Winner?

I'm a NaNoWriMo winner! I should be celebrating, right?

I'm just not in the mood for celebrations, and I can't figure out why.

As it happens, NaNoWriMo has taught me a couple of things. The first is that I can finish half a book in one month. Which means I can finish a whole book in two months. It usually takes me about three because I get worn down, give myself week-long breaks and that sort of thing.

But now I know that it can be done.

The second thing it taught me is that I basically do NaNoWriMo every time I sit down to write. My usual routine of four days of writing (3 000 words a day), three days off gets me 50 000 words in thirty days.

You know, provided I don't take any longer breaks. Which I tend to.

I don't think I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo again. It was good to do once, but I just wasn't challenged enough, I suppose.

I'm not saying that to gloat. I realise that I am in an almost unique situation where I am able to write for three or more hours a day without it affecting my work. I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunities this provides me.

It being what it is, however, NaNoWriMo was nothing special for me, although I do appreciate the accolades that go with winning.

I can, however, see how this would be an enormous challenge to regular folk who aren't as fortunate as I am in their occupations (I mean, come on, like any normal job would accept someone working on their own stuff for the majority of the day!). Were it not for the fact that I can write during the day for extended periods, I'd have never made it.

NaNoWriMo is a worthy challenge.

I don't really know where this blog post is going, so I'll end it here, I guess. I might 'celebrate' by taking the rest of the week off writing. I might not. I might challenge myself to finishing the first draft of this book before New Year's.

Yeah. Right.

Allworks

A man-servant employ'd by a farmer in all sorts of work he has occasion to set him about . . . He is the lowest servant in the house and is not hired for the plough or the waggon particularly, but to be set about anything.

- Samuel Pegge's Alphabet of Kenticisms, 1735-1736

I swear the spelling is exactly as the paper before me!

The Home Stretch

The last two days of NaNoWriMo are upon us, and I'm woefully behind. I should have just 1 000 words to write until I made my target today. Turns out, I have 3 000.

Sad face.

With the computer here all warmed up and working... more or less... I should be good. I should reach my target today. 'Should' being the operative word.

In other news... there really isn't any other news. Things are going much the same as ever. I'm busy, but not as busy as I used to be.

I miss training.

Right, I should get to writing. Have a great Tuesday everyone.

Callipygian

Of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks. The name of a famous statue of Venus. From Greek kallos, beauty, and pyg, buttocks.

- Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893

Reporting in With the Morning Check

Yup, you read that right.

Well, this weekend proved wonderful. After all the stress.

You see, my most amazing flatmate in the world agreed a couple of weeks ago to drive me down to Montréal to pick up my brother and bring him to Ottawa, where he'll be staying until he gets a job.

Naturally, things went bust.

We went to see The Muppets Thursday night with friends. Thanks to T.H. for organising it, by the by. It was a great movie. We laughed liked crazy. Then, as we climbed into the car to head back, Jazz noticed a flat tyre. The front driver's side tyre was shot. We crawled down Bank St. towards the mechanic's at forty, then ten, the car sounding terrible, leaning heavily to the left.

Thinking that the shop would replace the tyre relatively inexpensively, we walked home not terribly worried.

Well, didn't I arrive home Friday after work to Jazz' words of greeting, "Don't freak out."

I freaked out.

We suddenly didn't have a car. Apparently, in addition to the flat tyre (which was replaced relatively cheaply), the car was leaking power-steering fluid. Replacing the necessary part put the repairs at something like $2 000.00. Yup. That's $2 000.00 neither of us very broke people had to spare.

Jazz' explained that she had to go to Montréal tomorrow and asked them to do a quick-fix. They said they'd try. Three blocks from the apartment, not even ten minutes away from the shop, the power-steering failed.

We had no car for Saturday.

Desperate to keep our word to my brother, we texted and called as many people as we could.

