urbandruid

You'll notice I'm not bragging about either the fact my Moody essay is done, or my NaNo word count. That would be because the essay is not done yet, and I have yet to start NaNo.

But.

The Moody essay has a structure and an outline, my copies of GoF and OotP are full of tape flags, and I'm pretty sure, now that I know what the hell I'm doing with it, that I can have it done today. Especally since I have no class tomorrow, and can be up as late as I want to without fear of becoming zombie!Chris, anymore than I am usually zombie!Chris.

As for NaNo, well, I kind of figured on starting this morning at school, since I have no real work to do anyway. I have some stuff to look over for class, but if I have to stear at the Oddesy for three freaking hours, I will go nuts. Really, honestly, seriously a lot nuts. The only problem with this plan is that I type about ten times faster than I write by hand- really. It's the vision thing. Hand-eye coordination is not a great skill of mine. But hey, what can I do? I don't exactly have room in my backpack for my laptop. (Gods how I wish that I did...) I could take it with me in its own case, of course, but sometimes it's more than enough to be hauling my backpack all over campus. Plus, my laptop weighs about ten pounds, more like 12 or 13 once I toss it in the case and add everything that has to go with it, and, um...no?

So we scrawl in the notebook and type when we get home. Tons of fun, really. bohemienne, I'm still gonna kick your ass in word count this year, though. :)

Just as soon as I get started.

So it's election day here in the good ole USA, and I spent half of last night staring at my absentee ballot, going slightly mad trying to figure out all the ballot measures and propositions and other insane local crap. Could not have gotten through it, I'll admit, without a newsletter the League of Women Voters put together explaining the state measures and what they would actually DO if they passed or failed. Because believe it or not, 'no' is not always a safe vote if you don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Anyway, lucky us, Mom and I get to drive by a polling place and drop the ballots off today. All the fun of voting with the masses without the hassle. I can't imagine standing in the little booth trying to figure all this crap out. Yeah, I know, they sent me a sample ballot, right? Well, yes, but I can't see the print in the bloody thing. Should write to the elections board about that, they need to offer a large print version. Not to mention Braille... I can barely see the absentee ballot- meaning I squinted at it and shouldn't have, and I think the good eye is still pissed at me about it.

I'm worried about how the election's going to go, but I've done everything I can. So here comes my annual plea to all the registered voters in the US on my friendslis- go vote, you guys. Please? You really can't complain too much about whoever wins if you don't vote. And aside from the Presidential thing, there are probably other things on your ballot you might care about.

One final election day note before I run off to finish getting ready for class: I love my party. On the news last night, I saw the local Democratic party has a number you can call to set up an appointment for a ride to your polling place. Aren't they awesome?

Go VOTE, people!

Somehow, I did. It was fun and exhausting and sometimes really, really stressful, but I did it. By next year I might even be ready to do it again.

My final word count before 11:59 last night was 67,780. Which means I finally caught up, then passed, bohemienne. Gotcha, sis!

Of course, her novel is much closer to done than mine is. Mine has decided it wants to be a trilogy when it grows up. Somebody shoot me now.

I think I could've gotten farther on the wordcount before the cutoff time, if only the 30th hadn't been a Sunday. i had to sleep, since I have class today. And, last day of NaNo or not, I had to watch Alias. But instead of watching the news I went and wrote for another hour. I could've kept going, but like I said, I needed sleep.

So, the novel's not done, which means I keep writing. I'd like to have it done by, or sometime during the early part of, winter break so Lindsay and I can swap novels for reading and editorial suggestions and other fun stuff. But we'll see how it goes. I've gotta survive finals, too.

But I wrote 67,780 words in a month. Maybe anything really is possible.

50K and still going.

And I still have ten days to finish the rest of it. Hah! :)

I'm going to hit the 50k by the end of the month, there's no question about that. Whether my book is done by the end of the month, now that's the question. I still have a lot of story to tell.

I spent most of yesterday writing, and it was fun. Sort of exhausting, but fun. I'm still exhausted, but that may have a lot to do with the fact that it's Wednesday and my alarm woke me up not even half an hour ago with bad Sheryl Crow tunes. And it's, you know, Wednesday, which means computer lab.

Ugh. Speaking of. When I got there on Monday, there was no sign anybody from Disabled Students had been there or done anything. I can't say I was surprised, just, you know, mildly furious. I almost put my fist through that damned bolted-down flatscreen. Anyway, when my teacher turned the rest of the class period over to us (to work on lab stuff or whatever) I did what a lot of people normally do in this situation; I left. The teacher didn't say one word to the others, but to me, it was, "You're leaving already?"

Um, yeah. It's not like I can see to work on my lab junk, and the sooner I get over to Disabled Students and start leaning on them, the sooner I might see some results.

Nearly two hours later, I got five minutes with the only counselor left in the office, who of course had no clue what was going on, why I was coming to him, or- and this is the kicker- what the note my counselor left in my file said, because her handwriting? Hieroglyphics. So anyway, I told him what was going on (or what wasn't), he called the tech guy, and actually got him on the phone instead of his voice mail, and supposedly everything is all settled now. There should be big changes when I get to class today.

If there aren't, I may have to kill someone. I mean, come on, guys, give me a break. It's November; I'm PMSing; I'm stressing about finals and all the pre-final tests; I have to get ready to deal with my crazy relatives, who still don't know what they're doing for Thanksgiving; and I'm trying to write a novel in 30 days.

Given that...do you really want to piss me off? Me, I'd just duck and stay out of my way.

