Four Days, One Weekend, 14,298 Words

I feel like I'm doing NaNoWriMo on speed this year. Seriously, I do not know what has come over me. Okay, that's a lie. I'm pretty sure what's come over me is the realization that if I can complete my novel by the 16th instead of just getting myself to 42,112 words, I'll enjoy my vacation way more than I will if I don't. (Sorry about that. NaNo makes me even more wordy than usual.) It could be that, or it could be my muse rewarding me for being brave enough to embark on a 50,000-word novel without the foggiest idea of where it's going or even which character is actually my protagonist. Whatever the reason is, it's working. So far. It could be that I'm actually doing an accelerated NaNoWriMo this year, which could very well mean that this is not only the end of my first weekend, but the end of my first week. I guess I'll find out if/when I hit the dreaded wall in the next few days.

But I don't want to dwell on that. I'd rather focus on the positive tonight. To start with, there are the words. I don't know where they came from, possibly from the dumpster out back if their quality is any indication, but they're here and there are lots of them. In fact, there are more words currently living in my fledgling novel than there are in most of the towns I grew up in. And I owe it all to a mistake on Day 1. Curious? Too bad. I'm going to tell you the story anyway.


Hallowe'en came and went, and I managed to lure only one trick-or-treater to my basement suite den of really, really good Nestle chocolate. I'm the good candy lady! I dress up and everything! What's wrong with kids these days??

*ahem*

As the night wore on, I tried to distract myself. I went to the NaNoWriMo Forum, but it was very slow and not a good distraction at all. I played some computer solitaire, but I soon realized that while the game is very good for procrastinating, it doesn't help much when there is nothing else to do. Eventually, I resorted to the unthinkable. I began to clean my office. Months of old newspapers and bills were thrown or filed away. The computer got dusted. The area around the computer was cleared of all but the most necessary distractions. Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at the clock. It said 11:23, and it was good. I went to the kitchen and filled the sink with hot soapy water and a lot of dirty dishes, then proceeded to magically transform them into a lot of clean dishes. In the meantime I boiled water for tea.

At 11:54, I carried my pot of green tea, and a mug, and my tiny cast of almost-characters into the office, and sat down in front of the computer. And I waited. And poured some tea. And waited some more. And posted in the Forum. And waited. And then, finally, the clock struck midnight and I opened a new Word document, named it NaNo07, set the text to white and began to type. I typed, and typed, and only stopped when I could hardly keep my eyes open anymore. (In retrospect, I probably could have kept typing since I couldn't see the words anyway.) It was 1:30 in the morning, and I had typed 2,721 words. I couldn't believe it! Last year it took me three hours or more every night to squeeze out 2,000, and this year I'd written more than that in my first hour-and-a-half. I was inspired. I went to bed.

Morning. Shower. Work. Home. Dinner. Tea. Back to the computer. I have a plan, 2,632 words a day, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it fall apart on my second day of writing. So I wrote for half an hour, and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a little voice said, "It's still November 1, you idiot! You did your word count plus some hours ago!" Which would have been reason enough for me to stop last year, but I had nearly 4,000 words so I figured I'd push on. And then I had 4,000 words and decided that since 5,264 was my Day 2 goal, I might as well write a little longer and get a day ahead. And then, when I was almost at 5,000 words, one of my characters finally started talking and before I knew it my word count was 5,669. And that's when I finally stopped.

The End

(Just in case you're wondering, the above story is not indicative of the level of storytelling in my NaNo. My NaNo is much, much worse.)

On Day 2 (the real one) I exceeded my daily minimum by 81 words, bringing my total wordcount to 8,382. On Day 3 I wrote 99 words more than my minimum, and my total became 11,113. And tonight I had another Day 1 experience. I typed for an hour and managed nearly 2,000 words, but didn't hit my minimum. I'm now a day-and-a-half ahead, but that's no reason to slack off; I need that cushion for when I really can't write one day. So I took a little break, then came back and wrote for another hour, bringing my total word count to 14,298. I was tempted for a while to push on to 15,000 but knew that if I did that I'd have to do at least 15,792 so that I could be two days ahead instead of just one. And that's just silly.

