A few weeks with nook.

I've been meaning to write this for a while, and I think I'm finally ready to give my thoughts on nook (there is no "the" and the "n" is always lowercase, at least from everything I've seen), the Barnes & Noble e-reader that I received about three weeks ago. My husband and I both bought them for each other for Christmas. So here goes my review. I will mostly be comparing nook to the original Kindle, which is the e-reader I had before my nook. My mother-in-law has a Kindle 2, but I have only played with it and haven't used it extensively. I borrowed it to take a few quick comparison pictures for this post.

My dog actually got the first glance at my nook. When it arrived, I was at a party and I received this picture from my husband. He had already broken into his and was playing with it by the time I got home. So much for Christmas present.

First Impressions
When I got my nook, the first thought that came to my mind is "pretty." nook is that, it is a pretty piece of hardware. The touchscreen is nice and bright, almost too bright sometimes, but that can be adjusted, the black bezel around the e-ink screen is sharp, and the buttons for turning pages are crisp. The photo below compares the Kindles and nook, with nook on the left, Kindle 2 in the middle, and original Kindle on the right. nook just looks more polished and next-gen, while the Kindle 2 looks outdated. The original Kindle just looks kind of square and odd.

Software Problems
Once I turned on my nook, I immediately noticed an intense slowness, so bad that it was nearly unbearable. However, I plowed through it, because I had just opened up a $269 piece of hardware that I could have sold on e-bay at the time for nearly double, and I was going to use it if it killed me. I was paying my early adopter tax dearly. The page turns were slower than the original Kindle, actually, nearly everything about it was slower than the original Kindle, even the book downloading felt sluggish and nook is supposed to be on 3G! I used it, though, and my husband purchased a steampunk novel titled Boneshaker, which I read and thoroughly enjoyed. We suffered through daily crashes and often wondered if our nooks would turn on the next day. Suffice it to say, we have had our shares of battery removals and hard reboots. I had to reboot the device to connect it to my MacBook to put a PDF document on it, but when I finally got it on there, it looked great.

About a week-and-a-half later, Barnes & Noble pushed through an update and I have to say that it is much better. Everything loads faster, it moves quicker, there are less button presses to get to what you want to read, and even the coverflow moves smoother. Pages turn faster and there's less formatting. It's like a whole new device. It is now faster than the original Kindle, and though I am not sure about the Kindle 2, I'm sure that it's catching up. The update process went smoothly for my husband and I, and since then, we have not had any crashes. There will probably be a few more updates over the next few months, and they can only improve things.

Comparisons, nook vs. Kindle
I would have to say that I like my nook better than I liked the original Kindle. I also like that my husband and I both have nooks, whereas he did not have a Kindle. We both have our nooks attached to his account, and any books that either of us download show up on both nooks. Pages do not sync between nooks, so we can keep our own spots in our separate nooks.

Having used the original Kindle and nook extensively now, here are a few things I have noticed:

Deleting Content
There is no way to just delete content from your nook. With the Kindle, it was very easy to manage content just by selecting content manager and then checking off what you wanted to keep and what you wanted to delete. If you purchased it, it was automatically backed up on Amazon's website and you could always get it again. With nook, any content that you download, even samples, have to be deleted from Barnes & Noble's website. Yes, strange, especially for people who may be using nook but do not have computers or internet access.

Locations vs. Page Numbers
The Kindle uses locations rather than page numbers, that way, you can resize the font to super-huge or tiny, and rather than making the book have more or less pages, you just remember a location number given to specific points throughout the book. With nook, however, you get page numbers. Sometimes you turn a page and it gives you the same number. Sometimes, you turn a page and the page is only half-full, but when you turn it again, it's not the end of the chapter. The breaks can be confusing, but they are easily ignorable and you get used to them.

Covers
The covers for nook are pretty cool, I won't lie. I would never buy one of those $125 designer covers, though. That's just a waste, and I'm not into that stuff anyway. My husband got the Chesterton Quote Cover in black and I got the Alice Cover. We both like our covers and they fit and protect our nooks quite well, and they were reasonably priced. They're also a lot more secure than the cover was for my original Kindle. The original Kindle always fell out of the cover, or the battery cover would come off all the time. Quite annoying. There's a bit of glare in the picture below, but the Alice Cover is on the left, Kindle 2 cover in the middle, and original Kindle cover on the right.

