Which means the results are not official.

I suppose you could say that I played the home version of NaNoWriMo in that I never officially signed up.

I just wanted to know if I could get those 50,000 words out before the end of November.

That I was editing and revising just made it more of a challenge.

Really, I just wanted to get an idea of how many words I'd been writing lately.

It turns out, I can write that many words.

Go me.

Maybe next year I'll even play for real.

That dang book.

I thought I'd seen the last of it, but it decided to show up again.

Have you considered Mt. Doom?

At least, that's what I thought when the question of how to destroy the Horcrux was raised.

(And don't get me started on what I will forever call the Spider-Man 3 moment.)

Drago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I noticed that the lady from the Target ad was training for Black Friday to the music used in one of the training montages in Rocky IV. Realizing that, I wondered why she wasn't running around in a mostly dark gym, punching at a bag as she ran by, being hooked up to some weird technologically advanced machines, trying to lift a cart full of all of her friends, or running up the side of a mountain. It also made me want to watch Rocky IV again and forget that I have to work that day.

It's because paying for a CD for one song seemed pretty dumb.

I'm getting more than a little tired of the people who I am going to call The Beatles Elitists.

You probably know one too.

They're the people who already have everything that the Beatles ever put out.

In multiple copies.

They're the people who think they know everything and can't believe that you don't have the Such-And-Such Album.

They're the people who look at you like you have the plague when you say that you think The Beatles are okay.

Those people are getting on my nerves.

You know what people?

Some of us only wanted to buy one song because we already had all of the others that we wanted.

Some of us don't feel the need to own the entire catalog.

Some of us don't think that a certain band is the be all, end all, greatest thing ever created because maybe that band hasn't even been created yet.

Some of us are just happy that we can now finally buy that one song that never seemed to make it onto any of the compilations.

For you see, dear people, I thought that paying the full price for a CD mostly comprised of songs I already owned for the one song I didn't seemed a little too steep of a price to pay.

There. I've said it. Feel free to attack. I really don't care.

All I'm saying is that I'm happy.

(And I don't force you to listen to what I listen to, or look down my nose at you if you don't, so you shouldn't either. It's only common courtesy.)

III is finished.

We have moved on to IV.

Muwahahahahahaha!

The Gentleman's Guide to Villainy from Aidan McAteer on Vimeo.

I'm really very sorry.

If there's a darling to be killed, I know which one it will be.

I'm going to let it live for now though.

I just might want to keep it.

But if I do end up killing it, it's going to take quite a few pages away.

Still, I know what I'd do if I had to do it.

I just don't want to do it right now.

Besides, I'm so close to finishing that section anyway, it would be a shame to kill it now.

Well that changes things.

At first I thought I'd be way over the 216 pages I wanted for the file.

Then I realized that if I was going to be writing the scene from that particular character's point of view, he wouldn't see a lot of the stuff that had originally been there.

He'd see parts of it, but he wouldn't see it all.

That's why the file ends on 217 instead of lord only knows what page.

It doesn't change the fact that there's still about a 70 or so page difference between the two drafts, but it helps.

Sort of.

It's just a little miscalculation.

I don't think this scene is going to end on 216 after all.

Oh well, this file will just have to be a little longer.

(Hopefully not too much.)

I think you've got bigger problems.

Only vaguely paying attention to the medical ad on television, I heard the announcer going through the side effects and caught this: "patients taking aspirin or the elderly..."

Wait a minute.

I don't think you're supposed to ingest that.

In fact, I'm pretty sure it's against the law, and even if it's not, it's still frowned upon.

And so they entered the valley,

which, in retrospect, was probably a really bad idea.

(You have no idea.)

I'm glad the Internet hadn't really gotten started back then.

I'm glad that back in junior high the Internet was still that thing that was sort of there but not really.

I'm glad that it was something you might notice in passing in the library, but mostly you were there for the books.

I'm glad that there were no social networking sites that you felt you had to join.

I'm glad that back then you could leave school at school.

I'm glad that back then you could leave the people at school at school and not have to deal with them until the next day.

I'm glad because I'm pretty sure I would have had first hand experience with cyber-bullying.

I'm glad because I'm pretty sure that I would have felt even worse about myself than I was made to feel for those two+ years.

I'm glad that I got out of there just in time.

I'm glad that people seemed to grow up when we finally reached high school.

I'm glad that I only had to deal with a few of the lingering effects during the first little bit of freshman year.

I'm glad that during high school the Internet was still finding its feet in academia.

I'm glad that I didn't have to deal with what some of these kids are dealing with today.

I don't know what would have happened if I had had to.

I don't think I want to think about it.

I know what might have happened, but I just don't want to think about it.

I already have to live with what did.

That's because you're a person...sort of.

"I was no dwelling."

Of course you weren't.

(I love typos :).)

Don't ask me why.

It was just a lot easier writing the quiet scene to the heroic battle music than it was trying to write it to the quiet, contemplative music.