Frosted Observations

So, I sneezed mid-walk last Saturday and put my back out.  Yup, an innocent little sneeze has left me in serious agony.  According to my chiropractor, I have sprained a joint at the base of my spine and possibly another smaller sprain slightly above the first one.  This is, she says, a freak occurance (no, really?) but a violent sneeze will do it to you alright.  Best of all, she says that I was extremely lucky, as people have done much greater damage to discs and such in this manner.  She sees a sneezing related back injury at least once a week and it has left her so paranoid that she practically dives into a ball if she feels a sneeze herself. 

I'd never heard of such things but a sneeze is one thing that puts enormous strain on your body, especially your spine.  I did some research today and will now recommend the following if you are going to sneeze:  bend your knees slightly and either lean back against a wall or some support or put a hand to your back for support.  It's like we're lifting a box.  A better piece of advice might be to sit down if you can but the most important thing is not to let your back slam forward with the force of the sneeze as it's this type of sudden movement that messes you up.

I don't recommend suppressing your sneeze in an effort to avoid injury as apparently this can also cause some nasty things to happen including damage to the ear-drum.  I'm less inclined to buy in to the theory that suppressing a sneeze might cause brain damage - presumably your brain rocks around in your skull.  This one seems to be an urban legend. 

As we're coming in to the time of year for snifflies, please be safe when you sneeze people.  :)

I've done NaNo a couple of times now but this is my first effort at Script Frenzy - the idea is to write 100 pages during the month of April, which should roughly equate to about an hour and a half of screen time.  Unlike NaNo, you can do this with a partner, so I have roped my_name_is_fiki  in to writing it with me.  Expect to be attending his funeral any day now.... 

( Untitled Action Movie )

Yes folks, time for a very rare update...

( Stuff I'm keeping busy with: )

... when you spend all weekend doing everything possible to avoid writing then spend all day at work dreaming about going home to write.  Only to get home and not want to do anything. 

In other news, despite only writing 'Chapter 1' on Saturday (as in, the two words, not an entire chapter), I have actually managed to stay on target with 5334 as of last night.  I'm flying by the seat of my pants this year.  I have a vague plot idea and a vague character but that's about it.  I'm making it up as a I go along which is slowing things down somewhat but at least I get to throw in ninjas whenever I want.  Incompetent ninjas. 

There will also be pirates, robots, monkeys and whatever other craziness I drop into the plot every time I get stuck. 

... when you wake up on November 1st with the insane urge to give out to my_name_is_fiki about the state of the bedroom, clean the kitchen, hoover the sitting room, clear off the coffee table, scrub the bath, cook that soup recipe you just discovered, do internet quizzes, check the NaNo forums and complete all tasks you've been putting off for the last three months.

Ah.. NaNo.  For the procrastinator in you.

Today I have solved an age-old question... what do you do when an earwig crawls into your laptop?

It turns out the answer is... put the query to the rest of the office, whereby they will all crowd around your desk trying to catch a glimpse of said earwig (who doesn't seem keen to go anywhere), until the sole male in the office decides to lift up the laptop and shake it out over your desk.  Then spend a few minutes deciding that it is not, in fact, an earwig at all but some super dooper new-fangled earwig-like creature we've never seen before.  Several moments of debate with the pro-lifers later (as far as I'm concerned, if this is some new species of earwig from abroad then he doesn't have a visa and therefore zero rights) and we have one dead earwig.

I can't remember who told me that earwigs don't actually go in your ears (my mother, I'd imagine), but if they can climb into a warm little port that is in essence the 'ear of the laptop' then they can damn sure get in your ear.  Time to get ear-muffs out I think....

... Seeing a woman in a violently pink meringue of a wedding dress stepping out of a baby-pink, Playboy themed stretch-Hummer-limo and knowing that, no matter how much I smoke, I will never have that few brain cells.*

If ever I was going to laugh myself to death, that was the moment.



*Not even if I'm dropped on my head from a very great height.

Oh Week 3, how I hate you.  Just when I thought I could go back to the computer, you spring all this lack of motivation on me.  I really shouldn't complain, because at a count of 30228 I am doing quite well, but I am 1500 or so words behind where I should be.  As usual, I am blaming Saturday, an evil day where I wake up filled with enthusiasm and then spend it all playing board games and smoking things I shouldn't.  For the last 3 weeks, I have managed the truly amazing total of 427 words on a Saturday.  (Nothing the first week, nothing the third week.)  I got ahead of myself on the second week to make up for it but failed to do that last week in all my general blahness. 

The Plot:  I have one?  How amazing.  It's completely different to what I planned but then you just can't legislate for that moment on a Friday morning where you wake up and discover that your characters have all joined a different plot and failed to inform you.  I had that moment last week.  But I took the lovely farfalla's ever useful advice and spent 20 minutes writing a new outline.  That does seem to have helped.  Oh, except I now have a cast of at least 4 characters to worry about plus extra fluff characters plus one skull named Jim.  I used to have 2.  What I planned as a lovely, thoughtful sci-fi romance journey thing has disintegrated into my main characters going "Can I blow this up?  Please?  You like explosions."

