NaNoWriMo Eve

Pre-NaNoWriMo checklist:

Some idea of plot?
Check.

Research?

Nope.

Names for most of supporting cast?

Nope.

Food?
Check.

Tea (kindly supplied by friend)?
It was here, but I can't seem to find it...

Writing buddies?
Check.

Work done on choreography that I planned on getting out of the way before NaNoWriMo starts?
...Not really.

Barely-suppressible heart-rate-elevating excitement?
Check.

Writing music (classicchristian247.com)?
Uncertain as of yet. (Thanks a lot, superstorm Sandy.)

Writing music (iTunes)?
Check.

Furnace running?
Check.

Second plot for when I finish the first one early?
Check.

Blankets?
Check.

Fresh batteries for Lila?
Check.

MacBook?
Check.

Annual final-hour-countdown freakout with writing buddy over Facebook?
Check.

(Well, all the important stuff is covered, anyway.)

And now, fellow writers, let us charge forth to the path of glorious exuberant creativity! For the rest of the month may our battle cry shall echo the words of what's-his-face from Mythbusters, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Bring on National Novel Writing Month!


EDIT: 9 November 2012
It wasn't even NaNoWriMo yet and already I was making NaNoisms? Are you KIDDING me?

The Pencil

I have this pencil.

It has a slender black body, once shiny but my fingers have long since worn off the finish. It had a pink clip on it, which I accidentally broke at Bible study during prayer and the broken piece clattered quite loudly onto the floor at my feet.
It has a matching pink finger grip, which heats up and and begins to slide down over the point if I use it long enough and then I have to push it back up on the body every once in a while so I can keep control of the thing.

The eraser is flat and unusable, formerly white but stained with graphite grey and a bit yellowed from its travels. The bit of plastic that holds what's left of the eraser in place is cracked in two places and there's a small dent in it too.

It takes 0.7mm lead refills and I have probably half a dozen of those little plastic containers with spare leads strewn about my room and across various bags because I'm paranoid about running out of lead at any moment (even though at almost any given moment I also have half a dozen pens on my person). It's been with me on countless forays into town for errands, it's put many pages of math behind it, it's been a part of many, many letters to my childhood friend, it's been on several youth camping trips, it's been to Vancouver with me, to the labyrinth where we played broom hockey in the pouring rain, to the beach where I watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life (still kicking myself for not bringing the camera), to the little church where we made lunch and mixed gallons and gallons of juice for the kids to keep hydrated in forty-degree weather. Come to think of it, it probably came to Kelowna with me to visit my great-uncle and great-aunt when I was eleven.

I've had it for probably about nine years now.

But lately it has been showing signs of being discontent with writing choreography and jotting down email addresses of other artists I happen to meet and is making attempts at escaping.

No less than three times today it has been sitting on my desk, beside my computer -- its usual place -- and I've accidentally bumped it and it's fallen off.

No less than three times today I've had to get on my hands and knees and crawl about on the floor to find it, only to find it several feet away from where it would have fallen. (It's worth noting that my floor is carpeted.)

In fact, the last time I ended up nearly tearing my room apart looking for the stupid thing before I finally found it hiding deep within the recesses of my messenger bag -- way over at the other end of the desk.

It's now directly in the middle of the desk, right in my sightline as I touch-type this.

And so help me it is not. going. anywhere.

Sometimes The Littlest Things Make The Biggest Difference...

Nearly two weeks ago, at our extended-family Thanksgiving dinner, my aunt, who quite enjoys my photography, asked to see the binder that I put some of my best prints in. It was on my desk, beside where I usually use my MacBook. I've long found that space constrictive, but I had nowhere else to put that binder.

Anyway, I went to my room and brought it out for her to look at. She ordered some prints and we continued visiting.

Later, once she and everyone else had left, I brought the binder back to my room but didn't put it back on the desk immediately.

That evening I was listening to music on my computer and got an idea for a dance. I grabbed my choreography binder. At first I put it on my lap like I usually did, but then I looked at the now-empty space on the desk.

Hmm...

I pushed the MacBook to one side and set the open binder down beside it. There was just enough open space on the desk for both. (Once I moved the stacks of CDs there was even more room.)

It's crazy how much that freed up my brain for choreography. Having the binder right in front of me and the computer playing music within easy reach (for volume adjustments or checking playing times) didn't seem like that big of a difference, but in the past week and a half I've gotten a lot of formations and some sequence work done for three or four albums' worth of songs. (I used to get maybe five steps done on maybe two or three songs a day.) I haven't yet 'completed' a dance, but I have some that should get done within a few weeks, provided I keep working on them.

Once I've got a decent collection of completed choreography, the next step is getting some dancers together, teaching it to them, and actually getting it staged somewhere...

Yay

So the power just flickered (again... for about the ten billionth time this summer and there isn't even a storm...).
As usual, I was on the computer. But I didn't lose anything.

