Crochet, corals and the Game of Life.

I'm writing a novel again this year for NaNoWriMo and I thought I'd do at least one blog post about it.


This year feels different. For one thing it's my second time participating. It's not new anymore but it's still pretty exciting, if not more. I went all out buying an expensive new leather chair with memory foam (which I'm not even using a whole lot for writing) for the occasion and made myself a crochet viking hat which will, now and forever, be my official NaNoWriMo writing hat. It's different too because I'm going about it differently, applying what I've learned from last year. It's a little easier and a lot more relax. I've thought all year long about the story I'm writing now, jotting down notes, allowing myself to be flexible and to replace an idea with an even better idea if one came up. I did a lot of reading and applied research. And also I'm not always going back to read what I wrote. I remember last year I spent a lot of time, too much time in fact, doing just that. Time that could've been better spent. I'm not fighting with writer's block quite as much either because when I hit a snag, I go and do something else. I know my brain is still working in the background thinking the block over and I have a backup creative activity to keep that part of the brain constantly working.



I learned how to crochet about a week before NaNoWriMo. And to adopt the old cliche, I am now completely hooked. And while I was crocheting hats and flowers, I began to realize something. Crochet is a pretty good analogy to evolution. I remember reading a book (I think it was Dawkin's "The Greatest Show On Earth") where the author made an analogy of evolution with cooking, describing how our DNA was like a recipe. The recipe analogy is ok. But it would have been better if Dawkins had tried his hand at crochet. And then the analogy in the book might have been different. All it takes for this activity is a single strand of material and a crochet hook and from these two simple elements and instructions, just like in Conway's Game of Life, complexity can arise. Every loop is like a cell. You start with one and when you chain them up it's easy to make just about any shape found in nature. Flowers, leaves, horns for your NaNoWriMo viking hat. I can't help musing over the life mimicking properties of crochet. And I was pleasantly surprised that I'm not the only one who's thought of this too.



After watching that video, I thought I'd begin to crochet my own coral reef. More pictures to follow.



Oh! And happy Carl Sagan Day!

Oh yeah! I've been here before...

Fun times in Azeroth.

I bought a new laptop yesterday and I reactivated my World of Warcraft account this morning. Hoping to level up my level 43 worgen. But since its been many months since I last played, I thought I'd fool around and do some low level quests first. Maybe later tonight, when I'm done work, I'll hit the battlegrounds. I feel a tinge of excitement just thinking about it!

What I've been up to?

This post could potentially be a long one.

I began working from home in late December. In my spare time, at first I immersed myself into the post cataclysmic world of Azeroth, after the release of World of Warcraft's latest expansion. From which, due to some technical difficulties, I latched on to other interests, namely reading. I have read more books in the past 6 months then I have in the past years. Mostly because I've been buying ebooks as opposed to good old paperbacks and some titles that interested me were not readily available to me locally. Now most of them are just a click away. I love my Kindle. I wish I had a Kindle in my early twenties when I used to travel with all my favorite books all the time. I can now carry a virtual library, bigger then any collection of books I ever owned, inside my purse at all time. I jail broke it so I could load my own custom screen savers and bought a really nice lime green cover with retractable LED night reading light to protect it. It smells like a brand new car. Love it!

Here are some books I read recently and enjoyed:
-Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion [Kindle Edition] Jay Heinrichs
-Death from the Skies!: The Science Behind the End of the World [Kindle Edition] Philip Plait Ph.D.
-The Greatest Show on Earth [Kindle Edition] Richard Dawkins
-The Meme Machine [Kindle Edition] Susan Blackmore
-In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language [Kindle Edition] Arika Okrent

After reading so many science books, back to back, I went on a Farmville "binge". Yeah, I know... the way I justify it is that after reading and learning so much, I had to give my brain a break and some time to sort and organize all the new data while I performed menial activity. (Yeah! Lets go with that excuse!) I've got into collecting virtual water features (lakes, ponds, water fountains and waterfalls) and began designing myself a nice virtual garden. Maybe as a result of all that menial-ity I was able to muster enough motivation to start working on the second draft of my NaNoWriMo novel. I didn't get too far though. I hit another block after four or five chapters and have resumed reading since then.

Reassuring me that geek pride is still alive, I have been re-running episodes of the Big Bang Theory over and over again. It reminds me of my big CSI obsession of 06 when I took to all the "sciency" stuff in the show. I had heard about The Big Bang Theory for a while, but since I don't really watch TV a whole lot it took some time before I got around to sit down and watch the first season. Now I can quote Leonard and Sheldon with the best of them. I really think its a great show. Smart is indeed the new sexy!

