I won!

I can't believe I wrote the whole thing! 50185 words.
Now I can get back to being a "normal" blogger. If there is such a thing.

Crossing the Finish Line?

Tomorrow is the end of my writing marathon. I'm still playing catch up but I think I will make it yet. 44,807 words is the latest count.
I took a few pictures yesterday but I probably won't get any posted until this is over tomorrow night.

NaNo Home Stretch or Over the Hump?

38322 words!
So will I be able to do 10,000 words on Friday, Saturday and Sunday?
Wish me luck.

Took Me Long Enough

I finally got out and took a few photos. I've been preoccupied with writing, Nutcracker rehearsals, work and family obligations and my photos had been placed on a back burner. Today I dragged my sorry self out of the house and rediscovered my love of photographing Chicago's South Side. I discovered a few new areas that I will have to get back to.



NaNo update: 33160 words.

Mother son teams

It is funny to me that two people have commented on how my son might find it embarrassing to have his mom up on stage with him. What you have to understand is my son is only 11 years old. He still thinks I am cool (except when I'm nagging him to do his homework). He's more embarrassed that he is a boy that dances than that I am a mom who has a bit part in his show.
I know this might change one of these days. I'm glad he doesn't think I'm embarrassing to have around. I try to be a cool mom without being a mom who tries too hard to be cool, if you know what I mean.
With my teenage son, it is the reverse. I'm embarrassed to be seen in public with him. Some times he gets into what I call "doofus mode" and I just want to hide. I think it is the overdose of testosterone or something that makes him act more juvenile than his 5 year younger brother.
I still can't focus on blogging and photography. Too much of my energy is invested in getting my NaNo story off the ground. I finally passed the half way point. 25669 words.

NaNo NaNo

Remember Mork and Mindy? Not if you're young.
I spent the weekend doing chores and typing madly. Progress is happening but I'm still playing catch up, hence not much blogging and fewer photos.
Word count is at 22772.
Tonight I have dinner to prepare, homework to help with (gotta hate those dangling participles) and a Nutcracker rehearsal. Yeah, I'm dancing in a local Nutcracker for the second year in a row. No, I'm not even remotely good at it. They just need my warm body as an "extra" more or less. My younger son has a lead role, though. He's the Nutcracker. Literally.

More on Writing

19,771 words.

What have I learned from this, my second year doing NaNoWriMo?
I think actually a lot. Last year I wrote on a whim. It was a story that I had stored in the back of my mind for years but there was no reason to believe it would ever go anywhere.
This year from reading, thinking and going to a writing workshop, I'm focusing more on the craft of writing. Dialog, imagery, point of view are going through my head fully as much as plot. I still can't do metaphors. Well, no one's perfect.
And surprise, surprise, I actually think the writing is better. For a first draft.
I have 30,000 more words before I have to figure out the ending to this story.
This is a good thing because I don't want to drop the thing mid thought or end with a trite "and he lived happily ever after."
I'm also thinking a lot about keeping up the tension of the story line. I want to know what will keep the reader moving from one chapter to the next. A good story has to be more than a string of interesting events. After all, I'm not trying to write a soap opera script! One theme is the growth of my character as a person. But I'm not sure what else will draw one forward. My essential brilliance as an author? I don't think so.
Well, live and learn.

Cause it's work, work, work. . . .

17022 words. I'm shooting for 25,000 by Sunday. It is starting to feel more doable.

NaNo Update

Keeping up a steady but too slow pace. Now at 13,600 words. I had a few ideas for plot elements today which should help. I'm planning a writing marathon this weekend. I need to be at least at 20-25K since this weekend marks the halfway point. At least there is a long weekend coming up for Thanksgiving, even though I will be cooking turkey and entertaining too.
No time for a picture. Work calls.

Boys 'n Fog

I gift you with a picture.



NaNo word count--more behind target--11,238 words.

Writer's Block?

