The Girl Effect

http://www.girleffect.org/video

Almost the end

Well, I didn't make it but I *did* have a lot of fun and will try again next year no doubt. I'm hoping to get my daughter to do it too, and I introduced my brother-in-law to the great Nanowrimo as well. My attempt was my win this year for sure. Thanks to everyone in the writing group for including me, and for sharing your thoughts, ideas and excerpts!

Home

With the holidays approaching, I'm a bit melancholy. I love the holidays and yet, well, there are a lot of people and one particular place I miss, especially at this time of year. No doubt this is true for many of us. Getting older means that the holidays and their significance shifts from year to year to accommodate various life changes. Although I haven't lived in the Midwest for 15 years, I still pine for it, especially in Fall and Winter. I confess to looking on Zip Realty to see which houses in my hometown are up for sale even though it's doubtful I'll ever move back. I think part of me keeps wondering if the house I grew up in will go on the market again. I just looked at one for sale and clicked on the arial map view - it's almost directly behind my childhood home. I could see the rooftop and back yard and it made me a little sad. Still and all, I'm happy to be where I am and have no regrets, I'm just pining for home, even as I sit in mine.

Thrift stores: a day to decompress

I needed to decompress today so I went to two of my favorite thrift stores. I went looking for a nice trench coat, which I found, but not in my size. Instead I found a couple of pretty scarves, a pretty dress in pink and brown paisley, and a sweet navy blue cotton top with little white polka-dots. I also found a cute dress for my daughter, a ruffled blouse and a wool pullover sweater (this was a bad choice; it's likely to get little or no use but it was such a nice one!) Not sure why thrifting relaxes me but it does, with very little strain on my budget!

Word count: shamefully low. I haven't given up hope - yet. I agree with Andrea from A Cat of Impossible Colour: "the attempt is a win in itself." Still, my goal is to finish. I'm going to have to crush to get it done but I tend to perform under pressure of looming deadlines. If nothing else this has gotten me on a regular writing schedule and forced me to exercise my writing muscles which were in dire need of flexing (much like my actual muscles which are in dire need of a trip to the gym).

Posting my horrifyingly bad dialogue on a blog for all to see was like tearing off a bandage and showing my open wound! Ouch. Felt good to let it get some air though. It won't get better otherwise...

More thoughts and a word count update forthcoming. Cheers!

Stuck

This week has been dreadful. The worst!! All of life's little details are demanding my time and attention and so has my family. I love them all (not the little details - those actually suck - but my sweet wonderful family) and wish I could add hours to my day so we could spend more time together...Right now, though, it's time to continue to challenge myself and follow through on something. The book. The book of short stories or long ones, or one long one or a bunch of teeny-weeny ones (It's actually two at the moment). Ass to chair. Write! I'm shamefully behind so completing this book will go beyond the Hurculean task it started out as. Before I get too far in the dumps about it, I'm going to do a little cheerleading for myself and all the wrimos out there however far along (or not) you may be: YIPEE! Go wrimos! Think of how great it will feel to have finished writing a book! Lets go everyone! So what if you haven't written a word in three days (that's me). You *can* catch up, you will catch up and you'll make it. Happy Friday everyone!

To tell or not to tell

Bad day most of the day. I shouldn't have shared any information about what I was doing. Not many people can understand why one would take on a daily writing regimen of 1000 words per day plus in the middle of all sorts of other pressing matters. Still, I waded through the negativity and managed to get to 8188 (or 8206 depending on the counter). Still behind but getting closer.

5595

Day six is almost over. I came up short but all is well. Just happy to be here and happy to be writing every day.

My mind is now fuzzy with sleepiness so it's time for bed.

If Wishes Were Horses

If Wishes Were Horses by Kissed Fingers featuring 1928 jewelry

Items in this set:
Tsumori Chisato dress, 36,750 JPY
1928 brooch, $22
Shop.hm.com brooch
Elizabethsembellishments.com lamp, $297
Pier1.com decor, $12

Excerpt from Love in the Aftermath

Francis came into work flushed and out of breath. She had just returned from lunch and now the cubicle she worked in every day, the small space she looked forward to tucking into each morning like a cocoon, safe and secure from the outside world, seemed not to fit her anymore. The crisp fall air wafted in behind her as she walked, almost floated, in. She was brimming with a magical feeling she carried in with her like fairy dust. Her nose was pink at the end and her lips were raw. Had anyone in the office even noticed, they would have thought she had chapped lips from the dry air except that she glowed too, luminescent, so the careful eye would note that she had been kissed, recently, and more than once.