To the rescue, A.G. flew in with a car we could use. That girl deserves a cape and a badge. Honestly.

We now had a car.

The rest of the weekend went fairly smoothly. We picked up my brother, went to the Ruby Rouge in Chinatown for a Yum Cha lunch (Dim Sum), then headed home again. Then off we went to the Little Lamb Mongolian Hot Pot for dinner with Dad, transferred to bags over and sent Chris off to stay with Dad for a bit.

Then we slept. Yay, sleep!

So, a massive thanks to both A.G. and J.M-B. for their efforts Saturday. You both rock the Casbah.

Sunday was, thankfully, much more quiet. I met a friend for lunch and that was the entirety of the day.

Now I'm at work, falling desperately behind in my NaNoWriMo efforts because the computer took 3 hours to load properly. Go team.

I have to go and start writing, or I'll never make my daily 3 000. Wish me luck! I'm so going to need it today.

Bedfellow

The simplicity of ancient manners made it common for men, even of the highest rank, to sleep together; and the term bedfellow implied great intimacy. Lord Scroop is said to have been bedfellow to Henry V [as found in Shakespear's Henry V]:

Nay, but the man was his bedfellow,

Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with kingly favours.

After the battle of Dreux, in 1562, the prince of Condé slept in the same bed with the duke of Guise, an anecdote frequently cited to show the magnanimity of the latter, who slept soundly, though so near his greatest enemy, then his prisoner. Letters from noblemen to each other often began with the appellation bedfellow.

- Robert Nares' Glossary [of] the Works of English Authors, 1859

This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of the last century.

- Rev. T.F. Thiselton-Dyer's Folk-Lore of Shakespeare, 1884

Surely this isn't forgotten? Am I the only one who uses 'They make strange bedfellows.'?

Words

Because of the book review yesterday, you get yesterday's and today's Forgotten English! Lucky you!

I'm off to Montreal to collect my brother. See you all Monday!

Drum-Roll Payment

Not to pay at all. No soldier can be arrested for debt when on the march.

- Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898

Doggerybaw

Nonsense.

- Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900

Book Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've been hearing a lot about this book, and with the film due out next year I decided that I definitely wanted to read it. Luckily for me, I didn't have to buy it. My recent birthday yielded the best result possible: this book as a gift (incidentally, if ever you want to please me, buy me a good book!).

I was, at first, quite terrified that the current trend for terrible stuff in young adult fiction (point in case: Twilight) would continue. You know, the type of writing that insults the intelligence of youth and assumes they're all shallow, maladjusted half-people.

Well, can you blame me?

Turns out, thankfully, not.

Katniss, the heroine of the story and from whose perspective the tale is told, is a slightly embittered person (she rarely lets people outside of her family close) who nonetheless loves her family dearly. More to the point, she's tough. She's a hunter, a fighter, a survivor.

Go team!

I really don't want to give too much away with this book, but needless to say, it captures the angst of the divide between youth and adulthood exceptionally well. We've all been, or will be, there - that bizarre space when you're no longer a child, but not quite an adult; where nothing makes sense and you're so uncertain of anything, least of all who you are.

Katniss' character, her motives, her confusion and her vulnerabilities (yes, she has those), make her one of the most believable characters I've read in young adult fiction to date. I'm quite convinced that I would have behaved in the same way she did, given the extraordinary circumstances in which she finds herself.

A fan of adult fiction (largely adult fantasy... no, not that kind, you potty-minded people! I mean the genre fantasy), I found the language a little simple for my tastes, though I have to point out that its directness and immediacy are actually part of the charm.

And it's a young adult story, I must remind myself. If I was around the age of, say, 11, this would have shot up to the near top of my favourites list (the very top being Over Sea, Under Stone).

It's fast-paced, has plenty of action and, yes, made me gasp out loud. I highly recommend this book for lovers of young adult. I will definitely be getting stuck into the rest of the series as soon as I can!

View all my reviews