Nanowrimo Wrap-Up

Another Nanowrimo has come and gone and, well, I have to admit that I.....

WON!!!

Cue the fireworks, the balloons, & the marching band.

I have to say, though, that it was a little bit more difficult than I had naively thought in my last post. I was constantly playing catch up with my word count and it wasn't until the last 3 days of the challenge that I finally decided to shut myself off from the rest of the world and apply the BIC method to increase my word count. In case you weren't aware of it, BIC stands for Butt In Chair and sometimes that's the only method that works. It was just me, my laptop, a cup of tea & reruns of The IT Crowd playing in the background to keep me company.

I ended up with about 70,000 words, which is great but I still haven't technically finished my story yet. It's about 3/4 of the way done and I probably won't even think about looking at those words again until January. I figure it will take at least that long for me to get rid of the curious side effects that seem to afflict me every time participate in Nanowrimo. I'm convinced that Nano has caused me to morph into my own special version of Lady Redundant Woman from PBS' Word Girl.

(Yes, I did just reference a kid's cartoon show. Snicker if you must.)

I foresee whole blocks of prose being cut because of this. I also had to learn to use apostrophes and hyphens, again, and to shake this annoying habit of using 20 adjectives/adverbs per sentence. Thank goodness for the revision process. The upside is that I already have my whole story plotted out and I'm on a first name basis with all of my characters.

All in all, I'm happy that I decided to participate this year and I look forward to doing it again in 2010.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

"What?" You ask, "Did I have have a freak accident, fall into a coma for two months and wake up just in time for Christmas?"

No, silly! I'm not talking about that time of the year. I'm talking about Nanowrimo.

It's finally November 1st and people all across the country have signed up to write 50,000 words in 30 days. At first glance, it sounds like a foolhardy task, but when you break it down into daily word counts, it comes out to about 1,667 words per day. That's doable, right? Right!?

Despite my enthusiasm, my biggest concern with this year's Nano is finding the time and motivation to fit 1,667 words in everyday. The first week is usually fine & I'm able to meet my word count easily. By the second week, however, the shiny newness of the endeavor has worn off and the fatigue has started to set in. I probably don't have to tell you that I didn't win last year.

I figured out my problem, though. I didn't take sufficient advantage of my peak energy/creativity periods. For me this hits at about 10 or 11 o'clock and lasts until whenever I eat lunch. This means that I'm probably going to have to go into stealth mode while I'm at work. I know, I know, it's not the most professional thing to do, but I figure as long as I get my work done, everything should work out fine. I hope...

I'll post updates as the month progresses.

Bookzilla

I have a weird obsession with books.

I can't walk past a book store or fair without buying something. I always have a couple of books on me at all times in case real life gets too boring. I've been like this since I learned to read all those many years ago. I have fond memories of bumping into walls at school because I couldn't be bothered with actually looking up as I walked.....yeah.

Anywho, imagine my giddiness when I found out that the 4th annual Decatur Book Festival was being held this past weekend.

The book festival kicked off Friday afternoon with a writer's workshop at Agnes Scott College. Kaylie Jones & Sir Harold Evans were the keynote speakers for the event. I also attended a workshop on crafting memorable characters given by N.M. Kelby. They were all wonderful speakers and I plan to add Kelby's new book "The Constant Art of Being a Writer" to my ever growing 'to be read' pile.

Most of the festival events took place on the following day, however. There was a stage devoted solely to children's books that featured a variety of great authors like Peter McCarty, Melissa Conroy, & Eleanor Davis. I was able to get an autographed copy of Otis by Loren Long.

I think that this was my favorite picture of the whole day. I still don't know what he was advertising (oops!), but I had to give him props for donning the zebra costume in that heat.

One my favorite fairground foods is the funnel cake. Mmm mmm good. It's really a heart attack on a paper plate, though. The dailyplate.com estimates that it has about 760 calories. Ouch.

Another highlight of my day was getting to hear Stephanie Bond detail the most efficient way to move a body.

Stephanie is the author of a popular series of books about a brother & sister who just happen to fall into the body moving business. What follows is a mix of mystery, romance, and humor. It seems like it's going to be an entertaining series. I scored two autographed copies.

All in all, I had a great time. Hopefully, next year, some of the authors that I didn't get to hear will decide to come back. I really regret not being able to make it to see Jon Scieszka. I think I like his books a little more than my 9 year old nephew does.

Recycling

“To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” -–Mahatma Gandhi

"Like a shadow that does not permit us to jump over it, but moves with us to maintain its proper distance, pollution is nature's answer to culture. When we have learned to recycle pollution into potent information, we will have passed over completely into the new cultural ecology." ---William Irwin Thompson

In a perfect world, I would not have to throw away anything at all.

I would not cook or buy more food than I could eat. The parts of the food that I could not digest, like coffee grounds and eggshells, would be lovingly placed in the compost pile that resides next to my meticulously tended garden in the backyard. Everything that I purchased would either be reusable, recyclable, or completely biodegradable. I would not need a car because I would rely on my legs, my bike, and/or my city’s superbly run public transportation system. In a perfect world, everyone would think that this behavior was perfectly normal and that anyone who deviated from these practices was unnecessarily wasteful.

