The Weekly Photo Challenge for this week is: Textured
I wasn’t sure which one to go with so I put both pictures up. In the evening sun, my camera isn’t doing a good job of focusing.
Close-up of rings of a fallen pine tree. It was cut with a chainsaw a few days back and sap has begun to leak out of it.
Had to toss this picture of a Prickly Pear in here since a friend isn’t too fond of them.
Official Word Count: 50,001
I am just as surprised as you are. I really, really am. After chatting all day with my good friend, the topic of NNWM came up and I told her a few times that I was not going to finish it. I couldn’t. The most I ever wrote in one day was November 14th with 3,370 words only because that I had finally arrived to a scene that I ruminated on and just hammered it out. However, the more I talked with my friend, the more the urge kept coming up that I should at least finish the story or I’ll never go back to it. I pulled out my word count which was 44,359 words as of the 26th before the lights went out for a few days.
After doing the math and figuring that I just needed 5,641 words left, divide that with two days (today and tomorrow), maybe I could try and wing half of it today and the other half tomorrow. I pretty much knew how it would end and it was a bit complicated so I knew I had to wing it anyhow because I wouldn’t remember the details down the road even though I wrote it down.
So instead of trying to stretch things out to make it over the days, it became a cram session. I was going to go over the ending and then pray that I had enough content to make it to the end. As I pounded it out while chatting with my friend and talking about making up names I needed at the last minute for various djinns and on and on… I am SO HAPPY to say I banged out an ending for it. I don’t think it’s a cheap ending. I think I really filled in the details and made it very workable… and to come to 50,001 words is an unusual stopping point but I will take it. I will take that so happily!
I will never ever again look at anyone else’s “50,0** words” and assume they did some last minute shortcut to get there. I now had a taste of what a ‘cram session’ was like, instead of slowly stretching the story over the coming days to make sure I meet the site’s daily craving for 1,667+ words even if you already met 50,000+ words.
Irene really threw us for a loop. We’ve been through storms like Bertha, Floyd, Fran, etc… Normally it’s the same story. Just a lot of wind, rain, and then we spend the next day raking up all the fallen branches and then pray the lights come back on later in the day.
We lost internet connection a little before midnight on Friday (26th). Hours later (27th) at 3:30 a.m., we lost power. Irene proceeded to beat us with gust after gust after gust… She snapped so many of our trees and one of them fell on our power lines. It continued all through the day and into the evening.
I made an entry on my “Plants” blog with photos and two videos.
Come Sunday morning was the usual trademarked ‘vibrant blue sky, void of any clouds’ after a hurricane passes through here.
The backyard and front yard was cleaned up on Sunday so that there was some resemblance of normalcy. It was to also make sure that the dogs don’t come across any snakes slithering around (In the picture is Chrissy, later in the day of 8/27 to go to the bathroom). There was a warning on the radio about snakes and snapping turtles coming out – as well as nutria. A great big laugh was had about that as soon as we heard it. They focused on nutria for a few seconds and said it was some big ‘rat or beaver-looking’ thing and how they’re very disillusioned right now and might hide in shrubs. If spotted, expect it to be very aggressive so keep your distance.
The tree-cutting guys came Monday at noon and cut down the tree that was resting on the wires to relieve stress to the house. As for all the fallen trees, they’re still sitting around. I have no idea what’s going to be done about that. All those fallen trees at the side of the yard actually belong to someone else (there’s a dirt road that runs between the trees). It’ll be weird once the trees are cleared out. It’ll mean that we can see the neighbors on the other side of this dirt road.
All through that, I couldn’t even try to write anything. After the realization that the damage was more severe and then how hot everything was, especially after all that rain and we couldn’t stop sweating while trying to clean stuff up or even just loafing around (sleep was impossible)… not gonna happen. No writing. I have absolutely failed to meet my goal of Camp NaNoWriMo because I am not interested in writing in the very least, at all, whatsoever…
This was definitely a new experience.
I tried to deny it as long as I possibly could. With every update the projected path kept moving further and further east. I was so sure that by the time Irene even came close, she’d be pushed off to sea and we’d move on…
It seems now that she is coming. With the local meteorologist telling everyone in my area to expect wind speed of 100+, I have no choice but to face the rather annoying idea that the lights will go out. It’s been a long time since a hurricane knocked our lights out. I remember back in the 90’s, it took the electric company a week to get the lights back on. Every time a storm came through, they’d get it back on faster and faster until they could get the lights back on the very same day it went out. It’s been years since it’s happened so I’m worried that with strong winds being forecast, it might take longer than a day.
