Traiectum

NaNoWriMo

2010-10-14T23:45:00.002+02:00

Aaaaah it's nearly November!

Plot: Uh... I have a main character
Time to write: Nah. I'm doing 22.5 points worth of subjects instead of the usual 15 PLUS 37.5 points for my thesis (intead of 15) which means I started last week instead of in April which means I'm going to be busy in November.

Hooray!

Also, there are chocolate letters in the shops again.

Snippet time!

2009-12-23T15:32:00.002+01:00

It's almost Christmas! And there's snow! And I won NaNo 09! It was ridiculously easy this year, I did realistic fantasy and it's got to be the easiest genre on the planet. Not that I got very far with the plot. The revolution has been postponed in favour of a tea party. And garden gnomes wielding shovels (yes, the Traveling Shovel of Death has once again made an appearance).

On the minus side, I got my swine flu shot today, which could leave me flu-y tomorrow (pretty much everyone I know became ill the day after the shot, bleh). I don't want to be ill during Christmas (I've made seven gingerbread houses - someone's got to eat them!).

But as an early Xmas present, have a snippet from The Snuffing of Jeeves! Superintendent Trenchcoat and Sergeant Plimsoll are still no closer to catching the murderer (who has killed four people so far - Jeeves, a mad old lady, Julius Caesar and another butler). To make things worse, Cicero has arrived at Butterbrayne Manor and he's boring everyone to death.

Oh, yeah, I'm betting this thing is filled with French spelling and grammar errors. This is because they're not speaking French. Jean-Pierre is actually from Baystonhill, so it's a Baystonhill accent.

Kirsten, I promised to, ahum, dispose of Cicero. So here goes!

~*~
At Butterbrayne’s request, they stayed for dinner. The butlers had their own separate and quite fancy dinner in the greater of the many dining halls, but Plimsoll, Trenchcoat and the newcomer Cicero joined Butterbrayne at a private table. Cicero had to join them because the butlers wouldn’t have him. Not that anyone else would, but Butterbrayne had a slight suspicion that the guy might be from some firm writing reviews of hotels. He needed all the positive publicity he could get (not that there had been any negative publicity, despite the four murders, because Butterbrayne Manor/Hotel was proving too difficult to find for most journalists, even the ones with navigation systems in their cars. The navigation systems mostly went on strike when someone requested directions to Butterbrayne Manor, and directed them to Bournemouth instead because the weather was nicer there).
Both Butterbrayne and Trenchcoat were very silent throughout dinner. Plimsoll made several unsuccessful attempts at conversation.
‘Nice weather for the time of year,’ he said, trying to sound cheerful. Butterbrayne nodded and smiled vaguely but Trenchcoat just grunted. Cicero, wearing a very stylish and bleached set of bed sheets and for some reason leaning on the armrest of his chair rather than just sitting up like normal people do, launched into a speech about the weather.
Plimsoll wished he had kept his mouth shut.
‘Well’, said Butterbrayne, interrupting Cicero’s monologue far too late for Plimsoll’s taste. ‘What would you gentlemen like to eat?’
‘Oysters?’ suggested Cicero. ‘Dormice? Snails? Olives? Wine?’
Plimsoll pulled a face. ‘Something simple. But not Yorkshire pudding or anything of that sort. Please.’
Trenchcoat grunted again and took a sip or six from his hipflask.
‘I’ll just order something, then, shall I?’ Butterbrayne asked. He called over a waiter, one of the chef’s assistants and said something in the obscure dialect of Baystonhill.
The waiter left with a bow and returned shortly after with wine and bread rolls. Trenchcoat took a sniff of the wine and drained it in one go. He made a face and stuck to his hipflask instead. Cicero didn’t seem overexcited about the wine either.
Butterbrayne stared vaguely into space. Plimsoll gave up his attempts at conversation and devoted his time instead to trying to block Cicero’s voice out. It was impossible. He droned on and on about some republic or other while Plimsoll stared at a painting on the wall, wishing he could set fire to it just by looking so he could get the hell out of here. It was a rather nice painting though, a Renoir actually. It would be a shame to see it go up in flames, but Plimsoll privately thought it was worth it. He had been staring at it for some while (Cicero was still jabbering on about the good old days when he was in charge of the republic, Plimsoll figured he must have threatened to bore people to death if they didn’t vote for him) when he noticed smoke curling around the painting’s frame.
‘Er,’ he said, ‘there’s-’
He was unable to finish his sentence because at that moment there was an explosion and one of the windows shattered. Cicero shrieked and shouted something about rebel troops. Trenchcoat wacked him. He must have been longing to do that all evening because he grinned and wacked him again.
‘What’s happened?’ Butterbrayne roared down the corridor.
Jean-Pierre, the chef from Baystonhill, came running up. He was waving a meat cleaver. ‘La cuisine! Elle a explosé! Oh non! Et les tomates!’
‘Calm down,’ Butterbrayne said, ducking to avoid the meat cleaver. ‘Et puttez-vouz down le cleaver du meat, s’il vous plait.’
‘Ah, oui, bien sure.’ Jean-Pierre dropped the meat cleaver, narrowly missing Cicero’s toes. Both Cicero and Trenchcoat cursed, but for very different reasons.
‘What’s this all about then?’ Butterbrayne asked sternly, not bothering with the Baystonhill accent anymore. ‘Why do you have a meat cleaver when I only ordered pancakes?’
‘Ah, monsieur, ce n’est pas ma faute! Je fait les crêpes et la cuisine a explosé! Et les tomates! Ils sont sauvages!’
Butterbrayne growled. ‘Idiot. Can’t even make pancakes.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Cicero. ‘Do I hear correctly? Have the tomatoes gone wild?’
‘Oui!’ shrieked the chef. Then he ran away.
Plimsoll ran out into the corridor and was just in time to see the chef be attacked by several very vicious tomatoes. However, Jean-Pierre still had a trick (or rather a kitchen knife) up his sleeve and made a nice tomato salad on the stairs. He had just added mozzarella cheese and some fresh basil when more tomatoes arrived and he was forced to flee.
‘They’re coming this way!’ Plimsoll yelled. He ran back into the room and slammed the door behind him.
‘Bar the door!’ Butterbrayne yelled, grabbing a battle axe from the wall.
‘No, we need to get out while we still can! There are too many of them!’
‘I’ll be damned if I flee!’ Trenchcoat growled. ‘They’re just tomatoes!’
Cicero strode forward with his jaw clenched in a way that was supposed to show determined bravery. It made him look like a coward with stomach ache. ‘I shall address them,’ he said, his voice level. ‘I shall speak to them and calm them, so that the rebellious fiends will back down. They will recognise me…’ He prattled on like this for a good while.
Plimsoll caught Trenchcoat’s eye.
‘Well, if you insist,’ said Butterbrayne, opening the door. Plimsoll and Trenchcoat shoved Cicero out into the corridor. They saw him striding towards the tomatoes, his head held aloft, drawing breath to start another of his speeches, and slammed the door shut to avoid hearing it.
‘Do you think he’ll make it?’ Plimsoll whispered.
‘I hope he dies.’
They caught snatches of the speech, then there was a piercing shriek and some fierce growls. Footsteps thundered down the stairs and a moment later the front doors burst open and Cicero ran out onto the driveway. His bed sheets were flapping absurdly behind him. Then the tomatoes came. They bounced after him. Cicero looked back, just in time to see the largest of the tomatoes pounce. He was knocked to the ground and immediately set upon by the rest of the horde. The shrieking figure disappeared under a mountain of squashy tomatoes. When they drew back barely a moment later all that was left was a set of torn sheets, no longer pristine white. The tomatoes growled and proceeded to bounce across the garden, towards the pond, where they were promptly set upon and eaten by the ducks.
‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Plimsoll muttered.
‘Correct,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘And you know what? I’m not taking it anymore.’
~*~

Ah, heck, have the next chapter as well. See if ya can recognise the Head of Negotiations :D

~*~
‘So, we’re going on strike.’
‘Correct.’
‘For how long, sir?’
‘Until this novel goes back to normal,’ Trenchcoat said.
‘Fat chance.’
Butterbrayne sat down in Cicero’s abandoned chair. ‘I know what you mean. It started off quite nicely though.’
Plimsoll nodded. ‘New job… First assignment. Catch a poacher.’
‘Even the murder wasn’t too bad,’ Trenchcoat agreed. ‘An arrogant, high-placed man is murdered. It’s all quite realistic.’
‘Even the village festival could happen in real life,’ Plimsoll said. ‘Except that the committee members were really mad.’
‘Yes,’ Butterbrayne said. ‘And then that my gardener is a chemist who makes his own weed killer? What nonsense is that!’
‘Oh, now you’re being unfair!’ said Plimsoll. ‘There are chemists in real life, you know! My sister Carol, she’s a chemist!’
‘Plimsoll, you twit, would your sister take up a job as a gardener?’
‘No, I don’t think so, sir.’
‘Then shut up.’
‘Right, sir.’
At that moment, there was a knock on the door.
‘Enter,’ said Butterbrayne.
In came a very short guy wearing bed sheets. They all groaned.
‘Not another one!’ Plimsoll reached for a bottle of whisky that was standing on the side table.
‘Another what precisely?’ the bed-sheeted fellow said haughtily. He had a rather squeaky, breaking voice. He was also covered in pimples. No older than twenty, Plimsoll guessed. He looked around for a glass, couldn’t see one, shrugged, and drank straight from the bottle. Trenchcoat gave him an approving nod.
‘Another, er,’ Butterbrayne began. ‘Another…’
‘Another guy in bed sheets,’ Trenchcoat finished the sentence for him.
The kid stared at them angrily. ‘It’s a toga. I look good in it.’
Butterbrayne wrestled the bottle from Plimsoll. Plimsoll clobbered him over the head with his napkin and took the bottle back. Trenchcoat was fortunate enough to have his hipflask.
‘What do you want, anyway?’ Butterbrayne said. ‘The hotel’s full. You might want to try somewhere else.’
‘Bournemouth perhaps,’ Plimsoll suggested hopefully.
‘I’m not here to sleep,’ the guy said. ‘I have been appointed, with two other guys of course, we work in groups of three. As I said, I have been appointed Head of Negotiations.’
‘What negotiations?’
‘It’s Negotiations actually. Capital N.’
‘Go away.’
‘No.’
‘Really, I’m serious. Leave this room unless you want to suffer the same fate as that chick lit author. The Caesar chap.’ Butterbrayne looked hopefully at Trenchcoat, as though expecting him to pull out a gun and chase the newcomer away.
‘Caesar was here? He was murdered here? I shall avenge his death! The traitors, the scum, the-’
‘You said something about negotiations,’ Plimsoll said quickly, deliberately forgetting the capital N.
‘Capital N!’ shouted the Head of Negotiations.
‘Right, sorry. What sort of Negotiations? Who sent you?’
‘The Author.’
A crack of thunder followed this announcement.
‘Yes, now, about the Author-’ Another crack of thunder. Plimsoll glared. ‘This novel is getting out of hand. I mean, crazy old ladies with a trebuchet? People wearing bed sheets? Vicious ducks? Poisoning by trans fatty acids? And the thunderclaps!’
‘Yes,’ said the Head of Negotiations gravely. ‘The Author had informed me that there were some, ah, difficulties with you characters.’
‘Oy, we’re not the problem, she is!’ shouted Trenchcoat.
The Head of Negotiations glanced at his notebook. ‘That is not what it says here.’
‘Well, you’re wrong then, aren’t you?’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
‘SHUT UP!’ shouted Plimsoll.
‘Stay out of this,’ growled Trenchcoat. ‘I’m making a point here!’
‘No you’re not,’ said the Head of Negotiations.
Butterbrayne acted lightning fast. He clapped a hand over Trenchcoat’s mouth.
‘Mbmbhl!’
‘No you’re not!’
‘Mbmbhl!’
‘No you’re not!’
‘Mbmbhl!’
‘No you’re not!’
Plimsoll screamed out of sheer annoyance. Butterbrayne screamed as well, but that was because Trenchcoat had bitten him in the hand.
‘You are quite evidently mad,’ said the Head of Negotiations. He consulted his notebook. ‘Yes, indeed you are. It says so right here.’
‘Look kid,’ Plimsoll said with a growl to match Trenchcoat’s. ‘We’re giving you one last chance. Sod off, or be fed to the ducks.’
‘I don’t fear the ducks,’ said the Head of Negotiations. ‘I just don’t like them watching me.’
‘Ah,’ said Butterbrayne. ‘A classic case of Anatidaephobia. There are cures for that, you know. Like leaving now.’
‘I will not leave until my task is done.’ The Head of Negotiations pulled up an armchair and sat lopsided in it just as Cicero had done. He muttered something about ‘ridiculously small couches’.
Trenchcoat and Plimsoll exchanged a glance. They were not getting rid of the kid as easily as they had hoped. And Trenchcoat had left his biggest guns at the pub. They sighed, and turned to the Head of Negotiations.
‘What do you want?’ Plimsoll said.
‘I want nothing for myself,’ said the Head. ‘But the Author has Demands.’
‘Will you stop abusing capital letters?’
‘No. I am Emperor of the World. Well, with two other guys that is. I can use as many capital letters as I want. They give a wonderful emphasizing effect, don’t you think?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, well, anyway.’ He leafed through his notebook. ‘The Author has three major Complaints. First of all, the plot is getting ridiculous.’
‘Agreed,’ said Trenchcoat. ‘If she’d stop sending vicious ducks and bedsheeted people at us, it’d all be fine!’
The Head coughed slightly. ‘I think you misunderstand me. The Author means that it is ridiculous that you keep on making snide comments about perfectly normal events and objects. Like the ducks, the trans fatty acid poisoning and the trebuchet. She feels you are not taking the story seriously.’
‘Ridiculous,’ muttered Plimsoll.
‘Second, she feels that she has lost control of the plot, the storyline, the characters and all events.’
‘It might help if she went easy on the drink.’
For this Trenchcoat was wacked over the head with a spare bedsheet.
‘Third, she doesn’t have enough chocolate.’
Plimsoll opened his mouth to protest.
‘Now, the Author realizes this third problem is not really your fault,’ the Head said. ‘But she would like you to do something about the first two.’
‘Well you can tell her that we’ll take the novel seriously if she stops sending trebuchets and vicious ducks and other ridiculous and plain silly story elements our way!’ Plimsoll said more bravely than he felt.
The Head of Negotiations looked at him coldly. ‘You are in no position to make demands.’
‘Aren’t we? Without us there’s no story!’
‘Yes,’ Trenchcoat added. ‘No super smart detective to catch the killer.’
‘Oh, thank you very much sir.’
‘I meant me, you idiot.’
‘Right. Sorry sir.’
The Head of Negotiations smiled evilly. ‘Oh, so there’s no story without you? Is that what you think?’
‘Well, there was one bit,’ Plimsoll admitted. ‘About that guy in York being shot, but that’s not the point. This entire case about the butlers and the old lady and the chick lit novelist dying. If we’re not there nobody will solve the case! And there’d be no thickening of the plot!’
‘Oh really?’ The Head opened the door and three men entered. ‘Meet Superintendent Jacket, Sergeant Standard and Lord Margarineheade, your replacements.’
They all stared. Superintendent Jacket was a cheerful, middle-aged man wearing a tweed suit and smoking a pipe. Sergeant Standard was a slouching, unshaven youth with pimples and spiky red hair. Lord Margarineheade was worst of all. He looked like a bird of prey, thin, balding, with a crooked nose and beady black eyes. And a horrible sneer.
‘But but…’ Plimsoll stammered. ‘You can’t replace us with them! They’re absolutely awful!’
‘Watch it, cityboy,’ spat Sergeant Standard.
‘Cityboy I may be but at least I use my brains,’ Plimsoll said, drawing himself up to his full height.
‘Oh really,’ sneered Sergeant Standard. ‘Why not use this brain of yours to find the killer then? I know who killed the butler…’
‘Now now, Sergeant Standard, be nice,’ said Superintendent Jacket, patting the sergeant on the back. Trenchcoat stared at his replacement in horror.
‘The Author is not really serious about this, is she?’ he said weakly.
‘You have ten minutes to reconsider your strike,’ the Head of Negotiations said smoothly. He removed a speck of dust from his bedsheets. ‘If, after that time, you still wish to continue it, you will be escorted off the premises by my bodyguard-’
‘I’d like to see them try, the prats,’ Trenchcoat muttered.
‘Praetorians actually. Not Praets,’ the Head said. ‘Like I said, they will escort you off the premises and these three men will take your places and bring the novel to a successful end. You will then be taken to the Character Market to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.’
Trenchcoat, Plimsoll and Butterbrayne all stared at him in horror.
‘We need to consider this,’ Trenchcoat said. He grabbed Plimsoll and Butterbrayne by the elbow and dragged them into the corner. ‘There’s four of them. We can take them out, easily. I still have a few pistols on me.’
Plimsoll shook his head violently and pointed out of the window. ‘I think it’s his Prat bodyguard, sir.’ About a hundred men stood on the smooth lawns of Butterbrayne manor. They wore bits of metal and miniskirts and had feathers on their heads, but they also carried spears and swords.
‘Ah, that complicates things,’ Trenchcoat said. He swore. Then he thought for a while. ‘We have to agree to the Author’s demands.’
‘Just like that sir?’
‘We can’t let those numbskulls take over the novel!’ Trenchcoat said. ‘The readers wouldn’t like it. And besides, I have no wish to go to the Character Market to be auctioned off.’
Plimsoll had always suspected that Trenchcoat had had an unhappy childhood, but he’d never thought about him being auctioned off as a character multiple times. It made sense though.
‘Right, sir,’ he said. ‘Lord Butterbrayne?’
Butterbrayne took one look at the incredibly creepy Lord Margarineheade, shuddered, and nodded. ‘I agree.’
The Head of Negotiations inclined his head. ‘You have made a wise choice.’ He pushed the three replacements out of the door. ‘From the next chapter you must continue as if these negotiations have never happened. Just play out the novel. If there are anymore difficulties, the Author will send me back. And then you will be replaced.’
He left, his bed sheets swishing dramatically behind him.

~*~

The Dare Thread on the NaNo Forums made me do it.

NaNoWriMo 2009!

2009-10-04T22:17:00.002+02:00

Yaay! Less than a month to go and I actually have a plot! Though to be honest, it's messy. And knowing NaNo it'll only get messier.

This year it's sort of fantasy. 'Sort of' because the only difference with our world is that the country where it all takes place doesn't really exist and the kinetics of chemical reactions are slightly different there. But other than that, it's, er, realistic. No magic or unicorns or whatever. Maybe ninjas though. Definitely ninjas. Can't write without ninjas.

It's mad, though. It's my fourth NaNo and I've never been this well prepared. I, or rather we, since I'll be writing this with my boyfriend (yes, I know, it's sorta cheating, but not really, because we've got lots of different PoVs and we'll be writing different ones and there won't be story-overlap). Anyway, we have had this story in our heads for half a year at least. Over the summer we've worked out the plot, created characters, backstory, names, even bloody table manners! And I hope I haven't done too much of this insane planning because come November, there'll be huge amounts of craziness jumping up and down from my teapot to my fingers and trying to get into my novel. I dunno if the story will survive...

And just yesterday we got another huge plotbunny, for a totally different story of course and now we kinda want to write that. Eh...

Also, I still need to finish The Snuffing of Jeeves. Because I won NaNo07 I got to print a free proof copy (which says 'To be continued... Or maybe not' at the end) which is really cool but way too thin. You'll be happy to hear I just killed off Cicero though. He was attacked by the killer tomatoes (they started a revolt in the kitchen when the cook blew it up while trying to bake pancakes).

Hurray! I'm already in NaNo-mood!

The cool thing is, that I'll have an entire day off (time to write!) every week in November because.... because I'm only doing cool subjects like anorganic, organic and physical chemistry and not bloody molecular modelling (have put it off until next year, heh...). At least I hope I can do physical chem... The @# uni website messed up my application for it and by the time I figured it out the deadline had already passed (it made a nice wooshing sound as it flew by, but despite that, I can't help but hate it) and now I have to wait and hope and see if there's still room for me. Argh... More than two weeks 0_o I want to do physical chemistry! Last year's phys chem 1 course was awesome - we learned everything from thermodynamics to reaction kinetics by looking at cartoons of rabbits -

Argh. I've got it! The thermo-rabbit is a giant plotbunny!

*runs around in circles*

Oh, hey. Have a pic.
Boltzmann rocks!!!

Woohoo! I'm an editor!

2009-08-15T21:27:00.003+02:00

Have been for half a year, actually.

There's an organisation for Norwegian students in the Netherlands and they have a magazine and I'm the editor of that. Uh... that last sentence was a warming up exercise for NaNoWriMo, which I shall do again this year, but this time I'll write with my boyfriend (oooh, I'm cheating!) so we'll have to reach 100 k. Yikes.

Anyway. I have my own magazine. I only make 3 of them a year, but hey. That means a grand total of about 60 pages where I can brainwash some 200 people! w00t! I really want one of those journalist hats.

NaNo this year won't be hist.fic or whodunnit-parody! We're doing chemistry-fantasy (meaning fantasy, where the chemists/alchemists win in the end. Muahaha). Basically about 5 different parties are trying to seize power in this kingdom and they all end up fighting each other. It'll be fun. Plus the king is the kind of guy who sneaks down to the kitchen in the middle of the night to raid the cookie jar. Woohoo!

Right. Gotta write a very important article for my magazine. Penguins are taking over the world.

Guess what!

2009-08-04T22:46:00.003+02:00

I'm back! Well, for now at least :P Finished my first year of chemistry, passed all my exams (got some really nice grades too), have still not learned to type on a Dutch keyboard (so typos are not my fault, muahaha), and am still obsessed with chocolate. Got some really nice passion fruit chocolate today.... mhm!

I spent a week in Vienna with my boyfriend last month. We didn't have enough time to visit the local Roman ruins (unless you count the Roman ruins at Schönbrunn, which were built in 1778) but had a great time nonetheless. Ice creams, apricots and parks! We even allowed ourselves to be talked into a Mozart concert (held in the great gallery at Schönbrunn which was really cool) but I was slightly disappointed and kinda want my money back because Mozart never showed up. We also saw the graves of Boltzmann (w00t!!) and Beethoven (and explained about seven times to a francaise with no sense of direction how to get there - she was about 20 m from it).
As we were in Vienna we figured we had to drink coffee - bleeegh! Will never touch the stuff again, it's ghastly. But the café was really cool *geek moment* as it was called Café Schrödinger.

Oh, and Gabriele! I actually saw an opera (Lohengrin) while in Vienna! Well, sort of. It was being shown on a big screen in front of the Rathaus (they show concerts and stuff there all summer). But we gave up around midnight - after more than two hours and only understanding seven words we decided it was time to go to bed. Don't send ninjas after me! It wasn't my fault! I swear! They were singing in opera-German and there were no subtitles, and it was quite... modern. It would have been easier if they'd really dressed up as knights and stuff. My boyfriend and I tried to piece together a story from what we'd seen. We checked the story on Wikipedia afterwards and had a real laugh!

As Bratislava is only an hour away by train, we went there for a day too. It's the cutest capital ever. Cute as in small. You can fit the entire historical centre into a shoebox. And it rained. And their castle was covered in scaffolding. Otherwise it was fun.

Going back to Norway was less fun - I got a phone call from my bank the day I got here. They suspected someone'd gotten hold of my credit card info so I had to open a new account and everything. Luckily nothing got stolen but it was really annoying.
Now I'm back at my work in the deli, where I have developed a pain in my ankle and a hatred for chickens. Wish I could throw them at people instead of selling them. Think I'll quit my job soon.

Random pic of a gate at the castle of Bratislava. Our theory was that the middle gate was for the king when the nobility were sick of him. The left one was for dismissed servants and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen.

And because I am rather bored now I have nicked a meme from Gabriele's blog. Dear me. It's the 'choose 10 characters' one.

They're from my three NaNo-novels (that should make it more interesting): the unnamed one about the Batavian revolt (2006), the one about the Romans in Wales that has the working title 'Suddenly, ninjas arrived (2007), and The Snuffing of Jeeves (2008, not hist-fic, but whodunnit parody). I was sorely tempted to include Sammy the Fried Salmon in the list...

