We are Fangirl. We are Legion.

 I thought I'd post a daily journal about my first ever NaNo, which may only last until I get sick of typing for four hours a day. This could take awhile, as anyone who's seen my (exceptionally verbose) writing can attest. As it stands, I started at around 1 or 1:15, and it took about three hours, including beverage breaks, to get to 2000 words.  Since I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on the 23rd, I thought I'd get as much done as early as possible, especially since my inspiration has been known to dry up at the most inconvenient times.

However, today was easy. I was worried because I had no idea where to start, but I started, I allowed myself to go back and make little changes, and it worked well. As long as I give my inner Editor Nazi the illusion that she's still in charge, I can actually get some damn work done! Technically, I'm still kind of going, which I should stop doing, because I have to work some stuff out. What concerns me at the moment is that my world building may take more time than the actual writing, because there's a lot of background involved, and my main goal for my magical system is that it be consistent throughout. I have been known to get infodumpy at times, too, which can cause problems for the plot. But, as the saying goes, all that is for revisions! The goal now is to get a total story out, and it could get a bit hairy as I get further on, because I've been known to suffer wracking bouts of no confidence where I want to just delete the whole effing thing and go hide in a corner. My other goal, now that I've started on something entirely unrelated, is to finally do a full revision of my epic fanfic, Interlude. I started writing it four years ago, and it shows. I'm hoping that, now that I'm fixated on the new novel, I can finally tear into the old one without shame (and yes, it's almost novel-length: 45,701 words, counting "The End"). 

So. I'm being rather ambitious this month, and some of the bounciness coming through is likely just the endorphin high of realizing I still know how to do this and I'm not going to be spending all day staring at a blank document (and cold meds). Maybe I'll come back down to earth when I realize that this is just the first of November, I've got a busy month ahead of me without NaNo, and I have no idea if this is any good. I also got Scott's rather vicious cold, which was draining my energy earlier. But for now, it feels good, which is possibly the 12-hour Sudafed. May as well be cheerful while I can, right?

The distinguished green figure in the beret that is my userpic right now is Cthudda Hyneman, and I only take partial credit for him. I went to the pre-kickoff party for the Dayton Area NaNo group, which was vast amounts of fun, and they gave us Play-Doh to inspire us, I gather.  As soon as I looked at and felt the neon green stuff I'd chosen I was thinking Cthulhu, which says a lot about me, I'm sure, but then it went further downhill. First of all, the people around me (don't ask me for names; I only remember Ann because it's short!) and I decided he looked meditative with his tubby little tummy and his tail curled around his feet, so I turned his hands up and gave him a belly button. Cthudda was born. Then, one of our MLs (Municipal Liason) said he looked like a green walrus, and someone did the hand thing that Adam always does when he's imitating Jamie. This led to the beret (black Play-Doh kindly donated by Ann), and, when I got home, the glasses. I'm quite proud of the glasses, actually; they were kind of tricky to make. Anyway, we decided at the event that he should be my NaNo mascot, so I give you: Cthudda Hyneman, mascot of the deep! Who knows? Maybe Unspeakable Ones need Mythbusters, too.

/:€ Come to think of it, the Jamie emoticon looks a bit Cthulhuesque in Arial anyway... ;)

Edit: remembered what the "M" in "ML" stands for! All by myself! xD

Kari, Tory and Grant were redoing "Knock Your Socks Off" and Kari kept using the phrase "socks of least resistance" which made me crack up... and made me ponder. So! D&Ders! IF/when we get back to the D&D (I've had a few suggestions on how to do it long-distance {see below}), do not be surprised to see that possibly pop up as an item name.

Suggestions on long-distance D&D? So far we have:

• OpenRPG and Ventrilo
• Ventrilo alone (for those of you who keep whining about not needing visual aids, take that!)
• Ventrilo+Webcam+Some kind of mutual grid for combat (suggestions include a chessboard, pre-determined graph paper, and similar)
• I've never done Skype: What capabilities does it have?

And there are probably more I'm forgetting (What do you want? It's 1 am). If anyone has any other ideas or questions (we still have to work a time out, and there are people I'd like to get involved that didn't get a chance on the couple of live games. Also, with any of these, all of my players will HAVE to e-mail me updated character sheets any time something interesting happens, or they won't be allowed to use new abilities/pets/whatever. I am also open to more than one game running , though I'd prefer not to DM them both/all.

If anyone has any ideas, lemme know! I wanted to get our game off the freakin' ground! I'm expecting to be busier in Ohio, when we go, but we're all busy people; we can make it work! Anyone else who wants to play: Don't be intimidated! I can and will run tutorial sessions for novices if you want me to.

And to anyone who wants to know, I have no idea when I'll be in Wyoming next. This spring and summer is being made up as we go along! Not this week for sure; other than that: Not a freakin' clue.