Who, What, When, Where, Why

Well, today should be interesting.

I’m breaking from my usual routine of get-up-drink-latte-write-blog-write-workout-and-so-on and am merely drinking black coffee from a French press, preparing to go do something I’ve never done before.

A friend who is a first grade teacher invited me to come speak to her class for Author Day, and I’m this mix of nerves-meet-excitement about it.  When she invited me to speak, I warned her that I’m not technically an author, yet — that while I’ve made significant progress on my novel, I still have a long road to travel before that word applies to me.

Eh, she didn’t care.  “They’ll love you,” she told me, “They’ll be excited just to meet someone who’s writing a novel, published or not.”  Alrighty, then.  Speak I shall.

I’m going to do my best not to bore the little darlings with my (exciting-to-only-me) array of colored pens, my myriad notebooks, my stacks upon stacks of post-it notes, and the minutiae of what goes into a novel.  Most of that will stay hidden away in my tote bag.  Instead, I’m going to focus on the basics: what is a story, and how do you write it?  Can you do it as a first grader?  Does a book have to be a certain length? (Cue my dear visual aids of A Wrinkle in Time versus Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.)  Where can you get ideas? (EVERYWHERE.)

After some attempts at engaging them, I’ll bust out my (totally geeky awesome) notebooks that represent the process — I have one with pictures of my villains and loads of brainstorming, a tattered first draft, a three-ring bindered second draft, and an example of some pages that are bleeding orange, purple, pink, red, and a couple of neon highlighting swipes to boot.

Before all of this, however, I need to tame my mane of hair so I don’t scare them away when I walk in the door.  Seriously.  I’m not exactly sure what a banshee looks like, but it’s the word that keeps coming to mind when I think of how my hair looks this morning.

Deep breath.  It’s only a twenty-minute guest visit.  Twenty minutes.  Not hard, right?

Right.

It’s too late for me to fish for ideas, but out of curiosity — what would you guys say to a group of first graders about being an (aspiring) author?

[tweetmeme source= “olsonkayla” only_single=false]

My Good Intentions? Totally Smoke-Monstered.

So.

You could say my life has been like Season Six of LOST lately, that I am stuck in a strange sideways world where things are mostly good but a little off, a little unusual.

You could also say my life has been like this week’s episode of LOST, where [MAJOR SPOILER ALERT AHEAD] [NO, SERIOUSLY, LIKE IF YOU EVER WANT TO WATCH LOST AND HAVEN’T, YOU TOTALLY DON’T WANT ME TO SPOIL THIS FOR YOU] [RACHEL, IF YOU’RE STILL READING, YOU’RE IN TROUBLE BECAUSE THESE SHOUTY ALERTS ARE MAINLY FOR YOUR BENEFIT] the Smoke Monster wreaks havoc on the Temple-dwellers, carrying them kicking and screaming to their own demise.

Okay, so it’s not totally like that.  Kind of, though.  I do feel like I’ve been swept up into a Bizarro World, and that my time has been Smoke-Monstered (and in this analogy, all of my good intentions = the doomed Temple-dwellers).  Usually, I’m the super-organized Queen of Self-Discipline, which makes it all the more annoying that I can’t put my finger on exactly where the time went.  Also usually, whenever I can’t put my finger on exactly where the time went, it’s safe to say I was perusing blogs or reading helpful articles about writing, but alas, I’m far behind on all of that stuff, too.

Fortunately, today is gorgeous and I have a large chunk of hours awaiting me.  I’ve planted myself (along with a too-thick stack o’ stuff) at Starbucks, and I’m going to WORK.  

And, oh, how much more productive I’d be if only I could get that episode-closing creepy-chilling rendition of  “Catch A Falling Star” out of my head.

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Revision Update, Phase Two | Time has been ambushed by the Smoke Monster, and my good intentions are trapped in a pit à la Crazed Claire.  No progress has been made (gasp!) since last update, but luckily?  No progress also means no backward progress.  Time for a step forward.

