Six days...

mood: Really, really tired
music: Klingon Imperial Theme
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In six days I have to start writing a novel. Considering how I feel right now, that seems downright absurd. I still have three critiques to go, although fortunately one of them will be almost no work at all. Strange that I, the nit-pickiest of nit-pickers, could read an entire story without editing anything, but I believe it could happen with this one.

So, three crits to write, and one Halloween costume to sew (that's supposed to look like this, for heaven's sake), a NaNo kick-off chat to arrange, writing group meeting to attend...gee, anything else? Oh, Halloween itself, of course. Then at week's end, fresh as a daisy, I jump into noveling. Or at least that's the plan. Ha! Well, I still have hopes for some respite near the end of the week. If not, I'll just have to do my best, right? Operant Moon, here I come.

One thing I learned today: Long term bed rest has the same effect on the body's muscles as the zero gravity experienced in space

Countdown time

mood: Overwhelmed
music: George Winston--Forest
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Okay. The countdown timer on my desktop says one week, four days to the start of NaNoWriMo. In that time, I have to finish critiquing five more stories for the contest I'm co-judging, sew a ridiculously intricate Halloween costume for my daughter, arrange a NaNo kick-off meetup or at least a live chat, and organize all my notes and ideas for this year's novel so that I'm not scrambling around and wasting precious time in November. Not to mention all that stuff like keeping the family fed, clothed and able to navigate around a relatively clean house, chauffeuring kids around, helping with homework, etc. I feel sort of panicky, so going to bed seems like a good idea right now.

However, a few notes first. Started what I think will be an interesting and productive writing workshop last night. Supposed to attend a tea tomorrow in the guise of a "real live writer" but wondering how I'm going to fit it in. Found a wonderful thesaurus program, WordWeb, that I think I'll be registering. I love the way it works in tandem with the word processor.

And here's an interesting little thing to play around with: Toogle. It does a search on your keyword and then creates an image from the text you entered. What a weird idea. But sort of fun.

One thing I learned today: A select group of people, nicknamed wizards, can nearly always tell when someone is lying. In a study of 13,000 people, 31 had the ability. Learn more at BBC News.

Back to Blogland?

mood: Good
music: None
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So, once again I've fallen off the blogging wagon for a while. This seems like a silly time to try and get back on it; the next two months are scheduled to be pretty busy. I'm co-judging a short story contest, critiquing a friend's novel, starting a writing workshop and planning for NaNoWriMo, to say nothing of actually writing the novel in November and continuing on with the workshop.

I'm currently working on a new short story that I hope to have finished by mid-month, when the workshop starts. So far it's slow going; I haven't written anything new for a while so I have to kick myself out of editing mode, I guess. But it's coming along.

The new NaNoWriMo site goes online today. Can't wait to go and check it out later this evening.

One thing I learned today: NASA has discovered a world reminiscent of Larry Niven's Ringworld. Read about it here.