NaNoWriMo Progress Report - Day 13

I feel like this year I'm having the NaNoWriMo experience Chris Baty describes in the monumental book No Plot? No Problem! (the book that introduced me to National Novel Writing Month and singlehandedly turned me into a writer who actually writes rather than just dreaming about writing).

He describes going in with zero plot and truly making it up as you go. He describes Week Two -- a week when everything in your novel is crap and you just want to quit. He describes the lifeless anaemic characters finally beginning to perk up and DO something in Week Three. And for the first time in ten years of month-long-novel-writing, I'm checking all these boxes.

While I try not to plan much at all, I do usually have a strong enough idea that I know I can squeeze 50,000 words out of relatively easily, even if I don't quite know how that plays out yet. I'm not usually worried about running out of plot (though I've had to stretch some of the novels a bit to make 50k). But this year, while I did have a bit of an idea, I had no earthly clue how I was going to get from point A from point B without making it too easy for the characters (that is, writing the entire plot arc in 10k and having to filibuster for the other 40k). This was the first time I'd really had to make a conscious decision to trust myself and my ability to write myself out of a corner -- something I've rarely had to actually do on this scale. Usually I have at least one ace up my sleeve, but I didn't this year. I had no escape route, no back-up plan. I felt like I was playing FreeCell on Windows XP -- there's no undo button, and if you make one wrong move, you lose, no second chance. It was a huge act of courage to even start the novel this year, not knowing how well I can actually write myself out of a true dead end.

I'd never really experienced the Week Two blues. Usually Week Two is when I tip the second domino chain into motion and really get in the pocket. The first week was historically the worst for me. But this year, Week Two was abysmal. One of my characters was dead and the other two had literally no personality (or social life -- so I didn't even have interesting acquaintances I could write about).

But now, suddenly, the characters are beginning to develop emotions. They're beginning to react to stuff and have opinions. At the moment, one character has just accused his best friend of getting his sister pregnant. I knew this was a plot point, but when I put it in I was surprised how angry the brother was, and how the accusation drove the friend to despair. The friend knows it's not true, but he has no way of proving it, and the sister's dead so she can't say. I had originally thought these guys would be grieving her death together, but last night at the write-in they suddenly stopped speaking to each other and that made things a little more interesting because now they're going to have to repair their friendship AND solve the mystery. Even more interesting -- my character who was all gung-ho about solving this mystery literally just gave up on it and has accepted that maybe the deadly fire was an accident after all (the other character never did care about whether or not it was an accident -- which also surprised me). So now they have to repair their relationship AND decide that actually this is worth investigating AND solve the mystery. I feel like having enough story to make 50k isn't quite impossible anymore -- it's only mostly impossible.

I'm currently at 24,677 words. It's almost halfway, but it really doesn't feel like it. I feel like there's still so many words between here and 50k and I'm trying to hold off all my plot points so I don't run out of story. (I need a subplot. Unfortunately I am terrible at subplots.)

Hoping to hit 26,700 words today. The official goal for today (Day 14) is only 23,333, but I've been trying to gain an extra day of word count every two or three days so I'll be finished (or extremely close) by the last week of November so I'm not trying to catch up on the novel AND keep on top of school AND open our massive Christmas musical.

Roadblock Identified: Everest On Road

(Don't try too hard to make sense of that title; I'm not in writer mode...)

Since I feel so inadequate about writing down the brilliant (I wish) choreography in my head and being utterly unable to read it back later and figure out my own work, the other day I Googled 'ballet choreography notation.' I didn't hold out much hope as I'd done this several times before with no notable results.

This time though, I found a couple of decent sites (no, not Wikipedia).

Or at least they looked decent.

There was this one site that was really making sense. I looked at their preview lessons and was actually beginning to understand it (typically it takes me about three years to pick up on complex things like when someone says they hate you that means they don't want you around). However, the writer of the preview lessons said it was highly advisable to learn the official, more detailed version of notation before moving on to the shorthand (which was what I was viewing). Conveniently, this was also available on their website... somewhere.

More than an hour later I finally came to the conclusion (like I said, I'm slow) that this 'original' version of the notation system was apparently intelligence on par with the highest of Cold War-era US Naval Defence secrets* or something because it was NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. It appeared the site had a grand total of three pages and they all linked to each other and back and no matter what you clicked you ended up cycling through the same three pages over and over and over again.

So I went back to the original Google search results page and ended up on the official Royal Academy of Dance website. Perfect.

