Bleh.

The 30th of November is here, and I managed to not finish my NaNoWriMo novel. Ugh. One more thing started, and not finished. It's annoying, frustrating, depressing.

Some good writing came out of it, and I've written more in this month than I have all year. I can't exactly complain about those things. I just need to make sure I finish it, that's all. Even if it's awful, even if everyone hates it, I want to finish it. If I can maintain some semblance of discipline, I'll be able to work on it every day and finish in a month or two. I have to admit that writing every day is a liberating thing, but it's also draining.

Doubt gnaws as I'm writing that I'm not taking anything seriously enough, that we don't really get to know the characters. I usually rely on a character's words and actions, rather than long mental monologues about their life and situation. And the story jumps from one group or setting to another, every few pages. Is that intruiging or irritating, I don't know. I'll get Michelle's reaction, and maybe Liz will read it too.

I didn't write on Sunday or Monday. I'm not really feeling like it today, either. Just miffed at myself for not writing more this month - I really wanted to succeed on my first attempt at Na. (There's a Simpson's scene where Homer tells Bart that "If you're not good at something right away, it'a ok to quit!") I know that first times are learning experiences, and you're not likely to succeed. Yeah yeah.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a writer as a job, sit home every day and pound out novel after novel. If I can't be prolific, how can Fiction Interactive ever work? Not that 25,000 words in a month (while holding down a full time job) is a bad thing, but all the NaNoWriMo hype made me think I could do it. Good thing too - or I wouldn't have written anything this month. Thank you, hype!

I think the book is quirky and interesting, or at least it will be. I haven't really gotten to the parts where all of the human drama is explored. All of the emergencies and challenges that the people have to deal with, and the stress and greed and guilt. Right now it still feels pretty shallow, not very novelly. I guess it's a question of "is it deep, a work of art" or "is it entertainment, an escape from the everyday". It's not a work of art. But most of the books out there are just entertainment, and they sell, and people make their living writing them. Hey, why not me.

So I'm gonna finish late, but I'm gonna finish. Just irked at myself right now for missing the Nov 30 date.

A Self Survey I Took...

1. IF YOU COULD BUILD A HOUSE ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD IT BE?
Beside a mountain lake

2. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING?
Jeans

3. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PHYSICAL FEATURE OF AN IDEAL ROMANTIC PARTNER? Smile, neck, eyes

4. WHAT WAS THE LAST CD YOU BOUGHT?
Do itunes count? 'Cracklin Rosie' by Neil Diamond.

5. WHERE IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO BE?
Home / Outdoors

6. WHERE IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE PLACE TO BE?
A social gathering where I know no one.

7. WHERE IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO BE MASSAGED?
Everywhere. Yes Please.

8. WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT: STRONG MIND OR STRONG BODY?
Strong Mind. Which leads to a strong body, so all is covered.

9. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
6am-8am

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KITCHEN APPLIANCE?
fridge

11. WHAT MAKES YOU ANGRY?
hatred, snobbish ignorance, poor planning

12. IF YOU COULD PLAY AN INSTRUMENT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
dulcimer, and synthesizer/remix turntable

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
blue and purple and black

14. WHICH DO YOU PREFER: SPORTS CAR OR SUV?
Sports Car - (mini cooper?)

15. DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE AFTERLIFE?
I believe that I'll find for sure of these days...

16. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOK?
The Hugging Bunnies one, can't remember the name

17.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON?
autumn (in a state where you can tell)

18. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE HOUSEHOLD CHORE?
Floor scrubbing on hands and knees

19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPER POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Probability Teleportation (can teleport to any place visualized - fictional places, time travel, etc)

20. IF YOU HAVE A TATTOO, WHAT IS IT?
Don't have one. The Hindi hand tattoos are cool.
Also, stylized/abstract Polynesian shark drawings

21. Can you juggle?
Somewhat

22. WHO IS THE PERSON FROM YOUR PAST THAT YOU WISH YOU COULD GO BACK AND TALK TO?
Myself

23. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DAY?
Any day spent at home with the Baby Du

24. WHAT IS IN THE TRUNK OF YOUR CAR?
Nothing - I drive a pickup truck. Behind the seat are bungee cords and rope, a roll of paper towels.

