Just thought I'd share some inspirational quotes and sayings that I enjoy and keep handy.

-To be successful, you must decide exactly what you want to accomplish, then resolve to pay the price to get it. -Unknown

-Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world. -Eleanor Roosevelt

-Brick Walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something. -Randy Pausch

-When I let go of what's not meant to be, I clear a path for good stuff to find me! -Unknown

-I learned the value of hard work by working hard. -Margaret M. Fitzpatrick

-When I thought I couldn't go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck. -Estee Lauder

-Champions aren´t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. -Muhammad Ali

-The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour. -Japanese proverb

-Control your attitude toward what happens to you, & in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. -Brian Tracy

-We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own path, & we will never be happy if we live someone else's idea of life. -J. Van Praagh

-Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. - Willie Nelson

-One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others. -Levi Strauss

-I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. -Michael Jordan

-Repeat after me. If you want to keep on getting what you're getting then keep on doing what you're doing. -Les Brown

-Be happy with what you have. Be excited about what you want. -Alan Cohen

-Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

-The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. -Chinese proverb

-Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. -Brian Tracy

-Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared -Eddie Rickenbacker

-Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it. -Paulo Coelho

-Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman

-Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got. -Steven Pressfield

-Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Don't wait. The time will never be just right. -Napoleon Hill

-Nobody will think you're somebody if you don't think so yourself. -African proverb

-Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -Francis of Assisi

-You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, & expect to win. -Zig Ziglar

-Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. -T.S. Eliot

-Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. -Pema Chodron

-Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Discipline is making the choice between what you want now and what you want most. -Unknown

-Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart. -Mary Lou Retton

Okay stopping there, otherwise this'll go on forever! Haha. Maybe I'll do another next Friday ♥

I think we've all come across at least one series that looked promising but somehow disappointed along the way. It's not something a writer intends to do but it happens. There's always that question of why. Is it because the reader anticipated something else? Did the writer stop listening to their own voice and try to please the masses? How does a series go wrong?

I've had two series go a little south on me, as a reader. The first was a series of books called The Dragon Quartet by Marjorie B. Kellogg. I missed The Book of Earth but I read The Book of Water and The Book of Fire. Both great books, and like all great series you didn't need to read Earth to follow the overall story (still mean to get it though). I remember being so excited when I discovered the final book, The Book of Air was released and tucked into it as soon as I bought it. But there was something...unsatisfying about it. At one point one of the characters started to change unexplicably and the whole ending just felt like he just threw up his hands and went with things with no real explanation as to how this change came about. And this was a character who was raging against saving the world when he was supposed to be helping. I love character shifts as much as the next person, but there was something missing from this character's transition. It almost felt like the author lost touch with the story, at least to me. It was really hard to pinpoint, but it was disappointing.

The second was the Tairen Soul series by C.L. Wilson. I fell in LOVE with the first book, Lord of the Fading Lands as well as Lady of Light and Shadows. C.L. Wilson is a great writer and the whole series was well-written. What kind of killed it for me (and I guess this would be a case of reader expectation) was the change in the main female character Ellysetta. I'm going to try not to spoil it too much, my mom adores this series and she re-reads them which is something she doesn't often do with books. In the first book Ellysetta is a very ordinary girl, and it's the first book I've read where there was an emphasis on this. When I say she was ordinary I mean that in every sense of the word; she's not a girl with low self-esteem who doesn't think much of herself, or a beauty everyone but her recognizes. She truly is ordinary and she has absolutely no problem with being plain. I loved this! I loved this so much I can't even explain! Especially since the male main character is described as being utterly gorgeous and romance blossoms between the two. It was a nice refreshing twist. So when she stopped being ordinary and plain it kind of made me lose some love for the story. I would have liked to have seen that continue throughout the whole books, despite the fact that the reason for her change makes sense and is very well explained. Also, I felt that some of the conflict between them and the antagonists in the book got really drawn out at times. Like I said, probably personal preference and I have yet to finish the series because of it. But my mom gives it two thumbs up, haha.

