Almost NaNo’d Out

I just killed my first major character, and I have to say that I’m glad he’s dead.  I’m going to have to go back and flesh him out some later, but he was one sick puppy who deserved what he got.  He turned out a lot sicker than I initially imagined, so offing him was a lot easier than I had imagined.  That makes me feel like I cheated — it’s easy to kill a character you don’t like because who’s going to miss him other than you?

Heck, I’m not even going to miss him, really!

The writing is going fairly well, despite that.  I think I have a good shot at finishing 50,000 words by the 30th, especially if I can bang out another couple thousand words tonight and tomorrow to make up for the days I won’t be able to write this week with Thanksgiving.

That is made considerably more difficult by the kitten currently grooming my face and chewing on my lips and nose.  He keeps smearing the heck out of my glasses, too, which makes it beyond difficult to see well enough to type.  I love my kitties, but they do make writing a chore sometimes.

Like now.  One is curled up on my lap, purring like a fiend and making it difficult to type.  The other is flaying my knee in an effort to destroy the power cable to the laptop because it’s a string.  Oh, no, now he’s perched across my shoulder and onto the arm of the couch.  I’m stuck for the time being.

I’m glad to have the turdbuckets healthy, but they are a handful sometimes.

One Week Pre-Turkey Day

Well, I have almost everything we need for Thanksgiving after a trip to Aldi and WalMart today.  I need to go by Kroger tomorrow to pick up some chocolate milk — it’s on sale super-cheap — and then pick up the ham at some point.  Aside from that, I just need the veggie tray and the salad, and we’ll be good to go.

I’m looking forward to it now.  Not that I wasn’t before, just that I felt so unprepared that it was hard to be as excited as I wanted to be.

I’m still not entirely sure where the last two people are going to sit, but we’ll figure that out.  Everything will be fine.

Besides, I’m a bit ahead for NaNo — I knocked out almost two thousand words tonight to put me just over 32K.  I’ve set things up for one of the big scenes, the one I dreamed about, and I’m excited to be ready to write it.

Now, it’s late and I’m tired.  I think it’s time to turn in in prep for a long day at work tomorrow.

NaNo, 30K

This will be short, sweet, and to the point.

I broke 30,000 words, and the bloodshed is about to start in earnest.  Everyone knows what’s going on now, and it’s about to hit the fan.  I’ll need to go back later and shore up how the hell the female lead figures all this out, but it shouldn’t be too hard.

I just might be able to pull this off after all.

Take That, November!

Ha HA!  I got caught up on all my writing this weekend, thanks in large part to a huge 7000+ word Saturday.  I’m a little bit ahead at this point in terms of word count, but I’m not willing to rest on that yet.  There are lots of distractions in the coming days, and I need to stay focused.

I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving next week.  I need to finish getting the house ready, but we finally found a dining room table that will seat almost everyone (seats eight), so that is taken care of.  Now I just need to get photos hung and do some cleaning.  Oh, and finish shopping for the food.  There’s only so much that I can put off until the day before.

Southern Honey’s sister has offered to help with that, but I don’t think she’s arriving until next Wednesday.  That’s a little late for most stuff, so I’m not sure that I can afford to wait for it.  I have to put together a shopping list and go from there.  Might as well do that while I’m thinking about it…

• 5 lb bag of potatoes
• Salad mix
• Rolls (need to find out if there is a day-old bread store in town)
• Veggies/veggie platter
• Dip
• Tortilla chips
• Salsa
• Ham
• Ingredients for ham basting sauce
• Carrots
• Brown sugar
• Dozen eggs

I think that’s everything we’ll need food-wise since we have the turkey and the dessert mixes (the eggs are for the cake and cookie mixes) and my mom is making the stuffing.

We might make it through this holiday after all.  And if I can make it through NaNo at the same time, I will consider myself a goddess and will take the entire month of December to celebrate.  *grins*

Southern Honey Speaks Out

Sitting here watching the Black Eyed Peas’ Saturday Night Live performance with Southern Honey and he just gave me the quote of the night:

She reminds me of Fergie.

I burst out laughing and pointed out that that would be because she is indeed Fergie.  To which he responded:

All I know is that they’re both ugly as shit.

So, sorry, Fergie, but apparently you are not only not high on my husband’s “To Do” list, he confuses you with yourself and only vaguely recognizes you for a lack of cuteness.  I know I shouldn’t laugh at that, but I just couldn’t help myself.  It came totally out of left field and took me completely by surprise.

In NaNo news, I’m caught up to where I need to be and am nearly done with my weekend’s contribution.  That’s right, I’m almost to 25,000 words — nearly halfway done!