25. WHICH DO YOU PREFER: SUSHI OR HAMBURGER?
hamburger

Sad, Sad, Sad

Well, I had a really nice Thanksgiving weekend, and didn't get very much writing done. I got a few thousand words each on Friday and Saturday, but that's all. Nowhere near the huge amount I needed. Sigh. This means that I'm only about half way to the 50,000 word goal for the end of the month.

I really don't know how the people that have done it did it. I don't write that slowly... I guess it's my attention span. I can't really spend more than four hours a day writing.

According to Chris (the founder of NaNoWriMo), you should be able to write about 2000 words in an hour and a half to two hours. Jeez, that's a lot of writing in a short time. It's not like I'm spending time editing, or sitting there blankly staring at a blank page. I'm writing!

So I'm around 24,000 words right now, which is more than I have written for any one story - My forgotten novel, 'Suffer' was the next closest, with around 22,000 I think.
Enough of the novel ramblings.

I went out to the movies with Julio and Liz yesterday afternoon, and had a good time! First, I met up with Michelle at her store and I took lunch with her at the food court. Then Liz showed up, and Michelle had to get back to work.

It was an early birthday celebration for Liz, her actual B-Day is today. After Michelle went back to work, Liz and I waited together for Julio to arrive. We went to see 'Finding Neverland' there at the Galleria where Michelle works.

Julio then drove us over to L-A Wok, a chinese restaurant. They were playing weird musak, these funky synth covers of oldies and Christmas songs that were really funny, and we had a good time laughing at them.

In the evening, Michelle and I relaxed and watched tv. I knew that I'd have to come back to work today and didn't wanna.

I spent a few minutes this morning working on the Ohio pics from my trip in October. I need to get them finished and put up on MeeMurr.com! Ditto for Michelle's Florida trip.

Draggin Butt

I stayed up past my beddy bye time last night, watching 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' and didn't get to sleep until like 1:30am.

It was hard to drag my tired butt out of bed, and I was dragging. Did a little half assed exercising, and then sat down in front of the computer. I pecked out a few hundred words, nothing I'm very proud of.

I'm not really feeling the writing vibe today, I'll have to do what I can to cultivate it. Liz is going to be coming over tonight, spending the night as part of the Turkey Day Extravaganza. We'll play some games, have a good old time. I need to make sure I get today's writing done asap, so I can kick back and relax without feeling like I'm neglecting my word count.

I'm still in a difficult part of the book. I've only just revealed the scenario, and I've yet to describe the bunker folk's reactions and emotions and so on. It's a difficult dynamic, to juggle ten people. I've left two of them unconscious for now, so it's eight people, but still. How would I react to the end of the world? And how do you present eight people simultaneously losing their minds? I'm gonna have to marinate on that. Once I'm past this part, the going should be easier.

Lunch Time Traffic Fun

Back from lunch, it took much too long to run the two errands I wanted to run! I went to the ATM and took out some cash, and then I stopped at Jamba Juice to get a 'Pumpkin Smash' for lunch, and then I dropped by Best Buy to pick up 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' (widescreen version, of course). That took over an hour, mostly because of traffic.

No biggie, no one missed me, there is nothing to do at work anyway. Brian is out today, so it's just me sitting here.

Wrote a few hundred words since the last post, gotta get back to it. It's finally fricken time to reveal the main idea of the book. Is 18,000 words in too late to reveal the main idea? Not if you're writing 'The Stand'. (I'm not).

Hey, Cool.

Good day so far. I got up at about 6am and went for a walk at the parl. It was cold, in the mid 40's I think. I got to watch the sun come up, so that was cool. And in my work building, I get to see sunset every day too. Kind of a neat little cycle there.

I got some writing done this morning, I am now at 18,000 words. I need to write 4000 words a day every day until the end of the month to reach the 50,000 word target. Considering I'll have 4 days off in a row for Thanksgiving, it could happen. I will try to make it so!

Michelle is home now, and goes in to work later this afternoon. That should help me get some work done, since when she's home all I wanna do is snuggle and watch tv. Hard to concentrate!

Gonna stop blogging now and get to writing.

Hey Hey HEY!

Hey, what do you know, I wrote almost 1000 words here at work. Pretty productive, considering the fact that I actually did some work today too. There isn't a lot to do these days, we're getting very few builds and there is little new to test.