Something I've long avoided asking myself, because I already know the answer. And it's one I hate giving because it's really not so much an answer as it is an excuse. That big ol' "no time" excuse. Some people might consider it a reason and with few examples it could be - big life change, sudden illness, serious family issues. Those certainly are not excuses and certainly should be at the forefront. But right now there are no big life changes, no sudden illness and no serious family issues standing in my way. It's me standing in my way, because as twisted as it sounds I chose to let things be more important than my writing. It's all the stuff I feel I need to do that I just can't brush off aside, but stuff I'm not getting around to either. My Year of No Excuses is not starting off so well. Can't have that.

When you have not, you create. So in that vein I must create the time space I want in order to do my writing. A lot of writers advise (and rightly so) that scheduling time for writing helps you to buckle down and write. But for some (like me) it's incomplete advice. I can't just schedule writing time, I have to schedule time for the non-writing stuff I have to do. Maybe that makes me a little nuts, but for me writing these kinds of things out takes an enormous pressure off my mind and it's a lot easier to just relax and get things done. It's too easy to get caught up in the stress of life, and when you have downtime all you want to do is be down (as in relaxed, not depressed). Motivation is that elusive gift that you can't really define nor can you really give directions to; ultimately you have to go out and find it yourself. Once you know what motivation feels like for you, then nothing's impossible. You can always find it again, easily retrieve it and take on life.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some hunting to do...

This was supposed to go up yesterday, my apologies. This week I'm reviewing Yarny, another web-based writing software I've been looking at.


What is it?
According to their website, Yarny is "A simple to use online writing environment for the high-production, creative writer." It's as I said web-based writing software created by Blue Burro, Inc. Blue Burro is a process design and web application company based in Florida.


How It Works?
You have to register for Yarny before you can start using the site. All your writing is done online so you can pretty much write from anywhere, at any time. Everything is saved in the browser automatically so you never have to worry about losing your work.


The Basics:
Yarny only works in Firefox and possibly Chrome (I don't have Chrome so I can't verify this). The Yarny interface is very well-organized and very clean. Upon logging in the screen brings up bubbles explaining each feature of the program. Simply clicking anywhere on the screen makes them disappear and you have your work screen ready to go. If at any time you need them back simply click on the question mark at the top right of the screen, select Quick Help and the bubbles return. Yarny automatically creates versions of your writing and saves them; you can scroll through them by clicking on the clock at the bottom of the central box where you write your story. Beside that is the Tag button, where you can give snippets or chapters tags with which to easily locate them later. Your left side bar is where you can find all your snippets/chapters as well as their individual word counts, a Search box where you can search your tags and create new snippets and groups. On your right side bar, you have sections for notes divided into People, Places and Things. It's a space for notes not part of your story itself, but important for you as the writer. At the bottom you have your word count, and at the top where you enter your title for your work. You can change this title at any time. With their new updates, you can have unlimited titles even with a free account. Premium naturally gives you access to other features.


The Pros:
The saving is very seamless and I like the distraction-free setup. Everything is easily accessible without having to turn things on and off. The ease of being able to access my story on multiple computers as well as all my notes is great, and I love that Yarny gives free members a great deal of features to enjoy. It gives me a little more incentive to upgrade to Premium because for me it shows an appreciation to all users. Yarny is in beta, but it's relatively bug-free and they are constantly improving the software with features. They do listen to their user base and I appreciate that very much. They have a comprehensive Support section which is always a plus in my books. FAQs are an absolute must. And their website is very nice and professional.


The Cons:
I honestly can't really think of any cons to Yarny, except for the fact that it's untested in IE. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of the interface it's fine.


My Thoughts:
Yarny is a really great web-based writing software to use. I don't know of any others, but for me it's right up there with PangurPad and in some features it surpasses PangurPad. The fact that I can have unlimited stories just thrills me to no end.

Actually probably better if they DON'T try again.

This post felt more important than the other I was going to post today, so I'll save it for tomorrow. Much of the 'net is 'shutting down' in protest of these bills. Granted they didn't make much sense to me at first, but when you think about it it can work. And hopefully it is. By shutting down, with only a small explanation and links pointing to the information about SOPA and PIPA, it's getting people talking and thinking.

