Noveling: Day Twenty-Five

Finished! Finished early!

My joy and relief can only be expressed as Ralph Fiennes With An Umbrella.

Wrote eight hundred something more words than I needed to because of that pesky plot that appeared at the very end and suddenly refused to wrap itself up neatly. Not sure why I was so concerned with getting the ending right anyway - the rest of the novel is overflowing with plot holes.

Next project: over the next three months, rewrite an extremely crappy novel I wrote back in 2002 and hopefully turn it into something only mildly crappy.

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50,864 / 50,000 : 101.7%

Noveling: Day Twenty-Four

Didn't write as much today as I could have, opting instead for shopping and watching TV and actually reading a book for once. But no worries! I should hit 50,000 tomorrow without too many problems. Whether the piece of crap book is finished or not at that point is up in the air. I thought I could really end it at any point, but a pesky plot seems to have surfaced at the end that might take longer than that to wrap up. Still, so close!

Thanks, muse o' the day! You are such gorgeousness, Natalie Portman.

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47,289 / 50,000 : 94.6%

Noveling: Day Twenty-Three

Today was the least productive day in, well, days. It was still totally productive though. If I really work at it, I could finish tomorrow, but it will probably be on Thursday. Blessings on you, Starbucks, for once again providing a comfortable and inspirational place for the writing.

Cillian Murphy helped too, but I think his scary beautifulness might have frightened away a few of the more shy words.

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45,291 / 50,000 : 90.6%

Noveling: Day Twenty-Two

Another excellent day of writing thanks to Starbucks. Meant to sit there until I'd written a thousand words and didn't end up leaving until I'd written almost three thousand. At this rate, I'll be done in a couple days. The story is so lacking in plot that I think I should be able to wrap it up anytime. Fantastic!

Helena Bonham Carter, thou art lovely and inspirational.

And I am very sleepy.

( ###############== )
43,233 / 50,000 : 86.5%

Noveling: Day Twenty-One

I dreamed about my novel last night. Apparently these crap characters are far more in my head than I had thought. I can vaguely remember dreaming the end of the story, and I wish I could really remember it because right now I have no idea how to end this shite thing.

I meant to write as much as I could, all day long, but I wrote so much yesterday that I was kind of burned out today, so although I got a lot done, it wasn't quite as much as I'd hoped.

David Tennant was not so much a muse as a reward today. Kept telling myself things like, "Just make it to 38,000, and you can watch David Tennant in something," and "Come on, finish another 1000 words and you can watch David Tennant in something else!" It worked remarkably well.

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40,084 / 50,000 : 80.2%

Noveling: Days Nineteen and Twenty

Day nineteen went pretty good until the end when I fell asleep in the middle of writing and didn't quite get to where I needed to be. But today was extremely productive and now I'm well ahead of where I need to be. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get some thousands of words done. I'm past the 35k point now, which means less than 15k to go. It seems so close that I just want to get it over with.

The story continues to be crap, but not as crappy of crap as it was in the beginning. I've managed to not let any secondary characters take over, which is always a problem in my writing, especially when my main character is female, as this one is. Not sure why that is, but it's almost always proved to be the case in the past, so it's good that I'm proving to myself that I can actually stay on track.

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35,843 / 50,000 : 71.7%

Noveling: Day Eighteen

Busy day at work and yet another Pirates viewing (I know, I'm a nerd), and I still managed to not only get caught up to where I needed to be, but I managed to get a little bit ahead.

Words written in novel today not actually that amazingly terrible. Like, I went back and read some of them, and they didn't make me wince or want to stab out my own brain. So that's something.

Huzzah and hurrah and all that jazz.

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31,075 / 50,000 : 62.2%

Noveling: Days Eleven to Seventeen

Despite my best intentions, I got way behind over the weekend. I was seeing Pirates on Friday and could have written when I got home, but my head was so filled with the movie that my characters would have been suddenly replaced with Captain Mack Arrow and Alizabeth Wann and Mr. Lorrington. I was out of town on Saturday and Sunday, but I had time and the means to write, I just did not. Wrote quite a lot on Monday, a good amount on Tuesday (before another Pirates viewing), and quite a lot again on Wednesday. Due to me being no good at math, I thought I had caught up, but I've just realized that I miscounted by a day, so I'm still a bit behind. But not even a whole day's worth, so that's not as bad as it could be.

It is an awful, awful novel. Usually when I write, even if it is for NaNoWriMo where quantity is valued more than quality, I know that I will be letting people read at least some of what I've written, so I manage to not let things get too terrible. But this! I went into it not intending to let anyone read it, and the apparent result of not writing for any audience but myself is that I churn out even crappier crap than I thought I could. It is not without redeeming qualities, and it is challenging and making my brain work and getting me thinking about other things I might want to write, so I am still very glad that I am writing it. But it's still unbelievably awful.