I went to the shop and clicked on 'books,' since that seemed the most likely to have something that would help me. There were a few books, but no summary of whether they contained famous dances written in said notation or if the books would actually help me learn to write the notation myself.

So I looked for software choreography programs. There were several that looked quite good -- for a cool grand I could order a sort of 'word-processor-like' program. (That term wasn't really explained, but as the previous computer program I looked at required a doctorate in nuclear-phycisist-level math just to place one hand, 'word-processor-like' sounded attainable.)

I would have actually considered the 'word-processor-like' programs too (thousand dollars and all), until I looked at the all-important system requirements: 64MB RAM (check), CD ROM drive (check), hard disk space (amount not specified but if you're asking for only 64MB RAM I have enough hard drive space to correspond to that), 233 MHz processor or more (check), printer (check), Windows 95, 98, or 2000.

Crap.

(It got better: 'Windows 95, 98 and 2000. Untested on Windows ME and XP; NT is not supported. The [software] will run on Windows 95 but the platform is now obsolete.' Then why bother keeping it up?)


I knew software for the Mac OS is harder to find but given Apple's huge advertising push (and the exposure they get from the iDevices) over the past few years and the fact that now everyone probably knows at least one person with a Mac, you'd think that Mac software would now be almost as easy to find as software for the Windows PC.


Alas, apparently this is not yet the case.


I went back to Google search and looked for 'benesh notation' which, I've heard, is the most-used system for such things.


Nothing. At least, nothing on how to learn to write it -- but plenty of articles lamenting how almost no one -- dancers and choreographers alike -- can read choreography notation of any kind.


Well... it would certainly help the case if the materials were available, wouldn't it? I mean, I'm not the sharpest petal on the rose but it makes sense (at least to me anyway) that if you want people to learn this, making it readily available to them would go a long way to accomplishing that goal.


Just a thought.


But if any of you happen to find some kind of a book on learning to write Benesh movement notation (not famous dances written in Benesh notation), do let me know, because it seems my brain will refuse to thaw and let me do this until I can make it understand that yes, I will be able to later understand what I wrote.


*I realise the US Navy might not have been a big player in the Cold War, but the term 'US Naval Defence secrets' in conjunction with nuclear threats sounds very impressive and probably very accurately describes the secretive state of this elusive choreography notation system.

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.

Why Wikipedia Should Be Blocked After 9.30pm

I have come to a conclusion.
There should be a plugin built into every web browser on the market that blocks all access to Wikipedia after 9.30pm local time.
It's not that I'm addicted to Wikipedia. If I have a question about something, I usually go to the library and borrow a half-dozen books on the topic. If I need something right this minute I'll ask a friend who I think is likely to know the answer. Rarely do I turn to Google and by extension, Wikipedia.
However, on the rare occasion I do Google something, I tend to end up on Wikipedia, because it's the first link on the page and it generally doesn't have viruses that screw up people's computers (I'm a bit paranoid that way about Google searching).
And let's face it, it is informative... too informative. I looked up Rich Mullins once and I learned everything I could possibly have ever wanted to know and then some about microcassettes, analog generation loss, and Space Cadet Pinball for Windows 98 (plus, of course, Rich Mullins).
And that's the whole problem. If they didn't link to other interesting and informative Wikipedia pages, I wouldn't be writing this post. It wouldn't eat five irretrievable hours of my life at a time.
And I wouldn't end up terrifying the living daylights out of myself for a few days.

Have you ever looked up the Wikipedia page for Elvis Presley?
I swear you could print it out on regular paper 8.5 inches wide and lay it across Canada and it would reach from Vancouver at least to Winnipeg. It's insanely long. I'm a fast reader (the fastest I know), and it took me and hour and a half to read it. An hour and a half! And I didn't even read it all... I skimmed quite a bit (mostly the bits about his, ahem, very private life).
A quick subpoint here -- there should seriously be an adult content warning label on that page. Mostly it talked about his songs and movies and maybe a bit about his family life (especially in the earlier years), but I saw -- even though I started skimming -- far more about his, er... intimate life than anybody needs to know. I know the Internet is kind of a free-for-all, but seriously, what if it was your eight-year-old doing a report on Elvis and decided to look at the Wikipedia page? Have a little consideration here, people. No, a warning label is not going to prevent you (or your child) from continuing to read it anyway, but at least then you have a heads-up and if you've trained your kid well they'll at least come ask you if they should continue reading.

