Modern Linguist is a WordPress template designed with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) participants in mind.  Based partially on Chris Coyier’s beautiful WPTypo theme, Modern Linguist is an all-typographic theme created with easy reading in mind.

The theme has several pretty cool things built in. First off, it’s custom options allow integration with the NaNoWriMo.org word count API, providing dynamic and automatic word count updates pulled directly from the user’s NaNoWriMo profile. The user enters their ID number and that’s it, instant word count updates.

The options page also provides space to enter in a story synopsis and the option to display that text on the front page of the WordPress site. Read the rest of this entry »

ATTN: Those who have read/are planning to read my novel this year:

Oh some things have changed. Yes, yes they have.

When I thought about how messy the whole noveling on my blog process was last year, I made a rash decision. A decision with so little thought put into it that it is awesome. Instead of noveling my progress here, I have set up a completely new site with a completely new theme with awesome features.

All NaNoWriMo noveling will take place here: nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com.

Oh but that’s not all. I have built an entire WordPress template especially for National Novel Writing Month – and more specifically for my fellow WriMos that post to WordPress.

The new theme is called Modern Linguist and is based on Chris Coyier’s WPTypo theme, though with some decidedly drastic alterations. Notably, the theme has these amazing features:

• Built-in word counts pulled from the NaNoWriMo API (as soon as it’s activated for 2009, anyway)
• Clean, minimal interface. Not widgetized as to keep it focused on your novel(s)
• Choose-your-own Font Style with 8 (eight!) different typefaces
• Width optimized for online reading
• Typography based – no images in the template by default
• Optional Synopsis display on the front page
• Yearly category navigation (for easy novel separation)
• Special displays for registered/logged-in users

It’ll not only be a better experience for readers, but also for the person doing the noveling.

I’m looking at a launch date of 30 October, just in time for NaNoWriMo (which starts on the first of November). If you’re interested in using the template, let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure answer your questions and email the theme to you when it’s done!

For all of you that had an account here on my blog, that’s all been moved over to: http://nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com – you can login with your same credentials and should be able to read last year’s novel still. If you have issues, shoot me an email.

If any of you check out the new template, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And for those of you who have no idea what I’ve been talking about, read this post.

I was just hoping to get the built-in threaded commenting installed and working on this blog (which I did, by the way) and ended making some style revisions. Great. I’m happy with them I think. Bigger titles, bigger, paragraph text, better spacing, stylised forms.

I really should’ve been working on one of the three or four sites I’m in the middle of for other people. But… well, I’m out of state. It’s hard to do that here. And my local MAMP install got botched somehow since last night. And I need to write the last chapter of my novel still (yeah, I procrastinated on that one. I need deadlines).

I’m excited to eat meat or scallops tonight. I haven’t decided which yet. But I’m anticipating it. Yum.

Well. Now that the novel is out of the way, I have other projects to attend to.

Next up on the list is putting together a website for my good friend Chris. It’ll be nice to put some time into designing again and I’m particularly excited about the asthetic he’s going for. It’s going to be sort of and 80s color palette mixed with grunge elements and a futuristic interface. Sort of. I am pretty happy with what I’ve come up with so far.

Around the house I’ve got more wainscot to put up plus chair rail and crown molding. I need to get some shoe board or quarter round for some of the rooms and we have a hole that needs to be patched under our window.

I still need to finish a bit of my novel’s story. I won, but the story isn’t finished yet. There’s probably close to another thousand words left. Hopefully I can get that squared away in the next day or so.

We’re supposed to get snow tomorrow here in Greenville, which will be nice. It’s already feeling like Christmas. Thanksgiving break has been great. It’s the first time that Jessica and I have stayed home for during an extended break and it’s been greatly relaxing. We’ll be heading to West Virginia the day before Christmas Eve and then to Michigan on 02 January.

I love this season. Peppermint ice cream, pumpkin pie, Starbucks Christmas Blend… mmmm. Yes. All food related. Anyway. I hope you’re having a great season!

