Step One: Present Flowers to the Principals

Just a quick note to qualify the daily post, and to say that S has completed the first step toward performing in the local Nutcracker - that of tiptoeing onstage at the curtain call, standing in first position and presenting flowers to a principal dancer, then tiptoeing off the stage.

In her case, she presented red roses to the dancer who played the Sugar Plum Fairy, who also happened to be S's "mentor" when the ballet school had a "mentor day" a few months ago.

Next year, she expects to graduate to performing, which represents a significant commitment of time and work, but would be worth it. There may well be a Gingerbread Boy costume with her name on it!

A sense of humor will save you

Ever have one of those moments - or days - when you or your loved ones are just on the brink of a horrific ugly meltdown, and someone says something funny that lightens up the whole situation and dispells the tension?

That happened several times today. One minute, I was sure there was going to be bloodshed, or at the very least raised voices and a scuffle - between R & S, or R and me, or S and me, or the rest of creation and me - and then, one tap-dancing comedic moment later, all was right with the world.

Thank God for the Intervention of Humor, is all I have to say.

Another day in the life

Work (with associated drama and juggling), home, lunch for S, a trip downtown to pick up a surprise Christmas present for R (a ceramic horse her sister painted for her), pick up R from school, to the library, to the gym, stop to get dinner on the way home, dinner, to the local university theater for a rehearsal for S for the Nutcracker (she's not dancing, but she's presenting flowers to the Sugar Plum Fairy at the curtain call), then back home for the bedtime routine, three phone calls re: coordinating Christmas, make cookie dough for a fund raiser tomorrow, and then, somehow, because I stupidly still have energy, watch a movie. While folding laundry.

Boor-ring. I know. But reality. And as such, I guess there's no harm in documenting it.

See what I mean?

You see what I mean about time being funny? How it contracts, hiccups, stretches? It's all relative. As they say.

Time is a funny thing

For example, it may feel like a WHOLE DAY has passed within which you did not blog, and yet, somehow, it HASN'T.

The quietest weekend in December

...at least, that's what I suspect this last weekend will be. The next 10 days, anyway, are looking to be mighty busy. I'm glad that I'm only plugging away at finishing my novel, now, and have a little breathing space within which to take on all the other challenges that present themselves daily.

You may note that I've added Michael's blog to my links. I think he's actually had mine listed on his page for a while, so the reciprocity is belated. (Thanks to Michael for the NaNo kudos and interest in actually reading the novel when it's ready for critiquing.) Check out the count-down on his home page, and the gorgeous photographic work he does. Makes me wish I could get married again just to have him photograph the event. Hmmm...maybe in ten more years, when D & I celebrate our 25th...?

I'm trying to get to bed before 10pm and I do actually want to work for a few more minutes on the novel, so that's all for now, folks.

The things that start with one loose rock

like avalanches,
or your husband taking apart the fireplace:
Howard Carter excavating the livingroom,
finding the dust and concrete trash
that the men who made this place stashed
there, forty-one years ago.

And you know he will put it all back together,
the rocks and bricks and mortar.
And he'll make it even better
with intake fan and register,
so the wood-burning stove will have lungs
to breath out its domestic fire.

But while the bricks and rocks lay
on the carpet, wait to be put back in place,
you think of the one loose rock
that led to this, and the loose rocks that have led
to avalanches, to falling cathedrals and towers,
to tumbling unstoppable ruin.

Look out, Terry

Something marvelous happened to me last week which, in the flurry of novel writing, I was unable to record, but have been thinking about ever since.

I was giving a quote for data recovery--something I do, as I've mentioned, several times at day, five days a week. And the potential customer on the phone was a man who has spent a couple of decades working in Television, whose cousin is an Executive Producer in Hollywood (of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, at the moment). I say this just to explain that he and his family are deeply involved in Show Business.

We'd had a good chat about the service my company offers, and about his situation. And even though he wasn't sure that the data he'd lost warranted the expense of professional recovery, toward the end of the conversation, he said something that stopped me dead.

He said, "You know, you remind me of that woman...she's on WHYY...um..."

"Terry Gross??!!!" I asked.

Ok. Maybe not "asked." I kind of yelled.

And he quickly backed off--afraid, it turns out, that he might have offended me somehow.

