NaNoWriMo Day 30

Word Count: 50,078/50,000
Time Left: 0 days, 0 hours, 44 minutes

!!!!!

The story still is not finished, with two or three scenes left to finish in the middle, and the final climatic battle and aftermath/wrapup only partially done, but I have hit my word count, and will retire for the night. Later, I will finish, and do the editing; I like this one, I really do, and though it needs work, I want to see it go somewhere, preferably to a publisher.

To my favorite skeptic: I told you so!! ;-)

To various other siblings: thank you, thank you, thank you, for helping free up a bit of my time today. Actually, for your help all week. I owe you a big one (so what is it, dessert? lunch out somewhere? a new music book? I can be flexible.)

To everyone else: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did it!!!!!!!!!!! And yes, you can say it; I'm insane.

Yay!!!!

NaNoWriMo Week 4 End...

Word Count: 30,006/50,000
Time Left: 1 day, 2 hours, 6 minutes

I cheated; I skipped an update last week, completely took Thanksgiving weekend from Wednesday onward off, and barely made it up to where I am now in a couple hours worth of writing. Hmm. So here is what is supposed to be the weekly update, recognizing that I have 20,000 words left to write and one day (in which I am babysitting all day) to do so. And the rest of tonight. If I happen to win, this is so everyone knows how crazy I am - after a vote of confidence from my favorite skeptic (where did that come from, anyway?), I'm not giving up yet.

In other news, we finally have fall colors! It's about that time of year when I start singing "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" over and over... but we finally have fall colors! This makes me excited, and I will forgive the winter for not coming.

Also, the birds are migrating, it seems. At least I assume that to be the case when I mistakenly think of shade and park under a tree, only to open my door and hear a deafening chorus of cheeps, chirps, and other bird-like noises. My surprise was great when upon looking up, I discovered that nearly every inch of every branch of the tree was covered with birds. Lots and lots of birds. Lots of noisy, chirping, black, insane birds. I moved my car very quickly to a nice open space away from the tree. .. Only after walking a while outside the chain of stores do I realize that every single tree in the entire parking area is the same, and become very afraid. (Hands, people; have we all seen Birds?)

Thanksgiving, and I won't even attempt to list all I'm thankful for, was a lovely weekend. While there's something to be said for small, quiet dinners, where everyone can sit at the same table and talk to everyone else and count on a share of the leftovers, I wouldn't trade in the large multi-table day long gathering I was introduced to down here. In fact, the whole weekend was a brilliant combination of parties and music and hanging out and general good times. And now, before I babble on entirely too long and waste my night away, I shall return to my writing.

(Huge night ahead of us? Yep. Sharp pointy deadline coming up fast at the end? Most likely. Bring it on!)

What Comes of Compromise

"The Brookfield Zoo announced this week the birth of a baby okapi — an endangered African animal that looks as if it were put together by committee."

There's been a new birth at the Brookfield Zoo, not something generally noteworthy except for two things; it's a baby okapi (possibly the coolest animal ever, after the elephant), and I wanted to quote the opening line of the article.

This thing below is an actual okapi (Omaha Zoo, not Brookfield), but the pictures do not do justice to its strangeness. Alas, my own photography has failed me, for the light was not good enough for a good picture at the time.

Pictures Are Important Too!

This is what happens with a brain fried from writing 5000 words in a session and running out of previously thought-out plot. (I did another 1000 later that night.)

The first is my 13 year old and the second is her grandmother. The third is most definitely not my villian though he was terribly fun to create. Perhaps I'll keep him around for a villian in an even more intentionally nonsensical adventure.

Enjoy!





(Yes, these are all from eLouai.com - I haven't gone switching doll sites.)

I Can Feel Better; I'm Not Bucky

Ann Arbor Weeps

Mister Schembechler passed away on November 17th of a heart attack. He was something of a legend to Wolverine fans; I grew up around people who knew him, people who had a strong respect and love for him with or without knowing him personally, and could recognize his name long before I had any idea what football was. I'm sure the response back home in Ann Arbor has been overwhelming, and there has certainly been no lack of articles in the Ann Arbor News about him and all he did for the community.

More Meteors; My Randomness

There's another meteor shower on the way, and this time it's the Leonids. While they should have been visible over the past week and remain so throughout the next, the peak is at the extremely reasonable date and time of Saturday evening (the 18th), 11:45pm EST (10:45 Central), lasting for a possible two hours. In good locations at least 150/hour could be visible. There's no need to get up at (or stay up until) 5am. So go watch!

If you don't have access to a favorable viewing location, there's also an article describing how to hear the Leonids. Of course, the only regular radio I have easy access to is in my car (or did I hide my travel radio in my closet?), and I cain't claim to have an amateur radio on hand, but if I manage to get out to a clear location for the show I will certainly try to hear them as well.

On a completely unrelated note, Walgreens rocks for their clearance (90% off!) candy I found the other day. I walked out with two bags of pretending-to-be-whoppers-only-not, a bag of "fun sized" (and who determined that?) Milky Way bars, a bag of Hershey's dark chocolate kissables, and a bag of white chocolate M&Ms for under $1 total.

