Mission NaNoPossible

Off to a start that can’t be called good with 201 words all painstakingly typed out by thumb on my phone while I sat in my car in my driveway, where the Wifi miraculously reaches, with two sleeping children in the back seat.

This one’s gonna be hard.

As the Fingers Type

Is anyone else, like…

*type type type, check word count, update CampNaNo word count, words written = 74*

*type type…. typetypetype, type… and…. type, check word count, update Camp NaNo word count, words written = 97*

*Buzzfeed, Instagram, Twitter*

*type type typety type type typetypetype typety type type typetypetype, check word count, update Camp NaNo word count, words written = 112*

UGH, is this month over yet?

“OK, SO LIKE… WHATEVER”

CampNaNo word count = 24,930 out of a goal of 25,000

I’d like to take a moment to thank… myself for setting a reasonable goal. I’ve got about a third of a strong story that definitely wants to become my next book. I can feel it struggling to get out of my brain and out into the world for others to judge and criticize.

Little book-to-be, I hope I can give you the time and attention you need to become fully realized. But if it doesn’t happen in the next two months, rest assured that there is another CampNaNo in July and I’d be happy to work with you again then.

Until then, let’s crank out 70 words of angsty teen dialogue and call it a month.

Love, Eda

My Sweet Horror Muse

My child has been telling me accidental horror stories lately and obviously I am keeping track of them so I can use them later. For his therapy.

Just kidding, I’m totally going to write short stories based on them.

What else do you do when your son tells you that his big sister was eaten by a vampire clam?

Is this a Vampire Clam Massacre or is that my new band’s name?

 

P.S. He doesn’t HAVE a big sister. Quite possibly because she was eaten by a vampire clam.

P.P.S. Yes, thank you, I am aware of the euphemistic implications… and planning to use them in my short story.

I just love it when a WIP comes together

Fourteen days left to write, so says the CampNaNoWriMo page, and I am less than 10,000 words from my goal. Woo!

I decided to go easy on myself this year, what with the abundance of responsibility the real world has heaped on my tiny shoulders, and shoot for 25,000 words written. It’s a reasonable goal and I’m happy with my progress. More than half-way there with two weeks left to go? That’s a nice place to be.

And you know how much I love to see that graph line go up uP UP!

 

No offense to the OG A-TEAM but I love me some Liam Neeson.

Can’t Find My Trail Mix

Happy NaNoCamp Eve, writer friends!

Anyone else suffering the dread of not having the right idea or temperament or schedule or brain space?

I am not at all prepared for this!

Get Back to It or Buy That TP Holder

You know when you have a pretty clear couple of hours that you had intended to spend writing but then…

I’m hungry.

I should just check Twitter first.

This email has been sitting in my inbox for a month. Now seems like a good time to read it.

You know, I really haven’t checked out the new offerings on edX lately.

Maybe if I just start a new photobook on Shutterfly, I’ll be able to finish it later.

I really need to find a matching toothbrush holder for my bathroom.

…

Not sure what’s happening here but it captures my feelings of frustration with myself as well as my love of cozy-necked sweaters.

I wrote two actual sentences in the last 45 minutes.

Let’s Camp Again… like we did last summer

I just signed up for CampNaNoWriMo again but THIS TIME, I am writing something new instead of attempting to edit!

Also, I’m not pregnant, so that might help. But I have two children now and that will not.

So winning is not a given… is all I’m trying to say. But it’s a good chance to switch WIPs without completely abandoning one to work on the other.

NANO GOOOOOOOOO!

Simpler Times for Scumbags

Well, I certainly did try to edit my NaNo project into something cohesive and I’m not saying I’m ready to give up on it. But I do believe it needs some space to breath.

This is true for most of the things I write, that I need some space between the writing and the editing, but especially so for a mostly true story about a totally shit time in my life.

So I’ve started something new! Something fun! Something that started out as a merry jaunt through time and space, an attempt to recreate a nostalgic event in the lives of the main character’s parents… but then… my mind went to the dark place and so did the story. Now the main character will share her story with her mom who’s been reading a lot about the #TimesUp movement and following coverage of a fictionalized version of that scumbag gymnastics doctor’s trial and reexamining some of those nostalgic events through the lens of a more cynical and much more informed adult eye.

Also… woo! Road trip!

Pineapple Hot Dog of Doom

The last dream I had before I woke up this morning was of living in an unstable tower-type building, trying to find an appropriate outfit to go get a hot dog and pick up my mom from work. I had just plugged in my long-sleeve white bathing suit, not to wear but so that it would be charged for later, and was marveling at the length and breadth of my favorite jeans as they eclipsed my legs and feet. For sure not hot dog getting wear, I thought.

Home sweet… whoooaaaaaa!

As I dug through the pile of cleanish clothes on the floor in my tower bedroom, wind blew or an earthquake quaked or an explosion exploded and the building began to rock. That happens when you live in an unstable tower building but usually, it straightened itself out, I reminded myself. I scrolled through the hot dog menu in my mind, considering a more classic relish and mustard or a more exotic chili and pineapple.

But my thoughts, my piles of clothes, my reassurances were all interrupted by the disequilibrium that wasn’t re-equalizing. The tower leaned too far to the left. My body rotated in space until I was looking straight ahead at the floor. My stomach flipped over and warmed slowly like a toaster until my breakfast was burnt. I thought, “this is it,”
and “I’m going to die now,” and “Goddess bless my children and keep them safe. Help the people who love me to grieve me without too much suffering…”

But then the building jerked up straight like those dancing balloons outside the car wash. My white bathing suit was fully charged and stain resistant. And I remembered that hot dogs don’t get themselves.

Fully charged, surprisingly stain-resistant

Then my son woke up–my real son in the waking world–and called for me. So I woke up, under the dark cloud of impending doom, and have been feeling this way ever since.

Happy Monday, everyone. May your day not be overshadowed by subconscious gloom.