Back to Elvis.
I don't even know what possessed me to start reading the Elvis Presley Wikipedia page at eleven pm, knowing the chain reaction Wikipedia lays down for you.
I had been looking for album artwork for my iTunes library and randomly decided to check out the Imperials Wikipedia page that appeared in the list. Why, I don't know -- I could ask my dad about the Imperials and he could tell me more than the Wikipedia page did. And why I opened the link to the Elvis page from there I don't really know either.
I mean, I knew all I really cared about -- singer, started his career in 1950s sometime, acted a bit, served in the US Army, died of some kind of overdose in 1977. Sure there's more than that, but I didn't really care about any of it... except for the question 'what did he actually die of?'
From laypeople (most of them aged four or younger when he died) I'd heard it was drugs, I'd heard alcohol, I'd heard he starved himself to death trying to lose weight but I'd never heard from a slightly more reputable source. And since I apparently have some kind of morbid fascination with how famous people die (especially if they die young), I decided to check it out.
I know, I know, they have that neat little box at the top of the page that links to certain segments of the article, but as the page was loading I suddenly thought, I wonder how he even got started in the first place.
So I read that part. But you know how it is -- as soon as you start reading something, anything, you have to continue; you can't just stop.
So I continued.

Finally, at about 12.30am I reached the part with a heading about the decline of his health.
Now put yourself in my place.
It's 12.30 in the morning.
You're fighting to keep from falling asleep over your keyboard.
It is completely silent save the very, very soft whirring of your laptop (city people may struggle with this one).
Aside from the computer's screen and one fluorescent bulb, it is completely dark.
You've just spent more than an hour with your (very vivid) imagination firmly locked, no distraction, in the world of Elvis or at least his fans.
And you have an irrational terror of music being garbled or messed up.
I'm not kidding about that last point. As far back as I can remember, the drone of a cassette tape in a faulty player would give me nightmares for weeks. I hated that sound -- the slow, painful, mournful death of music. I would hear a song droning like that in the daytime and then in the dead of night I would close my eyes and the song would suddenly be in my head, warped and moaning, almost melting slowly in a flame as the proverbial ghost was wrenched from its being. And I would be too terrified by the awful sound in my head to even consider seeking reassuring company in my parents' room at the other end of the dark house.
I still hate that sound.

And as you sit there in silence, only half-awake and barely aware of your surroundings as the darkness presses against the window just above your head; like the beginning of a horror show -- creepy music in your head and all -- it's as if the light takes on an eerie reddish cast, turning everything that isn't in tar-black shadow into an hazy, choppy scene the colour of blood.
Your eyes become stuck on a paragraph which, coupled with your very focused, very vivid, half-dreaming imagination, becomes a nightmare as your brain invents the sound... like watching a horrific accident that's too terrible to look away from... the account of one of Presley's musicians about a concert on what I gather was his last tour, describing how Elvis had to hold onto the microphone stand for support, how he was so drugged and listless he couldn't even sing the words to his own songs...
And your primed imagination pulls together a shaky, unfocused hand-held video recording of a rock star clinging to a microphone stand with the band thumping and crashing along behind him as if all's right with their world and yet it's so obvious something is very wrong... the singer tries to form the words of his own songs and he can't make them work, he can't keep up with the band, his eyes are half-closed as he channels all his strength into clinging to that microphone stand... the band continues to play along behind him but all that comes through the lead microphone is irregular mumbling... droning and patchy against a much stronger and steadier beat...
You blink and return to your bedroom thirty-five years later but only momentarily as you're suddenly thrown back in time again, a child standing in the doorway to her bedroom, swaying, the sound of a badly dragging music tape looping through her head, echoing through the pitch darkness as she tries to gather enough courage to make the sprint across the house to her parents' room through the sound of the dying cassette tape coming from all around.

