It Came From Outer Space…

I’m debating right now if I want to participate in this years NaNoWriMo which is coming up fast — this November. I’ve participated the last five years, and won twice: last year and 2006. The first year I had an excuse that I found out about the challenge halfway through the month of November and so was far behind before I even began, other years I made good counts at least 10′000 words. The year before last we found out in the middle of the month that we were going to have to move so I stalled at 16′000 words to focus on finding a place to live. We weren’t lucky enough to be able to get an Outer Banks foreclosures but we got a very nice property with a few quirks, and last year fully moved in I was able to actually rattle out around 55′000 words and win the challenge.

NaNoWriMo’s challenge is that you write 50′000 words before the end of the month, which averages to about 1670 per day. The idea is that you take a new story and just roll with the punches, writing and writing as much as you can each day without editing. So, it helps if you do a lot of preparatory work in the months leading up, deciding on your subject and perhaps outlining a few characters and a direction for the plot so that on November 1st you can get a good start out the gate to give yourself the ability to slack off if you get stuck later on.

Then once you’ve got your huge word count and won NaNo then you can go back and revise the story and in theory get it ready to potentially be published or just sit back happy in the knowledge that you just wrote more than you’ve ever written before.

As I say I’m a bit reluctant to participate this year. Writing has been coming very difficult to me lately, but I should instead look at this as an opportunity to actually get something written. Last year I wrote the most I’d written all year while writing for NaNoWriMo.

I’ve written a lot of non-fiction today. I’ve been rearranging blogs over the past couple of days, combining some together, deleting others entirely with the hope that things will become more stream-lined and it’ll be easier for me to keep up with things and also that I will have more time for others.

We’ll see if that actually happens. It often seems as though you rid yourself of one internet related distraction and another pops up to take it’s place. Facebook is the biggest culprit that I’ve experienced, especially as at one point I had three Facebook accounts — that’s just ridiculous. I’m down to two now business and other business, though I still find myself playing the darn games.

At least I had enough drive today to actually write two short essay posts. Hopefully that continues and spreads out to more creative fictional things.

There’s been a break in getting phone calls for “Look Beyond Mirrors” where we’re now getting phone calls for the people who used to have our phone number, again.

This is at the point of ridiculousness because we’ve been in this house going on two years now and we’re getting phone calls for them. It’s not nice calls either. I’d almost rather it was someone wanting to offer them the Blue Advantage health plan, or mortgage insurance, but instead it’s “Do you know who these people are?” “Are you sure?” “You have NO contact information for them, really?” and things like that.

I’m not sure if there’s something I can file formally. I need to find out because I’m sick of it.

I asked my friend Huushiita who owns A Faerie’s Life to give me a writing prompt for my free writing of the day and this is what she said.

write about a guy who’s obsessed with words in the dictionary. Could it be becuase he IS from outer space?

“No, seriously, it’s not normal,” Candy was always complaining about one thing or another so generally Mae tuned her out if telling her to “drop it” or “change the subject” didn’t work. They were threading their way through the high school’s halls.
“I’m sure your brother is not an alien,” she replied, running one hand down the length of lockers until she found her own and began to twist the dial.
“You do not live with him,” Candy answered.
“No, I don’t,” Mae responded, carefully. Her attempt to open her locker was then impeded by Candy’s hand on it as the slightly older girl searched her face.
“You DO have a crush on him, don’t you?” Candy said, and twitched, her face contorting into a sickened look, “You have a crush on my brother!”
“I do not!” Mae replied, pulling at the locker door until Candy released her hold. She quickly grabbed her books and threw the old ones in there.
“How could you like someone who reads the dictionary instead of porn? That’s just…it’s not healthy!”
“How do you know he doesn’t actually look at–” Mae started, and cut herself off, spinning the locker’s dial as she shut the door so that it would lock again, “forget I started to even ask that. I don’t actually want to know…I just…can we get to lunch now please?”
Candy shrugged, “I don’t know if I can eat. The idea of you and my brother is just…”
“Just what?” Mae asked, “Are you going to disgorge?”
“What?” Candy asked.
“You know, vomit, spew, regurgitate?”
“Oh. My. God!” Candy exclaimed, “You’re going out with him? His whacky word ways are rubbing off on you! I can’t be around you right now!”

Count 288 words.

I’ve looked at quite a few online universities over the past few months. I’d like to continue my education, and my Mum actively starting to do so has inspired me further. However, it’s hard to narrow down a focus. I’d like to do something with technology and something that would actually improve our income situation rather than further cripple it.

Yesterday I came across The University of Scranton, who have a 100% online AACSB accredited MBA program. This is interesting to me given they were ranked in the Top 15 by The Princeton Review, however I’m not sure that an MBA is really what I would need, but then not only is it a degree but apparently it’s the best online MBA that you could get, particularly as the program is a 2 year program, whereas most other school programs take 3 years. I’m all about cutting down the time it takes to do something and still getting the reward. I searched when I was interested in hypnotherapy until I found a program that required two three-day weekends rather than six Saturdays, and meant I only had to travel two hours instead of six. You have to make school work for you, right?

