I did it!

I did it!

I really did it!

I got 150K!!

Now, I need to go home and validate - and proceed to go into a coma.

It's been nice knowing you.

<3

Oh my, time really goes by quickly, doesn't it?  Good grief, I've slept a lot the last few days.

I will not have time to finish this blog before 8am, so it'll be saved and edited later, but for now know I'm in the office pre-8am and actually, oh dear LORD! Reading all the blogs I have not for quite some time.  I found I missed an opportunity to enter a blog contest I would have otherwise have jumped at, but what can you do?  I did, however, find this intriguing contest EA is hosting for a book, Mentors, Muses and Monsters.  So I will be thinking about that like, tomorrow...or some day that does not fall in the parentheticals of November.

Also, The Inkwell Bookstore blog posted this today on the lists of 2009 I will have to pour over some other time.  As well as this post, from Ask a Literary Agent - where they discuss the length of a book for submission.  Yet more confirmation making the decision to cut my book in 1/3's is a great idea!

I got terribly little done on my NaNo novel during the holiday. I had anticipated having much more done and even finishing days ago and powering through to reach the end of Premonition...but I fear it will be the end of December by the time that is done and I can go back and revise Suspicion enough to show up at critique group and participate, and only THEN can I think about even starting to write Intuition AS I continue to revise.  I feel like drowning just thinking about it (not really, it's just before 8am, Monday morning.)

Oh well.  Thanksgiving was wonderful.  I wound up writing a ton Wednesday and then little bits of drivel here and there over the last few days.  Thanksgiving Thursday I went to my parents house, walked in the door and was immediately given the task of creating a Turkey from a squash, a pear,bits of cheese, bell pepper, grapes and skewers. I still swear it looks more like a Doxin than a Turkey - but what do I know? I only have Chinchillas.  (I find it obnoxious that after spell-checking Doxin and googling it to make sure I knew what I was talking about, I still get the red line under the word.)  For lack of anything else to do and too many distractions to write I laid down on the couch to stare blankly at men in spandex tackling each other......and fell asleep for about three hours.  Yes. Three hours.  My grandmothers left and didn't even say goodbye.  I left later that night and went home; I think I tried writing - and went to sleep fairly early.


Friday I braved the craziness of the mall and went shopping. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I'd feared and I actually got most of my shopping done.  WalMart was pretty much completely deserted and I got to shop without wishing ill on any one - except I was more than a little creeped out by the guy who walked up to me and grabbed my arm while I was deciding whether or not to give canned potatoes another shot or not.  See, I go grocery shopping with my iPod, I find it makes the whole experience much more enjoyable - except if anyone speaks to me and I don't see them - I don't hear them.  So this guy just reaches out and helps himself to examining my arm.  Wound up having a lovely conversation with him, but the beginnings were strange.  I also dyed my hair Friday; I had too many colors going as it was so now it's a semi-even black cherry color that over my brown hair will fade to a reddish brown, very unnatural color in time.  For now it just looks sort of ambiguously purple.  I'm okay with that. I'm also going to have to realize my hair is long enough I will need two bottles of dye from here on out if I do this myself.  I know I did more things Friday; I think there was baking involved and going to Cassy's house....


Saturday I slept in.  I did a lot of sleeping until 10 or even noon these last few days - and going to bed before midnight!  I did writing; not enough really and truely.  And then went to my bestfriends surprise birthday party.  Her family had one planned jointly for her, her sisters' fiance and her other sisters' husband but because of pre-surgery stuff she could not attend and knowing very well it would hurt her feelings they planned this one in advance, but just didn't tell her.  It was great.  She's not the kind to suspect anything at all! It was a really fun evening - however I learned AGAIN that I really stink at playing Chicken Foot.


Sunday I had planned to spend powering through the last 7K to finish my NaNoWriMo novel, but opened my NaNoMail to find yet another hate mail message, which after reading four words I deleted.  I twittered about it again and some other people picked up on it and unlike before when I mentioned the previous two I've gotten ML's got involved and now I realize that instead of deleting them I should have handed them over.  Oh well.  It did throw me into a funk for the rest of the day.  I wrote terribly and hardly anything so my friend Kyle coming over was a welcomed break.

We got soup at Panera and came home via Half Priced Books looking for cheap Christmas movies - which I did not find. I did, however, find a copy of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and Watchmen, which I've wanted to read.  Not so much Watchmen except his characterization and setting are supposed to be fantastic.  We'll see if I finish reading it.  Completed last night putting up my Christmas tree and hanging ornaments around my apartment since this year the bottom quarter of the tree is not getting decorated nor the backside.  The goal for this Christmas is to get a tree topper.  I was just happy to have a tree and ornaments I liked last year that I just didn't bother with a topper.  I'd like one this year!


Thankfully once everyone left I did get a lot written last night before copping out at midnight and crawling into bed.  Today I need to write 3K to reach my own, personal goal. I can do this!!!

Also looking forward to a two-day work week this week!

Okay, so my last blog was like, terrible and I was so grouchy that day for a lot of different reasons and I know better than to really post stuff when I'm like that so - I'm sorry.

On to better news!!!!!

Robin McKinley's pep-talk was sent out while I was sleeping!!!  OMG I'm so happy.  I really liked it too; she talked about how she realized a book she was working on should really be two books, which is where I'm at only it's three.  I really liked it, and it was a great read for me right now  ^__^ 

I made the decision yesterday that my NaNoWriMo novel really will be split into three, light volumes.  I'm thinking the set will be called The Barking Dog, because I'm attached to the symbolism behind that, and then yesterday the individual names for the books just fell into my lap; Suspicion, Premonition, and Intuition.  They fit, I think, I really like it so yes. 

Yesterday I was like giddy hyper, so I didn't blog because I couldn't sit still long enough to pull words out of the air.  I didn't even START writing yesterday until about 5pm when I did a word-war with the @NaNoWordSprints on Twitter.  I cranked out words pretty easily yesterday like that just because it was like I was on Speed all day; I still sort of feel a bit jittery like that but much more manageable today.  I'm hoping to reach 5K early this evening so I can run over and hang out with my friend who had surgery Monday before the Thanksgiving crazies eat us all.

