Word count: 32,754, which puts me 1081 words ahead of schedule! A personal record!
Am only going to have time to revel briefly in the luxury of being so far ahead of schedule, as I imagine my writing time will be limited tomorrow. We are going to be wined and dined tomorrow evening... am looking very much forward to getting up from this desk and interacting socially.
Marten and the girls and I went into town this morning to see Sinterklaas arrive in the fair city of Alphen aan the Rijn. Unfortunately, so did thousands of other families from Alphen aan de Rijn and nearby villages.
The city has just completed a major renovation of the city centre, including a brand new square on the Rhine river. Sinterklaas' steamboot moored alongside this new square, and all of the thousands of children were hoisted up onto all of the thousands of wearied parents' shoulders, and the show began. Unfortunately, only the kids right up front could see or hear anything. We lured our kids away after 10 minutes with the promise of gingerbread nuts at the local bakery (Bribery works. I am not ashamed.)
We were just tucking into our gingerbread outside the bakery, when along came a baton-twirling team of majorettes, followed by a marching band, followed by a small army of "Zwarte Pieten" handing out FREE gingerbread nuts, followed by, you won't believe it... a horse-drawn trolley car in which Sinterklaas himself sat waving at the kids!!! The girls were thrilled. Ha!
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
Day 18
Word count: 30,789!!! No less than 783 words AHEAD of chedule!
Hoo ha. I am a Goddess with an Attitude who has just bought herself a first class ticket to a good night's sleep. Satisfaction is sweet. Am listening to Innessa Galante singing Ave Maria on my headphones and feel positively sublime... This state of mind can be yours too, for the small price of producing an average of 1,667 words a day for 18 days straight. Please not to confuse sublime with cocky. I am carefully guarding against feeling cocky by allowing myself to revel in tiny victories and then getting back to work. Cocky is asking for trouble.
Girls were high strung by the time I got home from work this evening, having been cooped up in the house all day feeling yucky. By the time bedtime rolled around, Maddy had a goose egg on her noggin as a result of being assaulted by her two-foot tall, swaggering, bully of a sister who was wielding a pink and lavender plastic blow dryer. Ai ai ai.
Once upstairs, it became clear that Sonia was looking for trouble. She proceeded to kidnap Maddy's special stuffed animal "Tweetje". Maddy has slept with that rabbit every night for over a year, and no matter how dedicated Maddy is to Sonia, this wasn't going to happen. Clever girl that she is, Maddy brought Sonia her stuffed sheep, which is almost identical to Tweetje, except for the ears and the color (the Easter bunny tries to be fair). Once Sonia was convinced that the sheep was an acceptable replacement for Tweetje, I asked her what she wanted to name it. "Aap." she said, and hugged it. For those of you who don't speak Dutch, this is the equivalent to naming a stuffed sheep "Eep", except that "Aap" means "monkey" in Dutch. Maddy and I looked at eachother and laughed. Aap. Maddy and Tweetje (which, incidentally is named after the sound Maddy claims a rabbit makes) and Sonia and Aap all fell asleep quickly this evening, hence the amazing word count.
Hoo ha. I am a Goddess with an Attitude who has just bought herself a first class ticket to a good night's sleep. Satisfaction is sweet. Am listening to Innessa Galante singing Ave Maria on my headphones and feel positively sublime... This state of mind can be yours too, for the small price of producing an average of 1,667 words a day for 18 days straight. Please not to confuse sublime with cocky. I am carefully guarding against feeling cocky by allowing myself to revel in tiny victories and then getting back to work. Cocky is asking for trouble.
Girls were high strung by the time I got home from work this evening, having been cooped up in the house all day feeling yucky. By the time bedtime rolled around, Maddy had a goose egg on her noggin as a result of being assaulted by her two-foot tall, swaggering, bully of a sister who was wielding a pink and lavender plastic blow dryer. Ai ai ai.
Once upstairs, it became clear that Sonia was looking for trouble. She proceeded to kidnap Maddy's special stuffed animal "Tweetje". Maddy has slept with that rabbit every night for over a year, and no matter how dedicated Maddy is to Sonia, this wasn't going to happen. Clever girl that she is, Maddy brought Sonia her stuffed sheep, which is almost identical to Tweetje, except for the ears and the color (the Easter bunny tries to be fair). Once Sonia was convinced that the sheep was an acceptable replacement for Tweetje, I asked her what she wanted to name it. "Aap." she said, and hugged it. For those of you who don't speak Dutch, this is the equivalent to naming a stuffed sheep "Eep", except that "Aap" means "monkey" in Dutch. Maddy and I looked at eachother and laughed. Aap. Maddy and Tweetje (which, incidentally is named after the sound Maddy claims a rabbit makes) and Sonia and Aap all fell asleep quickly this evening, hence the amazing word count.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Day 17
Word count: 27,939... 400 words behind schedule.