No one's debating that piracy is bad. We all know it's bad, even those who have been guilty of sharing movies or music. But these bills aren't the answer. They are a blatant overreach of control and power that quite frankly, government doesn't deserve to have. When the White House says it's not going to back it, you have to wonder why. And if Congress and the House are going through with it anyway, one has to wonder why. The answer's simple; because it's not about eliminating piracy. It's not about protecting creative works (and believe me I'm all for protecting creative works). It's about a bunch of guys wanting to be the ones to decide what gets out there and what doesn't. This is not the Communist Party in China. Thanks to sites like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc I've discovered things and artists I would have never heard about otherwise. I would never have discovered have the artwork I have now and who painted it. My networking would be significantly diminished. I never would have been introduced to folks like TotalBiscuit, Jesse Cox, Toby Turner, iJustine and the Yogscast had it not been for YouTube. Watching other peoples' videos of computer and console games has inspired me to pick up more than a few that I might not have heard of otherwise because indie developers don't get the same spotlight the big guys do. These bills have to die. And stay dead.

And here, I shall share probably the best and informative video about this ridiculous nonsense bill: WTF is SOPA? aka The American Government trying to ruin the internet

I think this will become a regular feature on the blog. I'll review all sorts of stuff, but for now I think I'll start with writing programs. I got the idea a few weeks ago to use NaNo as a time to test drive some new ones I found, and see how they shape up to what I use now (Liquid Story Binder, which I'll also be reviewing). If you have any suggestions for future reviews, feel free to let me know in the comments. So this week, I'll start with PangurPad.

What is it?
PangurPad is web-based writing software created by Pangur Pty, Ltd., so you don't have to download anything to your computer. Built on open source software it's a writing program designed to be sleek and clean with functional tools and an uncluttered interface. But PangurPad isn't just writing software; there is also a large community where you can find writers who share your genre and it also acts as a self-publishing platform.

How It Works?
All your writing is done in the browser. PangurPad backs up all your work on their servers as you write, so you will always have the most current version of your work everytime you log in. There is a feature that allows you to go back through all the versions that have been saved, so if there was something you wrote three days ago, deleted but decided you wanted to bring it back, it's retrievable. There is a word count feature, a timeline feature and a notes feature. The notes have their own subsections for characters, places, things and general. You can also download your work to your computer, and there is an offline mode which allows you to continue writing if for whatever reason you're unable to connect to the internet and PangurPad's servers. At the top right of the interface is a button with an eye on it, and this button hides all the features so all you have is your writing space. Pressing it again brings up all your tools.

The Basics:
It should be noted that PangurPad ONLY works in Firefox or Chrome. It does not work in Internet Explorer whatsoever, so if you're stubborn like me and still use IE as your primary browser you will have to download either of the others. I personally like Firefox. When you sign up you're given a free trial account, with space for 1 work with a 10k word limit. All the features are avaliable to you including the secure online backup. Right now, if you are a NaNoWriMo participant you can sign up and get a trial account with a 1 work, 100k word limit by proving you're a participant. All that really involves is showing them the link to your NaNo profile. The third account is the paid account. This gives you unlimited works and unlimited word count. There are many features and details about Communities, Publishing etc, but that would be pretty lengthy to go through so please visit here to see the rest. The paid account has two options: $20.00AUD yearly subscription or a once off payment of $45.00AUD.

The Pros:
So far I'm really enjoying this site and program. The backup is pretty seamless, it doesn't give my computer any hiccups or issues while saving. I like that since it is online as opposed to a downloaded program I can bounce between computers and just pick up where I left off writing. The word count feature seems quite accurate, only a hundred or so words off from Microsoft Word. The interface is very clean, and I enjoy having the option of having the tools all easily displayed or hidden as I feel the need. It has a very small learning curve, if any, so if you're taking the plunge from Word you'll have little trouble getting accustomed to the format. Anyone who uses different writing programs should have no trouble at all with this. The site itself is very clean, very easy to nagivate and appealing. No crazy animations, nothing to slow the computer down, enough graphics to make it interesting but without the overkill. Nothing puts me off more than a website that looks like it was created in five minutes in a web editor.

