I'm a Winner!

No, not the Power Ball Lottery, although I thought I was going to be the big winner. I'll have to keep trying for that.

 

I did earn the status of "Winner" on Nanowrimo.org 

At 10:30 tonight, Nov. 29, 2012, I completed over 50,000 words written this month. I have written my first complete novel. I now need to go back and read it to see if it is any good.

The best part of completing this challenge is, well, completing it! I had a deadline which forced me to sit down and write.

It turned out to be quite an enjoyable time, just letting the words flow instead of trying too hard to make them sound just right. I now need to go back and do a lot of editing, re-wording, cutting or maybe just scrapping the whole thing.

But I did it! In one month I wrote over 50,000 words. Okay, enough bragging. Just wanted to let you know I completed it.

What's Mama Doing?

 Hi There! It’s me, bored Sugar. Well not always bored but sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

Here I am sleeping on the pillow that Mama says Clayton left for me. I didn’t like it too much before but now I use it a lot. It is in the corner near where Mama sits when she writes, so now I lay here and wait for her to be done.

 

 

 

 That is when I am not sitting on Papa’s lap with Lily, the cat.

Sometimes I chase Lily around and she makes sounds like a snake at me. You know - that hissing sound. I guess she really likes it when I jump at her. I know she wants me to play because she keeps pushing her paw in my face when she hisses.

 

 But sometimes, I have to go in my Sugar Shack if I won’t leave Lily alone when I am told. But don’t worry, she waits for me to get out so we can play again.

 

 

 

I don’t know why Mama continues to sit there typing away instead of playing with me. I heard her telling Papa that she was over 35,000 words. I sure wish she would quit doing that so we could play.

“Wait, she is closing it up.  Okay, let’s play tug, Mama! I’ll get my toy.”

See you later. Mama’s gonna’ play! Thanks for listening though.

 

Love,

Sugar

GOBBLE, GOBBLE, WOBBLE

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 

I hope everyone gets time to spend with their family today. Being with my family is the best part of any holiday for me. Today we will all be at Barb's (Ken's sister) for dinner. She is a good cook and the meal will be more like a feast.

Whenever our family gets together, it is centered around food. No matter what the reason for the get together, we obsess over food. Most times we make way too much, never wanting anyone to go away hungry. The mantra in this family is, "I'd rather have too much than not enough!"

Oh my, how true that is. And I think we take it literally. We eat too much rather than not enough.

Later today, we will gobble, gobble, gobble and then I think we will wobble, wobble, wobble or maybe I should say, waddle, waddle, waddle. 

I hope your day is filled with good food, happiness and your family.

Just a Funny

This sounds like Andrew talking to Aaron and the response he would get:

Wondering about my audience

For some reason, one of my posts, "It turned out to be a good weekend" has been popular. There is nothing especially interesting in that post to most people who don't know me or follow my blog.

I have gotten many "anonymous comments" on that post which automatically go to my spam folder. I went in and adjusted comments so that posts older than 14 days would not allow any comments, thinking this would slow down the anonymous emails. It did slow them down so I went back in and put it back to anyone can comment. This then brought on more "anonymous comments" so I put the filter back on.

When I check my stats, my biggest audience is from France. I know no one from France and am wondering why so many people from France are viewing my blog and I believe that particular post.

Does anyone know why this is happening? I am not complaining about having too many views, but I am concerned that something is happening behind the scenes on the internet and my blog is the vehicle. Can this happen?

Words to a Song

I went to a Chris Young concert last night with Karin, Andrew and Austin at Covelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio. Chris who is 27, performed wonderfully even after telling the audience at the beginning of his act that he had lost a good friend that morning. I wondered how that affected his performance emotionally but he didn’t let it show. He did dedicate one song to his friend.

Starting the show was Joanna Smith who sang some lively country music. She had a lot of energy and came across as fun-loving. I enjoyed her laughter after each song.

Following Joanna was Eric Paslay. I truly enjoyed listening to his music and songs. He is a young man with curly red hair. He wore a baseball cap and his hair is long enough that his pretty curls hung below the cap in the back. (I wonder if he would appreciate the adjective “pretty?”)

Eric has a strong voice and his band was awesome. I liked the lyrics of his songs, his music was good and he had a good stage presence. Throughout his act he told of songs that he wrote that he then performed for us. There are many others that he wrote that other stars sing. Chris Young sang at least one of Eric’s songs. I believe the world will be seeing lots more of Eric Paslay before long.

