Author Archives: rsts11

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About rsts11

Big data integrator/evangelist I suppose. Formerly a deep generalist sysadmin and team lead, still a coffee guru, and who knows what else...

Halfway through Novel November 2025 – Need to take a break?

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This post covers my fourth Novel November video. If you want the latest videos as they go up, subscribe to the Andromedary Instinct YouTube channel and my Novel November playlist.

This one features some time in my car and a late night recording in the home office/studio, with a mid-month success update and a tip on avoiding story burnout.

See the other parts of this series here:

Part 1: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/04/another-novel-november-this-time-with-video/
Part 2: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/11/back-up-its-3-2-1-contact-with-your-november-novel/
Part 3: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/11/walk-through-my-daily-writing-ritual-with-me-for-novel-november-and-beyond/

Word count progress:

11/1-11/7: 16k words, about 2200 words a day.
11/8-11/14: 8.6k words, 1151/day.
First half of the month: 25.6k words, about 1700 words a day, pacing to 51k.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 Starting out in the car
01:48 Back from the home office
02:35 Take a break if you need to
05:45 What’s next

TAKE A BREAK?

From 2002 to 2009, I wrote one story during NaNoWriMo – my November Novel. Burying yourself in one story can be pretty grueling, and I’ve learned to take a break from a story without taking a break from writing.

Mind you, this leaves me with a lot of fragments, but if you have another story you can work with, even an alternate path or backstory for what you’re writing, it can give you a break and a fresh look at your main November Novel story. And if it is related to the main story, you can count it toward your Novel November word count.

As you’ll see above, I hit 25,661 words on the halfway day of Novel November 2025. I chart my annual progress, but just created my graph for November alone. The green line is daily word count against the right axis, blue is the cumulative number for the month, and red is the final word count I’m targeting if I keep my daily average.

I’m still working on production values, but much like Novel November, there’s a benefit to getting something out there even if it’s nowhere near perfect. Mr. Beast is known for saying that you should make 100 videos and improve something every time. I’m working on that idea, although sometimes it’s one foot forward and the other back.

My lighting on this video on the second half is a good illustration of that foot back. But maybe by next year at this time, I’ll be doing live sessions and a daily update. I am so glad I didn’t commit to that this year, at least.

CREDITS

Video recorded on iPhone 17 Pro Max and edited on Davinci Resolve 20.

Audio recorded with NZXT Capsule Elite (https://amzn.to/3LB6S7E).

Phone stand and light (which obviously needs some tuning) is the Centercam Camera Light (https://amzn.to/4r4LGqJ)

Music is Secret Escape by Heath Cantu, licensed through Epidemic Sound: https://share.epidemicsound.com/z8qrol

Thumbnail created with vidIQ🚀 (https://vidiq.com/Andromedary) and Canva Pro.

As an Amazon affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Other links may be assumed to be affiliate links as well.

Walk through my daily writing ritual with me for Novel November and beyond

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This post covers my third Novel November video. If you want the latest videos as they go up, subscribe to the Andromedary Instinct YouTube channel.

This one covers coffee, sunlight, Tai Chi, big buildings, cortisol, and making progress on the novel. Video link and summary/details/links below the video. I probably won’t use the microphone again, but I have some better wireless mics to try out on future videos.

See the other parts of this series here:

Part 1: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/04/another-novel-november-this-time-with-video/
Part 2: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/11/back-up-its-3-2-1-contact-with-your-november-novel/

Coffee, sunlight, and my morning writing ritual. The first week of Novel November 2025 is done, and then some. I’m back as promised with a weekly update, and I’ll also walk you through my morning writing ritual.

Word count progress:
11/1-11/7: 16k words, about 2200 words a day. Pacing to 68k if I keep this up.
11/8-11/10: 3.5k words, 1151/day
Aggregate first 10 days (1/3 month): 19k words, 1900/day, pacing to 58k.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 Looking around downtown Sunnyvale
00:43 My Novel November update for 7 days of writing
02:09 Walking through my morning ritual (literally)
02:34 Set up my coffee
03:35 Look at the sky
05:08 Starting the writing session
05:57 The Air Supply Rule- do not edit
06:56 The goal is not 50,000 perfect words

MORNING RITUAL

A couple of years ago, I had a morning ritual with a spiral bound 6×9 pad, a double espresso via Nespresso Vertuo, and a glass of sparkling water. The ritual is a bit longer now, but it’s stuck with me for a few months now.

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Back up! It’s 3-2-1 Contact! With Your November Novel

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As I post this on rsts11 on the 11th, my second and third Novel November videos are up. The second one came out on November 2nd. The write-up (not a literal transcript, but close) is below the video link. To catch my videos when they come out, subscribe to the Andromedary Instinct YouTube channel and my Novel November playlist.

For this one, I used the iPhone 17 Pro Max as usual, the BASN Dynamic Microphone connected via USB-C to the phone, and the Midstriddle heavy duty phone stand to hold the phone.