My characters are finally out of the box! It's taken weeks, (I think I put them in there like a week ago actually), and damned if it hasn't been a trial getting them out. I introduced them one by one, and gave some insight into their personalities as I went along.

It feels like they were in the box too long, that there has been too much leading up to them actually getting out, and they still don't know what's going on. I wonder if the readers will be intriuged or bored silly. I'm guessing bored silly. The pace seems really slow, and the focus jumps around a lot. Some of the time it seems like there aren't enough characters (cause most of them have been locked in a box for weeks) and sometimes like there are too many.

I'm considering getting a Jamba on the way home, but I'll probably just put that off until tomorrow, after I've gone to the bank. I dunno if the Jamba branch right by me has debit card swipers or not. Mebbe I'll have a Pumpkin Jamba for lunch tomorrow.

I'm gonna try to get some more writing done at home tonight. I'd like to have the stupid end-of-the-world presentation already, so that it's past and I can get on with the action. It's taken a lot of time to get to this point.

Harry Potter 3 comes out on DVD tomorrow, so I think we'll be watching that Tuesday night. Yeah, pretty sure. I wonder if it's for sale anywhere tonight? Hmn...

Monday Once More

Had a good weekend. Went to see 'National Treasure' on Friday night with Ed, and then to 'In and Out' for dinner. I do love me some In and Out. The movie was ok. It was more like a good TV show than a great movie.

I had Saturday alone to myself, got around 1000 words written. Michelle was off on Sunday. We went out to the mall to do some Christmas shopping, and then went out to lunch.

After that I stayed home to get some writing done while Michelle and Liz went grocery shopping for the Thanksgiving Dinner fixin's. I didn't get much writing done Sunday, just like 700 words.

We had a very snuggly weekend, it was cozy and relaxed. Sunday was pretty cold so we had the heater cranked up and were basking in the comfortude.

In all, it was a relaxing but not a very productive writing weekend. Not a lot going on at work today, maybe I can get some writing done here. I'll try.

'Smash'ingly Good!

It's Friday afternoon, things are going well. Jamba finally had the Thanksgiving seasonal flavor 'Pumpkin Smash' which is a smoothie that tastes like pumpkin pie. It might not sound appealing, but boy, is it tasty.

Here at work - Dave talked to us today and reiterated what Tim mentioned yesterday, the scenario where we stop working for the temp agency and start working here officially. (Still as temps) Dave seems enthusiastic about the idea, which is cool. If nothing else, the prototype will carry us into the beginning of next year, over the Dec/Jan hump. I dunno what I want to do next year. If I'm not going to school, the best money I can make for our Save Up and Move plan is probably in the Video Games Industry.

Got some writing done this morning, about an hour/45 mins worth, Roger imagined that his wife was dead. I'm still far behind. The end of the month looms. It's all about the Thanksgiving weekend. I hope I can catch up.

Michelle is working a book fair up in the Topanga Hills somewhere, at a private school. Hopefully she doesn't have to work very late! Going to see 'National Treasure' with Ed tonight.

Stuff to do! At lass!

Today was a real workday for once. We got a new build just as we were leaving last night, so we had regressions to check and new content to bug as of this morning. I wrote 10 bugs today, most of them were minor.

Just talked to Michelle, it sounds like she'll be home around 7pm. She was able to avoid working the evening book fair event, so that's a big plus.

I hope to get home, get some writing done for the day. Gonna force myself to sit down and do it. This morning as I was making the bed, it came to me that the underlying theme of the book could be control, and how no matter how hard you try or what lengths you go to, your control of your self and surroundings is very limited. Exciting theme, I know!

Talked to Tim about the future of the game and our jobs - December 1st seems to be an important day, we'll see whether we stop working in December or continue till January/February.

There's also a chance we'll end up working for Dave. I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. Dunno if I want to work on kids apps. I guess it depends on the pay.

Busyness (of a sort)

So I was in a 2 hour meeting this morning, that was fun. Most of it didn't concern me, but it was something different to do.

Tim took us out to lunch at Daily Grill, and I had the steak sandwich, I highly recommend it. It's like $18.00 though - which is why it's a good dish to get when someone is expensing the check!

