Bethanie's Brain

So I won NaNo, but haven't actually reached the end of the story. Which means now I have a novel to finish. Here's the plan: 1,000 words a day. Until it's done. Which will be anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 more words, if I'm gonna be honest. Hmmmm... maybe they should call it National Novel Starting Month...

You'll notice the new layout. Two reasons: 1) I wanted to be able to have a list of my categories ("labels" in blogger-speak) and going to blogger-beta was the only way to do it. 2) I suppose I could have chosen the old layout/template-thingy and done this. But the aging eyes just couldn't take the light-on-dark text anymore. *sighs* Sucks getting old.

I did it! I made it to 50K!! Woot! The story's not done. More to write. Much more. Un-Woot.

Normally, I leave political rants to my betters (please see dirt city paranoia ), but this has me grinding my teeth and it ain't even 8AM yet: Bush: Iraq Violence Part of al-Qaida Plot I mean, COME ON. How fucking stoopid do they think we are ?? Do they really think anybody is going to believe them? Did the results of the last election tell them nothing? This new line of utter bullshit is clearly the work of the Iraq "Study" Group, the latest attempt by King George and his Evil Henchmen to make it look like they give a shit about the clusterfucked quagmire they've created in the Middle East. "Study", my ass. They should just be honest for once and call themselves His Majesty's Spin Doctors and be fucking done with it. Graah! They make me SICK.

It isn't fair. And it shouldn't be this fucking hard. I'm a girl, after all. So you would think that writing girl characters would be easy. Well, easier than writing boys. You would think writing girls would come naturally. You would think trying to imagine life from the inside of a boy brain would be a truly astonishing feat for me, a girl. You would think. And you would, apparently, be wrong. I blame being eight years old, because that's when it started, I think: my first taste of boy envy. See, eight years old is when I discovered that boys can pee standing up. Laugh all you like, but I was insanely jealous. I mean, c'mon, let's face it -- unzipping your fly and whipping out your weiner is a whole lot more a) convenient, b) quicker and c) sanitary than pulling down your drawers, exposing your buns and 'drip-drying'. Anyways, that's where it started. Ever since then, despite a Barbie doll phase and the occasional long-fingernail phase, I...

OK, I'm liking the NaNo widget thingy: I didn't get it at first (I'm slow, what can I say), but I'm finding that getting rid of the red is very motivational. Makes me hit quota since I started using it (note lack of red after a certain point) and thus forces the story forward (whether it feels like cooperating that day or not). Wonder if I could get one for off-season (non-NaNo) use?

Miss Snark posted a joke on her very snarky blog the other day. I've heard it before once upon a time, and as an almost-Unitarian, I felt I had to share: You know why Unitarians are such poor hymn singers? Cause they are always reading ahead to see if they agree with the text. Ba-hah!

Check it out! Do keep in mind that it's still very much a draft... so, yeah, the guys in kilts pretty much show up out of nowhere...

So the other night we're riding in the car. Ms. Baby - for once - is not screaming bloody murder (although I am sitting in the backseat to provide assistance, just in case). Since it is unusually quiet due to the lack of screaming, Ms. Four and I are having A Conversation. "A hexagon ," she says matter-of-factly, "has six sides." "That's right," I chime in, ever ready with the reinforcement. "And an octagon has... how many sides?" she asks. I know she knows the answer, but she doesn't like to guess wrong. "Eight!" I say. "Just like an octopus has eight legs," The Husband adds from the front of the car (where he gets to sit because he's driving). "See 'oct' means 'eight'," I say, resisting the very strong urge to tell her it's Latin. There's a thoughtful pause. "So what does 'puss' mean?" askes Ms. Four. "Well, 'puss' is another word for 'ca...

…you can eat a steak dinner with one hand while standing up, singing lullabies and swaying back and forth. … the sound of a howling infant doesn’t even make you flinch. In fact, you don’t even notice it until somebody else points it out. … the definition of colic, “unexplained crying for three hours a day, three or more days a week”, actually sounds like a vast improvement. … you have never, EVER sat down with your baby awake. … you don’t believe people who say they have. … you have trouble dressing your baby because she/he won’t bend . … you can balance your baby on one hand when it is angry. Kind of like a board. … your baby is sitting and quietly staring into space and you call the pediatrician in a panic thinking something is terribly wrong.

