Because I’m either an attention-whore or a glutton for punishment, or possibly both, I’m putting up excerpts from each day’s writing efforts. There are six… ah, seven so far. If you’re wondering just how much of a lousy hack I really am, the proof awaits.
Category: Art
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So, Karel, how’s that writing thing coming?
In between fiddling with That Damned Laptop and my NaNo project pages and Quatro, The Undead PC… I have managed to churn out 5,000 words or so over the course of three days. This means that I’m actually on track, oddly enough.
The laptop trouble turned out to be entirely the fault of Mandrake 9.0, the KDE portion of which is hopelessly befouled. I installed it onto one of my desktop PCs at home and had even worse performance than I did on the laptop! Desperate to get a Linux-based writing utensil working, I installed (sigh) RedHat 8.0. It’s working, but I’m not as happy as I would have been with a good Mandrake rig. Oh well. Once November ends I can blow it straight to hell and try something else.
A fair portion of my weekend was spent at Java Vivace in NW Portland hanging out with fellow WriMos. An impromptu kick-off party was held Saturday afternoon, while yesterday was our “more regular” semi-impromptu meeting. I got there early yesterday and managed to get most of the day’s quota done between bites of omelette and sips of cocoa.
As an aside, is it just me or do coffee shops have the world’s worst hot chocolate? Bland, lifeless cocoa is the bane of my existence. One of the banes, anyway. It doesn’t get better with whipped cream, I can assure you. Someone, please, point me towards a place that serves really tasty and sweet hot chocolate.
To sum up, not only am I solidly on track but I have a working progress chart, backup copies of my work on almost half a dozen computers, and a new group of friends to chat with both online and in person. And I’m sure we’ll stay in touch for at least a couple of weeks after November has passed…
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Getting All Fired Up
I apologize for the dearth of updates this week. Every spare productive moment has gone into my NaNo project. I have a bit of character sketching typed up and posted now, as well as a nice chunk of background data. I’ll probably be linking in some of the other Portland NaNos next, followed by the actual structure of the story postings. (I’m still undecided on “full story” versus “excerpts” posting. Comments are encouraged.)
Just a bit more than a day left before I become a full-on writing powerhouse. Hoo boy.
I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome some new Blogs of Note. Intellectual Orgy has already been mentioned but Mari can stand the encouragement. The People’s Republic of Seabrook provides a witty slice of Lone Star State life in addition to some keen sociopolitical commentary and has become a daily fave of mine. Rounding out the roster is I’ll Say She Is!, another well-written slice of life journal. The Chuck-A-Palooza antics alone are worth the visit.
Let’s put it this way: Unless you want to read my novel (or about the progress of my novel) there won’t be much of interest on this site during November. Dig into these Blogs of Note, dear readers. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.
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Towards The Furtherance Of Guilt Motivation
There’s now a special subsection devoted to my National Novel Writing Month endeavor. It will begin to fill with meaningful content just as soon as we’re past Halloween and into 30 days of heavy-duty writing. My current plan is to post short excerpts of each day’s writing. I was originally going to post the entire novel as I went along, but I’ve come to realize some dangers inherent in such a plan…
In related news, the Portland NaNo coffee get-together Sunday afternoon was a quiet, dignified, friendly success. Then again, there may very well have been more NaNos upstairs at Java Vivace that our foursome weren’t aware of. Too bad, their loss.
Last night I sketched out my basic plotline. I now have a short document to consult whenever I get stuck thinking, “Where do I go now?” I’ve also downloaded and tried out a little Windows proggie named Rough Draft, a kind of “text editor for writers.” Since I’m going to be stuck in Windows anyway, this looks like the way to go.
Just a few more days until I lose all hope of redemption. Now’s a good time to start sending me care packages: Music, fluid and snacky refreshment, Advil…
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The completed TMTT at last
At long last, Tenchi Muyo Thumbnail Theater is complete. Not only that, but the email links work. (Whoops.) The only thing left to do is to hunt down some missing thumbnails, like for the Jurai Royal Family. It’ll keep…
What’s keeping you, EK? *smirk*
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Only. One. Remains.
As of a few minutes ago, I am one episode away from completing TMTT. All that remains is “Here Comes Jurai,” the cutesy throw-away episode that closes out the 2nd Tenchi Muyo OAV. I’ll see about finishing that off over the weekend.
Speaking of music videos, the newly-formed Downloads page has direct links to each of the anime music video files I’ve created. No longer must my visitors wonder where they can find these and my other creative treasures!
I can go home now. Yay.