I’m going to be digging around a bit more and see what this program could do for me. I maintain that keeping my options open is the best bet. At first glance something can seem to not be a good fit, but then I set my heart on PR and once I actually got into that program found out it was NOT what I want to do. Stands to reason that something I don’t think would work out might really be a good idea.

Condor Timewarp is a branch of a story that I’m trying to iron out. It involves people from around the 26th century winding up in what appears to be 20th century Earth. However there’s a chance it could also be some sort of disorienting trick by their enemies in a war that’s in peace negotiations.

The idea for this story arc came about as I was moving from England to America. I think it was spawned by a lot of my own feelings of being an alien and an outcast. Here I was surrounded by people I could not relate to, all the girls my age seemed to care entirely too much about their hair, clothes and finding weight losss supplements, whereas I was there with my strange accent, more concerned about my grades and making up all the school work that was required so I would be able to get into a college.

Anyway, 250 words on Condor Timewarp, surrounding the theme of alienation. Go!

It took Comarii a few moments to register exactly what was going on. The strange light in her room wasn’t a weapon firing off too close, it was sunlight peeking it’s way through the gaps in the cracked venetian blinds. She sat up cautiously, counting the ways to get out of the room, and listening for footsteps. Eventually she could make them out below her, as well as the muffled sounds of people talking. It was only Commander Munroe and the ship’s android, no one else.

She decided that it was safe to get out of bed, then, and did so. Picking up her uniform pants, and slipping them on. She left the jacket at the bottom of the bed, and went downstairs wearing the pants and her uniform undershirt.

The events of the day before seemed so…unreal. The crash, the technology backwards humans and their offer to let them crash at their neighbor’s house while the insurance claims were going on. She still didn’t understand what “insurance” meant, but it must have had something to do with the fact that the Commander spun them a tale of car crashes and just moving to the area.

Her eyes were slowly adjusting to this natural light as she came down the stair case.

“Ah, Doctor, you’re up,” Munroe remarked, as her feet made it to their same level. He was sitting at what looked to be a bar in the galley area of the house. He had his left sleeve rolled up and COM, the android, was checking over the bionics which Comarii was sure had suffered in the watery crash. Yesterday, the Commander had insisted on them being fine and had not allowed her to check on them.

“It appears that way,” she answered, standing at the edge of the table and looking around the house. There were large glass doors to her left that looked out through a screened in room towards a small grassy area that dropped into a canal. All this green made her cold inside, and all the sounds coming in from out there — the chirpings, twitters, and buzzings, she had to fight hard to quell a rising panic and the desire to run back up the stairs full tilt and hide in the bottom of the storage cupboard.

I’ve had several people over the years, including my therapist (yes, I have a therapist) suggest to me that I should write the story of my life. One of the first I recall doing this was my now-ex step-father. Boy, would he not like the way I would write about him! Which makes it extremely tempting to do so, but at the same time it’s extremely daunting.

I remember when I was still in college and my parents went on a trip in their rv. My Mum chronicled the entire journey and wrote it up after they got home. However, writing about things which have gone on with me are nowhere near as easy. I have actually started to write things several times, but I usually grind to a halt even more quickly than any of my fictional pieces. I feel as though I’m going on too much about things or being too whiny. I think part of my problem is not mapping things out. I have this misguided notion that because I lived my life I don’t have to map it out like I would one of my other stories.

I realize this is a silly notion and I should rectify it, but at the same time I also realize that I’m not quite ready yet to write this sort of thing. There are certain things which happened to me that I am not in the right frame of mind to expose even myself too.

When I first started writing my “Condor” story the way current technology worked was very different. The communication bracelets that I gave to the crew were amazing, now not so much. Now the things that the bracelets do is very mundane. The main wow factor is the holographic images that they can project. The fact that they could function the same as a Garmin GPS, store data, take pictures, store music and files, record video is not as impressive.

All those things most cell phones can do that nowadays. So, my options with the story are either to have them land far back in time when they time travel or come up with some newer shinier niftier kind of technology for their bracelets.

The longer I spend at home the more that I realize that writers have a tendency to get lazy. We spend our time glued to televisions or video games and absorb sloppy writing habits and cheesy dialogue. I wonder if part of the problem I’m having with writing is coming from that legendary “brain rot”. My brain has become so accustomed to short bursts of information that it perhaps can’t process the length of time that I would need to actually write a full length piece.

I can’t concentrate to read for any extended period of time either some days, which I think is partially because I’ve been losing a battle with depression. When your brain is in a funk you don’t want to do anything, and half the time on bad days I barely even focus on the TV either.