See the first part here: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/04/another-novel-november-this-time-with-video/

My third video, a literal-ish walk-through of my morning writing ritual and a not-so-great wireless lavalier microphone test is live here: https://rsts11.com/2025/11/11/walk-through-my-daily-writing-ritual-with-me-for-novel-november-and-beyond/

I know you just started writing your 2025 November Novel, but it’s the best time to start backing up your book.

Even if it’s just a single page.

I’ll tell you how I do it myself, and why I should do better, and help you with starting your 3-2-1 backup plan for your writing (or any important files).

But first, my word count progress:

11/1: over 1700 words today, over 1700 words total for November
11/2: over 1800 words today, over 3600 words total for November

I recorded this on the afternoon of the first but had to crop the video before posting. I also realized there’s a gain knob on the microphone I’m using, and I should turn it up a bit.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

00:00 Let’s get started
00:45 The 3-2-1 rule for backups
03:49 Looking for something to write about
06:13 That’s all for today

BACKING UP YOUR NOVEL

The 3-2-1 rule is pretty simple. There are other versions of it, but this is a good start.

Keep 3 copies of your file as backups.

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Another Novel November, this time with video

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Welcome back to rsts11. As many of my readers know, I was deep in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) from 2002-2009, from the 7-seconds-left finish in 2002, to running the SFNanos for a couple of years and helping my friend Linda start the Pensinsula group, to coordinating over half a dozen writers retreats, as well as finishing eight 50,000 word drafts for those years.

Last year, I did an unofficial November Novel with the Reedsy project, and I’m doing it again this year. And this time, I’m using it as a prompt (heh) to do videos.

The first two are posted, and yeah, the production values are a bit light. I’ve been out of video production for almost two years, and with plans to do 1-3 videos a week this month, I’m hoping to get my studio space working and my productions polished.

The first video was scripted, although I went off in a lot of places. That’s okay. I’m okay with how it turned out (and the original script is below, for your enjoyment).

If you’re doing a November Novel with any of the entities doing events in NaNoWriMo’s wake, subscribe to the Andromedary Instinct YouTube channel and my Novel November playlist.

Haven’t started yet? It’s not too late, as I mention in the first video. You can either accelerate your daily rate (if you start on November 5, you have 25 days of 2,000 words), or just start your thirty days then. My record for daily word count was a little over 19,000 words on November 30, 2003, and I don’t recommend it, but with Veteran’s Day and the 4-day Thanksgiving holiday (for those whose employers observe), you can catch up better than almost any other month of the year.

I’ll also be doing some tech and health videos before the end of the month, including my 2025 adventure to back away from Type 2 Diabetes and get an efficient home lab running.

Stay tuned for more videos, and text accompaniment to the videos, here on rsts11.com. And there might be some travel stuff soon on rsts11travel.com too.

DO YOU WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL?

I never thought I would start from Disney Princess karaoke and get to Hello Kitty when planning a video, but here we are.

Do you want to write a novel?

Are you one of the millions of people out there who say you want to write a novel? Or even a short story?

Are you looking at the length of a novel and getting winded just thinking about writing 40 to 120 thousand words?

Just need a push in the right direction?

Then write a novel with me this November.

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Quick note on importing transactions into Quickbooks

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I’ve decided to get ahead of my bookkeeping this year, instead of spending Christmas break going back through my notes. Sure, I’m four months behind, but better late than never.

So the “easy” way to do this is to type every single transaction into Quickbooks (I use Self-Employed, for what it’s worth). The interface is functional but clunky, and the thought of adding a year’s worth of monthly subscriptions really hurts.

I could also import all transactions from my bank and credit card via xls/csv export and import, but some things (like cash transactions) would be easier to do in my own csv import file.

tl;dr: this is the format, although you can use a ‘credit’ and ‘debit’ column separately if you like. That last transaction is fictional, alas.

I found a downloadable package of sample import files, but they seem more complicated than what I need for this effort.

So I made my own import file in Excel, exported as csv of course, and tried to import it to Quickbooks.

Darn. File upload failed. (Probably our fault.) Please give it another try. If you see this message again, you might need to contact us.

I did what they told me to and chatted in to Quickbooks support. The first thing they suggested was a fresh reload of the upload/import page, which I did with Ctrl+F5. That got me farther, but my next error was:

Uh-oh, looks like we ran into some trouble importing this file at line Cannot read properties of null (reading ‘code’). Look for a date or an amount that shows odd formatting. Correct it and try again.”

After reporting that error, I got the tip I needed from my customer service agent.

The format must be either Date, Description, Amount or Date, Description, Credit, Debit. Make sure there is no total amount at the bottom, and the file contains only 3 or 4 columns.

This in fact resolved my issue. Of course the thing I didn’t think about was that in the first format, debits have to be negative. So I then had imported entries that I can exclude, but not delete, showing a *credit* for each of my eBay fees. Oops.

For now, I will exclude those credits, and import the transactions I need with the actual debit (negative) notation. And unlike past years, I’ll try to do it as I go, rather than at the end.

Have you found any tips in Quickbooks that your google-fu didn’t solve for you? Share in the comments!