Now I Have To Figure Out A Way To Flood Toronto
Looks like it didn't take long for me to miss a day in the blog (well not really since the entry prior to this one was written right after midnight but blogspot, being Pacifico-centric registered that as 10:00 p.m. back on the 2nd). I do have a good excuse though, yesterday was the 2006 Chicago Kickoff Party.
I've made sure to not miss a gathering of the Chicago municipality since the T.G.I.O. party back in 2004. The reason is they're like high school reunions every single year. When you're getting NANO-middle aged like me ("back in my day, we used to write on desktops, we didn't all have laptops like today.") it really becomes almost a once-a-year family.
Though this year there was a good and a bad aspect to the kickoff party. It's amazing how many first years that we have in the municipality this year. When I arrived at Marcello's Father and Son Restaurant on North Avenue just west of Old Town, I was taken aback by how many people that I didn't recognize.
We're extremely far from a clique in the Chicago municipality but usually there are a few people you expect to be at any gathering. I hope nothing is wrong in our little family. Checking out the Chicago list, there are the usual suspects posting in the forums so I'm sure they just had other plans.
But it's good to have new blood for certain - even if they are clogging the server. Well, maybe not them but whoever joined after seeing NANOWRIMO on the front page of www.yahoo.com. It's pretty amazing how big time little NANOWRIMO has gotten.
Though I think I say that every year.
Seeing all the new people made me go back and look at the Chicago municipality by sign-up date. I'm all the way up to #41 on the list meaning quite a few people who have been around for longer have gone by the wayside. Can't say I blame them as coming up with a novel (despite the amateurish nature) once a year is a challenge.
There were a couple of people who were there who have been around for longer like #32, rosemilk (who in reality is named Kim despite the fact that I can never remember that). She always finds a way to bring something interesting to the party. This year it was a giant pencil she had bought on E-Bay as part of her Halloween costume:
And she actually does write with that novelty pencil on occasion.
Another thing missing from the Chicago kickoff party was Sam Hultgren. The NANOWRIMO radio host has become almost a fixture (I haven't listened to Episode One this year so I don't know what he's up to that would cause him to miss the party) since we're his home municipality (he's like our Chris Baty almost). But not that there weren't people asking questions like, "how do you sharpen that giant pencil?" Turns out Kim uses a knife.
No wonder there weren't that many people at our table. Though we were far from the only crazy ones.
But don't you have to be pretty crazy to accept this challenge in the first place? No wonder the opening parties are so fun.
---
There was one announcement that was made at the party that got a great ovation. As I've mentioned, Toronto challenged us (isn't that a change of pace, Chicago gets challenged as opposed to having to track people down) to a Word War this year.
The announcement was that there is a new rule this year that is in place for both sides: if you insult the other side in some way in your novel, it counts as a double word score.
So I broke out my laptop and wrote the following piece of prose right at the party:
"'Are you from Toronto?' Beth asked, teeth clenched.
'Do I smell like cheese?' Anthony screamed back through the door. 'If I was from Toronto, I would smell like cheese.'"
I've since changed it to Tim Bits because, well, it adds a couple of words and because we've been making fun of them about their Tim Horton's donuts (though growing up across the river from Canada, I can say that Tim Bits are actually quite tasty) in the forum topics devoted to the war.
I seriously thought of changing the city that gets destroyed by the flood in my novel from New York City to Toronto. Sure a storm surge on Lake Ontario big enough to flood Toronto would be less realistic than a storm surge on the Hudson River big enough to flood Manhattan but then the whole novel could count double word score.
If only I was writing last year's novel and could have burned Toronto to the ground during the War Of 1812. That would have been fun.
In all, it was great to see how excited Chicago has gotten about the Word War this year (I guess destroying St. Louis last year gave us confidence), even those who aren't directly involved.
---
I wish I had checked out the message boards to be a captain of Team Chicago this year (totally missed the posting as I figured captains would be selected at the kickoff party) but it's less stress I guess. Especially since I'm still behind on the writing.
But no longer by that much.