The Blue Screen Of Death

I'm not afraid of the Blue Screen of Death. I never have been.
Oh sure, I heard the horror stories as a child of computers suddenly displaying this mysterious blue screen with 'gibberish' written in white text, then never working again.
I think the reason for my utter lack of fear (or even healthy respect) of the BSOD is because although I knew the stories, the first (and second and third and fourth) time I encountered one I didn't know what it was.
I was about twelve years old at the time and while listening to a CD on our old Windows ME computer I somehow discovered that I could import music off of it into the computer -- and only the songs I liked.
So I pulled a couple of favourite songs off of two or three CDs and was having a wonderful time listening to them when suddenly the music went into a loop about five seconds long and a blue screen with white text came up.
I read it carefully. I didn't understand most of it, but it said 'Press any key to continue,' so I did.
I can't recall if it rebooted or if the blue screen simply disappeared, but at any rate I found myself back at the desktop -- although all the running programs had been closed.
Thinking it was fluke or something (ah, how much I've learned about computers over the years!), I opened Media Player, found the songs, and tried to play them again.
About a minute into the first song the same thing happened -- the music suddenly went into an annoying loop and the blue screen with white text came up again. I read the screen -- in case it said something different this time -- and pressed a key to continue.
Again I ended up back at the desktop with WMP closed.
I was quite stubborn back then and opened Windows Media Player a third time and began to play the music. However, if I recall correctly I did choose a different song.
Once again the blue screen appeared. I was only slightly perturbed at this point (things really have changed since then...). I pressed a key and was dumped back to the desktop.
I decided to try once more. If it still didn't work then Windows Media Player just wasn't worth the time and energy.
So for a fourth time I launched WMP and began to play music. For a fourth time the blue screen appeared and I pressed a key and ended up back at the desktop. I simply chose something else to do and continued on my merry (if somewhat quieter) way.
It wasn't until several months later that I realised that I had seen the infamous Blue Screen of Death that day. That screen I had always feared and dreaded... that apparently heralded the computer's immediate and inescapable demise... I had simply blown past it four times in a row. I had conquered it. The computer hadn't succumbed.
In other words, the almighty and powerful Blue Screen of Death was not a huge monster that would ruin the computer instantly no matter what one tried. It was completely controllable and I was capable of defeating it.
No, the BSOD doesn't scare me.
This scares me:

My apologies for the glare -- my photo editing software is currently out of commission (again...). Photo by Kate.

For the reason, read this, this, and this (in that order). I suppose if you're in a hurry you could get off with reading just the last one though.

The Birth Of A Computer Nerd -- Part Two

My parents acquired our first computer when I was eleven. We were visiting relatives and they had recently gotten a new computer. Therefore they had a slightly used Windows ME computer they were getting rid of. My parents, who had been sort of considering getting a computer, agreed to take it.

Again, I have no idea what the thing's technical specifications were (and unfortunately the tower is no longer in our possession), but it worked for what we needed. I was rather disappointed that I couldn't start e-mailing my friends -- my parents were dead-set against the Internet -- but I managed to survive by drawing things in Paint, occasionally doing some typing, and playing with display settings (my sister and I would preview the haunted house screensaver and spend hours pretending to sneak up to the house on the screen from the other end of the room. Whenever a ghost would appear or a noise was heard, we would freak out and skitter back to the opposite wall where we would catch our breath in the most dramatic fashion and then slowly gather the courage to make our way to the house again).

For several years nobody really used the computer for much -- the varying versions of Solitaire were the most often-used programs.

Then I got an iPod.

I knew next to nothing about iPods at the time. All I knew was that somehow you used a computer to put music on it and then you could listen to music all the time without the bother of toting along half a dozen scratched CDs only to find that two of the cases are empty -- twenty minutes into a three-day road trip.
For me, a music junkie, that was all I needed to know. We had a computer, I had enough money. No problem.

Alas, I was young, sheltered, and as such completely unaware that there were different kinds of operating systems. Neither was I aware of the term 'incompatible' in the computing world.

Long story short, I bought the iPod, brought it home, and after several hours came to the conclusion that the computer simply would not communicate with the iPod. Since I didn't have very much computer knowledge I initially chalked it up to my own inexperience. However, after I'd talked to a friend who also had an iPod, I read the iPod's packaging, on her recommendation. It was only then that I found that I needed something called 'Windows XP.' I also needed 'iTunes' which required... an Internet connection.

At the time a computer nerd relative of ours had just moved to our area. We telephoned him and asked what we could do. He said he would download iTunes onto a portable drive and install it onto our computer from there.

Several days later, he came out to do that... but the computer refused to read the drive. Nothing he tried worked.

Finally we had to admit defeat. The computer was simply too old. However, this relative -- who built and repaired computers for extra cash -- said that the next time he got his hands on an XP computer to sell, we could have it.

Seven months passed and I began to despair of ever being able to use my iPod for more than the Apple version of Breakout that came bundled with it (it was a pretty decent version, but even so...).

