curses and blessings

I love being self-employed. Really.

The curse? Appointments cancel; often with adequate notice to not be billable but late enough that it will be hard to make up the lost income without scrambling my schedule.

The blessing? Appointments cancel; and I end up not having to drive that 34 round-trip miles. The canceled job time and the relief from driving time can be used for a variety of things. A nap, when needed. A workout or walk, depending on weather, location when the cancelation came in, if I am close to one of the three branches of my gym. A load of laundry. Working on the translation of a play. A surprise lunch with my partner (that requires both of us having a cancelation at the same time; rare).

Or, like today, time to write! Woo - for the month of November I will definitely be taking the cancelations as opportunities to write. (Note to the universe: I am not requesting that too much work cancels, please! No, I still need income; but I will take the occasional one or two hour job cancelation to allow me to catch up with my writing for those times, like yesterday, when I only squeezed out 200 words. Sadly. I love my work!)

So, here I am, procrastinating as I eat my multigrain bagel with chevre and tomato, sipping a soy latte and catching you up on what I am doing, from the Bipartisan Cafe.

NaNoWriMo: day 4

My word count is still sitting at 6085. My schedule was packed with back to back appointments today until 9 pm. I did have one hour which was not work or transportation between work, and had arranged to workout with my friend. Which I did and which was needed. I think it is even more important than ever to keep up with the workouts during this time when I am sitting at the computer more!

But I do have an amazing number for you: the total number of words written by all of the Wrimos as of a posting earlier today (Tuesday) is 171,901,148 . Wow.

And Portland, Oregon is #10 in total word counts for our region, out of about 449 regions around the world. Yay! We are sitting about average in terms of average words per writer (about 4,500).

NaNoWriMo day 3

It was a productive day in terms of word count and plot development. And I am noticing a pattern in my process: it takes me about 30 to 45 minutes to get warmed up and in the flow to write. I am not sure how to log this on the NaNo report card I am keeping for myself, though. It is not actual writing time in terms of words per minute, yet it is time spent in the writing process. So far, in the six writing sessions in the last three days, I have only just sat down and typed once. I will put it in, because if my writing speed slows during this month, I have to have a realistic block of time reserved for writing. If I only have 30 minutes, it might be better to get in a walk than try to write. Seems I should have a minimum of an hour.



There is an actual plot developing, though I still don't know the end or how it will get there. I am not ready to say too much about it. The pieces I can say: the primary story is modern times; there is a writer, a man with a scheme; Emile Zola, 1902 France; controversial occurrences; and things I will not say now.

NaNoWriMo stats

Total word count as of this afternoon (the NaNoWriMo site is still a little slow, but getting better, so I will continue to update here) = 6,085

found: eating

Okay, so maybe this is not revolutionary. But it was new information to me, so I thought I would pass it along because I am sure I am not the only one without this information.

The other day I was working with a person from Japan. Among the items for my lunch was part of a pomegranate I had sliced in two the night before, to make it easier to eat. Yum! This person watched me as I pulled a section off and pulled off a few arils/seeds with my teeth (I didn't want to stain my hands). I felt a little self-conscious. This person kept watching me. I took a second bite.

"Excuse me," this person asked somewhat timidly, which is not their usual confident and forceful manner of speaking. "But did you just eat the seeds?"

I replied that, of course I ate the seeds because that is the fruit.

"No, no. I mean did you swallow the seeds inside the fruit?"

"Yes."

This person explained that there was a pomegranate tree in the family yard in Japan. The proper way to eat a pomegranate is to just tear it open - "do not cut it, just tear it apart" - and then bite some of the fruit. But to spit out the hard seed in the center!

"Really!?"

"Yes. Do not eat the seeds. Spit them out."

Huh. I had no idea. I finished the half of pomegranate eating it in my own way. But I never before even considered sucking the red portion off and then spitting out the seed. But I guess that is how they do it in Japan. Kind of like a watermelon except with the melon the proportions of seed to fruit is vastly different!

Illustration from ThisNext

day two: NaNoWriMo

After two writing sessions today, my total word count is 4,138.

