Done it

Finished. Wrote over 50 thousand words in a month. Validated it. It is official now: I did a challenge and very unlike me, I finished. Now I have a short, very very patchy and in a state of dire need of editing, but totally existing and developable novel. Whoa!!!
And, totally coincidentally, right now the song is playing I've chosen for title: December Flower, from the band In Flames. (Because I needed a title at registration... but the album was one of my main inspirations.)
So, as the little badge on the right hand corner says, 50136 words, as the NaNo validator counts. I deleted some date and time stamps and of course every text editor is different, but my official word count was 50466. I'll take the lower number though, still good enough :) Actually, got a bit cloudy eyed at the end, but what the heck, I finally did something quite impressive! Even if it's full with grammar mistakes, typos, word repetitions, and probably will be painful to read again all the blabbering I wrote when the only thing I was concentrating on was getting to the daily word count.
 That display might look quite checkered, but I was actually quite surprised how many times I could make myself sit down at around 8pm and write for two hours (after the full 8 hours work day).
Will be good to be back to regular schedule tho :)

Finish line

48209 words. Also, should be sleeping for an hour now.

Also another things are going on as well so had a pretty rough and nervous week. I will be happy to see November go :)

Marathon

I've hit 42K today. In words written. Actually, I did a bit of overtime and now I'm on 42997 words. At this rate, I will actually finish on time. wow. Feels good even if I know that I'll have to throw out a lot of the words later during editing and even some of the scenes as well, probably, but it doesn't feel a waste. I take it as "exploring the characters back-story and motivations" :)

7003 words to go.

Nothing to write here, move along

Really, there's nothing to wrote about I haven't written about in the last couple of days. Well maybe the only thing is that my cousin wants to build a doll's house for her goddaughter for christmas and now she's constantly thinking about wood, miniaturized lighting and measurements. At least it made the day pass a bit quicker as she came up with something different every time we bumped each other during work.

On the 13th

So, I've missed two days of posting. Not that I had set out to do a NaBloPoMo or whajimacallit but it went well for 11 days - then I thought, hey, today, I'm gonna write up seventeen hundred earlier in the evening, not starting at 8 pm, and then blog too, right before going to bed. So I did, and totally forgot to post. Yesterday I remembered, did write earlier again because I had the Hunger Games movie to watch (finally) and again, forgot to blog. Anyways, it's not important really. And so far, I'm doing well on the writing front, at least concerning the quantity. But the goal is 50k words, not 50k quality words, so that's ok.

And now, some knitting

I have started a new knitting project today. Bought a nice skein from Posh Yarn a couple of weeks ago but was a bit disappointed by the colour – the result of that „all computer screens are different” thing. It is a nice colour, of course, just different from what I expected. Initially I choose a different pattern: Madli's shawl but without the nupps, and even cast on for that, but then changed my mind and did a tweak on the pattern, putting in cables. Drew up the chart this afternoon and cast on, originally for 3 cable columns which meant 88 stitches. Got till the sixth row on the first repeat when realized that it will be too wide, so I probably wouldn't have enough yarn for a proper length. Ripped back and started again with 2 columns and 68 stitches. I'm still not sure about it since the cables look a bit weird, so might have to spend tomorrow's knitting time with ripping back and doing it again. And again.

Or maybe I will get fed up with that and will finally get over with sewing up that blanket.

Time zones

Well, I've run over the clock. As in, I put down the pen at 00:02 GMT, which means it's saturday. Had to change the time-zone setting on the NaNo page so it counts my friday's work as such. And yes, I'll have to reschedule this too (if I can...)
Also: off to the weekend, yeee-haaa.

And the night owl mode starts here...

Wrote the daily amount of ~1667 words, then had another thought, opened a blank screen, and wrote another 1500. Just wondering, how much will be actually useful of these?

What definitely won't be: going to bed at half past 11 instead of half past 10. Well. Done. :P

10k

I've hit 10 thousand words today. It could be more if I'd wrote anything during the weekend but i guess I needed that break. Don't know how far will i get though mainly because of the dentist appointment on the 20th. Aside of being obviously afraid of it, I'm worried it will be painful for more then one days... which could render me useless. But that's for later...