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Prioritizing, Yo.

All my notes are typed, sorted, and printed.

All of my hard work?  Is totally paying off so far.  Earlier in the week, I mentioned how tedious last week’s work was, what with all the data entry and whatnot; now, I’m totally glad I took the time to do it.

I’m still not at the start-to-actually-change-things point in my editing, but that’s okay.  Right now, I’m sorting through all of my thoughts, scene by scene, evaluating the magnitude of work required for each.  

Time for a game.  Guess what I did?

A.  Bought a hot pink magic wand¹ and straightened my hair, which made me feel pretty, which gave me confidence, which reinforced that not only CAN I write this novel, but I WILL write it, and well.

B.  Spoke before thinking and decided the perfect way to spend Spring Break would be in Minneapolis, on a mission trip with my church.  Thought about it some more, decided it was still an awesome idea, and committed.  Decided to throw manuscript in the trash.

C.  Made another spreadsheet, on which I am assigning numerical values to each scene; each numerical value corresponds with priority level. (1 = This is a MAJOR ISSUE; 7 = this scene is weak, but can wait to be dealt with because it doesn’t affect the plot. Etc.)  Am one-third of the way through with this step in the process.

D.  All of the above! 

E.  All of the above!  (Except for the whole throwing the manuscript in the trash thing.)

If you guessed E — you have won your very own copy of LOST: Season 7 on Blu-Ray!  I’ll ship that to you right after they decide to not end the series after Season 6, after it is produced, filmed, and packaged for our at-home enjoyment.  Okay?  Okay.²

So, yeah.  That’s where things are right now.  The next step is, obviously, to finish prioritizing: hopefully I’ll finish, or almost-finish, this weekend.  That way, next week will be The Week Where I Start to Fix Stuff.

Perhaps this is an abrupt ending to a post, but well, my hands are FRIGID BLOCKS OF ICE due to this Starbucks’s identity crisis (is it a meat locker? an igloo? a coffee shop on Antarctica?).  Better go outside into the 39°F weather to thaw out.

Peace and hot chocolate and electric blankets to you all.

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Revision Update, Phase Two | Sorting through notes, assigning priority to scenes based on the magnitude of work needed.  Am 1/3 of the way through the scenes, so that leaves (obviously) 2/3 to go.

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¹Known otherwise, to Muggles ’round the world, as a flat-iron.  

²Disclaimer: Should they, um, decide to actually do the impossible and make a Season 7, despite concrete, set-in-stone evidence to the contrary?  Fulfillment of this absurd promise is contingent upon my improbable inheritance of riches.

To Fall and Crash and Break

Before I update you all on Phase Two of Project: Edit, perhaps I should begin with a little story.

I’m the sort of girl who offers to make her sister’s 250 wedding invitations.  The sort of girl who, when the choices of print shop suddenly become print-shop-with-wonky-discoloration versus print-shop-with-insanely-ridiculous-prices, decides to go with neither print shop and opt instead for make-each-invite-and-response-card-with-her-own-two-loving-tender-hands.  I’m that sort of girl.

Fortunately, my sweet husband is the sort of husband who says, “Look here! I can turn the espresso-and-white maps into black-and-white maps, and squeeze eight onto a page.  This will cut costs and eliminate the issues with discoloration — then, we can do all the color copies at print-shop-with-insanely-ridiculous-prices!  Then you’ll only have to make the RSVP cards by hand, and the original price you quoted will stay about the same!”

Bless him.

So — all that to say, I (sometimes) bite off more than is comfortable to chew.  Not that I can’t chew it.  It’s just uncomfortable.  (See also: my withered hand when I finished the RSVP cards. If I had done everything by hand, in one weekend, as was my original insane solution, I’d probably still be in pain. And that was last June.)

This week has been annoying and discouraging and overwhelming.  Note to self, and to everyone who’s up to speed on what I’m working on these days¹: when taking handwritten notes in a spiral notebook, if the plan is to enter them into the computer in an organized fashion, do it in small chunks at the end of each daily session instead of all at once.  The notes themselves aren’t all that intimidating; the system in which I’ve organized them isn’t the problem, either.  The problem is that it’s tedious.  Worth it?  Almost certainly.  Fun?  Certainly not.