I fully intend to latch onto the open days to write over the holiday and crank out the end of Premonition and if I can get started into Intuition I will.  Unfortunately I think all I can hope for is a rough draft of Suspicion and Premonition in November; Intuition will probably be what I crank out in December during my vacation time.  That is my goal...

Thanksgiving!  Right.  Tomorrow I'll pull myself out of bed semi-early and trek to my parents house and set up my laptop there and crank out words and talk to my mom and ignore whatever football stuff is on tv.  Holidays are a small thing with our family; at most it will be my parents, my Mamaw and possibly my Grandmother - and that's it.  No pressure, nice relaxing day - I hope.  I'll come home in the evening and actually go to bed - because it'll be Black Friday!

The one and only reason I will be getting up early on Friday - to be at Half Priced Books at 7am to attempt for the gift cards they are giving out to their first customers of the day.  I might try to meander into Best Buy to drool at the notebook I want but that's not for sure; I will probably drive by and gauge if I go in by the amount of cars in the parking lot.  Yup!

I'm finding it hard to concentrate on anything except my now building interest to write on my novel.  The pep-talk has me with the itch to write!!!

I have realized something very important about the affect NaNo has on me; it removes all patience for idiocy.  Idiots who would normally not even phase me have me wanting to throw rocks at their windshields, blocking their numbers or unfriending them on silly sites.  Maybe it's just a way to beg back for my attention which has been diverted into something so selfish as writing for my own enjoyment, but my patience is limited to - well - nothing.  I know this possibly makes me sound like a terrible person, and I should be better, yes, but I'm also human and being a righteous jerk to me is uncalled for; that of course does not justify any actions I take that are unnecessary.  This is another reason I have holed up so much the last two weeks.  I'm really getting tired of people who are my friends in one regard or another mocking something I do that's not what they enjoy.  I guess this is just a huge mess of bad timing and so forth, and a little of the adage, "Do not poke the dragon for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."  I'm also in a perpetual hungry state because I've been forgetting or skipping meals.  Oopse!

It makes me think about a recent conversation I had with a friend.  We were discussing the affects of music on the listener and how listening to "Christian" music made us feel as opposed to listening to "secular" music.  It's very entertaining to think back on my own various views on this topic over my own history and I will say this up front: I do not think there is a right or wrong way to listen to music.  What I mean is that as  a Christian saying, 'Do not listen to any secular music!' is silly and foolish and ignorant.  There is a particular group that is not a Christian group, however they play some of the most encouraging, positive music out there - and even sing about positive figurative women.  I think I'm coming back to a point where I need to monitor myself more.  My fluctuating attitude could be an indicator of something else - or perhaps I'm just crazy and getting really annoyed with music with lyrics.  I've been listening to a lot of soundtracks, mostly because it helps with writing and that's what I've been doing a lot of lately. I'm sort of rambling on this topic since I have no succinct thought or point to make other than the affect of what you put in is curious as to what comes out.

Writing Excuses did a fun blog today about NaNoWriMo.  I found what they had to say fun and encouraging and realized that today, as I sit in the office completely by myself, I sort of wanted the sound of voices so I started playing a bunch of the old podcasts I have not worked my way through yet.  I have been at a point while looking at my NaNoWriMo novel and realizing I have yet to reach the end that it's very alarming how large it's growing.  I was listening to one of the podcasts when I had the idea that I really did want to beef up the beginning some and that it would be very interesting to cut the novel I am working on into two, maybe three bits, making each their own stand alone 'novel'.  This would let me explore two characters that didn't get much feature, and to really build things up and perhaps set the second bit up better.  Again these are just ideas, and I will finish what I've started before I go back with a pair of scissors and white out and a red pen.  Partially I say this because should I want to submit it, in it's current length it's far too long I think.

I'm dragging today, and badly.  I'm not regretting my choice to go and see Boondock Saints II AGAIN last night - yes, I went to go see it AGAIN!!!!  I spent the better half of yesterday with my friend that just got back from a cruise catching up and hanging out.  We watched the first one and even though she was on some rather uncomfortable medicine prepping her for surgery today, we went to go see it.  It was just as good, if not better, the second time around.  Dear Lord I like that movie!!  I did not get to bed before about 1am, wrote half of what I should have, but I don't regret it.  Those are the times you can never replace.  :) 

Today is Monday, there is officially one more week left of NaNoWriMo and hopefully soon I will get my peptalk from Robin McKinley.  I very much want this peptalk!!  I am waiting, opening my email excitedly each time....and as of yet have to find one.... I have Eddy Izzard playing to keep me company because I'm in the office alone, still, because as of yet nothing has changed since earlier.  I think that I need to stop rambling...

For some reason, since last night I have really had the urge to burp - but I like, can't. At all. It's very annoying.

In other news..... Here's some interesting links that yeah, you might like!  The Inkwell Bookstore Blog posted a link to this website that showcases art used on multiple book covers; this proves that when I know I've seen a picture somewhere, but a title may not be ringing a bell - I'm not as crazy as I think I am!  I really liked this comic about eReaders.  I've sort of started wanting one, but I have decided that until they come out with a color one, I don't need one.  Yup - that's my opinion!

So I think I'm going to dye my hair next week; torn between a reddish color, a really dark brown or a medium brown.  Forcing myself to ignore the urge to go back to black.....What do you think?  It needs to happen before the wedding.

