![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Greetings, 21st Century!
Nov. 16th, 2009 11:31 amOkay, so I'm sort of caught up with all my immediate things-I-want-to-be-caught-up-on. I have hit my NaNoWriMo goal for today (35,106 words!), and if I just write a little more than 1,000 words a day I'll get it done.
I have also uploaded all my stories to Archive of Our Own. So far, I'm pretty happy with it. I didn't have any technical problems getting my stories on there, and I like most of the tagging and labeling features. There are couple of things that I suspect still need to be refined a bit, notably what, exactly, the various warning options are supposed to mean, but on the whole what's there is workable.
( So long, Usenet formatting, I shall miss you )
( Also, why the case sensitive option is your friend )
( My thoughts on AO3 tagging )
I have also uploaded all my stories to Archive of Our Own. So far, I'm pretty happy with it. I didn't have any technical problems getting my stories on there, and I like most of the tagging and labeling features. There are couple of things that I suspect still need to be refined a bit, notably what, exactly, the various warning options are supposed to mean, but on the whole what's there is workable.
( So long, Usenet formatting, I shall miss you )
( Also, why the case sensitive option is your friend )
( My thoughts on AO3 tagging )
Losers by a Landslide
Nov. 14th, 2009 06:08 pmI am so behind on NaNoWriMo today. (So, naturally, I'm posting instead of writing.)
I've been playing with AO3 today and haven't even put word one on my NaNoWriMo story. I've got a comfortable cushion at the moment, but my goal is to be done before I go to my Mom's to become her Thanksgiving helper. The cooking process begins, ideally, two days beforehand, so that doesn't give me a whole lot of time. Granted, we're celebrating on Friday instead of Thursday this year, but that's only one extra day.
We're having Thanksgiving a day late this year for a number of reasons, one of which is that my sister lives in North Carolina. Many of you probably heard about the 1-40 landslide closing off the main route through the Smokies from North Carolina to Tennessee. A lot of you also probably saw the video of the landslide that occurred a couple hundred miles south, on Highway 64.
What you probably don't know, unless you live in the area, is that Highway 64 is one of the better alternate routes through the Smokies if one is heading from North Carolina to the area around Chattanooga, especially if one's hometown is right on 64 (like ours). My sister and brother-in-law are probably going to make lemonade from the lemons and just detour all the way through Atlanta so he can visit his family, but that's a pretty significant detour.
So, Friday Thanksgiving. At least the grocery stores will be open if we run out of stuff.
I've been playing with AO3 today and haven't even put word one on my NaNoWriMo story. I've got a comfortable cushion at the moment, but my goal is to be done before I go to my Mom's to become her Thanksgiving helper. The cooking process begins, ideally, two days beforehand, so that doesn't give me a whole lot of time. Granted, we're celebrating on Friday instead of Thursday this year, but that's only one extra day.
We're having Thanksgiving a day late this year for a number of reasons, one of which is that my sister lives in North Carolina. Many of you probably heard about the 1-40 landslide closing off the main route through the Smokies from North Carolina to Tennessee. A lot of you also probably saw the video of the landslide that occurred a couple hundred miles south, on Highway 64.
What you probably don't know, unless you live in the area, is that Highway 64 is one of the better alternate routes through the Smokies if one is heading from North Carolina to the area around Chattanooga, especially if one's hometown is right on 64 (like ours). My sister and brother-in-law are probably going to make lemonade from the lemons and just detour all the way through Atlanta so he can visit his family, but that's a pretty significant detour.
So, Friday Thanksgiving. At least the grocery stores will be open if we run out of stuff.
Well-Meaning Cats
Nov. 8th, 2009 08:50 amGreebo tried to assist in my word count yesterday. When I'm using the computer in bed he thinks it a prime opportunity for snuggle time. He may be right about this, but he also tends to want to snuggle right on top of where I'm using the mouse. This means that sometimes the mouse does things I hadn't necessarily planned, especially when I give up trying to move it around under seventeen pounds of cat and just leave it there. Yesterday, he managed to select all the text in my Nanowrimo file, and when I pasted it all in later my stats returned a miraculous 22K+ word count, almost exactly twice what the count should have been. One of us (and I have my suspicions) had duplicated the entire novel in the file.
Good kitty.
I'd totally forgotten about the NanoCat Word Counter. (Because it is very important to see my word count in as many forms as humanly possible.)
This is why I was very happy to see that the widgets are finally working today. Well, mostly working. There seems to be a bit of decimal issue with the full progress reports, but it's not a big deal. Unfortunately, I discovered that, despite my doing my own math, I actually missed my word count yesterday by 14 words. Fourteen. Words.
