Catch up before summer break

Things I’ve done lately:

• Watched the director’s cut of Alien at the Tyneside.
• Kept up with World Cup semi-finals.
• Watched Kasabian, Metallica, Jack White, and Dolly Parton at Glastonbury. (Lana Del Ray was so boring live.)
• Baked cupcakes for 4th of July (even though I’m in England.)
• Taken down and put up displays in the classroom (cutting and pasting are not my forte.)
• Read Never Let Me Go, and started Age of Miracles.
• Started my gym membership again.
• Went to the North East Retro Gaming event (lots and lots of pinball and old arcade games to play.)
• Watched some more of Breaking Bad and finished Fargo.
• Had two of my ten objectives for my Teaching Assistant course signed off.
• Ben Folds. (Planning on seeing him Friday – Steve’s choice. He’s trying to show me why I should be a fan. All I know is ((awful)) Brick and You Don’t Know Me.)

Things I’ll do over break:

• Write. (Enough said.)
• Read. (Ditto.)
• Edit. (I have a project that I’m putting off a 2nd draft because I just hate the story and don’t think it’s worth bothering.)
• Maybe go to London on a day trip. (Super excited about this one.)
• Try to go to Maths and English classes somewhere other than where I was going (my TA instructor agreed that I had every right to be angry about how stupidly those tutor sessions were being handled.)
• Get my hair done.
• Go to the nurse to ask her about my stupid knee.
• Exercise. (Swimming is on the agenda.)

What’s Happening this Wednesday

• Teaching – The teaching assistant gig has been going fine. We’re in our last term of the year and the regular teacher has taken over the class again. We have two student teachers in the class too so there’s lots of support. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do classroom displays because middle/high school teachers don’t really need to do this that much (from my experience.) I was given advice to look to Pinterest (*groan*) for ideas, but I really just have trouble with making the paper frames for the mounted work all uniform and straight. We only have a small paper cutter that slides back and forth, making this loud squeaking sound, so my resources are a little limited. Oh well, the one I did this week looked a little better than the first (ridiculously janky) one I did my first week.
• School – Aside from my TA course, I’ve been working on these silly Level 1 and 2 English and Maths assessments. I have to turn them in today and I’m praying they at least let me off the hook with the English because it seriously is wasting my time. I’ve taught this stuff myself. I don’t need someone telling me I’m a Level 1 because I don’t use semicolons. *another groan*
• Travel – We took a trip down by Liverpool to visit Steve’s family over the bank holiday. We went to Chester Zoo while we were down there (as you can see from the Butterfly House photo above) and it was super fun. The trip was kind of long, but I was glad we went for a drive. I’d never gone on the motorways before like that, so it was definitely an experience.
• Family – Steve’s birthday was last weekend, so we had a late night viewing of Godzilla along with an even later night of cake baking. While we waited on the movie we ate at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and hung out in the arcade. Don’t care how old we get, we still manage to stay young.
• Reading – I’ve been trying to read more contemporary and sci-fi lately. I’ve updated my book blog on my lately reads.
• Writing – The JuNoWriMo thing hasn’t been going well, as I feared. I did write 900+ words of my current project (the one I started for Camp NaNoWriMo), but that’s it. With this new English/Maths sessions, I’m limited to one day of absolute freedom to get things done. I have to help my CP out as well, but she’s also going to read some of the new project, so I’ll be forced to get the first draft done. Hooray!
• Music – new album discovery is Kasabian’s 48:13 which features Eez-eh – a very Hot Chip-esque song. Saw them do this on TV during the Glasgow music fest. Great stuff.
• Movies – recently saw: Godzilla and Ender’s Game (and Tinkerbell on Netflix, if I’m being completely honest.)
• Television – On S2 of Breaking Bad, and we fell behind two episodes of Fargo.
• Games – Watch_Dogs, of course. (Steve did some of the UI design.)
• Me – I was absolutely exhausted yesterday after running around late Sunday, then running around at school for two days. I’ll be running around less today at least, but tomorrow I hope to relax, read, and get lots and lots of writing done.

Teaching and books are the stuff I’m made of

Tuesday morning, and I woke up early, as usual, but this time it was 5:30 instead of 5, and I got out of bed at 6. (I woke up once at 4:30 as well.)

I know it’s the lack of schedule that’s thrown me into this stupid cycle. I also know it’s the career confusion I’ve put myself in recently. I was so excited for my Teacher’s Assistant course before Christmas, then when January rolled around, I had second thoughts.

