July Camp NaNo // I interview some cabin members

One of the things I find fun about family, is that sometimes they jokingly agree to something when thinking that I'm not serious at all. And then when they discover that I was entirely legit, they can't lower themselves to back out. (looking right at you, Jess. :P)

So today I've got a vlog for you all featuring two members of my family (and my cabin). In which they have to answer the quiz questions or I will whack them over the heads with my notebook.

I would also just like to applaud their skills of talking on camera because it was me - the one who has done four vlogs so far - who started talking backward and inside out first. The others were actually decent. *applauds them*

Also notice: I'm not wearing a t-shirt. Finally. XD (I told you I owned other shirts. :P)

Tell me a bit about what you're working on for camp??
(pretty please?)
What's three quirky things about your characters?

Blog Anniversary // SURPRISE VLOG // I eat a spoonful of vegemite

On the 28th, April 2014, I started this blog. And somehow it's still alive now three years later??

WHOA.

I'm amazed at my little toddler bloggy. *pats blog proudly*

So the last two years I've been meaning to remember when my blog's anniversary is but somehow only think of it a month or two too late. But not this day!
(*nervous laughter* I came close to forgetting though. Very close.)


Just for the occasion I decided to take a look back at my first few posts. Man, I laughed at myself so hard. I'd just like to point out the fact that my very second post ever was a tag/award thing and guess what? I tagged no one. This has been happening from the very beginning apparently.

Reading through some of them just shows how insanely much my blogging style (and me) has changed.


Somehow I have almost 200 posts (okay, I'm about 15 off the mark but still). Um...WOW. I can't get over that. I don't even know how that happened because gosh that's a lot of posts. Also 30k page views. Dude. What even? How??
In three years, I've only ever gotten two spam comments. Talent, yes. By the same person/thing and both in the last year.
Comments are my favourite things though. All 1,500-and-something of them are were very special for me. (So shout out to all you peoples who have been commenting for a year or two. I notice. I appreciate it. And if you've only commented once, or haven't even done it ever (promise I'm not all that scary) thank you as well. Getting all sentimental now)
RANDOM STATS FLASH because why not.


I had thought of doing a giveaway for this occasion but a) I couldn't think of anything to give away and b) postage cost kills me. So yeah nah. No giveaway for you this time around. :P

ONE THING I'VE LEARNT ABOUT BLOGGING IN THE LAST THREE YEARS

No one actually knows what they're doing. It's all a journey process. We're works in progress and we'll never stop growing.
Those are your wise words of wisdom from Jane for the day. xD

Alrighty so in light of the fourth year of Dear Bloggy's life, I've been thinking over a major revamping. I want to make it look more professional and -I don't know- look better in general. Think aqua/turquoise theme colours and plain white background. (I'm yet to work out how I can still include the tengwar/elvish script somewhere because it looks cool.)

I'm still tossing up this idea, and I'd like to know what you guys think of it. As well as some other questions of what you'd like to see more of on my blog over the next year and stuff like that.

Wherefore, I have made a survey!!
There's only four questions, so hopefully it won't be too tricky.

YES YES NOW I FINALLY GET TO THE ONLY BIT YOU WERE ACTUALLY WANTING. The part where I celebrate my Blog Anniversary in vlog!!! 
(I want to know how many people actually just skipped over my rambling to get down here to watch this part. :P)

I made you wait right until the end of the post, because I'm mean. :P Saving the best for last, naturally. But now you get to watch my awkwardness again. (because who wouldn't want to?)

(and you also get to hear the sounds of outdoors Australia because we decided to film it outside. And then the sun came out part way through so the video got really over exposed. >.<)

Thank you guys all for reading, and if you've never commented before, don't be shy! I'd love to meet you. :D

Would you eat a spoonful of vegemite if I asked you nicely?
(take my advice and answer that with an adamant no xD)

Camp NaNo // WATCH MY AWKWARD FACE RAMBLING

Okay so that title sounds very weird on second thoughts, but I'm keeping it anyway. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU GET TO DO!!

Yup. Today I'm giving you a vlog of my awkwardness and answering a couple of random questions I've been asked about Camp NaNo. Because why not.

Aaand this one was just me by myself, so I may have gotten a bit more...random...at times, because I was just sitting around talking to myself at the time of filming. And now I'm showing you how weird I am in normal life.

