NaNoWriMo: Day 30 -- DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somehow, I have more than 50,000 words. And somehow, I think amidst all the crap, I even pulled out at least one or two very intriguing twists to follow up on. Twists I had no clue were in this story's potential. And the last one, the one that put me over the top, I started writing it and thought it was way out there, so far out there that I might have been bullshitting my way completely to the finish line, until I realized that it did indeed tie so extremely smoothly into a plot twist I'd started at the beginning of the evening, the one inspired by the child's teeth falling out, that it's like I planned it all along. But I believe I mentioned the other night that generally when I start a paragraph, I have little idea how I'm going to finish it. And usually it works. This one worked FREAKILY well.

I'll ponder sharing some of it tomorrow, but I don't want to give away my main plots should this actually make it into finished form ... so I'll just say this, have you ever thought of how weird it is that kids' teeth fall out and regrow in? As if our creator was problemsolving how to put us together, and realized that teeth, unlike hair and skin and organs and bones, were not something that could just grow with the creature as they matured. I could see the creator, he or she or otherwise, smacking their head against the desk trying to figure this one out. Teeth must be hard enough to bite and grind, which means they couldn't grow, but they must be utilized whether the creature was young or old in order to fuel the growth ... it would be quite the chicken and the age conundrum, only to eventually be solved with the bizarre (in my mind) two sets of teeth.

So, if you were creating humans, how would YOU solve the teeth issue? Or is there some other part of human function that just seems so bizarre and un-logical that it's likely the result of a very tired scientist/engineer creator who decided enough was enough and it was time for humans to exist already, and trusted that he'd dealt with the ingenuity and free will side of humans enough that they'd figure out how to fix themselves.

And now I'm officially losing it. But I'm done! Time to go post my results ...

NaNoWriMo: Day 30 (I lied, here's an outtake)

Not promising good ... eyes blurry. But I have less than 1,000 words to go, and just under two hours. Yes, I need to get back to work. But hey, I'm an ex-journalist. Me loves a deadline.

Day 30, late night, bleary-eyed outtake:

Liz ran through the dense woods, barely flinching as tree branches whipped across her cheeks, as nettles began to sting her ankles. Discomfort and pain was not something she cared about right now. Push on she must, push on she will. Keeping going, and going and going. Each bit of pain, each drop of blood, seemed to validate what she was after. Validate the pursuit that could cost her life, but would hopefully save a generation.

P.S. This one's for you Ed: No kids puked tonight. The boy did, however, beg and do a little dance to try to get a bowl of brown sugar for dessert. Even better ... and even better boogie dance to go with the begging ... how about a bowl of brown sugar on top of CANDY!?!?!? He was so denied. But so persistent.

Ok ... back to work. Don't want to flake out this close to the finish line.

NaNoWriMo: Day 30 (so close I can taste it ...)

Less than 1,500 words to go and spelling has gone out the window. This is where I close my eyes and type. I'm tired, and even with my eyes open I can barely see the page. Thank you Megan for your kind words, and helping push me to the final lap. Back to the blurry page and the final lap ... no promises of excerpts tonight, or even tomorrow. I will definitely be doing some reflection ... but when I finish, I may just collapse. Sandpaper eyes cometh ... must go finish ...

NaNoWriMo: Day 30 (getting there!)

Less than 5,000 words to go, and about four more hours. I did more than 3,000 in the last hour and a half, so I'm hopeful. It's not necessarily as "finely crafted" as some of the previous stuff, but I promised myself in the beginning that I would just write. And if I got stuck, I would keep writing. Even if it was crap. And considering this last month has been full of not just regular life, but significant in-house illnesses, lots of holidays that required travel, and what appears to be the end my grandmother's time on this Earth, I think this is pretty good progress. I could even probably call it a night and be proud of my progress this month. But this particular grandmother in question, well, she'd tell me to keep going. To not worry about the what and just do. My grandmother was a writer. An editor. A mentor. And a big force in my "writer life," as well as my life in general. And so, I keep her alive with writing, and persistence, and stubbornness, and if you come over, I'll feed you until you're overflowing. But more on all that later. My grandmother still breathes the last I heard, even if for not much longer. And I have words to write. I can imagine her, as I write this, shaking her finger at me to get back to work and giving me a playful wink and a hug. So back to work.

NaNoWriMo: Day 30 (here we go ...)