If you’ve not seen Tough Young Teachers, I suggest you don’t if you’re planning on going into teaching. It will ruin all hopes of doing well and will make your first day more frightening than usual. Of course, the public think the teachers are doing a bad job, and that the disruptive kids are just misunderstood.

“What was most upsetting was seeing the effects of the clash of the young re teacher with the disruptive pupil. The kid is so bright, articulate and emotionally intelligent and yet the strategies used by the teacher seemed from the editing to be so destructive for him.”

The main offending student this commenter on the Guardian article is talking about was expelled for three years after he punched a teacher at another school. No teacher or administration should coddle to him. The show even filmed the kid at home where his mother was totally blasé about the kid being spoken to by the teacher. When she discussed the boy hitting a teacher three years ago she just blew it off with, “But he’s just not like that.” She never, ever gave him any kind of discipline measures. The kid told the teacher he was boring, a bad teacher, wasn’t doing a good job, total, all and all disrespect, no disciplinary action at home, but it’s the teacher’s fault.

Kids act like this in school, yet Twitter was all about defending him during the airing of Episode 2. Not being in front of a classroom will make people have all sorts of brilliant insight, though, I tell you. He shouldn’t be allowed to go back to public school. In the US we have schools for kids like this, kids who are offenders who have adult-ed type institution. That’s the kind of school he should go to. They have this boy in GCSE courses when he doesn’t want to be and all students like this do is waste everyone’s time, theirs included. But, what do I know? I’ve only taught all age groups for year.

Steve even suggested the kid was acting up more for the camera, which probably is the biggest encourager.

Steve also told me he didn’t want me to teach again if the kids were really like that. Yeah, yeah they are.

This kid, of course wasn’t the only one acting like this. The Year 7 English teacher had all sorts of crap to deal with in her class – kids walking on tables, crawling under tables, throwing things, talking, and making the poor teacher have to be “flagged as cause for concern.” Her life’s ambition was to be a teacher and now after one term, it may all end? Very, very sad.

Anyway, after watching that show, I really started thinking that I should toss the education thing out the window totally. I toyed with the idea of going to get some kind of computer degree and work in the gaming industry like Steve does. (Gaming Librarian? I would love a job like that.) But, alas, I’m not a math genius and yet another degree would take time and money. I’m already in enough debt because I can’t find work with my degrees as is, I don’t want to waste time barking up an entirely wrong tree.

A new career is great but how do you possibly get experience? And who would hire me? I had administrators ask me, baffled, why I would want to be a librarian when I had trained as an English teacher. (If anyone asks that again, I’ll tell them to what the teacher show on the BBC.) We easily get pigeonholed into a career.

So, I was thinking about how awful the classroom had been in the past, and how I’m probably better off giving up and trying something else. Then yesterday I was filling out a form to register for an education webinar. It listed writing and reading webinars, and asked me what my interests were in education. That’s when I remembered; I like this stuff. It sucks and I haven’t done well at all. (Except the college in Florida – I still say I’d go back to that if we ever moved back. If I didn’t have to teach Foundation Skills here, I’d gladly try it again.) And after thinking about that I’d like to go back in the classroom, and I’d like to start from scratch and learn to be a good English teacher. (I really wish I could just take the PGCE teacher training courses here.)

And with that hope, I feel better. I’m going to still try to register for a TA course this term and go back to the Primary Schools for a while, if I can. I’ll still always want to be a school librarian, of course (literature, research, and technology – oh my!) but as long as I’m making some kind of steps toward getting there, I guess that’s all I need to keep me content.

With that said, I plan on going out today. It’s been so long since I’ve felt like venturing outside in the daytime. I picked up Anna Karenina last night, and felt happy again to be interested in that stuff that makes me me.

Anyway, it’s almost time for the day to begin and time for me to go out and enjoy the world again.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 25

My theme was “Sunday Morning” but since I don’t get up on Sunday mornings, I just chose to use the photo I took yesterday with St. Nicholas Cathedral in the background. I took this from on top of the Tyne Bridge on our walk yesterday. Such a cool street there.

