I won't do NaNoWriMo.

It sucks, but this is my third year. I really can't afford to get caught up in a project that I will undoubtedly begin to procrastinate with in favour of dissertation, preparatory reading, and getting plenty of vegetables and fresh air.

It's time for me to get tough with myself. I start working properly tomorrow. NOT doing NaNoWriMo.






.... if however I should get the urge to start writing a story, say, today, there's no harm in that. Because I'm not doing NaNoWriMo. If I start writing 1700 words a day, why, that's just a freaky coinkidink. Because I'm not doing NaNoWriMo. I'm just a girl who likes writing to chill in the evenings, and just happens to have had an idea for an easy light-hearted project, and happens to have started today, the 1st of November, the same day as millions of others are beginning their novels.

But I'm totally not doing NaNoWriMo. That would be crazy.

I should have paid closer attention to my plot bunnies today. While I was concentrating on stuff like breakfast, Bollywood and Cicero and Clodius having bitch fights over building shrines in each other's houses... they came up with a plot for my NaNoWriMo.

Which they've just presented me with with expectant expressions.

A plot which is:

1. Something I actually really want to write now
2. Something SHORT, that I feel I could pull off easily in 30 days
3. Something not so significant that I feel I'd care enough to write it outside of November...
4. ... with a plot with a message that I'll feel really bad if I DON'T write it.

DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT. STUPID PLOT BUNNIES.

Doing NaNoWriMo would be a STUPID thing to do. A really, REALLY ***STUPID*** thing to do. It's my final year, and even though I've got loads of free time at the moment, essays are going to kick in any day now, and I should really be working on my dissertation. Setting myself an extra 1700 words to do a day would, as said before, be very very stupid.

WHY WILL MY BRAIN NOT ACCEPT THIS. I CAN HEAR THE PLOT BUNNIES PLOTTING, DAMMIT.

*headdesk*



LATER: OK, I've tried the tough love. I made myself go back and look at my LJ entries from last November, when I did NaNoWriMo. And while I clearly had issues with my plot... I never actually regretted doing it.

THIS ISN'T HELPING.

This can be the only explanation for me coming on here, just before I go to sleep, and pledging the following:

Since I do not have the time for NaNoWriMo this year (*TEAR*), I will instead do ONE THING FANDOM RELATED EVERY DAY.

Whether this is writing a chapter of Sylinder the Sitcom, or the crack fic about Mohinder and Adam!Lizard, making a macro, or indeed DOING MY DISSERTATION (ahahahaha I still can't believe I get to do that) I will do something.

Because November is cemented in my head as a month of creativity.




Alternatively, I have the crazy idea of a 30-person NaNoWriMo. Where you are e-mailed the work in progress, add at least 1700 words, and e-mail it on again before midnight of that day to someone who WILL be able to add more before the day is out.

I'm willing to start this chain. Is anyone else in?




On another note, IT'S SNOWING IN LONDON.

My holiday on Brownsea Island was awesome. It's a small island in Poole Harbour, owned by the National Trust, and there are only a couple of cottages and a castle on it, so when the tourist boats leave at 5pm, you have it pretty much all to yourself. It's basically all woodland, with so much wildlife, like geese and peacocks and deer and bunnies and red squirrels and I basically feel like a kid again as soon as I get there.

We took it pretty easy - during the day we'd go out for a walk, or visit somewhere, and then come back early afternoon and just walk around the island or sit out front on the quayside and watch all the big ferries go by. It's such a beautiful peaceful spot, I love it there. One evening I went for a walk by myself and came across a whole family of deer, who didn't run away at the sight of me, but just stood in the trees looking back, seemingly just as interested in me as I was in them. I also saw a baby deer, Bambi-sized, and nearly exploded from cute.

Mum and I went to see Prince Caspian. It was an OK film - I actually liked most of the changes they made to the plot, the second half of the book where Susan and Lucy go off with Aslan is actually a bit dire for people not as religious as CS Lewis - and, of course, the casting decision to make Prince Caspian a) older b) hot c) Ben Barnes and d) Spanish was one that deserves all the awards it can get. Because DAYAM.

