NaNoWriMo, here I come!

X-Files fanfic cover in progressI mentioned in one of my last posts that I’m participating in NaNoWriMo in November, and I may be setting myself up for failure. Next month is ridiculous, schedule-wise, with each of us traveling for a week, and with Thanksgiving, and my tendency to edit as I write, I have no idea how I’ll reach the requisite 1,700 words per day. But hey, you never know.

Until a few months ago, the longest paper I’d ever written just barely crested 10,000 words, and it was a college essay for Canadian Studies about Pierre Trudeau; a fascinating guy in his own right, but not a particularly fascinating paper. I was known to drop college courses if the syllabus required any papers greater than 10,000 words, and I purposely chose a major that didn’t require writing a traditional thesis.

I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that interests me enough to hold my intrigue for 50,000 words, so the idea of writing a novel for fun seemed like an annoying way to spend my free time.

That said, I used to write all the time; poetry and short stories, plus blogging (before they called it blogging), but never anything longer than a few thousand words. That would require an attention span.

Speaking of things that do hold my attention, a few months ago I started re-watching The X-Files and reading the new X-Files Season 10 comics, and that got me thinking about the epic story arcs that show generated (and all the resulting loose ends). 2013 marks the series’ 20th anniversary (oh, hey, I feel old) so I’ve had this show on the brain, and I started thinking about a story.

I’ve written XF fanfic before, and hopefully it will never see the light of day, because I spent most of the stories thinking up excuses for the characters to fall into bed together. (In my defense, the sexual frustration in the first seven seasons is almost unbearable, even now, watching the show as an adult.) After a few nights of mulling over one particular plot idea, I got the crazy idea in my head to start writing fanfic again, this time with a storyline that doesn’t read like soft-core porn. I wanted to stay true to the original series and the characters, and follow up with the William story arc.

That fic is currently sitting at over 60,000 words. It still needs editing and beta reading and more editing, and I feel like I’ll be plucking away at it forever. But I did it, and now my life list is happy.

Write a novel(-length piece of fan fiction) — check!

I’ve outlined my ideas for the sequel, which I intend to be my NaNoWriMo project. Again, I tend to edit as I write, which is not great for speed, so I’m going to try to curb the urge to tweak every last word. I’ll try to write scenes as they come to me, rather than writing from beginning to end, then piece them together after the fact.

In any case, I’m happy to have a project to work on that’s different from my usual fare. If you’re writing this year, please be my friend on NaNoWriMo! I’m going to need all the motivation I can get.

cowabunga, and so forth.

Holy moly, where have I been?  Lost in my own head somewhere.  But I’m popping out of my narcissistic stupor for a moment to say, “Hello, Internets!”  And because I know you missed me, it’s time for another edition of…

What is Caro thinking right now?

  • I found the perfect underwear.  They’re simple, they’re comfortable, and they’re the granny-panties of my dreams.  Every time I put them on, I feel like my butt is getting a big, soft, warm hug.  I mean, wouldn’t you hug your butt if it was physically possible?  Sure you would.
  • I celebrated a birthday somewhere toward the end of January, and I spent most of it moping.  However, I did remember to treat myself to an online shopping spree of epic proportions.  And then I celebrated by slathering myself with Philosophy’s Vanilla Birthday Cake and Buttercream Frosting body washes.  My shower smells like a bakery, which helps me forget about the fact that I have too much gray hair for a 24-year-old, and that I still can’t wash away that unsightly bathtub ring.
  • Bonus points if you got the TMNT reference in that last sentence.
  • A certain popular video game expansion pack that was released a couple weeks ago has given me a reason to live play WoW again.  Sheara will get to level 70 if only because she needs a flying mount to be able to fish the highland lakes in Terokkar Forest.  No, really.  Raiding?  What?  I pay 15 bucks a month to fish!  Level 66 and counting.
  • All hail the mighty Tax Refund!
  • Three letters:  Dee Vee Arrrrrr.  That’s right.  The S.O. and I finally joined the 21st century and signed up for digital cable, complete with DVR.  When he was little, my brother the bird bladder (sorry J!) would sit down with the rest of the family to watch TV, and five minutes into the show he’d say, “Mum, pause it, I need to go to the bathroom.”  My mother would respond with, “You can’t pause television, silly.”  Now, eighteen years later, my bro’s bird bladder dreams have been realized.  Who’s the silly one now, huh!?!  HUH?!?!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the living room, obsessively pausing and rewinding 24.  Just because I can.

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yep, still a nerd

In my haste to get something to eat before my lunch hour was up, I totally forgot to include two of my most defining nerdy traits.  So another day, another lunch break… another post.

The first:  I’m a recovering X-Phile.  In high school and college my dorm room walls were plastered with pictures of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, Mulder and Scully, my favorite FBI-fighting team.  I owned all the episode guides, read all the fanfic (even wrote some of my own, embarrassingly enough), knew all the in-jokes, and desperately wanted my heroes to get it over with already and screw like bunnies.  Yeah, I was one of “those” fans.  When everyone who knew better stopped watching the show in the 6th or 7th season, I was still securely anchored in front of the TV every Sunday night at 9, giddy with anticipation.  Thankfully the show ended in the 9th season, or I might still be defending myself (poorly) to television critics with better taste than I on some obscure Internet forum somewhere.

My second nerdy love:  Jon Stewart.  He’s tall, dark, handsome, and makes fun of politicians for a living.  But before he hosted the Daily Show, he had a small-ish role (alongside noneother than Gillian Anderson!) in a movie called Playing by Heart, which served as my feel-good movie for several years.  It wasn’t a great film by most standards, but it made a certain hormonal teenaged girl cry in all the right places, so it served its purpose.  The feel-good movie of choice has since been replaced by Love Actually, but my love for Jon Stewart and his biting wit continues.

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