To go along with the top of self vs traditional publishing, I went on #writechat tonight. Someone was saying that authors have gotten picked up by traditional publishers after their self published novel had done well for a couple of years. (Not any of the big names we hear about all the time, btw.) I’m not sure if it all has to do with the genre fiction that does better self published as well, but someone else was saying that they’d never self pub fiction, only non-fiction. I asked if their non-fiction had a smaller readership than their traditionally published fiction, but I didn’t get an answer on that one.

So, the idea of small press came up. The first person who was selling self-publishing to me, said that small press can get you publicity and promotion. Fair enough, but I will go ahead and put this out there: I’ve seen some crappy looking books on small press websites. I even spoke with an author in a bookstore in Newcastle once who said their book was picked up by a major publisher. The book looked terrible and I felt embarrassed for the guy. If I were accepted by a small print press, I would run the risk of having a horrible looking book with my name on it.

No. Thank. You.

I think it brings me back to the bottom line. While I’m working towards perfecting a novel, the ones that I’m sure would not be picked up by a decent publisher will be done by myself. I can hire an editor, fine, and thankfully I have my illustrator and cover artist at home. I would rather have control over what I was doing, rather than have something janky sitting around at sad, local book events, making me wish I’d never bothered.

And, yes, I’ve looked into publishers allowing you to use your own illustrators and cover designs. The answer is always, “No. We like to chose the artist for you.”

Again. No. Thank. You.

Of course, the whole self promotion is something I don’t get. Everyone on Twitter hates tweets with “Buy My Book!” Someone told me to go to Tumblr, but amidst the Doctor Who and Harry Potter animated GIFs, I don’t know how well that will work either.

But for the rest of Sunday we hung out at home. I got my word count quota in for today, and before dinner I played more Saints Row IV. I’m not digging the supernatural aspect of it. I like car games, so when I get through the initial quests, I’ll probably just mess around the world like I usually do. That’s always more fun.

We also just watched Wreck-It Ralph. What a cute movie! I’m so glad Steve got me into watching cartoon again and learning how they create the stories. They’re always such good examples of strong characters, worlds, and storylines.

Anyway, tomorrow is our Bank Holiday, so we may go out for a bike ride or a stroll. Who knows?

#AugustBreak2013 Day 24

Took a walk into City Centre to get exercise today. I’ve been in this computer chair a lot more than usual and my back gives me little signals that it’s had enough.

We were looking for one of the food festivals, but we found nothing going on except Match Day, so we stayed out of the rain in the Burger King. Afterwards, we bought Saints Row IV, which Steve and I have been playing for the evening. It was just going to be an add-on to Saints Row III, but they made a whole new game out of it. Pretty fun, but a lot like the last one. I missed the driving and shooting; I am not the greatest at aiming though, so I get frustrated really easily with missions.

That’s about all for today, honestly. I didn’t do a dang thing for writing, which is going to amp my daily word count goal considerably. I’m usually too tired to even read much at night, so tomorrow is going to have to be catch up time.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 19

Another day of getting stuff done. I actually started the day off working on something that I hadn’t thought about for long (a glorious error to many, I’m sure) but it was so clear and nice in my head, I just had to get some notes down. When I worked a lot (too much) on that, I finally watched Ghost Adventures and got my 1,300 words done for the project that Will. Get. Done.

After picking Steve up from work, I hit a curb at a roundabout because taxi drivers are not to be trusted. I don’t know if they were or weren’t going to go in the lane I have to aim for when coming back from the Quayside, but I wasn’t about to swerve over until they were long gone.

It’s a dangerous world when it comes to roundabouts and taxis.

Tonight we had roast dinner again as we usually do on Sundays, but since we were out yesterday, we ate our mash and gravy tonight while watching Jimmy Fallon, as we do during dinner. Then for our movie night, Steve chose Chronicle which was really good and I highly recommend it. It’s short and has a nice, tight plot. The characters are teens who obtain superpowers and they learn what all they can do with them. It turns innocent until the troubled one of the trio has things to deal with at home and at school.

I’ll leave you with the trailer and bid you all good night!

#AugustBreak2013 Day 4

Sunday is a good day to discuss today’s theme of love. Saturday is the doing day – the day to go out and about and explore the great North East of England. Sunday is the doing nothing day. Sundays we set aside to just hang around the house and enjoy each other’s company. It’s our day. We get up at any hour we fancy, then Steve makes waffles for us while we watch Adventure Time or something equally as nerdy (today it was Ginx Videogaming TV.) The cat sleeps in various rooms of the house happy to have us both home. Steve plays games on the Xbox downstairs while I sometimes write, or play Sims 3, or blog.