Finally though, the day came when he told us he had a computer for us. Since we still didn't have the Internet, he took the liberty of installing the latest version of iTunes on it before giving it to us. He showed me how to import my music and sync my iPod, and in doing so was the midwife at the birth of a more manic computer geek than anyone would ever have dreamed I'd become.
Not wanting to repeat the frustration of spending several hundred dollars before discovering an incompatibility and having to wait seven months to be able to use the device I'd paid good money for, I decided I would learn more about computers so I could avoid similar mistakes (but anyone who's read the story of The Zombie (as I've decided to call The Computer) knows that I still make that mistake. Occasionally. Once. And it did work out that time... for a month and a half anyway).
I went to the library and borrowed a few computer books that had 'Windows' or 'iPod' in the title, figuring that was as good a place as any to start.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), those beginner computer books led to more complex and in-depth computer books. It wasn't long before I was bringing home books and magazines with titles like 'Teach Yourself C++,' 'The Hacker Quarterly,' and 'Dreaming In Code' (excellent book, by the way, utterly fascinating. The author is Scott Rosenberg if you'd like to look it up).
My knowledge quickly expanded. Eventually I'd read all the computer books the library had and moved on to tinkering with our computer without any specific goal in mind. How it survived some of the things I (mostly accidentally) inflicted on it I have no idea.
Two years after we got that XP computer, my parents finally gave in to their offspring's pleas and got high-speed Internet installed. Around the same time our computer geek relative was given a newer, better Windows XP computer to sell and passed it along to us. I got the old computer (I was rather disappointed since I'd outgrown the hard drive before it even passed into my hands and had hoped to get the newer one since my parents and sister were perfectly fine with the old computer anyway. I still have that computer though... it's the 20 GB one mentioned in the story of The Zombie).
Despite all the reading though, I've done most of my learning through trial and error. To this day I have never owned a brand new computer, either my own or my parents'. Since used computers tend to come with, ahem, 'quirks' (some more severe than others), I've had to do a lot of experimenting and stabs in the dark, hoping for something to work. As much as I hate having to coax unresponsive computers back into existence, I've accidentally taught myself a lot of things (like never put the iTunes folder in another user's Documents).
The nine-year-old who spent a half hour in a dialog box trying to figure out how to shut down Windows ME seems so far away now. Especially considering I've hatched a rather elaborate, multifaceted, and probably-going-to-be-mostly-ad-libbed plan to get The Zombie operational again. (I suppose if it works I'll have to come up with a different name for it though... although really, computers are zombies to begin with...)

The Birth Of A Computer Nerd -- Part One

(This wasn't meant to be a two-part post, but it became rather long during composition...)

As you have probably figured out by now, I'm a bit of a computer nerd.
Okay, I'm a regular computer nerd.
Okay, okay, I'm one of the most obsessed self-taught computer nerds you might ever meet.
It wasn't always that way though. Ten years ago my family didn't even have a computer. To me, windows were those glass panes you look out of to see the boring treeline across the road, and an apple macintosh was the dyslexic term for that slightly crunchy reddish fruit. I would have assumed that Linux and DOS were acronyms for some political 'undertaking' or (in the case of Linux at least) perhaps a new brand of toothpaste. Computers were those little beige TV screens that apparently were madly intelligent and going to take over the world.
My only exposure to a computer before age nine was playing a side-scrolling plunger-shooting game on my best friend's family's computer. (It's aimed for the younger set, but it's still slightly addicting if you're not wanting to think much for a few minutes.)
When I was nine, my grandmother (always farther ahead of the times than my parents, whether she understood the technology or not) got a brand-new computer. At the time that meant Windows ME and probably at most an eight gigabyte hard drive (I don't know how much exactly, but the tower's in my possession now so I could look it up. Come to think of it though, I don't think it works anymore).
Probably one of my most ridiculous memories of childhood was when my little sister and I got to use our grandmother's computer for the first time.
We were enthralled by Solitaire and even managed to figure out Spider Solitaire. We also played a bit of Minesweeper, but we couldn't figure out the point of the game and therefore just kept clicking squares until one turned red and it wouldn't let us click anymore. We knew to click the face at the top to start over, but we bored of that quickly because of the seeming lack of purpose behind it. (Flash-forward: I didn't know what the goal of Minesweeper was until I was probably about fifteen. But I digress.)
We also discovered Paint. As a result of this, my grandmother's computer became inundated over the next several years with random doodles created in Paint by my sister and me.
However, we eventually got bored with the computer and wanted to turn it off.
There was, in Windows ME, a neat little button in the Start menu that said 'Shut Down Computer.' Perfect.
My grandmother and I (my sister had wandered off by that point) clicked it and a little box came up.
It read, 'What do you want the computer to do?' then displayed a drop-down menu with the options Shut Down, Sleep, Hibernate, and Restart. We didn't know what Sleep and Hibernate were, but we knew we wanted it to shut down, so that's what we selected.
Nothing happened. Several times we selected the Shut Down option, and the computer gave no indication that it was doing anything resembling turning off. We tried selecting Sleep and Hibernate, but to no avail.
Even with my complete lack of experience with computers, I knew that you never pressed the power button to turn it off. Never. Ever. I didn't know what would happen if we did, but I didn't want to wreck my grandmother's nice new expensive computer.
So we closed the dialog box, thinking maybe it didn't 'take' (or something) and tried again. We clicked 'Shut Down Computer,' selected the 'Shut Down' option, and waited.
Nothing happened.
The only buttons along the bottom of the dialog box were 'OK,' 'Cancel,' and 'Help.'
We clicked Help, and (as I've come to realise is typical of Microsoft's Help files), learned nothing.
Finally though, after quite a while, my little nine-year-old mind had a thought.
'If you click 'OK' to make the other boxes do something, what will happen if we click 'OK' here?'
Brilliant, I know. And it only took half an hour.
Anyway, I suggested it to Grandma, who, lacking any better ideas, tried it. Lo and behold the computer shut down.
From that day forth I never forgot how to shut down a Windows 95/98/ME computer.