I put together a 'test plan' for the resigistration portion of the game, and we sent it off to be checked by the boss types.

Michelle had supper ready when I got home, yummy taquito's and green beans! Yumm. Takes me back to the old days in San Pedro, and we used to get them from Smart and Final.

Michelle had to go back to work to attend to stuffs, and I napped lazily. I didn't get any writing done, and we went to bed early.

Kind of a busy day, but I didn't get any writing done. :o( Bad me.

Out Of The Blue

When you're writing, sometimes a character comes out of nowhere - and if you let them, they will take over the story. In my novel 'Speaking to the Fourth Wall', her name is Anneli Brand and she was supposed to be a completely incidental character.

She was supposed to be in ONE scene, at a meeting where she told the main character that he was a Very Bad Man. That was her scene, I didn't give her a second thought, in fact I created her on the spot. One second she was nothing, and the next second she was an executive, in a meeting, being disagreeable.

She's managed to forge an entire plot thread of her own. Now she's hiring private detectives, feeding her dog oreos, and musing about her childhood in Pennsylvania. What's cool is the fact that the book is much better for her presence. An inverse theme is being explored now that would have been ignored before.

I've been writing for 10 or more years, on and off, and it's always been interesting to me how real characters are. Once created, they have a life of their own. If you check back in on characters you haven't visited in years, they surprise you by having a new job, girlfriend, and hobby.

It's creepy in a way - once created, they exist. And they go their own direction, from the moment they're born. I wonder if any scientific studies have been done to observe this in writers?

Amazing! Now Do It Again!

Didn't get any writing done this morning. That seems to be this month's theme, doesn't it? Every month has a theme, and this one is "Didn't write enough today."
Except yesterday. Yesterday was the first time that I met 1600 words without really breaking a sweat. That was cool, I hope I can duplicate it another 15 times.

I'm meeting Liz and Julio for lunch, it will be nice to see them - Julio especially, because I see Liz a lot more often. We're meeting at the Fox Hills Mall food court, and I expect to have me some Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits, Hells Yeah.

Pretty dead day at work so far, I think we're arranging for / paying to unlock the Uber license for Installshield, with multilingual support. Interesting stuff, aint it? So no idea when we'll be getting a new build. Producer guy Tim is coming down to our office tomorrow, so mebbe Brian and I will get an update about what to expect for December and Beyond. Either way, whatever, not too concerned about work. I'll always find some.

Whatchoo Know Bout That?

Today was, unsurprisingly, slow again. I went to Barnes and Noble over lunch and looked around for the 'Long Way Round' book that Michelle claims exists. I didn't see it. I read 'Wired' for about 30 minutes, and then headed back to work. Killed about an hour total.

After lunch, I got Launch.com running and put my headphones on and actually did some writing. It seems the music is a bigger help than I expected. I just needed a little more disconnect, I guess. I wrote like 800 words, so that's progress. I may have written 800 this morning too.

Hey, that's 1600, about what a days' writing should be. Damn, if I can catch up over the next week or so, that would be great. I fear the last minute all-day writing fest at the end of the month.

I think we're gonna have a 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving, so that should help too. Wow, this morning I was thinking I'd never make 50,000 words in 30 days. Now it's looking more do-able. Especially if I can get even a little bit of writing done at work each day. We'll see.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

Pretty slow day. Especially so since we were supposed to get a new build today, but never did. Since we are supposed to send the guys up north a new build every week, I foolishly assumed we'd get something to test on Friday. But no.

At about 5pm, Gabe asked me to run an errand to EB and pick up a game. Traffic was terrible! I can only cringe and imagine what the ride home will be like tonight.

I need to get a lot of writing done this weekend, here's hoping it happens. The hole is getting deeper by the moment! Help!! Someone! Help!

ZZZZzzzz

Today has been dead at work. I entered a couple of very minor bugs just to have something to do - it only took a few minutes. Been a long slow day. The build we have will be a week old tomorrow, and according to the database, only 8 bugs have been fixed in a week. There are over 150 open issues, and about 3 weeks to fix most of them. They better get their asses in gear. But they won't. And I'll end up with overtime.

I've been having trouble with the door lock on my truck - it took me a good 30 seconds to open it this morning. I went across the street during lunch and bought some WD40 and used some on the lock. Seemed to help, we'll see how it works, if it improves. I'll also use the WD40 on the exercise bike at home, it's been hella squeaky lately.

