Generation Exhausted

The fat lady has sung

It's over. Final count: 50,019

Some will suggest that I cheated - I didn't actually finish until 1:22 am. December 1, but you know what? It's still November 30th somewhere, and as of yesterday afternoon, I was only at 37k and something. I've written roughly 13k words in two days. I'm a winner, so there.

I knew that if I didn't finish tonight, I wouldn't. And quite possibly, the last 13k words are crap. For certain, the last 300 words are.  But I passed the finish line, finished the story, and will begin the editing process sooner rather than later. Because unlike last year, or any other fiction attempt before that, I promised myself this year - I didn't write this one for the hard drive. This one's going places, baby, and that's all there is to it.

Stay tuned for Christmas chaos and other exhausting tales. I'm still catching up from being sick and have an 1800 word article due in six days. Oh, and while you wait, go find the January issue of Canadian Living.  You'll see a familiar byline on the Salute page.

Congrats to all those who made it, and all those who didn't but are happy with the effort they gave it! Now I'm off to dream up a title.

Still here...

But barely. Was struck down by the most awful gastro bug, the type that leaves you wondering "where did Sunday go?" Except you know exactly where Sunday went - it passed in one hour and twenty minute increments, which is the average amount of time your body slept in between trips to toss your cookies.

And again and again and again.

And just to prove that there is something hilarious in EVERY aspect of my life, you'll be interested to hear about the half-inch gash I now sport on the bridge of my nose, which is what happens when the toilet seat falls on your head.

I kid you not. Really.

So, very quickly - Nano count is at 43k and change, and I will finish today, oh yes I WILL because last night I wrote 6000 words, and if I did that on only two bowls of Jello and a bowl of noodles, just think of what I can do today, now that I'm back to my old self, more or less.

Oh, and I think I quit smoking. I went almost 48 hours without a cigarette, didn't even want one, and then when I had one, I stubbed it out halfway through 'cause it tasted yucky. So there.

No sense doing things halfway

I mean, if you're going to procrastinate, procrastinate WELL, darn it.

I have to write another 12k Nano words by Tuesday. I have an 1800 word article due a week from Monday. My office is a mess, and don't even ask about my Christmas shopping.

So of course, I did what would be expected - I spent two and a half hours designing a new School Council newsletter.

What can I say? I'm an all or nothing kind of gal.

The future is now

Nano count to date: 37,024

It did snow, a very little bit, but still - I felt totally vindicated because the baby has new boots, and her little feet were warm and dry all day. I am SO a good parent.

Satellite man came today, early, so I had to get out of bed, since the second TV is in our room. It was actually the second time I'd been up. The first time was to drive the girl to school for volleyball tryouts. Shades of last year's swim season, I tell you. I mean, really - should I be behind the wheel when I'm barely awake enough to remember my own name?

But tryouts are finished and she made the cut, she's on the team, and there will be no more early morning practices. Everyone say HALELLUJAH.

So satellite man came, and we now have a BILLION channels, and a fancy new remote, and all I want to know is, what channel are Regis and Kelly on? I swear, by the time I find them tomorrow morning, the show will be twenty minutes old, and everyone knows that the only part of the show worth watching is the first nineteen minutes.  And I was not at all impressed by the fact that I could watch a Friends rerun on a channel originating in Newfoundland.

I didn't even know they had electricity in Newfoundland.

Newfoundlanders may now enlighten me. But please, be kind.

Linda might stop in this weekend, and the thought of five extra people sleeping over doesn't faze me at all, so happy am I whenever I get the chance to hang out with Linda. And whether she knows it or not, she's going to help me figure out where to pitch this fantastic article idea I got today.

In six days, I will have completed a novel.  Pinky swear.

It can be done

Nano count to date: 34,151. I'm a bit behind. 35, 157. But getting there.

Today I broke all known laws of man and nature - or at least of Shelley and the gang. I went to WalMart, was in the store less than 30 minutes and spent less than $30. It's a freakin' miracle.

