Bits and Pieces

Ooh, ooh!  I totally finished Towers of Midnight yesterday and it was so freaking awesome.  I love Perrin so much.  He's cool again, huzzah!  Also, Moiraine!  And I'm very annoyed that there are now Whitecloaks that I like.  What's up with that, seriously?  Plus, it's going to suck to be Aiel in the future, apparently.

Um, that's pretty much the extent of the review I am going to do on that particular book, other than to say oh wow.  I loved it.  I can't wait for the next (and last!) Wheel of Time book to come out.  I suspect my husband and I will be fighting over first-read dibs ferociously.  But if you'd like a more in-depth review, Leigh Butler over at Tor has two, one that is spoiler-free, and one that is so totally not spoiler-free.

This means I can start playing Kingdom Hearts today during nap time.  Sweet.  I've got my walk-through saved, and I am determined to get this damn game played, y'all.  Reading-wise, I have two months worth of comic books and graphic novels (including the Serenity GN about Shepherd Book's backstory, which I may actually review for you if I get motivated) to read through, so I am gonna get those all read up (just in time for my December shipment to head my way) before I dive into my next book.  I have two clamoring for my attention right now, so I am going to use the time to decide which one to dive into first.  I'll let you know when I do get that figured out though.  I know you're desperate to know. 

Oh, hey, did you notice?  It's Friday!  That means time for a new installment of Gronk, yay!  Please to check it out and enjoy, here. Poor Gronk may not want to watch Battlestar for a while, but hopefully she'll give it a chance eventually!

Speaking of web-comics, one of my all-time favorites is called Looking for Group.  It is completely and utterly fantastic.  Basically, it's an RPG that you read instead of play, if that makes any sense at all.  The story centers around an elf named Cale who is good and pure and always wants to do the right thing.  This is a bit of a problem because all elves are evil in the world Cale lives in, but apparently nobody bothered to tell him that.  So, as he goes along, looking for adventure, he picks up a group, made up of really awesome, really not-nice people.  This includes one of my favorite characters of anything ever, Richard the warlock (or, Dick).  It is updated two times a week (Mondays and Thursdays) and each installment is basically a fully colored page out of a graphic novel.  There is an overarching story-arc, but there are smaller story-arcs as well.  So far, they have released three volumes of the series in really nice hardcover graphic novel format.  I'll admit, it makes a lot more sense when you sit down and read big chunks of it at once, but it is still highly amusing and entertaining on a page by page basis.  If you're interested in giving it a try, you can check out the first couple of pages and then decide where to go from there.  Here is a link to page one. 

Anyhoo, the reason I am telling you this is because I wanted to share an awesome moment in my life with you.  A while back I was telling my friend Miss T about the comic and when explaining it to her I mentioned the bunny that ends up being the constant companion of Richard the warlock.  I'm not going to explain why, or go into the bunny's story line (yes, the bunny has its own story line) here, because, well, spoilers.  But suffice to say, the bunny is totally awesome.  I was telling my husband this past weekend about my conversation with Miss T, and was amused that she was interested because of the bunny's story line.  I was saying how wonderful it would be if the guys over at LFG decided to make a bunny plushie (there is already a Richard plushie, which yes, I own).  Then, two nights ago, I click on a link to LFG in my feed reader and find this. My reaction may have caused my husband to come running in from down the hall to see what the heck was up.  Seriously, I must own this, and soon.  I just love when stuff like that happens, when you are saying to someone, "Wouldn't it be so awesome if X existed?" and then the next day you find out that someone just went and made X!  So splendid.

Proceeding in the random flow of this post, I also wanted to share one of my most recent addictions with you.  I am sure you have seen it around on the internet (Facebook, most likely).  It is the site Damn You Auto Correct, which I finally caved and added to my feed reader the other day.  I am so glad I did.  Some of these things are just weird, but some of them make me seriously fall out of my chair or start crying from laughing so hard.   It also gives me a weird sense of not being alone in the universe.  Because really, who owns a smart phone and hasn't had one of these moments, seriously?

