So . . .

I haven’t gotten any more writing done, which is a bummer. Things have been crazy busy with the holidays and getting ready for the sale at the kids’ school (a Holiday store they do each year). Also, news that the kids’ school will likely be closing next year has put a damper on things. The district will be rearranging things so the kids and teachers will go to one of the two other elementary schools in town.

Anyway, I’ve been spending my time finishing up school (tomorrow and Tuesday are the last classes for the semester) and dealing with the sadness of not going back next semester. I’ll miss it, but I really need to take some time to get my house in order and get my novel finished . . . oh, and decorate the house for Christmas. Yeah, we haven’t even done that yet. And the shopping . . . yeah, that still needs done too. *sigh*

Hubby has purchased a few things for the kids, and I bought a stocking gift for each of the girls, but that’s the only shopping I’ve done. It’s strange since I’m usually the one doing all the shopping, but it’s also kind of nice that I haven’t had to worry about it this year. *grin*

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting the decorating done, my novel finished, and getting back into a routine with my housework.

How have you all been? Are you ready for the holidays?

Live on.

Mad Monday

What a crazy week! I lived through the holidays, but I’m still fighting a cold/virus/deadly thing. I think I’m going to have to break down and go see the Dr. because it’s not getting any better. *sigh*

Still, we had fun going to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. I ate way too much pie (my favorite part of the feast). The kids spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa (except K who wasn’t feeling well). Hubby and I brought K home and I ended up sleeping in the living room on the futon with her. Can you say, “ouch?”

Yeah, it didn’t help with my cold/virus/deadly thing since the futon is positioned under the window and it needs caulked something fierce because it was burr burr freezey cold!

The next morning, K and I drove back to my parents’ house (she was feeling better). K spent the day playing and having a great time while my sisters and I made cheese balls. Mmmm. Another of my favorite holiday things.

We have our own recipes so there were several batches made. I brought home seven cheese balls and there are only two left today. Yeah, my family likes themselves some cheese balls! Okay, I admit, I ate two of them all by myself with some Wheat Thins.

Anyway, between all the bustle of Thanksgiving and kids’ school programs and sickness and all that fun stuff, I still managed to get some writing done.

Yep, I passed my 70,000 mark, but I’m not done with the rewrite yet. I’m close . . . oh so close though. Pretty much all the new stuff is done and all that’s left is to rewrite the ending chapters of the book. They’ll stay pretty much the same as they were in the previous version except they’ll be changed from third to first person.

The changes will be minor (I hope) so it should go quickly here at the end. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. *grin*

Anyway, I’ve almost reached my Nano goal as well. I should reach 50,000 tomorrow.

So, how was your holiday? Have lots of fun? Eat too much? Leave a comment and tell me about it!

Write on.

The Madness of Monday

I didn’t update on Friday so I’m here today.

I haven’t had a Monday like this in a long time (thank goodness).

Last week, I had sick kids from Tuesday thru Saturday. On Saturday, I was unlucky enough to catch the virus so I spent my weekend feeling miserable and trying to catch up on all the writing I missed.

I’m still a bit under the weather (though I’m feeling a bit better). I didn’t catch up on the writing I needed to do (falling behind on the Nano front), but I was able to get some writing done.

Yes, that says 85% . . . but the problem is I’m not close to the end of the story. I’m afraid I’m going to have to make a new goal (more than 70,000 . . . but I’m not sure how much more).

Still, I’ve come a long way in the last few weeks and I’m happy.

Anyway, back to my crazy, mad Monday.

I didn’t sleep well and woke up late. This meant a mad scramble as I tried to get the kids off to school. They ended up being tardy.

I made it to ceramics class, but the lasagna pan I’d finished on Friday didn’t quite survive the car-ride. One of the handles broke off. This made me sad. There was no way to repair it. I thought about throwing it into the recycle bucket, but then had a better idea. Just break off the other handle and the rest of the pan was still usable. I figured a lasagna pan without handles could still work (though I might get my oven mitts dirty when I remove the pan from the oven).

So, after breaking off the other handle and scraping away the excess dried clay, I started a new project. A small bowl on the pottery wheel. After the small bowl, I moved on to a much larger bowl in the pottery wheel. I was thrilled with the results . . . and then my teacher suggested I use a stretched out spring to texture the bottom (to cut it off the pottery wheel bat). It sounded like a good idea to me so I made a trip to the hardware store and bought a couple of springs.

I cut the pot, but now we’re worried that the spring may have been too high and the bottom ended up too thin and might crack as it dries. The bowl was BEAUTIFUL (I used two different colors of clay) and I’m going to be so sad if it cracks.

Then I came home, ate a quick lunch, got a little writing done, then had to go pick up kids from school. By then, my head was pounding and my nose stuffy again. I got the younger kids, brought them home, went back to pick up the oldest from high school, took some Motrin for my headache, then took oldest son to Teen Court so he could be tried by a jury of his peers for the accident he had back in August.

That was about an hour of waiting around for about ten minutes of “court” and sentencing. He’s got 28 hours of community service and two jury duty assignments for Teen Court.

Now I’m exhausted and am going to crawl into bed for some much needed sleep . . . I hope I can get some!

Write on . . . or sleep on . . . or whatever. =)

TGIF

Okay, it’s Friday again and that means it’s time for a blog post.

As most of you know, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short, or Nano for even shorter). I’ve also been working on finishing up my rewrite of my YA novel so I can send it back out into the world.

Since I didn’t get the novel finished sooner, I’m using Nano to complete the novel. Don’t worry, I’m only using words I wrote after Oct. 31 for my Nano count. So, Since Nov. 1, I’ve managed to add another 6,462 to my novel.

I was at the kids’ school all morning dealing with volunteer and PTO stuff so I haven’t done any writing today. This means the word count is expected to rise . . . at least a little bit . . . at some point in the day.

My overall progress on the rewrite looks like this:

It seems I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel . . . it’s small, but it’s there and getting bigger each day. YAY!

Once I get my YA rewrite finished, I’ll be working on a new YA project I’m calling “Behold the Dead” in order to get the rest of my 50,000 Nano word count. Yeah, I’m assuming the YA rewrite won’t end up being an epic novel that needs another 44,000 words to finish. ;-)

So, how’s everyone doing on their Nano progress? Don’t lie now because some of you are my buddies on the Nano site and I can check up on you. =)

For those who aren’t doing Nano, why aren’t you?

Now I must get busy with the rewrite before I have to go get kids from school.

Write on.

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.