Okay, this might be silly of me to worry about yet, but it entered into my mind and well, I just thought I'd type it on out. I take that back, it is VERY silly for me to worry about this yet, but maybe, with a few good words, someone could help me out.

I just finished writing and printing chapter 3 this evening. Looking at the 4 measly pages that it printed out, I started wondering how many words per chapter I was currently averaging. After figuring it out, it comes out at about 3400 words a chapter. Right. Short chapters, huh? Mind you, I can look back at them already (in my mind, not in real life, I promise), and see where a ton more stuff can be added. All the little nitpicky details that I'm just slapping a huge brush over right now. You know, sort of like Bob Ross before he goes back and adds his "happy little trees." LOL

Anyway, my book is planned out to about 11-12 chapters. Wow, those chapters had seriously grow in the editing process or this thing isn't going anywhere! Skipping on.... If my chapter word count continues as it is right now, I'm in BIG trouble. In other words, I'm going to be short almost 10K words!

Maybe... my character should go to the local library, where nothing is on computer, of course, and try to do some research. Maybe go to the local land office and look up those records too. You know what? That's a great idea!! It will fit right in and make perfect sense. Let me scribble that down real quick.

Tee-hee! I'm excited again. Don't mind me. Some how, some way, I'm going to pull this off. I want that rush to know that I wrote at least 50,000 words in a single, insane month. I want that CreateSpace.com code so I can have it in real book form. I want the "right" to buy, and wear, one of the 2009 NaNoWriMo winner t-shirts. All 'small' things, but the satisfaction. Oh, yeah! This will be something to look back on for the rest of my life and grin about. It will all be worth it in the end.

Speaking of which, I'm sitting at 10,345 words right now. Oh, yeah. I'm smiling.
 

I'm still trying to find "the time" that I enjoy writing the most. I go in cycles, it seems. I should attempt to write when it excites me the most, I guess. That seems to appear somewhere around 11am. Well, that's horrid timing. I homeschool my children and that's usually when I'm working with them. I can't exactly declare vacation for an entire month just so I can write when I want to. I can't do school later in the day either. It hits a certain time and BOOM! The kids explode and there's no teaching them anything. I definitely can't play start and stop with my book either. If I'm in my groove, I don't want to waste that to stop and discuss simple subjects and simple predicates and direct objects.

You know... speaking of those three things, what the heck are they?! LOL I have to constantly go back in my son's book and look it back up again. Goodness knows I didn't care in school. I mean, I never needed to know what they were to put together a coherent sentence. And we won't even go into diagramming sentences. If my son is supposed to be taught those within this program, I'm going to tell his "teacher" No.

Okay, that's another irritation. I'm technically not his teacher. I'm called a "learning coach." Right. In my opinion, the so-called "teacher" is the Learning Coach. She coaches us, the real teachers, on how to help teach our children. LOL Think I should tell her that? It would amuse me. To tell you the truth, I hate this program he's in. I went through the public school district this year to do the K12 program. Oh, my gosh! The pressure to get all of these things done every single day is enormous! Then there's the constant tests every single week to make sure they'll pass the dumb state test.

Want to know a secret? Last year, we didn't get all the way through our 3rd grade curriculum. As a matter of fact, we barely touched it. Those state tests are SO scary. LMAO Yeah, right. He passed the Texas state 3rd grade test just fine. LMAO Oh, geez. All that pressure they put on kids to pass them is SO stupid. The pressure is what's causing the kids to do poorly. I wonder when they'll figure that out? Probably never. As the scores decrease, they'll put on more pressure until they start to fail. I doubt they'll figure it out then, either. So, my philosophy is to ignore them. We do the minimum prep work that we're required to do and call it good. By the way, my son is starting to pass the weekly tests with flying colors. They're no big deal. You should teach your children the same thing.

By the way, if you're in the state of Texas, did you know that your child's teacher gets a raise if her entire class does well on the state test? Now you know why they push them so hard.

ANYWAY!! Long ramble, irritations long buried, etc. Sorry about that. So, I guess I'll meander off now and play some more lame Facebook games. It's easier to break from those than anything else when I'm attempting to instruct my son.
 