See, it was gray today. The sky was positively ominous - the colour of slate. I had no idea how gray it was until around 2 p.m. when I walked into the living room and said to hubby, "Boy, it's really starting to look pretty bleak out there." To which he said, "It's looked like that all day, you know."

Well no, I didn't know. The sun doesn't shine in the basement office, even in July.

Anyway, 'round about six, I realized - it's inevitable. In spite of mostly mild, if a bit nippy days, Winter is, eventually, going to get here. Probably tomorrow. And there will be rain, and freezing rain, and that lovely thing they call "wintery mix." And then snow.

And I had not yet bought boots for the baby.

Side note: The baby is eight years old, stands as high as my armpits and has her own email address.

But she does not drive, nor is she gainfully employed, so boots are still her parents' responsibility. And we had failed miserably in the boot department, and if we waited until there was, actually, snow on the ground, you can bet your sweet bippy WalMart would have run out of boots.

So off we went.

And got boots. Only boots. Nothing else. No toasters, no curtains, no little hanger things to hang up the mirror I won as a door prize at a card party six months ago. No lamps, or any of the other things that typically jump into my cart as we wander through WalMart and somehow make it through the checkout line.

Yes Virginia, miracles are possible.

However, yesterday I went to the drug store for a new spiral notebook and came home with Nutri Grain bars, a Glade Plug-In air freshener, and a $13 jar of Oil of Olay night cream that promises - PROMISES I tell you - to eradicate the crow's feet that are threatening to walk all over my fragile ego.

What can I say? Nobody's perfect.

Through the grapevine

I heard it from Ann, who heard it from Mindy, who obviously reads the right Web pages, or watches the right TV or something.

Generation Xhausted was on TV!

It's only a 2 second screen shot as the camera pans, but still...

My blog was on TV.

Congrats to all the DotMoms, and especially to Julie for putting together such a diverse and well-spoken community.

Now I have to think of something witty to write, just in case people drop by...

It's a chick thing

A few weeks ago, we reached the ABSOLUTE LIMIT of our patience with the local cable company.They had removed yet another movie channel from the lineup, but not any dollars and cents from our monthly bill, and we had HAD IT.

So, this week, the satellite guy comes to connect us to the 21st century.  This has caused much excitement here, as we are going with the entirely legal, government approved satellite provider, as opposed to one of those "grey area" things where you're always in danger of being "zapped", whatever that means.

Odd, to live in a country run by a government that thinks everyone should be allowed to smoke pot, but not watch what they want on TV.

Anyway, the satellite guy is coming, and I was looking forward to nifty new channels like deja Vu and Drive-In.  And that's when the bad news hit:

We won't get the WB.

In case the significance of that escapes you, let me say it again:

We won't get the WB.

Hubby, when arranging the package, didn't think about the WB. Because around here, things like Gilmore Girls and Charmed and Everwood are the girls' shows.  And he's a little puzzled that we're so upset about not getting plain old WB even though we'll be getting SIX movie channels, and many other wonderful things.

So how do I get the Gilmore Girls if I don't have the WB? Any thoughts?

Only 37 days and 400 gifts to go

Nano count to date: 30,176. Sixty percent done. So there.

The problem with telling everyone you know that you're writing a novel in a month is that they then ask you - ALL MONTH LONG - how the novel is coming. It's coming, that's all I can say right now. I'm on track. And yes dear, I know I should get some words in the bank because Murphy's Law guarantees that some unimagined distaster will probably strike SOON.

As of last Friday's trip to Moonlight Madness, I have started my Christmas shopping, which is sickeningly early for me, but I feel "started" at least, and that takes some of the pressure off. For me, it's the first purchase that's the toughest - from there, it's all downhill, as I race merrily along, flinging my debit card at unsuspecting merchants, and ultimately ending up, Christmas Eve, staring at a pile of gifts and trying to remember who in god's name I planned to give the gift set of 38 miniature jars of jam to. I really should stay out of the stores - I am a marketer's dream, susceptible to aisles decked with holly and motion-activated singing Santas. I put the "fa" in fa-la-la.

