And Now We Wednesday

I’m checking in! I’m still alive and typing words. This is Day 7 of nanowrimo. I’m at about 8000 words. I’m a bit behind, but am still planning to catch up. I created some better notes for myself, so that should help me move more quickly.

Nano is an interesting thing. I get on the website and look at the forums. I saw one lady who was offering up imaginary animals for adoption. These imaginary animals perform various functions to help keep writers focused on their writing. Very strange. Also, people volunteered to take the animals.

They have events for Nano too. Apparently there was a kickoff party at IndyReads. I didn’t find out about that until after the fact. They also have what they call “write-ins” which I’m pretty sure is just a bunch of people gathering in a public place to write. Or they read stuff out loud. Definitely one of those two things. I haven’t researched it thoroughly. Lol.

None of them have been near me so far. I would consider going if there was one close to me.

They do have a party at the end of Nano. I would like to try to go to that if possible. They have snacks and prizes and such.

Hmmm…I think that’s all I have to say about that for now. I’d better get writing if I’m going to get caught up. 

nanowrimo update 1

Hello, love bugs! I'm just popping in for a sec before I head back into writing land. Nanowrimo is going pretty well. I'm at about 5000 words, which is a little behind target but still ok. I'm finding it's more about diligence than speed, with me at least. 

Some people are over 20,000 words. I call them unemployed. Lol, totally kidding. I don't know what they're doing. Seeing as nano just started in 11/1, that's pretty cray cray.

The notes for my book weren't as extensive as I remembered them being. I think I might actually be missing a page or two, but I will power through. I have direction and direction is the necessity. I'm letting the thing be what it wants to be. Should be interesting. 

Max has been "helping". That's him resting his sweet little head on my iPad. The boy does love his snuggles.



The husband seems especially crabby about the whole nano deal, so there's a bit of an obstacle. The cold weather is keeping him indoors more and he doesn't quite seem to know what to do with himself. And he sees me plugging away and it just irks the heck out of him - me and my purpose. I have suggested hobbies other than cleaning. He has declined. Men. 

Anyway, that's all for now. I should go type more words, perhaps in a quiet closet. 

Nanowrimo or No

Nanowrimo starts tomorrow. A quick explanation for the nonwriterly types: a bunch of people attempt to write a novel in the course of November. National Novel Writing Month. They support each other through a social network and there are activities and forums, etc. The site is Nanowrimo.org

I really shouldn't do it. I planned to spend the month editing Llewyn's Faith while lady editor has Pestilence.

Also, I've never written a book in such a short amount of time. I'd probably blog a lot less. No time for drawing. There would only be time for the slapping of words into page. I type pretty quickly, but my brain sometimes turns to mush when I push it too hard.

I do have notes for a book I could work on though.

Argh. I’ll decide tomorrow.

i'm in a bookstore, occupying yer table

Whattup, y’all? We are having some hurricane-ish sort of weather. I’m in Indiana, so we’re basically just getting some (not excessive but still annoying) wind and rain. This morning while driving out of the neighborhood, I fishtailed, then overcorrected and had to correct again. The incident set the heart racing but nothing was damaged. Mustangs are not made for wet pavement. I didn’t even pull out that fast.

Anyway, there was no movie post yesterday due to the fact that our Netflix movie went missing. We spent this weekend getting caught up on the DVR watching.

Which brings me to the most fun of today! I have a volunteer publicist. She told me not to call her that because she didn’t want people to start sending her books but I forget what she told me to call her instead. 

She is D. Moore and she got a bookstore guy to let my book hang out in his store. Woo!

Here’s a pic of it on the local author table. She also dropped off the book and took the picture cuz she’s totally awesome.

You know what you should do? You should follow her blog and her Twitter. Here are the links.

https://twitter.com/ProductAmore

http://moorewrites.blogspot.com/

The store is run by Indy Reads, a literacy charity in Indianapolis. Here is a link for them - http://www.indyreads.org/

Be sure to check them out. People need to know how to read. 

cruising crown hill

Today was day one of the five-day weekend. We went to Crown Hill, which is a huge cemetery in the middle of Indianapolis. Here are some pics for your viewing enjoyment. 

I thought this was a very sad memorial. The inscription was just heartbreaking. 

A vote for Blank sign in front of the Blank tomb. I don't know; he might be better than the options we have now. 

Crown Hill is home to the highest elevation in Indianapolis. We found this statue on the walk up the hill. It was tall like a giant.

So, who's king of this grand hill?

James Whitcomb Riley! Here's a bit about him I pulled from Wikipedia. 

"James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer, poet, and best selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the Hoosier Poet and Children's Poet for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley authored, the majority are in dialect. His famous works include "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man".

Also the Riley Children's hospital was dedicated to him.

This is part of the detail on the tomb. It's a statue (bronze?) of a little girl reading a book. There are some words but I don't remember what they said exactly. A ginger got right in the way of my picture. I don't know what her deal is. lol

This is the inscription on the tomb lid thingy. Sorry I'm not up on my burial vocabulary. People put change on  the lid. I grabbed this quote about the coins from another blog. I don't know if it's true, but it makes sense. 

"After his death children began donating coins to help pay for his memorial.  The tradition of leaving coins on his monument continues today and money collected is donated to Mr. Riley’s legacy, The Riley Hospital for children.”

source: http://gravelyspeaking.com/2011/11/10/the-hoosier-poet/

 This is the view from the top of the hill. Riley's tomb was to my back when I took the picture. The Indianapolis skyline is at the center of the horizon.

This was one of my favorite things that we saw. I assume it's a statue of the lady buried here. I believe her name was Susan Downing...

and she does not approve.

I found out that John Dillinger is buried in Crown Hill but we didn't see his grave. maybe next time.

birthday fun times!

Today is my birthday! Yay, me. It was a good day, but tomorrow will be better because it’s the start of my 5-day weekend!! Oh yes, freedom, temporary and sweet.

In celebration of my special day, I thought I would pull some info about this fine 297^th day of the year, 297^th in a leap year.

Famous names who share my birthday:

Ryan Reynolds – YUM!

Weird Al – not yum but still cool.

Nancy Grace

Robert Trujillo –bassist for Metallica

Johnny Carson

Stuff that happened on my birthdate, but not the same year I was born.

1641 – Outbreak of the Irish rebellion – appropriate because I am both slightly Irish and occasionally rebellious.

1958 – premier of the Smurfs

2001 – Apple announces the ipod – funny because I don’t really like ipods all that much

Other stuff happened too, but I don’t need to go on all day, do I? I got these juicy tidbits from Wikipedia so if you want to see what happened on your birthday, just go there and type in your birthdate, minus the year. 

movie: The Avengers

Description from IMDB: “Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.”

That’s kind of a lame description. Basically Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk, Nick Fury and assorted other characters team up to stop Loki (Thor’s adopted brother) from facilitating an alien invasion.

As you can imagine, most of this movie consists of kick ass action-y scenes. Heroes flying around, stuff blowing up, witty banter. It was all quite wonderful – just the way I like my flicks.

Seeing the characters from various other stories interact with each other was one of the greatest aspects of this movie. They brought along their respective histories and entered into brand spanking new conflicts.

The only complaint I had about this movie was how annoying Captain America was. Next to Iron Man’s wit and intelligence, he came off like a self-righteous dork. I didn’t like him as much in this movie.

The Avengers was totally awesome. I would love to see a sequel. It gets an A.