Lending Books
Haven't tried it yet, no one I know has a nook or wants to read on their computer or iPhone.

Music Player
I have loaded some MP3s onto my nook and played some music. It is more of a fun thing, since I have an iPhone for music, but it does work and it works well. The Kindle's music player worked just as well, but in order to change tracks or pause and play, there was a lot more button pressing involved.

Expandable Memory
I slid a 4GB card into the microSD slot on my nook (bought on black Friday for $10, normally about twice as much). It's kind of a pain to change the card out, because you have to take off the back cover, but once you get it in there, you really don't have to take it out much. I'll probably be using that for music, pictures, or documents.
 
E-book Stores
So far, I have had mixed feelings for Barnes & Noble's e-book store. There are a few books that I want to read that Amazon has on their store, but B&N does not. For example, the Lightning Thief. Amazon has it, I want to read it, but it is missing from B&N's store. As for the scanned books from Google, I have read several, and if you can get past the typos from the scans that are heavily peppered throughout the books, then they're great to have. I've read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass for free, and my husband downloaded quite a few others. I also grabbed a Sherlock Holmes collection for free after watching the movie. I have a feeling that Barnes & Noble will make their e-book store better in the coming months, I'm sure people are complaining. I have heard that Barnes & Noble is going to revamp the store to compete with Amazon's e-book store in prices and content. As of right now, e-books from Barnes & Noble average to be slightly higher than their Amazon counterparts, which may change soon.

Reading Experience
As with all e-ink displays, the reading experience on nook is wonderful. Font sizes and types are easy to change, there is very little eye strain, and you can read forever. There is the ever-present screen flash when you turn pages, which is unavoidable right now, but you get used to it. Another big difference between Kindle and nook are the page turning buttons. The Kindle's buttons are quite easily pushed, and often accidentally pushed. It is easy to push nook's page turn buttons as well, but it seems that you have less accidents, especially when showing your nook to a friend. Especially with the original Kindle, it was nearly impossible to give someone your Kindle without the page being accidentally turned. You can also turn pages by swiping on the touchscreen, but the response is not as quick as pushing the buttons, and sometimes it does not register when you swipe. I use the buttons.

Battery Life
Battery life on nook is a lot less than the Kindle's. However, as with any device, if you leave it sitting around unplugged for a while, especially in standby mode, it will discharge. My husband left his unplugged for several days and when he came back to it, it was dead. The e-ink screen was still on, and when he plugged it in, he could not get it to respond for about thirty minutes after it had been plugged in. This is the only problem we have had since the update. Remember to keep that battery charged, and turn off the wi-fi and wireless internet if you don't plan to download anything. I charge mine every other night and don't have any issues. And if the battery wears out, it's a lot easier to change the battery in nook than in the Kindles that are out right now. You can also buy a replacement battery for travel, which is something I might pick up in the future.

Book Browsing
One of the touted features of nook is the ability to go into any Barnes & Noble store and be able to read through entire e-books while you are there. It is similar to the ability to be able to walk in, pick up a book off the shelf, and read it while sitting in a chair or on the floor, as many people tend to do. There are limitations, though. As of right now, the browsing is limited, you may only browse a book for an hour. After that, time's up! 

Wi-Fi and Internet Access
Wi-fi is a great option to have. I have it connected to my network at home and it downloads books a bit faster than it does with the AT&T card. It is also the way you connect with a Barnes & Noble store, which it does automatically when you walk in. One feature missing from nook is the web browser that the Kindle has. But to be quite honest, the web browser on my Kindle was found in the "Experimental" section along with the music player, and it was rudimentary. It felt like I had been transported back in time and I was trying to use an archaic machine to access futuristic content. The Kindle's web browser would often lock up and it was incredibly slow. It was on a 2G network instead of the newer 3G, but it was still terrible. If they do eventually add a web browser to nook, hopefully it won't be so terrible.

Free Cookie
I went into a Barnes & Noble with a cafe and a coupon for a free cookie popped up on my nook. How cool is that? My husband's gotten three, he'll be sad when the coupon expires January 6th. He took a picture with his iPhone and sent it to me because he was so excited. He said when he took it to the cafe, the people there started freaking out because he was the first one who had come in for it.

