I still need glasses

On the 23rd, my glasses randomly broke neatly in half. They were irreparable. So I grabbed them and my vision insurance card and headed out the door in search of a new pair. I went to my usual place, but they couldn't fit me in for an exam. They very helpfully got me an appointment first thing the next morning at the store nearest my house. In my haste to get satisfaction even quicker, I went to Target Optical, you know, the little corner right when you walk in that has the glasses. They had an opening for an eye exam in about 20 minutes, which was much better for me than the next morning.

They were helpful and friendly, so when they said, "They should be done before the new year and I'll put a rush on them, since you're wandering around with your sunglasses on," it didn't bother me much. After wearing my prescription sunglasses around the office for a week and a half and going through Christmas with my prescription sunglasses on, I'm so ready to have actual glasses.

I've been calling periodically to make sure they were paying attention to my glasses and when the day rolled around that they should be done, I went to the store to pick them up.

They weren't there.

Instead, there were two employees who told me they got two of the three shipments they were supposed to have gotten today and there was no way for them to know where my glasses were and why they weren't in the store. The only thing their database told them was that my glasses weren't at the lab anymore--no indication of whether they failed inspection or were stuck on the truck or misplaced or what happened.to them. So I have to wear my prescription sunglasses for another weekend because Target's optical production sucks.

The moral of the story is that I should have stuck with my regular place. If I had, I would have only had to wait until the next morning for my glasses to be done. Instead, I'm going to be waiting for nearly two full weeks for a pair of glasses because Target hasn't figured it out yet.

My handwriting sucks

I haven't posted much recently because I'm deep in the middle of National Novel Writing Month. That's coming along alright, I suppose, but that's not what I want to write about now.

This last week, we were watching the old Miracle on 34th Street and I watched Maureen O'Hara add her little note on the little girl's letter to Santa. That's when I had a realization--my handwriting totally sucks. It's not bad, it's just that her penmanship was so much more fluid and beautifully legible than mine.

I think this next year, I want to work on my penmanship. That's what I wanted to share.

In the trenches

Hey there, ladies and gents. It's the middle of National Novel Writing Month and I'm about in the middle of writing my newest novel. I've decided I hate most of the characters' names, but I'm pressing on with the ones I've got. Names can come later. If you're into robot fights and Abraham Lincoln, you may just like this book. I'm not particularly thrilled with it at the moment, but that's probably because I'm in the middle of grinding away on it. I seem to have no problem writing down enough words but I'm not excited about the story itself. Right now, I'm thinking that I'm most excited to just be done with it. I'll catch you up in a bit.

Help me figure this out

I'm getting ready to start NaNoWriMo in a few days and I've got an idea, but I'm having trouble figuring something out. It's a detail, really, but could end up being a good chunk of the novel. Help me answer this question.

Why would a woman get her breasts done that has nothing to do with being in an adult industry? And don't say "Because she wants to." There needs to be an actual reason for it.

Let me know what you think, all 1 of you reading this.

Are you as excited as I am?

In just about two weeks, we'll be in November, which means that National Novel Writing Month is almost here! I'm so excited for it, I've been updating my profile information, polishing up my notes, making sure I have the most up-to-date version of Scrivener, and looking into the month's festivities. I'm so excited to see where this thing goes. I've got a general direction, but I'm not exactly sure how it'll all happen and who all will show up in the story. If you have suggestions (since no one reads this blog anyway), I'd love to hear them.

Not feeling it today

At the moment, there are a number of things in my house that are dismantled because they're not working the way they should be and I'm not feeling much like writing today. I need to keep in the habit, though, because I decided a while ago that I want to make sure that I'm taking time regularly to do things to exercise this creative streak I have, feed the machine that comes up with ideas like the killer cyborg Abraham Lincoln.

Today at work, I came up with a visual for a kind of internal marketing effort for the big tool I'm helping manage development of. I'm excited about it and wondering how much buzz I can build around this tool.

another week, another update

Here we both are again, rolling our eyes over the same text, but not the same as last time. When I said "same text," I meant you're looking at the same words I'm looking at, but it's different from the last stuff I wrote. Having cleared that up, probably unnecessarily, let's move on.

You know how you have the best ideas in the places where it's not very easy to take notes? Buckaroo Banzai calls them the three Bs: bed, bus and bath. They come to you when you're showering or brushing your teeth, driving or riding on the bus and staring out the window, or while you're lying in bed hoping that you can fall asleep because you have an early morning meeting that you have to be on time for. You know what I'm talking about. They're the best ideas because your mind's relaxed, you don't have to pay attention to what you're doing and your mind is free to make connections between crazy things without fear of being censored. And then you come up with a simple, elegant solution to the problem you've been trying to work out or you've got a great idea that fits perfectly with what you were thinking before.

The only trouble with those revelations is you're in the middle of doing something else and I don't know about you, but I always have to debate whether the idea is worth climbing out of bed for to write down because I know I'll forget it by the time I wake up. Or if I'm in the shower, I have to decide if I mind some water drips on my notebook. Yes, I have some trouble retaining good ideas, probably because they feel all out of place in my head, which probably looks like a frigate in a bottle on the inside. It's not unusual at all for me to be lying in bed and jump out all of a sudden to write something down that I think is absolutely brilliant.

Recently, I've been keeping my iPhone by my bed to take those kinds of notes on. (I have most of my brilliant flashes while I'm in bed.) There are a couple of advantages with that. When I need to write down some notes, it makes its own light. I don't have to turn a light on, like I do with my notebook. The other nifty thing is that the notes automatically make it to the computer I do my writing on, so I have them in one place.

The disadvantages are that I'm less inclined to jump out of the shower to take a note because I don't want to hurt my nifty phone, where with a notebook, I just wipe my hands off and write. A couple of drips on the page don't bother me. The other thing I can think of is that if I have it in the bedroom, it makes noises at me as it gets emails and other things, which is annoying when I'm trying to sleep.

The important thing here, though, is to take the notes. You'll be glad you did.