I must now go cry because the lettered limited edition of Saints I raved about in this post is now sold out, and I never convinced myself to buy one. My OSC collection will never forgive me.

The Coolest Contest Ever Invented

GreatEscape2007, folks, that's all there is to it. They take you all over the world for three weeks and you win by being the best traveler. What's not to like? Sure, there's the part where you provide a $10,000 entrance fee if you're accepted, but they provide tips on how to raise the money so you don't have to pay it from your own pocket, and beyond what is needed for your plane tickets and hotels, the money raised goes to charity.

Traveling is done in teams of two. Anyone interested? Any volunteers to apply as my teammate for the three week adventure?

(You can apply on your own as well, and if you are accepted, they will match you with another single applicant. But acceptance is partially based on first come, first serve, as well as other selection criteria. So act now!)

I'm serious about the teammate thing. I'll worry about raising the money if/after I get accepted.

NaNoWriMo Week 2 End

Word Count: 12,508/50,000
Time Left: 14 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes

Well, it's still a slow start, but if you count carefully you'll notice that my number of words per week has gone up since last Wednesday. As long as I keep increasing (a bit more drastically, and perhaps - dare I suggest it - not taking any more days off), I should be just fine. Did I mention I want to be mostly finished by Thanksgiving, so that I have free time to spend on the weekend?

I've learned a couple important things so far, as well:

1. pogo.com is addicting and should not have been taken up until after November.
2. Hershey's kissables are M&Ms, only without the M&M part. And dark chocolate is fun.
3. Making chicken soup involves skill, and should have been taught in Chemistry class.
4. I am capable of writing story endings! Well, nearly; I've written one of the last couple scenes.
5. When you're not even halfway through and the story is at least that far, it could present problems. I need to add a subplot. But 13-year-olds can't have romantic interests.
6. This whole plotline really would have made a better movie than book. Maybe I'll offer it to Hollywood in December.
7. You know it's interesting when your heroines are a 13 year old girl and her grandmother. And the villian is a time-changer. In a modern, non-fantasy, not really sci-fi setting.

The grandmother just got added, or rather kept within the story for more than a couple scenes, when I realized she filled a plot hole nicely and easily furthered the story. Hmm. Maybe she should have a love interest.

(I'm kidding! I'd never dare try romance.)

Some People's Minds Just Work A Bit Different

There was a time, I'm sure, when randomness was not my usual style. I picked it up at some point over the years, and it stuck with me. I generally go about attempting to perfect it these days. Still, it takes days of writing intentionally semi-coherent plotlines (you try writing about a villian who has the ability to constantly change time and history) followed by a day and a half spent sick and rarely moving out of dreamland, much less out of bed, for the most random things to really make sense. As an example, I present the following conversation:

"Why can't you get into the game room?"
"Eeyore."
"No, not who. Why."
"Me?"
"And all your babies. I understand."

Word count to follow much later today, to make myself feel better about the fact that I slept all day yesterday instead of writing. Not that it wasn't entirely my fault; but then again, so was the fact that I did not write on Monday either. There was important social time to have!

NaNoWriMo!

Word Count: 5,377/50,000
Time Left: 22 days, 4 hours, and 30 minutes.

As of this writing, I am off to a slow but steady start with 5,377 words, hopefully to be increased as I continue writing later on tonight. I also have an outline for the entire first section of the novel, an accomplishment equally as important as getting the actual words down, as until I reach the end of the first section I now have no need to stop typing while I attempt to figure out the story. It may not sound like much, but I'm feeling confident about my chances this year; since actually starting the novel (an event that happened a couple days late) I've kept up a steady pattern of writing every evening with at least 2,000 words per day. Watch out, publishers, here I come!

The link to the NaNoWriMo forums are on my sidebar; it's not to late to join!

Memory Tests and Music

In my continued quest for intellectual stimulation, I began a search for online memory games - you know, flip over two cards, memorize their positions, find the pairs. There are a few different ones out there of varying degrees of difficulty (and it is easier once you memorize the designs on the cards), but one in particular intrigued me. One website has a piano tone version of the memory game. Instead of seeing any sort of picture, you get the same image every time, and what you memorize and match are the sounds - the piano tones - that play when you click on a card. It's the first somewhat difficult game I've found, and probably very useful if you want to have good musical memory. Either way, it's different enough to be interesting once or twice if you like a challenge.

Treatment of Disabled Newborns

American Papist linked to an article today talking about active euthanasia for disabled babies, an action being advocated for by "one of Britian's leading medical colleges."

A particular quotation struck me as interesting:

"We can terminate for serious fetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a
newborn," he said. "What do people think has happened in the passage down
the birth canal to make it OK to kill the fetus at one end of the birth
canal but not at the other?"

That came from someone in support of euthanasia. It struck me because he's so right.. and yet, so far off the mark in what he's actually advocating. And the language is changed; instead of a baby, it's a fetus that reached the other end of the birth canal that he wants to kill. I hope that doesn't become widespread. I hope it isn't really where we're headed next, even though I know it is, in places, already. I'll leave the rest for you to read if you want, but I couldn't leave this one unmentioned.