What the heck is wrong with me?! I've never been this tired for so many days in a row before. I even went to bed early last night and slept well. I did have to get up "early" in my little world, but it's a normal time for everyone else.

I did hurt my back on the 31st and it's still bothering me. Maybe it's the pain. After awhile, your body just gets worn down by it. Perhaps it hurts while I'm sleeping and it's keeping me from sleeping as well as I think I am. I don't know. All I do know is that I was feeling awake until about 10 minutes ago. I feel like I could easily lie down and sleep.

Either way, I posted my new stuff online. It's the portion that I wrote last night. I was too tired then to mess with the formatting to get it to look "right" on WDC. I'm hoping to wake up some later and work on more of it. I'm actually approaching the part where my entire idea took form in my head. I hope that I can do it justice.

I'll admit that I'm having fun writing a book. There's no rush to get the story told as quickly as possible. I have time to explore other ideas and characters. Though I don't think I've done much of that. I mean, I don't even think anyone knows what Kaylee and Mackenzie look like. LOL My descriptions have been VERY general. However, that's something I can fix later on when it goes into editing.

Well, I guess I'd better go. I have a kid squeaking that he wants a sandwich. Why he wants one at 10:40 in the morning, I'll never know. LOL
 

This is weird. Keep in mind that this is my first "official" attempt at a novel. Or rather, one that I actually plan on finishing and have it plotted out almost to the end. So, with that in mind, maybe you'll understand my dilemma. I'm finding that I have NO clue how to switch from chapter to chapter. Where do I cut it off and where does the next one begin?

I guess it might be time to cut my losses for the evening since I'm REALLY tired and do a little bit of research. Maybe pull out a few of my books and see how different authors use chapter breaks. What's weird is that, from what I can recall, most chapters "appear" when there needs to be a big jump in sequence or a move to another character's point of view that just can't easily be explained. My story, maybe it's because I'm a short story writer at heart, would appear to flow relatively smooth from section to section. At least it seems to right now. Keep in mind that I'm tired. I could be completely off my rocker. LOL

Okay, this is seriously NOT important. I realize that now. However, I'm still stopping for the evening even though I'm short of my personal goal for the day. I "only" got 1788 words. Still, good enough for a NaNo goal. I'm coming up on the part of the story that sparked my imagination for this entire novel so I want to "be careful" with it. I at least want to be awake enough to picture it clearly in my mind. That's very important to me.

That does it. I'm tired. I'm heading to bed. Night!
 

Well, I did just what I threatened to do. I meandered off and took a nap this afternoon. I'm still a little groggy with a slight headache, but I'm more awake than I was earlier! I think I'll be able to sit down and focus on my book before too long. Whoo hoo! I have been checking up on my writing buddies out at the NaNo site and they're doing great! I need to send a message to a few of them and cheer them on some more. Sort of makes me a little sad as I fell behind not working on anything more yesterday. Oh, well. Hubby's working all night tonight. As long as I can get my kiddos to bed at a decent hour, I should be able to get quite a bit done before I go to bed. Key note: Go to bed at a decent hour. There is no taking naps tomorrow.

With that, I'm outta here! Wish me luck in continuing my journey to a finished rough draft of my first novel ever.
 

I can't believe how tired I am. It has nothing to do with my staying up late to work on my NaNo Novel. Nope. It had everything to do with my being stupid enough to pick up one of my favorite Sharon Shinn books. Oops. You know, reading during NaNo is a BAD idea. I'm almost finished with it though, does that count for anything? Unfortunately, I didn't get to bed until almost 4 or something this morning. Then, I had to get up at 8 to take hubby to work. He has a 24 hour shift and we figured I should have the car. Why oh why didn't I get to bed sooner? By now, you'd think that I could figure that out. If you have to get up early in the morning, get to bed at a decent hour. I tried, you know. However, when bedtime rolled around, I wasn't tired. At that point, I should have picked up my pen, or sat at my keyboard, and worked on my book. It just holds absolutely no interest for me anymore. I don't know what happened! All of a sudden, the idea I've worked so hard for, planning it out and getting the little plot points into place, just isn't interesting. I left my poor MC 'stranded' at the lodge. That's probably the problem. Well, maybe. I never could settle on a picture of the lodge. I never could figure out what I thought it should look like. So now, I'm struggling with trying to explain it through my character's eyes. I guess I should just flub my way through it and call it good. Though she will be interacting with it quite a bit later on. Dang it!

