NaNoWriMo, take 2

In 2008, I first heard about NaNoWriMo. Via BookCrossing of course ;)

Got all excited and decided to join, but my NaNoWri month came & went and I didn't write a single word for my novel-to-be. Scared to fail, I ended up blocked.

What I'm talking about?

NaNoWriMo is about writing. A novel. In one month. 50.000 words.

This is what nanowrimo.org says:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.


Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.


Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.


As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.


In 2008, we had over 120,000 participants. More than 20,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

Well, my BookCrossing friends did it again: talking about NaNoWriMo made me want to join and try it again. My account turned out to be still active and now it's updated. I'm in!

Let's see if those writing juices will flow in November...

BikeCrossing?

I'm rather sure we did *not* stick a note like this to Albert's bike yesterday!

Sigh...why do our bikes get stolen so often?

All Pigs, More Equal

Check out the animations on this site: (click here!)

(click on one of these words: Disabled / Sex / Sexual preference / Religion / Race / )

Kathelijne & the Greens rule!

Magic Release

Brat!

Mail from Portugal!

Oh, what a joy to open the mail when you find something as gorgeous as this inside!

Remember the Summer Gift Giving? One of my wishes was a long shot: a biker/rock style shirt or something hand made for Noah. Now look at these! Marcenda managed to combine those two qualities in this design! *me, impressed*

Not just a pretty print, the cute brats were hand stitched (is that the right word?) onto the shirt. And the hairdo is just the same as Noah's current punky red hair, like it's made for him. Haha, actually it *is* made for him! Thank you so much, Marcenda!

For more work by Marcenda, take a look at her In The Bag blog...inspiring!

A day at the zoo

Last week we visited Burger's Zoo in Arnhem, a zoo we both hadn't been to in ages. Had a great day! We were amazed by the new aquarium and the Desert was lovely. Over all the animals have lots of space and their habitats look wonderful. I felt kinda cripple without my old camera so I didn't focus very much on shooting pics. But here are a few:

Autobiography in 5 short chapters

In her letter, my BC friend hakkalina, mentioned this poem. With the help of Google, I traced the original text and I just háve to share it, it's so beautiful and SO true. I think I've managed to reach chapter IV and it feels like chapter V is almost within reach...


by Portia Nelson

I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V
I walk down another street.

Autumn!

Hooray, Autumn is coming closer!
I know most people hate it when the days shorten and Summer is fading away, but yours truly can't wait for Summer to be over. I really enjoy this time of year. Feels like I can finally breathe again. Yep, I'm weird, but if you've read my blog before, that's old news to you :p
Maybe it's got to do with being born in September? Who knows?


Today it's rainy and I'm thankful I can stay indoors. Maybe I sound a bit more normal if I tell you that most of the time I prefer curling up on the sofa to getting soaked in the rain?
Anyway, the mailman transformed a plain rainy morning to one with a smile: delivery from a fellow BookCrosser! Familiar handwriting and the stamp is from Hungary...yippee, hakkalina mail! She surprised & spoiled me before with a wonderful Summer Gift Giving parcel full of joy, so noticing this mail came from her was already good for a smile on my face.

Opening the package, a wonderful scent filled the room: this is definately the scent of Autumn! Cinnamon, oranges...hmmm, me like!

The biggest surprise: 2 Puschkin books!!! One in Russian (easy reading, with lots of pictures, but I can't understand a word of the text^^) and one in Hungarian. How wonderful!! My collection grows and grows, I'll take a picture of that special shelf in the living room soon.

But it wasn't until exploring the rest of the package to figure out *why* hakkalina sent me this (besides her being a very nice person^^): Autumn RABCK exchange, I must have been her secret pal! What a lucky match :)
Stickers, soap, address labels, another book, chocolate, a puzzle, tea, apple snack (ooh, she must have seen me buying dried apples last week, such a delicacy!), a wooden decoration leaf and another wonderful letter...wow, I'm overwhelmed...

THANK YOU HAKKALINA!

:)

Turned 32 today and I'm happier than I've been in a long, long time. Some say life starts at 40, but it feels like mine is starting right here, at 32!
Finally, one of the theme songs in my life doesn't only match the sad parts; I can finally sing along the whole song without skipping the refrain :)



I kept the right ones out
And let the wrong ones in
Had an angel of mercy
to see me through all my sins

There were times in my life
When I was goin' insane
Tryin' to walk through
The pain

When I lost my grip
And I hit the floor
Yeah, I thought I could leave
but couldn't get out the door
I was so sick and tired
Of a livin' a lie
I was wishin' that I
Would die

It's Amazing
With the blink of an eye
you finally see the light
It's Amazing
When the moment arrives
that you know you'll be alright

It's Amazing
And I'm sayin' a prayer
for the desperate hearts tonight

That one last shot's a
Permanent Vacation
And how high can you fly with broken wings?
Life's a journey not a destination A
nd I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings

You have to learn to crawl
Before you learn to walk
But I just couldn't liten to all that righteous talk
I was out on the street,
Just a tryin' to survive

It's Amazing
With the blink of an eye
you finally see the light
It's Amazing
When the moment arrives that you know
you'll be alright
It's Amazing
And I'm sayin' a prayer
for the desperate hearts tonight

Rest In Peace, Old Buddy...

