End of Day Twenty-nine: 47,523 (right on target)
End of Day Thirty: 50,684 (Woooot! Done.)
This is a very brief update to smugly note that I've just finished and posted
this year's novel for
NaNoWriMo.
My sixth, he said modestly.
This was great fun again, as always, although this year I was so
busy with work and little daughters and SL and WotLK and stuff that
I just wrote, I didn't get into any of the social stuff
on the website, didn't go to any (or even find out about any) local
physical get-togethers, didn't look for any NaNoWriMo places in
Second Life.
But that's okay; after all it's all about the wordcount.
*8)
I kind of like this one; it doesn't have any automatic word-extending
gimmicks like long excerpts from spam or quotations from long
enigmatic rants found in a basement.
(Well, okay, it does have the Frlepti and their strings of random
noun phrases, but I hadly used that at all!)
And it sort of hangs together and tells a fun story and lets
me play with various concepts (like last year's, although very
unlike last year's.)
This year a couple of friends are actually reading the thing
(or so they tell me), so I'm worrying slightly more about the
continuity and loose ends and things.
I realize that I haven't talked about what happened to the
Dominator towns at the Departure, or about what happened with
the black dome in Africa, for instance.
I might do an appendix for those, or just add a few paragraphs to
the last few chapters.
Or I might leave them for the sequel.
*8)
Yay, Izwit colonies on Mars!
"We take you now to Seattle, where Chris Onterby is interviewing the
President and CEO of Frystone, John Bigboote."
"Thanks Chet, we're here with the CEO of Frystone to discuss this
morning's announcement, Mr. Bigboote, you've announced that if your
company doesn't receive one hundred billion dollars in government
help this week, you'll be closing your three main plants, throwing
nearly thirty thousand people out of work, is that correct?"
"That's right, three plants and twenty-eight thousand people will be
idled unless we receive these funds."
"I guess the question on everyone's mind, Mr. Bigboote, is how did
this happen?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Well, until this week Frystone was thought to have escaped the
troubles plaguing the rest of the economy, and to be in good
financial shape. So how did it come to this?"
"Still not sure what you mean, Chris. Frystone is in great financial
shape, we're sound as ever."
"But then, well, this announcement..."
"It's very simple: the government gives us a hundred billion dollars
this week, or we throw twenty-eight thousand people out of work."
"But isn't that, I mean, but..."
"You're still a bit wet behind the ears there, son, aren't you?"
And no that's not a quote from the novel. Speaking of which!
End of Day Twelve: 22,562 (clawing back)
End of Day Thirteen: 24,521 (2K more words)
End of Day Fourteen: 24,521 (blame WotLK)
End of Day Fifteen: 24,521 (blame laziness)
End of Day Sixteen: 28,038 (a big Sunday push)
End of Day Seventeen: 30,634 (2500, yay)
End of Day Eighteen: 33,024 (2500ish again)
End of Day Nineteen: 33,024 (owch)
End of Day Twenty: 33,024 (double owch)
End of Day Twenty-one: 35,003 (2K at least)
End of Day Twenty-two: 36,051 (Just 1K; my rezday!)
End of Day Twenty-three: 39,101 (On track to barely make it)
End of Day Twenty-four: 40,009 (Keeping up)
End of Day Twenty-five: 41,006 (Barely)
End of Day Twenty-six: 41,006 (Arg!)
End of Day Twenty-seven: 43,034 (2K)
End of Day Twenty-eight: 45,043 (2K)
Goal for Today: 47,500 (down to the wire!)
As you can see it's been a month of thrills and chills and spills in the
ol' Novel Writing business. I let the Wrath of the Lich King WoW
expansion distract me for awhile there, and I also just let myself
get lazy. And work has been utterly insane.
But I can write five thousand words in two days, right?
Sure, no problem at all!
Second Life adventures can as usual be followed over in the
secret Second Life weblog.
In WotLK, I have a new Death Knight (the fancy new "Hero Class" introduced
in the expansion), who is now at like level 62 or 63 (DKs start at 55,
so that's not as crazy as it sounds).
In Real Life (as they say), the little daughter is home for the holiday
weekend, and we had a lovely turkey feast with the whole family and the
daughter's boyfriend, which was nice; and we all played a couple rousing
rounds of Apples
to Apples, which was also nice.
We haven't hardly seen the child since, as she's been at parties and
her bf's house, but that's what happens when they get all growed up (sniff).
I've been feeling a bit blah in terms of motivation and validation lately,
on and off.
The Main Big Important Project at work (whose output is a PowerPoint deck
of all things) is coming up to the deadline, and I don't feel like I've done
the best job I could have on getting agreement and socialization and buy-in
and all from everyone involved.
Maybe just because they're higher-level people this time, and I'm not used
to the various ways of getting in contact and getting time with these
extra-busy people.
I think it will all work out well and we'll have some valuable information
to impart at the end, but it's going to stress me until that happens.
And then the secondary not-quite-as-big project (also with PowerPoint
output), which I thought was pretty much done, turns out to have a
key point of contention in it, so that's still hanging over me, sigh.
Hey, if you can't complain about work in your weblog, where can
you? *8)
Autumn is coming down nicely.
People have taken most of the fallen leaves off of the lawn.
The air is cool, even chilly sometimes; good sleeping weather.
I need to get out more, go climb a mountain and sit there alone with
the sky and the rock and myself and the universe.
Maybe after this novel and these PowerPoint decks are all done...