I came into the evening not knowing what the heck to write. I think I might have grasped a hair of inspiration thanks to the tooth-shedding eldest child. We'll see how that works. If it does, it will lead to a nice little twist in my story I wasn't expecting. Off to writing ... 5-1/2 hours to go.

NaNoWriMo: Day 29 (24 hours to go!)

I made a little progress. Not much, but a little. I have an awful headache that won't go away, and I'm distracted. But I wrote about 1,500 words ... which only means a little more than 8,000 for tomorrow. I better go dream some plotlines, because I'm stuck. I have some areas I definitely need to fill in, but I'm kinda stuck. Hopefully it's just the headache and tomorrow I'll blaze ahead and hit that 50,000. If I get stuck, I might just have to write some crap.

In the meantime, no outttake today. It wasn't the most interesting stuff, and you got a long one the other day. And my head hurts too much to pick one. Must. Go. Find. Tylenol. Goodnight!

Back to the grindstone ...

Last night I had a late work meeting, which meant no NaNo-ing ... and today I've been busy with the South Sound Technology Conference, where there was a news blog panel, a parenting blog panel, and a civic blog panel. No time to pontificate tonight, as it's back to NaNoWriMo writing, as it's just over 24 hours to go, and nothing was done last night. For now, I'll just say, I enjoyed hanging out with the the TacomaGnome, Elle, TacomaMama & Beast Mom in the front row. And sorry to Mr. Editor for my bit o' mama brain affecting my ability to read lips as he attempted to tell me how to use his camera through mime. Luckily, it was Elle to the rescue. And, Mr. Editor, I have a couple decent pics of you I'll e-mail once I download them.

Ok, back to the novel ...

NaNoWriMo: final countdown ...

I passed the 40,000 word mark! Considering that less than a week ago I was only in the mid-20,000s, well, I'm very happy. I have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until midnight left to write and I have less than 10,000 words to go. I know I'll have plenty more work later on regarding this novel, as I weave the pieces together, edit, strengthen the plot line (which only one of you has seen in anything resembling a fleshed out form ... those pieces are SO not online), etc.

I have hope.

And now that I've crossed this next-to-final threshhold, I'm fairly confident I'll make it to the last one ... but we shall see. I don't want to be writing "the end" 5,000 times. (Kidding. Wouldn't do that. I'd write boring s*** before I did that. Promise.

OK. I think bedtime is in order. To celebrate over-40,000 ... yeah, that's it. I'm not tired or anything, no ...

NaNoWriMo: random

I gesture a lot when I write. Especially when I write fiction. Especially when I'm trying to get a better handle on a theme or a word or something else that is on the tip of my tongue ... or my fingers, if you will.

Laugh if you will.

It seems to work.

Those who've seen me talk when I'm excited won't be too surprised.

If you haven't ... let's just say you don't want to sit/stand too close. Just might accidentally smack you. I'm a handtalker. I admit it ...

NaNoWriMo: Pure weirdness

I just tried to type the word "program" and instead I typed the word "brother." WTF?

I swear, I never had these typing mind blips before I had kids. I'd like to blame it all on the fact that I type really, really fast and perhaps I just get ahead of my thoughts. I even typo my own name ... but it's just letter flipping. One hand tends to get ahead of the other. But seriously, I've noticed this a lot lately ... I think one word, and a completely different word comes out. It's spooky.

Did I mention I used to be a copy editor? Aren't you glad I'm on a different career path now?

Scary.

NanoWriMo: Day 27 (the insanity!)

First, I'd like to say, do you have any idea that I sometimes start my paragraphs without knowing what the end of said graph will look like? Seriously. I just start writing and hope something makes sense. That's how NaNoWriMo has been, which is why I could blaze through 12,000 words the other day. That and I had pent-up ideas after several day soff in a row.

Right now ... I haven't had several days off in a row and I've been rushing to catchup up before Friday's midnight deadline. And I'm starting to run a little slow on ideas. A lot more has been put onto computerized paper that anyone who's been following this trail of tears has seen ... but I'll admit, with hours to go, I'm starting to falter. I could use a kick in the pants. I could use an infusion of outside creativity. If anyone out there has any theories. If you have any ideas of where you'd like to see this story go, please comment. Please e-mail me. Please something. I would appreciate it whole-heartedly. I have until Friday at midnight, and I know if even one or two people could put their hypotheses into my conciousness, I could blaze through the final few thousand words. Whether I agreed with them or not, I feel confident I'd be able to riff on it. And thus I beg ... if you've read any of this, send me a few lines. A quote. An idea. Really, anything. I'll probably make it through ... but I need to kick some action into this storyline, and I'm still a little rough on this.