And finally, I realize I haven't talked about this yet this month, but yes, I totally finished my novel on Tuesday, huzzah!  Total page count for the first draft was 137 pages (which is an excellent number if I do say so myself) and 76,487 words.  I feel so amazing for having done that.  I will definitely be revising this story and expanding upon it in the coming year.  I can think of a few dead-end plot elements I'll need to to through and excise, and a few scenes (mostly from a certain character's point of view) that I want to go back and add now that I know what the actual story  arc for this first novel turned out to be.  I do definitely want to write at least one, if not two more books in this universe as well, because, well, while I feel like a lot of stuff did happen in this book, it largely set the stage for a lot more other, bigger, stuff to happen next.  Also, the conflict that I thought would be the big final conflict in this book?  Totally didn't happen yet, it's got a little while before it comes to a head, I think.  So, there you are.  NaNoWriMo, it rocks.

I am off to have lunch with a friend from my former job and then to have a spectacularly relaxing weekend.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll get motivated and put up some of the Christmas decorations inside.

I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend as well.

I Am Taking the Day Off

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  If you are braving the Black Friday crowds and hunting out good deals today, I wish you luck.  I kind of think you're crazy (it's called, Amazon, folks), but, still, I wish you luck.  Happy hunting.

Me?  Well, I have spent the past two days cleaning, running errands, and cooking.  So today, I am taking the day off.  Other than tending to Baby Girl and getting some writing done, I am just going to chill.   This shouldn't be terribly difficult seeing as how our lovely sixty and seventy degree weather seems to have abandoned us.  I know my husband wants to try to start getting some of the Christmas decorations up, so yes, I will help him get the boxes down from the attic.  But in return I am gonna make him sit down and watch some Stargate Atlantis with me. 

I have a few DVDs from Netflix waiting to be watched.  Just so you can get a sense of my own personal brand of schizophrenia, they are:  Hello Again, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and the second disc of the complete series set of Crusade.  I may or may not watch some of those.  If I don't, I will probably give in to the siren call of Towers of Midnight.  I am about halfway through and man oh man things are heating up.

I am also making some pretty good progress on the sweater I am currently crocheting.  I have gotten the main part of the body and one of the sleeves done.  So if I give in to the movies, I will definitely be trying to get the second sleeve done.

And there you have it.  That's my day.  Fun, no?  I hope you and yours are happy and blessed.  Have a wonderful weekend folks.

Yay!  Weekend!

Word Count Update: 47,799 out of 50,000

Minutiae

And another week has found us.  Dang it, I guess I need to find a new hiding spot.

Actually, things aren't going badly at all, I just got really screwed up by the time change yesterday for some reason.  Isn't an extra hour a good thing?  Shouldn't I feel all rested and raring to go, and super excited about entering week two of my novel-writing experience?  Instead, I just feel like I want to pass out.  Sigh.  I was exhausted all frikkin' day yesterday.  It isn't like I stayed out late on Saturday--I did go to a party, but I was home by eleven, and in bed by midnight, because that is sadly just how I roll.  With the time change, I even got that much lauded extra hour of sleep, so my getting up early for church actually equated to getting up at my normal time.  I don't get it, I really don't.  Oh well.  It will get better, because it must, yes?

Even though Sunday was a total bust, I did have a lovely and productive Saturday.  I finished up my very last "have to" crochet project of the year (a birthday present).  I have a few things I want to make for other people for Christmas or just to be nice, but they are all two day projects, tops.  If I was really motivated I could get them all done within a week, I am sure.  Heck, yesterday wasn't even that wasted, I just felt like I was in another reality zone or something.  But I made some pretty decent progress on my second read through of The Gathering Storm (which is very good because my husband finished Towers of Midnight last night and from the hints he's been dropping all week I am ready to get on that), and I even got some writing done, yay!

I am currently at 14,723 out of 50,000 words.  That's 29% completion after one week.  Huzzah!  Of course, that percentage is just out of the minimum required word count.  I am not sure where I am on the completion percentage of the story itself.  But it feels like I am making good progress.

Last night I watched what was, apparently, the season finale of Sherlock's first season on PBS.  Holy crap.  I can't believe they ended it like that!  I mean, I can't believe they would end an episode like that, let alone a whole season.  That's just mean, BBC, mean.  On the plus side, I got my shipment notice from Amazon on Friday that the DVD of Sherlock (and season five of Doctor Who) had shipped, so it will be arriving tomorrow.  Awesome! 