1) Embric (Arrogant tribal leader - Batavian revolt)
2) Imerix (Idiot with a dodgy past - Suddenly, ninjas arrived)
3) Thiadulf (Heroic older brother - Batavian revolt)
4) Marcus Fulvius Scaeva (Surgeon who's slightly afraid of blood and always complains about the cold - Batavian revolt)
5) Maud Gilford (Mad old lady of the festival committee - The Snuffing of Jeeves)
6)Superintendent Trenchcoat (Brilliant detective who likes to do things his own way - The Snuffing of Jeeves)
7)Geravan (Rash Batavian warrior who really needs a psychiatrist - Batavian revolt)
8)Publius Cornelius Merula (Upper class snob/village idiot - Suddenly, ninjas arrived)
9) Harold Johnson (The most normal guy in the universe, also really boring - The Snuffing of Jeeves)
10) Sgt Dennis Plimsoll (Trenchcoat's sidekick, over-excited but actually pretty smart - The Snuffing of Jeeves)

4 invites 3 and 8 to dinner at their house. What happens?
Marcus would throw the dinner party in the hope it would lead to peace between Romans and Batavians (so he wouldn't have to work long hours in the hospital, he's a lazy git). However, while Thiadulf tries to make polite conversation Merula will strike up a conversation with the main course (stupid Marcus served salmon).

9 tries to get 5 to go to a strip club. What happens?
Maud would be severaly shocked and handbag HJ. The shock would give him his memory back, so that he would not want to visit a strip club anyway (it's not a routine of his).

You need to stay at a friend's house for a night. Who do you choose: 1 or 6?
Personally, I'd rather camp on a busy highway. But if I had to choose it would be Embric. It'd be easier to spike his drink and run away. Trenchcoat only drinks from his hipflask.

2 and 7 are making out. 10 walks in. What is their reaction?
Rotflol! Geravan and Imerix?? *dies laughing* Plimsoll would blush and leave really quickly, pretending he hadn't seen.

3 falls in love with 6. 8 is jealous. What happens?
Thiadulf and Trenchcoat? Jeez. Merula would strike up a conversation with a nearby elm tree and ask it to drop a branch on Trenchcoat's head the next time he walks by.

4 jumps you in a dark alleyway. Who comes to your rescue: 10, 2, or 7?
*sniggers* Marcus, attack me? What's he going to do? Sneeze on me? Throw bandages at me? He's lethal with a scalpel though. Hm... Plimsoll would jump in, I guess, as he's a policeman, though he's a bit of a wimp. Imerix would rescue me if there was something in it for him. I'd put my trust in Geravan, to be honest. Marcus is from the legion that killed his brother after all. Should be a nice fight.

1 decides to start a cooking show. Fifteen minutes later, what is happening?
Embric got bored and grabbed a drink instead. He forgot to put the fire out, thus starting a forest fire. Luckily for him there was a Roman legion in that very forest and by setting fire to them he actually saved the day (to Geravan's disgust).

3 has to marry either 8, 4, or 9. Whom do they choose?
Haha, I'm beginning to see I have added to few female characters to my list. I don't really think Thiadulf will want to marry any of these guys. Doubt he'd be allowed to as well.

7 kidnaps 2 and demands something from 5 for 2's release. What is it?
Geravan kidnaps Imerix? Well, okay. That should be interesting. Though the only thing Geravan would get from Maud is an invitation to the Stuff the Pony Festival, and that's not really his thing. Maybe he wants her grandson's guitar, though? *is totally picturing hippie-Geravan with his guitar, singing Bob Dylan*

Everyone gangs up on 3. Does 3 have a chance in hell?
You know, I think he does! Geravan wouldn't attack his brother but side with him. Plimsoll (thinking Thiadulf is a lawbreaker) would try to arrest him, thereby hindering everyone else's attempts at lynching. Harold Johnson wouldn't join them, as it would disrupt his daily routine. Maud is ferocious with her handbag, but her heart isn't really in it because Thiadulf isn't threatening her precious festival. Merula would be too interested in the local scenery (besides, he'd want to give Thiadulf a fair fighting chance). Marcus would be too wrapped up in scarves against the cold to do anything dangerous (unless they were in the Sahara or something). Imerix could be problematic, depending on his mood (if Thiadulf happened to look anything like his brother he'd probably break down or runaway). Trenchcoat would pause every now and then to take a sip from his hipflask (however he does have a gun, so... potentially problematic). That leaves Embric. And Thiaudulf and Geravan together are more than a match for him. Whew.

Everyone is invited to 2 and 10's wedding except for 8. How do they react?
Lol, Imerix and Plimsoll, the happy couple! Merula would be a bit pissed I guess. But as he wouldn't approve of the match anyway it's not such a big deal.

Why is 6 afraid of 7?
I hadn't really thought about Trenchcoat being scared of anything or anybody! I guess Geravan freaks him out because Geravan gets away with so much, so he's a potentially dangerous criminal and Trenchcoat fears he might be involved with the mafia. Also, hippie music isn't really Trenchcoat's thing. Lol...

1 arrives late for 2 and 10's wedding. What happens, and why were they late?
Embric was late because he got drunk and fell asleep. He turns up halfway through the party, grabs some more drink and gets drunk again. The rest sort of push him into a corner and pretend nothing has happened.

5 and 9 get roaring drunk and end up at your house. What happens?
Maud and Harold Johnson?! Bwahaha! HJ has one whisky a week, always at the same time each Saturday, it's routine. Never more than one whisky. And I think the most Maud has ever had is one sherry. But now I'm totally picturing the two of them, arms around each other, singing loudly. I think Maud would be gigglish and HJ would tell about how he wants to live life and become a lion tamer (he's an accountant now. Long live Monty Python!). I'd probably hang around to get a good laugh.

9 murders 2's best friend. What does 2 do to get back at them?
Whoa! HJ murders Finvagar! Well, Imerix wouldn't rest until he'd hunted him down, preferably with a big mob at his heels, so they can be witnesses to him killing HJ in revenge. Then maybe, if he was really depressed and mad he'd commit suicide. Imerix didn't have a happy childhood.

6 and 1 are in mortal peril and only one of them can survive. Does 6 save themself or 1?
I think Trenchcoat would normally have saved the other person, but as it's Embric... Trenchcoat would realise Embric is a dangerous criminal, and after a sort of heroic struggle (preferably with witnesses so he can pretend it was an arrest that got a bit out of hand), he'd push Embric into the volcano and climb out himself. Or whatever the peril is.

8 and 3 go camping. For some reason they forgot to bring along any food. What do they do?
Merula would insist they dig ditches and put up defences around their tent (making Thiadulf do the heavy work). Thiadulf would have learned from Marcus' mistake and catch trout instead of salmon for dinner. He'd then tell ghost stories to make Merula nice and scared so he won't sleep at all (and therefore, not snore).

5 is in a chariot crash and is critically injured. What does 9 do?
Maud wouldn't be in a chariot anyway, and neither does she have a car or a bicycle to crash. But if she was lying around somewhere, injured, Harold Johnson wouldn't do much because it would disrupt his daily routine.

Whew. That was fun. Reading back, I realise once again that my characters are the biggest bunch of lunatics I've ever come across.

Cheers! I'll see if I can get some more pics up soon!

Rant

2008-12-17T19:15:00.003+01:00

And I have a bloody good reason to rant too!

When I started studying, four months ago now, the exchange rates were highly boring and hardly changed - 8 Norwegian kroner to one euro.

Now, it's almost 9.6 NOK to 1 €.

My scholarship, which is paid to me in NOK, is now worth more than 2000 € less than it was in August.

2000 € is...
8 months of rent
More than 1 year of tuition fees
About 6 airplane tickets home to Norway and back
3 times as much as my schoolbooks cost
3 times the price of my laptop
etc etc etc

@#!@"/&!!!!!

NaNo-isms

2008-12-03T22:24:00.002+01:00

NaNo is over again, and it's time to read through that messy first draft and see what literary gems were created during November... This list will keep on growing :P

Funniest name: Difficult. It's either Trevor "Torture" Wouhl-Svetter, the local bully (whose mother, father, brothers and sisters all have similar names) or Nikolai Njetsosnuggerov, the Soviet spy who has been working undercow-er in the UK for the last 29 years (aka he's been disguised as a cow and hasn't realised the Soviet union ceased to exist a good while ago).

Best simile (or worst, depending on your point of view): "Quick as a ferret on wheels"

Most boring character. Ever. Harold Johnson

Best mob: The Stuff the Pony Festival Committee (consisting of a few ladies with an average age of 83) upon hearing that Superintendent Trenchcoat wants to cancel the village festival because of a recent murder

Coolest character: Tom Hockney the gardener - because he has three fume hoods and several cupboards full of chemicals (including concentrated nitric acid) in his basement

Best speech: "No thank you I really didn’t mean that you should buy me a flock of penguins, please return them to the zoo"-speech

Coolest dialect: That of Butterbrayne's cook, Jean-Pierre Maçon. He's from Baystonhill, near Shrewsbury."’Ello monsieur, we are almost ready, oui? Vous avez un peu de patience, s’il vous plait, oui?"

Coolest capital of Eastern Copenhagen: The IKEA in Wommels (lord Butterbrayne was a bit tipsy...)

Worst sense of direction: Plimsoll or Trenchcoat. Dunno who's the brains behind "From York to the Yorkshire Moors via Barcelona"

Most dramatic scene: Under the Olde Elm Tree, the village pub, has run out of Yorkshire pudding and steak and kidney pie... *dundundundun!*

Scariest scene: Any scene involving the ducks

Most random scene: Plimsoll trying to catch the poacher:

The very next morning, Plimsoll was kicked out of bed before six AM and only allowed to finish half his breakfast before Trenchcoat threw him out to catch the poacher. Thinking that poachers usually come out around dawn and dusk to drink at watering holes, Plimsoll hid behind the bushes near the village stream. The village stream was very small and rather muddy, but it had some nice plants which were not dead. Plimsoll sat there for hours, not daring to move in case he scared the poachers off. He was very careful and made no sound, but around noon, there was still not a single poacher in sight. It was then that he began to suspect that he might have confused ‘poachers’ with ‘Thompson gazelles’. He whipped out his pocket Oxford English Dictionary. Like all good dictionaries, this one also included a Thesaurus. This particular Thesaurus was purple and had beautiful sharp teeth and claws.
‘Morning,’ said Plimsoll absent-mindedly.
‘Dawn, daybreak, sunrise, break of day, cock crow, sunup, first light, crack of dawn,’ shouted the Thesaurus.
Plimsoll smiled a very strained smile. None of his friends had such a motivated and loud Thesaurus. He looked up “Thompson gazelle”. The entry was: “Animal of the African continent. Moves in large herds over the savannah and comes down to watering holes at dawn and dusk. Comes in packs, though not in six-packs.”
‘Strange,’ he muttered.
‘Weird, unusual, odd, bizarre, outlandish, eccentric, weird and wonderful, extraordinary, out of the ordinary!’ shouted the Thesaurus happily. Damn the animal, it would definitely scare all the poachers. Plimsoll looked under “poacher”. It said: “A person, usually an elderly fellow who lives on the Yorkshire Moors, who catches wildlife illegally. Not to be confused with ‘Thompson gazelle’.”
‘Oh bugger,’ said Plimsoll.
The Thesaurus said nothing. Plimsoll looked amazed. ‘You’re quiet,’ he said.
‘Silent, calm, hushed, soft, gentle!’ shouted the Thesaurus. It looked slightly happier now.
‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped Plimsoll.
‘Be quiet, say nothing, silence, stop talking, close up!’
Plimsoll hastily snapped his dictionary shut, forcing the Thesaurus to jump back into the book and be quiet, shut up, be silent, close up.

I won NaNoWriMo!

2008-11-29T22:52:00.002+01:00

I crawled across the finish line at 4.30 AM on Friday morning.

Before you start shouting hysterically - no, mum, I did not stay up half the night to write. I stayed up half the night because there was a ball and I got back at 4.20, and I spent the last few minutes writing the 87 words I had left.

So. I got my 50 k. Story isn't finished yet, though. I'm at chapter 10 or so (out of 22 planned... oh dear.)

Finished. Tired. Want to sleep. Have to do math. Don't think I will just yet.

Hm. Sleep.

Or read one of those twenty books I got at the book festival yesterday.

Snippet!

2008-11-12T22:22:00.002+01:00

The butlers arrive at Butterbrayne Manor!

Important: It's NaNo. I was exhausted from a long day of uhm, biochem exams I think. Not sure when I wrote this. I had also eaten way too much chocolate and slept too little. This of course means that this is one of the best pieces of literature in the whole history of humanity. At least.

They arrived in buses and in little black cabs. The driveway of Butterbrayne Manor, or Butterbrayne Hotel, was jammed with all sorts of vehicles. Men emerged from these. Tall men with straight backs, most with neatly trimmed hair greying at the temples. No moustaches, no beards, no jeans or t-shirts, no patched jackets. They wore suits, neat black suits with white shirts, polished black shoes and looks of superior boredom. Most seemed fairly surprised when they were welcomed in the reception hall and their neat little black suitcases taken from them. These suitcases all had the names of their owners stamped across one corner – P.A. Smith, J. Henderson, S. Evans and so on – and most of the cases also sported large ‘WOMMELS – the place to be!’ stickers.
The men stood in the large hall that had once been an entrance hall and was now a reception hall. A large marble staircase led to the upper floors. It was flanked by beautiful statues and shining suits of armour. The men looked rather lost. Then suddenly, when the suitcases had all been taken away, it looked as though they remembered something. They began to chat, to laugh, to tell jokes, to relax and to slap each other’s backs. They did not look so neat and smart now, they looked like a bunch of middle-aged men who had just seen a rather nice cricket match and were looking forward to a pint of ale down at the pub.
‘Well, you know my guy-’
‘Fitzgordon, isn’t it?’
‘No, no, that’s Gerald’s. Mine’s Bellevue-White. The one with the white tufts of hair at his ears and the hooked nose.’
‘Oh, that fellow!’
‘Yes. Well, couple of months ago now – you understand I’m not supposed to be telling you this at all, but it’s too funny.’
‘Go on, I won’t tell, I swear.’
‘All right. So a couple of months ago I wanted to have a word with him about the seating arrangements at the dinner table – you know you can’t put Lady Nevill-Stuart next to Lord Upperton.’
‘Oh, that would give a right mess.’
‘Exactly, but you can’t put her next to Lord Halmondely either, he’s too fond of the ladies, Lord Nevill-Stuart would put out his eyes! The only place left for her would be next to Lady Smythe-Epaulette, but ever since that business at Lord Maurice’s manor… Might as well hand them knives and guns immediately.’
‘Damn right, you are, James, but anyway, what’s the story?’
James grinned, ‘I knocked on the door of his study and was told to enter. He was sitting there, behind his desk, with bright purple hair!’
The other men stared. James nodded and continued enthusiastically. ‘Obviously I am a professional so I managed to conceal my surprise to a great extend. He did notice something, so he brought out a mirror. “Oh dear me,” he muttered, “I’ve forgotten the wig.” I thought he was going to take it off then, I mean the Master with purple hair! But no, he walked over to a dressing table and took out a wig, one with white tufts of hair, and put it on. “You see,” he said to me then, “there was an accident with some food colouring when I was a lad. It’s not contagious.” And then he went calmly over the seating arrangements.’
‘Crazy,’ muttered another man. ‘I thought mine was rather strange, but this… Mind you, mine does funny things sometimes. Just last year he bought a herd of llamas. Thought they would look nice in the fish pond. Then he realised they were not fish.’
The men had entered the dining hall now. They sat down at long tables, still chatting, as food and wine were brought. Before they began to eat, a man stepped forward. He was dressed in a black suit like the rest, but his hair had nothing grey in it. He cleared his throat, which had no effect. He then took a knife and a glass and brought them together with a pleasing pling, this had some effect. He then took the glass, threw it in a wide arch so that it hit the wall and smashed into a thousand and thirty-four little pieces. The knife went the same way, although it was not smashed but just passed dangerously close by James’ nose. This had a lot of effect. The crowd pretty much shut up. James pulled the knife from the wall behind him and stared at it in amazement. ‘You could have killed me!’ he shouted. ‘You could have killed me dead!’
‘Yes, I could,’ the man said in a sharp voice. ‘But I did not. I did not come here to kill you, not to kill you dead and not to kill you alive. Ladies, who are absent, and gentlemen. So gentlemen and more gentlemen, actually. I wish to welcome you to the seventy-third annual Butler Conference. I am Jeeves Emmott, secretary of the National Union of Butlers. I thank you for coming here to this beautiful hotel. It is a pleasure to see so many of you. Fine men, dedicated to their work, their daily tasks, and not the least – dedicated to our magnificent union. We started out as a small group, to work for the interests of butlers throughout the nation, founding schools, giving advice, and helping the unfortunate ones who lost their jobs because they folded the newspaper the wrong way.’
There was some sporadic laughter and a murderous glance from James. ‘Bastard stole my joke!’
Jeeves continued as though he had not heard this, which he probably had not either because James was at the other end of the room. ‘In the past seventy three years we have grown, my friends. We are no longer a small group of old grey-haired men who meet in a dodgy pub once a year to discuss important events and plan more important ones. We are now a powerful and dedicated organisation, with more than a thousand members, almost a third of which are here today. Our aim is to improve the life and working conditions of butlers worldwide, to make our beautiful profession one that is respected and admired, and to find solutions that are perfect for both us butlers and the men and women and households we serve. During these two weeks we will discuss how we can do this. The National Union of Butlers, my dear gentlemen, is our organisation. Together we are strong.’
There was some scattered applause.
‘And now, gentlemen and even more gentlemen, I would like to give the word to the Lord Dwight Gerald Butterbrayne, who has so kindly granted us the use of his fine manor hotel, the Butterbrayne Manor, for this conference. Gentlemen and gentlemen, please welcome Lord Butterbrayne!’
There was much more applause as a small man, with a waist that was not at all slim and hair that definitely was not black anymore, stepped to the front. He cleared his throat, and the crowd fell silent immediately. He was not even holding a knife. Apparently, some people just have the ability to make a crowd fall silent without having to throw cutlery.
‘Dearest members of the National Butler Union,’ began Lord Butterbrayne. ‘May I please welcome you all to my manor house. I hope you will find your stay here enjoyable. My manor house has one hundred and thirty seven rooms, twenty nine bathrooms, several sitting rooms, dining rooms, a huge kitchen – but you will not be using that since I have an excellent cook, four Michelin stars actually – and I also have a garden for your enjoyment. I advice you to stay away from the duck pond, though, those creatures are not at all friendly.’ He coughed, and his golden tooth glittered. ‘I trust you will find everything to your taste, if you have any questions or strange wishes – I had a guest once who wanted a goat to bring his morning newspaper – please do not ask the butler since he is here at this conference with you lot. You should instead ask one of the many maids or the housekeeper. They probably will not know where to find a newspaper-fetching goat like my butler can, but they can do many other things and they will do it if it is something simple like giving you an extra pillow. So, all in all, gentlemen and more gentlemen, I hope you will enjoy your stay and have a nice conference. Thank you.’

Btw, word count is now almost 20 k :D

NaNo, NaNo, and no more biochem!

2008-11-05T18:02:00.005+01:00

Title pretty much sums it up I think! I'm finished with biochem and can put those books away and not retrieve them until March or so :D There was a biochem test this Monday, I think it went all right - except for the fact that they had not set the clock back an hour for winter time, meaning I panicked completely because I thought I had spent two of my precious 3 1/2 hours answering three of the ten questions. I finished well on time - only found out about the damn clock later that evening.

But who cares about that. Also had a math exam, and this was much better because a) a vector is an entity with length and direction and not a messed-up sequence of DNA and b) their clock was right.

I've also started NaNo of course. It's going well. Today I wrote about 3000 words in some 90 minutes which is a record even for me, haha. My word count is 10.117 right now. The story is a real mess but hilarious - it's so much easier to write if you don't take yourself seriously.
(yes, Lord Butterbrayne's manor looks suspiciously like the Cecilienhof, I know)

Nothing has actually happened. I killed a guy in chapter 1, but "luckily this story is not at all about the murder of Robert Middleton" so it's okay. And I have a flock of murderous ducks, a guinea pig with an identity crisis and a Soviet spy called Nikolai Njetsosnugerov who has been working undercow-er (meaning he's been disguised as a cow for 29 years).
Also, I've done the pirate dare. I've got a chapter called 'The very normal life of Harold Johnson, part 1', and the next chapter is exactly the same except it's got pirates. Yaay. Now I'm going to write it again, this time with ninjas and pirates!

Also, since I went home to Norway last weekend you'll get pics.

Hope all your NaNo-novels are going well! If you're characters are annoying you can dump them in my novel if you like.

2008-10-19T01:01:00.002+02:00

Being a student is fun. Uni rocks. My classes are pretty cool too. Sadly we've just finished organic chemistry (one test left, but no more classes) so for the next two weeks I only have biochemistry and math (and lab). I like math. Don't like the prof though. And the fact that we've learned just about nothing so far. Other people in my class have though - apparently they hardly learn anything about vectors at secondary school in the Netherlands. Needless to say - we do in Norway! So I'm ahead of the others in my class :D

Not in biochem though. Personally I think it's an insult to call that class bio*chem*. There's not much chemistry in it. It's biology. There was a bit about amino acids that actually had a little bit of chemistry in it, but apart from that it's all been tRNA, mRNA, 5'-3' direction, ribosomes... WTF. Gimme some formulae, please, or I'll go mad!!!

Meh. Just a couple more weeks and I'll have physical chemistry. Hurray!

I'm still camping at my uncle's. It's insanely difficult to find a room - there are organisations but they have waiting lists from here to Tokyo. And if you want to avoid the waiting lists you have to know the right people. I check for room ads pretty much every day and ask other students if they know anything, but so far no luck.
Ah well. Could've been worse. My uncle lives in the city centre - it takes me less than 15 minutes to bike to uni. And I've just bought a couple of big fluffy pillows. Unfortunately I have no one to throw them at :(

Also, I'm nearly finished with the chapter outline for NaNo! I know who the murderer is, I know why s/he killed Jeeves and I sorta know how Trenchcoat will figure it out. I can't wait to start writing, especially these chapters:

14. Cicero arrives. Lots of speeches. Cook blows up kitchen while trying to make pancakes. Tomatoes revolt. Cicero tries to save Republic by giving speeches and is killed by a particularly vicious tomato.

15. Characters go on strike because this novel is turning out seriously WEIRD

Yep. That's pretty much how I outline.

Just two more weeks. Aaaaaargh.... mfgdfgrbldf.

2008-10-04T17:02:00.003+02:00

The dare list for NaNo08 just keeps on growing, lol!

Dare: Have a character who always carries a towel with him/her.
BP: It's an MC
DBP: The character is hitchhiking at some point in the novel
TBP: It's vital to the plot
QBP: The towel's blue
Two Plates of Cookies and three Cakes: The character has read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Oh I would so love to include an Evil Llama.....

Here be another dare I have happiley thought of:
At some point in your story, include the appearance of a random zoo animal
-BP if no one but your MC notices it
-DBP if no one beleives your MC when they start shouting about it
-TBP if, after a long period of time where the MC tries to prove their sanity, the other characters finally see the animal
-TBP and a fair trade biscuit if they then think nothing of it and never mention it again, to the MC's exasperation

-Have someone wearing moose antlers
BP if the character does it so s/he can wear several different hats at once
DBP if other characters use the antlers as a hat and/or coatrack

-Have a character compose a song about what they're doing at the moment
BP if in the middle of the song, they sing, "And I have no idea why the hell I'm singing!"

Have a group of your characters get severely lost in a bus system.
Bonus points if this is late at night.
Double bonus if it's because the subways already closed, and they were forced to take a bus.

One of your character's responses to every problem is always "Ninjas. Ninjas always did it."
BP if at one point in the novels it actually was ninjas. And everyone's still shocked.
TP if the character is actually a ninja working undercover, but nobody realises.
QP if the character disappears into the shadows every chapter, and is so ninja-like everyone reading it could have worked it out by now, but all the characters are blind.
A cookie if by the end of the book, the ninja character suddenly gains chronic amnesia and has forgotten everything about ninjas. Completely.

Have kung-fu fighing hamsters appear with appropriate theme music.

Have a character knit a sexy turkey hat ( http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_11&listing_id=746646...) and have it be intergral to the plot.

Have a possessed poodle named Fifi.

I dare someone to include an "evil spork of doom"
BP- if the spork makes the character who holds it kill any passing characters
DBP- if you also include a "good spork of health" which brings back to life characters killed by the evil spork
TBP- if this has absolutely no relevance to your plot
QBP and a cookie- if it is random passerby's that hold the sporks

- Have an attack of the killer tomatoes somewhere in your story.
- BP if it becomes a main plot point/the MC's motivation for whatever their primary goal is.
- DBP if, once the tomato rebellion has been quelled, another vegetable/fruit rises up to take their place.

