Thursday, October 31, 2013

To me, it isn't Halloween. It's the last day before November starts.

It's the last day of not writing a Novel.

People wear costumes to celebrate this day.  I am dressed as some sort of bohemian alien gypsy fairy thing.  It's pretty crazy.  But I'm pretty crazy.  Because November... what am I doing to myself?

I guess I did some things in October.  Mostly I started my job, and stopped doing other things as much. So I didn't read any of the adulting blog.  And I didn't manage to keep a journal going.  But I did do a lot of writing - I started writing a lot of letters.  And I have a lot more letters to write.  And I went to aerial circus twice, and am going tonight, so that's better than... not going.  (I found it incredibly difficult to be still awake at 8pm on Thursday my first two weeks of work).  So I did okay.

November has one goal: a 50,000 word novel.  I just also happened to sign up for a couple online classes, so I may not have time for anything this month.

The novel I will be writing is going to be The Mono Myth, about a girl who is rumored to have contracted mono and the social ramifications of this rumor.  The goals are to make it funny, actually have a plot of some form, and to not just write about my own life.  Also, to follow the monomyth obsessively.

If you want to read along with me, I'll be updating posting everything I write to this here Google Doc.  I even set it up so anyone can comment, so if you want tell me my writing is excellent or correct my run-on sentences or anything like that, you can do so in an easily accessible format and I'll have a nice and easy way to procrastinate on my writing when I don't quite want to write, because, face it, half of NaNoWriMo is how much you get done or don't get done when you're avoiding working on your novel.  At least in my experience.  (Woo, an 80 word sentence!)

That's all for now.  Happy Halloween, everyone, and happy writing to all my friends doing NaNo.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

I guess its October now?

I think I always have this reaction to October.  Usually, it's like... wow, the first month of school went by quickly.  Now it's crazier, because I'm not in school... but I'm still having the same reaction to the new month.  My birthday?  I'm going to be 23?  But I still haven't figured out what to do with happy free confused and lonely at the same time!  (It's been kind of a Taylor Swift binge day.  Maybe later it'll be a Singing Bee binge day... maybe)

Anyways.  It's October.  Which means it's time for another one of these posts.  Maybe even time to actually do some things...

The only reason I'm a little apathetic about that is because Septembers goals feel a little forgotten right now.  This is probably because I spent the better part of the last week and a half out of town and therefore haven't done any work on most of them in that time period, but ... hey.

  1. Job!  I have one!  So that part succeeded.
  2. Sustainability blog!  It's started.  Only one post so far, and still needs a lot of work in the design department, but it's been made.  www.thegreenesteye.org for those of you who are interested.
  3. Coding!  I did a little bit.  I'm working my way through Google's Android Development tutorial right now.  I also just found an open-source app that I want to modify to do something relevant to me (it's currently an app that counts how many times you've skipped each class, I want to turn it into something useful for counting knitting rows).
  4. Reading!  I wanted to dig into my increasingly large stack of Economist and Scientific American Mind magazines, and my books.  I read one book that wasn't on the list at the start of September, and I finished a handful of Economists, but thanks to traveling, I'm behind again.  Whoops.
  5. Turning off the technology?  That was going really well until yesterday.  I think I can keep it up.
  6. Calling people?  Oh... right... I did get on the phone with a couple people, but didn't make a huge effort.
Maybe my birthday reminded me.  Maybe it was just time.  But over the past few days I've realized... this all sounds cliche, but I'm needing to step into adulthood, and really take care of myself, and maybe spend some time getting to know myself, and all that kind of stuff.  Fun stuff, right?  Ironically, the series at the young adults group right now is titled "Arrested Development" and is about... knowing and overcoming how your past affects your current and future self.

  1. Being an adult: so far, all 3 posts I've read at adultingblog.com have been really good. I'm going to try to read more of them.
  2. Take care of myself: I think it's time to go back to Aerial Circus, since paddleboarding season seems to be over.  And go back to meditating.  And put a little effort into eating a little better.  But mostly circus.
  3. Get to know myself: I've always found the best way to process thoughts is journaling.  But if I just write, it usually just ends up a chronicle of my day - the "happy things" journal, while fantastic, was no exception.  What I want to do is more actual writing.  The kind of writing that I've seen on my own blog at times (I actually surprised myself, re-reading some of the things I've written on here.  I should write more often!)  So I've looked up some journal prompts and am going to try to write about one of them every day.  Ask some questions.  Answer them.  Maybe while I'm at it, take some questions from church or TED talks or books I'm reading as well.  Just get to writing about more than just what's happening in my life.  It should be helpful, and it should also be great practice for when NaNoWriMo comes around next month.  That's right.  I know what I'm doing in November already.  That one... that one will be fun.