Our reality, however, is far from perfect and, as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t even live up to my own lofty ideals.

I do incorporate some small energy/earth saving measures into my every day life like turning off unused lights and appliances, not buying disposable plates & cutlery, and using public transportation when possible, but I feel like I could be doing so much more. For example it’s hard for me to resist the lure of individualized packaging. Intellectually, I know that it would be better for me to go for the family/economy sized packaging, but smaller sized bags of chips, bottles of water or packs of facial tissue look cuter and just seem more convenient. And I think that’s the problem, I have to train myself to sacrifice a bit of convenience for the “greater good”.

I'm going to try an experiment for the next two weeks to see if I can live without so much waste. In addition to buying less overall (my bank account is shouting out "Hallelujah!" right now), I'm going to choose the more environmentally conscious option when I can. So instead of plastic, I'll choose cloth and instead of buying bottled water/sodas/juice at work, I'll bring my own from home. I also will try to choose products that can be bought in bulk and easily recycled. We'll see how it goes...

On a related note, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this book in my local bookstore:

Re-bound, written by Jeannine Stein, features a variety of notebooks, organizers, journals and photo albums that can be made from everyday items that you have lying around your house. I can't wait to dust off my decrepit sewing machine and try out one of these projects. The Potato-Chip Double-Sided Notebook is calling my name.

To love and to laugh

I first saw this video on Craftster.com and I've been obsessed with it ever since. The Canadian duo Catherine Leduc and Matthieu Beaumont have put together this fabulous music video that uses over 700 pieces of knitted wool to tell their story. In french, tricot machine, the name of the group, means knitting machine, so it seems appropriate that an actual knitting machine would play such a prominent role in one of their videos.

Tricot Machine || Les peaux de lièvres from Dare To Care Records on Vimeo.

Here's the french and english side by side:

T'as les joues rouges boréales Tes couettes noires virent au blanc comme l'asphalte Y tombe des peaux d'lièvres sur Montréal On s'éclipse sur party La neige crisse sous nos pieds Les flocons dansent doucement Dans le vent Mais c'pas la faute du temps Si je frisonne Et nos mains se repèrent Et nos coeurs s'accelèrent On s'dit rien et pourtant On s'comprend Sur les premiers murmures De l'hiver Le désir nous harcèle On court par les ruelles Ça fait tellement longtemps qu'on s'attend La nuit s'annonce chaude et si belle T'as les joues rouges boréales Tes couettes noires virent au blanc comme l'asphalte Y tombe des peaux d'lièvres sur Montréal

Your cheeks are red, boreal Your black hairs turn to white like asphalt Hareskin is falling on Montreal We leave the party Snow crisps under our feet Snowflakes slowly dance In the wind But it’s not because of the weather That I shiver And our hands find themselves And hearts beat quicker We say nothing to each other but We understand Under the first whispers Of winter Desire hounds us We run through the back alleys We’ve been waiting for each other so long The night promises to be so warm and so beautiful Your cheeks are red, boreal Your black hairs turn white like the asphalte Hareskin is falling on Montreal

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Weird Al's latest video, Skipper Dan. I'll warn you that it's depressing--but, in an amusing way. It's about an aspiring actor who is forced to take a job at a theme park to pay the bills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNo8LvdOwSk

my own two hands...

There is something wonderfully satisfying about watching something spring forth from raw materials at the bidding of my hands. Even though I am fully aware of the time and effort that went into creating a painting or a novel or, in this case, a bar of soap, when I'm holding the finished product in my hands, I can't help but regard it in wonder. I made this and it looks pretty good. It's an addictive feeling. I am not ashamed to admit that I've been slowly making my way through the creative spectrum, dabbling in this and that and, yes, spending more and more money along the way. Hey, I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy.

As I alluded to earlier, my current project is handmade soap. It's a simple process, but you have to be very careful that you measure precisely. Sodium hydroxide (lye), a caustic chemical, is one of the main components of soap making and care also has to be taken when you handle it. For an in-depth explanation of the process, check out about.com's step by step instructions.

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/coldprocesssoapmaking/ss/sscpsoap.htm

I also got a lot of help from this thread on one of my favorite guilty pleasure sites, Crafster.com

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=267859.0

Now, on to pictures of the fabulous handmade soap:



They aren't perfect, though. They are supposed to be unscented, but they still carry a slight aroma of the olive oil that I used to create them. It's not a bad smell, but next time I think that I will try to find the extra light scented variety of olive oil in the grocery store. I used the cold process/oven process method with this batch and while it sped up the curing process dramatically, I wonder if the time the soap spent open and exposed to the air in the oven contributed to the amount of "soda ash" that formed on the top and sides of the soap.



From what I've read, soda ash is the name given to powdery white substance that sometimes forms on the top of soap when it is exposed to air during the first 24 hours. It's a chemical reaction between the lye and carbon in the air. Most sites say that it's harmless and can easily be removed by washing or scraping it off. It's not very pretty to see, though, and I think I'm going to use cold process alone and wait the full time for it to cure to see if that makes a difference. I may try out a different mold, too. I used a silicone mold with this batch because I didn't want to deal with the freezer paper lining, but I wonder if using a sturdier mold would make a difference.



All in all, it was a good experience and I can't wait to start my next batch.