However, faithful friends and random followers, I did force myself a bit into the dark side if you will today. Trying to get a bit of action. A little less ho-hum. And thus today's excerpt is next, and then back to writing for me ... warning: it's long. I didn't shorten it up as much as usual.

Day 27 outtake:

Chill at her cheeks. Warm beverage in her hands. Liz stood uphill from the tallest building in town. Most of the windows were dark. Many had gone home for the day. But the 10th floor was still blazing bright. Liz smiled. The 10th floor. What went on at the 10th floor … oh, if only the walls could talk. The testing. The plotting. The targeting. And quite likely plenty of torture on top of all the other horrible things that were masterminded out of these offices. The insurance agencies and bankers and other professionals who passed these evildoers each day in the elevator or escalator had no idea who their neighbors were. GENTECH is all the door said. Innocent enough. The genetic industry was big in the Northwest. And most were making revolutionary advances in medicine. ... But not all of them. And this particular one definitely qualified as the not one of them. They knew what they were doing. They’d seen the proof. They’d covered it up. They’d murdered to cover it up. And this wasn’t a floor of scientists doing a job and not having seen the studies. These were the ones who stayed late because cover-ups have to happen at all hours of day. Liz spotted a wooden bench a few feet away, and decided to have a seat. As she bent down, her cellphone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” It was Agent Miles. He was positioned a few blocks closer. Waiting for the blonde to enter the building.

“So?”

“She just walked in. Give it 5 minutes and then you know what to do.”

“Gotcha.” And she flipped her phone shut.

...

Liz looked back at her watch. It was time. She flipped open her cell phone and called Agent Miles.

“Yes?”

“We still good?”

“Yup. I’ve heard from the other two as well, and no one’s left the building since blondie went in.”

“Good. Just checking. Ready?”

“Ready or not, here we come.”

Liz flicked her phone back shut and stuffed it into her pocket, then fumbled around for the other device. Pulling out a small, glossy red square, she polished its cover for a bit. Any passerby would have thought it was just a fancy cellphone. But it wasn’t. She flicked the cover of this one open, and inside was a button that glowed red. She took one more glance toward at the tallest building in downtown. She watched as the 10th floor glowed with business. She saw figures moving by the windows. She was pretty sure she recognized the blonde’s shadowy strut. And she pressed the button.

Everything happened in slow motion after that. A deep boom seemed to come from beneath the earth. She watched as the 10th floor grew even brighter with flame. From the elevator shaft out the brightness expanded until the windows around the floor shattered. Glass poured down on to the empty sidewalk, into the empty square. It hailed glass. Flames lept out. It was as if they’d discovered the horror into which they’d been sent and the flames started trying to leap out the window. Of course they weren’t. There was a body or two that fell. Folks trying to make a fruitless attempt at escape. Ten floors they fell. Slowly doing cartwheels in the air. And into the square they landed. Unmoving. Dead. She could hear the screams from blocks away. A part of her cringed. But she’d seen what they’d done. Heard screams much closer. Heard the wailing. Seen the faces. Seen the product of their deceit. Her face burned with anger. Her conscious was clear.

NaNoWriMo: Day 26

Well, it's after midnight, but just barely. I've been steadily catching up, writing more than 12,000 words between Saturday night and Sunday night, and now another couple thousand tonight, meaning just over 13,000 words to go, in four days, in order to make the goal I set out for. Attainable, but barely. There's a night meeting in there. That could cause trouble, but likely not much more than the children who tonight enjoyed running in every half hour to tell me they weren't asleep or this or that. We won't talk about the raisins all over the floor. I did take time out to enjoy dinner with them, and hear about the letters to Santa they're writing. Next week things will return a bit more to sanity, though I'm hoping to at least somewhat keep the writing thing up, though perhaps not with quite the output expectation this last month has meant. Besides, next month I'll be needing to grab some index card and start writing down all the bits and pieces I've written up and try to put them in some sort of sensical order. While writing this, I've truly solidified my membership card in the Right Brain Club. My structure is definitely not lineal. And as much as I think some of it's pure crap as I write it, more and more seems better as I glance back. But there's definitely some plot stumpage that requires me to sleep on it to move forward as quickly as I hope. And with that in mind, I wrap this up and go to sleep.