So the newsletter for Waking the Bear - a "colony" of missionaries in Russia - came out Nov 20th.  If you know me very well, you will probably know how dearly I want to go back and live in Russia; I've had this plan and desire set in stone since I was 16.  Reading their newsletter makes me really hate my life, the economy and everything that keeps me rooted where I am now.  If things were not so tight and if I could pay off these bills I would go in a heartbeat, however I am still here - working and amusing myself as I can, still nursing my dream to go do like two years over seas.  I don't think I am the life time missionary sort; that I would ever feel the that I would be involved in organized religion still sort of surprises me.  I made my choice to be a Christian not based on other Christians - they were the worst thing about my early choice actually - but because it was the right choice, it was what made sense to me and still does.  It was a logical and emotional choice and I have never regretted it or doubted it though I do frequently question motives or reasoning behind things.

My NaNo novel is roughly half done now.  I got about 6K written today, which I really needed because close to nothing got done yesterday. Last night I went to a write-in in Arlington; didn't get a whole lot of actual writing done - but dear lord we had a good time!  From talking about our novels, the grand total of TWO word wars we did, the pizza, watching crazy youtube videos mocking Twilight and generally mocking it, we had a lot of fun, but a little writing. Honestly, it was pretty much worth it to just enjoy the crazy company of a bunch of people as crazy about stuff as I/we were.  Today was much better; I wrote 1K at home then packed my happy butt off to Borders where I wrote up to about 6K.

And then.

We went to see the brand friggen new Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day movie.  Dear lord that was amazing!  Okay so while it's still in the same vein of kick booty awesome as the first, it is more comical and plays to the cult audience a lot.  I am going to force myself to say nothing more because I am so excited about this movie, I know I will give stuff away.  All I have to say is that I'm super excited about this quote...

Sequel

In an October 27 article, director Troy Duffy and actor Billy Connolly mention details regarding a possible sequel. They maintain that it is slowly in the works and is still just an idea. Duffy insists that he wants to get a few more of his films done before returning to the Boondock Saints. The article also mentions a possible comic detailing events preceding the first film, such as a more in depth exploration of Il Duce and his rise to prominence. The proposed third installment would be titled "The Boondock Saints III: In Nomine Patris".

I saw it tonight, and will possibly watch it again tomorrow (Sunday) as well as once or twice more.

Okay, well, I know I had more witty things to say but they have all left my little brain as I continue to dream about the amazingness that is Boondock Saints.

So I realize I did not post yesterday, but that does not mean I did not blog yesterday.  You see - I have this habit of keeping a few posts in edit and collecting stuff in each one; yes, there really is some sort of strange method to all of the crazy stuff I push out there!  Anyways, so pretend you understand what day it is I'm talking about and I'm going to do my revision thing so it doesn't sound like I'm more crazy than NaNoWriMo has already made me.

Yesterday morning I was struck with the realization that I think there should be a law about people not being allowed scissors in their own homes; they should be checked out or something and only used in front of a trained scissor professional. This would effectively prevent people from cutting their own hair and making the mistake I did this morning with my bangs.  Not that I did a particularly bad job, but I know I'm going to get laughed at when I finally do go and get them fixed.  They're a bit shorter than I'd intended and I somehow achieved a layered effect, but opposite of the way the layers - for bangs - should have gone, I think.... I am no hairdresser extraordinaire..... So yes, this morning I did the stupid thing and trimmed my own bangs; thankfully there is still almost two weeks from now until Danielle's wedding when I will go get them shaped up by a true professional and laugh at my own folly.  I should also see about dying my hair as well.  I have about three colors currently and I really only want one.  After washing my hair last night and playing with them with the slightly curved straitghtener I have (yes, it's an oxymoron but I'm not the genius who made it, I just use it!) they don't look too bad. I still intend to get them cleaned up before the wedding business.

So I think I struck the creative gold mine on my way into work yesterday morning; unfortunately it has nothing to do with my current NaNoWriMo novel, The Barking Dog, but everything to do with my graphic novel idea.  It's sort of like an onion at the moment.  I pulled it out of the depths of my mind and as I try to puzzle out what I should do with it I start stripping away layers and getting acquainted with it - except I don't like onions so I don't think this analogy makes much sense....it did when I started it in my head.  Suffice it to say, the idea is getting really interesting to me and I'm planning on doing some research - but later!  I even have a list of graphic novels that I should go read, though the ones that interest me are not in the genre or style I'd find appropriate for my idea. Oh well!

Okay, so growing up, Dr Who was not part of my childhood.  I think it is beyond mentioning by now that I had a less than normal childhood so anything and everything it seems that was part and piece of your childhood - was an unknown in mine.  However, it is interesting that a new Dr Who book is currently underway to being signed into production.  Nifty 'eh?  I hope it's good, for the fans most of all.  Like, I really like the Hitchhikers Guide movies and everything, I just have yet to sit down and read the book; I know I will fall madly in love with it when I do - I just haven't yet.  Yeah...lame excuse I know.  Well, a certain someone wrote a sequel that is getting rather negative reviews (caution some strong language); it makes me sad.

Now - onward about my NaNoWriMo progress.  Wednesday I stayed up horendously late to get in my 5K and realized that wtih nothing planned for Thursday I was so going to blow 100K out of the water and get to bed early, as well as do very important things like tend to the Chin-children, shower, take out the trash, etc.  As I gauge out the book currently.I think the story will come full circle around 200K, but I cannot manage that by the end of November I fear unless all I do is write like a crazy lady over Thanksgiving and just kill the rest of the book.  Wednesday I wrote some really intense scenes between the FMC and MMC and introduced the ambiguous other presence in the book.

Last night would see me move on to where things just start snowballing and suddenly it turns into a roller coaster.  Well - that was the plan - roller coaster IN the book - not IN my life.  I believe many people are acquainted with my incident previously which I have dubbed, When Roaches Attack, well I fear we have hit the sequel: When Roaches Attack: The Dive Bombing Kamikaze. Last night, while attempting to watch The Office and cut up some chicken to bake for dinner, I heard a sound - now I have some new neighbors who I think probably launder money and the upstairs ones have various children inhabiting the apartment at different times so I don't bother myself to pay much attention to strange sounds unless they sound, well, serious and this was not a serious sound.