Why yes, my characters, I do like explosions.  I like the way your discussions of them let me watch my word count go up and up.  I like that you think it's the right idea and I know differently.  I don't like the fact that a large part of the story is now about an explosion that is never going to happen but if you're happy, we're all happy.  Right?  Oh wait no.  Not right. 

40% more to go and I'll be finished my 50K but there's no way this story will be over then.  I'm staring down the barrel of at least 60K but probably a little more than that.  I don't think I'll stray from novella to novel territory but I wouldn't be surprised.  I just have to decide if reaching the 50K in the month is enough, or if I want to finish the story?  Not sure if I'll stick with it in December if I don't finish by Nov 30, but do I really need all that added pressure?  Probably not but I do work well under pressure.  :)

It is the dreaded Week 2 of NaNo.  Week 2, spoken about in hushed whispers by all participants, is the week of Death.  More participants drop out at this time than any other.  In Week 1, we all dance around shouting "I am Writer, hear me ROAR!!".  We have no plot, no characters, no idea - not a problem. 

Then comes Week 2.  By the end of it (Thursday) I should have 23333 words.  Which is quite a scary amount of words.  I've probably never written so much in my life.  I have been given the helpful advice that if I have 20K by then I am doing well but I don't believe it.  My little word count calender has two BIG BRIGHT RED squares for each Saturday so far, as if I needed reminding that I apparently have no will to work on the weekends.  Therefore I really need to be on track by Thursday and Friday, if not ahead, or I'll be in an evil cycle of never quite doing enough work. 

My word count, as of last night, is 18569.  I went a couple of hundred words over what I needed to do yesterday but it's nothing compared to the 2000 words I was ahead at the start of last weekend.  I'm not really sure why I'm annoyed about that because I got so ahead on purpose, entirely certain that I would do nothing Saturday.  (I actually did 400 words but I might as well have sneezed on the page for all the dint that makes in my word count.)  Yesterday I spent a lovely few hours meeting some new people who are all also working on NaNos here in Cork.  We did no writing but I procured myself a sticker, as really, what would the world be without stickers?  And thanks to my effective pimping of the WriMoIreland chat room to the Cork writers we had an amazing number of people in there last night using the timer and taking part in Word Wars.  If it hadn't been for the pushy (but well-intentioned) support of those nice folk I definitely wouldn't have managed my count yesterday. 

Support is the word of the day.  My flatmates have been fantastic.  They come home at night and inquire about my word count, my writing, whether or not I'm on track.  When I sit on the couch blatantly avoiding my computer screen I get told to get working.  It also helps telling people you're doing it because then you don't want to fall flat on your face in front of them.  Great motivation. 

So to all fellow NaNos I say:  Get involved in the community.  If there are meetings near you, go to them and get to know some of the people you're writing with.  Word War.  Either online or in real life.  Help each other with plot, characters, sticky problems that have cropped up in your stories.  I promise you will get way closer to achieving your task this way. 

Dear Characters,

Stop fucking about.  We are trying to write a serious piece of fiction here.  Your name can not, for Christ's sake, I mean can not be Donovan Jefferson.  How can you expect to be the touching, brave, wise one of the bunch when you insist on having a name that would make any Z-Movie actor wet his pants with joy.  Do you want to be taken seriously?  Well?  Do you?

Your Creator (and don't you forget it),
etc etc etc...

* * * * * (<-- NaNo dirty writing trick - put spaces between the stars and they become five words.)

Dear Plot,

Where are you?  Seriously?  We haven't got time for your tantrums.

Sincerely,
Lost for Words

* * * * *

Dear Narrator(s),

Are there two of you?  Just one?  Three?  Help me out.

Love,
Your Puppetmaster

* * * * *

Five days into NaNoWriMo and, as you can see, my happy family of degenerate ideas and I are doing just fine.  Honestly.

Word Count:  6237

I am about 2000 words behind but I've been behind since the start and given that my flat turns into the 'Home for the Mentally Impaired' every weekend it could have been a whole lot worse.  Admittedly, I wrote nothing on Saturday but I figure most weekends will be like that so I just have to do more on weekdays.  So far that hasn't been working but we'll see.  Word War starts tomorrow so there's incentive there. 

I did, however, finish my first chapter!  I am pleased with that.  The first is the hardest and it was like pulling teeth.  With that out of the way it should become easier.  Narrator issues have grown from the first or third person question to the first AND third person issue.  Yet to be revealed if they will be one and the same but that's the least of my worries right now.

There's a conspiracy afoot in this book and even I don't know what it is yet so they're obviously doing a really good job.

