NaNoWriMo Prep 2009

I've been thinking a lot about NaNoWriMo lately. Going back and forth on whether or not to do it. Well I failed last year and couldn't get past 20,000 words. I really would like to finish my novel and NaNoWriMo would help accomplish that. Will I have the time to write 50,000 words in a month? It never hurts to try. It can be tough deciding whether or not to do it. I'm also pretty sure I'm not alone in this. NaNoWriMo is not easy. It's time consuming, it has the ability to drive you crazy for the entire month of November, there's no time for silly things such as friends, family, girlfriends/boyfriends. So why do we do it? Why am I willing to put myself through this for the second November in a row? Easy: I like a challenge.

For the first month of November I can be found hunched over my desk, coffee cup to the right, chocolate to the left, pen in hand, and probably mumbling things to myself as I think faster than I can write slash type. The second week you can find me sitting in a comfortable chair with an energy drink, tapping my pen against my head in frustration as if hitting myself will help words come out of my hand and onto paper. The third week I can probably be found sitting in bed writing (bad I know!) frustrated and tired, trying to figure out what scene to go to next. And the fourth- well lets hope you can find me writing in the fourth and final week of NaNoWriMo.

If you're thinking about trying it and the idea is as terrifying as it should be then I've compiled a list of websites you should check out before we hit that November 1st Start.

First, the official website, of course. Sign up! (If you sign up let me know in the comments what your username is.)

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is fast approaching. Here one writer shares why she takes up the challenge of writing a novel in 30 days.

9 Ways to Prepare for NaNoWriMo

To Plan or Not To Plan (Plan!)

Gearing Up For NaNoWriMo

Also, if you're browsing the library or local Border's check out Chris Baty's No Plot No Problem. It's a good book to skim through for ideas during NaNoWriMo.

Do you have any sites for tips and tricks to help succeed during the month of November? Leave them in the comments.

Until next time...

Online T-shirts 101

So a friend of mine is looking for some good websites for t-shirts. Buying t-shirts is where roughly 83% of my money goes to and my shirts are always bought online so I figure I'm pretty much an expert on the subject.

Instead of offering her a few links I decided to make a blog post about it and offer my insights to all(2) of you as well. Kind of like a t-shirt class. Wouldn't that be cool? To have a t-shirt class? I digress.

How should we do this? Do you want me to categorize them by types of shirts or go from best to worst site for t-shirts?

Well first of all, whatever order I decide to write this post in, we all know I love threadless. No matter what kind of shirt you're looking for threadless has it. From shirts with witty phrases on them to shirts with graphic designs to nerdy shirts threadless is the place to go. They often have sales too and I'm always alerting you when this happens. So you can either wait for a sale or go check the shirts out whenever you're in the mood to spend 18 dollars.

Lets talk some other sites that I know of shall we?

First up is teextile. My favorite kinds of t-shirt websites are ones that have an interesting angle of selling their shirts. This one is no exception. The site offers 5 different shirts a week, mostly graphic tees. There's one for every day of the work week, and on that specific day that the shirt is assigned the price is lowered. The series of shirts is only available for that one week so once the week ends you can no longer buy any of the shirts. So it really works at time constraints. Instead of saying "I'll wait and buy that shirt later" then never think about it again you act on impulse. And that's the way we all like it. Shirts are around 15 dollars.

My second favorite shirt website is Fullbleed. It's possible that half my wardrobe comes from this site (I even own a few buttons that are displayed proudly on my guitar strap). The shirts all have simple designs on them and they are awesome. They even sell prints of some of the designs as well which is pretty cool. The shirts are on American Apparel so they fit really nicely and are super comfortable. They have "series" of shirts (they just released 9 and it rocks) and everytime they do one of the older ones goes into it's last printing. So prices get cut on those. Shirts are 12 or 17 dollars.

Woot Shirt is another pretty good site that offers one shirt a day at a really low price (10 dollars!). After that day the shirt doesn't totally go away, the price just goes up a bit (only but a couple dollars). They've got a few good shirts from awhile back but shirts lately haven't been that great. The shirts are also printed on American Eagle so they fit great and feel good.

A great site for nerdy shirts is BustedTees. If you're a fan to typetees then you'll like this site because it's got a good selection. It also has smart humor tees which is always fun. There's actually a sale going on right now where some of the shirts are 8 dollars. Usually most of the shirts, however, are pretty cheap so you don't have to rush to buy them with the sale going on.

An awesome, awesome site for graphic tees is Cameesa. They've got some really cool looking shirts that will look great on anyone. The shirts can kind of get pricey (roughly 20 dollars) but they're worth it because the designs are amazing.

