Interesting list.

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

( On to the list... )

Not even half the list...gee, I didn't feel underprivileged growing up. ;-)

Okay, so I know it's just a quiz, but the numbers are interesting.

( 2008 Presidential Candidate Quiz )
 

( January #1-6 )

( February #7-9 )

( March #10-13 )

( April #14-20 )

( May #21 )

( June #22 )

( July #23-24 )

( August #25-32 )

( September #33-39 )

( October #40-41 )

( November #42-50 )

( December #51-53 )
 

I haven't been posting a lot about what's been going on with me lately. That's because the last few months have been a bit of a whirlwind of activity around--moving out of state!

It all started last April when my husband, E, and I took a long weekend trip to Oregon and fell in love with Salem. We'd been looking online at real estate in the area for a few years, but this was our first visit. It was supposed to be a sort of scouting trip to see if the reality matched up with what we were reading and seeing online. Neither of us really thought that we'd decide to take the plunge and start the search for a house in earnest. Though in retrospect, I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise. I'd done the numbers and had figured out that we could manage supporting two households -- it'd be tight, but it could be done.

( Well, the more we drove around Salem... )

Any recommendations out there for a good LJ client for Mac OS X?

I just got a Mac Mini for Christmas (and I'm a Mac newbie) and am loving every second of using it. If any of you have other recommendations for favorite software/utilities, I'd appreciate those, too.

Well, I didn't make it to 20,000 words. In fact, I didn't make it any further than what I had written at the time of my last LJ post. But that's okay. The lack of progress was due to things happening that I had no control over, not because I didn't feel like writing.

I still think my story idea is workable. The characters need fleshing out and the plot points need some tweaking, but the important thing is that I still find it interesting after having thought about it for over a month and having written 13,000+ throw-away words around it. So, now the plan is to do the prep work that I would normally do for a story.

I find NaNo works as a limbering up process. It flexes writing muscles that may have atrophied (especially this year, since I haven't written much of anything in the last 12 months). It gets me back into the writing habit.

The other thing that I'm glad I didn't do is give this story a title during NaNo. That tells me that the plot was still unformed, still morphing into what it will eventually be. Once I've got a plot firmly in my head, a title usually comes to me. No title means that it's still a work in progress.

I got interested in my story. And because I got interested (and some distractions I had no control over) I'm not going to make the 50,000 words. That's a bummer -- I'd really hoped that I'd break my losing streak this year. On the other hand, this thing is turning into something that I want to spend more time on.

I'm at 13,913 at the moment. I'll still be writing in the next couple of days, but I'll be very, very surprised if I get much past 20,000 words. In fact, I'm making 20,000 my new NaNo goal for this year.

Here's the widget for the old (50000) goal, showing my word count:



Here's the widget for the new (20000) goal, showing my word count and percent completed:



Much better! :-)

Your Score: True Bay Area Native
You scored 18!

16-18 correct - You're a true Bay Area native - and you even got some of the EXTRA CREDIT questions! Impressive. Feel free to look down on Los Angeles with pride. (You probably already do.)

Link: The SF Bay Area Native Test written by miata_girl

Yep, way behind. But I have no doubts about my ability to catch up. I just need a few solid hours strung together.

One of the greatest lessons that NaNo has taught me is that I can write steadily if I just start writing and don't allow myself to be distracted.   ......   oooh, shiny! ......

So, I signed up for NaNoWriMo again this year. I'm hoping that I'll get back into the swing of writing again -- just get the words out and not worry about what I'm writing.

Today's been slow so far (for writing). I've been busier than I'd hoped with other things, but I still have a couple of hours to go. I may not get to my daily word count today, but at least I'll have something. I'm going to try getting up early to get a head start on things tomorrow.

A couple of days ago I was going through some old files on one of the computers and came across my old riding journal. When I first started taking English horseback riding lessons, I used to write a weekly journal about my progress and the horses I was riding. I looked at the date of the first entry and I couldn't believe it -- I've been riding for 9 years! I started in April of 1998.

