A Few Things on Thursday

I’m a day early on my updating, but I’m taking a break from my rewriting and thought it would be a good time to blog.

First of all, I’m going to share a link to an amazing auction with you. Swati Avasthi, author of SPLIT, is having an auction to benefit the Family Violence Prevention Fund. There are all kinds of things to bid on, including critiques (from agents, editors, and authors); signed books, photography, and much more.

Swati was kind enough to allow me to donate some bookmarks to the cause. You can find them under the “Everything Else” category. In addition to the already made bookmarks, I’m offering a custom bookmark (you get to choose the charm, colors, etc.).

In my Etsy shop, I sell my bookmarks for $8, but you might get it for less in the auction because bidding starts at only $4!

Go. Bid. Get stuff you want. Help a great cause.

And now to an update on my word count. Things are finally starting to flow! I’m optimistic that I’ll be finished before long, but I’ve given up setting a specific date to be done. ;-)

Even though I’m not finished writing for the day, I’ll go ahead and give you the word count as of right now):

Do you see that? Can you believe it? I’m over halfway done!

I’ve been having fun playing with Scrivener for Windows, even though there are some bugs to fight through. It’s still amazing software (though it’s not for everyone), and I plan to purchase it when it comes out early next year. Even though I’m still working on my rewrite in Word, I plan to write my NaNo novel using Scrivener (it will transfer back to Word as a .rtf file when I’m ready to finalize and format the MS), but I love the flexibility of working in Scrivener. NaNo will be a blast! I’ve probably mentioned this before (I can’t remember so if I have ignore me), but I’m writersblock on the NaNo site if anyone wants to add me to their buddy list.

Now I must . . .

Write on!

Scrivener Shall Be Mine!

Obviously I didn’t make it back on Friday to update. I ended up volunteering at the kids’ school all day (helping with health screenings) . . . but I’m too excited not to post today. Here’s why:

My name is Joan, and I’ve been suffering from Scrivener envy for several years. I do not own a Mac so this software was unavailable to me. I saved up money for a Mac, but then we ended up having to spend it on silly things like car repairs, food for our empty table, clothing for the children.

I didn’t start saving again because I knew Christmas was coming and I’d just have to give up my Mac savings for presents for the kids . . .

. . . and then the most wonderful thing happened:

SCRIVENER for WINDOWS!!

It’s true!

It is being released in January or February of 2011!

But I don’t even have to wait that long because I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month and there is a wonderful post on the forums that I only just discovered. In this wonderful post, I learned NaNo participants can beta test Scrivener for Windows (some of you probably already knew that, but if you knew it and didn’t tell me, you better not admit it)!

Yes, there may be some bugs, but it will be worth it to get my hands on this software early (I just have to remember to save, save, save my work). And there are even better things mentioned in the post. Instead of me trying to explain it all to you, I’ll just put a link so you can go read it for yourself.

If I wasn’t already going to do NaNo, this would be enough to make me do it . . . and I’m more determined to reach the 50,000 words so I can take advantage of the generous discount (info in the link above . . . if you can’t find the link, it’s the word link in the previous paragraph)!

The beta version should be released in a few minutes . . . or so, and I’m thrilled beyond reason (as my FB status attested earlier today)!

In other news, I haven’t worked much on my rewrite. My word count is a sorry thing to look at, but I decided I’ll use NaNo to finish writing my rewrite and then work on my new YA idea to reach the 50,000 word mark and beyond. So, I should have a finished rewrite and a great start to a new novel by the end of November! YAY!

Oh. . . and if you wanted to actually look at the sorrow of my rewrite word count, here it is:

Emerging From the Cave

Though I’m not finished with my rewrite, I’m emerging from my cave to update you all on my progress . . . both in life and with the novel.

Life:

K had her neurology appointment on Tuesday. Our insurance won’t cover the expensive testing he would normally do (we’re looking into different insurance), so he did his best to diagnose based on the medical history we gave him as well as the exam he gave her.

He determined she had a few other seizures. One at school when she looked into the overhead projector and didn’t respond for a bit (we found out about that last Friday at parent/teacher conference). The second and third were at home when she was speaking to me, but the what she said didn’t make sense (I hadn’t realized these were seizures, but they were strange behavior so I reported them to him).

So, his diagnosis is viral encephalitis. Since the “treatment” for it would be the same no matter if he ran the tests or not, he opted not to make us file for bankruptcy (nice of him). The treatment is to watch her and see what happens. If she has another seizure, we are to contact him immediately (well, after we call 911, of course). He even gave us his cell phone number. If she does seize again, she’ll be admitted to the hospital and they’ll run all the expensive tests we’re hoping to avoid.

She’s not on any medication at this point. He thinks she’ll continue to recover and within the next two to three weeks, her memory and behavior issues should resolve themselves. He will see her again in January unless she seizes before then. He sent me home with literature about the different types of seizures so we can read up and hopefully learn to identify them (complex partial seizures, simple partial seizures, and atypical absence seizures). Of course if she’s twitching on the floor or being stiff and foaming at the mouth like she did the first time, we’ll know she’s seizing, but the others are more subtle . . . thus the literature.

The kids are on Fall Break for two weeks (gotta love the “modified school year), so I’m not sure how much writing I’ll get done, but here’s that update.

Rewrite:

My current word count looks like this:

I’m hoping to finish by the end of this month so I can participate in National Novel Writing Month again this year. We’ll see if I make it. I’m almost to the point where I can use most of the scenes from the previous novel. Though I’ll have to make a few changes to these scenes to make them work in this version, I’m thinking the changes will be minor (other than the POV change, of course).

And that’s my update. I’ll try to post at least once a week (probably Fridays) from now on.

Write on.