( Is this really a big deal? Well, okay, no. )
And yet, I have still managed to crack 10,000 words. :)
NaNoWriMo--Paranoid? Me?
Nov. 2nd, 2009 05:34 pmI don't know if it's aided my writing productivity, but since I started using the CPAP machine I have dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. I had regular dreams before, but it's astounding the scope and depth and length of the dreams I've had the last four nights. I guess that's what happens when I'm not waking up forty times a night and interrupting my dream cycle. My brain has free rein to work through the day's crap without interference, and it seems to be making up for lost time.
I'm a bit paranoid about NaNoWriMo this year because last year was the first year I'd ever finished early and you all know what happened then. While I feel pretty certain that that was a one-time mishap (pretty certain), I can't help but think that I should maybe push a little harder this year, too.
Just in case. :)
This and That and NaNoWriMo
Oct. 29th, 2009 08:30 pmYep, it's that time of year again, when I move my NaNoWriMo bookmarks up to the Toolbar. Of course, the site designers have, as usual, rearranged everything so that most of them are broken, but re-setting the links is always a nice time-waster those first few days.
I have to say that, despite thinking about what I'm going to write since the beginning of October, the actual arrival of NaNoWriMo snuck up on me this year. I've been tootling along with it in the back of my mind, then suddenly I look up and it's three days before the start.
Part of my distraction has been my nesting behavior over at the new rec journal. I'm really, really glad I moved all the rec stuff. Not only am I no longer spamming people who are not necessarily interested in the recs, I've also been able to do a lot of tagging and organizing that wasn't really practical here. I feel like the rec journal can now be an actual resource that will, hopefully, remain useful even if I stop having the time to do as much recommending.
In other news, I picked up my CPAP machine today. I think it says something that I'm looking forward to strapping the thing on at bedtime. (Probably that I'm willing to do almost anything for a good night's sleep. :))
I also discovered that if you wait until the last few days to buy Halloween candy, you a) don't have time to eat it beforehand and b) can get it on sale. Also, Cheetos are not kosher.
I have to say that, despite thinking about what I'm going to write since the beginning of October, the actual arrival of NaNoWriMo snuck up on me this year. I've been tootling along with it in the back of my mind, then suddenly I look up and it's three days before the start.
Part of my distraction has been my nesting behavior over at the new rec journal. I'm really, really glad I moved all the rec stuff. Not only am I no longer spamming people who are not necessarily interested in the recs, I've also been able to do a lot of tagging and organizing that wasn't really practical here. I feel like the rec journal can now be an actual resource that will, hopefully, remain useful even if I stop having the time to do as much recommending.
In other news, I picked up my CPAP machine today. I think it says something that I'm looking forward to strapping the thing on at bedtime. (Probably that I'm willing to do almost anything for a good night's sleep. :))
I also discovered that if you wait until the last few days to buy Halloween candy, you a) don't have time to eat it beforehand and b) can get it on sale. Also, Cheetos are not kosher.
NaNoWriMo 2007
Nov. 28th, 2007 09:12 pm'Tis finished, 'tis done.
( I'll be honest. I didn't think I was going to be able to finish this year. )
In some ways, I'm a lot more pleased with this year's effort than last year's. I think I did a much better job writing an actual story, and not just a glorified outline. The downside to this is that, while I did reach 50,000 words, I'm a great deal further away from actually finishing the story than I was last year. I found a stopping place and slapped on an epilogue, but there's a considerable chunk of the story missing. As in, pretty much the entire fifth act (if we were talking about a tv show), and a good chunk of the fourth. But what is there is, I think, a much better starting point.
And besides, I have two whole days now to try to finish it. :)
( I'll be honest. I didn't think I was going to be able to finish this year. )
In some ways, I'm a lot more pleased with this year's effort than last year's. I think I did a much better job writing an actual story, and not just a glorified outline. The downside to this is that, while I did reach 50,000 words, I'm a great deal further away from actually finishing the story than I was last year. I found a stopping place and slapped on an epilogue, but there's a considerable chunk of the story missing. As in, pretty much the entire fifth act (if we were talking about a tv show), and a good chunk of the fourth. But what is there is, I think, a much better starting point.
And besides, I have two whole days now to try to finish it. :)
I realize that I haven't written much--or, in fact, anything--about National Novel Writing Month here, but I did sign up, and yesterday evening I saw the pretty little words "You Won!" when I uploaded my story.
( The gory details )
( The gory details )
