Fanatical Pupil

Yes, I’ve now written more than 30,000 words… too bad it’s spread across three different projects. This time, the 10,000th word was something just as interesting as she or date. For Hear the Grass Grow, the 10,000th word is: note.

And, I’m only 207 words behind my goal average of 500 per day. So, I’ve only fallen an average of 17 words per day since the first time I reached the 10,000 word milestone on 2/15 (exactly 2 months ago – and March was a pretty weak month for my writing; the counts for February and April look a lot better).

I first noticed that Anathem was up on Amazon.com a while ago (recommended because they do actually make some good recommendations). For some reason, I decided to look for a plot summary today since one hasn’t been posted on Amazon yet. I first found this post on Nerd World with the standard back cover narrative I found quoted on several sites (and will now quote here):

Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians—sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable “saecular” world that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides that only these cloistered scholars have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his cohorts are summoned forth without warning into the Unknown.

Then I came across this post on But enough about you from which I will also quote:

He’s writing a science fiction novel unrelated to Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle. It’s set on another planet and has aliens and so on. It’s really about Platonic mathematics, but he needed the aliens and space opera-ish elements to spice it up a little bit, just like the pirates kept people engaged in the Baroque books.

So, pretty much it sounds AWEsome. After reading the first quote, I was worried because it sounded a little too much like something along the lines of The Baroque Cycle. Not that I don’t like the Baroque Cycle, but being half way through The Confusion, I don’t know if I could handle another 928 page book (according to Amazon) in the same vein. Perhaps Neal couldn’t either.

Sometimes, when I’m running home from basketball (which often seems to be in the rain), I imagine that I’m one of those young, down-on-his-luck basketball players from a Young Adult novel that I read in middle school.

Too bad I didn’t know about this book when I was in middle school. This one was also under the Science Fiction category, keyword basketball, so I’m sure it’s pretty awesome.

Despite watching basketball, playing basketball, working in the garden, and working 11 hours today, I have managed 1000+ words in two of the last four days, and got to 116 today.

Daily average (since 2/18/08): 288

Hear the Grass Grow is now up to 7,697, which means I’m only about 6,000 words away from dropping it to work on something else.

Best typo so far: disposable makeshit stage.

Most common type so far: occured. I’m not sure that actually counts as a type though, since I actually thought it was spelled with only one R.

Confusing, possible typo: Entendre. You can have a double entendre according to Thesaurus.com, but apparently if it’s not a double, then it doesn’t count. So, how do you spell check that one?