Yap, made today's word count. I decided that since it was real obvious I didn't want to actually write, that I needed to write instead of edit. I'm doing up Deoris' backstory, which is something I started in 2003 and never got anywhere with. Worked out kind of well, really. I at least hit my word count goal, then went over it for good measure. This is a good start and I like that. 2218. :)

Yeah, I was real quiet in October. I had a LOT to do!

Summing up: Reading and finding a winner for Toasted Cheese's Three Cheers and Tiger for fall. After that, reading monthly submissions for the next issue of TC's literary journal. Both accomplished! I think that's a new record for me. Plus I liked a lot of the stories. We have some great stuff to read coming up!

At the beginning of October, my dog had puppies which is both a horrible experience and a good one. Horrible because she is NOT a mother kind of dog and she's really struggling with the pups. She carried six to term, but only 2 were born alive. She's kind of a neat dog and I think she didn't want to make a mess on the floor so many of them were kind of 'stuck' inside her and she wouldn't let them go. It was a real tragedy. Now that the puppies are about 4 weeks old, she's still not a good mother type. She snarls at them when they try to eat out of her bowl, she doesn't lay there with them so they can nurse for very long...it's kind of a trial. On the other hand, she's extremely fastidious and will eat/lick up any kind of feces mess they make. Ew. But...clean. Anyhow, I don't think she's cut out for any more puppies.

I also had work, naturally, and with the economy being what it is, there's been some money issues around here. My job seems good and secure for now, but last Friday I had to lay off 4 people from one department. There's also not much material in the warehouse and everyone is nervous about that. DH is the one whose had the most changes and not for the better. He was working 3 - 12 hour days one week, 4 - 12 hour days the next. This gave him overtime and was a bizarre schedule. They put him on 5 - 8 hour days instead and his money just dropped  by like $100. That's a lot for the likes of us. Well, last week, they took him down to 4 days a week. So now we're out another whole day's pay worth. It's not looking pretty. I'm sure we'll manage, but we're going to have to give up some of the things we like. (Cable springs to mind. Wah!)

But October is through at midnight tonight and it's time to look to November! NaNoWriMo! Yeah, going to attempt to participate again. Also planning on NaBloPoMo, the once a day blog challenge. Going to simply post excerpts.

I've been thinking what to write and haven't come up with anything solid particularly. What I did think up is to get something off my plate and just edit the Amazon archives. One archive each day until those things are whittled down. I have SO MUCH to do there and it just seems impossible. Doing one archive a day would whittle it down quite a bit, honestly. It would also be fairly easy to work on from work. I put the archives up at a site called "DropBox", which is free file storage online.

At the same time, I keep thinking I want to actually do the word count. Editing is really hard, but what's hardest would be trying to count how many words I wrote. Especially when you consider the archives contain a lot of dross I have to edit OUT to begin with. So I'm still torn on what to do. I may not even know until it's midnight. I keep thinking 'write fresh', but write what? And then I come back to 'edit and be done with it' and the relief it would bring me comforts me. Well, we'll see.

The BloMo will probably be excerpts from whatever I finally chose to do. Might be sprinkled with puppy news, baby news, child news, etc. Oh...I should mention that my elder son now has (at least) TWO girlfriends. At the same time. No, let me clear....AT THE SAME TIME. Like all of them together in THAT sense. Yeah. it's a little boggling. He appears to be everyone's hero. Whatever. Long as he finally gets a job, I don't care. I need his money.

Well, I will see you tomorrow then.

Day 26: 1827 - 44085
Day 27: 1736 - 45820
Day 28: 2181 - 48001
Day 29: 2307 - 50308

If day 26 final count looks rather similar (nearly exact) to day 25, you're not imagining things. I validated the novel on the 26th, since the validator opened. When I finished, I was 1800 words short somehow. So I recounted. And recounted again. And finally did it a third time, by hand, one day at a time....and realized I counted the 20th twice. So that day at Nano it says I posted 3 words, which is true...kind of. I did the 1827, but only 3 words counted as I'd had that count the day before. Anyhow, it was distressing.

Today (29th, I know I'm posting this the 30th) was rather easy. I set it up so I'd have a nice action sword fight scene today. It's a lot easier to write when you have a blow-by-blow scene taking place in your head. The hard part today was STOPPING...which is why there's an extra 308 words. And I could have continued.

Which is good, because I don't plan to wait 12 months to continue/finish this story like I did last year.

So, I weathered the aches - both wrists in varying degrees, tops of the hands, fingers including nasty forefinger wierdness that froze it in place for a full day, and the horribleness that is my shoulders this week. I made time around work - the stupid call at 10am, the HAND WRITTEN idiot FFS planner from hell, the nasty overall schedule and the overtime I had to do. I made time around the kids, their baby, their friends, my friends and Thanksgiving - including thier friend who seems to have moved in as well, watching the baby all night long one night (6am!), two birthday parties and a visit from my best friends from out of town.

I feel like SuperWriter. I hope you do, too, even if you didn't win. 

Special mention: kouwainohia did nearly 20k, which is nothing to sneeze at and still way more than I did the first year I tried. Yay you, Kou! (She got stuck in week 3, just as a point of interest, when a TON of Nano folk drop out because they just can't continue...can't think of what to write...can't face it anymore...it's a hard week.)