We stayed for a week and then went to my grandparents' house in the heart of Devon. America-types, Devon is the kind of place where you go for lunch in towns called Beer, and Duck Derbies are a huge Sunday afternoon entertainment that brings in people from towns all over. It's also the kind of place where the House of Marbles is the main tourist attraction. Not that there's anything wrong with the House of Marbles, it's fun watching huge marble runs going and people making glass bowls. I'm just saying.

I got a lot of MyNoWriMo done on some nights - over 3,000 words was my record - and on others, didn't write anything at all. Like the last night, where I was suffering from the stripy sunburn and we went out to watch the fireworks over Poole harbour. For the benefit of Claire, here is how my word count progressed:

11th: 18,031
12th: 20,102
13th: 23,180
14th: 23,180
15th: 24,333
16th: 26,518
17th: 27,532
18th: 31,701
19th: 31,701
20th: 33,438

It's going... OK. I know what's going to happen next, and something that's going to happen in the future, and the very end, but there's a disturbing amount of in-between plot that I don't know. Like who murdered the Viscount, for one. Oops. But hey, I just had the main character cause the end of the world, so at least the title makes sense now.

On a random note, I need to see The Dark Knight. Like, NOW. I'm being so careful trying not to get spoiled AND YET some people are not as vague as they think they are. Dammit.

And finally, English iTunes needs to release Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog and soundtrack already. I spent a considerable amount of my journey home today humming it.

( Things I loved. Just because I have to get it out of my system. )

Hurray, catch-up complete! Back to Sims. Honestly, if I just wrote down the drama going on in my Royalty Challenge, coming up with plot would be so much easier.

These are my levels of procrastination at the moment. I will procrastinate from a higher one with a lower one.

8. Dissertation research
7. Other important stuff
6. Packing up old room
5. MyNoWriMo
4. Reading
3. Browsing internet not really doing anything at all
2. Playing Sims
1. Sleeping

Somehow cross-stitch has fallen off the list. My day is just one long series of procrastinating from one activity with another, and the Sims is proving most deadly of all. That's what I get for deciding to follow feudal system rules and trying to make good alliances between households. The only worse procrastination than Sims is not bothering to get out of bed in the morning till, well, it's barely morning any more.

It's 6. that's most crucial right now. I go home this Sunday and my room has to be packed up by then. At least I'm past important organising and bringing necessary stuff over to new house, and I'm down to just looking at something and deciding whether to bin it or find an excuse to take it home.

I also still have to write my daily words for MyNoWriMo. I'm already up to 2786 words and have the next few bits of story plotted out in my head - when characters are going to introduced and blah.

And even now by writing this entry I'm procrastinating from writing, tidying my room, and even EATING. I FAIL SO MUCH DURING THE HOLIDAYS.

reasonablycrazy, I'm a retwart.

My July NaNoWriMo is underway! Though, as trinityblack pointed out, since it's only me, her and possibly Robbie taking part, it's hardly 'National'. So instead, I'm calling it MyNoWriMo.

Working title is currently The Unusual Apocalypse of Thomas Cautious Van Helsing. It has vampires. None of them will sparkle unless I've deliberately tipped glitter on them specifically to mock them.

Wish me luck!

Wow, I haven't written properly on here in a while. I wish I could say I've been busy, but my exams have been done for a few weeks now, and I've... just been sitting around, doing cross-stitch and playing Sims and rewatching Battlestar Galactica after that OMG FINALE. I've just... always found better things to do. Like re-reading lists on Cracked. Or reading plots of films I'll never watch on wikipedia. Or... just napping. I never really appreciated napping before exams.

Basically, I've had nothing to procrastinate from, so I've procrastinated from productive procrastination by doing absolutely nothing. Perhaps this is why I always try to do so much at once - if I don't have anything to do, I do literally nothing.

Anyway! In this period of nothingness I have, in fact, done a few things which left me thinking "Whoa, this is going to be a HUGE entry on LJ" - and then written nothing. It was Treasure Trap's 3YGB, where I discovered I was very right in assuming that the refs were going to Screw Me and Screw Me Good with Plot. My character had sworn to protect a woman she'd rescued from a vampire at all costs - only to discover:

- The woman really didn't need protecting, she was practically River Tam
- The vampire hadn't been holding her captive, she'd been protecting her
- That vampire was a) extremely powerful and b) pissed at me
- Another vampire who was pissed at me was RIGHT THERE

And yet it was neither of those vampires who killed me, but a random one I met in a hallway who was bored. Still, AWESOME.

