CornerScribe

Archive for October, 2006

First off, as you may have noticed, I was able to successfully move the typepad blog entries here. It was pretty easy, after my hubby pointed out that the path was incorrect. (duh!)

If you read the e-book, please let me know what you think (good or bad!). I’d appreciate your comments. My mom is reading it even as we speak, so keep your fingers crossed.
I’ll be keeping up with the blog over the next few weeks through Nano, and I’ll keep everyone posted as to my progress. Good luck fellow NaNoWriMo-ers.

Happy Halloween, everyone! We had about 240 kids this year, which was only around half of last year’s count. Yes, it looks very much like we’re being mobbed by zombie hordes. Isn’t that cool? Not bad for a rainy night.

Stay tuned, NaNo is soon to begin.

This blog is going to replace the one over at www.cornerscribe.typepad.com. I’ll be moving (attempting to move…) my old posts from there later this week, so they should be showing up, if things go well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Here’s the e-book that I’m putting up as a part of the challenge from Paperback Writer’s site. Thanks to her for the link!

Take a look at these two links

The most beautiful shawl you’ve ever seen

Scarf… WOW

Thinking that I may one day, some day, perhaps, (please!) be able to knit these types of things is why I knit in the first place. Wow. and Wow.

I thought I’d mention a couple things I have going on.

First of all, I’m outlining the Nano novel. As I’ve mentioned (how many times…), Nano begins on the first of November. I’ve participated for the last two years, and for both of those I wrote from the seat of my pants, so to speak. I’ve decided to loosely outline this year’s novel, probably outlining 6 or 12 scenes ahead. I’m hoping that this will give the novel a bit more structure without killing the spontaneity of the experience. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working.

I’m also finishing up a short story for Paperback Writer’s e-boook contest. That will be posted here by Halloween, so please stop back by and download it. You should also check out her site for the other entries; I’m betting there will be quite a few of them.

I’m preparing to move this blog from typepad to its own server. It’s not that I’m unhappy with typepad, but we’re already paying hosting on that box, and it doesn’t make sense to pay both. Besides, the company we’re using Open Source CMS is very good. I’m thinking of giving WordPress a try. I’m not sure if that will happen this weekend, but I hope to have it finished before the e-book goes up. I’ll leave this one up for a while with a link to the new one.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing, and will be doing. Happy weekend!

Your Brains  I’m not a huge fan of You Tube in general, but this is funny. I do happen to be a big zombie fan, in case you were wondering.

Bubble Wrap Here’s a huge time waster. This person has too much time on his hands. Of course, considering how much time I spent popping it, so do I. POP POP POP

Spin to Knit Okay, spinning your own yarn is a little nuts, but it’s intriguing too. As a knitter, I have to admit that I’m attracted to the idea of creating my yarn EXACTLY as I want it. Tempting… I’ve been wondering what TJ’s fur would look like spun…. (TJ is our black and white rabbit). Angora, anyone?

Holly Lisle No, I haven’t read any of her work, but her tutorials and tips are pretty interesting. If you’re in the process of editing, I think you’ll find something useful here.

aka Writely This used to be Writely, but it’s now Google docs. Either way, it seems handy that your work would be available from any computer, but of course there’s the privacy concerns of storing it online. Google knows everything else about me, why not this too?

I’m still fighting off a really bad cold, so that’s the end of the old blog entry for tonight. Cold medicine, here I come.

It’s almost November, and National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. Check out the NaNo Site .

I’ve participated in, and won, NaNo for the past two years. In 2004, I ended up with a novel that i still think is promising. It’s the one I’ve been editing for the past weeks. In 2005 I finished with about 60,000 words of swill. That’s how it goes.

If you’ve never participated, then it’s a great chance to get a rough draft (or most of one) in a very short time. Although 50,000 words isn’t really novel length, it’s certainly a great start. I’ve also learned that the speedy writing allows plot twists to develop that I’d never have considered and reveals character traits I’d never thought of.

Here are some tips for finishing NaNo, in no particular order.

1. Write every day. I know that’s an obvious one, but you really have to write every, single day. It’s very easy to fall behind, and you can quickly lose enough ground that you won’t even be able to dream of catching up.
2. You don’t need a block of time in which to write. You may want a block of time, and you’ll need to carve out writing time in your schedule, but you can squeeze some writing in virtually anywhere. Write while you’re waiting to pick up the kids, eating lunch, on hold on the phone. You get the idea. You’ll boost your word count, but more importantly, you’ll train yourself to fall into "writing mode" much more quickly.
3. Don’t edit. At all. Ever. Not even a little bit. Once you fall into the editing trap, you’ll waste precious time when you shouid be writing. You’re not shooting for a publishable work in one month. Think ROUGH DRAFT. Once you fall into the editing trap, you’re likely to never find your way out. You have been warned.
4. Don’t despair. No one said you have to write a great novel in one month, or even a good one. You want to write a novel, just a novel, in one month (as is that weren’t enough). Don’t stress yourself about its quality; you’re too close to the process to be any judge of the quality anyway. Write, and worry about reworking the novel later.
5. Enjoy yourself. Writing a novel in a month is hard work, but it’s also lots of fun. Why do you think thousands of crazy ambitious people do this every November?

If you’re doing NaNo and blogging about it, leave your blog address in the comments and I’ll link to you. I’d appreciate it if you’d reciprocate.

I awoke early sunday morning and reached for my knitting bag. My plan was to put a few rows on a sock I’ve got on the needles while hubby slept. No such luck… I had lost one of my needles.

For those of you who don’t knit, you might think that’s no big deal, but I didn’t have a spare, and I ALWAYS knit socks on five needles (four holding the stitches and one working). Hubby heard my search and hopped out of bed to find the needle. That’s no small feat, considering how small double pointed needles can be (these are a mere 2 mm).

He found it. How many non-knitters would understand the catastrophe behind a lost dpn? Even though he doesn’t share the obsession, he "gets it." Yep, I’m lucky…