I also found out last week that NBC's Undercovers was canceled, which is a bummer, because it was one of my favorite new shows.  But, that is the way the television ball bounces, I suppose.  I am pretty used to the shows I enjoy right off the bat because of their quirky humor getting axed with ridiculous swiftness. 


I have a few links for you that I was thinking of centering blog posts around, but now I think those ships have sailed.  So I thought I'd just share the links so you can still enjoy the articles.

Jo Walton did a really interesting response piece about the genre of science fiction and how it might not actually exist.  That's right here.  I feel like I kind of agree with her on this, I've been thinking for a long while that I enjoy a lot of extremely different things that are all classified as science fiction, and sometimes it seems like the only thing they have in common, apart from being smart and entertaining, is that they are classified as science fiction.  Anyway, it's a pretty interesting read, give it a go. 

And, finally, someone over at Tor.com did a really interesting article about Star Wars, examining how the current generation of fans is kids, and how they are being introduced into the universe through the cartoon series.  That's here.  It's a great comparison of how people from different generations of the fandom see the series, and who they identify with, and who they want more of, and what they think is "silly" and "awesome." It's an amusing read, especially if you've ever gotten into a conversation with another fan about Star Wars and wondered if the two of you were actually talking about the same franchise.

Towers of Midnight Book Signing

So last night at the Borders Books & Music in Dallas, Brandon Sanderson showed up to do a signing for the release of the thirteenth Wheel of Time book, Towers of Midnight.  Also on hand was Harriet McDougal, wife of the late Robert Jordan, who has been collaborating with Sanderson to help make sure that the WOT series is completed as RJ envisioned it.  I'm not gonna lie to you folks, it was awesome. 

I attended with my husband and one of my best friends, Miss J.

Me and Miss J.

Me and the hubby.

There was a pretty decent crowd assembled.  Huzzah for geeks!  Everyone was very excited to be there and get to meet Brandon and Harriet.  One of the things I love about being a geek is that it seems to me when we get together in large numbers, we tend to be mostly pretty organized and polite to one another (or to be so introverted that we all just leave each other alone).  I am usually not good with crowds, but I had no problems last night at all.  Everyone I encountered was pretty groovy.  There was also a group of volunteers, The Tower Guard, on hand to answer questions and help keep things running smoothly.  My husband and I both thought about volunteering for it this year but didn't, though we are in agreement that we will probably apply next year for the signing of the last book.  My apologies for the pictures not being top quality, but I am, quite frankly, an amateur.  I still haven't totally figured out how to work my silly camera.

Waiting patiently...

The Tower Guard.

Some more fans.

Brandon and Harriet were introduced to enthusiastic applause and then Harriet kicked things off with a reading of an excerpt from the prologue of ToM.  Can I just reiterate that I cannot wait to read this book.  Gah.  Must finish The Gathering Storm reread first though.  Egwene is so awesome.  Anyway.  during her reading, Harriet was interrupted by a phone (hers I think) ringing.  She played it off with a Star Wars reference, which was awesome, and then continued on.

Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson

After the reading Brandon took questions from the audience for the both of them.  He asked if anyone present hadn't read TGS yet, and there was a fair smattering, so he refused to answer any spoilery questions about either TGS or ToM.  He asked audiences to save up those questions for they got up to the signing table (but did not promise to actually answer them, I suspect there were quite a few RAFO cards handed out).  One of the audience members, complete with her handmade Brown Ajah shawl, really wanted to ask a question about a "certain member of the Brown Ajah," but, other than that people kept to the request to try to be spoiler free for the two most recent books.

Someone asked Brandon if he writes the stories linearly as they appear or if he writes scenes out of order.  He told us that he writes the scenes linearly, but he writes them in POV groups (like all of Mat's story for the book, then all of Perrin's story), and then gives them to Harriet, who decides how they get split up and arranged.

Someone asked who Bella is really working for, to which Harriet replied, "Would you believe Bella is the Dark One?"  You know what, I like her, she's got sass.

Brandon shared that in between writing contracted books, he likes to work on other projects based on whatever strikes him.  He revealed a story he had recently started about a pizza delivery guy that becomes a necromancer. 

