Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Past the 20K mark!

I'm sure I'm boring the fire out of what few people stick their head in here ... but nightly reporting my progress on my blog keeps me honest ...

I am proud to report my CWC (computer word count) stands at 20,023! Yay! I have 93 pp, as well, which means I'm almost done with the horrid first hundred. Does anybody else have trouble with the first hundred pp?

My calculations (again, forgive me, I'm not tangling with that blasted progress bar) tell me I'm 28% done ...

Oh, and good news from three of my CPs: One has several agents VERY interested in her ... yay! She actually has an offer on the table and other agents are breaking their neck to finish up her stuff. Another has two requests on her YA project -- and it's good stuff, so yay for her! And my third CPs good news is non-writing, but let's face it, until we're all NYT best-selling authors, dayjob good news is welcome any ol' time ... she has a new job, her first in management. I know she'll do well, and that this will give her a good step up in the right direction.

So yay! Atta-girls all around!

A quarter of the way!

OK! I now have 17, 487 little words, and according to my calculations, that means I'm 24.9% of the way! Yay!

If I can keep up this pace, I will have the rough draft done in 23 more days ... more like 25 more days, because I intend to take off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This makes, however, the third day straight where I have fallen asleep during my goodnight snuggle with Kate ... I wake up to find it's really late, but I MUST write. So I wind up writing until one or two in the morning and then ... that next night, I repeat the cycle.

The good thing is that after tomorrow, I should have off until the first part of January, which means I can get some writing done during the day, catch up on sleep and make some headway. My wonderful dh has said he will babysit so that I can get ahead on my writing. Maybe he's tired of sleeping by the glow of the laptop?!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Another 12 pages

My dh says be reasonable ... but reasonable to a writer with a deadline is to kick it in high gear and write while the ink is flowing. So tonight, after a Christmas dance program for Kate, supper out at Mickey D's, and baking cookies for Kate's teacher, parapro, music rotation teacher, P.E. coaches, computer rotation teacher, speech pathologist, a teacher who is next door to Kate's class AND a teacher who Kate knows (all this was Kate's idea, mind you, and I felt like a bah-humbug for wanting to say, "uhm, let's ..." so I didn't.), I got kicked into high gear and wrote an even dozen.

I'm not fooling with the progress bar, but according to my spotty math, I'm 21% done now ... a chapter a day keeps the editor saying, "Yay!"

Monday, December 18, 2006

A Little Progress On The Progress Bar

Well, tinkered with the progress bar, and got it to register word count, which says I'm 17% of the way done ... onward, onward!

Sunday, December 17, 2006

A chuggin' along

OK, another nine pages done tonight ... and it's only half past midnight. If I don't get sucked into Miss Snark's Crap-o-meter, (pay no attention to the woman in the stillettos, pay NO attention to the woman in the stillettos!) I will actually get to bed at a semi-decent time.

I am still at a loss as to how to fix my little progress bar. I know how to change the numbers, but I'll be John Brown if I can figure out why the progress bar doesn't move forward like it should. Very demoralizing, I tell you. Maybe it's my browser?

Today was quite busy ... my little one had to do an encore performance of a special interpretive dance at church this morning, and she had to do it solo, without her friend. She was all tears last night, until I said, "I know you can do it, and you're going to do so well that afterwards we're going to go anywhere you'd like to for lunch."

I was expecting McDonald's or Wendy's or Burger King.

She said ... "Red Lobster."

Guess that last sale celebration I had stuck in her mind!

So toss in church (she NAILED that dance, btw! Proud mommy moment there!), the celebratory lunch afterwards, a visit to my mom's and my grandmother's and then back here for supper, bath, storytime and bed (and sleep came VERY hard for Kate tonight!) ... and I was doing good to get to my laptop by 10 p.m.

Oh, and Jenna ... they ARE trying to bankrupt us! Grandparents! Why won't they get that excited about investing in the COLLEGE fund?! I know, I know ... not any fun at all!

Pshew! Still got it!

For various reasons that would bore most people to tears, I've suffered that dreaded writer's disorder (no, not Writer's Block ... it doesn't exist) Lifeus Interruptus. I'm sure there's a nice Latin word for Life, but for the life of me (no pun intended), I can't think of it.

But yes, life has interrupted and I've been away from my laptop for my nightly sessions. Coming back intimidated me ... would I still be able to churn out a chapter a night?

Well, tonight, I got back on the horse. Yes, I started late (10:45, after a day of cleaning, gift-wrapping and cell phone programming ... DON'T ask!), but at 1:30 a.m., I had 11 pp like I wanted 'em for now.

