NaNoWriMo - Less than 12 Hours

Since rising from my slumber around 7:30, I've been taking care of annoying tasks.  I've finished up my leaves (as finished as they're getting until the rest of them fall, anyway), put on new windshield wiper blades, and attempted to put in a new headlight bulb for half an hour before giving up.  I'll be letting the pro's handle that one.  The instructions in the owner's manual of my Cobalt suck pretty hard.  I figured I could probably do it but I'd have to leave my burning piles of leaves unattended for too long.

Did I already mention I'm working from home tomorrow in the hopes that I'd be getting my water heater installed?  If they don't, I might have to leave the back door unlocked and talk the parents into keeping Belle one day while I'm at work.  My dad said he'd do it but I feel bad having him spending a day doing it.

NaNoWriMo kicks off in less than half a day.  Since I'll be working from home tomorrow, I'll be getting up at my normal time and squeezing in some writing before I start working for the day.  I'm not feeling as confident as I was last week, before everything at my house started breaking down at the same time.  Still, I should be able to hit 50k.  I'll probably be working until December 15th to finish my story like last year.

Carrie and I are slated to hand out candy in Farmington tonight at her parents's house.  She's got another sinus infection so we might end up watching Community at her house instead.

Better go tend the fires.  They'd better be done by 2.

2

Two more days until NaNoWriMo.

Last night's writer's meeting was a complete success.  Big E and I bounced ideas off of one another and some beer was consumed.  I have a much better handle on my main character now but I came up with that on the drive to his house.  Motivations of many of the characters are much clearer.

My yard is about 80% leaf free.  I've got an hour of bagging to do tomorrow morning along with some touching up.  I'm hoping it won't be windy so I can burn them.  No dirt mustache this time.

I took Belle over for her run after I finished doing leaves.  She ran like a maniac and should sleep good the next few days.  She was limping a bit.  I might have to start giving her fish oil like Carrie gives her dog.  Pictures are forthcoming.

The Last Friday Before NaNoWriMo - Complications

I'm working from home today and I'll tell you why.  Last night, Carrie's feet were cold so I decided to fire up the furnace rather than tough it out until November 1st.  Fat chance.  The furnace wouldn't kick on no matter what I did.  So I resolved to call the heating and cooling company I use.  Not a huge deal.

This morning, I went to take a shower and discovered my "hot" water was only a degree or two warmer than the cold.  So now I'm working and killing time until the HVAC place opens so I can get my furnace looked at and likely a new water heater.  At least it all happened BEFORE NaNoWriMo.  Until the furnace gets fixed, I think I'm going to bake things to warm up the house a bit and drink herbal tea to heat up my innards.  It's hard to type when your fingers are cold.

In writing news, I'm scheduled for a writer's meeting with Big E tonight.  I had one with him last year before NaNoWriMo started and it helped me sort things out.

I spent a lot of time yesterday on the way home from work dealing with the motivations of the crew of the Silver Scarab.  I think their relationships will fall apart once they take some of the Hule on board and begin the journey back to Ur, possibly with a fire breaking out or some weird space storm.

Four

After today, we've only got four more days until NaNoWriMo starts.  Things are getting more tense.  Things are falling into place for me but my outline still has a big blank spot in the middle.  The beginning and the end are really clear though.  I've been toying with the idea of writing the last few chapters first and working toward them.

Some things that will happen to Fenlock as he chases after his lady "love":

1. A spider equipvalent of the Babelfish from H2G2 will crawl into his ear.  It will help him understand and speak all languages.  It will also start laying eggs...
2. Sex with a butterfly woman.  He'll wake up with the woman gone and a cocoon stuck to one of his legs.
3. Enslavement
4. Waking an alien sorceror thats been in suspended animation for seven hundred years
5. Getting lost on an alien world and having to barter with the natives
6. Some kind of ritual scarification

Miscellanous things from the emergency list:

1. Riders of giant wasps - this will involve wasp larvae hatching from some kind of giant space worm.  The insect kingdom spoon feeds me ideas sometimes
2. Sargasso - a collection of wrecked ships and asteroids, held together by webbing from the sun spiders.  I think it's a bandit settlement but I'm not sure.  I guess I could transport the Vaults of the Bandit King there from the unfinished Van Owen fragment, possibly with the frog-like robot.
3. Many kinds of spider-hybrids - spider/ape, spider/wolf, spider/giant centipede...  I figure the Skinweavers will be experimenting quite a bit since they have access to all sorts of ancient magic
4. Hints of the Phleg out in the darkness beyond the Web.  The fungus folk will be the main villains of the sequel
5. Hornet men - I like the idea of a Dyson Sphere type of structure around a small sun that acts like a hornet's nest of colossal proportions.

The Scooba Blog - part 2

The Scooba has been running for at least 45 minutes now.  Here are some observations:

1. The Scooba tells you when it's water needs changing.  This is great considering you don't want to be scrubbing your floor with dirty water.
2. The Scooba drives over the dirtiest areas multiple times.  Since I occasionally drip coffee on the floor in a nearly comatose state, this is great.
3. Belle doesn't hate/fear the Scooba as much as she does the Roomba.  While she clearly dislikes it, I don't think she thinks the Scooba is going to eat her treats.

Conclusion:
For the lazy man, the Scooba is the only way to get the kitchen floor clean.  Does it do as good a job as I would in the equivalent amount of time?  No.  Does it do better than I would by sitting in front of the computer and not scrubbing the floor?  Hell yes.  If you're a stickler for cleanliness, the Scooba (and the Roomba, for that matter) is not for you.  If you're the kind of person who likes to say "Fuck it.  That's clean enough for today.  I can always run the robot again tomorrow," you'll be satisfied with the Scooba.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to research how difficult it is to glue a curling shingle back down.  Damn wind.

One of Life's Dilemmas

Is it wrong to NOT take off work Friday for the sole purpose of getting a Bionic Apple from Merbs?

ksdk.com | St. Louis, MO | Bionic Apples

Ten Things I Want to Accomplish Before NaNoWriMo

November 1st is only a few short days away.  Here are ten things I want to do before then.

• Finish reading A Touch of Death by Charles Williams
• Finish reading The Nomad of Time by Michael Moorcock
• Finish watching season 1 of Community
• Give my leaves another go round and burn them
• Get rid of the red wasps in my front gutter
• Test my new iRobot Scooba
• Haul my two stacks of books down to the used bookstore for store credit.
• Flesh out my outline for Wandering the Web of Worlds
• Add more items to my emergency list
• Take more fall pictures while I'm still allowed to go outdoors

One thing that about NaNoWriMo that saddens me a bit is that my quest for a spot in the top 50 of all time on Goodreads will have to be put aside.  I'll lose some ground but it's for the best.