Bunraku Seirei

On What I Am Currently Doing...

2009-01-04T01:24:02Z

... Reevaluating where I want to go with this journal. Will return when I decide which direction to take it in, when the Holy Spirit points the way, and when--I hope--my laptop works again.

So...Tah!

WordCount: Lots.
ChrisCount: 7.1k

bunraku_seirei @ 2008-12-31T21:49:00

2009-01-01T02:51:29Z

No one ever promised tomorrow
Sunshine days, gray-blue skies
Car crash, splattered red
No one ever promised sunrise

WordCount: 84.5k
ChrisCount: 5.1k

On Scrubs

2008-12-31T00:59:00Z

Scrubs.

Mmmm.

JD: Don't you ever worry about having a girlfriend who's so demanding?

Turk: Sometimes. But then I watch Roots to remind myself how good I have it.

Cracked up.

I've also been working on my newest fiction project. It shall be a while before it's ready, but... Ah. This one's a keeper.

I hope.

WordCount: 82.5
ChrisCount (new prjct): 4k

Off to watch Charlie Brown. Ta!

On Delays

2008-12-28T22:52:25Z

So. Long time no blog.

Been busy with my newest idea. Yes. The glee drips from my fingers as I rub my hands together.

No. Wait.

That's just cheap lotion.

WordCount: 80.5k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: done! :]

On Being Sweet

2008-12-24T02:06:32Z

Live. For the now.

Worrying gets you nowhere, and pulls you away from God. Trust Him. Please!

Jabez Moments: Did a lot of sister-comforting today, convinced her to go to confession with me, learned a bit about dad's religious background (raised Bap, baptized Cath in college), had sis say, "Thanks, you're really good at cheering me up" and "Thank you for being nice to me."

Yes. That was a beaming moment.

Even let her kiss me and hold my hand a bunch. Felt so good inside.

WordCount: 78-9k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 26/28

bunraku_seirei @ 2008-12-22T22:24:00

2008-12-23T03:30:04Z

Just watched the Clique movie. Two times. And counting.

Yessss.

Don't judge me. Time to hide.

--Though: We need not hide, if we have no fear, and if we follow God and do what is right, we need not have fear.--

Jabez Appointments:
Buddhist bff came to me to talk about Christianity and conversion and hearing a sermon and liking it.

Met a buncha people at Writer's Club who are Catholic, and who go to my church, so maybe they'll be at the Youth Meeting!

Ignored my fears and facebook'd the leader of the youth group to see how I could get involved. And there's a meeting and a cheap mini-missions trip coming up v soon! I think God wants me to go--and He's gonna make it be great.

WordCount: 78-9k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 24/27

On Something Different

2008-12-22T03:23:41Z

I have a little something new in mind.

Hee hee.

WordCount: 75k
Jabez'd: Yes!
Jabez Day: 23/27

On Charlie Brown

2008-12-20T00:28:33Z

Ahh, the classic-osity of Charlie Brown.

A Charlie Brown Christmas--how simple, how wonderful, how sweet. And I keep feeling sorry for Charlie Brown.

I remember being shocked when I was little upon realizing his real name was Charles...

I do not like the name Charles.

I like the name Charlie. And Willy. And Mason.

Not George.

I like Shakespeare.

Not Wilson.

The End. Laptop still out of commission.

WordCount: 74k
Jabez'd: Yes!
Jabez Day: 22/27

On Any of Your Problems

2008-12-18T02:58:54Z

If you believe in God, you don't let any of your problems get you down, at all--cos they don't matter, no they don't, uh-huh.

The end.

For like, now.

WordCount: 72k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 20/28

On Loveee.

2008-12-16T23:44:00Z

It's a little big pathetic, I know.

Love.

What love makes you do: stare at the back of his head, wait for him to turn around and then breathe out slowly, in utmost bliss (because he is the absolute most beautiful boy ever to exist); fix your hair when he sees you, then squeal because he looked your way so obviously he must be madly in love; tell yourself horrible lies about all the girls he's ever met in his life, and then believe them.

And then, even when you can't remember why you love him, when he's annoyed you and ignored you and when every teen horoscope, and Abby from Dear Abby, and your best friends have declared him worth no one's time--

You still can't stop staring at the back of his head.

Sigh.

