NaNoWriMo 2014 Winner

NaNoWriMo Winner 2014

This is my fourth consecutive win. It sort of feels a little less-satisfying that the others. For one thing, I’m writing something that’s intensely personal, so I kind of felt pretty drained by it. Also, there was a lot of research involved because it’s historical fiction, so even when I wasn’t writing, the topic was all-consuming of my time. I have a bibliography with 20+ titles on it, and links to hundreds of websites. I have a web folder full of images, maps, and two different pinterest pages, one for the novel and one for one of the main characters.

Another reason I feel drained is because it isn’t done – and I have two other unfinished novels that I haven’t been able to get past the 75% mark. This novel I plotted out far more than the others, and I feel like it has a better chance of having some resonance, but the last two days of writing were excruciating and involved me basically throwing junk on the page. I’m so far off my outline it isn’t even funny, and I definitely need to regroup.

NaNoWriMo is great for getting a ton written in a short amount of time and staying motivated. It’s terrible for causing burnout. And all my efforts to pick up the threads and try to finish at a less punishing pace in the months that follow NaNoWriMo have fallen into failure in the past.

I’m committed to changing that scenario this year and getting the book to something readable to others. But I also need to take the month to do some reading as well.

So basically, I’m optimistic, but dazed. Which is probably normal for me, right?

The running tally of my word count this year. Compared to last year, I was far behind most of the time, rather than ahead. I didn’t plan my resources properly and I let a lot of distractions in the door this year, which didn’t help.


1. 1,667 - 4218 (4218, +2551)
2. 3,334 - 1691 (5909, +2575)
3. 5,001 - 1060 (6969, +1968)
4. 6,668 - 1701 (8670, +2002)
5. 8,335 - 1051 (9721, +1386)
6. 10,002 - 126 (9847, -155)
7. 11,669 - 1031 (10878, -791)
8. 13,336 - 3922 (14800, +1464)
9. 15,003 - 1817 (16617, +1614)
10. 16,670 - 1762 (18358, +1688)
11. 18,337 - 0 (18358, +21)
12. 20,004 - 0 (18358, -1646)
13. 21,672 - 0 (18358, -3313)
14. 23,338 - 0 (18358, -4980)
15. 25,005 - 4720 (23078, -1927)
16. 26,672 - 3747 (26825, +153)
17. 28,339 - 1837 (28662, +323)
18. 30,006 - 638 (29300, -706)
19. 31,673 - 0 (29300, -2373)
20. 33,340 - 161 (29461, -3879)
21. 35,007 - 366 (29827, -5180)
22. 36,674 - 4782 (34586, -2088)
23. 38,341 - 2268 (36854, -1487)
24. 40,008 - 440 (37294, -2714)
25. 41,675 - 4656 (41950, +275)
26. 43,342 - 1734 (43684, +342)
27. 45,009 - 813 (44497, -512)
28. 46,676 - 23 (44520, -2156)
29. 48,343 - 2733 (47253, -1090)
30. 50,010 - 2747 (50179, +179)

Winner Winner, Turkey Dinner – 2013 NaNoWriMo Finish

50,119 Words, validated, means that I “win” National Novel Writing Month. I’m very grateful to Stephanie, who has been really supportive of me doing this, even though she’s had a lot of difficulties going on right now. We’re adjusting to her lengthy commute to her new job and a family illness, so it’s been a hard month, but she has been my cheerleader the whole time.

2013-winner

I still have a couple chapters to write, but I’m definitely closer to a finished product than I was in my last two winning attempts. And there is lots of editing to be done, in addition to finishing chapters. But I think this is the most satisfying win I’ve had of the three. This is one I think I might have a shot at getting published some day soon. It’s got some topical stuff in it, so if I want it to actually mean something, I have to get it done and try to get it out there.