The Cons:
There is no FAQ, which I would have liked to see. They're sort of a prerequisite in my books. There's also next to no information on the people behind PangurPad - not that that's a con per se, but it would be nice to at least know something, what brought about the idea. There does seem to be a few bugs, I can't seem to get the word count goals to stay when I log off, but it's unclear whether they're meant to only be present during your session or permanent until they're deleted. Again, a FAQ would have helped here, the small note they give you when you first start with PangurPad is not as informative as I would have liked it to be. I can't seem to get the section break or page break to work properly so I don't use them. With regard to the publishing, there's little info on that as well. You have to actually click on the publishing link beside your story to find anything out with that. It does bother me some that there is no information on the publishing experience of the people behind this format, and as of right now the epublishing option and the print publishing options are not avaliable. You can publish on the web, but it also kind of bothers me how they don't stipulate that should you choose to post most or all of your story this way, you lose your first publish rights. Though this only matters if you plan on going the regular publishing route, but if the idea is to be helpful to writers this info would help. At least those newer writers who may not know this, I know I sure didn't at first.

My Thoughts:
As a writing program, I really enjoy it. Despite the cons this is still a program worth checking out, at the very least. This year they're sponsoring NaNoWriMo and donating part of the proceeds from paid accounts to NaNo. I do like that they give you all of the program features and some of the access to the community, that for me gives me more incentive to want to buy a full account. It's a very fine line you got to walk to offer people enough of a preview to get their interest, but not so much that there's no incentive to upgrade to paid account. I feel PangurPad gives a nice even balance. Even being in beta it's pretty bug-free for the most part, and it's such a huge bonus that you can access your story anywhere you go, on any computer. For someone like me who bounces between two comps, this is fantastic for me.As a publishing platform, I'm undecided. It could show lots of promise, depending on the experience of the folks behind it. It's not the first site I've seen that claims it'll be a place for authors to expose their work to a large scale audience, and as of right now the community is all writers. If the site is promoted well, it could in fact become a good platform. Simply making a website thinking that it'll expose you/its members to the global audience is not one that's panned out so far as I've seen, and I hope PangurPad doesn't fall into that pitfall. Though new it does have potential, only time will tell how it pans out for self-published writers, and it is still in its early development. I'll be watching it.

I read a great blog entry by Chuck Wendig yesterday about self-publishing, which you can also read right here. It gave a great side to the whole self-publishing venture and touches on points I've tried to blog about in the past. He's done a much better job and made a very good point: they aren't serving readers. The biggest problem I find with a lot of these sites and services designed to "help promote your book" that self-pubbed authors join and even create miss one thing - readers. The only people on those sites are other writers. But there are other ways, as mentioned in the article. I don't want to sum it up too much because you really should check it out, but from a reader point of view I can say a lot of its points really do apply:

Bad cover art: You don't have to be a graphic artist to spot a hasty photoshopped cover when you see it. Like it or not, a fair amount of readers do judge by cover. Admittedly, I'm one of them. If the cover art is obviously a cheap job, I'm done. I can overlook an okay cover, but bad cheap covers are a deal breaker. Yes some readers may look past cover art; many won't. But if you want to attract as many readers as possible you have to appeal to them in as many ways as possible.

Poor/no editing: yes, you do need it. I need it. J.K. Rowling needs it. All your favourite published authors need it. Anne Rice needs it. We all need it! Needing editing is not an implication of whether you suck or not, or whether your book sucks or not. Needing editing is needing that unbiased critical set of eyes going through your story and picking out errors and inconsistances you may miss because you're just too close to the story. And if you're going to be a writer, you have to buck up to someone saying "this doesn't work". No one's perfect. Editing is a valuable tool that ever writer should have. Utilize beta readers (and not family or friends, unless they're the type who will be 100% honest), get a good editor. Sometimes you can find a freelancer who's either just starting their own practice or a student just graduated who'll either charge a discount rate or do it for free in exchange for references. But please don't think that because pro books have errors on occassion it means you don't have to worry about editing, or think that the story will shine through the errors, or that your words are so perfect that you don't need editing.

*The argument that published books have errors is completely redundant. Just because they might doesn't give you a pass to make the same mistakes.*

A couple other things that turn me off as a writer: Overpromotion. If you're taking every opportunity to talk about your book, you're going to kill my interest. Don't be a pushy salesperson and constantly mention it every time, or always try to drive the conversation back to your book. I understand that you've got to promote your book, but there is such a thing as promoting too much. If people are interested, they'll ask more about your book. If they're not, take the hint. Push too much and you'll just push readers away. Another thing are fluffy reviews. You know the type, praise for a book that the reviewer clearly hasn't read. Don't get your friends, family or other writers to post reviews of your book as a favour. I personally don't put much stock in reviews because tastes are subjective. But if I do read a review, I want to know why the reviewer thought it was a good book. I don't want to read mindless praise.