RIPT Apparel is a fairly new site that offers one shirt a day. Once the day ends the shirt goes away forever. They offer a variety of things mostly involving graphics or just different, cool designs. It's a hit and miss but worth a check everyday to see if you like something there.

I wasn't going to blog about this site but I really like the shirts that video blogger, Johnny Durham, makes. He has his own clothing line and sells shirts such as the Giraffe one that I own. You should give them a look because he has some really good ones. The shirts are 18 pounds which is pretty expensive (whatever that is in America) but they're worth it because they're cool, unique, and really comfortable. And buying the shirts supports a college student who's running this clothing line all by himself. It's pretty impressive.

Hope this helps and let me know if you get anything.

Until next time...

J.J Abrams, Bring It On, Diablo Cody and more

Man, I was all set to take a nap before I do homework but I checked one last final blog and found all sorts of news that I wanted to cover on my own blog. I was also going to use today to continue my blog from last night, going into morality in the case of good and evil. But there's just so much to discuss today. So here we go.

First of all, there's a site that showcases literary tattoos that people have, called Contrariwise. Not only does the site contain a tattoo of a quote from Infinite Jest (written by David Foster Wallace, one of my favorite authors), but the site also has a collection of Kurt Vonnegut-inspired "So it goes" tats. Say no more, I'm hooked already. Other cool tattoos? A lightning bolt in honor of Harry Potter (see Brittany!? Angela, it was a brilliant idea, I am doing this) and the words "Defy Gravity" on someones wrist. My absolute favorite spot for a tattoo is the wrist and a tattoo inspired by Wicked? Yes please.

I'm not sure how I feel about this next article, but Diablo Cody is set to adapt and revamp the Sweet Valley High series into a movie. If you're unfamiliar with this series it was about two high school girls and twins, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who lived in the fictional town of Sweet Valley, Calif. The books, created by Francine Pascal, made its debut in 1983, publishing 150-plus books. The last one came out in January 2003. There was also a TV show on god knows when. I read a lot of the books when I was a pre-teen so I'm interested in seeing how well they adapt the books and for what age group it will be. I do, however, have a lot of faith in Cody's writing and I'm a huge fan of her work so I'll probably keep up with the news on this new adaption.

Speaking of adaptions. Bring It On is set to be adapted for the stage. "A squad of Broadway creatives are bringing 'Bring It On: The Musical' to the stage in a tuner version aimed toward a regional developmental staging in early 2011 ahead of a national tour." Who's going to see this with me? The show will have a different basic plot, and it won't have any Eliza Dushku but it still looks promising.

It's no secret I have mixed emotions over J.J. Abrams but it seems that the man is going to try his hand at comedy now. Apparently it's going to be a medical comedy. The article talks about how there's all these medical drams (The medical drama field is crowded with stalwarts "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" as well as "Private Practice" and newcomers "Trauma," "Miami Trauma," "Mercy," "Three Rivers" and "Hawthorne oh my god I'm tired from even thinking about all those shows on television at once) but there is room for medical comedies. I don't know if I agree. Can we leave the hospital setting shows alone now? It's overdone. Is another show about a doctor necessary? I don't care if it is comedy. Zack Braff walked away...let this genre die. Damn you E.R.

I'm not even going to say anything about this...but I'm bringing it to your attention anyway. The Facebook movie looks like it's going to happen. (And I'm not kidding). Okay wait hospital dramas, maybe you aren't so bad after all.

Beverly Crusher vs. Willow...Hoshi Sato vs. Penny...T.Pol vs. Faith/Echo...Seven of Nine vs. Buffy? Whyyyyy does anyone need to question who is hotter between Whedon's girls and Star Trek girls? And HOW does Seven of Nine beat Buffy!? I have a problem with this. Go see what you think.

Until next time...

The fight for Good and Evil

Good vs. Evil.

If you've heard me talk about the novel I've been working on for 11 months, or if you've read some of it, or if you've gotten into a deep philosophical conversation with me then you know I'm all about discussing good versus evil. I love the idea behind what drives the ongoing battle of good and evil.

Is it necessary for evil to exist? If it didn't then good wouldn't exist. If good didn't exist then what would we be left with? I could go one with so many questions. This also leads me to another topic: rating systems.

When you're reading a review on a movie, book, TV show, album or what have you there's generally always a rating system that goes along with it. At the end of the review in People Magazine, or in Entertainment Weekly. Whether or not it's starts, letters, thumbs up...there's always a rating. This lets us skip over the words because who reads those silly words in magazines or newspapers these days anyway? We just want a picture letting us know if the movie is worth paying 10 bucks to go see. Two stars? Let's make it a night in with a quick stop off at a nearby Redbox. A+? I could use a night out to see that new movie I heard was getting really good ratings. Without a rating system we might have to actually read so called reviews.

