Here is where I write stuff

I GOT MY TICKET. MUSE. MARCH 17. I WILL BE THERE.

I was really worried that I wouldn't get it because of all the problems people have been having with the presale website (giving away held tickets while they try to pay, selling out to scalpers, generally being sucky) but I GOT MY TICKET.

And?

And?

And?

I GOT GENERAL ADMISSION.

I will be on the floor, rocking my face off. I think I want to take off work that day so I can get there early to line up and get a good spot. THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, GUYS.


(I'm seriously so excited I can hardly sit still)

((I kind of can't believe I'm finally going to see them live. HOLY CRAP MUSE LIVE I CAN'T WAIT))

50,042 words.

Considering I wrote the ending sentence at 48,803 words, I'm pretty happy with that word count. The rest of the words came from going back and adding in details, like the stuff that makes Lorelei's world different from ours. The winning words were Lorelei looking out the window at the wall built to protect coastal cities from pirates.

ALSO.

I had Pandora going while I was writing? And it's on my Mono/awesome instrumentals station? And while I was uploading? THERE WAS TOTALLY AN AWESOME EPIC DRUMROLL BUILDUP. And then the music exploded with happiness when the winner's page loaded. BEST TIMING EVER.

CAPSLOCK MEANS I AM EXCITED, OKAY?

Tomorrow, I am going to play Animal Crossing ALL DAY LONG. Or possibly I will just be lazy in another way.

This is excellent.
- It is shameful that the country that put a man on the freaking moon is now ranked at the bottom of the list in science and math education. Purely shameful.
- Science IS awesome, and kids need to be shown this so that they will use science to make the world even more awesome. We can't cure cancer if people stop studying science!
- If people are educated about how science works, hopefully we can cut out all this pseudoscience nonsense that keeps getting passed around as "valid". Maybe then we can actually eliminate some more diseases once people realize that vaccines are GOOD, not an evil plot to let aliens control our brains (or whatever it is Jenny McCarthy is claiming today).
- Also, if people respect science a little more, hopefully we can stop turning science into a political game and actually ACT on what we learn, instead of trying to pretend there are two sides to everything ever. Sometimes, facts is just facts, and if those facts disagree with your party line then you need to just get over it. When science is saying HEY GUYS THIS IS HAPPENING you can't just ignore it because it will hurt your political campaign!
- Oh, and I love love love the idea of getting science into little-kid shows like Sesame Street, because I earnestly believe that we neeeeeeed to get kids curious about the world. Creativity and curiosity are SUCH GOOD THINGS. It's the "teach a man to fish" thing- if you teach kids how to explore their world at a young age, they will forever be questing to learn more, so you won't have to try to MAKE them learn any more than you have to MAKE them eat their dessert.

Basically, ROCK ON, OBAMA.

So today I got the "Desktop Edition" of Write or Die, and wowwwwwwww talk about motivation. I did 5 10-minute sprints and wrote 2,632 words. 2,632 words in 50 minutes of writing. AND they are pretty good words, I think! I'm happy with them, anyways. I have yet to really resort to any blatant word padding like dream sequences or my character going to a random concert or visiting a museum. I'm very happy with the pacing of my story, and I'm happy with the quality of what I've written, keeping in mind that it is a "first draft" kind of thing. I'm very, very happy with how things are going this year.

As of tonight, I'm at 13,840 total words. I was behind as of last night, so today I caught up and got a full day ahead. Tomorrow I want to do 5,000 words so that I can earn my "Rally" merit badge, because of course I bought the merit badge stickers from NaNoWriMo. It's kind of amazing how motivational a sticker can be.

I love NaNoWriMo. I really do. I mean, it's fun enough to bang out a novel in a month, but add in the regional activities and all of the cool people you meet during the month, and it's really like a month-long party of awesomeness.

And now, I'm going to do some planning. I'm feeling a little lost this year without having everything plotted in advance. I'm not sure if it's because I plotted everything so thoroughly last year, or if it's because I have a plot from my polls and I'm worrying about sticking to it, but the feeling is there. So I'm going to bang out a rough outline for the rest of the novel and see how that helps. There are some details I need to work out ahead of time, anyways, so I don't write myself into a corner.

Have I mentioned that I'm really happy with how this novel is turning out? Because I am <3

Okay, off to work on this, and then to beeeeeeeeddddddddd. For sleeps.

eta: Oh, and I know that I just got Write Or Die: Desktop Edition today, but I really want Liquid Story Binder, too. Apparently it's on sale for the month of November and oooooooo it looks so pretty.

Pretty!

( Two more pictures )

I keep forgetting that I painted it, and then seeing it and being surprised by how pretty it is.

