Novel FAIL

As much as I wanted to write a 50,000 word novel this November for National Novel Writing Month, I didn't make it. I could complain about having too much to do (I had my thesis defense and a lot of papers to grade, primarily), but that's not right. I have long been a believer in the fact that you find time to do the things you really want to do, and I just didn't come through.

That being said, over the last three days I dedicated myself to trying to get as close to 50,000 words as I could. I only started with around 16,000 and I told myself that I could do it if I really tried. On the last day, with the seconds counting down, I told myself that if only I reached 30,000, I wouldn't be an utter failure. When I saw the clock in the corner of my screen hit 12:00, I finished the word I was typing and took my hands off the keyboard. Microsoft Word told me I had exactly 30,000 words. Spooky.

That still doesn't disguise the fact that I was 20,000 words short of victory.

Cyberpunk FAIL.

That being said, I did learn an important thing. The key to cyberpunk is that feeling of hot tech. Of course, it's more than that. The two keys (or so I think right now) to making a scene feel cyberpunk are making it feel techy and making it feel crowded.

Oh, and also run down.

The three keys to cyberpunk....


Now, for something completely different:

One of my favorite websites.

There are fewer than 80 characters in the full HTML of the site.

Yakuza front for secret data smuggling, or just a really awesome website? You decide.