Final Impressions, at least for now
All-in-all, I like my nook. I like it better than the Kindle and it feels a lot less first-generation than the original Kindle did. The hardware is polished, and once the software catches up with that, it'll be great. I may revisit this post or update it if anything changes. I'm also going to order one of those snazzy colored backings for my nook. When I ordered the covers, the backings weren't in stock yet. My husband also likes his nook, though he doesn't have much to compare it to. I will be experimenting more and more with my nook, and I'll be interested to see how people hack it. It's basically a computer with free wireless access all the time, if you want to think of it that way. People have already hacked it and put Pandora on it, so it's only a matter of time before they do more.

Do I recommend the nook? Of course. I think it's great. Just remember, as with any new piece of technology, there is an early adopter tax to be paid.  If you don't mind a few hiccups, get yourself a nook. Give them as gifts, people will love them, especially if they've never used a Kindle before. But if you want something a little more polished, either wait a while or get a Kindle. Just remember, the Kindle started out just as rough as nook, just give it some time.

nook is on top, original Kindle in the middle, Kindle 2 on the bottom.

NaNo's Over, TGIO!

First off, yes, I did win NaNoWriMo 2009!

I didn't get as much time to update the blog as I would have liked, mostly because I procrastinated. I would watch a movie with Brandon, then write a bit, do some word wars, watch SouthPark, write some more. My final count ended at 50,476 words, and yes, I did get to the end of the story. Am I happy with it? Not really. I know there's a lot more I can do with it and I feel like this book is just mostly a brainstorm for the real thing to come. I'm going to give the story a few months to marinate, then it's rewrite and edit time.

I hate editing...

In other news, I had a great time during NaNo meeting other writers in Houston. I went to several write-ins and meetups and met some pretty cool people!

Here are some pictures from the various meet-ups since my last post. I forgot my camera for one of them, so it made me sadface.

 That's from the TGIO party, all of us are winners of NaNoWrioMo 09!

This was a nice little random meet-up. We went to House of Pies in Houston and then went to Barnes & Noble for some writing. We made a nice little mess with all our laptops.

More NaNo pictures are on my photostream. Check them out! 

Oh Lord, it's NaNo Day 22?! Jean shopping...

Eight more days left in NaNoWriMo. Or something like that... I've got 33,340 words written right now, and I have to be at about 36,674 by the end of today. I've got a pretty big gap to fill, but I was busy with my parents that came down to visit. I got some new jeans though, that I needed desperately, and I got another cute skirt outfit.

A word about jean shopping: I hate buying jeans. I have a hard time finding jeans that fit me well and that I can wear and wash multiple times without them physically changing. Most of the jeans they make nowadays have spandex and elastic in them and they wear funny after a few washes. I hate jeans with more than 1% spandex in them. The ones that don't have the elastic in them come with holes in them already. I don't even think Goodwill would sell jeans that have that many holes in them! It gets pretty frustrating, which is why I stopped buying jeans at American Eagle. I haven't been there in a while though, so I don't know if they are now selling jeans that are whole again.

I have about five pairs of jeans from the Gap that I really like. I've had them for ages and they still fit well and haven't gone all icky. Only problem is two of them have holes in them now since I've worn them so much. I went to the Gap again, figuring I would just be able to buy a few more pairs of the Long and Lean style that I had grown accustomed to.

I was wrong.

The Gap apparently changed up all their jeans in August. I wish I would have known, because they probably had a pretty nice clearance sale on all the old jeans at the time and I could have gotten several pairs to last me for a while. They still have the Long and Lean style, but they have completely changed it. The jeans still fit on the legs like they used to, but now they are a mid-rise instead of a low-rise. Only problem with mid-rise is I hate mid-rise jeans. I love low-rise, mostly because I have a little bit of a tummy and the low-rise is a little bit more comfortable. I have a tendency to push down mid-rise jeans and if I do that, the fit looks odd, which is what I did in the store when I was trying them on and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them until I read the tag. So now I have to buy a different style, the Curvy style, because it is the only style that fits right and has a low rise, which only comes in three colors. Three. Whoopee.

I may have to find another jean that fits me well. I bought a few pairs of jeans from The Buckle, but those didn't fit well at all after a few washes, and I haven't found a pair of Levi's that fit my proportions right. I may have to try American Eagle again, if they're selling jeans that aren't full of holes. Did I mention that I hate buying jeans?

