This is a quick link for Crumpet

Update: Another one for Crumpet

If I was superstitious, I would surely think this house was haunted. Not a day goes by where I don’t spy something out of the corner of my eye, and feel like I am being watched when I know I am alone. I’ve never experienced this outside of this house.

It just happened again….

For those who are about to knit, and those who are about to fry-up.

I give you - Bacon & Egg scarf

Bike Hero. My goodness.

The Hardman has recently become quite a fan of Shaun the Sheep, and the Wallace & Gromit experience. So much so that he has a framed picture of Wallace & Gromit that he carries around the house with him.

Tonight, Kym found an old W&G address book hiding in the kitchen, and gave it to the Hardman. He loved it.

While he was flicking through it over dinner, Kym remarked that she hoped they’d better do a new Wallace & Gromit film soon, as Peter Sallis is getting quite long in the tooth.

Only moments later, as I was making pikelets and catching up on some RSS mojo, I spied this piece of information:

Wallace & Gromit - A Matter of Loaf and Death Comes to BBC One This Christmas:

I think I’ll be watching The Box closely for this one.

Buy Wallace & Gromit box set from Amazon

Lola ain’t been well today.

I’ve been off work since Wednesday (there is another post brewing about that, so hold tight), and am scheduled to be back at work in 5 and a half hours. So why am I here, whipping up a quick blog entry? Because of Lola. Sweet, sleepless Lola.

She’s gotten progressively worse over the past few days - she appears to be getting her colic back, and is upping her Scream Time :: Sleep Time ratio. I spent a good portion of yesterday (around 60%) being nothing more than a human cot, as this was the only way she would sleep.

Anywho, not here to whine, just to say hi. I know it’s been quiet around the old Stacking Theory Campfire, but I’ll be back for more Kumbaya soon.

Gots to run now, because I have 3 hours of sleeping to do, and 5 days of beard to shave before I head of to work.

Meeting our new CIO tomorrow too, hmmmm…..

Update: Of course, that ‘3 hours of sleeping’ was based on the assumption that Lola would go back to sleep for more than the 2 minutes it took me to get into bed. On reassessment, I’ll say that I’ve got 2h45m before I have to start shaving…

I just updated the WordWar to include Jerry from Muddled Ramblings.

Just there as a hint at what can be done with a bit of dedication (and a lack of young children).

By the way, it’s well worth popping over the Jerry’s NaNo page and reading his synopsis.

I was almost going to quit today.

Same old excuses - family, time constraints, lack of connection with my story. I was ready to pack it in - I had justified this quitting as ‘not a failure’, but rather ‘an acceptance of the reality of my situation’.

But somehow I didn’t. Sooner or later I have to stop quitting, and start following through. And why not now, eh? Why not try to catch up with Gonty’s amazing 10k?

So instead I cooked up a quick plan with Kymbo. She went out into the garden with the Hardman. She is working, he is blowing bubbles, they are happy (hopefully). I packed up Lola in the pram and headed up to the local cafe. No internet, no distractions (except for the cyclists out the window).

I sat down with a coffee, Jer’s Novel Writer open in full screen, one foot gently rocking the pram, and began to write.

I didn’t feel the story, or at least the section I was working on. It was dead, lifeless, and lost. But I persisted. One word at a time, just like Neil Gaiman said. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right.

Soon I was back in the swing of it, watching the scene unfold, discovering the characters, and smiling stupidly as the story opened up in front of me.

Sure, I only added about 1000 words, and have to head home again now, but I’m back on the wagon, for now. Let’s hope I can keep it going…..

It’s been a tough road so far. A quick glimpse at the WordWar shows me running way behind schedule. I’ve scrapped the first 1500 words I wrote, considered giving up, fought a few internal battles, and been through a bad patch with Lola. Such is Life. 

Thanks to Neil Gaiman’s advice (with a nod to Crumpet), and the first NaNo email, I realised that my unique concerns are the same as everyone else’s. The main difference lies in how we respond to them.

So I put aside my worries, and started a new story (the first one was truly terrible, and had no legs). I’m not convinced that I’ll complete the 50,000 words, but that’s not my main goal any more. My main goal is to try to develop a habit, a writing habit. I’m looking at the future, not at the present.

The latest NaNo email - from Jonathan Stroud -  highlighted another issue I struggle with on a regular basis:

This is just a first draft, after all. It doesn’t have to be a perfect thing. I once met an author who claimed only to write when actively inspired. She was a fine and venerated writer, so I didn’t let my jaw loll open too widely in her presence, but I didn’t really buy her claim, and I still don’t buy it now. If ‘inspiration’ is when the words just flow out, each one falling correctly on the page, I’ve been inspired precisely once in ten years. All the rest of the time, as I’ve been piecing together my seven novels, it’s been a more or less painful effort. You write, you complete a draft in the time you’ve got, you take a rest. Then—later, when you’ve recovered a little—you reread and revise. And so it goes. And little by little the thing that started off as a heap of fragments, a twist of ideas trapped inside your head, begins to take on its own shape and identity, and becomes a living entity, separate from yourself.

I just popped over to Jerry’s blog to try to catch up on the last 2 years, and found a post about this year’s NaNoWriMo. In it, he offered three reasons that taking part in NaNoWriMo is a Good Thing for people:

1. They are being creative. Rather than switch their brains off when they get home from school or work, they are switching them on. This can be habit-forming.

2. They are committing to something outside their usual routine. Consistency is the key to success and it takes a special kind of commitment to do something outside your comfort zone. This can be habit-forming.

3. They are making something. It may suck, but the balance of human endeavor will be tipped just a little more towards “worthwhile”. They are producing rather than consuming. What have you added to humanity’s list of accomplishments lately?

While I read that, I felt a little better about this challenge I have set myself.

Now that I realise I am 62 minutes away from midnight, I am a little more hesitant to smile again. Lola is due to wake in an hour or so, and I am wondering if I should take that opportunity to begin….