Except then something hit me - or landed on me....Now keep in mind please I am currently armed with a steak knife, cutting chicken over the sink in a pyrex dish.  I step back, look down and OMG THERE'S A ROACH CRAWLING ACROSS MY SHIRT!!!! Dear lord I think I screamed, somehow got it off of me and well - what does one do when armed with a knife? You use it....yes, I knifed a roach in my kitchen and was able to stun it so I could get the ever useful in capturing strange insects dish to put over it...except then it tried to escape and I sort of cut off part of it's thorax...Unfortunately being knifed and having part of it's lower body removed was not enough to do this sucker in so I dug out my neatly put away can of Raid and did the honors, then proceeding to spray baseboards, around the fridge and doors and found out that it takes 5 minutes for Raid to kill a roach; the commercials lie!

My apartment complex will be getting another lovely package of the six legged variety this afternoon.  I really, really like my apartment and where I live - but if this issue with the bugs persists it's going to force me out and I'll be foaming at the mouth by the time my lease is up.  I am probably going to take some more proactive measures on insect prevention though.

That said, it took me nearly an hour, hour and a half to stop twitching at every strange sound expecting another dive bombing attack any moment!  I couldn't find music to write to that didn't make me want to do something else or just flat out did not fit the scene; Pandora really failed me last night for a while.  However, around 11:15 (keep in mind I had really hoped to be in bed by 10pm) I hit the rhythm and just flowed with it.  Got almost 6K written and at 11:45 I had to make the very hard decision that I really had to sleep and sleep was not, in fact, optional.  There was so much good stuff going on too!  Ug - I didn't even sleep much - staying up might have been the better choice, but I did not.  Really itching to start writing this stuff though.

Oh dear LORD! Thanksgiving is like - right around the corner!! Where did that come from??

I need to get out the Christmas tree. I haven't even THOUGHT about Christmas cards - this is a nightmare...I have become increasingly more and more forgetful as all I'm thinking about is my novel this month.  I've left my apartment without my lunch several times now, forgotten I left things out, I've been leaving my phone in weird places or completely turned off.  Goodness - I really have lost my marbles!  But the month is half over, I'm within sight of 100K, I can almost taste it - and I can feel the build up of events in the novel; it's just all the little streams trickling into a river that's swelling to the moment a damn, somewhere, is gonna burst!

Except this process has made me extremely tired.  I now lay in bed for an hour, yes an hour, as my alarm clock goes off in my ear before crawling - yes, really, I crawl out of bed - around 7 - 7:10 and somehow scoot out of the apartment between 7:30 & 7:40 and somehow, by the grace of God, make it to work not even on time - EARLY!  I am having the best luck this month; seriously.

Plans are underway to see Boondock Saints: All Saints Day sometime this weekend which really excites me.  Combined with a write-in and it's the best way to spend a Saturday right now.  The new Star Trek movie came out yesterday and I really want to buy it, but I'm making myself wait.  I can't even watch my freaking Netflix, I'm not buying a movie to collect dust on it's pretty little shiny plastic cover until I have time and the state of mind to think about anything other than my novel for a 2 hour period, kay?  I've had Duplicity for probably two or three weeks now; really.  And I really wanted to see it too! Crank and Crank 2 should be coming in as well in the near future, both of which I also really want to see but will probably hold on to for a few weeks until I have time, again, time.

The novel.  It's going well; conflict is still building up.  The poor FMC is having a rough time and it's only about to get worse.  I really think she's getting off lucky; if I would have thought about the plot matrix before hand, her literary life would have been Hades. Editing will not be nice to her nerves I think.  Dear lord I'm blogging about my character as if she's real; someone please shoot me now??

Um, blogs - we all know I love reading blogs. I need to read more news and current events blogs I think; but we'll save that for after NaNoWriMo, kay?  Well, something funny first off.  The Inkwell Bookstore Blog I discovered yesterday; their posts are hilarious, really!  They had a whole string of comical posts involving NaNo or advice on NaNoWriMo - back read people!  Well this morning in a blurb in their blog they revealed that some author who had been writing under a pen name and was unknown even to her own editor and publisher and agent, etc - revealed herself.  The woman who blogs in character about her time spent as a fancy prostitute is actually, a neurotoxicology scientist in London and revealed herself to one of her biggest critics.  The story was good for one of those head shaking laughs where you don't really know what to think of the world at the moment.


I am getting antsy about wanting to reread all of the Wheel of Time books again, but resisting because THEY ARE STILL UNFINISHED! I refuse to yet again become involved in a relationship with a book series that is unfinished; I get left hanging and ignored and hurt and I just can't take it!  Well, maybe after November I could.  I do, however, love reading how WoT has inserted it's self into the lives of people - thus this wonderful chuckle I got from EA's blog.  (Yes I did censor the title of the blog.)

Last night I talked to a fellow NaNoWriMo friend who is attempting to spear head a year round writing group that would really function more as a monthly or bi-monthly traveling write-in.  I like the idea; the ideas I used to come up with so easily and so often are crawling out of the recesses of my brain and clamoring for attention now that I promise to pay them at least a shred of attention instead of going, "Oh, I'm sorry - you aren't related to so-and-so's class, I just can't write you into Modern Hermeneutics! Sorry alien boys!" Yeah, well, maybe not really alien boys but you get the idea.  We were both a bit edgy about the idea of people critiquing our stuff; I know, I know, I know I take things far too personally and that's something I have to always, always, always be conscious of.  I really need to stretch my writerly wings again, get a few drafts under my belt, maybe anther project or two and work my way into really wanting feedback.  It didn't really help that Fuel for Your Writing posted this blog entitled How to be an Editor's Best Friend, in which makes me realize I need to take criticism better; like really!  Funny enough, over on the BookEnds, LLC blog they posted about The Benefit of Critique Groups, in which it didn't really seem all that much like a benefit as much of an - "If that works for you awesome!  It's not for everyone." 