NaNo Day 16 and Orientation, yay!

Quick update on word count for NaNoWriMo. I'm at 28,154 words. I should be at around 26,600ish words right now, so I am a little bit ahead. I'm hoping I'll get even more ahead this week, but I've got quite a bit to do, such as more laundry and grocery shopping, so who knows.

My story has gone off in a very strange direction, but it still oddly fits, considering some of the new ideas I have gotten. New characters and love interests have invented themselves and though I should reign them in sooner or later, I'm giving them a little bit of freedom to explore since this is NaNo and I can always go back and edit. I know I'll have to change some stuff in the rewrite, but this is a rough draft, so I can do whatever I want, just gotta get my ideas on the virtual paper. I've even thought up an ending, though it is subject to change and I don't even understand half of it right now. 

I had my first day of new employee orientation today and it was incredibly boring. Sadly, they yell at us if we fall asleep, but staying awake is so hard when they're talking about affirmative action and pension all that other boring stuff.

Oh, and there's some kind of new Caramel Brulee Frappachino at Starbucks. It is my new addiction, so yummy! I love creme brulee and this was probably the closest thing I've ever found to it in a drink, so it is very exciting. I just wish it wasn't nearly four dollars. Day two of orientation is tomorrow though, so I have a feeling I'll be grabbing one of those to stay awake. At least I'm getting paid for this! I wish I could get away with writing during this thing.

Where has the week gone? NaNo Day 14 and I'm barely making my wordcount.

This week has positively flown by. Actually, the whole month has been going at a pretty good pace and I have no idea where it's been going!

These last two weekends haven't been very productive for writing. Last weekend was opening weekend of deer season for rifle users. Brandon spent his weekend out at his parents' ranch, hunting, while I spent all day Saturday in Dallas with his mother and sister. We did some shopping, went to the IMAX, and went to Medieval Times, a dinner theater-type place with jousting and swordfighting.

I didn't take too many pictures while I was there...well I attempted to, but I couldn't get them to turn out right, mostly because there was low lighting and lots of movement, which isn't best for taking pictures. I got a few while they were standing still, but most of them were blurry. It was still kind of fun messing with my camera's manual settings though.

Work-related, things are going well. I have my official orientation on Monday and Tuesday, so it will be interesting, considering I have to be in downtown Houston at 7 am both days. Not fun and probably an hour drive, especially now that they're doing some construction on the main highway.

Brandon and I have been working on the house a bit, and we've been doing some furniture shopping as well. We may have even picked out a bed, even though we're probably going to wait to buy one until probably December.

We've been pampering the dogs a bit lately. Lucky got a new dog bed, though I think he still prefers the floor. I picked up a new blanket and Doobie thinks it's hers. We also got them some chews, they aren't rawhide, but a nice and easily digestible chew with a pork liver center. They really enjoyed them!

I think Doobie thought i was going to steal it from her.

This was right after Lucky got a bath, so he was still a little wet. We gave him the chew to keep him busy so he wouldn't lick himself for an hour.

We've been running pretty much nonstop and I haven't been doing much writing during work hours mostly because I don't have the time. I'm always working and I don't get much of a break during the day. In the evenings, Brandon and I have been doing a lot of running around and he hasn't felt like playing games. Still, I've managed to stay on top of it pretty well. As of this writing, I'm at 23,318 words and I'm supposed to be at 23,400ish. Tomorrow is the big 25,000 halfway point and I'll probably be heading to a write-in in Sugarland. In the morning, we're heading to the off-leash dog park down the road to let the dogs run around and the new Mario game comes out so we'll probably play that a bit. I need to get back ahead if I'm going to win NaNo, I'm probably going to have to lock myself in the study next week.

Maybe I can get some writing done during orientation...

NaNo Day Three, Work Day Two, Write-In Pictures!

Yesterday was quite exhausting. I got up earlier than I'm used to, but still not as early as I needed to, battled traffic for forty minutes, and began my first day at work. Yesterday was also the second day of NaNo, and I made my word count goal for yesterday as well as today. I'm at 7,115 words as of this moment (only actually needed about 5,000 by today), but I'm probably going to head off to bed after I make this post. Tomorrow should be a more productive day, since I'll have some downtime in the morning.