So there are the words. There is also the story. Ah, the story. That strange little pet project of my muse. It's very important to her. So important in fact that she's only letting me see it a little at a time. But I've seen enough now to know that, if nothing else, at least it fits. I may not have a novel when I'm done with it - it might be something more like a short story, or a 3D-puzzle model of Big Ben - but all the pieces will fit. And not because I convinced them with a small hammer. It's a small victory, but I'll take what I can get.

And then there's the final thing, and this is the most surprising. I've got time left over. I've worked every day since NaNo started, and have written more than my wordcount on each of those days, and yet somehow have found time to sleep, eat, do the dishes, and even squeeze in some cuddle time with The Boy (which is a very effective technique for combating Troll in the Basement Syndrome, a common malady during NaNoWriMo).

I don't know how all this has happened, but all I can say is 'so far, so good'. And 'I hope I haven't just jinxed it.'

Mom, She's Doing It Again!

It's October 31, which means that after I'm done handing out candy to the ghouls and princesses and pirates and various furry animals my life is going to become absorbed by the vicious and all-consuming entity known as NaNoWriMo. It seems I didn't learn my lesson last year. Either that, or my surprising success convinced me that I'm able to do the impossible.

Did I say impossible? True, writing 50,000 words in thirty days is no small feat, but it's not impossible. There were 13,000 winners last year alone, myself among them, so it seems likely that I'd be able to accomplish the same thing again. And I would be, if it weren't for two small things.

First, last year I had a plot and a cast of nearly two dozen characters. This year I have a rough idea of location and a few key events. Basically I know how the story starts, and a few things that happen in the middle, but I haven't a clue how it's going to end. And as for characters, there are only six so far, three of whom actually do something significant. (One of the other three seems to talk a lot, and I've got high hopes for him becoming a key part of the story at some point in the future.) Only one of the three 'important' characters has a name, and I'm not sure if she'll even meet the other two.

That one's minor - that is to say, I can work with it. I trust my muse/creative subconscious/writer inside/whatever you want to call it, and I know that if I write faithfully the story will come. The bigger problem is this - I'm leaving for London in just over two weeks. I'm going to visit a friend who I haven't seen in over a year, and I'm going to see London, and I have no intention of writing once I've left Heathrow. I worked it out though. As long as I can write 2,632 words a day, I can still make it to 50,000 by the end of the month.

I guess I'm lucky no one really reads this blog, because I'd be sent to the loony bin for sure. No one in their write mind would go inflict all this stress on themselves just to produce a novel which is sure to be nothing more than a steaming pile of crap. But when I tried to talk myself out of it, I couldn't. Part of me needs to do this again, I guess. If I'm a wreck come December, we'll all know why. In the meantime, I'm trying to get my knitting and Sims fix and also do some major cleaning all in the next few hours. Because lord knows I'm not going to have time for any of that in November.

(Great- Grand-) Mother Tongue

Backstory

I'm embarrassingly uni-lingual. My excuses for this are many and range from, "I live in one of the least French-speaking parts of the country. Why should I learn it?" to, "If I learned Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Russian and a few Indian dialects, I'll be able to communicate with maybe three-quarters of the people I encounter. Where do I even start?" And the clock is ticking now two. We're going back to Hong Kong early next year, and I intend to be able to speak a little more Chinese than just "xie xie" and "ai ya". Of course, it would help if I knew whether it was Cantonese or Mandarin we're supposed to be learning. Cantonese it more useful for getting around the city, but Mandarin may mean more to the grandparents...

But I digress. The point is that there are a few languages I should learn (French, Cantonese and/or Mandarin) and several which would be helpful to know (Spanish, Russian, Punjabi, Hindi, Sign Language) and I've decided that, rather than bemoan my inability to communicate in any language other than English for the rest of my life, I'm going to learn German. Yes, you read that right. No, it's not in any of my should-learn lists. So why German?

