This post will be short and sweet, since I just pounded out 4,000 words, but I just want to bring to the masses the news that I, Garret S. Preston, Esquire, has officially completed NaNoWriMo for the first time! And one day early to boot!

It has been a grueling month of typing and falling behind and then typing some more, but we have done it. He have claimed the golden chalice of success and are currently holding it tenaciously to our bosoms, the excitement and elation are vibrant for all to see. I have posted on the sidebar the image you receive for winning. That’s about it, really, save for a PDF certificate of badassery that I will print and hang on my wall next to my college diploma. Which is more important? It’s honestly hard to tell.

But alas I leave this post tonight on the highest of horses. It is well passed my bedtime, but I believe I will be up late into the night, partying and drinking mead until the great sun doth awaken the land. Also just so I can stop typing in novel-speak.

Happy Holidays, everyone.  To keep with the pattern I set for myself, I should be telling you about a movie today, but this month we have a special occasion.  When  you go to college and study literature, you do a lot of reading.  Most of it is pretty rough.  You end up speed reading a lot of books that should be savored, and you read a lot of books that just aren’t that great.  People who study literature will read these bad books because they are culturally important.  However, once in a while you get a book that is both culturally important and a really good read.  These are golden moments that remind you why literature is a worthwhile experience.

Earlier this month, Chinua Achebe turned 79.  His novel Things Fall Apart is one of those stories that is at once obviously relevant and a joy to read.  It’s a little over two hundred pages long and deeply worth your time.  The narrative is told from a third-person perspective, but it uses limpid, effortless prose to follow Okonkwo, a hero who could have been pulled from any Greek tragedy. Read more…

To everyone who had wanted to view a show this week (that includes me!), I am sorry to inform you that I totally screwed up and had the camera set in a mode that Final Cut rather hates, so the show that we shot for this week is completely worthless and cannot be used. It’s rather sad, but we can recoup for lost time in the coming weeks. Due to the holiday of massive turkey slaughterings, we will not have a show this week.

In other news, it is the last week for NaNoWriMo, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a fun and sometimes stressful ride, but the end is looming over the horizon, and even if I make it or not, next Tuesday will be a fun day to be had by all. Right now I’m sitting at 39,003 words and 111 pages. There are officially five days left in the event, and 10,997 words to write over five days equals 2,199.4 words per day. It’s totally doable. The last few days I’ve had to write upwards of 3,000 just to partially keep pace, so two grand is a piece of cake. I also need to take some time to make a sweet cover for the book. I will do that over the weekend.

It’s been a full week since last week, so it’s that time again. Turn off the TV and bring in the kids, because it’s Haiku Thursday!

Garret’s Haikus

Hi there, Miss Palin,
How is the rogue’n goin’?
Hope all’s well with that.

Assassin’s Creed 2,
I just stabbed someone in the face,
thanks for letting me.

People like to bitch.
About what, exactly? Whatevs.
It is all fair game.

Hey, Psalm 109,
Sorry you are being used by
radical Christians.

CatsforGold.com,
Can finally sell this gold,
For asstons of cats.

Andrew’s Haikus

Yay for cold weather!

I always look great
in cold weather, thanks to Mom
and Eddie Bauer.

Hot soup: the greatest
food ever invented or
best food of all time?

Politics!

Both parties have a
preconceived narrative to
sell to the masses.

Democrat pundits
say, “Look how crazy all those
Republicans are!”

But Republican
pundits say, “We’re going rogue!
Cthulhu fhtagn!”

Both are partly right
and partly wrong, but Palin
is just looney tunes.

No, I’m not going to be talking about a famous WWII battle in the Pacific, I’m going to be talking about this monkey on my back; I have named him Jingles, but he sometimes goes by NaNoWriMo.

Today I will officially have passed the halfway point (three days late). They say slow and steady wins the race, but what about simply slow and slow? Because that’s what I’ve been doing. I have, however, found some useful tips that have greatly helped me not strangle small children as I struggle to write.

The first tip is to basically not go for 1,667 words at a time, or whatever the day’s goal is. I have started going for something more manageable: 100 words at a time. This post, for example, is already over 100 words. When you break it down into smaller chunks, it’s much more digestible, like a steak.

Today, I’m going to be trying out a new tactic. Since I’m behind by – a lot – I am attempting to write 250 words per hour throughout the day. I’ll need eight hours to do the 2,000 words I’ve been trying to knock out per day due to me being behind on it all. We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t know if these tips will help any one else, but look into it if you’re getting stuck. Or, if you’re not writing anything for NaNoWriMo, go ahead and laugh at my laziness, because it’s going to be a total bitch to catch up at this point.