Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Final Countdown...










That's right, friends.  We're in the last few hours of NaNoWriMo.  Are you past the 50K line and lounging like me?  Or...are you sprinting to the finish line with the Chariots of Fire theme in your head?  The Final Countdown will obliterate any traces of that song and get lodged firmly in your novel.  Make your characters get it stuck in their heads, sing it.  Boost your word count.  


The last few hours of NaNoWriMo always make me a little wistful.  I've finished before the last day every year (mostly because I'm paranoid that something will go horribly wrong if I wait until the lat day to finish), so I've had time to contemplate the day every year.  Let me tell you...there's something bittersweet about it.  Yes, I have a rough draft of a novel sitting in my lap.  But...it's over!  The camaraderie dissipates.  There are no longer hundreds of thousands of people commiserating with you.  Everyone goes back to their daily lives.  And...boo.


But hey...my daily life might give me time to read this one...since I think it's my best effort thus far.  We shall see.


Out

Monday, November 29, 2010

Failure To Communicate...

After blocking my fourth (fifth?) person on Facebook today, I realized something.

Backstory? Sure.

My friend Rich posted something about how 9-11 was all a ploy by the American government to bring about the martial state of mind so we could invade Iraq and blah blah blah. Now, Rich and I go way back. We were best friends in high school, middle school. We were neighbors (albeit, in the country, so although I could see his house from mine, there was no direct way to get there unless I wanted to hike across a field and tree lines and a creek and another field all day...which I did at least once). We've been through a lot.

So Rich and I had this conversation where I told him he was probably loony for believing that. And after we were all done discussing it, this guy comes in. It's been more than a week. Closer to two, I think. And he starts calling names. Illegibly, mind you. Like...no punctuation, no spelling. It was sort of like being yelled at by a crazy hobo about something you and your friend were discussing on the street. Not only was it completely unwelcome, but also it was ridiculous.

So what's a literate man to do? I believe I said. "I'm the idiot? Whatever. Learn to use punctuation."

And then he comes back three days later with this TIRADE about how I'm one of the "sheeple" and our founding fathers were conspiracy theorists and how I should learn to question things and not be led to the slaughter.

Then he invited me to come to the border and help protect it. Or...at least that's what I gleaned from the ridiculous spelling and lack of punctuation.

And...I told him I wouldn't spend ten minutes with him. Then I blocked him.

Yup.

Okay. So what did I realize?

Even after all these years, we still don't know how to communicate on the Internet. There's no way people are going to put in the time to figure out the dynamics of a conversation before they jump in and start calling names. He didn't know that Rich and I were best friends for a number of years. He had no idea what we'd been through together. And he didn't know the tone of the conversation we were having.

He just wanted to call some names. And I was an easy target.

Oh, and also, the Army needs to enforce basic literacy tests, I think. They won't let gays serve, but they'll let illiterate monsters in and assign them to keep us all safe. No wonder diplomacy has crumbled into namecalling.

Out

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Aaaand....Scene!

The novel is done. 50,071 words. It's a shorty, but...it's my favorite so far.

Hooray for being done before Thanksgiving! I had a 5,000 word day yesterday and finished this morning...so that's cool. Very cool.

Hooray!

Out

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Scratch that...38,108 is better!

Friday, November 19, 2010

36,081 Is A Beautiful Number...

Because it's how many words I've written as of right now.

Woot. 50K, here I come!

Out

Friday, November 12, 2010

So...a customer just told us he lost 15 pounds and let us guess how. Then he told us he got circumcised. OMG! Funniest thing ever!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

We just saw a guy on a motorcycle bump the door of a VW bug in traffic and drive off...wow!
I just got called a glamour queen by a guy working a thrift store in Boystown...I had on a hideous floral sweater...

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Where have I been? Writing 11,111 words, that's where! I'm over 1/5 of the way done!