edit. preliminary participant list added at bottom

So November is quickly approaching, and we all know what that means. Nanowrimo! That's right, it's national novel writing month. Basically, for all those people who feel like they have a great idea for a novel that they hope to write "someday," this event provides the impetus to actually put those plans into action.

Over the course of the month, participants are encouraged to write 50,000 words, or the sum of a short novel. This is a simple first draft, and one that can be edited significantly after the month is over, but quality isn't really the point here, quantity is. Once that quantity is there, quality can be added later. The point is to start and finish a project of this size, to show the participant their capabilities, and give them the push many of us need to get started.

I first became aware of this when I posted a pulse saying pretty much the exact thing nanowrimo is designed for; I had a novel idea I wanted to eventually write, someday. Chow introduced me to the idea, and I was struck by its simple but valuable structure. Sure, I'm probably going to be extremely busy this November, but Kafka wrote his novels after the end of a full work day as an insurance salesman!

A large part of the success of nanowrimo participants (who get nothing but satisfaction and a newly written novel for their efforts) is support; other participants encourage their fellows by discussing their work, techniques, plans, etc. The nanowrimo website has a lot of ways to get into contact with local and nonlocal participants, but I thought it'd be great to have some kind of xangan nanowrimo group. I know a bunch of you are already planning on participating, but I've not as of yet heard of any real plans to bring xangans together to discuss their efforts, so I thought I'd do that here!

If you want to participate, or are already planning to, let me know! I'll edit this post to list all the xangans who speak up, and then we can all talk to each other over the course of the month. Check out the website here for further details, come up with an idea, and then rec this entry and tell your friends about nanowrimo, so you'll have as much support as possible! As they said in that Mad Men episode (which I've just started watching, by the way), I bet every desk in the place has the first ten pages of a novel in a bottom drawer somewhere. Isn't it time we finished them?

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Participant List:

(*note: in most cases, the nanowrimo website username appears second, after the xanga user name; e.g. XANGA - NANOWRIMO)

aibelfaeire - aibelfaeire

mooncatblue - mooncatblue

scribblemuffin - scribblemuffin

chow

dirtbubble - dirtbubble

roadkill_spatula 

nikbv - nikbv

...maybe you can help me with. My record player (phonograph) no longer auto-returns. There's no visible damage, and it works just fine otherwise, except now, obviously, I have to manually turn it off after the record finishes. Which is really annoying. Any thoughts?

(and yes, some of you might suggest I just get myself an mp3 player, but I already have one. The hard-drive had to be replaced a few months ago, the battery life-span is down to about an hour, and the interface buttons are on the fritz. It's a year and a half old, and the record player is maybe 30 years old.)

I think we’ve known each other long enough now that I can come clean on something – I don’t like being clean. To me, hygiene is a waste of time. Sure, every day I frantically scrub myself down before I leave in the morning. Fine, I brush my teeth after meals, wash my hands before them, and clean everything in-between on a fairly regular basis, but the point here is I don’t like to.

Maybe so, but I don't have to like it.

To me, hygiene is a terrific hassle. For some reason, I never got that habit-making gene (even doing something every day for three weeks does nothing to me – damn you, Oprah!) and every time I shower it’s a conscious struggle. Brushing teeth is the same. Annoying, time consuming, and just plain uncomfortable. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be cold, sopping wet, and late for work. It bothers me. (And things may be different for you tropical Xangans, but it’s cold here pretty much all the time.)

I tell you, if I could swing it I’d bathe maybe once a month, whether I needed it or not. Luckily for the rest of you, however, I’ve got too much of a social conscience for that to happen. I just can’t let the rest of society suffer so that I might be happy. So, every day I continue to wash, annoying as it might be, all the while wishing I lived in the middle ages. Well, except for that plague stuff.