I’ve also felt the tendency to compare myself to others this week, in a way that’s not necessarily healthy.  Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of reading² and while that’s inspiring and all, it’s also a wee bit discouraging.  It’s so easy to pick up a book and forget that it didn’t just magically appear, in polished-and-published form: no.  These things took work.  Just like mine is taking work.  I keep forgetting that this is my first time to edit a novel and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with learning how to do it.

So.  

Perhaps now is a good time to mention that thanks to the Olympics, I am in awe of snowboarders.  I spent an entire afternoon watching the girls’ halfpipe competition, marveling at Torah Bright, at Gretchen Bleiler, at Hannah Teter, at how easy they make it look.  Also?  I marveled at how insanely painful it must be to mess up, to fall and crash and break.  

I’ve been airing my snowboarding awe to my husband all week.  On Saturday night, when all my little frustrations about editing surfaced along with my ridiculous snowboarding dreams, he just listened patiently and reminded me of some truth: those snowboarders didn’t just hop on a board, jump into a halfpipe, and proceed to nail their switch backside 720’s³.

No.  They practiced.  A lot.  Like, a lot a lot a lot.  And, even gold medalists and their toughest competitors fall at the Olympics, because they’re giving everything they have.  They don’t play it safe, they take risks that may or may not pay off.

You see where I’m going, yes?  Huge goals require huge risks, lots of practice, lots of patience, and the understanding that sometimes, you just might crash in the snow while you’re trying something amazing.  Oh yeah, and to remember that everyone has to start somewhere and learn along the way.

I’m learning.  This novel is a huge project, overwhelming sometimes, uncomfortable sometimes, but not impossible.  Not impossible at all.

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Revision Update, Phase Two | All notes have been entered into pretty little spreadsheets.  Still have more work as far as prioritizing them goes, but on the whole, it’s coming along.

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¹If you’re not up to speed, click here and here. 

²FINALLY finished The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) and Bright Lights, Big Ass (Jen Lancaster).  Had to read them concurrently so as not to fall into total, time-travel-tragedy-induced despair.

³I looked this up.  According to this NYTimes article, this is the cherry-on-top move from Torah Bright’s gold-medal-winning run; it’s “a perplexing double rotation with a blind landing that flummoxes all her competitors.” (I’m loving the abundance of the letter x in that sentence, BTW.)

Happy LOST Day!

At the risk of sounding like an obsessed freak¹ — after eight months of waiting (impatiently), it’s LOST Season Premiere day!  It’s only ten in the morning, but I’ve already learned a few things today.  (Be warned: I haven’t had many lattes lately, and I’m having one now.  That, combined with my excitement?  Put on your seatbelts, because I’m feeling some energy today.)

First?  Today might as well be a holiday.  Examples include the email I got from my music-teaching mother:

“Happy LOST Day!  I moved around my piano lessons so I can watch — if Obama can rearrange his State of  the Union address, I can rearrange my lessons!”

and the text messages with friends, á la Christmas Eve, yesterday:

“It’s LOST Eve!  One more day!”

and the greetings from not one, but two, of my barista friends at Starbucks (granted, we watch the show together every week, rotating from house-to-house, Bible-study style, with desserts and coffee):

“Happy LOST Day!” (shouted in chorus when I walked in)

Examples abound.  You get the picture.

Second thing I learned this morning?  I’ve been (*sob*) spelling the word premiere without the final e for days and days.  I felt like a schmuckety schmuck when I figured it out and promptly rushed to add the elusive e to my latest Tweet and the invitation to our viewing party this evening.  Crisis somewhat averted.