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27,088 / 50,000 : 54.2%

Noveling: Days Nine and Ten

Yesterday and today I have kept exactly on track with the noveling. It would have been nice to get ahead again, but c'est la vie. Plenty of time left, and I'm pretty sure my completely crap story can keep on going indefinitely.

But novel schmovel! The only meaning my life really has this week is seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on Friday. It looks totally on crack and awesome, and I cannot wait.

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16,677 / 50,000 : 33.4%

Noveling: Day Eight

Blessings upon Eddie Izzard for providing me with hours of entertainment and laughter today, as well as enough inspiration to once again get ahead of the game.

And I would like to thank the Barnes & Noble Café for providing me a place to write most of those words today and for being filled with entertaining and strange people.

Tomorrow we can hope to get much more writing done on our last day of freedom before having to return to work. Of course, we're just as likely to get absolutely nothing done.

And we are royal.

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13,685 / 50,000 : 27.4%

Noveling: Days Six and Seven

Day Six is not really even worth talking about, as I did nothing besides get behind. It would be lovely if I could manage to get through at least the first week without getting behind, but I'm me, and I suck, so I failed.

Anyway, Day Seven has ended, and I find myself still a bit behind, but not by that much. I resolve not to sleep until I am caught up again.

I blame Jane Lane. She forced me to watch hours of Daria instead of working on my writing. And I liked it.

( ####============= )
10,642 / 50,000 : 21.3%

Noveling: Day Five

Or rather, Not Noveling, thanks to an emergency extraction of my wisdom (tooth).

Orin Scrivello, DDS! You are the worst muse yet!

Noveling: Day Four

Kate Winslet! My favorite Kate. Seriously, she's perfection. And inspirational enough, apparently, as I remain a bit more than a day ahead of schedule. Huzzah!

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8,366 / 50,000 : 16.7%

Noveling: Day Three

Lessons learned today: I should really do all my writing away from home. Yesterday I wrote about twice as much as I had planned on, much of it while sitting in Starbucks where I had few distractions and felt compelled to keep steadily typing for the benefit of looking busy and important in front of the other patrons. Today I intended to start writing as soon as I got home from work but instead ended up blobbing around getting distracted until around 10:30 when I finally went, "Crappity crap, I should really get some writing done," at which point I seriously considered writing for about an hour before actually doing any. Methinks it is back to Starbucks tomorrow.

Or else it is all just the muse of the day's fault and perhaps tomorrow's new one will change things up. Curse you, Gerard Butler, for instilling in me a lack of motivation!

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6,689 / 50,000 : 13.4%

Noveling: Day Two

Cate Blanchett is the muse for the day. She is a lovely lady! And helped me reach my word count goal before the afternoon was over. Huzzah!

Chapter One is finished, and the story is utter crap, but I am having fun enough with it (and fun enough complaining about it), so things are looking good.

Off to write more now, with the aid of Starbucks.

Progress meter! To be updated in this post until my next progress post tomorrow night.

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5,086 / 50,000 : 10.2%

Noveling: Day One

So I am doing a NaNoWriMo thing again (I've done that for 4 years), only in July. And actually starting today instead of July 1 (with the deadline in 31 days). And by "starting" I mean "drinking a pot of coffee and looking at pictures of attractive men while occasionally pausing to write a few words". I am on my way to winning!

Here is a picture of MatsuJun, who is my muse for the day, but seeing as I haven't made my daily word count goal yet, he's obviously not very good at it. But he is pretty! Look at his glasses! And his eyebrows! And his lips!

Over and out, bitches.

ETA: Okay, so it's after midnight and technically Day Two, but I haven't gone to bed yet and I hate admitting that I got behind on the first day, so I'm going to pretend I didn't and just go, "Yay, met my word count goal for the day!"

Lament for a cup of chai, spilled on the way to work

O! Sweet chai
So fragrant and delicious
Milk and spices swirl together
In my cup until -
O tragedy!

Tea belongs in a cup
On my tongue
In my belly
Not on my leg and the floor

O! Sweet chai!
Never even tasted

Product o' the Day

Ganache for Lips

For someone as lip balm obsessed as I am, it's always lovely to find a new one that is especially nice. And this one is (I have the chocolate mousse flavor)! It is gourmet. There is real chocolate in it. "But Jen," you say, "don't you just want to eat it?"

Yes. Yes, I do.

The Daily Llama

Here's a totally hot picture of a llama. ¡Cuidado Llamas!



Hey, look, name of the blog changed.

there and back again

A long time ago, for a very short while, I used Blogger. And then I didn't. And now, despite the fact that I am here, there, and everywhere online already, it seemed a good time to make a return to this. I am not sure why. It will be a dumping ground for things that I cannot fit anywhere else, I suppose.

Title of the blog is very much subject to change.

And hallo.