Creative Writing: The Geek Way

When I take on any project of moderate to long duration, I find it helps to make a chart. It's nice to have a visual means of recognizing where I've been and where I'm headed. Tonight, I'm sharing my chart with you.

The blue line, labeled Pace, symbolizes the total word count necessary to win NaNoWriMo. The red line, labeled Total, is my personal total word count. As long as the red line stays above the blue line I'm doing fine. If the red line dips below the blue line, I've fallen behind.

I'd like to get a little further ahead than I already am. I'd be nice to have a day's writing as a safety net.

By the way, I've gotten further this year than last. Even if I crash and burn now, I've made progress.

Thanks for checking on me.

Dr. Pepper is Novel Fuel

In late August Wal-Mart featured pallets full of these football shaped half-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper as a promotion for the beginning of football season. By early October, Wally World still had half a pallet of the stuff so they marked it for clearance at $0.25 a bottle.

I was trying to make up my mind as to whether or not to give NaNoWriMo another go at that time. Then it struck me. For $7.50 (plus tax) I could supply myself with daily writing rewards for the duration of the event. That sealed it. (Hey, books have been writen for worse reasons.)

These cases have been taking up pantry space for a month. On Halloween night, I put one of these into the refrigerator and as I've made my goal of 1,667 words each day I've taken a cold 500 ml of southern refreshment to celebrate. Day by the the pantry will empty as my word count rises.

Also, "Remember, remember the fifth of November . . ."

V: The Reason I'm Not Writing

I'm a little ahead of schedule for today's word count so Mthr. M-G and I are digging into our burgeoning DVR recordings. In anticipation of the remake airing on ABC tonight, SyFy ran a V/V: The Final Battle marathon this past weekend.

Unfortunately, after we scheduled our recording SyFy bumped everything up by half an hour. The DVR isn't "smart" enough to catch something like that. So we've missed the first thiry minutes. (Sad clown face.)

Thanks for the encouragement with my NaNoWriMo attempt. It really does help.

NaNoWriMo Again

Well, let's give it another go. Last year I gave up very early in my attempt to write a novel in 30 days. We'll see how far I get this year.

I'll be updating the progress bar at the right daily and posting here at least once a week.

If you'd like to join me on this fool's errand, or just want to know more about what I've gotten myself into go to the National Novel Writing Month website. If you do sign up, let me know so we can keep tabs on each other.

Halloween 2009

Thanks to Grandma Berger we didn't have to go costume shopping this year. Trick-or-treating began too late for Phoeb-a-rino to unleash her brand of devilry on south-western Georgia. Thanks to a long afternoon nap, however, she was able to surprise Mthr. M-G on her homecoming.

This post makes 31 for October. Yay, me!

November will be lighter, but I promise something at least once a week.

penguin_poet: OUT!

Photo Fun with Phoebe, Son!

I'm all for encouraging reading at a young age. Reading at the dinner table is a little iffy, though. Here I am trying to find out how her day went. Did she have fun at her Halloween party at school? Did she make an art project? Nothing. She wouldn't take her nose out of 7th Son: Descent by J. C. Hutchins. No consideration for my desire for conversation!

I need Mthr. M-G back.

Spider Baby

Netflix is awesome. Where else can you B-movie horror gold like Spider Baby? The subtitle is The Maddest Story Ever Told and with Lon Chaney, Jr. singing the opening title song, it delivers.

Made for $65,000 in 1964 it was finally released in 1968 due to financial backers declaring bankruptcy. The movie is weird and wonderful. It has to be. It's about an inbred family with a degenerative mental disease. The titular character is introduced as she is playing "spider" with an unwitting delivery man. She throws a net over him and repeatedly stabs him with two kitchen knives. TA-DAAA!

This is what happens when Mthr. M-G fills the DVR with horror movies and leaves town. Not wanting to watch those without her, I have to find my own cinematic fun. Back to Netflix!

Haunted by Crafts

We are very near the end of the month. Thanksgiving is close enough to start smelling in the air. As such, the Phoebster's daycare sent home a family art project.

Penguin Postings is proud to present the S******* Family Turkey Feather. It will be joining the feathers of other families on the tail of the daycare's Thanksgiving turkey. Ours was a rush job I'll admit. We only employed wax crayons for our decorating medium. We did stick to the rules everyone participated and I think we caught the family's personality.

Be on the look out for an update when the entire bird is assembled.

Speaking of updates, I guess someone hacked my blog yesterday. *wink* Who knew a fictional character from a recently published novel could hack a blog? I'll bet J. C. Hutchins did.

Haunted by Tr[CONTENT OVERRIDE: KILROY2.0 IS HERE!!!]

I was watching and episode of Transforers: Energon with the Phoebster and I found that there were some deep philosophical points to be made.

First of all the idea that the heroes, the Autobots poses a "spark of combination" that allows them to combine with there fellows making them stronger then the two individuals together: a gestault. This plays against our western ideal of rugged individualism.

Next, we have Starscream's resurection. Being a villian this is

>>> [WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL] <<<

> source terminal location: UNKNOWN
> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE
> source login information: ENCRYPTED
> message begins

the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH. do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!

there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot. you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE'S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.

human cloning isn't NEAR. it's already HERE. discover the truth at http://JChutchins.net

you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!

kilroy2. was here ... kilroy2.0 is everywhere

>>> [CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING] <<<

that the series is available on DVD, I think you ought to check it out. The preceding series, Transformers: Armada, is also out on DVD in two volumes.

Enjoy the philosophy lesson!

Death of Garfield

Twenty years ago this week Garfield creator, Jim Davis, tried something a little weird. The week before Halloween a series of six comic strips were published depicting the titular feline alone in a time he no longer exists. The comics were serious in nature. Their darker tone and lack of humor threw off many fans and raised a lot of questions. Was Garfield dead? Was this an alternate universe? Jim Davis has not been forthcoming with an explanation.

I followed Garfield for many years in elementary school. I had all of the comic collections. I had several plush toys. I taped the television specials. I clipped the newspaper strips. When I started junior high, I abandoned Garfield completely. That would have been a few months before these strips originally ran. I only became aware of them about a year ago.

As one of the lightest comics in print, this is quite an anomaly. I guess Jim Davis felt burned by the fan reaction and stuck to the safe (read boring) stuff since. After thirty-plus years of syndication, and a massive multimedia franchise it's hard to argue against safe comics.