On Ritchie Rich

2008-12-15T00:49:11Z

Sometimes you get overwhelmed, but you have to ask God for help and have faith that he'll carry you through. That's the only way to keep your head above water.

Cos like, if your head is below water, you'll drown.

Blub.

Like in that one Stephen King book where that guy goes to the haunted hotel where one guy had died by drowning in his soup.

Currently watching Ritchie Rich. Did I spell that right?

Cannot blog properly without laptop. Sniff.

WordCount: 69-70ish
Jabez'd: Yup.
Jabez Day: 17/28--I'll finish right at Christmas! Yayz!

On Coughing and Dying

2008-12-14T02:33:40Z

I'd always heard people complain over the internet that their laptops had died, or their harddrives or exploded, or their OS had suddenly contracted a strange and deadly virus and their entire system was about to whither and die.

I just...never thought it would happen to me.

At least it happened after NaNoWriMo; if Skippi the Laptop had decided to get sick on November 1st, I'd have had conniptions.

So my father is operating on it. Dear God, please help us all.

And that's not breaking the second commandment.

Amen.

WordCount: 70.5k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 16/28

God wants to bless you because He loves you, and besides, He's a giving God! Whether they're big or little, God's blessings are something you can experience--they fill you up inside. God blesss you for a bigger purpose too--so you can be a blessing to others. It just doesn't get any better than "the blessed life." But there's a catch. You have to ask God for it. -- The Prayer of Jabez for Teens

On Time

2008-12-13T04:55:38Z

Five minutes to midnight!

You know, just because I'm half asleep.

WordCount: 69.5
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 15/28

On the Stage

2008-12-12T02:24:31Z

If all the world's a stage, who's the playwright, and who calls curtain?

I recommend xtrlive.com--life changing? Psshyeah.

And more often I listen to The Bored Again Christian Podcast--Christian music in rock, punk, pop, so that you don't even know you're listening to Christian music. It is teh love.

WordCount: Same as yesterday...and the day before...
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 14/28 (I think I had to rewind a week. But now I'm middle-aged, yay!)

On the Way the World Works

2008-12-11T01:39:58Z

The end of the semester is nigh and met with bittersweet departures and tentative greetings.

I'm dropping World History and Spanish for Algebra II and Biology. Um, excuse me?

Isn't the world odd in the way it works? My friend Anne asked me to come to a meeting of the China Care Club with her today after school, and I was having my doubts but did it anyway. I followed her into the meeting room.

The club leader looked up from her clipboard. "New member?"

Anne nodded. I fingered a wave.

The leader pulled a pen from behind her ear. "What's your name?"

"Stacey Frank."

The leader looked up, looked down, then stared at my face. "Did you submit something to the literary magazine?"

"Why, yes. Yes I did." My insides were glowing. I felt them.

"Your submissions were great." The leader grinned. "I'm the editor of the magazine."

Why yes, China Care Club, I will join you forever! Just get me into the magazine, please.

WordCount: 68.5k
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 20/28

On Summaries, No?

2008-12-10T02:11:58Z

I've been tossing some ideas around.

Fun, no?

I want to write a novel--a series of novels actually, but let's take it one step at a time--and post it on FictionPress, which I decided after coming up with the idea for a novel; and, after I've mulled it over, the bare bones look like this:

Title: Cross'd
Category: Young Adult - Spiritual/Drama
Summary: If you put enough monkeys in Catholic school, one of them will find Jesus. Ditto for teenagers.

Subtitle for Cross'd as of yet undecided, but I'm actually really inspired to write this.

And oh, eff, it's getting late and I still have to catch up on other writing and homework. Mr. To-Do List, have you gotten fatter since the last time I wrote you? Time to lose weight.

WordCount: 66.5k
Jabez'd: Yes. (If this ever says no, then hit me. Really, really hard.)
Jabez Day: 19/28

On Christian Fiction Inspiration

2008-12-09T00:58:30Z

U save ur game b4 u die... shouldn't u let Jesus save ur soul b4 u die IRL?

Taken from http://objectiveministries.org/zounds/gaming.html.

