Tephie's Personal Bombshelter MarkII

Well I haven't updated in a while so here we go.

NaNo: Last Sunday and Monday (the 8th and 9th) I didn't write at all so the whole week has been a slog of trying not to fall any further behind. I had a good day today and finally, finally hit a spot where the words didn't require concentrating until I sweated blood to get the out. I'm still behind but I wrote 3k today and if I can manage that again tomorrow I will be caught up.

Knitting: I've got eight inches done on the vest for my Mom for Christmas. That's about 40% complete since Mom is shorter than I am.



I'm a bit farther along that this now, but I haven't taken a new photo and probably won't until I'm ready to divide for the arm holes in about five inches. ( Older stuff under the cut. )

Still no plot really, but there are a few more characters, which will help. Of course two of them were mostly filler, though I don't think Muriel is inclined to stay that way. Other than that there was also some world building today, or rather, world enhancing since I think I'm writing what amounts to "this world plus supernatural beings".

But I'm feeling around the edges of one, maybe. At least I'm getting words down which makes this much better than this time last year.

One thing I have noticed in my various NaNo stories is that when I'm stumped for what to write and it's logical for my characters to eat, or I'm getting hungry myself, they eat and I tend to describe the food. These are the sorts of things that would be cut, logically, but sometimes I think these would also be great places for endnotes and a recipe section at the end of the novel. :D

This is mostly so when I'm freaking out next year I will have proof that in 2009, as in 2007, I didn't have anything until a character showed up on the 29th.

I don't know what Apollonia does but she's making herself comfortable.

Now I need at least a genre and maybe a second character, based on past NaNo novels I can get something if I have that much.

Yes, I intend to write another partial novel this year. I have no idea what I am going to write but the odds are it will be something in the science fiction and fantasy continuum as usual.

Also as usual, I've been getting pings off my older NaNo attempts. Last year's story was really hard to write, I spent the first half of the month whining (sorry Kris!) and writing was about as easy and pleasant as pulling teeth. Once I moved the story from England to New England it started rolling for me and ended up picking up things I hadn't expected, like alchemy and alchemists that aren't what they seems and occult books that manipulate events and people around them... and Lovecraft's cousin. Needless to say that story is a bit of a mess. The last few days have found my brain turning that tangled knot in all directions and tugging on things that look like they might lead to loose ends. I think I might know how to untangle it now.

And that is how I know that NaNo is coming, because my brain never gets enchanted with the older stories until it knows it has to start coming up with a new one.

First, as of 10:32pm EST yesterday:



50,041 words in one scrambled mess that might be salvageable if I work on it some more. I need a break first though, the characters were getting whiny in that last 2000 words or so.

The same night I finished this:



Yes, it's the wombat from Ursula Vernon's (ursulav @ LJ) "Red Wombat Tea Co." labels.

My tension was all over the place because I'm practicing knitting continental style in order to have one yarn in each hand. Toward the end I was getting the hang of it. It may even out some in the wash, but the green yarn had many weak spots so I'm a bit afraid of tossing it in the washer.

I don't think I'll ever convert to continental knitting entirely, it makes my left hand hurt something awful, but for double knitting and stranded colorwork it's an handy skill.

For my next trick I shall learn to knit backwards so that I don't have to turn my work for things like bobbles (which I don't like and therefore don't anticipate knitting many of) and entrelac (which I do like the look of).

And my Thanksgiving day knitting:



It's four inches long now so I added two and a half to three inches in about four hours of knitting. Just eleven more inches to go.... (I think this might cure me of my vague urges to knit a skirt and jacket with this stitch pattern.)

I'm still behind on my word count for NaNoWriMo but I'm catching up. I should have been at 35k today but I just broke 30. I should be caught up in two more days, three at most. And if I keep up my current pace I will pull ahead.

On the knitting front, I've mostly doing the knitting equivalent of doodling. I haven't worked on my sweater this month, it just takes too much time to do a set of rows. I haven't worked on my shawl since July so I'll probably pick that up again after NaNo with the sweater.

Things I have knit since the last knitting update:

( Click for pictures. )

Ian returned to the room with a suspiciously thick book, about twice the thickness of most pocket diaries of the size, a small box, and a pair of keys. The last was just a bit too much for Sarah.

"You have a lock and key fetish don't you?" She clapped an hand over her mouth in the next instant, blushing fiercely, "I'm sorry, that was incredibly inappropriate. I'm sorry."

Prudence laughed, a delighted and full throated chortle, "I knew you had a wicked turn of mind, dear cousin!"

