NaNoWriMo

Right. So. Day 1 of NaNoWriMo has begun.

I went to the local write-in today and met some highly entertaining people. However, the vague semblance of an idea I had sort of crashed and burned. Maybe it was the venue. I'm bad about writing with other people around. And by bad I mean I can't do it. Especially when I can't see my screen due to the angle at which the sun is coming through the window.

I did manage to write about 2K, but it was an uphill battle, and I have very little (read: no) desire to continue. These characters have a story, but they're being darn quiet about it at the moment, while the characters from my WIP are shouting at the top of their lungs.

I suspect my WIP characters may have sent goons to threaten my NaNo characters.

Anyway, at this point, I'm considering changing NaNoWriMo into NaNoSlashMo (National Novel Slashing Month). Let's see if I can axe 50K from my mutated WIP in a month.

Decisions, decisions.

Anyhoo, I'm off to write a bit of my WIP, in the hopes that Sade and Mina might shut up long enough to let me write a bit more in my NaNo book.

How's everyone else doing with NaNo? Or non-Nano?

Menial Monday

I'm really only blogging because I feel like I should, not because I have anything momentous to say. XD

I was informed I won't be getting any hours at work until January, by which point I probably will have found another job. With any luck I might be able to get a job at a real bookstore for the Christmas season. *crosses fingers*

In other news, I'm the only person in the house who isn't sick with a cold. *dons germ mask and hides in closet* Apparently one of the local high schools is four cases away from being closed for H1N1. This is the high school my little sister attends. *hopes little sister doesn't have H1N1*

Umm. Let's see. I also had some very yummy cake today, stuck a cookie on the end of an umbrella, and had a NaNo idea begin to niggle at my brain. We'll see how it goes.

And! I have a poll. Because I'm still stuck trying to figure out what makes Love Interests like Gale/Peeta, Edward/Jacob, Mr. Darcy/Mr. Bingham (did I spell that right?) so infatuating.

It should be over in the sidebar momentarily. =D

Just Finished Hunger Games

Wow. Just...wow.

That's about all I can say at the moment.

17 First Lines

When I'm at work and I have nothing to do/don't want to go find something to do, I hide in the English section and sneak-read bits of the good books. The other day I decided to make a study of the opening lines of all the fictional ones.

I discovered the following:

Of the 17 books...

1 forced me to read the rest of the paragraph.

3 were good, but I did manage to put the book back on the shelf.

2 were so long that they ran onto the next page.

7 described something (2 people, 5 weather), often with lots and lots of fluffy adjectives.

4 (5 actually, if we count the one that ran onto the second page) were the beginning of a backstory-dump. (1 of these dumps was interesting.)

0 began with dialogue.

0 began with an immediately evident high-conflict (or moderate-conflict) situation. (Although Golden Compass and Execution did come out with it pretty quick.)

0 began with any sort of interaction between characters.

Am I the only one who likes to open with the latter? Or are these statistics inevitable and purely resultant of the fact that I found these book in the English section of a university bookstore?

Thoughts, anyone?

I'd continue to ramble but I may be able to hash this out into a TWFT post for Sunday, so I'll stop now. :)

Me + Hunger Games = <3<3<3

The other day I scurried off to the bookstore and bought The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.

Just finished rereading Hunger Games. Am in love. Can't start reading Catching Fire because I actually have to sleep tonight, seeing how it's only Thursday and I have to go to work tomorrow.

*considers phoning in sick and staying up all night to read*

Alas, I need the money.

But anyway, loveloveloveLOVE Hunger Games, to the point where Catching Fire is in danger of being chucked across the room if it doesn't go the way I want. Ah, the perils of being a good book.

*basks in warm loving feelings and tries to stop slipping into present tense in her WIP*

The Long Arm of Campus Security

Sorry. No Teaser Tuesday today. All the writing I did over the weekend was a touch morbid. I shan't subject you to it.

BUT! I got my first parking ticket today. Which I don't plan to pay. =D

I'm really quite proud of myself. It took them two and a half weeks to catch me. Now I shall have to start playing musical parking spaces. Parking in a new lot every day, nestling into a tight little spot where they'll be hard pressed to reach my windshield, hanging a lot of things from my rear view mirror so they have to squint for a long time to figure out whether or not I have a parking pass.

Assuming they'll threaten to tow my car after the third ticket, I should be able to keep my job for another nine weeks or so, before I can no longer safely park in the parking lot. Then I shall have to find a new employer -- ooo, look at that! Assistant Curator at the military museum. $13/hr. That sounds promising! =D

The Sea of Staples

Step 1) Remove staple.

Step 2) Move receipt to other side of paper. Re-staple.

Step 3) Place paper in correct alphabetical spot in mammoth binder.

Step 4) Repeat.

That's what I did for eight hours straight today. XD I went through three stapler-fulls of staples and created a very impressive mountain of used staples.

It wasn't so bad, though. It meant I got to sit in a non-boiling room and listen to my ipod all day while daydreaming about my characters.

Hehe.

Tomorrow, I suspect I will get the pleasure of photocopying the alphabetized OSAP forms. =D