I AM FULL OF FAIL!

I’ve said it once & I’ll say it again: Hell is a tiresome, strenuous place. Now, you may be thinking, “Well, duh Melissa. Take you this long to figure it out?” The answer is yes. Now, BioWith & I had our issues leading up to November, and only days before the month started, I was kicking around going another route. I did not, however, because it is so incredibly important that I cross that 50k mark and win this year on so many different levels. The most important level is (sadly) to reassure myself that my ex-husband truly didn’t rob me of as much as I thought he did. Matter of fact, if I can succeed, maybe I won’t hate him as much as I do. Over two years later, it’s still asking a lot – but hey, I’m not a callous nasty hateful person. True story. One of the managers at work calls me Sunshine & I’ll continue owning it.

Regardless. I need planning, since it has been so long since I have been able to write & changing game plans that late in the game was unacceptable. Not to mention I’ve had this story idea in my head for years. Well, it’s coming along fairly nicely. It has since morphed into something I did not necessarily want, but hey! That’s what December edits are for!

I was a sizable chunk of words below where I should have been all last week in order to hit that 50k by at least November 30. I pushed hard, focused, and about lost my mind catching up. What happened since Thursday night? NOTHING, save for 1100 words on the dot Friday afternoon. ZOMG I AM BACK TO WHERE I WAS BEFORE. After Cairo gets up from her nap, we are going to play a bit & then I am parking my butt in a place with a lot of caffeine and I am aiming for 5000 words. I need around 3600 AGAIN to get to where I need to be, so now I need some padding.

My weekend thus far has been pretty great, but I really need to focus. And I have a research paper due tomorrow for a class I have all but forgotten during my month long trek to writer stardom. My failing GPA will have to wait to thank me until my first book sells. Whenever that may be.

But I am sitting here, knowing full well I have some extra time and should really get on the ball, but what am I doing? This & not writing. I don’t want to go back in there. My story is starting to stall – I know where I need to go, but it’s not getting there – and frankly, this whole “oh gee, Melissa’s subconscious is going to throw a dead body in Hell” business is driving me bananas. Part of me wants to go in & rip it all out, but that would erase a good 3k words. This is about getting words out, not fixing them.

All that being said, I don’t want to go back to Hell to fix it BAH. HUMBUG. If nothing else, this is an incredible learning experience & I can’t wait til it’s over so I can get my free published copy of my crappy book and then chop it to bits in editing.

SOMEONE SAVE ME.

& again I fail, for this was almost 600 words that would have been fantastic to fit in my novel. UGH.

 

He deserves it.

As I am no longer frantically attempting to write a million words in the dash to catch up with my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers, I decided to take a break today (briefly) and write about something pretty awesome.

Hell gets a little tiresome, folks. And this is not the something awesome.

He doesn't like to take normal pictures.

Meet Mr. Awesome/Amazing/Wonderful. Yes, he’s finally getting his own post. I try and keep the mush down as much as humanly possible, but it’s a little difficult on occasion. You see, Mr. AAW (I like abbreviating things, apparently) has showered me with near limitless love and affection for a year on this upcoming December 6, and I am so grateful for every second of those 365 days. He has endured the junk surrounding my divorce and all the emotions with it (All haters may step aside, as the divorce took nearly two years before it finalized. And my lawyer is STILL in court fighting the crap that was written in my final decree concerning custody that I never agreed to, but that is a story for another day) and accepted that I would have baggage in the form of occasional man-hating and have a cute-as-a-button spunky toddler to match. Who, I should add, thinks the sun shines out of his butt. He does not, however, trump PaPa. To be honest, I don’t know that anyone ever will. Regardless. She adores him and he has been nothing but wonderful with her.

He’s listened to me rant and bitch with the sheer voltile anger that somehow magically develops anytime I had to discuss visitation with Cairo’s daddy. He didn’t drop me once he found out that I had no desire to get married again anytime soon and was on the fence about having another kid. He doesn’t hold any of it against me or push me to conform to his will.