We call both of our families back home, we eat (the best) roast dinner consisting of chicken, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, mash, carrots, and roasted potatoes. We watch Top Gear. We watch recorded episodes of The Soup. Steve takes a bath while listening to podcasts, I read a book on the couch. Then we go to bed to start the week.

Yup. Sunday is a day for love, that’s for sure.

Writing and the last of the Summer Whine

The weather app says it’s only 60+ degrees outside, but this flat gets so hot, it’s unbearable. It's so hot in this flat and it makes me incredibly grumpy. In Florida we have weather management systems. This "we don't have air conditioning because we don't need them for more than one day a year" motto is driving me crazy. It's too hot to sleep,  even with a fan. The air outside is hot and even when it cools down, I can’t open the windows to let the stuff air out because we don’t have screens to keep the bees out (they hang out by the computer room window, waiting for me to invite them in) or the cat out (he’s equally waiting for such opportunities.)

So, with that said, I’m just not in the greatest of moods. Usually I’m excited for Monday to start up because I can get work done, maybe get a couple of teaching gigs set up for the week, and so on. Today, I’m just tired, hot, and grouchy. I even tried to get caught up on my Camp NaNoWriMo this morning only to have Microsoft Word give me the “not responding” crap and make me lose the three sentences I wrote.

I’m totally behind on NaNo because of work, and with this technology to fight with, I’m seriously considering getting a word processor like the Neo 2. Taking the netbook out has been okay, but fighting the “not responding” error messages, just wastes time. I try to get the programs to work, and then resort to Wordpad, just to type out something for the day.

I also use to really have grandiose ideas about posting to my blog, Tweeting, sharing photos, and such, but that isn’t really that important anymore either, sadly. I know most people don’t agree with me, but I feel such a decline in social networking that I’m starting to feel that most of it is pointless. I’d never get rid of the accounts all together, but here and there posts are about all that’s necessary each day.

So why not use a word processor instead of going through the task of using a netbook? I use to think the idea was really stupid, but now I really see how handy that would be. Of course I’d have to write and I think the ease and availability of it, instead of having to boot up the computer and force myself to sit and do the work while waiting for technology to catch up would be good. Of course I could handwrite things, which I do for notes and outlines, but the actually word count and productivity needs to be typed.

Now that school’s almost out, it’s time to get busy. Too bad Sims 3 Island Paradise and Animal Crossing have other plans for how I use my time. I get really bored in the daytime now if I’m not at school, and while writing is my hobby, and I have to get down what I can when I have to time, having the whole day to embrace entertainment outlets is just way too tempting for me.

I wonder if they have a support group for procrastinators.

If you need more motivation, like I do, my link for today is Why the First Draft is Usually Awful (And Why it's Ok). Notice that they used the same word processor photo that I did. Great mind, you know?

A Case of the Mondays on 29 Apr 2013

It’s so nice today, so I’m eager to get our plans underway.

• Monday (today) I had a dentist’s appointment. Everything is a-okay, and I just needed my front bottom teeth cleaned up a bit (I blame the Starbucks coffee.) I also have to update my bookblogarama. I also have Sims 3 to play, because that’s a huge necessity, of course.
• Tuesday and Wednesday I’m free to take on any supply teaching jobs that may come my way. If not, on Tuesday I can go swimming finally for the first time this year, and Wednesday evening I have a chiropractor’s appointment.
• Thursday is driving. Friday is hair appointment.
• Saturday we’re probably going to look into getting a washer/dryer (I didn’t know such wonderful contraptions existed) and a bike for Steve.
• Over the May Day holiday, we’re taking a trip to see Steve’s family. I love going on the train. I know it’s over-priced and a pain when you can’t sit down, but it’s just something that I really find interesting. Plus, I get to see sights. I could see sights with a car, you know, whenever I get one. Anyway, I’ll take pictures and video and post it here later on. Fun stuff.

So, Happy Monday to you all. Enjoy your next Monday off!

Video games, books, and cars

Ah, it’s a nice, rainy day in England. I’m still wondering when a full attack of Spring will be upon us. I’ve been turning on the oscillating fan in the living room on at night, so I guess it’s getting a bit less like winter. Still chilly and windy so I need some sort of coat when I leave the house. After living in Florida for all those years, even if I wasn’t an outdoorsy beach person, it’s hard to live in a place that doesn’t have an inviting kind of day that makes you want to go outside.

Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 a lot lately. This has been my go-to obsessive game for years. When The Sims first came out, my poor PC couldn’t even handle it and I had to reboot it over and over. But the game was amazing fun, so it was worth it. There’s no skill involved in playing The Sims either; you just mess around in a little pretend world and screw up characters’ lives. Fun. Plus there are so many expansion packs, I’d work a couple of days just to buy them all. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Actually, I screwed up my back initially when I started playing The Sims again in March. I sat here at the computer desk for hours, leaning forward, then when I was on the coach watching The Hunger Games, I realized it was a bit sore. By the next week I was out for the count. Sims are fun, but not worth all that.

Also, I moved my book reviews and weekly reading memes to a new site: bookblogarama. I needed a fresh start because I see so many really well done book sites and I wanted one too. So I’ve started adding things to the Tumblr site too. Projects are nice to have, especially when they give you something to look forward to every day, and reasons to investigate things.

I went to City Library on Tuesday to investigate World Book Night. I wrote on my netbook in the cafe over my £2 Americano while I listened to the music in the atrium. I found no free book giving though (unless you could the books that you can borrow for free anyway.) I did check out Me Before You from the World Book Night display by the cafe so my mission was complete. I had to meet up with Steve so I didn’t stay for the Murder Mystery event they were having afterwards – that seemed fun.

And I’m still not test-ready because stopping on hills in a manual-shift car is just not an easy thing to do. So I keep practicing until I have this down pat, or I throw in the towel and opt for an automatic (which, in most cases, is considered a mobility vehicle in the UK.) But in order to keep my options open, I’m sticking to the stick shift and the steep banks. Incidentally, I found an article on USA Today called 10 cheapest cars: Why (almost) nobody buys them. that are supposedly they cheapest. They claim that, “the bottom-price model has a manual transmission. Few can or will drive a stick-shift nowadays.” Just the opposite goes for us in England. Also, USA Today sites issues with insurance that is different here too. Insurance is based on size of the car and its engine, so like a Fiat 500 is in the lowest price bracket.

But when I get my license, I’ll try plenty of them out. Now that both Steve and I have hurt our backs, I’m thinking a little car that sits low to the ground may not be the best choice. Sorry, Mini. Cute, fun, little Mini.

Sunday is for laziness

Here’s one of my favourite photos from yesterday. I have plenty of good ones to use on the blog for a while, but this one was something I was hoping to capture when we were out around the farm areas nearby.

Since my thumb is still bothering me from typing a lot all week (that’s always the trouble – stay indoors to keep myself productive, then suffer the consequences) I’m not going to write too much. I finally took it upon myself to ask EA how to get a hold of my Sims 3 registration codes. I have the discs but I left the boxes in Florida when I moved. Now I’m back on Origin and downloading my old games and patches galore.

So much for the productivity, huh?

Starting the new year

Today I walked in with Steve, who went back to work at the office again. It was such a dreary morning, and we woke up at 7AM so that whenever I do go back to work, my 6AM wake up call won’t be as hard to get adjusted to. The morning was just rainy, grey and dreary. I commented that everyone is always excited for the new year but when it comes down to it, it’s depressingly the same. Steve agreed and was bored by the idea of sitting in a quiet office as the rain came down all day.

I decided to start my Couch to 5K podcasts from the NHS. I liked them because the podcast host didn’t count down my 60 second jog and 90 second walk. She just prompted me for each stage and the time went by really quickly. Before, I was trying to do the walk to jog method on my own and staring at that clock on the treadmill makes you want to hurl yourself (and the treadmill) through the gym window.

It also helped that I now have my Nook Simple Touch so I was able to download Along for the Ride from the library and read that during my walking sessions. (I finally got this achieved after spending all yesterday afternoon fighting to get my PC to recognize the Nook until I finally de-registered it and registered it again fresh before it would work.) I also took the new netbook to the library cafe and took some notes on what projects to work on. After knowing how many millions of indie authors there are out there (and how many talented writers who aren’t published yet), I feel so blah going into the effort again. But, hey, I have to keep doing it.

When I got home I played some Skyrim, took my nap to ward off the stupid cough and sinus headache/earache crap that I’m still plagued with. Steve came home with a Christmas box that my parents had sent that was to be delivered on the 24th of Dec but since no one was at reception in his office, it was apparently put into a very wet depot until today. Every article of clothing we received in the presents had to be washed to get the mildew out of them. The magazines and mail was ruined and even the wrapping paper was damp. I’ll be phoning Parcel Force tomorrow to tell them uncalled their treatment of our mail has been.