Day 26 excerpt:

Therese sat on the couch. Unmoving. Her face was a bit gray. Liz wasn’t quite sure what to say to her friend. Therese was obviously in a different world, her eyes distant. Her mouth still, not edging up or down. Just still. Therese had just gotten home from the hospital. She’d miscarried 6 months into her pregnancy. Six months into a pregnancy that was 10 years in the making. And she hadn’t been old when she started. A mere 25. ... It should have been easy. It should have been a no-brainer. In Therese’s family, it was a well-known joke that her parents had conceived her and her six brothers and sisters on every kind of birth control known to mankind. She was a condom baby. Two of her sisters were conceived on the pill. Her youngest brother was brought into the world while her mother was on Depo. Another two brothers … IUD. And the eldest, of course, was a present from the rhythm method. But of Therese and her six siblings, only one had been able to conceive. The other six, all married by 25 and trying by 30 hadn’t been able to seal the deal no matter how many methods and interventions they tried. Adoption was definitely an option, but somehow, slowly, quietly, the adoption world was no longer clamoring for parents.

Now I really have you confused, don't I. Really, this is the same story. Just wait. You'll see. Maybe. If I ever finish ... off to dreamland, hoping to dream of some plot bridges.

Afterthought: I take little comfort in the fact that if I added up all my blogging on this novel writing, that I'd probably be over 50,000 words. Add in the procrastinating e-mails while I should have been noveling. The messaging. The stupid Facebook pirate game. ... I don't want to think about it. Ok. Sleep. Really, will go sleep now ...

NaNoWriMo: Day 25 outtakes

Well, I'm making up ground fast. Between tears and fears and pure procrastination, I'm forcing myself to make a final push to the end. I think I have some good stuff in store. Whether or not I'll figure out completely how all the bits and pieces tie together by the end of the month, I'm not sure. But in all honesty, I think that once I map out the bits I have, and write out the characters and the plot, there are several folks I know I can tap to help flesh out the spots I'm stuck. My writer's group, my parents, my pals, there are many who will readily feed me ideas if only to get me to finish the damn story so they can see where everything fits together. I know because when others are stuck, the answers seem sometimes obvious to me. I'm counting on the bridges to my canyons being obvious to others, and thus I continue to write. Following the tips of many of the NaNoWriMo guest columnists, when I get bored, I jump. I go explore another realm. When I feel the storyline stagnating around a particular scene, I wrench myself away from it. Push myself away.

And thus today's scene, which I really can't believe I'm posting. No blushing allowed. I opened the doors and this is what came out. No apologies. And, ok, a few blushes. But hey, I went to VooDoo Donuts in Porland this weekend. And I visited my grandma. I'm feeling a bit daring.

And to my writer group: I will be seeking some input soon. I need some help pole vaulting some canyons. Oh yeah, and I should thank my brother for this evening's excerpt.

Day 25 outtakes:

Liz headed to the molded plastic seating area. Around the corner, true to what the ponytailed order taker said, was racks of pubs. Senior citizen newspapers, real estate listings, autotraders, a few copies of The Oregonian, The Columbian, The Olympian, The Daily News, The Daily World and even The News Tribune out of Tacoma and some copies of The Stranger from Seattle. Lots of commuters must travel through. And of course, there were the nickel ads. As if anything was a nickel anymore. Even the ads must be worth a few dozen nickels by now.

Liz grabbed a copy of the Stranger. She was in a mood for some mindless entertainment. And the Stranger’s “alternative” voice managed to cover fact and fiction in a manner both informative and entertaining, that she might even learn something while distracting herself. It was a nice benefit. On the cover this week. A bucket of geoducks sitting on a vintage scale. Apparently submitted by a reader. It honestly looked like a bucket of castrated penises. Gotta love the geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck for the uninitiated.) And you gotta love that it’s actually the mascot of Olympia’s Evergreen State College. Only Evergreen, with its fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think-of-me reputation would have the balls to pull off such a mascot. There might be no football team, but no one at UW or WSU could pull that one off. They need huskies and cougars to amp up their masculinity quotient. Vicious predators. Evergreen just puts it out there. You want mascots and masculinity? Well then, we’ll just make our mascot a penis. It’s almost like a subtle joke on all the other schools. Mocking their mascots while they think they’re mocking the geoduck. If only they knew.

Along the edge of the alt-newspaper was the faintly visible daily message. This copy was well-used by the time Liz grabbed it out of the bin of earmarked papers, but the words were barely visible. “They’re watching.” Short and simple. Sometimes meaningful, sometimes meaningless. But always there. A little inside joke at times. Today’s was a little too true for comfort. They are watching. Who they’re watching, who knows. What they’re watching, who knows. Everyone? Everything? Liz hoped not. Liz really hoped she’d still managed to stay beneath the radar for the most part. Obviously not completely, as she was learning how on the radar she was for a certain segment of folks.

