On My Mind

1. High school- it's new, it's exciting, and I'm doing well, even though I'm playing tennis and I'm taking the hardest classes offered to me. I've joined two clubs: Amnesty International and our school's newspaper. I'm thinking about joining Chess Club. I'm also continuing my position as a student ambassador, which means I get to tour new families around the school.
2. Tennis- I'm really enjoying playing it at school with my team as well as watching and obsessing over the U.S. Open.
3. Writing- I have several writing projects going on right now. I have a dystopian novel that I've been working on, and I've decided to revise Keep Running (last year's Nano novel) more. I've been researching tips on revising and rewriting.
4. Change- everything that's happened since middle school. More on that on another blog post coming soon. By the way, sorry I haven't been able to post frequently. :/ I'll try to be better at being more consistent.

-Cora

It's Been a While ...

I would say that the reason that I haven't been writing recently is that I've been really busy recently, but that's not necessarily true. Before summer started, I went to Pennsylvania during Project Period with my grade at school, where we studied history in Philadelphia, The Quakers, and The Amish, with plenty of fun-time in between in which we bought heavenly pretzels at Amish stores, jumped into hotel pools, played cards with friends, goofed off during bus rides, took plenty of awesome pictures, and spent almost an entire day in Hershey Park and Hershey's Chocolate World. When we got back to school, we watched The Witness, printed out pictures, made scrapbooks of our many journeys, and had our 8th Grade Graduation, in which we received awards and 'diplomas', watched a slideshow with pictures of us from all the trips we took together, and said our goodbyes to friends and teachers.

So, even though you could say a lot had been going on in my life before summer started, but since our graduation, I've spent a lot of time simple having fun and enjoying my summer so far and simply relaxing. It's a good feeling, being able to have plenty of time to read, solve Rubik's Cubes and try to beat my best time (which I've failed to do so far - sometimes I can get within three seconds, though!), brainstorm writing projects, play computer games in the basement, reminisce about old times by working on making a Time Capsule, and - of course - eat the occasional ice cream! :)

This Thursday, I'm going on a trip to China, so I'll have a lot to do over the next few weeks. I'm just going to try to have a lot of fun and learn as much as possible! You'll definitely hear from me after China, but I might even write another post or two before I leave. :)

Talk to you later! Bye!
Or, as they say in China, 再见！
~Cora

Acts of Good #75, 76, 77, 78, and 79

Since I've been sick (and I still am), there are a lot of acts of good to catch up on!

1. I helped my mom make pancakes a few days ago and clean up when we were done: an act of good and a delicious meal!
2. I've been collecting compost, even though I was sick.
3. I continued making a gift that I had planned to give to my Oxford friends.
4. I stopped procrastinating printing out a few birthday cards for other friends.
5. I finished formatting my novel- the word document is officially finished!

-Cora

Acts of Good #71 and 72

1. I collected a lot of compost to give to Mollie yesterday and today. :)
2. I've been working hard on my novel! I just finished editing Chapter 11.

Acts of Good #68, 69, and 70

1. I've been procrastinating the project of finishing my NaNoWriMo, but I've finally decided to take the next step. Last night, I worked hard formatting my book, and I continued (and finished) in the morning. 
2. I made the final cover for my book, accounting for bleed, spine size, etc. So, I'm almost completely finished!
3. I'm editing the writing of my NaNoWriMo as well, and I'm on Chapter 4! *cheers*

The Tension of Opposites

I just finished The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride. It is SUCH an amazing book. I was completely attached to it, and there was absolutely no way anyone could tear me away from it. I think I devoured it. ;)

McBride has created a beauty. Her characters are real and imperfect (not like one character in Twilight- *cough* Edward *cough*- sorry, that's just my opinion), which is how characters should be, like the real people that they seem to represent. The plot is catchy- it's always changing and exciting- and I always wanted to read on to know what would happen next. I felt like I was actually in the story- and it was such an exhilarating experience! It was also really inspiring- I've written a novella in the same genre, and McBride's book reminded me of it. They're both slightly dark- yet cheerful at the same time- and the characters in both of our books are in similar environments. My book isn't nearly as good and needs a lot of improvement, but as I mentioned before, The Tension of Opposites was a great source of inspiration. I'll definitely look back at this book as a source of motivation whenever I need it. Kristina McBride accomplished her dream of publishing a book, and I hope to do the same in the future.

-Cora

My NaNoWriMo Novel- an update

I told you earlier that I would tell you about this, so I will: I wrote a NaNoWriMo novel in November (look it up if you don't know what it is!), though I used the Young Writer's Program, because I wanted to start out without pressuring myself too much, since I have SO much to do around that time of the year. I started with a word count goal of 10,000 words, though I had no idea how fast I could write that much, and I ended up with 21,212, and I finished the novel! It wasn't very long, but I concluded it and I'm really proud that I actually accomplished that, since it's often hard for me to complete something that I've started.

Then, I heard that CreateSpace was offering each NaNoWriMo winner a free, self-published copy of his or her novel, and I was extremely excited. I had already self-published a book before, though I wrote it in 4th grade. Needless to say, it wasn't very good, but I guess it was okay as a book for kids starting to read. To make matters worse, I made the mistake of sending all of my friends copies (and by friends, I mean relatives, teachers, family members- basically everyone), and I ended up with a limited number of copies left, with my name on the cover of a book that represented writing that wasn't my own after the passage of a few years.

Anyway, I was thinking about majorly editing and revising my NaNoWriMo novel, but I decided that I want to use my writing just from a month in my free copy. I don't want to have a polished novel that I've worked on for 7 months after November. I wanted a one-month showcase and memory for myself. I want to be able to remind myself, "I did this in a month," with only a few changes, and keep it like that.

Yesterday, I made a temporary cover for my book using CreateSpace, and I started formatted my book. I'm on the way to finally having it done!

-Cora