Sunday is a great day to start NaNoWriMo, because it seems so much more relaxed and stress-free. Not only that, but thanks to daylight savings time (curse you), I had an extra hour to my day because I didn't set my non-automatic clock before bed.

So I pumped some words out today! Totally got into it and I'm so glad that I decided to write a bunch of character profiles and the outline of my story last week, because it's got me totally pumped and cranking those words out. ^^;

I managed to write 6,779 words on this first day. That's up a bit from last year, which was 5,103, but it was on a story I wasn't passionate about and I totally slowed to a crawl after the first two days before ditching it for Fleeting Friendship.

I think having an idea that you're excited about is a really important key to success. If there's anything you can do to make your story exciting to you (forget about what other people think), and preferably if you can think of enough content to fill 50k words worth, well, those are two helpful tips!

Now that the weekend is over, though, do you all have your plans for when you're going to crank out the 1,667 words you need to stay on par? Do you know when you will write? Will you be able to refrain from procrastinating enough to jot down those words?

Remember, don't get too flustered on having everything perfect! Words, words, words! That's what's most important right now! That and the passion to keep writing, because today is probably the first of the thirty days it will take you to get by.

Don't have 1,667 yet? Don't get discouraged! Write at your own pace, set your own goals, and if you were going for 50k, try make it up on weekends or other convenient times. It's a matter of setting priorities. If you choose to make NaNoWriMo a priority, work on finding ways to put it first. (Just remember to put your work, schoolwork, and other mandatory things first! No sense being foolish, now!)

Also if any of you want to put a NaNoWriMo progress bar thingy in your journal like I have on mine, I uploaded the generator I created to make it! Now you can just input your word count and it'll spit out a nifty little bar, showing a meter, your word count total, percentage of the 50,000, and how many days are left.

FA NaNoWriMo Progress Bar Generator

Ignore the rest of that site. I don't really have anything on there. I guess I got bored one day back in 2008 and wanted to make a site. ^^; But never really did anything with it, heh heh. Ah well. It's a good place to upload random script things I may make that are useful to people. :3

Well, good luck to everyone writing in NaNoWriMo! Let's do this!

^{(By the way... this was 495 words I could have used for NaNoWriMo. *weep*)}

I'll make a more serious post tomorrow or something. (NaNoWriMo is officially on! Let's get crackin', writers!)

But for right now... I find I'm totally freaking out about daylight savings time right now, because we fall back an hour.

I'm so worried right now because I'm extremely tired as it is, it's 1:48am, and I'm worrying like every five minutes that it's actually 2:48am and I missed the change.

Realistically... I have another clock that I'd have to change manually, and it shows that it is, in fact, 1:47am (wtf, I guess it's two minutes slow? [it's 1:49 by the time I got this far]), but it's just really kind of strange!

I hate it when I get confused when I'm really tired and time is involved! Don't you?

No, not quite the spark of love or anything yet (though I feel significantly better after my last journal thanks to all of you, my friends!). I'm talking about what I like to call "the spark."

It's a magical thing that is the start of all of my really good stories. "The spark" starts when brainstorming over concepts that I haven't written about yet, characters and personalities that I haven't used before, and pairings that are out there in just such a way that it works.

I've been struggling to find "the spark" for awhile now, as you may know (or may have guessed by my lack of posting stories), and I was getting particularly worried that I wouldn't have it by NaNoWriMo. I mean I've been thinking of several different ideas, but none of them really were solid and held my interests. It takes a lot to write 50k words for a story and still keep up the passion for it. I like to think of everything ahead of time, or at least the general direction the story will go, before I get too into writing.

I'm not gonna spill the beans on what I'm writing just yet. I still want to flesh out the ideas some more. But I will tell you the following: it'll be first-person, following a female Pokemon, and will involve heartbreak. Yeah, might as well monopolize on my emotions right now and channel them into a story, lol, but telling a story from a female character's perspective is new territory for me (not counting my attempt at Helpless). I'm excited about it! I think it will be a lot of fun, and the characters I have in mind will make for an intriguing story.

At least I hope so. It may end up being the worst story ever, who knows. ^^; But I do have enough plot and ideas to get 50k words out of it without problems, and that was what I was most worried about.

I think Fleeting Friendship will still be my magnum opus and I'm not going to touch it until after NaNoWriMo so I can give it the writing passion it deserves, but hopefully this new story will still be pretty cool. :3

It's tentatively named "Waning Heart." I'm not particularly keen on the word waning for some reason, but it's appropriate for the story. We'll see. Oh oh, trivia, Fleeting Friendship was tentatively named "Best Friends" and Middle of Nowhere was tentatively named "Shipwrecked." ^^;

Just a few more days to go to NaNoWriMo! Now I'm really exciteeeedddd for it! :3!

It's almost been three weeks of completely no contact with my past relationship. It feels like it's been an eternity, but seeing as it's been almost two months since everything blew up, it's easy to see why.

That's not what I'm going to vent about though. I'm just still trying to recover and get through this emotional storm, and through it, there have been times that I've felt good and confident, and times that I've felt low and completely hopeless.

Every single day, for the past month and a half or so, I've been reading people's love problems on a forum I lurk at, analyzing them, trying to read the forum where people are working through recovering from a break up or divorce. I've seen so many stories of people's pain and people problems and have tried reassuring myself that I'm okay, I'm a good person, that I was myself, that I was loyal and honest, and whatever caused her to no longer feel care, sympathy, or love towards me was ultimately something that couldn't have been changed by either of us. I also realize just how hard I held onto love and how I was capable of feeling it even til the bitter end, never once questioning if I loved her.

Those qualities in myself give me enough strength in knowing that I'm a good person.

But last night, I felt that no matter how good of a person I was, it was irrelevant, because I will never have what I want in life. I can't have my cake and eat it too. I can't be both pursuing relationships and continue writing adult fanfics of cute and cuddly anime characters...

It's very difficult to find lasting love on the internet, especially when long distances are involved. I realized that the only way I would really be in a stable relationship is to actually go out into the world and seek one, because shy guys just can't expect the whole world to fall into their hands. But it would mean giving up what I enjoy, what makes me happy, because I would either be lying about it or hiding it, and then, regardless of being happy with love, I'd be miserable and dishonest to whoever I was pursuing.

Realizations like that are harsh, but important. It helped me realize a rather simple truth this morning: Love equals Happiness, but Happiness doesn't equal Love. You can be happy without love. You can love and not be happy. But real love, that love that everyone strives for, makes you happy. That's why people pursue love and seek it. They want to feel happy and accepted, like someone cares for them. That makes them happy. Love = happiness.

If writing makes me happy, if it can give me fulfillment and a purpose, if it's something I enjoy, why do I need love? If all love will do is magically make me happy (barring all worries of honesty, suspicion of distrust, and fear of more heartbreak), why not just scratch love altogether and work on something that I can depend on, something that I know makes me happy, and that's writing, or drawing, or playing video games, or going on walks, or any number of things that are dependent on one person and one person alone: me.

And to all of my friends out there that are also struggling with similar issues... hopefully some of my words have helped in a way. I felt worse than empty last night; I felt clouded with pain and anxiety. I felt like nothing I did ultimately mattered and I could never be happy. If you think that love will make you happy, you may be right, but it also comes at a heavy price, as a several of you already know what that sharp pain of rejection feels like.

Find something else that makes you happy. Find something that is dependent only on you, something that you don't need criticism or critique from other people on in order to receive validation (I don't care if my stories suck, I'm going to write them anyway because I enjoy writing them; that's honestly my mentality and I don't need people telling me they're good to write them). Love = happiness, but happiness doesn't require love.

Of course I've grown stupidly cyncial and loathing, so maybe that's why I'm just sort of pissy towards life and love in general now. But hey, it's a perspective at least, and maybe if I can stop feeling so down because I don't have someone to love and feel more positive that I am free to do things that make ME happy, maybe, just maybe, I'll know what it's like to really be happy again and no longer be depressed like what I've been for now over two months.

