Today is awesome

...for several reasons.

Undeniably number one:

OMG I JUST WON NANOWRIMO!

I mean, technically I won it like fifteen days ago when I finished my first fifty thousand words, so I should qualify that statement by saying that I just EPIC WON NaNoWriMo. That's right - the final word count comes out to 101,041 words, and I finished two complete novels, all within thirty days.

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE THOUSAND WORDS.

Pwn!

Other reasons why today is awesome:

It's St. Andrew's Day! Woohoo! Let us party!

It's the first Sunday of Advent, which is my favorite time in the Church year. Yaay!

December starts TOMORROW! Which means that Christmas is coming! Which means that Christmas Break is coming! Which means that the NEW YEAR is coming - and I am so excited about 2009 that it's just ridiculous. More on that later.

And I will just never get tired of saying that I wrote ONE HUNDRED AND ONE THOUSAND AND FORTY ONE WORDS in thirty days. And it wasn't even that bad - I took plenty of days off and, frankly, I've had a harder time doing my fifty thousand word ones in past years.

I'm printing off my nano as I speak... It's going to take forever, it's over two hundred pages. The first one, I mean - the second one is over two hundred pages too, and together they're more like five hundred, but the second nano is sucktacular and I'm not even going to bother printing it. The first one pwns, though.

Oh, and Marshall and I were going to get together to bake cookies if I managed to write all one hundred thousand words (my goal). So, Marshall, it looks like it's cookie-baking time.

Hooray!

Proof that I love my family

So it's Thanksgiving break, and every year on Thanksgiving my dad's side of the family meets for Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparent's house in Florida. This is cool - it's fun, it's great to see everyone, and of course the food is fantastic.

But here's the thing - this year we couldn't afford to stay in a hotel for more than one night, but there isn't enough room in my grandparent's house to room us. So the plan became this: Thanksgiving morning, starting at about 5 AM, we would get in the car and drive the many many miles to Florida. We would stay for dinner, spend the night in the hotel, and then drive back on Friday morning.

Now, I love my family. My grandparents are some of the coolest people in the world, and my cousin had recently had a baby, so of course we wanted to see her (her name is Genevieve, which I happen to think is insanely cute). But driving all the way to Florida for dinner is a pretty daunting idea. Which is why the fact that we DID go proves the extent of our love. And of course, I actually tend to enjoy long car rides, so I guess it wasn't too bad - my sisters and I got along pretty well, all things considered.

Several other things, however, went wrong with this trip.

On the way there, our back right tire, like, exploded. I don't mean "flat tire", I mean "EXPLODED TIRE". And we had just bought this tire like a month ago! We were driving along the road when all of a sudden we started hearing this weird sound from the back of the car. We might have thought it was the tire, but we had just bought it, so we were like "It can't be the tire". And then all of a sudden we heard like this ear splitting metallic screeching noise and SMOKE started billowing out to the side of the car.

So we pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car - keep in mind that it was like, freezing outside - and we see that the tire had... erupted. It was horrifying. I wish I had pictures. And there were all these black marks over the side of the car, and smoke going everywhere.

So then we couldn't find the spare tire on the stupid van (apparently it's actually under the van, which is weird) and it was freezing cold and we were somewhere in the middle of South Carolina and we still had miles to go before we reached Florida. Everyone was taking this surprisingly well, probably out of shock. Finally a cop pulled over to help, and he and my dad put on the spare tire (once we found it).

But then we couldn't find a place to get a new tire anywhere, because they were all closed because it was Thanksgiving. And you aren't supposed to drive that far on a spare tire, but we didn't know what else to do so we ended up driving the entire rest of the way on it, and we just went really slow. So of course we showed up kind of late.

The actual Thanksgiving dinner was good and everything, and things were looking up because my grandma gave me like ten books she found when she was clearing out her bookshelves and we actually managed to find a place to get new tires.

But the next morning I woke up feeling awful. I mean, really, really sick. And we were in the car for hours and hours driving home and it was all bumpy and I felt really hot, even though apparently the temperature was normal, and it was just generally horrendous because I was STUCK in the car.

Plus, remember that root canal I got a while ago? Well, the day before Thanksgiving I got sort of phase two of the root canal, where they like fill it up or something, and it hurt like poo. But I took dangerous amounts of Advil and so I was feeling fine on the way there, but, bizarrely, on Friday my jaw was in pain again.

And then I figured out that the stupid root canal was to blame for everything (except the tire), because it was because I had taken so much Advil that I got sick, because Advil upsets my stomach. And my jaw hurt after Thanksgiving because - and I cannot believe how uncool this is - because of how much I was smiling during Thanksgiving! I was fine as long as I was resting my jaw (my tooth never hurt much, but I have jaw problems and whenever I go to the dentist it screws with my jaw, doubly so after something like a root canal where your mouth has to be open for hours) but I was smiling so much the day before that it hurt a whole lot.