"I knight thee Sir Simpleton" - a very simple man whose every word is very profound or at least important to the plot
BP if he actually is a knight
TBP if he carries a sword on his hip - no matter what time he lives in

Have a character who always wears and ugly mickey-mouse watch.
Bonus Points: If the person is usually at the height of fasion.
Double Bonus Points: If the watch has no sentimental value to the person wearing it.
Triple Bonus Points: If the watch doesn't even work.
Quadrupal Bonus Points: If the person wearing the watch doesn't know that it doesn't work and consults it often.
Bonus Points to the power of Five: If the other characters also forget that the watch doesn't work and continually ask that character what time it is.
Bonus Points to the power of Six: If the event of the person saying the wrong time is a major plot point.
Bonus Points to the Seventh Power and a Cookie: If the person never finds out that the watch doesn't work.

Have your characters continually waking up in bath tubs.
BP if they never know how they got there.
DBP if it's always a different tub.
TBP if each time, the character(s) immediately worry about their kidneys, even if they are in no discomfort and the bath tub is empty.
EPIC WIN if each time, the character(s) immediately check their ankle(s) for chains or cuffs.

Have one of your character start singing Beatles' songs at random points in the story.
*BP* if this is your MC.
*TBP* if this person looks like a Beatles' member.
*QBP* if this person has never seen/heard of "Across the Universe".

Have a character get his/her hands on a large load of fireworks.
*BP* if the character is a pyromaniac.
*DBP* if this becomes a major plot point.
*TBP* if the fireworks go off at random and unwelcome times.
*QBP and a brownie* if your story ends with all the remaining fireworks going "BOOM!"

"I will smack you on the head with a rubber chicken."
"I'd laugh. And then I'd run."
"Darn time warps..."
"Carnies smell like cabbage."
"I swear to drunk, I'm not God."
"Ah, Denny's, a friend of nighttime golf course wanderers."
"You, my friend, are frighteningly eloquent on the subject of cannibalism."
"Good evening sir and or madam."
"You know what would be cool? Like, if you had a fake eye and dinner conversation was getting boring? You could take your fork and jab it in your eye!"
"When life gives you lemons, glue them to your bra."
"If I can't hear your opinions they don't matter!"
"Stop opening portals to hell!"
"Optimus Prime is a revolutionary. Like a vegetarian."
"Have you ever given a zombie caffeine? They have plenty of character."
"You don't eat fungus unless it's cooked in an omelette."
"Your hair just makes everyone hungry. It's a good thing."
"I laugh at man pain."
"That one's fat and it says 29."
"No! I love you! I only bite you 'cause I think you're delicious!"
"Ha! I was right! That is my ovary!"
"I think you just tried to spell 'small' without an m."
"My dead body would appreciate that."
"And then I remembered I had a nose."
"I'd share my liver but not my food."
"Now imagine if you had tongues for feet."

Have hippies stroll into your novel!
BP if they take over your MC's lawn.
DBP if your MC can't get them to leave, but eventually "adopts" them

Use the phrase: "If it's too loud, turn it down!"

Have a garden gnome appear in the background at least once in every chapter

Hm.... I almost feel sorry for my characters. Almost. Still have no idea who actually killed the damn butler though.

Also, I'm really enjoying the research involved for this novel. Just got the complete second series of Poirot on dvd. Mwahahaha.

Btw, have adopted a pineapple.

Dares!

2008-10-02T21:42:00.003+02:00

The best thing about not writing a serious historical fiction book this year (not that I've ever written serious hist.fic...) is that I can use as many dares as I want. Might even write an entire novel consisting only of dares.
The NaNoWriMo server has collapsed, but I managed to get quite a few dares into my zulupad file before the forums disappeared...

Have a character lose one really expensive shoe only to have to replace it with a really ugly shoe.
BP - if the character walks around with the mismatched shoes throughout the entire novel.
DBP - if the shoe is a major plot point.

I dare you to solve a problem McGuyver style, using only a rubber-band, a paperclip and toothpaste.
BP if the Main Character has a mullet.
DBP if the setting doesn't lend to modern office technology (ex. feudal Europe)
TBP if the solved problem leads to world destruction.

I dare you to include a character named Someone.
Bonus if his name is equally nondescript
A cookie if no one ever gets confused except ONE CHARACTER, and no one ever understands how that one character gets confused.

Have a character who is building a wall out of a random object (in my case it was anvils, but go wild)
BP if this wall is important to the plot
DBP if this character isn't an MC
TBP if this character only appears at random moments to steal above-mentioned random item

Have your character go to the library to get some obscure book,
and when she/he opens it up, there’s an extremely old piece of thin sliced
ham between two of the pages.

"Oh come on, it's not rocket science, you know"
"Actually, it is"

Have a character who is totally obsessed with a colourful assortment of wax crayons and constantly carries them in their pocket throughout the novel.
BP if the crayons somehow save the characters from danger.
DBP if they somehow become integral to the plot.
TBP if after being saved by awesome colourful crayons, the characters decide they must be magic, mash them up into dust, and snort them while singing tribal chants, backwards.

Character one: Be careful with that! It's a very toxic and corrosive chemical!
Character two: Your MOM is a very toxic and corrosive chemical.
Character one: Be that as it may...

Have a character die in a freak trombone accident.

Include a narcoleptic bird somewhere in the story, and have your characters carry out a deep philosophical discussion about the futility of human existence and the ephemeral nature of life itself in reference to the bird.
Bonus Points: If the bird was once a major character OR is central to the plot of the story.
Double Bonus Points: If they later eat the bird.
Triple bonus: parrot sketch (added that myself, yaay)

Have a character who finishes every sentence with "...according to the prophecy."

I dare you to include four characters called Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.
BP if they are quadruplets and your MCs (well, not my MCs, but they'll be around)
DBP if at one point you include the line "it was nobody's fault" and Nobody runs off crying.
TBP if name confusion leads to a major plot point.

You built THAT in your room?"
"I could hardly build it in the kitchen, could I?"

"This is the biggest cock up in the history of things cocking up."

Include a ghost that isn't unfriendly, isn't particularly friendly either, doesn't communicate much with the living, and just generally tolerates the people living in his house.
BP if he turns on the radio, just because he likes music
DBP if he takes occasional showers
TBP if the people living in his house (or place or whatever) know about him, and just say "Oh yeah, that was the ghost" like it's nothing weird

Describe a game of imaginary badminton

Describe a game of "midnight scrabble" (which is best played slightly tipsy)

Include a vegetarian who will eat pepperoni, bacon, and anything from Subway.
BP if this person considers these exceptions "food from the gods"
DBP if this person also won't eat other random things because "duh, I'm a vegetarian"
i.e. "have some guacamole" "are you serious? I'm a vegetarian"

Write one whole chapter in the form of text message conversation transcript

Include a character who always knows what's going to happen next
BP if no one thinks this is weird
DBP if no one listens anyway
TBP and a sprinkled donut if later, when the person turns out to be right, they point it out and no one believes them.

novembernovembernovemberNOVEMBER!!!

Hello!

2008-09-28T22:24:00.002+02:00

Since Gabriele thought I'd fallen into a gracht, I guess I'd better prove that I'm still very much alive.

Biochem is doing its best to put an end to that, though.

Meh.

Busybusybusy! Still going to do NaNoWriMo this year, though! There's another chemistry student who also does NaNo so it'll be teh awesome! We can sit in the Proton room (Proton is the chemistry student organisation) and drink tea and have word wars. Yaay!
Maybe we should go to some of the lectures as well, in the odd chance that we might actually learn something.
Well, to make sure I don't get too caught up in various aspects of Roman daily life I'm not doing historical fiction this year, but a fantastic whodunnit parody called The Snuffing of Jeeves. I am proud to present... A short description of what will soon be a mess of ufos and ninjas!

The 100th annual butler conference is being held in a grand hotel on the Yorkshire moors, once the manor house of the respectable Lord Butterbrayne. But things are not as idyllic as they seem... One of the butlers disappears. Then he is found, but unfortunately he has died in the meantime.
Can superintendent Trenchcoat and his new sidekick, the young and very much inexperienced sergeant Plimsoll, find the murderer without cancelling the traditional village festival?Who knows? More importantly, who cares?

Mhm... I can already smell the Nobel Prize for Literature!

So all in all I'm doing absolutely terrific. I've learned so many things. Well, chemistry obviously. But also, what it means to be a student.

You know you are a student when...

- All your white clothes have turned a delicate shade of blue because you just stuff everything in the washing machine
- You have not worn and will never wear the white Norwegian IChO team t-shirt because it should stay white :P
- "Tea" has its own field on your monthly budget
- Any two ingredients can be combined with tomatoes to make pasta sauce (peanuts and tofu, anyone?)
- socks are overrated
- grandma rocks
- so does McMurry
- and waiting on trainstations because you can read McMurry and get funny glances from the people around you

I think I can say for sure there's more to come :P

Dear mum, dad, uncle, aunt, whoever reads this - last week I ate the last of the Kvikk Lunsj I bought at Gardermoen. SOS!

Does anyone remember me?

2008-08-27T15:57:00.002+02:00

I realise it's been a while since I last posted. I've been busy with, well, everything. Never, ever more to another country or study abroad, unless you love going through tons of paperwork. Trust me, lol.

Naah, it's not that bad. I'm finished with the introduction week at Amsterdam uni, but I haven't actually started studying yet. And well, I'm not going to either. Not in Amsterdam anyway. This probably won't come as a surprise... I switched to chemistry. In Utrecht (yaay!). The application deadline for international students is 1. June but they didn't really care, lol.

It was a difficult choice, but I'm sure now that chemistry is the right study for me, and not ancient studies, fascinating though ancient history is. It's because of the chemistry olympiad, of course. Strange to think that I'm now a chemistry student... Probably this wouldn't have happened if the nerd in my chemistry class (remember him?) hadn't beaten me with one point in the first Norwegian round of the olympiad. I don't believe in fate or anything, but it is rather funny :P

Well, I'm very much looking forward to the start of the semester - I'll get to wear a labcoat and mess around in a lab a lot :D:D

Of course I still love history and will continue with my novels but it'll be a hobby and not my profession :)

Right, I'd better get a move on and fill in the last forms :D I hope to get a real post up soon-ish.

I'm going to enjoy this book...

2008-08-08T15:09:00.002+02:00

Just started reading The Iron Hand of Mars, the fourth of the Falco novels by Lindsey Davis. I love whodunnits, especially funny ones. I have a feeling this'll be one of the best ever. Falco's mission? Go to the lower Rhenus. Find out what happened to Munius Lupercus. Make Veleda stop telling the Bructeri that killing Romans is good. Figure out where Civilis is, and what he's up to, and stop him in case he's plotting.
Should be a piece of cake, lol.

Which reminds me - *I* still have to figure out what happened to Lupercus. Killed on the way to Veleda is a bit too boring, if you ask me.

Actually, I need to start packing. Going to the Netherlands on Monday! Still haven't got a room. They sent my uni registration papers back 'cause stuff was missing (proof that I have a registered address in the Netherlands - kinda difficult to send that when you don't live there and you're on a mile long waiting list to get a room because the uni doesn't give a damn about the cares of foreign students). Meh.

Guess what I forgot...

2008-07-28T22:09:00.011+02:00

Looking at my last post, I find it quite funny that I actually managed to forget my toothbrush, but hey, whatever - I remembered my labcoat & glasses and that's the important thing.

Anyway. No medals for Norway this year, not even an honourable mention (10% receive a gold medal, 20% silver, 30% bronze, 4% honourable mention), so we're amongst the 36% worst of the best in the world (already I'm not making any sense). Whatever. Someone needs to end 212th. I sort of messed up the practical exam by knocking over some acid and my burette was being very evil so I didn't have enough time to do a thin layer chromotography. The theoretical exam was even worse - forgot everything I knew about organic chemistry (which is very little anyway) so I got very little points there. Well, anyway, I'm just happy I didn't end last. I actually got 29 something points, out of a 100, which means I managed to do almost 3/10 of it. w00t!! Lowest exam score ever for me!

But I did have fun, obviously! Easily the best ten days of my life! First two days in Switzerland (/France), to see...
Mont Blanc (I'm on Aiguille du Midi, 3842 m above sea level. We took a cable car up, btw, lol)

and
CERN (ATLAS is way too big for my camera)

Then Budapest itself: beautiful!

They put our mentors into a 4 star spa hotel on an island in the middle of the Danube, with beautiful views of the city, while we (that is, the students) were shipped off to a uni campus complex an hour's drive from the city. Probably a good thing *coughcheapwinecough*
We had a sightseeing-filled programme. As the only chemistry-related things were two 5-hour exams, there was plenty of time. Basically we were kicked out of bed before 7 AM each morning, then after a rather dodgy breakfast in the even dodgier campus cafeteria (the non-veggie food died sometime back in the 70s by the looks of it and the veggie food was swimming in salty oil) we were hounded into buses each bearing the name of a chemical element. I wonder what I did to deserve the beryllium bus? Oh, don't get me wrong, the other people on the bus were great, but beryllium is one of the nastiest elements around.
The sightseeing left something to be desired, to be honest. Of course we all tried to sleep on the bus but this guide kept telling us to look left and right to look at various huge buildings (which were usually rather uninteresting, big glass & concrete things that were the HQ of some company or other, jeez). And then... "...to the left you can just glimpse the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, and to the right more Roman ruins, but now they're gone. We're not gonna stop here." Yeah, all right, whatever. We had a busy schedule. Had to go to Visegrad to see the medieval knight show.
Rotflol. Actually it was rather good - they could fight pretty well (though it was quite obviously fake) and there were a couple of good archers (plus guys throwing ninja star things, yaay).

Despite the sightseeing (or maybe because of the sightseeing) there was plenty of time to talk to people. Not everybody spoke English very well though, but we became good friends with the Swedes, the Danes, the Germans, the Slovenians, the Canadians, well just about everyone we met and talked to (there were some 250 students there, no chance of getting to know everyone, unfortunately).
Funny things happened at the olympiad. The Dutch team started getting anonymous letters from a fellow Dutchie... *grins* Guess who. I had 'forgotten' to tell them I was Dutch, and spoken English to them from day 1. Amongst other things I failed wonderfully when "trying" to pronounce Dutch words (they were the ones laughing then... but not for long) so that I would not seem suspicious. It was brilliant. Though I deliberately messed up my handwriting they were still comparing it to the team games list (where everyone was supposed to write down their name). Luckily I had, in a moment of paranoia, asked someone else to write my name there for me so my handwriting would not be on the list. Mwahahaha...

All in all, I had an absolutely wonderful time and did not want to go back home. Going from a campus complex filled with chemistry geeks from all over the world, and back to my boring hometown where people don't even know what a molecule is, is probably the most depressing thing I've ever experienced.
To be completely honest - I was having doubts about my uni application. Why the hell am I not going to study chemistry? I had applied for a chemistry study at NTNU (Trondheim uni), but in the end I decided to continue with the ancient history thing in Amsterdam (but damn, I *will* study chemistry as well, even if it means staying up half the night!!).

I thought I had the uni application mess sorted out, but nooo.... I still haven't got a room. I've subscribed to this room organization, and I will get a room sooner if I can prove I live in Norway. Unfortunately, the city council is being unusually slow. Then there's the scholarships. I decided to get a Norwegian one because Dutch bureaucracy sucks. Now I need to prove that I am a student at Amsterdam uni. I have a proof of admission thing from the uni, but it's in Dutch, and it doesn't say what I have to pay in tuition fees (which the Norwegian scholarship people want to know, obviously). So I sent the uni a very nice email asking if they could please send me some proof of admission in English, where it also says what the tuition fees are. The reply: "We sent you a Dutch proof of admission. Get it translated".

Sure, no problem. Dutch to Norwegian translation by an authorised translator. Cheapest thing in the world *urge to kick something*

Ah well. Two weeks till I leave! Somehow I'll get it all sorted out (payed my tuition fees today... tuition fees suck. Education should be free!) and find a place to sleep. I'm looking forward to seeing my Dutch family again, plus the Dutch chemistry olympiad team (though one of them is still a bit pissed at me because of the letters, lol).

Buda castle by night! They'd hired a luxury river boat for the evening after the last exam, and we got to see our mentors again. Except for the rain storm that came out of nowhere, it was wonderful :) And no, it wasn't just the wine (which wasn't cheap on that boat, it was free, lol)

Budapest! Budapest! Budapest!

2008-07-08T23:20:00.002+02:00

Lalalala! *does a little happy dance*

Lab coat? Check
Lab glasses? Check.
Oversized chemistry textbook? Check.

That's all I need, right? Oh, toothbrush. Right. Well, see you all in about two weeks!

*shoves Geravan, Marcus and Imerix into a nearby cupboard and puts a ninja guard outside*

I'm going to CERN!

2008-07-03T23:22:00.005+02:00

Omg! Omg! OMG!!!!1

Uh, yeah. CERN fangirl :)

Those profs at Oslo uni decided to take us along for a short trip to Switzerland before going to Budapest, so we'll get to see CERN! We'll get to see ISOLDE and ATLAS, according to the website. Can't effing wait!

I've just come back from Oslo - four days of chemistry. It was great, as usual. Spent a couple of hours messing around in the lab (organic lab is particularly awesome, except that the smell of ether makes my head go fuzzy) and some more hours with those bloody prep problems. By now I'm sure that at Hungarian universities, you can get a master's degree for completely butchering Nernst's equation without bothering to explain what you're doing, just because it suits your present needs.
And btw, I now have my very own labcoat!

Time for a meme? *glares at Gabriele* No, actually this one is pretty cool.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read six and force books upon them.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles– Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis (well, I don’t love them all. The Last Battle positively sucks)
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (can I have those hours of my life back, please?)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan (my aunt keeps bugging me to read it, so I guess it must be good)
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (I read it when I was about eight and liked it and want to read it again, so)
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web – E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (I started it once but didn’t have time to finish it)
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (wouldn’t that be covered in Shakespeare’s complete works? Lol)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (one day I want to read it in French. That day is not today)

I've got most of the books I've italicised on my shelf, but I lack the time to read them all. The reason I've read so few of the 'classics' is because English classics are no big deal in Norway. We read Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men during English a few years ago and that's basically it. We do have literature history at school (or we did, since I just finished school, omg), but that's all Norwegian literature. So we'd learn about rather obscure authors like Hans Kinck and Nini Roll Anker, while Dickens (just to name someone) isn't even mentioned. We hardly even read anything written by them, it was mostly excerpts. I've read, let's see, three works of literature at school - Bjørnson's Synnøve Solbakken (zzzz), Ibsen's Gengangere (zzz) and Gunnlaug's saga (no zzz).

Right, that was rather off topic. Right now I'm reading a book about organic chemistry. Theoretical organic chemistry is also rather fun, though there's a lot to remember.

Edited because I just finished Lord of the Flies.

Blah blah

2008-06-28T23:46:00.003+02:00

Well, I'm getting somewhere with the prep. problems. I've done almost all of them now (except the ones about organic chemistry - I can hardly remember even the electrofile/nucleofile mess so I'm leaving that till next week when I'm at Oslo uni again).

I've got my exam results - a 5 for nynorsk, and 6s for bokmål, written math and oral chemistry. In other words, I've scraped together 23 6s and 3 fives over the last three years. That should mean one of the best diplomas in the country, harhar. Should be good enough for Amsterdam uni anyway...
Oh, I also got my TOEFL results (a really stupid multiple choice English exam). I got 677 out of 677 points and I needed only 550 for uni. Jeez. I still can't believe I paid 140 $ for it (and got up at 6 am to catch the buss to Trondheim). What a waste. I want my time and money back, lol.

And some more good news - the plotbunny about the Frisian revolt is growing! It'll be a sort of prequel to NaNo06 which is about the Batavian revolt (revolts rock my socks, btw). Apart from featuring the fathers/grandfathers of Geravan and Embric (who is a Frisian now, and no longer a Bructerian), Claudius Labeo will have a part as well, to explain why he and Civilis are so pissed at each other. Yes, this year I intend to write a serious story - no ninjas, no ufos, no talking salmon. Ha! As if.

I've also found out that Imerix' story isn't connected to Geravan's/Embric's in any way. Imerix did kill his brother (but it was an accident - "He sorta fell onto my sword accidentally. Seventeen times") and he's running away from his past, but his past is catching up with him. Once I get back from Budapest there should be plenty of time to write :)

And I've got a new blog for the 'blogs I read' list - my dear cousin is going to South Africa as an exchange student next year and has promised to blog all her adventures. We had a sort of farewell party today, since we're both leaving Norway. It'll be weird to leave good ol' Trøndelag, but I have to admit I'd love a short winter with real daylight, lol. Amsterdam here I come!

Oh, and I've changed my display name. Celedë_Anthaas is the username I made when I signed up for councilofelrond.com, when I was about 14. It's an ok username, but it's a bit, dunno, silly, long, unpractical. Whatever. So now I'm Smarty, which is what my kiwi cousins call me (silly English-speaking people - can't pronounce Marte). And it was also my russ name. Yaay.

Chemistry = fun

2008-06-16T00:20:00.002+02:00

Woohoo, oral chemistry exam! It was great to do very little and still get top grades :P

But now I'm finished with school (I'm actually going to miss it, it was such a great school...) and I have two weeks to learn some very advanced chemistry before I'm going to Oslo again for a three day chemistry crash course. The olympiad people have sent over a booklet of preparatory problems and they are extremely difficult (except problem 4 which is ridiculously easy). It took me about 5 hours to finish just half a problem. The fact that Hungarians use different symbols doesn't make things easier (L? L?! It's K_sp people!!). And they do funny things with Nernst's equation without explaining.

Mhm... my hovercraft is full of eels.

Nearly finished with school

2008-06-09T11:37:00.002+02:00

Whew. Three exams down, one oral exam to go. I should be studying but I can't since I don't know what the subject is. They'll tell us tomorrow, and then we have two days during which we can study (or panic, or jump on the first plane to Siberia). With my luck I'll probably get either physics or religion (it's an ok subject, but unfortunately my teacher is a nutcase). I ended up with math for my third written exam. Typical. It was either math, physics or chemistry, and math was the only subject where I couldn't be bothered to read the entire textbook during the schoolyear. So I had to learn an entire chapter of statistics in just a couple of days. The exam went all right though, except for a slightly nasty trigonometric equation with sin^2 2x and cos 2x. Meh.

Anyway, the weather has been too nice to be inside these last two weeks (around 25*C, aka way too hot) so I've mostly been outside, writing. NaNo 2007 has reached that point where I have no idea what's going on anymore.

The rain's returned now, though, and it seems like it'll last for a while, so maybe I can get the storyline figured out.

Exams, knots and bunnies

2008-05-20T23:25:00.004+02:00

What the hell am I doing online anyway? I've got my first exam on Thursday, and it's just beginning to dawn on me that I have some 700 pages to read - both this year's and last year's Norwegian textbook. Literature & literature for the last thousand years, plus literary analysis. There will be four or five different essay topics to choose from so there really is no reason to learn everything, but the more I know the better, right? Anyway, I'm just going to forget about literature after the 1960s because a) I don't understand all that modernistic and post modernistic crap (does anyone?) and b) I'd rather fail the exam than spend two days reading Kjartan Fløgstad.

Instead I'll focus on Old Norse and saga literature :) Who knows, I might be lucky...

Then I've got another Norwegian exam on Monday (gotta love living in a country with two official variants of the same bloody language) and a maths, physics or chemistry exam next Thursday. It's the sneaky Norwegian exam style - they tell you the subject two or three days in advance.

I was going to start reading those 700 pages weeks ago but because of the russ celebrations I kinda forgot... I got a fair few knots though...
Smarty was my russ name. The knots from left to right:
Paper with 'That 80s show' written on it: Participated in the russ revue (which was called That 80s show)
Half a russ card: Ate the other half
Paperclip: Held a 10 min lecture on a totally irrelevant topic (42 & the meaning of life) for the first years
Pencil: Joined the first years for a science class
Lego guy: Bought ice cream for an entire kindergarten
Candle: Was at school every day during the russ time
Eraser: Sat under my desk an entire lesson
Bohus-logo: Went into a furniture store (Bohus is a furniture store) and asked for 'faenskap'. It's a very bad pun. 'Skap' is Norwegian for closet, cupboard. 'Faenskap', however, means something like devilry.
Pointy stick: Barbecue outside the fitness centre (yes, evil, I know)
Retroreflector: Traffic control with a retroreflectorvest and a hairdrier. The cars actually slowed down, rotflol
Bicycle bell: Gave my answers in Jeopardy style during an entire lesson ("Pliiing! What is...?"). It was hilarious. Everybody joined in.

