Lots of Monkeys

After fiddling with a new video card and seeing the computer was running, I moved it back under the desk.

Then it wouldn’t boot up.

“No problem.” I thought, considering that I was going to upgrade anyway. Then I remembered that parts of the novel are currently saved on its hard drive. Not really an issue since I can get to that data by putting the hard drive in an enclosure or swapping it into another system.

More of an annoyance than anything else.

I’m going to take a wild stab that it’s a power supply issue, and replace that first.

I decided to try something different this year by not having an outline. Instead, I have a theme, which is “normalcy,” and then I try to think about something in my freakish, bohemian, shenanigan filled lifestyle that fits the bill.

It’s working so far. I’ve been averaging around 2,000 words a night, which is “ahead” of pace if you want to finish in thirty days. A lot of the novel seems to be a series of interconnected stories loosely based on events and people in my life.

I’m also breaking another habit I have which is editing while I’m writing. I’m ignoring typos, spellcheck, and instead of rewriting sentences on the fly, I’m writing that sentence again. It doesn’t happen all that often, but sometimes I wonder how many good ideas I’ve lost to the delete key if I was too hasty.

Basically, I’m using this as an exercise to try to get to creation without judgment getting in the way.

It’s pretty refreshing to go back and read what I’ve written, especially since sometimes four or five pages will be written and I barely recognize my style. Then I will see that I’ve remembered or added details that might have been lost if I slowed down to edit.

Tonight will mark a third of the way through this competition and I plan on uploading the word count to the robotic overlords counters for an update on my progress.

I’m sort of in a strange situation with the ladybugs in my office. I have dozens, maybe nearing a hundred or so of them in my office, hanging out near the sources of light.

They get in somehow, but then they can’t leave, due to the fact that the office is enclosed. So they manage to get inside the florescent light enclosures and then starve to death. They don’t bother me at all, other than the fact that I feel I have to rescue two or three of them every now and again.

The window in my office never had a screen installed, so I can cajole a few of them onto an index card, open my window and gently evict them into the open sky. At least I know they’ll fare better than the rest of their mates.

Their dry husks slowly littering the floor of my office, only to be swept away by the cleaning staff tonight.

Then the cycle begins anew.