Well, I did it. Despite grant deadlines that took up most of my damn weekend and babies that won't sleep and a house that insists I clean it and a family that insists I feed it and friends that insist on visiting, I passed 25K today. That means that I am technically still on schedule to complete NaNo on the 30th. Technically. 'Course me being me, I am so used to being ahead of schedule and finishing early that I feel like I'm behind. (What can I say? I'm a freak.) I also have this unshakable feeling that I'm actually a day behind and don't know it... but that's probably just the chronic lack of sleep talking. Hard to say. Anyway. As usual, I'm halfway to 50K and only about 1/3 the way through the actual story. If that. At least, I'm doing better at keeping my characters under control and not letting them run off with the plot quite so blatantly as they did last year. (Damn vampires. See if I ever write another vamp novel again, you ungrateful ...

1) NaNo, NaNo, on the wall.. . Right, um, I've kept up with the Word Count Gypsy until today. Haven't made quota today. Yet. Long way to go, too, but I'll get there. Hopefully. 2) Ms. Baby's Head Saw the doc this morning and the verdict is: NO SURGERY!! Boo-yah!!! Mama is a happy camper! Mama also has No Excuse for not carrying on with NaNo... Here are some nifty shots of Ms. Baby's funny head -- from the inside ! If you know what you're looking for (which I mostly don't), you can sorta tell that none of the sutures are actually fused (they shouldn't be), which is why she gets to wear a handy-dandy helmet instead of having bits of her skull removed so there's room for her brain. It's a happy day...

In order of use. 1) It's an outline. A very elaborate outline. 2) I'll fix it later. I'll fix it later. I'll fix it later. 3) Just let it suck. Just let it suck. Just let it suck.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. But my brain is now in NaNo mode and won't shut up or shut off --- SO: The Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's great - funny, adventurous, great characters. One of my favorite parts is when they're on the cruise ship and Bruce Willis' character is in some stand-off with the bad-guy aliens and offers to 'negotiate'. He steps out from behind a wall or something, shoots the bad guy dead and says, "Anybody else want to negotiate?" Nobody does. Ba-hah! Kills me. Every time.

Today's Mantra: Let it Suck. C'mon, say it with me now, letitsuckletitsuckletitsuck... Yeah, I feel better now. But it's damn hard to get used to again. Today's Tune(s): Lithium , by Evanescence (something like that. I have no idea who they are, but Napster had an album available to download, so I did.) Other Comments: Scene 1 is almost done . It's sort of having trouble ending. Story of my (writing) life. I had it all planned out and BAM! an extra character shows up and starts commandeering things. This guy is important, but only because he gets executed. Off camera. Well, he was supposed to be ALL off camera. I refuse to name him. But I'll bet whatever his name is, it begins with "L".

Less than 4 hours til NaNo officially starts in my time zone!!! I'm so excited, I can't stand it!!!

I just have to say this to get it out of my system and then I'll shut up about it: I fucking hate the whole daylight savings thing!! I just wish they'd leave it one way or the other, because the "Big Switcheroo" always messes with me. It's like having fucking jet lag without having gotten to go anywhere. Bah! Humbug! OK. I feel better now.

I was going to post my NaNo plot summary, such as it is, but ended up posting this Plot Summary Metamorphosis on a NaNo forum this morning and thought it did a better job: I started out with a Nice Young (Viking) Girl, who gets transported to another world, meets a Nice Young Boy and has a bunch of Adventures in the process of trying to find her Dad. Enter My Muse (Dorothy). Now the Nice Young Girl has a Twin Brother who follows her and gets abducted by the Evil Empire, a Radical Religious Sect is bent on dismantling the Nice Young Girl's brain, a bunch of Bad Guys in Kilts are bent on dismantling the rest of her, a Random Malevolent Creature is bent on dismantling Everyone Else and a Herd of Mythological Beasts are wandering around and have not yet adequately explained their presence... Yeah. That's about how it goes for me.

OK, I'm experimenting with colors here, trying to make El Blogo easier to read. Didn't like the purple , wasn't an improvement, I don't think. This is some form of yellow whose hex code is FFFF99. Thoughts?

As stated in a previous post , time is of the essence for this November’s NaNo adventure. That is, I will have very little of it. With that in mind, I am collecting methods of conserving time by being more efficient with what I’ve got so I can have enough to pound out those 1,667 words every day. (Other suggestions would be most welcome.) And My Muse Will Have the Merlot 1. Caffeine . I drink lattes, since straight-up coffee messes too much with my stomach. Lattes take time to prepare – time I’m not willing to give up. Therefore, I plan to make a Small Vat of Espresso on a Sunday or whatever and keep it in the fridge. Then, when I wake up at 4AM and decide to get some writing done (instead of some sleeping), I can quickly and quietly (latte preparation is also rather noisy) pop a cuppa in the microwave and be on my way. 2. Supper . Ideally, I would have been preparing and freezing stuff for most of October. Unfortunately, my freezer is still stuffed with last year’s deer mea...