Propped up by the buzz from the kickoff party (even though I didn't drink at all) I went home and wrote 2,000 words. And this morning, I plan on writing more. I'm up early enough.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT (damn counter site being broken): 4379 words.
I've made sure to not miss a gathering of the Chicago municipality since the T.G.I.O. party back in 2004. The reason is they're like high school reunions every single year. When you're getting NANO-middle aged like me ("back in my day, we used to write on desktops, we didn't all have laptops like today.") it really becomes almost a once-a-year family.
Though this year there was a good and a bad aspect to the kickoff party. It's amazing how many first years that we have in the municipality this year. When I arrived at Marcello's Father and Son Restaurant on North Avenue just west of Old Town, I was taken aback by how many people that I didn't recognize.
We're extremely far from a clique in the Chicago municipality but usually there are a few people you expect to be at any gathering. I hope nothing is wrong in our little family. Checking out the Chicago list, there are the usual suspects posting in the forums so I'm sure they just had other plans.
But it's good to have new blood for certain - even if they are clogging the server. Well, maybe not them but whoever joined after seeing NANOWRIMO on the front page of www.yahoo.com. It's pretty amazing how big time little NANOWRIMO has gotten.
Though I think I say that every year.
Seeing all the new people made me go back and look at the Chicago municipality by sign-up date. I'm all the way up to #41 on the list meaning quite a few people who have been around for longer have gone by the wayside. Can't say I blame them as coming up with a novel (despite the amateurish nature) once a year is a challenge.
There were a couple of people who were there who have been around for longer like #32, rosemilk (who in reality is named Kim despite the fact that I can never remember that). She always finds a way to bring something interesting to the party. This year it was a giant pencil she had bought on E-Bay as part of her Halloween costume:
And she actually does write with that novelty pencil on occasion.
Another thing missing from the Chicago kickoff party was Sam Hultgren. The NANOWRIMO radio host has become almost a fixture (I haven't listened to Episode One this year so I don't know what he's up to that would cause him to miss the party) since we're his home municipality (he's like our Chris Baty almost). But not that there weren't people asking questions like, "how do you sharpen that giant pencil?" Turns out Kim uses a knife.
No wonder there weren't that many people at our table. Though we were far from the only crazy ones.
But don't you have to be pretty crazy to accept this challenge in the first place? No wonder the opening parties are so fun.
---
There was one announcement that was made at the party that got a great ovation. As I've mentioned, Toronto challenged us (isn't that a change of pace, Chicago gets challenged as opposed to having to track people down) to a Word War this year.
The announcement was that there is a new rule this year that is in place for both sides: if you insult the other side in some way in your novel, it counts as a double word score.
So I broke out my laptop and wrote the following piece of prose right at the party:
"'Are you from Toronto?' Beth asked, teeth clenched.
'Do I smell like cheese?' Anthony screamed back through the door. 'If I was from Toronto, I would smell like cheese.'"
I've since changed it to Tim Bits because, well, it adds a couple of words and because we've been making fun of them about their Tim Horton's donuts (though growing up across the river from Canada, I can say that Tim Bits are actually quite tasty) in the forum topics devoted to the war.
I seriously thought of changing the city that gets destroyed by the flood in my novel from New York City to Toronto. Sure a storm surge on Lake Ontario big enough to flood Toronto would be less realistic than a storm surge on the Hudson River big enough to flood Manhattan but then the whole novel could count double word score.
If only I was writing last year's novel and could have burned Toronto to the ground during the War Of 1812. That would have been fun.
In all, it was great to see how excited Chicago has gotten about the Word War this year (I guess destroying St. Louis last year gave us confidence), even those who aren't directly involved.
---
I wish I had checked out the message boards to be a captain of Team Chicago this year (totally missed the posting as I figured captains would be selected at the kickoff party) but it's less stress I guess. Especially since I'm still behind on the writing.
But no longer by that much.
Propped up by the buzz from the kickoff party (even though I didn't drink at all) I went home and wrote 2,000 words. And this morning, I plan on writing more. I'm up early enough.
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT (damn counter site being broken): 4379 words.
posted by incendiarymind at 6:28 AM
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