Hobbies Part 2

Yesterday I posted about my love and history of drawing. Tonight you will be told about my love of writing (whether you want to or not). ;)

As a kid I was always coming up with fantasy stories. I loved mythological creatures and when my sisters, friends and I played (whether with Barbies, toy horses, or without toys at all) I was always coming up with fantastical plots to act out. Once the Disney movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire came out, my sister and I were obsessed and always incorporated some sort of element from the movie into our games.

Despite how much I liked stories and making them up, I didn't really enjoy writing until around fourth grade; I blame this on tedious school assignments given in kindergarten and second grade. I remember one particular assignment in second grade where we had to copy an article about Abraham Lincoln and do it in our best handwriting. That didn't do much of anything to help my love of writing.

I don't remember when exactly I suddenly liked to write stories, but I remember doing a short story for a contest in fourth grade and really enjoying it. After that I think I slowly grew to love writing and did it more often, along with drawing.

In sixth or seventh grade I discovered www.nanowrimo.org, or National Novel Writing Month. Granted I didn't get any of my stories very far up off the ground until ninth grade when I began to take NaNoWriMo more seriously. I knew all of my stories would be novels; there was too much in my head for them not to be. In eighth grade I actually read the story I was most actively working on to my English class (which was awesome, by the way).

After almost a full semester of  ninth grade, my parents and I decided that it would be best for me to be home schooled. This gave me more time to work on my stories and drawings. At that point I was able to work on NaNoWriMo a lot more and was actually able to get close to halfway through, which was a big leap from the previous few years.

Eighth and ninth grade were the peak for my writing travels. After ninth grade the amount of time spent on writing decreased as I focused more on developing my drawing skills. As the years progressed to the present, the time spent on writing continuously dropped until I wasn't writing at all. I think most of this was due to my focus on drawing, plus the writing block I was suffering from almost constantly.

Last year my friend and I did a story for NaNoWriMo together and we won, which was very exciting and fun. :) She has her own blog, you should check it out: http://firefliesandbowties.blogspot.com/

As of now, I haven't been writing at all for quite some time. I tried to start a short story, but I wasn't really into it and sort of gave up on it. For quite a while now I've been meaning to get back into writing and working on my stories. It's just a matter of time and interest, I suppose.

Anyway, this is part two about my hobbies. Part three to come. Hope I'm not boring you.

Hobbies, Part 1

So the other day I posted an introductory post in which I told you about some of my interests.

Well, okay, I didn't really tell you about them, I just posted a long list of things I like. I'm going to break this up into several different posts, just because explaining them all in one post would take forever.

So today I'm going to elaborate more on the things that I like to do... starting with

Drawing

I've been drawing since I was a little kid. I don't remember always drawing before I was in third grade, but my mom tells me that I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil.

When I was in third grade I was pretty into stick figure drawings. Now I know what you're thinking, 'everyone draws stick figures, why were you so into that?' Well I drew stick figures, but I gave the girls skirts and actually gave them stories and had them interact with each other. It was fun.

At that time I was also into horses (I've always been into horses) and so I was always drawing horses. I would also draw people who weren't stick figures, but I think it was mostly stick figures or about even...

Once I hit age 12 I discovered manga/anime and decided I wanted to be able to draw that. Over the next two years my art developed in leaps and bounds as I checked out anime drawing books from the library (and even bought some of my own). Over the years I continued to develop, my own style developing subconsciously as I drew.

At about fourth or fifth grade I stopped drawing horses; I was focusing more on drawing people, so I was drawing them all the time.

Maybe a year and a half ago I started drawing horses again and went on a bit of a people hiatus.

The point of this post was to show you what I've been doing now, but I got kind of off topic...

Anyway, I've been mostly doodling for a while now so there aren't a lot of super cleaned up drawings...

http://fav.me/d612zvh

http://fav.me/d6130f3

http://fav.me/d6130pi

http://fav.me/d6130zd

http://fav.me/d613141

http://fav.me/d61319u

http://fav.me/d6131eb

http://fav.me/d6131kw

Enjoy!

An Introduction of Sorts...