Even his silly faces are adorably manly

Best of all? He allows me to be me. He’s encouraging, loving, and silly when I need him to cheer me up. He does not have a writers brain, but will still throw out any suggestions he may have to aide in helping my brain expand ideas, if nothing else. He reads what I write and showers me with honest compliments. Adam supports my decisions career-wise, scholastically, and emotionally - whatever they may be. He is funny and sweet and wonderful and fantastic all rolled into one. He trusts me and has faith in me – the same trust and faith, might I add, I have in him. What we have is far from one-sided.

He has blessed me with an amazing relationship; the kind that I never thought was possible to attain or truly existed. Oh, nothing is perfect and we’ve had a few rough spots, but all minor things that were talked out, repaired, and smoothed over. He’s truly one of my best friends in the best way. And I kinda love him.

Oh, and I should mention that his family is positively fabulous and wonderful as well. They have welcomed me with big open arms and I adore them all.

December 5-6 is going to be done in a big way, and I’m very excited. The real reason I wrote this, however, was because he once asked for a letter like the one dedicated to my iPhone, so I figured I would do him one better. He was so encouraging during my trek to catch up my NaNo word count that he deserves it. He even celebrated with me last night via text when he should have been sleeping.

Thank you, Adam, for being wonderful.

 

And so I dance.

NaNoWriMo Day 19.

Word Count: 31,801

OH HELL YES. I HAVE CAUGHT UP & SURPASSED THE MINIMUM DAILY WORD COUNT NEEDED TO MAKE THE 50K.

I had a celebratory beer and am now unbelievably anxious to get to bed. Monday – Wednesday night, the little Princess was with her great grandparents, so I spent my nights with The Man. Always enjoyable, except I cannot sleep with other people in the room if they are not already so on an incredibly regular basis.

Yes, this meant I got zero sleep with my ex, Mr. I’m in the Navy and Therefore Must Be Gone Every Five Minutes. It’s freaking ridiculous. As a child, I was always the last to go to sleep and the first to wake up at sleepovers… by several hours. Hours. But tonight, the kiddo is back and I have the bed all to myself and it looks scrumptiously inviting. So while I miss you, Adam – I’m going to enjoy to sleep.

AND THE FACT THAT I KNOCKED OUT THE 7000 WORDS I WAS BEHIND IN YESTERDAY AND THEN SOME.

Chalk this up as a win for Melissa. Now I desperately need sleep, because tomorrow I have to figure out how in the world to explain a dead body being found in Hell. Oi.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 18

Total Word Count: 27,200

This is after sprinting through 3671 words during the first half of my work day & lunch. It has been painfully slow and I was all, “Hey, I have a whopping 7000 painful words I am behind on, because my weekends suck out my soul. I should use all this free time to catch the eff up!”

So I hit 27k and wanted to die. I was helping set up a projector, and my co-worker says. “You’re really quiet today. Are you ok?”

The appropriate response should be, “No, Lisa, I’m not. I just spent 3 solid hours in Hell and I feel a little dead inside.”

But really, how do you just say something like that? One of the guys in Tank Farm found out the premise of my story & told some of the other people in the warehouse what it is about: “Hell.” Without going into the intricacies of my oh so fascinating piece of satirical fiction, this is generally what I just tell people, followed by “and the shattering of the concept ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’… but funny. Ish.” By then, however, most people are consumed by the fact that I am writing a book about Hell and how I am a terrible person.

So, I just said, “It’s been really slow and I’ve plowed through a ton of my book. I’m tired.”

Close enough. In the beginning – strike that, immediately after beginning and chomping through 3600 words – I thought 1667 words a day would be a cake walk. I was walking around going, “Fifty-thousand words? Childs play.”

