Frogs and Ravens

NoNaShoStoWriMo

I've been intrigued by the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) concept for a while, but never managed to get up the energy to participate.  Partly it's the novel aspect of it - while writing isn't something that's especially hard for me, the vast, vast majority of my writing has been non-fiction.  The thought of coming up with something entirely out of my own head was freaky and daunting.  Then there's the page count - as someone who has written a book-length work (my dissertation and subsequent manuscript) I know how bloody much work it would be to meet the NaNoWriMo page count in a month - a month that includes Thanksgiving week and which corresponds with the most grading-heavy time of the semester.  Ugh, no.

Then a couple of my friends (Amanda, Jill) thought of the idea of doing something like it, only instead of writing a novel, we will write a short story, of about 7500 words.  If I'm organized, I'll post my progress here.  If I'm not, I'll post it at the end.  It will probably be crap, given my almost total noob experience writing fiction,* but hey.  Maybe it will be entertaining crap.  If nothing else, it will give me some practice in humility.

25 Things

Here's another meme, this one taken from Facebook.

Here are the rules:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

As usual, I will skip the tagging requirement.  If you would like to do this, feel free, and let me know in the comments or by tagging me in your response.

Bonaparte - Song Shuffle Question Meme

1. Put your iPod or i tunes library, or MP3 player etc... on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds.  (The silliness is rather the point.)
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from.

I'm going to skip the tagging part of this.  Feel free to participate if you wish.
I'm also going to skip any foreign-language results.

National Parks Meme

Argh, Chris got me!  I'll do my best with this one, though it may be tricky since I'm not certain of the names of the many parks I visited as a kid.  When you're rattling around in the back seat with your brother, you tend not to pay attention to things like park entrance signs!

Ones I've been to in bold.  Ones I've not been to in italics.  The remainder are ones I'm unsure of.

Memery - Done/Not Done

By way of Pilgrim/Heretic:

Things I've done are in bold.

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower

What Spice Are You?

I like fennel.  :)

c/o P/H.

Wild Self

I found this fun avatar maker at Scrivenings...

  Before, my "normal" self...

#1 on Google Meme

Here's a new meme (generation string: The World's Fair --> Pharyngula -->  Creek Running North):  Find five search strings that return your blog as the number one hit.

Here are mine:

Frogs and ravens (or ravens and frogs, frogs ravens, ravens frogs, etc.)

Post-academic stress syndrome

Herb sweater

Dog-paddling upstream

The rushing of squirrel feet

Cool Meme with Sucky Questions

Okay. I've been tagged for a meme that is really cool in its concept, but the questions for it SUCK. Hard.

So I've gone ahead and answered it, but I'm not inflicting it on anybody else. You're welcome to do it, and track back to one of the preceding "generations" but, gah. What horrible questions! (Well, the first is okay. The rest... *barf*) They combine the "what's your favorite..." meme with the "how well do you know pop culture" meme - and I SUCK at both! BLEAH!!!!

Animeme

Well, I was contemplating writing another piece responding to Janisse Ray's essay (theme: the joys of being "in the choir") but then Chris Clarke tagged me with a meme (eyeroll) so I guess I'll do that instead (fetching groan).

(It's a pretty good one. jo(e), pica, you're up! And anyone else who'd like to do it!)