So, if you checked my blog earlier today, you may have noticed the, um, lack of progress as noted by the speedometers. Well, all I can say is that yesterday was kind of a special case, it being a holiday and all.
However, it was an awesome Halloween! I went to work at 10:30 am and started noticing people in costumes, which made me think “hey, today is Halloween…I should get a costume!” (I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been doing things more and more at the last minute, and I don’t know what’s more unnverving: the fact that I’m doing it more often, or the fact that I’m becoming so good at getting away with it).
While chatting with my coworkers in the FHSS writing lab, I decided to dress up as a writer. After all, the costume shouldn’t be too hard–I am one, after all, right? Well, it proved to be a lot easier than I’d thought! Turtleneck sweater, Birkenstocks with socks, a copy of Strunk & White in my pocket–all I really needed was a gray sports coat and a European cap, both of which I got at DI (one I bought, the other I borrowed from a friend I happened to run into at the store).
Properly attired, I was ready to attend the Quark Halloween party!
It was lots of fun! There were LOTS of costumes this year, nearly twice as many as last year. Most of the people were some obscure Anime character that I didn’t know about…I’m a nerd, but pretty ignorant when it comes to anime and manga). I did recognize quite a few of them, though!
A bunch of the guys from the Super Smash Bros tournament dressed up as their favorite characters. There were three Links, a Princess Peach, a Pikachu, Nes, and a bunch of other characters that I didn’t recognize. I thought it was really funny how Lunesar (on the right) and his wife dressed up as their favorite characters. It’s especially ironic because that’s how they met each other–through the Smash Bros tournament. Hoorah for Geekdom–it’s what brings us together!
I really liked Miriel and her husband’s costumes–Star Wars! Miriel is on the staff of The Leading Edge and helps us with back issues to give out as prizes for the writing contests. I really liked her hair in this picture! She gave me a huge box full of back issues of the magazine at the party, which was really nice–we’d been running short. With the new box of contest prizes, though, we’re ready to have lots more contests in the months to come!
For the Halloween short story contest, we did something new and experimental: we had a live reading during the actual party. I was a little bit worried at first, but it worked out really well, I think. We had the third, second, and first place stories read out loud by their authors. It wasn’t as visually exciting as watching anime explosions and giant mecha fighting each other, but it was still a treat to hear the stories read out loud, especially the first place winner, The Beauty of Decay. We actually had a big prize to give out (a $20 gift certificat to the BYU Bookstore), so it was lots of fun!
Aneeka, who won 2nd place, wasn’t there to read hers (since she’s in Germany, and, um, graduated), so we had Gamila, one of the old timers, read it for her. I briefly told the audience how Aneeka started the writing group, back in the day, and how she was the one who got Jakeson and Gamila to start dating (they’re married now–both were there at the party). It’s always fun to pleasantly embarass your friends.
So yeah, this writing contest thing is definitely something we should keep on doing! I just need to convince the rest of the officers to set aside more money for contest prizes. Everyone who participated got a copy of The Leading Edge, which was motivational I think. Besides that, the voting was fun as well. We need more contests–and not just contests, but readings as well!
So that was the Halloween party. It was basically one of the awesomest Quark socials of the year. I love this club!
Today, instead of having a writing meeting where we critique each others’ stories, we had a writing party in room 135 of the TMCB instead. I think it went really well! We started out with lots of food, chatting, and distracting conversations, but for about an hour-long stretch, there was nothing but writing. It was pretty cool. Then, towards the end, I started getting distracted with showing people photos from my photoblog via the overhead projector, but all in all I think it went well.
Today is (was?) November 1st, the first day of nanowrimo! Sadly, I’m not doing nanowrimo this year–at least, not strictly speaking. The rules of nanowrimo state that you have to start on November 1st with a wordcount of 0 and end with a wordcount of 50k. Unfortunately, if I were to freeze all my current projects and focus on something totally new, I’d lose so much time and momentum with the other projects that I doubt I’d meet my goal to have three manuscripts ready for World Fantasy 2009.
Still, nanowrimo is pretty cool, and it’s a good way to connect with the wider writing community, so I’ve decided that even if I’m not strictly going to do nanowrimo this year, I’m at least going to do something in keeping with the spirit of it. My goal is to get 50k into my current project, Hero in Exile, so that I’ll have a wordcount of 64,500 by December 1st. It’s going to require more than 1,500 words a day, but I think I can handle it.
At the writing party, I got about 700 words in, and when I transcribed it from my notebook to the word document, I got in about another 300. Right now, I’m finished with all the buildup, and now I’m poised to go for the jugular: the next scene is going to involve some fighting, explosions, death, and heroics. I’m excited!
I’ve also got to prepare a Sunday School lesson tomorrow morning, so even though we get to set our clocks back tonight, I think I’d better get to bed now. So far, the first half of this weekend has been awesome–and since I don’t have to do any homework on Sunday, I think that the second half has the potential to be just as good!
