...considering that my current word count - at least, of midnight tonight - should be 9,996. That's a deficit of 5,858 words, over twice as much as I have now. I don't mind telling you that this fact is a bit daunting, but on the forums at the NaNoWriMo website, there are a lot of people who say that in past years they didn't write anything their first week (or started over from scratch) and still make the 50K mark by the end of the month. So I haven't given up. I just have some extra effort ahead of me.

As tempted as I would be at this point to say how much easier it would be to make my word count if I had a laptop, the real problem is simply poor time management, which is something I've struggled with for the last three years of art school. There's homework to consider, too, which is very time consuming, as always.

As for the experience of writing the novel, there have been numerous times when I wished I had chosen to do science-fiction instead of fantasy, and even more times when I found myself getting bored with the character and the premise that I set up. I've been working on the same battle scene since Nov. 2, with a "scene goal" in mind, but like Zeno's Arrow, I keep writing and writing and never seem to get there. Given that I had intended for this story to have an ensemble cast, I think I'm soon going to start working on another branch of the story, introducing another clutch of characters that will dovetail with my current protagonist's story before long.

I'm still determined to finish this thing, though.

So, this year's Homestar Runner Halloween cartoon is finally up, and I can think of three people who will find it amusing, if only for the costumes that show up. Pat, Marilyn, Slusser - watch it and you'll know when I thought of you.

Last night Marilyn and I went to Pat's new house out in the boondocks, way up in North Branch. We talked and had popcorn and played "Guitar Hero" and "Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey" on the PS2. "Guitar Hero" is pretty neat - you play a mock guitar, pressing fret buttons and flicking a strum-bar switch that stands in for strings; there's a whammy bar you can goof with, and at certain points in the game, if you lean the guitar neck-upward, you "rock out" in the game, getting double your points. You "play" actual songs - I did "Smoke on the Water" and "Ziggy Stardust" - by pressing the correct fret buttons and flicking the strum-bar when the proper notes come up on a scrolling guitar neck. In the background, you can see your little avatar playing on stage, mimicking your actions. The more notes you miss, the lower your rock meter goes, and if you miss too many, you get booed off the stage. It was almost certainly the closest I'll ever get to being a rock god, but it was really ego boosting to be hitting all the right notes and hearing the audience cheer you on.

Oh, yeah - if you do well enough, you can scratch your name onto the bathroom wall next to the urinal. See, it's just like real life.