The story is taking little twists and turns and I still don't know quite where it is headed. Well, it can't be that many twists, it is not very long yet! Another character has surfaced, who may or may not be important. There has been a major development with one of the main characters, and who I thought was leading this show of literary exploration may actually be the supporting actor, after all!

What an adventure this writing of a book is so far, and it is only day two. I am still just showing up on the computer and seeing where they characters lead. I am also amassing a list of resources and web pages for some of the things that puzzle me or for which I feel there may be a need for more details later.

This is interesting, because I really do not know where we are going. There is one character who obviously has a scheme and is on the road looking for support, but he has not told me what his scheme is. I tried to force something on him, but it did not fit and he rejected it.

No, I am not talking to myself. Not yet, anyway. Smile.

I am hanging around the keyboard to see who shows up and where we are going today. Tomorrow will be my first day of working and writing. I am not quite sure how it is going to work with an appointment with the trainer, a chiropractic appointment, and an eight hour job. We'll see!

I was happy to discover yesterday that I can access my Google docs from my Blackberry. I can't edit them, but I can read them. Which means I have access to my latest draft of the novel whenever I have text service, even if I do not have my laptop or do not have internet access for the laptop. So, with Blackberry in hand and even some paper and a pen, my novel is only a couple clicks away!

Yesterday, writing at home was much more productive and I managed to nearly double my word count in less than half the time as the first chunk. Today was the opposite. I was at home, alone (a rare treat), and slogging away at the keyboard between loads of laundry, feeding the cats, and other assorted distractions. So I walked over to the Bipartisan cafe to be able to focus among the crowds at tables, hissing of the espresso machine, and other people typing and studying. At the cafe my word county doubled in, again, half the time I had spent at home.

Still searching for the magic formula that will make it all happen smoothly and easily.

Oh, I forgot, it does not work that way. *smile*

update: more words

Because the NaNoWriMo site is currently overloaded with visitors and the widget is unreliable, here is my updated word count. By about mid-week, use at the NaNo website will decrease to a normal level and everything should flow smoothly.

Words written since 12:01 AM November 1st : 2,734

I like this trend: From midnight:01 until 3:30 am I wrote my first 1400 or so words. This did include time to order a soy latte and move my plug when the person next to me left, leaving an opportunity to plug in my little surge protector and to disconnect from someone else's multiple plug extension. This afternoon I was able to nearly double my word count in just over an hour.

Sweet.

I again believe I can win this event by at least meeting the 50,000 words requirement!

word count

The daily minimum word count required to reach 50,000 by November 30th.

See my current word count in the little box to the left.
*Click on the image to enlarge and be able to see the numbers.*

it is started

I made it to the Fireside Lounge with a couple minutes to spare. I did eat my tasty healthy bento (half of it; left the other half for my partner for later) and then took a nap. Yay. I actually slept close to an hour. Then I showered, put on clean clothes, which included my official NaNoWriMo t-shirt. I grabbed my still-iced soy latte and the now cold edamame and headed out with laptop and water bottle in tow.

There were about 35 of us there, I think. Some had been there for a couple hours - but, as I already mentioned, I really needed some sleep if I was to accomplish anything. There was a lot of noise in the restaurant until the countdown to 12:01 and "go." Then, for 20 or 25 minutes, the only sound was keyboards click-clacking, the espresso machine hissing, and a whisper here or there.

My start was slow and steady. A little more stuck than I hoped and I wasn't that pleased with where it was going. But a few characters showed up and I feel I am starting to build their story. At 3:15, I was no longer able to connect to their wireless device. Luckily I had just uploaded the latest version of my novel, so that was good. And I took it as a "sign" to pack up and come home.

I was wide awake on the drive and buzzing when I came in. I downloaded the files from Google Docs to my desktop computer and was planning to do some more work. But as I'm typing this entry, I am falling asleep. So, I think, at 4:30 AM, I am going to call it a night and go to bed for real. Then I will write more after some good hours of sleep. I have already checked that the alarm is off *ahhh*.

Since the word count widget has temporarily disappeared, let me just tell you that *so far* today I have 1,418 words! And the Oregon: Portland region is 22nd out of about 440 regions as far as total word count. I will be writing more later today.