NaBloPoMo 2010

In The Long Kiss Goodnight Samuel L. Jackson plays a broken down private detective who has this habit of singing the things he’s doing. I’m not quite that tired yet but after four hours of curling I had to remind myself not to swallow the mouthwash this evening when I brushed my teeth.

I had wanted to include a dissection of some red hot economic issues as part of NaBloPoMo this year. I did not get to them.

More movie reviews were on the agenda but I haven’t figured out how to do more of them without feeling like I’m shorting the site for which I am supposed to be writing them under my real name.

I’d also wanted to get off my chest a rant about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and the death of friendship. I didn’t get to that either.

I guess not making these goals gives me an excuse to keep blogging into December and beyond. This isn’t a bad thing.

Ah the Monday after a holiday weekend. Nothing like it when you work at an organization teetering on the brink of insolvency to make sleep Sunday night hard to come by.

It’s character flaw, I know, but I’m always convinced after a holiday that I’m going to get back to my desk to find that they’ve decided they really don’t need me and all my crap has been packed into a box and set on what used to be my desk.  I’m sure if BigPharma could find one they’d be marketing a pill to cure random episodes of paranoia and self-doubt.

I also dread Mondays because, at least until the middle of March, Monday is one of two days in the week on which I am forced to go into the office.  Going into the office didn’t used to be so bad.  My room got a lot of sun and I had it to myself.  Alas, both of these conditions now evaluate to false.

Sharing an office isn’t so bad.  I’m getting used to the headphones again for music and the fact that my officemate has his phone ringer set way too loud.  What I can’t get used to is the fact that for 8 hours a day no matter how bright it is outside I don’t see the sun.

I know I shouldn’t be complaining.  After all, I still have a job and a paycheck coming in, and I do work at home two days a week. In many respects life could be a lot worse. That said, I’m just as happy to not be at my desk in the office.

[Read more…] about Cranberry pumpkin cookies: A photo essay

There are several reasons why I prefer participating in NaNoWriMo over participating in NaBloPoMo.With NaNoWriMo I get the satisfaction of having completed a first draft of a novel. That first draft potentially gives me something I can work on and shape into a story that someone night want to read some day. With NaBloPoMo what I write it typically fungible and tied to a particular or reflective of circumstances that likely will change over time.

The deadline pressure of NaNoWriMo, 50,000 words in 30 days, drives my creative impulse in a way that having to come up with 30 blog entries in that same time period does not. The blog is all about me, about my observations and analysis of the world around me; quite often the characters in a novel tend to take over the story and make it move in ways that lead me to end up some place I did not expect to be when I started.

And then there is the finishing aspect of it. NaNoWriMo has a fixed deadline: 50,000 words in 30 days. Ideally, you want to finish your first draft though I’m sure there are some people who hit word count, “win” NaNoWriMo, and never finish their stories. Since I always have family obligations, and, having participated in NaNoWriMo four times, since I know there will be days when the writing does not come or when I feel like a complete fraud every time my fingers touch the keyboard I always set a daily word count goal that exceeds what you need to write to complete NaNoWriMo. [Read more…] about November by the numbers

Here’s what I “bought” today:

• Electricity
• Water
• Telephone service
• Internet access
• Cable TV

But did I really buy those things today?  My electric company will bill me for my usage for today next month.  The water bill won’t show up until January.  The telephone and Internet we’ll pay for in the first 10 days of December, and the cable has already been paid for.

The whole point of Buy Nothing Day is to throw a wrench in the machine of mindless consumption, to show corporate America that we are not their puppets.  Wouldn’t it be better to do what some friends of mine have done and commit to a small holiday giving season and to consciously purchase only those items and nothing more?

I’m not for mindless anything, and mindless rebellion, particuarly when enacted by people wearing sweatshop-made jeans bugs the hell out of me.  Still, Buy Nothing Day seems like a good idea and until I can ferret out what about it bugs me I’ll keep participating.