There was another blog that talked about writing really good dialogue and I cannot for the life of me recall where I saw it; I think it was a link via Twitter from Inky Girl but I really wish I had snagged the link.  It defined about four categories of dialogue and how people write.  I think I am a Fuzzy Dice type of person who describes things far too much and is too verbose.

Should you really want your head to explode, EA does a great blog on understanding the money of publishing a book - What's the difference between earning out my advance and making a profit for my publisher?  Really - my head hurts too bad to read this now - but later, some other day in the distant future - after November - I want to come back to this one.

And I really want a Tim Tam.....so I can do the Tim Tam Slam.

Dear lord, work approaches - must flee to work!!!!!!

[EDIT]

I found it!!!!!!!!  Beginners' Four Faults.   I'm totally Furry Dice  >__<

I feel like I should make a great, profound statement or something but I just sit here and think: Wow, I've rambled on for 50 some odd posts? Yikes.

Today I find myself looking around with a lot of things to do.  A project I'd completed got shot back to me with a note, 'Oopse! We didn't explain this well enough - you'll have to redo it.'  This is frustrating. I dislike redoing stuff, I want to do it right the first time but so often I cannot ask the questions I need to ask because I'm states away and the people that I need to talk to are very busy. So I find myself sort of shooting into the dark at times and just hoping I can do it right and feeling like a failure because I did not understand that within the context of a single sentence ten bullets of change were automatically understood because in order to get the desired End Result, well of course A, B, C, D, E, F and G all have to be changed!  A, C, D and E were completely new to me....  I'm frustrated but I cannot get too upset; I probably did not try hard enough to understand.  However, I am currently working on a large, tedious project that is just as time sensitive as the other one.  I refuse to get bent out of shape over this; I'm going to bust my arse to work on them today but I'm only capable of so much so go me for resolving my little temper tantrum on my own - without having the tantrum.  I really do like where I work and the people, sometimes just being so far flung makes communication difficult.  It also means that it's drought or drown as far as work goes; I am now drowning in comparison to what it's been like recently.

This means my only writing will be before work, at lunch and after work.  Yesterday I got in a rock'en 1.3K during my half hour lunch break.  My novel's really starting to rock along.  Dan Wells from Writing Excuses published this really cool blog about a book idea he's working on and in his blog he talked about a matrix style way of outlining action or points of conflict using an excel sheet.  I'd never thought of this before!!  I think that in my editing process for working out the kinks in the first bit of the book I need to do something like that.  There's far too little anything in the first bit of the book and just uninteresting daily events and me being far too verbose.  I really should sit down and do this for the current part of my novel and if I have some free time after meeting my daily goal I will to double check everything.  I have a lot of conflict going on at the moment which is really cool; at one point while we were all sitting around at La Madeleine the five of us realized we were all writing conflict.

I have also set myself a carrot on a stick.  I don't think that finishing my novel will be an issue; it's the editing I'm worried about.  So I don't get my carrot if I finish my book - I get my carrot after I've edited the dang thing and feel comfortable letting my friends read it.  Of course this is also holding out that my parents don't buy me the carrot since I did put it on my List for the season of Birthday & Christmas.  What is it? Should I tell you? Okay - I'm terrible at keeping my own secrets! I want a Wii Fit; I gave up my gym membership to move into a place where I felt safer, but there was the added bonus of a gym and racquetball room!  I don't know what's happened but the gym is occupied like 24/7 and it's a tiny gym so four people in there and you're a) claustrophobic b) dying from humidity.  And I have yet to find racquetball partners.  I've played with a few friend's Wii and I like it, it's fun, and it's something I could see myself doing as a game, thus fooling myself into physical activity.  I think it's a great thing, actually so should all go well, I'll be buying one in like - January.

So I think it's become clear I'm addicted to reading blogs.  I pick up reading anyone I find interesting and I've subscribed to a lot of literary agents and editors blogs; lots of things that involve the book industry.  I don't remember when but I ran across Nathan Bransford's blog via the Inky Girl blog.  Well Nathan posted this hilarious blog entitled What I Learned About Writing While Watching Reality Television. I'm surprised that I got a bunch of the references!  I personally only really tune into the Tool Academy though I am very tempted to pay to download the Project Runway episodes, and I sort of want to watch America's Next Top Model again.  Hm, what could I say I learned from Tool Academy about writing?  Tool Academy proves that your tool character really is possible; there are really men out there who are that bad.  On the flip side, the idiot girl character really can be that dumb to believe whatever he says and stick with him.  Not very good lessons, I'm not as witty as Nathan but I really liked his blog.

And also in blogs, yesterday or day before yesterday was author Robin McKinley's birthday - happy birthday!  Her blogs are normally filled with hilarious commentary but I feel that her birthday blog while hilarious, is also perhaps a reason friends shouldn't let friends blog drunk.  Okay, she wasn't that bad - but the blog was funny. 

I've also learned that while I'm terrific about reading blogs and commenting when I feel I have anything even remotely worth saying - hey, I really like seeing I get comments so I figure others do too, even if it's just a few words - I'm horrible about double checking to see what other comments were left after mine.  Just an observation  :)

So where do I find myself today?  Well in a few short minutes I need to tackle work things now that I've poked at my email, the day will officially start in a little while.  I'll work diligently today, really, I'm going for consistency!  I hope to finish the project I started yesterday, get some class paperwork done, some post class bits I've been confused about and by then it'll probably be lunch.  I'm sort of scraping my larder here; I realize suddenly that I don't like salami sandwiches anymore....this is disturbing. I've always liked them.  I do, however, really like this sundried basil cheese I found.  So since I have nothing but cheese and bread I'm eating a bag of snap peas for lunch and string cheese; yum.  Finger foods to accommodate me while I write!  I was ideally saving the peas for something else but I really didn't want to have to run out and buy lunch yet again; ug!  This afternoon hopefully dabble in the project that was kicked back to me and pray I really get it this time.  I need to stop by Kroger on the way home because I ran out of toilet paper like Saturday and have been using Kleenex since (TMI yes, I know).  I also need a handful of other items so it's a well timed trip and I can snag some peanut butter and fall back on that option.  I think Alicia is coming over for a bit before heading over to the write-in at Borders...I think.  Regardless I need to unpack the dishwasher and do something about my kitchen, pick up some general stuff and put the clothes that have been air drying away.

