What I do when

I'm too tired to fall asleep...

I write lists. About things I've learned at 2 a.m.

1. Sleep is elusive
2. It's probably dumb to drink even a small cup of caffeine before bed
3. Snoring can sound like multiple things, including a duck, a nasally voice, and a buzzer on one of those TV game shows.
4. It is extremely fun to sing and play guitar at the top of my lungs at 11 p.m.
5. Inspiration visits late at night, I've noticed.
6. I'm tired. Very tired.
7. Robes look a lot scarier in the dark.
8. If you scare yourself when you look in the mirror, it's probably a bad thing.
9. It's possible to be tired but simply unable to go to sleep. Believe me, I know.
10. Fuzzy pink reindeer pants are cute, but do not guarantee sleepiness.
11. Blog posts should not be written after 10 pm.
12. I should go live in Owl City. Get it? Night owl? Owl City, where all the owls live and everything? Oh never mind.

But when I look at the stars,
I feel like myself...

Guess what? It's 1/11/11. Days like this make my... day. :P I have a bunch of quirks like that. I wasn't going to post two days in a row, but in honor of today, I'm going to post 11 of my main quirks.

1. One of my main jobs around the house is unloading the dishwasher. We have a lot of colorful cups that I stack when I unload them, and they always, ALWAYS have to be in a pattern, no matter what.

2. I really don't care what my socks look like. I really don't. I will often wear unmatching socks if I can't find a complete pair.

3. I have worn my black and white Converse as dress shoes to special occasions. Twice. With a skirt. Apparently I have weird fashion sense.
(I wore them at a speech performance and our Christmas Eve service.)


4. My brother had told me multiple times that we should start a webshow called "Kylie in the Kitchen." Let me just say it would be a disaster, because...

5. I have blown up eggs in our microwave, broken more than a few dishes, put a mountain of sour cream on my brother's enchilada, and microwaved butter for a good minute too long (subsequently breaking the glass bowl it was in).

6. I name things. My bass guitar is Ben, my guitar is (tentatively) named Grant, my laptop is Lavender Boy, my old mp3 player is Pansy, and my new mp3 player is named Djaq.

7. I have so many nicknames, including but not limited to: Sky, Skylee, Kylila, Scarlett A Dale, Sam, Sammy, Charlie, Will, Kylie Bird, Goose, Ky, Ky-Ky... the list is endless.

8. I have an unexplained fascination with the following: olive green vans, old-style VW bugs, and Seattle.

9. I like chick-lit AND fantasy. Yep. Both. Sometimes at the same time. Aaaand... I just happened to like Camp Rock 2. Yep.

10. I have written stories about the following: Meeting all four of the Narnia actors; traveling on a tour bus with my favorite band; being Robin Hood's sister; and becoming famous. It shouldn't surprise you that...

11. ... one of my favorite sayings is, "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

The end. :D

Greetings, reader. I'd like to take you on a little trip.

No matter how long you've been reading my blog, there is something you need to know.
I am an utterly devoted fan of many, many things.



I'm a True Narnian."Courage, dear heart."
This goes deeper than just a fandom, I think. It all started when my dad read the books to me. I was probably five or six, and the magic of the stories enthralled me from the very beginning. After that, there was no turning back. I love the books and the movies both equally and differently, and I am a huge admirer of Jack Lewis. He's one of the people that I CANNOT WAIT to meet in heaven, and one of my inspirations.
Aslan has always had a special place in my heart. He has shown me the meaning of true sacrifice; a vivid picture of grace; and the beauty of who Jesus really is. The Chronicles of Narnia have shown me that here, Aslan has another name, and I must learn to know him by it.
Actually, my blog title is from the Chronicles of Narnia - the Last Battle, to be exact.
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!" - Jewel the Unicorn in the Last Battle, chapter 15
This blog is about my life, as I go further up and further in, exploring my life and the life to come.


"I'm not being funny, but..."
I'm a Hoodie.
It's the new craze sweeping the nation - Robin Hood, the new TV show by BBC. The legend of olde is now back to captivate all audiences, no matter what their age!
Do you think I make a good narrarator? ;)
Okay, so, seriously... the BBC Robin Hood show rocks. That said, it bombed due to several changes the writers decided to make that should NOT have been made. Despite this, like it or not, I am still a fan.