Maybe it's time to pull out my "free write" notebook and just write for 15 minutes. Not on anything important. Just as a way to organize my thoughts and maybe open up the gates to wherever my story is currently hiding. I think my biggest problem is that I'm exhausted. Maybe I should go take a little nap. If I could just wake up a little bit, I think that would help a lot.

Well, I'm going to head off for now. I like reading when I'm tired. I don't have to think... The author does it for me.
 

So far today, I haven't written another word. Sort of sad, really. However, my kids are awake and I tend to write a wee bit better when they're asleep for the night. Or at least in their rooms. Also, I was made extremely sad when I found out that a local shelter caught on fire last night. Finding out that around 100 animals died can really put a damper on a person's desire to write. We were heading back to PetSmart to see about adopting a little kitten that was there. Lucky for that kitten, she was well-loved by her foster mom, so she was taken back "home" every night instead of being returned to the shelter. If she hadn't have been elsewhere, she would have died with the rest of the cats and I would have felt terrible that we didn't adopt her the day before. The shelter should resume adoptions in about a week or so. We'll go see the little kitten again when she's back on display at PetSmart. Well, that is if her foster mom will let her go.

Hopefully, my desire to write will return as the peace in the house descends and I'm able to listen to music again. I'd like to add a few more words to today's count. I so want to hit 5K before tomorrow.
 

Yes, I did. I stayed up until 12:01 am to begin NaNo. Oh, and I "cheated" earlier on Halloween. I took a nap. I had to make sure I could start this evening/morning/whatever. At exactly 12:01, I opened up my program and got ready. Then meandered off and took a small break and got a cup of coffee. However, except for a few short breaks, I've been here since, and that include daylight savings time ending. Needless to say, I'm very tired now and my story is attempting to fall apart on me. Right then, time to call it quits for the evening. Besides, I'm in the touchy area of trying to describe the lodge. Since that's not firm in my mind yet, now is a good time to stop. Maybe I'll dream about it.

I am very excited with my start though. First 2 hours (or is it 3?) I typed out 4,106 words. How is that for awesome? I was hoping for 5,000 today and I think I'll pull it off without too many problems. Plot Points are my newest best friend. I'm flowing easily from one to the next without worries. I'll worry later when I start running out of them. I didn't quite get finished with them before NaNo started. Oh, well. I'll get there, maybe during the day when I don't have time to actually write.

Well, I'm about to collapse. I'd better scoot off to bed. Take care! And happy NaNo'ing!
 

Well, after a slightly disappointing day, it's almost time to start writing. I sure hope my writing goes better than my day, that's for sure! However, since it's technically tomorrow at that point, it's an entire new day. A day for great things and lots of writing.

I sort of feel sorry for my husband. While I get to write as much as I possibly can fit into tomorrow, he has to go in for some formation thing in the afternoon. I guess it's to make sure they all survived Halloween. He's the "old guy" in a platoon of "young guys." You just never know.

I never did do anything I was going to do today. Since I'm a SAHM, I'm not too worried about having easy meals to fix, keeping the house clean, etc. That's just part of my "job" that other people leave the house to do. However, I was going to attempt to print out my plot points with their descriptions. That's for the few write-ins I'm going to go to this month. Since I have a desktop computer, I can't exactly take it with me, right? At that point, I'll slip into "low tech" and go with a pen and pad of paper. Works for me!

I think I have it figured out on how to print it out. Only problem is, I put my "notes" into the "descriptions" tag and I can't find an option to print those. Figures. Now I have to go move them all around. LOL Oh, well. Gives me something to do and renews the scenes in my mind before I start to write.

Good luck with NaNo if you're participating!