Oh, how quickly I had forgotten the agonizing years of writers block and my inability to finish projects. Not to mention BioWith & I are still fighting. Still. The “funny” is going to have to come back in edits, because right now I need words on a page in a format resembling a cohesive story, and that damn story wants to be serious. Lord help me. The subject matter is also a bit exhausting, as I am constantly finding myself working doubly hard to ensure that I don’t start accidentally treading into blasphemous waters.

This is hard.

Last night I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen in almost two years. He was always a kickass friend, and I was super excited to see him again. He had a photography showing at a local community college, so we pretended to stare at the same 50 pictures for two hours and then blew that popstand for coffee and long talks about literature, poetry, our future writing careers, literature comebacks & their sheer awesomeness, and the projects we were currently working on. I told him my word count, which was at the time 23500, and his jaw dropped.

“I don’t think I’ve written 2300 words in my entire life.”

It was then I remembered that while I am still behind, it is because I don’t get any writing done on the weekends at the house. And that’s ok, because I have a beautiful, bouncing little two year old who demands my attention, and I eagerly give it to her. AND because, holy crap I’ve now written 27000 words, which is more than most people write ever, and it is without a doubt the longest project I’ve ever withstood.

Not only that, but it’s actually a coherent story… and one that is still moving forward. It’s a little choppy right now, with me trying to push ahead through some rocky terrain, but it’s moving. And will keep moving.

I AM WRITING A BOOK!

So, those 2806 words I am short of today can be made up, because I am close and I will win.

 

NaNoWrimo Day 5

Total Word Count: 7434 (none of which were written today. alas.)

Instead of spending my lunch break typing away in a Word Document, I decided to take a break, enjoy this unbelievably beautiful – and slightly unheard of – weather we’ve been having. My wonderful lover met me for lunch close by and we oogled at his new goatee.

Trust me, it’s pretty attractive.

BioWith is presently scolding me, but it can live. I never have anything to do during the last half of the day anyway, save for an occasional order that pops up. One client sends me a spreadsheet of upcoming orders, the other likes to go “Hey! How’s it going? Listen, I know we’re two hours behind you and it’s almost closing time over yonder, but uh – can you rush this order of 40k lbs worth of product today? Oh, and we’re not going to have 0ur export paperwork OR have sent you the labels you need. You can do this, right? Sweet. See you tomorrow. Kidding! GIVE ME MY CONFIRMATION NUMBER!”

(I genuinely love my job. But those people are cruh-ray-zee. I think I owe my shipping & warehouse guys 8 batches of cookies by now. I’ve been here, what? A month tops? Not even? Something like that.)

Anyway. So this afternoon is dedicated to boosting my word count & working on that rough draft of my film class research paper. Tomorrow, the OSR’s are having a cook out (have I mentioned that I love my job?) and so my lunch tomorrow will probably be dedicated to doing that. Oh, and tonight we may have a playdate with Adam’s old roommate (YAY!) so my nights are spent anyway. I should really be writing.

Yet, here I am. Bah.

Part of the problem is I am writing in Word here at work & on yWriter at home. Not only this, but I have no idea where I left off at home, and so I picked up and started elsewhere further down the line (ish) while at work. The whole thing feels slightly disjointed. Additionally, there is more satire at home and more serious stuff at work. I’d think it would be the polar opposite, but it’s not. I also feel like I’m rambling in my story, because I have no actual idea how long it really is in comparison to a “real book”. Sometimes it feels too short, other times it feels like I’m rambling. I know it’s all about just getting words out right now, but my inner Editor is pitching the mother of all hissy fits.

It’s going, though. Frankly, I’ve got more ground covered than I thought I would and this is a HUGE CELEBRATION for me. I’m having a party in my cubicle. Trust me. Dance party at 2:30! I’m inviting the drivers; they know how to get jiggy wit it.

Oh yeah. I went there.

