One More Day

First of all, this is the last day of November, the last day of National Novel Writing Month, and most likely the last time I attempt National Novel Writing Month. I should hit the 50,000 word mark sometime tonight, most likely right before midnight. I’m currently around 47,500 words, 2,500 away from the goal. I have learned a lot about writing this month, and have reinforced what I already knew. I’ll include all of that in a wrap up post soon.

Changing gears, it is the first day of deer season out here in Pennsylvania. Back home at my parent’s house, I’m sure it sounded like a Civil War re-enactment with all the guns going off. Let’s just say I doubt the cat will go out today. Not a good day to be furry and in the woods.

Back in school, I was one of the few that didn’t hunt. For a while I thought that would be fun, to be out in the woods, alone with my thoughts, um…hunting. As I’ve gotten older, the appeal has faded a bit. First of all, it’s cold out there. Really cold. Second of all, there are the other hunters. Let’s just leave that one at that. Finally, if you do “get a deer” you have to drag it out of the woods and then “prepare it”. Again, this does not sound fun at all. I’d rather be the one who stayed in the cabin keeping the fire going warm and the beer cold.

In that vein, here’s a funny little song they used to play on the radio by a group called Da Yoopers. This video is of low quality and the first bit is pretty weird, but get through that and the rest is really funny. A To me, at least. Anyhow here’s Da Yoopers- Second Week of Deer Camp:

I don’t know, maybe you have to be from where I am to appreciate it.

Gotta Give Thanks

First off, a little Jack Johnson. That song never get old.

Secondly, it is time to give thanks. Now, there are a million things out there right now to make me grumpy (war, health care “compromise”, etc.), but I really don’t think writing about them would make me any happier. So, what do I want to give thanks about most? I would have to say people.

Seriously, people are what make this world great and make this life interesting. I mean, at the end of the day, when you get past the gadgets, and the huge screen televisions, and the black friday sales, and the reality shows, and even the books, you are really just left with people. You and me.

You know what? People do stupid things. People do crazy things. People do mean things. And, people do stupid, crazy, mean things to each other. But, people also do amazing, caring, and loving things too. And that we should never forget.

And so, today and tomorrow I give thanks for my wonderful family, from my wife and kids, to my parents, grandfather, aunts and uncles, and everyone else. I also give thanks to all of you who read what I write here, and especially you who leave comments. Without you I don’t think I would’ve made it a week blogging.

All right, enough of that. Happy Thanksgiving!

Novel Summary

I got this idea from cardiogirl, who has already written 50,000 words this month. She has time for such procrastination. I do not.

In microsoft word, you can “auto summarize” your document. You can include as many or few sentences in this summary. Just to help in Word and look up “summarize” to learn how to do this. Yes, for once Help is actually helpful.

Anyhow, here is the ten sentence summary of my novel:

Katie sighed.

Geez, thought Katie.

Katie continued.

Katie laughed.

Katie smiled.

“Right,” said Katie.

“Right,” said Katie.

Katie laughed. “Katie, c’mon downstairs,” yelled Katie’s mother.

Katie whispered.

Makes you want to go out and buy the book, right? 🙂

Zzzzzz

Still chugging along, still tired as ever.

Saturday night we got a rare chance to go “out”, just my wife and I. We went to a surprise birthday party for a friend at one of the local hangouts we used to frequent. I was a pretty good time, even though we only stayed out for a couple hours. Everybody that saw my wife remarked at how much she was smiling and how happy she looked. Yes, we need to get out more often. 🙂

That night, around 9:00 or so, I was finally able to sit down and attempt to work on my nanowrimo novel. That’s where the fun began. Now, I knew I needed to write at least 1,667 words, but I was blinking the entire time, trying to stay awake. Then it happened. Let’s call it the phantom sentence.

I guess I entered into a half asleep/half awake state, and must have been dreaming a little because I looked up at the computer screen and saw a sentence that did not fit the story at all. At all! It was a real sentence, with verbs, nouns, and prepositions all in the proper order, but other than that it had no business being in the novel. I quickly deleted this intruder and kept on writing, winding up with a disappointing but not catastrophic 1,110 words for the night.

Now I’m wishing I hadn’t delete this sentence. Maybe it was the meaning of life, right there on the screen and I just deleted it. Or maybe it was my grocery list for the next day. I’ll never know for sure.

Anyhow, I’m 35,000 words into this thing, with a week remaining. I’m enjoying writing and have learned a lot more about writing. Still, it will be nice to get some rest next month.

NaNoWriMo – 3/5ths Done

Just squeaked in 1,700 words yesterday, which leaves me at 30,720 words for the month. I’m low on energy, even lower on ideas, but still standing.