I still have lessons where I feel like I've just started riding, but I have to acknowledge that I've improved tremendously since those early days--even with only riding one day a week. I think that sometimes I don't give myself enough credit for what I can do, because I tend to focus on the areas where I still need to improve.

Of course, you can always improve. Riding is a dynamic sport and every time you get on the back of a horse, it's different. For me, though, the thing that I always have to fight is my timidity. I tend to disbelieve that I can handle difficult horses, and certainly there are some horses that I would have no business riding. My instructor has told me that she believes I can handle any of the school horses that are in our lessons--and she's always right about my abilities--but there are some that she won't put me on because of my less than stellar self-confidence.

On the one hand, I'm always working on overcoming that. On the other hand, I'm just as happy riding horses who don't have major problems. If I rode more than once a week, I know I'd improve more rapidly, but for now, this is something that I do for the joy of it.

It'll be pretty obvious if you examine the patterns presented that I'm fairly...obsessive...in my reading habits. ;-)

Still, 72 books (of any ilk) read in a single year has to be okay, doesn't it?

For curiousity sake, here are the books I read last year, broken down by month:

( January (#1-14) )
( February (#15-25) )
( March (#26-36) )
( April (#37-42) )
( May (#43-46) )
( June (#47-51) )
( July (#52-53) )
( August )
( September (#54) )
( October (#55-56) )
( November (#57-64) )
( December (#65-72) )
 

Still slogging away. Not much else, really, other than being a bit sleepy at the moment.

So, day 2 of NaNo was definitely better than day 1 for me. I managed to catch up to my word goal and surpass it by a few words (feeling virtuous here). Still not so engaged with the story as I could be, but there's something positive about the act of cranking out a certain number of words no matter what.

In previous NaNos (well, except for last year) I tended to get way ahead of my daily wordcount goal, finishing the 50,000 words at least a week early and continuing to write more. I think this year is going to be the year of discipline--where I may struggle a bit just to meet the minimum daily goal. That may be a good thing, though. It's called persistence. And it's something that I desperately need right now when it comes to writing.

It's funny. I'm off to an okay start with NaNoWriMo this time (first day's word count 1567). I feel like I can keep up the pace and maybe even accelerate it. And I was even pretty darn excited about the plot and characters--until sometime in the afternoon on Tuesday. Then it was like somebody stuck a pin in me and all my enthusiasm deflated like a dead balloon.

Thing is, I don't hate the story I'm writing. I'm suddenly just not all that engaged with it.

Yet I was able to write 1500+ words yesterday. And didn't feel like they were all complete shit, either.

The dilemma is...do I continue working on a story that may, ultimately, be just a writing exercise for me (and you know, my writing could probably stand more of that),  or do I start working on a story that really grabs me? And yes, I know those 1500+ words would still count towards my total. I just feel funny about abandoning a plot and characters that are pretty well defined in my head.

I'd been hoping I'd be able to go, but it didn't work out. I've been having some back problems the last couple of weeks and by last night I was just too tired (even though my back is feeling much better). I fell asleep on the couch about 5:30 and by the time I woke up it was after 7pm. If I could've roused myself out of my post-nap grogginess I might have made for an  hour or so, but I just couldn't work up the energy to overcome the lethargy. Ah well, I'm sure everyone who was there had a great time.

I'm still going to try to get to the Sunday write-ins at OVC during NaNo. Earlier in the day would be better for me, but I know there's the Farmer's Market to contend with, so I can see why they officially start at 3pm. Still, it is energizing to be with a group of people focused on accomplishing the same thing you are -- something I hadn't realized I'd missed about college (work is an entirely different atmosphere -- and besides, I work from home).

I won't be going to the Pan-Bay kickoff party, either. I understand why it's on Sunday night -- it just makes it impossible for me to attend. At least I'm consistent -- I haven't made it to a single SF kickoff or TGIO party in the years I've done NaNo (this year makes 4). ;-)

The big thing, though, is that I'm champing at the bit to get started with the actual writing. ;-) I've fleshed out the main characters (for the most part -- still a few things I don't know about them), know who the victim and murderer are, know how the murder is committed and why my sleuth must solve it. Can't wait to put fingers to the keyboard!