Ian just blinked, staring at them both, "I suppose I do, actually, is it that obvious?" He managed to look oblivious and confused just long enough for Sarah to start to wonder if he really was that guileless, and then he broke into a wicked smile and winked at her. "If you want to know for certain I'm sure I could free up an evening for you, dearest Sarah."


Unedited, needless to say, but I am amused. I had no idea Ian would be such a flirt when I started writing him.

Well this year isn't off to a good start so I've been not saying much. To remedy that, a word count widget to make my pathetic attempt more public.



I seriously need to figure out what Prudence is trying to get from the clockwork and alchemy shop under the street. Knowing what she's looking to do would be so very helpful in getting something written. :D

Edit: Widget may be up or down as it is hosted off NaNoWriMo's site and they are pretty much a yoyo.

Of course the local positions were mostly running unopposed so that wasn't much effort. Just two propositions this time, one I waffled on and now wish I had voted the other way even though I know in the end it doesn't matter because it won't pass anyway. The other I was very sure on.

Now for lunch, and then I had better figure out how to bash out about 5k on my NaNo at the least.

Yes, I am doing NaNoWriMo.
No, I am not making the first day's word count.
No, I'm not worried about that.

If you have some steampunky inspiration hanging around, feel free to toss it this way. Prudence is getting antsy.

The cats have started NaNoHaMo, National Novel Hampering Month. They have thus far blocked a theoretical 1300 words or so.

I started out Monday with 23,376 words and I just hit 51,628 which validated as 50,236 words.

28,252 words in five days, talk about a sprint to the finish.

EditPad: 50,004
NaNoSite: 48,670

Yep, about what I expected.

I just went over forty six thousand words on this year's NaNoWriMo novel. While that would seem to say I just need four thousand more to win the reality is that I probably need five or six thousand words still. The verifier just eats words. I can't figure out if it doesn't count single letter words like "I" and "a" or even if it counts hyphenated words as one or two, but it boils down to a discrepancy between my word count in EditPad and what NaNo's site says I have.

I finally gave the thing I title. I'm calling it Dead Dolls, though it's really hard to name something that isn't finished and is still wandering around trying to find a definite plot.

Yes, nearly fifty thousand words and still no plot. This year's novel is much weaker than last year's in that respect. I'm feeling around the edges of something though. If I take some time to actually follow some of the threads I'm picking up to their logical beginnings and ends I might figure out the theme at least. In cyberpunk tradition I seem to be getting some social commentary in there.

In true "Tephie is writing stuff" tradition I also seem to be playing the "are they or aren't they" bit with my characters. Sierna definitely was last year, with just about anyone that caught her eye. Elyza and Aeryn (the weird spellings started out as maybe something significant and now are both less and more so) might be, but probably aren't, but they might have once, and could in the future, possibly again. Yeah.

Well I want to try to get a few more thousand words down before I sleep so I will have time to go over fifty thousand tomorrow so it will verify before time is up. I'll let you know if I "win" or not tomorrow.

40,050 words as of now. Just 10k left, and then probably another 1500 to make sure it will verify.

Man, for all the days I wrote nothing I'm really surprised that I'm this close to making it.

Note to self for next year:

You write more, faster, if you have characters you can send off in different directions!

I don't know if Aaron Moritz will come back into the story and find out that Elyza isn't dead, but his flashback gave me a huge boost on Monday and made this sprint possible. It cost him his legs, but that's okay, they grew back. (Hurray for cyberpunk medicine!)

I might not win NaNo this year, but I just went from 23,376 to 30,050 today so maybe I just might make it. I just have to figure out what happens next.

I got through today by having more characters to track, alas, I just killed one off. Though I gave the other some past history with one of my main characters, which might generate some long sections of verbiage. Pity they aren't going to meet soon, since he thinks she's dead and all. I don't think she'd approve of how he's changed over the years, if she remembers him.

Also, I finished knitting Mom's scarf for Christmas. The garter stitch scarf of DOOM, is done, I just need to weave the tails and graft the ends so it's a moebius. I might end up picking out the first row, it depends on if the start and ending points are in the right orientation for grafting. Not a big deal either way.

Woohoo! I broke 30k! Four days left so at least 5k a day will make it (I want to get more than that though because I know the verifier is going to eat at least 1000 words on me). If I can think of things to write I can still win. :D

I'm about 12k behind. :(

But I did get 3k down today so it's moving at least. Winning is still possible, if I can manage about 3400 words a day. :P

After I get some sleep I'm going to try to get to 30k between the various stages of making apple pie from scratch. That will be a smidgen over 7k in one day though, so I have my doubts but I won't know unless I try and all that.

I lost some time on the NaNo by working on some knitting. I have two projects to finish for Christmas and now one of them is almost complete and the other I know I can finish if I take the time to put some movies on and knit while I watch.

