driving lessons

14 August, 2015

I Can Drive a Car Now, Woohoo!

Back on the 1st of August, I took my second go of the practical driving test… and passed! Which kind of stunned me, to be honest. The practical driving test is a super, super strict and after my first test I really wasn’t sure I had it in me to pass.

Turns out, I did.

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(That photo was immediately afterwards, so the stunned, awed look is 100% genuine.)

So, I have to apologise for how quiet the blog’s been over the last fortnight. I’ve been indulging in the usual post-test-pass traditions: getting a cute wee car, and driving literally everywhere as I get used to driving for real… which, for the record, is a lot easier and less stressful than driving for the test.

Plus, all the random road trips are a ton of fun. And I’m still excited every time I can just go to the shops for my dinner, and buy groceries without having to stress about getting them home on the bus, and get home on a rainy day without looking like a drowned rat.

Woke up and had to check in the driveway and make sure I didn’t imagine this entire weekend. *puffs up with pride* pic.twitter.com/p6CJk917AV

— Emma Maree (@EMaree) August 3, 2015

So, yeah. This is definitely going to be one of the highlights of my year, and even now I still feel a bit astonished it’s real.

(I can drive! Unsupervised! On my own!)

(I CAN DRIVE AND I CAN DRIVE WELL.)

(THE GIANT METAL MACHINE IS OBEYING MY EVERY WHIM.)

Normal posts will resume soon, now that this hectic, anxiety-inducing, unbelievably expensive, stressful-as-hell (and yet somehow, totally worth it) life milestone is over.

2 April, 2014

What’s Up Wednesday: April 2nd Edition!

wuwRobot

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what’s up. It was created by created by Jaime and Erin. Want to join the party? Go right ahead, and remember to leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.

What I’m Reading

March was a very, very busy reading month. Mostly just comics, but one or two books as well, and some beta reading.

I’ve been having regular “tea and comics” evenings and weekends to catch up on my comic to-be-read pile. It’s a lot of fun!

No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, Vol. 2

Thor: God of Thunder, Vol. 1: The God Butcher

The Monster at the End of this Book (Sesame Street)

Young Avengers, Vol. 2: Alternative Culture

Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: In Pursuit of Flight

What I’m Writing
fs-under-the-waves4

Ladies! Dudes! And other awesome people! I had a story accepted into an anthology with a bunch of awesome writers. This is super exciting. :D

Aside from that, CampNaNo is now in session (my profile!) so I’m buckling down to hit my wordcount for that.

The goal was 20k but Kate’s been spurring me on to try and hit 35k! Eeep!

What Inspires Me

I’m listening to Welcome to Night Vale, my favorite surreal horror podcast, again. It’s good to be back! I can’t wait to catch up with it all.

If you’ve never listened to Night Vale, Episode 1 is here. It’s not jump-out-of-your-seats horror, it’s a quieter, smart and blackly humored story.

I’ve just finished re-listening to Episode 20, “Poetry Week”, and it’s a lot of fun. Audio is here, and a transcript is here (but Night Vale loses a lot of atmosphere when written down).

What Else I’ve Been Up To

I’m on Week 6 of my 8 week running training, but I’ve had to pause things for a bit to recovery from some stubborn muscle aches. I’m looking forward to getting back on track soon.

Driving lessons are progressing steadily as well, and I’m now tackling things like main roads, high speeds, roundabouts and traffic lights. It’s fun! And sometimes a little scary too, but that’s just the learning curve.

I hope your week has been going well and continues going awesomely. I’m looking forward to hopping around everyone’s blogs today!

3 July, 2013

What’s Up Wednesday! Start-of-July Time!

I’m still shocked it’s July! And now it’s Wednesday as well! Time needs to slow down.

what'supwednesday

What I’m Reading

I finished TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, and now I’m on to writer-friend Wes Chu’s THE LIVES OF TAO. I love Tao. I love Edward (*sniffle*). I LOVE EVERYTHING. I’m really annoyed I don’t have more time in my day to read this.

What I’m Writing

Revisions have been slow, but steady. The start of DIVIDE THE SKY is difficult to revise, because I’m laying the framework for all the plot changes. The slowness is frustrating, but it’s worth it… this story’s coming together, and this revision has a coherency of plot that I’m quite proud of.

I got annoyed with my Chapter 2 rewrite for a while, before realising it needed a clearer ‘goal’ — the pacing had slowed for a bit, my character was absorbing information, but he wasn’t acting on it. He was allowing a secondary character to tell him what to do.

Swap that around so the main character takes this information and decides to move forward with it, and bam! Chapter fixed! Much rejoicing!

So now I’ve zoomed through to Chapter 8. Life is good. I’ll be looking for beta readers in the very near future, so if you’re interested in helping me out (I can offer a critique of your manuscript in return), leave a comment or drop me a line. Info about DIVIDE THE SKY is over here.

What Inspires Me Right Now

Fall Out Boy have a new video out! I’d say they’re a guilty pleasure, but I’d be lying, I’m completely shameless about my enjoyment of these guys. It’s a continuation of the storyline in their previous three music videos.

Also, now that DIVIDE is back in the spotlight, the playlist is getting some attention:

What Else I’ve Been Up To

I HAVE A DRIVING LESSON ON SUNDAY AAAHHHHH PANIC GET OFF THE ROADS EVERYONE

Okay, I probably won’t even get to take the wheel as it’s my first lesson, but my nerves are still running high. It’s been a while since I last practised driving (there’s a sexist joke at that link, sorry. Me-three-years-ago had some internalised misogyny to get over).

I’m having a lot of fun window-shopping future cars, though. Possible too much fun. Don’t ask me my opinion of cars just now, because my head is FULL OF THEM.