Fear, bikes, and NaNoWriMo

Happy Monday! (Or Monday evening, depending on where you are...)

My NaNoWriMo is off to a promising start, as I've been logging just over 4,000 words per day, well over the 1667 minimum average requirement.   That is completely  unprecedented for me; usually I have a strong first couple of days, and two weeks in I'm struggling and just typing stream of consciousness garbage to make any wordcount headway at all.    I think the amount of time the particulars of this story have been rattling around in my head has helped grease the runners, so to speak, and I'm going to ride this lead as far as I can.  Having a five-point overview with a partial sketch of the narrative also helps.   Essentially I have an ensemble group of four factions (a fifth will be introduced at the climax) and am visiting each faction-figure once in turn,  a la Harry Turtledove.  I'm 1.5 "turns" in.

Last week I finished a couple of books that I won't be dwelling on in a full review. I should at least mention them, however. The first, Fear, is a history of the first year of the Trump administration, or rather a review of some of the more alarming episodes of that period like the twitter war with the Kim cult, the creation of an economic policy cut from 18th century mercantilist playbooks, and the ongoing chaos of interior organization.   Like Fire and Fury this is less an expose than a recap, as we've all seen this unfold in public and even Trump supporters I know aren't sure how to make sense of everything that comes out of DC these days.

The second book I finished in the week was Bikeonomics, a bit of bike advocacy which hails bicycles' salulatory effect on health, the urban environment, and the bottom line . Unfortunately, I've encountered all that before through On Bikes,  so it was a bit of preaching to the choir for me.