I also went to Kenilworth Castle, where Robert Dudley lived, and to Chatsworth, a big country house which they used as Pemberley in the Pride & Prejudice film, where we paddled in a fountain, did roly-polies on the lawn, and I got into such a discussion with a tour guide about a painting of the Siege of Thebes that I was allowed behind the velvet rope to point out some details in the picture! It was so exciting.

And now? Term's over, I've popped home for a quick (stupidly last-minute expensive) visit. Last night I went with my parents to a charity benefit thing a friend of theirs was hosting. My mum has clearly decided I'm her best hope for grandkids, because she dragged me over to meet a guy called Henry, whose own mum was dragging him over to meet me. Apparently he came to my birthday parties when we were kids, and we, no joke, played naked in paddling pools together. I have actually become Bridget Jones.

And now I have the summer holidays ahead of me. Nice, relaxing summer holidays. Aaaaah. I'm going to do cross-stitch and play Sims and go on holiday and CHILL. Because next year I plan to work my ass off.

Also this July, I'm going to do another NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping this will deter me from taking part this November, when there are essays and dissertation and "important" stuff like that, but knowing me, I'll still do it then as well. Mostly, it's because I couldn't decide whether to write Society of Illegal Scholars or my vampire superhero story this summer - this way, I can do both!

So if anyone else wants to join me in my July 30-day breakneck novel writing, feel free...

Both my summative essays are pretty much done! I just need to find world of references for one of them, and re-read the other one and insert references to the Oxford Classical Dictionary rather than wikipedia. I'm coping with exam stress with a good strategy of self-belief and denial.

trinityblack and I have already hit series 3 of Stargate, and it's amaaaziiing. At some point during the latest episode, another amazing alternate universe episode where Mirror!Sam and Mirror!Kawalski came through fleeing a Gou'ald (I may have possibly spelt that right) attack, I realised I've started shipping O'Neill/Sam, which is new. Also, I'm liking Daniel a bit less since they cut his hair. I have no idea why.

Barnas says that they change the opening music in series 6. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT??

I've kind of given up on Script Frenzy for this year. I'm going to keep writing the script, because I'm so happy and excited to have found a format for this story that works, but I'm not going to bother trying to hit 100 pages by the end of the month. Frankly, with exams and essays and similar impending dooms, I have enough deadlines to be worrying about. I want to spend the free moments I get just bimbling around the internet or doing cross-stitch.

Speaking of cross-stitch, it's taking over my life. For serious. I just ordered a whole bunch of them off e-bay as various presents for various people - including a 14"x14" 18 aida one of a ballerina for my mum. Which doesn't have any blank bits.

It's absolutely gorgeous, but... fuck, that's 63,504 stitches. TINY stitches. Mostly in blue and silver and white. White, on a white background. Boy, that's going to be satisfying.

I still kinda can't wait to do it. I'm going to make it for my mum - not for any specific birthday or Christmas, simply because I think it could possibly take months, but just as something to give her. I also have two for my friends, one of some cliffs for my dad (which is almost done!) and a girl sitting in the desert with a shooting star, which is for ME, controversially.

I'm going to get back to my cross-stitch now, actually. It's addictive.

Random blah entry alert.

Looks like my brain was entirely serious when it turned round and said "Yo, you're doing Script Frenzy." But at least I'm being productive with it. Well, as productive as one can be when procrastinating from writing summative essays. Basically, I'm writing a script for the TV pilot of a show of a story I've had in my head, like, FOREVER. Seriously. I first got the idea for it when I was 16 or something, just before my GCSEs, and it's sort of been developing and evolving all this time, and I had all the huge backstory and huge plot twists planned out, and all of the characters spent a good amount of time living in my head offering their unwanted opinions on stuff in my life. The bad guy was the hardest to get rid of.

But I never wrote it. I tried, I started a whole bunch of times, but I never did. *~*~*UNTIL NOW!!!!*~*~*

The characters are very happy at coming out to play. Though they're a bit surprised that they're suddenly in a modern setting. They've been living quite happily in Fantasy Medieval World for some time now, but suddenly, I randomly decide to make it Urban Fantasy and bring them all into the present. SURPRISE!

