Maledicte

Today's various and sundries:

• I'm home from my trip. I mean, I have been for like... a week. But I thought I ought to point it out.

• I'm writing! Since my project this summer is to finish my novel (which I am getting school credit for, so extra win) I need to be writing about 500 words a day to bump my total word count up by about 40k words. So far I haven't been keeping a regular daily word count, but I've been binge-writing. I wrote 5 pages (handwritten, about 320 words per page) yesterday, and I'm about to get ready to sit down with it today. So that's fun.

• For those who actually care for the occasional insight into whatever I might be doing at the moment, you might check out my Tumblr, where I post about whatever TV show I happen to be watching, pictures of my cat, random thoughts, and random reblogged fandom-type things. Just, you know, in case you're curious. I definitely post there more than I post here.

• (Hm, I really need to start my writing blog up again over there. I should sit down and see if I can make a plan for that.)

• Now that school is over I'm reading again! This is marvelous. I'm starting with the newest Mercy Thompson book, Frost Burned, which so far is great. The POV is switching up a little in it, which is really interesting since the new POV is an interesting character. So yeah. The Mercy Thompson series and the October Daye series are my two favorite Urban Fantasy series, so I am really happy to start my summer reading off with something that is so dear to me.

• Plus, reading Urban Fantasy novels like this help me get back into the headspace for writing my own Urban Fantasy novel. (Did I mention that my novel is an Urban Fantasy type thing? I can't remember. But if I didn't, well, now you know.)

• J and I have plans to go to Phoenix in late June for Neil Gaiman's book tour. (It was either Phoenix or Denver, and J has family in Phoenix, so we're making a mini vacation out of it.) Apparently this is Gaiman's Last Book Tour Ever, so of course I have to see him and get the new book and have it signed. And it's a chance for my boyfriend to experience "my world" in a way.

That might actually be it for now. I ought to go write.

See, sometimes I can update this thing with less than a month between posts.

• The Writing Buddies feature on the NaNoWriMo site is running now. :) If you're doing NaNoWrimo, you should definitely add me as a buddy. If we were buddies in the past, their update got rid of everything, so you'll have to add me again.

• I've been thinking about getting a Kindle for a long time at this point, but with the release of all the new Kindles, I am seriously considering it now. I can't decide which one I want, though. Except the Kindle Fire. Pretty sure I don't want that one. I'm not ready for a tablet in my life. An eReader will be enough. Last time I was in NYC I played around with the Nook Touch at a B&N (with the touch e-ink) and it was surprisingly interesting. Which gives me hope for the Kindle Touch. But I sort of want the one with the physical keyboard and in black. :/ And I can't decide if I want 3G wireless or not, or if I would find it to be necessary. Anyway, I'm thinking about it, and thinking about asking for whichever I decide is the one I want for my birthday this year.

• I've also been thinking about getting an iPhone. I mean, I was so against them because their touch technology tended to not register my touch bout 50% of the time. But I haven't had problems with that in a while. And now that you can get the phone on Verizon, it might even work at my house. I don't go up for an upgrade for another 10 months, but I am thinking about it. I do like my BlackBerry, but the iPhone can just do a whole lot more. There are tons of apps that aren't available on BlackBerrys, or aren't available on my version. (Like the Kindle app. My BlackBerry is the single version that doesn't have a Kindle app. What even.) I have 10 months to think about it and talk it over with my mom (who pays the Verizon bill) so it'll be a while before anything changes if it does.

• Went to the first of two Halloween parties last night. I went as a pirate. I was going for pirate captain, but since I didn't have a hat and I didn't wear either of my pirate-y coats (neither matched the costume all that well), I settled for First Mate. :) It's likely a costume I will reprise, since it's all stuff that I took out of my closet and just wore in a unique combination with a few safety-pin alterations. There were pictures being taken all night, but I have no idea if any were taken of me that were good. The second party is tonight, and tonight's costume is Captain Jacqueline Harkness. Which is mostly just jeans and boots, my military-esque dress worn as a coat, and my really fake Torchwood ID. Still it amuses me, and it's a comfortable costume. There might be pictures, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

• Before the party tonight, I am taking my dad to a screening of the New York Metroploitan Opera's Don Giovanni for his birthday. Should be good. Don Giovanni is always entertaining, and I am curious to see how they stage it for this production. Fingers crossed for good singing.

• My bookshelf depresses me. I need to read more. So many books I haven't read yet.

• Writing continues apace. Wrote a large chunk of Game of Thrones fanfic (specifically show-canon) in my last class on Thursday. And a chunk of my original thing, which I think I need to finish by the end of next week so I can give it a once over before handing it in for my class. I think I will be plotting my NaNoWriMo novel tomorrow. I might write up outlines for all the novels I am considering and see which one I like best once I have a better idea of what each one is about. (Also, I need to update my NaNoWriMo icons for 2011.)

• Speaking of classes, I had a meeting with my advisor last week, and my schedule is... not at all hammered down. The classes I can take are sort of limited, and then they all conflict with each other time-wise. So my advisor sent an email to the head of my department (who likes me, yay!) and hopefully she'll be able to open up some new sections or move some times around. We'll see. I really really need to be taking five classes again, so hopefully things can be worked out. Registration is in a week. Really really would like to not be totally shafted for classes that I need. (Though, I suspect that because I am not a freshman and because the head of my department likes me, she would try to squeeze me into classes that were technically closed if I had to go that route.)

Whoops, time to go.

• I made pasta and used butter instead of olive oil to coat it. HOLY CRAP. Why did no one ever tell me pasta with butter is 8billion times better than with olive oil. It just takes a buttload of butter to coat the amount of pasta I like making (so that I have leftovers for later). Nom nom nom.

• I might be slightly obsessed with the women who did the singing on the soundtrack for The Virgin Queen, The Medieval Baebes. I will totally be attempting to download their entire discography tomorrow at work. This soundtrack is so beautiful, I've been listening to it nonstop. It makes me long for a romance. (With Tom Hardy. I mean, whut.)

• One of my coworkers got laid off today, while I wasn't there. (I have Mondays off.) I liked him a lot and I have no idea what happened. I'm hoping I will find out tomorrow. (Am I the only one who thinks it's weird to lay someone off on a Monday? Particularly when the store isn't even open on Sundays? It's weird to bring someone in for only the first day of work. Weird.)

• I haven't been reading. (Ok, I've been reading fanfic, but that doesn't count.) I'd like to finish a few more books before school starts and I have to start reading school things.

• I miss life.