Someone else asked him which character was the most difficult for him to write.  He didn't really have any one in particular, but did tell us that it took him a while to figure out Aviendha's voice in particular, and that he has a hard time writing Gawyn, not because he can't find his voice, but because Gawyn's frustrations bleed through in to him as he writes them.

He was asked who his favorite villain is to write and said that it depends on the books.  For ToM it was Fain.

He ended the Q & A by demonstrating his best Forsaken evil laugh.  It was pretty awesomely evil.

Then came a few announcements about how about how the signing would work.  He would sign up to three books for each person.  He would only sign WOT books that he had worked on (so only TGS and ToM).  Harriet would only sign the books she worked on, which in addition to the last two WOT books included Brandon's newest book The Way of Kings, which she consulted on I think.  Also, as you may or may not know, ToM was dedicated to all of the people from WOT fandom who have kept it so strong over the years by running FAQ sites, discussion sites, message boards, forums, etc.  One of those people, Bob Kluttz, is a Texas native and was at the signing, so Brandon and Harriet asked him to come up too and sign ToM.

When we got to the store and bought our books, we were given wrist bands (you needed to have one to get signed).  The wrist bands were in different colors and what they did was have people line up one color group at a time.  I thought it would have been pretty nifty if the order of the color groups matched the order of the Ajah bands on Accepted's dresses and the Amyrlin's stole, but as we were orange, that kind of blew that theory out of the water (there is no orange Ajah).  Our group was the second group.  So while the people from the first group (green) got their books signed, we hung out in the cafe until it was time for us to line up.  I felt really sorry for the lady working at the cafe who was clearly in training.  It was looking like a rough night for her.  Though to her credit, while she was a little slow, our order was perfectly right and she was very nice to everyone.

While we waited, Hubby hunkered down with ToM--apparently he had just gotten to a really really good part.  Miss J and I chatted about writing--she was asking me about my story for NaNoWriMo, and she is in the middle of writing a really awesome series that I have been reading as she gets it done.  I drew a map for my story on a cafe napkin.  It was fun, and got me super excited about my writing all over again. 

When it was our turn to get in line, we hung out and chatted with some of the Tower Guard--they were giving out post it notes for us to put whatever personalization we wanted in our signings on.  One of them was a super cute 16 year old girl who told us her mom was a little worried about the whole thing--all of the adults and she was the only kid.  Her mom was worried she might be getting into a cult--at Borders--and so was hanging around keeping an eye on things.  She was clearly having a ball.  Turns out the Tower Guard got to have a mini-pizza party with Brandon before the signing.  That's pretty spiffy.  Also, one of the Guard was the lady who played Moiraine in the ToM book trailer that came out a little bit ago.  If you haven't seen it, check it out here.  It's pretty cool, despite the weird voiceover that I don't think sounds like Moiraine would sound (that may be because in my head, Moriane is played by Teryl Rothery), but everything else is spot on. 

We also chatted a lot with the guy in line in front of us.  He was very nice--very talky.  But it was cool, we talked about a lot of different book series as well as some television shows we mutually watched and he recommended a lot of good audiobooks.

When it was our turn to get signed, my husband was all calm and cool and I totally went fangirl on Brandon and Harriet.  I didn't have any questions, just thanked him (them) for being so awesome, and for doing the Egwene scenes in TGS so well, though I don't know how coherent I was.  They were both super nice and seemed genuinely happy to be there, despite obviously being tired.

We even got some free bumper stickers.  Yay, swag!

Bumper Stickers!

Our two new Brandon Sanderson books.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening.  We are definitely going again next year for the A Memory of Light signing if they come back, and will most likely at least apply to be part of the Tower Guard as well (getting accepted is another matter entirely, I am sure).  My husband picked up a copy of The Way of Kings, while I snagged a copy of Elantris, which I have been wanting to read.  In addition to getting those signed, we also got TGS and ToM signed as well.  Good times all around, and much fantastic reading to look forward to in the near future!

Also, there were people dressed as Aiel, which was just frakking awesome.

Thankfully she did not ask me to dance the spears!

Oh, and, as it's Friday, don't forget to check out this week's Gronk!  That is all.

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!