Why I Blog.

Honestly, I started blogging because of Stumbleupon. I discovered the blog Bye Bye Beehive and I loved reading about this girl's 365 day challenge. Then, I started reading her daily blog, Aunie Sauce. Aunie has a way of telling her story, even when it's just talking about fashion that I really love and she's such a nice person! Go check her out!! :)

Slowly, I got more into the blogging community by clicking on bloggers' buttons on sidebars of other bloggers and subscribing to them. Then I decided that I wanted to do this too. I have something to say.

Last year in October, I started a blog on Xanga.com. I kept it a secret, because I was scared my friends would think it was stupid, so I blogged for me. It became like a diary. (Honestly, though, I also started because I was bored in class and I needed something to keep me busy, but that's another story).

I blogged almost every day until about February, when I drifted away and forgot about it. This summer, I blogged for the program and fell in love with blogging all over again. When I found out xanga shut down to update, I started this blog here (Blogger is solo much better, by the way).

So why do I blog? Well, the easy answer would be that I'm tired of Facebook, and Twitter doesn't give me enough space to write what I need to write. The truth is, I just have something to say. I'm proud of who I am and I want to share it with others. Maybe I will just be another voice on the internet. Maybe I will touch someone's life, help them in some way. Maybe I will make great blogger friends, and read/witness great things in their lives. All I know is that I have a story to tell. Mine.

Gluten-Free: Recap

This past month, I decided to go on a gluten-free diet, just for kicks. I'm a bread and pasta addict, and so I thought I would change it up and little and see what all the fuss is about! Yesterday was my last day of this 30 day challenge and today I'm doing a recap of this month.

At first, I honestly thought I wouldn't survive. How can I live in a world without bread or pasta? Let me let you, it's possible! Over the past 30 days, I've eaten gluten-free bread, noodles, pizza, lasagna, brownies, and I don't know how many other things that were gluten-free!

Despite my big failure at the beginning, I managed to stay gluten-free for 30 days. I stayed gluten-free throughout thanksgiving (a bite or two doesn't count, right?), though I did cheat one day and went out for pizza with my sister for her birthday.
I was really interesting the way my body reacted to this change. I feel lighter, I've lost a few pounds, i digest much better and I don't feel so comatose after eating. I just feel satisfied. Even after I ate half of a large pizza, I didn't feel like my stomach was about to burst!
I'm going out for burgers tonight, but other than that, I think I may try to choose the gluten-free option when I can.

Yay for food!

Introvert

I'm an introvert. Many people confuse this term with "anti-social." Let me explain with this lovely little diagram I found in Pinterest!

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What do you think? Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

NaNo-nighter!

Last night at midnight was the start of NaNoWriMo. I decided to try and write as much as I could during the night to kickstart this month of insanity! I wrote until 3:45 am. I didn't write as much as I thought I would have because I was just so tired, but I was also keeping myself distracted by talking to various friends on Facebook, and dancing around to my music. By the end of the night, I managed to write 2,513 words! That is just over 3 days' worth of writing!

Me, 2 minutes to midnight!

It may not seem like much, but I'm really excited about this! I just finished a chapter I'd been dreading to write. It took me forever to write this thing and now it's out of my way! I made myself a calendar with a daily word count goal, which I can't wait to cross out, day by day!

Good luck to all the other Wrimos out there! Happy writing!

NaNoWriMo

Nano-whaaaat?  What kind of gibberish is that? Well, it's the National Novel Writing Month. Since when? Well, officially, November is just another month. What makes it different is this organization (NaNoWriMo), who gives you a challenge: write a novel in 30 days. Sounds crazy right?

The idea is that a lot of people have "write a novel" on their bucket list, but never actually do it. What NaNo does it give you that extra push to actually do it! The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. There isn't really a prize, since there are thousands of winners every year, but you get this amazing feeling of accomplishment, and that is the point of NaNo.

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I participated two years ago and won, though I wasn't quite following the rules, and haven't had any time since. This year, I'm going to try and do a half-NaNo: 25,000 words in 30 days. What with university, work, and relationships, I'm really super busy, and a half-NaNo will keep me from having ANY spare time. I can't even imagine doing a full 50,000 words this year!

Normally, the rules (guidelines) for NaNo are to write fiction, and something completely new, that you haven't written or started writing yet (outlines and prep is allowed). The thing is, I'm already in the middle of a project and I don't wanna to discard it, so I will be using NaNo as a booster for this story.

Tonight, I will try to pull an all-nighter (I'll start writing at midnight) and pound out a couple thousand words to get a head start (I need to write 833 words a day to reach my goal in 30 days). You'll get a full report of my crazy night tomorrow!
(Don't worry! I'll still blog every day! I'm sure my posts will be much shorter and maybe a little crazy sometimes, but I'll be here!)

PS: Did you know Water for Elephants was written for NaNoWriMo? :)