NaNoWriMo Winner!

Yes, you heard me right!

I am now officially a NaNoWriMo Winner! I finally finished my novel just now and according to the NaNoWriMo word counters, my novel word count stands at 51162 words.

Aah, the satisfaction of completing my novel! Of getting the job done.

I have this smug grin on my face for the last one hour.

Oh, the agony...

I played the worst round of golf in my entire life!

I have never played this poorly since, let me think, FOREVER! And the funny thing was, this round I had the lowest putts I have ever taken in a full round. 29 putts.

Problem was getting to the green. If I was anywhere close to the green, I was much better. Even from bunkers (which I surprisingly found myself in a lot of times). My swing was completely off. Sometimes, I was striking the ball really well. Other times, I was hitting the ball all over the place.

Only compensation was that I was comfortable hitting my new R5 driver. I must have hit it consistently to around 280 yards. But after that, I was constantly battling to get to the green.

So, it's back to the range for me. It's an extremely rude wake up call for me. Serves me right for neglecting the game for so long.

Time to get better acquianted with the driving range.

I can smell the finish line

Yep, you heard me right.

My word count stands at 43838, a mere 6162 words away from the golden 50000 word mark. I am slap bang into the climax of my novel and the build up so far has been to my satisfaction. But I haven't read it as a whole novel yet and so don't know how the script has gelled together. I hope it has, but I will know only when it's done, won't I?

I have a few hours of writing tonight before I pick up my friend from the airport. He and his family are landing tonight and staying with us for a day before they leave for India. So my plan is to carry my trusted Ferrari notebook (don't I just love to rub it in?) and write while I wait for their flight to come in.

I should have a few thousand words in by then. Then I will be just a few thousand words away from the end of my first novel. I think it has turned out well so far, but since I have been the only critic (it has been written in extreme secrecy, so no one but me has seen is), I can't really say.

Any of you wanting to criticise my literary skills? I didn't think so.

Less than 13000 to go

Just when you thought I had given up on NaNoWriMo, ha ha... guess what?

I have less than 13000 words to go to hit the magic 50000 word mark. Pretty crazy, huh? And I am smiling cause I know I hit 13000 words with 3 days of crazy writing when I actually started writing on the 6th of this month.

Why did I start so late, you ask? Cause I had my oldest friend visiting me at that time. I had started writing on the 1st like a good WriMo, but then he landed here on the 3rd and there went my writing.

So I started again when he left on the 6th and in the panic attack, blazed through to 15ooo by the time I hit the 12th of the month.

Now I am at 37075 words. A couple of thousand words every day and I will be sitting pretty with more than 50000 words before the end of the month. Just to be sure, I want to be well over the number to make sure I dont fall short of it after all this effort.

That does not mean I will compromise on the quality of my novel. It is going to be my best literary work till date. Come to think of it, it will be my FIRST literary work as well.

What a coincedence, huh?

93

Yep, that's what I shot!

After a break of more than four months, I finally played a round of golf! YESSS!!!

I, along with a few people, went to the Palm Resort golf resort in Johor Bahru to play the Melati course, which is one of the three courses the resort has to offer.

I was quite impressed with the efficiency of the immigration procedure at the First Link between Singapore and Malaysia. After about 15 minutes of queuing up, we were on our way to the course. As we neared, the skyline seemed to get darker and darker. We only hoped that it would not rain.

But it was not to be. The rain came down, a drizzle at first and then pouring down. We, however, decided to go ahead with the round. We didn't actually think that the rain would get worse. I guess we are really bad weathermen.

As there were a few groups waiting on the first tee, we decided to start from the 15th hole. I was going to use my new Taylor Made R5 driver for the first time and frankly, even a blind man could have made out that I was not hitting it right. I struggled off the tee for the first few holes, but managed to scramble to five bogeys in a row.

For someone who has not played for a while, bogeys are welcome. It meant that I was doing something right. Honestly, the swing was there, just that there was no feel for the chipping and putting part of the game. So lost a few holes because of the chipping.

Then a few pars and a few more bogeys later, I was still playing to 11 over after 14 holes. The rain was now steadly comind down, affording only so much visibility and messing up the grips. Then disaster struck.

I hit a really beautiful drive, smack in the center of the fairway. Mighty pleased with myself, I walked over to my ball. I noticed that it was just off the drain cover, so it was an awkward lie, but not completely unplayable.

Then I shanked, got it back and shanked again. By the time, I was on the green I was already playing my 8th stroke and then single putted to a quadruple bogey. My card was destroyed.

The game, thinking I could handle a little more devastation, put another double bogey on my card at the very next hole. By the time I located my disappeared swing, I was already eight strokes off where I wanted to be.

So finally, I played to 93 on a par 72 course. Not bad, I try to convince myself, considering the fact that I was playing for the first time in four months and that it was pouring on course. Also, I was playing the course for the first time, which I think does play a role.

The high point of the day was the return of the putting feel. I finished the round with 34 putts and had only a single three putt (when I was on the green in regulation on a long par 5, can you believe it?)

So armed with the knowledge (or the lack) of my swing, I will be playing a friendly tournament on Sunday. And this time, I will keep the driver in the bag. Unless I can spend some time with it at the driving range.

Wish me luck!

Adios, Roy

Yep, it's official. Roy Keane has decided to leave Manchester United, effective immediately.