No, no, no, it's not one of our cats that has died and it's not one of my human friends either.

This is about a friend who came into my life about 4 years ago.

Can't believe it's *that* short, feels like we've been together for so much longer.

It was love at first sight.

I had an idea of what he had to look like:
he had to be different
and I didn't want him to be too skinny or small;
a larger body feels so much better.
And there had to be a click, definately.
That spark of magic.

I went to the city by myself that day.
No company; this was a step I had to make on my own.

Would he be there?
Would I recognize him
while other temptations were surrounding us?

I browsed.
Looked at every single candidate.
Eye contact, even some touching & feeling.

I must admit,
some were better,
but far out of my league.
They flirted with me
and I flirted back,
but at both sides it was obvious:
that wasn't the match I was going for.

I had expected him to be black.
Black is my colour.
(or non-colour)
I must admit his looks made me hesitate,
but only for a minute.

Some would consider him ugly,
or at least kinda weird.
And since weird is my middle name,
it was clear when our eyes met:
this guy was going home with me!

How many moments fit
in only 4 years?
So, so many.
My hard drive is stuffed with all those moments.

My buddy, my Dimage Z10,
our ways are parting.

Last weekend you were at my side, we were going to make some great shots of little Noah. You made me feel insecure; was there something wrong with the focus?
Nah, probably my lenses made your screen look blurry, I thought.
But when I came home, not a single shot turned out to be sharp. It wasn't to blame on my eyes.

It's not me, buddy, it's you this time.
You've lost it.

I took you to the river side yesterday, we made a long stroll in the burning hot sun. This was the place where we took out best shots.
And now it is the place where we shot the worst.
Everything is out of focus,
except the macro shots, the one thing you've always excelled in. We may make some macro repo's in the future together, but I'm gonna need to replace you when it comes to other tasks.

I can't believe how fast it went!
When we met, you were the very best within my budget and the size of your frames was very well. Now even my mobile phone has a higher standard than you.
I knew for a while you were getting old-fashioned, but I still loved you.
When someone laughed at your looks, I didn't care. I knew what we had done together in the past and I trusted you to prove them wrong.

This is the last portrait you made of me:

Goobye, old buddy.
Thanks for the good times.
The memories will be preserved.
And I haven't got a clue how to replace you :(

Stupid Nature

This afternoon, Molotov came in all axcited, proud of the large bird he caught (or found, he's always making a lot of noises when he watches birds). I HATE it when cats do that!

Yes, I know, I know, it's nature and instinct. I wasn't mad at Mol, but I always get a little sad when I see their kills. :(

Usually I ask Albert to pick up whatever the cats brought home, but let's be a grown up and pick it up myself (with a glove on, couldn't do it otherwise). Grabbed one of the legs and was near the recycling bin when I saw the eyes blink. OMG! This poor little thing was all dead-looking, but that eye was opening and closing like crazy. Last spasms or still alive?

I couldn't throw it in the bin without being sure if it was still alive, so I did what I had to do: I broke its neck.

My god, I'm horrified by myself now. I killed an animal.

*shivers*

Dear cats, please don't bring those preys home anymore. I know you're hunters and I don't mind feeding you canned meat, but if you do hunt, please keep it to yourself.

If I hadn't been a vegetarian already, I would have become one today.

Nature just sucks!

Life of Pi

Earlier this year I read the book "Life of Pi", by Yann Martel.

Had no clue what to expect of it, but since someone I know counts it as her favourite book I thought it was worth a try.

OMG, it was SO worth trying!

The story is about a boy.

And a tiger.

And some other animals.

"After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific.

The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years."

When I started reading, my rational mind was in the way of enjoying the book.

Too often I heard myself thinking: "this could never happen".

But when I got deeper into the book, the story caught me.

Letting go of all kinds of judgements and just opening up to the story told, is probably the nicest way to read Life of Pi.

So, there I was, sitting on this lifeboat with Pi, the tiger and the other animals. Oh, how cute the orangutan with her big sad eyes was!