It all started a year and a half or two years ago when my Pip got hooked on this new TV show called Robin Hood. She told me all about it, and I thought it looked like a great show. Nevertheless,for one reason or another, it was still took a couple months before I watched the first episode on July 27th, 2009 (I remember the date because that's when Pip & Ebee came to visit). Sadly, Ebee's computer shut down three-quarters of the way through, and we didn't get to watch the end. (Talk about a cliffhanger.)

Believe it or not, it wasn't until a year later that I finally got the urge to watch the first episode again. And after that, there was no going back. I was hooded... er, hooked. I got my brother into it as well, and together we spent the summer watching Seasons 1 & 2 (my personal favorites). Season 3 is something I prefer to block out of my memory, but 6 months and two fanfics later, I am still a Hoodie.

I enjoy the show because it satisfies my inner fantasy geek in bite-sized portions, yet is much longer and more interesting than a movie. Clear as mud? I thought so.




I'm a Hobbit.
If hobbits aren't real, then what am I?

Amin mela "Lord" en' i' "Rings".
Apparently, according to an internet translator, that's Elvish for "I love Lord of the Rings." And it's true.
I've always known about the Lord of the Rings movies, but I wasn't allowed to watch them for a long time. That is, until last year or so. My dad told my brother and I that if we read the books, he'd let us watch the movies.
The race was on.
It took us a while (I mean, come on, those books are huge!). I went through periods where I'd soak in the books and couldn't get enough of them... aaand periods where I didn't want to go anywhere near them at all. I still love those manuscripts and I'm thinking about reading them again. Every time we finished a book, we'd watch the movie.
We ended up getting to Return of the King at the same time, and that's when competition ensued. I remember clearly when my brother challenged me to a duel. I accepted, and for one Saturday all we did was read. We read as much as we possibly could, and then we got to the end. Well, my dad decided to read the last chapter aloud to the both of us, and we crossed the finish line together. ;)
I'm really glad I read the books before the movies. It made it totally worth it, and I probably wouldn't have ever read the books if I didn't have the movies as motivation.
My favorite characters are probably the hobbits - especially Samwise Gamgee. He's the one whom I'm most like in personality (and maybe height too), and in fact, many people call me Sam. My Pip nicknamed me that, and it just kind of stuck. She's most like Pippin of course. ;)
I also really like Aragorn. Someday I'll write an epic character like him...someday.


I'm a Trekkie.
Okay, so blame my Dad for this one. He was the one who played Star Trek: The Next Generation for me when I was but a wee lass. It wasn't until I got to be an older, more experienced Starfleet officer that I actually began to appreciate the aliens with strange heads.
All kidding aside, I do love this show - The Next Generation in particular. However, I still do love what I've heard about and the few episodes I've seen of The Original Series.
I just love how these shows explore the human condition, and how the characters, despite being futuristic, are not that much different than ourselves.
My favorite character is Data, followed up by Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher, and Will Riker, and Deanna Troi, oh, and Worf!
Okay, okay... I love them all. :P


I'm a Dekkie.
Black.
Red.
White.
No, I'm not just naming random colors. I'm naming books. Ted Dekker books to be exact!
I read Black last year, and it was my first Dekker book I've ever read. I haven't read all his books, but I really love the way he incorporates fantasy and "adrenaline-laced plots" together to create one epic novel.
I'd probably say I like his Circle Trilogy best, and my favorite out of those would have to be Black or Red. The analogies in Red are beautifully heartbreaking. Thus, I cried.
I definitely liked the books Showdown, Sinner, & Saint, although not as much as The Circle Trilogy.
I also did get Chosen for Christmas, which I'm looking forward to reading again. Another book I really liked of his was Blink of an Eye, which probably is a close second to the Circle Trilogy.
I have both Pip AND my dad to thank for getting me hooked on Ted Dekker. ;) Now I find myself picking up on his writing style and using it in my novels sometimes.
Thanks, Ted Dekker. You are inspiring.

Finis... sorta. ;)

This song makes me want to fly.




Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next
What happens next

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before 

Current song in my head: When violet eyes get brighter, and heavy wings grow lighter, I'll taste the sky and feel alive again....
{I just love Owl City. :)}


Okay, this is going to sound tacky, but I've been listening to the same three songs over and over again every day for the past week.


Wanna know what they are?

OH LOOK, I HAVE A BLOG!!!

So, where did I last leave you last? Ah, NaNo. Yes, the marvelous thing that has sadly killed my blog for the month of November.

What happened was... I was NOT shooting for 50,000, but yet I still got there. Yes, you read that right. I made it to 50,000. I'm still wondering how it happened!

Circumstances prevented me from even trying to get 50k... at first. My good friend Ashley was coming to stay for a week, and I knew I wouldn't be writing at all while she was here. So rather than get stressed when I was way behind after she left, I decided to just write as much as I possibly could when she wasn't here and see where that got me.

I started off with a bang, making the required NaNo wordcount of 1,667 words per day, even though I wasn't trying. I made about 5,000 words that week, keeping right on target for the word count goal. Then Ashley arrived. That was one of the funnest weeks of my life (post about that coming soon), but even so, I did not get any writing done, just as I had thought would happen. The week after she left was filled with just trying to catch up on daily life. I don't think I even started writing until halfway through the week. At this point, it's pretty much all a blur, so I don't remember how many words I got that week. I was just trying to survive. :P

On November 23rd, somehow I got to 23k. Then Thanksgiving struck. That morning I gave up on trying to write anything, especially since I had a bad headache.

I had posted on the NarniaWeb NaNo thread earlier in the week, saying that I didn't think I was going to make it, but maybe I would next year. A fellow NWebber, Orious, gave me a much-needed pep-talk. (Orious, if you ever see this, hope you don't mind that I quoted you. ;)

MountainFireflower (me) wrote:

Maybe next year I'll make it to 50k.

Orious wrote:

NO! NO! This year! You can totally still win! It's been done! I knew a girl who wrote 50k in five days and you only have to write half of that in five days! Write, write, write! You can hit that 50,000, don't give up! Don't give up! Pretty please?  

...In the unheard of, undesired, and unwanted event that you do go down. Go down screaming bloody murder. Don't give up without a hugely monsterous fight.

I began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was possible. After all, if someone wrote 50k in 5 days, what was half that in 5 days? Soon I began to get crazy notions. I decided to try as hard as I could, and give NaNo the fight it deserved. Even if I didn't make 50k, at least I would have tried. I opened Write or Die. In spite of my heavy headache, I wrote, and ended up writing 1,000 words in 15 minutes. But I still didn't know how I'd possibly get to 50k, especially since my plot was dragging along. Enter Grant Stokely.

He crashed into my story, literally, and within paragraphs had turned my story in a completely different direction that I expected, but one that I wholeheartedly loved. He took the reigns of my story in his completely capable hands and showed me that I had just needed a change of pace. Soon my plot, my characters, and my theme took on new life, and I decided that this book was worth it after all. I was fighting. Hard.

Thanksgiving Day I had 25k. By the end of the day I had 32k. I still have no idea how I did it. All thanks and credit goes to God. He's the one who had his hand on my book, and gave me renewed vigor. Without him, I never would have finished.

The rest of those 4 days start to blend together. I think I got to 42k on November 26th. November 27th I only wrote 3,000 words due to my schedule and being completely brain fried, but I didn't feel bad about it since the race against time was getting less intense. November 28th was the day I finally reached the 50,000 word mark. I had resolved that I would finish it that day rather than finish it the next day which was going to be very busy. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and by the end of the day I had a purple winner's bar.

Getting the purple bar took a little doing though. For some reason, the NaNo word count validator took away a thousand words or so. Due to that little detail, I stayed up even later than I wanted to, trying to get those last thousand words done. I also discovered that Google Docs has a 'select all' button, and I don't have to highlight all the text myself. Boy, was THAT a lifesaver!

So, long story short (funny, this story is already longer than I thought it would be), I won NaNo. It was the last thing I expected to do, especially this year, but it showed me that God has different plans than my own sometimes. And that sometimes, what we think is impossible isn't so impossible.

NaNo is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it's taught me some great lessons about writing, about life, and about the God who strengthens me to do all things.

I totally can't wait for next year! :)