I love having a MacBook.

I know, a PC laptop would have switched to battery power right away also. But I don't have a PC laptop. It's not a slight against PC users, it's just a fact.
Also, in case you're wondering, I already did an hour of choreography today so yes, I can be on the computer now. It's the novel I need to catch up on, but I need the computer for that.

A Mini-Rant

You know, when you have found one program -- one single, solitary program -- that actually works on a PC (as long as the PC is in a semi-cooperative mood), you expect the Mac version of the same program to work just as well, right?

Fat chance.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you want to use the sound recording/editing program Audacity, find a PC. The Mac version is not only a major pain in the neck to install, it crashes every five minutes and heaven forbid that you might want to save your project.

And while you're using the program on one of those lowlife PCs, take the time (perhaps while it's spending two minutes to export a two and a half minute song as an MP3) to find a way to contact Audacity's people and demand that they fix their Mac version.

Because maybe your PC is like mine and it takes forever to do anything, never mind coordinating sound and graphic rendering, and it also has like ten gigabytes of remaining space and that's after you clean off all the junk.

And maybe you have a super fast Mac with several hundred gigabytes of storage for the sound files and it also happens to be the computer you sync your iPod with.

And maybe, like me, you would really like to do your importing into the Mac for the aforementioned reasons.

And if the Mac version of the program sucks, there goes an increasing number of your downloads (on Audacity's part) as the number of people buying Macs increases. Macs may still be in the minority for now, but they're gaining steam fast. If you as a software producer don't keep up, you might as well go take a job as a burger flipper. Sure, Audacity is open source and free and therefore nobody's making a profit from it, but if you can make it work almost flawlessly on a system as deeply flawed and persnickety as Windows, you can most likely make it work almost as well on a system as smooth and well-thought-out as Mac OS X.

But even though this is all immensely frustrating, I have to give Apple credit for one thing: if Mac OS X (or a program it's running) is going to crash, at least it does it quickly and gets it over with. You don't sit there looking at the 'busy' cursor for an hour while the hard drive churns and rumbles and strains before finally coming to the conclusion that the program is not responding.

Welcome, Successor To The Zombie's Throne

Yesterday I welcomed a new addition into the family of technological devices that are quickly taking over my house (not to mention my life).

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a 13" MacBook Pro.

Four gigabytes of RAM, a 2.3 GHz processor, and three hundred and twenty sweet gigabytes of space for my music, photos, and writing. Portability so I can work on my writing whenever I want, not whenever I manage to wrestle the desktop PC from my sister. And (obviously) it has a battery so if the stupid power decides to go out for sixteen straight hours I can still get things done.

And... I can now sync the iPod touch! (Well, I can as soon as I email myself all the notes I've written on it to back them up.)

Only one more thing remains to be done... to get a wireless Internet connection of some kind in the house so I can officially blog from it. Blogging on a PC just doesn't have that same... allure. (That's why this post seems so scattered.)

It's still rather surreal. When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no idea that it would be the day. I'd thought about the possibility of buying it the night before, but I thought 'Yeah, right. Not for a while yet.' I knew I had nearly enough money, but I didn't think I had enough.

Regardless, Saturday morning I counted my money (there was slightly more than I thought) and went to the Apple Store and asked the staff a few fairly minor questions I still had. (Shout-out to Jenna at the South Common Future Shop if you ever happen to stumble across this -- you were a great help! Thank you so much!)

I was still fairly certain I wouldn't be getting a MacBook that day, but then she mentioned that the Macs were actually on sale until the 17th of June.

It wasn't much, just a hundred dollars or so (not much when you're talking about a $1300 computer), but as she pointed out, it's a big deal when anything with an Apple logo is on sale. She also offered me a twenty dollar discount on iWork, which I was also planning to buy whenever I bought the MacBook.

Then she gave me a few minutes to think about it.

I had no idea what to think. Suddenly I wasn't sure exactly how much money I had on me, I couldn't remember, but I would almost certainly be able to make it work.

So I could actually get my dream computer today?

The thought was so radically different after months, nearly a year, of telling myself 'Eventually, eventually, sometime you will get this MacBook. But first you have to wait.' I couldn't process the idea of the eventuality actually becoming true -- today.

She returned and asked if I'd come to a decision yet. The truth was, my brain had frozen. I hadn't expected to actually be considering the idea of purchasing one that very day and therefore my brain had refused to entertain the idea even though it was now within my reach.

I took a breath. I still had no idea what to say.

I heard my voice say, "I think... I'll take it."

She smiled.

"That's great! I'm so excited for you!"

She got me a MacBook and a copy of iWork. I paid for it and brought it home.

I spent most of this afternoon adding music and photos to it and it still doesn't quite seem real -- that this MacBook is mine, all mine. That I can customise and play to my heart's content because I'm not just drooling over someone else's MacBook -- it's actually mine.