Steve was ready to move to the US after today. Once we get my driver’s license and Leave to Remain we can do that whenever we want. Of course there are those pesky US Government loops to hop through. Yay.

Tomorrow it’s off to get my hair done (no highlights this time, just all over dark.) And I got my author update that Ali’s Pretty Little Lies is available now. Wee!

Preparing for NaNoWriMo

Full moon from our window

Last year was my first year of NaNoWriMo. After the years of previously using Twitter, I had never heard of the event until I started following the many, many indie writers who participated. Since I had already started on my project that Spring, I wanted something to push me to get it done. Having the “game” of sharing with followers how many words you’ve written for the day was a great way to get the first draft down, so I signed up.

However, I am going to go into the second part of the project with a little bit of know-how. There are a few things that I will have to keep in mind this year in order to be more productive. While this checklist is for anyone reading, it’s also a good reminder for myself.

Planning – Now, I’ve taught writing long enough to know that at least a quick brainstorming and outline session will give you the foundation to propel you through your piece. What I did, was look at the Snowflake Method just to get basic ideas of what my writing is about. I did not go through the whole process last year because I like the creative flow rather than a “I’m going going to write a book that sells!" kind of formula. I had ideas and I just wanted to get them out somehow. I’m a list person. I make a list every day for something. I took my ideas, wrote them down, expanded in parts, then in the midst of the scenes found out that logically things had to go in a certain progression. Not everything planned went into the first book but that just means there are plenty of ideas to be use for the other books in the series.

"I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible. ...
"[M]y basic belief about the making of stories is that they largely make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow."
~ Stephen King, On Writing

Pacing – It all starts with out butt in the chair. Yes, we know, and the purpose of doing NaNo is to just get the words on (electronic) paper. But when you’re a fidgety person like me, your body just argues. I’m not a “I write in my head all the time” person because the ideas come and go – it’s what I put down in a useful fashion that counts. Of course I think about ideas for my writing but the word count is what we’re looking for in November. 50,000 words at approximately 1,666 (that’s ominous) per day. I tried to write more than that the first few days so I could get ahead and slow down on other days. I think this year I’m going to have to do it in chunks. I need breaks. Before November was over last year, my eyes were twitching from strain and my thumbs were aching from overuse. This year I know ways to deal with eye strain and the No Xbox rule (Oh, the humanity!) Last year I kept treating myself to GTA IV and that driving thumb couldn’t take it anymore. (Good thing Skyrim has started to bore me.) I also plan on writing in different environments. I feel most comfortable writing at my desk at home but it’s nice to be out in the real world fairly often. Even if it means lugging a heavy laptop to a cafe down the street, it’s worth it.

“[M]y favourite way to write, used to be to go to cafés. I love doing that because I find that being surrounded by people even though I can't talk to them whilst I'm writing is very helpful because being a writer is a very, very lonely job, obviously. But these days I can't write in cafés because too many people come to me and go "You're that woman, who writes that Harry Potter" so I write at home now and I write much more on the computer than I used to.”
~ J.K. Rowling during Q&A session at Royal Albert Hall

She also confirms my No Music rule in that interview too. Yes, way too distracting.

Persistence – You’ll get there. We all get there. I’ve had some people tell me that they didn’t get there because they think the book idea was crap and they quit. I think you should keep going. We are our own worst critic. You know how many books are awful and people still love them? If you think it’s bad, it can be changed later. Look at Hugo – that whole story started off seeming to be one thing, then the whole focus shifted in the middle. If you’ve been writing for a bit and are expand into novel writing, I think you’d be more proud of yourself for writing a “bad” book that can be edited than for not writing one at all. The tip I kept hearing over and over was to not edit. Just keep writing. You can go back in December and research topics, or make two scenes work together (or fix two scenes that clash – terribly) but I would suggest keeping a tally. Have a separate file of things that may need fixing, including their page number. When you revise, you’ll have that to work with. Some tools that are handy are Write or Die and Scrivener. You write all you can using Write or Die (which will make the worst sounds imaginable and the screen will turn red if you stop for too long), Tweet your word count (because having Twitter followers who are working too is great moral support), save the file and open it up in Notepad, copy and paste, and put it into a new scene for Scrivener. I was taught to write using Microsoft Word and no one will pry me away from it, so I also keep the full 1st draft (and back ups) there as well. With Scrivener, keeping the scenes separate and in order is a life saver (plus it has some great options for organizing your project too.)