Election Day

The USA is voting for president today (and for a bunch of congressmen, senators and other officials as well). One of the few positive parts of Sandy The Storm was that it took off the focus from the campaigns. I had enough of listening to all that beeeeep. Now I can only hope and cross my fingers that the outcome will be something similar than it was four years ago and not like twelve years ago. Would hate a recounting again.
And where is this concern me, a Hungarian-living-in-the-UK? Well it's the same planet. That country is one of the most influential, in multiple aspects. What they choose, the way they First Guy talks, has it's influence everywhere. And I hope we won't end up wishing Bush back.


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On the writing front: after not being able to write a word during the weekend - aside of a few texts... - I've written over 2300 words both today and yesterday. Took the decision and jumped from the start of the plot to a middle where i had scene almost ready in my head. It was the right choice; the beginning is a very delicate time as I know since I read Dune, both the books beginning and the beginning few things in this challenge, I think. While i was plodding away with the start, trying to figure out how to set up things so I'll end up at the story I wanted to tell, I was just working. Thinking, redoing, planning, going slowly. Now I'm just writing, pulling out the story I already thought through from my brain as I write. I think i will have to keep doing this: writing down the bits I have already planned out and not following the time line. After all, the 50k is the minimum amount, not the amount the story has to fit in.

Bonfire weekend, afterparty

"Remember, remember the 5th of November" - I read today at many places. another very british thing: remembering someone who wanted to blow up their leaders. I think most other places would remember those whose stopped him/them, but not the british, who seem to love everything contradictory.
As for the fireworks, they were going off all weekend, especially at friday and saturday evenings, so i guess those were the big shows - today was much quieter compared to them.

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On a totally unrelated note, one of my colleagues made some baked pasta for the boys and was left with one more portion, so she gave it to me. I always eat her cakes when she brings them sometimes to the pub - I sooo miss homecooked food! Own made doesn't count - so i guess she thought i'd like it. I did aside of the sausage. Can't find proper sausage here.

English weather, again

This morning it had rained so hard i thought i won't be able to go outside at all. Luckily it got much quieter after 11 am so could go and have the groceries shopping done. I took this picture from the train on the way back. It's so typical here: it is raining, but the sun shines too at the same time.

Melodic Death Metal

... I'm back to listening to you. 'Cause I need some RROOAAARGGGGHHH in my life right now. Was looking for some background and/or inspirational music for writing and remembered those bands I used to  listen to about a decade ago, up until recent years. I barely have anything other then my ex's club and pop songs on this laptop, although have about 4gbyte of my own music on my old pc which is still in the loft. On thurdsay morning I remembered that i have some of them on cds as well. Ohmegosshhh. I haven't listened to one of my all time favourite songs for years but it is still as good as ever - Jester Race, from In Flames. NOT a mainstream track, at all (guttural vocals. Yeah, like Batman singing.) But i love it, that was the song which got me into heavier metal.
The other song which gave me goosebumps just as it did years ago: Alone, from Amorphis. I think i'll have to put that on my official TOP 5. So, currently on my playlist, in no particular order:

In Flames - Black Ash Inheritance / Jester race albums
Amorphis - AM Universum album
Apocalyptica - selected songs, mostly their own stuff
Metallica - Whiskey in the Jar, just to cheer up the mood

Already feel some Rammstein and Dimmu Borgir coming along the road. Maybe with a bit of Stratovarious and Sonata Arctica thrown in just to have some finns in there too.

With teeth

... or without. Today at last teabreak i took a bite of a chocolate bar (could have been a banana or a sandwich, wouldn't have made a difference) and my one of my front teeth broke off. The other just beside it grew at an angle so I always had problems with them. I went to my supervisor and explained what happened, and came home. Looked up local dentists but didn't had the composure to call any of them. Now I'll have to look up how this NHS thing works and what the heck can be done.
Like I wasn't ugly enough already.

And my dictionary still hasn't arrived yet. And I'm pretty sure I didn't get the grammar right in that sentence.


Now off to wrote another 1667 words.

An Attempt, Day One

The NaNoWriMo challange started today. After the usual limbo of the first three days of the week, which i spent with mostly just wishing it would be thursday already, I've finnaly setled on a plot idea yesterday evening. And today, altough I did get a bit of "writers block" early evening so didn't started till half past 7, I wrote my first few pages for a total of 1946 words.
Only time will tell, how long i will get.