Third lesson isn’t so much a lesson; it’s more like confirmation that yes, in case there was any doubt, I am excited about the season premiere.  While it is completely abnormal to, say, dream that you are a cast member of the show (who may or may not be Evangeline Lilly) and that you are trying to get back to the Island via military plane leaving from Alaska-slash-Miami (apparently my dream-world has not seen the script for the finale)(or an episode, for that matter)(or a map) — it is completely understandable that this dream would poke its way into my head on LOST Eve.  Especially after watching the brain-melting minute-long teaser-trailer a couple times in slow motion² to catch all the sneak-peaks into what’s to come.  

Lest you think I’m merely jumping up and down as if I’ve just been surprised with a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas³, I should mention that while I have zero focus right now, I am nonetheless completely inspired to work on my novel.  In sort of the same way I’ve been inspired by J.K. Rowling, I feel inspired by the writers of LOST.  

Seriously.  To write a show where, six seasons in, loads of people still care about your characters?  Your mysteries?  Where people feel simultaneous hatred and compassion for your villain(s), simultaneous empathy and frustration with your heroes?  Where people can read a zillion things into what you’ve written because you’ve managed to share just enough to raise questions about religion, literature, and mythology?  Where you write on two levels — one for the casual (though necessarily consistent) viewer, who just wants a story; and one for the engaged viewer who loves to unscramble anagrams, look for symbolism, pick out hidden easter egg clues, read into the very purposeful placement of details?  Where people dare to get this worked up over a season premiere, in full confidence that you’ll deliver because you deliver every single time?

Can you imagine writing, and executing, a story like this?  Can you imagine ideas coming from your brain and resulting with people who wish each other “Happy LOST Day!” in Starbucks, people who rearrange piano lessons, a  President who agreed to not conflict with what you’ve created?  

I can’t really imagine what that must feel like, to be honest.  

I’m consistently amazed by the process of creation, especially when that creation is executed in such a compelling way.  This is at the heart of why I love to write: to watch things form, to hope that the details will fall in such a way that inspire any inkling of resemblance to this sort of thought-provoking stuff.

Now, to try and get some work done before descending into the inevitable pit of party preparation: that’s my challenge for today.

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Revision Update, Phase One | 134 pages down, 201 to go | 40.0% finished!

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¹We obsessed freaks, by the way, prefer to be called devoted, completely intrigued fans.

²What?  It had new footage.  Very weird new footage.  Plus, it played in the middle of The Bachelor, which I have zero interest in whatsoever (except for the fact that Mr. Jake Pavelka Bachelor himself grew up, literally, about two minutes from where I currently live.  His parents live next door to my friend.) so I was easily distracted.  And it was about one in the morning.

³Which actually happened, by the way — my husband’s work surprised us with an all-expense-paid Disney Cruise that we get to take later this year.  Hello, bathing suits, beaches, sun, and ocean (and the gym!)!

Prolific Blogger Award

After a relaxing (read: lazy) Sunday spent in the cozy comfort of my living room reading Jen Lancaster’s Bright Lights, Big Ass; after selecting a celebrity photo for doppelganger week on Facebook¹; after watching The Matrix (for the first time ever) — I checked my blog and found the sweetest little thing waiting for me!

Laura Best, author of Bitter, Sweet, is one of the first blog-friends I met when I started this blog way back when.  She’s always über-encouraging, and it’s been amazing to watch her go from revising her almost-published novel to someone who does book signings and receives free hot chocolate from fans.  Anyway, she received a Prolific Blogger Award and has passed it on to me, along with six other awesome bloggers (including three blogs I frequent — Jennifer Neri, Linda Cassidy Lewis, and NewToWritingGirl).  Thank you for your sweet words, Laura!  This was a fun surprise.

Soooo…you guys know what that means, right? 

I love surprises, especially when I get to be the one doing the surprising.  Part of the Prolific Blogger Award means the recipient gets to pass it on.  I really like the idea of this, because I love being a little match-maker; it’s fun introducing friends who may not know each other.  So — make your little Owl and Sparrow friend happy, and check out the blogs mentioned earlier, as well as the ones I list here.  Hopefully, they’ll be as inspiring to you as they are to me.

