NaNoWriMo is going great guns so far.
I’ve kept ahead of my plan (as far as daily writing targets are concerned) so far. Last night I had a great run based mostly on a dare to include the Melbourne Cup in my story and managed about 3,500 words, which has taken me over the 10,000 mark for the first time in three goes.
I’ve been having a back-and-forth word war with my writing buddy Kamu in Port Hedland who keeps pulling ahead and making me stay up far too late. The bonus to that is that now both of us are doing really well, like this:
Naggers please note, I still expect lots of email, texts, facebook messages and the like to keep me honest.
I’ve been enjoying WriMoRadio and the pep talks that have been coming. Today we got one from author Jonathan Stroud which included this inspirational line:
Alchemists tried for centuries to turn base metals into gold. Every time we sit down and put words on paper, we succeed where they failed. We’re conjuring something out of nothing.
See. We’re not wasting an entire month. We’re making gold out of base metals!
Grocers are but merchants, the business of an Apothecary is a Mistery, wherefore I think it fitting that they be a Corporation of themselves
King James I of England in 1617, defending his decision to allow the Apothecaries to separate from the Grocers’ Guild.
Slightly old news, but worth repeating. After next year’s collection of telemovies, David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who. David has been a great Doctor and I will be sad to see him go, but he has had a reasonable run (I’m looking at you Christopher Eccleston) and I look forward to seeing what the new Doctor (and new boss Steven Moffat) are going to do with the show.
Ooo, stop press: Moffat is reported to want James Nesbitt as the new Doctor. Watch this space!
I’ve been talking about my participation in NaNoWriMo 2008 for a couple of months now. I’ve posted a few posts since then and hopefully made my intentions clear. There is no backing out now.
I’m asking anyone who reads this (and cares) to come onside and nag the life out of me. Leave a comment here, send me an email, a text message or give me a ring (if you know those details) and ask me how I’m going. Especially if you look at the charts on my sidebar and see that I’m not doing so well. If you really want to know how bad is bad, the NaNoWriMo crew have generated these detailed Progress Reports… click if you dare.
I really don’t want to have to start making up justifications for poor performance. It will all just be too embarrassing and will therefore be my incentive to write.
Thanks in advance.
Edit… I’ve decided not to keep all my charts on the sidebar. The NaNo site seems to be having a bit of a problem with a heavy workload now. No need for me to be adding to that every time someone hits my site (like it really makes a difference!).
Instead, they can stay on this page.
Country vs City Word War, Elsewhere in Australia vs Perth, North
North vs South Word War, Me in Esperance vs Kamu in Port Hedland:
Edit 2…: I should have just kept everything here, but I’m posting regular (milestone) updates here.
I’m not saying anything about the desirability of a new Islamic school in Camden, but judging by this sign shown in the ABC’s story on the issue I think some people could make better use of the schools they do have.
I’m sorry, but this sort of thing really brings out the Bob the Angry Flower in me.
Oops. 5 days to go and things are going into meltdown!
Daylight savings time is coming up this weekend in WA. Once it is over, we get to vote in a referendum (again).
Slashdot ran a story today about the end of DST in the northern hemisphere. Here a few of the more insighful comments.
I grew up in AZ - moved to a state that does daylight savings a couple years ago. I hate it. I never felt any lack for not having it or thought, “Gee, I wished we messed with the clocks twice a year.” - stoolpigeon
make everyone talk in UTC. That should do it. - frank_adrian
Russia has a dozen time zones and fares just fine - as does China, with only one. This business of claiming that ‘light’ is a problem needing a solution is the only issue here…- djupedal
So, scrap daylight savings time and replace it with a system of several thousand time zones, each updated daily based on the predicted “high noon” for that particular day at that particular location. If the prediction ends up being off by a few microseconds on a particular day, just change the time to correct it right then and there! Sure, wristwatches will become orders of magnitude more complex, but it’s the only way to have a truly sane and accurate system of time measurement. And after all, isn’t that what we all really want here? - eln
If people want/need to get up earlier or later to take advantage of the daylight then JUST GET UP EARLIER OR LATER! There is no good reason to change the clock backward and forward. Lots of places don’t do it and they don’t have any problems. - slashname3