I haven't got any writing done today, but I made a chart detailing a lot of the personal traits of the bunker and control people - I think the chart will help the writing process. I wasn't in the zone to write, so I worked on character stuff instead. That kind of work counts too.

And I came up with an improved title, 'Speaking to the 4th Wall'. I don't know if anyone will like the title - I don't know that I do - but I wanted something other than 'The Bunker' and this is the best I've come up with to date. If it should by some quirk of fate get published, they'll probably change the title anyway. Whatevers.

Michelle is working a split shift today, she opened, and is home napping right now, and then will go in about 6pm to work a few more hours and close the store. Knowing her, she'll be there late... Unless she opens tomorrow, I can't recall. Um. I think she was off Friday originally, but may have to work due to some people being sick. I dunno.

We watched Shrek 2 on DVD last night, it was good. I think it was better the first time, since its strongest element is surprise. I'd planned to lock myself in the guest room and force myself to write, but by the time we were done with the movie, it was after 10 and I was getting sleepy. I should have skipped the movie and went right to work.

Meh.

We're looking at a stale version of the game from last week, and there isn't much to find. I think we've wrung all we can out of this build.

I wish I could get some writing done on the novel while here at work, but with my back to the big open room, I'm feeling exposed. Not the best environment to try to concentrate in. Maybe I'll try - there's not a lot going on.

I didn't do any writing this morning - I can't really concentrate while Michelle is getting ready for work. She perfectly quiet and doesn't pester me at all, but I don't focus well. A classic example of "It's not you, it's me."

I'll lock myself in the guest room and pound out a few thousand words tonight. And Michelle is closing tomorrow, so I won't have any snuggle-related distractions Thursday night. It's so hard to resist warm toasty snuggles, just to spend time pecking away at the cold indifferent keyboard.

We went to see 'The Incredibles' last night, it was very good! I think 'Finding Nemo' is still my favorite Pixar film, but 'Incredibles' is high quality, good fun. It actually felt a bit short - I left wanting more. I thought that Frozone (the Samuel L. Jackson character) would have a larger role than he did. All of the characters were great, and a surprise was how fun Edna is - she's the fashion designer character. I wanted more of all of it.

There's No Crying in Baseball!

Liz dropped her car off for repairs at the local VW mechanic, and we hung out for about an hour, until I left for work. It was nice to chat with her! She might be moving in with an old friend from high school who recently moved to the area.

I got virtually no writing done this morning, maybe a few paragraphs. When Liz came over, I stopped. I don't begrudge the 'hanging out' time, but I wish I wasn't so far behind. Every day I calculate the number of words I'm in the hole, and the hole gets bigger every day. I need to bite the bullet and catch up already! I don't think any bullet biting will happen tonight, Michelle's off today and we'll probably go out gallavanting.

I've reached the point where a good portion of the main characters have been introduced, the direction is under way, and now I have to really sell the plot. My crazy producer has to give this pitch, a speech that will make the show idea sound amazing, and win over the execs. So this has to be some eloquent shit coming up, and I have to cultivate that mood.

I need to figure out the singular story arc for the novel. Like, one book can have a wide variety of events and minor themes, but in the end it's all about 'coming to terms with your own weakness' or 'learning to trust others' or some such. Hmmmm.

Also - if I continue at my present rate, I think I may surpass 50,000 words. Not that this is a bad thing, it just means that the novel won't be complete on November 30. I don't think the peeps at NaNoWriMo will care - they don't read the thing in any case.

Sow And So On

I got up early this morning to get my write on. The alarm went off at 6am, and I didn't drag my ass out of bed till 6:20. Tsk! Bad, Lazy Mike! I exercised as usual (30 mins on stationary bike followed by free weights) but as I sat down in front of the computer, I wasn't really in the mood to write.

After my shower and breakfast, I starting feeling better. Maybe I just needed a blood sugar boost. I ended up writing a little over 600 words, I think. Better, for a morning session. Of course, I also spent more time on it, so you get what you give, I reckon. Seed what you sow, and so on.