Bottom line, to quote Chuck: give us the whole ass.

This focuses on Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and while I've not played the game I'm a big enough Rings fan still and researched as much as I could. Even enjoyed a few let's plays on YouTube.


This game made me excited - at first. Then my inner fangirl started to rage pretty hard. Essentially, War in the North (not to be confused by the MMO Lord of the Rings: Online) is an original story set along the same time as the storyline told in the movies and books. The references to the story as well as some familiar characters like Gandalf, Arwen, Elrond and Aragorn are some of its good points. The graphics are very good, co-op mode looks very good, but it has a lot of cons for me:


-first, this is a FICTIONAL story, none of it actually occurs in canon. Kind of bugs me. There's a lot to play with in these books that I don't feel they had to go and make up a fictional story with fictional heroes and a fictional bad guy.


-we have a human, an elf and a dwarf traveling together. If you read the first book or saw the first movie, you would realize just how UNLIKELY this setup is. Not so much between the human and elf, the human character is one of the Dunedain and familiar with the elves, but an elf and a dwarf? Considering all the bad blood between dwarves and elves that's on display both in LotR and The Hobbit? I'm sorry but I don't buy this setup. This story starts pre-Council, so it's not like you can use Gimli as a fall-back arguement either. In the world of Tolkien, the odds of this happening would have been smaller than a hobbit child. Not to mention, there is no ingame setup as to how these three even met and became traveling companions. Complete lack of believability here.


-One review I read commented how the characters came across as kind of bland. I have to agree, they are pretty boring. The elf Andriel is very proper in her dealings with the characters but unemotional and very robotic. I haven't found let's plays from any other character's point of view, so I can't comment on that. But the interaction in the cut scenes is tolerable at best I found. It's very hard to get attached to these characters in the same way we were rooting for Tolkien's.


-I didn't like the idea of a new bad guy, instead of using something already in the books.


All in all, this story feels more like commercialized fanfiction, and I don't have much of a desire to go much further to check it out than I have aside from watching Jesse Cox's let's play of it. Usually watching someone's Let's Play of a game has inspired me to want to get the game itself (Skyrim, Terarria, Amnesia: The Dark Descent are just a few on my to-buy list). This, I think my interest is more due to the players. There is SO MUCH to explore in this universe, that making up a fictional story with non-existant heroes just seemed silly. Compare it to the Star Wars franchise, which pulls from a great amount of the overall history in their games. If companies are going to do more LotR games, I'd like to see them explore more than just the Third Age. Heck, do one that ends with the big and last war of the Second Age! This felt a lot more like pre-The Hobbit hype.

Entry's a little late today, ended up sleeping longer than usual. My energy levels are so out of whack as I go through this health shift.

Yesterday was a REALLY good day for the most part, nothing huge for the most part but it was one of those days that was full of a stream of lots of little nice surprises. What made the highlight of it all was reading a press release for fade, one of my new favourite bands. A little backstory, I heard about them last year via GACKT's new project YFC, where he brought in singer Jon Underdown. Jon's also the lead singer for fade. As a joke one of my friends started Free Jon fanpage (you'd have to see the "press conference" YFC did last year to get the name) and asked me to be a mod so I jumped on board. It's been a lot of fun to be a part of, and we have a lot planned for the new year. Our "30 Days of fade" was especially fun. It's purely for love of supporting the artist and the music, but reading this from the article:

"YFC toured throughout Asia and Europe, gathering fans along the way. These fans spawned a grass roots group known as the Free Jon Campaign that have loyally supported not just Jon Underdown but fade as well."

HOLY HANNAH that was a shock. A nice shock, but still! You don't expect that kind of thing when you get involved with a fanpage, you just want to spread the love and share the music. But that, that was really cool. Can't wait for March!

This is going to be a little World of Warcraft-centric, only because it's the only game I have extensive history with. Hopefully my points apply to most if not all MMOs in general.