Mom's birthday is Friday. We were supposed to go see Michelle Branch Saturday to celebrate, but the concert's been postponed; apparently Michelle is sick. They're going to reschedule, but we're both a bit annoyed by this. Not sure what we're going to do for her birthday now. Probably get into trouble of some sort. :)

So I had this essay test in Poli Sci on Monday. Kind of not fun, but I think I did alright. I don't know when I'll find out for sure, but it probably won't be today. That's a lot of essays to grade. Not that I expect my prof is going to read all of them himself. Of course, I, being the perfectionist I am, have been thinking since Monday that my essay was a little weak in this area or that one...not that I can do anything about it now, of course.

I love winter. Especally when we've just had our coldest night to date, the cold refuses to fade in the morning, and all the cool objects in my winter wardrobe have been outgrown. Or most of them have. Eventually I'll get to the point where I remember you can look good and not freeze, but right now it's just, "cold...grab...nearest...warm...item..."

I'd really like to go back to bed now.

Monday was Monday, as usual, but a little worse. My dumbass computers teacher didn't show up. I don't mean class was cancelled with a nice note on the door, or anything, he just didn't show. At all. Some other teacher let us into the classroom and infromed us that there is no "time limit" we're allowed to wait before leaving; we can't leave, we just have to stay.

Um...no. Actually, let me rephrase that: "Hell, no. Are you out of your mind? This is college, and, uh...well, make me."

Yeah. I hung around for half an hour, called Mom, and hopped the bus down to her office. The bus has not gotten any better since I stopped riding it, but at least nobody bothered me. Then I hiked to Mom's office, and she ran me home.

I'm so angry at the teacher I can't even tell you. If he's not here again today, I'm going to track him down and beat him with my bigass computer lab book. Really. And it lacks all respect for us students...who were there, and everything.

NaNoWri is giving me heaps of trouble, but I think I'm working it out. I've started over one story, keeping the same old word count of crap, but I think I'm going to have to do it again. And I'm sort of going to cheat- I'm going to use an old idea that works a lot better than the old one. I've started it already, kind of, but it has about five different first chapters on my hard drive. So I thought, why not six? I'm going to work my ass off writing, though, or try, so that I can just cut out all of that first elevan pages of crap, and still end up with the right word count.

I tried talking to my mother about this, but she didn't really get why I wasn't willing to quit. It's just a game they're playing, she says.

Yeah, but it's a game I want to play. If I can ever get it together, survive my classes, survive the weather...

I guess my biggest problem is that it feels like the holidays are creeping up on me, and the holiday season is more like Open Season for my crazy relatives. Great-Grandpa is getting crazier (he has Alzheimer's but my grandmother, his daughter, won't admit it), and most of us have figured it out except Grandma...who is, by the way, already talking about what we could do "instead of" gifts at Christmas this year.

Last year she "cancelled Christmas" in similar fashion, and I've always been kind of pissed at her for it. Not for the lack of presents, but because she knows what can happen when we have nothing to do, and she let it happen anyway. The fights and the little bits of snipping, and Grandma in the kitchen throwing things and swearing...

And people wonder why I'm a Pagan.

Okay, gotta go. Classes to go to, computers teacher to kill. You know how it goes. :)

Somebody flipped a switch, and winter is here. Suddenly it's cold, it's wet, it's raining. I'm glad my gloves and my boots are broken in. I wish I had a coat that was a little warmer, but it's pouring, so I'll grab the trenchcoat today and not worry about it. Too much.

I hate Mondays. Nothing new there, but it's still threw.

My NaNo word count is up to 2373. The novel still has no working title, and I've written a lot of crap already, but it's strangely liberating. No, it is. I've never been told it's okay to write crap before. In fact, the last person who tried to tell me anything about writing was a "creative writing" instructor at Fresno City, who is death on most genres of writing. Except popular.

Yeah. Popular is a genre. What he means is stuff set in the here and now, no spaceships or magic or talking trees or whatever, and also not too much blood or violence because that's horror- and no romance at all, 'cause that's, yeah, romance.

I left this classroom quietly on the first day of school, and I never went back. I should have slammed the door, said something. Anything. Warned the fools still sitting raptly attentive at their desks that whatever creativity they thought they had, this man was going to kill.

But I'm shy and slightly scared of authority figures, and I didn't want to get into trouble or embarras myself, so I just walked away.

I still hear people give this guy's name as a good English instructor, and I cringe. I hated the woman I took English Comp from, but I'm usually willing to take more abuse from people who have me write papers than I ever will from people who have me write fiction. Or not-papers, anyway.

I've come to the conclusion that no one can teach me how to write. I know what I'm doing, I always have. If sometimes I suck at it anyway, it's because I started when I was about six, and these things happen. And the fanfic when I was twelve, and...yeah.

I think I'm going to have some fun with NaNo. I'll certainly be driving everyone crazy with word counts and updates. As soon as I can write a bit I like slightly more, I'll start throwing exceprts out there. 'Cause everyone needs to be subjected to this.

I got approved for yet another fanlisting today, which brings my total of sites I need to finish or even build to- um. Five. And I think a couple of them are pretty late already, which means pretty soon strangers will be yelling at me again. Bah. Whatever.

On the other hand, it's getting towards finals, and what do I need right now but more stuff I should be doing, more projects to split my concentration? Sometimes I do work best under pressure...or I bend under it, get sick, get those lovely little stres-induced cold sores, and make everyone around me miserable bitching about how I have no time, too much to do, and need more sleep.

I love this weather, even though I'm freezing. It's the kind of day when I'd love to stay home, drink warm tea and coffee, listen to the rain, and write.

Yep. Good to know. She says, as she gathers her school crap and prepairs to hike out the door. :)