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Bookish (And Not So Bookish) Thoughts

1. I'm more than 70% done with my NaNoWriMo word count!!! I think my novel may need to go over the 50,000 words, but it looks like I'm going to win on my first try! I rigged it a little, since I've purposely avoided doing it until such year as I had enough time. Also, I got some advice from a friend who's done it in the past that really helped. She told me to get as far ahead as I could in the first few days, and that even if I write, say, 4,000 words in one day, don't use that as an excuse not to write the next day. When she told me that, I laughed because I thought there was no way I could write 4,000 words in a day, but I surprised myself by writing 4,000 words the very next day and over 5,000 on one other day. Keep in mind, this is definitely an Ann Lamott-esque first draft, but 38, 769 words and counting!

2. My library reduction project has been started and completed! Using the KonMari method as outlined in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I went from 700+ books in my personal library to 449. The piles of books are still on the floor and I still need to come up with an organizational method, but now, each and every one of the books I own has been chosen by me. And that is a really amazing feeling. I also learned all kinds of interesting things about my preferences in books, which I'll probably talk about in a separate post.



3. I'm also using the KonMari method for tidying up the rest of my life. The method starts out with clothes, which was easy for me, since I hate clothes, but books are second, and that is obviously huge for me. On to komono (miscellaneous items), papers, and, what I'm dreading most of all, sentimental items. I'll let you know if it works!

4. The library system that I've been using for my entire life recently demanded proof of residence, and while I work and spend almost 100% of my family and social life in that county, I technically no longer live there. I am really upset. Besides the fact that I'm emotionally attached to my library card, which I've had since I was five (did I mention I'm dreading discarding sentimental items?), it's an especially good system where I can almost always get what I want, unless it's super brand new. I stalked the web catalog of the library nearest to my residence, and it took 12 tries to find a book that I want that they actually have available. Boohoo. =(

5. I celebrated paring down my library by...ordering myself new books! Okay, actually, they are more pity party books because I ordered them when I was really upset about the library thing. Needless to say, neither of these books are available at my local library. Also, I bought the Japanese flower print spiral notebook because I am really happy that I realized I specifically like using spiral notebooks of this size with inspiring images on the cover (a side effect of the library tidying, wherein I also discarded never-used journals).



Comments

Christine said…
Congrats on the NaNoWriMo progress! I started strong... for the first two days. I'm off this next week and hope to put in some more time, but there's no way I'll even come close.

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