Knots I wanted to take but didn't (because nobody wanted to come with me - you need two fellow russ as witnesses)
Entertain the audience for five minutes before the movie starts in a cinema
Camp in a roundabout
Earn 25 kr by dancing and singing in the street
Guide a bustrip

17 May was, for once, great. They always organise these extremely old-fashioned and cheesy parades (kids with plastic smiles stuck on their faces, marching in neat lines and waving flags *gag*). Well, as a russ I could finally do what I've been wanting to do for the last ten years (ever since they forced a flag in my hand and told me to be happy): wreck havoc. It wasn't difficult. I just walked straight into the parade, annoyed the marching band (all russ are equiped with very shrill whistles...) and then gave all the little kids russ cards. Chaos ensued! The primary school teachers were so extremely pissed off (rotflol). One old hag almost punched me in the face.

And, you know, I think the plotbunnies attack only when I'm busy. The Leif Eriksson bunny has disappeared, but I'm stuck with a 'Geese of the Capitol' bunny plus new ideas for both NaNo06 & 07.
2007 is going to need a total cleanup. Imerix will join the new Batavian cohorts right after the revolt and fight some random battles in Britain before Frontinus' campaign. I'll have to sneak Finvagar in as a recruit (and btw Finvagar, who told you you could die? I've got other plans for you damn it!). And Istill have to figure out whose side Flavius Labeo is on (and find a new name for him).
2006 will get a prequel to explain the whole conflict between Geravan and Embric. It goes back two generations, to the Frisian revolt (28 AD) and the attack on Flevum. To make this work, Embric has to become a Frisian. The Frisian Bob family will be Bructeri instead.
There are still a lot of things to figure out. Claudius Labeo for one - prefect of the Batavian cavalry and Civilis' enemy, yet he led the cavalry against the Romans, thus deciding the outcome of a battle (but afterwards he waged a guerilla war on Civilis, possibly because Civilis sent him into exile instead of saying 'thank you'). I've decided to let Thiadulf kick Labeo aside and take command of the cavalry. Which brings me to problem two... Thiadulf the Heroic Freedom Fighter just doesn't fit. Especially now that Embric becomes one of Civilis' most important allies.
So there'll be hostages. Liaueld (Geravan's & Thiadulf's sister) will be sent to the Frisians to ensure the brothers don't murder Embric, and Geravan will be in a hostage-ish situation with the Cananefates for a while so that Thiadulf cooperates with the cavalry and all. This is getting confusing. Finally, there's Verax. I have several ideas for him, but I dunno which will fit.

Right. That's it. I'm off. Henrik Ibsen is calling.

Computer trouble

2008-05-15T00:49:00.002+02:00

It's my computer's fault I haven't been online for nearly two weeks. First msn started giving me error messages, then I couldn't access the control panel anymore, then it refused to load google search results and blocked half of the websites in the world (including blogger and hotmail).
The virus scanner, which is supposed to do an automatic virus scan every three weeks or so, apparently deleted itself a while ago (which is why there was no warning).
Luckily there was still some anti-spyware programme installed, and fortunately I was able to download a new virus scanner (good thing that site wasn't blocked), so I'm slowly getting things back on track.
Msn and the control panel are still giving me error messages (though only on my account, not on my brother's), google still refuses to load, but I was able to check my email & blog just now.

Obviously I've still got a lot of patching up to do. I hardly have time for that now, so I might not be online until June. Exams start next week, and tonight I need to work on a chemistry project which is due tomorrow. I dunno what I'll do - try to wrestle it from my computer or start over again.

On the bright side, I got the results of my Dutch exams - passed them all.

(If you hadn't already guessed, I'm writing this on my dad's computer)

...

2008-05-04T00:53:00.003+02:00

Let me tell you about my fantastic week.

1) Got an email from the IB-Groep. They're the guys who keep messing around with my uni stuff (though they're not actually connected to the uni - they're in charge of scholarships and entrance exams and demand that I send everything in threefold, maybe because they lose two out of three files). Anyway. The email said I needed to apply for a scholarship. I go to their website, read through eight paragraphs of, well, crap. "With this you can benefit from the ease of our fantastic new system while you're studying". At least they have a sense of humour. The small text at the bottom reads: "Unfortunately you can't use our fantastic new system if you live outside the Netherlands. You'll have to fill in these forms instead". Bugger. To order said forms, I had to call them. Unfortunately, they'd all decided to take a week off. That in itself is no crime. I mean, it's hard work, messing up people's applications. But it should at least be possible to order forms by clicking on a link on their website. It's the 21st century, after all.

2) My physics teacher thought it'd be a good idea to have a 5 hour physics test on Wednesday. In the middle of the russ celebrations. Eeeeeevil.

3) I'd been planning a trip to Trondheim with friends for the last two weeks. Then, in the last minute, my friend's parents decide they're going, which means we can't go because my friend has a slightly insane dog which can't be left home alone. Never mind the fact that we're russ only for seventeen days and want to get some knots in Trondheim (there are a couple of hilarious ones which can't be done where I live). Hmpf.

4) Remember the painting of that Batavian guy with the crocodile slippers? I've been working on it for months (though only about an hour or two a week, I'll admit that). It's gone. Can't find it anywhere. I'm sure I left it on it's usual place by the paint supplies at art school, but it's nowhere to be found.

5) My chocolate supply seems to have vaporised, and a Leif Eiriksson plotbunny is nibbling at my toes (this is not a good time for that!)

I'm whining, sorry. Bad case of pms.

Russ celebrations - Norway at its best

2008-04-28T15:43:00.007+02:00

I've mentioned russ a couple of times in my posts, so I thought I'd better give you a full and detailed account of what exactly russ are.

According to Wikipedia, the tradition goes back to the time when there were no universities in Norway (in other words, before 1811). Norwegians who wanted to study had to go to Copenhagen (I wonder how 18th century Danish bureaucracy was compared to modern Dutch bureaucracy, lol). They took entrance examinations and then put horns on their heads which they weren't allowed to take off before they got their exam results (and passed). Apparently, the word 'russ' comes from cornua depositurus, 'bound to put aside one's horns'.
Modern Norwegian russ celebrations started in 1905, which was also when the russ caps were first used. Russ are now students in their last year of high school. Back in the good old days exams were held around 10. May, and then the russ would celebrate for a few days afterwards, until 17. May, which is Norwegian Constitution Day.
Well, in the 70s some bright politicians thought the partying was getting out of hand and decided to move the exams 'till after 17. May so that the russ would spend more time studying and less time drinking. Needless to say, it didn't work. Today, russ celebrations start sometime during the first days of May or the last days of April, and last until 17. May, with exams shortly afterwards (yaaaaay...).

There are different types of russ, depending on your high school course, and each type has its own colour. Allmennruss (general studies) have red as their colour, the others are hardly worth mentioning since they're not half as cool as the red russ. All right then. Blue is for economics, black for vocational courses, green for agricultural studies.
Russ wear uniforms in their respective colours. The uniform consists of a pair of trousers, a russ cap (more about that later) and in Trøndelag also a long white coat (like a lab coat) which is then decorated.

So what do russ do? Well, we (yes, obviously I'm a russ this year, or I wouldn't be writing this) celebrate. I have no idea what we celebrate, though. Russ time is an excuse to do things which you couldn't (or wouldn't) do normally. Like talking to brick walls, camping on roundabouts or having a pet can of tuna (maybe that's what Merula's been doing...)
For these things you get awarded: a small item (simply called a knot) is tied to the russ cap (it's got a long string attached to it). Every school makes its own 'knot rules'. You can get knots for everything from public nudity and showing up drunk at school to going swimming (in the fjord) in April and spending a night in a tree.

Then there are the russ vans (or buses, if you live in Oslo and have rich parents, lol) and the russ cards (which kids collect).

To the right is my russ card (the cap I'm wearing is the russ cap).

Below is the back of my russ coat.

'Pholloruss' simply means 'russ from Phollo'. The place where my school is built is called Follo (it used to be a farm), but the russ have always spelt it Phollo.

And the front of my coat...

I've got Snoopy at his typewriter, a Roman legionary from Asterix, an ethanol molecule, the four Led Zeppelin symbols, Pink Floyd's refracting prism, a Kvikk Lunsj (Norwegian KitKat, just ten times better) and in the place of honour (on the back) Findus.

It took me hours and hours, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I just need to put something on the sleeves, it looks weird now.

Wanted: bookends

2008-04-28T15:36:00.003+02:00

Several heavy volumes fell right on top of my alarm clock, but unfortunately they didn't manage to smash it.

Does anybody remember me?

2008-04-21T22:56:00.004+02:00

I'm finally back after a long absence, though I fear I'll be leaving again pretty soon. Russ celebrations are coming up (17 days of madness) and exams are right after that (whose bright idea was that?). And I'm still catching up from those two weeks of school I missed while I was being nerdy in Oslo. Gah.

Who cares. Those were two great weeks :) A couple of others participated in both the chemistry & the physics finals as well, so there were a lot of geeky inside chemistry jokes floating about. I've started using ångstrøm instead of metres in everyday conversations. Much more fun, especially the funny looks I get :)
I got 6th place in the physics finals btw (but do you think that matters to my physics teacher? Nooo... he hasn't even mentioned it! *glares*)

Okay, on my to-do-list this week:
Finish that bloody religion project I've been 'working' on for weeks
Study for a religion test
Clean - no wait, disinfect my room
Do half a chapter of maths (ah bugger, that's due tomorrow *head --> desk* )
Write four Norwegian essays
Read fifty pages about changes in the Norwegian language in the 20th century (the guys of the Norwegian Language Council really had - and have - too much spare time on their hands)
Finish (actually I still need to start) a horrendously boring chemistry project about iron (why can't it be about crystal structures?)
Physics. Physics. Physics
Study for the international chemistry finals
Paint my Russ coat. Yaay.
Eat chocolate (what? I want the satisfaction of at least getting one thing done)

Blah blah blah. Pic? Of course you want a pic.

This is a cookie that has been soaked in liquid oxygen, and then set fire to. Those chemistry olympiad people were insane, but it's shiny.

And for those of you who prefer bits of old stone...
A sculpted rope, to strengthen the window. This is from the Dom Church in Utrecht. Apparently, medieval stonemasons had a sense of humour.

I'm back! And off again...

2008-03-30T16:44:00.003+02:00

I'm sorry I didn't post earlier! There was just too much homework to do (and my PE teacher's decided it's time for another six week period of writing training schedules, damn her).
Anyway, Oslo was great, the Netherlands was great, the airports were not so great. We were planning a trip to Xanten as well but that had to be called off because the rest of the family thought the weather wasn't good enough.
No Romans for me, in other words. I had to settle for the Dom Church of Utrecht, which is interesting enough to be sure (plus it's built right on top of Roman Traiectum).
Het Pandhof, the herb garden of the church. It's a bit more colourful in summer :)

I've got more pics but I'll have to post them when I get back. Tonight I'm off to Oslo again, this time for the finals of the physics olympiad (but I'm not going to stress now, I can't go to the international finals anyway since I already qualified for the international chemistry finals). I'll read up on all the posts I've missed when I get back as well!

Budapest!

2008-03-15T01:16:00.003+01:00

I qualified for the International Chemistry Olympiad! Second place in the Norwegian finals!

Had a great week. Lots of nerds; but everybody was nerdy in a cool way :)

And Amsterdam Uni, apparently, has decided to mess up my application even further. I got a letter saying I have to take an entrance exam in English. Wtf for two reasons. 1) I signed up for a TOEFL like it said on their website (which should be good enough), and 2) their exam is a colloquium doctum thingy and you have to be 21 to take those.

Typical

2008-03-09T17:57:00.004+01:00

I was biking to school on Friday - probably the last time this year that I'll bike on ice and snow. I've biked on old ice and new ice, wet ice and dry ice, frozen slush with bike tracks and ice so smooth you can hardly see it. There have been moments when I wondered if I'd wake up in hospital, but I've always managed. Until Friday. There was a thin layer of fresh snow with ice underneath where my bicycle decided to throw me off - and of course there was gravel where I landed (this was downhill, so I flew a couple of feet). I've got a lovely bruise on my forehead, my knee is bright purple and the palm of my hand has been ripped open. Nothing serious, but it is rather annoying that it should happen the last time I bike on ice (characters' revenge maybe?)
And, typically, the purple on my knee is exactly the shade I need for a painting (I spent half an hour mixing paints at art school and I still couldn't get the right shade).

Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow for the chemistry finals. I'll be back on Friday, though only for a few hours - then I'm off to the Netherlands to take my Dutch exams.

I still need to pack but the muse won't let me. So I'm rewriting the first chapter of NaNo06. I'm terribly sorry, Geravan, but I'm going to have to break your arm.

See you in a week or two!

Busy, busy, busy!

2008-02-27T18:31:00.003+01:00

They've published the results of the second round of the Physics Olympiad. Guess who qualified for the Norwegian finals! *grins* March & April will be quite busy for me. I'll be in Oslo for the chemistry finals for a week, then I'm off to the Netherlands to take my Dutch exams, and then it's back to Oslo again for the physics finals.

Of course the muse chose a time like this to come back with a ton of ideas...

I've decided to put NaNo07 away for the time being and start editing NaNo06 instead. I've rewritten a few scenes here and there and already I'm getting new walk-ins and plotlines. Geravan suddenly decided that he has an uncle who really needs a role, Thiadulf has deserted from the Roman army (ahem, wtf??), Marcus has become suicidal (I thought I knocked that out of him last year...) and Embric has finally told me his backstory. Well, technically Thiadulf told me which makes it even more complicated, because how the hell would Thiadulf know?

I've also started another writing project - a trilogy about Knut Hamsun and penguins. A friend of mine was so inspired by my penguin snippet that she decided to write about it herself, and now we've decided to do it together. We've got most of the plot worked out already (including why the penguins want to murder Hamsun) and my friend has a few scenes written down already. It'll be awesome :)

Bits of old stone, from Rhodes.

Not impressed

2008-02-21T23:02:00.004+01:00

I got a letter from the Uni admission office. An entire page of educational laws paragraph this-and-that - basically it said I needed to get my diploma plus pass Dutch and English exams. It also said I'd find information about further entrance exams and subjects and whatnot in the envelope. The envelope, however, was empty.

And their knowledge of geography is a bit, well, how should I put this? My place of birth, according to them is "Utrecht, the Netherlands, Norway".

Then I got an email from the admission people, telling me they were very sorry, but they couldn't verify my personal details, and could I please send them a copy of my passport.
I have. Twice, as a matter of fact.

Seriously.

Oh glorious insomnia!

2008-02-20T19:14:00.005+01:00

Total amount of sleep last night: 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds!

After tossing and turning for an hour or two, I figured, what the hell, it's not like I'm going to get to sleep anyway so I might as well do something useful. So I read up on my Dutch grammar and realised I should be doing just fine next month (Uni entrance exams, lol) since my dialect is as close to standard written Dutch as it is possible to get. And then I read The Eagle's Prey by Simon Scarrow. I like the Eagle series, but why do the Batavians always end up getting slaughtered? 'S not fair *sulks*

I managed to crawl out of bed sometime after dawn (no school this week, muahaha) and felt a bit of a wreck. Looked like it too. I mean, I always have dark circles under my eyes (which is totally the Romans' fault, where's the PFJ?) but today I looked like I'd been punched in the face.
Nothing an inch of concealer can't fix - helped of course by liberal amounts of tea and a handful chocolate covered coffee beans. Then I was all hyper for hours but now the after-effects of this morning's caffeine haze are starting to wear off. My eyes are burning and the head feels like cotton fuzz. But I don't feel like sleeping. I hope it's not going to be one of those several-all-nighters-in-a-row weeks because I have an eight hour shift at the deli tomorrow.

But right now there's only one thing to do! Rewriting that scene where Marcus comes stumbling into Mainz half dead. 3/4 dead is probably more like it.

The pigeon invaded my post without permission.

Because I'm too scared to read about the theory of relativity

2008-02-12T23:16:00.000+01:00

Memes are more fun anyway:) I stole this one from Kirsten's blog.

What’s the last thing you wrote?
Today I've written a few paragraphs for "Suddenly, ninjas arrived", which is my NaNo07 novel about the Romans in Wales (I still need to find a good title for it).
Technically, though, the last thing I wrote was something physics related about electromagnetism.

Was it any good?
The physics was good. It had an integral symbol, and they make everything look smart. Very good indeed.
I'm not so sure about the fiction I wrote, though. I always write a very rough and extremely messy draft first just to get the ideas down on the paper, and then I edit later (and I procrastinate a lot when it comes to editing). So those paragraphs contain some ghastly prose and maybe some grammatical errors as well, but I think I'm getting somewhere plot-wise now. Ingomar won't be too happy though, because I've decided he's going to be the human sacrifice instead of Butimas.

What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?
Probably this little beauty:
It's (supposed to be) Dutch and basically means "The hot sun beams reach the earth if the sun doesn't leave quickly we'll be burned finally the sun has left" (who cares about punctuation anyway?). I think I was five when I wrote this... Can you believe I still haven't found a publisher?
And then I have some stories I wrote when I was seven or so about a butterfly and a spider, and one about a rabbit (which I never finished, and that bothers me, because I stopped with a cliffhanger), plus some books I wrote (and drew) with my little brother when I was about eight.

Write poetry?
Not much. I wrote quite a lot when I was younger.

Angsty poetry?
Never. It only makes me laugh

Favourite genre of writing?
NaNo-genre! (aka historical fiction with the odd ninja thrown in) Fantasy is rather fun to write as well because you don't have to follow the laws of physics.

Most fun character you ever created?
I'm not sure. Geravan maybe. He usually listens to me but still has a personality of his own. Same with Marcus, though he tends to be whiny. Oh, and Merula (when he doesn't talk to trees, that is).

Most annoying character you ever created?
Hmm... Verax. He is actually historical, but his personality was created by me. He's an opportunistic, ruthless bastard who keeps messing up the plot. Embric is a close second (do you mind *not* getting Geravan accused of treason??).

Best plot you ever created?
When I started, "Suddenly, ninjas arrived" had a decent plot, but now it has become so messed up that no two paragraphs fit together. So I think I'll go for NaNo06, which is about the Batavian revolt (and pretty much titleless). It follows Tacitus' account closely but I've built the plot around it in a way I'm quite pleased with. And now that I've left the thing alone for a few months all sorts of new ideas are starting to form. Muahahaha! (Sorry, Liaueld, but my mind is made up)

How often do you get writer’s block?
When I have time to write, I usually manage to write. PMS sometimes scares the muse, but usually he just flies into a murderous rage and I end up killing half the walk-ins just for the heck of it. By looking at NaNo06 I can actually tell which bits were written when I had PMS - every 40 k or so there's a flurry of completely unnecessary and very violent deaths. It's scary.

Write fan fiction?
No.

Do you type or write by hand?
Both. When I have ideas I prefer to type because it's faster, but when I'm not sure what to write I prefer writing by hand. Pages fill up faster that way and I worry less about editing. Plus I can write during class (add a few Romans and double religion is suddenly tolerable)

Do you save everything you write?
Yep.

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?
Sometimes. The notebook with the outlines for the fantasy story I started years ago is pulled out of the drawer every month or so.

What’s your favourite thing that you’ve written?
It has to be NaNo06. Yaay for the Batavian revolt!

Do you ever show people your work?
Hardly. If I'm really really happy I might post a snippet here. It's mostly because everything is just a messy first draft (like a stick figure drawing compared to the Mona Lisa I hope it'll be eventually)

Did you ever write a novel?
Yes (and it feels so good saying that!). I finished the first draft for a novel about the Batavian revolt last autumn. I cried like a baby when I finished it. It requires heavy editing, but I've written it!

Ever written romance or teen angst drama?
No. Not really my style.

What’s your favourite setting for your characters?
At the moment it seems to be the northern fringes of the Roman Empire, 1st century ad. But they thrive in my fantasy world as well.

How many writing projects are you working on right now?
Actually writing: 1
Editing in my head: 3
Plotbunnies I've pushed under the bed: Half a dozen or so

Do you want to write for a living?
Mmm... no. Yes. Maybe. I dunno. I want a 'normal' job and then write in the evenings. Because otherwise I'd probably have a deadline (one that is less friendly than the NaNo deadline)

Have you ever won an award for your writing?
If top grades for essays count, haha. I've never entered any writing contests, so no.

Ever written something in script or play format?
Just for school. I wrote a few sketches for the Russ revue last autumn - made fun of the local "news"paper and the firstgraders.

What are your 5 favourite words?
Vraisemblablement (French). Try saying it ten times fast. Oh, and caribou. Nice, woody sort of word (okay, no more Monty Python for me). Hmm... I don't really have favourite words.

Do you ever write based on yourself?
I hope not.

What character have you created that most resembles yourself?
Oh, that's difficult. I don't really resemble any of my characters (I think...). There are just a few personality traits and quirks. Marcus shares my horrible sense of direction and Geravan is the lucky winner of my short temper.

Do you favour happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?
It depends on the story. Happy-open like in The Lord of the Rings is probably my favourite, but some stories just need different endings. Like The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff.

Have you written based on an artwork you have seen?
Maybe unconsciously. I see so much art that it's impossible to remember everything.

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
Yes. It's messy enough as it is without grammatical errors. I usually don't make mistakes (I hope, haha), except when it comes to compound words. In Norwegian these should be written as one word, whereas in English you seem to be allowed to add spaces wherever you like (I write my fiction in English). So when I write 'snowballfight' or "stickfiguredrawing" and that red line comes up I always want to kill that stupid spellchecker. Spell checker. Whatever.
Oh, and when I'm tired I mess up homonyms. So far my favourite is "The lake was covered with a thin layer of eyes"

Does music help you write?
Of course. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the LotR soundtracks, Gåte... And I howl along to the music as well, much to my brother's displeasure (I can't sing to save my life).

Quote something you’ve written.
From the titleless novel about the Batavian revolt:

Ercuin shook his head. ‘The revenge of one man can't be allowed to ruin the future of an entire people.’
‘The revenge of one man?’ repeated Geravan. He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, yes of course. And you think that Civilis’ motive was not revenge? Do you think that he would have attacked the Romans if his brother hadn't been executed, or if Labeo hadn't just been promoted?’
‘That was then,’ said Ercuin. ‘This is now. Listen, Geravan. I knew your brother well; we served in the ala together for many years-’
‘But you will not let me avenge him?’ said Geravan bitterly. ‘You can't have been on friendly terms, then.’

This is probably the best meme I've done in a while because it helped me find a name for Ercuin. Up till now he's gone by 'Batavian4'. Stupid walk-ins.

At art school today...

2008-02-05T22:43:00.000+01:00

... I got to be the canvas!
*grumbles*

Owowow!

2008-02-03T17:30:00.000+01:00

I've strained a muscle, in my shoulder neck area somewhere. I can hardly keep my head up. It hurts when I lie down, when I sit and when I write.

Just what I need right now.

I have to write an essay about Quisling, finish a chemistry report, do 20 physics exercises about electromagnetic induction, read 40 pages about astrophysics, write an essay for religion and study for a Norwegian test. All within the next two days >.<

Badminton training tomorrow will be fun, for sure.

It's official!

2008-01-29T22:28:00.000+01:00

I'm a bloody genius. Further proof of that arrived today...

*insane screams of joy which can't be transfered to a blog post*

I qualified for the Norwegian finals of the Chemistry Olympiad!

I can't wait 'til my brother comes home on Thursday so I can rub it in (he never got past the second round).

Anyway. This means I'll be going to Oslo for a week to take a crash course of advanced chemistry, with the sixteen other finalists. Four of us will be chosen to represent Norway in the international contest.
It's so good to know that all the studying I did during the Christmas holidays wasn't a complete waste of time :)

The nerd qualified too, btw, but that's not all bad. Now at least I'll have plenty of motivation to work. Muahaha.

I'd hand out chocolate to celebrate if I could figure out a way to upload it. Meanwhile, have a pic of Orakei Korako, a geothermal area in New Zealand. Very pretty, but with a not-so-delicious smell of rotten eggs.
And bugger, I still need to finish my poetry analysis. No, hang on, I still need to get started...

Some art

2008-01-22T22:26:00.000+01:00

Drawn after a pic by Johnny Shumate - "The appearance of 'Agricolan' Batavian soldier" - from the June/July 2007 issue of Ancient Warfare.

Apologies for the absolutely horrible quality. I had to take a picture of it with my camera and then add some more contrast on the computer.

Pretend he's not wearing crocodile slippers.

I'm still not completely happy with it, though. The legs look completely off, the helmet's weird and don't even get me started on the shield, ugh! But otherwise I'm quite pleased with it.
Now I'm trying to find the courage to start painting. All that chain mail. It'll be a nightmare o_0

And once more, in negative, because it looks cool.

I don't believe this...