The first answer is easiest. My dad's dad's family is German. Well actually, they're from Hungary and while I know my great-grandfather was German, my great-grandmother could very well have been Hungarian, which would make us just as Hungarian as we are German and more Irish than we are either of those. (Which would be weird since none of us identify as Hungarian at all, and it's only myself and my brothers who have any Irish in us, although my dad's mom was English and Scottish.) But I really have no desire to learn Hungarian, and anyway it's German that my great-grandfather's family spoke, a few of my great-aunts and uncles still speak it, and despite what my actual lineage may be, it's the language that feels most closely-tied to my roots.

The other reason is that German is a fairly easy language to learn in that there are plenty of resources around. Nearly any bookstore you walk into has a selection of German language resources, a few local colleges offer courses, and my German-speaking great-aunt lives practically just up the road from my house. (Failing that, I could always head out to a local German conversation group... or crash the Alpen Club.) Okay, so it's not as easy as, say, French, but it beats the hell out of trying to learn Irish Gaelic!

There may be other factors in there that I'm not really aware of, but it basically comes down to desire and accessibility. I know myself too well to think I'm going to be able to learn a language when I don't want to, and I don't have the money to run off to a place where resources are more abundant (ie. Ireland). And my hope is that by choosing my first second language for entirely selfish reasons, I'll be more inspired to tackle one of those should-do's.

Which brings us to...

Last Week

I've been slowly amassing a bag of German language tools over the past couple of months; grammar book, phrasebook, German/English dictionary, and even a German Reader's Digest! All I might need to learn to read the language, but I'm more interested in learning to speak it. That's why, when I saw a set of Pimsleur tapes on sale the other day, I eagerly snatched them up. I've heard better things about this course than any others and, well, the price was right. Yesterday, I put on tape one. The first lesson is about twenty-five minutes long, and after going through it yesterday afternoon, and reviewing the notes I made through the evening, I can now, without cheating (although I'm sure I'd forget all of it if there was a test), have the following conversation with myself:

"Excuse me. Do you understand English?"
"No. I understand no English?"
"I understand only a little German."
"Are you an American?"
"Yes. American."

....... This is going to be a very long process. But at least now I can figure out how to say "I understand no German" in German, which could prove useful. Although a wide-eyed blank look and the word "English" would probably be just as effective, and easier to remember in a pinch.

Rogue Woes

I bought the yarn for my version of Rogue shortly after Christmas, and by the end of January it looked like this.



(And a day or two later, the hood was finished.)

A beautiful, hooded cabled vest. Then I cast on the sleeves, knitted about twelve rows, and proceeded to ignore it for two months. Not for any reason. I love the yarn. I love the pattern. The cables are a blast to work and I can't wait for the sweater to be finished so I can wear it. But I guess finishing has never been one of my strong points.

This week I decided that would change. I was going to finish those sleeves if it was the last thing I ever did. So I've used most of the spare time I've had this week to do just that. I worked through the sweater's last cable chart while keeping half an eye on House, and Jericho and CSI. I loved the cables so much that I've decided to do them all over again.

Yep. I starting the sleeves over. Somehow I managed to overlook two of the increases when reading the instructions for the increase rows, which means that my sleeves are now a full 18 sts too narrow. (And foolish me, I didn't count stitches until I was ready to start shaping the sleeve caps.)

Didn't I notice that the sleeves seemed a little snug?
Yes, I did. And carried on.

Didn't I wonder about the placement of those stitch markers?
Yes, I did. And assumed there was some reason that I'd never know.

Didn't I read the instructions a second time?
Yes, I did. And a third, and fourth, and probably more.

Apparently I was determined right from the start to get this pattern wrong somewhere. As far as mistakes go, I'll take re-knitting the sleeves to having to unravel the entire top. But this still sucks!

I really suck at blogging.

I never update. Well, I do, but in bits and spurts separated by months of nothing. I guess I just don't find blogging very interesting, or at least not as interesting as I expected to.

Anyway, here's a update.

My little Blythe doll now has two sisters - anther full-sized doll and a mini Pullip. But it'll be a while before I add more. Not because I have willpower. Because I'm broke!

I also bought a digital camera which means I don't have to keep stealing The Boy's when I want to take a picture. Which hopefully means I'll get around to taking pictures of a lot of the knitting I've done, since right now it looks like I haven't knitted a think in a year-and-a-half.

