I'm Too Old for This NaNo

No excerpt for you!

Not because you haven't been good, mind you- I'm certain you've been lovely. But because I only managed to squeeze out about a thousand words tonight, and they are just embarrassing. Most likely because I'm in the World's Rottenest Mood. Or, I was. I'm still not in the best of moods, but I don't hate the entire world quite so much as I did a few hours ago.

I'm way ahead of the Commercialmas game this year- I've gotten almost everything that needs to be ordered, ordered, and I've almost finished the one hand-made item I'm making. So you'd think that I'd be nice and stress-free regarding the holidays.

Not so.

No, instead I've apparently pushed the stress up by a month. As I said to my mother in a falsely cheerful voice, "Stress early, stress often!" But really it's more like bitterness and irritability.

Last year we made most of our gifts- which stressed Nathan out to no end, so he stated that this year we would be purchasing our gifts (except for the one that I am making for the person-I-drew-from-the-hat). Which I did. And it was easy and convenient and blah blah blah- but it's put me in a horrible mood. I hate that we've spent so much money on gifts (especially for people that we're buying for out of that stupid holiday obligation bs business) and I hate how impersonal it feels.

Don't get me wrong- I don't mind spending money (even what might be considered "a lot of money") on a gift for a person if I know they will genuinely love and enjoy it, if I've picked it out because it is just the right thing for them. Hell, that's what money is for! But I hate spending it on a bunch of crap gifts that you have to buy because if you don't give them something then someone's feelings (not even theirs! someone else!) will get hurt or insulted or whatever, even tho' the recipient would be just as happy not getting a gift at all rather than having to pretend to like whatever crap thing you've picked up to save everyone face. And it can't look "cheap", oh no! Gods forbid. And then women end up with more stupid bath stuff and smelly candles than they know what to do with, and men get whatever the hell men get in that situation. (Ties?) So the whole thing just pisses me off. Can't we all just agree to let go of the obligation aspect? Argh.

I have a friend (two friends, actually- they are a lovely married couple and I miss them sooo much) who just eschews Christmas entirely. Today is one of those days where I would totally get on board with that. Ugh.

I was much happier with last year's gift-giving experience- except the part where it stressed Nathan out so badly. Nathan is much happier with this year's gift-giving experience- except the part where it is stressing me out so badly. We obviously need to find a nice blending of the two.

There are other things upping my Cranky Factor right now, but I don't really want to get into them on here. I don't feel it's far to subject you to more than one soap box at a time. More specifically, I don't feel it's far to make my mother read it all again after having heard me burst into tears over everything earlier today. Sorry mom.

I probably just need snuggling. Sometimes that's all anyone needs:

(Truce)

NaNoWriMo Returns!

(and so does that one guy)

I've broken the 45k wall, and if I push it I can probably finish before the week is up. We shall see.

I'm doing a bit of floundering with my writing right now. It's one of those days that makes me really glad that no one is seeing the vast majority of what I'm churning out. Needless to say, I'll have my work cut out for me when I finally start editing... although something tells me I'll also get a lot of pleasure from finally getting to correct all those things that are driving me crazy...

***

The light turned out to be sunlight reflecting off the bow of a small boat, and before it got close enough for her to make out his face, she knew him by his craft.

It was him, the silent, mourning stranger. Sera’s insides knotted up on themselves. For many months after he’d disappeared, she’d occasionally day-dream of his return, of him professing his love for her and them building a life together, as she helped to ease his pain and turned it to joy.

But of course she’d known it would never happen. Never never never. He was just a fleeting moment in her life. An important moment, to be certain, a moment she treasured even as it caused her pain- a moment she didn’t fully understand but didn’t really need to. But moments aren’t supposed to come back.

And yet there he was, jumping out of the boat, pulling it onto the shore, sunlight warm on his golden skin. She was torn between greeting him like an old friend and hiding away in shame. Why she should be ashamed, she did not know- but she felt it burning like a coal in her chest.

A NaNoWriMo to Remember (or... Not. At All.)

I am posting this from my phone on the drive home from P-ville. I am doing this in an attempt to be able to go to bed relatively soon after getting home. Woo!

We had another successful day of baking, and I'm so sick of cookies that the very idea of sugar makes me want to vomit. Sooo... mission accomplished? Survey says yes!

As for NaNoWriMo, I'm pretty sure today is going to bedome the second day I officially raise my word-count by a big fat ZERO. And I'm pretty okay with that, since I'm all ahead of the game- plus I will, theoretically, have plenty of time to work on it tomorrow. And also Wednesday.

