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Sunday, March 28th, 2010
10:27 am - Bah.
In an attempt not to have my journal flooded by one particular subject unless people want to see it, am adding filters.

Please comment if you wish to be added to
- Work - I work at a vets. I get some really funny stories. For common sense reasons, I can't put them out unlocked.
- Rega - a rather lost drow I play in CP. She is very scheme-y, although she tries not to be. Most scheming goes under a lock, because it can be hard to not to meta it for some.
- RP - the rest of my chars don't really have much private, but some do hold private information for other characters. What is not locke don others behalf is normally free access but filtered.


EDIT: Have added more filters that people may request to be added to. As a sidenote, asking does not always equal gaining...but probably will most of the time.

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Sunday, November 8th, 2009
10:55 pm - Nano #6 &7
Hrm - tired. Caught in the midst of mood swings.

Am hoping it didn't effect my writing.

Forgot to put the update up last night, so this is the amalgamated entry for two days. This part contains my first step at skipping over time, rather than describing everything the character is doing - don't know how it worked. But I'm going to have to perfect it, as plotty as I like things, I just don't have enough to fill every minute of every day.

Fri 6 (off) Daily: 4168 Total: 12504 Achieved: 4234, Total: 15482
Sat 7 Daily: 2084 Total: 14588 Achieved: 2084, Total: 17566
Sun 8 Daily: 2084 Total: 16672 Achieved: 2129, Tota: 19695
Mon 9 Daily: 2084 Total: 18756

Not as far ahead as I'd like, but ok.

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Saturday, November 7th, 2009
2:45 pm - Woo.
Yet to head off to the game and have managed 1200 words.

I call this win.

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Friday, November 6th, 2009
11:43 pm - Nano #5.
Took me long enough.

Credit to Three Doors Down - not on my normal playlist, but very helpful as background music as I'm trying to meet my word count.

Schedule so far:

Thurs 5 Daily: 2084 Total: 8336 Achieved: 2803, Total: 11248
Fri 6 (off) Daily: 4168 Total: 12504 Achieved: 4234, Total: 15482
Sat 7 Daily: 2084 Total: 14588

I admit to getting the giggles in the first page of this entry. Then UST came and stomped all over my fun.

Other humourous thing of the day: this article, stolen from sf_d.

Gave final day of working to current employers. They reacted as if they had a choice int he matter, promising me that they'd 'get back to me monday'.

They seem not to have grasped that their choice is limited to having me for the next three weeks or me not coming back. And if they dare even kick up the slightest bit of a fuss, I'm going to go with the second option. I don't need to work the next three weeks - yay, overdraft - so if they want to stab themselves in the groin, up to them.

Need to book driving test. First I need to write up some Pro stuff for the GM for tomorrow's game.

Then I firmly intend to sleep. Yay for night games - late game means late start means I get a lie in - first one in a while.

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Thursday, November 5th, 2009
11:23 pm - Nano #4.
Slightly better day. I like this bit.

Update so far:

Thurs 5 Daily: 2084 Total: 8336 Achieved: 2803, Total: 11248
Fri 6 (off) Daily: 4168 Total: 12504

EDIT: At one point today, I was thinking over what's left to happen, and worrying that I didn't have enough plot left to fill 50k.

Then I spent this evening spending the best part of 3K words getting a character locked in a cupboard.

I think I'm going to be fine - I just need to remember that my plot speed is very far from breakneck, and it will all be fine.

Bed now. Day off tomorrow. Thank god.

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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
11:05 pm - Nano #3.
Thanks to rather large arguement with the mothership, only word count todayis what I managed to hammer out at work during a spare hour when everything was done, everyone was out and we had no clients.

The good news is that this is 2438.

The bad news is the spelling.

Update on schedule so far:

Sun 1 Daily: 2084 Total: 2084 Achieved: 4953
Mon 2 Daily: 2084 Total: 4168 Achieved: 1053, Total: 6007
Tues 3 (Shadow run)
Wed 4 Daily: 2084 Total: 6252 Achieved: 2438, Total: 8445
Thurs 5 Daily: 2084 Total: 8336

Little over a day ahead - still keeping my head above water in case of another day like Monday then. Dead knackered. Half day tomorrow, thank god.

Never mind - it's of slightly better quality than Monday's, at least.

Yesterday and today's amalgamated entry in a filtered post following - comment to be added.

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Monday, November 2nd, 2009
9:00 am - Nano Schedule
Following the examples of [info]pujaemuss and [info]cheekychipmunk, I've done myself a little timetable.

It is possibly not quite the intended outcome that I now feel more intimidated than before...

