When Did Friday Get Here?

Oh boy, is it Friday already?  Blink blink.  Blink blink.  When the heck did that happen? 

Sigh, so the Rangers got absolutely creamed (again) last night.  I am so very thankful there is no game tonight.  I need a break.  So do the Rangers, apparently.  That eighth inning was just painful.  But we're still only two games in.  They just have to win four, right?  It's totally doable!  I remain positive.  No, really.  I swear. 

Um, moving on.  Hey, it is Friday, isn't it?  You know what that means?  There's a new Gronk up!  Yay!

Here you go, enjoy.  I love all of the costumes, but especially Kitteh's Cthulhu and Gronk's homemade R2D2.  Though sadly, that just reminded me I lost one of the legs of my poor Lego R2D2 key chain yesterday.  And apparently Lego doesn't make those anymore.  I've been trying to find a new one for a while, because almost all of his paint has rubbed off, but now with a missing leg, I may have to officially retire him.  My husband did find this really awesome global Lego selling site that had some though, so it may be time to make him call in an order.  (I don't remember what the site was, and he's temporarily stranded at an airport in Boston, so I can't ask him to send me the link, otherwise I'd share it with you.)

I finished the last Republic Commando novel, Order 66, last night.  I was going to try to go ahead and have my write-up for you today, but um, that didn't happen.  You can expect it on Monday though.  There is a follow-up book, the first of what was supposed to be a a new series, Imperial Commando, but then someone in Lucas' camp pulled the plug so it looks like only the first got published.  I have that and will be reading it soon.  But the next Wheel of Time book (Towers of Midnight) comes out on Tuesday (in fact, Amazon just emailed me earlier today to tell my my copy had shipped, huzzah!).  So instead of diving into the next Star Wars book, I have to take a break to read The Gathering Storm again so I will remember who the heck all of these people are and what the heck is going on.  I started it this afternoon.  Hopefully I can get it finished by Tuesday so I don't have to fight my husband for dibs on ToM.  Fingers crossed.  Also, Brandon Sanderson himself will be in Dallas doing a book signing at Borders next Thursday.  My husband and I (and a friend) are totally going to that.  Should be really cool or really crazy or both.

Also, Monday will be a big day because it officially kicks of National Novel Writing Month.  Six pages a day.  I can do it.  I can do it.  I've got an outline, I've got names for my main characters, I'm getting a general picture of what the world looks like (though I haven't drawn a map yet, I can't imagine that's far off).  The opening scene is kicking around in my head, but I am trying not to pay too much attention to it so I don't forget it all when I sit down to start writing and then get mad that I screwed it up. 

In fact, I am trying not to overthink any aspect of the story too much beforehand.  I had a mini-writing revelation the other night.  One of the big reasons I think that I get so bogged down and stall out when I am writing is because I have a tendency to go off on tangents describing stuff, or trying to figure out how to describe stuff (people, places, clothes, etc.) and end up wandering away from the story itself, without any idea of how to get back to the path.  I believe that is one of the reasons why I was usually able to do a pretty good job completing my fan fiction stories--I knew exactly who these characters were, and what their surroundings looked like.  I could focus on what was going on instead of worrying about making sure the readers could see the same picture I saw in my head, because the readers also already knew what I did.  My biggest job was to tell a good story and make sure I got the voice of the characters correct. 

Since the primary purpose of NaNoWriMo is to actually just get the story written, and the focus is on quantity not quality I have decided to try approaching the writing of this as I did with my fan fiction.  I am just going to assume that anyone reading the story already knows what I am seeing in my head and not worry too much about describing people or places unless it is necessary to the story.  After all, once I have actually gotten the whole thing written, I can always go back later and fill in any obvious blanks.  That's just a matter of rewrites and editing.

So I am off to have my weekend.  I'll be watching the World Series, watching Red:  Werewolf Hunter on Syfy, taking my daughter to Boo at the Zoo, giving out candy to trick-or-treaters, and working on getting any necessary (for me) background information for my story sussed out before Monday.  Also, I will be frantically reading The Gathering Storm in there as well.  Should be packed full of awesome. 

Have a fantastic weekend--and happy Halloween!