NaNoWriMo: Day 24 outtakes

I know, I've missed a few days. I've been distracted with family sicknesses, with Thanksgiving holidays, with family and daily duties. And yes, I'll admit, yesterday I was distracted by the stupid, pointless, mindless, strategiclessness "Pirates" game on Facebook. I finally got conned into skipping out on MySpace and started a Facebook account, and then got hooked on the stupid game. I think I've cured myself of the more than 10 minutes at a time though. When after an hour or two I'd gotten "far" ... to level 24, I discovered other folks on levels in the hundreds and thousands. And I have no desire to waste that much time on nothing, with no point, with no skill involved, with no point, and did I mention no point? I may still hop on for 5 minutes or 10 now and again when I need some mindless time, but I think I'm through with the addiction phase.

Plus, while on "Thanksgiving vacation" down in the state without sales tax, I actually had some "adventure dreams" to draw inspiration from. And perhaps the time doing nothing let my brain rest enough to get back to the task of creative writing. I don't know. But I have to admit, I read over some of my last stuff and had forgotten enough that it was interesting. And now I'm kicking myself for not doing some flash cards as I go so I remember plot lines and twists and character name and stuff like that. But I think in December I'll make myself go back through and write all that down, then try to assemble more of an order to all my random scenes so that I can fill in the blanks for a full novel. (Note: Not all are THAT random ... some are on quite a theme, but others from earlier and during points of "I'm stumped" are a bit more random, though I think they are finding there ways in through some interesting "side roads" to the storyline ... I just don't write straight storylines apparently.)

Anyhow, I'm still WAY behind. Don't know if I'll actually hit the 50,000 ... but definitely have a good start on a novel. I'm up to almost 25,000 with less than a week to go. If I can "hit it" every night, I know I can finish" ... but even if not, I've made great headway, and will just have to have a competition for myself. Because sometimes, life happens. Life, and sometimes death, happen. And you have to deal with life even when you want to channel the creative gods. And sometimes, November is not the month the muse hits.

November has been a great muse for me. I've found my lost muse, and I have better discipline ... and hopefully I can keep with it. Whether it means 50,000 by Nov. 30? I don't know. I'm not going to kill myself for it, but I will keep working. This is my first attempt at NaNoWriMo, and it won't be my last. And for me, winning doesn't necessarily mean winning NaNoWriMo, I've discovered. (Don't tell my teenage uber-competitive self this ... she just might bitch-slap the 30-something version ... kidding. Or am I?)

Today's excerpt thus far:

“Liz!” shouted Viki. “Did you see this? Isn’t this your labmate?”

Liz ambled as casually as she could over to the sofa where her roommate Viki was sitting watching the evening news. Eric was on the television, getting hauled off by the cops. Liz’s face flushed as she heard the reporter talk about how he was being held as a suspect in Colin’s shooting. According to the news reporter he’d been the last one before Colin to enter the lab, and therefore was a suspect. Liz didn’t know what to think. Right or wrong, that could have, should have, been her.

“Oh my,” said Liz. What else was she supposed to say.

“Man,” said Viki, “what is up down there at your lab? Have you even been able to get back to work?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

“Apparently your labmate entered the lab about 20 minutes before Colin, so he’s a pretty strong suspect,” Viki said, filling Liz in on the details she’d missed while doing the dishes.

“Seriously?!?!” This reaction was true. She’d entered maybe 10-15 minutes beforehand, unbeknownst her roomie and apparently most other folks, and just after Eric apparently. She subconsciously rubbed her shin, where a dark bruise had recently formed. And then she remembered … she’d tripped over Eric’s stool. Not something he normally left out. Had he been there, too? Had he just ran into the lab and back out in a hurry, kind of like she had meant to be in, or had he ducked out of sight when she came in … but why? Had he watched her?

Liz’ previous blush was quickly drained from her face and her face and fingers were soon icicles due to the new realization that there might be a witness to her witnessing, and a witness to her return of “the file.” Why would Eric hide when she came in? Any answer made her cringe with the fact that then he had seen her switch the files. Of course, he very likely could have just been in and out. That had been her plan, after all. But Liz was sick with worry. Sick with what-ifs. Sick with who might know what. Sick with not only who already knew where she’d been when, but with who quite possibly might know why she’d been where when. That, she had been secure in thinking was still her secret alone. But perhaps no more. And that was a scary thought.

