Happy Sparkly Birthday Jennifer!

Today was our oldest daughter's 29th birthday.  Yup, that last year of 'youth' - whatever that really means.

Turning 30 was a traumatic event for me; I responded to it by pretty much running away for a few days.  By myself.  I sat on the beach in Monterey, California, wondering how the heck I'd ever gotten to be 30 and remembering all the stupid things I'd done during those 'turbulent twenties'.  I will admit that I had some pretty good times in the midst of those stupid things though.  Just not the kind of stuff I'd want to go through from the other side - as the parent of that 20-something young person.

Our oldest daughter is an amazing young woman.  She has been married for going on 10 years (to the same guy), has two boys who are our favorite grandsons in the whole world, and she's just finished months of paperwork, classes, certifications, and inspections to be licensed as a family day care provider at Ft. Irwin in southern California.  She's weighed the pro's and con's of working outside the home, the cost of daycare for those two little boys, not the mention the stress of mornings getting everyone ready, out the door on time, not forgetting whatever they are supposed to bring that day, not being late because it's $1 a minute late fee...on and on.  I did it with one child, not fun. 

So she's recognized that in this season of her life, this is the best solution.  She can contribute monetarily to the family budget and still spend the majority of her time raising her own children.  The best of both worlds I suppose.  Although I fully expect a phone call or two from her questioning her own sanity.  That's okay.  :-)

She's doing all this while being a supportive wife to her army husband who's served in Kuwait as well as Iraq (twice) and who'll most likely end up deploying again.  For all the stress and craziness of army life, she loves it.  She loves the travel and moving to a new state or country every few years, she appreciates the benefits, and I believe she also thinks her hubby looks kinda cute in his dress blues uniform.  I'll admit that I've had a soft spot for a man in uniform a time or two in my life as well.  :-)

There's just one thing I don't get about my favorite oldest daughter. 

She's been sucked down the dark hole that is called "The Twilight Saga". 

But one of the things we have to learn as parents is that our children do not always make choices with which we will agree.  I mean, at least she was on Team Aniston a few years ago.  So if she wants to be on "Team Edward" (I think?) I guess I'll just have to smile and say "Okay, that's cool sweetheart!"  And bide my time 'cause I KNOW there will come a day when I'll be able to bring "Team Edward" up and she will cover her face with her hands and say "Oh my gosh!!  I can't believe I did that!!"  

A mother can only hope. 

Check off another must do on the list

Day 7 - what I've learned so far...

It is Day 7 of the NaNoWriMo annual challenge and this is already turning out to be more intense than I really thought it would.  I find that I'm pretty much always thinking about the next chapter, how I'm going to take so-and-so's interaction to the next level, how many WORDS I can write.  All that and more. 

I've also learned some things about myself - or in some cases, confirmed some things about myself. In no particular order, here are the highlights:

• I've confirmed that I AM an organizer deep down to the core.  When you break down most of the jobs I've had throughout my life that's what they were.  Organizing people, information, stats, even arrest warrants.  That's who I am. 

• Since I didn't get sucked into this NaNoWriMo thing until about 3 days before it was due to begin, I didn't have time to do any planning - or 'plotting' as I've heard it's called.  I just jumped in at midnight on November 1 and started writing without any real direction; figuring I'd have to make it up as I went along.  Fly by the seat of my pants and all that stuff. 

• I've learned that 'flying by the seat of my pants' is not my writing style.  Without at least an outline or story arc scratched out on the back of an envelope, my story is becoming quite tangled as I write scenes in no particular order other than what comes to me while I'm watching an episode of Bones.  Granted, I'm writing it on a laptop and I can easily cut and paste sections later to make the story flow more logically but I still need an outline.  I've taken to jotting things down on a cheat sheet so I don't lose a character or forget what I named that planet we passed last week.

• I've learned that I need to figure out some way to tune out my 13 year old who believes that her dad and I want a running commentary on every single thing she does, thinks, ponders, and gets mad about during the day.  (I honestly don't know where she gets that tendancy since her dad is not known for being a chatterbox and I'm perfectly comfortable with silence too.)  I have a studio downstairs that serves as the warehouse for my Etsy shop inventory as well as where I go to pour the resin for my pendants, but it just doesn't have the right 'feel' for writing.  I've tried it.

