Nanowrimo 2018 - day 6

Daily Word count: 4,421

Total word count: 11,814

Had to hit the keyboard hard today. And for the most mundane of reasons.

Electricity.

Tomorrow the electrician is replacing a lot - I want to say most if not ALL - of my downlights. I have sixteen downlights alone in the back room and only two of them work. And it isn’t the bulbs. I am so tired of cooking by candlelight. I swear the other day, Kid 1 broke a glass and he just turned on a switch that hasn’t worked for five years… and it worked. Everyone just stared at the ceiling in disbelief.

Over the years we have struggled with roofing leaks and as lights got damaged there was no point replacing them until the leak that damaged them was repaired. Right?

I am forming a theory that home ownership is like a never ending game of triage. Which thing is likely to fall apart first? I’ll fix that.

Maybe it’s just my house? The longer we live in it, the more we realise the renovations were done by some tragically gifted amateur who watched too many hours of Renovation Nation or the Block or whatever TV show. It was all very superficial.

Things are weird… very, very weird.

We eventually worked out the roofing problem after multiple attempts. The way climate change is affecting Australia is to have long periods with minimal rainfall, and then to have some wild and woolly storms - as my mother used to say. We’d get the roof repaired and then wait weeks or months for rain. During which we couldn’t really tell if the repair had worked, or not, until the rains came. Every attempt so far had not worked. A very large Tupperware container was permanently sitting under one light fitting.

So… after the last effort, I am fairly sure (quote me on this) that it is now repaired. *crosses fingers* *crosses legs* *crosses everything*

Thus, the electrician. He has a very long list of things to fix.

I always think it’s the worst kind of sign when your electrician peers into your power box and says, “Oh, that’s odd.”

Odd is NOT a word sparkies should be using.

The automatic cut out switch required by law in Australia was there… it just wasn’t connected to anything, so it wouldn’t have actually worked if somebody stuck a knife in the toaster.

Although really, this house is much better than my last house. I’ve been using the same electrician for nearly fifteen years, and when he came to do the quote he turned to his new apprentice and started regaling him with stories of my last house. I am memorable.

[Oh, god. It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the common element here. Sighs.]

I have often thought I ought to make a voodoo doll of the bloke who did the property inspection because he has brought me much pain. It’s only fair if he has some shooting pains in the back in return.

But… back to the writing. Given the probable absence of a PC tomorrow I wrote like a demon today. So, okay, I have three different versions of the ‘meet cute’ in there. It doesn’t matter; it’s a draft not a finished product. I’ll work out later which one works better and cut the others. Perhaps after cannibalising them for some good dialog lines.

It’s very dialog heavy, which is often when I can tell the characters are really speaking to me. Sometime later in edits, I will realise I haven’t even described an important person, like the hero.

I’m onto it in this draft. I have left my usual reminder key to come back to something (which is two percentage signs.)

I have a note that says: %% describe hero.

Few words. Much wow. So pro.

Nanowrimo 2018 - day 5

Well, day 5 started with noticing I spelt Nanowrimo wrong in the heading of the post for day 3. A true pro, I tell you.

Word count: 1849

4theWords is actually working. I’m getting better at finding things. There is definitely something buggy about the ‘streaks’ - the markings when you write every day. It says I do a one day streak each day. *frowns*

One of the things that works with attempting any large task is to break it down into smaller tasks. I remember telling someone that 1670 words for one day of Nanowrimo was just three (and a bit) lots of 500 words. Oh, they said, I can do 500 words. Right. Did you see the brain shift there from ‘I can’t do that’ to ‘that’s doable’?

And I think I know why this works. I saw a YouTube video by Will Schoder on the Zeigarnik Effect discovered by Bluma Zeigarnik. [you go, girl]

In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.

Unfinished tasks and open loops occupy our brains. Hemingway famously used to stop writing mid-sentence so that the next time he started he knew how to finish that sentence. And then he’d write the next sentence, rather than sit there and stare at the page. That unfinished sentence was an open loop.

So each time you defeat a small monster in a wordy battle, you get a closed loop. Job’s done, as a small peon would say. And there are some monster challenges that are just 50 words. The app also tempts you to do quests and challenge larger monsters with bigger word counts.

Blame the Zeigarnik Effect.

I guess it also explains why all that cramming you do before an exam falls right out of your head afterwards. You set that loop to be ‘just for the exam’, not ‘remember for life’.

Once you know what works for you, you can use it!

I’m using this blog diary the same way. I have challenged myself to sit down and write this, which is at least some words on the page, and it makes it oddly less challenging to switch tasks. I’m at my keyboard, I just need to tab over there.

Onward! For the words!

