Who are these people and what are they up to?

mood: tired
music:
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Tired...not the desired state to be in 2 days before NaNoWriMo. Two days after, well, sure. But not before. Sigh.

My supporting characters are bothering me somewhat today. Who the heck are they, anyway? I know quite a bit about my main character, but the others...I know their names and a little bit about what they do, but...who are they really? I don't know their personalities, how they'll get along with each other (important in space), what their motivations are...are they supportive or traitorous? Fascinating or dull? I guess I'll have to wait and see what they do...

Apparently there were dazzling Northern Lights visible tonight due to the large solar flare that erupted recently, but unfortunately it was too overcast here to see them. I was hoping for a break in the clouds but no luck. Ah, well, maybe next time.

Final countdown...

mood: optimistic
music: my husband's guitar practicing
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I was too bummed out to even post yesterday--one of those days when everything seems too much work, life is just round after round of stressors--I felt certain that I wouldn't be able to accomplish much during NaNoWriMo this year. There was none of last year's excitement, only apprehension and a sense of defeat. And then all day today I had a whopper of a tension headache, could hardly stand to keep my eyes open.

But tonight...I feel better. The headache is almost eradicated, I'm sipping green tea while my daughter does her homework, and the novel seems do-able again. Just to make sure things stay in an upswing, I'm going to bed early.

Speaking of green tea, my husband just brought home six sample boxes of various flavours (from a conference he just attended), so I'm thinking it will be a green tea month--I'll drink coffee while I write in the early mornings and then green tea when I sit down to write at night. I should be healthy as a horse by the end of the month. ;-)

So with only 4 days to go things seem to be about where they should be...even though I have only enough plot for half a story...

Neo-Opsis

mood: excited
music: none
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Hey, my copies of Neo-opsis just arrived in the mail and my name is on the cover! It's very cool! (Now, all the authors' names are there, but still it's a first for me.) I can't wait to read the other stories in it . SF Canada is pretty well-represented (3 out of 5 are on the SFC membership list)! Woo-hoo for us! I'll scan the cover later and post it on the credits page at my site. It's good day!

Math. Why did there have to be math...?

mood: hopeful
music: LOTR Soundtrack
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So I'm attempting to build the worlds necessary for my characters to travel between...but I really wasn't ready for the math. Okay, I probably could just make everything up and gloss over the details, but I wanted to do it right and I have these books full of nifty world-building formulae...I'm just so darn bad at it. Even figuring out how to plug in the figures for things like star luminosity, mass, mean distance and insolation gives me a headache. Yet I soldier on, calculator in hand. I may give up before it's over and just start making up planets willy-nilly, but I'll see what I can come up with according to the numbers before November hits. Fortunately I've found a few good websites to help out as well. Anway, back to it...so insolation equals luminosity over the distance squared...

Only 12 days...

mood: determined
music: none
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...until NaNoWriMo begins. I'm still doing a lot of planning--thinking things out as I'm going about doing other things, but I really need to start getting some of it down on paper. Not that I referred to my notes a heck of a lot last year, but I think writing them out beforehand fixed them more firmly in my mind so that I didn't need to refer to them. I've discovered a few more interesting things about my main character in the last few days. Now if only I knew more about what's going to happen to her...

This isn't working out so well...

mood: hopeful
music: none right now
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...but maybe I just have to get into the habit? Maybe if I actually told some people I know that this blog exists? I guess from here on in until the end of November it will consist mainly of my NaNoWriMo journal...plans for the novel are going pretty well so far. Don't have as much of a firm plot idea as I did last year, but isn't our motto, "No plot? No problem!" I managed to write some more on last year's novel and outlined to the end of it before I set it aside to turn to this year's project. Still pondering whether that was a good idea right now.

I'm also awaiting with anticipation the premiere issue of "Neo-opsis" containing my story "On The Road with Fiamong's Rule." If it arrives before November it will be a great boost to NaNo morale!