Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 252
October 22, 2011
Read-a-thon: Mid-Event Survey
1. What are you reading right now?
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
2. How many books have you read so far?
Read the last 126 pages of one, two chapters of another, and the first 112 of another. So, three bits of books.
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
I'd love to finish The Night Circus, but I'm a slow reader. We'll see if it happens.
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?
Nope. My husband is pretty understanding about my occasional want to do crazy things like this. I owe him some attenttion tomorrow.
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
I knew I was going to wake up late and that I would spend some time listening to the Husker football game. Other than that, I've been left to my own devices.
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
I am always surprised about how slowly I read.
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Nope! I liked the reminder email this year.
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?
One of these years, I'll go to bed early the night before.
9. Are you getting tired yet?
Little bit. I've nodded off a few times. I might need a nap soon.
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?
Hmm… Nothing comes to mind.
Read-a-thon Time!
I just realized that my Read-a-thon comments resolve to here. I seem to have too many WordPress blogs!
My reading blog, and Read-a-thon post, can be found at KatenRead.
Filed under: Uncategorized [image error]
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It's Read-a-thon Time!
Starting an hour and a half late. Didn't really get to sleep until 1am-ish. (This makes up for starting an hour early last year. ;) )
A bit about me for my fellow read-a-thon-ers:
1)Where are you reading from today? Tempe, AZ
2)Three random facts about me… My preferred method of exercise is playing ultimate frisbee. My preferred method of wasting time is EverQuest2. Originally from Nebraska, so I might have to take a break around game time.
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? 6-ish. I intend to finish a few that I have started. I'll be lucky if I get through one.
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? No goals, just a good day of reading!
5)If you're a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? Don't forget to get up and move occasionally. Keep hydrated to avoid caffeine hangover.
Time to get the coffee started!
I'm going to use my usual form and fill in info as I go.
06:30 Saturday
Book: Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg (starting on pg. 173)
Food & Drink: Folger's Columbian
Noise: Rooster. Lite rail.
Environment: Couch.
Other Activity: This blog post.
07:30 Saturday
Book: Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg
Food & Drink: Pumpkin spice Eggos with butter & syrup. More coffee. Water.
Noise: The usual.
Environment: Couch. Desk in the front room.
Other Activity: Conversation with Eric, massaging his right shoulder.
08:30 Saturday
Book: Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg (finished on pg. 302)
Food & Drink: More coffee! Water.
Noise: Nothing unusual.
Environment: Back room, couch.
Other Activity: None.
09:30 Saturday
Book: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (starting on pg. 665, read to pg. 693)
Food & Drink: Brownie with FUNFETTI! Fun-sized Twix. Coffee, water.
Noise: Less since I closed the door.
Environment: Desk. Back room. Couch.
Other Activity: None.
10:30 Saturday
Book: (or other reading material) OSU's preview of Nebraska Basketball; The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (starting on pg. 29)
Food & Drink: Water, another brownie.
Noise: None.
Environment: Desk.
Other Activity: None.
11:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Dr. Pepper 10, water.
Noise: None.
Environment: Desk.
Other Activity: Some internet surfing.
12:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Nachos.
Noise: Husker football
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Hour 8 Challenge
13:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Rockstar Recovery Lemonade
Noise: Husker football.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Hour 10 Challenge
14:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Still finishing that Rockstar.
Noise: Husker game.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Nothing aside from listening to the Huskers beating up on Minnesota.
15:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Finally finished that Rockstar. Water.
Noise: The end of the Husker game.
Environment: Back room, couch.
Other Activity: Nodding off while reading.
16:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Fun-sized Twix.
Noise: Ceiling fan, kids playing outside, car accident across Apache.
Environment: Couch.
Other Activity: None.
17:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Dr. Pepper 10
Noise: Danny Elman, mostly the Sleepy Hollow sdtk. Occsional comments from Eric about the Michigan State/Wisconsin game.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Mid-Event Survey
18:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Still working on the same can of Dr. Pepper 10 and glass of water. Pumpkin Spice Eggos with peanut butter.
Noise: Going to try out The Prestige's soundtrack.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: None of note,
19:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. A bottle of Guinness (as a deviation from my caffeinated norm).
Noise: The Prestige's soundtrack, more Danny Elfman
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: A little light commenting & tweeting. Feed Me, Seymour! Challenge
20:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water.
Noise: Saint-Saenes; Joshua Bell
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: "Can you sing?" Challenge
21:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Brownie, grilled ham & cheese made by Eric.
Noise: Collide
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: None.
22:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Cinnamon vodka.
Noise: Bach, violin concertos.
Environment: Back room. On my own now that Eric has called it a night.
Other Activity: None.