Hmmm, I've officially run out of room on my phone screen, and can no longer see what the hell I'm writing. So maybe it's time to cut this cop-out post off at the knees. And maybe when I get home i'l add a link to Nathan's photo, which is an excellent November-y sort of shot.

man, I wonder how many tos are in what I just wrote...

Revenge of the NaNoWriMo

Very low word count today (sub 1000, actually) because most of the day was taken up in The Great Annual Holiday Cookie Baking Event. Part One.

It's become something of a tradition for my mom and I to get together at the end of November and spend the weekend baking our family's Traditional Cookies. By which I primarily mean spritzkuchen. (I would love to put a link for that, but apparently no one on the interwebs can agree on what the meaning is. When my family uses the term we are talking about a very delicate, buttery, traditional German cookie, made from a recipe of my Oma's. Usually we just call them "spritz"...)

Anyway. It started out as a way for us to get together and make spritz, and we just sort of started adding to the list. Now we also make gingerbread (we have two competeing recipes for that and as of yet neither has emerged a clear victor), chocolate chip cookies, and spitzbuben, a delicate hazelnut cookie (again, or German origin) filled with delicious raspberry jam . We have in the past also included peanut butter cookies (one of Nathan's favorites) and brandy balls (which are not techically cookies but which go over awfully well). And this year we thought we'd try experimenting with some sugar cookies, but so far that's been a bust...

I love spending time with my mom, especially in the kitchen, and I always start out the weekend in such a chipper mood. And inevitably I think to myself, "I remember being in a bad mood last year? How could I possibly have been in a bad mood?" Well, gentle reader, by the end of hour nine, I sure as hell remember how I might have been in a bad mood. And much of it has to do with aching feet. The other part is primarily how ill I feel after samping cookies all damn day, and hating sugar straight down to the core of my being. And then there's the whole, knowing-it-starts-again-tomorrow part. That doesn't help, either.

But I'll feel better in the morning (I always do) and I'll make an even greater effort to keep from sampling (and fail) and I will remember how much these memories will mean to me someday when I no longer have the luxury of showing up on my mom's doorstep to bake "our cookies" together. And it will all be worth the tiny hassle of a pair of aching feet.

What's All This NaNonsense?

And now... it's time for Real Quote of the Day!

"Note to self: write something interesting before the first 22 pages have passed."

Now this was said sarcastically to my husband, but actually it's good advice. See, the context of this comment of mine was him giving me grief for never having finished The Darkness That Comes Before. I had tried to read it (on his recommendation) about two years ago, but was so bored that I gave up (you guessed it) 22 pages in. How do I know it was 22 pages in? Because today he made it a point to go look for the last thing I remembered reading and then point out to me that if I had just read a little longer I'd have reached the part with an epic wizard battle.

Well maybe that epic wizard battle should have happened about six pages sooner, hmm?

It's a valid point, I think. If I'm writing a book that I would like to read, then I'd better get the party started at a point before the page-number where I, as a reader, would be likely to bail. You know, just in case my readers are as short in the attention span as I am.

Now, I've promised Nathan that I will in fact go back and once again try to read the book, and because I am a dutiful wife I will do so. And it's possible that I will stick to it this time and will be rewarded with the part wherein Things Become Interesting.

But in the meantime, I'll make certain Something Happens before page 22 of my book.

(No excerpt tonight, but I have topped 42,000 words, as well as come up with a super-exciting plot twist. Nathan has dubbed it "clever", and he's picky, so it must be good.)

NaNothing to Do With NaNoWriMo

Once upon a time I did not live in Alabama, and thus had no real concept of College Football, let alone Team Loyalty. But then we moved to Alabama when I was twelve, and my brother and I came face to face with the requirement (I’m not making this up) that we wear our “favorite team shirt” for spirit day at school (that was seventh and second grade, respectively).

My mother dutifully loaded the two of us into her car and took us to Wal-Mart (big excitement in our little town back then), where we were faced with row upon row of crimson-and-white vs orange-and-blue. My brother and I were bewildered- what should we choose? We didn’t know- and we didn’t care, beyond not wanting to endure further torment from people who already thought we were hopelessly alien and weird. If we thought about college ball at all we thought about Air Force Academy (our dad’s alma mater) but that was not going to cut it in the Heart of Dixie. Finally the three of us came to a decision- we had always kept cats, so we decided that a team with a tiger for a mascot couldn’t be that bad, in spite of their horrible color preferences.

