10K in one day!!!

Done and done!




mood=ecstatic : )

Purple bar or bust

People at NaNoWriMo are uploading their 50k words and getting a purple WINNER! bar. I wants one... my precious...

I need to clear off my desk (Hefty Bag to the rescue) then it will be full steam ahead.

The only problem is I don't have any 'to do' scenes queued up. I might have to resort to 'shark jumping' to beef up my word count. Whatever it takes!!!

See you when that bar hits PURPLE.

Revenge!

I am trying to plant seeds to let my subconscious come up with a good revenge idea. I think revenge appeals to us because we like to think up ways to smite our enemies, but we never actually move beyond the thinking stage. The idea of actually going through with a revenge plan is irresistible. I recall reading a short story by Stephen King about revenge. The story involved a guy who went to the trouble of moving a road and painting a fake road over a pit and then burying his enemies alive in the pit. good stuff.

Weekend goal: run 15K, write 5K Sat; run 8K, write 5 k Sun. Woe be to anyone who tries to get in my way.

Now I know what a root canal feels like

Not fun. And mine wasn't even that bad - over in one session. Now my jaw is sore, but it only *hurts* when I sneeze. I've been avoiding using the left side of my mouth to chew for a couple of months already, so continuing to do so while the rc heals isn't too tough.

So my NaNo count hasn't moved, and my ToDo list has nothing crossed off. Must rectify this today. The good news is I met an accountant Wednesday, and my finances are all under control. Big sigh of relief. I was dreading finding out that I'd screwed it up and would owe big bags of cash.

Must work on ToDo list.

Would rather curl up with a book and pretend that my tooth hurts more than it does. Oh the agony...

Blame it on the Weather

I am completely lethargic.

The book is still getting written - see word count: 27,668. I need to keep up the pressure this week because next week I have a lot of freelance work booked.

Tomorrow I have to meet with an accountant to review my tax strategy. I am dreading it. Almost as much as going back to the dentist Thursday to find out if I need a root canal. ugh.
I hope it is just the weather - 3 sunless grey rainy and/or overcast days in a row, or else I am spiralling into a funk about turning 40 in less than a month.

Tug of war in my head:

My teeth are rotting because I'm getting old.
or
My teeth are rotting because I snack on licorice.

I can't believe I don't have my tax issues under control and I'm embarassed to show how much/little I earned.
or
I have zero debt and I'm doing ok.

You know, my first book wasn't that bad - I should send it to more people.
or
It completely sucks. I should shove it under my desk and focus on #2

Please please let it be sunny soon. One more grey day and the evil, pessimistic side will win.

Tomorrow: winter tires, prepare for tax man, mapquest taxman's office, meet with tax man. Oh boy can't wait. Also need to crank out more NaNo words that have nothing to do with root canal, winter tires or tax.

re: chick flick film festival. There were 8 of us total and it was actually fun -well, I had fun - I hope the others had fun. We watched Failure to Launch - cute, funny. ShopGirl - gets a thumbs down from me - too dark, and then Pretty in Pink - some things are just best left in the 80's.

Tonight I watched Friends with Money - can someone please explain it to me? I'm lost. Maybe I'm just too borderline cranky to appreciate it. At least explain why Jennifer Aniston gave that idiot personal trainer money.

HALFWAY DONE!

I hit 25K tonight. This rocks. Chick lit film festival was also a success. Details tomorrow. E is waiting with Felix & Norton and a fire. : )

Distraction/Procrastination

Just spent 3 days doing some freelance verification (proofreading plus). It's draining. Now I have time to get back on the NaNo track, but I've produced ZERO words this morning. Instead, I monkeyed around on the Internet, looking at my new favorite comic strips: LIO and Rhymes with Orange. Spent quite a bit of time daydreaming about being able to draw and being able to produce funny comics. Wasted more time trying to explain to E that e-mail from him is arriving blank. I think he's doing it on purpose to mess with me.

Going running now - must burn off beer, nachos, chicken wings and potato skins consumed at happy hour yesterday. The bikini for my upcoming Cuba trip is morphing into a one-piece with a big skirt : (

Must get back on the NaNo track. Looking for moving horror stories - pls post as comments. Thank you.

