Class Work

So you won't be seeing my usual wave of news articles and random thoughts this week because I am once again being paid to take classes. That is, apparently the lab has hired someone from Red Hat to come out and teach some of us about Linux, and I'm one of the 'some of us.' Which is really great because I've been meaning to figure out more about Linux for upwards of two years now, and just haven't taken the time to find the resources for it.

Of course, after one day of class I'm really psyched about the whole thing. I don't think I can quite leave Windows entirely, mostly because you can't play Guild Wars or Oblivion on a Linux machine, but I'm very seriously considering dual-booting so that I can use the Linux OS to actually manage my machine, and just turn on Windows when I want to play games.

We'll see how that goes. The two biggest obstacles are (1) I haven't any clue what the difference is between all the Distributions out there (Ubuntu or Gentoo or Suze or whatever else you want to tack on) and (2) I would need to reformat, or at least reorganize my data, because right now all my disks are NTFS, and that's proprietary to Windows (so Linux can't access it).

Still, it would be really great to be able to write up some scripts to organize my music library.

NaNoWriMo

So I've wanted to write this story of mine for years. In truth, I have no fewer than two stories I want to write; the one kind of spun off from the other and they've since evolved, each unstarted let alone unfinished, into rather different entities. and never mind the host of characters and settings I've brought forth in my Snippets.

(And, in fact, the story I'm currently toying with is looking like it's going to branch into a trilogy.)

My problem is two-fold. The first is the simplest to fix: I can't get started. I can't figure out how to begin the story, or where to begin it. This is in part because of the bigger problem: I don't know how to get it where I want it to go. I don't know how to get the characters I have to be in the place where I need them to be.

Anyways. I bring all this up because ready or not, I'm writing the story next month for NaNoWriMo. I was actually just going to do it unofficially, but when Leslie suggested I sign up, I figured why not?

It was my plan to say something like, "you guys should all do this, too," mostly 'cause I'm looking for a writing group type thing. But as very few of you are local enough to meet me at Starbucks, I'm not entirely sure how effective that could be. Still, I will say that it'd be nice if some (or all) of you played along with me, either officially in NaNoWriMo or not. I know at least one of my friends completed the 50,000 words in 30 days a few years ago (though she never did let me see the piece she ended up with); so I know it can be done.

I think I'm just rambling now. I'm really excited to write, but I'm also really scared of it not going anywhere. A part of me wants to just take some of the other characters I've created for my Snippets and write a completely fresh, un-thought story for them; but a bigger part of me *really* wants to write this story, too. Not even 'too'; there's really no other story I *want* to write.

But anyways. Yes. I need chocolate.

It's Official

I just registered on the official NaNoWriMo site.
If anyone out there is so inclined, you can add me as JackOfAllGeeks (of course).
I'm psyched.