Beware of Turtle!

This message involves stuff about non-normative relationships, non-normative sexuality, relationship issues, and in general, quite personal shit.  If you do not wish to know, don’t click and move along.


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I am trying to write my thesis.  This is why I am hermiting so much.

It is not going very well.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading -- treading -- till it seemed
That sense was breaking through --

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum --
Kept beating -- beating -- till I thought
My Mind was going numb --

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space -- began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here --

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down --
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing -- then --

~Emily Dickinson

So I finished again, and this time finished the story.  I actually ran into an interesting snag at the very end where AbiWord did not report the same wordcount as the nanowrimo website's word counter and I ended up having to write an extra 800 words in 20 minutes which just was not possible, so I said screw that and copy-pasted part of what I'd written before, vowing to write the last 400 words (I'd written 400 in 20 mins, mind you) as soon as I got my shiny winner buttons but then the site was freezing so badly and jamming up with the pasting into the word counter I ended up having to set my time zone to California anyway.  Whatever.  I didn't write for 2 days at the end there because I had to do school things and then had technical difficulties.  If that means I am a cheater then so be it.  I got 50k in November and finished a whole story this time so as far as I'm concerned, that's a win.  :)  The Corn Dolly story, which still needs a better title, is over 65k at this point.  I think I should be able to easily get it up to 80k... 90 may be a stretch but short probably works best for such things anyway.  It's a novel.  It will work well as one I think.  It feels really good to have sat through it end to end and completed it all in one go.  I need to do that for all of my stuff in future.  It comes out so much more coherently. 

Last night, writing through a migraine I had a hate for the ending.  Today when I went to rewrite it, it's not as bad.  The last chunk anyway.  I'm still not completely sure I'm ok with what happens to Corey.  I'd really like to know what people who read the whole thing think of that.  I'd really like to know what people think of it in general, whether you read the whole thing or not.  And if you stopped, at what point you stopped, and why.  And my usual questions of what you think was good vs what you think doesn't need to be kept, that sort of thing. 

But yeah.  I finished a story - a novel - and I'm mildly happy with it.  Yay.

total words done since nov 1 = 36986
words remaining = 13014
days remaining (including today) = 5
words/day to finish = 2603

Incidentally, the full document, with the 14k I wrote before starting nano is already over 51k.  The original outline had 12 chunks, although anyone following along will have noticed how many chunks have had sub-sections put in due to there being extra bonus stuff.  According to the outline I'm still actually on part 10 even though I'm now titling the part I'm in 11, and I suspect part 11 will have sub-parts in it, I am thinking the turtle and the troll will need to return, and some of the one-line bits in the outline I wrote may take up over 1k each so... I will have enough plot to get to the end of nano (which is apparently a problem for some people :p), I may even end it right near where nano ends, although it may not quite end and I may write past it to finish up the story, which would be preferable since normal novel length is 90-120k.  I'd be happy with 85k or so as a good length for this - something like this works better if it runs a bit short - it makes for a breathless ride for the reader.  And I'm a very wordy writer so it's not hard for me to add stuff if someone were to say "you must add more words."  This will be the first time I've done a novel all at once without some huge break(s) between sections of it.  It feels good, and kinda vaguely coherent - which is amusing considering how whacked the plotline is for this one.  I really like it though - am quite obsessed with it, in fact.  I love this story in a way I haven't loved a story in a long time.  It feels good. 

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/exclusive-interviews/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart---jim-cramer-interview-uncut/#clip149637

(and yes, it's 2 years old - I don't see the televisions much - I need these things pointed out to me)

Could you please do something about your country wrecking the Internet?

http://americancensorship.org/

kthxbi