NANO Donation Day!!

Please let's watch Chris and Lindsey sing and dance for us! Drop a few pennies into the NANO well and let that halo get slapped on your profile!!

More soon, I promise...

halo, halo, anyone need a halo?

If you're NANOing, and you have a halo, excellent!!

If you don't, then wait until Tuesday.

Because on Tuesday, Chris Baty has a challenge that just needs to be met!

Have a read here, and then get those halo-twitching fingers ready!!

end of the week

And half way through NANOWRIMO. I'm glad it's already the fifteenth, in that my eldest daughter will be home a week from today. As for NANO, it's going well, no complaints there.

I'm thinking the next book I write is going to be in long hand. I've written things in script before, ages ago, and yeah, it's a pain typing it all out again.

But I'm needing something different, and have plenty of paper with which to use.

No idea when that will be. Right now I'm working on a story that came to me last month at a funeral. Yesterday's work was okay, today felt better.

Words that have to come out; I really don't know any other way to describe it. Maybe it's the month, November with a special feel, knowing so many others are giving it their all.

The only thing I've considered about writing in longhand is this: if I happen to find it's the way to go, what will I do this time next year? Typing in November might be a habit I'll find difficult to break...

novel wrap-up

So today I finished Memories of Home. One of my more lame titles, but the story is...

Pretty nice. And even better, it's done!

(And EVEN better is the football I'm watching, my beloved SF 49er's ahead 7-0 over the Chicago Bears!)

There is something so wonderful about completing a manuscript, just makes my heart sing.

I love writing, I do. I love being done too. Getting all the bits tied up at the end, and it wasn't until tonight that I realized the difficulty (and stress) of writing a series, something I didn't do on purpose.

It's getting all the pieces in place, from two books previous and the one at hand. So much to keep track of, and while I'm happy to have written this series, it wasn't planned as such. Basically I've been winging it for three manuscripts.

Which is OKAY, in that I know from where all this springs. But it's still a bit... Daunting. A lot to hold in my poor sieve of a brain.

I think I need a chocolate cookie!

And just because I'm not completely brain dead, I'm starting NANO part two on Saturday, or maybe Sunday. Going to write another story, see how it goes. You can find that here...

nougat in my teeth

I love Mars Bars. Here in America, they don't make Mars Bars anymore. They do outside the US, but they're not the same thing.

I'm talking Mars Bars with almonds in them. Having returned to this country in 2007, I looked high and low for Mars Bars. Couldn't find them to save my LIFE! Instead I found Snickers with Almonds, and they are about the same. I just ate one, while watching football and doing a smidgen of editing.

Now I'm attempting to remove the bits from my teeth, while drinking echinacea tea and paying some attention to the game. I am not editing at this very moment.

When I watch sport, I feel this need to do something else at the same time. Like blogging or minor editing or stitching or crocheting. Or eating a Mars Bars, except they stopped making them in 2002, if I remember the Wikipedia article correctly.

When I write, I only WRITE! when I'm REALLY editing, not just poking around, I only edit. But when I watch sports, I feel guilty if I there isn't something else going on.

It's the commercials, the banter between plays, the guys getting off the field and back into the huddle, precious minutes that I could be typing or putting in stitches or reading a short paragraphs. So many things, because time is fleeing, life is short. I'm forty-three, and I think I have a cold.

I'm on cup #2 tonight of echinacea tea, as a bit ago my legs ached and yeah, I went for my walk this morning, my lovely end of night/beginning of day forty-five minutes of me, music and ideas. Where plot twists come together out in the darkness, stars twinkling, silence all around me except in my ears. I do this walk three times a day, M, W, and F, and never at night do I ache from it.

Instead, I may be getting a cold. Hopefully not anything more than a simple bug.

Not that I want to count that as something to do while watching sports. No thanks.

Instead, I'll get a good night's sleep tonight, once the game is done. But while the game plays out, I'll sit here, clean up this blog, occasionally looking to the left, seeing if my team made a first down.

And not forget to brush the nougat out of my teeth before I hit the hay!

depending on your point of view

It's all subjective, life, writing, a winning season...

The Yankees won the World Series last night. I didn't even watch the game.

I'm tired tonight, not having slept well last night. I think I'll make up for it tonight.

Sometimes this is the perilous side of writing, wondering what comes tomorrow. Or I could say it's the perilous side of living.

It's there, just beyond the dawn. So unknown, even in all the routine that sits waiting...

October review

Well, it was a writing-free month, save a few bits during rewrites and editing. No ORIGINAL work was attempted, and it felt...

GREAT!! For a time...

Then, as November approached, my fingers got itchy. Knowing NANO was right around the corner, all I could do was read. And read. And read some more. My stuff, other stuff, I think it was all fiction.

Anyways, it was a good month, a different month. The best of times, the worst, uh yeah. A month FULL of footie, pro and college, with a smidgen of baseball. And while this is supposed to be about October, tonight, as I type, the Phillies are still alive in the World Series!

No, I don't really like the Yankees.

But I did like what I worked on, sorting a few different MS's, varying levels of editing required. Over the month of October, I edited...

The War On Emily Dickinson
Oklahoma
The Captain and the Kid
Detours

I also read over Alvin's Farm and The Thorn and the Rose for NANO 2009.

I took a road trip, went to a funeral, prayed a rosary, ate a LOT of frozen yogurt, enjoyed a new favorite by John Irving, and did I mention I watched football?

I watched football.

I also walked around my neighborhood, endured a head cold, and took stock of what's been happening over the last few months.

A whole lotta writin's been going on...

Which is now continuing, of which I'll expound in another day or two. For now, October was a great change of pace, quiet but busy.

Balance, what it's all about! (And speaking of balance, the Phillies have won, bringing the Series to 3-2 Yankees.)