Last year, I participated in something called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. They have a site an everything at NaNoWriMo.org. Basically, the site serves as a motivator for writers and authors to write and encourages them to write a novel with at least 50,000 words in it in the month of November. It doesn't have to be complete, it doesn't have to be spell-checked, it doesn't have to be proofread, they recommend doing all of that in December. It's just the word count that matters. Well, that AND the fact that you're motivating yourself to stick to a goal and write a story! Regardless of if you write 70,000 words or just 7,000, it's still getting you to focus on writing, which can be a lot of fun. And hey, you'll still have a story out of it in the end!

I would love to invite any writers or anyone interested in writing but perhaps too nervous to actually do it to come on and join me in this month's NaNoWriMo!

If you're worried your work isn't good enough, that's only because you haven't sat down and worked on it! If you're short on ideas, you can use this next week or so to think of some ideas! But do this and follow through with it, and I'm sure you'll find a lot more confidence in yourself! Plus there will be tens of thousands of other writers participating, all striving for that 50k mark, so it isn't like you and I would be the only ones doing this.

I'll help inspire or motivate you in any way I can, if it'd help. I think it would be pretty cool if we could get a few FA writers aboard and encouraging each other to get through the month.

I'll list a few questions I'm sure you may have, and I'll be more than glad to answer any others you ask in comments!

Is NaNoWriMo free?
Yes! All you have to do is register at NaNoWriMo.org.

Can I post fanfics there? Like of Pokemon?
Yes and no. You don't really "post" stories there unless you link people to them or post excerpts. The only time you "post" something to the site is every day, where you copy and paste your story you're working on in Word or OpenOffice Writer into their word counter, and then it counts and validates your words. It's never stored on the site. So it doesn't matter what you post there, because it's just checking your words. You can post it on FA whenever you're done or as you're going through it.

Can I write adult stuff?
That's really for you to decide. :3 But there are no restrictions on writing adult stories or stories with sexual content. They aren't really posted to the NaNoWriMo site anyway.

50,000 words sounds like a lot of words! How do you do it?
There are several ways to do it. But the most important is to remember not to get wrapped up over having things perfect! Avoid pitfalls of proofreading or changing old stuff. Just work with what you have unless you really think it needs changing.

What I'm going to do is set a goal of writing 3,000 words a day. I'm going to try my hardest not to let myself do anything else until I reach that goal. In reality, I only need 1,667 words a day to reach the goal, but there may be days I can't write or have writer's block.

You may want to try set a goal like 2,000 words a day, or 1,000 on weekdays (after work, homework, etc.) and 3,000 on weekends (before you do any "fun" stuff) (you would need to write 2,000 more words if you do the 1,000/3,000 strategy, but that's easy to make up).

The most important part is to stick to it and remember that it teaches you a lot about yourself.

Can I start writing my story now or write 50k words on another story I need to finish?
Nope! You need to start from scratch of 0 words on November 1st. You can go ahead and think of ideas and write out notes and stuff, though, there's nothing wrong with that.

What if I cheat and just type up 50,000 gibberish words?
Then you suck because you don't realize that this is a personal goal thing. If you're really that insecure that you need to lie about finishing a personal goal, well, go ahead, but you're not going to gain anything from doing this.

I'll gladly answer any other questions and help out in any way I can.

Also, if you're interested in joining me on my writing crusade, make sure to add me as your NaNoWriMo buddy after registering!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/435634

That's my account there and I think you just hit "Add as buddy" on the side.

One thing really cool with NaNoWriMo is that you get to see like charts and images and stuff showing your progress! That made it particularly fun for me, because it gave me something to strive towards raising. Hehe. But we all have our own personal motivations and things that drive us.

Yep, anyway, here's to anyone that would like to take on the challenge or at least do the best you can! Go ahead and push yourself to do something great!

Since I've been getting organized and stuff, I figured I wanted to try get all of my art I've drawn over the years tracked down and scanned. I often times forget how much of it I've drawn.

Over the past week or so, I've scanned probably 200 to 300 drawings, doodles, doodle pages, or things along that line. Some of them I broke up into multiple images (I draw multiple doodles on a page sometimes), whereas others I just left them on a single page and saved it as a file. But there are roughly that many new 'files' I've generated as a result of scanning, let's just put it that way.

Some of the stuff dates back to 2000 and 2001. I drew a lot when I was much younger, like in the 2002 to 2005 range, but then stopped for awhile. I actually drew a lot of porn back then, haha, but it was pretty bad.

Anyway, I flooded everyone's inbox with about 30S or so, so, um, I'm sorry for that. Just mass-delete them if you want. They're all mostly crap that I just threw in scraps.

But you can also look through if you so desire. As I said, they're all in my Scraps page, which you should know how to get to.

I intend to go through a lot of the ones I posted, as well as quite a few of the ones I didn't post, and touch them up in Flash, then reupload them as actual submissions. I'm particularly looking forward to that, because drawing things from scratch seems to be hard for me nowadays. Being able to breathe life into an old work to make it new again is sort of a fun concept.

Other than that, I haven't been up to anything in particular, really. Just sort of getting by, trying to help friends through their problems, and moping about my own.

I know I'm still being strong in getting past a broken heart, but sometimes I still feel very weak and vulnerable because of it. I tend to hide in a shell of cynicism... in this case, I'm really growing to resent love in general and seeing it only as something that will eventually cause pain. I don't want to go through that again. I've seen so many of my friends get shaken by love. I've been shaken by it. I miss the feeling of being able to care for someone... but I am also enjoying the newfound freedom I have, not having to worry about impressing someone, or doing things for anyone but myself. I'm more of a solitary person anyway, and it looks like it'll stay that way for a long, long time.

The toughest part is just making that transition from loving and feeling loved to being solitary and self-sufficient. I'm still working on that transition.

Don't be misled by the title! I'm not talking about an organization of theraputic computers! If so, it would be evil and full of null bytes.

Rather than using some time off to write (slacker), I've been going through my music folder and sorting it into something much more sensical and logical. It was shuffled around in whatever folder structure I felt like, usually retaining whatever the original structure was when I unzipped or ripped something. And just dumped some stuff in the main folder. I mean what the hell kinda sense does that make?

So I went through a friend's music folder I'm "borrowing" on my computer and conglomerated it into my music folder fully rather than having to browse down a million directories just to get to the one or two songs I listened to out of potentially a million I didn't get around to listening.

That's stupid, right? Yeah so it's fixed.

Then I got ambitious and started going back onto my other hard drive and assimilated it into my new uber music folder, which is convenient, because I had a lot of my old hard drive that I didn't listen to as often as I could be. Lots of good stuff on there. It's just too bad Ubuntu has sucky midi support compared to Windows. :(

I've got about 10.5k files (probably 2 - 5% are album covers, since it counts those) making up 42.5 GB. That's the size of my music e-penis (my porn e-penis is bigger). It's actually bigger than I thought :o I was thinking like 10 GB, lol. Plus I still have another hard drive that I can probably squeeze like 5 GB off of when everything's said and done.

Yep, anyway, I also organized some of the drawings I've drawn because they were all over the place. I added an XXX folder in with my drawings folder (which has its own folder grouping mechanizizm), but to my dismay, there are only like 3 pics in there right now. Wtf? Do I really have to add in all of the ones I drew in like 1999 - 2003 that I was way too young to be drawing, just to compete with my lack of drawing porn in my later years? Wtf is up with that? :(

Sadly, I could probably rehash a lot of that older stuff, redraw it completely, and I'd actually be drawing something. What irony to "color" something I drew when I was like 12 or 13, lol.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that it has been very theraputic doing all of this. It's excited me, it's not very challenging and doesn't require too much forethought, it's fun, and I think I'm enjoying it more than writing right now. I need to get back to that place to write again, that mindframe, and I'm starting to get there.

It's nice to finally feel motivated to do something again and not worrying about things so much.

After last night, I really realized that there's no way I even want to talk to her again. I'm better than to attack or show my feelings here... but she just really hurt me and I don't think it even matters to her.

I will get over this, I have made tremendous progress as compared to a month ago, I am regaining my self-esteem and realizing myself as a good person, but I cannot fully get past this until she is out of my life for good.

Tonight, after getting past moping all day and getting virtually nothing done, I mustered up my emotions in a short, concise, but final e-mail that will hopefully bring this chapter of my life to a close.