It was really, really scary taking it apart to paint the pieces. I had to take out all of the guts, and I was terrified I would break something. BUT! It turns out it's pretty simple once you have the right tools and you know how to detach a keyboard ribbon thingy. I still held my breath when I turned it on for the first time after I was done, though. I took lots of pictures, and I plan to make a sort of "How To" thing for this, because there is not one in existence for the Neo. There's almost one for the AS 3000, but the keyboard ribbon connector thingy is different so it's not really good for a Neo.

And now, I am dressed in my horribly bright highlighter-yellow ML shirt, and getting ready to leave for the NaNoWriMo kick-off party. This shirt is so stinking bright. I'm sort of afraid to go outside wearing it, in case I accidentally blind someone. Luckily the sun is not out in full force, so people should be safe, but still.

SPEAKING OF NANOWRIMO.

You should all go vote and comment on this poll. We've determined that the Norse gods have introduced medicine 500 years early, but humans still think it's magical. We're working on plot stuff now, and learning more about our main character, Lorelei. We know she's Loki's daughter, but beyond that we don't know what she does. We also don't know what the main conflict of the novel will be. GO HELP BRAINSTORM PLZ. The more ideas, the better.

So my Grandma CJ is going through chemo, and she's lost her hair, so I decided to knit her a wig hat:


in bright orange, naturally.

I'm pretty sure she's going to LOVE it.

(It will fit her better than it fits me, because I made it a bit small to fit snugly on a head that's without the thick hair I inherited from her)

((Also, I think I need to knit one for myself now. I kind of love this thing))

It's getting close to that time of year, guys! I'm so excited. I can't wait. I kind of want to start posting my polls now, but I'm going to wait until probably mid-October. Unless I get really impatient. I really can't wait to see what I'm going to be writing.

I officially made my first preparations for NaNoWriMo today: I made my nano2009 folder in my Documents folder, so I could have a place to save the web badges they posted today. Next I'm going to update my wordcount spreadsheet for 2009, and investigate my options for polling by Twitter on the fly without having my phone flooded. I really wish there was an option to have all @ replies sent to a phone! Oh well.

So my name is on Amazon.com and that's kind of cool. Unfortunately, it's more expensive on Amazon, since Amazon takes a cut, but it's still neatopeachykeen.

Also, from lulu.com, I've raised almost $40 for NaNoWriMo. That's also neatopeachykeen.

...I had more to say, but I forgot.

Two random things that came to mind after I finished my last post that wouldn't really fit into my last post:

1) I have an idea for NaNoWriMo: Novel by poll. Kind of like tomnoir's Blackmoon story, except I'll actually finish it (oooooh, burn...). I can use polls to let Livejournal decide the genre, plot, setting, and characters, and then just go to town. Added bonus: if I get stuck, I can just throw out another poll! Genius.

2) Soooooo I really dig JC Hutchins' 7th Son trilogy, and he's got a new book coming out soon. Since he can't podcast the upcoming book, he wrote a prequel that will be podcastededed instead. And the first episode was released on my birthday. And he did this on purpose... !!! He had mentioned before that he was aiming for mid-May, so I jokingly tweeted to him that he should release it on May 15, since that was my birthday. Annnnd... he did it! Then when I tweeted something about how it was a great birthday treat, he replied that he stuck to the deadline so he could release on my birthday. And then I flailed about for a bit and died until I was dead. Bonus: the patient the main character (a therapist) is treating is an elderly quilter who hides clues in her quilts, and this is awesome.

So I'm babysitting my cousins, and having a blast. My uncle left us money in case we wanted to do anything, so of course we had to spend it, right?

The first thing they wanted was McDonalds for lunch. Yay? They got fun toys in their happy meals, though, so all was well with the universe. They even got the same one, so they didn't have to negotiate a trade. Those usually end in casualties and/or tears, so that was happy.

Then they wanted to see a movie. The vote wa between "Race to Witch Mountain' and "Monsters Versus Aliens". Naturally, they couldn't agree on which movie to see, so I cast the deciding vote for "Monster Versus Aliens".

Guys, that is a FUN movie. It was a cute movie on it's own, with the usual "yay teamwork and friendship yay!" story, but it also had lots of really awesome references for the adults. And they weren't naughty references! It was all nerdy stuff like "CODE NIMOY! CODE NIMOY!" and "By Hawking's chair!" It was AWESOME.

So yeah. Good times. I love being the cool older cousin. I really love babysitting my cousins. I can have fun with them and it's cool because they are getting old enough that I can let them get away with some stuff but not have to worry about them going crazy. My cousins rock :D