My new job is pretty interesting. I'm beginning on ammonia distillation and then I'll be doing the reading to make sure the various wastewater treatment plants around Houston aren't harming the environment. Tomorrow I'll actually get to do some hands-on stuff.

But enough about that. I went to my first NaNoWriMo write-in on Sunday, and though I only wrote about 700 words while I was there, I got to meet a bunch of people. We met at the TeaHouse in Sugar Land, which is a pretty awesome bubble tea place. There's another one by where I work, but I haven't stopped in yet. I will though, I will.

All of the pictures I took at the write-in are viewable in their own little Flickr set, so go check them out if you get bored. We had quite a few people there, so it was pretty fun.

 

The picture above was actually before several more people showed up. After that, I couldn't really fit everyone in the frame, since some were hiding by the plugs. When the bugs got kind of bad, a few people went inside. The only problem with writing outside is that power cables only reach so far! It was all good fun, though. We made fun of Twilight, got to know each other, and had a lot of laughs. Who needs productive writing?

Here's another little random bit from my writing. This is from chapter three (remember, really rough draft!):


Someone was walking towards me from the hallway to my left. Down that way was my English class. The girl’s high-heeled shoes clicked on the linoleum as she walked, sashaying down the hallway. I recognized that walk. It was Michelle’s walk, honed by years of cheerleading and dance classes. She was the most popular girl in school, and always dressed like she was going to a party. Designer accessories, dresses that only she could wear without getting in trouble for violating dress code, and always immaculate makeup. Always trailing around several boyfriends, too beautiful to ever have to chose one.

Too bad she was dead

NaNo Beginnings and the Terrible Twilight Tattoo

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo 2009! I have quit my actual writing for today, but I am happy to post that I am ahead of the 1,667 words I needed to pound out today. I finished today with a happy 3,113 words and I'm proud of them. I may have gotten more writing done if I hadn't gone to the Sugarland write-in, considering it was about an hour of drive time and I got maybe 800 words written in the three hours I was there, but it was worth it to go. I got to meet a bunch of cool people, got to sit around and talk with other writers, and I got some motivation. Some of the people there were already up to 8,000 words! I'd better get busy!

I have decided for sure that I will not be blogging the entirety of Celeste. I plan to, if things work out, get it published. Not only that, but I will not be editing as I go along, and I don't want to post drivel that doesn't make sense, lacks continuity, or has poor grammar. Therefore, I am going to post random quotes from my writing. I may not post them every day, or all that often at all. It just depends on what I think of my writing for the day. Today I am posting the first paragraph of Celeste. Remember: rough draft, unedited, blahblahblah.

I found myself growing weaker as the hordes of creatures kept coming up through the ground. Wide-eyed and panting, my breath visible in the freezing air, I knew I wouldn’t be able to kill them all. There were just too many of them and my energy was limited. Once I ran out, it would be the end of me. I sighed as I conjured another fireball and hurled it at the nearest ghoul. If I was going to die, I would die trying.

I'm not necessarily looking for criticism here, just posting so people know what's up.

For part two of my post...I would like to mention that we went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. We had a great time and I got a nice hand-crafted, leatherbound journal with homemade pages in it. Brandon got a wooden beer mug and the rest of our money went to food. Mmm funnel cakes.

Of course, you can't go to the Renaissance Festival on Halloween without seeing a ton of people in costume. A few are posted below.

 

Brandon and I enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

It was quite interesting to see all the people in costumes they thought were hot/daring/sexy, when they were really ugly/terrible/nauseating. Not to mention the myriad of tattoos that were strutting around the Festival grounds. Nothing was more terrifying, however, than the Twilight tattoo that I just had to take a picture of. Note Edward's eyes staring back at you. I bet if she ever gets married or gets laid, her partner won't ever want to get creative with positions for fear of Edward's eyes staring into his soul.

That's just plain scary!

It's Pumpkin Carving Time!

I haven't really gotten to carve a pumpkin in a long time, but this is our first Halloween in the new house and my first Halloween in a place where you get trick-or-treaters since I was four. Above is my pumpkin shortly after I finished carving it. 

Here we are actually carving our pumpkins. Jessica, Brandon's sister, is the one dressed up like a skeleton or something...they had a costume contest at her school today.

This is her zombie pumpkin, finished product.

And this is my pumpkin puking its guts out after it saw the zombie pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!