And that poor zebra...

But the hyena gave me the creeps.

The tiger is not just a big kitty, it's a fierce and graceful carnivore.

Beautiful but oh so unpredictable and dangerous...

I didn't wanna stop reading, was só curious what would happen next and how things would work out. The story made me want more, more, more!

I won't spoil what happens in the book, but I can tell you there's a twist in it that made my jaw drop and my eyes teary...

After finishing the book, I thought it would be great to read it in its original language, English.
Was planning to buy it when someone on the BookCrossing forum was offering it as a RABCK (Random Act of BookCrossing Kindness, which usually means sending someone a book from your collection). There was a raffle and of course I entered. And I won! Yippeee!

The book arrived here a few weeks ago.

To my surprise, Danielle23 had enclosed a postcard that told me about a world wide readalong, starting in August.

Of course I joined that project immediately and now I'm re-reading Life of Pi, together with hundreds of others.

We're getting tips for even more intense reading, questions that challenge you to think over some of the parts.

You can read all about the project here:

http://www.lifeofpi.co.uk/

Do take a few minutes to watch the clip.

It's gonna be a movie as well!

A last thought about this story before I'm off to read some more:

it raised such a puzzling question for me: if I would be in Pi's position, would I be able to give up vegetarism to survive? Could I kill an animal and eat it? Or rather die?

Hmm, let's stick to the conclusion Anne and I came to: never make a boat trip across an ocean, so you won't be in that position! ;)

BookCrossing Generosity

The Summer Gift Giving project is still on and I'd like to show the sweet surprises I received!
Not all gifts were part of that project; I received 2 RABCK's (Random Acts of BookCrossing Kindness) from Dutch BookCrossers and one from abroad (won it in a raffle and will write more about that book).
I've sent out many surprises myself and secretly giving (and getting response!) is even better. Tried to fulfill some wishes and it's great to be able to send people bookplates in their own language! Two more languages are online now: Chinese and Malaysian, thanks to Starbytes!

But the best thing of this whole project is that I 'met' some BookCrossers I'd never been in touch with. I said it before, but I keep repeating it: BookCrossing is such an amazing community and there's something really special about the people who are part of it. BookCrossing is my prozac!!!

Roof Mole

As some of you might know, our cats have weird names: Puschkin, Munchkin, Sacharov, Pavlov and Molotov. The names Sacharov and Molotov have too many syllables for daily use, so we use nicknames most of the time (well, actually we have nicks for all 5). Sacharov is mostly called Sachie, but we discovered he also looks up when we call him Mimi. Maybe his previous owners called him that way?

Molotov also goes by the names Molly, Molo and Mol. And when we talk about him, we often say "de mol" ("the mole"). No idea why, but we do so.

Sometimes that leads to funny misunderstandings.

We were visiting my sister and told about how "Mol" likes to be on the roof. She was flabbergasted. "A mole? Climbing in a tree onto the roof?! How is that possible?!" Haha, try to visualise an actual mole, leaving its underground home, using those digging claws to climb a tree :)

Our little "mole" has 2 tv shows 'named after' him: Who Is The Mole? and Where Is The Mole?

My sister's cat goes by the name of Elvis and now he's got his own show as well: Where Is Elvis? A question that shouldn't be so hard to answer, because it's obvious why Elvis' previous owners called him "the Yeti" :)

Here are some pics of Mol in action. He's the first of ours cats that figured out how to get on the roof and hopefully the last as well. Besides that it's scary to us, it's also very annoying to the neighbours, especially when it's real early in the morning. Every time he's so excited about the adventure that he can't stop meowing, really loud. And since our house is at the corner of a block, he can walk all the way to the other side of the block, waking up everyone who has their windows open...

I.M.

Can't believe it's 8 years ago already.

Forever in my heart.

Mannaz.

Book On Shirt: Please Vote!

The latest design my brother made is really awesome. I would love to have this on a shirt! If you like it as well, please click on the picture & check "I'd buy it"...

Perfect Day

Amazing Discoveries!

Someone mentioned Finntroll as a band I should try. Listened to it, but it's not my style. Too grunty ;)
But while browsing Youtube, I came across TÝR, a band from the Faroe islands (an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately half way between Scotland and Iceland). The first thing I saw was this clip:


Nice clip (hands up for longhaired men!), nice music.
I downloaded (don't tell my hubby, he hates when I do that^^) one of their albums and put it on my mp3 player. Played it during the bus ride to Tiel and while the second song was playing, I had already fallen in love. My type of music for sure!
Here's a song from that album:



I'm also listening to 2 other bands which will be playing in a town near us later this year. It's been a long time since Albert and I went to see live bands. We have been to Fré Spigt often, but she mostly plays in theatres, which is quite a different setting.
Albert and I enjoyed going to concerts together and we decided to try if we still like doing that together. Well, Albert will of course, his life contained mostly of concerts when I met him. For me it will be a good experiment to see if I can handle being in a crowd again.
Epica will play here this fall and we're planning to go. Meet Epica:



And one more clip: Delain. Another option to go see later this year.
I like it:

International BC-labels online! :)

You can find them at my photobucket!