NaNo is moving slowly. The concentration just isn't there. 10,320 words to date. At least I beat the 10K goal. I should be closer to 15K if I'm to keep this going at a steady pace.
It has been fun to revisit the scene of the crime (last year's NaNo novel) as it were. Makes me hope I get to go "home" to Seattle this winter. That's the plan anyway.



I saw a few flakes of snow today. I have a feeling it is going to be a long winter. I don't know how my friends in even more northerly climes make it.

Wordless Wednesday--Red and Blue

Nature knows no winners (or losers).





And a quick NaNo update. 4542 words. I'm playing catch up so I'm working hard.

How many words?

Actually I'm at 2205 out of 50,000 total. I'm a bit behind my daily goal but my meeting ended today so now I can get to the real work.

NaNoWriMo

November first means Obama and McCain finally will get some rest in three days. Grant Park in downtown Chicago is surrounded by a giant fence which I presume is in preparation for Obama's victory? rally on election night. This is one party I'd love to photograph but honestly, I don't want to be out late whether Obama wins or loses. Let's face it, even when the Bulls win a championship there is gunfire. So I'm not even trying to get tickets to Grant Park.
November first is the beginning of a different type of marathon for me, but one that is mercifully only one month long. Last year was my first time participating in NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month a month in which people compete against themselves and the evils of laziness, carpal tunnel sydrome, procrastination, family and work obligations and writer's block to churn out a 50,000 word novel by November 30th.
Last year I stunned myself by completing my first novel. The aforementioned evils have prevented me from polishing it up and trying to get it published but the novel is alive and well and waiting for me to get off my behind. In the meantime, I am starting a sequel which I am calling Home Again.
My first novel was called Runaway and was drawn from my experience with the foster care system. I wrote about a foster child who runs away and tries to make a go of living in the woods on his own. Home Again continues the story with my hero now living in a residential treatment center and later a group home.
I am starting off at a disadvantage because I have been attending a meeting all week and have one day left to go. My enthusiasm and energy for writing could be better but I'm doing my best.
I'll keep you posted but I may not be up for much blog posting while my fingers try to churn out my goal of around 2000 words a day. If any of you are also NaNo'ing, let me know and I will add you to my buddy list.

Road Trip!

As if I haven't been on the road enough lately, I'm off again on Sunday (or tomorrow if I move swiftly). Both kids are out of town for the rest of the month and I decided to party (in my own nerdly way). Said partying involves driving to Iowa City. I'm going to digress for a bit before I tell you why I'm going to Iowa, of all places. First of all,a bit about Iowa. I've been immersed in my second of two Bill Bryson books. In case you aren't a reader of travel stories and memoirs, Bill Bryson is originally from Des Moines, Iowa, a city that I can confidently say, I have never set foot in.
Here is what Bryson has to say about Iowa: "Stand on two phone books almost anywhere in Iowa and you get a view. . . . but there was nothing on it except for a few widely separated farms, some scattered stands of trees and two water towers." Amazingly enought, I look forward to finding (and photographing) those two water towers. I have gotten the bug of previous and far greater photographers such as Edward Weston et al. who have taken photos of abandoned barns, small rural towns and run down gas stations. I hope to follow in their footsteps, camera in hand. Plus I'll be crossing the Mississippi and anticipate a bit of good birding if I'm lucky. If I'm unlucky at least there will be antique stores. Iowa City is slightly less than 4 hours' drive from Chicago. This should be a fun and easy drive as long as my health holds.
There's the rub. The bad news is I'm still not totally over my GI problems of earlier this week. I didn't want to go into gory detail but I had a minor episode of what in the profession we call a GI bleed. I saw a doctor (actually two) who thought I'll live but couldn't come up with a diagnosis more solid than the one I figured out on my own. This is why us doctors make such lousy patients. We hate waiting for hours to see a physician who is (truly) still in her residency. We get even more cranky when she tells you what you already know which is that she doesn't really know what is wrong with you but you don't need to be in a hospital bed.
Things haven't altogether resolved on the GI end in that the I'm eating, working and ambulatory but what passes in via the mouth isn't passing out the other end. This is leading to me having paranoid fantasies about me developing something truly delightful like projectile emesis while uncomfortably ensconced in an Iowa gas station bathroom. Charming visions of medical conditions that end in -ation, -itis, -osis and so on are dancing in my head. I have consoled myself that everything is probably fine and that I'm sure they have hospitals in Iowa.
The goal of my drive into the not-so-wilds of Iowa is that I have signed up for a writing workshop and am hoping that it will jump start the next step on the story I wrote for NaNoWriMo a good 9 months ago. I am terrified beyond belief at having to submit thirteen copies of the first 15 pages for review by my workshop leader and fellow participants but I'm not letting fear stop me.
So there you have it. I haven't been by your blogs lately. Forgive me. I will get to it when I can. Now I have to go do my homework in preparation for my workshop. Wish me luck.

