There she goes, my beautiful world
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Updated 2021. Originally posted 2013
There has been a lot of talk lately about the minimum wage and how it ought to be raised. It has been claimed that minimum wage workers are making less now than ever and that the nation is in a critical race to the bottom where workers on the low end of the spectrum are getting squeezed harder and harder.
This raises the question of the historical minimum wage in … Read the rest
At a few minutes before midnight I am declaring NaNoWriMo over, and I did not make it to 50,000 words.
In the middle of the month I had a bunch of work that needed to be done for money, and a particularly amazing weekend workshop led by the incomparable Jason McClain. So after getting to 19,478 words by day 10 I plateaued and and didn’t start racking the word count up for 13 days. On … Read the rest
Totally unrelated to The Vampire Rule,1 today I got a practical lesson in PHP request precedence.
I’ve seen for years recommendations not to use the superglobal $_REQUEST along with a variety of explanations why to avoid it. These explanations stem from the possibility that one could be confused about the source of the information from $_REQUEST and end up getting some data other than the data one expects to see. It was exactly this reason that I have been … Read the rest
This thing keeps taking me in unexpected directions. What I thought had gone sideways a couple days ago has gone farther sideways.
Yesterday I didn’t get as much writing done and I didn’t think I’d get much done today because I had a lot of other work to do. But I carved out some time in the morning and then got on a roll in the late evening. I finished a 3500 word chapter (2,824 of which … Read the rest
Some intense writing today. I wanted to make up for the time lost yesterday in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I hoped I might push my total to 10,000 words today, but didn’t get there and at this point I’m exhausted. I need to set it down for the night. I wrote 2,825 words today which is the most I’ve written in one day since I started keeping track on Friday, and I wrote material that wasn’t … Read the rest
Today I wrote 116 words on my novel, bringing me to a total of 6,967 words. I fell rather far short of my daily goal. I could spend some time trying to catch up before midnight, but I think I’d rather tell you the story.
I didn’t do my writing (or any other work) today because I have a Costco membership.
This may not make a lot of sense, so I will explain further. In addition to my Costco … Read the rest
I started by fleshing out some of what I’d already written, providing some more detail in the conversation that ends the first chapter. I’ve also decided to upgrade a minor character; he may still be a minor character, but I’ve decided against discarding him. He’ll appear again.
That fleshing-out progress is the sort of thing I’m probably not «supposed» to do during NaNoWriMo. The plan is to get the words out there, fast and furious, not spend a couple of … Read the rest
Day two of the NaNoWriMo challenge is done. It’s early enough that I might conceivably go back to writing but late enough that taking a break now means I’m likely to be done for the day.
I finished the first chapter of the novel. I’ve introduced one major character directly and four other major characters in backstory/exposition. And I’ve started another chapter, which introduces one more major character, though we haven’t really gotten to know anything about her yet. Today’s word … Read the rest
Today was the First of November, and therefore the first day of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words entirely during the month of November. It’s a somewhat ambitious undertaking and therefore tempting not to talk about it until it’s done for fear that I might announce the project and then not follow through.
But the flip side of that impulse is that not telling anyone what … Read the rest
Here’s a fun game you can play with all your friends. It’s your sci-fi movie character name! Here’s how it’s done:
Take your mother’s maiden name. That’s your character’s first name. Then for the last name take your online banking password and stick the last four digits of your Social Security number on the end.
I am Tanaka Sycamore7599!1
Wasn’t that fun?2