Autumn

Autumn is here, floods abound.   Bike is back on deck and looking sweet:

Just need some nice weather so I can get out and ride the thing.

July is here. Again. Pesky little bugger.

Nano last year was an abject failure.  I ran badly into some writing block, didn't like what I'd written and just couldn't get any further.  So that's another one biting the dust.  Hopefully this year I will have less on in November and can put some more effort into it.  Of course, it would help if I put some planning effort in between now and then as well.

In the meantime I've been busily modifying my road bike.  As it is 20+ years old the plastics were shot and it was either impossible or too expensive to get new ones.  So I've gone for a streetfighter conversion instead, stripping it back and slapping on lots of nice new bits.  Currently I'm building an undertray to hold some wiring and electrical components that were hidden under the fairings.

So far it's gone from this:

To this (sorry about the quality, better outside shots coming when the weather is nicer)

Plenty of work still to come but it's looking rather nice.

Day 4 (morning). Words remaining: 46,389

After a slow start the words flowed reasonably well last night, resulting in around 1400 words.  Still below quota for the day, but getting better.  Tonight I'd better be able to get 2k words or more because I can't see a lot coming out over the weekend.

Day 3 (morning). Words remaining: 47,886

More words written yesterday than day 1, so that's a positive.  Scene 1 is done, now back to the office.  Body count: 3 flunkies + 1 main character.  No exploding sharks so far.

Day 2 (morning). Words remaining: 49,178

So I made a start last night, getting just over 900 words down.  That's under the target of 1667, but better than nothing.  I'm going to just pound out as many words as I can come up with for the first week and see where that gets me.  Saturday is going to be a write-off (see what I did there?), with sport and parties, but I expected that. 

Day 1 (morning) Words Remaining: 50,000

And so it begins, the mad manic run towards the end of November and 50,000 words.  Time to dive into the world of Albert/Alfred/Pyotr/whateverhisnameis and the eerie underworld of a spy.  Good luck...

October 31 - and that means...

Two things, really.  Firstly, Halloween.  In Australia this isn't a big tradition like it is in the States, but it seems to be growing.  The kids are certainly excited, mostly about the dressing up and lollies.  Trick or treating is certainly not done in the manner of the USA, but occasionally a few other people get into the swing of it.

The second thing is that there are now less that 24 hours to go before the 2011 edition of NanoWriMo kicks off.  30 days, 50,000 words.  I'm going to give it another go, and this year I won't have to worry about study for exams.  The only other time I've "won" in the last 4 years was when I had taken a year of from study, so I'm hopeful that I'll get over the line.  Of course, my planning has been virtually non-existent again, but I'm hoping to get there!  I'll be chasing Alex this year, so let the word battle commence!