Which laptop?

My Acer TravelMate is dying - James managed to get Windows to work on it again after it completely stopped booting up but all my data has vanished. It's a good job he backed it all up for me recently!

I loved it for it's light weight, long battery life, cool running, and matt screen but the hard drive had to be replaced just before the first year warranty ran out, and a year later it looks like it's gone again.

I think it's time to replace it but I don't know what with. What I really want is the same again but with a hard drive that doesn't die after a year.

Caption competition

Halloween came and went then I got a tummy bug, so last week was a write-off. Inspiration has fled; I'm trying to get out invitations to my birthday party, buy Xmas presents, get ready for my winter skiing holiday, get my new glasses sorted so that I can see through them, and edit 50k words for Nanowrimo.

None out of five isn't bad. Is it?

As I'm feeling uninspired, I thought I'd turn to you folks for inspiration. How about a caption for today's photo?

Are you ready?

Nanowrimo starts tomorrow. Are your pencils all sharpened, your notebooks at the ready, your laptop battery charged, your wordcount spreadsheets updated? Do you have snacks and coffee and chocolate to hand? Most importantly of all, do you have an outline?

Actually, skip that last one. You don't need to know where your story is going when you start writing; some of us only find out what the story is by writing it.

If you get stuck, Brian Klems has some suggestions for what to write next:

If you find yourself at a loss for what to write next, come up with a way to make things worse, let the characters respond naturally to what’s happening, write a scene that fulfills a promise you made earlier in the book, or work on a scene you know readers will expect based on your genre and the story you’ve told so far. 

 (from 6 Secrets of Writing a Novel Without an Outline)

Brian Klems suggests an organic way of working that I feel comfortable with but the article also gives you a lot of things to think of all at once when trying to write and I'm not sure I can do that. While I'm thinking up stories what seems to work best for me is trying to come up with the story I most want to read. Mind you, sometimes the characters just won't co-operate (I'm going to be editing a novel this month where the main character refused to fall for the attractive woman I'd set up for her and insisted on falling for a character who was supposed to be a minor annoyance).

For anyone doing Nano this year: I'm here to cheer you on. The purple bar is calling your name, just make sure you've got enough chocolate in to fuel your writing. Oh, is it only me that runs on chocolate then?

King Rufus

We found the dog bed in a charity shop and it looked the right size for our cats so we brought it home. I rather liked the gold edging; I thought it gave the bed that throne ambiance that every cat should have.

Both cats sniffed at it then left it alone.

I wasn't going to be defeated so I had a cunning plan. I put the bed on the settee and sat on it like a cushion. Then after a while I went and cooked dinner. When I came back, Rufus had as usual taken my seat and was ensconced in the bed. I picked it up by the edges and put it on the floor and hey presto! Suddenly he can't be separated from it.

Just sometimes I think I'm cleverer than that cat.

Clocks go back

If you're in the UK, don't forget the clocks go back tonight. And if you want something to cheer you up while thinking about the long, dark evenings ahead, you might want to revisit this old post.

Nearly November

Just eight days to go till the start of Nanowrimo.

I've written seven 50k stories and one of 24k during previous Nanowrimos and they all languish unedited. I think it's time to change that so this year I'm not going to be nanoing, I'm going to be editing.

It's going to be hard because, hey, 50,000 words! That's a lot of words to edit! And also I love seeing my word count going up during Nano and I won't be doing that this year. I won't get a purple bar either. So maybe I won't stay motivated but I think it's worth a try.

Nano is a huge effort and a huge achievement - well it has been for me, anyway. It feels strange to be not quite part of it this year.

I shall still go to the booze- meet-ups though.

Don't blame me if I'm fat!

No, this isn't about all the weight I put on on holiday! This brilliant article explains why it's just too simplistic to accuse people who are overweight of a lack of will power leading to eating too much. How do we know it's not just that? Because many species of animals that live close to humans and who are on restricted diets are also getting fatter. It's not just about intake calories versus output exercise; the reasons are much more complex than that.

Possible culprits for the growing obesity trend include:

• Sleeplessness
• Stress
• Viruses
• Bacteria
• Industrial chemicals
• Heavy metals
• Electric lights
• Heating
• Air conditioning
• Famine in previous generations

It's probably a combination of a number of these leading to growing obesity. Sadly, the conclusion isn't that we can all eat as much as we like and it won't make any difference. If only! It really is worth reading the article to get the full picture.

Oh, and that photo isn't my cat, it's from Flickr. I couldn't resist his adorable shyness about his weight. (The photographer says "he's hiding from his famousness".)

The Return

So, I'm back from France after two weeks without internet and I'm still sane. Whee, gibber, gibber.

Going cold turkey didn't affect me at all. My hovercraft is full of eels.

It's fine. You just have to decide not to care that you can't check anything online, play any games, find any crochet patterns, or chat to any friends. Life without google is great. No really, you should try it. You should all try it.

Whoops. 

I spoke more bad French in the last two weeks than I have for years and the French graciously pretended to understand me. I ate too much rich food and I don't fit my waistbands. It was great.

But now I'm back, and other than Whirl cruelly deleting my comments on his blog, what's happening round here these days?

Edited to change helicopter to hovercraft because lack of internet is more damaging than you'd think. (Thanks, Simon!)

Goodbye!

But only for a couple of weeks.

I'm off on my holidays to sunny Brittany; well, I hope it will be sunny anyway.

Be good while I'm away and don't make a mess in here or at least if you do then please clear up after yourselves.

See you later!

Where was I?

The way I see it is this: using Twitter is like singing in the street for all to hear, whereas Facebook is chatting with friends in a busy shopping centre where any of your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues can overhear and you might not notice them listening. Email is a private chat if you can get anyone to leave Facebook for five minutes to talk to you.

Blogger is a private work of art and my work of art has been sadly neglected lately. The blogosphere used to be a secluded community as well but many of the residents have moved to Facebook and I can't be anonymous there.

So I've been finding my community in Ravelry, where I can be fairyhedgehogg and not worry that my colleagues and neighbours will be watching what I post. Plus I can post pictures of all my crochet works of art (and disasters) and know that people will be genuinely interested.

Meanwhile, out in meatspace I've been working, and crocheting, and even writing a teeny, tiny bit. And getting a new job.

Yay, new job!

But that's a whole other post.