Melonade

Today's word count: 2,224 as of 5:30 p.m. Total word count to date: 24,687.

I have reached the halfway point. It is day 16 of 30. If your math skills are better than mine, you will notice that I should have passed 25,000 yesterday and did not. Overall the day has been successful. Today's stuff is better than most of the last few days as far as direction is concerned. Things are getting better. I want to get another 2,000 written today, but that may have to wait until later this evening.

According to my guidebook, Week Three is supposed to be easier than the dreaded Week Two. We shall see how that goes. My un-encouraging friend ("discouraging" doesn't do him justice) is doing a smashing job of telling me that I will not finish the book. I can't blame him; he's just doing his job.

And in other news, I am beginning to hate my cell phone. People expect me to drop everything to answer it and then assume that I have vanished into the depths of the earth if I do not immediately return their phone calls.

That doesn't relate to anything else, but I wanted to put it down somewhere.

Enjoy your day.

If you are visiting the site solely for the novel-writing update and not any personal confessions, this post is for you.

I am about 1,000 words behind my daily goal. The end of week one with its court visits and bond posting nightmares put me off track a bit, as did the co-purchase of a video game system with a friend. (This friend is the person who always tells me that I will fail miserably at writing, and I am beginning to think that the Thursday purchase was merely an attempt to make me lose all focus of the novel so I will have to buy him Star Wars tickets. He's a very clever boy.) Of course, the book that inspired this whole novel thing warned that there would be a creativity slump, and I have been waist-deep in the slump. (I imagine that slumps are a combination of pudding, glue, and red clay mud, all of which make exiting the slump a tiring chore.)

Good news: I had a fabulous day at work and am now feeling a mixture of productivity and inspiration that should carry me through to my word goal for today, which should put me at 20,004 words. So when I arrive home around 9 tonight, I should be itchin' to pound out some good stuff.

And now I have to give praise to Loraine, who has been my literary confidant for several years, and is always honest and encouraging about my writing, even when it is just plain bad. She will probably be prominently featured on every acknowledgement page I ever write.

Enjoy your friends.

I am not ready to be honest.

There are days when I am constantly smacked in the face with honesty, but in a wonderfully positive way, not in the face-bruising way you may have hoped. For a few moments, hey, even until I crawl under the quilts and try to shut down for the evening, I am convinced that I love honesty and I will embrace it in all its glorious forms. I will stop lying to myself; I will stop convincing myself things are okay when they're obviously not; and I will stop believing that I can solve my own problems.

But I know why darkness is the alarm-ringing quality of evil things. It's obvious, right? Girl goes into a dark tunnel alone with no lightsource, weapon, or hunky bodyguard-type boy, I automatically want to yell at her, "Hey, are you stupid? You shouldn't go in there, it'll only be trouble, and you'll be sorry." (Of course, said girl is in movie or television show, and she can't hear me, so I feel a bit crazy for the warning.) Inevitably, the warning is justified by the appearance of some slimy creature or axe-wielding psycho or, even worse, just the sounds of her screaming followed by creepy music cues. She's toast, and there's nothing you can do about it.

So why do I keep going into the tunnel? Why do I let things overwhelm me every day-- things for which I never believed I would have a weakness? I know that I am closing in on my own destruction, but at the mouth of the tunnel, it never looks as bad as it really is.

Some people are proud to say that they have no regrets. I always wonder about that kind of statement, because I can immediatly think of 10 or 20 of my own. They're not all huge decisions, but they were all important, and I can see there are places where I was too impatient and walked into the darkness instead of waiting for the lights to come on.

Since there's no way to know who reads this, I am not going to spell things out for you. In fact, I probably won't even spell it out even if I know you personally. For now, I'll just hope it's enough to know that I have made some mistakes and regret them, and know that there may be people who can support me even while I'm being vague.

Enjoy your day.

After sitting in a courtroom for a couple of hours with all manner of scary people, my name was finally called. I explained that the deliquent violation couldn't have been for my car, but the judge didn't seem to care so much. He said I'd have to post bond and go to trial. Trial! I neither have the time nor the money to waste on this, and he wants me to go to trial. If it is not already apparent, I will say it flat out: I am really ticked off at the Oklahoma City judicial system.

On a good note, I managed to get in my words yesterday. I've officially passed the 10,000-word mark.

Still, I don't really know where it's going sometimes. If it weren't for the no editing rule, I would have already edited like crazy and probably deleted a few chunks. Lucky for me, the rules won't allow deletion, only italization.

That's all I've got. I'm very angry and am having a hard time thinking about anything else.

Breathe in....breathe out....

Yesterday was ridiculous in every possible way. Here is a brief synopsis:
1. Woke up as usual. Felt stabbing pain in eyes and extreme sensitivity to all light, but pressed on to work.
2. Worked in complete misery (sunlight+office lights+yellow paint= absolute torture), went to Walmart for eyedrops that were little help, and worked until 1 p.m., when I finally called it quits for the day, promising that I'd probably return later in the evening to attend to some things.
3. Went home to my beautifully dark apartment. Had lunch, put on pjs and sleepmask, and was asleep on my super-comfy couch by 1:30. Awoke just before 6.
5. Opened blinds to check light tolerance (It was good.). Went back to the office.
6. Did some office work and then started my novel writing for the day.
7. Made my goal of 8,335 just before 10 p.m. with a few extra words for good measure. Heard strange noise, realized intense rain shower had just commenced and was slightly disappointed in my choice of footwear-- flip-flops.
8. Geared up for latest blog post when my entire office was doused with darkness, and I was slightly panicked. My office is kind of isolated, and there aren't many people around the area after hours. The office is 17 1/2 times creepier in the dark when all the machines are quiet.
9. Panicked a little more because I hadn't saved recently, and I couldn't remember how long it had been since my last auto-save. Worried about how I would get out and if the alarm system would be funky.
10. Left about 20 minutes later, hoping things would not fall apart and I would have electricity at my apartment.
11. Went about normal routine. Watched tv, played solitaire. tried with no success to go to sleep. At 4, I decided sleep was completely hopeless, and I got ready for work. Had breakfast at IHOP and read some of The Archivist. Arrived for work an hour early. Hope I will make it through the day.

And if that's not enough, I have to go downtown to court today because the City of Oklahoma City sent my parents a letter saying I had an unpaid parking ticket. I was at dinner with my sister at the time they say the alleged ticket was issued and my car was parked in front of my apartment, nowhere near California Street or any of its handicapped parking spaces.

So that's how it was. I've been awake since 6 p.m. last night. It's now just after 7 a.m., and I have had no sleep. I do not know how to convince a judge that the ticket could not have been issued to me or my vehicle.

On top of all that, I have to find time to write my 1667 words for the day.

Wish me luck, for I shall need buckets of it.

Enjoy your day.