I personally am sad. Keane is a big loss for ManU. He was probably the only one ManU had who was a true midfielder. After Beckham left, he was the one creating a lot of opportunities.

ManU has a lot of talent in some areas. They have a great stiker in Rooney (I personally think Ruud Van Nistelrooy is highly over rated and is a complete idiot who waits for the ball rather than taking it to goal a la Henry), a brilliant flanker in Ronaldo and some really good talent in Scholes, Giggs and the gang. But there is no real playmaker.

If you watch the recent games, Rooney is the guy who is creating a lot of chances. He is usually involved in all the goals, even if he is not the person scoring them.

Keane departure, tho, has not been a surprise. He recently made scathing remarks on the performance of certain people which, I am sure, did not go down well with Sir Alex.

His move from ManU does leave a hole in the midfield section. I know that Alan Smith and Paul Scholes have been trying to fit into that slot and full marks to Smith for putting so much effort on the field. But they are not natural midfielders. They are strikers who have been forced to play midfield and so are still learning the nuances of the position.

I just hope that ManU gets a good replacement for him.

Not that I am complaining, tho. ManU beat Charlton Athletico convincingly today with a 3-1 scoreline at full time. That too a day after Keane's announcement. Hats off to them for playing like the great team they are.

Go on, you Red Devils. My support remains unwavering.

27500...and still going

Ho hmmm... yeah, I am still going on about that.

Yep, I have touched 27500 words and have another 22500 to go before the 30th of this month. That makes it around 2000 words a day on an average. I hope I make it. I really do.

So now you know why most of my recent post have been at unearthly timings. Cause I have been burning the midnight oil (yeah, I still use oil) and putting my words down to become immortal.

Maybe someday, I will put up my novel on this blog.

I have no sense of mercy, so I will put you through it! He he.

Ferrari once more

And this time I am not talking about the car.

I bought the Acer Ferrari 4005, a super powerful notebook, for myself. Obviously it's a work machine, but this is the first computer that I have bought for myself and so the decision makes me tremendously happy.

I am sure you have noticed from a few previous posts that I am a major Ferrari nut. Well, actually I am primarily a Michael Schumaker nut and then a Ferrari nut, but that's just a techincality. So the brand was definately important to me. I would have to live with an Acer logo on my notebook as well, but then the Ferrari Prancing Horse clearly dominated the notebook. So that problem was not so much of an issue.

The configuration of the machine is killer. It's an AMD Turion 64bit processor running at 2GHz, has a gig of RAM and a 100gig 5400RPM disk. It also has a Panasonic optical drive which will amost write anything (DVD, CD, etc...)

The display is a crisp 15.4 inches wide screen delight. The display is powered by an ATI X700 graphics card which has it's own dedicated 128MB graphics memory. So the graphics are fab.

It's such a great feeling to use the machine. The keyboard layout is a bit different to my earlier Toshiba notebook, so am in the midst of getting used to it.

Way to go Ferrari. If you want to read more reviews on the norebook, just do a search for Ferrari 4005 (duh!)

18030...the numbers are looking better

Yep, that's the latest tally for the novel.

I know that I am only 36% ow the way at the 50% mark, but my effort the last few days has made me believe that this will be fine.

I need to write around 1800 words every day now for the next twenty or so days to finish comfortably ahead of time. And considering the fact that I am now up to around 1700 words per hour, I need to put in slightly more than an hour to keep on track. If I can manage more, then nothing like it. I will be able to keep some buffer (in case I go out for a round of golf and return bone tired to write even my obituary)

Tally ho!

7299

That's where I am at the moment with my quest to reach NaNoWriMo glory.

In case you did not read my previous blog, the point of the whole thingy is that you need to churn out a 50,000 (that's right, you read it correct. It IS fifty thousand) word novel in the month of November. So basically you start writing (about bloody well anything in the whole bloody world) from the first of November and end writing on the thirtieth of November and hope that your month long toil has resulted in a tome which crosses the mark. And if you do, then you are added to the Winner's page. And you get ........


Ta ta ra raaaaa.....

A certificate for your effort and a web icon. How cool is that? Isn't that worth getting carpal tunnel syndrome?

Now, why am I wasting my time posting this, you ask? Cause I don't want my dedicated blog followers to think that I have abandoned them. Fear not, my mateys. I will return with the web icon. I just need to get back to my novel right now.

Man U (1) - Chelsea (0)

I know I haven't had a post for a while, but I have to write about this.

Manchester United beat Chelsea 1-0 at Old Trafford tonight! (YESSS!!!) And what a game it was. MU was on the ball from the whistle. The forst half, it looked like they were in exclusive control of the ball. And the Premier League champions looked completely out of sorts on the field.

Nothing the truely great Lampard, the inspirational Terry or the lightning quick Drogba could do to break the MU defense. And I must say this, Rio Ferdinand was excellant today. (Looks like he took the criticism of Roy Keane to heart). So was Darren Fletcher, who was the lone goal scorer of the match. And you should have seen Alan Smith throw himself at the ball.

It was like MU was obsessed with winning the game.

What an entertainer! The quality of the game was phenomenal! Just top class!

I guess MU just out-gunned Chelsea today, bringing their unbeaten run in the premiership season to an end.

Aaaaaaahhhhh! That is so so so satisfying.

Now back to NaNoWriMo (which is keeping me busy these last few days)