Category: nanowrimo

Oh, November

Masochism! It’s what’s for Thanksgiving dinner!

Yup. November means it’s National Novel Writing Month, a fun event where writers around the world challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in just thirty days.

And after taking last year off, I’m back, baybee!

This will be my sixth year through the meat word grinder.

Along with blogging every weekday. And holding down a full time job. And having some semblance of a life.

Apparently I like the pain. 1667 words a day, here I come.




Returning to the old ways

Back in college, I took my studying rather seriously.

More seriously than my various roommates, my suitemates and pretty much everyone in the dorms where I lived.

I might have been a dork. Not sure….

Anyhow, when I was a kid, I had been lucky enough to have my own room, so I could study in there, door closed, and be most effective.

College was a whole crazy world of living with strangers. After lamenting my issues to my mom, she suggested I try the library on campus.

This sounded awful. I like being in my own space to study. To have my own comforts around.

But desperate for a solution, I packed up a backpack full of books and things, and walked over to the imposing building.

I was just a lowly freshman, and that library was intimidating!

But, as I looked around for a place that might work for good solid studying, I discovered this fabulous feature called a study carrel.

Oh yes.

I could sit in one of these bad boys with the high walls and block out the rest of the world. I could unload my backpack of all my things, set them around me, and create a personal space where I didn’t have to see or hear anyone.

In fact, over waaaay in the back, by the microfiche readers, where it was kind of dark, there was one lowly study carrel that was *mine*.

No one else liked it and hardly anyone came over that way. If they did, it was only briefly to read something on microfilm or microfiche, so it was blissfully quiet and I was mostly alone.

I got some really, really good studying done there. I spent HOURS in that carrel…while my friends, uh, had, you know…fun.

Good times, yes.

So, here it was, this past Saturday. The date was the 28th and I was still 5,000 words from the end of this year’s National Novel Writing Month challenge of 50,000 words.

The Good Man had to work on Saturday and so I was alone with my imposing battle.

I was really at a standstill on the writing. I hadn’t written a word in three days, and it looked like I was not going to make it to the finish line this year.

So, in a bid to change my scenery and thus get the ol’ Muse working again, I decided to go to the local library. The went to the one near where The Good Man works so we could meet later for a break.

In I go and I stalked around the place, looking for a good spot. It is a pretty ancient library, so not every table space has a power supply.

My antique Mac needs constant power feed.

So I trudged up to the third floor. I liked it because that floor was behind a closed door. That keeps it nice and quiet.

And lo and behold! They had study carrels. WITH POWER!

Ok! I’m in.

I even found one waaaaay toward the back, where no one else would go, plugged in my power supply, dipped my head behind the walls and got to work.

And who knew, all these many years later, the study carrel still works?

I banged out 4,000 words in about three hours, and would have finished to the end, but had to go meet the in-laws for dinner.

Later that night, after a margarita and some soothing Mexican food, I wrote the final 1,000 words and crossed the finish line of my fifth NaNoWriMo event.

I owe it all to that beautiful, wonderful, magical study carrel!

(terrible iPhone photo, but you can see how sunny and nice it is. I may go there again just because!)

Whoo hooo!

Mama, I’m going to Disneyland!

Oh, ok, not really. I’m actually going to…uh, sleep.

But still, I pulled a rabbit out of my arse hat for the fifth time and completed a 50,000 word novel in less than thirty days!

Thanks to the amazing people at National Novel Writing Month for making it so much fun to rise to the challenge every year!

You are the sum of all your learning

Back in my college days, I lived for a couple years in a sorority house. There were twenty-eight girls, a house mom and a cook. All of that living with a bunch of strangers was quite a life lesson for a nineteen-year-old girl, I assure you.

Those twenty-eight girls came from a variety of different backgrounds, with different values and talents.

Much of what I know and much of who I am can be traced to those days.

Recently, I’ve had a real dearth of creativity. Like a desert in a drought. My creative mind is dusty. The Muse, she’s out to lunch. A two martini lunch.

I’m learning, with the help of my extraordinarily talented and creative cousin, not to worry so much when the creative well has run dry. Be confident, he tells me, and The Muse will find her way home.

I’ve also gotten suggestions that creating something, anything, can also kick loose that block, get the gravel out, and let the magic happen. (this the basic tenet of the good folks at NaNoWriMo)

And so, when I get all creatively clamped down like this, I often go back to something I learned back in those sorority days.

This great girl from Roswell and I made fast friends (we’d both had to endure the same crazy roommate in separate semesters. This sort of experience bonds people). She’d grown up showing pigs and living on a ranch and was a much more creative person than I was at the time.

Not to be all stereotypical, but those ranch woman can out cook, out craft and out wrassle any of their town raised counterparts.

Anyhoo, I don’t really remember the events that lead up to it, but this friend of mine, at my request, taught me how to do a counted cross-stitch kit. It was a simple pattern, but when I was done, I was so pleased. It was a nice distraction during those long days of studying.

Doing cross-stitch is not especially hard, but can be time consuming, and there are certain stitches for certain patterns.

My friend very patiently showed me how to sort the threads, how to tape the sides of the aida cloth to keep them from unraveling, how not to pull the stitches too tight, how to fix mistakes, how the back of the cloth should look as clean as the front. All of that.

And so, over the weekend, I had a coupon for Michaels, and yearning to create, I picked out a very simple kit. A “learn a craft” kit that I think is made for kids.

But that doesn’t matter.

Today, I very carefully applied tape to the aida cloth. I sorted the threads and counted to be sure they were there. I folded the cloth and marked the center lightly with a pencil, and I got out my highlighter to mark off my progress, all the way my friend taught me lo’ these almost twenty years ago.

Whenever I start a new cross-stitch, I always think of my friend. She is with me, guiding my progress the whole way. She is forever a part of me. That’s a happy feeling. That’s the family you make over the course of your life.

So here we go! Let the creation begin!

Oh, wait. Well. There is one change. One update that will take place this go ’round. A necessary adjustment, if you will.

Yeah. My lighted magnifying class. Sadly, I don’t have twenty-year-old eyes anymore. *cranky*

Oh. And getting to work on my cute frog cross-stitch isn’t the only bit of using my hands that I got up to today.

I also got busy on these:

Ooh, I feel The Muse on her way back already! Here Musey, Musey, Musey!! Want a cookie?