As it contains nothing personal, degrading, or aggressive towards anyone, I'm sharing it here so maybe I can get some reassurance that I did the right thing or worded it in a nice, non-aggressive way. It's already sent, so if it was too aggressive... whoops, it wasn't in my intention.

Anyway...

For the past month and a half, all we have done for one another is make each other frustrated, upset, depressed, or annoyed. Neither of us really care anymore. All it does is hurt. As per your suggestion last night, I'm doing something about my depression, one more step after all I've taken, and I'm doing what's right to get past this. I'm asking for us to go our separate ways permanently.

I still wish you well, I hope everything works out for you in life, and I hope that you stay strong through whatever challenges you face. The good times that we had will always be pleasant memories in the back of my mind and that's all I wish to keep. But please, do not reply to this e-mail, do not contact me on MSN, and just try go about your life as usual. I will move on with mine after enough time.

That's that. This is the final closure I need in order to someday heal. In the countless hours of reading, they did suggest just going NC (no contact, not non-consensual) and not saying or doing anything. It felt too harsh to just completely ignore someone, and I would never want to be cruel to her regardless of how I was treated, so hopefully my best judgment was the right choice.

To all of my buddies I talk to on MSN, I may take a break as well and try get some writing done. I think I might feel better if I actually accomplish something for a change, and given how hard-pressed I am for time and concentration these days, substituting that time for writing for a week or so might help get me back on track.

After all, it's been almost a year since I've really actually written anything (Fleeting Friendship was back in November) and I feel really bad because of it. I miss writing... and I look too forward to November to wait...

I've wanted to vent several times over the past few months, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It either seemed too trite, too whiny, or just too emotional that I didn't bother posting it.

I guess now I want to.

The person I loved more than anyone I ever could have imagined, the person who I shared so many good times and bad times with, the person I thought I'd be together forever with... she left me. She fell to stress, began pushing me away when I tried to help, and eventually left me ignored before telling me she didn't want to be in a relationship anymore.

It hurt like a ton of bricks striking me in the chest, but I tried holding back any frustration and anger and accepted it. She still wanted me as a friend, but made no attempt to actually keep me as a friend. It seemed that everytime we would communicate afterwards, she was insensitive to my feelings and eventually told me to just stop wallowing, like that was magically supposed to make me get over my first love and one I felt for so many months...

She no longer was actually talking to me. She'd say hi, I'd say hi back and try talk about anything to avoid the painful silence, but all I received back were typically negative comments, like "TV isn't everything" when I was just talking about what I was watching or how there was nothing good on... insensitive, negative things like that.

It's been a very difficult struggle accepting that the person I had so many feelings for really is gone now. She's been replaced by someone who seems so empty and so negative... I could have accepted just being friends, putting away all of my pain, but she wouldn't even give me that.

She's not a bad person... she's just going through some tough issues I'm sure. I'm not out to get revenge or paint her as some sort of evil monster. I know that there have been mistakes I've made, too, during this time. I'm not perfect... this is my first loss and it's really hurting me. I still wish her well, even if it means I will never be a part of her life again.

After this past month, I've reflected and realized I did try too hard to please her. I tried changing to better suit her needs and wants. Whenever she'd complain, I'd get really depressed about it because it felt like she was attacking me, but I would at least make an effort of fixing whatever she was complaining about afterward. She might not have been attacking me, it might have been totally legitimate; I just blame myself for allowing myself to get depressed after her criticism and for trying too hard to change.

I've also realized that, despite all of that, I must remember that I'm a good person, too. So is she. But I really need to remind myself how good of a person I am if I ever plan on fully recovering. I was completely loyal, unbelievably devoted, I would never cheat on her, I never lied to her (with the exception of one time when I told her before I started that I would be lying about my feelings for a week or so, just to help me get through some pain, but I told her beforehand so it wasn't really a lie... was it?). I was there for her, or at least tried my hardest to be. I don't know what she feels about that, but I at least feel I tried. I never abandoned her when she was in need (unless you count now I guess, but she made it very clear she didn't need me). I'm not an alcoholic, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I'm a loving, caring person. I'm not the type to yell or get aggressive. I don't seek revenge. I accept people's imperfections rather than try change them.

I'm a good person... I have to keep reminding myself that. I also have to keep reminding myself that, just because that love may have passed, it doesn't mean all of the great memories and wonderful times we spent together have to be in vain. Those I will always remember fondly. Never could I say something like, "I never loved her," or "she was never that important to me." She was. I always loved her, even through our worst arguments and most tearful moments. Even up to past the day she didn't want to be in a relationship. To be able to hold on that long, despite my own feelings and pain... that's what love is to me. That's what I've learned it is.

But I also must understand that you can only hold on for so long. I've held on as long as I could. It's time to let go.

Though I may keep reminding myself I'm a good person, I don't want to move on for a very long time. I don't want to give anyone else a piece of my heart. Solitude is something that I can thankfully be comfortable with. I'm too much of a passive, codependent sissy who would focus more on other people's happiness than my own, and I need to get past this. I need to respect my own freedom, identity, and individuality. I don't need to bend over backwards for other people and have them be the only thing important to me.

I will be strong and get through this. I will be strong and help my friends through their problems. And I will start writing my story for NaNoWriMo in exactly one month from now, and hopefully write some other stuff before then. I will soon have more time and concentration and I think retreating into my fantasy world of writing will be a good thing.

Sorry for my venting.

Haven't been active on here really in such a long time, it makes me feel bad, but I've been a lot busier with work and love than I once was, so my schedule has changed quite a lot. As such, that means I really have gotten very little in the way of art or stories written over the past... um... 6 months? But I will at least try post what I have of the newest one I was working on, my NaNoWriMo story, Fleeting Friendship.

Plus I'm happy because  odoeojoao is providing some awesome cover art for it that will look nice for each chapter. I love it all so much...! <3

So what's been up? Did I miss anything I should really know about? I know I've been a horrible friend to a lot of you, really sort of vanishing out of the blue or becoming hard to contact, but sometimes I tend to shut the world away at certain times. It's habit, almost like a ritual of sorts, and I always spring back... eventually.

So go ahead and tell me what's up, what I missed. Oh, and Sun says hi.

Sorry I still haven't been all that active recently, like, anywhere. There's actually a lot more to it than just "general distractedness" or getting "busy with Christmas" and stuff like that. I've really been kind of out of it this entire month and due to none of those reasons or any other you might have thought. Really, it's something a lot more important. The truth is... I'm in love. :3

It's still an entirely new feeling for me and one that I'm really still trying to get used to. I've kept it kind of quiet, leaving only subtle hints here and there, because my love isn't really like so many "loves" or "relationships" out there -- we kept it quiet for awhile just because we knew all that was important was loving each other, not necessarily bragging about it LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD DOES or trying to make a huge big deal about it to anyone else, because realistically, no one else cares as much as we do, but we both knew that there'd be a day when we'd want to tell everyone.

So yes, before I go any further with the history and exactly how your little Zeph's fallen in love and had that love returned so, so much, let me just say it right here, right now. I love you,  odoeojoao. <3 I really do... I love you so much, and I am so glad that our friendship gave us both something that we've always longed for but never thought possible: real, true love.

That little speech thing I wrote up like a week or two ago, about my powerful realizations, about that I knew the reason I was DESTINED to write... well, it was about her, really. Had I not have taken up writing, I don't think we ever would have met. I can't even imagine that... but it's like, clear as day now that it was something I was meant to do. Just like she was meant to be in her past relationship with another friend of mine that, well, I guess I haven't talked to in a few months, so it's probably best that we've all moved on.

Anyway... it all started, well, right around this time last year, when someone left a comment on Ch. 4 of Middle of Nowhere saying that he read it with his gf and they both loved it. I thought that was just so cute, the thought of a couple reading a story I wrote of that nature, hehe, it was just adorable.

On New Year's Day, at like 3 am, we talked for the first time in a chat. She was so shy and timid back then, hehe. Through the next few months, we'd talk from time to time, but it wasn't until I was gone for a week in April that things really started happening. She was having relationship trouble with that one friend and had no one else to talk to about it, so when I was there for her to try and help and listen, helping calm her down, we really started to become a lot better of friends.