The Chins probably also need some attention but I don't know if they really want it, lol.  They're so funny.  I tried feeding them dried blueberries last night; they seemed to like them!  I was eating the blueberries and decided to share; I think they appreciated the gesture.  I should get them some more toys and one of those calcium, hanging things they go through in three freaking days!  I <3 my Chin-Children.

Okay, over and out - it's work time people!

[edit] Ug, I think I need a new blog layout....and a banner.  I'm so silly.

[edit] RAWR - changed blog layout and lost everything as far as the sidebar stuff goes. so frustrated. rebuilding but lacking time to do it in.

Saying I'm rather tired is a bit of an understatement right now, LoL!  Night of Writing Dangerously (NOWD) ended a few hours ago and I got a small nap in but I'm forcing myself to stay awake so I can sleep all night.  It was an event that had us writing from about 6pm to 6am.  My goal was to write 10K during this and unfortunately we didn't have internet there or else my nano calendar would reflect the right spread; I did about 7K yesterday between the morning trying to make up for not getting my words in Friday, and did about 4.5K after midnight.  I was very bitter when I realized as we turned in our final words that I was not, in fact, 1.5K away from my goal, but a mere 500 words. I was ever so bitter.

I can't really remember my last post and I'm too lazy to open up another window to see when I wrote it. 

So I'll just cover the weekend!!!!

Friday was fun; a fellow NaNo'r came over sometime Friday evening and we quite literally stayed up the entire night watching movies, baking and doing a very little amount of writing.  I think I managed 2K the entire time she was here!  We baked two batches of cupcakes, a red velvet batch that's stained my stovetop (oops!) and a devil's food batch; I also made a funfetti cake to commemorate her birthday since we found out only after the fact.  I believe we watched, in order: Repo! Genetic Rock Opera, Mirrormask, The Last Unicorn,  Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and then three or four episodes of Burn Notice.

I'd wanted to watch Repo! Genetic Rock Opera just out of curiosity.  It was created to fit a more cult audience.  I have one friend who swears it is the most god awful movie ever made.  I know another who adores it.  I think it's interesting; the premise is that the world has progressed to the point where organ failure just happens and a company has emerged to provide organs - except if you can't pay your organ financing then the organs are repossessed by Repo-Man.  It is a very gory movie, but not disgusting gore.  It had a fun graphic novel aspect to it.  The music was a bit cheesy but also very catchy.

Mirrormask was a movie made by the Hensen company that I really enjoyed.  It was wonderfully whimsical and artistic and funky.  A bit darker at times than some of their movies but still super fun.

I think she left around 5am or 6am and I slept for about 8 hours before getting up to slowly meander around the house and get my stuff together to go to the NOWD.  I feel that I was overly prepared; I brought a ton of stuff but also used most of it.  I wound up sitting in the "couch room" which had been planned to be the "quiet room" - it wound up being the very loud room.  It was a great, grand time!  Dear lord, get a room full of novelists together and you're going to get some interesting material.  There was a sign in the foyer that said, "Go to Jesus and Turn Right" the smaller text said for some class or something.  Thus ensued the hilarity of jokes that involved, "going to Jesus," and lets just said we beat the horse dead and then paraded it around on rollers - and it was still funny to us who were so exhausted.  I left around 6:30 or 7am I think...

Came home, slept a bit and now I'm awake; watched a movie, Burn Notice is playing now and I really should think about doing laundry and putting dishes away or doing something else.  I do intend to write a bit more, but no idea how much I'll get done really.

My story is coming along nicely, I think my tone is changing, I'm not really certain.  I think I need to finish the book and then revise it and solidify the overall tone for the book.  I'm just about halfway through my outline and looking forward to getting on to some of the more actiony and less set-up bits.  Right - I'm rambling now. Time to jump off this boat.

I want to write - but not so much on my  novel today. I know I want to write on it at some point today - just not right now.  I'm sort of frusterated with the lack of subplot through this first section and really am considering pushing myself to finish the novel pre-December and go back and add bits and pieces into the first bit to make the closing of this first section ever so much more satisfying to the reader. I feel that the dislikeable characters are not unlikeable enough and the one character I'd been so ready to paint as a terrible old man never appeared except as a name in a list of attendees for two or three events.  I'm frusterated and I really hate the last section I wrote; in my head it was so witty and fun but when I started typing it came out flat and uninteresting.  I'm frusterated with my lack of inspiring writing.

I'm also frustrated that other people cannot keep up with one measly reply to a co-writing thing that's going on and there are other people waiting.  If it weren't for the fact that one of the people who has already submitted their bit royally ticked me off because of his lack of consideration for the other writers in the group I would probably just plow ahead and write out the next bit taking the other two writers silence as acquiescence to whatever I choose to be the next move for the story; granted I'm the one weaving the overall story, they just create more subplot than major arc which is getting old and getting us all bogged down. I'd really like two cinder-blocks and the opportunity to bash some heads.

I think I'm still harboring some frustrations from Tuesday night.  See, I hit 50K sometime Monday and as a reward had some people over, made a nice dinner and sat down to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  I think I would have enjoyed the movie were it not for the company and the constant feeling of being badgered for OMG KNOWING SOMETHING ABOUT X-MEN! Serriously - just because for some small fraction of my childhood I liked the cartoon and happened to read a few of the comics when we were still traveling and I happen to know something about the characters - that makes it alright to mock me for an evening?  However, Gambit being in the movie made me ever so happy and the actor who played him was unknown to me - but I loved it.  It's what really saved the movie for me.

I was startled to learn that Ryan Reynolds - one of the actors in the Wolverine movie - is such a huge comic fan.  Unfortunatly I don't particularily care for him because of some of the rolls he's chosen to play, the characters are too far stuck in my head that I feel too much dislike of him to like him now.  He is, however, in the upcoming Deadpool and Green Lantern movies, both of which I would see willingly.

