And in case anyone was wondering, Firefox apparently does not do its spellcheck thing in the title box. Because "updatery" is totally not a word.
Soo, despite life, I am currently on day 33 of 100 words a day or bust. And it's awesome. Last night was possibly the worst night of the semester, what with family and emotional issues and I had an essay to write that I really shouldn't have put off so long but of course did, but I got 753 words in anyway. Pretty good words, too. Probably not great ones, but they're words, so I'm totally not complaining. Which brings the currently untitled fantasy to a grand total of... wait for it... 20,957 words! Epic! (I'm probably totally hitting 21k tonight. Yay!) So that's exciting. And I'm still sort of working on my NaNo Redux, though I'm not actively writing on it at the moment, for various plot-related reasons (namely, the lack thereof...).
So. George.
George is the name of my pet slime mold. I know I mentioned him before, though I don't remember if I'd named him yet. I really like George. He is the closest thing I can get to having a pet in the dorms. No, he's not fuzzy, and he's not cuddly, and I don't really want to touch him because that would be kind of gross... but if I can't have a rat, or my kitties, or a dog, I'd rather have a slime mold than nothing, you know?
Sadly, George is having some "behavioral" issues. Really, they're not his fault at all, because it's his nature to grow. That's the problem: growth. He continues to grow beyond the bounds of his petri dish a lot faster than I can feed him and hopefully convince him to go after the inside food. So, right now, he's sitting in a Ziploc bag, and his little yellow masses of tendrils are spreading all over the place. I really, really don't want to ever get rid of George. Ever. I love George. He is awesome. (And, yes, I'm emotionally attached to him, a bit, which is really, really weird, but I'm having a hard time adjusting to the whole transition to adult life thing so I think it's understandable.) But that will be difficult if he continues to do this growing-unchecked thing.
Sigh. Life is hard.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Slime Molds and Updates and Bears, Oh My
...okay, going to warn you ahead of time: there will probably be no actual mention of bears. Except for right then. So there kind of was. Hah! I'm awesome. (Not really.)
But seriously, folks...
So, today was a lot better than Tuesday, when I had a panic attack and literally no way to get in contact with anyone to talk me out of my panic because I have no way to pay my phone bill because it's paid online and so my phone service has been cut off. Yeah, that sucked. Today was much better. And now I have a pet slime mold.
What's a slime mold? It's slimy. It's moldy. And it magically transforms from DEMON BLOB FROM SPACE to a spore-producing not-so-slimy thing and back again for random reasons I wasn't quite able to make out from the fungus demonstration where I got my pet slime mold. (Slime molds are not technically in the fungus kingdom, but they're still included in mycology, apparently. Fun!) Actually, I like fungi. And learning about them. They're quite fascinating in a strange way. Part of my interest stems from the (not so productive when looking at my original goals) research I did for my NaNo novel, which involved material-based magic. I was not able to find much on medicinal or other popular and historical uses for mushrooms, but I did learn random interesting facts which I've totally forgotten by now and also saw many pictures of rather fascinating non-plant things. Which somehow resulted in me taking this introductory plant pathology course focused on mushrooms.
It's actually a really fun class. The professor's freaking hilarious.
Anyway, speaking of my NaNovel (if you remember from way back when thirty bajillion words ago, because, y'know, I'm awful wordy), I am re-doing it. I'm calling it the NaNo 2011 Redux, or Redux for short, because it still has no title. And some things are sort of different about it.
And one thing, or rather, one person is very, very different.
So, first draft, the draft I was "writing" during NaNo (the one that sucked beyond all description, except maybe for a couple of places, but surely this time I'm not just ragging on it because I wrote it...) has this character named Del. Del is very quiet. Reserved. Has, like, three lines in 32,000 words, despite being a main character (to be fair, he actually only shows up in like two scenes, but still... wow, kind of non-present for a main character, wasn't he...). He just. Doesn't. Talk.
Cut to this new version, with mostly everything the same except better and there's this dude, right? He's a fed, or pretending to be one, and manages to involve himself in FMC Lyssa's life. Earlier today, I wrote a 455-word scene snippet where this guy and Lyssa exchange some pretty awesome banter-at-gunpoint.
You can tell where I'm going with this, right? I'm not exactly being as subtle as I think I'm being. ...or something like that.
Yeah, that dude? Del. Del is now a chatty federal-agent-imposter-person. Of course, the important part is still the same--he's still a "demon," which is short for "I don't have a better term for these guys so I'm just going to call them demons even though that word has the wrong connotations for what I'm looking for."
Anyway, did I mention the 100-words-a-day thing? Probably. I think I did. Anyway, that's still working out great. I think my writing's improved already (*stance of happy*). But, for now it's changed a bit--it's now 200 words a day. 100 on the project I've been working on these past two-ish weeks, 100 on Redux.
I'm kind of worried that I'm losing momentum on the first project, but I am NOT dropping this one without a fight. I will drop it when I literally have to pay for each tortuous new word with sweat of blood, and not a day earlier! Rawr.
...geez, I'm a freak.
But seriously, folks...
So, today was a lot better than Tuesday, when I had a panic attack and literally no way to get in contact with anyone to talk me out of my panic because I have no way to pay my phone bill because it's paid online and so my phone service has been cut off. Yeah, that sucked. Today was much better. And now I have a pet slime mold.
What's a slime mold? It's slimy. It's moldy. And it magically transforms from DEMON BLOB FROM SPACE to a spore-producing not-so-slimy thing and back again for random reasons I wasn't quite able to make out from the fungus demonstration where I got my pet slime mold. (Slime molds are not technically in the fungus kingdom, but they're still included in mycology, apparently. Fun!) Actually, I like fungi. And learning about them. They're quite fascinating in a strange way. Part of my interest stems from the (not so productive when looking at my original goals) research I did for my NaNo novel, which involved material-based magic. I was not able to find much on medicinal or other popular and historical uses for mushrooms, but I did learn random interesting facts which I've totally forgotten by now and also saw many pictures of rather fascinating non-plant things. Which somehow resulted in me taking this introductory plant pathology course focused on mushrooms.
It's actually a really fun class. The professor's freaking hilarious.
Anyway, speaking of my NaNovel (if you remember from way back when thirty bajillion words ago, because, y'know, I'm awful wordy), I am re-doing it. I'm calling it the NaNo 2011 Redux, or Redux for short, because it still has no title. And some things are sort of different about it.
And one thing, or rather, one person is very, very different.
So, first draft, the draft I was "writing" during NaNo (the one that sucked beyond all description, except maybe for a couple of places, but surely this time I'm not just ragging on it because I wrote it...) has this character named Del. Del is very quiet. Reserved. Has, like, three lines in 32,000 words, despite being a main character (to be fair, he actually only shows up in like two scenes, but still... wow, kind of non-present for a main character, wasn't he...). He just. Doesn't. Talk.
Cut to this new version, with mostly everything the same except better and there's this dude, right? He's a fed, or pretending to be one, and manages to involve himself in FMC Lyssa's life. Earlier today, I wrote a 455-word scene snippet where this guy and Lyssa exchange some pretty awesome banter-at-gunpoint.
You can tell where I'm going with this, right? I'm not exactly being as subtle as I think I'm being. ...or something like that.
Yeah, that dude? Del. Del is now a chatty federal-agent-imposter-person. Of course, the important part is still the same--he's still a "demon," which is short for "I don't have a better term for these guys so I'm just going to call them demons even though that word has the wrong connotations for what I'm looking for."
Anyway, did I mention the 100-words-a-day thing? Probably. I think I did. Anyway, that's still working out great. I think my writing's improved already (*stance of happy*). But, for now it's changed a bit--it's now 200 words a day. 100 on the project I've been working on these past two-ish weeks, 100 on Redux.
I'm kind of worried that I'm losing momentum on the first project, but I am NOT dropping this one without a fight. I will drop it when I literally have to pay for each tortuous new word with sweat of blood, and not a day earlier! Rawr.
...geez, I'm a freak.
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