Total days unable to write: 9
Days remaining: 21
Days off work and thus counting as double word count: 3
Thus total days: 24
Total word count required each normal day: 2084
Number of words required on an 'off' day: 4168

Sun 1 Daily: 2084 Total: 2084 Achieved: 4953
Mon 2 Daily: 2084 Total: 4168 Achieved: 1053, Total: 6007
Tues 3 (Shadow run)
Wed 4 Daily: 2084 Total: 6252
Thurs 5 Daily: 2084 Total: 8336
Fri 6 (off) Daily: 4168 Total: 12504
Sat 7 Daily: 2084 Total: 14588
Sun 8 Daily: 2084 Total: 16672
Mon 9 Daily: 2084 Total: 18756
Tues 10 (Shadow run)
Wed 11 Daily: 2084 Total: 20840
Thurs 12 Daily: 2084 Total: 22924
Fri 13 (Banquet)
Sat 14 (Banquet)
Sun 15 (Banquet)
Mon 16 (Off) Daily: 4168 Total: 27092 (half way point!)
Tues 17 (Shadow run)
Wed 18 Daily: 2084 Total: 29176
Thurs 19 Daily: 2084 Total: 31260
Fri 20 Daily: 2084 Total: 33344
Sat 21 (Charli's visit)
Sun 22 (Charli's visit)
Mon 23 Daily: 2084 Total: 35428
Tues 24 (Shadow run)
Wed 25 Daily: 2084 Total: 37512
Thurs 26 Daily: 2084 Total: 39596
Fri 27 (off) Daily: 4168 Total: 43764
Sat 28 Daily: 2084 Total: 45848
Sun 29 Daily: 2084 Total: 47932
Mon 30 Daily: 2084 Total: 50016



So...actually, I'm not that far ahead at all. Argh.

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Sunday, November 1st, 2009
11:09 pm - Nano #1
Daily word count: 4953

Tired. Bed now.

For anyone having trouble meeting their quota, might I suggest Write Or Die. Just make sure you C&P to an open Word document every 5 mins or so - it doesn't have an auto save function, so if your brower crashes after a 3 hour session - like it did to me last year - you can loose all your work. Not fun. Especially given it wasn't just the 1 day quota of 1.6K, I'd managed to clock 5K.

Not so sure I like the tone of how this is turning - it feels more colloquial and less flowing. I keep writing conversation between two of my characters and wondering if I'm using words or concepts or verbal rhythms that are far too modern for the time period.

Never mind. The point of Nano is just to write, right? Will correct when it's finished.

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Thursday, October 29th, 2009
12:44 pm - NaNoWriMo
Starts on Sunday. For my next trick, I will be attempting to finish the story I started last year, which should land it at a neat 100-110k words; nicely novel length. And good thing too, because I never normally would write stories of this length were it not for this month's annual escapade.

Just one problem with this; while I know in the roughest of rough terms how it should end, I'm not sure on an awful lot of stuff.

So, would very much like people's opinions: if you are willing, drop a comment below with your addy and I'll email you a copy (or if you read it last year and remember it, that works too).

Then, if I could ask you to answer some of the questions below the cut, that would be wonderful. Don't feel obliged to answer all of them (although if you want to, that's fantastic and I'll love you forever). Just answer the ones that you actually have an answer to, rather than having to think of one.

And just so people know, telling me why of anything (so for instance, why so-and-so is their favourite character) is always appreciated, because otherwise I might not get which parts of them you like and might skim over them.

Questions:
Read more... )

I'm sure I'll end up with more later, but that's all I can thin of right now.

For anyone that does this for me: thank you thank you thank you so much. I owe you chocolate.

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Friday, October 23rd, 2009
12:08 pm - I dub today a Good Day.
So far, at least - let's not spoil that winning streak.

My parents came down on Wednesday, and went back today, just to spend a couple of days in the city - they're coming back for the Christmas market. I think they're gradually beginning to see why Joe and I and Doug never want to leave.

By unhappy circumstance, they managed to ring me on Wednesday at exactly the moment that I was having a little bit of a crynig session over work - stress + tiredness + no way out = Emma who needs a quiet corner for a bit - and by yesterday, having heard the story, and gotten opinions in from collegues who work in IT and realised that chances of me getting a job while having a 2 month notice period to serve are minimal, they made me an offer - I quit, do my two months, if I don't find a job in that time, they'll pay my wage, providing I genuinely look for jobs.

I confess, it's a bit of a knock to my pride to take it - it's something I've always been very proud of, and the one thing that my siblings can't match. Whereas I'm quite happy for my parents to do things like holidays, or whatever, they're luxury items - they're things I don't need. I have always been able to make it on my own. None of my siblings can claim that - they're dependant on regular handouts and unashamedly hit Mum and Dad up for more cash when they go home - which there's nothing wrong with, it should be pointed out, because Mum and Dad have always been quite happy to give and would tell them if they were pushing it too far.

