Pronoun Trouble

Grah. I'm this close - this close - to finishing my brother's Xmas present. So close! Just one more tentacle, and then I have to stitch them on, and then add the eyes and the mouth, and then they're done! And I'll be able to post pictures of them! Just - SO CLOSE al;sdkfjsdl!

Of course, I was totally irresponsible and put off Mom's birthday present(s) to work on Tom's thing(s), never mind that her birthday is on the twenty-seventh. Just. Dachshunds are slightly more boring to crochet than Tangle Buddies? IDK IDK IDK. Maybe if I skip writing the damn pattern as I go and do that after instead...

And then once I'm done with that, I'll need to make Xmas presents for both her and Dad. But Dad's is pretty easy to figure out, probably, so I should be relatively okay. And then I can get to work on things like the Tetris blanket (which I finally got all my colors for today) and possibly also commissions so I can have a little bit more financial breathing room. Possibly I might even be able to rearrange those a bit, but I'm not 100% betting on it.


Speaking of financial breathing room and suchnot, I'm possibly potentially going to maybe perhaps get an interview about designing T-shirts tomorrow? I'll definitely be turning in the app tomorrow, if nothing else. And lining up design stuff (like my past Quire poster/flier things, and a few T-shirt designs I made for myself, etc) just in case. Flower business is supposed to pick up soon as well; I think I'll need to write cheat-sheets for myself to study while I'm away from the store so I can be somewhat competent while I'm there, sigh. I imagine my half-a-milligram Rx of "take as needed" lorazepam will be getting quite a workout shortly :(


We are not speaking of that "NaNo" thing. You have imagined it.

At the time of my writing this, it is approximately three hours and forty-some minutes into November (my time zone), and I am 1220 words into my novel.

I hate most of them, but they're written, so I'm not going to complain too much. Worse comes to worst, I'll look back on this later as an incredibly detailed outline.

On the plus side, I've done some pretty cool art for it thus far.


Sleep time now. Job stuff/more writing/work tomorrow.

(Socchan over there, if you're interested/feel like adding me. I'll stop failing at forums eventually.)

It has been a long vacation so far, with far too much getting lost, and to top it off, the Half-Price Books tour we had planned for tomorrow is now canceled. I need something to make up for it (especially since I'm not sure I'll even be able to do my back-up "what I want" tomorrow of going to the new books store and, say, Best Buy), so I'm typing up a piece of what I've written for NaNo. It is fairy-tale-ish, and involves lesbians and bears. Responses would be quite happy-making.

( Origins of the Highbear Family )

Anyhow, back to actually writing my NaNo now. Really. I swear. Okay, no, I'm sleeping and/or reading other people's books. Happy now?

Edit: Have just added a NaNoWriMo tag to my tags on DW, yay! It is now the tag I have used most so far. I am unsure how I feel about that.

Ain't got no inspiration
No idea where to go
Bet you can read it in ev'ry sentence
How I tell but I don't show

Don't know how long I'm gonna make it
Think today I'm gonna lose
Can't get words onto paper
Got those NaNoWriMo Low Word Count Blues

First day in I made my quota
Made it there and then some more
Second day I fell behind, though
Day three, can't even see the shore

Got four pages left to write now
So I can try not to lose
Gotta get back to my quota, meet the deadline,
Beat these NaNoWriMo Low Word Count Blues

Now I don't know how they do it
The winners of years long gone
Can't get phrases order
Guess this conclusion's foregone

Not gonna make it in today
Not expecting any rescues
Someday I'm gonna beat 'em, though
Those NaNoWriMo Low Word Count Blues

Yeah, I'm givin' it all I've got now
Goin' huntin' for the muse
All to beat these God-forsaken
Stupid f*cking NaNoWriMo Low! Word! Count! Bluuuuuuues---!




Thank you, you've been a great audience, thank you!

(Yeah, these are so going towards my wordcount.)

First day of NaNo: almost complete!

I don't think I quiiiite got to my word count goal for today (yet*), and there's also some other stuff**, but. I am actually writing, and more than I can remember doing in a single day for quite some time, so I consider it a success!