So 17,288 words into my novel as of this morning, I was still really looking for the 'moral' of it.  I'm beginning to get an idea of where we're going, who's gonna die and who's going to get - um - make that 'experience love'.  But I haven't reached that "aha!" moment that I want where the whole thing comes together and makes sense - in my mind anyway. 

And then I realized that I was missing the point.  This likely will not be a best-seller and that's okay.  Odds are it won't ever be published and that's okay too.  The point is to write.  Pure and simple.  Just write.  Like anything we want to do well, good writing takes practice, practice, practice.  I shudder to remember how those first hymns I played on that piano at Pelican Bay EFC sounded 20 years ago.  But my friends didn't give up on me and I got better.  I practiced a heck of a lot, but I got better. 

I'm looking at this novel as that 'first step'.  Once I get through this, I'll know I CAN write 50,000 words - and I'll get better.  Just like those first few songs I played in that gymnasium of the 7th Day Adventist Church in Crescent City - I survived that first service, didn't faint, and got better. 

So, fellow NaNo writers (am I the only person who can't write or say that without flashbacks of Mork and Mindy??) Let's WRITE ON!!

The Land of Literary Abandon

I know I'm competitive, sometimes I think too much so, but that's me. So when Mike started talking about the writing challenge during November I got sucked in too.

You can go here to read the details, but the basic idea is that around the world during the month of November, aspiring writers are challenged to write 50,000 words of fiction - a novel. No one has to read it, and the focus is genuinely on quantity versus quality - just WRITE. Coming into this a bit later than I probably should have, I don't have a sketched out plot line, or outline of chapters, etc. Which is how *I* would have liked to do this. But as those involved with NaNo are aware, the biggest hurdle to finally sitting down and actually writing that novel we all say we want to do is to just WRITE.

So, the focus is on word count. I have no intention of ever trying to submit what I'm writing to be published (well, at this point anyway) so that also frees me up to not worry about the plausibility of the storyline as it unfolds. It is challenging to forget about grammar though and I'm doing some editing along the way - can't go completely out of the box on this one.

Since I didn't go into this with a planned outline, my story is evolving as a series of scenes that I write as they come to mind. I have a general idea for the story of course, but the particulars - nope, don't really know. Because I'm me, I'm more focused on relationships between crew members in this story (Trek story!) and not so much on their mission. I have to throw in a distress signal, some civil unrest on a new Federation planet and all that, but that's not really the fun part for me. 

But as I get further and further into the story, I'm thinking I need to take a step back and sketch out an overview - timeline if you will - of the story as I see it right now.  It's already getting challenging to remember where I left Kirk or Sulu!  As this thing grows to over 100 pages, it's not going to be easy - or very efficient - to be looking back and finding that I left Chekov in the bathroom for 3 days or something. 

The story takes place shortly after the events in the latest Star Trek movie - Kirk has been promoted to Captain and assigned to the Enterprise. The crew we all love are together on the ship and getting to know and respect each other. Since this takes place in the alternate reality, there are all kinds of possibilities. Uhura and Spock are especially fun to write - who knew?? :-)

Because it's Star Trek a lot of the dialogue just flows - we all know Uhura is going to say "hailing frequencies open"; etc. but they do sometimes carry on other conversations. Really, they do!  I'm trying to actually picture the characters saying the lines I'm writing for them - I feel like I know these people sometimes so that's not too hard.

So that's my life for the next 27 days. I'm at about 7,500 words - 15% - and am writing every chance I get. I know there will be days when I'll be away from my computer (perish the thought!) so I'm 'stocking' up on that word count whenever I have a chance.

As a friend posted recently, "Write On!"

Woo hoo!! Now we're REALLY retired!!

Check it out - we bought a 31 ft Class C motorhome today!!  It has 1 slideout, plus a 'loft' bedroom so Sarah can have her private space.  After 3 years of looking, it was time to take the next step.  We got a great deal - it's a 1998 and cost less than my car did.  We're really excited and after taking it out for a few test runs the next few months, we are tentatively planning to hit the road full-time starting next April.

Click here to see more pictures on Facebook.