PIE! (and other things)

Listening to: KaiserCartel, "Favorite Song" (This song is so adorable & sweet, I recommend you give it a listen)


Here's the pie from last Thursday's Fall Bakeoff on Twitter. Apple with a crumb topping.


It was pretty good, but I'll do a few things differently next time. Thinking of making another one this week, and I'm going to get to the country market and get good apples. Grocery store produce is never as good as what that place offers. I have some Triple Berry preserves from there, and OMG is it the best thing on toast ever or WHAT.

Also, I don't think the recipe called for enough butter. The crumb topping could've stood to be...crumbier? I don't know. I'll try more butter next time, and we'll see where it goes.

So. In the "other things category...

Those of you who were around last year may remember the hellish time I had with NaNoWriMo. And how I decided afterward that it wasn't for me. I mean, sure, a few good things came from it...mostly blog posts. And I eventually finished my NaNovel, after some major plot restructuring. And I think it's halfway decent. Time will tell if others agree with me, but whatever.

So I mentioned on Twitter the other day that I saw everyone gearing up for NaNo, and now I had to resist the temptation--and then some of my buddies pounced on me, seeing a carcass ready for picking. "You know you want to!" "All the cool kids are doing it!" "Be optimistic!"

Gah! And then we started assigning evil alter egos to the instigators, who then told those of us who were on the fence that we, too, could have evil alter egos if we'd just do NaNo. And then someone assigned Maleficent to me, and she's like the most badass Disney bad guy ever, and Sleeping Beauty was the first Disney movie I ever loved.

I totally lost my first tooth while watching Maleficent be all evil.

Double gah! There was some grumbling about all the Disneyfication of our alter egos, and discussion of perhaps making them all literary characters (and if anyone has any evil literary characters in mind that they think will fit me, leave suggestions in the comments), but I'm sort of already in love with this one.

Okay, so I'm thinking about NaNo. It's just so tempting, what with the communal writing aspect, and using a word count spreadsheet, and getting that much writing done in thirty days, and then thinking about it helped me get some details for an idea that's just been a vague concept in my head for several months. And, you know, having an evil alter ego.

So I've already gotten something out of it.

And I'm going to be project-less in November anyhow, because I plan to give the latest WIP to the betas & CPs (oh hey betas & CPs, this is probably the first you've heard of this, I'll be in contact via email soon to discuss your availability).

Here's my tentative plan, then:

Do NaNo. Give myself permission to write badly, knowing that getting the words down on paper is the goal and editing will fix that. But watch out for plot problems. Because those can become a big tangle that is nearly impossible to fix, or at least harder than bad writing. At the first sign of bad plotting, slow it down or take a few days off to consider new directions. So, in this scenario, I would be doing NaNo very carefully, and with the option to bail if I think it's hurting my idea. It's hard enough to do a good idea justice, so I don't want to risk ruining it altogether.

I've got to admit, I'm excited, and this has urged my brain to really think about the new idea...which led to some serious brainstorming last night when I was trying to fall asleep. That's always a good sign.

So what about you? NaNo, or NOOOOONaNo? Who would your evil alter ego be? And do you like my pie?