23:30 Saturday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Another shot of cinnamon vodka would be a bad idea. Or a fabulous idea.
Noise: Bach, violin concertos.
Environment: Back room. I'd go out to the couch where its cooler, but the couch is evil-comfy.
Other Activity: A little light commenting/tweeting.
00:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: I sip my shots… Also, water. Twix – nothing fun about its size. x2
Noise: Bach, other concertos.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: A little commenting/tweeting.
01:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Rockstar Lemonade (drank about half).
Noise: Train whistles.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Some free writing.
02:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water.
Noise: None.
Environment: Couch. Back room.
Other Activity: A nap.
03:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: Water. Stash Christmas Morning tea. Atomic Fireballs.
Noise: None.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: End of Event Survey
04:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: I think Stash White Christmas is next. Forgive me pumpkin flavored teas…
Noise: Hey, I hear the cock crowing again!
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: Some commenting and such.
05:30 Sunday
Book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Food & Drink: None.
Noise: The lite rail going by.
Environment: Back room.
Other Activity: None.
06:01 Sunday
Finished The Night Circus. Heading to bed. A summary and "reviews" later.
October 12, 2011
Nothing to See Here (or an #RoW80 update)
Round of Word-wise, let's leave it at, "I'm behind." No particular reason other than I'm being mulish about rewriting. I did take care of a couple of small things, and I'm in the process of time shifting the next fourth of the book to several hours earlier. A particular plot point is reliant on a real-world happening. I need time to make things happen. Also restructuring a couple chapters to make them snappier (hopefully). Talking to Eric on Monday did reap a few plot goodies. I just have to *write* them now.
So, other things that have been popping up in other RoW80 participants' posts:
NaNoWriMo – No NaNo for me this year. I'm just getting into a groove again with Luck for Hire and doing 3rd quarter's work in the 4th quarter.
Non-writing goals – I've seen lots of non-writing (or kinda writing) goals being wrapped into RoW80. Which is cool. RoW80 is what you make of it. But like an alcoholic that can't be around booze, I know that for me there's danger in those kinds of goals. If I put things that aren't directly related to writing into the RoW80 bin, like exercising or organizing, I'll happily knock off those goals and pat myself on the back for crossing so much off my RoW80 list. I include submitting, agent-searching and working on Lucinda mostly because I know those are teeth-pulling level tasks. I don't include blogging and commenting because I can easily use up a ton of time and energy* doing those things. Many of those things are important to writing** and platform building, but I easily kid myself into thinking I'm doing real writing work when I'm not. So, kudos to the RoW80ers who can manage an inclusive list! For me, not a good idea.
* I write "full-time" but I'm an introvert. Interaction, even online interaction, has its energy price.
** I don't like to write in a messy area, but I know I can futz with my desk, the room, the apartment forever and it won't be right. Physically, I need to exercise several times a week. Exercise goals get tossed in a bin that's hidden somewhere in underneath my "Tertiary Writing Goals" bin. Luckily, as long as I have two no-thought games of ultimate a week I'm mostly good.
Filed under: #RoW80, Writing Tagged: Luck for Hire [image error]
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October 9, 2011
#RoW80 Update & October = Beer
My goal was to reach page 160 on Friday. I stopped at pg. 157. The last third of this book needs quite a bit of work. I think I need to rewrite a couple of scenes. Probably need to time-shift a portion of it either earlier or later. This week's short term goals (by Tuesday/Wednesday):
Talk to Eric about time shifting/resetting up the warehouse scene.
Rewrite warehouse scene.
Clean up comments from before page 250 that I've been ignoring.
Short Works:
Submitted "Opportunity" and "Eaters of Dust" to new markets. Haven't heard back yet.
Model Species
By Wednesday: Update my agent list.
Lucinda at the Window:
It would seem that a combination of Smashwords and direct listing through Amazon is the way to go.
New blurb:
The Manor is drafty, with leaks in the roof and secrets in the cellar. Worse, it's set in the Ohio country side, far from polite society.
The Manor is Edwin O'Malley's inheritance. With a newly hired staff and group of old friends, Edwin is certain he can convince his bride Rebecca that the Manor is the perfect place to live.
Rebecca may have no choice.
Something else, something lonely, is obsessed with keeping the Manor occupied.
Shrewd, conceited, and suffering from the loss of her parents and brother, Lucinda Harris uncovers the Manor's dark history. It might be possible to warn her friends in time, but unfortunately, Lucinda hasn't been herself lately.
Feedback welcome.
Click to visit other RoW80 participants!
Busy weekend. I invited some friends to join me in running a 5K Saturday morning. And then I found out that Betsy was in town and only had late Friday evening to get together at Boulders. I couldn't not see Bets, and between Casey buying me a random beer* and Eric getting into a conversation with Chris, I didn't get to bed until 3am. And then got out of bed at 6:23am to head to Tempe Town Lake and run with Sarah. Sarah hadn't run a 5k before, and I hadn't much run recently, so we took it easy. I placed 13th in my age category with an 11 minute/mile pace. Slow for me, but I felt really good while running. Since the 5K was in conjunction with Oktoberfest, Sarah and I had our free post-race beer (a Becks at about 10am) and took in the sights. Back home, I took a nap, played a little EverQuest2, then headed off to dinner in honor of Laura's birthday. We ate at La Bocca, another new experience. Eric had pizza, but I couldn't resist the goat cheese and pear salad, which was excellent, and a pumpkin porter. The plan was to head to a piano bar after dinner, but by 10pm I was Done. That was more beer and socializing in 24hrs than I'd had in three months.
Today, I'm being a cozy introvert.
*Seriously, Boulders has an extensive selection of beers. There's a new pub opening at the mall that boasts 52 beers. I think Boulders has them beat. A random beer could have gone terribly wrong, but Casey lucked out picking an Odell 90 Shilling. It had more hops than I like in a red ale, but decent none-the-less. I also had a Double Chocolate Stout (can't remember the brewery name, possibly Young's) and a harvest cider, which was good, but I think cider has a similar effect on me as wine. I don't seem to get along with fermented fruit. Other new-to-me beers I've had lately: I believe it was a Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat from Reif (tasty, though not as good as Boulevard) and an okay pumpkin ale that I did not catch the name of from Byron.
Filed under: #RoW80, Life, Writing Tagged: Lucinda at the Window, Luck for Hire
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October 5, 2011
#RoW80 Check-In and Rockin' the RoWnd!
First check in!
For Monday and Tuesday, I got through 23 pages of editing, five short of my goal. On Monday, I printed out about 20 pages and headed to Starbucks for a change of scenery and a pumpkin latte. Yesterday, my body wasn't feeling the best and I napped in the afternoon and couldn't get anything going until after my ultimate frisbee game. Stayed up until about 3am adding Mondays edits to the document and getting some forward progress. Eric says that he likes the changes.
No movement yet on the other goals.
Slow start.
But now, for a little Round of Words celebrating! It's been nine months of ups and downs and it's great to see so much enthusiasm for the written word. Thanks to Kait Nolan and all the sponsors each round for creating a supportive, fun place to get things done!
My party contributions:
I tried to think of the funniest dancing I had seen recently. And of course I thought of:
But no, Matt Smith can't hold a candle to:
Tasty treat? White chocolate macadamia nut cookie ice cream. Maybe later, after I've gotten some work done, I'll have a sip of some cinnamon vodka. I am a wild woman!
Filed under: #RoW80, Writing
October 3, 2011
The Official RoWnd 4 Post (#RoW80)
This is my official statement of goals for A Round of Words in 80 Days, round four.
Luck for Hire
Finish this editing pass by October 14th. I'm on page 190 of 328 now. That's 14 pages daily if I take weekends off.
Re-evaluate what's going on with the manuscript and what still needs to be done.
Lucinda at the Window
Blurb by the end of this week.
Also by the end of this week, decide on how I'm going to go about it. (Smashwords is the front-runner.)
Finish Tess's webpages (aka, payment for Lucinda cover art) by Oct 21st.
Get some sort of ebook version out the door by October 26th.
Model Species
Research another round of agents.
Submit to five agents per month.
Short Stories
Get short works back out the door.
Keep throwing them out of the house until they find homes.
I'd also like to write/edit two short works by the end of the year. This is definitely a tertiary goal.
These goals are pretty October heavy. Eric mentioned a possible New Project last night. To some degree, for better or worse, we work on things in a revolving manner. Taking a break from one project to do another seems to let that first project rest. We come back to it later with fresh eyes and new knowledge gained from the shiny new project. Or, at least, that's a nice sounding theory to justify the low-grade ADD. To do this particular New Project right would take a lot of historical research. I shouldn't get my hopes up, but taking a wild stab at getting a terrible draft done in November sounds like fun* to me.
Let Mr. Linky take you to other writers' goals!
*There should be a name for the stupid, optimistic enthusiasm writers have for new projects…
Filed under: #RoW80, Writing Tagged: Lucinda at the Window, Luck for Hire, Model Species
September 29, 2011
3rd Quarter Summary
I really haven't been very productive since the first half of the second quarter (May). Even with the best circumstances, summers are hard on me and this one was no exception.
Luck for Hire
Edited through over half of it. It's needed more work than I thought it would.* We've changed the nature of several relationships as well as the tone of Luck's luck. The manuscript is still hovering around 56K words.
