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Category: NaNoWriMo

The day after: thoughts on my Month Impossible (Saturday, 01 December 2007 10:54 PM ): NY - Long Island: Belmont Park - Finish Line Originally uploaded by wallyg Today, I did not have to write a massive number of words for a crappy first draft of a novel. I didn't have to draw anything....

Month Impossible: Day Thirty, This is the end (Friday, 30 November 2007 09:51 AM ): Cold War Clock Originally uploaded by ckaiserca Ten in the morning, November 30. Fourteen hours to go, fifteen thousand words to go. I am cutting it really, really close.       UPDATE: 12:15pm: Now at 37,011 words, plus...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-Nine, Tick-tick-tick (Thursday, 29 November 2007 09:27 PM ): clock Originally uploaded by Poagao It's a quarter after nine pm, the second to last night of November. Here's what I need to finish before midnight tomorrow night: 1. Write 19,692 words and have them verified by the NaNoWriMo...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-seven, Murderers, animated treadmills, and yet more writing (Tuesday, 27 November 2007 11:36 PM ): I've mentioned before that "Murderers," currently playing at City Theatre on Pittsburgh's South Side, is a terrific play and well worth your time and money, yes? The play is three monologues, each by a different actor, each beginning with...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-six, Let's get it on (Monday, 26 November 2007 11:59 PM ): Steelers win. Worst ever Monday Night Football game, and possibly worst ever NFL game. But we won, and it counts. Starting my NaNoWriMo writing for the day ... now. Yeah, it sucks. Even my mom thinks I'm not going...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-five, Quakers, Presbyterians, and pirates (Sunday, 25 November 2007 10:41 PM ): Some thoughts at random: I read the headline "Quakes kill at least three on Indonesian island" too quickly, and I thought, "But the Quakers have always been a nonviolent people." And what are Quakers doing in Indonesia anyway? Repeal...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-Three, Count it out (Friday, 23 November 2007 11:20 PM ): I've reached the happy word count of 12,345 words in my NaNoWrimo novel draft, which seems an opportune time to stop and post a short blog entry. It is still not at all certain I'll reach the 50k mark...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty-One, Pie Preparation (Wednesday, 21 November 2007 11:51 PM ): I'm on dessert duty for my family's Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. I rarely get dessert duty -- Mom usually makes most of the dishes and brushes aside my offers to make pie, leaving me to bring a vegetable or other side...

Month Impossible: Day Twenty (Tuesday, 20 November 2007 08:32 PM ): I had scheduled a meeting with a client tonight. I've always been open to night meetings, especially since small business owners sometimes have day jobs or other commitments that make it hard to meet during work hours. As I was...

Month Impossible: Day Nineteen, studying Spook and getting serious about the novel (Monday, 19 November 2007 11:38 PM ): Today I tried to sketch Spook, my other cat. Officially, Sammy is my cat, and Spook is Sammy's cat. When I first got Sammy, she was cooped up all alone during the day -- I worked in a real office...

Month Impossible: Day Eighteen, Rain Dogs and Carmen (Sunday, 18 November 2007 11:58 PM ): Carmen Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey The song "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits popped up on my iPod, and I thought I'd make a drawing of rain dogs. This would be my first DrawMo drawing from imagination, rather than from...

Month Impossible: Day Seventeen, 2PointHome (Saturday, 17 November 2007 11:56 PM ): If you've been following my Month of Challenges, you know that today I planned to finally catch up on NaNoWriMo. You also probably know me better than I do, and guessed that I would not succeed in this plan. I...

Month Impossible: Day Sixteen (Friday, 16 November 2007 11:59 PM ): A few weeks ago, I traveled to Seattle for the annual LFM Alumni Conference. LFM stands for Leaders for Manufacturing, which is a program within the Sloan School of Management at MIT. I graduated in 1997. I attended a few...

Month Impossible: Day Thirteen (Tuesday, 13 November 2007 11:43 PM ): The John Cleese Plant Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey A couple of years back -- 2003? -- I subscribed to John Cleese's website. This meant I could watch subscriber-only content on the site, humorous videos and such, and participate in...

Month Impossible: Day Eleven (Sunday, 11 November 2007 11:55 PM ): Boot Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey I said yesterday that weekends are when I catch up. I'm reminded today, though, that Sundays in the fall are when I get very little done, due to football. I'm in two fantasy football...

Month Impossible: Day Ten (Saturday, 10 November 2007 07:11 PM ): The weekends are when I catch up. I meet up with friends I haven't seen in weeks, I stop by my parents' house to tell them what I've been up to and find out how they are, I sleep an...

Month Impossible: Day Nine (Friday, 09 November 2007 08:48 PM ): Junipero on the rocks Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey Monday will be another Mixology Monday, with the theme "gin." So probably I should have waited until then to try drawing a glass of gin on the rocks, but I had...

Month Impossible: Day Seven (Wednesday, 07 November 2007 09:51 PM ): Samantha Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey If I had undertaken NaDruWriNi last weekend, I had a terrific topic planned: the question of pet blogging. I adore my two cats, and I find their daily activities charming and fascinating, but I'm...

Month Impossible: Day Six (Tuesday, 06 November 2007 11:07 PM ): A strange kind of irony has taken hold of my life. I've been busy these past months, to the point that I thought my workload was as heavy as it could get. And then as soon as I started this...

Month Impossible: Day Five (Monday, 05 November 2007 04:58 PM ): I'm on my way to meet friends and then head to Heinz Field, for Monday Night Football with the Steelers hosting the Baltimore Ravens. It's raining, it's cold. It's going to be fun. When I return: a sketch of the...