15,135 NaNo words

Woo-hoo, that's pretty damn good. I don't know if I'll hit 20k before my hunter-gatherer returns because I have a full day of freelance work tomorrow, but never say never.
I added a little Nano graph to the right so you can see my progress. Not sure how they're calculating goal. Today's should be 6*1667 = 10,002. I'm over, but not by as much as they say.

Shifting Position

That's my new NaNo working title: Shifting Position

I'm currently at 5085 which makes me caught up as of yesterday's target, with time to reach today's: 6668.

NaNo Update 8pm: 8,125 words. yeah, baby!

Now it's off to go running, plant tulips and possibly rake some leaves.

As for the deer-hunters, one of their friends who didn't go this weekend just called to get the phone number at the cottage because he found one guy's ammo under the seat of his car. Hmm, I wonder if Mr. no-ammo plans to just jump out of his tree stand with a knife. It's more sporting than using ammo, I guess.

It sounds like I am surrounded by colourful, interesting characters, but honestly, they're too bizarre for fiction. Must find more believable friends.

Freelance update: my designer has finished my business card and sent me a draft of my profile sheet. I LOVE my new card : ) and can't wait to have a thousand of them on my desk : ) :)

Introverted, anti-social, or just lazy?

November is deer-hunting season. E will be gone every weekend trying to kill Bambi, I mean take a clean shot at a trophy buck, thus providing valuable meat for the long cold winter ahead.

Anyhoo - that leaves me free to do as I please in the house each weekend. Of course there's NaNoWriMo, which will take up a good amount of time, but E is encouraging me to have the chicks over for a chick flick film festival. This is something I threaten to do each time he has the guys over for a war movie film festival. The thing is - I'm not really good at ' having people over' I get too nervous that people are bored, hungry, thirsty/whatever, and I can't relax. Plus, I don't have 'a gang' - I'd be inviting chicks in 1's and 2's who I know from different places and who don't know each other. I'm not skilled at keeping the small talk ball rolling, so I'd have to worry about lack of chit chat, too.

Is this a good reason to not have people over? No. Is socializing a skill that can be learned? Probably. What's the worst that can happen?
1- no one shows up, leaving me and a pile of movies. hmmm, not too bad.
2 - a few people show up, don't get along, are bored and never want to see me again. I can live with that.

Is it laziness? I dread the stream of reply e-mails of peope not availble on whatever day I pick, last-minute cancellations, "what can I bring?" etc. etc., but I suppose that's just laziness. These are times I wish L (my sister) were here. She's better at this stuff, and worst-case, at least it would be the 2 of us, and Em (my niece, who LOVES chick flicks) of course.

sigh

Plan-less in Ile-Perrot

I'm a Walking Psychology Experiment

The bad news: word count 452, target: 3334

The good news: I completely cleared my ToDo list!
-wrapped and mailed Nate's birthday gift
-wrote and sent a query letter
-went to a walk-in clinic to get a tetanus shot and a prescription for Hep A/B shots for my upcoming trip (this required a 2-hour wait, but I had a notebook with me and the NoPlot NoProblem book, so all was not lost)
-paid bills
-cancelled a credit card
-contacted a tax accountant
-cleaned desk and found medical insurance card
-found medical insurance forms and receipts from the last 6 months, filled in paperwork
-made a dentist appointment
-made a haircut appointment

All of these things have been lingering on my ToDo list for weeks, if not months. Why today? Because I'm supposed to be writing my freaking book, that's why. Apparently I'm insane.
I've officially run out of other things to do because I am not desperate enough to start organizing or cleaning. yuk. NaNo it is....

update 6 p.m. : word count 2,304. Not on target yet, but back in the game : )

Oh no, November!!

I talked the talk, now can I write the pages? So far, so bad -- I don't have my outline quite at the level I wanted it to be and my character sketches aren't written down, but hey- that's what the deadline is for, right? To force me to forget the excuses and get going.

Now.

ok now.

ok, maybe after a cappucino - did I mention I bought one of those snappy machines last weekend? I got a cheap one, but it seems to do the trick. Should come in handy for NaNo. I even have a NaNo buddy - someone I met at the MidWest lit fest.

Reasons why I haven't started yet:
1. Must clean desk. No, really, my arms are resting on a pile of papers as I type. I was up against a freelance deadline yesterday, and there are printouts and notes EVERYWHERE.
2. I could use a nice cuppa...

That's really it. If I quit monkeying around on the Internet, I could be writing in the next 20 min.

NaNoNaNo