Links:

Will Schoder - Why it's so hard to leave things incomplete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-F1U4bV2m8

Nanowrimo 2018 - day 4

Well… so much for plotting plans. Plans to plot? Whatever

Word count: 2,421

I was making spinach lasagne and sourdough at midnight on day 3. I wanted to use up a big bunch of spinach that had been in the fridge a little too long and some milk that was close to the use-by date. I’m having issues with my sourdough.

I may have to chuck out most of my sourdough starter and well, start again. [wait… is this a metaphor for writing???]

I thought it might be the flour batch, but no. I opened a new packet of flour and this is what the finished result looks like. Check it out. That is sad. [ugh… Trump has stolen the word sad from us all…] Okay, that is a poor excuse for a loaf.

I shall eat it anyway. I can toast slices, or it can be made into Tuscan bread Soup, or into breadcrumbs.

I spent the day doing chores and errands with my earbuds firmly in, and managed to get through The Shape of Water. There was a moment where a woman walked around a shelf in Kmart to see me frozen in the aisle listening. [Some days I don’t multitask well, thanks ADHD]

I am getting a better idea of 4theWords. There are quests. And you have to find and defeat the monsters that drop the right items for you to satisfy the quests.

I did drag out the Plotto book while kid 1 watched some more ‘I Claudius’. Kid 1 is not good with recognising faces but there was no way he missed Patrick Stewart’s voice. And he has hair.

‘Don’t eat the figs’, may become a new saying for Kid 1.

And then there was much research and discussion of various players in the Roman drama. I said we have the book somewhere about the house. The scene where the two lady poisoners lunch and eye each other off whilst carefully eating and comparing poison notes is amazing. I heard an interview with Sir Derek Jacobi on Audible saying he wasn’t supposed to get the role, as he was too young, but a producer saw him in a stage production where he had to age, and recommended him. You can hear the size of the sets and the makeup is not bad for such an old production. [Looks better than Henry Cavill’s Geralt wig…]

Plotto, also, is very old-fashioned but there are so many plot ideas in there that I just know I’ve read or watched. It was a favourite of Hitchcock which is how I stumbled onto it in the first place, I think. E A Deverell talks of it often, too.

And would you believe it, there’s a tag for fake dating:

#83 B pretends that she is engaged to be married in order to be free of certain annoying experiences.

Which is part of my plot. I do love a good trope. 

Links:

I Claudius

EA Deverell’s website

[sign up for Museletters? Oh, that’s good.]

Nanowrimo 2018 - day 3

Word count: 1100

My worst fears have come to pass. I use electronic apps to borrow library books. They are super neat. I have also recently taken to placing a hold on books that are very popular. I do tend to read a lot of older stuff because it’s often at a reduced price. So as part of my book buying, I now check if the library has a copy before I cough up the cash.

I reserved: The shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, Norse mythology by Neil Gaiman, Time Travel by James Gleick, Call me by your Name by André Aciman and I recently grabbed a physical copy of An absolutely Remarkable thing by Hank Green when I saw it on the ‘new releases’ shelf. [I know I’ve read the book and the screenplay for Call me by Your name but this is the audiobook. It’s different, I tell you. Different.]

The app tells you how many copies the library has, how many people are waiting for each copy, and where your place is in the queue, along with an estimated date when it will automatically ping onto your electronic shelf.

I had them all nicely spaced out. One was meant to come in 2019. But NOOOO… they all came in within the space of two days. EEK. And I’m doing Nanowrimo!

Goddammit, universe.

What happened? Did a loved one buy them all a copy? Was there a sale on audiobooks I missed? I used to take pride in returning a book early but now I worry that maybe I too, am messing up someone’s carefully spaced library borrowing schedule. Should I wait until it is electronically ‘returned’ from my account? What IS the etiquette on library holds?

Plus, today kid 1 plonked down on the couch and announced he was going to watch ‘I Claudius’. What? No… I’m trying to write here!

To expand: I saw the series decades ago when it was on TV. [it was maybe 1978? Decades… seriously.] It has always been on my ‘to buy’ list but I had trouble finding it. Then, recently, I was in my local Target and a lot of things were on sale before a store reorganisation and I saw a boxed set of British Drama DVDs. It had: I Claudius, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The first two series of Poldark (the 1970’s one), and Lady Chatterley (the Sean Bean version) and it was $5. Insane price. I already had Sean, but it was a no brainer.

So I’m sitting metres away with my headphones on but I wasn’t listening; really, I wasn’t. I kept shouting “I’m not listening” occasionally to confirm it. But omg Brian Blessed was so young (and beardless… it’s just WRONG). And Ian Ogilvy (sighs)… and was that Inspector Wexford? And gah the ladies…

But this post is about Nanowrimo, right?