NaNoWriMo Wrap Up

I promise no more NaNo posts after this. My final word count was 52,729 words, 86 pages. Now all I have to do is write, write, write some more. Then do 6 months of editing or so. Should be a piece of cake.
Hopefully by next week I will have relapsed to my more normal blogging mode complete with memes and Sunday Scribbling. In fact, maybe I'll do tomorrow's scribbling. See you then.

Thanksgiving is so, like, over!

Sorry for the title. I've been reading and writing too much young adult literature of late. I missed a day of writing and more than a day of blogging due to the demands of cooking and feeding 10 people on Thanksgiving. I lost a little momentum on my NaNo novel over the holiday but I seem to be back on track.
Today, I had the inspiration to have my character read a banned book and I happened to have just the right banned book in my library. (I bought it during Banned Book Week from my local independent bookseller). Last week I attended a local NaNo event and got a little feedback on my work-in-progress from a professional. Her take was that I needed to add more dialog and descriptive detail. She also recommended a couple of books that might help me with catching the adolescent "voice." (Don't forget I live with an adolescent voice.). So I dutifully went out and bought one of the books she recommended, dredged up a copy of Catcher in the Rye from my bookshelves--I never read it since I tried to read it and didn't like it as a teen myself--and bought a couple of modern YA books with catchy titles or themes.
Among my recent thematic readings are:
The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger
Ice Drift by Theodore Taylor (not YA but an adventure book for middle schoolers about kids surviving alone in the arctic).
Here is my favorite line from Hard Love: "I flopped on the couch, attempting to render myself invisible by passing for a normal teenage boy."
I don't really have time to review these books and others I've read this month. I really need to focus on surviving NaNo now that it is down to the finish line. To get back to the banned books theme, the book I am working into my story is the perks of being a wallflower--omitting capitals seems to be de rigeur in titles of teen books. So far it is interesting. It is pretty obvious why someone might want to ban it. In the first 42 pages there are references to drugs, alcohol, homosexuality and other naughty stuff. In other words, exactly what all the teens in my family and office are talking about. No magic yet which triggered Harry Potter haters to try to ban it.
I also found an interesting blog about banned books. It is recommended reading as is the American Library Association information about Banned Books Week. Happy reading!
The count for the day, so far, is:
46920 words
77 single spaced pages.

TTFN!

The back.

Just a play on the wording of my previous post.



This is the back of my house. Note that it has a big hole in it. The prior photo was supposed to show you the back yard and the sorry state of the coach house I have my office in as it was losing its roof.
I'm just setting the record straight.

NaNo update:
44438 words, 73 pages.

Work calls. Cheers.

The end?

42,824 words today. That is 70 pages. I'm not at 50K but I think I just wrote the ending of my story. It has a final feeling to it. I have a few chapters I am going to add in the middle which will make up the next 7,176 words but the end is in sight. I think I am even going to reach the finish line early. But that might somehow jinx me so I didn't say it.

Just a word count.

41558 done. If I weren't too tired I'd tell you how many words there are left but I'll leave the math to you. That's 68 single-spaced pages.