Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Roses and Leaves

A couple of months ago (I don't remember if it was September or October), I pruned my rose bush back to a few nubs. It looked very sad, but I felt warranted in doing this because the poor thing was so overgrown it was literally drooping to the ground. After pruning, however, I began to worry that maybe the bush wouldn't do well with being pruned so hard.

I needn't have worried.

Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed that this bush was starting to bloom. "Great!" I thought. "I'll have some roses before fall is over." Well, aside from all disparaging remarks about what our "fall" has been like weather-wise, I never got the blooms I was expecting. Until yesterday. I noticed that one little flower was beginning to open up, and today it was in full bloom.

Alas, this poor flower will die tomorrow, as temperatures will be dropping down into the thirties by mid-afternoon. Ah well. I felt I should at least record this last rose of the season.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006


I just realized that there are only 9 days left before the end of NaNoWriMo. *Panic ensues* That means I've got to write about 2,000 words a day to reach my goal!! And, I'm going out of town for two days!!

AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! (runs around the room waving hands in the air)

Ok, now that that is out of the way, I need loads of encouragement. Pile it on, thick and goopy. Seriously, reading you guys' comments has been a real boost for me during this whole process. I'm determined to see this thing through, and I need your help!

Also, I'm soliciting ideas here. Can anyone give me some examples of silly/stupid/funny things Rishi has said/done? The Rishman character has entered the story, and I need help giving him life.

Friday, November 17, 2006


That's right, baby! I'm only about 500 words behind. That's nothing. I ate 500 words for breakfast. (Actually, I ate toast for breakfast...)

Having said that (and adding the little side note that I wrote about 3,000 words today), I have nothing more to say.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

As Promised

An Ode to the Magic Box

Magic Box, Magic Box
We could not find you
Life was so difficult—
Oh, what would we do?
We trudged along faithfully
Our hearts not fully happy
You held so many objects
That made our life snappy:
Deep in your bosom
You held crib rails and sheets
Necessary objects
To make our beds complete.
A phone charger also hid
In your furtive embrace
And Sherwin Williams paint chips—
Such convenience, all in one place!
Why you toyed with our hearts,
And beguiled our souls,
Sweet enchanted case,
We will never know
But all is forgiven,
It’s all in the past
Magic Box, we’re so grateful
To have found you at last!

Also, as a follow-up to my last post, I figured out the majority of the word discrepancy problem. It's too complicated to get in to, especially because it deals with things like em dashes and ellipses, so I won't bore you to tears with an explanation. Just know that it's a pain to deal with, but it reduces the difference back to about 8 or 10 words.

Keep your comments and encouragement coming on my NaNo blog--I'm experiencing classic Week Two crash-and-burn symptoms, so I need you guys to keep me going!

*just realized that the 'g' in 'NaNo blog' didn't get included in the link. not gonna change it.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Several Things

Thing One: Noah Loves Pizza
For lunch yesterday, Noah was eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Or, rather, he was supposed to be eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich. He wasn't making much progress. He was picking at it and sort of unenthused about the whole thing, so I asked him if he wanted me to tear it into pieces. He immediately perked up.
"No, not pizza. Pieces."
"No, pieces. I'm tearing your sandwich into P I E C E S so you can..."

There's something that renders communication between the two of us almost pointless at times.

Thing Two: Beta
So far, I like blogger beta.

Thing Three: Discrepancies
The NaNoWriMo official word counter has been counting fewer words than Word counts. It started out small--a difference of only 9 or 10 words, but as I write more, the discrepancy grows. We're currently at a difference of 40 words. That's a lot. My guess is that it's hyphenated words, or maybe numbers, but I haven't had the desire to test either of those theories yet. It's not that big of a deal, but I have a feeling that by the end of it all, I may have a discrepancy of a couple hundred words. That IS a big deal. I'm just glad that I decided to use the official word count verifier early instead of just manually entering my word count. I'd hate to find out on November 30th that I was 200 words short. I could always remove the hyphens from the text (or spell out the numbers), but I'm not sure my inner editor will allow me to do that.

However, come November 30th, if I'm short of my 50,000-word goal, I'll quickly beat down Inner Editor and take out the hyphens.

The Madness Has Begun

Well, it's day three into NaNoWriMo, and I've got almost 4,000 words under my belt. I'm very pleased with my progress so far. I've discovered I can average about 1000 words for every 1 1/2 to 2 hours I spend "writing". I use quotation marks because a lot of my "writing" time is spent in the thesaurus. Well, not a whole lot, but more than normal people. I also edit more than I should, but I just can't help myself! That's another reason I'm pleased with my progress, because I sometimes feel like I'm doing so much during my writing time other than just writing, but my method seems to be working out pretty well, and I'm very satisfied with what I have so far.

If you haven't already, you can check out my NaNoWriMo progress (including the first chapter, which may need to be lengthened at a later date, depending on how the rest of the story goes) on my novel blog. You can also check out my progress in nifty little graphs and comparison bars. Also, please, please, please feel free to point out any gaping holes in the plot or any missing pronouns or egregious grammatical errors. If all you have to say is, "Amy, your story is stupid", well, you can just keep that comment to yourself. But most anything else is welcome, and, in fact, greatly desired. I want a lot of feedback from you guys, even if it's just, "You can do it, keep writing! 50,000 words is nothing! Wooo!"