The New Floodgates of the Mind

Came in to a very pleasant surprise this morning. One of my employees presented me with an english copy of Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”. My Team and I have often spoken of books, authors, feelings, etc, and this book was her favorite. She often told me she would lend it to me but I mentioned how I don’t particularly read French books for leisure. Yesterday, she went out and bought me the English translation and gave it to me this morning as a gift “just because”.

How sweet is that? Thanks so much, Cristina! I hope to find it as uplifting as you have 🙂

Have I mentioned I love my Team? 🙂

Well there you have it. A lot longer to accomplish than last year, but it was a completely different project all together. As of 2pm today, November 19th, I have surpassed the 50k count, settling at 50,219 words before taking a break for the weekend. Next week, I review what I wrote and tighten it up to enable me to serialize it in Comicopia next year, as promised.

Why would I want to serialize it there, you might ask? Quite simple.

(pause for dramatic effect)

The reason for this is completely given away in the title of the novel.

(cue for next dramatic pause)

My 2004 NaNoWriMo Masterpiece is called:

All fans, past and present, may now bow at my feet and beg to read it. 🙂

I deposited a check in the bank today and found the balance to be somewhat off. You can imagine my confusion when I then logged into my account to see the transactions and found a few dated TOMORROW. I was partly convinced that today was actually Friday instead of Thursday. Woah. It all made sense when I remembered that today is Rememberance Day and thus a bank holiday. So, all the transactions that would normally be done tonight, were already processed. [shrug]

On another note, Chantale took me to see The Incredibles last night. It was a lot more of a James Bond movie than a super hero one! But, it blended both elements incredibly well. I got a massive kick out of how Frozone was used (exactly how I pictured Iceman of the X-Men moving) and Elasti-Girl (bringing great proof of how heroes like Plastic Man, Elongated Man, and even Mr. Fantastic, should be used). I must say that Samuel Jackson was the dead-on perfect voice for Frozone 🙂

And for those long-time readers of my superheros, The Mysterious Minute-Men (c) Mike Aragona, Dash is so much like the character of Nano-Second I created based on my son, James, that it is uncanny!! 🙂 I loved the movie and what was interesting was the fact that it WAS treated like a “real” movie.

And on that note, let’s get back to work 🙂

Mmm! That Raspberry Mocha coffee is simply divine!! 🙂

Dog Gaby ended up showing first so we chatted for a while and talked Comicopia Superheroes. Darth Marc showed up and we continued chatting about comic heroes in general. He was somewhat shocked to find out just who Gaby is (after some discussions on numerous projects) so his reaction was funny 🙂 AngloMark end up showing a little late to pick up Gaby and they both took off. So, with some twenty minutes to spare, Darth Marc and I chatted about various subjects from NaNo and Script Writing, to comics, to work. Damn the time flies way too quickly!

Funny thing was on the way back to work, I remembered that Chantale was heading over to visit Karine and Matthieu today 🙂 I guess regardless of how you look at things, there will always be a NaNo slant to everything :>

(You know, Darth, there’s always room in Comicopia should you ever wish to stretch your creativity that way… 🙂 I’ll be happy to provide you some back issues as well to see more of what it’s about 😉 )

Let me know what your schedule is like in the next few weeks so we can do this again – if not go outright out for lunch somewhere 🙂

I just caught my reflection in the mirror… lordy I need some sun… and some sleep…

but for now: COFFEEEEE!!

Darth Marc awaits 🙂

Have I mentioned time goes by way too fast? Holey Moley!

NaNo Writing is going well. I’m at the past-21k point and am slowly starting to get the chapters together (or rather, finding a way to link them together 🙂 ). Good thing I always had a few dangling plot threads that I could expand upon and ultimately make sense of. Incredibly, I’ve only just touched upon the main reason I wanted to write THIS book in the first place. But it’s also been fun to tie together puzzle pieces from previous stories. (for those still guessing, this novel contains characters I’ve worked with before 🙂 )

It’s tough going, but I’m having fun. The first wall barrier was breached yesterday and I’m starting to think there may be another one around the corner. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’ve got that burning desire to write, and just not enough time to really do it. I could, of course, use a day off from work to concentrate on it. That would probably be amazing. Until then, though, you can easily imagine how I try to get through my days of meetings, greetings, emails, plans, and documentation while keeping all those characters from jumping out of my fingertips and taking over my writing! 🙂

