My Cardboard Balcony

So. I won National Novel Writing Month. No, I don't get a prize. No, I don't get money. I just get the pride of knowing that after trying four times, I finally, finally reached the 50,000 word goal for the month of November. It's kind of funny that I'm celebrating so much, especially after I finished a novel that was more than 75,000 words long in eight days. But it's still worth a lot to me to be able to face a deadline head-on and make it. Yes, I did get to the word count exactly on the last day of November, but it was pretty much purposeful. I wanted to pace myself out as much as possible, given my workload and the fact that I spend about 45 hours a week at a school where I obviously can't spend my time writing. The novel's not finished, and it's still untitled, but there's only one chapter left (each chapter is named after a month in time in the story, so the last one is "June"). I'm really looking forward to wrapping it up an

Illuminae by Belinda Roddie Stranger in the illuminae Singing a father’s lullaby Under a glorious Neptune sky The fireflies dim their glow to cry Drinking from an oaken bowl While lying on a velvet knoll And the stars so high above him roll Like wheels in cosmos dark as coal Stranger in the illuminae Doesn’t know where he is and why Caught in the view of a swallow’s eye That gently glides over the cold hillside He sleeps, while the spirit of the air keeps His body warm Tomorrow it will send him home The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since July 23rd, 2007.

"He was just being himself." "If being himself is being equivalent to the spawn of Satan, then I am not interested in spending three hours with him while they're at a movie." "Become, Joey. Don't be a ham." "I'll be more than a ham if I have to babysit the demon!" "Dude." He punches me in the shoulder. "Pipe down. What would they say if they overheard you?" They are indeed standing over there, waiting for my decision.