Anyway, the shipping office was kind enough to call and inform me that my mail had arrived (I guess Andrew went home already He always brings it back for me.) so off I go. First stop: Mailroom! Next stop: HELL!

Sounds much more dubious than it really is. Fire & Brimstone got fired. Things have really shaped up down there.

Oooo! I went back to edit a thing or two & headed off to the Mailroom while it was loading (our servers are painful sometimes). Lo & behold! They brought my mail back anyway. & not a thing was for me. Let’s have a big ol dance party over here RIGHT NOW!

… back to Hell. It’s calling me. Much love to my other NaNo’s out there!

 

Blame it on the Weatherman Does Dallas (but really Houston)

Not only is today the second day of what is probably one of the most important things I’ve done (Curious? See here and here), but it is also the first day I’m writing in the office and my last day of “peace” before my daughter comes home from her week stay at daddys. To say I’m excited is an understatement. So ready to have my baby back! But now my days are going to be back to being a little more full. Oh, and I have that rough draft of my research paper due for class. WPverse, please don’t let me forget that. I need to stay on top of my classes this go round.

Anyway, while I should be writing, no one is at lunch yet and it’s still rather noisy. My laptop was also left at home, so I don’t remember where exactly I left off. Now debating just working on another scene/time all together and connecting it later. A viable possibility. Laptop at work has raised some pretty testy inner debates as well. I don’t want to leave it – and thanks to my predecessor, there is no key left for any of my drawers that lock, joy! – but I can take it outside to enjoy the weather and my  music and my yWriter program to stay on track. Then again, I’d be outside with the smokers who are very chatty.

“Reconnect later” just might win. Alas.

I’m hoping to match yesterdays word count today, which means I need to stop blogging and start hopping to it. I have dinner tonight with the man and must finish finish finish!

 

…. SON OF A B. After the rest of my classwork is complete. SIGH. A girls work is never done….

Also, I feel the need to mention somewhere that I don’t think I’ve been this happy in years. My daughter is coming home soon, I have an unbelievably wonderful job, I’m dating one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met, the weather is beautiful lately, church has been fabulous, and I am just happy happy happy. I’m praying this lasts, because since the divorce began it’s spiraled from miserable miserable miserable to downright effing awful kill me now. But you know what? Life is good today.

OH. & I managed to steal a bunch of my little sisters Halloween candy. She’s 16 – she’ll live.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Word Count as of 5:30 pm: 3612

I’m not going to lie – I am so proud of myself! I could probably push through to 5000 & hit that lofty 10% mark, but I feel like I’d do some serious damage if I did. Right now, BioWith & I are still battling out just exactly how I plan on writing it. I think I know the direction I want to take it & things are already shaping up a bit differently than originally planned, but I think it’s a good thing. I do not, however, feel it’s my best writing.

Melissa’s Secret #1: My initial writing is awful. No really, I hate it. Sentences are trite, dialog is sophomoric. I have a large vocabulary, but I forget things frequently. I’m constantly using dictionary.com to confirm a word or thesaurus.com because I also have a terrible habit of repeating words over & over. The end result is almost always well put together, but those first “rough drafts” are just that – rough.

So, right now I kind of hate most of what is written. I feel like there is enough there to make me not want to scrap it, or scurry back & fix it until next month, but hey – words on a page. A story in progress. Also, yWriter is the most amazing thing I have ever stumbled into. My only complaint is the spell check function, but other than that? Gold. Pure gold.

I have characters, I have back story, I have an interesting plot line ready to go. I still don’t know where exactly, but those are pesky little details that I’m sure they’ll all have worked out by the time we get there.

In short, a successful start to NaNoWriMo! Certainly far better than I anticipated. Good luck to everyone out there!

 

Lions, Tigers & Bears! Oh my!

Like, omg y’all.

