Well fancy that! If you go to bed a decent hour, then the next day when your baby is sleeping, you can actually stay conscious and write instead of passing out on your bed. Just wrote 1170 words. Unfortunately, most of it was landscaping wish fulfillment (really, how long should it take an MC to find a house and check to see if anybody's home?), but hey, at least she actually did locate the Essential Secondary Character Who Holds Many Ancient Secrets, and I can call it practice writing.

Now it's off to make dinner and wonder what the heck to do with the rest of my night. Toodles! (Or something less annoying.) TTYL.

901 words tonight. I'm stunned at how quickly they came. I know it won't always be this easy, but I'll enjoy it when it happens.

I told hubs the plot of the story and he says it's a hard one to tackle for a first plot. I'm not sure if he's right, though he does have an uncanny sense of narrative cohesion, but I believe in this plot so much. I love the seed from which the idea sprang. I love the characters. I love the story. I hope I can do it justice.

Eeeked out another 835 words and found enough tiny plot holes to make it look like wasps have built a nest in my story.

I think my biggest problem is that I'm not good at juggling multiple story line or subplots or background character arcs, so when I reach the point where one of those subplots or character arcs is supposed to intersect with the main plot, which I'm currently writing, I realize that the character motivation or subplot that drives the next event in the main plot is missing. I keep having to put little notes in the margins to remind myself to go back and add this and that, and I'm hoping that I actually catch them all and am able to make a cohesive novel.

Today I'm asking myself why in the world I'm doing this. I always knew that writing a novel would be incredibly hard work, which is why I spent so many years resisting the urge to do so, and now I'm discovering that it's about ten times harder than I thought it would be. And about 80% of the time I don't really believe it will go anywhere, which really makes me wonder what in the world I'm doing this for. But then I come back to the harsh answer: I spent 12 years trying to grow up and get over the desire to write a novel, and it didn't work at all. I'm hoping that at least this way I'll know that I gave it my best shot and find some kind of peace through that.

Then 20% of the time I'm totally delusional and start believing I might actually write something worth reading someday.

Freaking, Cleaning, Writing

Today I am freaking out because I cannot find my Ipod. I'm going through major NAME OF THE WIND withdrawal, and I can't get my Writing Excuses fix. I'm in danger of missing my Appendix fix tomorrow! Aaaaaahhhh!

I thought the Ipod might be on the top shelf of my craft closet, which looked like this.




I cleaned the closet and did not find it, but at least the closet now looks like this. Still jonesing for WE, though. They did Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. quotient in this one!

In other news, I cranked out 735 words. I felt like I could keep going, but lots of authors say to stop when you feel like you're rolling, so I stopped. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can pick up with a decent head of steam.

The Cat. The Chair. The Word Count.

Today, in between dinner and diapers and making playdough and a marble run, I managed to eek out 565 words. Tonight, instead of eeking out another 500, this is what I did instead.

Oh wait, before I can show you what I did, I need to show you what the wretched beast I call my cat did.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
Just to be clear, that is not one, but two different pieces of furniture.

So, I got to spend my night with some 8 pound fishing line, a needle, and a desk lamp in orde to do this:

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:


He's cute and I love him, but there was a brief moment when I wondered if I had accidentally sewn the chair shut with him in it. Then I wondered if that would really be so bad.

Oh, The Irony

See! I swore that I would be a responsible poster and post on Thursday, but I did not. I've never been very good at schedules.

Here's the thing. I've always wanted to be a novelist, but I treated that dream like one of the whac-a-moles at a kid's pizza place. Every time it popped its head up, I'd say, "No! Stupid dream!" And I'd smash it down hard with a padded club.

I still had a writing jones, though, so I started a frugal living blog several years ago. I got responses and praise and a little money right away instead of scribbling in broke, unresponsive silence for eight years, which was the fate I knew awaited all fools who tried to write novels. That was sort of nice, but after a few years, I realized I didn't love it anymore. I wanted to be writing stories, not articles on the seven steps to maximize credit card offers. Plus, I was using WordPress (such a big mistake), and I couldn't keep up with all the updates and widgets and gadgets and twidgets and links and finks and tweaks. I wasted so much time trying to learn Wordpress. I still cringe when I think of it. And there was the networking. The linking and blog circling and the daily submissions and guest posting and the affiliate coordinating and blah blah blah blah blah! I realized that I kind of hated blogging.

So after I confided some of my blogging frustrations to hubs, he said, "Stop blogging and do what you want to do! Try to write a novel!" (He was actually telling me to quit blogging and start noveling from the beginning.) It took several years, but I finally agreed with him.

So, I put blogging behind me and started attending conferences and listening to "Writing Excuses" and "The Appendix" and Farland's Author's Advisory. And you wanna know the first thing those meanies told me? (Stop laughing! Stop it right now!) Those mean published, professional writers all agreed that if I wanted to be a successful novelist . . . I was going to need a blog.

Oh, the irony.

The Liebster Award!

Look at that! It's been nearly a month since I posted. See, this is why I hope that self-publishing doesn't become the norm. I suck at the whole networking/promoting/getting out there thing. In fact, I have a story about my suckage at that, but that's for later.

Anyway . . . I got an award! I've never cared about blogging awards, but I do like Robin (who has a freakishly high amount of freakishly positive energy, can I just say?), so I was pleased to receive it. When Robin gets published (which she totally will), I will say that I knew her when and that she gave me an award!

Now presenting . . .
It's for bloggers who have under 200 followers. It may also have a subtle tint of "Get your tail in gear and blog more often," but that could just be for me.

Now here's the hard part. I have to find five other bloggers who have less than 200 followers and give them the award. The challenge? Blogs with less than 200 followers are kinda hard to spot, given their relative visibility to other blogs and stuff. Lemme see here . . .

Shoot. I just checked my blogroll. They all have more than 200 followers. Now I feel lame and guilty of false consciousness.

So, in the spirit of the award, I commit to begin following five blogs with less than 200 followers. I can't give them the award, mostly because they've all already received it. From Robin, which is how I know about them. But I can add them to my blogroll and shower them with love.

Behold:

And Then She Was Like Blah Blah Blah
Writing Without Regret
Nancy S Thompson
Fictelicious
and . . .
J. Scott Savage! (Robin directed me there.) You knew she'd come through for me!

Oh shoot. Robin linked to five under-200 bloggers, but one of them was me. Okay. I will add four under-200 bloggers and next time I stumble across a fifth, I will add it. But for now I have to go stop my children from eating the poisonous mushrooms in the front yard.

Much love,

Heidi