So I suppose, if someone stumbled upon this post, their train of thought would flow something like this:

Oh, look, another blog...

This must be the first post, what with the title...

Okay, so far this introduction isn't all crap...

I wonder if this is just another blog in the sea that is the mighty blogosphere...probably...

All right, so maybe your train of thought doesn't exactly roll like that, but I'm going to just assume that it went something vaguely like that.

So to answer the half-question that is the last statement, yes, technically this is just another blog in the sea that is the mighty blogosphere, but I'm hoping it's not another normal blog in the sea that is the mighty blogosphere.

I suppose I should get on with the introduction, then...

Basic facts about the organism-that-is-me:

Name: Ha, like I'm going to broadcast that to the Internet! For all intents and purposes, I am Darkened Owl to you. Or Owl. Whichever is easier for you to type.
Age: No specific number, but it is somewhere between 15 and 20. Good luck guessing.
Gender: Female. No, I will not be your girlfriend.
Sexual Orientation: You know, five years ago this wouldn't be something people would actively want to know (unless they had a crush on someone, I guess...). Anyway, I'm straight. AND JUST BECAUSE I AM STRAIGHT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I HATE GAYS AND LESBIANS AND BISEXUALS AND TRANSGENDER PEOPLE. Just so we're clear...
Appearance: If you are my friend on Facebook, you know what I look like. If you are not my friend on Facebook, here are a few general descriptors: brunette, pale, brown eyes, short-ish, fairly freckled, is sometimes seen wearing glasses.
Personality: If I seriously tried to describe all aspects of my personality here and now, I don't think I would ever be able to post this post, so again, here are some general descriptors: quiet, friendly, random (sometimes), hyper (sometimes), somewhat OCD, bookish, creative, particular, um...
Likes (a short list in no particular order): Owls, penguins, PIXAR animation studios, snakes, geckos, dogs, birds, art, outer space, the Indian flute, bread, reading, learning, Disney, wolves, whales, horses, trees, water, the ocean, California, the cello, Black Beauty, Alaska, The Black Stallion, Imogen Heap, Linkin Park, Antarctica, Ellie Goulding, Australia, chocolate, New Zealand, Bhutan,Wreck It Ralph, Nepal, blue, leaves, purple, campfires, the harp, cozy places, origami, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, comfortable clothes, green, rivers, making things, learning new skills, drawing, writing, orange, the sky, heirlooms, skeleton keys, Native American culture, fish, eating fish, Italian food, pizza, sushi, ducks, wind, rain, seaweed, seashells, nature, forests, waterfalls, crocheting, Sarah McLachlan, The Piano Guys, Loreena McKennitt..
Dislikes (a short list in no particular order): The Pocahontas movie (because it's historically inaccurate), politics, asparagus, tuna that tastes like seawater and sand, rude people, curse words, when people speak of sex unnecessarily, nude art (it's just weird...), politicians, pushy atheists, rude religious people, cheaply made stuff, cauliflower, when spiders crawl on me, horror movies, the smell of alcohol, smoke (I can feel it making my lungs tighten...seriously), being landlocked, people who discriminate against LGBTs, LGBTs who are rude to straight people for no reason, cats (most of them), cicadas, mosquitoes, steamed spinach

Okay, those were long lists... to wrap this abridged autobiography up, I'm just going to list a few more facts about myself...

I live in the USA, I'm the oldest of 4 children, my parents are happily married, my family has 2 crazy mutts, I gave my sister a frog and she killed it with soap, I'm home schooled, all three of my siblings have a fear of bees (I don't), I'm nocturnal, I am severely annoyed by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, and Ke$ha (and I'm not afraid to say it), space fascinates me, if I could give myself some crazy physical feature, I would give myself working wings, James Patterson ruined the Maximum Ride series.

Okay, so that last one wasn't really about me, but I'm severely annoyed by it.

One other thing you should know is that I have two mascots/muses that pop up everywhere. They're best friends, both male, and species that I came up with on my own...sort of.

So, without further delay, meet

Trevor the Feather Snake and Ridley the Owl Quail!!

Trevor the Feather Snake, Ridley the Owl Quail, and art ©DarkenedOwl