2013-Winner-Twitter-Header

2013 Final Word Count

Victory

Good gravy do I have a lot of television piled up on the DVR to watch.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Wordcount, day 19

2013 NaNoWriMo Word Count, Day 18

I’m three fifths of the way through National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and still on track for word count. I wouldn’t say the last few days are works of genius or anything. Or even spelled correctly. But they are word strung together on a page in some sort of semi-coherent fashion. So there’s that. Week 2 sucked. I don’t have high hopes for week three. I think I can make word count, I just don’t know if it will be anything anyone will want to read.

It’s also quite possible that I’m just responding to the weather like a pavlovian pooch, so never mind the doldrums.

I’m at 30,175 words. 120 some pages. So, there you go.

Some other NaNoWriMo Thoughts

Trying to write 50,000 words in a month felt like holding my breath under water – everything else was suspended while I worked on writing. I basically ate, slept, went to work and wrote. I cut out television, most socializing and practically all other stuff that invades my day. Trying to keep the house clean, pay attention to twitter or running errands all those distractions went on the back burner. (Facebook was a must, though – because interacting with the NaNo Indy group was a lifeline to keep me going.)

It worked, largely because I removed a lot of barriers to focusing and getting in the zone to writing, and the forced deadline can work wonders.

Is that sustainable, though? Can I really zone out my friends, turn off the television and blow off the house all the time?

I wish there were a better way to balance. Because not writing is not an option, now.

Cutting out the television is pretty easy. Helping around the house, running errands and socializing are more difficult. I’m considering whether twitter really has much of a place in my life anymore.

I need to simplify things so I can both write and interact with my spouse and go to my job without becoming an ascetic.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this matter.

NaNoWriMo 2012 – Validated

So.. I won NaNoWriMo again this year.

NaNoWriMo Winner 2012

I finished three days early – with 50,058 words written this year added to what I wrote last year. Now I need to write the actual final chapters and not just scenes from the climactic ending, but hey – I’m a lot closer to a complete work than last year. Now it’s not a question of if I will ever self-publish, but when.

Last year at this time, I was reading over my novel, and I was really frustrated, because it seemed complete unrealistic. At about the half-way point of the story, I had one of my two main characters do something completely out of character for the way I had written about her up to that point. I did it because I couldn’t think of any other way to get her in the excruciating position she needed to be in so the villain could torment her and drive the rest of the plot. But that false note made all the rest of it seem really hard to believe. It just didn’t read right, and all the following events seemed flat and desperate, like a huge rationalization. I chewed on that for the whole rest of the year and didn’t know what to do. I loved the beginning and loved the characters, but I hated the middle and the end.

This year Garrett Hutson said something at the being of November about plot development along the lines of – “know where your characters are going to go, but to get them there, use a compass, not a map.” That set me thinking – okay, if that plot point seems out of character for my main character, what would she actually do instead? I threw out everything except the end where the characters needed to go, and started writing from just before that false note… and I realized if I changed the villain slightly, and added secondary villain who was working with and also at cross-purposes to the first one, I could get the MC into that excruciating position in a more real way, and then all the dominos started to fall one by one. Now I like the whole story from beginning to end. Even though I threw out 23,000 words I wrote last year and started over, this is a much better story, and one that makes me really happy to read throughout.

I’m in danger, though, of not keeping up with the story now. I hate that the 50,000 word mark was a finish line of sorts, because it’s not done at all, and I still need to keep writing it. It’s good, I think, and original, and interesting, so I need to actually push through and finish.

It was a huge accomplishment that I never thought I could do once, let alone twice. I need to make it work for real. If you could – cattle prod me, please? Bug me about it as much as possible so I don’t get complacent. This was cool, and something that was important to me to do, so I don’t want to let it slide.

NaNoWriMo 2012 – Day 9

8. 13,336 – 2750 (14497, +1161)

Those are my notations for Day 8 of National Novel Writing Month.

13,336 – that’s “par for the course” or the least word count for day 8 to stay on track to “win.”

2750 – the number of words I wrote yesterday.

14497 – total word count for November 2012. I have the chapters I wrote last year, but I’m not counting them in this years’ event. Some of those will get trashed and some considerably altered when I’m finished.