But I have always been very proud of the fact that I haven't needed to, and while they occasionally buy me stuff when they're down, it's stuff I could always have managed to get by without or could have eventually bought myself, and I have never, never asked for it. Even at this time two years ago when I left ADP, I found a way of making ends meet without using them. I can't help but feel I'm cheating at life to make use of an advantage that happens to have been given to so ridiculously few people.

To be fair, this time, I didn't ask either - they offered and the reasons they cited make enough sense that I feel I'd be letting pride get in my way if I didn't take it. And that would be really rather inexcusably stupid.

And my mother pointed out that my current mindset probably isn't going to do my job hunting much good, and she was right - looking back over the applications I've made over the past few days, the enthusiasm I thought I was exuding now reads more like desperation. Which isn't good, and I'll probably have to write those off, but oh well.

So yes, goo day - last night, we went toe ht Rajpoot; lovely meal as always. This morning I handed my notice in (popped into work despite it being my day off), then went for brunch with my brother, sister and mother, Dad having gone back early this morning to go golfing. Wandered around Waterstones for a bit, Mum bought 2 of those buy 3for2 books, so ended up getting me one as well as it was free.

Then had more fun than I've had in a long time, when my mother insisted on including me in my brother's traditional student trip to Sainsbury's, as they've come up with a way of limiting the amount of stuff Joe buys; he'd have the whole store if he could. Mum walks with a trolley down the central aisle at a sedate walking pace, before progressing to the checkout. We were allowed whatever was in the trolley at the point the last item was scanned.

Cue mania.

My brother - a 6'4 blonde rugby player - promptly started flailing around the store, mostly in the direction of the jarred pasta sauce aisle (Erg) and the meat section - I think he managed 6 packets of bacon, and no fewer than 8 pints of milk. Some cooperation was set up on the things like pasta and rice, and it became a bit of a strategic planning problem as well, when a load of the older generation, moving at a snails pace, also descended upon the place to do their shopping. 'Land the tin of chopped tomatoes in the trolley without braining an OAP' suddenly became a ranged event, with some aerobic exercise being derived from hurdling the baskets that would appear seemingly at random on the shop floor.

I now have a full cupboard. Hurrah.

I feel better. Hurrah.

My flat is a tip as my lack of energy from the last fortnight has meant I've pretty much dropped things on the floor, and then left them where they lie. I plan to spend some of today being a domestic goddess. I will also pop out and see if I can unearth something to wear to Louisa's murder mystery party tomorrow evening.

I have a new book. Hurrah.

A Good Day. Or, at least, certainly better than it has been.

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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
11:45 pm - [Boost signal][Save Dave's House]
Hi guys,

People need help. This is the story. There is an auction in the offing if folks are interested (see below) or just plain giving. Or boost the signal again if you can't afford anything - it's what I'm doing.

Go here to partake in auctiony goodness, there are many shinies.

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Monday, October 19th, 2009
10:55 pm - Meme
Will post something meaningful - like replies to my last entry - in a while. Thank you all for the support if you said something; it's much appreciated. For now, mindless meme under the cut:
Read more... )

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Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
9:43 pm - Damnit!
I normally never give two damns about clothes or shoes.

So explain why I suddenly really really want this, and why I'm salivating over pretty much everything on this page.

They are pretty though.

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Monday, October 5th, 2009
8:40 pm - So.
Today I was offered a job in Surrey.

They would have needed me to start next week, so what with the whole actually-having-a-life thing, I turned them down.

But still. Nice to know I'm apparently not *that* unemployable.

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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
7:18 pm - Grandfather's funeral...
...was thankfully, more unemotional than I was predicting, in main because the priest both had an accent and muttered a lot, so the eulogy he gave was pretty hard to decipher.

Didn't get the job I've been waiting for for the past year and a bit. This shoots in the head things like Doug and my plans for things like getting married and thinking in the general direction of the property ladder. It also means that moving not just out of Bath, but also out of the South and thus away from easy reach of my family, just at a time when it has become apparent how important it is at times to be close to them, is looking a lot more likely.

Can safely say that as birthdays go, this one has been the worse one yet.

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Monday, September 21st, 2009
8:09 pm - SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem, so, today [info]midget_gem grabs me on MSN and announces she has an early birthday present for me, courtesy of a swap with [info]adorna.

And then presents me with this:



Yes, it's Rega. Seriously...how unbelievably cool is that?

