weapons of massdistraction

It finally happened. We woke up to a winter wonderland. The little man was so thrilled he rushed me outside before I’d had time to down my coffee. After a bit of frolicking he proceeded to make a snow angel on the neighbors’ deck, while waiting for them to suit up and join us. At one point he declared, “I love it outside, I’m never going in!” In typically fickle fashion he was back in the house fifteen minutes later, warming himself in front of the blue glow of Pee Wee’s Playhouse (we just borrowed the box set from my Dad, again). Now I’m faced with errands that need to be run and much housework begging to be done, but naturally I want to chuck it all so I can hit my 50k. I’m so close, yet so far. Thankfully the lad is content to watch Pee Wee for now.
NaNo word count: 44033/50000

W.A.S.T.E.giving was smaller this year, as several regular participants have moved away, and the hosting house was moved a few blocks over. But fourteen of us still turned out, many of us bringing enough food to feed the rest, the dishes too numerous to describe. It was ridiculous and wonderful. And there were futon mattresses to lounge on throughout the gorging process. Not that the little man would sit still for that. He had a grand time running all over the place, screeching and ordering people around. For some reason his favorite commands were, “drink your juice!” and “get on the turtle!” - the latter referring to an oversized stuffed turtle, which had been sitting quietly in a corner until he got a hold of it. Then when we’d really slowed down on our consumption, it was time to watch an “interactive movie”. The Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure was good fun. Sadly (for us) our hosts will be moving to San Francisco by this time next year, joining the others who have likewise fled. We’ll try not to think of that for now. For the time being, we’ll focus on finishing off the leftovers (and getting my word count back on track).
NaNo word count: 40757/50000

Yesterday was grueling, but I’m back on track now. Turned in last night when I was but twelve words ahead of my word count. Now I just need to stay ahead. With only six and a half more days to go, it should be doable. There’s an excellent Onion A.V. Club interview with the legendary Nick Cave, whose sentiments I can relate to even more now (not on quite the same level, obviously), after this attempt at writing my own novel:

I don’t rely on inspiration. It’s unreliable. I just get up in the morning and I go to work. Inspiration has very little to do with it.

Speaking of writers and writing…Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea books are among my all-time favorites, fantasy or otherwise, but I can’t get behind the miniseries, set to air next week on the Sci Fi channel. And it sounds like the author herself has similar reservations. How disappointing.
Bonus: It’s time for episode thirteen of Making Fiends.
Plus: Slippers Lee and Strong Bad are being brought down by similar woes this week.
And extra sucky: Poor Starfire and V-Nick. “It wasn’t the biggest knife in the world but we were staring at the wrong end of it.” At least they weren’t hurt.
NaNo word count: 38353/50000

I have finally hit my wall. Yesterday I just wasn’t feeling it, and couldn’t get more than a couple hundred words out. The day was spent in an unfocused haze, feeling overwhelmed because my storyline seems more convoluted than ever. Especially as I began with the most minimal of frameworks and have continued by fleshing out a scene here, a scene there, jumping in an out of the continuum like a time bandit…with a bad memory. Remembering too late that Character A doesn’t even know Character D exists until Chapter 33, but accidentally writing a scene where A mentions D in Chapter 18. Doh! And how am I going to fix everything? If I save all the continuity problems for the edit, will I be too tempted to trash the whole thing? And prospects are bleak for making my word count during this crazy week…with hair cuts to be had (today), an oil change (tomorrow), mountains of dirty dishes to be (de)scaled, the little man’s extra days off from school to contend with (Wednesday/Thursday), preparations to make for the annual Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck/Feast/Extravaganza, compulsory vists with the fam (Thursday), anticipated visits with friends coming back to town (Friday/Saturday), and a must-not miss show Saturday night. I have to keep reminding myself that the end is in sight. In these times of trouble I turn to the good book, the Creator’s No Plot? No Problem! A teeny voice is saying, “do not despair,” but it’s being drowned out by harsh words from my inner editor, and chants of “sink or swim, do or die.” This is the zero hour.

I made the mistake of showing this to the little man tonight.

We must have watched it a dozen times or so. Now he’s under the mistaken assumption that a) it’s something we can buy for him [and where would we keep it if we could? We don't even have a garage] and b) that it’s something his atheist parents would buy for him, if we could, for Christmas. Uh, I wonder if he’d settle for Transformers toys of the non life-sized, non-dancing variety.

In other news…while I can understand an artist’s need for them, there is something inherently creepy about hand mannequins. Maybe it’s just me, but I was always freaked out by the disembodied hand named “Thing” on the Addams Family. I imagined it skittering around in the night, like a giant bloodthirsty spider. Yeeuck.
NaNo word count: 33542/50000