Michelle found out this morning that one of her coworkers has a boyfriend who's also doing the NaNoWriMo contest. Oddly enough, his name is also Mike. The boyfriend, not the coworker. I'm sure tons of people are doing it, possibly even some people at my work. They seem more graphic artists than writers, but hey, who knows? If I showed up wearing a NaNoWriMo T-Shirt, some people might speak out.

Only About 4000 Words Behind

As of this moment, I'm up to 6017 words in my month-long novel. Could be better, could be worse. I'm considering getting up earlier in the mornings to get more done. I guess the only way to see if it works is to try it.

I walked at Wilson Park the last two mornings, it's a nice change from riding the exercise bike. I've laid off DDR for a few days, because my ankles have really been complaining. Maybe I need ankle protection as I bounce around on the dance mat? Anyway, I'm planning on going to the park once or twice a week during the workweek as well, it's a nice park.

Michelle's at work for another hour or so. I forsee a relaxing evening of The Simpsons on Fox, and Sex in the City on DVD. Michelle's been on a SITC kick lately. It's cute, wittily written, and the women are all hoes. Vicarious fun, I guess. If the show were from the point of view of sex crazed men, it would have been condemned. It's cute when girls are promiscuous, apparently.

Waiting for the HBO show Carnivale to come out with the first season on DVD. Gotta love Netflix.

Off To A Productive Start!

It's Saturday morning, and so far so good! I got up at about 7:30am, and went to the park for a walk. I did a couple of laps, I had a good time. The sun shining through the trees was very pretty, the air was brisk and refreshing, and for about 8am, there were a ton of people there! Inspiring! Maybe I'll start walking there once or twice a week.

My laundry is in the washers now, and I'm preparing breakfast - thawing chicken in the microwave.

The plan for today is to write my ass off, working on the NaNoWriMo novel. Ditto for tomorrow. I'm not going to worry about stopping when I reach a certain word count, instead I'm just gonna write all I can. I have a feeling that the weekends will be my best writing days. My day job, while not strenuous, is deadly dull, and tends to drain my writing will. So it's mornings and weekends, I think, for my writing schedule.

What Could Go Wrong?

Today promises to be as exciting as yesterday! Wheee!

I ran an errand for Michelle this morning and dropped off some paperwork to her store on my way to work. I tried to get some cash out at the mall ATM, only to discover my paycheck had not arrived. Sucks! I've been calling different corporate types on the phone all morning, and trying to get paid. I might not see today's pay until next Friday, which is a chilling thought. I think we'll be ok, but it's gonna be a tight week if so.

I didn't get any writing done this morning, with the errand running and all, and only about 400 words yesterday. Not boding well, so far. Perhaps the weekend will be my saving grace, since I've been averaging less than half what I need to write each day.

Michelle closes tonight, so I hope to get some writing done. And the weekend. I'll just have to do my best to stay focused. I bought some hard candy and everything! What could go wrong?

Long Way 'Round

Long and boring day! I spent at least three hours watching the game slowly install on my system. And since that's the same system I use for email and web, I really could do nothing but watch the progress bar slowly... progress. We ended up with an hour of overtime, just another hour spent sitting and staring, but OT is welcome.

At home, Michelle was off for the day, but busy with paperwork. I began a couple of different Netflix and gave up on each one - 'Scooby Doo 2' and 'Vampire Hunter D' I watched maybe 10-15 minutes of each one, and gave up. They were crummy.

I considered doing some writing, but after the mind-numbing experience at work, I wasn't in the mood. I have a lot of catching up to do this weekend.

I watched 'The Long Way Round' on Bravo, where Ewan McGregor drives around the world on a motorcycle, driving east from the UK. Good show, if you are a Ewan fan.

After that, I passed out watching Futurama. Michelle stayed up late doing paperwork.

New PC for the Peeps!

It's a slow day at work, so slow that I decided to test out the installer - which takes a good 40 minutes, just to give myself something of a project. I did find two bugs, so it wasn't in vain, but still, deadly dull.

Mom and Dad got their computer today! My sister and I chipped in to buy it together, and it's gonna be the family's Christmas present. My Mom was really tickled when I spoke to her on the phone, she's really missed having the computer. Mostly, she just uses it to email me, but she also plays some games.

Work is progressing on the novel, I'm up to 1783 words total, 407 of those I wrote this morning.
I was separating my sections with five asterisks, like so ***** ...until I relized each asterisk was being counted as its own word in the 'word count' function. So that was throwing the word count off by 5 words per section, making it seem like I had slightly more than I had. Ugh.

So I removed the asterisks and recounted. 1783 words. Not too bad, but I'm behind. The expected estimate is about 1670 words a day, so there you go. I should have written my current amount in one day, not three days. If I keep up this rate, I'll be done at the end of January. No good! If I catch up to where I should be by the end of today, I should be up to 5010 words. That's a lot!

To catch up, I'll have to write 3227 words tonight. I'll probably get some writing done tonight while Michelle is working - if I see her before midnight, I'll be surprised. Plus, there's always the weekend - I should have loads of time on Saturday and Sunday to get some writing done.

Progress progresses!

I got in to work early this morning, and wrote 300 or so words on my NaNoWriMo novel. Make that 337 - I just checked. I think I would have been more productive using that time at home - I felt out of place at work, as if someone was going to come up behind me and read over my shoulder. Plus, the commute was longer. I'm thinking, from now on, I'll just do the writing at home.

Work is fine - No new bugs have cropped up today, but we're still having issues with the install discs. I'm 75% done with a playthrough, and so far there's been nothing major.

Mom's new PC is scheduled to deliver today! It was supposed to be tomorrow, but now it's looking like today is the day. Even if they wait till the weekend to hook it up, they'll have a new PC running in no time!

The Choice Has Been Made

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have decided what to write for the NaNoWriMo contest. I'll be writing the Bunker story, a Reality TV show gone wrong, wrong, oh so wrong.

It was a good weekend, with much laziness (on my part). Michelle worked a few hours on Saturday, and was off with me on Sunday. We went out for lunch, then to a Mystery bookstore (a cute little Mom and Pop place) and then took a nice walk at Redondo Beach.

Michelle had some work to do at home, and then she helped me narrow down my options for the writing contest. I wrote about 530 words this morning, off to a good start!

Today at work is going well, entered the last of the bugs I made notes for. We've probably entered about 40 bugs in the last fews days. Brian and I are supposed to amscray this afternoon for about a half hour, I think I'll just take a long lunch and do some more writing.

Also, Michelle and I discussed the moving idea, and it does seem to make more sense that I keep on working, and we save money to move to our next state. I'll go to school later. I will. If I don't become rich first. LOL.

I wrote a few hundred words during lunch, no worries. The beginning has been easy - tying everything together is harder, making the reader care about the characters and what happens to them is harder.

Right now I'm just introducing the characters, so that's easy. I spent lunch on the roof of the parking structure, sitting in the truck. I kept expecting someone to shoo me off, since I was the only one parked up there. I think tomorrow I'll sit at a table in the courtyard. Before 2pm, I think - as the sun leaves the courtyard about that time and I'd rather enjoy the sun.

I also made a list of rooms for the bunker - I'd like to sketch out a diagram of the floorplan for the bunker and control room while I'm at it.

Halloween 2004!

(I wrote this out in pencil in my notebook...)

I love the smell of pencils! I habitually use pens. It's probably been 10 or more years since I've used a pencil - math class!

It's a silly thing, but I've always preferred pens: recently there was this little stub of a pencil at work, and I've been jotting notes with it. The pencil felt interesting, I liked the way the letters felt as I wrote them. I think writing with a pencil actually makes me write more slowly, and maybe my penmanship (pencilmanship?) improves because I write more slowly.

So I picked up a pack of pencils. The smell fresh and woody. It's a nostalgic 'school' smell - I enjoyed going to school, for the most part.

Tomorrow, I start working on my NaNoWriMo novel. It's already Halloween Night, and I still don't know what I'll be writing about!

Michelle is going to look at my list in a few minutes and help me decide which story idea to work on.

Ideas: (in no particular order)

(The numbers are Michelle's priority opinions/input)

3 - a) The Bunker
2 - b) Key to Subconscious
1 - c) Get a Job, Just to Quit
x - d) ark of the covenant stolen - end of the world
x - e) Saints
4 - f) Future - only human left - mystery
5 - g) Childhood issue investigated
x - h) Pro-Active advertising creates monster

So after discussion and deliberation, I decide on 'The Bunker' as the story I'll do first.