It's The Moon I Tells Ya, The Moon!

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NaNoWriMo:

It is day 9, halfway through the second week and all I have written is 844 words.  I started writing on day 1 and went into panic mode.  This never happened in the last two years I participated, but this year I am suffering especially from depression and high anxiety.  Not because of NaNoWriMo, but because of the S.A.D., the medication adjustment a few months ago, and some other things going on in my life (worries and whatnot).

I haven't been able to bring myself to write anymore.  The document has sat open on my task bar since November 1st.  I just closed it though.  Even though I am so behind I still had a faint hope of catching up, which under normal circumstances would be hard but not impossible.  But I just found out today that I am probably moving on December 1st.

It bothers me that I wasn't able to accomplish it this year, but I'm going to try to write my ass off in 2012 to make up for it.

'Space Project':

I got really far, actually I only needed to put some art on the wall and it's done.  If I can get my camera to work soon I'll post a photo, but I see no point in continuing the project since I'm moving in about three weeks.  I will create my space in the new place (along with many other things) and will blog all about it.

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<3 M

It's Almost Time To NaNoWriMo

Happy Halloween!  Kinda. I'm tired tired tired and had to force myself to blog right now because all I feel like doing is chilling out with a movie. 

Halloween is my favourite time of year, but I'm not doing anything to celebrate, at least not tonight, anyway.  Yesterday we (Brian, Drew, and myself) did Jack-o-lanterns, which made me happy.  I want to post a picture of them but they're on Brian's phone and I don't want to bug him to upload right now cause he's kinda bummed out about his ginormous hard drive up and dying... understandable.  I'm sure I will do my own little celebration this week - I usually at least do a reading to sort of forecast the coming year.  That might be interesting to share with you.

Midnight marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo 2011.  This is my third year participating.  Keeping with tradition, I haven't prepared anything so it should be another interesting experience.  Because of how tired I am I probably won't start writing until the morning.  I've found getting as much writing done in the morning gives you more freedom to make up for any possible procrastination or life interruption later on in the day.  And if you manage to get your minimum word count in before lunch, anything else you happen to write after that is a bonus.



I plan to be a bit of a writing machine this month: I'd like to go well beyond the 50,000 word mark and at the same time, blog here at least a few times a week.  I know it will be easy to just say that I don't want to blog because I'm doing enough writing as it is or that I want to concentrate solely on the novel, but screw that, doing both is just fine.

If you're participating in NaNoWriMo this year, good luck! and feel free to add me as a writing buddy on the site


Happy Witch's New Year,


<3 M

I Have Good Noms.

Two posts in one day?  Yeah. I didn't talk about any of the stuff I meant to in my previous entry.  Free-flow writing is like that, you never know where it's going to take you, and apparently my psyche needed to bitch about other things.

Anyway, on Monday, Brian met me after work and we went to Zum Linzer on Main for the Kinky Restaurant Crawl (it's the Kinky Restaurant Crawl only because all the people who come are kinksters, we do not wear latex and dog collars at the restaurants).

I've heard a lot about this place because a friend of ours (Ravenshire Fetish) is one of the cooks there. It's German cuisine -  If you've ever heard of the Black Forest Inn, well this place is even better and the prices are extremely fair  for what you get.

So a few good friends made it out and it was a fun night, which I really really needed cause as I've been saying, I've been living under a rock for quite a while.

I ordered the Schnitzel Cordon Bleu, which is ham and cheese wrapped in a pork schnitzel, with home fries (that are cooked in bacon fat O_O) and veggies.  It also comes with soup or salad to start as well as a basket of rye bread.  The Schnitzel Cordon Bleu sounds disgusting to me, but it tasted like heaven and I will definitely be getting that again some day.  The portions were huge and the meal was only thirteen dollars.  I usually hate pea soup and am not a big soup person in general but for some reason I felt like soup so I got the pea soup instead of the salad as my starter and it was fricken delicious!  Plus I had a Stiegl with my meal and I think that's one of my new favourite beers.

The service was really friendly, patient, and overall good.  The dining room was quaint, laid back, cozy.  And my entire bill was only twenty-one dollars (before tip).  Before going, I expected to be paying no less than thirty dollars for my meal but I was pleasantly mistaken.

