Power outages

I'm 3023 words behind on my novel. I did about 2000 today, which is a HUGE plus, but the main reason why I'm so behind (aside from the fact that I have no freakin' ideas!) is the fact that our power was out.

That's right, you heard me. The power was out. From 7 PM Friday until almost noon today, we had no power at the house. What's that you say? Did the storm knock it out?

NOOOOOO! The skies were clear and sunny all day yesterday. Maybe a little chilly, but certainly not anything that would knock out the power.

Apparently, some brain surgeon decided to drive into a power pole. Ok, he/she probably didn't *mean* to do it - and I hope there are no permanent injuries involved. But for whatever reason, this person's car ended up making REALLY good friends with the power pole. How good, you ask? Good enough to knock out the power in the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD (several square MILES) for nearly a full day.

Therefore, there was no novel writing to be had last night.

Dreams

Well, it looks like my dreams let me down. Not only did I *not* dream anything inspiring or useful for my novel, I dreamed about work crap! Dammit....

Bad dog mommy/good dog mommy

Well, I'm officially a slacker. I haven't written a. single. word. today. That means I'm 1635 behind, which I will hopefully catch up on tomorrow and if not, then definitely on Saturday since that's when our next get-together is planned. Right now I'm not feeling all that enthused about my novel (read: disappointed/tired/bored). And since I don't have ANY clue what's coming next, it's not like I can skip to a scene I'm really looking forward to writing. I don't know what that scene would even be!

Any writing time I would have had this evening got taken up by going to the grocery store. I went straight from work, to voice lesson, to choir rehearsal and got back home at about 10 PM, thinking I might blam out a few, if uninspired, words. But then my dog Bronwyn started pouting at me. You see, the other thing I didn't quite get to today was going to the pet store and getting more dog food.

So I was sitting at my computer (after having scoured the floor and the couch for stray dog kibble) debating working on my uninspired novel or going to the grocery store and getting some dog food to tide them over until I can get to the pet store. How horrible am I?????

Needless to say, the dog food won. I just couldn't bear the thought of the whimpering and sad puppy dog eyes I would have had to put up with for the 10 hours it would be until the pet store opens again!!! It's pathetic.

Maybe I'll do a token 50 words or something. Or maybe I'll just go to bed and pray that my dreams inspire......

The power of three...

Well, JoAnne wasn't able to make it to the write-in tonight, and Scott, who had previously said he wasn't going to be able to make it turned up, so he and Claudine and I went to a new cafe and wrote there. True to form, I was able to do just enough to make the target for today - I got up to 15,035. The surprise? The fact that my character managed to survive her attack scene relatively intact, and I figured out a way for the hero of the story to be heroic without being TOO much Deus Ex Machina. All in all, I'm quite pleased because I have yet another semi-sinister plot twist to play with. Since week two is the hardest week according to everyone, I'm just glad to be maintaining the pace.

Have I mentioned I hate spam???

I just found out about a new kind of spam. No, really, I did. I swear, I didn't think a new kind of spam could be invented --- but then, I'm new to this blogging thing.

Some people think it's a good idea to use the comments section of someone's blog to spam at them. Bastards!

So all the real people (ok, I know it's really only you, Scott, but I can pretend, can't I?) who want to comment on my blog must now use the word verification. Sorry about the inconvenience....

Many hands make light work

It's true - writing with other people really DOES make a difference. I slammed out 1700 words (plus or minus) tonight while having a lot of fun, all because I had my writing buddies with me. Actually, I had the best of all worlds because we were at my house, so I could hang out with my puppies (always a good thing!), eating the pizza I wanted (Round Table pizza - hawaiian and the gourmet chicken & garlic - YUMMMMM!), and being with some new and super fun friends. Once again, I am officially On Track with 13,526 words (for the uninitiated, today's goal was 13,336).

It's wierd how such an off-the-wall event like NaNoWriMo can bring people together. A month ago, I didn't know JoAnne, Claudine, or Scott, and now I can't imagine life without them. Oh, sure, we're still doing the "we're-still-getting-to-know-each-other dance" and no doubt I'm not the only person who is self-conscious about one thing or another about myself, but so far it looks promising and that makes me really happy. :) :) :) I've had a dearth of adult friends that I could call my own - most are either friendly acquaintances who I don't consider to be true friends, or friends of other people I know that I've just sort of attached myself to. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with that as a part of building one's social structure, but it's nice to know I can make friends without tagging along at my older sister's parties.........

My, how studious everyone looks!

Our little "writing club" after a fun evening of pizza and intense noveling

Made it to the daily goal!

I made it to the daily goal -- I'm actually at 11,812 words now, but the last thousand words have felt like hand to hand combat. I kind of like my characters, but they feel like cardboard cutouts to me, and I'm not sure where they're going next. Being tired on top of it makes it that much harder. I don't really function all that well when I'm tired like this.

I'm very happy that I made it to the daily goal, though. One of the things I don't think I'm very good at is sticking through a task that seems mundane to see it through to completetion. I tend to lose interest and momentum when things get routine (which is really wierd for someone who is stuck in a rut so much!) so to be able to push myself to get to the end of the daily word count goal is a pretty big accomplishment actually. I have a feeling the rest of this whole month is going to be like this. Maybe it will, but darn it, I *AM* going to finish!

The first one

OK, I've never been good at blogging or journaling, but I thought I'd give it another try since I have some friends who are blog addicts. And, being the queen of procrastination that I am, it's one more excuse not to work on the project I theoretically want to work on - my novel for national novel writing month. So far, I'm at 10,929 words, 740 shy of today's word count goal. I'll make myself do it before I go to sleep tonight (even though I'm keeping my eyes pried open with toothpicks right now as it is).