How I'll make it to Sunday School in the morning (er, today), I haven't a clue ... but if anybody has any toothpicks, I would appreciate it. Maybe I'll be so razzed to have the first 50 pp written (the first 38 revised per my editor's request) and written that I'll not require any toothpicks?!

Monday, December 11, 2006

Santa and the Tooth Fairy

You know, I’m cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

For the past few years, I’ve had it pretty well made when it came to Santa lore. Kate was an only child with no just-a-few-years-older cousins to muck things up … well, it made me a bit complacent. I started doing things my way.
(My dh, of course, would opine that I’ve ALWAYS done things my way, and that it’s the normal course of events.)

That “my way” part was a few clever little stitches in the tapestry of Santa’s life. Kate has never questioned that Santa only brings ONE present to each little girl and boy; after all, how else would he fit everything in his sleigh? She knows that mommies and daddies provide the rest of the kit and caboodle under the tree on Christmas morning.

She knows because that’s what I told her. It seemed like a stroke of genius at the time … I was, truth be told, sick of the Big Red Guy getting all the credit for the neat toys and so forth Christmas brings. Plus, I figured that the prospect of her losing one present from Santa would make it easier for her to come clean when she dispenses with the whole notion that Santa is … uhm, well, you know.

Now, however, she is in school. And she just might compare notes with some other little boy or girl … like she did about the Tooth Fairy.

Kate is sporting her first loose tooth. She worried about when her teeth would start falling out more than I expected … she worried because at least two other classmates already had visits from the Tooth Fairy. Naturally, she was ecstatic about having a wiggly tooth.

When I inspected that loose tooth of hers for the first time, I said, “Oooh, Kate, you’ll get a visit from the Tooth Fairy! Wow! She’ll leave you a bright shiny quarter under your pillow.”

Kate’s face got all scrunched up. She pondered that statement of mine for the longest time. Just as I started worrying that the Tooth Fairy’s visit might incite in Kate an unwelcome case of insomnia, my daughter allowed as to what was troubling her.

“Mason said that the Tooth Fairy leaves you a dollar.”

My heart did a double-skip. I did some mental digging into my brain’s databases … how many baby teeth were there? Twenty? Twenty-two? Whatever the number, that was a heckuvalotta greenbacks. No, no, a quarter would have to do.

“Uh, baby,” I said brightly, “that’s just for the FIRST tooth. You know, your FIRST tooth is a special tooth. But after that, it’s just a quarter. How else would the tooth fairy ever be able to afford to pay for all those kids’ teeth?”

I have similar visions of imminent catastrophe: some little kid, repeating the family tale he’s been told, will tell Kate that Santa brings him all manner of presents.

And that is as worrying as having to figure out just how I’ll pry that tooth out of Kate’s head when the time comes.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Printouts and Christmas Trees

Don't ask.

Yup, that's what I'd say if you asked me how my weekend was. But in order for you to fully appreciate the weekend, I guess I would have to cough up a few details.

Say, how I squeezed in the reading of a printout (double-checking for spelling and typos on THE BABY WAIT which is due back in Toronto by Dec. 15) in with putting up my Christmas tree, participating in a parade for my dayjob boss, hustling my little one to practice for the Christmas Cantata and going to her teacher's Christmas Concert.

I will say this -- during each and every event on my busy weekend calendar, I found myself saying, "Gee, I'm glad I took time for this!"

The tree was the worst chore. I'm too chintzy to buy a pre-lit tree, and I HATE putting on the lights. I usually put up my tree on the first Saturday in December. Kate would NOT let me put it off beyond Sunday. Which, I guess, was a smart move on her part. Any closer to Christmas, I would have stuck a bow on a poinsetta and said, "Ho, ho, ho ..."

No, I wouldn't have. I don't think.

Kate is big enough now to put ornaments on the tree, which is a bad thing and a good thing. The good part is that she basically did it. The bad thing is she was bored out of her skull until I could get her to that point.

Which brings me to another good/bad point: having so many ornaments. The bad part, of course, is the storing and the putting them on the tree. But the good part is that I have so many that you can't see any green on the tree when we're done (and we're talking MAMMOTH eight-footer here), so it didn't matter where Kate installed the ornaments -- it wound up looking as good as I could do it. The only thing I really did was help move the breakable ones to the top, in vain hopes that our two demon cats wouldn't trash 'em.

THe best part: it's DONE. And I got the printout read, too! Yay!