adiva_calandia

Crossposted from tumblr.

CAPITOL HILL ADVENTURES:

Come home from writing group to find a dude asleep in the hallway;

while talking to him, spot another tenant poking her head out the door down the hallway, who shrugs when I make eye contact with her, just as bemused as I am;

call the building manager, who tells me to call the cops;

while on the phone with 911, discover that the dude has vanished;

hang up after the 911 operator says, blithely, “oh! Well, call back if he comes back.”

(Find myself very jumpy when the building manager knocks on the door some little time later to check and see what happened.)

ETA: OH, but on the plus side, I broke 35,000 words on NaNo at the write-in. \o/! Hypothetically that means I could slack off down to 1500 words a day for the next ten days!

And, you know. Spend those extra 100 words on Yuletide, or something.

Current Mood: unsettled
Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/825605.html

My new favorite thing I've written in this year's NaNo is the "The Scrolls of Pythia say" scene:

“But where does it say that John is the Channel?” Anika asks.

“Lemme see.” Larry pulls the book back momentarily. “I mean, besides the fact that he can read text that’s been untranslated by the rest of the world for like three centuries… Here.” He gives the book back to John. “Start here.”

John swallows, licks his lips, and starts reading.

“One from the-- empire, struck down by the-- I have no idea what that word is.”

“‘Apple,’” Hyarith supplies.

“...You are fucking kidding me,” Anika says. “That book does not fucking predict you working at Microsoft.”

“Sorry, hon,” Larry says, spreading his hands. “It really fucking does.”

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/825545.html

In spite of the fact that I probably won't quite make my daily word-count (I'm only 500 words away, but ... ehhhhhh), I feel like I was really pretty productive in terms of writing today! I did some work on my Yuletide assignment, which I'm starting to think actually may not suck, and got through some good scenes in the NaNovel, and even snuck a blog post, a smidge of RPing, and the beginning of an idea for a Shakespeare Deleted Scene to work on post-NaNo.

Plus I went for a run, which was preeeeetty terrible as runs go because it was COLD and RAINY and ugh ugh ugh. Just not feeling it. I may need new music.

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/825325.html

ghjkjlkfdsa the angry post I started this morning for my real-person blog about Christopher McCandless and Alaska-as-eldritch-force-I-mean-what is over 2000 words long

but have I written anything on my NaNovel

NOPE

good thing I got ahead of the game last night -____-

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/823373.html

OH HEY DID I MENTION ABOUT LAST NIGHT:

50073 / 50000
(100.15%)

Hilariously, though, look at what the NaNoWriMo validation software came up with:

An extra THREE HUNDRED WORDS.

Not that I'm complaining.

Okay, normally I keep the NaNoWriMo stuff locked because I am vaguely paranoid about plagiarism (mostly I'm paranoid about somehow being accused of plagiarising myself if some editor down the line googles a phrase and goes "Excuse me, who is this adiva_calandia person?"). But I have to share a few things. First:

38859 / 50000
(77.72%)

Second, the current manuscript is 93 pages long. 93 fucking pages. Not counting the stuff I wrote last year.

And last, see if you can spot the moment in the following passage where I literally fell asleep and continued to type:

“They told me I wasn’t,” she said plaintively. “I’m not. England already has a Queen, and I’m not to say I’m the queen because that would be, be, that would be treason. To say I’m the queen when there already is a Queen. But I never said I was the Queen, only a Queen, and not even Queen of England. I know I can’t be Queen of England.”

“Why can’t you?”

“It’s not like here,” Alice explained seriously. “You can’t just earn it and you have to have . . . two sisters along for sniping?

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/773836.html

25000 / 50000
(50%)

WHAT.

INTERNAL SCREAMING.

THE LAST THOUSAND WORDS ARE SO BAD GUYS, OH MY GOD, I CAUGHT MYSELF BLATANTLY RIPPING OFF FIRESTARTER RIGHT DOWN TO "YOU MUSTN'T START FIRES," JKLJFDSA FUCK YOU SELF, BUT IT WILL ALL GO AWAY, BUT GOD SERIOUSLY I THINK I MIGHT NOT POST THIS LAST SECTION BECAUSE IT'S JUST TERRIBLE AND DERIVATIVE IN THE WORST WAY AND HACKISH AND. AAAAH.

BUT I'M HALF DONE.

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE ALLCAPS SCREAMING. IT WON'T HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER FIFTEEN DAYS.