Prodding My Memory

Computers really are smart, aren't they? The Windows ones are at any rate. They make sure you will never forget how much you hate them and how much more money you'll need to save before you can buy a Mac and actually get some work done instead of doing diagnostics on your computer every time you attempt to use it.

Today -- rather, yesterday -- the intelligent Windows computer must have thought I was overdue for this reminder. So, being the helpful device that it is, it... well, reminded me (as if I'd forgotten).

I had reached the end of my novel at just over 74 000 words. The goal is 50 000, so of course I'm far past winning.

However, the NaNoWriMo website requires that you upload the text of your novel for them to count so they know you have actually written 50 000 words or more and can give you access to a well-deserved winner's certificate. Verification, they call it.

It was 11.20 PM and I had just polished off my novel, milking a few extra words out of it here and there, and was finally ready to upload it to get it verified. So I went to the website, pasted the text into the 'verification box'... and Firefox froze.

Completely, totally froze. I know it's probably at least twenty below zero (Celsius) outside, but honestly, this computer has been on for a few hours now, it should have generated enough heat to handle a simple copy-paste operation.

I managed to close the stubborn thing via the Task Manager (the Windows computer user's best friend if you ask me) and restart Firefox (this takes twelve minutes). It allowed me to log back into the site, get to the verification box... and once again froze on the copy-paste.

I began to panic. I have less than a half hour until the verification box is closed to me, because then it will be 1 December local time and the contest will officially be over.

Once again I manage to force Firefox to close and get it to reopen. By now it's 11.40 PM. I have twenty minutes. Again it lets me log in only to freeze when I try to verify.

I'm in tears. That only happens once every six months or so -- I do not cry easily. I have worked so hard on this novel and now I can't even get it verified and get the official winner status that I so richly deserve?

The computer is moving more and more slowly every time. Recovery is taking longer and longer. I figure I have one more chance to get it right before running out of time and thus officially losing the contest.

I'm completely fed up with Firefox. I try Internet Explorer, but it freezes before it even loads the home page.

Fine and dandy. I've never particularly cared for IE anyway.

So I try Safari. I haven't the faintest idea why or how we've got Safari installed on our Windows computer, but it's my only hope now. I double-click it... and am pleasantly surprised.

Within seconds I am logged on to the NaNoWriMo website and at the verifier. I copy and paste my novel into the box. For a split second nothing happens and I began to panic even more, thinking the blasted thing's frozen again.

But then the pointer returns to normal and I am allowed to scroll down to the 'Submit' button.

I think I was happier when I clicked that little baby blue button than I was when I reached 50 000 words.

So I am now officially a winner of National Novel Writing Month for the fourth time in a row. The novel was 74 834 words and 247 pages long. Hopefully I can write the next one on a MacBook.

The Bitter End -- And The Ramifications Thereof

Part Three of a three-part series.