Everyone decided to go out for ice-cream for dessert up to the Marble Slab Creamery on Upper James, but I went home instead cause I'm really poor this month.  I've never been there but from the sounds of it, I really really want to go.  Ice-cream = Good.

And because I somehow always manage to surround myself with geeks (I love it), what came out of the night was a spin-off group where we take turns hosting movie night where we watch corny, cheesy, horrible sci-fi movies.  Our first movie will be Barbarella.  There'd better be a lot of boobs.

Tuesday was the Hamilton Writers meeting.  That was good.  Of course since the meetings are held at Chesters - Beers of the World, I had to order a Stiegl, just to make sure it was still as yummy as it was the night before :-p  And yes, it was.

The majority of us are gearing up for NaNoWriMo, which is now only four days away.  As has been my tradition for three years now, I wait till the week before to fully decide I will participate and then wait still until it is just days away to consider what I might write about.  My first year was exciting - I had no clue whatsoever about what I was going to write about - nothing.  I still managed to make it past 50, 000 words but it taught me that I need to have at least some idea or plan before beginning so that it wouldn't be so hard to come up with things to write.  Not to mention the fact that the more planning that goes into it, the better chance of the piece being publishable with some work.  Mine was/is publishable with A LOT of work.

My second year I actually had an idea and did a very minute amount of planning.  It made the process much easier and I was able to soar past 50,000 words before the thirty day dead line.  The writing was/is good but it is unfinished.  I decided after the contest ended to take a short break from writing since I'd been writing like a mad-woman for thirty days straight and it's always good to replenish your creative juices and whatnot.  The problem is, I never picked it back up.

This, my third year, I have an inkling of what I'm going to write about.  It was a last minute idea that I will divulge to you later.  If I'm smart, I will do some planning for it because this is something I would actually want to publish eventually.  Should be interesting.

Among the things I've learned from participating in NaNoWriMo is a particular block I seem to have.  I'd love to figure out how to get around it:  the problem is, the writing I like to do most is very much like the writing I do when I make a blog entry - it is free-flowing, personal, and very much my voice, my personality.  But when I sit down to write something (other than a blog or journal), I can't seem to write this way.  I think a big part of the block is the expectation that whatever it is I've decided to write has to be a certain way or follow certain literary rules or be like the rest of the similar works. So I either end up stuck or I end up writing in a style that does not work because it is so "fake".. the voice is... lacking whatever it is that makes prose sound "true." It's hard to explain.  Others may like the writing I've done like this, but if I don't like it, it's not satisfying. 

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.

My good friend Mel is getting handfasted this Saturday and I'm her witness.  This will be my first handfasting so it should be interesting.  I was invited to one around this time last year but a [insert horrible curse words and insulting adjectives] taxi driver made me miss it.

Then I'm off to Brian's for Sunday and Monday where we will be carving pumpkins and other Halloweeny goodness.  I miss him (and Drew) and wish they didn't live so far away :-( poop.

Though I will admit absence really does make the heart (and other body parts) grow fonder.



<3 M

Pitter Patter

This always happens: I go too long without updating my blog and I've forgotten most of the interesting stuff that has happened to me.  Oh well, tis life. So NaNoWriMo - I won that.  Yes, I wrote over fifty thousand words in thirty days, who knew?  I will definitely be doing it again next year, but this time I will have an outline.  For some reason, my muse decided to write a story that had just one character - one!  Needless to say, it became somewhat difficult around the third week to come up with more to write.  I eventually had no choice but to throw in another character and that saved me.  Week one and two went smoothly, I got behind in week three, and in week four people would not leave me the fuck alone and so I ended up having to write my last twenty thousand words in a fourty eight hour period.  It turns out my story could actually be good if I attempted a second draft.  I'm gonna let it sit for a while though.

