Quidditch for Muggles

All I can say is I love it!

Procrastination

I've never been a procrastinator, but as I'm delving into this writing thing, I'm seeing another side to my character. I will anticipate all day the time I can finally get home from work and write, but then as I actually sit down at my computer I almost feel as though I've been bespelled. Think about the protections at Hogwarts where muggles who wander into the area by the wizarding school find themselves suddenly distracted.

Hmmm. Is Peeves on vacation and visiting the U.S.?

I don't get it.

I don't like it. Is there something my subconscious is trying to tell me?

But I will persevere. I overcame my greatest distraction by finishing The Towers of Midnight last night (328,000 words). We're two weeks into NaNoWriMo, and I've got fewer than a 1,500 words ... and an outline.

Haha. Perhaps I should have done what I've read others do in November and do a personal NaNoReaMo and set a goal to read a certain number of books during the month. Maybe then I'd actually be able to WRITE, since I set a goal to read.

There's something wrong with this picture.

*beats head on desk*

Freedom is Never Free

I am a veteran, and I come from a family of veterans. I'm married to a veteran. I have a nephew who is a Marine and currently deployed in Afghanistan. On this day, I honor those who came before me, served with me, and who serve now.


They tell me
'Freedom is never free.'
I know that-
More than most realize.
Freedom cost us more
Than we should have to give.
Freedom cost us blood.
It cost us the lives
Of our fathers,
Our sons,
Our brothers.
But while freedom is never free,
Remember-
It has been bought at great price,
And so is a thing of great value.
We must defend it,
From those who would take it away.
The defense of our freedoms
Will cost us-
More than we wish to pay.
But we must pay, to defend,
For if we try to make freedom free,
We forget-
True freedom is never free.

~~Jame Grengs

Outline Is Done!

Woot! The outline is finally completed!!

*dances a jig*

I wasn't able to work on it Thursday or Friday, so I thought I'd really focus today. Unfortunately, The Towers of Midnight kept calling me, which made it really hard to focus. But I finally took control this afternoon, persevering to completion.

*wipes sweat from brow*

Now I have to turn the notes into a manuscript.

Earth Smart

I'm a firm believer that human beings have a stewardship responsibility for this planet. As important as it is not to encumber our children and grandchildren with onerous debts, we need to make sure we're responsible with how we use the resources of this planet.

SciFi films often cast predatory aliens (as in Independence Day) who come here to rape the planet as terrible villains we must defeat at all costs. We need to make sure we're not the terrible villains (let's face it--we don't have a great track record) and be guilty of the same thing.

I think this is brilliant. Click here to see the video.

Cutting It Off

My poor hubby. What a couple of days he's had. He's a handyman and is always banging himself up as he works on projects or has to squeeze himself into too small areas. Monday he managed to break a blood vessel in his wedding ring finger. Unfortunately, he's also on blood thinner, so his entire finger swelled to twice its normal size.

When he got up yesterday morning, it was even worse than it had been on Monday. It was obvious that something had to be done. As the morning progressed, he made the decision to go to a jeweler and have the ring cut off. It (his finger, not the ring) looks much better now.

He told me last night that he's having the jeweler make a new ring with the gold. So much for our matching set. The set was a combination of white and yellow gold. If they melt them together, it will all look gold. That's okay, though. He'd literally worn all the design off his band with all the hard work he's done over the years.

Duh Moment

Ever have one of those moments where something should have been obvious to you and yet wasn't? I took a writing class on how to quickly write a manuscript. One thing it requires is for you to do an outline. I'm game to learn new ways to do things, and the teacher suggested using 3x5 cards so you can move scenes around as you wish later on. I thought I was upping the stakes by using 3x5 sticky notes instead of traditional cards, and I've been handwriting them as evidenced by some pictures I've been posting here and on Facebook.

Just so you know, I HATE writing things by hand. I'm much faster at typing plus I have tendonitis and arthritis issues in my right hand. The tendonitis is from too much mouse use (and writing things by hand). The arthritis isn't much of an issue because I don't usually write things by hand.

So this has been a grueling exercise.

As I've agonized over these dang sticky notes, it occurred to me that Word has a label file that would allow me to type each card (quickly) and then print a set of three onto my sticky notes (you have to be smarter than the average bear to know how to print onto the notes themselves).

So how come I didn't remember that until tonight? We're already into day 2 of NaNo, and I'm still working on my dang outline. I probably could have been done with the outline part if I'd typed my cards from the beginning--to say nothing of how much easier it will be to read my notes.

Notice the SIX new cards in the picture on the bottom right--the six NEAT new cards. *sigh*

I should never call anyone a moron again. With me it's too much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.