It was so tough, because I wanted them back together so badly. It felt like a dream was ending or something. But months passed and there was very little luck. Only sadness, though us two talked a lot more. I always looked forward to signing on MSN to talk to her every night, because I felt useful, helpful, and I knew that she really needed it. Eventually I started suggesting that it just wasn't a good idea for them to be together anymore, really just going along with what she was saying, because she just kept getting hurt and hurt with every attempt.

In September, you may recall I left for a week. Well... you see, in late August, she told me that I was her best friend, and I really realized that she was one of mine, too, like, really. I never thought of her like that before, because I really don't have many 'best friends,' and I haven't even really known her as long as the only others I did consider to be. Sure, I have lots of friends, but I really don't open up to a lot of people and mainly just exist to try and help them out. That's just me. And no one ever told me anything like that before, so it was a really nice shock.

Anyway, back to the September thing. Maybe a week after that, I started developing a crush on her, hehe. It was pretty cute, but it hurt so bad, because I didn't want her to ever think that was the only reason I wanted to be her best friend -- even now, it wasn't the reason! It was just something on the side poking at me, tormenting me so much. ;_; I really wanted her to know that I'd always be her best friend and didn't want her to ever question my motives. But in the first week of September, I told her that I did like her, because I realized that maybe she felt like no one liked her, and even if she didn't like me back or anything, if I just let her know that someone did like her, well, everyone likes to feel 'liked.' I know that the one time I felt liked in my life, I enjoyed it, even if it did lead to disaster and heartbreak. I felt I owed it to her to tell her that.

After I told her, though, nothing changed between us. That was just what I had prepared myself for, but I had to admit a part of me felt a bit sad that she didn't seem to have the same feelings for me, so a week later, after crying myself to sleep for several nights, realizing just how hard it was to know that I really might not be together with the ABSOLUTE PERFECT GIRL for me... she was just so amazing then (and is, omg, even moreso now, just so there's no doubt). But I'm so shy around love and stuff... and I dunno, as my feelings grew and I felt hers didn't, I eventually hit my breaking point and decided to leave for a week to try to get over it, to 'fall out of love with her,' so to speak, so I could be the BEST FRIEND she deserved rather than me always wishing for something more.

Well, here's something I never really said to any of you: I actually didn't last the whole week. I snuck on to talk to her, like, after only 3 or 4 days. I just couldn't STAND being away from her. We talked every single day prior to that point, I'm pretty sure. I got on and talked to her, and we were friends like we'd never been before. It did really help rejuvenate both of our friendship. :3 I also opened up and told her things that I really hadn't told anyone before, because I really did trust her that much. After that, I was no longer bothered by my feelings, because I knew that I could love her without being loved back and everything was fine and dandy again. :3

However, October took things for a spin. There was this other girl, in person, and she asked me out after showing me naked pics of her. Lol. Now, I've never even been asked out before -- I'm a recluse, what can I say -- but I had a pretty clear idea of where that'd lead and, ugh, it was a lie to say it wasn't tempting. :( But I was already in love. I had to confide to :userodoeojoao: the whole thing that was going on, because I needed to vent and she needed to know what was going on. I didn't want anything to interfere with our friendship, but I was also really torn because so badly, SO BADLY did I want someone to love (not for sex, but genuinely for love itself), and I was really convinced that :userodoeojoao: didn't really love me back just then... and may never. But honestly... she was still my best friend and I had to hold onto that hope that someday, someday, even years from now, she'd feel the same. I told her that I did love her then... and I was just so scared of doing it, because I was so worried that it'd ruin our friendship or she'd think that I was having these expectations of her loving me back or I wouldn't be her friend or something. I needed her to know that I'd ALWAYS be her best friend, love or not, but it was also extremely difficult because of that one girl that nearly came between us because, because of my feelings for :userodoeojoao:, I had to turn down something I'd always longed for all for just a hope and a chance...

Anyway, the long and short of it from there on in was that we became even better friends afterwards, sticking together through a few arguments here and there, while also enjoying times that we'd send each other letters and watch Welcome to the NHK together. She really was the best friend that I ever could have asked for, ever. Deep down, I still hoped that someday we'd be together, just because I really did love her so much... but I knew that if I ever said I loved her again, it'd seem like I was trying to force her to say the same, just to 'comply' -- one thing I NEVER EVER wanted to do was to have her feel forced to love me. If we were destined to be together, I wanted her to fall in love with me without any pressure, solely because SHE genuinely felt it. That's really how love should be... completely mutual and uninfluenced by pressure or anything else. Not that it made it any easier or anything...

But, yeah... on the night of Saturday, November 29th -- technically it was November 30th, a Sunday -- she told me that she loved me. I was up til past 3 am talking with her then, completely in shock and just so... so... I dunno. It felt like a dream. It felt like an absolute dreeeaaamm. In fact, I told her that night to pinch me in the morning to make sure it wasn't a dream. The next day, it really was real, and we both saw each other in an entirely different way. There were hearts, smiles, and love everywhere. We didn't say "I love you" that often at first, because it was still so new to us and SO MANY PEOPLE SAY THOSE WORDS WITHOUT MEANING IT that it just completely ruins the point. But that night, while I was away, she said them and when I got back and read her saying that, it really, really did feel like she wasn't just doing it for me, but she really, really did love me, ME, just for who I am, completely out of her own free will, love, me, Zeph, love. <3

That's pretty much our story of how we fell in love. What I later found out that just made me SO HAPPY on the inside... was that really, when I was all crying and stuff in September and October, always wishing deep down that she loved me... well, she actually did. Neither of us wanted to ruin our amazing friendship. We valued that even more than our feelings for each other. She drew a really cute drawing the first day I wasn't there, and she showed it to me, and it just really showed me how much she cared when I thought she didn't. She really was just as much in love with me as I was with her, all throughout that time. Knowing us, there was probably one moment that it really just clicked in our minds and we knew that we were in love. What amazes me is thinking that it's entirely possible that it hit her first, hehe, which was certainly something I didn't consider way back then.

I wanna talk about Sunnnn ( odoeojoao). Yes, Sun. Really, honestly, [strike]I don't think there is[/strike] there's NO ONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET as awesome as her, at least, to me, and that's what matters most. Not only is she my first and only love, but I know, without a doubt, that she is the person I am meant to spend the rest of my life with. She's the only love I'd ever need, ever. We are SO UNBELIEVABLY ALIKE in so many ways, even down to little quirks and things that we thought no one else could ever understand. Our Chinese Zodiac signs are unbelievably compatible and both of us really believe strongly in our Zodiac animals, the Goat/Sheep and the Rabbit. :3

She LIKES READING MY STORIES! omfg, you have no idea how much that means to me... even the 100% absolute PERFECT GIRL OF MY DREAMS I didn't think would not just tolerate my 'interests,' *cough"Pokemon"cough* but actually be into them as well, and really, really like the stuff I do. To be able to still write and not just feel guilty or like it's some "guy" thing, but to know that she enjoys it as well, aww, awwww... I just love it. It means so much.

We have three beliefs that we hold so high and will ALWAYS do our best to follow: Honesty! Understanding! Openness! We will always be honest to each other and don't need to hide things or question things. We will always understand each other's quirks, flaws, mistakes, falters, or problems, no matter how bad they may be. And, we will always be open about our problems and do our best to make sure that we really are as one and as comfortable around each other as possible. I know that due to my shyness, I still need work on that third one, hehe, but she's really helping and I guarantee you I am more open to her than anyone else in the world. :3 That's what love really should be. And that's just one of the reasons I love her so much. SO MUCH! <3

We've talked to each other every single day since I got back talking to her in September, and most of the time our average is about 6 hours of talking time every day. Yet even with all that, we're still not sick of each other, lol, and we only grow closer all the time. :3

I know that a lot of "couples" are "so sure" that they'll "be together forever." But I really feel we will be. I've seen so many relationships fade over the course of my life, but they all have reasons behind them. I know that -I- would NEVER leave Sun, because honestly, if I did, it'd be just conceding to love in general -- there's no one else I could be more comfortable with loving, ever, ever. Even the odds that we're together in the first place are so astronomical that it has to be destiny. And thankfully she feels exactly the same! :3 We have no worries about falling in love with anyone else or falling out of love with each other. None at all.