2008-01-20T18:12:00.000+01:00

The Uni can't verify my personal details (even though I sent them a copy of my passport) *bangs head against desk* Damn, damn, damn. I was all happy because I got through the application process alive.

But anyway. I think the 2nd round of the Chemistry Olympiad went okay. I don't know the results yet (it will probably take a week or two) but I'm fairly confident that I beat the nerd. And that, after all, is what this is all about.
I flunked the second round of Abelkonkurransen (mathematics) though, but who cares.

And I hate my phys ed teacher. We doesn't like gymnastics, does we, preciousss? And neither is we very good at it. Ssss... I'm all sore (which was especially nice since I had to work this weekend) and I managed to sprain my wrist too. I can hardly write, which is not a good thing since the second round of the Physics Olympiad is soon (does it ever end?!).

I really should stop procrastinating. I need to analyze a Norwegian poem from the first half of the 20th century. Luckily we get to choose the poem ourselves and I actually found one that I understand. Yaay.

Ahum. Pic.
Acher de Dom. Behind the Dom Church, Utrecht. This street runs exactly on top of the wall of the old Roman castellum, which was called Traiectum. Yaay.

Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry...

2008-01-15T22:02:00.000+01:00

The 2nd round of the Chemistry Olympiad is tomorrow. I'm not nervous. Honestly, I'm not. I'm terrified. Lol.

I thought I'd paint something totally random at art school today, to take my mind off chemistry for a moment, but well, see for yourself.
If you look closely you'll see chemistry. Three things. Four, if you're creative.

I'm off to do some last-minute reading about aldehydes.

I love my pillow

2008-01-09T22:09:00.001+01:00

And I hate mornings. I've hardly slept for the past three nights. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, 3am or so, and then I get out of bed because I think it's time to get up. Where's the sense in that? Well, there is none, but common sense usually does not return to me until I've been up for an hour or two and had at least three cups of tea. Sometimes common sense just wanders off in the middle of the night and doesn't come back at all, but you've probably realised that already. Uhh... anyway. So I get up and go to the kitchen to make tea, wonder why nobody else is awake (except the cat who's hiding behind a door to jump at me, argh) and then I see that it's 3am and I can sleep another four hours. So it's off to bed again (after once again having been attacked by my cat). And then this process repeats itself a couple of times. Three nights in a row, now.
Come 7am, I'm a complete wreck (with a nice set of scratches, courtesy of that black and white furry feline which is then purring contentedly on my bed with that "I don't have to get up, mwahaha"-look). To this, add the fact that it's dark (sunrise at 10am, yaay, and sunset five hours later) and there's ice on the bicycle tracks. Eeks.
The worst of it all is that though I'm so tired I fall asleep standing at school, I'm wide awake in the evenings. So no chance of an early night either.

Eeeeevil cat with sharp claws. Do not be deceived by her cuteness. Lol.

On the bright side, I finally finished my Uni application. I had to apply on their website (site crashed about three times) as well as fill out this application form by hand. And that took ages. It had questions like "How do you plan to finance your study? Please give us specific information" and then about a square inch to write an answer. I got my report cards from the past two years translated and signed up for exams in English and Dutch (costs a small fortune). I have to take those to show that my knowledge of these languages is sufficient *rolls eyes* Luckily the Dutch exam is during Easter, and the English one the day before Whitsunday, so unfortunately, I can't come to work those days (busiest days of the year, mwahaha). My boss is going to be so extremely pissed off. Rotflol.

I've started writing an essay about runes but it'll be a while before it's up here. The second round of the Chemistry Olympiad is next week and I still need to learn, well, a lot. I hate organic chemistry.

A meme

2008-01-06T23:09:00.000+01:00

Gabriele tagged me. I'm supposed to list seven things about a historical character, so say hello to (don't tell me you're surprised!) Julius Civilis, leader of the Batavian revolt in 69-70 AD, and shown here wearing a silly hat.
Painting by Rembrandt, 1662. It's now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

There has been a nice deal of confusion about Civilis' nomen - whether it was Julius or Claudius. As far as I can tell, historians nowadays agree that he was in fact called Julius, though you can still come across Claudius Civilis here and there.
I have two copies of Tacitus' works. In one (English, first published in 1964) he's called Julius Civilis and has a brother called Claudius Paulus. In the other (Latin, published in 1911) they're called Iulius Paulus and Iulius Civilis. I'm thinking of just calling 'em Bob Civilis and Bob Paulus in my novel. Much easier.
Ahem. There is a nice theory that Julius Civilis revolted partly because he felt that Batavians who had only recently gotten the citizenship (along with the nomen Claudius) were becoming a bit too powerful. Julius vs. Claudius, nice little family feud.

1. Three nephews of Civilis are mentioned by Tacitus; Verax, Julius Briganticus and Claudius Victor. Funnily enough, Briganticus (the only Julius of the lot) was the only one who stayed loyal to Rome during the revolt. He didn't get along very well with his uncle.

2. As well as nephews, Civilis had at least one son. After defeating two legions at Vetera (Xanten), Civilis supposedly gave Junior a couple of Roman prisoners to serve as targets for spears and arrows.

3. Civilis had a nasty habit of getting himself accused of treason. He first got accused, along with his brother, during Nero's reign. According to Tacitus the charges were false, but Paulus was nevertheless executed. Civilis had more luck. He was sent to Rome, where the new emperor (Galba) pardoned him. So Civilis went back home, started plotting, got himself accused of treason again and was pardoned again. And then he revolted.

4. Like Hannibal, Civilis only had one eye. How and where he lost the other is not known, but he did spend 25 years in the Roman army. Plenty of time to lose an eye.

5. Just like every other barbarian who managed to put up some resistance against Rome, Civilis was unusually intelligent for a native. He also used evil cunning, bribery and well-composed speeches. All according to Tacitus, of course.

6. Unusually intelligent or not, Civilis at least had enough sense to bring in siege engines when attacking Vetera. Not that it helped. In the end they had to starve the legions out.

7. What happened to Civilis is not known, since the last part of Tacitus' Histories is missing. When it became clear that the Batavians would be defeated, Civilis decided to negotiate with the Roman general Cerialis. Civilis was offered a pardon, but it is of course possible that nobody cared and they killed him anyway.

And I tag Linwe. Muahaha.

Happy 2008!

2008-01-01T01:50:00.000+01:00

Best wishes for 2008! May it be a year filled with chocolate, tea and ninjas - erm, I mean, cooperating characters.

That's me trying to write '2008' with a sparkler. I'd post pics of the fireworks, only I don't have any. Except a few very blurry ones. Okay, here is the best one:

Last year's pictures were better. It's not my fault, honestly. It's those crazy Norwegians - their timing is awful. They watch 'Dinner for one' on the 23rd and set off the fireworks at 11 PM.

Here's an old pic of fireworks:

Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?

2007-12-23T23:42:00.000+01:00

The crazy Norwegians watch it on the 23rd instead of the 31st. Pfff...

However, I know there are actually people who have no idea what 'Dinner for One' is (barbarians!), so enjoy...

Work today was as hectic as ever (except slightly more fun because I get paid more on Sundays, yaay). I worked at the fish instead of the meat and I spent the entire day cutting and packing lutefisk. Lutefisk is a traditional Norwegian Christmas dish. It's basically fish (usually cod) that's been kept in lye and it smells like a mixture of soap and slightly rotten fish. I've never eaten it and I have no intention of either (and it's not only because I'm a vegetarian). I don't think I've ever met anyone who likes it. So why does everyone have it for Christmas? Damn good question. Because it's a tradition I guess, though there are other theories as well: 1) It makes you appreciate the rest of the meal and 2) You need to drink a lot to get the taste out of your mouth.
But I wish people weren't so keen on those traditions. When I came home today I was covered in lye. I've showered twice and washed my hair three or four times. In the end I decided that masking the smell was probably easier than getting rid of it. So now I smell like Christmas cookies. Yaay!

And I got the Christmas tree up (but not before I had a tinsel fight with my brother, muahaha)
The bottom is under-decorated because my cat attacks any baubles within her reach. A couple of years ago she managed to knock down the entire tree.

Merry Christmas!

Hello birds! Hello trees! I'm alive! I'm alive!

2007-12-21T23:05:00.000+01:00

Somebody hasn't posted for a while!

I have excuses, honestly. The Russ Revue took the entire weekend. But that's two weeks ago. Anyway, it went well - I didn't forget my lines. I can't believe the mess we made though. It took hours to clean up the next day, even though there were about forty of us. According to the drama teacher our revue was the best one for at least 20 years.

The planning could've been better though. I hardly had time to study for my math exam (which was of course just a few days later), but I discovered that it is possible to learn 200 pages in five hours, even without chocolate covered coffee beans.
The fact that I had to present my rune project the same week didn't help either. I'd been "working" on it for two months, with a friend, but you know, we're both procrastinators... It was all a bit last minute. But the project itself was fun to do. I like runes (I use runes when I NaNo in class...). I thought I'd write a post about my project because my blog is slipping more and more from random posts about history & literature to rants about physics.
Did I have time? Nooo... There was a history test, and of course they asked all the cliché questions. Why did WWI start? I really felt like writing 'Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry' but I doubt my history teacher has a sense of humour.
Then I discovered to my horror that I was a little behind with my Norwegian homework. Procrastinators unite! ... Tomorrow. But I did it. Five essays in two days. And in Nynorsk too. Ivar Aasen will be the next to be stampeded by penguins.

Today was the last day of school. Miraculously, the headmaster's speech lasted for less than ten minutes. That's a record. Unfortunately, during the time he had left he decided to call up the students who had qualified for the next round of Abelkonkurransen, that national math test. In front of the entire school. And I had to go up there and be handed three diplomas - math, chemistry and physics. Why couldn't they have just sent in in the mail?!
To make matters worse, none of the diplomas has my name spelled correctly. Seriously, how difficult can it be?

Anyway. Christmas holidays. For once they're actually long - two whole weeks! I'll see if I can write something about runes, but don't get your hopes up. I seriously need to start studying for the second round of those science tests, and I have to work a good many days.
I worked this evening, and it was insane. Christmas madness is upon us, preciousss! Hundreds of people running through the supermarket, all of them dropping by the meat & deli. Buying all that traditional Christmas food and whatnot. I've never seen it so busy. I think I did a cubic metre of dishes today, and that was only a part.

I don't want to go back tomorrow. It's just too busy (and of course the boss doesn't think it's necessary to have more people at work. Idiot). It's getting on my nerves. Why is everybody so stressed anyway? Whatever happened to peace and calm and all that Christmas stuff?

So far, my cat is the only one who is in a Christmassy mood.

No actually, I'm alright. Swedish tv is showing a Led Zeppelin concert. Yaay!

Wheee!!

2007-12-06T01:33:00.000+01:00

Slightly hyper. Large amounts of chocolate consumed in a very short space of time. Very little sleep. Very much practicing for the Russ Revue. I can't believe it's on Friday!

But I know my lines. I hope I don't forget them or burst out laughing - I haven't been on stage for three years.

I'm not too sure about my costumes though. Since we're born in '89, we chose "The 80s" as our theme, so that means tights, leggings and oversized shirts. People back then were mad, lol.

Oh, happy Sinterklaas! I want my chocolate letter... Maybe I'll put a carrot in my shoe and put it by the fireplace :)

NaNo is over...

2007-12-01T00:03:00.000+01:00

Damn.

Total wordcount this November: 53 842. Errrm.... Not as good as last year, but I got my 50 k so I guess I should be happy.

However... Titus Flavius Labeo, I am going to murder you! You're allowed to plot as much as you like, just tell me which side you are on! Are you a pro-Roman Batavian, or do you just pretend to be? Are you actually Batavian? Who is that stranger you were talking with? Who are you planning to overthrow? What did Julius Briganticus do to piss you off so badly? Do you actually trust Imerix? If yes, why are you so bloody keen to make Merula distrustful of him? If no, why did you give him a promotion? Who are you anyway? Why don't you think that stranger guy won't accomplish whatever he intends to accomplish? What have you been drinking? Why the f do you want to help that stranger anyway? Or do you actually? Does anyone suspect you? Did Frontinus give you orders to be sneaky to win the Silures' trust?

*bangs head against desk*

I kinda miss Embric and Verax. They were a piece of cake to write compared to dear old Flavius Labeo.

Edit: Help. What do you do when your MC is sent on a mission of certain death? I'm not sure what the mission actually is, but I know it's a mission of certain death. Wait... it could work if this was later in the story.

I'm so glad I did not make a detailed outline, because nothing is going according to plan.

Why the Romans never came here...

2007-11-29T22:51:00.000+01:00

April:

May:These are not mountains, but hills. Low hills.

June:Okay, so this is from northern Norway. I'm rather happy that I don't live there :)

November (we had snow in October too but I didn't get a pic):

Yeah, I used a flash for that one. Shame on me. I was too lazy to get the tripod, and there's hardly any daylight. The sun's above the horizon for less than six hours a day now (and I'm at school then), and for most of the time it's hidden behind the hills anyway.

But I wish the Romans had come here. Not only would that mean nifty ruins filled with plotbunnies, but maybe, just maybe, I'd actually have hypocaust heating that works. The guy who came over to "fix" the heating earlier this autumn will be written into my novel as human sacrifice.

Okay, granted, it wasn't so bad today. For the first time in about a week the temperature in my room has risen above 15*C. Hurray.

I won! Again!

2007-11-25T00:07:00.000+01:00

The results from the first round of the Physics Olympiad have been posted on their website - and I got 25. place. Well, 15. actually, since there are a lot of us with the same score and we're sorted alphabetically.

18 points out of 24. Best of my school. I rock.

Also, my NaNo wordcount bar has turned purple. I like their word count validator this year - it gave me 61 extra words :) Last year it removed 17.

Unfortunately I hardly have time to write now. There's a gigantic physics test on Tuesday, the presentation of my rune project is soon, and of course there's the Russ Revue. Just two weeks left, and we've hardly written a thing. All we have is a few half-finished, very lame sketches.

And I desperately want to continue with my NaNo. Flavius Labeo is getting more and more sneaky. If he hates Imerix, why give him a promotion? And why on earth is he meeting Silurian chiefs in secret?

Tricksssy Batavianses, preciousss.

I need to write a chemistry report, but I can't concentrate. It doesn't help that it has the following equation:

AgNO₃ (aq) + NaCl (aq) → AgCl (s) + NaNO₃ (aq)

Maybe if I write the net ionic equation instead... Hm...

Suddenly, penguins arrived

2007-11-22T22:08:00.000+01:00

Another snippet from NaNo 07. It includes two dares and one of my least favourite authors.

Gabriele made me post it. It goes nicely with her snippet, lol.

The Romans and Batavians are attacking a Silurian hill fort, but they face a foe more deadly than the Silures. Mwahahaha.

Imerix is the MC, Finvagar is a friend of his, Ingomar and Madaluin are also Batavians who serve in the same auxiliary cohort. And Calgacus, well...

~*~

Suddenly, Knut Hamsun appeared. The appearance of this Norwegian Nobel Prize winner was completely random and unexpected, especially when you take into account that he was born about eighteen hundred years after the battle. Why on earth he would chose to turn up at this particular place and time has puzzled mankind's greatest thinkers since, well, last Thursday at least.

But came he did. He rode right into the thick of battle, on a moose. The beast had a saddle and reins and stirrups, but the blatant anachronism did not seem to matter much to Knut Hamsun. He patted his mount’s neck and whispered something in Norwegian. The moose snorted and tossed its head, nearly poking out Hamsun’s eye with his sharp antlers in the process.

A nearby ninja saw him. He stared. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. When he was sure that it was not just the aftereffects of last night's post-battle booze-up, he tapped the chief ninja on the shoulder. Soon the entire First Cohort of Ninjas had lowered their swords, and the rest of the army followed suit. Fortunately the Silures were rather curious too, otherwise Hamsun might very well have been responsible for the greatest disaster in Roman military history since NaNoWriMo 2006.

Nobody noticed the UFO. It hovered over the hill fort like a big shiny, well, whatever is big and shiny and usually hovers above hill forts. A hatch opened and a beam of light shot out. The beam of light was a rather unusual beam of light. It jumped across the uneven ground until it found Calgacus. While everybody was looking the other way, the beam of light grabbed hold of the glorious leader and founder of the People's Front of Caledonia and pulled him into the UFO. The hatch closed and the UFO zoomed off, hopefully never to return.

Back on earth not much had happened. The legionaries simply stared at the moose and its writing rider. Even a dead Silurian opened an eye. The moose in particular was the object of some curiosity. Not because it had stirrups, but because it was purple. Whether it was its natural state or it had been painted, none could tell, but purple it was. Very bright purple.

Ingomar took a careful step forwards.

‘Er, Mister Hamsun,’ he said tentatively, ‘it’s very kind of you to drop by, but we’re a bit busy at the moment. You know, there’s a battle and stuff going on.’

Hamsun immediately launched into a garbled speech. Imerix and Finvagar stared at each other. Latin was one thing, but this Norwegian sounded like gibberish. It probably was, too.

To their surprise the moose translated Hamsun’s words into perfect Latin.

‘My master Knut Hamsun says he has come here to inspire you to brave deeds,’ the beast said, rolling its r’s in a delicate way.

‘Thanks,’ said Ingomar, ‘but no thanks. We have chocolate for that. Excellent chocolate, too.’

‘Oh, but he has come from far!’ the moose continued.

‘So have we. Bugger off.’

The moose frowned. Imerix wondered vaguely how it could frown with those antlers and no eyebrows, but frown it did.

Before the beast could translate Ingomar’s words, Hamsun had taken a book out of his pocket. It was a heavy, leather-bound volume with golden letters stamped onto the cover. He opened it, and cleared his throat.

‘Which, er, book is that?’ Finvagar asked, eying it with some suspicion.

‘Why,’ said the moose. It sounded shocked. ‘It’s Markens Grøde, of course! The book for which my master got the Nobel Prize in Literature!’

Finvagar gave an odd sort of twitch and Ingomar looked downright scared.

‘Did I hear you correctly?’ Imerix said, hoping and praying that he had. ‘Is Hamsun going to inspire us to brave deeds by spending a month reading about a guy who ploughs his fields?’

‘Actually,’ the moose said dryly, ‘the book is much deeper than that. It is about man’s struggle against the elements, it is about finding one’s roots, living in harmony with nature, it is a tale of how modern technology destroys-’

‘The industrial revolution is still a couple of centuries away,’ Madaluin interrupted. Everyone turned to stare at him.

‘And what exactly is this industrial revolution?’ Ingomar said, puzzled.

Madaluin shrugged. ‘Search me. It just sounded like a cool thing to say.’

‘Ssssh!’ said the moose angrily.

Hamsun had cleared his throat again. The moment the first word passed his lips there was a mad rush as every single Silurian, Roman, Batavian and ninja reached for swords, spears, fruit knives and other assorted sharp pointy things that could be used to slit Hamsun’s throat. Some turned their blades on themselves in desperation. Madaluin had dropped down on his knees, clutching his ears and howling in misery.

Imerix clenched his teeth together to block out Hamsun’s voice. He was not going to be murdered by some Norwegian author from the future and his horrendously tedious books.

Before he could drive his sword into Hamsun’s throat, something else happened. Logic told him that it was impossible. But then again, Hamsun’s appearance was also rather strange. One highly illogical occurrence more or less hardly mattered.

A dust cloud had appeared on the horizon, glittering in the sunlight. It moved towards the hill fort with an astonishing speed. As it came closer, it turned into a flock of penguins. There were penguins of every species imaginable, emperor penguins and king penguins, yellow-eyed penguins and fairy penguins, magellanic penguins, Humboldt penguins, African penguins, Galapagos penguins, adelie penguins, chinstrap penguins and gentoo penguins, Fiordland penguins and royal penguins, Mosely’s penguins and rockhopper penguins, snares penguins and macaroni penguins. There were even a few Chatham Islands penguins. But most were emperor penguins.

They cried harshly and their feet thudded on the ground as they stampeded up the hillside.

Hamsun stared at them. ‘Pingvinene!’ he yelled. ‘De har funnet meg! Løp! Løp for livet!’

‘The penguins,’ the moose translated calmly. ‘They have found me! Run! Run for your lives!’

The moose blinked. It stared at the penguins, and then panicked completely. It tried to run, but it was too late. The first of the emperor penguins were already upon them. They ran right over Knut Hamsun and the moose, screaming their battle cries. When the last of the penguins' feet had left the Norwegian author, they turned and stampeded back the same way, until Hamsun lay trodden down in the mud with penguin feet marks all over him. He was very much dead.

The penguins let out a yell of triumph and stampeded off into the distance. In their wake followed a squirrel. It danced over the dead author, holding aloft an acorn and carrying a flag much too big for it. ‘Victory!’ it squeaked. ‘We have victory!’

Then the squirrel too disappeared.

Madaluin got shakily to his feet, and the dead Silurian hastily resumed his being-dead position.

'Well, that was random,' Finvagar said.

~*~

One of my friends came up with the squirrel. She was so inspired by my, erm, genuis, that she has decided to write a book about Hamsun and penguins.

A moose. Not a purple moose, but a moose nonetheless. Made it with my art school group last year when we were on a land art course.

Finished!

2007-11-20T23:52:00.001+01:00

It took me 20 days, which gives me an average of 2500 words a day. Last year it was 2273, so I'm getting better, or at least quicker. Whoever said NaNo is harder the second time is very much wrong. I found it much easier this year (probably because I have some writing experience now).
The story still isn't finished though, faaaar from it. I just finished chapter 5. I have 19 chapters planned. I just hope it won't take me a whole year to finish. I still need to edit NaNo 06. But now I have two novel projects going on at the same time, yaay!

Only I'm miles behind with my homework (and whose bright idea was it to have a 5 hour long physics test next week?). My grades are still good though. I got top grades on that Norwegian test about Knut Hamsun (didn't stop me from having him murdered by a bunch of vicious emperor penguins) and the religion test which I didn't study for went well as well.

It's a bit sad that I've reached 50 k. Now I don't have that cool deadline to force me to write.

And what do I do without a deadline? Physics? Ha!

Catching up on the lost hours of sleep, more like.

Also, this is my 100th post *throws confetti*. Never thought I'd manage to write 100 posts about how much I hate physics lessons, whoa.

Got him!

2007-11-19T17:24:00.001+01:00

Calgacus I mean. He was in one of my hill forts:

But I got him out. Eventually. With some help:

Okay, a lot of help. But I did get him out.
Hopefully he'll be dropped off somewhere, erm, historically correct. 'Cause I don't trust those UFOs.

Admit it; you're jealous of my drawing talent!

'Nuff said.

Back to my NaNo, which is now all sparkly and Calgacus-free. Wheeeee!

Snippet time!

2007-11-18T01:45:00.000+01:00

Despite the unsolved riddle (don't think I have forgotten, Gabriele - I B 3 d V - you still have to solve it!), I'm posting a snippet. I'm in a rather good mood since I managed 1400 words in less than an hour (I love word wars) and Sven Kramer got a world record on the 5000 m speed skating.

This snippet is from my NaNo "Suddenly, ninjas arrived". It will get a new title sometime. Obviously.

Labeo has invited Merula over to have a cup of wine and share some gossip. Still not sure if what he says is actually true. I'll have to confront Imerix :)
It's very much a first draft. Unplanned, unedited, with dialogue that makes me cringe, a good deal of typoes (probably), characters acting completely out of character, but fortunately no ninjas. At least I hope so. They sneak in everywhere :) Labeo will probably be renamed sometime.

~*~

Merula shifted his cup from his right hand to his left. It was equally uncomfortable in both. This was not a normal friendly invitation, or even an attempt to impress a Roman of high birth, he had realised that a long time ago. But Labeo continued speaking airily of everything from the weather to the Silurian losses in the battle. Only when the sounds of the camp around them had become very faint, and an owl hooted outside somewhere, did he set down his cup. With his elbows on his knees and hands under his chin he regarded Merula. ‘There is something I have to tell you.’

‘Then say it.’ Merula felt a growing apprehension. He had raised his cup to his lips but now he quickly lowered it. Best to have his wits with him.

‘You asked me why I do not think highly of Imerix son of Servofredus,’ Labeo said carefully. He stared unblinkingly into Merula’s eyes. ‘I served with him in the auxiliaries before the revolt. The entire cohort went over to Civilis, except me and just a few others. I felt no loyalty to the prefect,’ he added with a slight smile when he saw Merula’s puzzled look. ‘He was Tiberius Claudius Victor, another of Civilis’ sister-sons.’

There followed a short silence during which the flame of the oil lamp danced and flickered. Labeo poured himself some more wine and took a careful sip. ‘But I know Imerix from before that. He is an able warrior, there is no denying that, but his sword sometimes has trouble distinguishing friend from foe.’