+1161 – the number of words I have as a “word count cushion” over the minimum to stay on course.

So I’m keeping up the pace pretty well. I’m poised to do more this weekend that I hope will really put me ahead. I have a pretty clear idea of where I’m going, too, but I’m trying to be flexible enough to make sure I can make changes. As our friend Garrett says – “Know where you’re going, but use a compass and not a road map.”

I have a much more fully formed notion of setting this year than last, which really helps me add detail to scenes and paint a more interesting visual picture than last year, and helped me add detail to the action as well. And I think I have a more complete and satisfying ending in mind that I did last year, with some nice turning points to get us there.

I’m very optimistic that I can get closer to complete by the end of November, and ready to polish. My goal is to have it ready to show my editor – that would be Stephanie – by February. I have one or two other people I want to get feedback from as well. And with editing and revisions based on feedback, I’d really like to have it ready for publication by the end of April. I’m going to use Book Tango to self-publish for e-publication, I think. I don’t have an agent lined up or anything, so I don’t anticipate being able to get the attention of a traditional publisher at first. We’ll see.

Nanowrimo Participant 2012

NaNoWriMo 2012

Yup, I’m going to do this again. I’m basically going to add 50,000 words to my novel from last year in hopes of finishing it. Wish me luck. I did it once; I can do it again. Of course last time I took a week off work to do it, and this time I’ve already used my vacation. But if other people can do it, so can I.

Nanowrimo Participant 2012

Indiana Romance Writers of America: Golden Opportunities Contest

From the Indiana chapter of Romance Writers of AmericaIndiana Golden Opportunity Contest.

We welcome you to help us celebrate the 22nd anniversary of Indiana’s Golden Opportunity (IGO), one of the Midwest’s premier contests. The Indiana chapter of Romance Writers of America® (IRWA) has a well-deserved reputation for offering detailed, encouraging comments to our contest entrants from experienced professionals. Our four-page score sheet is designed to help entrants identify the elements of storytelling at which they excel while pinpointing the elements that require more attention. This means entrants will receive feedback that will help them create a quality polished manuscript. Many past winners have successfully sold the manuscripts they entered in the IGO, and we like to think we played a part in that. The contest is also a great way to prepare your work for Golden Heart. IGO attracts some of the most well-respected names in the industry as category and final judges.

This is an interesting opportunity for me, especially given that I’ll hopefully have a much more complete manuscript at the end of June than I do currently for my NaNoWriMo book. I could potentially enter this.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Validated.

I’m validated at 50163 words.

Technically I’m “done” writing my National Novel Writing Month project. Except that I still need to write chapters 12-15 and chapters 2 and 5. But 50163 words makes it “finished” for the purposes of the contest. I’m a winner. I’ve written more than Slaughterhouse Five and The Great Gatsby. Not “better than” just “more than.” 🙂

Nano 2011 Winner

So here’s the general plan for the rest of this – I’m going to edit/write through December, but put together an outline for another story in that time, too. Then take January to write that story, and edit/rewrite more of this one in February. I hope to keep a daily word count every day, and I’ll track it the way I tracked the word count for this, so I can keep up a daily routine and not get off track.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Still chugging along.

I’m at 43,506 words. That’s 6,494 words away from “winning.” And I have 4 days. I think it’s a safe bet that I’ll get there, especially since I have all day tomorrow to work on it. I didn’t write at all on Thanksgiving Day, but I wrote in the car both to and from Iowa (not easy at all; it’s very distracting to try to write with cars whoosing by and the bumps in the pavement) and on Friday while everyone went out shopping.

Interesting to try to explain to family members what I was doing. My family is not always supportive of creative endeavors unless they’re attached to work or school requirements, so… yeah. I basically explained it as “I’m in a contest to write a novel in a month, and I’m close to winning, so…” because if you’re trying to win a contest, that’s okay. If you just writing a novel for the sake of writing – a bit on the loony tunes side.

