"You're hurting my life!"

I think I'm getting addicted to the NaNoWriMo website. The forums are great. I learned a little tip to help me turn off my internal editor while I'm writing. One of the posts had a great suggestion to turn off your monitor while you're writing. If you can't see what you're typing, you can't backspace to change anything. You have to just keep moving forward. I'm definitely going to try this. I can't turn the monitor off with the laptop, but if I don't find a way to blank the screen, I will just make the text in Microsoft Word white, so I can't see it and change it back later. Another option would be to just cover the screen with something. Lots of writers have tried this method of turning off their monitors and swear by it. I'm glad to have found at least one solution that I think will really help.

Another great thing is that I have 7 buddies so far on the site. These are writing buddies that I'm going to be sharing encouragement and motivation with. That's 7 kicks-in-the-butt if my word count doesn't climb fast enough come November 1st. OUCH! If that's not motivation I don't know what is...

My 4-year-old daughter Marissa has a new phrase. When you tell her "No" for something, she says "You're hurting my life!!". She's so dramatic... LOL. I have no idea how she came up with it, but seriously, I had no idea that telling her she's played enough with her Nintendo DS for one day would scar her for life! Yikes... ;)

My cold has moved to my chest and now it's congested along with my head. I was coughing most of the night. I really need to get some sleep... zzzzzzzzz...

A Canadian Thanksgiving

Well, somehow managed to make it through Thanksgiving, cold virus and all. My 4-yr-old daughter decided that her dinner roll made a better plate than her plate itself, and put turkey, stuffing, veggies, everything in the roll and made one huge sandwich. Of course she realized after that she couldn't fit it into her mouth, LOL. I should have taken a pic. Hubby took care of the turkey dinner and I was thankful for that, since I was not feeling well at all. I had to laugh though, when dinner was over and he was getting ready to put the leftovers in the fridge, he takes a huge turkey breast, bones and all, finds the biggest tupperware he can find, and plops it in. Of course it still didn't fit. So I told him while trying not to laugh that he's gotta take the meat off the bones first, LOL. He will probably murder me for writing this, if he reads it. So if this is my last blog entry, I apologize to all the non-existant people I imagine are actually reading this. ;) Anyway, dinner turned out pretty good and I was impressed. I hope he realizes though that all the previous years he's pretended he doesn't know how to cook are out the window and now he's going to have to do it more often, haha.

I didn't go for a run last night, and I'm still feeling nasty today. I don't know if I'll make it out tonight either. So frustrating!!

I've been thinking about my ideas for the novel I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about please see my previous blog entry from yesterday ;) ). My NaNo book has started to shape a little. I have some good ideas, but I have no idea how I'm going to flush them out. Hopefully it will work itself out when I start writing it. I was starting to get really anxious about not being able to find the time to write as much as I'm going to need to. But someone on the NaNoWriMo site pointed out that 50,000 words isn't that harrowing if you break it down. You have 30 days, so that's 1667 words a day. If you break that down into an hour, that's 27 words a minute for one hour. So if you can write 27 words in a minute while writing your story, you can meet the goal with just an hour a day. My problem, as well as many other writers, is that I think too much while I'm writing and edit as I go along. So it takes me a lot longer to write because I make changes while I'm writing. One of the goals with NaNoWriMo is that you're supposed to just write, no editing, no fixing spelling mistakes or typos as you go along, no changing your wording or dialogue, nothing. Just keep writing and let your creativity flow. Write without stopping, just create, and give yourself permission to make mistakes. And worry about editing after the month is over, or your book is finished. I hope that I can change my habits enough to be able to do this. It'll be hard to turn my internal editor off while I'm writing, but I'm going to try because I really think it will help me be a better writer.

I think I've finally lost it...

I came to the decision to start this blog because my life is getting so crazy I'm afraid that if I don't document it somewhere it will all end up a blur and there will be no way I'll remember any of it, LOL. I have a husband, a 4-year-old daughter who will be 5 soon (sniff! sniff!), a dog, a cat and 2 goldfish who have lived surprisingly long and I can't believe they're still alive. I have a part-time job, I run a website, I'm trying to write a novel, and I've taken up running. Those are just some of the major things, anyway. ;)

I took up running at the end of August. I'm working through a popular training program I found online that gradually works you up to running 5K without stopping. The program is called "Couch to 5K" and is found on coolrunning.com here: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml. I've been kind of slow with it but I'm gradually improving. I'm on week three right now, thinking about moving to week four. the runnin started out as a way to help me lose some weight, but it's become much more thn that. I really love it. I think I'm getting addicted to it. I just feel so great when I'm running, like nothing else in the world matters. It's great stress relief, it's something I do just for myself, it's ME time, and it feels awesome and very liberating. my first goal is to run a 5K. Then move up from that.

I've been battling a cold since Saturday. There have been 4 or 5 people sick at work, one after the other for the past couple of weeks, so I blame it on them that I woke up Saturday with a sore throat. ;) Of course, my turn comes on the long weekend (Thanksgiving here in Canada). I always get sick at the worst possible times. And always when I have a million things to do. Anyway, yesterday I felt a bit worse, and today I'm all stuffed up. We are still going to end up with turkey dinner on the table somehow today, but I haven't worked that out yet. I think I'll supervise my husband while he does it... Sounds like a plan to me... ;) If anyone has any ideas on how to kick this cold in the butt, please let me know. I have a million things I need to be doing and no energy to do them. I actually went running last night even though I'm not feeling well at all. It was going to be just a walk, since I actually should be resting. But ended up running a few segments. Stupid, eh?

Last night, while I was feeling crappy and vegetating while surfing the 'net, I signed up for NaNoWriMo, which stands for "National Novel Writing Month". It's a program where you write a novel from scratch in 30 days, during the month of November. You have to write 50,000 words to qualify as winning and succeeding in the challenge. I think this is the end for me, I think I've finally lost it. I have no idea how I'm going to accomplish this, but I've been working on writing different novels off and on for years now, and I really want to succeed at finishing a novel. I never finish anything I start. Gotta stop the cycle... I have a couple of weeks before it starts to get myself prepped for it. Hmmmmm...

Well, I think that's enough about me for the moment. If you read this far, thanks... ;) Please send me a message so I know I'm not typing all of this into some cyber black hole and someone is actually reading it. That would give me the motivation to continue typing this nonsense. Otherwise, it will be too easy to procrastinate, which I'm sure you know by now I'm extremely good at...

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Canadians... To all you Americans, Happy Columbus Day, if you celebrate it...