Am well and truly exhausted again, but made good progress on the story. At a loss as to how to proceed, I skimmed through what I have already - against my better judgement, mind you - and suddenly knew what I needed to do. So much for my better judgement.
Took the time to work out the timeline more precisely, which freed me up to use more historical detail (think word-count padding), and made bold decisions about the plot and sketched them out so that I now have a three line prompt for each of the final(?) four sections of Part 1. Right. Suffice it to say that despite the word count deficit, I feel like I spent my time well this evening.
Both the girls are feeling sick - Sonia has a bit of a fever, and I am sure Madelin isn't going to be far behind. Poor sweeties. Both are so snuggly when they aren't feeling good, so off to bed I go...for I may be up and down all night with them. Have reached the point where madcap attempt at writing a novel feels simply mad.
Am well and truly exhausted again, but made good progress on the story. At a loss as to how to proceed, I skimmed through what I have already - against my better judgement, mind you - and suddenly knew what I needed to do. So much for my better judgement.
Took the time to work out the timeline more precisely, which freed me up to use more historical detail (think word-count padding), and made bold decisions about the plot and sketched them out so that I now have a three line prompt for each of the final(?) four sections of Part 1. Right. Suffice it to say that despite the word count deficit, I feel like I spent my time well this evening.
Both the girls are feeling sick - Sonia has a bit of a fever, and I am sure Madelin isn't going to be far behind. Poor sweeties. Both are so snuggly when they aren't feeling good, so off to bed I go...for I may be up and down all night with them. Have reached the point where madcap attempt at writing a novel feels simply mad.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Day 16
Word count: 26,290... only 382 measly words behind schedule, despite loss of yesterday's work and despite ridiculously hectic day with the girls. Sheesh.
The Goddess with an Attitude is going to sleep now.
G'night.
The Goddess with an Attitude is going to sleep now.
G'night.
Day 15 and a half
word count: 23,361... 2054 words LESS than yesterday.
Minor setback: computer ate my homework. Four and a half hours of work down the tubes. Must have screwed up in saving my work, despite safety precaution of saving to hard drive and memory stick. Felt positively ill and dizzy for about 45 minutes after I saw what had happened. Checked and double checked. It is really gone. The real stinger is that I actually liked what I had written yesterday. When I grumbled "Stupid computer!", Sonia said "Ach, sweet mama. Sonia fix it!" Bless that girl.
When the going gets tough, the tough... eat grilled cheese sandwiches and bake gingerbread cookies. Desperate times call for major carbohydrate intake. When I tipped over a bag of brown sugar, spilling about two cups on the kitchen floor, I sighed and started cleaning it up. Maddy said "I think it is really good that you aren't giving up." Bless that girl, too.
And now back to the drawing board. Will have to write like a bat out of H E double hockey sticks to catch up.
More later...
Minor setback: computer ate my homework. Four and a half hours of work down the tubes. Must have screwed up in saving my work, despite safety precaution of saving to hard drive and memory stick. Felt positively ill and dizzy for about 45 minutes after I saw what had happened. Checked and double checked. It is really gone. The real stinger is that I actually liked what I had written yesterday. When I grumbled "Stupid computer!", Sonia said "Ach, sweet mama. Sonia fix it!" Bless that girl.
When the going gets tough, the tough... eat grilled cheese sandwiches and bake gingerbread cookies. Desperate times call for major carbohydrate intake. When I tipped over a bag of brown sugar, spilling about two cups on the kitchen floor, I sighed and started cleaning it up. Maddy said "I think it is really good that you aren't giving up." Bless that girl, too.
And now back to the drawing board. Will have to write like a bat out of H E double hockey sticks to catch up.
More later...
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Day 15
Word count: 25, 415! Over the half-way mark, 410 words ahead of schedule...
GODDESS WITH AN ATTITUDE
Thanks Véronique!
Sonia was putting me through the regular bedtime paces this evening, and finally she lay on my lap with her head in the crook of my arm, waving around a small stuffed ostrich. Madelin offered to tell her a story. I said that was fine, but with the lights out - she would have to tell her a story she knew. She offered Little Red Riding Hood. Sonia replied, "No, ostrich!"
"O.k. Little Red Red Riding Hood with Ostrich." agreed Maddy. Sonia said "Good." and she plugged her little thumb into her mouth and listened to the following story*.
