There are still people in the chatroom wrimobuddies, so pop in and say hi, get some word wars in, and get some help and encouragement while you're writing!

Sometimes, it's so disappointing that NaNo requires that you write 50,000 words directly relevant to your novel. I spent half an hour tonight working on a paper due in a few weeks, which totaled about 1,000 words right there! Unfortunately, those don't count, so I'm still working slowly but surely towards 50k.

This year, half my novel is apparently going to revolve around the Western Zodiac, so I had to turn to Wikipedia and Google during my half hour of writing time tonight to look up the order of the signs and the attributes of Pisces. What's something you've had to look up for your novel? The most important thing? The weirdest thing? Someone in chat tonight needed to know the dimensions of a submarine, for instance.

That being said, does anyone out there know a lot about the Western Zodiac?

Hope everyone is doing well with their word counts! Feel free to keep us updated on your progress!

Tags: mod post 2009
Current Mood: full
Current Music: Money, Money, Money--Mamma Mia Soundtrack

see above.

Slowly but surely! I am still very far behind, obviously, but the less I try to make sense of my novel, the more words come along. I'm sorry I wasn't in chat tonight - the internet in my apartment has decided to start failing, and my laptop, which I write on, wasn't getting a signal. But everyone else should feel free to hop into wrimobuddies on AIM to get in some word wars or some on the fly ideas.

I have been trying to figure out what the optimal "writing drink" for me is. I started with hot chocolate, but quickly discovered that it was both too sweet and too delicious. All I wanted to do was drink and eat cookies! I also tried coffee, but I apparently don't like lukewarm coffee, and kept stopping to heat it up. I think my favorite so far is orange juice, but tonight at meirionwen's suggestion, had some warm lemon tea with honey.

What is your preferred drink while you're writing? I know a bunch of you answered it in the friending meme, but have you changed since starting this month?

Good night, everyone! Happy writing!

Tags: mod post 2009
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Beautiful fighter--angela

The Dreaded... Fooglies So I thought I'd take a picture of what I affectionately call the "fugly stage." You've started to put important bits on and it's starting to kind of have a personality, but it's anyone's guess how it's going to turn out. I figured that it would be encouraging (as long as I can make it come out cute in the end!) Baby dragon, too, was fugly at one point.

I decided to forge ahead bravely with the wool I already had. If I let myself always head out to get EXACTLY what I want on every single project I'll wind up spending $40 on every one even when I have an enormous wool stock pile. So here we go: Unicorn in Freestyle with no real plan. Let's watch.

And oh she's foogly at the moment. I have been taking pictures for the tutorial, but I thought I'd take one separately just as a stand alone. In the future I can use it to remind myself that everything will come out when I get performance anxiety. (Providing, of course, it DOES come out which I hope to god it does or my tutorial is going to look pretty silly.)

Current Mood: busy

Milli Thornton hosts 10k days once a month at her blog, http://www.fearofwriting.com/blog Go check it out! I'm busy this morning helping mom with yard work and some errands later, but this afternoon I am so going to give this 10k day my best shot so I can boost my nano word count (which is currently 24,300).

Current Mood: busy

Hello and welcome! Today I'm going to cover armature construction up to the "stick figure" phase. When we're done we'll have a woolen unicorn "skeleton" that can stand on its own power and has the rough shape of our final piece.

( Image Intensive. Please Click for Lesson 2 )

Tags: needle felting how-to
Current Mood: accomplished

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
3. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
4. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
5. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Tags: bugs, csi wii, fck, lj_cares, lj_photophile, notes, rte, writer's block

Name: Sunny
Age: 18
NaNoWriMo Username:  RiddleRose
Years Participating in NaNo: 4 counting this year
How Many Have You Won: only one so far...
Location:  College
Story Idea For This Year (if you have one/want to share):  Ghost story!
Title:  As Sweet as Honey
Genre:  Fantasy? 
Music:  Stuff...
How do you write (word/pen and paper/etc):  Computah!  some notebook brainstorming and outlining.
Favorite Book/Author:  TOO MANY.  Neil Gaiman, Robin McKinley, Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, Tolkein, Douglas Adams, His Dark Materials, Asimov, The 13 Clocks... and many many more!
Favorite Writing Beverage/Snack:  you have to ask?  Chocolate of course!
Friending Policies/Whats In Your Journal:  sorry, my journal is for people I know in RL, not online.  Please don't friend me. 
IMing policies:  I haven't provided my sn...  again, for people I know in RL only.  I'm a bit leery of giving out any personal contact information to people on the internet, don't take it personally.
Other: I am SO DETERMINED to win this year.  I have been behind from day 1, since I started a day late, but I powered through and caught up.  And goddammit, i am DETERMINED to win.

P.S.  I've been lurking on this community for three years, and thought I should finally post and introduction.  :D  Feel free to nanomail me!  I would love to chat!

I'm still terribly behind! But I'm catching up, slowly but surely, and so can you. There are plenty of people around here to encourage you, and wrimobuddies always has people in it to help you out with word wars and ideas.

I just wrote over 2000 words lying on my couch (I still haven't solved the problem with my wrists hurting) with a horrible head cold. My head is stuffy, I can't really think straight, and I'm so annoyed... by... I don't even know. My nose itches, I keep sniffling, and every time I cough my head throbs. It's lovely! I intend to spend the weekend lying in bed and sleeping in and hoping that my head clears up in time for class on Monday.

How is everyone else doing? The cold, changing weather getting to anyone else? It's flu and cold season so everyone take care of yourselves! (Oh, and if you have any advice on how to get over colds, let me know.)

Tags: mod post 2009
Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Take a Chance--Savage Genius

in the chat room wrimobuddies
i wanna nano and a go-go
with the record selection
and the mirror's reflection
i'm word warring with myse-elf

oh when there's no one else in sight
in the crowded lonely night
well i wait so long for inspiration
and i'm word warring with myse-elf

oh oh word warring with myse-elf
oh oh word warring with myse-elf
well there's nothing to lose
and there's nothing to prove
and i'm word warring with myse-elf
oh oh oh...