After my recent post about getting out and engaging more, I found myself coordinating a team lunch for some co-workers in the area. As a few of the people were going to meet in the office beforehand, I decided to go in, even if it meant driving past where we were all meeting for lunch, and then backtracking.
It was a bit surreal to be back in the office itself. And, I realized with a bit of a start, it was almost exactly four years to the day that we'd gone remote full-time. Most of the desks have been removed, along with some of the conference tables as well. Right before we'd all gone home for good, I'd been reassigned to a different office and desk (we have three suites in this particular building), but, to be quite frank, I didn't remember what desk was mine. Ended up sitting at a table in the kitchen area.
Some of my co-workers and I discussed coming back into the office, for one day a week, or month... not sure where everyone landed on that. But honestly, I would be ok with going back once a week. I do really enjoy my setup at home, but it's nice to get some face-time in with co-workers as well. It was great catching up at lunch, and more than one person thanked me personally for arranging for all of us to meet. Seems I'm not the only one who was grateful for a bit of social contact again.
Like many people, I have found myself a little less outgoing since Covid. Prior to 2020, I was involved in community theater, went camping often, and was at my local pub at least once a week. Several times, I organized happy hours for friends, and was much more outgoing.
After things opened back up and life started getting back to normal, I found I was just as happy staying at home and watching TV or playing on the computer. I don't go camping any longer (not having to sleep on the ground is ok by me!), and I'm no longer invloved with theater in any way. My pub formally shut its doors during Covid, though if rumors are true, Covid was just the nail in the coffin.
So this year -- four years on since the first days of Covid which feels crazy to say -- I've made more of an effort to get out. If I'm invited somewhere, I make the effort to join. Further, I've started hosting trivia at the winery the wife works at. I spend about four hours researching categories and questions and twice a month I drive with the wife out to the winery and host a two-hour trivia tournament. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying having something to look forward to, that gets me out of the house.
Plus, I get paid, which is nice bonus! Helps me pay for those things I want but never get myself as alluded to in my last post.
My dad preferred to use the term "Frugal" as opposed to being "Cheap". After my parent's divorce, his frugality escalated, with him not wanting to shell out for things he deemed "unneccesary". When I was in high school he didn't want to pay for a yearbook, nor a class ring. Getting him to help with money for band trips was a chore. He also took to buying the store brands of everything he could. Some things would make sense; bleach, for example, I get. I mean, bleach is bleach. One time he bought the store brand version of Velveeta, but it was so bad even my dog wouldn't eat it. But that didn't stop him from saying "We can't buy Velveeta until this one is gone". Needless to say, chunks of that "Processed Food Loaf" (literally what is was called) disappeared when he wasn't around. In the garbage, over the back fence, etc.
I tell this because I, unfortunately, have some of the same tendencies. I have a hard time spending money on things not only do I deem not necessary, but things I actually want, but feel like I can either find alternatives to, or flat out don't deserve.
Recently, say over the past 6 months or so, I've made a conscious effort to not be so miserly. The wife has a subscription to a food delivery that shows up once a week, with all natural, organic, locally grown vegetables, eggs, butter, etc. I know that's not cheap, but I'm managing to not stress about it.
When shopping, I was buying the store brand flavored seltzers, even though I discovered I really liked the cherry version of Bubly water. I finally told myself it was ok to spend a little more for something I enjoy.
As a web developer, I've used VS Code as my IDE of choice for years, which we also use at work. It's free, and to be fair, it's a great editor. But as the saying goes, "There's no such thing as a free lunch". Microsoft, which owns and distributes VS Code, has a bunch of data collection in how their app is used. So, like Facebook and Twitter (yes, I'm deadnaming), if it's free, your data is how they make their money.
I've long admired Panic as a company and used Transmit back in the day. Sometime back, they released Nova, a native Mac code editor. I really liked it, but only used it as long as the trial lasted, because it was $100 bucks. This past week, I downloaded it again, and after just two days playing with it, paid for the license. It just feels good to support the smaller code shops. Kind of like shopping at local bookstores, as opposed to simply ordering something online.
The culmination of all this relaxing of the purse strings, was a new Mac Studio. I've had a 2015 MacBook Pro as my personal machine since, well, 2015. The Mac Studio is the first computer I've purchased for myself in nearly a decade. And while I hemmed and hawed about it for ages, I finally took myself over to the Apple Store and purchased the base model. There were arguments for getting the Mac Mini, but I'm hoping to do more video editing, and still am doing music, and after upgrading the RAM to 32gb in the Mac Mini, the couple of hundred dollars I would've saved weren't worth it to me. I want something that'll last me at least another 10 years. So yes, it was a big purchase, but I think I'm ok with it. At least I'm not feeling any buyer's remorse, and for me, that's an odd thing.
Both the Mrs. and I have this cough that just won't go away. As a result, NYE was spent at home, with her in bed early and me watching football.
Truth to tell, this isn't much different from our normal NYE celebrations; it's probably our least favorite holiday, and we tend to stay at home regardless.
Overall, the holdays were low-key. Sarah came up Christmas Eve, and we did our gift dice game exchange Christmas morning, with my mom and our friend Gina.
I made brunch, which consisted of the world's best breakfast potatos, eggs, bacon, sausage, and english muffins.
For my birthday, the Mrs. gave me a very generous gift card to Sweetwater, and now I'm paralyzed with indecision. So. Many. Things.
Also for my birthday, my son took advantage of the Steam Winter Sale, and bought Cyberpunk 2077 for me. I've been enjoying the hell out of my first real computer game in ages.
As for Christmas, I received some fingerless gloves for typing (my hands get cold easily), and a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tote bag.
