Drowning in Suburbia

Here we go again...

There's just too much to go over. Way too much. Way. Too. Much.
New job, Burning Nerd, "Everything else".
So... quick recaps!

New job: Meh. But it pays. Pays as much as my last job when it was actually full time and THIS one actually gives me benefits and such. I'll take it. Only downside is it has me staring at a computer screen for 8 hours doing pretty much mind-numbing work so when I finally get home the last thing I want to actually do is look at my computer. And the reason THAT is bad is...

Burning Nerd!
The first week of November was amazing. Good food, good drink, good friends, good scenery. There was nothing more I could have asked for. I took tons of photos and even ended up pretty much actually using the facebook profile I made for myself just to keep track of all the other photos and such we had. While this year's "group" photo isn't quite as deviant as last year's...


We still had a total blast. Thanks to my fellow Burning Nerds/Order of the Scorpion. You guys ROCK!

The only bad reason for not wanting to stare at my screen is...

*drum roll*

Yup. It's that time of year again and while last year I had a solid plan, a solid world, solid characters and such that had been roaming about in my head for the better part of 7 or so years, this year I'm totally winging it. That combined with well... only getting 1000 words done in that first week thanks to Burning Nerd 2010... it's well... challenging. But I like challenges, dammit! I've set a goal of 13,000 words for myself for the weekend (Fri, Sat, and Sun). As of this moment I have 10,357 more words to go. I think I can make it...
I hope I can make it...
I should probably start writing THAT instead of THIS.

Away to WriMoLand! *dash!*

New location, new life, new hobbies

Wow. That's about all I can say is wow. Life somewhere in March decided it wanted to smash its foot down on the accelerator despite me warning it there's a cop probably lurking around the next bend waiting to crack down on our joy ride.

I think it was my father's accident that kick started it. Before I knew what was going on after bringing him home and seeing he was all okay, I was agreeing to move in to a new home - for the first time. Been in my parent's house all my life. One house. Now I'm still in the process of moving all my stuff over to a new house where I'm living with my boyfriend, a friend of ours, and the friend's fiancee. So far it's been a little over a month and it's all good (mostly). But insane anyway.

So between moving and such, I haven't had a lot of motivation or time to really sit down and write. (Reading though! - taking place in the 1 book 1 twitter reading group right now)

However, the other day while in the craft store (picking up hot glue sticks for the boys to convert into hot glue bullets... *shakes head*) I found a book of amigurumi designs - little crochet animals. I had to buy it.

Now... I knit and crochet occasionally. So occasionally I usually forget the basics between projects. A quick refresher is usually all it takes to get me back into the swing of things, but aside from the odd scarf (and a pair of fingerless gloves I managed to make one of) I really haven't gotten too creative with anything. Though the promise of cute little animals seemed enough motivation to give it all another go.

So after buying $70 worth of yarn, hooks, needles, etc I was ready to go!

I figured I'd start easy with an octopus. It seemed pretty basic, and given that I didn't have any of the cute little plastic eyes yet I didn't want to dive in too crazy to begin with.

 

(I couldn't make him in purple like the book showed... just... no. *glares at Detroit*)

Well with that pretty successful, a few lessons were learned in right/wrong side of projects, how not to over stuff, how much tension I needed to keep throughout the project, etc... A random trip to another local craft store yielded the little safety eyes I needed... and so on came project number two - a penguin! (Honest, this wasn't done on purpose *eyes the hockey crowd* I just adore penguins...)



I think he came out pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself. Again, more lessons learned (like how to get rid of the excess yarn at the end after I was done finishing off/sewing together).

Well now I'm just plain hooked (no pun intended there)... in the plans are a little whale for a Crochet Along that I found myself wanting to get into over at Ravelry, another pattern from the book - this time a doggie that I'll be modifying to look like a little weenie dog, and finally... several from the set of patterns I bought over the weekend that are all Star Wars characters. I think Yoda and the Ewok will come first.

Oh... and then there's THIS... but I think I need more practice before I can make myself a crochet Mr. Bubbles.

Well, Holy (insert expletive here)

I really have no idea how I did it, never mind the fact of why. But I have bested the NaNoWriMo and have the little graphic to prove it.

 That's right, fuckers. I did it. I challenged myself to go completely insane and let my creativity flow for one hellish, sometimes painful, sometimes wonderful month.

I had the concept for my novel for about 5 years now. Some of the ideas I was kicking around never saw fruition in my putting them all together into a cohesive plot. Others were completely changed and yes, I killed off a character I never thought I would and it's strangely liberating.

When I first started the NaNoWriMo this year I never thought I'd actually...well... win. I mean seriously, I have a hard enough time keeping up to date on short form writing I do on forums and I wanted to tackle a novel? But I did it anyway. And while tomorrow technically is the end, and I still have an epilogue to write, I did it. I managed to prove myself wrong (which does feel oh so good sometimes), and I pulled something out of my head that is made of pure awesome.

Ok... so the actual novel itself probably isn't the best. In fact, it's probably pretty rocky. But hey, this was all about getting a first draft done and a first draft it is. I think I'll let it rest for a while, but not too long that I lose momentum on it. Then it's diving into the rewrites/expanding on parts I had to shorten to ensure victory/filling in plot holes, etc in December. But for now, I look forward to tomorrow's little wrap up and putting a pretty bow on this project that has consumed my life for the last month.

Damn I'm looking forward to giving myself a few days off. Whoo!

As for NaNoWriMo 2010? Oh dear god... I don't even want to think about it. Though there is a story about a farm boy, his cat, and a shitload of zombies that's been playing about in the back of my mind. Hmm...

Taking a break from writing to ...well... write!