Another thing that’s also been a long time is writing by hand. I haven’t reached 50k yet for Camp NaNoWriMo and the idea of even trying to write 1,667 words by hand is… is… inconceivable! My hand would kill me before I even got to the bottom of the page. I also don’t enjoy the idea of writing by candlelight or trying to sit somewhere in the house where I can get as much natural light as I can in order to write. I did dig up my really old composition book in case I wanted to give it a try.
For everyone who had to deal with Irene and will deal with her soon, stay safe.
The Daily Post asks: Write a story in just six words.
And my story is:
The knight befriends the princess’ dragon.
The Daily Post asks: Revisit a topic you wrote about in January
Yeah… One problem with that. I came way too late to Daily Post. The only thing I remember going on at the time was this sensation about doing a “365 Photo” blog where you just post a new photo every day. I knew I wasn’t going to succeed with that!
A link was provided to look at the topics that were suggested for January and I decided to look through them and pick three that I liked.
1. Topic: Why did you start?
What made you decide to start a blog? If you’ve blogged about this before, go back and read it. Is that still the reason? What’s changed?
———-
That’s easy. The whole blogging era that got ramped up. I remember waiting forever for a LiveJournal code to try to get a journal of my own. Remember when codes were needed to make your own journal there? I guess once the novelty of blogging wore off, it was hard to keep a journal there anymore once people filed off to MySpace, and then later on to Facebook.
2. If you had a time machine…
If you had a time machine that only let you spend one hour in a different time, what date would you go to?
———-
Hard to say. I’d love to see the Egyptian pyramids in their glory days when they were recently completed. I’d also like to see the construction of Stonehenge. Oo! Or maybe when the Nazca lines were being made… Ah, I suppose the mystery needs to stay mystery though.
3. What’s the single most important thing?
What’s the single most important thing you accomplished in 2010? And how do you plan to top it in 2011 (perhaps by completing your blogging challenge!)
———-
Okay, that has to be NaNoWriMo. I know… “Not again!” I just love how I succeeded in writing a fun story from start to end. How to top it? Um… higher word count? I don’t know.
The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge is: Flowers
Perfect timing too! My Stapelia Gigantea bloom finally opened this morning.
The “Carrion Flower”! Two of the edges curled way back so it looks like an arrow pointing somewhere. The flowers emit a foul smell that draws in flies. The small black ants love marching in just to cart away the tiny eggs and maggots.
Sometimes if I get a bit too blocked when writing, I just head into ActiveWorlds and tinker around in AlphaWorld. Nothing in specific. I just play with random objects and stuff just unfolds.
This is what I built last night and most of this morning. It’s a marketplace with eight stalls.
Probably won’t do much with it anyhow. Might put some more details on it…
This is an example of what objects I’m using. Then in the “action” field, I put in commands that resize them, re-texture them, etc…
I also thought I posted this but I guess not. This was taken back on July 31st when I first started tinkering near the train station (brown roof building) that someone else built. They had named the station after my citizen name (probably because it ran along my land) so I just started expanding off it since.
All right! I am halfway through! Racked up 25,719 words as of today.
The story is still hidden from me. I’m not sure if I have a whole lot more to discover or if I’ll abruptly come to the very end… but I sort of see the story. Kind of. I mean… It’s unfolding. Everything I come up with is thought up on the spot when I’m trying to force the next scene to come.
One thing is for sure. I have a war coming up that I have to figure out. I don’t want it to be a quick battle that gets snuffed out in a jiffy but I don’t see any huge complicated plots that can unfold through it. But then again, I guess that’s gonna have to happen. I’m pretty sure I’ve set myself up at the very doorstep of “WAR TIME” so it’s going to have to stretch itself out over the next fifteen or sixteen days.
This is going to hurt.
The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge is: Entrance
I’m probably going in a rather obscure route. I know people think of doors and gates or something conventional as ‘entrances’ to a place. I didn’t want to go that way. Instead I decided to go off the beaten path and picked a flower. Bees tend to disappear deep into morning glories to get what they’re looking for so in a way, these flowers could be viewed as an ‘entrance’ to nectar much like people entering a supermarket to get food.
Too much of a stretch?
