Who Needs Role Models?

This year I discovered that outlining is my jam. In August, I finished Digital Dryad (currently in editing and alpha readers). I had been working on that novel since around 2009, but I was able to complete the entire second draft–a complete rewrite from scratch–in around 28 days. That novel is currently 79,000 words. I was able to write this draft so quickly because I created a comprehensive outline first.

So I decided in September that I would outline my next novel to prepare for NaNoWriMo instead of pantsing it as I had done nearly every year I’ve participated in NaNo with a novel. I planned and thought about the novel through September and wrote the outline in October. And now, in November, I’m writing it.

From WorldCon 2018

I thought it might be fun to show some of my other notes that I’ve taken in Notability. I use an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil, so that makes it easy to draw. I would say the only issue I have with Notability is that I can’t figure out how to export it as an image. So I end up exporting it as a PDF and then converting the PDF into an image. I’m sure that’s because the Notability folks assume I’m going to use the keyboard to get actual text into it (or convert my tortured scribbles into text using the OCR). But it still makes it one step more when all I want to do is shove it into an image to put up on a blog page.

Today was a busier than usual day. First I nearly got my Elven Druid killed when she insisted on yelling at the top of her lungs in a cavern where a bunch of people had died. We didn’t die, and she is no longer cursed, so I call today’s adventure 100% positive.

Then I went home and let the dogs run around for a while. Padfoot has discovered that being fenced in is not his style, so he spends most of his days attempting to find ways around the many fences we have been erecting, repairing, adjusting, raising, and so on. Yesterday, we learned how he is getting out now, so this weekend the plan is to raise that section of fence another 3-4 feet. But until that escape route is thwarted, he gets to be locked in a kennel or in the house while I’m gone. Storm, the other dog, just watches him as he runs off, then she comes to me and whines as if to say, “Mom, Padfoot’s run away again…”

I set a plan to write for an hour today from 10:45am to 11:45am. And I did. 1220 words in my novel are now down on digital “paper.”

Next step on my plan is to make and eat lunch. I wonder what I should have.

I read an article (recommended by a friend in my writing group) today about 10 ways to stay fired up about my writing goals. It was all the things you expect, but in an order that made it more palatable. In other words, “write every day” was not the first suggestion. Nor was it the last. I loved number 3 (“Accept your messy life and your messy house”).

So I’m putting this post up here as my answer to number 9 “Enter the game.” It also applies to numbers four, five, and eight (the dreaded “write every day” suggestion).

The morning started foggy. I was worried we weren’t going to see the eclipse too well because of the fog. And if the sun was eclipsed, would it be strong enough to burn off the fog? So I tested with the monocle before the eclipse started, and yes, I could see the sun’s full disc on my hand. So that was a relief. I was using Mark’s monocle to shine the sun onto a piece of white paper. Later on I put up a shade around the monocle so that the image would be clearer and easier to see. My friend got into it with a colander, but it was harder to see the eclipse than my method.  When we weren’t watching my monocle viewer, we were watching the NASA channel on my iPad. That made it feel like we were watching the eclipse with tons more people, even though everyone I called was either busy or not answering their phone because they were watching the eclipse. When it got near totality (we were in the around 90% totality zone) Jaryth looked at it and said “the sun looks like a banana.”  And it really did! It also looked like the Cheshire Cat at one point. After totality, Jaryth got bored, but I didn’t. I set up a time lapse with my iPhone. At first I was holding the phone and propping the screen up on my leg. I sat like that for several minutes. But then even that was too boring for me, so I created a makeshift studio with my blankets and the tripod and left it running until the eclipse ended. I had a lot of fun with this eclipse. See you again in 2019 or more likely 2024… Did you view the eclipse? How was it? Let me know in the comments below!

I’m getting really excited. This time tomorrow I’ll be outside with a pinhole box, a monocle, and a tripod attempting to watch the eclipse. #eclipse2017

This is the closest I’ve ever been to a total eclipse–we’re around 92-94%.

Preparing for eclipse

Mark prepared a pinhole viewer with a box. And set up his monocle on a tripod and showed me where to aim it. I’m all set.

But I won’t be at work until it’s over. Sorry (not sorry).

Summer is hot here, but at least I have flowers.

~ Robert Collier I’m focusing on the little things to repeat so that I can find success. And if I can’t, then at least I can enjoy hummingbirds.

I’ve known this for a while. I first learned it when I was writing a test for my TEFL students. I had to figure out questions that were hard enough to demonstrate that they understood the material, but not so hard that they would be completely demoralized. I also had to make sure the questions were on the material the students legitimately should know, and not just on English language in general. When I started teaching HTML, I created a course, complete with an exam at the end, to demonstrate that students had learned something. The first iteration of the exam was fill in the blank. This made the test easier to write, but a lot harder to grade. So the second version was multiple guess. But multiple guess problems are hard to write because often the questions can be way too easy. For instance, how difficult would this be to guess the correct answer?