So yesterday I learned that finally - FINALLY - Boondock Saints: All Saints Day is being released; the midnight showing is tonight but I won't be going.  I am toying with the idea of finding a showing tomorrow night and going; I'm a huge BS fangirl though I don't own a single shirt or any memorabilia from the movie - except the like, ultimate collectors edition of the movie....yeah.

This week is crazy but I think after this one I should be able to manage the rest of the month pretty handily.  I haven't read any of my blogs, really - and I look at the list in my updated box and just wanna sit here for a while and read and read and read - but I can't.  It's almost time for work so I really should get to that, as I have neatly wasted away all my possible morning writing time with my frusterated blog and talking about movies - go me!  So far I have left this week is seeing the Lance Armstrong movie with my mom tonight and plans for Friday night are uncertain.  I think I should check with Alicia to see if she would be up for seeing BS and Repo! Rock Opera before at my place whilst baking for the NOWD on Saturday-Sunday.

I need something to make me a happier person today; I'm just feeling a lot of pent up frusteration that has yet to get out.  Maybe I should invest in a punching bag?

I did it.

Last night sometime between 11:30 & Midnight I reached 50K, and in the most beautiful section of the book.  Granted in order to write that bit I had to turn on a mushy movie and channel the romantic - which I am not.  I have not a romantic bone in my body, I think.  But I feel so very excited and happy to have reached this milestone in the NaNoWriMo month.  My glee is of course short lived because I have 100K more to write, and I'm only nearing the last chapter of the first section of the book.  That's the next milestone!

I think tonight I'll take it a bit easy; watch a movie or two and veg and just relax and GET TO BED EARLY! I need sleep - like a full nights sleep.  I'm so very sleep deprived that it can't be good.  I'm thinking I'll make a celebratory steak dinner, Amanda's supposed to come over, might invite some other friends and just have a nice, relaxing night!

Tomorrow it'll be back to the grind, not that I won't be writing today during lunch or after work for a bit.  Every little bit helps!

This week looks something like this:

• Tonight hang out and have fun with friends.
• Wednesday, eek out 5K and volunteer at church
• Thursday, hammer out 5K, go see movie with my mom about some mountain biking race that Lance Armstrong entered on a whim. And they made a movie about it. Yeah.
• Friday I'm not so sure, but but I'll probably park it at a write-in and write until I want to stop.
• Depending on what happens with the family, I could be volunteering at church in the media or else attending the Night of Writing Dangerously (NOWD - all night writing event starting Saturday and going Sunday)
• We'll see what people want to do, but I might be hosting an Irving write-in at my apartment Sunday

and then it starts all over again.....

This will be a haphazard, messy blog. My apologies. I don't remember when I wrote my last blog or what it was about. Right now I don't remember a lot of things. I'm very tired, just slept about 12 hours after returning from Oklahoma and I'm allowing myself to piddle around until noon, by which time I really need to have taken a shower, cleaned my Chinchilla cage and eaten *something* (it doesn't really matter at this point what it is).  By noon I want to settle in on my couch and start cranking out todays goal of 10K.  I'm going to give myself from about noon until 11, and from 11 to midnight I need to get ready for the work week and figure out what to do with the mound of clean clothes.  Washing them isn't hard...it's the putting away that's killing me.

I'm at 34,395 words, writing the last section in chapter four.  I realized my novel will have three "books" in it, with each book having four sections and each section having as many chapters as is needed. This will help my 10K chapters turn into far more easily manageable reading bits for my poor friends who have blindly offered to read it. I pity them. Amanda is working on the first draft of chapters 1-3 right now with a red pen. I lay awake in bed afraid of what she's doing to it.  She sat next to me trying to read it while I was writing before The Office came on Thursday, I got maybe 30 words written because she was making me so nervous, moving that red pen around! I finally made her stop - I couldn't take it.

Oklahoma was a good trip. We went shopping way too much - but we're girls - that happens - oh well. It was probably also the last big shopping for me to be done before 2010.  The party was fun.  We played games and established that I carry the most crap around in my purse.  I also "won" this greatly awesome pomegranate lotion; how I <3 pomegranate.  I also <3 late night runs for snacks; I don't do those anymore. It was fun

Um, ah - I don't know what else to say - so I'm going to go see about that Chinchilla cage and a shower. And food. Can't forget food.

I think I've lost out on my regular blog reading, my email hasn't been checked and I'm sort of avoiding starting on today's writing.  I think I realized Tuesday that 50K was not a difficult goal anymore.  Heck, I'll be halfway there today quite easily, 1,048 more words and I've hit it to be exact.  Anyways!  I've uped my goal.  At first I was all, well 100K would be a good goal! But I think that I can say with confidence that I could, in fact, reach that.  So I uped it again to 150K and now I feel swamped and behind and a tad bit panicked.  That's what I need! So that's my goal. I'm challenging myself to write 5K every single day without fail and so far I've reached it or surpassed it though the last two days doing it was difficult.  Today will be difficult as well.

Today I need to: get some groceries, plus some padding presents for Danielle's wedding shower, and wrapping paper to wrap the presents, cook dinner for guests, probably clean chinchilla cage, wash clothes, pack for the weekend, but concert tickets for Amanda's birthday, get eyebrows waxed, see about a haircut and maybe coloring my hair again, cleaning wouldn't be a bad idea and then write, write, write, write, write.  It's also The Office night AND the 5th of November (I always watch V for Vendetta on this day) so...I have a lot todo.

I'm considering that tomorrow after I get off work at noon I can run out to get my eyebrows done and a quick trim at like GreatClips or something; it's not like my hair is incredibly difficult anymore, it's long and has some layers.  I know that would put me into OKC a little later than I'd hoped but I was going to be getting there pretty early, an hourish wouldn't be too bad to save my sanity tonight, right?

