NanoWriMo Update – Day 16

I’m finding it hard to motivate myself to write every night…in fact, I seem to only manage every other night. Sigh. Once I start writing, the words generally flow quite easily, but it’s that initial push that I have trouble with. I’m going to keep trying, though. And I’ve suggested to Mushi that we commit to kamikaze writing the day after Thanksgiving…I’m sure our respective husbands will be happy to serve us pop and snacks as necessary.

Total word count: 12,057

NanoWriMo Update – Day 14

I broke 10,000 words today! Yay! I’m still behind, but who cares? I’m writing, which is more than I can say about the past several months.

Total word count: 10,062

The Incredibles

5/5 stars

I don’t give many movies 5/5 stars (The Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean since starting my movie blog in April 2003), but this one absolutely deserves it. The story was strong, the characters fun and engaging, and the animation, as always for Pixar, incredible. And it made me laugh, dammit.

NanoWriMo Update – Day 12

Okay, so I think I’ve resigned myself that I’m not going to “win”, where winning means completing a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and 30. I’m not giving up, I’m just starting to see the reality. November is such a bad month for me…in fact, any month that falls between the Autumnal and Vernal Equinoxes is bad. Why? In a word, SAD. It’s about all I can do each morning to get out of bed when the sun rises after I do and sets just after I get home from work. Doing anything in the evenings becomes very difficult, since I’ve used all of my energy just functioning for 8-hours of work.

Having said that, I rallied tonight and wrote 2,253 words. I hit a scene where I really felt in my element after struggling with myself to get started. I’ve gone over 7,500 words. I haven’t given up, I’m still going to try to write like a maniac. However, if I don’t complete 50,000 words, I’m going to be satisfied that I’ve written the most I’ve ever written in one month.

Total words: 7,606

The Order

2/5 stars

I rented this movie because Heath Ledger was in it. He’s very cute, and I’ve quite enjoyed him in A Knight’s Tale and The Patriot. Sadly, while The Order had very nice artistic direction, someone needed to go over the script again and help the dialog and action acutally tell a coherent story.

Ledger plays Alex Bernier, one of three priests left in the order of the Carolingians, known for their devotion to finding the truth. His mentor dies at the beginning of the film, prompting Bernier to go to Rome to investigate what happened. There are lots of scenes with people saying cryptic things and lots of odd characters roaming around, but very little is conveyed clearly about the actual plot of the film.

Best American Science and Nature Writing 2001

Edited by Edward O. Wilson

This is a collection of pieces from all branches of science from publications in 2001. A few notable articles:

• “Abortion and Brain Waves” by Gregg Easterbrook
  This piece offers a sane and scientific definition of when life begins, and when in a pregancy abortion should be banned. Often when religion and dogma are pushed to determine public policy, science steps in offering a compromise. The issue of death is one instance — death occurs when brain activity stops, even if the body is kept artificially functioning. So, why not define life in the same manner? Studies show that brain wave activity similar to that of an adult human begins roughly with the third trimester of pregnancy.
• “Seeing Scarlet” by Barbara Kingsolver and Steven Hopp
  This article discusses the disappearance of the macaw from it’s natural habitat, while describing their trek to find the one last place on earth that the macaw might be seen outside of a pet store.
• “Ice Station Vostok” by Oliver Morton
  This article talks about the dilemma posed by the lake buried under the ice under the Vostok station. By studying the lake and its possible life, we could understand how life forms and survives in the extremes of nature. This could be applicable to studying life on other planets, most notably Europa, the ice moon of Jupiter that may have a vast ocean under it’s icy crust. On the other hand, by just introducing a device to study the lake, we risk destroying the ecosystem. There is no easy solution — the hope is to develop some way to study the lake without introducing any contagions, but ther eis no way to know for certain that we’ve planned well enough.

This book was heavy with biology-type articles, which don’t intrest me as much. I actually skipped a few of these articles after a few pages instead of trudging ahead for completeness, unlike last time.

NaNoWriMo Update – Day 10

A brilliant plot point came to me last night in bed, and I fleshed it out a bit in traffic this afternoon. It’s in the later part of the novel, but I jumped ahead and wrote that part tonight. I’ll have to figure out how to fill in the middle, but I have some ideas for that. Still quite behind in my word count, but my goal for tomorrow is to catch up some. I won’t make my total word count goal of 22,000 words (2,000 words per day average), but I’ll hopefully get close to 10,000 words.

Total word count: 5,002

NaNoWriMo Update – Day 9

Back from Minnesota, and so I’m back to writing. I have a lot to make up, but tonight was not the night for that. So far I’m up to 4,022 words…only 45,978 left. At least more of the plot started coming around tonight — a new development that promises to be more interesting than the twist I discovered on my first night of writing. Yay! I’m hoping to make up more writing over Veteran’s Day (one benefit of working as a government contractor) and Thanksgiving.

Total word count: 4,022

Who, Exactly, Thought Things Would Magically Get Better?

Anyone who thought things would magically get better during a second term should probably check out this article.

A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration’s plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor, whose writings include a book titled As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, to head an influential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on women’s health policy. Sources tell Time that the agency’s choice for the advisory panel is Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist who also wrote, with his wife Linda, Stress and the Woman’s Body, which puts “an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one’s life” and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome. Though his resume describes Hager as a University of Kentucky professor, a university official says Hager’s appointment is part time and voluntary and involves working with interns at Lexington’s Central Baptist Hospital, not the university itself. In his private practice, two sources familiar with it say, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. Hager did not return several calls for comment.

Prayer and scripture for my PMS?

But wait. It gets better.

Hager was chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family…. FDA spokesman Bill Pierce called Hager “well qualified.”

Well qualified? Perhaps we should just make band-aids out of pages of the Bible and apply those to gaping wounds. I’m sure that would help.

[Found via Pharyngula]

Bridezilla Meets her Match!

We’re back from MN and have a bunch of fun pictures. I’ll post more later…