“If you have a day where you don’t get to your 1,600 words, my advice is not to be too hard on yourself. You have to do what you can do. There will be days when you write more and days when you will write less. That’s really an okay thing. We get exhausted, we get sick, we get burned out. And that’s okay. That’s my biggest piece of advice.
...They keep telling you during that process that the plot will just come. I thought it wasn’t possible and I didn’t believe it, but it really does just come out. And that’s a fantastic thing.”
~ Nora Zelevansky on Mediabistro

Preparedness – Like any business trip, you have to get prepared by putting everything in your suitcase so you can have it while you’re busy working. Research, and have your links, notes, outline, list, whatever ready. Have ideas for scenes and characters somewhere to go back to if you get stuck. I even find Youtube links that are from social events that may happen in a scene. Just watching for a bit, helps you get into the moment. When all else fails, describe the sounds and smells of a place (Sara Shepard does this all the time in her Pretty Little Liars books – I love it!) You can even make a…Pinterest board. Ack! I said it! I am so not a fan of re-pinning commercial images for all to see but, if that’s your thing, go for it. Bottom line is, it’s okay to get stuck. It’s okay to go, “This is terrible and I hate it!” Just keep going – this is what I have to tell myself each day.

Remember, NaNo gets national news each year and Water for Elephants was a NaNo book so the event is kind of a big deal. If you need some inspiration, I’ll leave you with a few things to tuck away in your NaNoWriMo folder:

• What if You Have NO TIME?
• NaNoWriMo Pep Talks
• Smashwords/NaNoWriMo Promotion
• Write Your Novel in 30 Days —A 10-Step Guide -- I must mention that Smashwords formatting is different from a traditional manuscript

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

The Tuesday Seven

Swan on the pond.

1. Interviews – I went on yet another school library interview this week. I did well too. I was fairly confident, answered the questions, made an impression, got a few laughs, etc. They tried to call me back but me being me, I messed up one digit on my phone number when I filled out the application so they couldn’t get back to me. (As I posted on Facebook, these kind of “duh” moments no longer shock me anymore. I can go over something and double check things but there are still going to be tiny, obvious things that I miss. Hate that!) Of course, when I did get called back with the correct phone number, the Headmaster told me they had chosen someone else. More UK school experience. I’m sure I’m going to be getting that answer a lot.

2. Doctors – I had my blood test done today with the nurse at my GP (regular doctor’s) office. I asked her which OB/Gyn they refer us to for regular check ups and any potential family planning, etc. She gave me the most confused look and said, “What’s that?” Come to find out that we don’t have OB/Gyns here and if any lady needs any kind of check ups or pregnancy care they just go to the regular doctor. That means that the same old gent who wears a tie and sits behind a desk when I come to tell him what’s wrong with me, is the same person who delivers babies? I’m sort of appalled by that. Now, I understand if they send you to a nurse for check ups but, dang it, when there are kids involved, I want someone who works with kids as their job every day. When I go back to get my blood test results I’m going to have him clarify this for me. I guess ladies can get refereed to a midwife at the hospital for some things but you’d only be referred to a “specialist” if there’s any issues. Seems very impersonal and impractical to me. One minute they’d be checking on someone’s gout, the next seeing how a foetus is progressing? I mentioned on Facebook as well that it reminded me of being on Little House on the Prairie. Kind of old fashioned in the way of doing things. Apparently the US is the only place that has women’s clinics. My Twitter peeps from the U.K., N.Z. and Australia all confirm that everything regarding women and children are done “in house” at their regular doctor’s office. *shudder*

3. Writer's site – I decided to start a writing site. I’m not sure exactly what all I’m going to put on there but I’d like it to be helpful, informative and collaborative. I decided to do something else not only to help myself but for anyone else as well. I know there are a zillion writer sites out there though but, alas, I guess the world can do with one more.

4. Food – I have been the worst this week. Steve was on his business trip so I had three pizzas in one week. Then I proceeded to have donuts on our walk in the park over the weekend. I polished off the M&Ms after finding out I didn’t get the job yesterday. I had a huge Subway sub today after I stuffed my face with a couple of hot dogs last night before my 9PM eating cut-off point for my blood test. The pulled pork we had tonight was awesome too. But tomorrow is another day, Katie Scarlett.