At least I have my Cafe Depot lunch hours to revisit with them and rough out the edges 🙂 Darth GMarc, I’ll bring what I’ve got done so far at noon tomorrow to show you an example of what little tricks help keep me going 🙂

And on another note… I forgot to mention how I had to do a quick Elvis song at last Sunday’s NaNo Meetup. Crazy fools will never know how difficult it is for me to stop once I’ve started! AaaieE!!! “Uh well-a bless-a muh soul oh what’s-a wrong with me… I’m itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree… My friends say I’m actin’ wild as a bug, I’m in love! Uh! I’m all shook up…”

🙂 I think I’ll go home now…

I went to Cafe Depot to review my NaNo in progress and do some spot-checking/editing for enhancement sake. I basically brought the book up over 400 words more just by those tweaks. That’s good use of an hour 🙂

At the same time, I had a coffee so large I could just as easily bathed in it! Ho! And now, I’m feeling the effects. It’s like I’m all a-jitter! I don’t think I have to worry about the large caffeine and flu shot combination but ooo my head is spinning 🙂

For those Northern Lights watchers, there’s a cool site where you can post what you saw. Chantale’s post can be found there now 🙂

Hey, Darth GMarc! We still on for Wednesday?

Now cruising at over 18k…

Who remembers Red Rider? (although their song is RED Skies at Night…)

Hey, Pat! Are you doing NaNo this year?

So, I pass the 17.5k mark a little close to midnight and head off to bed. Chantale says she’ll stay up till about 1am. Not true. Since she was on a roll, she only walked away from the pc at about 2am. As I’m still a light sleeper, I woke up when she walked into the room. I ask her word count and find it past 25k. Woah. She’s still kicking major ass but I’m really happy that she’s enjoying it so much. I think the NaNo Meetup of yesterday gave us both a creative kick 🙂

After chatting for over half an hour, we notice some funky flashes coming from outside. Running to the window to take a look, we see the Northern Lights! Wow! We jump into some heavy clothing as it’s quite cold at 2:40 in the morning and head out into our backyard to enjoy the show. And what a show it was! Beautiful! Simply, and utterly, beautiful! We stayed outside for about another 30 minutes and were just amazed at the light show. The stars were so sharp and the Aurora Borealis was amazing. There is so much to see, the flashes are constantly shifting and changing that you can’t help but be filled with the wonder of nature. In fact, I find myself so dumbfounded by what we saw that I’m at a loss for the words to convey the feelings that ran through me. I just felt absolutely wonderful to be out there sharing that beauty of nature with the beauty in my life…

Alas, now it’s Monday and it looks to be a heavy work week. But before I can get started on it all, I need to go get my flu shot. Maybe I’ll start seeing more psychedelic colors afterwards… 🙂 (I know I won’t as this is the third year I’m getting the shot now… 🙂 )

– The NaNoWriMo site’s having troubles with logins today. Kinda sux.

– Chantale advised that if I behaved, she’d bake me an apple crumble pie. A little earlier she told me I’ve had too much pie recently. So, no pie for me! 🙁

– Elvis is still the King.

– Stopped in for a NaNo meet downtown this afternoon. Didn’t stay long but it was nice to simply touch base with folks. The MTL ML actually asked if I would consider taking the position of WI ML next year and I was totally flattered. You can’t possibly imagine what it feels like when someone wants to offer me chances like these (silly though they may seem to many). Unfortunately, that could take up a certain amount of time I’m not willing to accept THIS early. Try me again in 11 months 🙂

– There’s nothing wrong with cereal for lunch.

– My wife is kicking my ass at NaNo this year.

– I haven’t had anywhere near the proper amount of sleep this week, and I seem to have turned into Cranky Mikey. bah.

– I should get my ass back into gear and get writing, especially as I’m alone in the house right now (except for the dog who’s decided to plant herself by the front door and wait for Chantale to come back – which will be in about 2 hours. dumb dog.)

– Have I mentioned I’m cranky? bah.

– I’m not in the mood to do anything, and that sux. I think I should shop around for a part-time job I can do from home, just to help bring in a bit more revenue. bah.

– I think I’ll shut up, go offline, and write, now.