And of course, everyone wanted to know what it was about, and yeah… haven’t even shared that with Stephanie, yet. Too afraid it sucks ass. Actually, I know it sucks ass, at least right now. Hopefully it will not suck ass in the future when I get a chance to re-write it and remove the suck from it, replacing it with less-than-suck, or possibly even with pretty-damn-good if I can figure out where to get that. Chances are you will never get to see this novel. I’m sorry about that. I make no guarantees. I’ll do my best, I promise.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

NaNoWriMo 2011 – Still on target

My word count is now 35,521 words. Not quite beating out Ole Yeller on the “famous books word count list.” I’m under par by 1,153 words, but I should have time to get caught up (and hopefully ahead) tomorrow on the road to Iowa for the family Thanksgiving. Stephanie is driving, and I’m planning on writing in the car on a lap desk that I’ve used to write in bed several times. It should work fine. If not, I’ll come up with a new plan. I have 14,479 words left to write, and 9 days left to write them. If I keep averaging as many words as I have, I’ll pass the finish line on time. I’ll have the basics of the plot built, with lots of back story and character development to return and add in during December and January. The whole thing should be well above 50,000 words when I finish.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

Word Count for Famous Novels (organized)

[Also published on my blog commonplacebook.com]

Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Based on this list compiled by Nicole Humphrey Cook. (Thanks Nicole, and sorry for stealing; I wanted to see the list in order.) For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Also, here’s another list I may swipe and add in here.

Harry Potter Books
Philosopher’s Stone – 77,325
Chamber of Secrets – 84,799
Prisoner of Azkaban – 106,821
Goblet of Fire – 190,858
Order of the Phoenix – 257,154
Half Blood Prince – 169,441
Deathly Hallows – 198,227

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit – 95,022
The Lord of the Rings – 455,125
The Two Towers – 143,436
The Return of the King – 134,462

Other Famous Books
22,416 – The Mouse and the Motorcycle – Beverly Cleary
30,644 – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
35,968 – Old Yeller – Fred Gipson
36,363 – Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
42,715 – The Tequila Worm – Canales, Viola
46,118 – Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
47,094 – The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
47,180 – The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane
48,523 – The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton
49,459 – Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
50,000 =========== NaNoWriMo Winners
54,243 – The Hours – Cunningham, Michael
56,695 – As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
56,787 – A Separate Peace – John Knowles
58,428 – The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
59,635 – Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
59,900 – Lord of the Flies – William Golding
60,082 – The Dew Breaker – Danticat, Edwidge
61,922 – All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Remarque
63,422 – Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
63,604 – The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
63,766 – Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
64,768 – The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
66,556 – The Color Purple – Alice Walker
66,950 – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
67,203 – The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
67,606 – Ironweed – Kennedy, William
67,707 – The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
68,410 – Drinking Coffee Elsewhere – Packer, ZZ
69,066 – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
70,957 – Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston
72,071 – White Fang – Jack London
73,404 – The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
77,325 – Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling
78,462 – The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
80,398 – The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
82,143 – The Dark Is Rising – Cooper, Susan
82,370 – The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
82,762 – Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
83,774 – Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
84,799 – Chamber of Secrets – JK Rowling
84,845 – Gilead – Robinson, Marilynne
85,199 – The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
87,846 – Pere Goriot – Honore de Balzac
87,978 – Persuasion – Jane Austen
88,942 – Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
89,297 – Waiting – Jin, Ha
91,419 – Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
92,400 – Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
95,022 – The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
97,364 – Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery
99,121 – To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
99,277 – All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
99,560 – Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut
100,388 – To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee (count confirmed)
100,609 – Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
103,090 – A Distant Shore – Phillips, Caryl
106,821 – Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
107,349 – Gullivers Travels – Jonathan Swift
107,945 – Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
109,571 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
112,737 – McTeague – Frank Norris
112,815 – The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
114,634 – Walden – Henry David Thoreau
114,779 – The Tenth Circle – Jodi Picoult
119,394 – Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
119,529 – My Sisters Keeper – Jodi Picoult
123,378 – Atonement – Ian McEwan
127,776 – Life on the Mississippi – Mark Twain
128,886 – The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
130,460 – War Trash – Jin, Ha
134,462 – The Return of the King – J. R. R. Tolkien
134,710 – Schindler’s List – Thomas Keneally
135,420 – A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
138,087 – Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
138,098 – Snow Falling on Cedars – Guterson, David
138,138 – 20000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
143,436 – The Two Towers – J. R. R. Tolkien
144,523 – One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
145,092 – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
145,265 – Cold Sassy Tree – Olive Ann Burns
145,469 – Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
155,887 – Emma – Jane Austen
155,960 – Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
156,154 – Watership Down – Richard Adams
157,665 – Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
159,276 – The Kitchen God’s Wife – Amy Tan
161,511 – Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier
166,622 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
169,389 – White Teeth – Zadie Smith
169,441 – Half Blood Prince – JK Rowling
169,481 – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinback
174,269 – Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
177,227 – The Fellowship of the Ring – J. R. R. Tolkien
177,679 – The Poisonwood Bible – Kingsolver, Barbara
183,349 – Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
183,833 – Little Women (Books 1&2) – Louisa May Alcott
183,858 – Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
186,418 – Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
190,858 – Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
196,774 – The Corrections – Franzen, Jonathan
197,517 – Stones from the River – Hegi, Ursula
198,227 – Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
198,901 – A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
206,052 – Moby Dick – Herman Melville
208,773 – Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
211,591 – Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
216,020 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay – Chabon, Michael
225,395 – East of Eden – John Steinbeck
236,061 – A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
257,154 – Order of the Phoenix – JK Rowling
260,742 – Cloudsplitter – Banks, Russell
311,596 – The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
316,059 – Middlemarch – George Eliot
349,736 – Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
364,153 – The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
365,712 – Lonesome Dove – McMurtry, Larry
418,053 – Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
455,125 – The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
561,996 – Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
587,287 – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
591,554 – A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

