NaNo Wrap Up

Actually it was 19 days and 50070 words!

I just wanted to share with you this momentous occasion: I finally won NaNoWriMo.  This is something I've always wanted to do (for years and years!) but always backed away from the last second because "November is buuuusy :'(", or "I work too much, I don't wanna come home and write a novel >:(" or .  It's not that hard to start something but it's incredibly hard to see it through to completion (the three dozen stories I've started and promptly abandoned will attest to that).  I'm always completely gung ho, guns blazing the first week then by the third week I'm procrastinating by playing solitaire, arguing on the internet and watching documentaries on Netflix with names like "The Fascinating Sheep of New Zealand".
 
I am exhausted.  But if NaNo is something you've ever thought of doing, even just in the back of your head, I highly encourage it.  I cannot encourage it enough, actually.  There's just something that makes you feel all warm and glowy inside when you sit back and look at that final word on the last page and go "I did all that".  It's a lot of work and you're going to be inconvenienced and there will be days you will absolutely think to yourself "who cares if I write, nobody will ever see this anyway", but if you push through all that and persist in staying true to your goal you'll find the end result is well worth it.

I just hit 50,000 words earlier this morning, after pushing myself and pushing myself (and the sad part is, I didn't even finish my story.  There's still way more to tell and wrap up.)  But that's okay!  Right now, it's time to celebrate the fact that I did in 19 days (I took off weekends, Thanksgiving and Black Friday) what many people never do in their entire lives.  Yes, the novel is a big steaming pile of crap.  Yes it might possibly be the worst thing ever written.  But the point is, it was written at all.  Woohoo!  I can now officially cross something off my bucket list.  Now all that's left is to revise, edit, revise edit, revise edit and edit some more.

Wait, did I mention editing?

Wrapping up NaNoWriMo and Coming Attractions

November is coming to an end, which means that like it or not, NaNoWriMo is slowly but surely wrapping itself up.  I looked at my calendar today and was shocked to find that we'll be in December this Saturday.  Why do you always do this to me, time?!  In a lot of ways, NaNo has been a hassle: I've had to carve out time to write, had to devote more time and research to my subject (a ghost story), had to actually... you know, come up with approximately 2773 words a day (that's 50,000 words divided by about 23 days, which was what I was working with once we took out weekends, Thanksgiving and Black Friday). 

In more ways, though, it's been a blessing: I've been pushed and bullied and harassed (all by myself, the people at NaNo are nothing but kindness and light) but I've found that when push comes to shove, I am capable of writing a lot more than I previously thought possible (either due to fear, laziness or a combination of the two).  There is something inherently satisfying about hitting your daily count, sitting  back in your chair and looking at all those gleaming words on the page.  Words you summoned and arranged and sometimes had huge fights with.

With NaNo wrapping up I plan to return to posting weekly, I've been looking through my photos (that's usually how I keep track of what I've been up to in my life) and despite being locked at a computer for several hours a day, I've still managed to complete a few projects.

Some updates to come include:

- New appliances and fun with the in-laws
- New garage shelving and stockpiling
- Couponing success!  And Safeway customer service knowledge failure
- More attempts at more recipes
- How to sell a car and weirdos on Craigslist
- And more!

NaNoWriMo: Round 2 and Ode to an Oven

So you may have been wondering where I've been... the answer is: writing.  Writing like a crazy person fox.  NaNoWriMo has been something I've always wanted to do, and since I'm no longer working there was no reason not to partake this year.  What I'm always surprised by (still, after writing for years and years) is how fast characters will just take flight and go in directions you'd never think of/expect.  What started as a ghost story has become more of an exploration of how one life -and death- affects everything around it.  It's told from multiple perspectives - the person who died, the mother, the landlord, the new tenant.  Not at all what I was expecting to write when I sat down November 1st.  That's always the best part of writing in my opinion; just seeing where your characters take you.  It's kind of like having kids, except without the diapers and having to feed them.  But oh my goodness it is hard.  It is the hardest thing ever to turn off that inner editor and just write and write and write.  I've caught myself countless times going back trying to edit things only to realize, hey, you only get 20 days to write 50,000 words... are you really going to worry about editing right now?  "Difficult but worth it" is how I would sum up NaNoWriMo.  (But really, aren't all things worth doing kind of difficult?)



Also, our new range was just installed and I am so so thrilled.  There are seriously not enough exclamation points in the world to convey how happy I am to get a working oven (especially in time for the holidays, and especially because DM's parents will be visiting!)  For a comparison, here is our old stove:

To be fair, this was not a bad stove.  It was a Kenmore and came with the house (can't complain about free), but the oven stopped working about 6 months ago and refused to heat up.  And while I can't prove anything, I highly suspect the front burners were crapping out on it as well because they took forever and a day to heat up.  Also, plastic knobs.  And years and years of caked on... I assume it's food... that was here before we moved in.  Yeah.  Kinda icky.

The new one is a really nice convection oven (which I've never had but I've always wanted to try), it's stainless steel and has (for unknown reasons) a button for pizza and chicken nuggets.  Did you just read my mind, Frigidaire?  Oh yes you did.

 

I have been laboring over what to bake first - if you know me, you know our oven has been broken for about 6 months now which was pretty much a death sentence for me because I'm a baker - cookies, cupcakes, cakes, brownies...mmm... I can actually feel my waist expanding just by thinking of all the stuff I can do now.

We are going to spend many happy hours together, new oven.