About my novel: People keep asking me this :/ "What's your novel about, Socchan?" I'm at something of a loss how to explain it as yet, especially since I haven't quite finished the outline completely or started it, but uh. It kinda fuses Snow White with Snow White and Rose Red and some Red Riding Hood on the side? Oh, and apparently lots of "original" fairy-tale elements. And I'mma aim for making Snow White ugly/Not The Prettiest, as mentioned somewhat here (DW only, locked). Also, there will be lesbians :Dbb

...Speaking of, all I've got so far is a prequel-ish thing. With lesbians. And, uh. Kinda were-bear sorta stuff? Yeah. But I'm enjoying it!


* My daily goal is 2000 words, so I can (hopefully, knock-on-wood) finish up a few days early and get the darn thing typed up. I've written something like 1700 words today, I think, and I'm hoping to get maybe another hundred or so down before I go to sleep, and it's my first year anyway, so I'm thinking it's looking reasonably good so far? Well, aside from the aforementioned Other Stuff**.

** See, I'm not actually writing the novel part of my novel yet. I never quite finished stuff like character backgrounds and outlining last month, so I'm finishing that up this month and counting that towards my goal. Nothing written last month, of course, but anything not-actually-part-of-the-novel for this month? I'm counting. Yay, sorta-cheating! \o/ ...This will also be helpful if my story only reaches "novella" length, but I'm not worrying about that for now.


Anyhow, off to bed for me, I think. And probably only ten minutes of writing; I wanna be up early tomorrow. Maybe I can get to work early, and get some more writing done with fewer distractions than I have at home...

So, um. This year, I think I may give in and go for NaNo. I have a plot, I have characters, I have vague worldbuilding-ish, I may even make it to fifty thousand words. Not necessarily all in November, and it will likely be quite hard to tell anyway, what with me planning on writing by hand anyhow, but. It's possible! I acknowledge it! (Someone gab at me about this more, I need more info :|a)

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Dude, cheap stuff. I love getting stuff cheap. Even if it's crap, I like paying less for it! Deep discounts? Awesome. Quite possibly the only thing better than cheap stuff is cheap stuff that comes with free stuff (or, rather, Bonus Content At No Extra Charge). The only thing that's better than that is actually free stuff, and the only thing that's better than free stuff is stuff they pay you to take, but I digress.

I loooove cheap stuff, especially if it comes with bonuses-at-no-extra-charge. Which is why I just picked up (the?) two "Zenses" DS games from K-Mart (Ocean and Rainforest if there's more than two, which there may be, given that they've got rocks with console buttons on the side, and one has Square and one has Circle).

Are they any good? Who knows! I've heard diddly squat about them. They're described as six addicting puzzle games/brain challenges set to relaxing music, which seems like a contradiction to me (how are you supposed to relax while playing addicting puzzle games with fifty levels, I ask you), but wev. They were only five bucks apiece, and for a new DS game, that's a pretty good deal. (Incidentally, the price is a good argument against their being good, but it also lowers my expectations considerably. Something can be five dollars' worth of good a lot more easily than, oh, thirty dollars' worth of good.)

In any case, if I end up thinking they're crap, I can always sell them at Half Price Books.

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I think I might have had more, but if I did, it escapes me for the moment. Hopefully I will be able to re-capture any elusive information later.

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Edit: Can't believe I'm editing already, but. Found information on Zenses. Most importantly:

Target Age: Females 25+

Seriously? Seriously? Wow, no wonder I haven't heard of it before. If there's one surefire way to make sure that no big gaming magazine is going to pick up a copy to review, it's to blatantly market a game towards women.

From the web site: "Zenses Ocean is the first in a series of games targeting one of the fastest growing segments of the videogames industry - 25+ females. [...] The result? A brand new and totally fresh gaming experience for the modern woman, offering spa-like escapism in your handbag!"

Wow. Wow. Has it occurred to them at all, I wonder, that women twenty-five and older are perhaps the same women who liked to play video games before they were twenty-five, and liked the games available already (except for the over-the-top misogyny, etc)?

Still, the web site has pretty enough graphics, I guess. Although, for a game aimed at women, they could be quoting more from us in the "Words of Wisdom" section. And while I find the picture of the Spa Attendee playing the game more than a little amusing, it is rather telling that she is quite white and thin. Criticism (mostly) revoked? There's a woman of color pictured on the page that offers free downloads of the soundtrack, and she's actually more clothed than the white woman. They're both still thin, but. One step at a time, I guess.