In no particular order, here are the seven recipients I’ve chosen:

Melissa @ Blame the Weatherman 

Megs Payne @ Scattered Bits

Merrilee Faber @ Not Enough Words

J. C. Hart 

Cynthia Newberry Martin

Christine Fonseca

Alexis Grant

And…with that, I will now be retreating back to reading Jen Lancaster, protecting my water glass from Dexter the Kitty (who seems to think drinking my water while getting his head stuck is a consistently fine idea), and wondering what the heck is going to happen on the season premier of Lost this Tuesday night.  If, somehow, you happen to know?  Do not spoil it for me because  I WILL jump through this computer and go all Smoke Monster (circa the episode where it destroys Keamy and his posse of freighter-bullies) on you.

Oh, yeah, and if you’re a recipient of the award, read footnote #3.

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¹Evangeline Lilly from Lost, in case you’re curious.²

²Wishful thinking.

³Prolific Blogger Award Rules | ONE: Every winner is expected to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. | TWO: Each Prolific Blogger is asked to link to the blog from which he/she has received this award. | THREE: Every Prolific Blogger is asked to link back to this post, which explains the origins of the award. | FOUR: Every Prolific Blogger is asked to visit the post listed in rule #3 and add his/her name to the “Mr. Linky” at the bottom.

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111.43% | (The End)

Why didn’t anyone tell me that reaching the end of this draft would feel like winning the lottery, or meeting the entire cast of Lost, or finding out that Starbucks would like to give me free lattes for the rest of my life?

Or, that finishing a second draft (also known as a complete rewrite) would feel utterly satisfying, but in a drastically different way than finishing the first draft did?

Or, that knitting a zillion strands of gossamer spiderweb, without leaving loose ends, would be as rewarding as it was challenging?

Or, that by the end of the novel, when you’ve basically just been this diligent stenographer spying on the lives of your characters for months, watching them struggle and conquer and feel, they peek at you through that fourth wall, satisfied with you for being patient enough to see them through to the last page and tuck them in for sleep?

This is how I feel. 

Months of patient plotting and planning and crafting did not prepare me for the satisfaction I felt when I typed word number 78,000 yesterday.  That’s a full 8,000 words past my original goal (hence the title of this post, as 78K is 111.43% of that goal), and I’m more than pleased.  This way, the manuscript can gain or lose a few thousand in edits and still be a good length.  

Because this post will turn into a jumble of randomness if I don’t structure it somehow…

…here are some things I learned along the way.

1) Goals are Good.  Seriously good.  Diligent December was a raving success, as I wrote 26,290 words this month.  Though I didn’t get to write every day, I tried.  When I did get to write, I made the most of it.

2) I Can Write More Words/Day Than I Thought I Could.  I wrote 26,290 words this month, with only eleven days of actual writing.  That’s an average of 2,390/day.  Turns out 1,500 words every single day is hard for me, but 2,300 every other day works well for me.  Weird.

3) I Like Writing By Hand.  With the exception of the last chapter, I wrote everything in December by hand, and then typed it up as I went.  That means I drained at least two pens of their poison and filled two Moleskine notebooks.  (One was fuschia, and the other was lime green.)  This helped me feel more attached to my characters and their stories, possibly because I felt like I was journaling about my own life.  Also, it was easier not to dwell on how many words I’d written without a running total at the bottom of my screen, and it was easier to remain focused without the Internet at my fingertips.

4) It’s Important To Feel.  Without feeling, words are dead.  Without closing my eyes and trying to experience what the character is feeling, or think how she’s thinking, it’s hard to get into a scene.  Conversely, it’s amazing to get wrapped up in the emotion of it all.  The word visceral comes to mind.