So. I've been feeling pretty funky chicken lately, which I just decided is a good thing, because I've been feeling inspired to write. Two new, totally wonderful ideas in the past two days (or was it three?)--and they're both Christian fiction, with which I've just become enamored. I cracked open the book my godmother sent a year ago that I wouldn't touch with a dead skunk on a ten-foot-pole, and then from my library I ordered four books in the Diary of a Teenage Girl series. Hello, wonderfuls. I owe those sweet finds to someone from writing camp who was reading one back when I made every excuse possible not to read, write or generally affiliate myself with the stuff. I wanted my writing separate from God 100%, thank you.

But now that I've started reading ChrisFic, I've got two le awesomisimo ideas.

Funky chicken, indeed.

I also have homework, which is a bit of a letdown, but once I do some more planning I think I'll be ready to step back into the world of posting on the interwebs.

WordCount: Same as yesterdee.
Jabez'd: Yes.
Jabez Day: 18/28

On Deadlines

2008-12-08T03:15:49Z

Shh. I'm sleeping.

And God is amazing. I think I'm finally starting to realize what He wants me to do. :]

WordCount: 66.5
Jabez'd: Yup!
JDay: 17/28. I think.

bunraku_seirei @ 2008-12-06T20:30:00

2008-12-07T01:35:29Z

Well. Yesterday's entry got thrown out with the collapse of my internet. Makes me a bit sad, really.

Ah well.

I find myself entranced now by Christian fiction. I used to avoid that stuff like the plague, making excuses, telling it, Thanks but no thanks. But I picked up Stuck in the Sky, and I read the first five chapters straight through, barely able to pull myself away. This is some durn good stuff.

So now I'm gonna look into more of the same. So far, I recommend Stuck in the Sky and anything in the Diary of a Teenage Girl series.

Short entry, awkward computer. Ciao!

WordCount: 65.7k
Jabez'd: Yup!
Jabez Day: 9--or 16/28

On Sharing Being Caring

2008-12-05T01:18:16Z

The more you give, the more you get, not on earth but in heaven.

And I can live with that.

Bible-ness Learned Today:

Strength is found in peace and quiet. Meditation, time alone with God, is good.

So like, I can go all monk and be all meditative, and that's good, and like, it gives monks super strength--like, you know those monks who carry giant weapons around in JRPGs, and when they join your party they're all like HUWAA! and then they crush stuff with their staffs and nunchucks.

Or like, the bald dude in Avatar: TLA. You know. The Avatar.

Speaking of which, I have not found true satisfaction in any of the Avatar games: I remember being eleven and spending hours playing the first one and thinking it was the cooliest thing ever. Then I went back and played it a couple days ago and was like, wow. Give me back the last forty-five minutes of my life.

Same with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I put in a fotchton of hours playing it with my dad last summer--at least, it seemed like a fotchton, because we beat a level a day and that took, pathetically, an hour per level--and picked it up Sunday night.

Can you say, slight piratical fail?

I played it on PS2. It wasn't horrible by any means, but after Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus, my video game pallet has wizened a bit. Hack and slash games don't quite do it for me anymore. If my thumbs hurt after five minutes of combat, something is wrong. And not with my thumbs.

As of now I'm downloading the PSP demo of Siphon Filter: Dark Mirror. Possibly I should have checked out its reviews first. Ah well, it is teh free.

WordCount: 63k
Jabez'd: Yup!
Jabez Day: 7 / 28

On Protestantolicism

2008-12-03T23:29:29Z

Lord, please take us into Your arms and lift us to heaven for the fullest rewards.

Amen.

So, I was reading A Life God Rewards for Teens and was pretty appalled at some of the stuff in there. Particularly when I realized that, according to what I assume is the Protestant faith, just believing in Jesus Christ will get you into Heaven; he already died for our sins, automatically forgiving them at the Gates.

Bred Catholic, I was taught that we had to confess our sins, and even then still weren't guaranteed a straight trip to God--if we had a little bit of accidental sin, we had to go to purgatory first, and any sin committed on purpose would send us straight to Hell no matter what we believed.

I don't make the sign of the cross with three fingers. I don't usually say, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. I thought Jesus' death had only opened the Gates in order to make it possible for us to enter, provided we confessed and lived the right way and took a lot of things on faith.

I've never really been one for confessing--why should we have to go through a priest when God looks right into our hearts? And the Protestant way makes a lot more sense to me.