Polyvore for Love in the Aftermath

Love in the Aftermath

That's the title of my book.

It is shaping up to be a series of short stories. Does that count? I hope so.

Playing with Epistolary

I think one of my stories will end up as an epistolary tale. When Taylor leaves her husband and their house after a near-violent outburst, she leaves everything behind including her cell phone. With only her car and wallet, she sets out on a journey alone and decides to send her husband a letter instead of trying to call him. This slows everything down. At first she just writes and tells him where she is; asks him not to follow her. Once she finds a place to stay for a while, he starts writing her back...

Inspiration and other thoughts

Inspiration

This is my first NaNoWriMo and I'm jumping right into unknown territory. I'm intrigued by relationships - the way people speak to each other, how they interact and the body language they use to communicate.   I'm not sure why I went to such a dark place so quickly in my first novel! I think it's partly because it's a challenge and partly because I no doubt have some dark places (as do we all) so why not tap into them for a novel/short story?

Story

My second story line is one that might win out over the first. They are both vying for my attention so I have been jumping back and forth between each one. It's kind of a race to see which one ends up the strongest. I'll post an excerpt from that one soon.

Genre

This one is tough. I'm already into week one of this race and I haven't yet decided. I'm letting that be okay for now. Just getting it all on paper is the big one for me, especially as a first attempt.

Support

I don't know what my fellow writers thing but I'm finding that the messages of support from NaNoWriMo really help. I think it will be liberating to finish 50,000 words and not have to worry whether it's good let alone worthy of publishing Just the act of completing a book will be enough. The rest will come. It feels good to be a part of something so huge and inclusive and positive.

In much the same way my favorite fashion bloggers have helped me declare my love of clothing and fashion and inspired me to start wearing all the clothes I've been hiding in my closet for so long, NaNoWriMo is helping me declare that I love to write and I'm not afraid to put it out into the world.

Go Wrimos!

Excerpt

That day stunned her, and not just because it was the day after a beautiful evening spent celebrating their 10th anniversary. It stunned her because his words came out like shards of glass, directed and intentional, piercing through her; the immediate remorse that typically followed their ugly and cruel dances never came. It also stunned her because she found his invitation into violence frighteningly seductive. For a moment, just before she left, she was tempted to join in, to place her head in the door as if on a double-dare or laying her neck across a guillotine just to see if he would do it and to see how it felt; to make him sorry and to make him go to jail. She resisted the temptation the way she had resisted more tender advances as a young woman when she had had a few too many cocktails but managed to swim to the surface of her drunkenness long enough to see her situation clearly and leave before she did something she'd regret. 

For the first time in her life, Taylor had no plan. She didn't realize she was never going back to her husband when she ran out the door that day. Her moment of clarity above the tide of their mutual anger lasted only long enough to get her out of their house and into her car. When she pulled out of their driveway, she had no idea she would never come back or she would have paused for a moment to take one last look at the home they built together and intended to grow old in together but she had already dipped back below the surface, consumed once again, replaying their final fight in her mind over and over again as she drove away. 

2695

That's all I have for the night...

2571

I'm losing steam

2368

This evening promises to be brutal.

1880

That's how many words so far, and my story is splintering into what might turn into several short stories...maybe the characters will cross paths somehow but I'm still not sure. I'm letting it evolve. Even though I'm a tad behind my word count, I felt more productive yesterday than I have in years. It's really exciting to be a part of an online group - NaNoWriMo and a cat of impossible colour. Looking forward to connecting with inspiring people.

Now it's time to study for my mid-term which is today. I have dedicated far less time studying for that than writing but this is more important to me at the moment!

Exhilerating!!!!!

Guts

Here we go Nanowrimo! Thanks to one of the 'chics at academichic, I found you and have taken on the challenge to write a novel.

My word count is low at this point. I have some catching up to do already but I have faith that I'll finish, even though I'm studying for a mid-term, working and trying to finish my thesis. I like the quote on a cat of impossible color's blog - no empty pages for me. I give myself permission to write total shit and let the world see it and not be ashamed! Ha. There. I also give myself permission to find some beauty in what I write as well. Either way, good will come of it I'm sure. I created this blog because damn everyone seems to have one so now I do as well. The first step was posting my first paragraph on acoic's blog.

I think it's important to remain somewhat distant from what one is writing. It can't be so precious to one's heart or it will be impossible to put it out there an invite critiques. A little distance can make us better writers!