But also, in regards to that whole "couples" thing. Just so it's clear... we aren't "boyfriend and girlfriend." We don't like the terms. It sounds too... unappreciated. Everyone just goes on about their "new girlfriend" or talk about them like they're some kind of trophy. So it's clear, Sun isn't my "girlfriend." Zeph isn't Sun's "boyfriend." We're each other's BEST FRIENDS and we are IN LOVE. <3 We have one of those rare loves that really is built on a VERY STRONG friendship, one that we would sacrifice our own feelings for, as evident from our tears shed getting to this point. Hehe. We do both like the term "mate" and "mates" to refer to us. It's cute and it works. Soooo, Sun's my MATE, and Zeph is her MATE, and we're MATES, yeyyy! <3

And yes, we're an unorthodox couple. I guess we both have "Pokesonas" now just because we like drawing and it's fun to draw each other, hehe. I am, big surprise, a Buizel. She is, amazingly enough, a Larvitar! (Sometimes a Tyranitar or Pupitar, too, 'cept I'm worse at drawing them, hehe.) Yes, a Larvitar and a Buizel! Isn't that just ADORABLE! <3 And no, neither of us want kids at all, so don't say anything about our egg groups, lol. (Us not wanting kids is something awesome that we found out about each other, like, way back before my crush started, hehe. <3 And she's so, sooooo relieved that I don't want any.)

So yes, hi, I'm sorry I've been spending less and less time with FA and playing video games and writing and stuff like that, but I do that stuff for fun, because it's something I want to do. Now I want to spend my time with Sun because she's what makes me happier than anything else in the world. Even after Christmas, with a new Xbox 360 and Oblivion and Guitar Hero World Tour, I much prefer talking with her than doing anything else. Don't worry, though; I will still write, I will still draw, and I will still read and stuff. But it is on a lower priority now compared to what it was before we became mates, hehe.

Speaking of which, I still need to finish Fleeting Friendship, hehe... Well yeah, anyway, sorry for the epicly long Journal entry, but it is just so important to me to let it all out. For all my life, love has only been something in my head, something that I've tried to capture in the form of stories, using that as my only release. Now I feel so at ease with the world now that I feel it for myself, really, genuinely, and absolutely. I love you, Sun!

<3
Sun and Zeph

I've been meaning to make this Journal entry for a few days, but I've been a bit more tied up as of late, so haven't had the time for it. At least I had the time for the important task of cleaning out my messages and uploading some stuff recently.

But anyway, I'm going off track there. Recently, I've come to a really profound realization and realize now, crystal clearly, why I was meant to write the stories I've written.

A year and a half ago, I uploaded my first story to AGNPH, Lovebug (which I do not have uploaded over here, sorry). It wasn't perfect -- I was still just learning -- but I wrote it because I wanted to give something back to the community rather than just reading stories. After all, it takes writers writing stories in order for there to be stories to read, so I figured if I could even do just something small, it'd be something to contribute.

People liked that first story, so I wrote another one, based on a Japanese story I read and spun through a translator -- just being able to grasp the concept and idea, not really a full translation or anything. It was about a sailor who got shipwrecked and met a Buizel. Hehe, believe it or not, that was actually the inspiration behind Middle of Nowhere, which is a series that I'm glad that so many people enjoy -- not for reasons of self-gloating or thinking I'm some amazing writer, but just genuinely because I know I like it when I find a good story to read and if that many people thought it was a good story or at least enjoyable, well, hey, that means I did my part to give back for all of the stories I've read!

Prior to that, I wasn't a writer. Other than my literacy, I've shown very little interest in writing to anyone I know in person, so it's not like I'm really some talented writer in person. It was just one of those things that I thought I could do to give back. I'm still just learning, believe it or not, and I'm always looking to improve and challenge myself by writing new stories.

Again, it looks like I've gone off track. The thing that I really realized as of recently wasn't any of that -- that's what I used to believe all along. What I realized was that it is my destiny to have written the stories I've written! Destiny is a powerful word, but for such a seemingly random hobby I've picked up sometime last year, I can see so clearly now just how important it was to start writing. It seemed like just a pastime or something to do to let out some emotions, and it still is, but now I really see the reason I was meant to write.

It's almost scary to think of what my life would be like without writing, now that everything seems so perfect. I've found a form of happiness and peace with the earth that I never thought possible before, honestly, and I know that none of it could have ever happen if I didn't strike those keys last June or July or whatever and start writing. I'm not happy and at peace because of the writing or the stories, because of the people that enjoy my stories and the friends that I've met, because of the people that I've helped or the climaxes I've triggered, lol. I mean, I am, but I now know that wasn't the greater reason for why I started writing.

I never thought that my stories would bring me to this point in my life. It's an irreversible part of my past that I quite obviously can't change -- not that I'd want to at all -- and just thinking that it's gotten me to where I am in the present is just so amazing. Hindsight is 20/20, and though the odds and likelihood were about as slim as a sheet of paper, somehow it magically worked out, I'm happier than I've ever been, and I know so confidently now that writing was one of those things I truly was destined to do. Truly. :3

Sorry for all of the vagueness. I like being vague and profound at times. :3 I just had to let that deep, awesome realization out! It's been too long since an update, too, lol. Um, and I'm still writing, don't worry. I'm not sure if I'll be writing as quickly or at the same pace, but it's played such an important role in my life that I really feel I should definitely keep writing. Plus I like giving people something to read! ^^

Okay, that's all. Sorry I'm behind on that NaNoWriMo story I was working on, Fleeting Friendship. It's gonna be awesome and so worth it, though! ^^

I haven't really been on FA much at all during November, which was during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). My goal for the month was to write at least 50,000 words towards a novel -- anything goes, too, so it could be a fanfic, porn, whatever, haha.

Originally, I was going to write a story about some psychic cats in sort of a modern setting. It'd be an original story and would be clean. At about 10,000 words into it and ten days through the month, I decided that it just wasn't fun to write anymore, it wasn't what I wanted to write, and it wasn't really all that interesting. Some could see it as 'giving up,' but I saw it as an important decision I had to make in order to complete NaNoWriMo and enjoy doing it, too.

On the 11th of November, I think I made the decision official and started writing a new story. It was actually the story I had tentatively titled "Best Friends," though I started it purely from scratch and only kept the general idea. I was very excited about the story and the more I thought on it, the more I realized that I could do the 50,000 words in just 20 days, though it'd be hard because it'd mean writing about 2500 words a day instead of the originally projected 1670.

However, I set a personal goal to write 3000 words each day, though not being disappointed if I wrote at least 2000. Due to my ironclad determination and general excitement over the cuteness and depth to the story, finally seeing everything come together and able to present itself in a way far different from any of the stories I'd ever written -- which I love doing, by the way, challenging myself to use a different style -- I managed to meet this goal and wrote over 2000 ever single day except for Thanksgiving (one other day on my progress report says it was 916, but it was actually 3000... I had to stay up til 1 am to finish, but I did it).

For all of those interested in how Zeph writes and want to see the word count, you can see it right here on my NaNoWriMo Progress Report. :3

So I ended up writing over 63,000 words in the month of November, due to that first story's dead words, and I challenged myself by writing 52,749 words in just 20 days, making it the fastest story of such length I've ever written. Her Biggest Fan, which was about 49,000 words, was written in just a little more than 3 weeks. Also, by comparison, both A Friend Indeed and Her Biggest Fan fall below the 50,000 word mark, so this is an even bigger story than either of them.

Unfortunately it's not complete just yet. I've taken a week or two off of writing it, since NaNoWriMo took a lot out of me and some other incredibly awesome occurrences have been happening which I'd rather spend my time with (tsk tsk, hi :3), but I'll get to finishing it before the end of the year. It'll probably be between 70,000 and 80,000 words when finished, because I have all of the story figured out already in my head and it's just a matter of writing it, really.