But I'm already 9 pages in. It's boring as hell, and I know I'm not even really getting onto interesting plot in the pilot, but the point is, this isn't just a random story (that's been dwelling in my head for nearly 4 years) - I already decided ages ago that it was so huge and epic, I'd never have a chance of writing it in full, so I was going to use the story in The Society of Illegal Scholars as a set of legends for the region.

(Society of Illegal Scholars continues to bug me, by the way. I said a while ago about how, when I come up with plot, I leave it gestating in the back of my head for while - I believe I used some kind of analogy about trying to get it from smoke to liquid but getting it out before it turns solid. Well, basically, the plot bunnies are tapping on the door between the front, sensible part of my brain, and the crazy back part where the story is, yelling "LET US OUT! IT'S GONNAAA BLOOOW!!!" It's pretty much ready, and IT WANTS OUT.)

But exams. Essays. Bleh.

PS: This week's xkcd makes me so happy. (http://xkcd.com/405/). I never even realised it was possible to ship stick figures.

There I was, all set to just buckle down and prepare for exams this summer. Sure, I only had five weeks, but I could manage it. As long as I just concentrated on that, and didn't procrastinate too much.

... I just signed up for Script Frenzy.

WTF I ACTUALLY HAVE A SICKNESS.

I hope that I find out at noon that my brain is just April Fooling me, and it's not expecting me to manage this.

.... and already my days suddenly seem that much emptier.

I mean, I know it's a Saturday, but I was just sitting at my computer thinking about what I had to do over the coming week - and it all seemed so SIMPLE.

I'm sure that this will be remedied tomorrow when I start that 'rhetoric of traditionality' essay and realise how difficult it is, and that I'm not just going to be able to easily slip it between lectures and preparing the stupid amounts of Latin I have to for each tutorial. Not to mention the Christmas social and entertaining Frankie (who's coming to visit, yay!)

OK, scratch what I just said. I DO have lots to do.

But... I already miss writing. I mean, I know it's only been a day, but I miss having a plot and characters to look after. Truman Capote once said finishing a novel is like 'taking a favourite child outside and shooting them'. Well, this isn't quite as bad as that. I've only known this story for a month, and we never really completely got along - we had arguments, and sometimes it went off and did things on its own I didn't approve of (like KILLING KITTENS) and it never liked to listen to me when I tried to get it to behave.

It was more like an argumentative child I was babysitting than a favourite child.

But now it's gone away, and I miss it. I know I could babysit for it again, but I don't know if I want to bother with the hassle, when the lovely child next door - Don't They Know - could still use looking after, and there's that new kid down the street The Society of Illegal Scholars who I quite want to meet. But I still remember when we got along, and how much fun we had then, and I'll quite miss those moments.

OK, that analogy got a bit carried away. But I think it sums up how I feel quite well.

So what next? I actually concentrate on work for the next two weeks, and then, come Christmas holidays, I sit down to edit Don't They Know already. At least get it to a standard I don't mind being read by people who are not my self-professed fan club (love you, Thea and Clare, thanks for early comments).

I try to get that done by Christmas, or at least New Year's, and then in the New Year I get to start the Society of Illegal Scholars! Yay! My goal is to have that finished by the exam period. Yes, I'm actually going to take this one slowly. I'm still not entirely sure what it's going to be about, but I'm unashamedly borrowing elements from Heroes (not the superpowers part), Maelstrom, Stardust, the Song of Milman Parry and a story I conceived ages ago in great detail but never actually wrote. I have real high hopes for it, I can't wait to start!

And then? Stop for exams. Then, over the summer holidays, start a new one. Yes, I'm repeating the process that produced Don't They Know all over again. Because it was so fun last time. Maybe I won't be quite so anti-religion in this one. Who knows what issues I'll be going through by then?

Wow. I'm planning really far ahead. But I didn't realise till I started writing Don't They Know how much I've missed writing. I wrote loads before I came to uni - half my comments in my yearbook from school are people asking for first copies of my first published novel - but then in my first year, I kinda just stopped. I tried NaNoWriMo, but didn't get far. I was just concentrating on Treasure Trap and living life.