5) Therefore, It’s Important Not To Rush.  The last day I posted (22 Dec 09), I was so incredibly tempted to FINISH, since I was only 2100 words away from my goal (even though I’d already written 3600 words that day).  I made the decision to wait, to not rush the climax.  It was a good one.  Monday rolled around, and unlike most first-days-back-from-long-vacations, it was a Monday of Awesomeness.  I wrote 3450 that day, putting my heart on the page, but it still wasn’t done.  Same story with Tuesday; several hours and 3834 words into that day, I was so ready to be done, but again, I didn’t want to rush the end.  Wednesday came around: 2810 words later, with heart and soul and time put into it, I reached the end.  I’m glad I ended up with 10,000 extra words of quality conflict and resolution, rather than 2,000 words of crammed, subpar, just-to-say-I-made-my-deadline-and-I-really-want-to-finish crap.

6) Enjoy the Process.  It’s been over a year since I started working on this novel, and I’ve still got several months of edits ahead of me.  I’ve loved every single challenging minute of the process so far, and I think that’s an imperative part of being an aspiring author.  I love learning how to do this, learning how to be diligent, learning how to use so many different parts of myself to their maximum potential.  Being a writer, you have to create, think, feel, communicate, organize, prioritize, observe; you have to be ruthless, passionate, subtle, patient, economical, and honest.  I’ve used so much more of myself than I ever have in any single paid job I’ve ever had.  Ever.

7) Alone ≠ Good.  Though writing is a solitary act, usually (for me, always), having people in your life is imperative to being healthy, happy, and productive.  I’d still smell like coffee grounds and spilled milk, and my manuscript may or may not stink just as bad, if my amazing husband hadn’t been so supportive and encouraging with my desire to write. (Thanks, Love!) Also, I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to connect with such a rich group of supportive blog friends, and that you’ve pushed me, encouraged me, and held me accountable to do what I set out to do.  Thank you, too.

8 ) Enjoy It, Then Keep Working.  One thing my workouts and my writing goals have in common is this: I get to a point where I start getting excited about what I’ve accomplished — doing yoga, running a mile, saying no to cheesecake, meeting whatever writing goal it is that I’ve set — and then, somehow, I get comfortable.  My workouts slip…and I eat cherry pie…and have whipped cream on my mochas…and then it’s back to square one.  Treadmill time.  

I’m determined to avoid this with my novel, so here’s the plan: I’m taking two weeks (until January 18, the Monday after my birthday) away from my it, and then it’s time for a read-through.  In these two weeks, I will rest and relax but also continue on with being diligent, in areas such as (much-neglected) organizing of closets and storage bins and stuff like that.  I plan to catch up on everyone’s blogs, though (I’ve gotten so behind, but I’m really really excited to see what you guys have been up to!), and finally finish reading The Time Traveler’s Wife (How, oh how, did I manage to keep that thing on the table and not get utterly lost in it this month?).

Sorry for the week I’ve been absent, by the way.  Thank you to all of you who’ve been patient and stopped by in the meantime.  Guess all those blogs I haven’t written in a week were just dying to get out, and spilled themselves into this one, very huge, post.

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone — be safe and have fun!

Nothing Like Relaxation

Just wanted to drop a quick note to all of you to say I’m surviving, thriving, and taking a break from all Diligence this weekend.  My sweet husband booked us a weekend in a fun hotel to celebrate no-more-grad-school-(for a month)-and-happy-almost-Christmasness.  So…that’s what we’re doing!  

With less than 8,000 words to my goal, and the gravity with which the end of my novel keeps sucking me in, taking a break for the weekend seems to be an alright decision.  Never fear, though – Monday and Tuesday, I plan to dig deep, sit long, and write until my hand falls off.  Then I’ll put it back on, drink another latte, and keep going.  

I miss you all, which is why I wanted to drop you a quick line.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to squeeze in one or two more posts before we leave for Christmas.

Take care, all, and I’ll see you again soon!

♦

Diligent December Update: 62,214 down | 7,886 to go | 88.73% finished!

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PS: To clarify, it’s my sweet husband who is in grad school.  Just in case you thought I’d left out a sort of major detail of my life.