Today, I battled some monsters and trundled out 1100 words, no problem. But what I realised was I was pantsing it. I have no plan, and no plot. Besides the fact that I’m still trying to work out how 4theWords works*, I don’t even know what the heck this story is about. I don’t even have names for my main characters. With the heatwave, I was watering my plants, and I suddenly shouted, “Sage!” as I watered my herbs. Is that my heroines’ name? I don’t know. Tonight I might take a couple of hours and scribble it all out on index cards.

Oooh… what if the hero’s name is Ian? [Look… they were doing the Roman body scrape thing and he was naked… and I am weak…] Or Sean? Wait… what was the name of Lady Chatterley’s game keeper? Oliver.

Ha. That’s it.

*it seems I signed up in May 2016 and I really have no memory of that.

Nanowirmo 2018 - day 2

Yes, I know I missed day 1, I didn’t sign up for it until day 2.

Okay…

Word count: 2249

That’s not bad for a day, and it’s a failure for two days… but *shrugs*

I did sign up for 4thewords and then the oddest thing happened: I already had a record. I felt like Gandalf in a meme. Intones sonorously, I have no memory of this place.

According to the website, I signed up in October 2016. What?

And I had two files posted; one full of intriguing book titles and the other some hastily scribbled bits about a magic carnival… and nope. I have ZERO memory of writing these things. I didn’t do any battles… I just signed up and then seemed to forget about it. [thanks ADHD]

I was oddly thrown back into a memory from years ago when I got on a bus and the driver knew my name and said we were at school together. I spent the whole trip scouring my brain to remember who he was. It can’t be junior high school, I went to a girl’s school. And so on.

I had NO clue who he was. And then, as I alighted, he said his name… and nope. It still didn’t ring a bell. I smiled happily and made all the right noises… but I still didn’t know who he was.

I am hopeless at life, I tell you.

Oooh, just noticed someone uses 4theWords to write their Goodreads reviews… [No, Brain.]

My electronic devices crawled through the day. Sydney is having a mini heatwave and it hit 38C in my back room - where my desk is.

But we nano-on! For the words, she cries!

Nanowrimo 2018 signup

To nano or not to nano?

*spoiler alert* I signed up.

As per usual I left it to the last minute, or the first day. I was listening to Writing Excuses and Mary Robinette Kowal said something about how she’d written all her books in Nano and that it didn’t matter if you won or lost, you had a pile of words at the end of it.

Nano works for me. I do the words. I’m also going to sign up for 4theWords app. I hear great things about it from Mur Lafferty and Rachael Stephens.

I will try to keep a blog diary; may as well… and no, it won’t count towards my word count. Worst luck. *grins*

So it’s the second day of the month and what’s the first thing that happens? My PC crashes.

*sighs*

Ah well, I drag out the Chromebook.

Turn it on. Nothing happens. The black screen of death.

I am cursed; cursed I tell you!

I fixed the Chromebook after holding start button down for seven long seconds and praying to all the gods of writing. By then the PC had thought better of itself and restarted.

Hope dawns in the distance…

Links:

Writing excuses

Mur Lafferty - I should be Writingpodcast

Rachael Stephens - youtube

yes, I'm ranting about book prices again

Some days Amazon’s different sites save me from myself.

I subscribe to a lot of bookish websites, some of which let you know when one of their favourites is on sale. Often, I run off - all eager to purchase - to get hit by the usual Australia problem.

Oh, you live in Australia… nope. It’s not on special for YOU. The price is not 99c it’s $8.

And I don’t buy it.

This must be how Hawaiians feel with the ‘continental US’ limitation on postage.

*Shrugs*

I will admit this week I had a few real life smacks and to cheer myself up I fully intended to buy a book. [Like I don’t somehow get books every day. Shush, brain.]

Ilona Andrews has recently finished their Kate Daniels series. I desperately want to read it but I have all the series in the same format; mass market paperback. I check my local library and they don’t have any of the books. So off I dash to check the price of the ebook.

I rationalise that I will get a physical copy at some point, but the ebook will get me through until then.

$18.99

What? For an ebook? [I have raged about Australian book prices before…]

That is just too much for me, so I go to check when the paperback will be released. I may get a short dose of happy book buying feelings if I can buy a pre-order.

No release date, yet. This seems like a deliberate decision by the publishers to milk fans of the series. Previously I’ve pre-ordered the paperback no problem. You can’t tell me they don’t know when it will be released. In fact, I just got a notice that a pre-order for their Hidden Legacy series is on its way.

*grits teeth*

What if I just got a hardback? [Let’s ignore, for the moment, the way it will make me crazy for decades to have ONE book a significantly different size in a series of ten. I neeeeds it, precious…]

$45 at my local bookshop.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Now this isn’t a swipe at Ilona Andrews. This is a traditionally published book and the author doesn’t set the price, but man… I live in a country where most of the wildlife can kill, don’t add book prices to the list of things that can wound me.