23 August 2010. 11.45 PM (or something to that effect).
I pulled my chair up to the computer, woke it up, and plugged in the flash drive containing my nearly complete novel.
I am practically giddy. I have already passed the 45 000 word mark, that being the goal for the 28th day. If my pacing keeps up I will easily finish by the 25th. My previous record is 29 days.
I am so excited I can hardly sit still.
I navigate to the folder containing my precious novel, double-click the file, and wait for Microcrap Word to spring to life.
After several (uncharacteristic) minutes of waiting, a dialog box appears, saying that Word is updating. This puzzles me, as this computer hasn't been on anything resembling an Internet connection for nearly a month. Where is it getting this 'update' from?
I hit 'Cancel,' assuming that will circumvent the 'updating' process and start Word so I can work on my novel.
'The updating process has failed.' Hmm, I wonder why...
I click 'Close' -- the only button available -- and wait for Word to open.
It doesn't.
So I go to the Start menu and attempt to open Word from there.
The dialog box reappears, and again I hit 'Cancel' and give it a few minutes to open Word.
You know what happens next -- absolutely nothing.
However, the computer is evidently doing some strenuous task -- I can hear the hard drive churning and gurgling, but the only program currently running is iTunes. It is by now at least 12 AM.
Once again I attempt to open Word. This time when the dialog appears I leave it and allow it to do its 'updating.'
After nearly fifteen minutes the progress bar disappears and another dialog box takes its place.
'The updating process has failed.'
I wait for Word to open, but it does not.
Rather disappointed, I abandon the novel for the present and open Notepad -- my writing warm-up tool of choice.
It takes a full five minutes for the most streamlined program on the computer -- perhaps in existence -- to load. This brings me to a conclusion.
This is ridiculous.
And that means a reboot is almost certainly in order.
I close Notepad (a process which takes another two minutes) and iTunes (three minutes). Then I select 'Restart' and sit back.
Because I have the attention span of a goldfish, I pick up a piece of paper or something (I don't even remember what) and read it while I wait for the computer to finish the reboot.
After a while I realise that it appears to be taking a rather long time for the blue login screen to appear. I look up.
The monitor is displaying an odd screen of text that I've never seen before. However, I don't get to read any of it before it disappears and the POST takes its place.
Strange...
The POST text finishes and the Windows XP splash screen comes up for an instant before the screen goes black and white text appears.
My heart sinks before I even begin to read.
'We apologise for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully.'
It goes on to give a thoroughly uninformative 'possible explanation' for said failure and then lists several options -- start Windows normally, in Safe Mode, in Safe Mode with command prompt, Safe Mode with networking, and Last Known Good Configuration. A countdown clock is at the bottom of the screen -- 'Windows will start in 20 seconds.'
Odd. However, my previous computer would frequently go into a similar sort of boot loop, often fixed by a simple tug of the power cord for a minute or so. So I unplug the computer, wait thirty seconds or so, and plug it back in.
The POST runs, then the error screen appears again.
At this point I begin to panic.
I select Last Known Good Configuration. The Windows splash screen appears for a split second before reverting again to the POST, which then gives way to the error message.
This time I select Safe Mode. Same result.
I yank the flash drive out of the USB port, hoping it hasn't somehow been reformatted, unplug the computer again, and sit back. Tears pool in my eyes.
Then, after a few seconds, I reach into my book bag.
Lila, my faithful little Neo 2, had at that point been with me for a year and a half, the equivalent of one and a half novels, one script, and copious amounts of plot hashing and note taking. Never once has she failed me, even with the amount of salt water that's dripped into her keyboard.
I pull her out of the book bag and hug her.
It's just her and me now. Us against the world of Windows.

And that, dear reader, is why I have no money for writing music this November. MacBooks don't come cheap, and due to my utter lack of a computer that will at least start up, I need one as soon as possible. I was saving for one before, but not with the ruthless intensity that is now required.
I only hope that my lack of decent music and the inability to write during my best hours won't put me in a madhouse next month...

Subdued

Part Two of a three part series.

For the remainder of July (for it was July by the time I set the computer up), I added programs and photos with rather reckless abandon, and spent nearly every waking moment either working on my Spider Solitaire winning streak (it ended at 19 games, if I recall correctly), customising preferences, or writing.

Two rather good short stories were born out of this writing, as was the nebulous of a poem of sorts.

In late July, I got an iPod touch (an early birthday gift). After it was purchased, I read the packaging and found that as far as Windows XP goes, it was only compatible with Service Pack 3 or higher.

