SO, ABOUT NANO FOR THIS YEAR:

My likelihood of having enough time/energy to complete a novel are very slim (I've been working 9-10 hours a day), and I'd really rather not stress myself sick in November.  So I'll be doing 31 days instead, one fic for each day.  I'm not even going to throw a word limit on things - I want to write a 1000 words a day, but if that is 500 of fic and the rest in tags, or in novella planning, then fine with me.  If my job had settled down by now, it'd be a different story, but there always seems to be one firestorm or another on, and right now I want to be at my most alert for work.

So my prompts will be coming from 31 Days, both from the October and the yet-to-be-revealed November prompts.  There are also the Carl Sagan prompts to pull from, and I need to build the list of songs I've always wanted to write fics to but never have.  I already have an idea-poster going for the October prompts so far - I'm really happy cause there is a lot I want to do with my newer characters (Endy, Joachim, Lola, Taka, Raiko, Kaito, and Suharto), which is nice cause I feel like my newer characters are shafted in terms of fics (I think only Taka and Suharto have completed fics so far, out of that list).  I miss being able to write fics as often as I did even six months ago, but November could be a hell of a catch-up.  And even if most of the fics for November are bad, at least that is exploring.

In other thrilling news, I am going to Portland next month!  An opportunity came up to meet up with ambientfiligree  there, and damn I haven't had a real exploration vacation in a year and a half.   (Not one that involves a plane ride, at least.  Carmel/Monterey for my birthday was hard to beat.)  It is my plan to (a) wander the shit out of Portland and (b) eat my weight in vegetarian cuisine.  I know the weather won't be amazing, but I don't caaaaaaaaaare I want to buy all the artsy things and eat all the non-meat things and see all the pretty outdoor things.

I don't think I have much other thrilling news XD I go to work and I come home, and I'm knitting and going to the gym as much as I can in-between.  I need to read more, oh well.  I am close to being able to do another Shit I Watch on Netflix post - I'm watching Vandread now (which is ALL OF THE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT 90's ANIME), and would love to finish that before I dig into another one of those posts.  Right now, Kol and I are watching Work of Art, which is like our Project Runway if Project Runway didn't totally suck in all ways right now.  I don't even want to watch the finale tomorrow cause I don't feel like getting angry at it. 

THE PLANS HAVE CHANGED.

So only one day into Nanowrimo, I had a major melt-down.  Really bad.  Like 2-3 hours of K and Kol talking me down, and plenty of DBZ therapy to soothe my hurts.  It has boiled down to the fact that I can not physically handle my job for much longer.  I am falling apart at the seams, and I'm sure people have noticed but I have been a wrecking ball of butthurt and insecurity and insanity over the past two months (I am sorry).  So, Nanowrimo is now Jobowrimo.  The new goal is 1k a day of writing novel/tags, and the other 700 words has to be in some way related to job-hunt, whether it is logging my progress, doing exercises, or god forbid, writing resumes and cover letters.  LIKE A PIMP.

The goal is a new job by December 15th.  It almost doesn't matter WHAT, except it does, cause I want to pick something that makes me happy and I don't want to do worse than I am now.   It is really clear though.  At this point, I need to get out of Macy's or I will suffer a major breakdown.  

My mom sent me a book called What Color Is Your Parachute?, and that has become my project for the first week of this month.  My perpetual whinging has been "BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO AS A CAREER", and we are going to fix that NOW.

Here is one of the exercises I did today, and after that, one of the recommended career quizzes I did.  Please feel free to comment or correct me, or make observations that I've overlooked. 

( Finding themes in what I want in a job )

 

This quiz came from the Princeton Review.   It was recommended by this page on the Parachute website.

( Princeton Review Career Quiz )

So I've been doing a decent amount of Nano prep work this year, and one thing has been bothering me about my character's ages. 

The novel, Dreams Sent By Gods, or called the Somnia Project for short, is basically about 3 young adults who are being yanked between their desire to stay attached to the modern world and a desire to explore and lose themselves in an enchanting collective-consciousness dreamscape.  The call hits these three in particular because they are reborn from old Greek mortals - Endymion, Psyche, Hycanith - who were jerked around during that life by gods, but the now-powerless gods want their little mortals back so they have SOMEONE to lord over again.  The gods make the deal seem sweeter than it is, cause they are jerks and that's how they roll. 

Anyways, my original plans were for these guys to be college-aged, about 20/21, in their junior years.  Recently, I switched the season so that the novel takes place in the summer, putting them out of the grind of classes and more into work-situations.  That was because something has been nagging me - why don't we see much fiction in which the characters are in college?  We see a lot about people in high school, or young professionals, but the in-between seems lost in action. 

Generally I do not think about how my book will market before I write it, but I don't want to shoot my leg off at the onset with this.  Can anybody think of reasons that would deter people from wanting to read about people in college?  Would you be turned off by it?  Any reasons why? 

Just looking for anybody's insight about it.

(I'm not preaching it as if "COLLEGE IS RIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL AND YOU ARE NOTHING WITHOUT IT."  The main character, Lee, actually is struggling with whether or not he actually belongs there, if there is any benefit of it to him.  The college is more a setting than anything else.)