‘What do you mean?’ Merula shifted uncomfortably.

‘He did not always want to be in the auxiliaries, even before the uprising,' said Labeo delicately. 'The estate of his family is not so far from that of mine, and when he was a lad I saw him occasionally. From his mother’s side he is related to the Bructeri, and that is a tribe with fire in their blood.’

‘I have heard of them.’

‘A year or so before he was of age, Imerix left his home and went north, across the Rhenus to his mother’s people.’

‘That is no crime,’ Merula said. He still felt he had to defend the man who had rushed to his aid unarmed and without hesitation. ‘Family is family, though you are separated from them by a border.’

‘Of course,’ said Labeo. ‘I myself have a sister who is wed to a chief of the Frisians, and we have not become strangers to each other. But Imerix stayed in the north a long time, even though he had come of age and was supposed to carry his shield in the auxiliaries. I believe word was sent to him, but he chose to ignore it.’

The owl hooted softly again and the guards at the front of the tent talked together in a low murmur. The oil lamp spluttered and went out, but Labeo did not make as if to light it again. The only source of light was now the glow of the brazier, and that was very faint. It threw dark shadows onto Labeo’s face and made him look like a spirit from the underworld. Merula reached for the decanter of wine and poured himself another cup. He did not really want it, but he felt worse was still to come.

‘It is not uncommon for the northern tribes to go to battle against their neighbours,’ said Labeo. He had lowered his voice so that Merula needed to lean in closer to hear. ‘They do it for spoil and for victims to sacrifice to their gods. It is the same with the Bructeri. The Rhenus is broad and swift, but it does not keep all raiding parties out. A force of Bructeri crossed into Roman territory close to Oppidum Batavorum, no doubt hoping to raid the farms in the fertile lands along the river.’ Labeo’s fingers traced the inlaid patterns on his cup. He raised it to his mouth and took a gulp before continuing. ‘A cohort of the Fifth was sent to deal with it, and with them the Batavian ala. At that time it was stationed there in its homeland.’

‘And Imerix was part of the Bructerian raiding party?’ Merula said. He began to wish he had never accepted Labeo’s invitation.

‘Indeed he was.’ Labeo’s eyes shone like a cat’s, pale and forbidding, in the faint light. ‘And his brother, Maginwer, was in the ala.’

Labeo swirled his cup in his hand for a while before taking a sip. Then he said brusquely, ‘Imerix killed him.’

~*~

And suddenly my plot was much more complicated than I had intended it to be, lol.

Mount Doom, aka Mount Ngauruhoe, New Zealand.

35 k!

2007-11-15T20:25:00.000+01:00

The ambush took a little longer to write than expected. It became a major battle, with chariots and everything and lasted almost 10 K. But I got rid of one walk-in and stabbed another in the eye (he's still alive though, dammit). And the pink fluffy bunnies made their appearance (so that's one dare down, three to go). It was rather funny. They had chariots and spears and war paint.

Characters are getting whiny though. Cadwaladyr still hasn't shown up, which is a good thing I guess, since both Merula and Imerix (my two POVs this year) would kill him if he did. At the moment Imerix is still loyal to Rome. I hope he doesn't stay that way because it's boring.
And Flavius Labeo... Yeesh. He was supposed to be just another annoying officer. Just some Batavian who is very pro-Roman and overly cultured, and who had stayed loyal to Rome through the revolt and was rewarded with a citizenship, who feels very superior to Imerix because Imerix took part in the revolt and was rewarded with a dead family instead of a citizenship, blahblah. They know each other somehow.
But I've realised that Labeo is actually just mocking the Romans. He's poking fun at them. Suddenly I'm not sure if he's on their side after all.
And there's a family feud of sorts between Flavius Labeo's family and that of (drum roll) Julius Briganticus (Civilis' sister-son who stayed loyal to Rome during the revolt). Which makes everything nice and complicated.
And Flavius hates Imerix. I don't know why, but he absolutely loathes him. I think Imerix has a dark mysterious past, and it annoys me because he told me that he was just random person #34 who only played a minor role in the revolt.

I'm not sure if Flavius Labeo is still Claudius Labeo's sister-son. Might have to edit that (in December obviously). But anyway. I'm starting to think that Flavius might actually be plotting.

Wish he'd tell me, though. He's about to tell Merula something important now (or so he says) but I have now idea what it is. That of course means that I am very stuck. Perhaps I can get Merula very drunk so that he just blacks out.

25 K down, 25 to go!

2007-11-10T21:34:00.000+01:00

Woohoo! I'm halfway!

Starting to feel a bit sleep deprived though. I poured hot water over my chocolate and am currently eating tealeaves.

And I've realised that nothing actually happens in my 25 k. I've had a skirmish with the Silures and one of my characters ended up in the infirmary but that's about it. Oh, and the cat that ate Sammy just walked out of the novel again and Merula is still normal. Yaay.
But all in all it's kinda boring. I mean, this time last year I had three dead emperors, several burned frontier forts, one half-dead MC, a highly cliché "The Romans suck"-speech and a character whose sole purpose was to get cut to pieces so that Marcus could stitch him back together.

No such fun yet this year. All I have is a cavalry commander called, well, Cavalry Commander. And a storm. I have a storm that pulled a tree up by the roots. Though I'm not sure why that is actually important.

Oooh, there's a hill fort on the horizon there, though. Maybe something will actually happen. Hm... Ambush.

Yes, ambush. Time for Cadwaladyr to get off his lazy butt and kill some Romans.

...

What do you mean "I'm in Caledonia now"?? You're supposed to be in Siluria, you twit! You have to ambush Romans, not make alliances with tribes in the far north.

Well, I want an ambush, and I'm getting an ambush. A chance to kill some of those annoying walk-ins. Yes, Hvepnus, that means you.

Okay, Silures, I've put the Romans in a nice forest and added a few bogs. Now it's your turn.

26 042 words!

Why does everything happen in November?

2007-11-08T22:03:00.000+01:00

Writing during class is good for word count, but that's about the only thing it is good for. I think I'll start paying attention during physics at least. My school had decided to participate in the Physics Olympiad as well (as if the chemistry one wasn't enough *rolls eyes*) and I didn't hear about it until, well, yesterday. And the test was yesterday. So I was not prepared at all, but I think it went better than the chemistry olympiad (and that one went well...). I managed to answer all the questions at least.
As long as my score is higher than the nerd's, I'll be happy :)

I don't understand why it all has to be in November, though. What's wrong with October, or even September? They put Abelkonkurransen in November as well (that is a math test they hold every year throughout the country) - on 1. Nov. And the teachers didn't tell us until an hour before they gave us the test. They did that last year as well, only then it was somewhere in the middle of November. I'd slept very little because of NaNo and got a very bad score (40/100, but even that was good enough to qualify for round 2 - though I never actually got around to doing round 2, haha). This year went better - 78/100 points, which should be enough for round 2 but I don't know yet. And I don't want to either because round 2 of this math thing is one day after round 2 of the chemistry thing (makes sense, right? Gives you about a day to prepare for a gigantic and frighteningly difficult math test).

I really should get a move on with my Norwegian project. Thank god it's only an oral one, but there is a lot of research involved (it's about runes). And I'm doing it with a friend who is in another class so we don't have the chance to do much at school. We're going to Trondheim on Monday to interview this professor. Awesome. But it means less time for writing.

I really wanted to reach 20 k today but I guess it's impossible. The campaign against the Silures is just starting and it's a bit difficult to write because I didn't do any planning. I guess I could kill Madaluin though... Hmm...

And the printer isn't working. That is a bit of a problem because I need to print an essay for school, and I really don't feel like writing it all out by hand. I think I'll mail it to myself and hope the school computers work (that would be a bloody miracle...)

Okay, I realise I'm just rambling, so I'm going back to my novel and see if I can add a battle somewhere.

Edit: 20 k, I did it! Am so going to regret this tomorrow at 7 AM, though. I now have less than five hours to sleep before the alarm clock goes off. Who cares.

He's...

2007-11-07T22:56:00.000+01:00

... normal.

Merula, that is. A cat suddenly walked into my novel, ate Sammy once and for all, and *wham!*, suddenly Merula is normal. No more talking elm trees.
I think all the insanity was Sammy's fault - he must be some sort of evil spirit in salmon shape who drives Romans insane.

Merula has figured out how to use a sword (pointy end goes in enemy), he talks to people instead of trees, and no longer has ambitions to become High King of Greenland.

However, now he wants to keep the cat. Says it followed him home.

This is going well, I guess

2007-11-04T00:38:00.000+01:00

Current word count: 7 283. Yaay.

I want to reach 10-12 k this weekend, and I think I can make it, despite the ridiculous amount of chemistry homework. The Norwegian test yesterday went crap, because I didn't study for it at all. There was a NaNo meeting in Trondheim on Thursday and that was much more fun than reading about Knut Hamsun. There were three of us, plus one morale support, and we ended up freaking out the other customers in a cafe, yaay. And we are all going to kill off important characters (muahahaha). Must be the lousy weather making us all depressed and eeeeevil (snow yesterday).

My cousin dropped by for a visit today. Apparently he likes ancient history. Never knew that. We discussed everything from Roman battle tactics to Agricola's campaigns (which made my brother roll his eyes), and he borrowed half my bookshelf. It must run in the family... :)

Publius Cornelius Merula is weird. He said he wanted to be a tribune but now he's suddenly prefect of some random auxiliary unit (Second cohort of ninjas, I think). And he keeps talking to Sammy the Fried Salmon even though he was eaten some 2 k before the story even started.
Maybe I should go easy on the Irish coffee-filled chocolates. Whoa.

8 107 words!

Hey, Merula, if you're ambushed by Silures, waving a salmon around won't help you. Ninjas, that's what you need!

3 1/2 hours to go!

2007-10-31T20:30:00.000+01:00

Woohoo!

If I had any sense I'd spend that time studying for a Norwegian test (whose bright idea was it to have a 5 hour test on 2. Nov?) but that's boring.

Staring at the clock is much more fun.

My plot is still half-finished. Chapters 4-8 are outlined thus: Battles. Skirmishes. Hill forts. Lots of people die.

Yeah, well. Who cares. Those chapters will probably be written around 10. Nov.

Claudius Labeo's sister-son is still half nameless. I think he got the citizenship after the revolt (because he was very sneaky and sided with the Romans) so he can be Flavius Labeo. Or just Bob.

I have no idea how I'm going to manage 50 k. I have a gigantic Norwegian project. Four 5 hour tests (two in Norwegian, and one each in chemistry and physics. Eeks), plus a few normal 2 hour tests. Some three essays to write. Normal homework. A new job (I'll be helping the first years with their math homework), though that's only one hour a week.

But I have chocolate. I have tea. I have nifty pens.

And 2 hours and 57 minutes until I can start writing. Argh.

Dear Plot

2007-10-27T22:35:00.000+02:00

Where are you?

Less than 100 hours before NaNo (where did October go?), and I still have about half a million things to figure out before I can start writing. And I mean important things, like battles and figuring out who is who.

My outline is a mess. My characters are not cooperating. I already have walk-ins. Calgacus wants a part. Or rather, my Silurian rebel Cadwaladyr wants to drag him into some sort of alliance against the Romans. I told him he wasn't allowed to. He answered that if he could corrupt the Batavian auxiliaries, he could drag in some northern tribes as well.
And if that wasn't enough, Cadwaladyr also wants to be Caratacus' son. No. Definitely not allowed. You'll be the son of some random Silurian chief whose name I can't pronounce, get it? Bloody Silures.

Batavians are much nicer. They've all got names. They've got personalities. Plus they can cross rivers without breaking formation. Beat that.

The obvious exception is Claudius Labeo's sister-son, who is an arrogant, snobbish, nameless git. I hate him. He'll be fun to write though. I just hope Imerix can keep his temper - unlike Geravan, who broke Embric's nose. Which reminds me, those two still have to fight a little duel to the death. Yikes.

Merula has decided to be a tribune. Eleven minutes before the deadline he told me everything (apparently, he also is Tacitus' cousin, or something. Uhhh...) Damn. I really wanted a village idiot in my book. But I'll try to get that rude elm tree and Sammy the Fried Salmon into the story somehow.

Soooo... Walk-ins, characters who don't cooperate, unplanned battles, a bunch of druids with a combined IQ of about 17, and *grin* some twenty different kinds of tea.

I think I'm ready for November :)

Also, the second round of the chemistry olympiad will be in January (which means studying till I drop in December, yaay). Some 140 participants went to round two, and the sixteen best at round two will go on to round three. The four best from round three will represent Norway in Budapest.
I think I have a decent chance to pass the second round at least. Top 16? Ha! My 72 points were good enough for sixth place after round one... :)

I'm going to cry...

2007-10-21T23:08:00.001+02:00

Actually, I have cried. I sat for a quarter of an hour, sobbing onto mum's shoulder.

I finished NaNo06. At 21.28 today, while listening to 'Stairway to heaven', I wrote those two beautiful yet horrible words. The End.

The End. After nearly a year (355 days to be exact) of scribbling frantically when the physics teacher wasn't looking, of tearing my hair out when the ninjas turned up, of shouting when Marcus decided that astronomy was really much better than medicine, of banging my head against the wall when Geravan got into fights with important allies... 355 days of laughing and crying, and then it's over. The End. Just like that. For 355 days Marcus and Geravan have been with me, and then they suddenly decide that it's enough. The End. They walk out on me, just like that, those ungrateful little... No, actually I love them.

It's the first time I've ever finished something as long as this. The last time I finished a story (not counting schoolwork) was a two-page something about a spider and a butterfly when I was about seven (even that had a walk-in...).

And now my historical mess of a novel (total wordcount 264 k, maybe, I haven't typed everything yet) is finished. The End. I'm happy, but also sad. I mean, there's editing and rewriting to do, but it just won't be the same. The End.

Shoulder to cry on? Someone? Please?

Suddenly, ninjas arrived

2007-10-21T02:40:00.000+02:00

That'll be the working title for NaNo07, yaay.

Sleep?

Yes. Good idea.

My fingers are still taped together. I can hardly type, or write for that matter. Which is not nice because Marcus and Geravan, plus my NaNo07 characters, are all demanding attention.

Gabriele, can I borrow that rack of yours? I have a NaNo07 Roman who refuses to tell me who he is...

Book meme

2007-10-20T00:45:00.000+02:00

You're right, Linwe, this is funny :)

1. Take five books from your bookshelf
2. Book #1 - first sentence
3. Book #2 - last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 - second sentence on page hundred
5. Book #4 - second to last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #6 - last sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph

The books I picked (taken at random from my shelf, so I have three different languages, haha)
1. Stad in de Storm, by Thea Beckman. In Dutch.
2. Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu. In Icelandic
3. The Mark of the Horse Lord, by Rosemary Sutcliff
4. Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne
5. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, by Douglas Adams

My paragraph:

Sedert de vroege ochtend luiden de klokken van de Domtoren. Um vorið bað Gunnlaugur konunginn sér orlofs til brottferðar. The other glanced round at him, surprised, but not suspicious. I tried to turn my thoughts to things on the surface of the earth, but I was hard put to it to succeed. He put on a little light music instead.

Almost makes my ninjas sound normal.

Also, the, erm, chemistry olympiad actually went quite well... I made it to round two. In fact I'm one of the best in the country...
However, it appears that I did not beat the nerd guy anyway - he beat me. And I can't have that. After NaNo, I'm going to teach myself everything there is to know about chemistry. It'd be awesome to get to the final, but more importantly I have to beat the nerd.
*whips out periodic table* This. Means. War.

Look what I found!

2007-10-17T23:01:00.000+02:00

Maybe you should not look if you are afraid of spiders. Though I think this little guy should be slightly less scary than a tarantula.

I shall call thee Ungoliant...

Fascinating creatures. They have such a cool way of walking.

And the riddle again. Find the next letter/number:

I B 3 d V

Hint? Okay. Gabriele: Get one of your characters to help you. One from NaNo07 should do. That's the last hint I'll give you ;)

I'd write more but I've taped the fingers of my left hand together (they hurt like hell) so I only have six fingers to type with.

NaNo dares

2007-10-12T01:36:00.000+02:00

Last year I was going to write serious historical fiction, so I didn't do any dares (except the "Suddenly, ninjas arrived"-one, and I think we all know how that turned out). Nevertheless, I ended up with not only ninjas, but also JF Kennedy and the Pope turning up in a UFO, Jeanne d'Arc making a random appearance and a Monty Pythonesque "What have the Romans every done for us?"-scene (granted, that wasn't written in November).

This year I'll be writing serious historical fiction again. But I figured, since I'll inevitably end up with ninjas and UFOs and submarines (thanks Gabriele), I might as well do some dares. NaNo07 will probably be much darker than NaNo06 (I have a feeling one of my MCs will kill himself this year), so it needs some lighter moments. It'll be edited out anyway, so what the hell. I might as well have some author-only comic relief.

The dares I've picked:

Have a penguin stampede in a unlikely place. I.E., The Gobi desert. (Is Wales unlikely enough?)
Bonus points if it occurs during a otherwise perfectly serious scene.

Have the Spanish Inquisition show up, unexpectedly.
Bonus: Play the whole thing straight and serious.

Purple Moose. Take that as you will.

Include the line "'Because it's funny' is not a valid reason for turning the enemy troops into fluffy pink bunnies."
Double points if the person doing the transforming then offers a valid tactical reason.
Triple bonus points if they add, "And because it's really funny." to the end.
Quadruple if this is accepted as a valid reason.
Quintuple points if this is the only thing the transforming character ever does.

I was sorely tempted by this one too:
Have your character regularly burst into Beatles songs
BP if they dress like one of the Beatles too
DBP if they do NOT dress like John Lennon
But I eventually figured that'd be too hard to edit out. Sorry Agricola. Maybe Gabriele will let you sing 'Yellow Submarine'?

Also, winter is coming. It was snowing (well, sleeting) when I biked to work. So now I can look forward to six months of cold & darkness >.< See why I need funny dares?

Names, names and more names

2007-10-10T22:11:00.000+02:00

WARNING: This post contains "research" done at 5 AM.

Yesterday I was very happy because I finally found names for my Batavian characters (well, two of them at least, plus their fathers because they always have to introduce themselves as 'X son of Y'). My MC will be Imerix son of Servofredus, a name I very much stole from a gravestone, found in Croatia. Well, that thing is from the first century AD and the real Imerix son of Servofredus was a Batavian, so that's all very nice and historically correct.
For my other Batavian I picked a name from the Dutch name list; Ingomar son of a guy who hasn't got a name yet. The name Ingomar is from 690, quite early, but once I started writing a plot outline I found that it didn't work. The name doesn't fit the character at all. My character needs a name with the letter 'f' in it, and preferably an 'a' too, somewhere in the beginning. However, I couldn't find any names on the name list that I like and that fit the character.

I don't want an MC called Bob. The characters called Bob are the not-so-important ones (except Bob the Frisian who became too important for his own good).

So I did what any insomniac would do: nighttime research. I had at my disposal... Copies of Tacitus' works (Annals of Imperial Rome and The Histories, mainly); essays on Germanic names from that name list; a name book older than myself (Voornamen, by dr. J van der Schaar); the book Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power, the Batavians in the early Roman Empire, by Nico Roymans; and my mind (which is a very scary thing at 5 AM).

I went through those books and wrote down all the (Latinised) Germanic names I could find. Then, with the help of the name list and the name book, I tried to reconstruct the real, non-latinised names.

Fun.

Also difficult. I don't speak old Germanic. Then there's the problem of the time difference. The Latinised names are mostly from the first century AD. The names from the name list are from 523-1150, with very many from the later period. I know virtually nothing about language changes along the Rhine during this period, but I know a good deal about what happened in Scandinavia. Proto-Norse was spoken from about 200-600 AD, and this evolved into various Old Norse dialects. The Proto-Norse name StainawarijaR "evolved" into the Old Norse Steinarr (in modern Norwegian it's Steinar). The changes took place over a period of about 300 years - a period known in Norwegian as 'synkopetida', the age of syncope.

300 years isn't very much, and I don't even want to think about how much how much old Germanic might've changed during the first millennium AD.

But I'll get to the point and show you what I've come up with. You're allowed to cry, tear your hair out, burst out laughing and/or anything else.

Germanic names had two elements, so I've tried to find two for each name, plus list the meaning. Starting with the easiest names:

Segimerus: sig + mar (victory + fame)

Segimundes: sig + mund (victory + protector)

Inguiomerus: ing + mar (Ingwio (a god) + fame). Which is basically the name Ingomar I thought about using for my character. I'll call his father that instead, I think.

Segestes: First element is still sig (victory). For the last one I went to my name book and found an entry gis(el) which had two meanings. 1) Child of noble birth, prisoner of war, hostage (compare the Norwegian gissel); and 2) Spear (Germanic *gaiza), arrow (Lombardian gisil).
I'm leaning towards option 2 because Victory-spear sounds much cooler than Victory-hostage.
EDIT: Stuff you miss at 5 AM one night usually comes to you at 4.17 AM the next night. The second element is more likely to be the Germanic *gastiz, meaning 'guest, stranger'.

Chariovalda: gard + wald (protector + power/forest), or ger + wald (spear + forest)

Arminius: Could be her + man (army + man) or irmin (great) + something

Maroboduus: mar + bad (fame/horse + combat). My name book gives me *bheudh, meaning 'to command, to order', and also says that Maroboduus might mean something like 'commander of the horses'.

Mallovendus: madel + win. 'madel', according to my name book, should be compared to the Gothic 'mathl' (gathering place) and 'mathljan' (to speak). So the meaning of Mallovendus would be something like speak/gathering place + friend. Or speak/gathering place + Vandal, if the second element is 'wendil'.

Catualda: god + wald (good + power/forest). I had another first element from my name book but I can't find it, and I can't understand my notes either (illegible handwriting, lol). It had something to do with 'speak'.

Actumerus: ag + mar (sword edge + man). According to the almighty name book, 'ag' comes from the Germanic 'agjô'. Still means sword edge.

(it's okay Gabriele, you can stop crying, I'm done with butchering your characters' names ;) At least I hope so)

Gannascus: Gund + asc (battle + (spear/ship made of) ash) And I don't care if 'asc' was not used as a second element.

Brinno: Not even going to attempt this one. Bloody Cananefates. Could be something to do with 'bern' (bear/brave warrior), the colour brown, or 'brunjô' (breastplate). Or maybe it's an ancient form of Bob.

Verax: wer + ric (protection + rich/mighty/king). Yeah, it's Verax, not Verix, but I don't care. Maybe he was such a git that nobody cared about spelling his name correctly.

(Can you tell I was becoming tired at this point?)

I have some names from inscriptions as well, starting with a Batavian:

Vihirmas: wich + mar (combat + fame). Maybe. I had serious trouble with this guy. First element could also be 'wacchar', meaning 'wakeful, alert, robust'.

Imerix: ing + ric (Ingwio + rich/mighty/king), or irmin + ric (the god Irmin/mighty + rich/mighty/king). That last one would kinda be a double meaning (though I must admit, Mighty-mighty would be a rather fun name. Very suitable for a Batavian *grins*). Maybe the first element is 'heime' (home) or 'helm' (protector).

Servofredus: I'm guessing the second element is 'frid' (peace, protection). The first element could be related to the Gothic word 'sarwa', meaning weapon. Though that could make the meaning very weird, Weapon-peace. Maybe the Batavians had a sense of humour.

And last but not least, a Baetasian name, taken from a gravestone:
Annauso: My first guess was 'annoying sod' (I had a Baetasian called Annauso last year, and he was an annoying sod) *ahem* The first element could be 'ans' (god), the second erm... 'ward' (protection, peace), maybe?

[/"Research" done at 5 AM]

And all because my character needs a name with an 'f'. I have a few more, but there my "research" is even worse. I might've missed some very obvious ones (hey, it was 5 AM!), so I'll keep looking through my precious name book.

And get some sleep. I have to work tomorrow.

Especially for Gabriele

2007-10-08T15:40:00.000+02:00

And others who are doing NaNoWriMo. The ultimate question is of course, how to write 50.000 words in one month.

And the answer is not 42. That's a completely different ultimate question ;)

Fact is, there isn't any answer. There are many. It depends on what you write, when you write, why you write, how you write and that sort of thing. But here are a couple of things that worked for me last year (I had 64 017 words at the end of November).

