RELUCTANT ROW80 CHECK-IN

I wasn't going to check-in. I thought to myself, self, you kinda are sucking right now at the whole writing thing. You were not gonna give up on nano, and you were doing pretty good. And then Monday came...and that was it.

I think I'm having some kind of end-of-November let down.
Oh, I'm okay, and soon I will have re-Pollyanna'd myself, and start believing in my work again. I just need a step back. I think I'm still a wee bit disappointed in my lack of effort for nano -- I know, I know -- my ROW80 goals were still being hit -- now I'm not doing either. Sheesh.

Okay, I was going to post a music video -- ended-up as it's own post, so, that's it above!

It's all good. How's about you guys?

WHERE WAS I?

How the heck did it get to be November 27th folks? Seriously. On the bright side, Thanksgiving was a success, had my birthday the day after -- yay! -- still love birthdays. Received some excellent gifts. My husband and youngest surprised me with a Kindle Fire, the gorgeousity of it is mind-blowing.


On to the ROW80 check-in (which I skipped on the 23rd -- too busy!)
The nano portion of my goals was bringing me down and what I failed to really see was I was succeeding in my ROW goals -- my writing esteem far too enmeshed with nano, and what I perceived as failure in nano land was, by no means, failure in darling ROW80.

The weird thing is after I decided to simply give-up on nano, I came across all these lovely posts about, basically, not giving up. So I decided to keep at it. Once I made my decision I sort of loosened up and felt better all around. Now, I'm not going to be writing 34,000 words this next week, but I have been averaging 1k a day -- and that, my friends, is not shabby!

How's everyone else doing?

SUNDAY: IN WHICH THERE IS A CHECK-IN AND OTHER THINGS

Wrote over 1k words since Wednesday's check-in (yay! for ROW80, not so much so for nano -- not sure, but I may have broken-up with nano).

Rearranged the office...and the living room...and the bedroom. Phew! So excited about this, and while I don't have the cool shelves Komal has, I now have so much room -- I can spread out all my writing shtuff at my desk and wheeeeel my chair around the office for fun. Both very important for productivity.

Youngest woke up sick Friday -- strep. Got some writing done, but I have an obsession with washing everything when someone's sick, so spent the day nursing and washing.

Lots of planning with the other Kennedy Women for new undertaking of THOSE KENNEDY WOMEN! We're building the blog and should be hitting the blog-o-sphere December 1st. Cross your fingers.

Feel so excited about all the things going on in my life!

HOW'S EVERYONE ELSE DOING?

ROW80 CHECK IN and recalculation: : :

Recalculating: : : :
I have turned left when I was suppose to turn right and now my writerly GPS (which has a lovely British accent) needs to recalculate.

And that is where I am. In need of recalculating.
I started round 4 with  a dose of reality, a mere 100 words a day, some check-ins with other ROWers, and a few blog posts. It was, for the most part, doable. Kinda boring, yet, doable. Then that hussy nano came strutting into the final weeks of October and got me all hot and bothered and bursting to try (yet again) to write a book in a month.

Damn her. Sort of.

Am I writing waaay more than 100 words a day? Yes.
Am I excitied about my novel? Yes.
Am tired of the ad infinitum posts on loving/hating, wanting to kill the idea of it? Yes, YESS, YYYEEESSSSS!!

Yikes. Not only that, but last night my 12 yo said, "Hey, mom, do you wanna play a board game?" and for a nano (yes, I wrote that) second, I thought, oooh, I was gonna write, I'm behind in nano, I can't play, I need to do this. Thankfully, my mama brain slapped my nano brain, and it shut-up.

My son and I played Scrabble for two hours. It was great.

Recalculating: : : :
I love ROW80, ROW80 doesn't make me think writing should come before playing Scrabble. ROW80 still holds me accountable, yet it does so gently.
I forgot to mention, out printer died, my husband bought a new printer and suddenly everything needs to be moved and purged and redefined...recalculating: : :

So, here's my new ROW80 goals:
ORGANIZE office.
Write a book, get the core of it down, as fast as I can. Without guilt.
Check in with other ROWers
Develope new blog with my sister and mom (fun!)
Have Fun!

How's everyone else doing? Any nano thoughts?

CHRONICLES OF NANO PLUS ROW80

I don't even know what that means...I mean for me. Except, I made the insane decision to join a bunch of other  sanity challenged folks and signed up for nano to write a 50k word novel in the month of November. Ye-ah baby. And now I shall make you suffer as well.

You are welcome.

I've done this dance before, never winning -- that is, never writing 50k. I have however started December bleary and cranky with 36k. Which aint shabby. And while most of it was not worthy of actual paper it was the start and middle and end of a young adult novel. So, what I had girls and boys was a really shitty first draft -- just like Anne Lamott says you need in Bird by Bird. http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Some-Instructions-Writing-Life/dp/0385480016

Yay! I had a really (really) shitty first draft. I think I got extra credit for the extent of the shittiness.

I plan on doing it again, only this time I'm aiming for 50k words of crap!

I've somewhat outlined my novel and have scenes brainstormed, so as not to get stuck. So far, so good. I have a respectable amount, not what I need, no. I'm not above cheating though. Here are some of my plans -- already in effect:


I will not use contractions! None of this "aren't" and "we'll" -- those are two words that can magically be made into four!


I will use many pretty adjectives. Many glorious and florid and descriptively seductive adjectives (adverbs as well)!


Full names only! Just like Stanley Gardner in his penny a word Perry Masons -- Tess O'Dell, and Sebastian St. Camael, and Miss Margaret Carmilla, thank you very much.

Duplicate statements ie: "You are a fool! A complete and total idiotic fool!" See? Instead of her saying, "Idiot!" with only one measly word she's saying a slew, a veritable slew of 10 words. Hah!

That's what I've got so far, as I think (and use) more, I'll let you know. Tongue firmly in cheek.

ROW80

I'm kicking a** for my ROW80 goals, well, for my daily word count Row80 goals, since my goal was 100 words a day, last I checked I was at 8,000+ for November -- but I'm changing some of my other goals. 

Blog posts: I'll aim for 2 -- both check-ins, since I've been missing those.

Check-ins with other ROWers: I'll still aim for 5      

Think that was it

I'll also keep you posted as to my nano state.

Are you a participant? Are you a mental basket case? Not yet. Tell me about it.

NaNoWriMo...Here We Go Again!

What am I thinking? Clearly, I've lost the rest of my mind. I have decided to once again try my heart, brain, familial patience, and finger dexterwity (I meant to write dexterity -- Dexterwitty. I like it) at National Novel Writing Month. Here's My author info. So now that I've signed-up again I have to. Dang.

I really think this whole "not quite believing what I've done" will come in handy -- kind of a Zen approach -- I really don't care if I do or not do so I may as well do. 

Green frog will soon hop-to-it (sorry...not really) and get plotting/writing/accomplishing. Can't you feel it?

ROW80 CHECK-IN

The week took unexpected, puffy dog turns*. 

Wrote a minuscule amount.

Did, or rather, am cleaning and re-arranging office.

Gearing up for nano. I know, I know, if I can't keep up with ROW80, how the heck do I think I can do Nano? Who knows?

New math maybe. Some kind of quantum writing physics.

* meaning: Homer Simpson walks down the street, sees man in a suit and monocle who looks exactly like him, "That man looks just like me!" Homer says and runs after him, until his eye is caught by: "That dog has a puffy tail!" and he forgets all about his twin and runs after the dog.

What are your "puffy dog moments?"