15 Dec 09 | Diligent December Update

Between receiving LOST: Season Five from the blessed UPS lady’s hands and the fact that I wrote almost 3,000 words today (2,915 to be exact), this Tuesday has rocked pretty hard.  

After a stellar Friday, the weekend was, in a word, bleak.  Okay, I exaggerate.  The weekend itself was pretty good; only the word count was bleak.  Three days of zero words in a row?  Not pretty.  At all.  Unless you’re particularly fond of zeroes, and also fond of no progress made whatsoever.

But!  This morning, I woke up with determination, I woke up with zeal, I woke up with…well, you get the picture.  I woke up.  In haste, I tied my unruly curls behind my head, threw on some clothes, purchased my latte (With a gift card!  Bonus!), and returned home to settle in for some serious work.

I accomplished way more than expected in the most unusual of settings: I sat in semi-darkness on my couch, beside our so-not-yet-decorated-it-isn’t-even-funny Christmas tree¹, with a lap desk, a pen, and an almost-full lime green Moleskine notebook.  To answer the question you didn’t ask, why, yes!  I am still writing by hand, still loving it.

Speaking of writing by hand, here’s something fun…I ran across these last time we went for a visit at my parents’ house.  Twenty years of writing, and it all began with this.  Take a look at the ridiculous stuff my six-year-old, second-grade self created (complete with some unique illustrations)(click to enlarge):

“The scariest monster I ever saw was Frankenstein.  He had fourteen eyes!  He had a pumpkin head.  It was black, purple, green, pink, and orange!  He had a screw in his neck.  His clothes were black.  And he had slime hair!  And he lived in a mummy case!  He flew a nasty old kite.  He had twenty feet!  And forty arms!  The End…(His Kite)” – October 25, 1989

– and –

“‘A Halloween Ghost’ – There was a ghost that lived in a haunted house.  His name was Kooky!  He kooked alott [sic].  And he scared peppole [sic] too.  He wasn’t terrible.  He was silly.  The End.” – October 18, 1989

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Diligent December Update: 59,744 down | 10,256 to go | 85.35% done!

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¹Perhaps I should make the Christmas tree its own post altogether.  Long story short, we are trying to train certain feline cohabitants that the tree is not, in fact, their new cat food, nor is it a bed.

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Scarves, Shoes, and Other Good News

  After a lackluster start to this week, I must say, it’s ending on a high note.  And, might I add, not one of those wow-that-is-such-a-high-note-that-it’s-gonna-crack-the-glass sort of high notes.  The good kind.

Aside from the excitement I feel about the new things pictured here — this pair of on-sale Nine West cuteness, a dangly-yet-simple-and-classy gold(ish) necklace, and a scarf I crocheted in my most favorite color — there is a whole blizzard of cool things going on.  For one, I get to wear all this stuff this weekend, to a wedding.  Another?  The bride opted to pay me on the high end of my price range for playing the piano for her ceremony — a timely bonus.  Yet another?  My completely incredible husband, who works so hard, all day every day, has finally been rewarded for his integrity.  His bosses gave him a stellar review along with a 12% salary increase.  Also timely.

Still more good news: Diligent December is finally, um, diligent.  In the past two days, I’ve nearly caught up to where I should be, despite not writing a word for three out of the past eight days.  Not only is my word count up, but I’m feeling involved in the emotional aspects of the story, enrapt, and am confident that the quality is there, too.  The scenes I wrote this morning were intense, emotional, important.  They’re the beginning of what I’ve been building up to this entire time.  Just as I was completely satisfied with the Glee winter finale, it’s nice to see loose ends begin to wrap up, lies get exposed, drama unfold.  Consequences.  

On top of all that, it is cloudy and cold and I love it.

In honor of the Glee finale, and in hopes that December stays awesome, here’s a link to a fantastic rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” as performed by Lea Michele in this week’s episode.  So.  Very.  Good.

Thanks for all your support in this process, you guys.  I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am to have connected with you all.  

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Diligent December Update: 56,829 down | 13,171 to go | 81.18% finished!

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