all right, since the end of victorious November:

moved into the new house! (i’ll post pictures of that later.)

completed my NaNo draft at 67K words.

cut the draft to shreds and applied it to my office wall in a unique wallpapering method called “Times Roman and Scotch Tape” so i could pick out my themes of love and hate.  i renamed every word “REWRITE”.  (this is about a quarter of it.)

outlined a cohesive plot.

watched my Titan Husband shovel the driveway for over fourteen hours in three days, during DC’s record snowfall of 30+ inches since 1922, to clear an access so i could go to the hospital to have my baby.  another storm-watch is scheduled for later this week.

isn’t it beautiful?

now waiting for baby, night after wishful night propped up on the couch.  he has fallen oh-so-low and will come at any time (watch it be another two weeks).  my creativity is struggling–i want to get as much writing done as possible before he comes but i’m so tired.  i didn’t even touch the driveway.

Ember, my sun conure, stuffs her head in the glass as I sip my water.  What can I do but enjoy her enthusiasm for bath time?

50595 words.

I still have a ways to go: scenes, bridges, back story, tweaks.  But I have way more than I did before the month started.  And it’s cake, now, to work it into my day.  That was my most important lesson–how to have a future.

Okay, maybe it was how to write a novel.  And still love it at the end.

My goal is to have a cohesive draft ready to edit by the end of December (since I have a few children and other items to add back into my life now that November is over).

40181 words.  freak, this is hard.  all the loose ends have to go somewhere and multiple plot lines still work and my mind won’t write out any of them.  creative, not logical, creative.  logical is for editing.  be creative.

30,962 words so far and chugging.  happily.

I’m ready to start this NaNo writing rumpus.  Fleshed out in not-too-deep detail is an outline for my paranormal/sci-fi, middle-grade mystery thriller.  Well, it thrills me.  I know characters, plot, technologies, settings, what to research and what to create.  I wrote an unrelated short story that pinged my third layer for this book into existence–the virtual reality bit, and I’m so excited to play with it.  I really can’t wait to get started.

Also, I thought I’d note that Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush is #7 on the New York Times bestseller list!  The book melts in your mouth, it’s true.  And Becca just plain rocks.

I just admired my fellow writer Pat Esden’s corkboard on her wall.  It’s bursting with pink and white plot notes in very specific places on her very specific timeline.

http://patesden.livejournal.com/61204.html

Not only am I envious of her ability to crank out book after book (they’re good–and look what she does to get them that way), I’m envious of her space.  It is entirely refreshing and… voyeuristic? to see inside another writer’s room–her desk, her walls, the outlines she has posted up.  She has a writer’s heaven.

I cannot wait to have my own room to clutter (or clean–hers is still clean).  With artwork, outlines, corkboards, rejection letters, file cabinets, clotheslines, book shelves, a heavy bag, maybe a hammock… whatever helps my worlds come true.  I’ll bury myself in my writer’s sarcophagus and haunt any who dare intrude my heaven.

Which currently looks like this:

Lots of windows to see out of.

Thanks, Patty, that was a lovely present.

Mary Kole of Andrea Brown is having a query contest for YA, MG and picture books.  The deadline is October 31st at witching hour.  Well, 11:59 pm.

www.nanowrimo.org

I didn’t think I could do this last year.  Time, right?  As in, none of it?  After everyone’s stories, I wish I’d considered it anyways.  So… enough thinking.

I’m signed up!!!