So I started the shopping. I bought a gift for one of my nieces. (Note: if you're my sister-in-law, you can just cover your eyes now, and not spoil the surprise. I'm sure you're not my niece, because although she's a bright child, she's only two and three quarters, and I highly doubt her parents let her spend her days reading Auntie's blog)

We had decided a while ago that we wanted to get her a Magna Doodle. My kids had one, and used it to DEATH. The one my kids had was boring blue, and came with a red stylus and two red disc things for making circles. The Magna Doodle spent a fair amount of time on top of the china cabinet, because the kids tended to fight over it.

When we were little, we didn't even have Magna Doodles. We had an Etch-a-Sketch that drew boring old straight lines. And you didn't wipe the slate clean, like you do with a Magna Doodle - you shook the Etch-A-Sketch to erase the picture. And if you shook it too hard, and accidentally conked your little brither on the head with it, it didn't even draw straight lines anymore.

And if conking your brother on the head with it (it was an accident Mom, honest) didn't render the thing useless, dropping it down a flight of stairs pretty much put it out of commission. And if it did, by chance, survive the plummet, then your mother took the Etch-A-Sketch away, because obviously you weren't mature enough to handle such artistic pursuits.

Before there was Etch-A-Sketch, there was this old-fangled thing called a colouring book and crayons. And you couldn't erase that at all, even if you coloured Mickey Mouse entirely purple and then realized that that was a very bad idea.  And when you cried, and coloured on the wall instead because you craved creative freedom not provided by predrawn colouring pages, your mom took your crayons away.

But wait - have you seen the Magna Doodles lately? The Magna Doodles of today are much improved. They have brightly coloured casings of orange and blue, and several different shaped things for making...well, different shapes.  Instead of just boring old circles. Magna Doodles are now EXCITING and VERSATILE, and instead of providing HOURS of fun, they can provide BILLIONS of hours of ABSOLUTE GLEE. (It's true - it says so on the box. Or something like that) And since my niece is an only child, she is not likely to fight with anyone over the Magna Doodle, or conk anyone on the head with it.

So it should be a good present. And the shopping is started.

Disclaimer: I certainly never conked my brother on the head with the Etch-A-Sketch. And I didn't colour on the walls. And my mother never took my crayons away. This is all in the abstract. I was a perfect child, the epitome of well-behaved. Really. Pinky swear.

Overheard

Nano count to date: 28,529

This is an actual conversation that took place after school today:

Big kid: Can I have a brownie?

Dad: No

Little kid (calling from another room): Yeah, you said you'd put a brownie in our lunch and you DIDN'T.

Dad: No, but it was bake sale day, and I gave you a toonie. (Canadian $2 coin) So you could buy a brownie.

Little kid: Yeah, but I bought a shishkebab, so you still owe me a brownie.

It's enough to make your brain disintegrate and ooze out your ears.

Halfway there!

Nano count to date: 25,070

I've spent a lot of time hanging around Cyberia (cyberspace) with other writers, and listening to other writers of all types talk about the craft. I've heard many fiction writers talk about how their stories take on a life of their own, how their characters "do" unexpected things, or develop in ways they never intended.

And I never understood that. I figured that was one of the reasons I couldn't write fiction - whenever I created characters, they ended up being exactly what I made them. My stories never moved in directions I hadn't already determined. It left my fiction feeling flat, and I struggled with it.

Yesterday, for the first time, it happened. One of my peripheral characters turned out in a way I never would have anticipated, and although I'm still not sure how it fits into the grand scheme of things, I'm letting the words flow. Maybe this means I actually can write fiction after all?

Perhaps. Or maybe I'm finally starting to let my creativity, at least as it pertains to fiction, go to work. Who knows? I've got 15 days and 25,000 more words to figure it out, and I'm anxious to see what happens next.