NaNoWriMo: Day 19 (no soup for you!)

Progressing being made, but not enough for an excerpt. Looking forward to the long weekend ...

NaNoWriMo:Day 18 (no comment)

Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday dear eldest one ...
Happy birthday to you.

Small progress, but not much.

NaNoWriMo: Day 17 ... Strange kids

After a full day of birthday activities and the middle child fretting about going to bed, he finally comes into my room, and eventually gets over his tantrum and heads back into his own room upon saying "I just needed to clean my head up." Hmmm. Seeing as no writing has happened today ... ditto here.

Birthday Shopping in T-Town aka NaNoWriMo: Day 16 (no progress)

The husband might be sick, but that does not change the fact that eldest daughter who just lost her first tooth is about to turn 7. Which meant sick day for mom, lots of local shopping, and another day of no added words for my poor NaNoWriMo novel ...

Today has been spent running kids to and fro, still making two work meetings, getting brother-who-missed-his-bus to the 512 park and ride (we live in N. Tacoma), and spending THREE HOURS shopping with the soon-to-be-7-year-old for birthday presents and birthday party prep. Party: Tomorrow. Birthday: Sunday. And now I'm baking cupcakes and cleaning the living room in order to prep.

So far today, we've been shopping at:

• Teaching Toys in the Proctor District ... where we picked up a how-to origami book and extra origami paper for the soon-to-be-7-year-old. And where the freshly 5-year-old wanted to only buy things for himself, of course. (Big girl was not on this trip; she was in school.)
  
• The Learning Sprout ... where the soon-to-be-7-year-old tried to spend some of her birthday money, and where I tried to find craft ideas, but it was almost as if there was TOO MUCH to choose from. We walked away with a how-to balloon animal book and extra balloon animal balloons (are you sensing a theme here?) and some mini-cookie cutouts.
• The Bead Factory ... where we bought our craft for the afternoon. We'll be making necklaces. With 6- and 7-year-olds. Wish me luck! We found some great butterfly main beads and lots to fill, and the check-out lady was SUPER helpful with helping me find some stretchy string to put the beads we bought on ... she recommended the magic wire, but the almost-7-year-old wanted the stretchy stuff. So we went that route. Lots of extra beads are expected .. .yay!
• And Target on Union: Where daughter spent some of her birthday money on a Barbie. I found stuff to put in party bags and many shirts on the clearance rack which should round out the eldest's long-sleeve wardrobe. Yay!

Now, time to bake cupcakes and actually clean up. Ugh. I'm just glad I could do all my shopping in town ... :) Super yay!

However: All this action has meant to NaNoWriMo word progress. However, I am hopeful that once party is over, kids will pass out and I will write with the speed I did LAST weekend and quickly catch up. I miss my NaNoWriMo ... :)

NaNoWriMo: Day 15 (forced day off)

Husband sick. (No Ed, he did not puke on me.)

However, that means having to take the day mostly off and be stay-at-home mom for the day, and for tomorrow. And still make a couple work meetings in between taking kids to and from school. Which means that baby girl got to be my assistant today ... she seemed to like it.

Oh, and tonight the tooth fairy comes. She was asked to pass by last night so that the eldest could take her tooth to school and show her friends. And Saturday is the eldest's birthday party. And Sunday is the eldest's birthday.

And writing will commence. But not tonight. Erik ... you should have DEFINITELY passed me by today ...

Unless I get a bug in the middle of the night and crank a few hundred words out ... hmmmm ... feeling mischievous. We shall see.

NaNoWriMo: Day 14 ... day off

I had an 8 a.m. long meeting, and a long meeting until 8 p.m. to wrap up the day. It's been a long day. I know I can catch up. So today: I choose sleep.

(You heard me, no being puked on and I'm STILL taking a day off. I'm such a rebel.)

I will have to just deal with the fact that this means Mr. Erik will likely catch up and/or surpass me with his word county. I'll admit slight joy in having been several hundred, and for a moment a couple thousand, words ahead of him for the last few days. What will I do ... Go Erik! Pass me up! Now's your chance ... tomorrow, I'll be beating my way to the 25,000 line, and by the end of this weekend the 30,000 line ... the race is ON! ;)

On a more productive note, I may have figured out how to put an RSS feed on this sucker ... it should be upper right. I'm new to RSS feeds ... so let me know if it works or not ...