More adventures in muddy fields.

So, for the second weekend in a row, my weekend was mostly awesome. We're not going to talk about ND's loss yesterday in favor of OSU handing Michigan their own head on a platter.

On Friday night, I actually got a ticket into guest dinner! That was really nice, because all of the ND people ended up getting a ticket, and we were all able to talk together and everything. AJ brought a friend, Katie, from Wooster, and it was nice to talk with another humanities person for a while. The dinner itself was all right, too, but it probably wasn't as much fun sober as it would have been tipsy. I should have hung out in the bar with Katie and AJ, but I realized while they were getting their drinks that I needed to finish my novel.

So, I went back to write. I got to talk to Greg for a while, and I got to see some of the pictures he had taken for his project. And he ended up bribing me to finish my chapters with parts of his project, most specifically pictures of Rory. Oh, stupid sexy Rory. But I did eventually finish my novel (at four minutes to midnight!), and it clocks in at 113,359 words... but I forgot to write "THE END" on it, so I actually get two more words out of it. This is also using Word 2007's word counter, which apparently uses a different algorithm from the one on the NaNo site. I really hope I don't lose too many words to the NaNo one... in fact I hope I gain some. :3

Also, on Thursday I joined a fandom. Yes, I joined a fandom, for real and all. I figured if I was going to make a novel-length fanfiction about Freelancers, then people might as well read it and appreciate it. And if it's good enough, maybe I can get it published with the blessings of Rooster Teeth and Bungie. This is a bad thing; I still need many many words during November on top of other reading and essay writing.

Yes, you read that right. Even though I finished my first novel this month, I'm going for a second. I'm on track, actually; I only need 5k a day through the 30th to make this one hit 50k, which is NaNo's requirement for the length of a novel. So, yeah. By the end of the month I will be the proud owner of two novels. My problem right now is, the novel I just started writing is ridiculous. It's abusing way too many tropes. Way too many. Seriously, I added zombies and a random werecat into what was supposed to be a deconstruction of high fantasy MMORPGs. Oops... at least I'll be having fun.

So last night there was another write-in with the Failed Novelists, this one at Wolfson College (which, I may note, is VERY FAR AWAY from New College). It's an all-grad-student hall, and it's so new that it still smells like IKEA (if that gives you any idea of how modern it looks). We wrote in their very comfortable MCR room (Middle Common Room - like a common space for the graduate-level students to hang out) before dropping our stuff off in Selena's room and tramping through muddy paths next to strawberry fields and the river to make it to yet another far-off pub.

This one was called The Victoria Arms, and I had my first glass of mulled British cider there. Absolutely delicious. And for some reason, the conversation revolved around organs you can possibly live without, suicide snuff films, and the possibility that the soul continues on after death as the literal 'ghost in the machine' in a parallel series of tubes. (We are a strange group.)

It rained as we were walking back to Wolfson, and of course I was not only wearing my glasses but had left my umbrella. Didn't matter; was still fun getting soaked because heck, I'm in Middle Earth/Harry Potter land, and that's what you do, right? I've never been more thankful for a good pair of rain boots and a nice trenchcoat. Anyways, we made it back mostly intact and hung out in the kitchen near Jed's room for a while, enjoying white wine, coffee, and talk about Firefly and vegetables. Then we got to see some of Jed's paintings, and geez. Lots of thought in their composition, I really liked them.

Jed and Selena tried to persuade the other five of us (hold on, I totally remember names: Vicky, Alex, Tom, and Joe) to stay and chat in the Wolfson bar (which is open until 2:30, ridiculously late compared to other places), but it was half-twelve and I was so ready to go home. So that was the second day that I crawled into bed around 2 in the morning and still couldn't sleep because I was so excited.

Yeah, so I totally love it here, just in case you haven't been able to tell by my blog entries. Perhaps later I can blog about what we discussed at hall last night (which included something like athletes, scholarships, and the growing burden of debt on the middle class). In the meantime, though, I need to do a lot of reading for Ethics still, and I need to finish by dinner ish so that I'll still have time to write my 5k today!!! So busy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

- Jen -