And then I got really mad, because it is just ridiculously unfair that I should be in pain for having smiled too much.

So it was like... gah. The actual dinner, and seeing all my family, was great. But the whole freezing-cold-South-Carolina-tire-explosion, sickness-while-on-the-road, and terrible jaw pain thing kind of sucked the fun out of it.

Poo.

In which Staci Just Says No

Curse you, nanowrimo word count demons. I refuse to be bossed around. I don't WANT to write right now. I WILL NOT DO IT.

NO.

Ahhh. I feel free.


Not that I'm condoning taking a break from your nano. It can be a BAD idea, if you're behind schedule (I'm not right now, but I will be if I don't write today). I am, however, enitrely, one hundred per cent behind taking a break when you can afford it, just to show the Evil Word Count Demons of Death who's boss.

Oh, fail

So I'm about 15,000 words into my second NaNoWriMo - ahead of schedule and almost homicidal with stress. (I cruised right through suicidal and am looking for more). But yesterday I made a discovery that kind of eased the stress.

See, my second nano is being written on a seperate word document, because it would take forever to open the document if I put both nanos on the same one, and because I don't believe in putting all your eggs in one basket (I have an amazing ability to lose word documents). This is fine, except when I have to find out my total wordcount in order to update my account on nanowrimo.org. Then I have to add the word counts of both nanos.

So yesterday I had 12,008 words of my second nano written, plus the roughly 51000 of my first nano. That should come out to around 63000, right? Well, I was using the little calculator from the accessories folder on the computer, and I must have clicked a wrong button, because somehow I ended up calculating my word count as 69,992 as opposed to the (correct) value of 62,992.

So, essentially, I've been walking around since then under the rosy impression that I had SEVEN THOUSAND MORE WORDS than I had in actuality.

LAME.

This means that even after writing today's required 4,000 words, I still won't have the word count that I thought I had yesterday. How freaking uncool is that? I don't want to update my word count on nanowrimo.org, either, until I pass 69,992, because if I update it now with today's wordcount, it'll look like I wrote negative 1000 words today.

*Sigh*. On top of that, I'm working on an enviro lab, and apparently every single teacher I have decided this is the *perfect* week to give tests.

Gah.

Because I WIN!

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A few moments ago, I wrote the final words of "Seventy Three Escapatoria: Or, How Rob and Larry Saved the World". At 50,948 words, my NaNoWriMo is complete. The song "Wheel in the Sky" by Journey was playing on my iTunes playlist when I finished. It is done.

I am currently eating a celebratory cupcake and trying to happy dance and type at the same time. This is my... fifth novel? Something like that. At only 50,948 words and 245 pages it's my shortest one, but what can I say? I didn't rush this one, nor did I try to stretch it out. It just naturally finished at right around the 50,000 word mark.

I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEEESSSSSSSSS!!!! FESTIVITY! PARTIES! CELEBRATORY CUPCAKES!

And here's the thing - it's only November 15th! I finished my NaNoWriMo in exactly half the time that I needed to. And it wasn't a rush at all - I barely ever wrote more than a hundred words on any given week day, and I didn't even get a chance to write every weekend. Technically, I've written this whole thing in only a couple of days.

And that's why I've decided that I am officially going to write another one. Yup, starting tomorrow NaNoWriMo numero dos is going to be in the works. I've had an idea this was going to happen ever since the beginning - NaNoWriMo has been getting easier and easier for me, and I was pretty sure that this year it wasn't going to be much of a challenge. Hence, Novel Due.

If I manage to finish a second 50,000 word novel, it will be the most awesome thing EVER. (I mean, besides the stuff that the Supernatural Word Count Robots with 400,000+ are doing). I am suuuuper excited!

Onward! Here comes NaNo number two!

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Concerning my awesome

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So, you may be wondering: what's going on in Staci's NaNoWriMo? She hasn't updated in a while. Has something gone wrong? Has it taken such a turn for the worse that she is hiding in some dark corner and crying?

While this does indeed describe several of my past NaNoWriMos, it does NOT describe this year's. This year, I haven't been updating my word count on nanowrimo.org daily BECAUSE I'VE BEEN TOO BUSY PWNING.

I have 43,642 words right now and my characters are currently literally surfing on crocodiles. They are on their way to a Madonna concert and have already cross-dressed on three different ocassions, made an appearance on The Price is Right, and journeyed through the Grand Canyon. I fully expect to finish the whole darn thing by tomorrow.

PWN.

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Nano cameos

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OPRAH just made a cameo in my NaNo.

(Rob and Larry go to an Oprah's Favorite Things show and escape in one of the cars. It's pretty fantastic.)