Aside from the completely obvious, it was also easy to tell we had a low-key Christmas on trash day: We had our normal one-trash-can, one-recycle-bin out. The neighbors around us, who all have kids at home, had piles.
Yesterday was my birthday, and it was one of the better ones in a long time. It was just the Mrs. and I for the day, and we went up to Frederick to play pinball at Spinners and then spent the rest of the day in downtown Frederick itself, doing some last minute Christmas shopping. We had a lovely lunch at The Orchard, and later in the evening, when it was dark, we went to see the boats along Carroll Creek Park. Every year they have lighted boats and they're all amazing.
One of the things that surprised me most about my successful attempt at NaNoWriMo this year was how... not hard it was. I won't say it was easy, but it was a lot easier than I expected. I think there were only two or three nights where I struggled to meet my goal. And yes, some nights I fell short. Not often enough to make it reaching the goal of 50,000 words a serious struggle, however.
My story isn't complete, and if I'm honest with myself, probably won't ever be. I might come back to it someday; as I said in my last post, I'm interested in seeing where it goes. I just have to find the discipline to sit and flesh it out. I've talked about the lack of discipline before. One of the things I've discovered recently is that if I'm given a deadline, I seem to strive to make that. I don't think it can be just me that sets the deadline: I had NaNoWriMo this time around, and last year about this time, I had LNA Does Audio Stuff's 12 Days of Creativity Challenge. It would seem I need an external source to get me motivated.
Maybe I can hire someone.
Some takeaways from NaNoWriMo:
Sitting down and getting started is always the hardest part. Once I started writing, I often found that I was in the groove within a paragraph or two.
Each night I would create a new chapter and write from a different person's perspective.
I think a better approach would be to try and write a single character's view point up until a major plot point is achieved.
Scrivener is the bee's knees for keeping my thoughts organized. I don't know how some people (e.g., my sister-in-law) can write in a single Word document.
I tried writing in a coffee house but there simply too many distractions. I found that sitting at my dining room table, after the wife had gone off to bed, was my most productive time.
I meant to try and write in the morning once, to see if my creative flow was any different, but never managed.
I might try it again in 2024. Maybe I'll need to blow the dust off the current story then and see if I can button it up.
I actually did it. 50,000 words. Well, as of this writing, 50,171. And I still have two days left.
I plan on continuing the story. There is still a bunch left to write. And it's been fun. I want to see how it ends.
I'll probably do a full write-up of the process later, but right now, I'm going to word work (I left the typo in, as I found it amusing) on some website stuff I've been putting off.
NaNoWriMo has progressed a lot better than I had expected, to be frank. I'm halfway through the 50,000 words, sitting at 25,062. A whole day early even. Go me!
It's been a bit of a revelation. During prior attempts at writing stories, I would usually have a basic idea of the story I wanted to write, typically a beginning, a middle, and maybe an end. Not this time, baby. I have been completely reliant on the pantser side of my writing persona and I'm fully embracing it. It literally started with a single sentence: "One thing about the end of the world, Dave thought. It makes for a hell of a weight loss program" That was it. I started my story all based around that one sentence. To tell the truth, it's been a lot more fruitful (and a lot more fun), than I expected. It's both scary and freeing to not know where the hell I'm going. I currently have 7 different characters and I simply write a chapter from each of the points of view. I don't even think I'm writing them in order, and instead will be relying on the excellent Scrivener software to help the organization once my novel is more complete (I'm being positive here and inferring when and not if)
Here's some basic stats, courtesy of my NaNoWriMo Profile Page (have to be a registered member to see this):
25062 out of 50000 words
I've written 14 days in row (every single day!)
My least productive day was Nov 4th, with only 492 words
My most productive day was Nov 5th, with 3,271 words. Guessing I felt the need to make up from the day before.
My average word count is 1,790 words a day.
And I apparently have an average writing speed of 15 words per minute.
That last point seems odd, but I guess it is just an average after all. I do stop and take breaks, or look up synonyms on thesaurus.com, or try to plot out the next section. Even guilty of stopping writing to play a game on my phone. Gotta stop that.
I've also written more than 11,000 words than the last time I attempted NaNoWriMo.
There have been a couple of nights over the past two weeks where I haven't felt as energized to write. But I find if I go over the previous chapter of the character I'm going to write from, then it helps the flow start moving. And once I'm moving, it's easier to get up to speed. It's all about keeping my eye on the end goal for now.
One thousand, nine hundred and fifty one words tonight. It's more real if I type it completely out.
I was worried about not having a completely planned out story. I had a couple of characters and a couple of plot points. But nothing like a linear story line. And then I realized I don't necessarily need a complete story right now. I can write each chapter from a character's point of view, and then shuffle them around later. As an example, last night I wrote what I think will be the prelude or first chapter. Tonight I wrote what would likely be the fourth or fifth chapter. But that's OK. Thanks to Scrivener, I can shuffle things around with ease once I have a better idea of how the story is going to progress. I've never written this way before and it's strangely liberating. I'm just going to write these chapters out as the ideas come. I'll puzzle them all together later.
On a related note, I'm not going to update again until the middle of November at the earliest. I want to focus on the story for NaNoWriMo, and honestly who wants to read a simple "XXXX words today!" update everyday? I can use BlueSky or Mastodon for that.
1,707 words for my first day. Not the rocket launch I'd hoped, but not the failure to launch either. Rather than go with the previous story I had in place, I opted for something completely new to me. No outline, only the basic idea of a structure, pretty bare bones overall. It will be quite the effort to come up with 50,000 words by the end of the month based on what I have in my head so far.
But hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Not that I've done it.