Month Impossible: Day Four (Sunday, 04 November 2007 11:44 PM ): Tomato from my yard Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey Two steps forward, one back. I created two drawings today while watching football, meaning that I caught up a little on DrawMo but am still one day behind. I also wrote...

Month Impossible: Day Three (Saturday, 03 November 2007 07:11 PM ): Third day of the incredible challenges, and progress is scant. I've posted each day of course, so that's something. Just by telling you that I'm falling behind in other things, I can keep up with NaBloPoMo. Sweet! I wrote a...

Month Impossible: Day Two (Saturday, 03 November 2007 01:27 AM ): Ain't it just like the night, to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet? I drove to Pittsburgh this afternoon for work, and I hung out in the evening for fun. I meant to come back early and...

Month Impossible: Day One (Thursday, 01 November 2007 09:15 PM ): Today we started NaNoWriMo and DrawMo. It's also the start of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo, of course). I've wanted to blog more, as many a blogger does, and this seems the right occasion. Plus I plan to update you...

Mission impossible (Tuesday, 30 October 2007 12:21 PM ): Sammy is not still Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey November begins Thursday, and thousands of people will begin intensive efforts to do incredible stuff in 30 days. Write 50,000 word novels, draw 30 drawings, write 30 blog posts.... It's a...

Write vs. draw (Thursday, 09 November 2006 08:46 AM ): Nearly a third of the way through November. How am I doing on the various NaSiUFToMuMo* projects? I'm just over 6,000 words into the NaNoWriMo novel. This being the 9th day of the month I "should" have 15,000 by the...

Tiny bubbles (Saturday, 04 November 2006 10:14 PM ): This is My Brilliant Mistakes post for NaDruWriNi. In direct violation of blog protocol, most recent updates are at the bottom -- because it's easier to read things top to bottom. But I'll summarize the most recent update here at...

NaSiUFToMuMo (Friday, 03 November 2006 09:38 AM ): It's the third day of NaNoWriMo: I wrote 1,037 words the first day (well under the 1,667 words/day target), and none yesterday. So that project is well behind. It's also the third day of DrawMo! I sketched a red onion...

Another year, another novel (Sunday, 15 October 2006 03:54 PM ): Today I discovered a recently deceased mole in my dining room. I don't know which of my two cats dispatched the little guy and brought him inside. The mole is actually fairly big for a mole, being about three inches...

Fine! (Wednesday, 30 November 2005 10:05 PM ): I am so very, very done. I finished NaNoWriMo 2005 with a ravishing total of 50,633 words. Of those, 24,725 were tossed together in the final week. Key lessons learned: I accomplish more writing outside of my home than inside...

In the home stretch (Tuesday, 29 November 2005 10:47 AM ): I'm currently at 42,567 NaNoWriMo words, after a 5K word blast yesterday and another 1K jolt this morning. I plan two short sessions today with the aim of reaching 4.5K words today, leaving just 4K for the final day. As...

Creeping ever closer (Saturday, 26 November 2005 12:00 AM ): First holiday music played this year: Johnny Mathis, "Christmas Is...." The cheesier, the better, I say.

Deathless prose (Thursday, 24 November 2005 11:22 PM ): I have, to this point, created 30908 words of fiction in the month of November. And it's all deathless prose. Yes, every word is deathless, in the sense of being zombie-like, undead, breathing with a particular non-life that makes the...

Half way mark (Tuesday, 22 November 2005 08:49 PM ): Deadlines are our friends.

I am a novel-writing machine (Wednesday, 16 November 2005 08:53 PM ): Now only 10,630 words behind schedule!

Time to Rally (Monday, 14 November 2005 01:32 PM ): New quota: 2400 words per day. Still doable!

Put one foot in front of the other (Wednesday, 09 November 2005 12:49 AM ): I missed a day of NaNoWriMo writing Monday, falling even further behind. So tonight I was determined at least not to lose more ground. Things looked grim at about 11:15pm when i still hadn't come up with a single new...

NaNoWriMo: Weekend update (Sunday, 06 November 2005 11:01 PM ): Now over 7000 words!

It's martini time (Saturday, 05 November 2005 04:05 PM ): I love a martini but two at the most. Three I'm under the table, four I'm under the host. --Dorothy Parker It's National Drunken Writing Night (NaDruWriNi), conveniently scheduled during NaNoWriMo. I have certain other plans for the early part...

NaNoWriMo progress -- week one slow but steady (Thursday, 03 November 2005 11:22 PM ): I’m up to 3412 words — I'd hoped to have the full three-day quota, which would have been 5001 words at the end of today. But travel and work got in the way, as did a nice phonecall with a...

On making a pilgrimage (Tuesday, 01 November 2005 03:09 PM ): You're a bad-hearted boy-trap, babydoll, but you're... You're so damn hot.

Bite the Big Apple (Monday, 31 October 2005 06:00 PM ): My novel doesn't even exist and yet it's already taking shape. Ain't fiction wonderful?

An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do. (Saturday, 29 October 2005 01:01 PM ): Whether you're participating in NaNoWriMo this year or not, please know that November 4, next Saturday, is NaDruWriNi, National Drunken Writing Night. In other words, it's your yearly chance to crack open your favorite beverage, type away madly and lushly,...

The perfect novel (for me) (Tuesday, 25 October 2005 11:55 PM ): In which it is revealed that it's no coincidence that all the novels on which I'm working are comic thrillers.

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