The hat I knitted Saturday didn't do anything for any of my goals but it scratched the itch for starting something new. It's not done, I don't like the way the brim is going, but I have a life line in there so I'm going to rip back to that eventually. I'll start the brim a couple rows earlier on larger needles to compensate for this particular worsted being on the heavy side (and very "sticky", what a bitch to knit with).

It was more of a "keep me entertained" project than anything else so I might do just the first layer of the brim and bind off without cutting the yarn and try it on. If I don't like how it looks at that point I can frog the whole thing and not really mind. The yarn was a bit heavy for the project anyway. I did learn to do two over two cables without a cable needle by doing the hat though. And really, it would look better in a color rather than black. It's hard to see stitch detail in black.

I tried knitting continental today... I think I'll stick with English/throwing. I know I'd get quicker with practice, and I did have a few points of quick knitting, but the tensioning issues were driving me nuts. I just can't work how to run the yarn in my left hand and not have it be either far too loose or far too tight. (It's sort of weird, I crochet and can tension the yarn for that okay, but not for the knitting. O.o )

And after just fifty or so stitches my left hand started cramping up something awful. It's just a weird position to have my fingers in.

After a few rows of knitting when I was finally able to stay pretty constant on speed and tension I tried purling... I can see why so many people say they have different gauges between knitting flat and in the round now, and why so many people have rowing out issues. My continental purls were astoundingly loose. Sure, practice would probably fix the tensioning, but I suspect I'd cripple my already problematic left hand by trying.

Still no idea where the story is going.

Have discovered a distressing habit to wander into talking head territory.

Like the characters, very WTF on the story. Though the idea of zombies created with technology for use as cannon fodder is oddly interesting. Of course someone else in the house has done it better, now that I think about it.

This original story is not as original as I would like I think.

I was lazy on Sunday so I'm trying to catch up today. Treating myself to an anime episode every 500 words seems to work pretty well.

I hope to have at least 8000 words when I stop tonight (which might be really early tomorrow with my habits).

My knitting is not going well with the writing. I need to do an inch of slip stitch rib on this hat and I hate my size 5 circulars. They are plastic and too flexy. Since the only place to get circulars in lengths other than 24"* is the yarn store I'm trying to hold off buying another one ($10 a circular, cripes!) since I am broke and have hopes for a Christmas gift of an interchangeable set. (I swear, if I don't get one for Christmas I'm going to squeeze the money from somewhere because I can get a set for the price of 5 or 6 regular circulars and save a ton of money in the long run.)

I still have a skein and a half on the garter stitch scarf, that's pretty damned boring to knit and I should leave it out where I will be tempted to pick it up and do a row here and there. The hat is currently in the prime sitting out spot though.

I'm not sure the dalek is going to make it. I'm using Caron Simply Soft on size 4s and there's something funky going on every knit to purl switch, it's loose and it shouldn't be. It's hard to tell though because I don't have enough rows to get a real good look at it. I'm actually very proficient with DPNs but you couldn't tell from this thing. I may frog it and use the yarn for something else, provided I can find some grey in another brand. I don't know. I did decide that bobbles are right out because they are boring, boring, boring to knit. I will be using some purchased mini pompoms instead. Assuming I actually finish a dalek.

*Annoyingly, 24" is actually usable for hats for myself or either of the Bills I might knit for, but the hat is for Dad and his head is only 21", hence having already had to buy one $10 circular for it. If the DPNs hadn't been getting annoying I wouldn't have bought it, short circulars don't get much use in my knitting, sleeves and hats, that's about it.

So here it is, about five and a half hours to NaNo'07 kick off, and Sierna (the main character from NaNo'06) is chattering her little hamsterish head off about how the kinless are treated in her home culture.

WTF hamstergirl? Where was this info this time last year?

Yes, yes, I'll start a TiddlyWiki for you. I promise to stick these little details in there and get back to them later. Maybe I'll be insane enough to do NaNoFiMo with your story, okay? But I swear, if this year's NaNo actually ends at 50k (unlike yours, which is what, half, maybe?) I'm doing NaNoEdMo for it instead and you'll just have to wait since you didn't speak up all year.

I have two characters! I have basic personalities on them and some very vague ideas about what they do but that's something to work with in the next 23 hours. :D

Of course I'm going to have to sleep for some of those hours but hey, I have characters now. They mentioned four other character names and I get an impression of one of them so maybe I'll have three shortly.

Now I just have to figure out what they hell they are doing for at least 50,000 words.

....

Ooh, hey, there's a plot idea. *pounces and writes that down before she forgets*

*MUAHAHAHA!*

NaNoWriMo is ON!