In other news, Game of Thrones is now playing on HBO! I have been waiting for the premiere of that show since George R. R. Martin had made the announcement on his Not a Blog blog! Each new episode airs on Sunday night and Mondays are known to me now as "GoT Mondays" (its my day off) where I spend the better part of the day obsessing and re-watching the previous night's episode, over and over again. It goes like this: I watch it once, I read other viewers reviews and comments, reminisce on different scenes, then I go back to watching it another time. I go read other reviews that cropped up while I was away from the computer. Repeat a few times during the course of the day. I don't do much on Mondays anymore. I am somewhat grateful (really though, just a teeny tiny part of me. The obsessed part of me rages against this fact) that there is only 10 episodes to this first season. I can't really explain why this story won't leave me alone. I have loved a Song of Ice and Fire since I read the second installment on paperback, back in 2000, A Clash of Kings, which I bought in Montreal at the train station. You know how people remember what they were doing on 9/11. Some people remember what they were doing when they learned about the onset of earthquakes in Japan. I like to remember what I did the day I bought Clash of Kings (although I'm fuzzy as to whether I was leaving Canada or if I was coming back. I really can't seem to remember if I was waiting to get on a train or not. I just have the feeling that that novel was with me the first time I flew to Italy.) I remember looking at the small selection of books on the rack standing in front of a small store inside the station. It was the thickest book of the lot. Now, I'll let you know that I'm not an avid fan of fantasy. But something about that big paperback volume with the red relief lettering, and the woman dressed in red with a white bird perched on her arm and a kingly man sitting on a stone throne in the background, a flaming heart as his sigil... something about the whole packaging... might be I fell prey to marketing that day. It took me a while to make up my mind (as I was hurting for money). I don't remember anything of the other books on the rack. My eye kept being drawn back to that imposing volume. Maybe it was the red woman, standing by the kingly man's side. She seemed to be in a powerful position. I'm attracted to stories with strong female characters. After a long time hesitating (and this is why I suspect I found this book on my way back from my first trip to Italy) I finally decided to purchase the book. And since then I have read the entire series multiple times. The only thing that makes me feel better about this obsession is that I share it with a number of other fans, also known to have re-read the series a multiple number of times.

So, geeking it up a little more, I am now learning Dothraki. But I'll write about that a little more in another post.

Having fun with my Moonkin

When I started getting talent points, rolling my new worgen druid, I figured I'd go with the restoration specialisation because I always planned on having a dungeon toon and learn the ropes of a healer. It eventually became apparent that I'd much rather quest. Cataclysm quests are much more fun then the old ones. So I went for the balance three instead today, which is also good for PvP. Let's face it. I haven't even queued once for a dungeon. Rolling a healer at this time is just not going to happen.

Rolling a Worgen - Daenerys

Life Post-NaNo

(My view while writing about interplanetary space ships.)

NaNoWriMo is ending today at midnight and I am done my novel. You’d think that I’d want to spend as much time away as possible from the computer now. You know, stop thinking about my story entirely and see if I’ve missed much of real life in that month I spent in sci-fi/NaNo land! I probably should go to that doctor’s appointment now and maybe put a pound or two on my bones. But rehabilitation is not easy and I find myself still clinging to the glory of NaNoWriMo. I come back from the battlefield, bloodied and exhausted, but victorious and hungry for more... or something like that!

So here I thought I’d go more in depth about my writing experience and give some advice if you think of participating next year. Which, if you have any inclination whatsoever towards writing, you totally should. I didn’t know at first if I was going to do it. I had some initial concerns. But now I’m hooked and wished I didn’t have to wait for another year to do this again (my boyfriend is on the other hand grateful it’s over).

First of all, there is no valid excuse why you shouldn’t do it. 50,000 seems like a lot of words, but it’s realistic. It’s feasible. At the end, you’re not going to have a huge novel. You’ll have something you can easily read back in a few hours (depends how fast you read though I guess. I read fast.) Just trying here to put that number into some vague perspective.

Check your perfectionist tendencies at the beginning of the month and tell your inner editor to zip it. Don’t listen to that nagging voice at the back of your head saying that you suck and that you should quit. Yell back at it: “YOU SUCK! Frack off!!”

This is not the time to spend an hour just picking out a name for a character or a place. Use the first friggen name that comes into your mind. You can change it later, you know, when you don’t have a word count to beat in a timely matter. Borrow names if it gives you a feel for a character or a place. I borrowed names of places from the novel Red Mars and one of my main characters is currently named after a WWE champion. Keep that epic villain name that makes everybody cringe because it contains the word “fetish” in it. Remember, this is a marathon of words. It’s quantity versus quality. It cannot be stressed enough. The right synonym is overrated during this month as well. So what there is the same word three times in the same paragraph? Don’t give yourself a facepalm over it. Save that for NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month). What matters, is your words and the story. That you know what you mean when writing something is all that matters so you can fix it and polish it later.

Take it easy when ideas are not coming. Writing at times will feel like you’re not doing anything. You’re going to procrastinate a lot while your brain works out the details of your story. Having an outline helps. But if you’re anything like me, you won’t follow that story outline too much and know what’s going on as you go. If an idea seems crazy to you but just won’t leave your head, write it anyway. Don’t fight it. Sometimes your subconscious knows best. Or keep telling yourself that. Remind yourself of NaNoEdMo. I had a few wtf moments during this month, wondering what a psychoanalyst would think if he or she ever read my draft. Whatever, masquerade the weirdness for some brilliance and move on! So what if I’ve shaped a self-destruct mechanism as a vagina? That’s cool! If I’d been a guy, it probably would’ve been a phallic symbol ‘a la Austin Power! I’ll worry if it’s tasteful later down road. I got a couple good sized paragraphs out of it though. In the end, that’s what counts, right?

Just do it! And add me as a writing buddy!

See you again next year NaNoWriMo!