NaNoWriMo 2011 – Still in the game

I’m at 28,932 words – above par for the first time since the first week. (Par for day 17 is 28,339.) Around 115 pages. Parts of this story are poor, parts of it make me really happy and there are large chunks that need to be better researched. I know what the end will be but I’m still working out how to arrive there.

But just getting this far makes me pretty giddy. This is definitely more than I thought I could achieve.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

NaNoWriMo 2011 – Still Cautiously Optimistic

It is NaNoWriMo 2011 Day 13, par for yesterday’s work (Day 12) should have been 20,004 words/80 pages. Mine was 17,234 words – about 68 pages. I’m 2770 words behind par, which isn’t too bad.

This is definitely more than I have ever written before in a single sustained effort on any single subject, so I’m proud of myself for getting this far. Some of what I’ve written is really pretty bad. Some of it is pretty good. And I can see that some of it, when I get to the editing phase in December and January, could be really good. And I’m entertaining myself with the story at least.

I’m hoping that at worst I can finish this up, get it cleaned up, and self-publish it. Probably under a pseudonym, to tell you the truth. But I still have a long way to go and there are many potential pitfalls, so I’m not counting chickens yet. I have some vague hope about some chickens, though.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

Personal Truth

I’ve posted this quote before, but it came up in conversation recently, and I was struck again by how very beautiful it is.

May Sarton, from Journal of a Solitude:

“My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing. Life–all of it–flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art. How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point, I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and artist, we have to know all we can about one another, and we have to be willing to go naked.”

NaNoWriMo 2011 – very tentative outline

I spent some time yesterday trying to work out how my story is going to go, and came up with some potential chapter titles. Which, looking at them now seem completely over the top and fraught with the possibility of failure, but what the hell. I may as well look stupid. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The Journey – a very dumb working title. This will be the last thing I figure out, probably.

