Blah, Blah, Blah.

Sorry, no real entry today. I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year so I'm trying to pound out a couple of thousand words a day of true offal. It's horrible. Very horrible stuff. I don't have a plot and I keep introducing random characters and then abandoning them a couple of paragraphs later. It's like writing on crack. Or too much Diet Coke.

Have any of you ever read Ann Lammot's Bird by Bird? If you're interested in writing or are a writer, then you should read it one day. There's no "real" technical writing advice, but she helped me to calm down a year or two ago when I was freaking out over my senior capstone. I was convinced I was going to die and leave reams of horrible work for everyone to read and giggle over and I wouldn't be there to defend myself.

This thing I'm doing for NaNoWriMo is what she calls the Shitty First Draft. Unless you're some sort of writing genius, a story or poem rarely comes out whole and seamlessly joined together. You have to start somewhere and it helped me a bit to know that everyone writes Shitty First Drafts. I doubt this will ever turn into a real book, but I'm catching bits and pieces that may make good short stories later. It's my "writing savings account" in case I decide to go back for an MFA. I'll have some things I can hopefully clean up and use for workshops.

If you've never participated in NaNoWriMo, do it this year! Start tonight! You'll only have to write a couple of thousand words a day to make it to the end. There's no real prize awarded. Participants who complete their SFD recieve a certificate of completion and a the knowledge they've essentially written something. There's an old saying that everyone has at least one good book in them. Let the first stages of yours out. Put it down on paper. (Or save it to your hard drive. Whichever.)

In other news, I discovered Tuba Girl owed thirty dollars in school ID badges and I'm a little damned pissed. She is currently my servant in exchange. I also may potentially have a snake on the loose in the house, but I'm not entirely sure at this point.

I have a couple of things planned this week that I'll write about later. They include: attending our KAR Elementary Day at the local arboretum, putting new brake pads on the Car That I Refuse to Let Die (or wrangling someone else into changing them for me), building a small solar oven, and something else, but I forget what. If you're interested in other things, let me know and I'll see what I have to say about it. If I don't know anything about it, I'll eventually get around to investigating, trying it out, and writing. I have one more Stinky story left before I move on to Crazy Gloria. (It's like I'm a fucking magnet for the crazy.)

And Christmas is coming! I seriously have to get my ass in gear. I may even post a couple of recipes. Sure, they'll be candy recipes and you can find the majority of them on a box somewhere, but they're recipes. Christmas is the only time of the year when my Culinary Goddess shows her form in the shape of buck eyes, peanut brittle, taffy, meringues, and fudge. If I could feed my kids candy for dinner, then I'd be considered an awesome cook. Somehow, though, it doesn't seem to work that way. And then we do some crafty shit like the gingerbread countdown calendar. Have to start prepping for that. I fucking love Christmas.

So bear with me and I'll make up for it somehow. If you're participating in NaNoWriMo or are going to participate, let me know and keep me updated on your word count.