It Helps if You Like Coffee ...

Or at least the smell of coffee.  Colorado Springsians are all about caffeine, double espresso shots with whipped cream and mint, latte on the deck, and the 24 oz. mocha to go.  One of the things that I say about my new hometown and know that people assume it's an exxaggeration is that we have a coffee shop on every corner.  No, we really do have a coffee shop on every corner.

There's Starbucks of course, Pike's Perk, Dazbog (Russian very good), Mountain Mudd, and Bear Cafe.  We have a coffee shop in every grocery store.  The Safeway in the strip mall where I collect my mail has a Starbucks and three doors down, there is another Starbucks.  Did I make it clear that's three doors down in the same mall.

Of course we have the standard coffee shop in every book store.  We have a coffee shop in the lobby of the church and another in the entrance to the library.  Any parking lot that holds more than 50 cars has a Java Hut. 

I've noticed soem more street names in my neighborhood that crack me up.  There's Languid Lane, Whimsical Way, and Nevermind Drive.  Itsn't that GREAT!  I love this place.  You can't make up things like this, and if you did, an editor would tell you it wasn't believable.

Which brings me to the word count.  My official NaNo word count is 16, 384.  My characters had an uncooperative day on Monday, they just wouldn't play nice at all.  So yesterday, I squished their hopes like cockroaches and threw them nothing but curves.  I'm thinking if that doesn't straighten them up I'll bring out the big guns today. 

But first, I need coffee.  I can smell it from here.

Princess of Quite a Lot

It's the print on one of my favorite mugs.  I don't want to be Queen, too much responsibility.  But Princess?  I'm up for that.  I was surfing around the Internet tonight and found this print which exactly matches my mug.  I think it suits me.  She has red hair, she has an open book on her lap, and if you look closely you will note that her servant is a ...

Writerly Talk

"The act of writing helps us to confront our sense of desperation, understand it, lighten it's load, and muddle through."  Ralph Keyes, Author of The Writer's Book of Hope

I wrote a lot of words this week.  The total word count on my NaNo project as of this morning stands at ...  drumroll please .....  8,802.  I'm dead on with the goals for meeting the november 30 deadline for finishing my 50,000 word novel.  I LIKE this story.  And you may notice that I'm not telling you anything about it because in previous years, I've talked about my novel too much and gotten bogged down in the discussion of it instead of the writing of it.

I had one really bad day this week.  Thursday.  Oh, in terms of days, it was actually a good one.  But in terms of word count OY!  I had nothing else to do  that day.  So instead of sitting down and working on the book, I procrastinated.  After all I had plenty of time. 

Yesterday I had to write almost 3,000 words to catch up and happily, I DID it.  Now I only have to write 1700 words today to be on pace.  I'm thinking, piece of cake. 

As I've been writing on this book, I've had what I think are really good ideas for two more books pop into my mind.  I'm not fighting and I'm not getting sidetracked.  As these ideas come to me, I jot them down and get back to writing on my priority work. 

Sooooooooo

Have you ever had a day when you just feel so good that you don't mind doing four loads of laundry before lunch?

Oh Nothing ...

ME: What are you guys doing?

Mike: Oh Nothing.

ME: What are you doing on the floor?

Mike: Well, we were picking up our game pieces, then we found some yucky candy.

ME (Thinking that I need to make a broad point.):  GUYS, Don't put anything you find on the floor in your mouth.

Mike: I didn't.

ME: Then how do you know it was yucky?

Mike: Because Tucker spit it out.

ME: ~sigh~

"Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it, write something to suit everybody and scarecely anyone will care for it." Jesse Stuart

I'm encouraged by the number of people I know who are doing NaNoWriMo this year.  Many of my Xanga friends are signed up and for the first time this year, I have people in my "real" life who are along for the ride.  Not to give him grief, but I think my brother missed the point.  The first day out, in addition to writing his beginning, he did an outline of his plot that was over 2,000 words.  I think he's taking this a LITTLE too seriously.    Either that or he has some serious drug issues that he isn't choosing to share.

I have worked feverishly, just trying to write the scenes and paying relatively little attention to the word count.  But I figured out this morning that as of last night the word count on the book stands at 3,719.  So Whew!  I can breathe!  (But not too deeply)  I'm starting off today in mid scene because I didn't finish the one I was doing yesterday.  Which I will admit is a much better place to be that nto finishing, not having the word count, and not knowing what to write next - which has happened to me far more often than I care to admit in prevous NaNo excursions. 

I had a really cool experience yesterday.  I've been involved in a small group at church that is made up of writers learning the fine art of writing to encourage others.  And now it occurs to me that I'm not using any of what we learned to write my blogs ... so I'm not sure what that says about me.  But the point of yesterday was that I missed the last meeting.  So the leader called and asked if she could dro pby for a chat.  That was cool.

She brought me a copy of the current Christian Writer's Market guide to encourage me to submit more to publishers.  It seeems that the group decided to go together and give me this book as an encouragement because they had that much faith in my ability after the time we've spent together.  Wow - that was humbling.  And it further seems that when they passed the hat to pay for it, they collected a bit more than was needed for the purchase of the book.  So they gave me a card with $94 to be applied to ultility bills. 

It's amazing to me.  Simply amazing that people do things like this - for me. 

So to honor the faith that they (and YOU) have expressed in me, I am writing and writing and taking this seriously.  Okay, not as seriously as Dave.