1. I am around 1700 words into my NaNoWriMo project. I started with a blank page, put on some ambient drones to keep focused, and let my mind wander a bit until it found the story it wanted to tell. The story is a bit of a surprise, actually, being that it’s decided it wants to be somewhat non-fictional. For that reason alone, I’m pretty sure I’m never letting this thing see the light of day unless I change all the names and fudge some of the historical record, but I have to admit that it does feel good to talk about some of this stuff. I’m not sure I’m going to get 50,000 words out of it – and honestly, most of the words I have written aren’t particularly good – but that’s neither here nor there at this point. The primary reason that I’m doing this at all is to get in the habit of writing every day, without fear of an audience’s reaction, and I’ll worry about the end result when it’s finished. To that end, I’m probably not going to write about my progress here, beyond word counts, which is just a way of keeping myself honest. (And is there anything more insufferable than hearing someone talk about working on their novel?)
2. I finished the Southern Reach trilogy at around 3am this morning, due to some Daylight Savings-related insomnia, plus a headcold. I’m not sure that I enjoyed the latter two books as much as I did the first one; one gets the feeling that the first book came all at once, and then the next two were meant to fill in the backstory and to answer some of the first book’s many questions. Still, they’re all quick, fun reads. Now I’m re-reading The Stand, which is starting off very strong (and which I apparently remembered in more vivid detail than I’d thought). Even though I don’t have any Ebola panic, it’s not hard to get sucked into the idea of an apocalyptic plague these days.
3. I did it, I pulled the trigger; I bought an Xbox One. And it might even be arriving today! I was able to get the Sunset Overdrive bundle at the reduced price after all, which was a bit of a relief, and so now I hope my long-lost 360 friends can forgive my prolonged absence.
4. I don’t know how I feel about Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare getting such positive reviews. The last CoD game I played was (I think) Black Ops, of which the campaign remains unfinished and the multiplayer remains untouched. That said, if my XBO friends are playing it, I might give it a quick look after all.
Shouts From The Couch 