I see a few obstacles on the horizon that may very well keep me from 50,000. I’ll be away from home at least two days due to Thanksgiving. That’s not very conductive to writing. Also, there is evening ice hockey. I have a game Monday night.

So my game plan is to keep writing as much as possible, as many days as possible and get as close as I can to 50,000 on the last day. Then I’ll try to beg my wife to let me write that day until I reach the goal. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.

NaNoWriMo – I Quit Every Day

Still writing. Still on pace. I wrote 1,800 words yesterday and am at 29,000 for the month. Not sure this thing will be any good, but I know I’m learning a lot. I’m about ready to “level up” I think.

The funny thing is I’ve quit NaNoWriMo at least once every day this month in my mind. Sitting at word zero and looking up at word two thousand can be a scary thing.

Thanks to everybody that has been hanging in there with me and stopping by here every day. I promise things will be better next month. Who knows, I might even catch up on my sleep and my reading next month. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Still Kickin’

I didn’t blog yesterday, to be honest, because I didn’t really have a lot to say. Don’t have a lot today, either, but I figured I’d post so you didn’t forget about me.

NaNoWriMo is going well. I wrote another 2,000 words yesterday which gives me 27,175 for the month. I don’t know if this is even going to wind up being a good novel, but I’ll worry about that later.

I’ve been tinkering a little bit on blogger, just to see what you can do over there. I had no idea it was so easy to change templates there. Maybe I’ll switch someday. Here’s just a little something I threw together. Thoughts?

If you really want to know what I’m doing you could always follow me on twitter. I added a little link under my “picture’ there in the sidebar.

The Towel Remains Unthrown – For Now

#nanowrimo moment of truth for me tonight. If I can’t get close to my goal for today, I’m throwing in the towel.

That was a tweet I posted last night through rapidly blinking eyes, just after we got everybody in bed and I settled down at the computer to begin my NaNoWriMo writing for the day, 0 out of 2,000 words written. This wasn’t one of those woe is me posts. I really meant it.

I’m just feeling really exhausted lately. It’s throwing me off a bit. Yes, I quit drinking pop. However, I’m still drinking coffee, so I don’t think it’s a lack of caffeine. Maybe it’s just the 15 days in a row of staying up until midnight. Or maybe it’s the baby waking us at 5:30 AM every morning and the hockey game at 6:30 AM. Whatever it is, I’m running on fumes. Again, that’s just weird because I have conditioned my body to function on very little sleep now that we have kids.

Take the events before I wrote that tweet. Gave the son a bath, played a little wii fit, fought with the daughter over what clothes she would sleep in (she HAS to choose), and then finally I read to my daughter in her bed to get her to sleep. The night’s literary masterpiece was Garfield the Easter Bunny.

I love reading to my daughter, but last night was a struggle. In fact, I fell asleep while reading and wound up dreaming and speaking words that weren’t in the text. I can only imagine what she thought of this, though she must not have noticed because she would have corrected me. Anyhow, once I finished reading, she rolled over and closed her eyes, meaning she was ready to sleep. And I closed my eyes just for a moment, to rest them of course. Eventually, I drug myself out of her bed and trudged to the computer, that word count taunting me.

The only thing keeping me writing right now is my competitive spirit and all of you. I mean I spent the whole of last month talking about NaNoWriMo and getting you all worked up for writing in November. I couldn’t very well give up, not halfway through the month.

I wound up writing 1,700 words somehow. Maybe it was the popsicle power boost. I’d didn’t make it to my daily goal of 2,000, but I got close enough to keep going for another day.

And so it is. I write on. One day at a time. Anticipating the day when I face reality and just give up, but also pushing that fateful day back each time I meet my goal.

More Mario

I’m drained, to tell you the truth. All my writing is going towards fiction, right now. Sorry bloggy people. So, I’ll do the lazy thing and post a video.

I think I demonstrated last month I’m a huge fan of Super Mario Brothers. Well, a new Mario game is coming out next month for the Wii. Not only that, but it’s old school side-scrolling platformer (like the old ones for the NES and Super Nintendo). Anyhow, here’s some video footage of the game:

This to me is just like hearing a song from when I was a kid. Same exact nostalgic feeling.

Fighting Every Day

Not a lot new here. Writing. Working. Eating. Sleeping (a little). And baby wrangling.

I’m also fighting off a cold, although I’m trying really hard not to admit that to myself. It’s not terrible, just a bit uncomfortable.

With being tired and a little under the weather, I have been fighting the desire to take the easy path and quit NaNoWriMo. I haven’t quit yet, and have in fact been writing 2,000 words a day. Still, it is going to be a long month.

The only other thing I did was shoot some basketball free throws at work for a local charity. People pledged to give a little bit of money for each basket we made. I made 18 out of 25, which isn’t so bad for an aging fart like myself.

Right. Off to write.