The Fandrogyne

~ I won NaNo! And impressively, the official wordcount was only 8 words shy of what Open Office told me I had written, so apparently I didn't use nearly as much hyphenation as in previous years. But either way, I've finished, and I'm happy.

Oh, I didn't finish an actual story from beginning to end. I have 3 partly-finished stories in the file. But I did write over 50,000 words this month, and that's all I needed for a NaNoWriMo win, so I'm still counting it as a victory.

I want to do the same thing in December. Aiming for 50k words a month might not be a bad idea, really, at least until I finish something and can move on to the editing stage.

~ I tried playing Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, just to see what it was like, and I suspect it's going to be a really addictive video game. It's an action RPG, somewhat childish but still fun, and best of all my computer actually plays it without crashing! (Touch wood!) I don't want to get too into it at the moment, because I still have other video games on the go and I don't want to neglect them for a load of new things, but at least when I do decide to spend more time playing it, I'll end up having some good fun with it!

~ For supper I made pork chops stuffed with apples and brown sugar (okay, technically they came pre-stuffed, but I still cooked them!), boiled potatoes, and carrots. With After Eight ice cream for dessert. This is the high life, folks!

~ I also made a trip to the library, where I got out Delilah S Dawson's Servants of the Storm. Looking forward to reading that, once I finish Django Wexler's The Forbidden Library.

~ I got really into a scene I was writing last night and managed to write almost 4000 words. That puts me 2 days ahead of the NaNo wordcount goal, so I feel pretty comfortable with my position. I've been looking forward to writing that section for a while now, and I'm glad I got it out, and that I actually don't think it sucked.

~ In Pokemon Shuffle, I managed to catch Machamp and Latios, and now I'm working on getting to level 50 in that battle so I can get the Latiosite to make it Mega Evolve.

~ Stayed in bed a lot because I woke up with a headache and didn't want to brave the world until I absolutely had to. Which is a valid option, I figure.

...Yeah, it was a really slow day in my life. I didn't even do any cooking!

~ A friend and I have started to read the Twilight saga together, as a sort of "share my pain" project and so that when people tell us that we can't badmouth the books because we've never read them, we can say that we have indeed, and that they're still pretty bad.

Really, though, we're a quart of the way through the book and nothing's happened except for a load of banal conversation about nothing, Bella being simultaneously pretensious and self-deprecating, and Edward saying a lot that amounts to, "Come with me. ...You should stay away from me. We're going here together... but I'm too dangerous to be around, for absolutely no reason that you can fathom. Want to hang out with me? WELL YOU SHOULDN'T!"

I'm honestly not sure how this managed to attract an agent, because there's absolutely nothing in the standard excerpt length that would lead me to believe the book is about anything but an unhappy girl trying to cope with general life while being ignored by attractive people. You don't even get to that whole "Edward saving Bella from a car accident" bit until after chapter 3, and that's usually the limit most agents will give anything, if they're feeling generous.

Yes, it went on to make lots of money and launched the YA reading careers of a million teens, but I don't know how, because it isn't a very good book, and there were plenty of better ones already on the shelves at the time.

~ At least I've finished Arrows of the Queen. That took some of the bad literary taste out of my mouth.

~ I did play more Final Fantasy X this weekend, which was nice because I neglected it all last week. Made it through the temple at Macalania, laughed maniacally over winning the battle with Seymour, then spent most of the night level-building on Bikanel Island, because the desert is vast and full of monsters that actually give me a bit of a challenge. So that was plenty of fun.

I have the Airship now, which I think is an event that every long-time Final Fantasy player waits for in every game.

~ I got quite a bit of housework done this weekend, too! The dishes are all done, laundry mostly folded and put away, the kettle cleaned and descaled, and I made beef strips and rice one day and then chicken fajitas the next, both of which were delicious!

And let's not forget the tasty pumpkin cinnamon rolls!

I'm glad I managed to be so productive and get so much done!

~ I'm finally and properly caught up with my wordcount goal for NaNoWriMo! It took a few 3k+ nights, but I got there, and now I can just work at a normal pace for the rest of the month, provided I don't take any more days off.

