A Rockin' Tuesday Tally

Status of my novel

1. first draft
2. read and revise for plot
3. read and revise for continuity
4. read and edit for grammar
5. polish prose to prettiness
6. write query and synopsis
7. query agents

total words to date: 89,746

pages: 395

chapters revised: 21/20

Last week's goals:

• clear out another chunk from writing.com inbox - slow progress (it's a huge mess)
• finish first read through of EotF - mostly made notes, couple more changes, need other eyes to look at it now while I take a break from it 
• celebrate finished novels with Liz - mmm, sparkling grape juice. we had a rockin' time! see more below 
• write a new poem - didn't do this. need a topic. open to suggestions! 

Goals for this week:

• write a new poem 
• Wilcox Writers Newsletter
• minimum one article a week (new or old) for AC
• finish going through writing.com inbox 

Last Friday we bought Rock Band. My husband was interested, and I said "sure, why not". I knew the price, wasn't too excited about that or the game, but thought it would be nice for another one we could play together. I don't really know rock songs, not my fav type of music, but was at least a little intrigued by the idea that it came with a microphone. Rock Band is a glorified karaoke for the X-Box 360 - guitar and drum controllers, and mic. Hesitantly I tried it out with him that night. This game really does rock. Both of us were surprised by how much we enjoy it. It's not hard to learn the basics, and the feeling of rocking out together is awesome.

 

So, Saturday when Liz was here, we invited her to play with us. She started on the mic, J (husband) on the guitar/bass, and I on the drums. After a bit, Liz and I switched. We created a band for the Band Tour once we got the hang of things - settled on Vapor Furnace (yay for the random generator). There is so much you can unlock with this game. You create a character, unlock venues, clothing, earn cash to buy new instruments and outfits. We even earned a van to go on the road. There's also online play, you can do a battle of the bands, leaderboards, download new song packs, all sorts of stuff. A band can have up to four people - drummer, guitarist, vocalist, and (with a second guitar controller) bass.

 

My place is definitely on the microphone. The drums are still a little overwhelming (though fun). Sunday J and I started our own band, Unicorn Gun. The same characters can be used on the solo tour, which we haven't tried yet. He's getting better at the guitar, and I'm actually learning some lyrics. Last night we cranked the difficulty up from Easy to Medium. Definitely harder, but we have gotten a couple five stars. We had to increase the difficulty level because we had maxed out our fans on easy, and needed more fans to unlock certain venues. Did I mention how much I love this game? What began as a tentative purchase for both of us has become very worthwhile.

 

Favorite songs so far: Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I Think I'm Paranoid by Garbage.

 

Not us playing, but here's what the game looks like with a full band:

 

And here is what the instruments look like: