Guest Post is Live!

For those that haven't yet checked it out, my guest post on Sue Santore's blog is online! And it's about monsters. :)

Read it here!

I Have a Confession to Make...

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been taking blogging as seriously as I should have. When I started, I thought that the only things that were really necessary were writing as regularly as possible, making the blog look pretty, and writing about things that I thought were cool. While all these are wonderful things that really do help make a blog work, there was just one thing that I was missing:

Purpose.

To be completely honest, I've felt claustrophobic every time I entertained the notion of deciding what this blog was actually about. It frightened me, because I thought that, if I decided on something, I make things too narrow, and I would cut out most of the things that I'm passionate about and that I could talk about for hours on end simply because I think they're just so darn fantastic. All my interests felt mutually exclusive, like choosing one would be denying everything else, and that terrifies the heck out of me.

Let me tell you something I've never told anyone else. Being told I must decide what to do with my life gives me so much fear that I want to high-tail it to the farthest of far corners of the earth, so that the person who mentioned it can never, ever find me. Laugh if you want, but picking a career is the stuff of nightmares. I'm afraid of just thinking about it.

Right now, my entire body is shaking, my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest, and my fight-or-flight response has kicked into high gear. You could tell me I'm going to die tomorrow, and I wouldn't be as utterly frightened as I am right now.

Ahuiztol or Ahuizotl, and Does it Matter?

When thinking of the next water monster to talk about, some part of my mind dredged up a freaky Mayan creature I had once read about. All I could remember was that it had a hand on its tail and vaguely what it looked like, and I was pretty sure that the book I'd read the information in didn't mention its name. So, I turned to my friend, Taryn, who's working on a book that involves a culture that she styled after the Maya. And because she researches like a boss.

Turned out that she only knew about the creature because of a book her sister has about various Mesoamerican peoples, but she was able to find the name, which she carefully spelled out for me over the phone:

Ahuiztol.

I would try to pronounce it, but I always sound like I'm sneezing.

Tests, Tests, Go Away; Come Again Another Day...

Being a university student, I'm in the middle of finals season right now, which means I won't be able to put up a new post until after the 16th. I do apologize. When I'm done with finals, I promise to put up a real post about Mayan water monsters. In the mean time, please enjoy this gorgeous song covered by my new favourite singer:




If that song left you feeling sad, then I leave you with an absurd video to cheer you up:



I hope your Christmas preparations are going well, unless you're also going through finals, in which case I hope both are going well and that you're getting enough sleep on top of everything. :)

A Forthcoming Guest Blog Post and an Award!

Sometime in either December or January, a guest post by me will appear on http://suesantore.com/! I don't know the date yet, so keep watching this space for more information:

[The date: January 6th! :D]

Until then, I'd encourage you to click on that link and check out Sue's website. She's got lots of solid writing advice, and there's a guest post every Friday!

Next bit of news!

About a month ago, Angela McGill gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!