The weekend started early for some. For me it kept getting interrupted. I spent the first part of Thanksgiving beating away at Hidden Things so I could both get over the 50k ribbon and do something like finish up the story before the rest of the weekend went crazy — I didn’t want to be one of the people trying to get the NaNoWriMo wordcount machine to work right at 23:53 on 11/30.
That done (around 2pm), we went over to the Consortium for chatting and games. And food. Gods forbid that we should forget the food, because it was good. Played Munchkin for the first time; Dave and Margie managed to win simultaneously, although I certainly had fun messing with people throughout the game. Good stuff. I felt light as a feather with the weight of NaNo off me, although somewhere in the chatting, Dave told me that he thought the end of the story was rushed (duh) and (far worse a crime) just didn’t flow as well as the rest of the story.
Hmm.
His solution to this was about five thousand more words somewhere in the last chapter. I fed that number into the translator I use for Dave’s word count estimates* and got ~2000 additional words and decided to think about it, but when he, Jackie and Lori were already asking for clarification on the same points, I knew I needed some more stuff in there.
So. Friday.
Friday I was back at work, driving up to Fort Collins to pick up some hardware and a database that needs cleaning up. Sort of a pain to be working on it, but I volunteered for the thing so I could take the holiday at a later time without using up vacation time. (I’m using it to take the 18th of December off so I can geek out on Two Towers all day. Woo! I already have one pair of tickets purchased. Do you?) On the way home I stopped at Mile Hi Comics and spent a bunch of money, but they were having a 40% off EVERYTHING sale so I ended up getting an obscene amount of stuff for a pittance — that makes it okay, right? (Anyway, if I ever get the damn refinancing to go through, it’s all paid for, right? RIGHT?**) After I got home I plunked another 500 words into the story and then people started showing up for a game.
I don’t remember anything else that happened that night, I swear. I think I’ve blocked it out. Anyway.
Saturday I got up and wrote. Sensing weakness (and a closed office door), Jackie and Justin crept around the house pulling out boxes of decorations and Christmas lights. When I came out for a glass of water around eleven, the tree was already up. I finished up the story (for real this time) around 1pm and started hanging the outside lights (We’re going to be gone for Christmas this year so the bah-humbug in me is asking ‘why bother’, but I told it Jackie would kick our ass so shut up and hang lights. It listened.) Saturday night was Cry Havoc. The dogs of war were loosed. Chinese was ordered and eaten. Fine time had by all.
Sunday Sunday Sunday. I announced a trip to the Theatre. I wanted to see Treasure Planet***, but Jackie didn’t, so Justin and I went and she went to the mall for shopping (if I didn’t know she liked that sort of thing, I would have felt worse about the divvying up of duties for the day). Treasure Planet is a tremendous amount of fun — good enough you forget it’s just Disney ripping off another classic tale because they can’t write something original or create a new set of myths for a new generation. Anyway, TPlanet is good, and we should have taken Jackie just so she could enjoy Emma Thompson voicing the Captain of the Legacy. Good stuff.
After we all got home, we took care of an obscene amount of RPGA paperwork that we’ve been putting off, then everyone came over and played LG.
We tried to stay on track. Really we did. Anyway.
Everyone left around 10. Jackie and Justin crashed and I rewound the tape and watched Alias.
Then I slept. That was alright too.
* - Generally, a 2.5 to 1 ratio is about right. If Dave says he’s going to write a short story he thinks will come in at around 20 to 25 thousand words, a safe prediction would be ~ 55 to 60k :). The formula works in reverse as well, which is how I used it in the Thanksgiving example.
** - Just for the record, we set the refinancing wheels in motion on October 10th. It’s been almost TWO GODDAMN MONTHS. *pant* Sorry. It’s starting to become less fun than refinancing paperwork usually is. Also for the record: no delays up to this point have been our fault.
*** - Actually, I want to see The Ring, The Transporter, Eight-mile, and a couple other things, but Treasure Planet was the best bet for getting everyone in the door.
