Happy October, everyone, or "Inktober" for the artistically
inclined, or "Pre Holiday Rush" for the retail oriented. The latter
category includes my son, who has officailly joined the almost-full-time
working world as he discovers his own path through life. That path now
means staring Christmas full in the face for nearly the next three
months as he's going to be surrounded by it at his day job. I have no
love for the general commericialization of holidays, but hype at this
time of year especially rankles me. It's pie season, in short. And who
doesn't love lingering over a good pie? Recent shocking revelations
notwithstanding -- i.e., canned "pumpkin" may legally be canned squash
-- autumn is still my absolute favorite season, and adjustment move to
longer nights and less sweltering days is a welcome one. Especially is
one is prone to bake and consume pies, pumpkin, "pumpkin," or otherwise.
I'm all in, pie-wise, and am not so eager to have that swapped out for
peppermint-everything.
Can you tell that I'm blogging before breakfast today?
Of
course, I also love October because for me and my Famously Flawed
Writing Process, it's the kickoff of my NaNoWriMo prep season. This is
the second NaNo I'm participating in since my personal pledge to Write
Every Day, Dammit. Last year, I was still wrestling with
digitizing/redrafting my 2011 attempt, and looked forward to October for
a chance to stop and refocus. This year, I almost hate to put it down,
even though it's still the same work-in-progress. I've found a good
technology mix for the task: my AlphaSmart Neo for the original
digitizing, and my tablet and bluetooth keyboard for the rewrite, plus
some good habits about making backups. (Specifically I'm using a Belkin
keyboard meant for mobile devices, which has its own supporting panel. I
should do an entry on it.) The Neo, as Joe V. pointed out, is excellent
for its distraction-free simplicity, at the cost of not being able to
see much text at once. It's closer to the raw paper typescript than a
finished product. Using the tablet lets me see about a page at a time,
and get through more text at once, and having that context is important
for pulling together coherent overall paragraphs.
So
anyway, October. My Nano Rhino is ready, though it's not clear when
he'll be starting. I do have a habit of over-planning things, and I may
try for a more skeletal approach to the novel this fall. Perhaps I won't
sketch out the daily writing as much as the overall big ideas, and save
the specifics for November. I'm still due to dive into my notebooks and
see what I've got going in there. And as I posted previously, having
the known quantity of my daily rewrite chore is also keeping me mentally
anchored in the face of personal turbulence. I want to see those
characters through their own journey, I suppose, before I set them aside
again and introduce more into my head-space. One can only juggle so
much chaos. But the Rhino is itchy nonetheless. I think he may get a
friend this year, a new addition to my menagerie of malapropisms. I'm
keeping my eye open for a "Hippoplotamus" to join my writing totems: a
creature that lurks beneath the surface, just showing enough that you
know it's there, watching. One poke, though, and it erupts
noisily and dangerously. You better be ready when the hippoplotamus
decides it's had enough or when it's time for a snack.
I wonder if they like pie?