November is going to  be a busy month in many ways for me. So I'm going to be trying to pack as many words in as I can each time I sit down to the computer.

I've finally decided which one of my possible stories that I'm going to at least start with for NaNoWriMo. It's a mystery, first person POV, category cozy. The current working title is A Killer Pinot Noir. I'll be spending the next couple of weeks blocking out the major events in the story and finalizing the characters.

I've only written very short fiction in first person, so it'll be interesting to see how far I actually get before running into problems. ;-) I guess if I do run into problems that I could switch to 3rd person and keep going.

At least most of them are. Wednesday is the day I take a group English riding lesson at lunch time. The weeks that I occasionally have to skip the lesson due to work pressures or other things tend to usually end up being, well, crappy.

I consider getting on the back of a horse once a week (all I can afford and all the time I can manage) and improving my riding skills to be my own personal therapy. It definitely brightens my outlook on life along with teaching me to "be in the moment." 'Cause you know, when you're on the back of a 1200 pound horse, you better not be worrying about whether some software program compiled without errors or whether the presentation you made to some VP was well received or not. Nope, you better be 100% there, concentrating on what you and your horse are doing. It's one of the few activities where I can completely shut off everything outside of myself (and the horse).

Today's lesson didn't start out promising, though. I'm strictly an arena kind of gal -- I'm one of the few people I know who absolutely and totally hates trail riding. So, when our instructor said that we were going to the upper arena to do pole work, my first reaction was -- why can't we stay in the lower (bigger) arena? I'm such a weanie at times - and I hate that I am, but not enough to try and change. ;-)

Part of the reason I dislike the upper arena so much is that it's small and it's usually not in very good condition. I was pleasantly surprised to find it had been graded and groomed and all the jumps had been dismantled so they weren't blocking the way. We don't, in general, jump in my lesson, so having the jumps set up is wasted on us. With the jumps down we had so much more room to maneuver that I discovered I was much more comfortable.

The pole work turned out to be very fun. We rode patterns through the arena going over three sets of (several) poles in different directions. The horses enjoyed the change, both of scene and training, and we all had a great time.

I did notice something about myself that I really hate, though. I'm usually pretty quiet, but when I get nervous (usually about something new or different), I tend to babble. I felt like I was outside myself watching myself go on and on about just...really inane stuff and I couldn't seem to shut up.

Ah well. It was still a very, very good day. :-)

So...it's October. Just about time for NaNoWriMo signups to open again. Last year I failed miserably. I think it was because I really didn't have a good idea of what I was going to write about and I wasn't excited about participating--I really had other things on my mind.

This year, I find myself in the weird position of having four strong contenders for my novel. None of them similar -- all pretty much different genres and styles. I'm excited about all of them. So, yeah, I plan to sign up this year. The hardest part is going to be narrowing down the four to one final choice between now and November 1st.

Huh. Whodathunkit?

Last Thursday was the RIF notification day at my company (for the 5000 people RIF announced about 3 months ago). Somehow I managed to survive yet again. Not sure how that happened. But, that means that I've made it to my 15 year anniversary (and survived, what? 7 or 8 RIFs along the way).

The last few months since the announcement have been very stressful. It's been like a dark cloud has been hanging over everything. Although we'd decided that things would be okay either way (job or no), it was still hard -- like waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then, there's the mixture of disappointment, relief and survivor's guilt. Though I must admit, with each passing RIF the survivor's guilt thing has lessened dramatically for some reason.

I guess the worst of this last one was the seemingly long length of time between the public announcement and the actual RIF notification. No one could concentrate on much of anything. I certainly couldn't seem to concentrate on anything I really wanted to -- like writing and reading.

Funny that. I started reading a book in July and still haven't been able to finish it. It isn't a bad book -- and under other circumstances it would probably be quite entertaining. I think I'm going to have to put it aside and read something else -- maybe come back to it later.