Remember, remember...

Yes, we're all getting excited for Halloween, right? But I'm also looking forward to the next holiday. You're thinking Thanksgiving, aren't you? Not me.

This next Friday is Guy Fawkes Day! I haven't decided what I want to do for it yet, but I love celebrating Guy Fawkes Day. Last year, we went to a cupcake party with some friends and made little bomb-shaped cupcakes in honor of the holiday (no one else did, which is fine) and one of the guys thought the sparklers we had for wicks was licorice. So he ate a sparkler and thought it was the worst licorice he ever tasted.

I enjoy celebrating obscure holidays, especially the ones that involve huge amounts of fireworks, like Chinese New Year. At least Guy Fawkes Day is on a Friday this year. It's hard to get friends to come over to celebrate Mardi Gras because it's always on a Tuesday and they always use the school night excuse.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November."

Duffy Moon

Image via Wikipedia

When I was in elementary school, I remember it was raining one day, so we couldn't go out and play on the playground for recess. (I grew up in West Texas. Rain's kind of a rare thing there. The picture here overestimates the amount of water in the city.) Instead, we all had to sit on the floor of the cafeteria/gymnasium and watch a movie that I honestly don't remember the title of. I remember thinking the movie was completely cheesy and I remember a single line from the movie, which I've repeated throughout the years and people have looked at me like I was completely crazy.

That's not an unusual feeling for me, but the other day, I decided to use our amazing finding stuff technology called Google and look up the statement "You can do it, Duffy Moon!"

A few years ago, all I could find was a couple of blog posts about the same thing: people who watched the movie as kids and remembered the line "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" and the same reaction from their friends. But today? Today was different.

I did a search for Duffy Moon and found the video, thanks to the wonders of YouTube. Here's the first video, and if you want to see the rest, I'll let you follow them through to the end.

You owe it to yourself to watch at least this clip so that you can be empowered to do anything, just like Duffy Moon.

You can do it, Duffy Moon!

Gearing up for next month

When it comes to working, writers are very particular about the way they choose to do it. Some are strictly pen-and-paper with a particular brand of each, some meticulously outline their novels before they write them (Vonnegut worked on the outline for Slaughterhouse Five for ages), some have encyclopedic backgrounds for all of their characters.

When November rolls around, probably my favorite tool is a writing program called Scrivener. I've been using it for a few years now and I love how it helps me stay organized, especially because organization isn't my strongest point. I can write sections, label them with themes and then move whole sections around as I need to. Really, I'm not doing it justice here. You should just try it yourself. Scrivener is one of the sponsors of NaNoWriMo this year and they're getting version 2.0 ready in time for November. It's been a Mac-only program for the last few years, but there's a Windows version in the works that should be released early next year. I know, not quite in time for NaNoWriMo, but if you're a PC, it's a good choice for you.

You can download a free trial for November here, or you can learn more about Scrivener here. Whatever you choose to use while writing this November, make sure you keep up. I'd hate for you to get left behind.

Skinny jeans

There are a number of things I do that aren't strictly hetero. Loving Lady GaGa and La Roux is one of them. Getting as excited I do about Haircut Day is another one. But there's one that I've recently realized and embraced, and that's my jeans.

Like most women, I have a pair of jeans that I like quite a bit, but they require some dedication to my appearance to wear it. Kind of like making sure you look good in that totally cute bikini you bought, I have to work at looking good in these jeans. Let me be clear, though, these jeans are not the kind that look spraypainted on that are so trendy among the high school crowd. Not like Howard Wolowitz. My skinny jeans are just a good pair of jeans that I need to work at to wear.

The last couple of years, I've been fairly sedentary, so I've gotten a little thicker around the middle than I usually am. (I know you're probably hating me right now because I've never really been big. A guy with a 31 inch waist can't complain much.) But since I have time during the day right now, I've gotten to walk my kids to and from school every day. A few days ago, I measured how far a walk it is and I walk about 2.5 miles every day.

Aside from getting to go outside and walk around a little bit, get some fresh air and sunshine, I've noticed that I can wear my jeans and not be in pain because they're way too tight around the waist. In fact, I've got room to spare.

It's amazing what a difference small changes can make in your life. Rhetorical question here, but you can share in the comments if you want to: What are your skinny jeans? What goal would you like to reach that you can make a small change in your life to reach?

A Mercy

Cover of A Mercy

I just finished reading Toni Morrison's novel A Mercy and thought I'd write a quick little review here. Why not?

When I sat down, book in hand, I had expected it to start with something horrible like her other novels do. I had prepared myself emotionally, but the beginning of the novel wasn't the same kind of jarring event. It was nothing like "They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." On top of which, it takes off in the dialect of a character. That's not an unusual tack for her to take, but it made me concerned that the whole novel would be written in that dialect. Thankfully it wasn't, because I would have dearly missed Morrison's typically beautiful prose. (Pynchon's Mason & Dixon makes you work for every page and it took me about 2/3 of the book before I realized that the word phiz is face.)

The story was interesting, but I got lost as the point of view shifted from one character to another. I don't feel like I had enough time with each character to really understand what was going on with them before I had to move on to something else.

A Mercy was a good book, just not her best. If you've never read Toni Morrison before, this may be a good start, like easing into a slightly too-hot bath. If you're already a fan, you may miss some of the recurring character types and underlying themes, but it's still an engaging book. My favorite Toni Morrison novel is still Song of Solomon, but I recommend that one about as often as Gravity's Rainbow. Unless I'm sure you'll like it, I'll just keep it to myself.

NaNoWriMo is coming

This weekend, I registered for another month of insanity this November, since it's National Novel Writing Month. If you haven't heard of it before, you can learn more about it at www.nanowrimo.org.

In short, the goal is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days in November. Easy, right?

I've reached the goal two of the last three years, but that doesn't mean the books are readable. The year I didn't reach the goal, I didn't write anything useful. And the last novel I wrote was not a good one. It's on my shelf, but unless you come over to read it, no one will ever read it. I might be able to salvage it someday, I just don't want to make that effort at this point. It's that broken.

NaNoWriMo is good for me because I do a lot of editing while I'm writing, which means that I'm generally slower than most people and this is a good exercise to just get things on the page. A lot of things on the page. Sometimes, in an effort to just keep going, I'll throw a phrase out that I end up liking better than what I had been struggling to get just right in my head.

I'm more excited for this year's novel idea than I was for last year's, and I was excited last year. I thought it was going to be a winner of a story. The problem I had last year was that I got so enamored of the details I'd come up with that I forgot to think about the whole story. As a result, I got to what should have been the climax and realized that I hadn't built up to it at all. So the story just kind of dies. I'd like to avoid that this year, so I'll be spending time planning out how the story all works together.

If any of you are participating this year and want a writing buddy, my user name is cossackboy and you can find my profile here. I'd love to help motivate you and get through this crazy fun together.

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• Welcome to NaNoWriMo 2010! (nanowrimo.org)