News of the Day

First, a little Tin Tin Can news:

Recording is going well.  "Bandwagon (Abducted by Aliens)" is nearing the final touches.  We've got a song of Justin's, tentatively titled, "Helena, Helena," that needs some drums, maybe a horn or two, and bass.  "My Red Ant" is coming along nicely.  A few songs we're working on, but are in early stages so far: "What Fireworks," "City Lights," "Brand New Blue Jeans," and the as-yet-untitled Ghost Song.

The band is planning a big recording session during the penultimate weekend of October.  Lots of bass, lots of vocals, some of those fancy licks Chris is known for, maybe some drums.  Pierce demands recording his drums on the rooftop of his flat, so who knows with that guy...

We hope to have the album finished and pressed by December, but we're not making promises.  And yes, contrary to popular belief, this will be a full-length, 9 to 12 songs or thereabouts.

In the meantime:

The next week I'll be off to Carbondale, IL to spend some time with a good friend of mine, Mr. Josh Murphy.  We'll be drinking cheap wine into the late hours, I'm sure, and recording our own little spoken word/absurd record.  Extremely looking forward to this; and, if time allows, seeing a few other friends down south.

Also:

Most of my Clarionite buddies and I have joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, http://www.nanowrimo.org/), in which the goal is to write 50,000 words from Nov. 1st to midnight Nov.30th.  Roughly, that's 1667 words a day, without a break.  That's a lot of damn words.  Some people go into this with a complete plan for a novel, plot mapped out, characters of depth, etc.  I don't want to do that.  Firstly, because I've been reading a lot of stream-of-consciousness books lately (see: The Orange Eats Creeps, by Grace Krilanovich) and I want to give this a whirl - not that I'm saying stream-of-consciousness books aren't mapped out beforehand; I'm saying I don't want to overthink it.  All I know about what I want to write about is this: it's going to be vaguely Young Adult, the main character is named Moo, there is a circus involved, and something very absurd happens.

The point of NaNoWriMo, of course, is not to hash out a brilliant novel in a month.  Very, very few people can actually do this successfully anyway.  The point is to write like a fool and see what happens and then, if it's worth keeping, revise it later.

I'm hoping to finish one or two more short stories before November because I'd like to get about 7 or 8 in circulation before I disappear for a month into my "novel."

NOTEWORTHY FINALE:

What are you guys dressing up as for Halloween?  I'm going as the Headless Snuggie.