I have rather foolishly decided to do NaNoWriMo this year.  I meant to do it last year but lost my motivation.  This year I looked into it a few months ago and signed up for a reminder email.  Then I promptly forgot all about it until I came back from Gaelcon and found the email waiting for me.  Just to clarify - I FORGOT, I was reminded on Tuesday, and I started writing yesterday.  I am already panicking.  I have no notes, no outline, no plot and my characters have names that I've forced upon them and just don't fit.  I have a vague idea of what I want to write but no idea of how to get there.  Yesterday I managed 1128 words on the first day.  I am trying to avoid the forums at the moment cause I'll those people who've written 10000 words in one day are making me even more restless.   Haven't started writing yet today.  Really must do that soon.

I started in first person and it's slowing me down a lot - I'm doing too much thinking really.  So today I am pondering making a change to third person.  Going back to redo the starting bit is a pain but in the long run it'll help me write faster.  Once that's done I really need to kill my Inner Editor though.  Maybe if I turn off the spellcheck it might help - that way I.E. doesn't get to see how madly I am spelling as I speed along.

I doubt I'll be about much this month.  I've already told my_name_is_fiki to expect to see very little of me.  I'm not working at the moment so I can get a lot done during the day but it's quieter around here at night - less construction. 

Urgh.  On second thoughts, I really want to go with first person because this is supposed to be an individual journey and the MC's mindset is really important.  But it'll just slow me down.  F*ck it.  That's what December is for I guess.

Just back from the baptism of nesf and xxuan 's lovely little fella.  Longest baptism I've ever been to in my life.  It was all done in Irish, and the priest kept wandering off on stories of his life in South America and slipping into Spanish instead of Irish.

Hilarious.

In other news, as I haven't posted here in ages.  I've quit my job in the hellhole that is Xtra-Vision (safely in the knowledge that they'll take me back if I like) to concentrate on getting a decent degree.  I'm really busy.  That's about it.  Nothing interesting is happening, life is happy and comfortable and I watch too much TV.  All in all, things are very good if a little hectic with projects and such.  I'm now living with my_name_is_fiki, my brother and a random (but lovely) Canadian.  The toilet seat is always up.  Somebody never turns off taps properly.  (I suspect my brother....)  But we're all quite settled and I've never lived in such a relaxed atmosphere before. 

I'm also currently working on a project for college about Winnie the Pooh.  I'd love some opinions on Pooh if anyone would like to share them.

Johari

... is now 8 days away!

Somebody out there with the ability to stop time might be useful right now.

Nah.  It's fine.  Honest.  Mega-organised blah blah blah.  The website is fully updated and all is well.

Really looking forward to the weekend, though I can't speak for any potential con-goers.  We've way more games organised than I could possibly have imagined 12 months ago, which leads me to the new crazy worry that there might be too many games and not enough people.  Better than worrying that we don't have enough games, I suppose.

My big plans of updating my LJ every day with a countdown to Warpcon and a list of what's been done that day got scuppered by me actually needing to do stuff with that free time.  Ah well, I doubt anyone would have been interested in hearing the details of twenty emails back and forth about t-shirts and brochures and such. 

I wrote a con-director's address this morning.  Very odd.  Really, my committee have busted their asses and done a really great job and they deserve to make their speeches a lot more than me. 

Ah well.  Must go continue on with the 'normal' side of my life and go pay some bills before work. 

See you all at Warpcon.

.... is now 15 days away!

In the last few days we've done lots of stuff. 

• We've almost every blurb we need on the website.  Short a couple of RPG blurbs and still need to get up CCGs info.  For those wondering, in Magic we'll have a Sneak Preview on Saturday and a Two Headed Giant tournament on Sunday.  In VS, there'll be a PCQ on Saturday and a Constructed Flight Tournament on Sunday.
• The timetable is up!  Please be aware that this is provisional, but we don't foresee any changes for the weekend.
• Budget is finalised, just needs to go into the college next Tuesday.
• Accomodation is finalised.  If you haven't booked and want to, we may be able to squeeze you in somewhere but we can't guarantee it.  Please don't turn up on the weekend without any accom, it's unlikely we can do anything for you at that late stage.
• Lots of stationery is ordered.
• We've received some wonderful artwork from John Kovalic, and the t-shirts and brochures will be going to print by tomorrow.

Lots of other small stuff, but that's the main stuff.  I'm not at all as stressed as I was a few days ago.  We're extremely organised and there really is very little to do at this point.  The timetable is rather huge - I had no idea til I put it together just how much stuff will be running on the weekend, but what harm, gives everybody more choice.  Barring any crazy incidents (*crosses fingers*) the whole thing is shaping up to be a great weekend.

Be there!

.... is now 18 days away!

We're really well organised but I can't shake the feeling that nobody is going to turn up and it's going to be a disaster.  It won't be, cause things are well under control, and everyone keeps reminding me of Warpcon's amazing ability to come good despite any obstacles but I can't help feeling like it'll be awful.  Ah well.. tis just stress I'm sure.

Roll on the weekend!

We're having a little bit of a shindig in our place for New Years Eve, so if you have no plans and want something to do, come along. Poke me if you need directions.

Don't mind you bringing somebody I don't know but just clear it with me first!