Since I love to write, I couldn’t help but wonder how one goes about writing a song. How does the artist come up with a catchy phrase that blends so well into the music? Sometimes certain words have double meanings in the song. Often, the last word of one sentence seems to start the next or maybe goes into the first word of the chorus.

Songs convey a message through music. It is putting feelings or events into words much like writing a story, only making use of less but more powerful words to tell that story.

I am in awe of the artistic talent of musical entertainers. They not only have the musical ability of art but also the writing ability. Sometimes I struggle to let my muse out when writing words, but they then have to also use their musical talent to complete their project.

There was definitely a lot of talent on the stage last night, some better known than others, but talent just the same.

Update

I am close to 20,000 words for my November writing project. I know I am still behind but I have never written this much in two weeks before in my life. I have no idea where this story will end up. I'm just letting the words flow onto the screen. It may be a mess when I'm done or might have some possibility of being made into something good. For now, I am just letting the characters take me where they want to go. It's interesting how the characters change and develop without me even trying to make them into something.

I am really enjoying writing this way. I started with an idea for a plot but the story has diverted somewhat from that, although there is still a little bit of the original plot in there.

Well better get ready for work. I'll be back when I can.

Sugar is not always so Sweet

(After reading this post you will know why there are no cute pics to go with it.)

 

So It is a sunny, fairly warm day today. I had a vehicle here with me at work (Ken and I carpool usually) so I decide I will go home to let Sugar play in the backyard at lunch. Afterwards, I will bring her to work to visit her friends for the afternoon because I have had several requests to bring her in.

 I get her out of her Sugar Shack and grab her ball. Out we go, down the deck steps and into the backyard. She fetches and returns the ball several times then decides to just sit. I fetch the ball and throw it in the opposite direction. She runs for it and then stops. She notices a scent in the grass that appeals to her and decides to roll in it. Rolling in the grass is one of her favorite things. I watch for a minute or two while she continues to roll, get up, sniff, and then roll some more.

Finally, I am ready to play ball again so I go over to her and grab her ball. When I get close to her, I realize she was not just rolling in grass. Yes, you guessed it! She was rolling in poo(p).

Oh no, my fun lunchtime with Sugar and then happy visit to work is now ruined. I tell her to go on the deck, which luckily she does. Another stroke of luck, I had a towel draped over the sliding glass door handle to wipe her feet. But I am definitely not going to wipe her feet with it this time. I have to snatch her up in it and wrap her so I don’t get covered with poo.

Up the steps we go to the bathroom. I lock her in there while I go strip out of my work clothes, knowing I will be soaked by the time this ordeal is over. I return and her bath water has filled. In she goes. I scrub and scrub between gagging over the smell of her. I think we must have had a cow grazing in our backyard.

Finally I get her bathed, I blow dry her, hoping that still she could go to work with me. She is looking pretty good and is almost dry. Okay, I think I’ll try taking her to work. But first I’ll take her out to the front yard to go before I put her in the truck.

We walk a few houses up so she gets the urge, but alas, no she doesn’t. She does start sniffing in the grass again and guess what she finds? You guessed. Poo(p). She scoops it up in her mouth (OH GROSS SUGAR) and I have to retrieve it because she is not going to drop this.

Back to the house we go to clean her up again. Guess what? She didn’t come back to work with me. She is in the Sugar Shack again.

Officially Closed

 We finished closing the camper for the winter over this past weekend. We had taken most of the food and items that would freeze last weekend but the car was loaded to the max. We finished that chore, cleaned out the shed for anything that might freeze, and cleared out the fridge in the shed and unplugged it. Ken winterized the lines and emptied the tanks.

I like to scrub the camper with Murphy's Oil Soap before we close it, making sure all the cupboards are clean, the walls are wiped down and the floor scrubbed. When we open the camper during the winter or in the spring, the clean smell is still in there. I just love that!!

Hopefully we will have some decent weather this winter so we can spend an occasional weekend out there. The campground Thanksgiving dinner will be held this weekend but not sure we will be able to make it.

 *****

 It is now day 5 of Nanowrimo and I am a little behind where I should be, but not by much. I have about 5300 words written and will write some more tonight. Hopefully I will get caught up. I didn't get as much writing done over the weekend as I had hoped but that is okay. I'll get there.

Have a great week. I'll post when I can.