Now, I filmed this before April even started, so there were a few awkward moments of me attempting to pretend that it was April already, and completely failing - or forgetting that I was meant to be pretending and blurting out something that made absolutely no sense.

And it was actually a really hot day and I was sweltering. Ugh. Soooo hot. Hence I might look it once or twice during the video.

BUT ANYWAYS. Here you go.

*cue me completely mindblanking how even to upload a video onto youtube*
*and then cue youtube having a spas and taking a gajillion hours actually loading the silly thing*

[also warning: I did the most awkward introduction ever so just brace yourself for that. xD]

"Oh...how do you stop these videos? Do you press the same button- oh yes. You do."

My super sister Alice was great and put this thing together for me again, and Clare entrusted me with her camera all alone in the room so big thanks to them both or you wouldn't have gotten so see this.

*snorts* The amount of times I accidentally repeated myself or lost track of my sentence halfway through talking, though. So many. But anyways.


And more recently than my filming - it's been confirmed that I'm going to be away for a week mid-April but you're still getting a chapter of Lando! I'll be scheduling it to post, so I don't have to worry about it while I'm gone.


Just so you know, I DO ACTUALLY OWN CLOTHES OTHER THAN T-SHIRTS. I just don't wear them as much. :P I almost wore the same shirt as my other vlog just for fun, but I picked up the one on top of it instead.

Also, fact of having glasses: reflections. I happened to be sitting opposite a window, so that there would be a decent amount of light so you could see me properly, but *huffs* that means reflections in my glasses half the time.

I was going to bring some Tiger Pear along to show you as some of the dangers of camping in Australia, but I completely forogt until I read out the question and at that point I figured it wouldn't be a good time to duck out the door and run down the back paddock and grab some. So just google it and be scared by the horrendous images of terror and spikiness. (And then come visit me and I'll take you camping. xP)


SO YEP, I WILL NOW STOP RAMBLING. There's your message from me. GO DO THE WRITING STUFF NOW.


And you should totally go check out Jonathan's blog
(because he's a genius -obviously- and you all should meet the guy behind the white board calendar idea thing.)
How is your Camp NaNo???
(Tell me allll)

(p.s. you will get a writing/word count update from me some time...I just couldn't be bothered to put it in today. xD So hang in for that. Just know that I'm quite happy with how I'm going. *nods*)

Q+A Vlog - woot woot!

Here we are at the end of the year already! I hope you all had a great Christmas full of joy and laughter. To celebrate, my vlog is up and ready!!!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who submitted questions!
When I published the original post, I was worried that maybe I'd get, like, five questions and no one would really be interested. But then questions started exploding everywhere and I think I ended up with seventy-six questions. Which is waaay more than I could answer in a reasonable amount of time. So a huge thanks because that was an amazing encouragement for me.

I've tried to answer at least one of everyone's questions. And for some of the larger batches (cough cough like the batch of 41 questions from one person. I'm impressed whoever did that) I just picked some of my favourites/randomest/interestingest.

Apologies for the lengthiness of the video. We cut it down as much as we could without skipping out more questions. Hopefully you'll be able to find a spare 17-ish minutes.

So here we are! My first ever vlog revealed for you, my readers!




Okay, so I DO NOT remember jiggling my legs and tapping my fingers almost constantly while we were videoing, but apparently I was. Welcome to me. (maybe that's why I became a writer and a musician, so I could tap my fingers and it would do something other than annoy people with the constant movement.) Hopefully I didn't mumble too much, and our Aussie accents weren't too hard to decipher. xD


I'd like to do a quick shout out to my wonderful and amazing sister Alice who joined all the videos together (the camera kept cutting and dying for the first ten minutes) and editing it all into what it is now. You're an amazing techo head.
And thanks to Clare for reading out the questions and adding your additions to the fun. And for supplying the camera. (and for howling duets of doom with me when it kept cutting out)


Thank you all again. Tell me your thoughts in the comments, because I'd love to know how this worked out from your end of things!

Serial Story: What's next? (also) VLOG (questions needed)!!!

Before you get too excited, I'm starting with the first half of the title...After last Friday and I finished my serial story, I realised something. I was stuck.

I had no clue what I was going to be doing next.

And now, after much thought, I am excited to tell you... *drum roll*

I'm still stuck.

Ahem. Yes. Or maybe I'm not so excited to tell you that.

I've massively enjoyed writing these serial stories, and they've been great practice. But SS+S finished almost unexpectedly and I was suddenly swamped with 'what is next???'

