it was the only sword I’ve ever often to come with a display stand.

I made my bed today for the first time since I’ve been sick. It looks very nice made and since today is the day Mom washes dirty clothes my room looks a lot cleaner than it normally does, even without me doing much about it. So that’s nice. There still is an area of my room where the mess varies in depth from six inches to one foot of the floor but that’s out of sight pretty much being between my bed and the dresser that doesn’t have a sword on it. It’s not a very wide place but it’s as long as my bed and the depth has been slowly rising for considerable time. Probably I’ll wait until I’m better before tackling that section of my room as it looks like no small undertaking…

So anyway, I think that’s my post for right now.

I finished editing The Dragon Sword Trilogy on Thursday and added it to my folder entitled \”Books\” in my \”Fairly Done\” folder. That was a big thing for it was the first time I\’d EVER put anything in that folder. 77 pages for one of my stories is pretty impressive, especially since the rough draft had been written in less than a week. Quick explanation for those of you who don\’t already know. 0 to 10 pages is a short story. 10 to 21 pages is a medium story. 21 to 75 pages is a long story(I have 10 of those), and 75 to 300 pages is a book. 300+ pages is an epic. The chances of me writing an epic… Well, I don\’t foresee it happening this year.

You would think, wouldn\’t you, that after that tremendous accomplishment of my first book length story I\’d take a break. Well… That same Thursday night after editing the dragon trilogy that morning and afternoon I wrote at least fifteen pages of story ideas for next story. I\’m now nineteen pages into the rough draft. I did something different on this story that I haven\’t done in a while, I wrote a chapter planner. Which meant I divided up the story into chapters and wrote down what would happen in each chapter. It\’s going to be a fourteen chapter book and I just finished writing chapter six today. So I only have eight more chapters to write:) And that\’s nice:) It\’s a fun story and I hope to have it done before it is a week old. It won\’t be as long as the other one, but that\’s okay. And after I finish this one? Well, if I hold through to my purpose I\’ll start writing another story! I\’d like to write a lot, make up for lost time you know, and right now seems to be a pretty good time to do it.

Oh, something unusual and different happened yesterday. I woke up at five. Some of you may not find that odd but I usually wake up at nine or so in the morning, or eight thirty or eight, whenever breakfast is. Actually, I did wake up my normal time yesterday. Only I woke up before Mom called me, and that was weird. Then I didn\’t feel like going to Wal-mart as was planned to do that day so I knew that wasn\’t something right. Then I got up and felt dizzy so assumed I was sick and as I was coughing and my nose was stuffed up and my voice was not at all normal I think my assumption was correct. I didn\’t go down to breakfast. I was awake for maybe an hour and then I thought I would just close my eyes for a little bit. Just a little nap… And then time to write on my new story!

Every once in a while I woke up, pretty much I turned over and promptly went back to sleep. I may have sneezed or had a drink of water but I slept pretty soundly until I finally really woke up. I got of bed, I still didn\’t feel like standing up much, and went to the bathroom. Passing by the clock that is in the bathroom I saw, FIVE O\’CLOCK!!! That was really unusual! Apparently I\’d slept all day, with just a few moments of waking and the hour around breakfast. I\’d slept nearly fifteen hours total if you include my pre-breakfast sleeping and post-breakfast sleeping. I hoped I would be abel to get alseep agian that night.

I was up for a little, I actually came down for supper. However, shortly after being up at five, I was curious to see if being sick had made me lose any weight. My Dad loses weight when he gets sick.

I used to weigh around 150 pounds. I consider that to be my \”normal\” weight. Sometimes I\’m a little over. But recently due to some weird and unusual circumstance that I can\’t explain I\’ve started weighing 145 pounds. At least, that was my pre being sick weight. Friday, I stepped on the scale and weighed 143 pounds. \”Aw, I only lost two pounds!\” I thought. I was expecting to weigh 140 pounds. But still, as my mother told me, there are people out there who probably would be thrilled to lose two pounds without really doing anything for it. So I\’m certainly not complaining. Today I weighed and weighed 142 pounds so I thought that was more like it. I\’m still sick, but I am getting better. And I don\’t mind losing the weight:) Probably I\’ll have it gained back in no time.

So it\’s been a busy productive time for me, despite being sick. The biggest thing to help in this is that I\’ve kinda stopped playing my Christmas present computer game. It was certainly addicting but I think it\’s much better for me to be spending the time writing and improving my skills therein than just wasting my time in front of a computer screen. So, Viva Writing! Maybe someday I\’ll actually submit something to be published and maybe someday I\’ll actually get something published:)

And incidently, Happy Belated Groundhogs Day.