The holidays are here again and I've already resigned myself to the fact that it's gonna suck the same as it always does and the only way I'm going to get through with my sanity intact is to let nothing bother me.  If I let stuff bother me, I'm doomed and you will have to hear me boo-hooing from now till new years about my psycho family, what little of them there are, how it sucks to be alone during the holidays, especially when you know a certain someone is spending the time with someone else and to put more salt in the wounds, there's new year's eve - I will likely be sitting here in front of my computer as usual. I don't think it's horrible to spend new years alone, but it feels pretty lonely and feeling lonely sucks.  I think I said I wasn't going to throw a self pity party but it seems I just did :op  Sorry kids.

I never say this but I'm going to now - it would be nice to have someone damnit.  Preferably a man ;o)

Okay enough of that nonsense. 

I am no longer a member of Think Haus - the hackerspace that a bunch of us started back in April.  Yeah, I can't get there transportation wise, and I'm not paying a membership fee for something I can't be a part of.  I won't get into the other reasons, politics and whatnot, but as of now, I'm not as busy on Tuesday nights anymore (except for the writer's meeting nights).  It's kind of nice having one less thing on my agenda - I hate juggling too many things, there's a reason I can't work a regular job ya know.

Don came over tonight and we saw something that made him laugh hysterically for a good ten minutes:



This is Paul Martin being very excited... the photoshop possibilities are vast.  W looks pretty pleased about something himself, who knows what.

I can't think of too much else to write about at the moment.  I got a webcam and I've been having a lot of fun with that, though I have yet to talk to anyone with it, webcam chat or whatever you call it, not sure if I will either but that could be fun I guess.  Make my own porn maybe? Nah, I'm not very photogenic.



Mwa!

Too much to say and not enough.  I will be back.


Love M.

NaNoWriMo 2009

I went and did a silly thing: I signed myself up to be a participant in NaNoWriMo 2009.  Part of me wished I'd decided to do this a lot earlier so I'd have a good amount of time to figure out what the hell I'm gonna write about, perhaps an outline of some sort?  But it wasn't until a little less than a week ago that I decided to 'just go for it already!'



I've been aware of the basic idea of NaNoWriMo for at least a few years now - it's hard not to hear about it when you socialize with writers on a regular basis - but every year I forget about it until the buzz once again begins and it's almost sign up time.  And every single time, I say something along the lines of "oh I'll participate next year so I can be more prepared."  Yeah right!  So it dawned on me that if I continue to say "maybe next year" I'm never gonna do it.  And if I can't do that, what the hell am I doing?

The idea is much less daunting than I'd imagined - the hardest part sounds like word output.  50,000 words isn't impossible, but a bit over 1,500 words a day looks a lot smaller than it is!  Oh well, bring it on!  I guess it's probably a good thing that I signed up so late in the game cause now I barely have any time to freak out about it.  I can see how easy it would be to scare myself out of this, or scare myself into panic and end up with horrible writer's block, eeesh.



So I've got my official NaNoWriMo page - feel free to add me!  I even created a separate windows user account called 'NaNoWriMo' that is set up for as little distraction as possible - just me and Word.   I think I'll use that account from now on for writing.  I just now saw the demo for the desktop version of Write Or Die and I really really want it - it's tons better than the online version and it's only $10 - that way, I can cut off access to the internets in my NaNoWriMo user account.  I'm gonna sleep on it.

My main concern for this project is that I'll have a lot of other shit to do in November and stress out about doing this and a good chunk of the experience will be lost - I'm doing my best to get what I can done before the weekend to ensure this doesn't happen.  I'm a busy girl!



But what I'm most excited about is writing a novel!  I'm well aware that what I submit at the end of November will not be a publishable, if even readable manuscript, but it will be 50,000 words or more that I can work with, edit, and draw from after November to complete something I can be proud of.

As for what I'm going to write?  I have no idea!  I have little to no plan right now and it's both scary and liberating.  I will be using an unusual method to figure out what story I'm going to tell - I'm going to use tarot cards (and or some other interesting oracle) to create my outline.  I haven't figured out the details yet, but I think I'm gonna do it tomorrow so stayed tuned!  I recommend any writer invest in a deck of some sort because as odd as it sounds, they're a writer's best friend.

I'll try to keep updating as I go along, and have a word tracker thing-a-ma-jing so you can cheer me on.

Wish me luck and do not disturb :o)




Love M