Midweek check-ins are always a little sparse for me, mostly because I spend Mondays and Tuesdays just trying to deal with school stuff. A few things fell through the cracks and came back to haunt me yesterday (namely the stack of grading I was supposed to hand back this morning), so I pulled an unexpected all-nighter last night, staggered into class this morning like a zombie, and had to take an impromptu nap this afternoon to recharge. But I am up, and I will hopefully find the time to tackle the household chores today, because my apartment is a disaster.
Whew.
But it’s not all bad! I’ve done a few things of merit so far, including:
- Exercise: I’m on track to fulfill my 4-5 days/week quota, as I have gotten on the glider 3 times this week.
- NaNoWriMo Support Group: Today, Em and I launched our “support group,” Fun Not Fear! As she mentions on her check-in post today, the name of the group emerged out of a few conversations she and I had about our fears over tackling NaNo this year. We decided that we needed to focus on the fun aspects of the writing gauntlet, and given the success we’ve both had participating in ROW80, clearly the best way to have fun while writing is to have the support of friends along the way. So pop on over, leave your NaNo profile on the linky list, and introduce yourself. We’ll be hosting “check-in chats” every Friday, and throwing out our linky mashup of NaNoWriMo goodness.
I’ve got quite a few things to work on:
- Thesis Edits: The early feedback I received from my advisor basically boils down to the fact that the latest chapter needs to be dramatically tightened up and my arguments “better embedded,” or something along those lines. I more or less expected this, so I have a number of notes to make before I meet with her on Friday. For the record, I just have to say that I HATE first drafts with every gosh darn bone in my body. Like… I bloody HATE them. So I am really relieved to be moving into edit phase, so I can slash and burn all the things that don’t fit, and fix the things that do.
- Writing: My WIPs are currently sitting in the corner with sad faces on them, looking like poor little abandoned creatures. I’m can’t wait until November gets here; this extended period of doing nothing but taking notes and outlining (or attempting to, at any rate) is starting to drive me a little crazy.
- Spending less time on G+: I’ve recently discovered that Google+ is like this amazing, wonderful, phenomenal candyland of cool people and fantastic ideas, and it has sucked me into its Vortex of Awesome with the force of a massive black hole (seriously, one of these days I will write an ode to G+). Sadly, I think I spent something like 3 hours having great conversations with people, and it was a total blast… but, er, I probably should’ve been doing other things with those three hours (i.e., grading). But just look at the hilarious things I have been finding!
- I am obsessed with this entire “occupy fictional places” thing.
- Working on blogging ideas/writing posts: I really miss blogging about more than ROW80 highs and lows, and I’ve been jotting down a few ideas for posts and theme days that I will
hopefullyeventuallymaybedefinitely write. I just, er, have to find the time to do that, but maybe if I spend less time on G+…
So that’s the current lay of the land. I’ll leave you with the trailer of this wonderful movie that I watched yesterday, Last Night, starring Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington. It tackles that tried and true topic — a married couple tempted to cheat on each other — in a way that I found incredibly compelling and beautiful. This is the sort of movie where the nuances of body language and expression need to be absorbed, not just the dialogue. It’s currently streaming on Netflix (which is how I ran across it), so if you have a chance and it strikes your fancy, check it out.
[tube]qFaTD9kljsU[/tube]
