Positively Giddy!

Many, many thanks to my incredible encouragers out there. I never could have done it without you.

Pick-Up Line of the Day

The Scene:
Panera Bread, lunchtime. Shell is setting up her laptop so she can hopefully squeeze out another 1,000 words for NaNo. An Annoying Man who is NOT AT ALL ATTRACTIVE is sitting one table away with a PS3 prominently displayed on his table. He is trying to sell it to people who ask about it.

AM: Hey, is that an Apple? (nodding towards Shell's laptop)

Shell: Yes, it is.

AM: So is that a green apple, a red apple, or a blue apple? Heh, heh.

Shell: Just a regular Apple.

AM: Hey! I got you to smile!

(Shell gives a very fake, half-hearted smile.)

AM: Well, that didn't look very sincere.

(Shell ignores him.)

AM: So, how was your Thanksgiving?

Shell: Listen, I'm really just here to get some work done.

AM: Well fine. Be that way, then. (Annoying Man huffily crosses arms and proceeds to shoot her dirty looks for the next hour. Consequently, Shell's NaNo ends up looking like the following:

I don't want to talk with you about my Thanksgiving vacation, dude. I don't know you, except you're hustling PS3s in Panera while you play solitaire on your laptop. I can't even enjoy myself over here, I want to leave so badly. Grrrr. Just leave me in peace. Now I can't even concentrate on my novel, MY NOVEL, because you are staring at me. And I can't move because this is the only outlet connection left. Just, just, peddle your wares elsewhere, okay? Thwarted! You have thwarted my attempts to write on my hard-earned lunch break. …

Now, I realize the above stream-of-consciousness has nothing to do with whether James is going to go ahead and get married to Angela or if Leah can figure out how John's ring ended up in the hole Kevin fell into, but it can still count towards my word total, right?

She's Going the Distance

Ladies and gentlemen – I have no idea if I’m going to make NaNo this year. I lost five days while at Mom and Dad’s in Oklahoma. I’ve got 9,500 words to go and a packed schedule ahead of me already.

No grocery shopping has been done, the laundry situation is starting to scare me, and this morning I noticed the bathtub isn’t draining properly, again. I hate it when that happens, when there is a small tubful of soapy water that just sits there around my ankles. I’d like to think that my feet are just getting some extra cleaning time (because let’s face it, they really don’t get a lot of quality time in the shower; they are just kind of down there), but I know better.

Regardless, though, of whether I will successfully sport the NaNo Winner icon come Friday, I can tell you this – I’m having fun.

I really am. I’ve got a police sergeant who keeps forgetting his arm is broken, a heroine who’s addicted to scones, and two 10-year-old boys who somehow manage to weave their way into scenes I didn’t think they should be in. And we don’t even know who the body belongs to, yet.

Which means that although NaNo ends this Thursday, I’m determined to keep at it. Plus, I really want to find out who done it. ☺

On the Road

Younger Bro and I, after a 14-hour drive back to Nashville…

Shell: I think we’re definitely bonded now.

YB (sarcastically): Yes. Because we were so NOT close before.

Shell: Well, we weren’t very close when you first moved in with me.

YB: But then we had hundreds of hours of watching “Buffy.” Hundreds of hours of a shared mutual interest.

Shell: Thank you, Joss Whedon.

A House Full of Love

In our Bible class this morning, we went around the room and answered the question, "What are you grateful for?" It didn't take me long to find my answer. This Thursday, for the first time in five years, my entire family will gather around the table in Oklahoma.

This is quite an accomplishment. Since about 2001, we've been a bit scattered. I had a couple years in Scotland, where, incidentally, they do not celebrate Thanksgiving. (Indeed, one year I forgot about it completely.) Then my brother moved to the great big cities of the Northeastern U.S. and had some job situations that made it impossible for him to come home. Then there is Grandma Sugar, a greeter at Wal-Mart, who always has to work that day. (BOO, Wal-Mart!)

But 2006 is the year we change all that. Sugar got her time off from Wally world, Younger Brother is now in Nashville in a much better job, and I, well, I'm here as well. Wednesday night we'll pack up the car and drive 12 hours or so. We'll pull in on Thursday just in time to sit down at a table that is not only filled with food, but surrounded by people who love us, who welcome us with open arms. We'll sit and eat and talk, and the time we spend together will be priceless and blessed.

I can hardly wait.

Somewhere in the Middle, Then

She battled on through the night, bruised, shaken, and in desperate need of a caffiene fix. Eyes blurred from staring too long at a glowing computer screen, she finally offered her word count to the powers that be - 25,816.

Halfway there.

Yeeeeeee!

Charlie's Update

Hello!
It's Charlie here, filling in for Shell. I'm the Inner Moose on loan from Katrina over at http://notesonanapkin.blogspot.com. Shell is too tired to update her blog, but she did want me to post her latest word count on her novel: 15,699.

So far, her main male character has run over her main female character with his bicycle. It was an accident. That's about it for the action. But young Kevin and Ian have found a mysterious hole in the churchyard. They haven't been able to investigate it yet, because they got called in for supper, so we'll have to wait to see what's down there.

Shell has also decided to cut me off from my cafe latte's. She says she wants me slim for the Thanksgiving feast that's happening in a few weeks. Plus, I was too wired when she wanted to go to sleep. So now I'm on decaf when we sit down at Borders cafe and she tries to write.

We saw a girl there yesterday who was reading "The Idiot's Guide to Pleasing Your Man." Shell thought this was hysterically funny, for some reason. I don't really get it, but you know humans.

Hope you all have good weekend.
Signed,
A Moose with a Purpose
(Charlie)


P.S. I would have liked to have put my hoof print signature in here, but as Shell can't even figure out how to do a simple embedded link, she believes it may be beyond us.

The Golden Hour

The best part of writing is when I'm not aware that I'm writing at all. When an entire scene is playing out in my head and I can't get the words down fast enough. There's a whole world being enacted, entirely for my benefit, and I'm not really aware that I'm writing. I'm in another place and time.

The worst part of writing is when I'm very aware that I'm writing, when every sentence is squeezed out of me. When I find myself looking at the clock, double checking my word count, or staring out the window (I do this quite well.).

I've been trying to write a little bit before the work day begins. But today I woke up to a gray little world. Petty little annoyances flooded in; negative people began talking, and before I knew it, that stupid moose galloped away. :) (His name is Charlie, per Katrina, and he is very fond of cafe lattes.)

In search of my inner moose

Word count: 9,565
Buffy DVD count: 4 episodes (to take mental break, of course) + 1 Amazing Race episode (Naturally. And let's face it, as much as I liked them, it was really time for Team Kentucky to go.)

I was talking to someone in what I thought was a rather writerly fashion. We were discussing where ideas come from when I said, "I just need to find my inner moose."

This might explain an awful lot about my writing.

However, I kind of like the idea of a nice, big hard-working moose guiding me through the realms of fiction rather than the wispy, just-out-of reach muse.

And perhaps now I need to go to bed.

For some reason, the last comments I was sent would not update. But please keep sending them whether they appear or not. I can really use the encouragement! Thanks!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Day 1 stats:

1600 words (excellent, so far)
2 cups of coffee (well below life-threatening limit, good)
Number of minutes spent staring into space contemplating where this thing is going - several hundred (give or take a few)
Number of times I've doubted whether this was such a great idea - 24 (for just about every hour of the day - even in my dreams the Inner Critic haunts me)
Time spent finding this quote by Oscar Wilde (15 minutes):

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."

That Oscar. He knows.