But now I'm back into it, and I've remembered just how much I love it. The sound of typing keys is one of my favourites in the world, and the thrill of realising your characters have taken on a life of their own and are flying free from your control is just the best feeling. Nothing really compares to it.

Well, this entry's gone on longer than I was expecting. I'll stop now.

I finished my NaNoWriMo!!

( And have a shiny JPEG to prove it! )

So that's my anecdote for family gatherings at Christmas this year sorted.

"So Katie, how's your year been?"

*swirls drink in glass casually* "Oh, it's been challenging, you know, challenging - working hard, killing people at TT, that sort of thing - oh, and I completed two novels in six months, and am currently on my third..."

The 50,000th word? 'Ninja'.

I just realised while talking to Jackie. Latin isn't a dead language. It's not a living vibrant language, either.

No, Latin is an Undead language.

By all accounts, it should be dead. It should be dead and buried in the ground. And yet it somehow KEEPS ON GOING. It limps on, eating classicists' brains, and no matter how some try to bring it down, it just infects more and more and survives against all odds.

This is clearly why all scary rituals in movies are done in Latin.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo continues to go amazingly - but it comes at a price. I still have not managed to subdue my plot. And my plot is a sociopath. Not content with killing my main character, tonight it killed the Cute White Fluffy Kitten.

A KITTEN DIES IN MY NANOWRIMO.

THIS KITTEN RIGHT HERE: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/images/litter_kitten.jpg

And whenever I try to subdue it and keep it under control, it just sits down in the middle of my brain and does nothing, sulking.

Maybe we need relationship counselling.

Therapist: "So when did the problems start?"

Me: "Well... it were a bit shaky from the beginning. I mean, it was a new relationship, but I couldn't put as much time into it as I wanted - I still had lectures, and banquet to organise..."

Plot: "She just kept me locked up for most of the day. I felt stifled. Ignored."

Me: "I'm sorry!"

Plot: "Bit late for that now, isn't it?"

Therapist: "So naturally, when she did you let you out for the night..."

Plot: "OK, I may have done a little nuts. I just wanted to show her how fun and easy everything could be if she'd just trust me to look after myself."

Me: "You killed my main character! AND A KITTEN!"

Plot: "Hey, you set up both those situations. I just carried them out to their logical conclusions."

Me: "Oh, do NOT try to load the blame on me for this-"

Plot: "You're the one typing! I just make suggestions!"

Me: "And I HAVE to listen, because otherwise you completely ignore me! You just sulk, and it's impossible to do anything with you! We never go anywhere!"

Plot: "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME!"

Me: "WELL, YOU'RE NOT THE PLOT I MARRIED! YOU'VE CHANGED!"

Plot: "Oh, oh, NOW it all comes out! You're still enamoured with the 'Society of Illegal Scholars', aren't you? You already had your eye on THAT slutty plot when we first got together. You'd been eyeing it up all summer while in your first relationship with 'Don't They Know'-"

Me: "Oh, don't start-"

Plot: "- and it warned me, 'Oh, she's flighty, she gets easily distracted by whatever bright young thing walks past, and she's still got a thing for 'Society of Illegal Scholars', she won't be entirely faithful', and how you were ignoring THAT now, after your fantastic summer relationship. But I didn't listen. It misses you, you know."

Me: "I know, I want to spend more time with it, but-"

Plot: "But what? You had your problems, and now you don't want to try to make it work! So you're running off with 'Society of Illegal Scholars' as soon as you're off uni for Xmas! DON'T TRY TO DENY IT!"

Me: "You don't understand! 'Don't They Know' and I, we - we had a very public relationship, and we've got a lot of history - I will go back and sort things out, I promise!"

Plot: "Oh, just like you promised to go back to the Elementals?"

Me: "I was a different girl back then... it was fun while it lasted, but in the end, it was wrong for me."

Plot: "Huh."

Me: "Please can't we work this out? Just... try to work together? Till the end of November? Surely we can live with each other for another 15 days?"

Plot: "... I suppose so. But! As long as I get to do what I want."

Me: "Yes, fine."

Plot: "I want ninjas."

Me: "OK."

Plot: "Yay!"

Good. All sorted.