"Yes," he said timidly. "From Fresh Air..."

"Terry Gross??!!!" I asked again. "You think I sound like Terry Gross?!"

When I assured him that this was a good thing, a really good thing, the best thing that had happened to me all week, he clarified: "Not so much your voice, but just your style of speaking and asking questions."

He'd found me out.

I mean, I'm a Fresh Air fan. I listen to the show whenever I can catch it. My writer group friends and I dream about being on that show. And the funny thing is, about a week or two ago, I'd realized - on my own, very suddenly in the middle of a giving a quote - that I sounded an awful like the interviewer I so admire. Inadvertently, I'd started to question callers like she questions guests. But I'd figured my secret was safe with me.

And this man, in turn, was astounded that someone on the West Coast, at random, would have ever heard of Terry Gross. It's a small world. And a world in which, apparently, we can emulate our heroes. Even if we end up being transparent while we do it.

I just have to be a little careful. I don't want to find myself finishing all my data recovery phone quotes with, "Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with me today."

Paying off the sleep debt

So I did get myself to work yesterday, but only stayed an hour because it was pretty clear that four-hours of sleep a night that many nights in a row (with no prospect of sleep again until 7pm) had finally taken its toll.

I went home.
I slept nearly 6 hours straight. (Ah! how nice!)
And am still ready to sleep more.

But that's what weekends are for, right? zzzzzzz....

Thanks again to all for your fantastic support of my writerly pursuits.

Well, that takes care of *that*

Kinda says it all, huh?

50,000+ words as of 22:15 PST, but it's taken me an hour to upload a text version to the NaNoWriMo site for word count verification and to make it official.

I'm on Chapter 8 of a 10 Chapter novel.
I'm in love with all my characters, including the horrible ones. Because I created them. (Mwah ha ha.)
And I'm sleep deprived in a newborn-baby-in-the-house way. Which I suppose is appropriate.

Next step? Sleep.
After that? Finish the novel, clean up the novel, have the thing critiqued, and then maybe find a home for it. It's easy to have lofty ambitions when one is giddy with lack of sleep and fulfillment of crazy goals.

Not to mention having faced a double-dog dare with honor.

And speaking of which, please note that whatever twisted mechanism in my psyche it is that has caused me to be so susceptible to dares of this nature has been shut off for the foreseeable future. So nyah nyah to you potential darers out there. Yes, you. You know who you are.

Although I do owe a boatload of thanks to the people who challenged, supported, encouraged and tolerated me and this crazy project for the last 30 days. Thank you SO MUCH. I couldn't have done it without you. Really.

And if you're lucky, I'll never do it with (to) you again.

46,023

...but who's counting?

43,311 words

At this rate, I hope to finish 50,000 words toward the novel by the end of the day Wednesday.

It's all so friggin' melodramatic, this story. I didn't expect it to be. But it is. There's no literary genius here, folks. I guess that'll have to come later ("in my later novels"?? !). This is just practice telling a longer, more involved story that spans several days, two continents, and characters from four countries. It's me praciticing not making it perfect but making it done.

Fun.

Really, just a hair before midnight...

And I'm posting to say that I'm at 39,000+ words. And I'll write the remaining 1000 to reach my 40k goal momentarily, then go to bed until 4am (having slept 8-11pm already). Such strange hours I keep, I know. But it works. Short term.

Back to it...

Home, and happy

Returned from a great weekend with relatives, and am now spending catching up time with Beatrice the rat, who was obviously bored stiff while left alone for a few days.

The writing is coming along. It'll be some crazy push to make 50,000 words happen by midnight Wednesday, but I am still being stubbornly optimistic and hope to get there.

I can see, now, however, that 50,000 words won't be the end of this particular novel at the pace its going - in its "fat draft" incarnation. However, I also know it will be reduced down like a good sauce by about 1/3rd before I'm really finished, so the end product will be closer to 50K when all is said and done.

Ahhh...vacation

A nice, long day. Went for a run, went to downtown Pismo with Mom to get a coffee, watched the kids play in the hotel pool (while I wrote a bit), went down to the beach to make sandcastles, get wet and gritty, and take lots of pics, had lunch out, shopped, and then hung out at my brother's family's home, playing games and writing some more.)

Nearly at 33,000 words but the night is young.

