That’s right. I’m a Camp NaNoWriMo winner. It was a real push to the end, but I finished with several hours to spare, and even a bug in the Camp NaNo website didn’t keep me from verifying on time thanks to Dan and Jezra fixing it before midnight in my time zone. For those who still haven’t verified yet, the bug should be fixed, so you should be able to verify if you haven’t already.

The story is finished. This is something I thought might happen before hitting 50,000 words based on the brief outline I made with 10,000 words to go, but luckily enough ideas flowed out of the brain to keep my six inches of post office receipt outline going for 10,000 more words.

The thing I’m most proud of during Camp NaNo is my 5,000 word hour. I didn’t think this would happen, but I had to try after missing the mark by roughly 200 words. So I set the timer for one hour and went to town, sliding in at 5,002 words an hour later. That one was close. It’s not something I want to do too often, though. It may seem like just a little faster than my typical word war speed, but those few extra words a minute every minute make a huge difference in my coherency.

A couple of other notes before I call Camp NaNo a wrap:

Daft Punk’s Human After All and Discovery are great magical writing albums. I wrote my first near-miss 5k hour to Discovery, which is almost exactly an hour long. Human After All is right around 45 minutes long, making it great for 45-minute writing sessions. I haven’t tested Homework because I don’t own it and because it’s almost 74 minutes long, not a very nice round writing session.

The other musical discovery is Dragonforce. A couple of people told me about them, one of them in passing. Today I was looking for good writing music and the name came up again. Grooveshark came to the rescue, queued some of Dragonforce’s music, and I wrote my 5k hour. Their music is ridiculously fast; the person who mentioned them in passing described it as speed metal. This is the kind of stuff I want to write to all the time. I’ll have to start exploring similar artists before Three-Day Novel weekend so I can have a nice big playlist of similarly fast music.

Congratulations to everyone to completed July’s Camp NaNo, and good luck to everyone doing the August session of Camp Nano! You have a fun month of writing ahead of you.

Then the back pain subsided for awhile, meaning it was time to write for real. I put on the magical writing album, Shake the Sheets by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and went to town. The result? 3200 words in 40 minutes. Repeating this timing resulted in similar results but with different albums in my testing of potential magical writing albums. Now I have just over 20,000 words to write tomorrow. This is manageable. I think I can do this.

But instead of writing, let’s talk music. The two test albums were The Rural Alberta Advantage’s Hometowns and Andrew Jackson Jihad’s Can’t Maintain. Neither of these albums is very long, making them ideal for magical writing to happen; I can time word wars around the length of the album. The latter album turned out to be much better than the former for magical writing goodness. While there are some good fast songs with strong beats from Hometowns that are great for writing, it’s like Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga in that about half the songs are great for magical writing and the other half, while good songs, don’t have the magical writing vibe to them.

Can’t Maintain, on the other hand, has a lot of potential. I’ll have to give it another listen while writing tomorrow, but it may become my second magical writing album. The loud fast beats and folk punk influences make it great for my fast-paced word wars, especially since my writing tends to go more quickly if I write to faster music. The length is just right, too. At just under half an hour, I can queue the whole album, hit play, and time a half hour writing session that way. Shake the Sheets also has this advantage for a 40-minute writing session at 39:52. I can write for eight more seconds to a different song.

I’ll definitely be testing out some more candidates for magical writing albums and expanding the overall magical writing playlist before NaNo. It’ll be key for getting me through those days where I don’t want to write at all. Any candidate suggestions are welcome.

Until now. I’ve created a station that hasn’t left my Pandora dial for at least a month. It has an overall consistent vibe, but not so consistent that the station gets boring. The overall vibe is chill and soft with some upbeat tunes, but not so upbeat that you’d hear it in a dance club. The seeds are Chris Bathgate, Breathe Owl Breathe, and The American Dollar, and the result is nothing short of musical beauty. Here’s the station. Enjoy.

Bonus: If for some reason this station gets boring, I can Quickmix it with my station containing Chris Garneau, The Coral Sea, and The Album Leaf for even more chill goodness. The Coral Sea may bring the chill factor down a bit, though.