People need to have a different between good and bad, and good and evil. It gives us a word for things, but is the English language limited?

What is good? What is evil?
Well...good is when someone does something good.
Okay, so then what is good? What do we classify as good?

We can't break that down. We're limited with our words and descriptions, saying it's good is breaking it down as far as we can go. Which makes the fight for good vs. evil so interesting to me. There are these two things that we can barely define that show up everywhere. We can shove most everything into one of these two categories yet we can't even define them clearly. Without one, you don't have the other. We're working on solving the good vs. evil debate, yet at the same time they both rely on each other. So if one fails to exist so does the other one. Do we need these two different categories? What do we need them for? To group things so we can define other things.

The problem I see with this is that if one thing is good that means the rest of it is bad or evil. It has to be either or. And by classifying things and putting them into one category we're leaving everything else out. It's all black and white. Good and evil. No grey area inbetween...I don't know, this last paragraph is the part that I confuse myself on. I need to think about this part more to develop it. I don't have words for what I think the outcome of doing this is...I'm just digressing.

Until next time...

Hollywood University

October's coming up and I've been working on some ideas so that I can update this blog every day in October. Though plans have changed a bit I still plan on updating every day. There's going to be a few days where the posts might not be that great because I'll most likely be updating from my phone but we'll make it work.

My favorite blog right now that I've been scooping up for the past 30 minutes, reading every word on the page, and clicking every link made available is a new website from my friend Jessica. The blog is called HOLLYWOOD UNIVERSITY Or: How To Get A Job In Hollywood. If you've been a long-time reader of Alyson's Association then you remember I've pimped out another one of Jessica's blogs awhile back. If not, then Jessica is a friend of mine who works out in L.A. She's currently a writer on USA Network's In Plain Sight starring Mary McCormack as a US Federal Marshal working in the Witness Protection Program (Watch all new episodes on Sundays at 10/9c.).

The new site she recently launched is a project to help students who want to pursue a career in television writing. The blog has tips from Recommended Reading to what software to use and that's just so far. Once the site gets going it'll have so much more to offer and it'll be a huge help to people out there wanting to go into this kind of career.

Check it out, you won't regret it.

Until next time...

Whip It and the Coolest.Name.Ever.

I think I update this blog all the time during the school year because I just LOVE procrastinating. Regardless, there are a few things that couldn't escape my attention this evening and shouldn't escape yours either. Here they are:

Meet Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka Highlander Elessar-Jankova. "anyone who can mix a wookiee, a dwarf, an immortal Christopher Lambert, King Viggo and MacGyver together in one place is either the most awesome human ever, or someone who spends a lot of nights watching cartoons alone." He wins.

If you guys are as excited as I am about Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page's new movie, Whip It, then you will enjoy a handful of clips from the movie. Don't miss it!

Until next time...

The Internet Killed the Politician Star, Comic Books, Jennifer's Body and MORE

Remember back in the day when I would post about things I found on the internet. Yes, well this is one of those times where I bring that back because there is just so much going on that I want to share with you all. So lets dive right into it because I only have so much time before Glee comes on.

Speaking of Glee, there's a preview of tonight's episode over at USA Today. I am so excited about new Glee episodes and more Jane Lynch and Lea Michele. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to even notice any sour notes or missteps like this article seems to suggest because I'm just so excited.

In true Alyson's Association form I can't let an article from Diablo Cody about Megan Fox and the upcoming movie, Jennifer's Body, go by unnoticed. Man, Diablo Cody is just so funny. You just can't go wrong with someone that can write as well as she can.

Oh my god are you guys so stoked about the fact that The Beatles are coming to comics?! Here's a look at the cover of the graphic novel that will be released second in a line of "Rock n Roll Comics" that will release bi-monthly graphic novels (150-300 pages), each focusing on a particular band, musical era or style. I can't WAIT for this. One of my favorite bands plus one of my favorite past times? Yes please.



This last thing I have for you is a super interesting article about 50 things that are being killed because of the internet. Obviously, if you're here reading my blog, the internet is something you know a little somethin' about. It's sad that "listening to an album all the way through" is on this list, but I'm definitely guilty of that. Though I don't know if I agree with that either, because I think the iPod is in large part to blame for that one. Which...I guess...could be contributed to the internet maybe. Oh well, I digress. The best part of the article is that Sarah Palin graces this list.

Anyway, that's all I have for you. I am SO glad to be back on this blog doing what I love. I hope you'll stick around.

Until next time...