I took a challenge that was thrown out at me and created a sparkly character, a la Twilight.  So, now my assassin is in the market with his intended victim, getting propositioned by a smoking hot, glittering prostitute.  I think he’s having a pretty damn good night, myself.  *grins*

Getting My Written Butt Handed to Me

NaNo is still kicking my ass.  I’m only down about fifty-five hundred words… *rolls eyes*  No, just kidding.  I need another eight thousand words by the end of the day tomorrow to be caught up.  And I’m not sure I can do it.

I’m stranded in the middle.  I know where I want to go, but I’m not sure I know how to get there.  It’s extremely frustrating.

How do I get from exposition to conclusion?  I have no idea.

NaNo, Kicking My Butt

I’m behind on NaNo, so I locked the kittens away in order to write in peace.  It’s not really working, though.  I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to get caught up.  I’m supposed to be at 25k by  Saturday, and I’m almost 10k short of that on Thursday.  I gotta knock out 5ooo words a day, basically.

Salute the Troops

Today is Veterans’ Day in the US.  A time to remember and honor all those who have served and currently serve in our armed forces, and to thank them for their sacrifices.

When I was younger, I did not understand the concept behind Veterans’ Day as much.  After all, all the people I knew who had been in the armed forces had come home safely and were just fine.  There didn’t seem to be much sacrifice involved there.

Today I understand much better just how much sacrifice goes into preparing a soldier for war and what not just that soldier but also his or her family gives up in doing so.  They give up jobs that pay well and fancy houses for a soldier’s salary (which tends to be very, very low, especially starting out) and base housing.  They give up the right to take vacations whenever they please in exchange for being at the government’s beck and call.  They give up family holidays, birthdays, get-togethers, and sometimes even the birth of their children.

Then, if they are deployed to a war zone, as so many have been in recent years, they give up more.  They may give up limbs or mobility.  Some give their peace of mind, their ability to sleep at night without nightmares, their enjoyment of fireworks on the Fourth of July.  In the end, some give up their lives in the line of duty.

For all the sacrifices that our armed men and women — and their families — make every day, I just want to say thank you.  Stay as safe as possible.  And know that we all appreciate what you do for us.

NaNoWriMo, Week Two

So it’s week two of NaNoWriMo and I’ve fallen behind at last.  I was doing very well that first week, but the weekend was a mess.  Southern Honey and I had to run lots of Thanksgiving-related errands on Saturday and on Sunday afternoon.  Then I had to run up to Cardinal City for training today, and I got stuck in traffic.

By the time I managed to get to the hotel, I was pretty much exhausted.  I did some writing, then tried to sleep.  I should have passed on the sleep and done more writing — I tossed and turned all night and ended up not hearing my alarm.  Woke up twenty minutes before I thought I was supposed to be in training, rushed out the door, and barely made it on time.  Except that they had pushed back the training by fifteen minutes.  *facepalm*  All I have to say is thank heaven for Holiday Inn Express’s Rapid CheckOut or whatever it’s called — I didn’t even have to stop by the front desk on my rush out to the car.

Training was pretty much what I expected, although I didn’t expect the Big Boss to come in dressed in a polo and khakis to speak to us.  I figured, from everything I had heard, to see him in a suit.  It was a pleasant surprise.  Everything else was normal, new-to-wherever training.  So I had heard most of it already (There was a mandatory ethics training I have already had.  Twice.).

Now I’m just waiting for all the interesting stuff to finish on TV so I can get a little more writing done.  Maybe I can get caught up to where I should have been last night, at the very least.

Thanksgiving Day Planning

The great Turkey Day Planning of ‘09 is on today!

Southern Honey and I have been kind of out-of-pocket for the past few years in terms of making it home for Thanksgiving.  We’ve done our own thing a lot — last year, in fact, we went to a friend’s place up in Virginia because I couldn’t get time off work.

This year, Southern Sister and her husband suggested that we kids get together and let the parents fall where they may.  Southern Honey and I liked the idea immensely and agreed.  This has subsequently metamorphosed into a fairly massive family gathering at our new house.

List of attendees:

Southern Honey and myself, my brother, my mother, possibly my grandmother, Southern Sister and her husband, Southern Honey’s mother, his grandmother and her boyfriend, and his uncle.

That’s eleven people in our little house.  Plus our two cats and Southern Sister’s Yorkie.  And one of those people is on oxygen.

So, I now have to find a table and chairs for cheap, get the house cleaned up, and figure out what we’re eating.  I want to go to the GFS Marketplace store, too, and see what we can get in bulk for cheap.

I love decorating for the holidays — I already have a vase full of awesome flowers and leaves that are totally Thanksgiving appropriate — but this is going to be a challenge.  We’ll see how it goes.