1. Sleep is overrated. Eight hours a night? Pshaw. Five is more than enough. Plenty of time to sleep in December!

2. Don't think. Just type. And type fast. Last year I wrote 2770 words the first day (one chapter). I reread it today and god, it's awful. It has Thiadulf and Geravan out hunting and squabbling about who's best at throwing spears and then Geravan tripping over his own feet (okay, so I liked that bit). The second chapter is even worse (that has Marcus complaining about the cold for 2000 words) but gradually it becomes better and better (at least I hope so, lol) once the revolt actually starts.
I could've spent half the month polishing these two first chapters until they shone but then it would take years before I could actually start writing about the revolt itself. And guess what? Now I have a couple of not-so-bad ideas for the start of the novel. Once I finish the first draft I'll put it in. For me at least, this "just write, dammit"-strategy works very well. If I just write whatever seems good at the moment, the rest will come later.

To sum it up, I'll quote Teciltur, one of my writing buddies: My strategy is now to fidget with the last few sentences I've written, but once I've gotten a few more lines in between, they're 'cemented'...

3. Chocolate and tea. 'Nuff said.

4. Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas, ninjas. Is your MC surrounded by hordes of evil barbarians with very sharp swords, while he himself is only armed with a butter knife *coughMarcuscough*, and you really can't let him be killed because he is a historical character and needs to be around for the Battle of Whatever? Send in the ninjas. Not only will your character be rescued, but you'll also get extra words, yaay!
Later you can edit the ninjas out and replace them with, well, Batavian riders. Roman legionaries. Orcs. Whatever. Or you can rewrite it slightly and turn the barbarian hordes into two barbarians to even the odds a little.
But that's later. Lots of emphasis on that last word.

5. Do some research in October and very, very, very little in November. Don't spend hours researching the political systems of cavemen in the Antarctic in the third millennium BC (good luck trying to find anything about that btw, lol) when you're already ten thousand words behind. Did these cavemen have presidents or kings? Who the hell cares. Just give him the title 'leader'. Problem solved.
I found last year that it was much easier to call my Frisians 'Bob' than research Frisian names in the first century AD. Also, when Thiadulf died, I gave him a Beowulf-style funeral pyre instead of spending hours trying to find out about Batavian funeral customs. I have a Word file called "Stuff that needs to be researched" where I write down, well, stuff that needs to be researched. The plan was that I'd do it this summer but I haven't finished writing the first draft yet so I'll do it next summer. Most of the things I need to research are just minor details, things that aren't important to the plot (like the colour of Geravan's cloak). So, if I find I was completely wrong about something it'll take fifteen minutes to correct it. No harm done.

6. Writer's block? Take a two-minute break. Not much longer than that. To get unblocked, have your MC run into a new character. Then see what happens. Remember Lucius the Annoying Walk-In? Guess how he came into the story...
Well, okay, so he was a git. But he got me extra words.

7. Very small notebooks. A5 or something. The kind you can stick in your pocket and take with you everywhere. Write while you're on the train, in the dentist's waiting room, or in the middle of class. Which brings us to point 8.

8. Do as much homework as you can in October, and work as hard as you can during breaks, free hours, whatever. Also, if a lecture is highly boring, take out your very small notebook (see point 7) and write! To ensure that the teachers don't suspect anything, you should have another notebook which looks exactly the same. This one should be filled with school stuff. Physics formulae, the titles of Ibsen plays, French verbs, etc. Go through your schoolbooks in October and scribble down a couple of notes for each subject (stuff you'll be learning in November).
If your teachers do become suspicious and ask what you are writing, show them this notebook. They'll be impressed, very impressed (mine are, at least).

9. I had a point 9 but I can't remember it.

10. Post-its are your friends! The more the better. Zulupad is good too.

So, these are my tips for NaNoWriMo. I might add some more later, though, when half my brain isn't occupied with figuring out the solubility product of Ca(OH)_2.
Before I forget! The riddle!

I B 3 d V

It's Monday, so you'll get a hint. Gabriele, you should think along the lines of your obsession (and I'm not talking about chocolate :P )

Plot llama!

2007-10-06T00:32:00.000+02:00

Okay, so it's actually a stray cat we gave shelter two years ago. But I called him Llama, so he counts as one.

Hiding behind my dad's books, lol. Totally off topic, but if you see that thin book with the red cover on the left (De Nederlandse geschiedenis in een notendop): that's where I found the plot for last year's NaNo. Something about how we can never be sure what Civilis' motives for revolting were (of course, once my masterpiece is published, the world will know the truth: Civilis wanted revenge on Labeo and Flaccus because they had stolen his chocolate).

And here is my little plot Llama, ready to attack.
He was such an adorable little cat. Very playful - he used to attack his reflection in the mirror and everything. Mum said I could keep him but my own cat didn't agree, so we had to find a new home for Llama.

So, anyway. The plot:

"He [Agricola] took the decision to reduce the Island of Mona (Anglesey). (...) The general's resource and resolution got the troops across. Auxiliaries, specially selected from those who knew the fords and whose national practice was to swim while carrying their weapons and controlling their horses, were told to discard all their equipment. Then he launched them into attack so suddenly that the enemy were dumbfounded."
(Agricola, by Tacitus. Translated by AR Birley, Oxford World's Classics)

Those auxiliaries will, of course, be Batavians. So this year's NaNo will be about the first part of Agricola's governorship of Britain, 77 AD. I'll (hopefully) be able to build a half-decent plot around that. I have a week off from school now, and though I have to work three days there'll be some time for research. However, I also have to do an incredible amount of homework - though not much physics. I'm ahead of the rest of the class *grins* And I got a 6- for my physics test (which means I beat one of the nerds, again, muahahaha).
Also, I have to figure out everything about my Uni application. I've decided to study Oudheidkunde (Ancient studies) in Amsterdam. It sounds like a lot of fun, but it means I have to go through the bureaucratic labyrinth of application forms and special exams and translated report cards. Sometimes I wonder whether Unis actually want foreign students, lol.

Well, I'm going to do at least some research, work ahead in all school subjects, and most importantly: go to Trondheim tomorrow and stock up on chocolate covered coffee beans :)

Oh yes. Reposting that little riddle (you aren't getting a snippet until you solve it! I need time to deninja, lol):

I B 3 d V

You have to find the next letter/number, and also post an explanation (no wild guesses:P).

Yaay, fireworks!

2007-09-30T00:52:00.000+02:00

So shiny.
I was at NTNU - Trondheim University - on Friday. They had a kind of open night. As well as fireworks, there were some highly explosive experiments (never, ever poke nitrogen triiodide, trust me).

More shiny fireworks...

I'm slightly nervous. I have no idea how I'm going to get through all my schoolwork this year, let alone write a 50 k novel in November (but I'm going to do it anyway:P). I need a plot though, preferably sooner than later. But I don't have much time to go plothunting - two tests next week (what idiot puts a chemistry and a math test in the same week?) - and I have to read I-don't-know-how-many books for a Norwegian project. Luckily the topic is interesting because I got to choose it myself (I'm going to write about runes). It's still a lot of work. No time to read history books and hope a paragraph turns into a plotbunny (that's what happened last year).
Mhm... I'll manage, somehow.

I also have a little puzzle for you! A (slightly mad) professor at NTNU showed it to me. I solved it. Apparently not many people do, so yaay for me. Once you've got it, it's ridiculously obvious and easy, though (these puzzles always are, lol).
What you do, is you find the next letter/number/symbol/whatever:

I B 3 d V

The first one to find the correct answer will be rewarded with a erm... cookie? Snippet? Pic?
Will figure that one out later.

Whew

2007-09-26T21:27:00.000+02:00

I spent (literally) the entire weekend studying for a physics test. I did every exercise related to the two chapters the test would be about. There are about seventy exercises a chapter, and it takes me between ten and thirty minutes to do one of them, so do the calculations, lol.
On the bright side, this studying-till-you-drop strategy ensures that I can do the most complicated calculations without much thinking. Yaay. Good thing, too; I thought the test was quite easy. Everyone else ran out of time.

I got the results from the chemistry olympiad: I got 72 points, out of 100 *cringe* So, yes, it went anything but well. I still don't know if I qualified for round two or not, but it doesn't really matter anymore... You see, the nerd guy only got 71 points and as long as I beat him I'm happy.
Even better: My religion teacher thought I did outstanding on that religion test. Apparently she loves vague, cliché-filled essays. That means that I can get a really good grade for religion without having to work at all. Maybe this year I'll even manage to scrape together enough free time to actually sleep the recommended eight hours a night!

Enough homework rants. Time for pics! Autumn has come to Norway, with rain and wind and frost, but yesterday it was warm! So warm that I wanted to go swimming. Didn't have time to bike down to the fjord, though, so I went out and took pics instead.

The only leaves in my garden that have actually turned red! The rest are all yellow.

Up there, on that rocky outcrop, is where I like to sit and write.

The rain and cold have come back though. Maybe I'll swim to school tomorrow. It'll be drier than biking :)

Feeling better

2007-09-18T22:36:00.000+02:00

Tea, dark chocolate and Led Zeppelin helps. Sleep too, but I didn't get much of that - less than four hours last night, because I had to finish my physics homework and then study for a religion test. I only skimmed through my notes so during the test today I just wrote six pages of very loose, vague Hollywood-ish nonsense (but some teachers like that so maybe I didn't do so badly after all...)
But the first round of the chemistry olympiad yesterday went lousy. I doubt I qualified for round two but who cares. Well, okay, so I care. I felt like I had the hang of chemistry. The teacher gave us exercises from previous chemistry olympiads and I could do them all easily. But either this year's was just ridiculously difficult or I had a very bad day.

Never mind. I finally finished a painting I've been working on since... March. Yikes. Well, okay, so I haven't worked on it at all this summer (didn't have the right paints:P) and art school is only 1 1/2 hour a week. Anyway:

Cuchulainn follows the Shining Wheel

I painted it after a painting by Stephen Reid so all credit goes to him, lol. I'm still not completely happy with that background though.

I've also started watercolour painting, something I've only done once before (and that was years ago). Fun. And it went quite well too. I haven't got a pic of that painting though, 'cause my art teacher is sending it to some exhibition. Eeeeeeks.

Long time, no post

2007-09-12T22:18:00.000+02:00

And it'll be even longer before I get something decent up here again. And by decent I mean something that isn't just a rant about homework - 'cause that's what this is, a rant.

Physics is a lot of work. So is math. And chemistry. And with "a lot", I mean the "having to stay up till after midnight every night just to finish the most important bits of homework"-kind. I'm still lagging behind though.
As if this isn't enough, we now have theoretical phys. ed. - we have to write incredibly long and detailed training schedules, one for every week throughout September and October.

I thought I could get a bit of homework done this weekend, but noooooo, I have to work. I talked to my boss back in August, and he said he'd email me my work schedule as soon as he'd figured it out, but after two email-less weeks I thought I'd better give him a call ('cause Norwegians, I've learned, never send emails or call when they promise). Sure enough, I have to work on Friday and Saturday. I don't mind that. But WHY couldn't he have emailed me earlier so that I could plan my homework a bit? Does he think I'm psychic, that I somehow *know* instinctively when I have to go to work without anyone telling me?

To this, add two weeks of cold, rainy weather, PMS, and a pounding headache.

Okay, I'm done ranting. I'm off to bed. My eyes hurt.

That's one small step for a man...

2007-09-06T22:54:00.000+02:00

... one giant leap for the Roman Empire.

Marcus can be an annoying idiot, but occasionally he does have good ideas.

Pics from here and here.

However...

2007-09-05T23:49:00.000+02:00

Two all-nighters in a row is not recommended. Though this last one was not on purpose; I just couldn't get to sleep. So, in the past two nights I have gotten a total of, let's see *counts on fingers* five hours of sleep. And I'm wiiiiide awake (not joking either).

Remember the whodunnit I posted a while ago? You were right, Gabriele, it was the cat! She caught another mouse today - though thankfully she ate it rather than leaving it under my bed to rot. You'd be surprised just how much noise a little cat can make when she eats a mouse.

I guess you did not need that mental image, so have a pic.

Nieuwegracht, Utrecht.

And no, Marcus, you are not allowed to become an astronaut. Don't even think about it.

Problem? Not anymore!

2007-09-04T22:40:00.001+02:00

Whoever said that sleeping on a problem helps, has obviously never pulled an all-nighter. They're much more effective, despite the black circles you get under your eyes the next day.

I spent a good few hours writing last night, with a torch in my hand, bedsheets pulled over my head, and a big cup of tea and a bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans on the bedside table. My handwriting turned out almost illegible, but I managed to write the ninjas and the UFO out *grins* Replaced 'em with something a bit more, erm, normal, namely a river. Marcus is not amused. He's a lousy swimmer, which makes everything even more fun for me.

My physics teacher isn't too happy though, because I snored through his two-hour lecture on centripetal acceleration.

But... I DID IT! And I'm not just talking about the de-ninjaing...

234 875 words... I started the writing challenge with 178 328. That gives me a word count of 56 547. Then I have two loose fragments that I haven't managed to put into the main storyline yet, 1 216 and 2 400 words.
Total word count: 60 163 words. My goal was 60 k.

And what am I doing to celebrate? Physics homework! Hurray...

I shot Geravan

2007-09-03T00:18:00.001+02:00

Technically, Random Roman Walk-In #44 did it (at least I think it was him), but the result is the same. Geravan has been shot. He got an arrow in the shoulder and then "everything went black." That was not part of the plan (not that I had a plan...)

He isn't dead, or at least I hope he isn't. I think he's just unconscious, but I'm not sure. It'll take a while to find out, too. You see, Marcus suddenly started whining. Something about him not getting enough words, so he's demanding that I write a bit about him now. Damn you, Roman! Something very exciting had better happen now, or else I will send those wolves after you.

Or maybe... Hm... that might just work.

In the meantime I'm sending a few first aid ninjas to look after Geravan, while I go and make myself another cup of tea. Or else I might just burst into tears.

Why won't they leave me alone?

2007-09-02T00:30:00.000+02:00

*cries*

I don't want plot squirrels, I want plot llamas!

A Friday (Saturday?) snippet

2007-09-01T02:56:00.000+02:00

To celebrate the fact that I have a new teacup, you're getting a snippet. It's not very long, and it's written in a haze of cheap Earl Grey, at 1 AM when I was supposed to be reading about nuclear physics. I haven't done any editing, just de-ninjaing. There's a lot of dialogue that I'm not completely happy with, but my characters change their way of speaking so often that it's impossible to keep track of it. One day it's all slang and swearing, next day they speak like they're in a Shakespeare play. *rolls eyes*

Anyway; this is quite far into the novel, when the Romans have started reconquering the north. The Batavians have been driven back to the Island (the land between the two branches of the Rhine in the Netherlands). Civilis decided to attack four Roman camps at once - all the attacks failed. Geravan and Verax were leading one of the attacks; while Geravan attack the legion itself, Verax was supposed to destroy a bridge the Romans were building but he flunked it completely (serves him right for walking into my novel without asking for permission first).
Thiadulf is Geravan's (slightly over-protective) older brother. He's been dead for about 120 k already, though.
Verax and Briganticus are both Civilis' sister-sons, but I dunno if they are brothers or cousins - I made them cousins. Briganticus was on the Romans' side throughout the revolt, but he died during one of Civilis' attacks. This snippet takes place right after Civilis has told them about his death. The 'he' in the first line is Civilis.

*~*

‘He’s mad. Completely mad,’ Verax muttered to Geravan once they were out of earshot. ‘Did you see the way he looked at me after announcing Briganticus’ death? “Any trouble and this will happen to you as well.” He might just as well have said it.’

It was typical of Verax to say not a word of thanks, even though Geravan had just got him out of the trouble he so feared.

‘As long as you don’t join the Romans like Briganticus you should be alright,’ Geravan said as he dropped down beside a fire in the Batavian corner. Loud snores were coming from the surrounding tents and Geravan felt his eyelids droop. It was almost two days since he had last slept, and that had been no more than a brief slumber. But there would be time to sleep later. He rubbed his eyes fervently and suppressed a yawn. ‘Anyway, what do you make of Briganticus?’

‘Not sure.’ Verax sat down beside him and prodded the fire back to life. ‘I never saw much of him even though he is – was - my cousin. He was a bad influence, you know.’

Geravan raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible for you to get any worse.’

‘Shut up.’ Verax grinned from ear to ear. The orange glow of the fire threw the scars on his cheek into sharp relief and made him look much older. ‘In fact, I think I only met him once, when I was about twelve. There was a feast, midsummer maybe-’

‘Was this the feast where you found out where the wine was kept, and then got so drunk that I had to push you into the river to sober you up a bit?’ interrupted Geravan.

‘It might’ve been. It would explain why I can’t remember much of it. Nice wine, though.’ He smiled reminiscently.

‘Didn’t think of sharing it with your best friend though, did you?’ said Geravan grumpily.

‘Of course not. Thiadulf would’ve murdered me.’

‘Fair enough. Go on.’

‘The feast was well underway by the time Briganticus finally arrived, all dressed up in a Roman uniform with medals and a nice sword. But he wouldn’t even let me look at his dagger. He said it wasn’t a toy.’ He shot a sideways glance at Geravan. ‘He was so proud because he had been promoted to some high rank, and seemed to think this immediately made him a good deal better than the rest of us. All haughty and arrogant. Know what I mean?’

Geravan nodded. The description fitted Verax perfectly as well.

‘Anyway, Civilis was not amused,’ continued Verax. ‘There was a bit of a row. More than a bit, to be honest. Briganticus got a cup full of wine in the face and then started accusing Civilis of being nothing but a petty king who was allowed to rule only because the Romans said so, while he, Briganticus, would make a real name for himself some day.’

‘I bet Civilis loved that.’ Geravan whistled.

‘Yeah, he did. I think blood might’ve flowed if Briganticus hadn’t run off. But not before he’d announced for all to hear that he wanted nothing to do with barbarians.’ He smiled happily. ‘And look where it got him! He’s dead. And, compared to him, I’m now more than ever the loyal devoted nephew. Civilis might very well reward my loyalty.’

‘I thought you just said that he was completely mad.’

‘Aye, he is. But I’m not.’

Geravan scoffed. ‘Wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.’

‘Thanks, you’re not so bad yourself.’ Verax yawned widely. ‘I think I’ll get some sleep. That crazy uncle of mine will no doubt want us to carry out another pointless attack before dawn.’

*~*

This is where I sit and write when my little brother has the comp. Yep, candles. I never liked the lamp I have in my room, for two reasons: a) It's right behind me when I'm sitting at my desk so my shadow is always lying across my writings/drawings which is terribly annoying, and b) That lamp has been acting a bit weird ever since I accidentally knocked it down (I was playing badminton. Inside...)

But my favourite place to write is this:

Well, that's the view from that place anyway:)

Also, what the hell am I still doing up at 3.30 AM?

Amazing...

2007-09-01T00:56:00.001+02:00

For the first time in about two years, I've been to Trondheim without buying a single book. And on payday too. I wonder what's wrong with me...

Anyway, what I did get was a teacup. Not just any old teacup, but a XXL one; 7,5 dl. I've already drunk three full cups since coming home and am currently on my fourth.

I've also stocked up on tea and chocolate for NaNo. In one week I've spent 400 kr on tea. I got some very weird looks at the supermarket. Can't for the life of me understand why.

I'm proud to present...

2007-08-29T22:36:00.000+02:00

... my current word count:Which means I've ordered that book about the Batavians.

Plus a few others.

You see, I need something large and heavy to hit Marcus around the head with. He's blackmailing officers *rolls eyes* And Geravan wants to seek death in battle, so unless the ninjas intervene I'll have two dead MCs before the end of the week.

Meme

2007-08-28T22:52:00.000+02:00

Yeah, well, why not. Found this one on Gabriele's blog. I've got nothing better to do (yes, I do have physics homework but that doesn't count as "better")

Four jobs I've had or currently have in my life
Being only 18, I haven't had many jobs in my life (it's virtually impossible here to get even a summer job before you're 18) but I'll try my best :)
1. Meat & deli at the supermarket. I worked there all summer and will have a couple of afternoons this autumn too. It sucks being up to your elbows in dead chickens but the pay is alright.
2. Assistant librarian (work experience; I did one week when I was about 14, lol)
3. Student. I think that should count as a job. I've done my share of teaching too. Had some very lousy teachers back in secondary so everyone came to me for help >.<
4. Writing. Not that I've ever gotten anything published. Except an article in the local paper.

Four countries I've been to
1. New Zealand
2. Ireland
3. Iceland
4. Germany

Four places I'd rather be right now
1. The Netherlands
2. France
3. In a biiiiig bookstore
4. In bed, lol. But my characters won't let me.

Four foods I like to eat
1. Chocolate
2. Grapes
3. Mushrooms
4. Freshly baked bread

Four personal heroes, past or present
Haven't got a clue, except of course the guy who first realised that cocoa beans could be turned into chocolate.

Four books you've read or are currently reading
1. The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome, by Robin Lane Fox.
2. Beowulf, by Anonymous
3. Stad in de storm, by Thea Beckman
4. My physics book: Rom, stoff, tid, 3FY, by P. Jerstad, B. Sletbak & A.A. Grimenes.

Four words or phrases you would like to see used more often
Dunno. "Would you like some chocolate?" is a nice one though :)

Four reasons for ending a friendship
1. Pinkiness (will explain if requested). Though the chances of me striking up a friendship with a pinky are very small indeed...
2. Lies
3. People being either too serious or not serious enough.
4. Whining

Four smells that make you feel good about the world
1. Lilacs
2. Earl Grey tea
3. The sea
4. Cinnamon (I'm slightly obsessed with cinnamon)

Four favorite activities you did as a kid
1. Reading
2. Swimming
3. Drawing
4. Playing hide and seek

Four TV events that annoy you
1. Political debates that turn into childish squabbling. If I want to hear that I'll visit a nursery school.
2. News that isn't news. Random Famous Person #34 broke a nail. How tragic.
3. Football/soccer
4. Reality shows.

My question: Four favourite mythological/legendary/semi-historical characters:
1. Cuchulainn (surprised, Linwe? ;) )
2. Beowulf
3. Gunnlaug Ormstunga
4. Mucius Scaevola

And, because I'm feeling evil at the moment, I tag everyone who reads this. Muahahaha.

Writing, scribbling, drinking tea...

2007-08-25T00:40:00.000+02:00

There are days when it's hardly possible to get a single word down, and there are days when my pencil just zooms across the paper on its own. I love those days, even though they make my hand ache and the teachers mad because I don't do my homework.

Today was such a day, and so was yesterday. Not a second of writer's block. Yesterday I grabbed my notebook and went up in the forest and scribbled until sunset - next time I'll stop earlier because climbing back down in the dark when the path is slippery with mud is a bit tricky. Fun though. Except mum freaking out completely when I came home ;) Today I thought I'd better stay at home and write. Seven hours straight, five whole pots of tea, 100 g of very dark chocolate, no ninjas, and one new walk-in I actually like (he acknowledges me as the Almighty Writer and knows that he should obey me. Muahahaha)

All in all, sixteen pages. Handwritten though, but I've started typing them now. It should get me to 220 k so I can buy that book about the Batavians.

Also, my NaNo-notebook is full. It's sad. I love that notebook. I love carrying it around with me everywhere and scribbling in it at odd moments while trying to keep all the loose notes from falling out. This new notebook I started in today just isn't the same.

I did leave half a page of the old one empty because I want to write the last paragraph in it. Not that that will be anytime soon, mind you.

A whodunnit

2007-08-20T12:48:00.000+02:00

Last night I discovered that my room has been the scene of a terrible crime (or at least a cover-up). I noticed a strange smell when I went to bed, and when I finally discovered the source of it, it turned out to be a dead, headless mouse under my bed. Lovely. Just the thing you want to clean up at 1 AM. Dunno how long it's been there, but judging by the smell, it's been a while.

No, don't worry. I won't post pics of it.

After checking the floor for fingerprints, the murder weapon and any other clues, I've come up with three suspects:

Suspect #1 (pillow; homemade; yellow, blue and green) was discovered at the scene of the crime, but claims not to have seen anything. The suspect does not have an alibi for the time of death.

Suspect #2 (sword; cheap replica of Sting) was also found in the same room, does not have an alibi and might actually be both murderer and murder weapon.

And, finally, suspect #3 (housecat - Felis silvestris catus - black and white; nine years old). This suspect was found far away from the scene of crime. However, the suspect has a record as a killer of various small animals. (Last confirmed killing: Squirrel - Sciurus vulgaris - on 6. August 2007)

I'm still waiting for forensics to finish the autopsy, and then I'll start interrogating the suspects.

Where's Hercule Poirot when you need him? Lol.

Also, after today I'm sure that this school year will be worse than last. I have very few lessons this year - only 29 a week - but of course they're all early in the morning and late in the afternoon, so my timetable resembles a Swiss cheese. What the hell am I supposed to do with those free hours in the middle of the day? Homework, according to my teachers. Playing cards, according to my friends. Probably the latter.

