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.