Yesterday was a big day for writing.  I had my meet-cute, someone died, and the dogs made their grand entrance.  Big day yesterday!  Today will be pretty big as well, if I can get psyched up enough to start.  I think I need to break down and have some coffee....

Also hate my bookcover I did, it's silly and reflects nothing of the book. Considered posting something in the artists forum but I don't want to bother anyone with doing it.  Just because I think it's a cool idea doesn't mean anyone else will.

Rambling, will stop, going for coffee now.

Since I don't have time to really write anything on my NaNo before 8am and I got to work early today - thank you screwy time change - I'm going to make more of an effort to blog today.  Yesterday was a bunch of silly frustrations: they're doing construction outside my office in the parking lot and the jackhammer was about to give me a migraine, the fans plugged in to air out the 1st floor after the building flooded vibrate the floor of my office thus all of my furniture, my book club seems to take half an hour answering one question, I couldn't have my laptop at the book club, two people in our book club who normally do not bother me were all over my nerves last night (one never likes any book we read, except for the overtly Christian books and the other hardly ever reads the books yet talks the most and has an opinion on all the questions/answers - normally both reactions are funny, I think I just wanted the book club to go faster and their commentary made it last about 2.5 hours - which I could have been writing).

I did finally get a two paragraph portion I really liked well enough to post as an excerpt on my NaNoWriMo page.  It has a nice, pointless description of the city and then a drop of - 'hey what was that?' I'm sure as things unfold there will be something much more interesting to include.

I was really happy that both Alicia and Linda showed up for my write-in at La Madeline.  Apparently someone else showed up after the posted time-frame that we would all be there; I feel bad but I said several times that I would be leaving at such-and-such time and Linda said she'd only ever be able to stay an hour and some change at most.  Next week one of the ML's thinks she will come so I'm happy - and LM is a nice place to be - if we can hopefully not have the obnoxious table talking about their latest exploits in the drag community (yes, drag, as in men dressing as women).

Today we have been issued a challenge of writing 4K as our region is in an average word war with a smaller Connecticut region, "David versus Goliath" and their ML put it.  With such a big region we also have more people who sign up and then don't contribute so those of us who are writing away must write more to make up for their non-writing.  It's not total words here, it's per-person average.  That's a big difference.

Tonight I need to: clean the Chinchilla cage, get my dad a birthday present, go grocery shopping, and take out the trash.  I'm also hoping I can make it to Colleyville for the write-in there since those seem to do me good and I like the social aspect of it yet I'm still able to focus and get a lot done.  Anyways - I'll edit this tonight if/when I get stuff done
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It's not EOD yet, but I have more to say now.  I think I'm a little sleep deprived because I have a very short patience for things and I'm getting grumpy at stuff easily.  We're talking insurance for next year at my company and last time we had to change it was an unplanned move and happened quickly - our provider went under basically.  I wound up getting the short end of the stick because I was not a Florida resident.  I had to pay more out of my pocket than I thought I could afford, wound up making it, but I can no longer put money back into a retirement/savings plan which makes me nervous, period.  Well talking of moving insurance again makes me nervous because I really cannot afford to pay more out of pocket for insurance since I moved into the apartment I live in now.  Should insurance go up I'm going to have to evaluate where I'm at and what I have to bargain with and make some tough choices I don't want to think about now.  Sometimes life stinks.
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Crap - I just realized I still need to write my Christmas Cards at some point so they're ready to send out the day after Thanksgiving!!!!!!
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Did go shopping for dad.
Didn't go grocery shopping.
Did have dinner with Kara.
Didn't make it to write-in on time because I got lost.
Did write at write-in.
Didn't make 6K daily goal, finished right over 5K.
Did reach 18,840

I'm up to 13K. Finally finished the first chapter which is posted on my NaNoWriMo blog.  If you want access to that let me know since it's set up as private.  Organized a write-in that went fairly well for the first meeting, hope to stay longer for the others.  Yup. That's about it. Going to get in some more writing before I head to bed at 11pm.

I'm probably too tired to be writing anymore words, but that's not sticking in my brain right now.  I think it's Sunday - actually - I know it's Sunday because I just checked to make sure.  This weekend has been busy, but thankfully not as busy as I had feared.  Friday I hung out with Amanda's family and knitted.  I had to put aside the project I was working on for Sam as I realized I'd pretty much forgotten my co-workers birthday and the thing I thought she would really like was a scarf.  So I'm working on an angel-hair scarf in what I would call Academy Green.  This is the color we wear to trade-shows and what our instructors wear when on site at a clients place.  It's a pale green color and impossibly soft.  Very fun  :)

Saturday I had big plans for - which included a trip to Ikea and grocery shopping and lots of stuff.  Little of it happened.  Woke up too late to go to Ikea.  I went to go to Ross - the line was stretched to the back of the store. Went to go grocery shopping and the whole dang parking lot was full.  However, I did go to church and worked in the coffee shop. It was okay.  It's not as fun as my last coffee gig, but it was cool.

I went to the NaNoWriMo kickoff around 10pm, and set up my stuff and chit-chatted with the people there.  The ML (group leader) expected about 15-20 people and around 50 showed up.  We were packed in there like sardines, it was fun! People wore costumes, we did hourly contests to see who could write the most in ten minutes and whatnot.  I almost won one of the word wars - almost!  I wrote until about 5:20am (the correct 5:20 am after the time change) and realized I was far to exhausted to continue, had something just over 6,000 words and called it a night - but didn't sleep until almost 7am. 

My alarm went off at noon and I got up to putter around my place for like an hour before making cinnamon rolls and intending to write - that was almost immediately derailed by my friend texting me to say that the latest Tool Academy episode aired early so of course I ran over to her place to see it. After that it was Home Group and then grab some food and head home to log in 2,000 more words to finish off tonight a little over 8,000. I'd hoped for more, but I've nicely doubled my expected word count for today, which was originally 4,000.  Well, now it is 10pm and I'm by no means making much sense so I'm going to go to sleep.