Oh yeah, and I should probably get back to work on Middle of Nowhere sometime, too. Part of me feels a little bad because I didn't finish it as per my hope to finish it by the end of 2008, but that was only the second story I've ever written and I've found a great amount of satisfaction writing stories like A Friend Indeed, Her Biggest Fan, Fleeting Friendship (that new one), and so on just because I don't like the same old quite as much as I like challenging myself to something new and original. Diversity in my writing and stories may mean some people might not enjoy every story of mine, but hopefully they'll find a character or personality in one of them that clicks and makes the whole thing just feel so right, hehe. But yeah, I'll try and get another chapter written sometime after I figure out what the heck to do. Thankfully, if I set a goal of 3000 words or so, it'll only take 4 days to write (actually that's a lie, since I already have about 4400 words written).

Hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving and are getting excited about the Holiday season (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Shishkabooble Day, etc.) and, of course, the new year. 2009 for the win! I just nuked the 400+ messages I had over the month, so sorry if I didn't comment or whatever. ^^;

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) started yesterday, and I have decided to write that one story about the cats. So yesterday, I started going to town, since I had a lot of time that day that I wanted to kill, was sick, and not really in a great mood, so it was a good escape.

The goal is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words by the end of the month, from scratch, so that's about 1,700 words a day.

Yesterday, I wrote 5,103 words. That's a pretty smashing start if I do say so myself!

This morning, since lunch was so far behind and I'm upset about that, I had some extra time so I got all of my writing out of the way. Thank you for going away, Daylight Savings Time, and giving me an extra hour to write. I managed to write 2,144 words this morning, bringing the current count to 7,247 or something like that.

I wish the site, NaNoWriMo.org, didn't crawl like FA or fchan on a bad day. Actually, an epicly bad day. It's really slow and a pain to update my word count there. Oh well.

Anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo? You can add me as a writing buddy if you are. If the damn site loads, that is... Here's my user account there, where you can check my status: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/435634

I'm sick. :( After a year and a half of staying free of colds and flus and crap, I finally wound up with one of the two in the form of a mild cold. It hasn't been too bad so far, though I just caught it yesterday, so time will tell just how bad it winds up being.

I'll try to take it easy until it's over. Hopefully it's not too rough on me. It'll give me a good excuse to play FFX and to write, at the very least.

Anyway, speaking of writing, I did sign up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, in case you forgot). It looks like it has some pretty cool features to it that will help me keep track of all of my word counts and progress and stuff. Nifty!

I'll keep a link at the very top of each of my Journal entries so you'll be able to see my progress, since it won't let me put those cool images for it on FA.

Though, I'm still trying to decide if I should write this one totally original idea I was thinking of, placed inside of a modern day setting with psychic cats and moon rabbits, or if I should just write what I'm used to and do some big Pokemon fanfic. Erotic Fiction does count, so I don't really have any hesitations on doing that, though part of me would like to try and stay away from that for this so I have the opportunity to try something else.

I'll make my decision for good come the 1st, but I'm thinking that I'll go the original route.

Lastly, something very funny. Since it's almost Election Day here in the USA, on the 4th, I've been receiving some advertisements in the mail. All of them have been negative so far, and all from the Republican Party of my state. On Monday, I received one, which I think is just great because they're wasting money on me, as I've already made up my mind who I'm voting for and it most definitely isn't McCain. Tuesday, I receive yet another ad. But Wednesday, the funniest thing happened: I receive not just another ad, but FOUR! Two pairs of the same ad! The same ad! I mean, honestly, don't you think that's a bit much? Yeah, I got a ton of laughs out of that. But to make things even funnier, today, I received not four ads in the mail, but a total of five Republican anti-Obama smear ads! Two pairs, with a third ad. It really makes me wonder how many they're going to stuff in my mailbox tomorrow. Haha...ha.

Oh yeah, and for anyone interested in how that FFX challenge is going, I'm up to the first fight against Seymour. Spoilers? Whoops. I've beaten him twice, but restarted because I need something with Silencestrike, then I lost two times to him: one time because I forgot to switch to SOS Nulfrost on Wakka, and then the other time because Anima OBLIVION'd me to... oblivion. Trying for the fifth time against him now... I wish I would have stolen more Poison Fangs... ugh. Update: Got a Silencestrike weapon, but it was for Wakka. It needs to be for Yuna, Kimahri, or Auron. :( *resets*

I decided Sunday or Monday or sometime to start up a new game on Final Fantasy X, because I was having so much fun with FFIV: DS slaughtering things at a low level. I played around on my uber save for a bit, which has max stats on everything but HP, MP, and Luck, trying to capture monsters to get to fight Nemesis. But that just wasn't doing it for me.

Dig it, here's what I'm doing in my new save, and it's an absolute blast:

o- No Sphere Grid
o- No Summons
o- No Overdrives
o- No Customize
o- No Escaping
o- No [No Encounters] Equipment
o- No Blitzball

If you've never played Final Fantasy X, imagine playing any video game of yours with one life or HP throughout the entire game, with your hands tied behind your back and blindfolded. Well, okay, that might be a bit extreme, but you get the idea: it's a tough challenge. Basically, No Sphere Grid means no leveling up at all, so all of my characters are effectively at level 1 and can't do any super cool attacks and stuff.

This challenge may sound like a beast to anyone that has played FFX, but it's actually pretty fun for those of us that love grinding. The cutscenes take forever, though, ugh...

Anyway, I just got up to Macalania Woods and I've only gotten a Game Over a total of 3 times, all of which weren't really too inconvenient. One was immediately after I saved, lol. (Oops, scratch that, I just died in the woods while typing this out.) It's been pretty fun.

Yeah, other than that, hi. I haven't really done much writing this month. Sorry. I did in the early half of the month, but that didn't work out so well, and it's almost time for NaNoWriMo anyway. I think I'm going with an original idea and it will not be porn, sorry. :p I'll be sure to leave updates and status reports...

You know, if I were to describe how this month has been as of today, the 4th, I would have to summarize it with these three words: emotional roller coaster. :/

Me and my best friend are going to be "exercise buddies" throughout the whole month of October, counting our calories and exercising on every weekday (weekends are optional) in an effort to lose weight and become healthier.

The first day of the month, I walked with just my brother. Usually he and my mother would join me on a walk, just because we all like walking. To summarize, he told me that the girl he was talking about going out with -- and I had assumed that it was inevitable they'd go out -- that they talked things through and decided that they had too many differences or something and weren't going to go out, so I said my condolences and he seemed to be actually happy about it.

However, what he told me later during that walk was something that left me confused and befuddled: she liked me and was interested in me. How that could be was beyond me, because she'd only seen me once and just barely. I wore this goofy red jacket as I came down the stairs from my room to introduce myself, shouting something silly as I did so. I don't think of myself as attractive or as someone that a person would instantly go "wow" over. In fact, I have little confidence about that... But you know, it was a very difficult situation, because it involved my brother... and that I already came to love someone else. :/

Ugh. That was just the start of it. That evening, she came over. I tried to just act like normal as she and my brother made cupcakes. I chatted and stuff, but really acted completely indifferent about things. I still had a lot to think about. But she then did something that, up until as recently as a few weeks ago, I longed for so much... she... she asked me out on a date. Simple as that, no games, only the second time I'd met her.

Sigh... I ultimately decided that I couldn't go on a date with her. That would come with expectations and I simply couldn't do that. I felt absolutely awful, though, that I would have to turn someone down -- really... the first person that's ever asked me out on a date. I'm really a socially inept person, sorry, I can't help that. Maybe that's one of the reasons I love writing so much. But it just seemed so... painful, deciding to do that to someone that was attracted to me for -- gasp -- something other than my personality and ability to listen, but more physical and on-the-surface reasons. Not saying that this girl is shallow, no, but just that she didn't really know me and found me attractive... you know.

Now here's where there's a rather... rousing twist. She came over the next day as well, the 2nd. I just tried to stay out of things and mind my own business, planning on telling her that a date wouldn't work out sometime, so I let her and my brother go up and watch a movie while I watched some politics downstairs. But when I decided to watch my politics in my room instead, as I went up the stairs, I heard her call my name from my brother's room, so I asked, "Yeah?"

She said, "Do you want to see naked pictures of me?"

Was she serious? The sad part was I wouldn't put it past being true. But how to respond to something like that, seriously, when she's in your brother's room and it's only the third time you've met her?

"Do you want me to say yes or no?" A 'hell yeah!' would have been out of character for me.

"Yes!"

"Okay..."

