Hallelujah! I Won!!

Yes!  Despite a trip from Georgia to Florida for an entire week, I finished my novel for National Novel Writing Month last night.  More importantly, I am just a smidgen away from finishing the entire story for the first time through.  Then, it's goodbye "Crazy" and hello "Pizzeria on Mars", my next writing project.

Excerpt From "Crazy", my NaNoWriMo Novel

I am not exactly known for my happy and cheerful stories.  This year is no different.  My novel begins with a harried divorcee, Donna Carroll, sitting in a diner.  She's back in her small home town, trying to recover from a public, humiliating divorce.  Suddenly, a man stabs a waitress for bringing him too much ice.  In the aftermath, Donna learns that this is not a one-of-a-kind incident - people have slowly been acting just bonkers.  Donna learns about a woman, Matilda, who burned her house down with her husband in it.  The following excerpt is from the site of the burned down house.  Donna just showed up to investigate:

Donna got out of her car and walked around the yard.  She saw tire tracks

from the fire trucks, next to an old, beat up station wagon.  She peered into

the car, but only saw trash from too many trips to McDonald’s drive thru, 

a dirty picnic blanket, and a water bottle filled with dirty water.  A noxious 

smell emanated from the car and Donna backed away, glad the car windows 

were closed.

Treading carefully, she walked over the blackened ground.  Coals crunched 

under her shoes as little puffs of black dust arose with each foot step.  She 

smelled smoke, only the smell slightly changed as she walked.  I wonder if

the smells correlate with different burned objects.  I wonder if one of the 

smells is burned Milo.

The thought drove Donna to hold her breath as she rushed out to get to 

grass.  There, she wiped her hands over her clothes and stomped her feet 

to remove all the imagined pieced of Milo Gives that clung to her. Just then, 

she heard a car driving up.  Ye gods, who would want to come here?

The Lost Art of Gift Giving

As we approach the holiday season, I wonder how many people will be doing true gift giving.  I’m not talking about buying the latest toy or the coolest electronic gadget available.  What I am talking about is something more along the like of the story “The Gift of the Magi”.

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to obtain the perfect gift for someone else?

Our family has a tradition of events and activities as gifts, instead of merely physical possessions.  We have taken our children to see three different Cirque du Soleil shows, the Blue Man Group locally and in Nashvile, TN, and three different  Jonathan Coulton shows (two of them with Paul and Storm!).  Over the years, we have gone on the Christmas train on the Blue Ridge Railroad and given the kids monthly pony rides for a year.  One year, my husband spent umpteen evenings recording an audio book for the children to listen to as we take trips. He sacrificed his free time in the evenings for that gift.

Our philosophy is that the kids will treasure the time together that we spend as a family more than another toy.

So far, this philosophy seems to work.  Both of the children not only loved the concerts, but they appreciate the family time.  We have photographs and memories to talk about all year long.  They listened to “Rabbit Hill” (the book recorded by my dear husband) several times, and they still own the programs from the Cirque du Soleil shows.  

I want to stress that we don’t just give gifts during the month of December, or at birthdays.  If a good concert comes up in the middle of the year, we buy tickets to it for the family.  The latest Jonathan Coulton show occurred the Friday night of Dragon Con.  We got tickets for the family because we all enjoy his concerts.

By the way, both of the kids are audiophiles.  Music is quite important to them, which is why the concert tickets mean so much to them.

But we don’t just give the children expensive concert tickets.  Earlier this week, my husband sat abandoned while I wrote my daily word quota for NaNoWriMo.  So he looked online and found out how to make heart shaped origami bookmarks.  Then my wonderful husband made two bookmarks for me and one for our daughter (our son would not be interested in a heart shaped bookmark).  He did this on a random weeknight, with no event to celebrate and nothing in particular going on.  But those bookmarks are valuable to both me and our daughter.

We try to give time gifts as much as purchased gifts.  Because in the end, the thought behind the gift means so much more than the price tag.

Does anyone else have gift giving traditions to share?

National Novel Writing Month - Craziness for 30 Days

In 2006, I stumbled across organized insanity on the Internet.   It was called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, for short).  The concept is quite simple - you agree to write 50,000 words in the month of November.  No editing allowed, no revisions, nothing shorter than 50,000 words.

I instantly fell in love with the idea, and proceeded to write a vampire murder mystery that year.  Since then, I have attempted NaNoWriMo just about year.  Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don't.  The point is, I always try, which leads me to learn something about me and my writing.

This year, I planned a novel called, "Crazy".  The protagonist is a lovely lady named Donna, who returns to her small hometown after a nasty divorce.  The first week back, she witnesses a local person go crazy and stab a waitress for pouring too much ice in a glass.  Donna investigates because she wants to do something other than sit around and mope.  But the investigation turns from a time-burner to a life and death situation, as more and more people start to go crazy.

Mwahahahaha!!!

Sorry, but I always get the urge to laugh like an evil scientist at this point in the plot summary. After all, I do know why everyone is going crazy, but I'm going to make Donna, the sheriff, and the CDC work their pants off trying to figure it out.

If you have every wanted to write a novel, please consider trying NaNoWriMo this year.  It's crazy, fun,  brain-taxing, imagination-stretching, and yet strangely satisfying.  My username is KatFrog, and you are welcome to friend me.  I always friend back. :-D