Of course I still have the same history teacher; though this year we have modern history so she won't be able to make the Roman empire seem dreadfully boring - yes, she actually manages that(!) My new physics teacher is apparently even worse than the one I had last year, and I'm having my doubts about the chemistry teacher as well.

I'm looking forward to June 2008.

School...

2007-08-19T23:14:00.001+02:00

... starts again tomorrow. If you ask me the summer has gone way too fast. I haven't done much except working (and writing and drinking tea, but that goes without saying). A whole new year with physics and boring history teachers and cliché essay topics. Hurray.

I'll live. I found a new online bookstore. Or rather, a collection of many small bookstores. Second-hand mostly. Ridiculously cheap. Lots of good stuff; including a lovely volume called "Ethnic identity and imperial power - the Batavians in the early Roman Empire". I saw it in a bookshop in the Netherlands and stood drooling at it for a long time until I saw the price ;)
But this second-hand copy is a good deal cheaper. We wantss it precioussss, and we wantss it now.

I'm not going to buy it.

Yet.

I'm going to buy it as a reward once I have 220 k.

(Cue fanatic, chocolate-induced typing spree)

Meet the walk-ins

2007-08-17T23:25:00.000+02:00

Some of them at least. I've got dozens. Some I've managed to kill, some refuse to die, and one made an appearance some 40 k after I disposed of him. Turns out he wasn't dead anyway. Just missing, presumed dead. Next time I'll make damn sure that he actually has kicked the bucket before moving on. It's rule 13 of the Evil Overlord list after all. I shouldn't have forgotten:

"All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal."

I'd better make a post-it of it before I forget.

But I won't deny it was useful to have him alive. If he was dead, Marcus would've been killed when the legions at Vetera had surrendered, and then I couldn't have made him walk to Mainz and sent thunderstorms and wolves his way. Hmm... maybe those walk-ins are useful after all.

But not all of them.

Embric is a git. He's some sort of important Bructerian nobleman, incredibly arrogant, very rash, and rather stupid. Fun to write, but I wish he'd stop trying to kill Geravan. It's very difficult to write with a dead MC. Luckily, those two have finally agreed to stop arguing - at least for the time being. They've decided to kill the Romans first, and once the war has been brought to a successful end (they don't know they're losing. Yet), then they'll fight to the death. Fair enough. Didn't stop Geravan from breaking Embric's nose though.

Lucius is the worst of all. Or rather, he was the worst. I managed to kill him, but it took a while. He's random legionary #34 and his full name, at the moment is Lucius *insert nomen* *insert cognomen* so he goes by Lucius, lol. He started out all right, but then he began to whine and complain and he became really depressing. Now why would he do that? I mean, I only killed his best friend. Well, anyway, I thought I'd teach him a lesson by breaking his ankle, but noooooo, he became even whinier. So I made him ill during the siege of Vetera and hoped he'd snuff it. Did he? Of course not. I had him shot when the legions were ambushed after the siege, and then he finally died. I'm still not sure whether Geravan shot him or not. If yes, I'll never be nasty to him again (ha! As if!) and I'll name a town after him or something. But I'll also tell him that his aim is lousy because it took too long for Lucius to die. Oh, I don't mind him suffering, but his last words were so cheesy.

Next is Bob, that Frisian nobleman who was finally killed this week. Best death yet, I think. No Hollywood last words, no heroic last stand or anything. He just died. I got rid of his brother, Bob2, quite easily as well: I sent the lot of them back to their homes in the north to arrange the funeral. Muahahaha.

Of the top 5 Most Important & Annoying Walk-Ins, that only leaves Verax. He's different from the others in the sense that he is actually historical (he's Civilis' sister-son) but Tacitus devotes only two lines to him so I thought I'd just forget about him. When the Batavians had burned their capital and retreated to the Island, Civilis decided to attack four Roman camps at the same time, and Verax led one of the attacks (the one on the Second legion who had camped near the Batavians' former capital, present-day Nijmegen). He was supposed to destroy a bridge the Romans were building, but the attempt failed, and Verax had to swim back across the river to get out of there. That's it. Nothing more. I didn't have my notes with me when writing that battle, so I put Geravan in command of the army attacking the Second. Biiiig mistake. Once I took a look at my notes, Verax started complaining. I thought, what the heck, Geravan can attack the legion itself, and in the ensuing chaos Verax can try and fail to destroy the bridge. Should keep him happy.
It didn't. Verax is a spoiled brat. He's used to getting things his own way, and to ensure that he is one of the most important characters in the book, he has decided to become Geravan's childhood friend. Idiot. I'll have a word with Geravan about the company he keeps.
Verax is fun to write though. And I've discovered that to keep him happy, he just needs plenty of booze and shiny objects.

View from my window. This is taken around midsummer, at 2 AM. See why I love summer?

Frisian fun

2007-08-13T23:01:00.000+02:00

Don't you just love it when you've finally managed to kill a character, only to find out an hour later that he has a brother?

Here, let me draw you a family tree.

See what I mean? Bloody characters.

I killed Bob

2007-08-12T23:45:00.000+02:00

Bob is some sort of Frisian commander. He is also a very annoying walk-in, and ever since he made an appearance on page 118 I've been meaning to get him killed. I finally managed it now, on page 332 (took me a while, lol). I stabbed him a few times and then let him drown while he was trying to cross a river to get back to safety.

Serves him right.

And an overtime update! It's not 16 hours, it's 18 hours! And back to work again tomorrow. Hurray.

The pic is totally unrelated as usual.

Tired? Me?

2007-08-10T00:34:00.000+02:00

No.

Exhausted? Not really.

Totally and utterly worn out? Something like that.

Forget 13 hours of overtime. Now I have 16, which makes a total of 48 working hours this week. My knees are starting to hurt (I have to stand the entire day). On the bright side; this week I'll earn enough to buy so many books that my bookshelves will collapse under the weight.

Not that they aren't doing that anyway, mind you.

This one is right above my bed. It's been there for quite a few years, but never with so many books on it.

It's sagging a bit, don't you think? I've heard it creaking too, in the middle of the night. Thank god they're mostly paperbacks, lol.

Woohoo! I have 200 k!

2007-08-08T01:50:00.000+02:00

Still a few words left for the writing challenge, in other words. And you know, this first draft might even be 300 k by the time I finish it - which will probably be sometime in 2034, if work continues like this (13 hours overtime in one week, is that normal?)

Anyway. I've finally gotten around to sending emails to those Unis I'm considering. I'm not sure if I can start in 2008 like I want to because it might take a while to get all my Norwegian report cards translated, and I have to take an exam to prove that I have adequate knowledge of Dutch, maybe an English exam as well, plus another ton of things. Bloody paperwork. It'd be so much easier if all countries just had the same grade system, and then a specific code or something for each subject. Then I wouldn't have to get all that stuff translated.

That snippet I was going to post still needs to be deninjaed. Maybe I'll post it this weekend :)

And I got one of these from Gabriele, yaay!

Home sweet home

2007-08-01T23:09:00.000+02:00

Or maybe not. The grass is frighteningly long and I have to work almost every day until school starts again. But, on the bright side, I have been reunited with my teapot. And the computer. I'll have to work really hard these next weeks if I want to reach my goal for the writing challenge. I have written some while I was away, I've got some 30 handwritten pages, but I have to type that, and I think all in all it's not more than 7 or 8 k (in 11 days! >.< Not as much as I hoped for). Belgium was great fun. There was a archaeological park close to where we stayed so I got to see crumbling old Roman stone walls (in other words, I can die happy now :P):
It's a Roman villa, and if I remember correctly I'm standing in what used to be the kitchen. I'll write a decent post about those stones soon ;)

While I was in the Netherlands I got to visit my favourite bookstore. It sells non-"top 10 list" & secondhand books, which makes them ridiculously cheap (and they're even cheaper when they're "damaged". There was one 2ndhand book that used to cost 12 € but because one page was bent I got it for 4 €. Mwahaha).

Wanna see the pile of books I bought? Of course you do.

It's 50 cm high, which is a record, even for me. I bought a total of 22 books plus two archaeological report thingies. And you know what? They all fit on my shelves!

You can expect a rant about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows soon, but first I'm off to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow. Why, why, why do *I* keep getting those morning shifts?!?! Aaaaaaargh.

I really need to start packing...

2007-07-20T22:16:00.000+02:00

This will be my last post for a week or two, as I'm going on holiday tomorrow. I'm going to the Netherlands for a few days, and then to Belgium for a family reunion.

Hopefully I'll come back with a suitcase full of books and plotbunnies ;) And maybe a real snippet... I started writing a scene today that I've had in my head ever since December. I never got around to actually writing it because I prefer to write in chronological order, and the scene is a rewrite of one of the first chapters. But at the moment I'm so sick of that battle at Vetera that I just started on this anyway.

See you in August.

What's better than a pile of books?

2007-07-20T15:19:00.000+02:00

Two piles of books, of course! Especially when said books are waiting for you when you come home from a particularly awful day at work (I spent seven hours packing pork chops, and I didn't get much sleep either because I had to be up at six. Bloody morning shifts).

Pile number one consists of various books I ordered some weeks ago. Not all of them have arrived yet so it'll be even higher. Mwahaha.

The second pile is the books I got from Rosina for the writing meme :)

Incidentally, does anyone know of any meme contests where you can win a bookshelf? 'Cause I need one.

Just a random post about my trip to Trondheim

2007-07-18T23:58:00.000+02:00

Today was supposed to be my first day off in about two weeks. Then at 8 AM the boss called and asked if I could come to work. No way. Day off means day off, and besides, we'd already ordered tickets for the cinema. So I hung up and went back to bed, lol, and got another couple of hours of sleep before the bus left.

Before the movie we had some time to kill (and some money to spend, at least that's what I told myself) so we did our usual bookstore round. I was a bit disappointed by Norli today. They normally have a lot of different books, including a decent amount of historical fiction, but today their shelves were almost empty. But I did get a lovely illustrated copy of the Divine Comedy at Avalon, plus the usual cheap paperbacks at Ark. There my cousin also managed to freak out a shop assistant by asking him all sorts of questions about Shakespeare, the Canterbury Tales and if they had a cheap paperback version of the Divine Comedy. Apparently the guy had never heard of Dante.

All in all I got 11 books, none of which fit on the shelves unless I start throwing schoolbooks out (might just do that... who cares about physics?). And I already have tons of unread books. So why do I keep buying more? Good question.

I also spent a small fortune on ice-cream and chocolate. There's a little shop in the city centre where they sell Belgian chocolate, Dutch liquorice and about fifty different types of tea... I love that shop. I love it almost as much as the bookstores ;)

The Order of the Phoenix was surprisingly good, actually. Much better than the other four Harry Potter movies. Luna Lovegood was brilliant, Bellatrix was creepily insane, and Umbridge was fantastic - I wanted to strangle her from the moment she first appeared on screen, lol. There were obviously some changes but they were mostly minor, and at least they didn't add scenes. What annoyed me most was that it seemed so rushed (as usual) and neither Voldemort & co nor the Ministry's influence seemed very threatening. I would've liked to see the students (and teachers) put up some more resistance to Umbridge - they left out the Portable Swamp, and the best line of the entire book, "Give her hell from us, Peeves", wasn't included either as there was no Peeves. There weren't any Quidditch scenes either, but as they are pretty much the same each movie I didn't mind much.

And I'm a bit annoyed because the local bookstore won't have a midnight launch for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but I guess I'll just have to get up really early on Saturday and be there when they do open. Maybe I'll grab a sleeping bag and sleep outside the door, lol.

Writing and Uni

2007-07-17T20:47:00.000+02:00

10 k down, another 50 to go. The words are coming out fast enough, but not much has happened. I'm still writing that little battle at Xanten where the Batavians decide to flood the surrounding lands to annoy the Romans. It's not a very big battle (Tacitus only needs about a page to describe it) but with all the preparations it's taken me the greater part of 10 k. And it's not finished yet, mwahahaha. I'm having fun writing this. Geravan gets to lead a cavalry charge against Romans who are stuck in a swamp.

You might get a real snippet soon. But you might also get another totally random Monty Python-inspired snippet. I just realised yesterday that Civilis could've brought the siege of Castra Vetera to an end much quicker if he had built a large wooden rabbit...

And now something a little more serious. I've got one year left of high school, and then... I dunno. Well, I'll be going to Uni obviously, but I don't know what and I don't know where. I'd like to do something language and/or history-related, but I've also thought about medicine or something to do with sustainable development. The only thing I know for sure at the moment is that I don't want to study law or economics, and that I don't want to work at the meat & deli for the rest of my life. A whole lamb was brought in a couple of days ago. Well, not completely whole. It was headless and had been skinned and gutted, but apart from that it was whole. It's hanging from a peg somewhere, dripping blood. Ugh.

But that's beside the point. I've had a look around on various Uni websites and got a few brochures but I think they've made me even more confused. I know that I don't want to study in Norway, because decent chocolate is way too expensive and there's a serious lack of 2000-year-old crumbling stone walls.
I'll probably go to the Netherlands. It's got Roman ruins, people know who the Batavians are, chocolate is ridiculously cheap there, it's got good bookstores, I speak the language (though I think I need to brush up on my grammar & spelling), and I can go and visit grandma and have a decent dinner there whenever I'm sick of instant noodles.
The cons? School fees! What the bloody hell is the point with school fees anyway? Shouldn't all forms of education be free so that the brightest students go to Uni instead of the richest ones?
Okay, so Dutch Uni fees aren't that bad - "only" 1600 € or so a year. I still think it's a lot (in Norway it's free like it should be) but it's not too bad compared to the UK. The Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic course at Cambridge looks rather interesting but it costs more than 3000 £ a year, if you are from the UK or the EU (which I guess I am, being from the Netherlands and all) and even more if you're not. I guess there are scholarships you could apply for but I'm not sure which scholarships I can get, seeing as I have two nationalities. A standard Norwegian scholarship is bigger than a Dutch one, but on the other hand you have to pay back half of the Norwegian one once you're finished with Uni. Or something. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I'll do that once I know what I'll study.

But, like I said, I might very well move to the Netherlands next year. I've found three Uni courses which particularly interest me:

Vergelijkende Indo-Europese taalwetenschap, Leiden: Indo-European languages. Sounds quite fun. Pros? I'll have an advantage because I know Norwegian and a little Old Norse. Languages rock, and if I choose this I'll be learning, let's see, Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic and Hittite, plus I can choose from another eighty or so languages that they have courses in. Yaay.
Cons? Maybe a bit too language-orientated. I'd like a bit of history too. There probably won't be any ancient crumbling stone walls to study. Unless they have inscriptions. Plus I dunno what the chances of getting a job are...

Oudheidkunde, Amsterdam: Ancient studies. Plenty of pros: It's ancient history, archaeology and languages all in one. Plus there's quite a bit of focus on the Batavians... I can learn Latin from scratch, and if I combine Latin with ancient studies I could become a Latin teacher, and apparently that means I'm pretty much guaranteed a job.
Also, according to my brochure, Jona Lendering studied this, and I love his website livius.org
Any cons? It's only got ancient history, nothing about the Middle Ages. So, no Vikings. No Anglo-Saxon. No Old Norse. And, well, it's in Amsterdam, lol. I don't really like Amsterdam. Utrecht is much nicer ;)

Keltische talen en cultuur, Utrecht: Celtic languages & culture. I'll learn Old Irish and Welsh, and I'll learn about Celtic mythology, which I love (especially Cuchulainn).
Pros? It's got history, languages and mythology. It's in Utrecht (aka Traiectum) where I was born, so I know the city and where the bookstores are. And the student corporation has sword fighting courses, lol.
Cons? No Batavians, and not many Romans either, except Caesar in Gaul. And I don't know what sort of job I can expect to get if I study this.

Wow... a post without pics. Can't have that, can we? Let's see what I have in My Pictures...

Ah. The Temple of Apollo, Rhodes. I was there two years ago.
It's old, it's crumbling, and it's made of stone. It was also bloody hot that day (and every other day during that holiday)

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, Uni. Like I said, I am not sure yet what I want to do. It might be one of those three I just described, or something else somewhere else (just not Norway). Either way I should get a move on. Because I'm a foreign student I have to hand in my application much earlier and I still have to get all my report cards translated.

Sheesh. This thing went off and posted itself. Well, I was almost finished anyway. I just have to add that I can't wait till Harry Potter 7 comes out on Saturday. I spoke to my cousin today - she works at the bookstore - and she says they already got a box full. Locked up somewhere, obviously. And we're off to see Order of the Phoenix in Trondheim tomorrow. Of course we'll be visiting a bookstore or two (or four) first. And payday isn't until the end of the month.

No dragon hunt

2007-07-15T16:03:00.000+02:00

My cousin's ill, so the camping trip has been postponed to August (at the best) or next year (at the worst). I'm not too disappointed 'cause it's raining buckets, and it gives me time to write. I was a bit tired after working for six days so I thought I'd have a cup of coffee (which I only drink when I'm exhausted and have to stay awake) and write the entire night. Well, I did make coffee, but I also added cocoa powder, cinnamon, grapes and tabasco. It tasted absolutely disgusting but it also kept me wiiiide awake, so I was still writing at 3 AM.

Instead of continuing with the battle I've been working on, I wrote a sort of parody of the scene where Civilis is holding his 'The Romans suck'-speech...

A quick cast list perhaps? Civilis is the leader of the revolt; Geravan is the MC; Thiadulf is his brother; Bago is Random Nostalgic Batavian #1; and Brinno is the leader of the Cananefates who isn't even supposed to be there.

I watched Monty Python's Life of Brian a few days ago, look here if you need to refresh your memory.

~*~

Civilis got slowly to his feet and the noise subsided almost at once. The flickering light of the fire threw his face into sharp relief and made his one eye look even more sinister than usual. Geravan held his breath and stared at him along with everyone else. It was a while before Civilis began to speak, and when he did his voice was barely audible over the crackling of the fire and the sound of the wind through the trees, so that they had to strain their ears to catch his words.

‘They say there is an alliance between us and the Romans. The bravest and strongest of our men serve in their army and fight their wars, and in return we are held in honour, or so they say. We have sworn oaths of loyalty to Rome and given them our allegiance. We do not pay taxes. And the Romans say it is a fair deal.’ His voice was slowly rising to a crescendo. ‘But Rome’s greed is insatiable. They say they are generous when they allow us to rule our own lands, but why should we need Rome’s permission to rule what is rightfully ours? And now they a conscripting our sons and brothers and fathers by force. We give them a warrior, and they demand two more. They’ve bled us white, the bastards. They’ve taken everything we had! And not just from us, but from our fathers, and from our fathers’ fathers!’

‘Aye, and from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers!’ old Bago put in.

‘Exactly.’

‘And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers!’ Bago continued. Civilis frowned in annoyance. ‘Yes, Bago. Don’t labour the point. What I mean to say is this: We have kept our oaths. We have given them everything we have, and what have they ever given us in return?’

‘The aqueduct,’ Thiadulf said.

‘What?’

‘The aqueduct.’

‘Oh, yes. That’s true.’ Civilis looked slightly taken aback. ‘They did give us that, yes.’

‘And the sanitation,’ the ninja next to Geravan said loudly. There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd, and Bago nodded and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the same time. ‘Aye, the sanitation, Civilis. Remember what the city used to be like?’

‘All right, all right,’ Civilis said sourly. ‘I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.’

‘And the roads.’ Brinno gestured at the narrow winding path that led to the little clearing where they had assembled. ‘They’re better than anything we could ever make.’

‘Well, yes, obviously. The roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the aqueduct, sanitation and the roads-’

‘Irrigation.’

‘We don’t need that here. There's plenty of rain.’

‘But if there’s a drought...’

‘Medicine,’ said Thiadulf, rolling up the sleeve of his tunic so that they could see the white scar on his upper arm. ‘Neatest row of stitches I’ve ever seen.’

‘Education,’ said somebody else.

Civilis threw up his hands. ‘All right, fair enough. But-’

‘The wine,’ Geravan said to an outburst of laughter.

‘Aye, that’s something we’d really miss, Civilis, if the Romans left.’

Civilis clenched his fists together and was breathing angrily through his nose, but nobody paid any attention to him.

‘Public baths.’

‘And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Civilis,’ said Bago earnestly.

Brinno grinned. ‘Aye, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it; they’re the only ones who could in a place like this.’

‘All right!’ Civilis had to shout to make himself heard over the laughter. ‘But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?’

‘Brought peace?’ Thiadulf suggested.

‘Peace? Oh, shut up!’

~*~

Now I'm just waiting for the Batavian People's Front to make an appearance. Or maybe Geravan could write 'Romans go home' all over Cerialis' tent.

But first I'm off to my aunt's, who has invited us over for dinner. It'll be my first decent meal in over a week. Yaay!

Wow...

2007-07-11T23:09:00.000+02:00

Apparently I've won second place for Rosina Lippi's meme contest, so I'm getting a pile of books! Yaay!

Also, the writing challenge is going quite well. I've got almost 5000 words already. It's not as much as I would've liked though. I write best around midnight, but I have to work morning shifts almost every day this week (I'm starting at 7 AM tomorrow *groans*) so I can't stay up too late. I won't be writing much this weekend either because I'm going camping in the forest with my cousin. We're going to hunt dragons, lol.

Here we go again...

2007-07-09T16:40:00.000+02:00

I was rather looking forward to a quiet summer. A bit of reading, a bit of painting, a couple of walks in the forest with my sketchbook, perhaps a few bicycle trips down to the fjord to go swimming... Then Gabriele goes off and posts about Alison Kent's writing challenge: between 60 and 100 K in 70 days. I signed up in a moment of insanity, so now I'll be spending the next two months down in the basement typing till my fingers fall off.

And you know what? I love it. Nothing beats writing a conversation between a ninja and a Roman general at 2 AM while your on your twenty-second cup of tea and have to be up at seven the next morning.

I did NaNo last year and it was much easier than I thought; at the end of November I had about 64 k. Then I had school, homework, badminton training, art school and various chores. Now it's just work five or six days a week, and I have seventy days to write instead of thirty. Well, I do have one or two things to do, like finding out what I'm going to do after high school. I'll probably spend a few hours reading all sorts of Uni websites and panicking, but then I can kill a few annoying walk-ins to calm my nerves afterwards.

I've decided to leave the plotbunny for November and just continue with the Batavian revolt. I really want to finish the first draft this summer, so this writing challenge is perfect because it gives me a nice deadline. There are just a couple of months left of the revolt. I wrote the battle of Trier last week, and at the moment Civilis is at Xanten busy flooding the surrounding lands to make things difficult for the Romans (you can read more here)

The writing challenge started yesterday (Sunday 8. July). Before that, when I went to bed on Saturday, my word count was... Let's see...

Which means I need to have at least 238 328 words at 20. September. Ha. Piece of cake.

Now that I said that I really can't fail...

Home alone

2007-07-08T00:36:00.000+02:00

Well, almost. My parents and little brother are off to France and they've left the house to me and my older brother. He's just returned from a year in the army (just for the record, in Norway military service is compulsory. For males at least *grins*) and he's much easier to be around than my little brother.
It's great to finally have some peace and quiet. I can play music very loudly without anyone complaining (ha! So much for "quiet" :P) and I can stick my post-its on every wall in the house. I've got the computer for myself so I can write as much as I like (or I could if I didn't have to work six days a week) and nobody's telling me to go to bed early. Well, so much for the pros. The cons are of course mowing the lawn and cooking and washing. Not that we've done much cooking, mind you. Yesterday we couldn't be bothered to cook a decent dinner because we didn't want to do the washing up afterwards, so we ate military rations, and today I had frozen spinach straight from the packet (I like frozen vegetables). Somehow I don't think the next two weeks will be very different. My brother has the cooking skills of a baked potato and I'm too lazy to do anything except reading and writing. I might start jogging again next week. My ankle is pretty much back to normal again.

And I'll probably write about another ballad soon. But, for the moment I'm more interested in finding out exactly how the ice-cream machine works...

Bookstores are evil...

2007-07-06T20:00:00.000+02:00

And the people who run them are omniscient, I swear. They know I have a job now, so they expect me to spend all my money on books. I began to have suspicions two weeks ago, when play.com suddenly decided to have a summer sale, which included a good many historical fiction books. Now, I am completely certain. The bookstores are plotting against me. I was browsing around just now after I got home from work, and what should I find but another sale - this time it's books about the Roman Empire. So, of course, I want to buy a few. Only I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. I have to save some money so I can pay those pesky Uni fees and whatnot next year. And, I already have bought a few books last week (alright, I bought about ten. Sue me).
But, on the other hand, I've worked five hours overtime this week, so I can spend that money on books, right? Right?

Yeah, I think I'll do that...