No no NaNo

[wordplay]

Right, so NaNo? SO completely not happening this year - what was I thinking? Well, clearly what I was NOT thinking was that this month would bring the big push for getting the lab software operational. Our budget for next year has been submitted and we want to start collecting data sometime in January so, like, wow - I really ought to get my shit together, eh? This is not compatible with a writing goal of 1600+ words/day, and it's really not so much time that's the scarce commodity (time ALWAYS is - I'm getting pretty used to that), but it's intellectual energy that I'm having to budget pretty carefully right now. So, you know, the not-necessarily-urban fantasy novel about the magic of places is going back into the "oh god, I'll deal with that idea later, later, LATER" folder. That folder is kind of scarily big. The GOOD thing is that I'm feeling mostly better and so am off the NyQuil, meaning that I'm no longer expanding it with ideas inspired by my drugged-up dreams.

However! NaBloPoMo? I'm all over that. And I'm going to go with Fran's and Alex's and Callie's model, so there will be pretty pictures, yay. :D Well, except they might not be v. pretty. Whatever. I wanted to take a picture of our moldy pumpkins (that something was trying to eat, because there were all these chunks bitten out) but M. trashed them before I could get there, so you all owe him a debt of gratitude.





This is our dining room table right now. Everything in the middle we harvested or gathered - the apples and gourds came from a pick-your-own place, the leaves the kids and M. picked up around the neighborhood and I dipped in paraffin to preserve them, and the acorns were a fun project for me and the kids a couple of weeks ago at Shenandoah Nat'l Park. It's actually prettier in person than it looks here, and it just makes me HAPPY to have all those beautiful things there. The stack to the right is a week's worth of direct mail marketing, with a few magazines and one of my notebooks in the mix. (I love these notebooks, by the way - they're my favorite kind of legal pad and when I find them, I buy them by the case and hoard them. Best ever.) It's begun in earnest, that avalanche of mail order catalogs, and I can't bear to throw them away without at least GLANCING through them. Owing to M's last name and heritage, last week we got one called Polska, the official catalog of Poland By Mail, and it had some AWESOMELY cheesy stuff in it. :D

Someone on my flist said she thought NaBloPoMo sounded porny. It reminds me of drunk upper division lit student trying to talk about Pablo Neruda and tripping over her own literatiness. Context is everything.

Comments

[longtimegone]

Ooo I love the table. It looks so lovely and warm and fall-like! I wish I were there to curl up on the couch with some tea!

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

*puts the kettle on*

Hurry! Come visit meeeeeeee! The leaves are gorgeous right now, Kristen.

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

Hey, you worked at a community college in Houston, right? The one in the Woodlands? (Am I remembering this totally wrong?) Because Matt was wondering if you had any recommendations for North Harris Montgomery Community College District Trustees. :p

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

No, I was teaching for UH-D, which offers some upper-level classes at The University Center, which I think was developed by NHMCCD, but I never worked with any of those people. I was always a UH-D employee.

So, yeah, I got nothing. Sorry! :(

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

No problem -- this just means he'll have to do some research. :-*

I feel you on the NaNo thing. I'm not sure it's going to happen for me, either -- I have the GRE on the 9th, and like, school. I have almost a 1,000 words so far, but that's at the cost of stuff I'm supposed to be doing. :p

[til-midnight.livejournal.com]

I have a pumpkin on my dinning room table, but it has the "Badger Badger Badger" badgers painted on it, so it doesn't really look autumnal.