1. Billy Joel’s radio station on Last.fm. The artist stations play music that’s similar to the artists, and the Last.fm stations do a great job at this. Sometimes they do the job too well to the point where you get tired of the artists after awhile. Not the case with the Billy Joel station. I’ve been listening to the station for most of the day, and I’ve been surprised with the variety. All of the music is upbeat and catchy, which I like, but the artists do it in different ways. Looking at some recently played artists, I see Neil Diamond, James Taylor, Elton John, Styx, Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, Toto, and Journey. Quite a few of these do repeat, of course, but it’s the variety of artists. No, they’re not that far off, but the artists are different enough that listening won’t bore you for a few hours. You may hear a few familiar songs. I know I did, thanks to my dad’s musical tastes.

2. Grooveshark. It’s a website that lets you listen on demand. I tried it out this afternoon to listen to a few albums I hadn’t heard yet when Last.fm’s scrobbling was down, and after figuring out how to navigate a new site, I was very impressed. The only thing I found difficult at first was making sure not to add a song or album to my queue more than once or in the wrong order. Grooveshark doesn’t have a checklist or an easy way (that I’ve found, anyway) to add an entire album instead of the artist’s entire discography. As soon as I figure out how to scrobble from Grooveshark to Last.fm, I’ll be set.

For the unenlightened, “Neutra Face” is a parody of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” and is about fonts, not poker faces. The original song would be much cooler if it were actually about poker. Here’s the original video if you hate embeds or want to bookmark it.

This parody tickles my not-so-inner geek. Not all mathematicians work in labs, but I’d be up for a lab romance, no matter the lab. Just make sure to dispose of the biohazards safely. Link to the original.

If anyone can make Lady Gaga good, it’s a bunch of librarians. Librarians are the unsung superheroes, always there to help you when you need to research your paper the day before it’s due. Link to original.

Lady Gaga’s from outer space? I can get behind that. Link to original.

This one’s for the old-school gamers, particularly of the Nintendo type. I still have (and play!) an original GameBoy, so I feel some of the sentiments in the song, particularly with keeping track of only 150 Pokemon instead of 500. Yes, I admit it. It’s also stuck in my head now. Link to original.

Let’s back up for a minute. North Korea? Is Kim Jong-Il a fan?

Neither he nor Bieber could be reached for comments, but a caption in this BBC article sums it up best: “It is not known if Kim Jong-il is a fan of Justin Bieber’s music.” Kim does love the Internet, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has stumbled upon Bieber at some point.

Granted, this poll probably isn’t even official, though some sources have been touting it as such. If Bieber does tour the country, it’ll probably be for the select few government officials, though. The regular people wouldn’t know what to do when he starts singing, and for once that’s a good thing.

“Hotel NaNoWriMo” by Sushi (sushimustwrite)
Original: “Hotel California” by the Eagles

On the Internet highway, surfing links to links
Discovering new things, getting sucked in time sinks
Up ahead in the distance, I saw the Wrimonia sign
My head then perked up, and I looked ahead
I’d heard this through the grapevine
There were writers all over
Trebuchets and pell mell
And I was thinking to myself
“This could be heaven or this could be hell”
Then I noticed Wrimo Hall, and I walked on that way
There were voices all around the square
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel NaNoWriMo
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely pace
Plenty of plots at the Hotel NaNoWriMo
Muses near and dear
You can find them here

But there were no plots to be found, at least none that would play nice
All I had come November first was some bad advice
Wrimos write on their laptops, tales to beget
Some write to remember, some write to forget

So I called up the forums
“Can I please resign?”
They said, “We haven’t had such quitting here since 1999″
And still the editor’s calling from far away
Poking me in the middle of a war
Just to hear me say

Welcome to the Hotel NaNoWriMo
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely pace
You give up your soul at the Hotel NaNoWriMo
Kiss your time goodbye (kiss your time goodbye)
Kiss your life goodbye

Staring at a blank screen
Two more K would suffice
The mod said, “Take some dares, Mr. Ian Woon, and a plot device”
And in the steel cage of doom
They tried to get ahead
They stab it with their steely sporks
But the editor’s not dead

Last time I tried to write, I was
Untangling my plot
I pondered quitting once again
Just like all those years not fought
“Don’t quit,” said Chris Baty
It might be a reprieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave.