Why I do what I do.

Precisely. :)

Hey, I just figured out that I can crank out 2,000 words in about an hour... if I hit my stride and type until my fingers hurt. Maybe I can pull this novel-in-a-month thing off after all! I might develop carpal tunnel syndrome or some other painful condition of the wrists and/or fingers, but it'll be totally worth it...

um, right?

it pretty much speaks for itself...

"All I ever wanted was to belong, to wear that hat of belonging." ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Two weeks and counting...

... until NaNoWriMo 2008!

I'm scared. I have two ideas competing for my attention next month and don't like being forced to choose.

If you haven't heard of this writerly initiative, here's the short version: the ultimate goal is a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. (Crappy first draft, of course.) If you've ever entertained the idea of writing a novel, now's your chance. It'll be fun and thrilling. Promise.

Shameless plug... and yeah, this is the first of the NaNo Angst Blogs. It will most likely consume my attention for the bulk of the next six weeks. You have been warned.

Now, back to you: any other ambitious NaNo folk out there reading? (Or maybe the curious who are thinking about it?) Please comment so we can cheer each other onward to victory. :)

Followings and Such

For a long time, I didn't realize (nor care, honestly) that Blogger now has a nifty, Twitter-esque Follow feature. I use good ol' RSS and Google Reader to keep up with the myriad of blogs I like, so I thought, "Hm, neat." and didn't think about it again.

That is, not until I logged on to write a new post one day and saw a friendly green icon that said "1 Follower."

A follower? Like, a reader? Seriously? Dude. I feel special!

So I got excited, and eventually I took Blogger's advice and added the nifty Followers widget to the sidebar. (on the right, below the lovely NaNoWriMo link... ah yes, it's that time of year again! Prepare for the NaNo Angst Blogs...)

And now I'm taking their other advice and writing this post to tell you about it, so you can join in on the following fun, if you feel so inclined. Hey, you automatically get linked where I can find your blog, and you make me feel read and appreciated and stuff, which makes me want to write more. Everybody wins! Yay!

That's it. No more shameless self-promotion. To everyone -- subscriber, follower, random visitor, and everyone in between -- thank you for coming and reading my ramblings. It's very, very appreciated. <3

Next time, a real post. We now return to your (ir)regularly scheduled blog.

Tragic.

What you don't want to see on your iPod:

Quite possibly, the funniest error message I've seen on, well... pretty much anything, but this is very, very distressing.