Monday, November 30, 2009

Third time is the charm!

With five minutes to spare!

13 hours, 5 minutes

I only need 13,400 more words. So just a little over 1,000 words an hour...
(And then I just need to save this post to remind myself: If I can pull this off, I have no excuse during a summer month with no holidays!) ;)

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Pushin' it

I do work best under a deadline but this puts procrastination at a whole, new level!
The good news is that I have written over 30,000 words in a month.
What that means, of course, is that to "win", I only need to write a little over 19,000 before midnight, tomorrow.
No pressure.
I'm not worried.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Writing 101

Show don't tell.
Don't talk down to your readers.
Don't use two words when one will work. Unless you're behind on your wordcount for NaNoWriMo. Then, see if you can squeeze in four.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The skinny on the fat

I bought a Florida avocado which bears a sticker claiming "30% less fat than the leading California avocado."
It is also at least three times the size of the California avocadoes, so I'm not sure I come out ahead.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

The 10K race

I am WAY behind on NaNo stats but at this point, I will be happy if I can hit 10,000 words tonight. It does pain me a little to type words that I know will be cut as soon as I get into edit mode. No time to think of that now, though! Nanowrimo is about pushing forth and writing 50,000 words. No one said that they had to be 50,000 golden words to "win!"

I hope the words are flowing for all of my other, crazy Nano buddies! For the rest of you (likely saner) people, I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Friday, November 13, 2009

No excuses

The most wonderful hubby took the older two to the highschool football game tonight and the little guy is in bed, which means: I have TIME to work on my wordcount!
Middle son is bringing a friend home from the game to spend the night. I usually try to stay up until I think they are asleep (which may not take long tonight) but otherwise, means time to up the wordcount!
(I wanted to have his friend over tomorrow night as my daughter has been invited to a sleep over tomorrow night but the friend really wanted to come tonight. Which works out better, now that I think about it. C will be so tired by tomorrow night that by the time we get N off to her sleepover, he may be ready for bed, himself! The little guy certainly will so there may yet be time to up the wordcount!)

Most wonderful hubby is then taking older two to a concert on Monday night. (Yes, it is a school night. Yes, they will be wiped out. The important thing here is that the little guy will go to bed, they will be gone and I will have another chance to seriously up the word count!)

Now I just have to stop blogging and...up the other word count.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

No dinosaurs in the Revolutionary War

The Veteran's Day program at my older children's school was a very nice production. The toddler did as well as could be expected. He was just confused when one class began to sing "Yankee Doodle Dandy." He kept looking for Barney.

Monday, November 09, 2009

The quest for the matching sock

New kids book idea:
I just have to come up with a story where a Young Indiana Jones-type kid battles seemingly insurmountable mountains of laundry, searches an 8-year-old's room for one small piece of a uniform that is the key to unlocking an even great mystery.

Perhaps there is cute, pre-teen, unknown vampire out there who is truly good and wants to protect a young girl who has found the secret to defeating evil, dirty dishes.

(No need to develop either idea into a video game. They would absolutely, virtually fold laundry but would never come upstairs to find two matching socks!)

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Procrastination defines me

I need to be writing but I really need to clean one of the fish tanks, too.
I can't find the fish net that I use to scoop little fish out of the water. I think that is a sign that it can wait. I think I might go with that.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Running behind

I am always late and/or rushing. So it should come as no surprise that I am already behind on my Nano progress. November 1st marks the beginning of Nano and is also my youngest son's birthday.
I had planned to get started as soon as possible. I took the boys trick-or-treating on Halloween while my husband shuttled my daughter and best friend to and from a dance. The best friend was spending the night here afterwards, and I usually stay up until I think they're either asleep or close.

Of course, the best of intentions has never actually helped anyone. Saturday was a busy day from beginning to end and by the stroke of midnight--when Nano officially begins--I'd lost my resolve. I did set the clocks back before going to bed, hoping that might inspire me. Rather than believing I had any extra time, I just knew that the youngest (who is years away from being able to tell time) was not going to sleep in and went to bed myself.

Sunday I made birthday cake, took a walk with the husband, we took kids out to lunch, we celebrated the toddler's birthday. It was a great day but by day's end, word count was still zero.

Day 2? Yes, I'm here, explaining, complaining and rationalizing my lack of progress rather than writing. I could give you my to-do list for today but I'm sure it looks as full as yours does. So many of you have already made promising progress! I applaud you! Way to go!

I'm still warming up but I'll catch up! This year, I WILL catch up!