It’s over! Now I can begin.

It ‘s December so National Novel Writing Month is over. I squeaked in with 50700 words total. I have even read some of it over and oh man is it bad. I mean horrible. It all reads like a massive tangled back story. So I am starting again. Without the deadline this time. But using the stuff I wrote already as a backdrop for a zoom in to a particular set of events and circumstances. I am still working out the details but roughly it is Middle earth meets star wars meets speed racer. That’s not it exactly but it comes to mind when I think of the story. Definite Science Fantasy there for sure. Well I am practicing my Dvorak touch-typing every day. I am also doing guitar exercises after the typing. Then working on the story. They are all going slow at the moment but that’s fine. Slow and steady wins the race as they say. All I need to do is improve in each a little each day and it is a successful day of advancing towards my goals. All for now. Later!

Day 22 recap!

Well day 22 is over. At least my typing for the day will be once I finish this post. Another daunting day of typing. I hammered six thousand four hundred and thirty one words out on my Scottish model M today. So I won the bet I made with the boys and they do not get the big bag of candy. They got a bit irritated when every time I passed one of their word goals for the month I played taps through the computer stereo setup that we have. Since their highest goal was twenty five thousand I hit them all. And I did in the twelve thousand in two days too. They were gunning for me towards the end. The first two hours were not all that difficult for me the creative juices were running well. But that third hour was when creativity started to dry up on me and the ideas just would not come. Now four thousand words a day with good creativity is nothing to sneeze at but I had the bet on with the boys. And I am now only nine thousand five hundred and fifty eight words behind. Well it will be less once my main character analyzes this post and rips it apart but the ripping will be tomorrow not now. Today was most a roaring success. I never thought that I could slog my way through twenty five percent of my goal in only seven hours of typing. I feel that I am justifiably proud of myself. Yay me! All for now. Later!

NaNoWriMo day 21 Recap!

Well day 21 was a great day for getting stuff done. We cleaned the entire living room and dining room this morning. Also moves Tegans bed and toys up to the kids room out of the living room. Them to top it all off I got sixty one hundred words today for NaNoWriMo. That puts me at roughly twenty thousand words total. I will be over twenty five thousand tomorrow. Well either that or I will have given my kids a five-pound bag of candy. We do not want that and since my main character in the novel does research into ancient net postings. The ones back before the nets were all video and voice. He is reading my posts and ripping me apart for the quaint customs of this century and that I am a human and he is superior to any human from the year two thousand and nine. Well all for now. Later!

The end of NaNo day 20!

We got another model M keyboard from http://www.clickykeyboards.com/ and the key caps were missing from the old one so we have 2 model Ms mow. I found that you can buy a new one here http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html for about $70. Take your pick. We love the model M! I have not missed a day typing for NaNoWriMo since I put one on the main writing computer I use. I enjoy the way it sounds. I feel like there is work getting done as I go. Instead of waiting to check the word count before I feel I‘ve done enough. On another note the boys are doing about as well as I am with their word count. Even with the daily prizes they are still way off what they need daily to finish on schedule. They look at how far behind they are and say ‘I can’t do it”. Then spend the rest of the day playing. Then they try to catch up when the see me pull in the drive way. It is funny to see a face in the upstairs window. Then as I walk to the house I hear them running down the stairs to get their notebooks all set up. So when I walk in the door they are studiously working at the dining room table. One of these days they’ll realize that I can hear them coming down the stairs from outside. Well all for now. Later!

Nano Day 18, CHARGE!

Well here we are on day eighteen of NaNoWriMo. I am still not up to speed but I have been writing every day and I now have 11599 words. The problem is that I am so far behind that I have to write about 3200 words a day to finish. This is bad. But he keyboard is making a difference. Plus I have a daily contest with my kids. They have three ways to win. One they meet or exceed their daily goal and get two pieces of candy. Second way to win is the one who does the most gets a single piece of candy. The last way to win is to do more words that day than me. The prize for that is ten pieces of candy. They are all starting to put out much higher word counts because they want the candy. They have from when they get up in the morning until  five in the afternoon to get their words in. The count for the bead dad prize stops then. The other ones keep running until bedtime. So they have about 9 hours to get in their word count since this is a school assignment so they can work on it all-day. Granted they have to do the chores or there is a penalty in the size of the prize. My middle son won three pieces today and since the living room and dining room looked like a toy monster and paper monster had a big fight in them so he loses two thirds of his prize. He was upset about that but relaxed when I told him the other choice was that I cancel the contests altogether. Well all for now. Later!

NaNoWriMo day 15!

This is weird. Day 15 of NaNoWriMo and I have an underwhelming word count of 7344. Now that is pathetic for this time of the month. I should be at 25000 or more today. What is impressive is that I typed 3805 of them on an IBM type M keyboard today. In less than 2 hours. Think the old IBM selectric typewriter sound and feel. My kids are telling me that it sounds like a machine gun while I am on a roll. But I have a long way to go. 34 words a minute for an author is pathetic. But the tactile and auditory feedback that I get from this keyboard is great. My hands hurt LESS with this keyboard than they do with a ‘soft touch’ one. You don’t know how far you are pressing them until your finger bottoms out. The way I type having a slight notice makes all the difference in the world. I can just hammer away and not think about it much because I know just how far to press to produce each letter. If it clicks you have a letter. No click is no letter.  Not bad for a 5 pound keyboard that will last for a long time. All for now. Later!

NaNoWriMo Start of day 10

Things are not going as planned. Everyone here is 5 days behind. Short post so I can write before work. All for now. Later

Day 1 final and start of day 2

Well everyone hit their target for day on with 5394 words for the family. Today it is are different. I had work and the kids have taken 9 hours to write 1200 words total. They did it in turns. Ten minutes on then 20 minutes off. So when they got on a roll it was time to give someone else a turn. Therefore the 9 hours. Oh and Logan found out the hard way why I told them to post a copy of their daily words to a private family web site. He managed to hit backspace after hitting <ctrl> <a> then saved. Then he just logged off and told me about it later. I could have dug out the auto save file but the program deletes them when the user logs off. Oh well. He now knows better and is typing away to redo his 700 words. All for now. Later!

NaNoWriMo Day 1 madness!

Here we go the first day is a 25-hour day so we should all do more today. Not a chance. But we are up to or over our goals except for my wife. But she has the little one hounding her all-day every day. She got about half done during nap time. Most likely will have the rest done this evening. She is writing in fits and spurts. Which is all good. The boys are all just over the daily goal. I am at 2617. So only 800 more to be on track for tomorrow. Over 3700 for the family so far today. The total family goal is 158,000 words this month. All for now. Later!

Celebrate the Dead!

The Eve of all Saints, All Hollows eve, Halloween, Frealia, Samhain. Or whatever you call this night. Let’s all take a moment to remember those who have gone before and have passed beyond. This is a night for honor and honesty, recall and reflection. We should not sweep the spirit behind the calibration into the corner under a pile of candy wrappers and costume masks. Please take a few moments for the dead tonight. This is their festival. All for now. Later!