Act I
0) The Kraken
1) Siège Perilous
2) Melusina
3) Daughters of Nyx
4) The Dolorous Stroke
5) Walpurgis Night
Act II
6) Clotho
7) Lachesis
8) Atropos
9) Praxinoscope (Proust’s Lantern)
10) The Blizzard Dream and the Brocken spectre
11) Melusina
Act III
12) The Sangreal
13) amor fati
14) the Wasteland 
15) Thumos

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

NaNoWriMo 2011 – Outlook: Cautiously Optimistic

I didn’t say anything about joining National Novel Writing Month this year because I haven’t gotten very far with this in the past, and I’ve learned talking about stuff tends to kill projects before they get off the ground. I’m doing much better this year, though, and I’ve managed to keep my word count up four whole days in a row. And I’m realizing that I can indeed actually write 1,667 words per day, if I hit upon the right thing to say. This is not unpossible. My word count right now is 7095 out of a par of 6668 for day 4. (50,000 words in 30 days being the criteria for “winning.”) Not as great as some of the folks in the Indianapolis Facebook group, but definitely a solid effort.

What I’ve written so far is pretty terrible, but I can see where it could be good later, maybe, when I revise. Which will be after November. First drafts, first… editing later. Right now, it’s all about getting words on the page. Which I can do, it seems. So…

NaNoWriMo 2011 Participant

And I’ve notice an insane new trend in my writing – lots of ellipses all over the place. I like to imply things. I probably do this all the time without noticing it, but it’s really jumped out at me. Ah well; no editing under after November. Thems the rules.

December? Oh my.

Wow – time to wrap up the year, and I’m utterly at loose ends with various projects. I’ve been working steadily on knitting projects, and organizing the house, two areas where we’ve made some pretty big gains. We’re steadily getting through the mounds of papers that need to be filed or thrown out, with the help of our organization lady. The room is becoming what we want it to be – a guest room where people can visit from out of town, and a crafting room where we can sit and work on craft projects. Don’t get me wrong – it still needs LOTS of work – there are still tons of boxes to go through and purge, and we’re in danger of acquiring new crap to replace all the old, but it’s starting to look more like what it should look like.

The knitting is fun and very relaxing. I’m concerned though, about what I really want to do with it. It’s enjoyable to make things for people, but it’s not exactly a lever that will move the world.

We’ve spend all the weekends of November bagging leaves for the most part (we really grabbed a lot of time back by paying someone to pick them up last year!) which is really satisfying, until the next round of them fall off the trees. We currently need to redo the backyard. I’m completely frustrated by how much time and energy this takes, and we don’t even have that many trees; they’re mostly from the neighbors.

I’ve lost complete track of what I’ve read and am woefully behind on photo editing.

I attempted a brief stint at NaNoWriMo but gave up after a few days. That seems to happen at the utterly wrong time of year for me. Why don’t they do it in March? Except that’s about the time I’m driving hard to get a painting project done somewhere in the house though; last year in March I was painting the staircase room I’m in now. But the writing – it’s so hard to do, and my life is too chaotic to achieve it, I think.

And web projects. Boy oh boy. I’ve been neglecting this blog, and my photoblog, and several other domains to remain nameless.

I think I need to make different use of my time at times. I’m frustrated with how little time I have to accomplish things I think are important, and how much time we spend doing stuff that doesn’t move us forward. I’m frustrated by the sheer number of projects we have that remain unfinished, as well.

November is National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing MonthThis year, for National Novel Writing Month – I have a plan! I’m going to do something really innovative — I’m going to spend the month of November…

… building a website for my friend Chi.
Yes! I know, it’s not a novel. However…

1. I actually know how to build websites (unlike novels, which I seem to be unable to achieve).

B. I promised her I’d do it months ago.

3. It will be fun, and not stressful, like trying to write a novel was.

D. Chi is an actual published writer, so, it’s LIKE I’m getting some writing done, because I’ll be helping her.

So, that’s my grand plan for National Novel Writing month – to once again NOT get a novel written, only this time with less stress and some actual pretty, creative stuff to show for it at the end of the month.

Think it will work? I hope so.