This was a little inspired by WoW's patch 4.3 content, in which Deathwing is finally brought to an end as well as the powers of the four Dragon Aspects. You don't really need to know much of the backstory to keep up with me, by the way. Anyhow. This storyline...well it was rushed. There's really no other way to say it. Deathwing (being the current main antagonist) was really hyped as being nearly unstoppable, he spend a good part of the game randomly flying about the world and scorching entire areas and for a long time all our major characters lamented how they were going to stop him before he destroyed the world. There really wasn't a very large gap between that and his end. I have a feeling part of it probably had to do with the upcoming expansion, but I digress. My problem was I really liked this storyline! All throughout the game, the Dragon Aspects are hinted to or referred to in some shape or form, and it didn't really start picking up until the Lich King expansion when they began appearing ingame. Still though, their roles and true nature was never really talked about in any detail and you basically had to look up the game history to know who they are and how they came about. From a story perspective, they just weren't touched on enough for how this story eventually ended. Nozdormu didn't even get a unique model until the 4.3 patch! With Deathwing's re-emergence into the world, I think a lot of us players (especially us veterans) expected to see and experience a lot more of the Dragon Aspects before Deathwing was finally brought down. Needless to say, I think we really got the short end of the stick. And it seems a lot of players feel that way too.

But in a way, I can kind of understand how something like this could happen. Writing a story for an MMO really appears and is probably similar to a long, unending first draft. And you seldom get it right on the first go. Trying to create interesting storylines in a confining format like an MMO is probably even more of a challenge than a novel or short story. You can't go back and change lore unless you get super creative. In a way, I can kind of let the bad setup slide. Stories often take time and planning, and really how many times have you sat down to write a story and find things change along the way? New ideas, characters, and settings, ideas shift and change. And that's with a tale that has an ENDING! Unless the writers at Blizz and every other MMO company are planning the entire lifetime of their games, it's very difficult to see where your game story is going to be a year, two years, etc. down the road. Sometimes it's not until you get to that pivotal moment in a story when you realize the role a character has to play. Sometimes old heros fade away, new ones take their place, sometimes the gods take a bigger or smaller role than anticipated. So really, as much as the end to Deathwing felt incredibly anti-climatic to the players who were looking forward to more Aspect fun, I don't think we can really 100% blame it all on the writers for the ending. The format makes it difficult, especially for lore that seemed to often be in progress as the overall game story developed. They would have had to have set that up LONG before Cata, and that probably wasn't realistic by any means. Still, I think they could have inched it out a bit more, maybe give us a bit of history somehow and fully define what their ancient powers were for and what role they were to play before taking it away from them.

I felt the need to start new. Sometimes you need a whole new setting to move forward and get back in the game. If it doesn't work...well at least this blog is pretty, haha. I'll keep the old one up for awhile, but if you're a follower from that blog please refollow this one. I'm going to repost some stuff from the old one, but not everything. Just the really good bits :)

I'm enjoying a bit of chocolate and caffeine and listening to some let's play series on YouTube. I'm actually working on bringing back my health without shocking my body. My mom quit smoking a few years ago cold turkey and while I admire the gutsy move...not exactly for me. I tried quitting caffeine cold turkey last week and was sick for a few days. It hit me just a little too hard, so gradual cut-off it is. Cutting caffeine is brutal, but I managed to cut my consumption down by half so far. I'm going to dice up some veggies tonight for snack/lunch tomorrow, and one of those ginormous pomegranates in the fridge for breakfast. I'm sure that'll help, veggies helped me bypass a cold. They did stuff cortisone medicines weren't doing. Next time you get a cold, forget the vitamins and medicines. Stock up on your veggies.

I read an article (don't remember where, because my memory is great like that but I'm sure I'll find it again) that was titled something like "2012 - The Year of No Excuses" and it stuck with me. I really like the idea. There's no reason to put up excuses in your way of the things you really want most, no matter what it is. The excuses may not even be directly related to it, but still contribute to preventing you from achieving it. So this year, year of 2012, No Excuses. And no giving up, because only then do you really lose. My 2011 was full of a lot of failed attempts at various things, but I knew if I gave up trying I wouldn't get anywhere. There were some successes though too, which I'll all save for another entry, but I know I wouldn't have had those either if I had given up. So no excuses, and no giving up!

Maybe I'll do a year recap entry sometime...