National Clean Up Your Computer Month on January, 2024: What story should I write for National novel writing month?
January, 2024 is National Clean Up Your Computer Month 2024. MyCleanPC - Official Site - As Seen on TV Fix Your Computer at Home with MyCleanPC®. Download Now!
I've been doing this every year for five years and I've found my best strategy is to not pre-think anything. On midnight 11/1 I just fire up the computer and type the first sentence that comes to mind. Then I write from there.
I have friends that spend a month pre-planning to write, but for me I prefer the freedom to just up and go and not have any idea what I'm writing about or where I'm going until I write it and go there. I like to surprise myself.
Here are my last few starts, written on the spur of the moment with absolutely no fore-thought:
2006 - The grass cracked beneath Mitchell’s feet as he walked. The sound was crisp and clean and rare. Such thick frost rarely came to Ardmore, Alabama, so when it did, Mitchell liked to get out in it.
(I did wind up tossing this one and starting fresh on day 2, but that's the only time it has happened.)
2007 - Mornings were not Joe’s strong suit. Needless-to-say, this led to no end of coffee jokes throughout his life. If it wasn’t “Hey Joe, you look like you need some joe, Joe!” then it was “What’s the matter Joe? Been decaffeinated?” One particularly annoying co-worker at the insurance firm where Joe worked liked to begin each week with a joke about Joe’s “beans” and end each week with a bad pun involving "a cup of Josephine’s beans.” Joe was never quite sure what the man meant.
2008 - Candy had never been happier. It was a Saturday, an A-Team marathon was on TV, and she had just enough Molly McButter for one heaping bowl of fresh popped popcorn. It was below freezing outside and the hardwood floors were cold against her feet. She’d looked everywhere for her slipper socks, but the cat had drug them off somewhere and hidden them. She had started a fire, though, and bundled up in a large Oakland Athletics blanket her ex left behind when he moved out last summer. She had just grabbed the remote when she heard a knock at her back door.
2009 - Renfield clicked the secondary lens into place, loosened a screw on the side of the frame, and pulled his table lamp closer. Even at this increased magnification the etching--worn flat by the handling of a thousand hands--could only barely be read.
“An old piece indeed, this one.” He turned the coin over in his hand and back again, watching the patina’d copper catch the light just so. “Near as I can tell, sar, the coin says ‘God has favored us’ in the old language on the one side and has a single seven star on the other. Common once, I’m told, sar, but an odd design for this day and age.”
“You know what it is, then?” the tall man said. He thrust his palm into the light.
Renfield looked up at him, his right eye near three times its actual size behind the layers of glass. “Not exactly, sar, but I seen a similar piece once before.” He glanced back at the coin, flipping it one more time before dropping it in the tall man’s sweaty palm. “Was a young man who come in, some years back.”
“How far back, tinkerer?”
“No matter, that’s not the point.”
“Pretend it did matter,” the tall man said.
EDIT @ cirque de lune:
"There's no point in doing NaNoWriMo if you see it as a joke that you'll waste a bad story on. That's not the spirit of the project."
I disagree. The spirit of the project is to write. No more, no less.
For me, I find it more inspiring and helpful in establishing writing routines than as an attempt to produce actual, polished work.
The website's own "about" section says:
"Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing."
I mean to each his own, but the value I personally find in NaNo is in not writing ANYTHING I've thought about at all. I do use it as a blow-off story opportunity. Then, in December and January, when I'm on a writing high and I've re-established routines, I return to the stories I do care about and intend to finish "for real" again and find myself more productive for the experience.
is there calendar displaying national recognition weeks?
