Various Updates

I have really been neglecting my blog lately; I have a feeling Ally is going to come after me soon if I don’t post something!

What can I say? Things have been busy. So some random updates here…

NaNoWriMo

I am still mostly on track. So far I’ve written 27,481 words, so only 22,519 to go! I’m mostly on track, although I haven’t done my daily writing allotment yet today (Friday). Its been a long day, so I may just take a break tonight.

For the most part, I’ve managed to write just about every day of the month, although on some days I didn’t do very much. I think on my worst day I only did around 400 words. Most other days I came close to or surpassed by goal by a small amount.

As for the quality of what I’m writing. Well, there are some parts so far that I like, and I still think there is a worthwhile story in here somewhere, but there are also large patches that I know are going to need to be changed or cut completely when I go back and edit.

Now that I’m so far in, I’m finding it a little more difficult to shut off my inner editor and just write. Yesterday was particularly annoying…I’m really not happy with what I wrote at all. I think I am going to try going in a slightly different direction from this point.

Fortunately, I’m taking vacation days next week, plus the long weekend for Thanksgiving. So I should have the time to crank out the words and finish by the end of the month!

Gadgets

Somewhat related to books, although more about reading them than writing them…a few days ago I got a new Kindle Touch 3G. I went with the pricier version with 3G so that I would still have the option to download books when I’m not connected to a wifi network.

This was an upgrade over my old 2nd generation Kindle. The nice thing is, it only cost me $9.99! Okay, that’s not exactly accurate. I had a $100 visa gift card that has been sitting around unused for nearly a year. I also had $30 worth of Best Buy “reward” gift certificates. So I used all that to pay for it and only had to shell out $9.99 of my actual money.

So far I like the new Kindle. It is much lighter and sleeker than my old one, and I like the fact that I don’t have to listen to loud button-clicks when turning pages since it is all done via the touch screen. It will definitely be lighter next summer when I take it backpacking. Also, even though I got the 3G model, you can also connect it to a wifi network when available, which seems to transfer books more quickly. My old one did not have that option.

Just for kicks, I generated a Kindle version of my novel-in-progress to see what it would look like in that form. Here’s a picture:

I find it kind of cool to see this. I’ve also tested out reformatting it as a paperback novel and it comes out to about 107 pages. Somehow the words look different when presented as an actual book.

Of course, being busy with NaNoWriMo means I haven’t really had time to read much with the new Kindle. I read a few pages of a book I started before November and one short story. That’s about it so far.

House Projects

I am really behind on posts about recent house projects. A few weeks ago, Renee took out these big ugly sliding door in the shed (it was really just a piece of plywood pretending to be a door), reframed the opening, and installed a nice, real door and window. It looks great! I have a bunch of pictures to the process that I need to organize and write about.

Then she’s been working to help Carolyn and Ally redo their living room / dining room with new lighting, a new half-wall room divider with columns, new insulation in the attic, and paint. It turned into a pretty big project (all starting from just one new light fixture). It isn’t quite finished, but I think they are pretty happy with it so far. The plan is to work on painting tomorrow. I think this whole thing will be done in time for Thanksgiving dinner!

Again, I’ve got plenty of pictures – I just need to find the time to get them organized and write a post!