PS To make up for not being able to buy the SHINY STEAMPUNK LAPTOP OF SHININESS (http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm WANTS SO BADLY) I ordered myself THIS: https://www.gelaskins.com/skins.php?Device=1&Category=4&Skin=138&ProductCode=257

*dances*

I just had a really productive evening writing NaNoWriMo! I'm now over 23000 words, ahead of schedule! Sudden burst of productivity was due to that magic moment when the plot leaves your hands and flies away in various directions, and all you can do is cling on and try not to be left behind.

Various unexpected things happened. Deals were made. Hearts were broken. Fates were plotted. And it all seemed to be pootling along in an interesting, unexpected way.

And then my main character died. In a completely unplotted, unexpected way.

Oops.

So now, the plot takes a completely different direction. Because they have to go on a wacky roadtrip to the Underworld to get her back.

Hell, I'm not complaining. My characters are far better at creating my plots than me!

In other news - AWESOME.

( Heroes 2x08 - Four Months Ago )

In other news, my NaNoWriMo goes well. I'm getting steadily less and less behind in my writing. I loved the bit I wrote last night - Kayushi hooked up with Eros, the man slut.

Work is stressful. I have an essay on Caligula that I skipped a geeky shopping/ Stardust cinema trip and dinner at a friend's for, and still haven't finished, because I am annoyingly meticulous with my essays. My teacher kept trying to insist to me that I don't have to 'entertain' people with my essays. But that's the only kind of writing I know how to do!

What's even more wackily stressful is trying to organise banquet. None of the options are ideal, and right now, I'm trying to figure which will piss off externals LEAST. I've already had one threaten to lynch me if I mess this up. So, heh, no pressure, right?

I was also very busy writing the adventure for this Saturday, which went down really well and was pulled off with remarkably little difficulty considering our tiny monster crew, and led to a solid hour of angsty family drama roleplaying, which involved a duel, suicide, and glaring at trolls. Hee.

But I got to see Stardust again today. Yay! I also got to have sword practice with the likes of Attfield, Marios and Seaton. Terrifying.

And now I am busy writing NaNoWriMo. I've had great fun turning the love interest into a serial killer, and Dave, I fitted in Chekhov and his gun.

'Meanwhile, Niamh was waiting at the bar for a drink, when a man in a long black trenchcoat came and stood next to her. While he was waiting, he took out a gun from a hip holster and laid it on the bar.

“Oh, hey Chekhov,” said the barman, “Be with you in a minute. What can I get you?” he asked Niamh.'

And he will NEVER BE MENTIONED AGAIN.

In other news - I want the next episode of Heroes. NOW. I've seen the preview, I've seen a 3-minute clip, and more importantly, I've seen a photo of a character looking VERY HOT.

Another classic Kathed moment for the ages.

I was wandering along the road to Tescos, thinking about my NaNoWriMo. Apparently, I was very VERY deep in thought, because -

*THONK*

I walked headfirst into a pole.

There was actually comedy *DOONG* noise as I staggered backwards and fell over. I didn't quite see little birds flapping around my head, but I spent a good amount of time sprawled on the ground holding my head thinking, "What? Huh? OW! What happened? Pole - from nowhere! What?"

Finally I managed to get my thoughts working again and got up, and carried on going to Tescos, a little shaky on my feet now till my brain was fully functional again.

I mean, seriously. I walked into a POLE. I wasn't even looking at my feet, I was gazing vaguely off into space in front of me while I thought about whether Jamie aka The Pretty should be a serial killer mercenary for a demon/vampire.

That... is a very special moment. Witnessed only by a postman.

wordcount widgets

Ooh! It did.

It is HERE!

And before I plunge into my new novel with the first chapter, 'The Morning After the Night Before', I come on here and swear in the eyes of Livejournal to keep to the following charter over the next month:

1. I will write every day. Even if it's just a tiny bit.

2. I will not go on the Sims or Television Without Pity. Yes, I said it. All the recaps and motivators and HoYay discussions will still be there when I get back.

3. My reassessed priorities are: 1. Not failing my degree 2. Occasionally seeing friends 3. NaNoWriMo 4. Treasure Trap.

4. I will not let it get serious and epic. If emergency arises, I will throw in Ocean's 300 or LOLcats.

5. In emergency of procrastination, Olwen and Dave are given licence to do whatever it takes to get me writing again.

50,000 words! LET'S GO!