Try this one:
Here is an example for Jan 2006
Monthly Events:
National Eye Health Care Month
National Hobby Month
National Soup Month
National Staying Healthy Month
National Thank You Month
National Book Month
Oatmeal Month
Hot Tea Month
Human Resource Month
March of Dimes Birth Defects Prevention Month
Prune Breakfast Month
Volunteer Blood Donor Month
Bald Eagle Watch Month
Bread Machine Baking Month
Celebration of Life Month
Fat Free Living Month
Get Over It Month
It's OK to be Different Month
Love Yourself Month
Clean Up Your Computer Month
Mail Order Gardening Month
Personal Self-Defense Month
Poverty in America Month
Reaching Your Potential Month
Yours, Mine & Ours Month
National Stamp Collectors Month
International Printing Month
Autism Awareness Month
National High-Tech
International Creativity Month
Celebrate the Past Month
Clinical Trial Awareness Month
Coffee Gourmet International Month
Bath Safety Month
Crime Stoppers Month
Hobby Month
National Letter Writing Month
Blended Family Month
National Candy Month
National Hot Tea Month
National Polka Month
Weekly Events:
Celebration of Life Week- Week One
Law Enforcement Training Week (Always the first full week of the year)- Week One
Lose Weight, Feel Great Week - Week One
Universal Letter Writing Week- Week Two
National Thank-Your-Customers Week- Week Two
School Crossing Guard Week- Week Two
Someday We'll Laugh About This Week- Week Two
Special Education Week- Week Three
Cuckoo Dancing Week- Week Three
National Fresh Squeeze Juice Week- Week Three
Healthy Weight Week- Week Three
National Glaucoma Week- Week Four
National Meat Week- Week Four
Kiss A Shark Week -Week Four (Please don't really kiss a shark.)
Hot Air Balloon Week - Week Four
Catholic Schools Week - 29 thru Feb.4
It is not in a calendar form, and it has more than medical stuff....but it is a start....
Ah, here is a better one!
Is it possible for my computer to run 24-7?
Yes, your desktop (NOT laptop) computer can run 24/7, but I would not let it run for more than a few days without a reboot. You can even set it up to do this remotely or automatically. But it is advisable to shut it down for at least a few moments a week to allow the programs to recalibrate and system to cool down. Take at least 15 minutes to do this. I would set up a regular system maintainence schedule to perform this and other tasks as well.
The big point here is that power-up and power-down cause thermal cycling in the semiconductor components, and the power-up causes stress to motorized components. Ironically, the most efficient motors usually suffer the most here. And those of you who overclock are accentuating the temperature swings, further stressing the components. The thermal cycling is the part that will eventually cause microscopic imperfections or contaminants in electronic components to eventually grow or manifest to the point that they outright fail, or malfunction due to changes in that semiconductor's electrical characteristics.
Many devices do now use circuitry designed to soften the power-on shock to various sensitive components. You get what you pay for. You'll find circuitry like this in monitors but not PCs. Make sure you have a screen saver or hibernate your monitor, else you will burn it out - not the screen, the internal components. Pretty much all display technology wears relatively quickly. Turn on power saving features for your display for instant cost savings and improved service life.
A power loss lasting less time than the blink of an eye is enough to erase all of the data in your Random Access Memory (RAM). Fluctuations in the power supply expose you to the dangers of processing errors, software crashes, keyboard lockups and fileserver malfunctions. They can even damage your hardware.
You'll want to use an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) as you are constantly at risk from mains-borne "spikes", surges and electrical noise. These effects are produced by interference from other electrical equipment such as photocopiers, lifts and fluorescent lights- and by adverse weather conditions such as thunder storms- you simply can't prevent them.
The risks you run:
28% of computer system breakdowns are caused by power failure (National Computing Centre Survey)
A recent survey of 450 leading companies showed that each organisation suffered an average of nine computer failures each year. In each case, it took an average of four hours to get the system back up and running. (Fortune 1000 / Find FVP)
15% of companies that experience a computer disaster lose over £1 million. 20% lose between £250,000 and £1 million. More than 33% lose between £10,000 and £250,000. (Price Waterhouse / BIS Survey)
Over one third of companies that suffer a computer "disaster" take more than a day to recover from the disruption caused. 10% take more than a week. (National Computing Centre Survey)
90% of all companies that experience a computer "disaster" and have no survival plan go out of business within 18 months. (Price Waterhouse survey)
Also ensure that you regularly clean the inside and out of all the computer cases, fans and the components, as dust buildup will accrue much faster and will kill your power supply quickly.
Another thing you should be taking into account is one far more nefarious... leaving your computer turned on and plugged into the internet leaves it open for any hacker to plink away at it while you are not in attendance.
To me, computer security is a tad more important than a few measely dollars on equipment that may or may not give out in the near future, equipment that costs you a few hundred dollars, maybe. Far worse is the aggressor on your network or computer trying to get your information.
Many networks and wrenched passwords, account information, and general user control have been wrested away from the rightful owners... all thanks to poor security practices (like leaving your computer running all the time).
So make sure that you use enterprise-strength security for your systems. Your identity and data are more valuable than a worn-out chipset fan.