While the girls, exhausted from the day, are sacked out, and D. sleeps too (with earplugs in), I'll stay up and write some more.


The meme that Josh found and Suzanne beat me to:

What Kind of Princess are You?
brought to you by Quizilla



The Traditional Princess

You are generous, graceful, and practical with both
feet planted firmly on the ground. You tend to
be a little on the old-fashioned side. You
value home, hearth, and family life and love to
be of service to others.

Role Models: Snow White, Maid Marian

You are most likely to: Discover a hidden talent
for spinning straw into gold.




Okay. Yeah. That works for me.

Thanks

Among the things for which I am thankful?
Thank. You.


It has been a good day, although there was precious little time to work on the novel until nearly 10pm.
I am starting to think this thing will have to be written in whatever nonsense, non-English form it is I have come up with while sleep-typing, and then translated by a professional gobbledygook-to-English translator later. That's what I think.

31,000+ words .Must stay up sleep-typing until things get more interesting. One of the story's main characters is about to run into a spot of trouble that will galvanize the protagonist and other characters. I should at least try to get that far. At least.

Pismo

The beauty of staying at a nice resort is free wireless access.

So I'm going to have to be trickier with my fake ETD's for trips. We left at 12:30, two hours after the time I'd figured we'd really leave. Spent the afternoon driving, got to Pismo in time for dinner. My mom and sister arrived only a few minutes later (coming the same distance, but from the south instead of the north).

We had dinner at The Splash Cafe, which looks like a bit of a dive, but served the best clam chowder I've ever had. I'm not surprised by their claim that Gourmet & Bon Appetit have requested their recipe.

Tomorrow, we'll get together with my oldest brother and his family for Thanksgiving. There have been hints that my nephews might teach the girls to surf, and R & S are very excited by the prospect.

Now to write.
(I did manage to scribble a page or two in the car on the trip south today, so I'll have a bit to transcribe as a start.)

Doing the Math

29,500 words.

It looks like I'll need to write between 2800 and 3000 words a day to make the NaNo goal. Well, alrighty then. I guess that's what I'll do.

We're leaving tomorrow for a short Thanksgiving trip (but all evil blog-reading house burglars please note that our home has nothing worth stealing and even if it did, we have vicious attack parakeets guarding the place).

Our goal is to depart at a decent hour. Familiar as I am with our two-hours-late-for-any-vacation pattern, I'm telling myself we'll leave at 8:30 so that there will be a chance that we can leave by 10:30.

Apparently, while I was at a Writer's Group meeting / writing session tonight, D and R had a conversation about our ETD.

R: "Papa, we're leaving at nine tomorrow morning."

D: "Ha. If we leave at nine, I'll do a dance in my underwear on the hood of my truck."

pause

R: "I hope we leave at ten."

Not surprisingly...

I am fighting off a cold. It doesn't quite have me in its grip, yet. But there's this nasal-drip and congestion that made me feel all day as though I'd just had a good cry. Chose an early bedtime (and getting up just to write this) instead of staying up late for the novel (apart from 1 new paragraph).

But I do not feel at all worried, somehow. I feel completely sure that I'll be able to make the goal. Hope springs eternal. Stubborn determination in the face of adversity springs eternal, too. But that doesn't have the same ring to it.

27,216

Pre-Monday

I think that in the same way I try now to start being in Weekend Mode (at least mentally) as early as possible on Friday, the Sunday blues are a way of preparing for Monday.

When coworkers ask me on Monday mornings how my weekend was, it's very common for me to have to really scour my brain to recall what happened the previous two days. Part of this may be because I typically stay up too late Sunday nights (case in point), but I think it's also because of some psychological dividing line I lay down between the weekend and the workweek. Sometime Sunday night, I put the weekend behind me. After that, it's in the Past, as distant and fuzzy as Christmas of 1974 or that trip to Hawaii when I was four.

A three-day weekend, however, is a different matter. Three days or more off work, and I really have a hard time going back. It's as though I want to keep a foot, or at least a toe or two, in the water of the Days Away. And I really enjoy my job, too. If I hated my job, I think a 3-day weekend would be enough to make me never go back. One Monday holiday, and I'd be pouring gasoline on the Bridge of Current Employment and looking for somewhere else to be.

27,050 words.