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November is National Novel Writing Month, referred to as NaNoWriMo by the cool kids. The official goal of the event is to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel. More loosely, it’s to write 50,000 of some novel (perhaps you’re finishing last year’s, or revising your current one.) Or if you’re not in the novel game, maybe just write 50,000 words. Or write a graphic novel with some constraint. In reality, it’s an event designed to get people writing and to build the habit of writing every day. The word goal is just to encourage you to silence your inner editor for a while, and let your brain throw crap on paper. ...

You can read last week’s post to get a feel for what this very short series is about. Broadly speaking, in my quest to read more modern literature, I’m finding myself grappling with modern issues in a way that is rather different than when I’m having broad conversations with others, or reading news stories. Books are affecting to me, and always have been. I’m typically more emotionally moved by a book that just about any other stimulus. So, I take the stories they tell seriously and look for what the author wants to say with it. ...

As I mentioned last week, I’m trying to make a concerted effort to read modern fiction books. What tends to come along with this are modern takes on old issues in society, and modern takes on modern problems. This is perhaps the strongest argument for reading difficult modern literature: it makes us confront issues in a new way, and become warier of issues facing our current society. ...

Over the years, I’ve read very little modern fiction. I went through some of the main young-adult fiction of my generation (Harry Potter, Eragon and the likes) but have rarely read any modern literature published this century. There are a few exceptions, such as the work of Neal Stephenson. Yet throughout school, most books we read were much older. This caused me to become more interested in older literature, and believe that the ability to read it was some sign of maturity. ...

I was informed by a friend that someone I went to high school with made national news after getting kicked out of a Trump rally in Minneapolis. It made me consider the hundreds of people I no longer know much about since I left high school, and how many different paths they’ve gone on. The news of this particular classmate of mine was hilarious, and largely in character based on what I knew of them. However, seeing them in the context of the real world and not just talking to them adds a different, more intriguing element to it. ...

It’s finally the playoffs for the MLB. It’s an exciting time, particularly since the Twins are finally back in the running, albeit it once again against the Yankees, whom we’ve lost 15 straight playoff games to. It’s a bit disappointing, and this weekend was rough, but we have another game tonight to try and keep the dream alive. I’m hoping for the best. This is my favorite time of year, and I’d like to be able to enjoy it first-person, rather than by jumping on another bandwagon.

This is probably more literal than you may expect. I went to the beach this weekend, and for the first time just happened to arrive during high tide on a windy day. It was incredibly interesting seeing the beach I’m familiar with have an entirely different landscape, as waves swept in well over 50 ft further than I was used to. This is something that I’m not used to think about. Between my infrequent trips to the beach, my background of just going to lakes, and not doing much in terms of shoreline water sports when I am at the beach, the tides never seemed to affect me. But now I’m curious as to how it changes the view and experience of other beaches. It’s something I’m interested in exploring. ...

I don’t have much time to write anything substantial this week; I had visitors all weekend, and have other visitors coming soon to prepare for. So, this is a sorry excuse for a post just for the sake of keeping my weekly streak alive. To that end, on the side menu of the site I’ve finally added a feedback email address. I’ve had the email available for use for quite a while now, but only just figured out how to easily set-up my email clients to allow it to actually be usable by me. So, if you happen to read this blog and have ever wanted to voice strong opinions to me, emailing feedback@markrichard.org is the way to go. I believe there’s also a comment system (that has been used about once in total), but that seems much less likely to be utilized.

A few weeks ago I decided to get a membership to the San Diego Zoo. I’d only been once before, back when I was an intern, and had an amazing time. After talking with a few people, I discovered the a membership for the entire year is about the cost of two tickets. So, I decided to give it a whirl. I’ve already gone twice, so everything from now is a bonus. ...

In the most recent episode of OHAC, we played my newest text adventure Homestead, which broadly is about outdoor survival. We had a good time playing it, and it took twice as long as my previous adventure, Sail Away. I also learned a lot from doing it the first time to create a more reasonable set-up, and organize my document in a more logical way (at least to myself). I’ll upload the blank PDF here (and can provide the LaTeX source file upon request); the completed version after finishing the game is also attached to the show notes of the OHAC episode. ...