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl and her grandmother gave her a little red riding hood and her mother asked her if she wanted to bring her grandmother a basket of food, and she said okay. So she and her ostrich...mama how do you say ostrich in Dutch? (I couldn't think of the word struisvogel just then so we settled on reiger, which is Dutch for 'heron') Okay, so Little Red Riding Hood and her heron went into the woods and they met a... mama what kind of animals like to eat ostriches, uh I mean herons? (I told her a wolf would probably eat a heron if he were hungry enough). Okay, so the wolf said to Little Red Riding hood "I'm hungry. I want to eat your heron!" and Little Red Riding Hood said "No way! Have you gone completely crazy?!" and she ran with the heron all the way to her grandmother's house. When she got there her grandmother looked strange,... she had a beak and she said quack quack, so little Red Riding Hood and the heron went home."
And then she said, "Mom, I was afraid it was going to go all wrong, and then it turned out good!" Thanks to Maddy's quick thinking, Sonia won't have any nightmares involving wolves and ostriches (or even herons).
May the second half of my NaNoWriMo novel reflect even a fraction of Maddy's flexibility, creativity, and bold decision-making. And may I remember that even if I am afraid it will all go wrong, it might just turn out "good" in the end. No matter how the novel turns out, I am so very lucky to have found my way home.
*retold as accurately as possible
In honor of this occasion I have been awarded a new button, which I shall wear at all times during the next two weeks (well, maybe not in the shower or on my pajamas). It reads:
GODDESS WITH AN ATTITUDE
Thanks Véronique!
"O.k. Little Red Red Riding Hood with Ostrich." agreed Maddy. Sonia said "Good." and she plugged her little thumb into her mouth and listened to the following story*.
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl and her grandmother gave her a little red riding hood and her mother asked her if she wanted to bring her grandmother a basket of food, and she said okay. So she and her ostrich...mama how do you say ostrich in Dutch? (I couldn't think of the word struisvogel just then so we settled on reiger, which is Dutch for 'heron') Okay, so Little Red Riding Hood and her heron went into the woods and they met a... mama what kind of animals like to eat ostriches, uh I mean herons? (I told her a wolf would probably eat a heron if he were hungry enough). Okay, so the wolf said to Little Red Riding hood "I'm hungry. I want to eat your heron!" and Little Red Riding Hood said "No way! Have you gone completely crazy?!" and she ran with the heron all the way to her grandmother's house. When she got there her grandmother looked strange,... she had a beak and she said quack quack, so little Red Riding Hood and the heron went home."
And then she said, "Mom, I was afraid it was going to go all wrong, and then it turned out good!" Thanks to Maddy's quick thinking, Sonia won't have any nightmares involving wolves and ostriches (or even herons).
May the second half of my NaNoWriMo novel reflect even a fraction of Maddy's flexibility, creativity, and bold decision-making. And may I remember that even if I am afraid it will all go wrong, it might just turn out "good" in the end. No matter how the novel turns out, I am so very lucky to have found my way home.
*retold as accurately as possible
Monday, November 14, 2005
Day 14
Happy Birthday Mom! My word count today is dedicated to you...23,637, which is 299 words ahead of the worst-case scenario plan. Hurrah!
Mom and Dad won't be able to check in for a couple of weeks, as they are on the road again - driving from North Dakota to Washington state to stay with Grandma Helen and Grandpa Bob through Thanksgiving. Talked to them this evening as they were driving through Billings, Montana and they were in high spirits, and planning on stopping for a birthday pizza dinner!
I don't know whether it is the crisp fall weather that has finally arrived here, or the almost full moon, or the fact that I AM NEARLY HALFWAY DONE with my 50,000 words, but I have been feeling positively cheerful all day.
Well, almost all day. While I was making dinner, Sonia got into the drawer that contains a variety of paints. Which one do you think she used to do her face, her shirt, her jeans, her shoes and her chair with?
a.) one of the three sets of water-colors
b.) the water-based face paints
c.) the set of oil paints for a paint-by-number kit that isn't quite finished yet.
Those who chose answers a. or b. are either true optimists or they have never had a two-year old in their house for more than five minutes. Aaaaargh.
I have made little progress in the area of daring to goof up. I mean, I am sure I am goofing up all over the place, but am not yet feeling that great expanse opening up before me where goofing up big will feel truly okay. In any case, I am still fleshing out earlier scenes, adding detail that will help me to tie things together and wrote two new sections touching on important events that have only been mentioned. All very respectable novelling, I assure you, but I supect I am again hypnotized by the Pure Potential factor (see Day ? post) - meaning as long as I resist pinning myself down to anything specific, this novel might still take an astonishing turn... ahem. Right. I know. I'm going already.
Mom and Dad won't be able to check in for a couple of weeks, as they are on the road again - driving from North Dakota to Washington state to stay with Grandma Helen and Grandpa Bob through Thanksgiving. Talked to them this evening as they were driving through Billings, Montana and they were in high spirits, and planning on stopping for a birthday pizza dinner!