5. The Queen – Her Majesty will be coming to town tomorrow so I’m going to head to the Quayside to see if I can say, “Hello.” I’ll make sure to bring my camera and my camcorder (although I’m not sure how I’m going to use both at once but challenge accepted!)

6. Skyrim – You know what’s wrong with Skyrim these days? Everyone is obsessed with sending me on stupid missions where I get stuck or lost in caves. And, no, Clairvoyance doesn’t work because I keep getting the “No Clear Path” message. Good job, Dawnguard! One thing that is cool though, my character’s companion/husband, Mercutio (I call him that. His real name in the game is Mercurio; the magic dude from Bee and Barb.) keeps getting more and more awesome. Now that we both have daedric armour, I also gave him a ton of staffs so he is just killing things left and right. Today he summoned a Storm Atronach on his own. I was much impressed. Too bad they don’t have a “high five Mercutio” option. Usually he just whines at me when I ask him to carry anything.

7. Roads -- Every Tuesday the garbage (bin) men drive their truck to the cul-de-sac on our street. Every Tuesday they have to beep the horn to alert the neighbour with the big, white van to move said van our of the garbage truck's way. I've seen this twice and already I understand the pattern and the easy remedy. Just another example of how narrow and tiny our roads are.

Ode to my Xbox

I know I should write something about writing for Blogathon 2012 since it is for writers. I have to keep myself on task when I work throughout the day. A lot of people say that the internet and especially Twitter will keep them from getting back to work. They’re great things, yes, but I have my phone so I can play with that pretty much anytime. What gets me side-tracked is the silly Xbox 360.

I’ve loved playing games when I was a kid with my Nintendo. I never had older siblings to show me how to play any of these games and my friends certainly weren’t interested. (Some of the girls I was friends with as adults even thought playing video games was stupid – can you imagine?) So now that I’ve traded in the little Playstation 2 that I bought myself when I first started teaching full-time (those kids and their tales of fun inspired me to do it), for the glorious set up of PS3, Wii and Xbox that we have now.

I was always a fan of GTA (I’ve even seen Rockstar North with my own eyes!) and The Sims when left to my own devices so those were the games I went to first. But I finally tried the first-person game (odd – I like first person POV for books but originally only liked 3rd person POV for video games) and now I’m hooked on Skyrim. Well, I was until I made myself stop playing the stupid thing each day. Even in the evening I stopped bothering and opted for reading just so I wouldn’t get caught up in wanting to play for hours on end during any available time I had. It’s helped a lot and even made me lose interest which is an extremely good thing.

I love video games but my playing them isn’t really contributing to the world in a positive way (well, when I help someone play it I am.) So less Xbox, more typing and reading. That’s my writing advice for today. It works for me.

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Warding off the cold

Our home has turned into our retreat from the cold weather and our recuperation from the pesky cold germs. Gratefully neither of us are as bad off as I was right before Christmas (the walk-in clinic visit and doctor drugs were necessary before Santa arrived.) Still, we're not 100% and we've been in the house for three days.

In that time I've almost finished The Hunger Games (and still not done book reviews for the last two I finished). I also have been trying to figure out how to complete the Simbot BFF challenge in Sims 3 Pets. Apparently after reaching level 10 of Inventing, your Sim will get a call telling them what materials they need to collect to make the Simbot. From what I've read, it can take (Sim) weeks before that call comes. If the game didn't freeze so often (a nice quirk of the Sims that has existed since the original game came out) it would be much easier to let them just live their (Sim) lives until that call came. I’m guessing it’s a bug in the game.

Being sick and stuck in the house made me really apathetic about things. Poor Steve got to see first-hand how bad daytime TV is. Not working for a year now has just made me realise how much I miss being out and about on a regular basis. Yes, being able to have my own time to work on the things I want to work on is great but I'm under no delusions that it will give me a decent yearly salary.

But I'll keep my head up and keep working at home for myself. This recession can't last forever.

Sunday we plan on going out for a little adventure so we don't feel like we've shut ourselves in for the entire weekend. If we see anything cool, I'll make sure to take pictures. It really is a shame that Flickr isn't buzzing more. I love photography.

Technorati Tags: health,home,family,Sims 3,TV