It's been a pretty good day, though. We went to the eye doctor I've been seeing since I was...like....ten. Good news is that my glasses prescription didn't need changing; bad news is they don't accept my vision insurance, so I need to file with them separately for exam costs. blarg, hate insurance.
After that, we went to Columbia Mall and had Auntie Anne's pretzels, which I haven't had since
first_seventhe and
katmillia were last here together, and then got Mom a couple things she needed and I picked up her Christmas present in a not at all sly kind of way (she knew what she was getting as she specifically asked me for it! Nap slippers from Brookstone. I ♥ mine and she needs a new pair, so.)
Then we went down to National Harbour, which is pretty and has nice shops, including a Godiva store where I bought Mom and I the raspberry chocoiste bars, because ♥. We are eating them now. Mmmmmm. This has to be my favourite chocolate bar - it's not too sweet, and in the middle is an awesomely tart bit of raspberry goo that's just fabulous.
Anyway. So while we were at National Harbour, we went to this restaurant called National Pastime, where I got basically the most awesome salad in the history of ever - various mixed greens, bacon, sliced hard-boiled egg, sliced avocado, diced tomatoes, two kinds of shredded cheese, diced turkey, and lump crabmeat, all with honey mustard dressing. So good. The thing was big enough for 2 meals at least, and it wasn't one of those annoying salads where it's 90% lettuce and then a thin dusting of other things across the top. No, this salad was serious business, and it was delicious. Huge lumps of crab meat the size of my thumb, perfectly ripe avocado....it was awesome. I brought half of it home and will eat it tomorrow while Daddy and I watch the Redskins game.
While home, I finally saw a few episodes of Lost, and while it was interesting, not enough for me to want to catch up on everything and move ahead. On the other hand, I also saw two episodes of Fringe, and it is way more awesome than it looks from the preview clips. From the previews, it looked like a really asstastic ripoff of The X-Files, and it turns out it's just awesome. Crazy scientists, weird fringe shit, some great snappy dialogue (Walter and Peter, especially, I love to death), and. Yeah. I love it. Must start watching. Impatient kitty is impatient. Can haz episodes nao plz?
Otherwise, I've read the latest Elizabeth Lowell book, Blue Smoke and Murder. ...I would have liked it much, much better if it had not been a lather-rinse-repeat of Die In Plain Sight, and it felt a bit like she had lost her edge with this book, but it was still better than most romance novels. I started reading and then blinked and looked up to discover it was nearly 4 am and I had not yet been to bed. Oops.
Speaking of books, Every Light Casts A Shadow is now approximately 70% complete. I went back and looked at the outlines not long before NaNo finished, and some of the earlier chapters I thought I had to write are in fact unnecessary. I'm hoping that now November's over,
celeloriel and
first_seventhe will get a chance soon to tell me if Chapter 2 is okay to go as-is, or if it has to be reworked completely--again. *sigh* I hate being an idiot with politics.
I learned a lot from this year's NaNo, though, and I think most of it is broadly applicable to the original fiction I hope to write eventually. For example, most of this year's writing went in very quick bursts - many nights I hit 2000 or even 2500 words without even noticing, and in the space of an hour or two. In 2006, when I did the first portion of this monstrosity, I struggled every day to wrench the wordcount out. The vast, vast majority of chapters 1-13 is set-up and politicking. I enjoy the setup portion, but I really disliked the politicking quite intensely, and I noticed this time around that every single time I ran into one of those scenes where politics had to take the reins (instead of action crashing through the gate), I slowed down significantly and bitched a lot more.
The scenes I wrote with action and passion flow much better than the negotiation and restraint of the political scenes, I think. It seems pretty clear from those scenes - the pace, the flow, everything - that I was having way more fun with them than I was when Kain is struggling for political clout. I also realized that every time Kain threatens to drown in his own angst, the answer was clearly to cast Summon Edge, because Edge and Rydia not only do great snark (and Kain is a perfect straight man for them) but they really get the story moving.
Another thing that I found was that, whereas I used to do my best writing amid constant distractions, I am more and more needing to have a lessened-distraction zone when I am writing. I bitch and flail a lot on IM when things are going badly, and when things are going well, I pretty much pay attention only to the Word window and ignore any blinking until I hit a breathing point.
Collectively, I think the last two NaNos have taught me a lot about my writing style--well, that and lots of discussions about writing with Cel, Puel, Mith, and Sev, without whom this NaNo would never have been accomplished to even the degree that it currently is. I've learned:
--That I really do work better with at least a vague outline
--That I absolutely love snark, both writing and reading
--That I prefer action to politics
--That I really need to do my writing on my desktop, where the keyboard and chair are awesome, and NOT on my laptop
--That Liquid Story Binder is a totally awesome tool I will probably use indefinitely
Those are all things that I'm going to take with me into my next original project, which I think is likely going to be the NaNo for 09. The politics/action thing is actually really important, because several of my original projects had vague notions of turning into sweeping high-fantasy political shenanigans, and I really don't think that those are what I'm going to write best. So I'll have a go at a more adventurous type of novel, and see how that comes out (I always figured I'd be terrible at it, but maybe not! Worth a try.)
For now, though, I have plenty of new projects: Yuletide, 0tp, and that Locke/Celes bunny that ate my brain a few weeks back. Also the one my boyfriend gave me last week. And I need to keep working on Every Light, but not for at least a week.
What did you all learn from NaNo, if you did it?