November is turning out to be a pretty insane month for me. Between hockey games, concerts, getting laid off (ew.), and other masses of insanity I've decided somewhere along the line (okay, so the decision was actually made in September), to join the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.

What the hell is NaNoWriMo? I asked myself the same thing back in September. Nation Novel Writing Month seemed like a good idea at the time. I write every so often, mostly in short format ramblings. And one of my fellow short-format-rambling writers brought the whole NaNoWriMo thing to my attention. I figured... why not? I'll give it a shot. I'll probably fail miserably, but fuck-it.

So here we are, just shy of the "half-way" mark. Apparently by Sunday I should have 25,000 words and the very very scary thing... I'm just about there. I keep hearing these horror stories of people with an obscene lack of sleep, how week two is the "killer" week and yet every day (save for a few missed days at the start), I've managed to get some writing done. I think I know where my story is going for the most part and I haven't found myself starting at what I've written so far cursing my characters for putting me up against a wall. I'll get there though, I'm sure of it. Ha ha.

The light green shows days where I met my "daily" goal of words-per-day, the red shows days where I didn't. Dark Green are "WHOOHOO!" days whereas Dark Red (which at the time of posting this I don't have any thank god) are days that were a pile of suck, apparently. The fact I'm just below where I should be at this point in time and have so many red days baffles and mocks me.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/511264 Feel free to Buddy me if you're a fellow insane participant!

But for now this entire thing has been an exercise in branching out of my comfort zone once more. Writing something longer, more detailed, sticking with characters, seeing plots through... and that's just the novel aspect. Last weekend I went to a write-in over in Anaheim that had a wonderful little catch to it. The "writing" was to come after we went first to Build-A-Bear and made ourselves some "muses".

My first intention was to just make a little bear based on my main character. Well, writing high Fantasy didn't lend for a lot of clothing options so in my insanity I simply grabbed a little sweatshirt looking thing for him and went with it. Earlier this week I "improved" on that shirt.

 

Behold the Build-A-Muse. I named him Kaeldir after my main protagonist.
He sits by the laptop when I write. Yep. Insanity, I know.

Oh my. Obsession is not a healthy thing.

So the rest of this month I look cheerfully towards finishing off my novel and getting myself a new job. The question is... will I be able to accomplish both? Here's to hoping so!

You killed off WHO??

(Beware of spoilers in this. But seriously, the ones I'll mention I'm willing to bet about 90% of people know about If not uhh...read with caution?)

I swear to god there is a conspiracy among authors. A horrible, evil agreement they all must have made sitting at a long square table ages ago that the new and upcoming writers all must sign in accordance with. Oh, not just by those that write novels, oh no. But movies and television shows and comics and just about anything else that requires words to be put down in some form of story.

There's a rule and it MUST be obeyed.

Thou Shalt Make an Interesting, Overly Agreeable Character. And Then Thou Shalt Kill Him/Her/It.

Having recently finished A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, I honestly found myself sitting there going "Wait. Really? Seriously?? WHY!?" I mean, there were several deaths in there (one of which was immensely satisfying) but if you've read the book, you know which in particular got me all in a tiff. Half surprised they didn't knock off Snow while they were at it... but then I realize I have 3 other books that have already been written and I think another 3 he has yet to write. Oh Jon Snow, my love for you will surely end with your demise.

Do I have other examples of this? Oh you betcha!

(I believe I can rant about Harry Potter books at this point without worrying about spoiling anything for anyone)
J. K. Rowling has earned a special spot of "I'm going to hit you if I see you" for all those she offed in the last two books. But the unforgivable was the particular maiming of George...and then offing Fred. You. Bitch. Adding insult to injury was Remus too. There aren't enough fist shakes in the world for that last book.
...that being said, I still immensely enjoyed the book. I just wanted to throw it across the room when I was reading it at several points.

Even before reading it, I knew Wicked could only end one way, really I did. But the PLAY managed to make everything end all shiny! I did read the book first, but come ON.

Interview with the Vampire bothered me insanely. I know Louis was the main protagonist, but we all know Claudia was really the awesome one. Why couldn't we have it from HER side and have Louis get burnt to a crisp? Huh??

As far as movies go, I think the most memorable here would be from Braveheart. The Campbells were like my favorite characters in the ENTIRE THING. And when the Elder bit it, I sobbed like a pathetic mess. I am a girl. Let's not forget this. But seriously how could you NOT like the old man?

Don't even get me started on Serenity, I think I could rant for a good solid hour on that one and on many a drunken night after watching it, I believe I have.

And while we all saw it coming, Mufasa in the Lion King, wasn't any less sad.

Then there's The Matrix, who introduced Mouse, made us love the little pervert and then offed him just as fast. Bastards.

Even video games mock me! Fallout 3, anyone? I'm sure there's more here that are at fault. I hesitate to mention Final Fantasy 7, just because ...well...I thought Aeris was annoying.

I could probably just keep adding to this list in all the categories but I think you get the idea.

All that rant aside guess I could throw in something that ended up positive.
Tolkien and Eddings both almost earned my ire but saved themselves...

I was fairly young when I read through the Lord of the Rings trilogy and dammit, I sobbed. I cried. Then I got over it. I still want to bitch-slap those that made the trailers for the movies though. The whole "Oh, btw, Gandalf aint dead :D" thing was a MOMENT in those books. One of those things that made you go ":D OH MY GOD!!!!" and they showed it in the TRAILER. Eff you guys.

As for Eddings. Yeah. "Man with Two Lives" indeed. If he'd been "The Man who Got Offed" I think I would have wrote an angry letter...never would have mailed it though. Ha.

So, remind me please, if I ever get the gumption to actually pen/scribble/type out anything noteworthy... I need to follow the rule. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll break it. Kill off the dweeby main character and let that badass on the sidelines live for once.