Checking in.

Sorry I haven't been around; again, I am super busy trying to write about 4,000 words a day to catch up on my NaNoWriMo project. It comes in fits and starts, but I am still trying to get the requisite amount of words in a day, so needless to say there is a bit of stringing along/fluff that will probably be heavily edited in the next draft. But on I go. Anyway, I had better get going since I still have most of today's writing to do.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Rolling along.

So, because I am pretty much writing my brains out on my Nano project, I will pretty much just be coming in here a couple times a week to reaffirm that I am surviving. Sorry about that. On a good note, I figured out the other day that if I wrote 4,000 words a day for the final ten days of the challenge, I will come through with some words to spare. The last two days I have met my goal, so hurrah!

In other news, when I ask my son where one of his toys is, he will find it and say "There it is!" He will also say "there you go," when I ask him to give me something. So cute.

I'm alive.

Just writing (or trying to) my NaNoWriMo project. I'm giving in to useless distractions in the name of "thinking" way too often. It makes me sad that I've been up till midnight the last few nights and haven't gotten more written. My husband looked at me a few hours ago and said, "You know you're not going to get that done this month, right?" It's sad but probably true...my basic hope would just be that this would kick my butt and guilt me into writing more of what I had in my head. It has done that. But I do want to get at LEAST halfway to the 50,000 word goal by month's end...I guess we'll see how I can do. I just need to focus.

Also, because of my crazy writing focus, I'll probably just put the poetry challenge and analysis on hiatus until the end of the month. Sorry about that, but I really don't have time to maintain both. I may not post as often either, but I'll try for a few times a week.

Word Count: 7,418/50,000

Writing is hard.

I took a few hours this evening to try and make a dent in my ridiculous NaNoWriMo goal. When you take on the challenge, you're supposed to write 50,000 words by the end of the month of November. Given that I started nine days late, I am already at a bit of a disadvantage. But I am struggling now with how to give coherent form to my "bag of ideas" that I started with. I had a main character with a big idea for him, and a bunch of ideas for incidental characters, but no way to really unite them all. So, I am starting to wing stuff here and there. It's a bit like taking a leap off of a cliff. I'm afraid I'll end up crumpled in a heap somewhere, so my brain starts to try to freeze instead of letting things flow. Plus every little thing starts to distract you. You know, like when you get an assignment for school and you try to find all kinds of things to get out of doing it. Oh, the irony! I'm doing this because I want to, yet I'm procrastinating when I'm already behind?? Ugh. I am going to try and work more on it during the day starting tomorrow. I'm afraid my blog will have to come second for the rest of the month; I am not doing haiku news today to attempt to get enough sleep tonight, and I'm postponing the poem analysis until at least next week. Sorry, folks!!

Word Count: 5,123/50,000 (1/10th of the way!!)

Veterans' Day.

Thanks to social networking, I was reminded today that my college choir invites former members back to visit today. I wish I lived nearer my alma mater so I could have participated. As it is, I hope my old choir buddies had fun catching up.

I was struck this morning after getting the boy dressed that his shirt seemed awfully tight. It was one I hadn't put him in before, and it seemed like the sleeves were terribly short as well. When I checked the label, it was a 6 month size shirt!! I can't believe I got it over his (rather large) head. He currently wears 2Ts, so that was pretty funny. I'm glad he accepted it, since I needed to do his laundry and he had no other clean shirts.

Full disclosure: I have yet to write anything for my novel today, so I will leave my update of it until tomorrow when hopefully I'll have more to show for it.

Haiku News

Wearing fake medals

is not only in poor taste,

also illegal.

Quick thinking by teen

saved him from a death sentence

when set on fire.

Mike Tyson detained

at airport after scuffle

with photographer.

My birthday.

As much as I am grateful to have another birthday (it is better than the alternative!), I think it is much more fun when they fall on weekends, particularly when my husband has to work. At least the boy was charming and wonderful all day, and even took an extra-long nap to give me more time to play in the afternoon. I had some really yummy hot chocolate from the bakery on the corner and ordered in breakfast for dinner. I'll have my birthday-red velvet cupcake in a little while. The hubby has more plans this weekend, when his family will come to town to babysit.

I happened to be perusing my former poetry professor's blog earlier today and thought you all would enjoy this poem on poetry that he wrote. I got a kick out of it.

I appreciate Cicely's efforts in a five-part haiku invective against fall, despite my disagreement with it; you can read her work here. I did receive a request to extend the deadline for this challenge, however, and because of that (and because I'll be grateful for the extra time with which to continue writing my novel), I will extend last week's challenge for another week. You can read my five-part poem and get the link for the project details here.

Word count: 3,397/50,000

Haiku News

Surprising: Brazil

coed causes quite a stir

with a short red dress.

Halderman's lawyer

seeks to dismiss his charges;

two months till judge rules.

Embarrassment.

So, I can't believe I almost forgot again. The month of November, at least for the last few years, is known to nerdy parts of the blogosphere as "NaNoWriMo," or National Novel Writing Month. There is a whole website devoted to the challenge of trying to write a 175 page (roughly 50,000-word) novel in that 30 day period. They focus more on quantity than quality to produce such volume in such a short time, but that practice can get a writer out of the vicious cycle of write a couple pages, then tweak and pick at them forever (or, as I have done, ignore them while percolating ideas in my head). I think I'm going to do something crazy here and try to complete it this month, not waiting for next year. I mean, if I have my way, I will have two children by this time next year, and one will be very small, noisy and demanding at this point, so I really had better get cracking before that if I want to have a real chance at it. Right? Is anyone going to do this with me? They even have sections for ideas if you don't have a plot! Seriously, check it out, especially if you've ever wanted to write a novel but just didn't have the motivation/self-confidence/etc. To keep myself accountable I will keep a running tally of my page count at the bottom of my blog each day so people can see my (hopefully not lack of) progress.

Also, if no one ventures to try the five-part poem that I did last week for Poetry Challenge, I will extend it by one week. I think it is too valuable an exercise to abandon, so please, someone, try it out. I promise it's fun!! Check my finished product out, as well, if you have a chance.

Word count: 2,301/50,000

Haiku News

We can all learn from

residents of Charlotte Street:

slum became a home.

I would like to know

just what Hasan will say when

asked why he went nuts.