I don't know whether it is the crisp fall weather that has finally arrived here, or the almost full moon, or the fact that I AM NEARLY HALFWAY DONE with my 50,000 words, but I have been feeling positively cheerful all day.
Well, almost all day. While I was making dinner, Sonia got into the drawer that contains a variety of paints. Which one do you think she used to do her face, her shirt, her jeans, her shoes and her chair with?
a.) one of the three sets of water-colors
b.) the water-based face paints
c.) the set of oil paints for a paint-by-number kit that isn't quite finished yet.
Those who chose answers a. or b. are either true optimists or they have never had a two-year old in their house for more than five minutes. Aaaaargh.
I have made little progress in the area of daring to goof up. I mean, I am sure I am goofing up all over the place, but am not yet feeling that great expanse opening up before me where goofing up big will feel truly okay. In any case, I am still fleshing out earlier scenes, adding detail that will help me to tie things together and wrote two new sections touching on important events that have only been mentioned. All very respectable novelling, I assure you, but I supect I am again hypnotized by the Pure Potential factor (see Day ? post) - meaning as long as I resist pinning myself down to anything specific, this novel might still take an astonishing turn... ahem. Right. I know. I'm going already.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Day 13
Word count (drum roll, please): 21,792, ladies and gentlemen. One Hundred and Twenty One words AHEAD of schedule (the crowd goes wild...what a comeback!)
They got fresh peanuts in the V.I.P. lounge, folks, and everything is feeling good (except my right arm, and my shoulders, oh and my legs are cramped from sitting for hours on end). I am ready to keep up with my word count again, with no small thanks to my amazing, wonderful man who has allowed me to sleep in two days in a row this weekend to catch up on some much-needed rest. I can feel the difference in my brain activity.
So, I've answered one of the twelve important questions I set for myself yesterday, and avoided answering the remaining eleven questions by fleshing out an earlier scene with a stay at an inn in Hamburg. I discovered I had caused my two main characters - sisters Louise and Birgit - to travel 8 hours by steamboat and then another I-don't-know-how-many hours on to Leiden in one day. No wonder Birgit was suddenly not travelling well. I put them up for the night at the best inn I could find, complete with stout, gruff innkeeper and greasy food. (Truly pleasant inns make for boring reading. Mark my words.).
If I want to keep up now, I have to just make choices and go with them - even if it means scrapping whole sections later if I am wrong. The NaNoWriMo rules state that there is to be no editing done during the month of November. Every word counts, even if you know at some point in the writing process that you have to cut a scene or an entire chapter that has gone off on a tangent. I am going to focus tomorrow on feeling free to goof up. Not an easy thing for me, as you may have surmised...;)
The neighbor lady Yvonne came over this afternoon and surprised the girls with sweaters she had knit for them. Wow! Bright shades of orange and green, set off by brown and white, Sonia's features a parrot and Maddy's a snow man, with a drawstring waistband hung with big fuzzy pom-poms. I can honestly say I have never seen such amazing sweaters and the girls love them. The weather here is supposed to start feeling wintery on Tuesday, and we are ready for it!
They got fresh peanuts in the V.I.P. lounge, folks, and everything is feeling good (except my right arm, and my shoulders, oh and my legs are cramped from sitting for hours on end). I am ready to keep up with my word count again, with no small thanks to my amazing, wonderful man who has allowed me to sleep in two days in a row this weekend to catch up on some much-needed rest. I can feel the difference in my brain activity.
So, I've answered one of the twelve important questions I set for myself yesterday, and avoided answering the remaining eleven questions by fleshing out an earlier scene with a stay at an inn in Hamburg. I discovered I had caused my two main characters - sisters Louise and Birgit - to travel 8 hours by steamboat and then another I-don't-know-how-many hours on to Leiden in one day. No wonder Birgit was suddenly not travelling well. I put them up for the night at the best inn I could find, complete with stout, gruff innkeeper and greasy food. (Truly pleasant inns make for boring reading. Mark my words.).
If I want to keep up now, I have to just make choices and go with them - even if it means scrapping whole sections later if I am wrong. The NaNoWriMo rules state that there is to be no editing done during the month of November. Every word counts, even if you know at some point in the writing process that you have to cut a scene or an entire chapter that has gone off on a tangent. I am going to focus tomorrow on feeling free to goof up. Not an easy thing for me, as you may have surmised...;)
The neighbor lady Yvonne came over this afternoon and surprised the girls with sweaters she had knit for them. Wow! Bright shades of orange and green, set off by brown and white, Sonia's features a parrot and Maddy's a snow man, with a drawstring waistband hung with big fuzzy pom-poms. I can honestly say I have never seen such amazing sweaters and the girls love them. The weather here is supposed to start feeling wintery on Tuesday, and we are ready for it!