November 1st is only a day away. I’m basically shaking in my boots, I’m so excited! BioWith still has no ending – or, sadly, a new nickname – but has plenty of backstory. For a while, it was saturated with ridiculous plotholes that only grew in stature the more I tried to repair them, but lo! I have arrived victorious! Continuity may be on the bottom of things I need to worry about during this balls-to-the-wall, just-write-don’t-edit month o’ insanity, but I need it to move forward in a way that makes sense to me later. So, thank the Lord I finally got this stuff panned out.

I even have quotes. I am getting dangerously close to just starting my novel. Today I have decided that I just need to put it down & leave it, now that the major plot holes are covered so my story can actually, you know, begin. I’m hoping my exotic cast of characters can help me steer this crazy train into an ending. But with Hitler just chilling in an Eternal Pit of Fire along with the inventor of the moving sidewalk, how can I go wrong?

Say it with me: NaNo! NaNo! NaNo!!!

Going to be a crazy weekend; it’s super full with all sorts of fun things that will not allow me to catch up on my sleep from the week, but will be tons of fun nonetheless! & I don’t even think I’m going to a Halloween party this year. Weird & sort of unfortunate, but totally worth it.

 

iLove

Today was inventory day at work; a*k*a Melissa can’t perform her normal job duties because the system is shut down for counts. WOOT! So, I played the role of kolache eater, trusty paper ripper and data entry extraordinaire for the first half of the morning, followed by bbq eater, wander around the office looking busy while having random dance parties with the warehouse guys-er, and work on my NaNo novel but actually just buy NaNo merch-er. It’s been a productive day.

What I actually did get accomplished, however, is sorting through voice memos on my lovely would-die-without-it iPhone to get back into the groove of  BiotW, which I now want to lovingly refer to as “BioWith”. Ill-fitting, but fun to say! I also started an excel spreadsheet to document characters, but I doubt I’ll ever use it.

Those voice memos are amazing. As soon as I started rehashing ideas I had from a month plus ago, it was like Scotty was beaming me over into their little world – which is slightly unnerving, due to its location and.. locale – and everything felt fresh again. The unintentional break from BioWith turned out to be just what I needed. Wobbly Boot had captivated my interest long enough to get the juices flowing, now running with my main dudes won’t be a problem.

What I’m now fighting is the irresistable urge to start it. Again. Instead I shall plan, plan, plan, and plan some more. And also create a new nickname for my coming-soon masterpiece, because BioWith is starting to annoy me already. Poor little redheaded stepchild. No one loves it.

Also, has anyone ever struggled with the content of the piece on a moral or religious (etc) basis? I really want to write this story. I have wanted to flesh this story out for years. YEARS. But the content, location, and large cast of characters is unsettling, and frankly – not exactly something a good little Christian girl should be playing with. Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with it, maybe that’s why I’ve put it off for so long? The anxiety fuels my anticipation. I don’t even know how this will end, much less turn out. DUN DUN DUNNNNN!

 

T-MINUS 10 DAYS!

I can’t believe it’s almost time to NaNo! I am so excited. Because of last minute school work, my reading has been pushed to the wayside lately, but I really need to jump on it. And find my Sartre – WHERE IS IT? I don’t know. Bah. I also need to start reviewing my audio memos on my phone to start getting everything together for Blame it on the Weatherman to cross that finish line!

Since I’ve had so much going on, I really need to buckle down and submerse myself in the world to get geared up for it. Plan, plan, plan. Maybe I should just do that instead of my 100 Words exercises. This is way more important. Who doesn’t want to win? NaNo is a chance for me to prove to myself that I can do this & the dreams I’ve long carried to become an author can and will come true. I know these things take time – but I need to know that I actually can write a novel; that I can actually finish a full length project. Saga of the Wobbly Boot was my first completed project in I don’t know how long – but it was only around 3500 words. That’s chump change to the 50,000 I need by the end of the month.

Bring it on, NaNo. Jimmy & I are going to take it home!

 

…. unless I change his name to Paul. Ack. I need to plan!