Why Deciding to Blog Daily is a Bad Idea if You're Me!

I originally planned to blog everyday this month.  I am officially never going to make that plan again.  It was something I intended to do in September and then I stared the month off with a cold that ended up on my chest.  No month of daily blogging for me!

And then I decided to do the same this month.

Tuesday I had a bit of a sore throat but nothing major.  My Dad's had a bad cold so I was a bit concerned I was getting one but didn't worry about it too much.  Went into Reading for the day and bought the yarn for my Mum's Christmas present.  Also did a big chunk of writing in one of the branches of costa with a bacon sandwich.  Then when I came home I decided to have a dominos.  Usually I order a large pizza and a couple of sides (if there are on buy one get one free, otherwise just one) and have half or thereabouts and then the rest the next day.  I just ordered a large pizza (especially good willpower wise as it was Two for Tuesday on pizza).  But I ate the lot.

And woke up in the middle of the night having a gall bladder attack.  Nothing like as bad as the only other one I've had but still horrendous.  But did also have my first ever kidney infection as well last time.  I was scared and freaked out and thought for sure I'd end up at the doctors if not the hospital that day.  But I managed to get myself into a place where I was comfortable so long as I didn't move which wasn't great as I kept needing the loo or a drink due to aforementioned sore throat.  I felt a lot better when I woke up on Wednesday morning and managed to avoid the doctors.  I was however completely washed out as I'd slept so badly (was up at least four times in the night).  I ate very little all day and mostly plain foods.  By the evening I was feeling back to normal and cooped up so I popped out to see the writers saying I'd stay half an hour, mostly so I could get some fresh air.  I was there almost two hours I think.

Thursday I was a little sniffly but not to bad.  Then I went out to creative writing and the cold air set me off cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.  And a bad one too.  Wouldn't have gone if I'd realised it would be that bad.  Completely full of cold!  Friday I was full of it and felt lousy and probably should have cancelled my plans for that evening.  But I didn't.  Which led to us bumping into a friend of ours and a friend of hers (who I'd not met)  who was all "have you got something for that?" and declared that I really needed to see the doctor.  My mum said that it wasn't Oh my god go to the doctor stage at that point.  And I woke up Saturday morning have dried up a lot but still quite cold-y.  I'm still coughing a lot today but it's a lot looser and my nose isn't dripping.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering, I am up to date with my NaNoWriMo attempts (apart from today but there's still time).  I was very behind but I did a mammoth catch up yesterday.  I'm not where I'd like to be, however.  And my story has disappeared.  I'm going to try writing a different idea starting tomorrow (but keep the words I already have) and return to this one at some not NaNo point in the future.

Haven't got much else to say about this week, a lot of cancelled plans, feeling bad and writing about sums it up!

Stop! NaNo Time!

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again!  I love November especially because it has NaNo.  It really makes me write and do it in a way that I rarely manage at other times of the year.

Today hasn't been a great first day of NaNo I must say.  I like to end day 1 with a decent sized cushion of words.  And today I've written 1748 words.  Which is less than 100 words of cushion.  I'll definitely take it because I need to go to bed after Masterchef (have a sore throat, feel a bit off) but would like a bigger one.  I have big goals for this year and at this level I won't reach them.

Still, there's always tomorrow.  Plus I think i may have just turned a slight off the cuff one line remark into a whole plot for a novel and be leaving behind the one I'd planned.

It's going to be an interesting month!

NaNo Stats!

wordcount widgets

[description: It's a widget that shows how long until NaNo ends in my time zone, how much I've written, and how much I have left to write. It also shows how many words per day I've averaged and the estimated date I would finish at that rate (currently Jan 13th as of 11pm 09/11) and the remaining amount of words I must do each day to finish by the end of November. It updates every time I update my profile on the NaNo site.]

And just for coolness factor, the widget is hosted on neilgaiman.com!!!

Writing and Weight and Fireworks

The good thing about doing both NaBloPoMo AND NaNoWriMo is that on days when I don't really have any inspiration for my blog entry I just simply tell you what my NaNo word count is and witter on about that for a while.

I have 3580 words for NaNo so far, I've set up three characters and mentioned a third and fourth. Other than that not much has happened other that a shit load of padding it out. Still, that;s half the fun. And I suddenly like what I've written this afternoon which is always good. I am slightly ahead of the curve at the moment but I haven't written 1667 words today (wrote extra yest) so I want to get at least the 300 or so extra in to hit that - don't want to lose my extra margin of words this early on. I'd actually forgotten how much fun this writing lark is.

Oooh and my friend Sam said my face looks a lot thinner today. I was very pleased but immediately followed that up with a discussion as to whether or not it was how I was wearing my hair (different to usual) that did it. Because, obviously, looking less fat is important. Particularly when you have an appt with a TV camera crew next week like I do...

Fireworks tomorrow, can't wait!

Canvas Bags - Tim Minchin

Take your canvas bags
When you go
To the supermarket
Why use plastic bags when you know
You know the world can't take it

Take your canvas bags
When you go
To the supermarket market market
Don't you use those plastic ones
No, no, no
Don't you know that you'll feel better for it

Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
To the supermarket

Just think about the world
And how the world would be fantastic
If we got rid of all the plastic
We just need to get enthusiastic
Start a competition gymnastic
Or a bag making comp at your school
Fuck it, make it interscholastic
Canvas is for everyone
Whether you be rebellious and iconoclastic
Or conservative or ecclesiastic
I don't care if you're loud and bombastic
Or quiet or virtually monastic
Sober or on the floor spastic
Yoga master or completely inelastic
I'm not trying to be ironic or sarcastic
Just do something drastic
To rid the world of plastic

Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
To the supermarket
Black out...!

Tim Minchin always makes me laugh. Especially this song which is so relevant to where we are now in our world. I thought of it today when the girl was packing my shopping at Sainsbury's this evening. And I can think of one or two other people who read this who would like the song so... enjoy.

I have about 1K words done for NaNo. Must do some more later.

You know things are about to get interesting...

...when you go up to a group of people in Starbucks and go "Either you're going to think I'm really crazy or you're the group of people I'm supposed to be meeting." and one of them doesn't so much as reply as take his t shirt off

Ok, so it was to show that underneath he had his radioactive yellow Municipal liaison shirt for NaNoWriMo as  proof that they were actually the people I was meeting.

I haven't laughed that much in a long time.  It was brilliant.

How long is it until November?!  I want the madness to start now... (even tho it sort of did, LoL)

And I know see that Steve has posted on the forums wondering if taking off his t-shirt got him two new members, what will happen if he takes more clothes off.

Looks like I'm going to fit in well with the other people in the Eleventh Month group (aka Oxfordshire NaNoWriMo-ers).

Oh and in another moment of sheer stupidity, I also signed up to do NaBloPoMo as well.   And as for NaKniSweMo?  Well, that'll have to wait for next year.

Opinions Wanted

I got an e-mail about NaNoWriMo today!

I knew it was coming up but I hadn't really realised that the festivities kick off so soon - sign ups start 1st Oct!

I have half of a badly thought out fiction idea that I could do. Or I could write my life story. Both are projects I've written a few words of and abandoned time and again for more years than I can count.

So... which do YOU think I should write?