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The non-Nanowrimo post

Generally speaking, I'm very hard to shop for. Birthdays, Christmas, whatever the situation--I can never think of anything I want. That is to say, I can never think of anything I want besides books.

Today my dad took me to the bookstore and essentially unleashed me upon Barnes & Noble with the mission to "get whatever I wanted for Christmas."

Oh - my - gosh. Love.

I loved Paper Towns so unfathomably much that I got everything else John Green wrote--Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Let It Snow ("co-written" I guess is the word by Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle--it's three short stories, one by each of them). I also bought Jingo by Terry Pratchett--I haven't read that one, and Terry Pratchett is a genius, so no risks I won't like it. That makes my grand total of Terry Pratchett books on my bookshelf add up to eleven, but for some odd reason I don't have my favorite one, The Truth, so I got that one as well.

Five - freaking - books. Four of them I haven't read. I own them. I have held them in my hands. And I can't read them until Christmas.

Actually, for reasons I won't disclose here (but which I will divulge in about another month or so) I can't really start reading them until New Year's. The point remains--I am in agony. I need to read those books. I as good as own the entire collected works of John Green (and most of that of Terry Pratchett) and I cannot read them.

Oh, cruel, cruel world.


(Nerdfighters!)

*Glare*

You win, accursed nanowrimo-induced writer's guilt. Despite the Crusoe emotional rollercoaster, despite the Evil Evil Soap, despite the fact that I really want to go to bed, I went and wrote the last couple hundred words anyway.

I now have 25,373 words in my nanowrimo.

I am over halfway done.

When I wake up I'm sure I'll be more excited. For now, I'm going to bed.



*Oh, and I've been forgetting to post out-of-context quotes. This post's quote is:

"There was only one direction left open, and the Mafia guys had spotted them, too, as they sailed past on their happy little elephant."

The internal battle

Reasons why I should forget the Nanowrimo and go to bed now:

1. I have over twice as many words as I need for today.
2. Despite the fact that it was only a three-day week at school, a lot of stuff happened and I am exhausted.
3. I wrote a couple hundred words today, so technically I haven't lost momentum.
4. I have the whole weekend ahead of me for writing, and no school on the Tuesday following.
5. I just watched Crusoe and it was like, an emotional roller coaster (no spoilers, though). I am in no condition to write.
6. I just got out of the shower, but I think I'm having some kind of weird allergic reaction to our new soap because my hands are red and my clothes feel like they're made of sandpaper.
7. I'm at a boring part in the story.

Reasons why I should suck it up and write some more:

1. I've been flirting with the halfway mark, 25,000 words, for three days now. If I write four hundred more words I'll be there.

Why is it that there's so many good, logical reasons on List Number One, and yet I'm hung up on List Number Two's stupid single point?

Curse you, writing guilt.

I've forgotten my gebruikersnaam

Today when I got home from school, I turned on my computer and got onto the internet. My homepage came up as nanowrimo.org, naturally. I clicked "sign in" at the top of the screen, but before I could enter my name and password to sign in I was momentarily distracted (my dog was barking).

I turned back to the computer screen and very nearly had a heart attack.

It was asking me for my "Gebruikersnaam" and my "Watchwoord". I wasn't on the sign-in page, I was on the "inloggen" page. Whaaaat?

I was convinced for about .5 seconds that Nanowrimo.org had gone through some, I don't know, SERIOUS break down or something and everything had been scrambled up. It took me a second to realize that somewhere during the time Ceilidh was distracting me, I had accidently clicked "Nederlands" in the language button on the top of the screen.

HOLY CRAP THAT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A LANGUAGE. That does not look like words.

"Geef het wachtwoord dat bij uw gebruikersnaam hoort." Whaaat?

I about died. I thought I was going to be deprived of my nanowrimo.org. I cannot survive without my nanowrimo.org. But it's okay now - everything has been resolved. I switched the language back to English and logged into my gebruikersaccount.

Not my best idea

In my last post I talked about how, during NaNoWriMo, I tend to write a lot of crazy and hillarious sentences. This is fine, since NaNo is about quantity over quality - and I'm writing so fast that it makes sense that my work should be a bit shoddy. But ever since that post, I've impulsively started trying to outdo myself.

Have you ever heard of that online competition to write the worst opening line for a novel ever? I think I could win it.

Here is the last sentence I wrote: [The context of this sentence is that my two MCs, Rob and Larry, are swinging, Tarzan-like, on some chandeliers in order to escape some Italian mobsters]

Then disaster struck; Rob and Larry grabbed the same chandelier by accident, and their combined weight was far too much for the fragile chandelier to handle (by an even greater misfortune, the chandelier in question happened to be one of those rather spindly silver ones which are meant for nothing other than ornament, certainly not for adventurous swinging-upon in flight from the Mafia, and which are in fact not even very good at normal chandelier functions, such as lighting things up).