So naturally, I grabbed out my notebooks and pinterest and looked around for the handiest story idea.

Problem being that there were none that would quite work out.

Either a) they were going to be too -ahem- descriptive (we'll just put it like that...cough cough) for my few younger readers. Or b) I liked them too much to release them into the wild, plotless desert of choose-your-own-adventure.

Wherefore I have a problem. No story. There are some options I've thought of so far (because we all know how much I like having 'options').

#1: I could hang around until I get a good idea.

#2: I could undertake to write two serial stories at once.

Number two is a bit daunting to think of really. Writing two serial stories as well as a novel. Big commitment. But the thing is that I want to keep doing these serial stories. And I don't want to make the younger readers have to stop reading because it goes beyond the G(ish)-rated level.

So yes, I don't have any straight answer to all the 'what next' questions, but now you know my thinking.

BUT WAIT! There is another option. I don't know how it will work or anything, and how I'll go about it (so no change, basically). But I have a question for my not-young readers. If you are at all interested, there is a possibility that I could just do one story that would hopefully suit all. Or more, one continuing bunch of shorter stories. I've mentioned Lando Erif before, I'm pretty sure. And I think it's about time he got back on track with another couple of stories.

If you hop over to my writings page you can check out the general synopsis for the stories. Basically: dragons, vegemite sandwiches, jokes, evil fairies, fire-breathing main characters, pizza that totally can knock out a wharfie. Also probably a fair bit of Australian slang that I didn't even know I used. (Definition of a wharfie: a person who works at a wharf. Big, strong. This particular one happens to be Lando's dad and is pretty fun to write the few times he comes into the story.)

Basically what I would do is post on maybe half a short story every week (unless I finally get that idea for a longer Lando story that I've been hoping to get for aggges) and at the end of each story, you guys could give me random ideas for another story. And trust me, this can be very random. For example:

Me: hey guys, I think I'm going to write another Lando story. How should it start?
Dad: *had been reading the back of a chocolate packet* How about...a cocoa bean jumped onto the road?
Beginning of said story now:

   The cocoa bean jumped onto the road.

“Er, do cocoa beans generally do that?” Titus asked with a frown.

   The bean jumped again, bouncing along the black gravel surface.

Thomas straightened his tie. “I dunno,” he said. “But not as far as I’ve heard.”

As I said, THERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE RANDOMNESS.

So there we are. Wait for inspiration, double story, or Lando Erif. Tell me your thoughts.



I know, I know. Now we're getting to the part you're probably all screaming for. I mentioned the word 'vlog' in the title. Why? 'Cause I'm doing a special end-of-year one for you guys.

YES. I repeat. Jane Maree is doing a vlog.

*nervous laughter*

Several people have said I should, and I've been thinking about it for a while. And I had a test run so it wouldn't be my first time attempting a video. Trust me. It was hopelessly insane. I started off trying to pronounce 'vlog' without an American accent. It's actually surprisingly hard. I slipped into so many random voices that don't belong to me, that I'm totally not guaranteeing that the actual thing will even tell you what my voice sounds like. It was...an interesting first experience in front of a camera.

I'm planning for a Q+A so what I need is for you to tap out some questions you want to see me answer. Or...try answer...or...fall off the lounge laughing because I can't even think of anything to say. (and at this stage in my brainstorming, you'll probably get to see my sister Clare in front of the camera too, but that's still in planning)

But whatever happens, it's guaranteed to be awkward. And funny. Well, hopefully funny. Definitely awkward, and hopefully funny. No actually, we all know I'm hilarious.

SO. Before I get more distracted and add another thousand words to this monstrously rambling post...jump over and dump all the random questions you've got for me into this google form! Which will hopefully work. Hopefully.



I can't wait to see all the questions you guys come out with!!! This is going to be heaps of fun. Like...just imagining some of the questions I might end up with makes me laugh. I mean...if the examples are anything like the actual things... cough cough. It'll be good fun.

Oh! And I almost forgot to say when this vlog was going to be posted... *thinks up date off the top of my head* If all goes well, it'll be up on the 30 of December!!!

So what do you think of my serial story thoughts? 
(if you haven't already forgotten about what I said in the first half of the post. any suggestions or ideas or just random thoughts would be realllly helpful)
Is there something particular you'd like to see me do in my vlog? 
(yeah, I know, you already probably said that in the form but...anyway)