Failing. To. Contain. SQUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

If you are one of the people who happened to be on MSN in thelast few minutes who I grabbed horribly unannounced and screamed LOOKIT LOOKIT LOOKIT...er, apologies.

current mood: Over the moon

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Sunday, September 20th, 2009
8:28 pm
I am now in pain, having been thoroughly mauled in the name of providing entertainment to one homesick kitten. Who managed to somehow bite me *under* one of my fingernails, the bastard.

And then to top a grand day off...I've locked my keys in work. *headdesk*

At least my phone is working again. No idea why though.

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1:04 pm - WTF?
Mozilla FF's programme for organising bookmarks is surprisingly shit. It doesn't allow grab and drag for putting stuff into new folders, and if you try to C&P, it erplicates stuff and then seemingly moves shit between the two folders you're trying to transfer stuff between at random. I can't work out how the fuck you're supposed to make this work for the life of me.

God, I loathe incompetant programmes!!

EDIT: And now it's deleted all my drow resources. That was a not-inconsiderable amount of links that took me several weeks to collate.

I am Not PleasedTM.

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11:54 am - Kittens! Kittens for sale!
We Will Rock You was awesome. Well worth the wait - it's always nice to go to a musical that doesn't take itself too seriously.

With regards to the title: Would anyone like a kitten? The ones we were fostering at the surgery are all ready to go, but one of the B&W ones doesn't have a home. The mother may also be up for grabs - I think one of the nurses has said she'll take her if no one else wants her; she's a tortie who is massivley friendly, and, strangly for her colouring, is rather calm.

Also on the subject of kittens: Some idiot woman brought one into the surgery as a stray on Friday before pegging it. Why is she an idiot? Because it's blatently obvious the damn thing is owned on account of the fact it's wearing a collar.

Argh. Some people.

He's a boisterous little B&W boy who can't be more than 5 months old. He'd probably taken himself on a bit of a wander and was quietly heading back home when she scooped him up and brought him to us. Unfort, if that collar ever had a tag on it, it no longer does, and he's not chipped - unsurprising, most owners wait until they get the animal neutered to have the chip done - so we have no way of finding who he belongs to.

If anyone in bath sees a missing poster for a cat matching the above description, call me, will you?

We didn't want to send him to the RPSCA straight away, as that will drop the chances of being reunited with his owner quite drastically, so we're hanging onto him until Tues. I've been popping into the surgery twice a day to feed and clean him out - kennel life is really not suiting him. No matter how many toys I give him, he gets so bored he wrecks his kennel, and then is so happy when I turn up, he won't stop purring.

He's also so desperate to play that I'll stand up from cleaning him out and discover with some surprise that he has latched himself to the back of my thigh and is enthusiastically attacking the hem of my cardigan - apparently, I've been relegated to the status of 'litter mate' with regard to play, so the look of surprise on his face when I scruff him and put him back on the floor is quite priceless.

Less funny is the fact that he's so anxious for human contact that for the first half an hour I'm around, he lies on my feet and won't let go. If anyone has ever tried to do normal tasks like cleaning a litter tray with a 5m kitten imitating an anklet on your left foot while happily chewing on the top of your flip-flop and purring himself to pieces all the while, you'll know it's not nearly as cute as it sounds.

Checking the computer, however, no one has so far rung us with a disappearence matching his description. I'm starting to wonder if he's either from somewhere further afield and hopped into the back of a car or something, or if he was deliberately dumped/something has happened to his owner.

If so, is there anyone else that would like a kitten? He's very sweet - would probably do best with someone who's home all the time, or who has another cat of a not-dissimilar age to him (he'd annoy the piss out of a mature feline). Or a tolerant dog would do the trick; he's too bright and resultantly needs too much stimulation to be left on his own for large parts of the day.

My mobile has decided the ability to make outgoing calls is for loosers. I suspect this means my contract has run out, but I'm not exactly impressed with 3 for cutting service without contacting me and maybe giving me the option to renew or extend first.

They still haven't quite reached the unholy-piss-pot of bad customer service that is O2, mind, but it is still very bad customer service. Unless they have a reasonable explanation, I'm going elsewhere. Orange, maybe - Doug's never had a problem with them, or possibly vodafone. Who does everyone else use?

Right housework...oh, how I hate thee!

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Monday, September 7th, 2009
11:59 am - "Injury? Did someone order some injury?"
"...Who had that as their main?"
"Oh, my good sir, that would be myself, over here!"
"Ah, madam, there you are - I do apologise it's taken so long. Here is your side of insult."
"Oh thank goodness - you know, one really isn't the same without the other!"

Translation: Am ill in bed with food poisoning.

current mood: Poo

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