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/773048.html

And on that day, no words were written and no fucks were given. Ugh, how do you productivity.

(The day is young yet, but. Ugh. No words to add to the count yet. I WILL GET THEM IN THERE, I am just lacking in motivation. At least I got some website work done.)

Somebody please kick me in the ass and tell me to write some fucking ridiculous ESCAPE FROM BEDLAM hijinks

They don't have to make sense, they just have to get onto the page

Right?

Crossposts: http://adiva-calandia.livejournal.com/772366.html

1684 / 50000
(3.37%)

I cheated a little by dropping in a ~300 word chunk from the first draft of the story that I wrote a while ago (because it was three hundred words of very carefully written exposition and fuck it, I'm not going to waste time on rewriting exposition when I could be hurrying ahead to plot), but I'm pretty pleased with myself. :D

Writing Sherlock Holmes as a snarky, sullen 23-year-old is WAY TOO MUCH FUN.

So people -- mostly at school -- keep badgering me to read some of my NaNovel. The teacher sponsoring me posted my winner's certificate in the hall, you see. *facepalms, laughing*

Now, probably none of those people are going to see this (if they do, I'll be worried), but since a couple people on my f-list were also interested, I thought I'd post part of it.

( Chapter 10: In which a director is avoided, coffee is delivered, and the techs try to decide who would win -- Buffy or River. )

I am largely incommunicado today, due to being at the theater from 12:30 until 10, and then prom until midnight. Have a good Saturday, all.

50,123 / 50,000
(100.2%)

:DDDD

It's garbage, but it's therapeutic garbage, and who cares, anyway? I did it, in spite of everything. That's the kickass part.

Next challenges: running A Christmas Story and avatar!Nita plot before the end of the year. Oh, and doing the rest of the college apps.

(Now maybe this journal can go back to having actual content!)

Current Mood: :D

*facepalm* I am such a dork.

( Shakespeare NaNo )

Current Mood: productive

Couldn't sleep. Not sure if it's the caffeine from this afternoon, the Sudafed, the relative inability to breathe when lying down, or a combination of all three -- probably that last -- but I finally decided I may as well be productive if I'm going to be insomniac.

42,140 / 50,000
(84.3%)

Think I'll go try sleeping again.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Almost - Bowling for Soup

41,141 / 50,000
(82.3%)

Nngh. My nose is all stuffy and my eyes are all watery and I'm feeling pretty punk, so. Bedtime.

Only 9000 words to write tomorrow. *headdesk* That's, what, about 18 pages?

Maybe I'll take the parentals up on that offer of staying home from school. On the condition that I get out of the house to write, though.

Just finished The Secret Garden!

Thoughts:

( Should I be worried about spoilers? Oh well, better safe than sorry. )

Now. I have a hazelnut latte and twenty minutes before BFF shows up. Let's go for another 500 words.

31,012 / 50,000
(62.0%)

30,752 / 50,000
(61.5%)

And Mom just passed 50,000 and has informed me that her life "is now devoted to getting you to finish this and your CMU application."

Wow. I can barely restrain my enthusiasm for this plan.

*facepalm* I can't work at home. I have to get out of here to write well. There are too many distractions.

Plans for today are to go out for coffee at 3, settle in to up the wordcount, meet with BFF at 5 for further coffee consumption, and then head over to the gay bar to watch The Rocky Horror Show (yep, live!) from 6:15 to about 9:30.

Current Mood: grumpy

30,005 / 50,000
(60.0%)

Damn STRAIGHT.

Current Music: Both Hands - Ani DiFranco

27,646 / 50,000
(55.3%)

Argh. I've hit a wall. Dammit.

Current Mood: sleepy

For the record: Got a good ten hours after reading House of Leaves plot, though I woke up with my blankets tangled from tossing and turning. I, uh, suspect that both of these are due to the fact that I left my dimmer lights juuuust a little bit on all night.

Yep. I'm a wimp and I'm not afraid to admit it. :D

But srsly, massive fangirling for everyone involved. I could go through and point out all the parts that made me love specific characters/muns so much, but I'd end up spoiling the whole plot. *sigh* I wish I had more time to be playing, lately.

In other news, I ~~have~~ had freshly steamed asparagus that is delicious, I broke 20k words on my NaNovel last night, and I feel pretty good about things at the moment. Hopefully rehearsal won't ruin the good feeling.