Author: Geoff W

Reading my way through life.
30x30, Personal Project

30 x 30: #17 – Finish Pride and Prejudice fan-fiction novel

Geoff W

2014 12-10 Darcy's Dream PreviewSo the beauty about this being my 30×30 list is that I get to determine when an item is done. As I said at the beginning of the month, when I posted about NaNoWriMo I planned on calling this one complete even if I didn’t finish it completely. And I am going to call Finish my Pride and Prejudice fan-fiction novel my 28th completed list item leaving my tattoo and finishing Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal as my final two items!

The novel originally started out as a joint project between my friend Caroline and I, but due to creative differences, AKA she wanted to write an erotica novel and I wanted to write a romance novel, it became my project. The book is tentatively titled Darcy’s Dream and I’ve reached my unofficial goal of 25,000 words. I originally thought it would be enough for the story, a novella if you will, but I’m a little over what I think is halfway through the story I want to tell. If you zoom in on the picture you can get a brief preview of it but keep in mind it hasn’t been edited and only two people have read it since I wrote that portion a few months ago! (I haven’t even gone back to read it yet.)

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30x30, Personal Project

30 x 30: #13 – Re-read The Lord of the Rings

Geoff W

2014 12-09 LotR Cover ShootIt took me a lot longer to write this recap than any of the others because I’ve been so busy living life. One of the things I really wanted my 30×30 list to do was to restart my excitement for life and the little things and it’s done exactly that! At the same time I’m also glad I waited as I got to add the cool picture below to this post!

I added this to my list because let’s face it I needed to re-read it. The last time I read it was in high school just before Peter Jackson’s trilogy was released. I read them quickly and didn’t really take them in (I was still in my “I only read Star Wars novels.” phase. I remember the second book being such a struggle because it felt like it took SO long to read. It did take me a month to read, but looking back there’s no telling what that reason was. This time, however, I flew through all four of them in less than a month and I read books between the them! You can read my reviews of the books:
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30x30, Books, Quotes

Book 319: The Return of the King (LOTR #3) – J.R.R. Tolkien

Geoff W

With this book, and my previous reading of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, I’m one step closer to finishing my 30×30 list. What better way to start off my response than with Treebeard/Fangorn’s words to Galadriel: “It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending. For the world is changing: i feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet again.” (290)

It’s so true though! What a sad, beautiful and perfect ending to this epic novel (apparently it’s counted as one in a lot of lists). I mean I knew it was great and I remembered a lot of it, but nowhere near as much as was included in the book. I even read Appendix A which gave the brief history of the race of men and Gimli’s heritage which was excellent to learn more about them. I didn’t go into the other appendices as they were a bit too technical for my liking, but I did seriously consider buying a few more Tolkien Middle-earth books when I saw them at the used bookstores last weekend and I may yet!

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30x30, Personal Project

30 x 30: #18 – Participate in NaNoWriMo

Geoff W

2014 12-01 NaNoWriMo TotalI knew when I made this list that there was no way I would be able to do 50,000 words in a month and boy was I right. However, that’s why I said PARTICIPATE in NaNoWriMo instead of complete! (I’m wicked smaht, right?)

It wasn’t for lack of time after I made it through the 15th, so much as lack of desire to sit in front of a computer and write and even though I came in just under 20,000 words I’m still really proud I got that much done. I was shocked at how easy it was to write the story I chose and am excited to finish it. Looking at the graph, you can see I wrote the what I did in three quick spurts with the final one being where I wrote nearly 12,000 words in one go.

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Updates

November Recap 2014

Geoff W

2014 11-15 Geoffsgiving!If I thought October was bad, it was nothing compared to November! I feel like this should just all be lists of what I did this month, but that’s boring so instead you’re going to get lists AND pictures.

This month I had my annual friendsgiving with over 20 people at the house two days after the event I talk about below. I demand that we all sit in one big table and thus the ridiculous picture to the right.

The Tuesday before that I had a big event at work that a team of three of us spent most of the year planning (shifting it from every other year to every year) Here are two pictures from the event and the flowers I received for it being so successful! and after we finished it successfully I got flowers from the President of the College, right, I then of course proceeded to forget I got them and not water them for almost a week 🙁 I’m slowly trying to bring them back to life as they were so pretty. I’ll give it another couple of days and if they’re not back to normal I’ll have to say goodbye to them.

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