The computer I had been planning to use it with (the only computer in the house that had both iTunes and a working USB port) had SP2.

For a split second I was horrified... my (very generous) grandmother and I had just spent a collective total of nearly three hundred dollars on this and I couldn't even use it?

Then my mind flashed back to the System Properties dialog box on my new computer. If my memory was accurate, it might just have said 'Service Pack 3.' However, I wasn't sure.

So when I got home, I rushed to the computer and called up The Official Windows Box Of Nerd Stats.

Sure enough, it read 'Windows XP Home Service Pack 3.'

I was elated. All I needed to do was install iTunes, add my music, and hook up the iPod.

Six hours later I had finally installed iTunes and added (I hoped) every song I could think of that I might possibly wish to listen to (it would have taken far longer if I hadn't had a partial backup of the other computer's music files). Exhausted but excited, I plugged in the iPod. And got an error message from iTunes.

It needed to connect to the Internet in order for me to register the iPod and thus, sync it.

Due to lack of finances (or more accurately, laziness preventing us from researching the actual cost), there is no networking in the house. If you want to get onto the Internet, you have to get onto the one computer that's connected to it.

The SP2 computer.

Upon researching the potential pitfalls involved in upgrading that computer to SP3 I (wisely, as I would realise later) dropped the notion. However, it looked as if I would never get to use the iPod for anything more than note-taking.

That night, however, an idea came to me and the next morning I put it in action.

It took me a good half hour to rewire the Internet connection, moving it temporarily from the 'primary' computer to mine. With my computer on the Internet, I registered the iPod, bought a few songs, and synced it before moving the Internet connection back to its designated place.

I had been quite grateful for the computer before, and this only heightened my thankfulness. Without it, my iPod would have been the next thing to useless.

Then dawned 1 August (actually, it didn't even have a chance to dawn; I opened Word and started writing as soon as the clock read 12.00 AM), and I started my novel -- the one about the murder.

I quickly discovered that I do my best writing between the hours of 11.30 PM and 4.00 AM (something I'd suspected, but hadn't yet confirmed).

So, every night, as the rest of the family was falling asleep, I woke up the computer, plugged in my trusty flash drive, and wrote until I could no longer see the monitor for the black spots before my eyes.

The story took shape at a blinding pace, and the computer was quite patient about the whole thing.

For twenty-three days (rather, nights) we worked together, racking up over 45,000 words out of the goal of 50,000.

And then in the proverbial home stretch it choked.

The Beginning -- Acquiring 'The Computer'

Part One of a three-part series.

I suppose it started back in early June. My neighbour/friend was getting rid of her old computer because she was upgrading and asked if I wanted it. My primary computer at the time had a 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM and a processor whose speed was measured in MHz, not GHz. Oh, and a nasty habit of restarting itself every time I tried to plug in my USB thumb drive.
Needless to say, another computer was quite an attractive offer, even if it was used. I reasoned that anything had to be better than the beast I was currently fighting with and a hundred dollars was a reasonable price to pay for something that should last until I could acquire a MacBook.
Alas, I underestimated the wrath of circuitry that has been forced to run Windows.
I bought the computer and toted it home. For several weeks the poor thing languished in a corner of my bedroom because its new owner was too lazy to set it up (that and there was no room on my desk for it).
Finally, though, I cleared off the desk, rearranged a few things, and set the thing up.
I was amazed when I started it up and looked at the System Properties.
It boasted nearly twice the RAM, three times the hard drive space, and a far more sophisticated processor. Not top-of-the-line, but certainly better than anything I'd previously owned. Further poking around showed that this was a well-maintained computer. The previous owner had obviously taken very good care of it and as far as I could tell it was almost like new.
Naturally, I was overjoyed and within a few days I was doing all my writing on that computer. This was for three reasons: one, it was far faster than either of the other computers in the house; two, since it was my computer, I could stay up writing on it as late as I wanted; and three, it read my flash drive without argument.
Over the next week or so, I developed only two complaints about it -- one of the USB ports was dead and it had an older version of Microsoft Word, meaning I couldn't read or edit some of my documents. (However, since I work primarily in Notepad, that wasn't all that much of an issue.) I kept my old computer only for my iTunes library and Microsoft Word 2007.
Ah yes, it was glorious. At last I had a computer that didn't look as if it would explode any day now. With my plans to write a novel in August, I couldn't have asked for more.