And I broke down and upgraded my Flickr account, which means no limits, which means I'm way more active there than I've been in the past. Between that and the new camera, I've been uploading almost daily. Here are some of my personal faves to whet you appetite. To see more, go here.

Because I can.

I'm going to upgrade my flickr.com account at some point and then I can just post pictures there for people to see. In the meantime, here are a few more pics of Cordi.

Sarah needs... no explanation.

I ran across this today and found it hilarious. Basically you type "[your name] needs" into Google and make note of the most entertaining ones. Then you can email them to your friends, or post them in your blog, or just laugh quietly to yourself in the middle of the night.

Here are some of my favourites:


Sarah needs boats. Sarah needs boats. Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah needs boats.

Sarah needs to open up more on her Italian and tone it down on her English.

Sara needs to make chocolate cranberry turnip salad.

Sarah Needs A Cold Shower.

Sarah needs help getting to the Goblin City before Jareth turns her baby brother into a goblin.

Sarah needs to put her artificial leg up his butt.

Sarah needs a soft bed, you see, because she has a hormonal imbalance that makes her think she's pregnant.

Sarah needs a Godzilla sized Tylenol.

Sarah needs a better meteorologist.

Sarah needs to let loose with an album of slap-bass action.

Sarah needs to step away from the self tanner.

Sarah needs a happy mum, not a snotty, sobbing mess.

Sarah needs help getting into the bathtub.

Sarah needs to be hooked up to a respirator in order to survive.

Sarah needs a bone marrow transplant. Sarah needs your bone marrow to stay alive.

Sarah needs a team of committed people to pray for her.

Sarah needs to realise how over needy she has become.

Sarah needs to climb a mountain in Nepal, discover the meaning of life, and get it over with.

Sarah needs to stop posting random things in here.

A not entirely disappointing thrift store trip.

There's a fairly large Salvation Army thrift store a short walk from my house and this afternoon I thought I'd head over there and see if I couldn't find Cordi a nice chair to sit in. Or if not a nice chair, at least something to sit on so she doesn't have to stand all the time. But I had no luck whatsoever. I spent what felt like hours sifting through the bins and boxes in the toy section of the store and the best I found was a cheap plastic bookshelf with peeling stickers. Grrr!

So I gave up and went upstairs to look at clothes. I'm feeling inspired after my success with those doll jeans and figure the cheapest way to get cute fabric is probably thrift-store kids clothes. I had better luck there. For $14 I got two plain t-shirts and enough of the following fun prints to clothe a Blythe several times over:











And I lied about finding nothing downstairs. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find three tiny pillows with pillowcases and one of those Jack Sparrow dolls they were giving away with Happy Meals a while back, all for $0.25 each.

Cordi Shows Her Softer Side

I had a day off and was finally able to make some clothes for Cordeliane. I started with a striped sweater, which I was sure she would never wear, just to make sure the pattern fit. Surprisingly she suits the 'pretty' sweater as much as she does the black one. The jeans are a major accomplishment for me. I haven't done any real sewing since just after high school, and even that was minimal and I've never tried my hand at anything this small. But I get how a pattern works so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I used to do a lot of needlepoint so figured hand sewing would be reasonably easy. Unfortunately I only remember how to do two stitches - the french knot and the backstitch. Lucky for me, the backstitch is useful for sewing, so all was good. But I'm going to have to refresh my memory if I want to sew more stuff for her.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are a few more Cordi picutres. (Again, click the pictures to see them full-size.)

Meet and Greet

I've got the morning off today, so before I run away to work let's do this thing right, shall we?

This is Cordeliane (named after a character in one of my favourite books, although unlike her namesake she seems to have rejected Liane as a diminutive form in favour of Cordi - which is unfortunate because it reminds me of Cordy, who I can't stand... but I digress) in her current home on the shelf above my computer. I haven't made her any clothes yet (no time) so she's in one of the outfits she came with.



I didn't do a proper photo shoot because I'm a little crunched for time, the weather's too miserable to take her outside and I'm not so good at photographing dolls aparently, but if you're interested, here are a few more (click pictures for full-size):