Plot Ninja
In which I become money
Yellow sheets and sticky material
Two men (not pictured, though I watched them work during recess duty) are pasting different colored sheets over the yellow material that they stuck up first.
I should probably find someone who is familiar with construction and tell me what is really happening. I’m quite sure I’m not using actual construction terms.
Essay: Reflections on writing 52,082 words in 30 days.
Until this September, I never thought I had a novel in me. In high school I attempted to write various novels now and then, but never got past the first several pages. However, one of my resolutions for 2012 was to write one 500-word essay per week for the blog and in doing that, something shifted in me. I wrote a 6,500-word essay in August about one moment in my life when things could have gone differently and that caused me to wonder how my life would be different if things had gone in that direction. And that became a book.
novel. That’s a goal of 1,667 words per day which is more than triple my original 500-word essay goal, but is doable.
that we had to listen to everyone talk about their book. But as people shared about their novels, I was surprised how much fun it was. A lot of people in the room were “pants-ing” it, meaning they had no plan, but would just start writing. I was interested to see how many people had their title picked out because I’m not one for titles, myself. The first book I was working on is currently called “Chapters” because it’s longer than an essay and this current one has the catchy moniker of “Untitled LO YA fic.” One woman even had written the blurb for the back of the book which she read aloud to us.
down and crank out the words. At this point I’m not sure how good the whole thing is, because one of the other NaNoWriMo rules is you can’t go back and edit during the month. I’m also not finished. I think there another 5000 words or so before I can wrap things up.
supportive. It’s like a thing. Whereas I noticed that some regular people
had a lot of questions, most in the vein of “so is anything really going to
come of this?” And for a lot of people, I think no, nothing will come of it, if you define “something” as “getting published.” But I think that the point
of the month isn’t to publish; it’s to create. I think the crazily supportive NaNoWriMo community would agree.
Three sentence movie reviews: Jolene
I loathed this movie because I could tell it was supposed to be a sort of “actor-flexing-her-acting-muscle” kind of film. But because the actor was a women it was a troubling story of a sexually abused girl making the same bad choice over and over again in a frustrating way that had a lot of the actor in question being naked and not much other character growth. I can see that picking a woman and watching all of her movies is a totally different experience than watching the films of a man.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.
Scavenger Hunt pays off
I went looking for some of the things depicted in my Birthday Scavenger Hunt. It was early Sunday morning and I found a dollar! I suspect it was because the Santas were out the night before for Santacon. Drunken Santas can’t hold on to their money.
Skirt project
Requiem: Fox 40 Classic
This is not a picture of my trusty Fox 40 classic which I have owned since the summer of 1994. There is no picture of that beloved whistle because after years of service, I lost it. This is the replacement. The original was black. In 1994 I think they only came in black, unlike today when everyone can get their favorite color. I bought the whistle the summer I was a lifeguard at Wild Waters, which was an awful place to be a lifeguard. We rotated from station to station all day long, spending 7.5 hours per day standing in the sun. If I had gotten a job at a public pool I would have been outside for an hour at a time, maximum. If I ever develop skin cancer, I will blame Wild Waters.
When guarding the water slides we had to indicate when children could go, by motioning them forward as we watched to ensure the person in front of them was far enough along that they wouldn’t collide. Because of that, “Can I go yet?” is permanently in my book as the stupidest question ever. “If you could go yet, I would have motioned you forward.” I told more than one child in an exasperated voice after hearing the question for the fiftieth time that day.
I bought the Fox 40 Classic because the regular old whistle I was issued did not stand up to the rigors that is guarding at a water park. Watching the pool portion was the worst as it was a frothing mass of unsupervised children, many of whom didn’t hear me when I whistled at them to stop whatever rule-breaking activity they were doing. I learned quickly that if you blow a normal whistle too hard it makes a very wimpy “cccaaaa” noise that inspires laughter from the few that can hear it, while the hoodlums I was whistling at carried on with their rule breaking ways.
The Fox 40 Classic, one of my fellow lifeguards told me, never does that because there is no ball in the whistle. The air travels through chambers. It’s pretty darn loud too. I ponied up the then-exorbitant fee of $5.95 for my own and, wow. That whistle gets attention.
There was only one summer of life guarding for me, but I kept the whistle around. When I started working at an elementary school and added “recess monitor” to my duties, I pulled out my trusty Fox 40 classic. It’s been causing children to cover their ears when I blow it at recess for over six years and it deserved more than to be lost somewhere between the playground and one of the K/1 classrooms. But that’s what it got. Sorry trusty friend.