Obviously, I need to finish this draft/editing pass.
* Statement of fact, not an excuse for lack of performance.
Lucinda at the Window
Tessa has created a cover. Other than that I have done no work on it, and criminally, no work for Tessa other than a base web page for her photography. To be fair, she said she was going to get a CD of images to me and hasn't yet. I have a feeling she's gotten as busy as I've gotten lazy.
Today, I did some research on ebooks. I'm digesting all the info and making up a list of what needs to be done. I'm shooting for a Hallowe'en-ish launch of both the book and Tessa's webpage. (I still wonder if that's a reasonable goal. RoW80 peeps, if you have some thoughts on that matter let me know.)
Submissions
Five submissions of four short pieces. A couple markets I'm interested in are opening again in October, so I've been sitting a piece for a week or two.
Submitted Model Species to four agents. Again, I need to get back to averaging at least that many a month. It's 'round about time to do some new research too.
Other
Read two books and a few odd short stories. Luckily, I have Fall into Reading and Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-thon to get me closer to my 30-book goal.
RoW80, Round 4
I'm in, though at the moment my goals aren't entirely concrete. I need to do more than just this editing pass on Luck for Hire, but I'm not sure what else. Eric and I will talk.
Also, I have not been on Twitter much. I know that's a valuable component, but I can't guarantee that I'll get back other than for auto-posts. It's just to noisy for me for the moment. I will definitely make the effort to comment on posts. Lucky for me, Mr. Linky is Twitter agnostic.
Filed under: #RoW80, Reading 2011, Writing Tagged: Lucinda at the Window, Luck for Hire
September 28, 2011
Writing, Running, MMORPGing
Kill the darlings.
Still working my way through Luck for Hire edits. This pass has been a combination of add-things-talked-about and a 10%-cut-edit. The action scenes that I thought were sharp have not been. I have a tendency to be very wordy when I write, and not in a good way. Prepositions must die.
Giving some thought to trying to get an electronic version of Lucinda at the Window available around the 26th of October…in time for Hallowe'en, since it's a ghost story and all. I have no idea if that's a reasonable goal. I don't know how much work it will be to give it a quick edit, attach the cover art, and ebook-ize it, or how long it would take to become available through various vendors.
It's a Dry Huck won our third game last night, a come-from-behind one-point win in hard cap. I had been feeling terrible since Sunday. My hands bugged me all of Sunday and Monday and Tuesday was a migraine day. By the end of the game though, I was feeling pretty good. Today, as well. While the quality of my play hasn't really improved since going back to playing, I'm at least not as gassed after a couple of cuts.
Probably a stupid idea, but I think I'm going to sign up for an Oktoberfest 5K. Running and beer. They go well together even if the running is in the early-ish morning and the beer is later.
Been spending too much time playing EverQuest2. Got Folly to 90th level troubadour on Sunday. Now she's working on city faction in order to buy her third house. Yes, my avatars live better than I do.
Filed under: Disc, EverQuest2, Exercise, Writing
September 25, 2011
Now watch while I repeat steps 1-8!
Liz Writes Books posted "The Life Cycle of a Blog" which ridiculously seems to be what my 10-year journal has become. Well, not quite, but you get my drift.
To be fair, I've pulled back from a lot of social media. I haven't tweeted, aside from auto-updates. I dipped my toes into Google +, but it really didn't take. (I had a Twitter account for years before I really used it. I'm not exactly an early adopter.) The only place I've been is Facebook, where my closest circle of "real life" friends are. I am unruffled by the changes, though the ticker makes is a little noisy to me.
I don't know if I'm going to do the next Round of Words in 80 Days. Writing seems like a slog to me lately. I've been having a hard time keeping the faith. Yet, I still can't fathom anything I'd rather do.
In the writing category of "You're not getting real work done, but you're doing *that*?": I did a series on horror comedies at Taming of the Queue. We are once again Netflix-less, so I'm going to have to change that blog. Due to the Netflix price increase, we were going to switch back and forth between DVDs and streaming, but Qwikster put an end to that plan. I wasn't looking forward to juggling the change within one company; between two is out of the question.
We finished the third week of league. It's a Dry Huck is undefeated in official games, though we took at pretty ugly loss in the pre-season. To be fair, for the first two points (and several others) during that game, Chris put "everyone with the least experience" on the field. On the other hand, many teams are missing some strong players due to club play. IaDH is not, so we might be seeing inflated success right now. On the other other hand, we also have a chance to fine tune our whole team before finals. We'll see how it falls out, but for the moment, it's a fun team and I'm slowly getting back into shape.
I'm happy the nights are finally longer than the days.
Filed under: Disc, Life