A BIG, BIG THANK YOU goes out to the BookCrossers who replied to my request for translations and who have been patient enough to answer all of my questions and proofreading.
I enjoyed working on this project a lot and it was so nice to exchange messages & mail.

As promised, I'm sending out prints to everyone who helped me, as soon as they're ready!

Thank you for translating/offering to translate:

Releanna

Marcenda

blackteiwaz

lukutuoli

Jean-Sol

alassante

asa-swe

Alerion

jneni

starbytes

Thanks to Hippolein and TexasWren as well!

Summer Santa!

Shameless copy from the BookCrossing forum because I couldn't explain this project any better:

A few years ago, Bflybabe began a thread called 'Holiday Wish List' which was a
lot of fun. Everyone posted their personal wish list, not just books, but
anything they wanted, big or small. Others tried to fulfill the wishes, as they
could. USED items that fulfilled a specific wish were just as wonderful as new,
and there were NO OBLIGATIONS- everyone did what they felt like doing.
BookCrossers give constantly. We have projects going to needy folks all the
time. I don't think it's unreasonable to remember that we need care, too. Unless
we take care of ourselves, we can't continue giving to others.
If you're interested in participating, all you have to do is post a list of gifts you'd
like to receive. You can choose books, or world peace, hand-crafted items or new
cars- anything you want or need. YOU MIGHT NOT GET ANYTHING AT ALL, but this is
a generous community. Someone might have the very thing.
I joined this project last year and have had so much fun with it, so I just couldn't resist participating again :)

This is why I've made those "greetings from Ochten" postcards and it's also the reason why I'm translating the bookplates I designed: to send out to other participants!

<-- this was the very first surprise I received. Beautifulhooker sent it to me; she must have recognized a fellow skull-stuff-lover in me :) Both the bookmarks are in my current reads already, I simply adore them because they're so different from any bookmarks I've seen. I've taken a peek at beautifulhooker's deviantArt pages. Lovely! Thanks girl! Yesterday, another mysterious envelope in the mail...whoohoo!
A book?
Yes, a book!
A Puschkin book!!!

This is Puschkin.
I figured he might have read his own books a bit too often, since he fell asleep on top of it :)









The book is in German and the lovely thing about that is that the name Puschkin is spelled exactly the same as the name of our cat.

My collection is growing and it's time to create a special spot in the living room. I've got several Puschkin/Poesjkin books in Dutch, one with amazing illustrations in French (Pouchekine), 2 in Russian and now 2 in German.
I've also found a Pavlov book and I'm hoping to get my hands on one of the books about or written by Sacharov. Munchkin has his own card game, would be great to find that some day and I think there will be a book somewhere that has Molotov in the title...

And this laminated card is a cute contribution to the collection as well!

<-- :)

The surprise came from Germany, from ApoloniaX.
It came with a nice chatty notecard, telling me about a coincidence: while she was registering the Puschkin book she wanted to send me, her mom called her to tell she received my postcard. One of ApoloniaX's wishes was for people to send cards to her mom, who isn't in the best of health.
She also told about her cat, in the same way we often do: "she was my cat, i.e. I was her servant"
LOL, same here! :)


She also granted another wish I made. I was hoping to inspire others to eat vegetarian / skip meat for just one day. Looks like my German friend here has been a veggie girl for a looooong time already :)




Cute sticker!




Thank you, ApoloniaX.
You didn't know it, but I felt horrible yesterday morning and your mail made me smile. So, thanks for that as well!


I have been sending out envelopes as well and a few have arrived already. Wonderful to hear what people think of the stuff you sent. Actually, the most fun is in finding little surprises that are inspired by their wishlists. All small gestures, like bookplates I've made, bookmarks and BookCrossing stuff.

The bookplates/labels I've been working on are at the print service now and I think they'll arrive somewhere this week. Several wonderful BookCrossers translated the text I wanted on the labels and I've used those translations in my design. Now I've got 10 languages available (Dutch, English, Finnish, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Swedish and German) and 2 more to come (Chinese and Malaysian).
They'll be available for printing/download on my Photobucket account soon!

Ha, I'm finally liking Summer again! :)