It's Been So Long!

Hey all,
Sorry it's been yet another lengthy time between posts! I finished NaNoWriMo last night, I've been working crazy hard to get all my words in, I think I wrote 5,000 words or so yesterday alone. Now I can say I've officially made it to 80,000 words! I must say, never again. I will not ever agree to write that many words in a month again. I seriously think it messed with my brain a little bit, there were times when I felt almost like I was drunk when I'd had nothing at all to drink. BUT I am glad I challenged myself to do this. It was one crazy awesome fun experience. I just didn't do a whole lot else this November. I'm going to give myself a break from writing for a few days, but only to do homework....

I did find a handy way to trick myself into writing a lot of words one of the days. I took a post-it note, covered it with permanent marker, and then put it over the clock on the computer. I set an alarm on my phone for when I could be done. I also could not neck my word count in that time. I thought by the time the alarm went off that I'd written maybe 3,000 words. I was way off. I ended up writing over 5,000 words in that one sitting. It felt like a mega accomplishment to get that many words in, my mind was seriously a little blown that day. That trick only worked once for me though. I tried it two more times after that and ended up eventually removing the post-it or checking my word count. Maybe I pushed myself a little too hard that first trial with the post-it note trick.

Poor Cleo has a cold now, she's been sneezing and she clearly sounds stuffed up, this kitty just can't get a break! The vet recommended having Cleo kept in the bathroom while the shower was running as a steam treatment, the vet thought maybe part of Cleo's sneezing was due to the air being too dry for her. I think it's been helping so far though Cleo gets annoyed fairly quickly with it. I can't blame her either.

Also, it totally snowed again, Monday I woke up to this:

Oh Wisconsin, you can be cruel sometimes. This time the snow is sticking too. The last time it snowed a good portion of the snow melted over the next couple of days, however it is still rather wintery white out now.

And now, the pictures you've been waiting for: Cats (and a related picture)!

Bailey helping Chris play DDR.

I found this in my shoe one morning from Bailey,

I am glad it's only a toy mouse.

Cleo is helping Chris with NaNoWriMo, 

she's doing her best to motivate him.

I'm going to try to get better about posting from now on since I no longer have the excuse of NaNo, I promise!

Thanks for stopping in,

Melissa

Caffeine Problem and Word Wars!

Hi all,
Sorry it's been several days since I last posted! My days are all kind of meshing together, I can't wait for November to be done. I think NaNoWriMo is feeding into my caffeine problem:

I don't have a fancy thermos, so I ghettoed it up and brought two coffee mug thingies with me to class the other day. To be fair I was there ridiculously early so that I could get parking and have time to write. I just got the silver one (it's a fancy-schmancy NaNo one :D) so I totally poured the coffee from the pink one into to silver one. Still, that's a lot of coffee... probably not good for me. I think today I'm going to be all defiant-like against my coffee maker and not make any coffee. We'll see how successful that is since both cats work me up around 5:30 and then kept nagging me. I do think I drink double or even triple the amount of coffee during November than I usually do the rest of the year, that's crazy scary really.

Last night I discovered the fun of word wars! Basically you and some other people figure out your word count, then you write for fifteen minutes straight. Then everyone stops and you see who wrote the most in those fifteen minutes. I participated in two word wars last night and I got 1220 total words between the two fifteen minute segments! I don't know how having that challenge helped to push me to write so quickly then, but man if I could keep that writing pace up for an hour I'd have my word count in! Maybe I can trick myself into thinking I'm in a word war....

I can't believe it's already November 20th! I've written 57,148 words so far. It's looking more and more possible that I will actually get to 80,000. I've also totally promised myself to splurge on something if I do get to 80,000 as a reward (my splurgy reward). It's totally something silly that I've been wanting for years but couldn't actually bring myself to buy because it is costly. I think this is helping me motivate myself though :D. I wrote just over 4,000 words yesterday.

And to end, here is a picture of Bailey transfixed by Chris playing Dance Dance Revolution:

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

NaNoWriMo Update

Hey all,
I've been doing my best to keep up with the daily word count which I've been able to do so far. It's just been more challenging than the past couple of years, I realize it's mainly because I'm making myself write more words than necessary for the typical NaNo word count. The type of story I'm writing is more challenging for me too, I'm really concerned it's not scary at all and that's what I'm hoping to do, make it scary!

I started getting unmotivated the closer I've been getting to 50,000 words since if I did stop, I'd at least be done. However, my motivation was reinvigorated when some of my friends that I'd thought had given up went to town and wrote several thousands of words in a day (one wrote 10,000 words!). Seeing this made me want to do my best not to give up! Thanks friends :D! As it stands now, I've written 45,057 words so far in 15 days. Let's see if I can keep it up. Only 34,943 words left to go.

On a super positive note, Cleo's lip is looking better, the swelling has gone down that had been present, but the ulcer is still there. I think the ulcer has gotten smaller as well, so maybe the the steroids were helping. I'm out of free samples from the vet, so we'll see if things change, that will help figure out if she needs another course of steroid treatments or not. I will keep you updated.

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

Winter Has Come and Cleo's Struggle with Face Issues

Hi all,
Well winter decided it wanted to visit the southern part of Wisconsin. It snowed yesterday and the snow stuck. It wasn't a lot of snow, just enough to cover the ground in a white blanket. It was also enough to need to scrape off my car (it initially was raining or sleeting I think, because then it froze!). A lot of it has already melted today, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing more snow pretty quick. I will try to actually be good about taking a picture too. I just hope we don't have a blizzard like the one we had last December. It shut down the city I live in (a big city). The mall shut down a week or two before Christmas if that's any indicator for you. I think it was something like two or three feet of snow in day that we got that day. Pretty insane. The snow plows were pretty much only on the main roads and interstate that day. Many, many people got stuck, including the squad cars that were trying to get to people to help them get unstuck! So yeah, no thanks, we don't need that degree of snow at once this year. My fingers are crossed for nowhere near that much snow.