So I went in. And, amazingly enough, she showed me two nude pictures of her, one of which full frontal erotic nudity. ._.; That was incredibly awkward but also incredibly hot. T_T I couldn't get that out of my mind... which made things all the more difficult.

Anyway... the long and short of it, I did tell her the truth. I told her that I wouldn't be doing her, myself, my brother, or anyone else any favors by going out with her or even going forward with the date. As difficult as it was, she did understand it and probably saw a soft, emotional, yet caring side in me... which was the kind of openness and honesty she'd grown to learn as well. Irony, I guess...

But you know, if I had to do it again, I'd do very little differently. Even though I never knew that emotional pain could hurt so much physically as I cried to sleep that night, after saying certain words to the someone that needed to hear them... and reflecting on just what a mess things seemed... I don't even know why, exactly, I was hurting. I guess I'll probably never know. But what I do know is that there's a profound difference between loving someone and going out with someone: you can go out with someone without loving them and you can love someone without going out with them, but one of those options leaves you empty and it really became obvious which.

I had to let this out and vent about it somewhere. It's just another confusing story about love and stuff, I don't doubt that, but it's one of those things that I had to let out. And I really don't feel so bad about admitting it anymore, either. Things don't have to change because of it.

It's just been a very confusing, awkward, depressing month so far. Not just for the above story, but due to other things as well. I really just want things to get back to the way they were at the end of last month rather than throw all of these confusing challenges at me. Eh, hey, I guess challenges are a part of life, though...

I actually officially "returned" from my little journey of solitude on Sunday night, returning to AIM and MSN and stuff, but just haven't gotten around to getting back to FA. Whoops!

Anyway, I'm back. In case you missed the memo, I was gone for, like, a week to try and get away from things. I was just going through a difficult, confusing part of my life, I guess, and I had to get my head back on straight. It's on straight now, though, thank gouda!

I'm not even going to bother to get into it, other than mention that the purple heart I spoke of in my last journal entry took FREAKING FOREVER to break with my hands. Haha. It took like 5 to 10 minutes outside trying to snap that thing in two. I gave a sarcastic laugh as I said, "I really hate metaphors." D:

I spent most of my week playing Guitar Hero and working. On Guitar Hero, I managed to nearly beat Hard Mode, getting past every song except for One and Raining Blood, which I beat, like, Monday, so that doesn't technically count. Since I got stuck on those two songs, I managed to get 25 songs through career mode on Expert since I was bored. I ain't no pro, but at least I think I'm pretty good now. XD Expert is a beast, though, ughhhh. Not to mention the last duel in Hard, uggggghhhhhh.

Also, drinking fails. I don't really enjoy it that much nor do I have time for it most of the time. I'm not going to, like, never going to drink again or anything, but I don't really have any concerns about becoming addicted or an alcoholic or anything, thank goodness. I haven't had anything to drink prior to this recent timeframe. I stayed clean. But it was something I had to try. Though I'd have to say I find Bailey's and Kahlua the most enjoyable, hehe, as does wine. But juice and coffee taste great, too.

Yep. So I do want to get back to writing again. I really don't have a problem with that anymore. But I'm not sure about the current two stories I've been working on. They're more "doodles," so to speak, than epic stories like I usually write.

I'm actually thinking of... dun-dun-DUNNN... working on a sequel to A Friend Indeed. :o I've been giving it a lot of thought recently and have been gathering ideas for it. I think that it could be very interesting. I worry that it might not be as fantastic as its predecessor, but I always like to try new things and stuff in my stories, and rehashing the same old love story just would be a big let down, I think. I'll come up with something. :3

Well I think that's it. I've really learned just how much my friends mean to me this week, that's for sure. *hugs friends* Ultimately, friendship is more priceless than anything and I never want to forget that. Neither should you.

I've really been going through one of those difficult times recently. I'm sorry if I've kept it in or whatever, but I'm really not one to wear my emotions on my sleeves. I typically just shrug off my problems and be the best Zeph I can be. But it's been worse this week than any time I can actively recall, because I've been so powerless to stop my mind, step back, and truly shrug it off.

Though I've tried to hold it back, I know that I haven't fully been myself in awhile. I feel sorry for my friends because I know that I've probably been more cold to them than I normally would be. I've often felt throughout this week that only now have I really begun appreciating friendship, and here I go, running away from it, running away from everything.

That's what I'm going to do. Run. I'm just going to stop being Zeph for a week or so. Most of my social interaction takes place on the internet. I don't need to go into my exact circumstances for you to understand that. If you want to make fun of me, so what, I don't really care. But I need to run from it. The only way I'm going to conquer my feelings is by distracting myself long enough and well enough for them to dull out.

How I am going to do this: I am not going to sign on AIM or MSN for at least this week. I'm not going to visit FA, fchan, AGNPH, or any other site of a similar nature. I'm not going to write. I'm not going to draw. I'm not going to let any of Zeph's problems bother me. I'm just going to be that person behind the online name and put it behind me. I'm going to play video games all day when work is done. I'm going to get addicted to something fun. I might try go outside to socialize more if I muster up the courage. It doesn't really matter what I do, just as long as it isn't what I'm used to doing.

Loneliness and lovesickness are two very powerful emotions that I've quickly grown to hate and despise. You'd think that, being a writer, I'd be better prepared for it and all. This is the kind of stuff that I write about. Yet in my stories, it always just magically seems to work out somehow.

One thing personal I need to share right now, because I really am down: I was in love once before, or at least, so I thought. It was just after Valentine's Day. She had some of those candy hearts. I couldn't eat any of them, because I personally don't eat anything with gelatin in them (do you know what gelatin is made of? :x), but she gave me one anyway. It was a purple heart and on it read "LOVE STORY."

I still have that candy heart. It's words are torturing me now more than ever: all I've been doing is writing love stories, never living them. In the morning, I am going to take that heart, split it down the middle, then throw those two pieces as far as I can throw them and never worry about it again.

I apologize in advance if this affects my stories. I'll probably just stick to writing Middle of Nowhere when I'm bored and feel like writing. I don't know how many other great masterpieces I'll write. It used to be my escape, but I think the less of a feeling of longing I have to feel, the happier I'll be in the long run.

Thank you, everyone, particularly those that care about me the most for putting up with me. I'll be back probably Saturday night or sometime Sunday. Don't expect a response on anything until then, unless you know my e-mail address, which I might check still periodically. And I'll be over everything by then, so don't worry about me.

I'm not entirely sure where I came across it, but recently I've discovered a rather interesting thing that I may participate in.

It's called "NaNoWriMo," which stands for National Novel Writing Month. To summarize, participating in NaNoWriMo means that your goal, for the entire month of November, is to write a novel of 50,000 words or more. You can only write those words from the first second (local time) of November 1st to 11:59:59pm on November 30th.

Now, to some people, this may seem rather daunting. That is, after all, 1,667 words a day on average. But, to me, this sounds like something I'd be quite interested in, because I can usually write that much no problem. I'm highly confident that I am capable of doing it, because I've actually written a 48,000 word story (Her Biggest Fan, which I need to still upload to FA) in about 3 weeks or so. It's just a matter of sticking to it and making it my goal for the month.

According to the rules, fanfiction is allowed. It's not like these are really being published anywhere and you don't really get any prize if you "win" (succeed), but just knowing that you've accomplished a big goal is pretty groovy anyway and that's all I really want. Like I'd ever want to write real novels, haha! I also can't have anything written ahead of time, though ideas and plot outline is alright (but I'll probably still clean slate it anyway).

I'm still not sure if porn is allowed or not in any submissions. The words can be scrambled when validating the word count, at least, so I don't necessarily have to worry about that. I don't believe they post the stories anywhere unless the author gives their permission to do so, so again, I might be safe writing something a bit more explicit like I have a tendency of doing. But hell, I might really spin a loop and write something clean for a change. I do like my love stories, though...

I'll also probably be writing a Pokemon story, just because I find stories with humans incredibly dull and boring in comparison (I write for fun, not to satisfy other people's needs). There's a small chance I might drop the Pokemon theme for something more generic, like anthros in general, even though that's not really how I swing nor what I really enjoy writing... but you never know. Writing something original has always kind of been something I've been thinking of doing for awhile, anyway. Hmmmm...