Hence my family became nominal Auburn fans. We still didn’t care, we still didn’t watch any games, but by golly we had our shirts to wear on spirit days and people left us the hell alone about it. (Auburn had the added benefit, for me, of being the preferred team of my A#1 Crush at the time, but let’s not examine that too closely…)

Fast forward about ten or eleven years, to when my brother was applying to colleges- he dutifully applied to both Auburn and Alabama, and in the end Alabama gave him more money. And boom, my nominally-fans-of-Auburn family became Alabama fans. But what is strange is that we became genuine fans. Perhaps moreso, in the beginning, for my mom and brother, but when I married Nathan I came over the actually caring part of being a fan (although the twelve-year-old in me is still horrified that we have betrayed A#1 Crush…) (which is very likely a factor in why I still root for Auburn every day but the Iron Bowl…).

So there’s the history of my Fanhood. Which leads us to today, when Nathan and I got to go, for the first time ever, to an Alabama football game. My boss (a huge Auburn fan, himself) worked with a friend of his to get me tickets, and then gave me the day off to boot. How sweet is that? Pretty dang sweet. My boss is excellent. My original plan had been to surprise Nathan with them, but I ended up telling him about a month ago so that he could ensure the day off (obviously Thursday is not a typical day for a college football game). But he was still really happy and excited, which was the point (he’s been a life-long fan and never gotten to go).

Kickoff wasn’t until 1830, but we drove out there super early to take some photos and such. I’d asked my brother for his recommendations for where to eat lunch, and although he gave me a few he suggested I’d be better off asking one of his friends that still lives there. So I harassed said friend on FB, and he directed us to Wilhagan’s. I had hoped he could join us for beer and catching up, but he was unable to get away from work… ah well, maybe next time. Anyway, we took his advice and holy cow- the food there was amazing. I hate a blue-cheese burger which was one of the best I’ve ever had, and Nathan had a pork shank platter that impressed even me. It had some sort of sauce on it that is probably illegal in some states, it was that good. And he topped it off with an oatmeal stout, which he deemed "tasty". So we rolled out of there fat, happy, and full of enough calories to carry us through to game time.

We spent the next four hours wandering around campus, taking photos and reminiscing about college and just being happy to be off work and together. Then we headed back over to the stadium so we could watch the players do their little pre-game-strut, and I will admit it was pretty exciting even for non-obsessive me to see the young men I’ve been cheering so hard for over the past few years. Plus Coach Saban. Oh my yes, Coach Saban.

::cough::

Anyway.

We were pretty foot-sore by that time, so we headed on up to our seats, which were admittedly nose-bleeders. But here’s the thing- once we were up there I realized they were actually pretty great seats, because we could see everything, and we were sheltered from the wind and rain (there wasn’t any rain, but it did threaten a bit). And then our seat-neighbors showed up and turned out to be very nice people that we chatted extensively with. We were a great curiosity to the group in that corner, since we obviously were not the regulars…

The game itself was great to watch- I’d thought it would be really hard for me to tell what the heck was going on without slow-mo-replay all the time, but I actually followed it quite well. And the lack of “color commentary” was just about the sweetest experience I’ve ever had. I wish every game was like that.

I must say, I was quite proud of Georgia State, playing against Bama in the inaugural season. Nathan points out that they got lots of money to do it, but whatever- I completely cheered when they made their touch-down. I was so happy for them! What fantastic stories they’ll be able to tell someday (because quite frankly a 97-yard kick return touchdown is pretty freakin' impressive any way you slice it). The fans near us were very amused by my wanting GSU to score at least once, and I even got them to admit that it would be okay. So see- I have gone out in the world and spread the gospel of the non-dickish fan. Join me, brethren…

That being said, I’m glad we won. And I’m glad we got to see our 3^rd and 4^th string guys play. We had a wonderful time, and it was so exciting to be there, and I would definitely go to another one… although I’d prefer a slightly earlier kick-off, since I was falling asleep on the ride home. Poor Nathan.

(Gameday)

NaNoWriMo in the Machine

I did write today, oh yes I did (even broke 40k, go me), but nothing I feel like excerpting. Which means- you guessed it! Blogging time!

...except I don't feel like I have much to write about. Other than the fact that holy crap! November is halfway gone! Yikes! I need to press "submit" on a couple of my online shopping carts, you know? Not to mention get to work on the craftier items on my list...

I guess I could talk about music. More specifically, I could talk about Music I Listen to While Writing. Obviously it is, to a certain extent, genre and mood dependent, but there are a few things in my library that function well regardless of what I'm working on. Those are the things that get put on my "Writing" play list, and they include the likes of James Horner (man, especially friggin' Braveheart) and the chanting of Benedictine Monks which I have suddenly discovered is actually Gregorian chants so you learn something every friggin' day. Man, suddenly I feel dumb.

Anyway.

Where was I? Oh right, music.

You know what? No. My mind is just too blown by the fact that Benedictines chant it up Gregorian style. I need to go rock back an forth in a corner for a while... maybe even for the full five hours until Nathan gets back...