Insanity, Thy Name is NaNoWriMo...

So, after much waffling on the subject, I decided to take part in NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated) again this year. I am restarting the story I made up for last year's event, The Math Teacher's Dead, but in accordance with the rules I'm throwing out everything except the plot and characters and a handful of situations from the last draft and am starting fresh.

In creating my strategy for this year, I have tried to learn some lessons from last year: first, have an outline to begin with, don't just make it up as I go; second, make time every day, don't wait for empty days to write; and third, do not let myself get bogged down in editing and re-editing what I've already written -- onward and upward, devil take the hindmost!

My plan is to write for at least two hours every evening, then post my writing to a blog that I created for the purpose; I will not be allowed to go back and fiddle with the posted writing until the weekend, when I will allow myself a little editing. I already started my outline (that's allowed) a couple of weeks ago, and that will get me through the first week; I can tweak my outline a little more during lunch or idle moments away from my computer (it's in an olde-fashionedy paper notebook) in order to stay ahead of the writing.

Part of the challenge is going to be staying away from distractions... I'm not going to abandon FaceBook or Swellegant or JUB or my endless hunt for beefcake, but I am going to reduce those activities as much as possible without letting them lapse altogether. I mean, my FaceBook games can languish a bit with only minimal maintenance, it's not like I post here every day, I haven't posted much at JUB for weeks, and all my beefcake sites archive themselves so I can catch up in December.

So if you don't hear from me, you know where I'll be.

Oh, by the bye, here are a couple of pix from the Halloween party Caroline and I attended at Slide in San Francisco:


I decided at the last minute to ditch the wig and the sword (both were too fussy and uncomfortable/heavy, and I was feeling a little bit irritable on Saturday) and nobody asked me who or what I was supposed to be (though a lot of people asked me where the restrooms were and how to find their waitress... I guess I was exuding authority again, and people thought I worked there) so I didn't need a made-up identity.

And here's Caroline in her second costume (or rather her first, the one she assembled in spring and which inspired my costume, but then she wanted to be a fairy later), an elven huntress:


Caroline had a wonderful time at the party, people bought her drinks and she got all tiddly-giggly and flirted with the bartenders and the bouncers and some stray boys (all of whom had girlfriends), and received lots of compliments on her costume, particularly the very realistic ears. I didn't have as much fun as I had last year, the music was less accessible (less GaGa and 80s revivals, more rap and hip-hop) and there were far fewer cute guys and far more drunken girls in slutty costumes... the sense of fun just wasn't there. But it wasn't a bad time, just not as fun as I'd hoped.

So that's the news, and I had better be getting to work... in order to ensure two hours free in the evening, I am going to have to get to work on time and leave on time and try to not wear myself out in between.

Toodle-pip!