Is it obvious now how I get my word count?

New idea: fav sentences

I was writing my Nano (like two seconds after I finished my last post here, incidentally) when it occurred to me that I had written what was, out of context, THE BEST SENTENCE EVER.

It occurred to me, also, that this happens rather a lot. So I think that for every post I do during the month of November (at least, as long as I remember) I'm going to attach one of my favorite out-of-context sentences from my nano. Just so you can see how it is getting progressively more and more ridiculous.

Now, keep in mind for comparison's sake that the definite Number One out-of-context sentence from my summer nanowrimo this year was:

"He was holding a flamethrower, and looked annoyed."

Today's sentence is:

"There were no screams of pain, or any of the various other sounds that Rob imagined an Italian mobster might make when shot in the dark by a nail gun."

Staci's musical evolution (while nanoing)

It used to be that I needed COMPLETE AND UTTER SILENCE in order to write. Then, after a while, I progressed to the point where I could listen to instrumental music - no lyrics whatsoever, as I'm easily distracted while writing.

Then, for whatever reason, I suddenly gained the ability to listen to U2 while writing. Only U2, mind you - otherwise it still had to be instrumental. For some reason, however, Bono's voice and no other was conducive to writing.

In stage four of my musical evolution I was able to listen to both U2 and a wizard rock band called Ministry of Magic, which is a sort of electronica band about Harry Potter (and exactly as amazing as that sounds). I'm not sure why this happened; I am aware that it is incredibly random.

Recently I've been finding that my Noveling Soundtrack has been expanding (naturally, in ways just as weird and random as before). Depending on my mood and the scene that I'm writing, I can now listen to Queen, Emiliana Torrini and Frank Sinatra. Even I am a little weirded out by this, but I swear it's true - I cannot concentrate when listening to music by anyone other than those five artists, unless it doesn't have lyrics. I also go through phases where I literally HAVE to have U2 playing in order to write. Bono's voice has some kind of weird magical power which endows me with creativity.

And finally, just to cap off the randomness, just today I discovered the band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - I was looking through the NaNo forum about noveling soundtracks and someone mentioned them. I headed over to Project Playlist and I've been listening to them for an hour now. I think they may have been added to my list of Novel-Conducive Music.

...I find this very strange. But hey, what works, works.


*And by the way, the word count is still through the roof. I am an amazing amazing Nanoer. Bow down to me and my fantabulousness. For those of you who are behind or just on schedule, I suggest listening to Bono.

Pwn. Pwnpwnpwn.

I just checked the NaNoWriMo website and Chris freaking Baty only has 4,012 words.

TELL THAT TO MY 19,323 WORDS, BABY!!

Okay, fine, so Chris Baty is trying to run nanowrimo.org, while it is crashing every few seconds because of all the bajillions and bajillions of people logging in at once, and I haven't been doing anything except writing all weekend. And technically Chris Baty is still ahead of the required word count, and I'm just being a bit of a masochist and going crazy. Doesn't matter - I've still written almost five times as much as, I mean, The Man.

I feel like I have made some great accomplishment. Go me!

Awesomeness in all its wonderful forms

It is day three of NaNoWriMo. My current word count is 19,323 and I'm still going strong - I expect another three or four thousand before the day is out. My story pwns in ways that stories rarely pwn.

I am the master of all that is NaNoWriMo.

On another awesome note, today is my mom's birthday! Yaaaay! And I am currently home alone (because Mom and Danielle are going to pick Kelsey up from school) and I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop and Ceilidh is leaning against me, asleep. It is unbearably cute.

Things are going well.

Oh no. So it begins.

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15,506 words in. Martin Scorsese and Antonio Banderas both just made cameos in my NaNoWriMo.

Stuff like this always happens.

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This bat needs a calendar

Before I get to the NaNoWriMo update:

So, my mom and I were driving home from Target yesterday, and a BAT slammed into our windshield. I mean, dead-center, literally flew into the windshield and scared the living daylights out of us. My mom stayed on the road, but I screamed like an idiot - I mean, BAT. Thing was, this would have been insane if it had happened on Halloween, rather than the day after it.

Okay, back to NaNoWriMo.

So yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and I wrote a grand total of 6,875 words (go me!) Trouble was, a good portion of that was really sucky because I shifted into another character's point of view and it was waaay awkward, and even granted NaNoWriMo standards of bad writing I was feeling bad.

Fortunately, today I LOOOOVE my story and I'm having a ridiculously fun time writing it. I currently have 11,013 words and am going strong... So we'll see how this goes. I only need 3,334 words by the end of today, so I'm WAY ahead of schedule.

And as for an update on what my characters are currently up to, right now they are being attacked by some mobsters in a car wash.

I love NaNoWriMo.