Signs

Last night, I stopped to get the mail at the bottom of the driveway as I usually do on my way home. When I went to roll my window up, however, I heard a clunk, and then the handle started spinning freely. The window's top rear corner now protrudes at an angle from the frame.

I work in the city. This will not do.

So I made arrangements to have permission to drive one of the other cars here (neither of them are mine, although "getting permission" was largely "making sure nothing is dangerously wrong with them"), and, satisfied that I would have a way to get around today, went to bed.

Today, when I went to use the alternate car, it wouldn't start. It's cold enough, and hasn't been driven in long enough, that I can't even get it to turn over.

So it looks like I'm stuck at home today until daylight breaks and I can see whether or not this window thing is something I can fix. (As far as I know the window is in one piece; it's just come off the rails. I may be able to get to it by pulling off a door panel - I don't remember.)

A million to Juan

NOVEMBER 22--Last Friday afternoon, a bankruptcy court trustee reported that Juan Rodriguez was broke and unable to pay a dime to any of his creditors, to whom the New York man owed a total of nearly $45,000. Hours later, the 49-year-old parking lot attendant, whose savings account contained 78 cents, became America's latest megamillionaire, winning a $149 million lottery jackpot.

NaNoWriMo

I'm done.

Period.

Not in the good way, either. I have 1/10 of what I need, and I know I'm not going to make it, and I know why I'm not going to make it. I'm not writing to a deadline; that I can do, and the proof is in playtest. I'm writing because of a deadline, and as a result, I don't actually care about what I'm writing. And since I don't care, I can't do it.

So I'm done with NaNoWriMo, this year and for the foreseeable future. The level of stress that comes with writing something I don't care about for a deadline that doesn't matter - and the hammering my self-worth takes, the I'm not good enough feeling that arises from knowing that I can't do it, that I won't be able to do this - just isn't something I need.

I may finish what I started; I may not. Right now I can't write it because I really don't give a damn anymore about what happens, since the only reason - the only reason - I started was so that I could get 50,000 words on the page within 30 days. When the novel makes a difference to me again, maybe I'll start it up again.

This does not mean that I'm abandoning Frontier or Aleae Iaciens; in fact, I'm hoping that giving up on NaNo means that I'll have more time - and more energy, and more desire - to write about gaming.