Ah, guess I don't need to pay it too much mind until after Halloween, huh? Just thought I'd babble about that, because it's been too long since I've babbled.

^{(Please note, these are just my political views. I'm not looking to sway anyone nor get swayed. I just like to talk about politics. You should definitely have your own opinions, just like I should have mine, so no arguments please.)}

Dude, no way, what the hell. I don't think anyone with a careful eye on the media could have possibly seen this coming. Aw hell, I don't think think that ANYONE, even devout Republicans, could have seen this coming.

John McCain picks Sarah Palin for his V.P.!

I woke up this morning to find out this choice. McCain put a woman on the ticket. Not just a woman, but a much, much younger woman. Like, even younger than Obama.

Now, I know politics, but I had no clue who the hell she was at first. She's the Governor of Alaska. Guess she's fairly popular up there, but still, wow, that totally came out of the blue. I was totally expecting Romney, Pawlenty, or possibly Lieberman. I didn't think he'd take such a huge gamble putting a woman on the ticket, and, if he did, I thought it'd be Kay Bailey Hutchison (Governor of Texas I think) or Carly Fiorino (ex-CEO of Hewlett Packard).

She's only been the Governor up there for 2 years, though, and though she was a mayor in a city of 8000 before, it sort of throws McCain's whole "experience matters" claim out the window, which is good news for Obama. It puts a woman on the ticket, which is great for those zealot Hillary fans, even though it's still a huge mistake voting for her if you were for Hillary, since their policies are soooo much different. Though for those that voted for Hillary solely because she was a woman, hey, great, you've got a woman and an old guy on the ticket now.

That is pretty exciting, though, I really have to say. We as a country officially have come far enough to have both an African-American and a woman on a ticket in the same election. That really is pretty cool and will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most historic elections ever. Hillary vs. Barack was electrifying enough, and I don't really think that Sarah Palin will be as electrifying as Hillary was, but she definitely does add a spark of excitement to the election.

Here's a bit of political trivia: though Barack Obama is the first African-American to be put on a ticket for a major presidential party, Sarah Palin is actually the second woman to be put on a ticket for a major presidential party. The first was Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984, who was on the ticket with Walter Mondale in the Democratic Party.

Mondale-Ferraro lost against Reagan-Bush in the biggest electoral landslide in U.S. history, winning only 13 Electoral Votes (out of 538 and out of 270 to win), and it was the second time a Presidental Candidate won only 1 state + Washington D.C. (The other time was in 1972, where McGovern-Shriver won only one state, Massachusetts, against Nixon-Agnew.)

I still can't believe that McCain did that. I have to give him props for putting a woman on the ticket, because that's cool, but I also think that it's the nail in the coffin for an Obama victory in November.

So looks like whatever it was that was preventing me from uploading my stories has been fixed. Middle of Nowhere Ch. 11 and A Friend Indeed Ch. 3 through 5 have all been uploaded successfully. Go reeeeeaaad them! ;D

I'll upload Her Biggest Fan sometime later, after I've gotten some aesthetically pleasing art for it. I actually have some that'll get the job done, but I need to finish shading it and add a BG to it or something. D: I'm really anal about having to have a nice looking thumbnail on any stories I upload. It makes them seem less plain, you know?

Anyway, after like 2½ weeks of no writing, I think I've finally caught a good idea for a new story. Yeah, I know I need to work on Middle of Nowhere, but the dialogue is really boring me until I get to somewhere more exciting on it.

"Zeph, Zeph, what's the story going to be about?" you ask? Well, it hit me when I was working on organizing my pr0n, which is going to take a freaking eternity. I have a button that spits out a random image and I pressed it and saw a picture of two Buizels I saved, totally clean, but extremely cute. I'm thinking that the next story I'm going to write will be about a more tomboyish female Buizel and a shy, timid male Buizel that are best friends and the female Buizel kind of ends up getting curious about things, and, well, you know what that leads to.

The trick is trying to separate it from both A Friend Indeed -- which focused on that whole best friend growing into love, a bit driven by curiosity, too -- and Middle of Nowhere -- which already features a rather tomboyish female Buizel, as well as a Floatzel and now another Buizel.

How to go about doing that is a difficult process. I am highly thinking that, unlike most all of my other stories, love will not play a role in their mating. It'll mainly be a curiosity thing. I've always kind of wanted to write a story along those lines, too, even though it doesn't capture the same kind of emotions of love.

Eh, I dunno, I'll give it more thought. I'm not even sure it'll feature two Buizels. That's just what I'm thinking at the moment, since that's what the picture was of. I don't even have a name for the story or for the characters yet.

Lastly, as I referenced earlier, I've been going through the massive undertaking of trying to organize all of my porn. Lol. Yep, it's a tedious process, but I'm so unorganized. I have a Pokemon folder, a Furry folder (which actually has anything that isn't a human or goes in another folder, like cute pr0nz from cartoons and anime), a Digimon folder, a Neopets folder, and a Non-furry folder. That's it. Oh, actually, there is a "Pkmn2" folder since the first one was getting too big. I never rename the images, either, making it kind of tricky to locate specific images. So I designed a personal script that will let me tag them, put 'em into a local database, catalog them, rate them, mark favorites, and all around make things so much easier. It also won't touch the original images, even things like adding comments for tagging (a la Picasa), making duplicate detection a lot more difficult.

The downside is it's going to take forever going through all of my pictures. Forrreeeevvverrrrrr... D: But it'll be really nice when it's done. :3

Yeah, I'm weird. I know. ^^;

Dammit, I'm mad. I was going to upload Middle of Nowhere Ch. 11 and A Friend Indeed Ch. 3 just now, and it kept spitting out some generic database error message.

Talk about lame. I just want to upload my stories. Why does everything have to hate me so much? D:

Update: it still isn't working. I tried uploading normal images and they work just fine. Even tried a workaround, but that failed, too. So I guess no stories tonight until FA fixes this bug. Sorry for the inbox spam.

Welcome ~Zephyr_Paws! ( Log Out ) You have no new messages.

Ahhhh, time to take a breath and a deep sigh of relief. I spent the past hour and a half going through about 230 new messages that have been stewing for about 2 weeks. Sorry if I missed any submissions or comments of importance, and howdy there all you new watchers that are watching me for some bizarre reason! XD

That's, uh, really all, I do believe. Gonna try upload Middle of Nowhere Chapter 11 and A Friend Indeed Chapters 2 - 5 over the weekend because I'm impatient and all of the aforementioned stories have already been posted over at AGNPH and Yiffstar.

Oh yeah, I also need to upload the newest story I've finished, Her Biggest Fan, which I haven't even mentioned on FA yet (I don't think) because I started writing it right after it went down. Hmmm... need to finalize some thumbnail arts for it. Maybe I'll work on that tonight, non?

Okay, now that's all. Yup, bye.

^{Notice: I'm not trying to sway anyone into any political belief or whatever and am simply expressing my own views. Not looking for an argument, but just to say what's on my mind. You know, that whole jazz.}

Sooooo, this morning, Senator Obama picked his running mate: Delaware Senator Joe Biden. I'm satisfied with that pick and think it's a pretty solid choice, though he's undoubtedly going to make a few goofs along the way with his say-it-like-it-is attitude. But that's one of his charismatic points, I suppose, not to mention he does bring experience to the table that Obama supposedly lacks, though without being too much of a "Washington insider."

Guess my fun of fantasizing over dream tickets (Obama-Gore '08 lol) is over.

Anyway, that means I'll have to redo my banner thing since it's officially Obama-Biden '08.

It also means now I'll be anxiously awaiting the announcement from McCain as to who his V.P. pick will be. Most signs are pointing to Romney, and, to be honest, I think that'd be a good pick. He helps offset a lot of McCain's flaws and would make it an interesting race. Two politicians with each over $100,000,000 in family assets vs. two poor Senators (Biden is down by Feingold? And Obama isn't really poor, but he's far from super-wealthy like pretty much everyone else that ran, especially before the sales of his book boomed).

If that is the case, I totally can't wait until the V.P. debate, lol. Biden vs. Romney would be POPCORN WORTHY!

Woohoo, Political yap fest! *shuts up*

Again, I don't care who you vote for this November 4th, but just go out there and freaking do it, got it?!