I won. I got to 50k words! I’m still not done with the story, but it shouldn’t be too much longer.

Thanks to everyone who’s been cheering me on and/or reading the story. It’s been super helpful having that accountability to keep writing. And I’ve done it! I’ve written a novel.

I’m excited to do this again next year too. What a great program.

I would also encourage all of you to join in next year. Check out NaNoWriMo’s website by clicking here.

I am SO close to finishing my novel. Less than 5,000 words to go.

I’m excited to finish!!!

…and there is so much I need (and want) to get accomplished by Monday morning. First off, I need to novel like a mad man. I am WAY behind. Just over 50% and only about 10 days left till the end. I’m not sure I’ll have time, but perhaps over Thanksgiving weekend.

We’re going to try and get the floors in the front room finished so we can start some Christmas decorating. We would be able to put the tree up in any case. At the same time, I would like to get all of the trim up in the library. We did a door and a window last weekend but still have baseboards, wainscot and crown moulding to do. There isn’t much floor left, so hopefully we can do both. (I think Micah is still coming over to help out)

I need to make steak & Guiness pie. It’s cold enough and sounds soooo good. We’ve been craving it this last week. But I do need to novel. Both of us do.

We’re staying home for the actual holiday. It’s too long of a drive to WV to do Christmas and Thanksgiving, so we’re giving it a miss this year and doing Cornish hens at home. It’ll be nice. We need a proper break anyway. There was the thought of going to my aunt’s house in Alabama, but that drive is just as far as Hurrican, WV. So that’s out too.

Over Thanksgiving we have a few projects planned:

We need to decorate the house for Christmas. I’m not doing lights outside because our house is too awkward. For one, I don’t have a tall enough ladder to get where I need to to fix the lights to the outside of the house. Secondly, the only outdoor power outlet is at the back of the house. I’m not sure why they didn’t put one anywhere else, but thems the breaks. So no lights outside. It’s nice to have a fake tree when our stationary status is so volatile. The easier, the better I say.

We are planning to just watch a ton of Christmas movies that weekend as well while we finish our novels.

So. Busy I am. For certain.

I didn’t write anything yesterday for NaNoWriMo. I wrote about 300 words during my lunch today. I think I’ll have to try and write a ton this evening when I get home. I need to get that wordcount up.

On a brighter note, one of the sites I manage is doing really well hits-wise (for its normal rankings anyway). That’s the one thing that is making me feel good about today. That and I drank Jasmine tea at lunch. Mmmm.

And! Jessica is back from her field trip. Which means I can hang out with her when I get home. Though I will most likely be ignoring her for the sake of noveling. Maybe this is a sad night.

I made it past 15,000 words last night and crossed the 30% line. I’m still a little bit behind on my noveling, but 15k was an important milestone, and I feel good about it.

I’m also a tad excited about work. We are moving ever-closer to rolling away from Joomla! and rolling into dotCMS. Which is awesome. I’m really excited, as long as we can quell everyone’s fears/answer questions. But at least I will have done something quality with the web tech here before I leave for grad school. That should provide me with a little bit of fallback if I need to take a job in HigherEd either during or after grad school. Actually, it should work for any web field. And that is comforting.

It’s finally gotten cold here in Greenville. It feels like we only had about two weeks of real autumn weather, then it got hot for a week, and now it’s grey, rainy, and cold. I actually had to pull out my winter coat.

Jess and I are staying home for Thanksgiving this year too, which I personally am very happy about. I’m going to try to get the floors finished before then. Then hopefully all of our trim will be up before Christmas. Jessica is planning to decorate the house for Christmas during our Thanksgiving break. We didn’t get to do that last year because the house was in full renovation mode. It’s nice to be so close to having every room but the kitchen done. And to be on track to finish it.

I just hope I can get the novel done at the same time. We found out yesterday that on NaNoWriMo sponsor is giving all of the winners (read: people who get to 50k words) a free paperback draft proof of their manuscript. I think that is awesome. Just one more incentive. And I think I’m well on my way to getting 50,000 words.