Then it'll just be a matter of continuing to write until I actually properly finish something. Which for me is a lot harder than writing 1.6k words a day.

~ I had a satisfying but unproductive night and day, which is okay by me because those kinds of nights are usually pretty relaxing.

~ I got a bit more writing done, and even though I'm still behind after leaving everything alone for that many days, I'm catching up, and the difference isn't insurmountable. I also signed up for the NaNoWriMo site, not for the community aspect or the wordcounter or anything, but mostly for the discount I'd get on Scrivener when I meet the 50k word goal at the end of the month.

~ I read more of Courtney Schafer's The Labyrinth of Flame, which I'm not reading as quickly as I normally would because I keep getting distracted by things like writing and playing video games. But I'm almost three quarters through, and if I make sure to take the time tonight, I ought to finish it and the heap the author with praise, because she's wonderful and writes wonderful books and ought to be told that more often.

(Can't tell I'm a big fan, can you?)

~ I used my slow cooker to make a pot of oatmeal while I slept, because the days are getting colder and sometimes it's hard to get out of bed when I know that it's cold outside the blankets. But knowing I have to get up because food is ready, especially hot food, makes it a lot easier.

I like my oatmeal a lot thicker than it turned out, so next time I'll add less liquid, but it still tasted okay, and was nice and warm, and that's the important thing.

~ I took a trip to the library and got out a couple of books tonight, because Tuesdays are the one night of the week the library's open late enough that I can go without having to get up really early. One book on money-saving tips, and the other on making trickle income online, combined with getting freebies to supplement budgets. Most of the info I suspect I'll already know, but even if there are a few tricks in there that I haven't already done to help cut my costs and expenses, I'll be glad to hear of them.

~ Went out to meet a friend the morning, to get help getting giant bags of cat litter home, and while I was out we stopped by the Granville Street Diner to give their food a try. Despite hearing reviews from locals like, "The food's not that great," or, "Don't bother going there," I found it a pretty good place. The food wasn't spectacular or anything, but it was exactly what I was hoping for, and the hot hamburger I had was really close to hot hamburgers served by a restaurant that I miss because it's back in the city I moved here from. I haven't had one in almost a year, and it wasn't exactly the same, but it was close enough to be comparable, so I was pretty happy with it.

The service was extremely fast, and I haven't yet found another restaurant that serves bottomless mugs of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate for only $2. So in all, a good restaurant when you want cheap tasty food but want something a bit more substantial than fast food.

~ Had a dream that I came out to my parents as transgender, and despite knowing I've told them such before in real life (though mostly that I don't identify with my physical/assigned sex), in the dream, they freaked out. Maybe because I'd made the decision to start living with a male appearance and was working toward that in a much more serious way than they'd ever seen, I don't know, but they were both extremely unhappy, talking about how they'd lost a daughter and were really upset and didn't know how to handle it.

I can get people not knowing how to handle it when someone comes out to them, because it's a mental readjustment you have to make, but even in the dream the whole "I've lost a daughter" bit stung, because they haven't had a daughter since I was in my early teens and decided that nope, I don't like being female, even though I'd never heard the word transgender at that point. I even remember one time, out shopping with my mother, when she made some comment about me having grown up so well but to her I'll always be her little girl, and I turned around in the middle of the mall and said to her that I am not a little girl. And I think she took it to mean that I was embarrassed by her and that I'm a grown person and not a kid, but even that hurt because only 2 days before that I'd talked to her about why I hated being female and the assumptions people made about me when they saw female attributes. It felt like she was trying to shove me back into some parent-approved box that I had just finished telling her I don't fit in.

So it's not like my parents haven't heard some of my trans issues. But I don't think they remember them very well, because we barely see each other anyway and conversations are so far apart and my issues aren't central to either of their lives. In the dream, I tried to tell them that getting so wailingly upset and making the announcement all about them was derailing and offensive, because I was being brave trying to be honest with them about a big part of my identity and struggles and they're now making it all about how hard it is to be them, having a kid with those struggles.

I have no idea why I had this dream, but wow, do I ever feel uncomfortable about the next time I talk to either of them...

~ But in happier news, I got a lot more Final Fantasy X played last night! I got through the horrible Blitzball game in Luca, and it only took me 4 resets before I actually won the tournament. I know winning isn't essential to the game progressing, but it just feels wrong to let Wakka's last game be a failure instead of a victory. I won, 1-0, and I consider even a single goal to be a good thing because I am absolutely terrible at that minigame!

I stopped playing right before the Chocobo Eater boss battle, and did a bit of level-grinding right before that so I'd be in decent condition when I fight later.

~ I did get some writing done, though I'm not caught up to where I should be by NaNo standards. Closer than before, though. I'm a bit less than a day behind now, instead of two days, so it won't take me much effort to catch back up. I just need to sit down and actually write, instead of getting distracted by fun video games.

~ Emotional self-care seems to be off to a good start. I started replying Final Fantasy X, because it's one of my favourite games and it's a comfortable and fun game to play when I'm feeling low, so it seemed like a good choice.

I didn't get too far, in between doing a couple of other things last night, but I got off Besaid, so at least I'm through the opening tutorial phase and into the story proper.

~ Despite spending a chunk of the night playing video games, I still managed to stay on track with my wordcount goals, which I'm happy about. I got some great advice from lassarina on writing scenes instead of a cohesive story at first, then tying things together later, and looking at it all that way helped a surprising amount to get me over what seemed like a cycle of "expository dialogue, travel, expository dialogue, travel." That's stuff's about as fun to write as it is to read...

~ I discovered the #makingwinter hashtag on Twitter, and now that just has me wanting to work on all manner of crafty projects. Big warm ones, like scarves and blankets, rather than the usual bookmarks or other embroidered things I've been doing lately. Mostly I've been working on more kogin-inspired bookmarks (all currently finished ones are listed in my Etsy store, if anyone wants to take a look at them), but seeing the tasty food and warm things that everyone's been showing off on that hashtag makes me think now might be a good time to look into a couple of other projects that might be cozier, to keep some of the winter blahs away.

~ Not going to start updating this weekly. I just took a week of relatively Internet-free time so that I could enjoy other stuff in life. It was totally worth it, by the way.

~ My GST rebate cleared in my bank account, so aside from treating a friend to dinner at one of the local Chinese restaurants, I also splurged on a couple of video games. Dark Souls, and Lego Star Wars. They were on sale at a local drugstore, of all places, and for a decent price, and I thought they'd provide a load of entertainment and so would be worth the price.

I'm the kind of person who thinks that video games are a pretty good entertainment investment, since I usually play ones that have a lot of story and so playtime, and I rarely only play a game once. So if I spend $50 on a game that promises me 50 hours of gameplay, that's $1 per hour of entertainment, and that's assuming I only play it once and only take that amount of time to unlock all the game has to offer. It's a lot of money to invest in upfront, but if you're the kind of person who plays games the way I do, it's worth it in the end.

~ The first batch of games in the Humble Monthly Bundle were dropped, and hot damn, are there ever some good games in it! The gem for me is Valkyria Chronicles, which normally sells for $21.99, and even if the subscription hadn't been a gift, then spending $12 for the subscription would be worth it for that game alone!

~ Also used some of that GST money to buy some cheap bags of Halloween candy from the Bulk Barn, so now I have delicious sweets to last me for a while.

~ Now that my book reviewing days are behind me, I'm able to better focus on things like writing. I'm unofficially doing NaNoWriMo this year, and so far I'm on track when it comes to wordcount, even though I keep wincing at some of the things I write. I'm trying to follow the advice I was given by numerous people: write now, edit later. Hopefully it will help me finish things this time...

~ Surprisingly, I didn't actually do much cooking. I got together with a friend to make a Samhain feast, which consisted of various vegetables, chicken, stuffing, and other delicious things, but for the most part, it seems that this break from the Internet was also a break from the kitchen.

Which is a bit sad, since I do like cooking, but I think not cooking for a while actually made me more eager to get back in there and make good food again, so maybe it was worth it.

Though I did make a meatloaf that turned out pretty well. I'd never made meatloaf before, so I'm glad it was edible, let alone good. Definitely something I'll make again in the future, because especially if I can get the ground beef on sale, it's a pretty cheap meal that's not hard to make.