I had a dream where I was at a Presbyterian Church--after wanting to be Baptist, because I thought they partied a lot--and the church welcomed me, although the strict rule was I could not be baptized again. When I woke up, I researched Baptism and Presbyterianism and realized the latter was a lot closer to what I felt about God.

Vision from God. Hecks yeah, I'm thinking.

Jabez Moment: Well, this blog. Any thoughts? Pull at any heartstrings?

Word-Count: 61.7kish
Jabez'd:Yes.

On Being Writerly

2008-12-03T01:45:00Z

What's the difference between a writer and a bench?

A bench can support a family.

Sigh.

The economy is crashing, job opportunities are closing up, the future looks like a washed-out sepia-tone photo with cigarette-burned edges--and all I wanna do is write.

Cat scan scheduled for Friday.

Christmas scheduled for soon. Which makes me happy.

I have an image in my head of the ideal writer. For a girl, she should be incredibly pale and thin, starved of human interaction, attention, and generally food. But she should be tragically beautiful, as are all heroines. She should like being silent and staring at people or off into the distance; she should speak slowly, choosing each word before voicing it, and spend several moments in silence when unable to recall exactly the right word. She should wear skinny jeans, huge dark sweatshirts, and sometimes Ugs, other times sandals or Chuck Taylors.

For a man, he should have dark hair, always combed, and a tasteful goatee. There should be an unlit cigarette (because smoking is disgusting) forever in his mouth, and he should wear sweaters and scarves at all times. Mandatory. His eyes should be the smoky gray of deep thought. He should be generally quiet and cynical, but well-liked and able to stay up for days at a time in order to meet deadlines. Lamplight should only make him look more beautiful, the dying glow bringing his cheeks into half-shadow, his eyes squinting behind square-rimmed glasses as he scrawls across the page, leaving drops of ink from his quill as he goes. The ink splatters give the paper character. He should antagonize for days over plot-points or a certain piece of imagery that just eludes him. And he should have a British name of general awesomeness.

I fit into neither category.

Somebody hold me.

Jabez moment: Mother found me reading The Prayer of Jabez for Teens, commented on it, then I gave my opinion. I like it.

WordCount: Lil' more than 60k.
Jabez'd: Yes

On An Evil-Sounding Hiss

2008-12-02T03:01:08Z

My laptop is giving off a rather evil-sounding hiss.

Should I be scared?

What a long, long to-do list. What a long, long, long to-do list.

I miss the children's books of the 1880's to 1940's, the good old Mary Poppins and Miss Piggly Wiggly era. I adored those books, the pure and symbol style of it, and I would love to copy that style. If I could get the word choice and rhythm down, I would be one very happy writer indeed.

Jabez Moment:

Instructed my bff on the horrors and sinfulness of cutting. Also she could die.

WordCount: 59,044
Jabez'd: Yes

(I totally didn't realize NaNo had ended. Today I was like, Yeah, it's November 31st! and received some, Are you seriously brain dead? looks.)

On Viewmgr

2008-11-30T21:03:39Z

Thank you, computer, for deciding to crash.

And crash, and crash, and... This program called viewmgr shall be the death of me and my laptop both.

Ah well. On the bright side, I'm going to play a two-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean game and munch baked spaghetti so I can feel fatter and greasier than I already do.

Oh wait. Bright side?

Anyway.

NaNo Frenzy has wiped even the best of minds.

*experiences rapidity and loss of self upon approaching the keyboard*

Me: must...make words...

Outline: *suicide-launches itself out the window*

My next draft? Oh, can't wait for that. But I'm giving myself six months break--two months to finish the thing, four months to let it fester--before throwing myself into the land mine-filled, sludge-coated, convoluted, twisted ball of plot that is my NaNovel. Also it may have cold sores.

WordCount: ~57.5k
Jabez'd: Yup!

On Burnout

2008-11-30T00:17:48Z

Burnout.

No, not the game. The result of reading 50,000 words of one story in one night, finishing at 3:30am with my mouth full of foam. The result of forcing myself to play Dance Dance Revolution for upwards of two hours. The result of being glued to my laptop screen for the past four days, hoping for someone to Facebook me so I can have some human interaction outside of my family.

Burnout.

No more Avatar. No more DDR. No more la--

Well, yes more laptop. No more Facebook.

I lost my PSP. In my house. I should probably get around to finding that...

WordCount: 57,661
Jabez'd: Yes.