My 2009 Synopsis

I've finally put together a synopsis for my first NaNoWriMo novel. My next step will be some kind of banner or mock cover to motivate myself. Let me know what you guys think!

Celeste (Working Title)

Ninteen-year-old Kayden lives in a world of fear. During her senior year, she survived a school shooting which left her traumatized. As a result, she developed anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. Kayden passes the time and interacts with the outside world through a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game called Celeste, playing so often and so intently that the lines between her reality and the game often become blurred. In Celeste, she makes a friend who she plays with every day, questing and leveling alongside him, becoming as close to him as she can without leaving the confines of her room, the only place that she really feels safe.

When her friend goes missing, Kayden must gather up her courage and leave the comfort and safety of her home to find him. But when she finally goes outside, she finds herself stepping in the world of Celeste, alone and with no way to get home.

No, this is not my banner, but it is cute. I love lolcats!

NaNoWriMo Kick-Off Party

Today isn't the actual real kick-off for NaNoWriMo, but we did the party early because next weekend is Halloween and it's going to be pretty hectic. I got to meet a lot of really cool people today at the kick-off, so it was pretty fun.

We did some writing exercises and I got some good ideas for my novel from some of the other writers there. Several people were wearing the NaNo 2009 shirts and now I really want one. I just have to convince Brandon that the $20 (plus shipping) is worth it.

I took some pictures at the event today, not too many because I didn't want to bother people with my camera. The flash can be annoying sometimes because it flashes a whole bunch. Anyway, I posted the pictures to Flickr. It's my first time using Flickr, but it's more open and people can post comments and tag themselves...at least I think so.

Here's the Link to the Flickr set. Check it out when you're not bored.

Last full weekend before NaNo... Yay Kick-Off!

I lucked out this weekend and got Saturday off. I'm also planning on calling in sick tomorrow because I really want to go on a Mini Cooper drive around Houston to a bunch of different haunted houses. I know it's bad to call in sick, but I'm only going to be working at Barnes and Noble for another week before I begin my new job, and I've never called in sick. I'm just ready to finally have an open weekend!

Today is the big Houston kick-off. I'm hoping to meet a bunch of Houston people there, hopefully make some new friends that share the same interest in writing as me. It's a bit of a drive to head downtown for it, but I don't mind the driving. I'm going to bring my camera and probably post a bunch of pictures to the blog. That's about it for now. I'm running some errands with Brandon this morning, gotta get dog food and whatnot.

My Writing Space

I saw a thread on the NaNoWriMo forums where people were posting pictures of their writing spaces. I'm going to add my writing space to the thread as well, but first I wanted to post the pictures here, because I wanted to post all of the pictures and talk about them a little bit.

The bulk of my writing is going to be done in the study. It's still a little messy but I'm hoping Brandon will have all of his boxes out by the time NaNo starts on November 1st. It's been kind of hard unpacking everything because both Brandon and I are pack rats! We have way too much stuff that we don't want to throw away.

Here's a head-on view of my desk. I've go the iMac in the middle, and on the desk you'll see my MacBook, a camera lens, speakers, printer, mouse, iPhone dock, and my Kindle. This is with the blinds closed, which is how they will be when I really need to concentrate. (The doors to the study will most likely be shut as well.) I've been trying to go for a very minimal style to my writing space, but I always seem to have too much!

I'll probably open the blinds on weekends or on particularly nice days. You can see some of the clutter (it's gotten a lot better). Brandon's desk is on the left side of the picture and wraps around the study. The best part about this room is the view. A nice view of the large pond which will be great when I need some openness or inspiration. (Or if I'm just feeling really shut-in).

And here is a picture of the view outside the windows. It was cloudy today, so it looks a little dreary. It looks a lot better when it's sunny outside.

NaNoWriMo 2009!

So I'm starting this particular blog mostly with NaNoWriMo in mind. That's National Novel Writing Month and it begins on November 1st at 12:01am. During the month of November, my goal is to write a 50,000 word (or more) novel. I'll post updates here and more information about the novel I will be writing soon. I'll also be supplementing with pictures (if I'm not too lazy to upload) and other things. If I go to any write-ins around Houston, I will be sure to bring my camera!

After NaNo is over, this blog will revert to my personal blog. I had one before, but I was kind of unhappy with it and I stopped updating, so I am starting over with it.

If you are going to participate in NaNo, add me as a writing buddy!