As the title states poor Cleo (one of my kitties) is dealing with face issues. Since we adopted her last April she's had on and off infections and irritated scabs on her lips. The vets decided maybe it was an allergic reaction with some cat acne tossed in there, I so did not know cats could get acne. Well, yesterday I took her to the vet again and now they are thinking on top of allergies and acne that she's got an auto-immune disease that causes her to get ulcers on her lip. I was given a liquid steroid to get her the next couple of days to see if that helps get things under control. I also bought some fancy, and expensive, hypoallergenic food for her in hopes that it will help calm the acne which might be irritating her lips to the point of giving her ulcers. She at least doesn't seem to be in pain or bothered by it, unless I'm holding her still trying to get a look at it.

(Here's Cleo in a silly sitting position in case you forgot what she looks like!)

I switched from plastic food dishes to ceramic ones as well, I saw on a few forums that that has helped with cat acne issues. I've purchased some cat wipes too called Nature's Miracle that should help with the acne too. That won't help the ulcer though, which I was rubbing on the ulcer too before I knew it was an ulcer and the vet said that probably would hurt, oops :(.... I'll try to keep you updated on how she's doing in the upcoming posts!

Here's Bailey deciding this was his way of helping the quilt finish drying. He gave me quite the perturbed look when I folded it later once it was dry. He apparently rather enjoyed that as a laying spot.

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to leave comments :D!

Melissa

Writing Ruts and the Conspiracy of Women's Clothing

Hi all,
Yesterday was my first day of NaNo that I really hit a writing rut. It took me several hours longer to reach my daily goal than usual. I think a big part of it was that I had to start writing later than I usually do, I hope that was why anyways. I am a little concerned that I won't have enough to say of this story for 80,000 total words! That doesn't mean I'm giving up, I'll find a way, probably. I've been doing the math lately to see how many words I have left and how many it would take to get to 80,000--I should stop doing that, at least for a while, it's depressing to see that I still have more than 50,000 words left to go. As of this moment I've written 26,125 words in nine days. Sad thing is I still have 53,875 words left. So. Many. Words.

I think the encouragement of family and friends helped me get those words out yesterday though, it's always useful to have someone cheering you on with any challenge you are facing, especially once that is important to you whether it's writing, or drawing, or something completely unrelated to art. They can really help motivate you. My friends and family certainly motivate me not to let them down, so I keep on trying and pushing myself to do the best that I can.

As you can see from the title, I'm also going to rant briefly about the conspiracy of women's clothing. The biggest conspiracy in my mind is how freaking small the pockets are on pants. Unless I were to start buying men's jeans for bigger pockets, I'm pretty much doomed to lugging around a purse. Thus this conspiracy points to jeans designers and purse manufacturers in cahoots! They've got to be working together and making some shared profit off of this somehow. Jerks.

A couple weeks ago I noticed an odd warning on one item of clothing I had. It said keep away from fire. This wasn't on the tag of a shirt or pants, you know the things that would catch fire first... It was on the tag of one of my bras. I don't know if this is some reverse psychology thing trying to stir the angry, bra-burning feminist in me, or if it's some aim to dissuade me from purposefully burning my bra. I still can't decide if it is something that offends me or not. It certainly leaves me wondering why and feeling a little vexed at it. Anyone have a good explanation for why this would be the only piece of clothing that has a keep away from fire warning?

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

Adding in Another Point of View

Hi all,
As you may recall I am participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this November and with the added challenge of doing 80,000 words instead of 50,000. It's been going well so far, I'm at 19,019 words on day 6! I decided to add in another character's perspective in my story as of late last night.

Adding in another point of view (POV) can be tricky, and you never really know until you've finished if it was a right choice or a fitting choice. It's also tricky because you need to make that POV stand out from the other character's POV. I'm hoping my choice to add this character's perspective in will be a good one. My story takes place in a different world from our own where the dark things that creep in the night live (my working title is Where Nightmares Reign, it will do for now), and I write from two character's POVs that are there so as to give the reader as much as I can about this world. But I realized there's so much more I could do if I also showed what was happening in the real world from the sister's POV and how she and the family are handling the main character's kidnapping.

I don't know how well I'm writing the dark and creepy of the story either, it's my first attempt at something a little more sinister. I suppose if nothing else, it is hopefully something that can be resolved in the editing stages of the process. I do find listening to creepy music like soundtracks from scary movies helps, so if you're stuck at all in your writing, try listening to music that is a similar mood/feel to what you are writing! A friend of mine suggested doing that and it really has helped.

I've also been writing right away in the morning so the day doesn't get away form me. Today I managed to write just under 3,000 words in under two hours! That was some crazy fast writing for me, I apparently was in the zone or something. Lately it's been taking me three to three and a half hours or so to get that many words. Maybe adding in another POV inspired my writing :)! Keep on keeping on with the writing, you can do it!

Thanks for stopping by,
Melissa

80,000 words and a 5k

Hi all!
So you know how I said it was mean of my husband and friend to suggest I do 80,000 words this year instead of 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo? Well apparently I decided it would be fun, it's only 1000 extra words a day after all... We'll see if I feel so motivated after I need to write a paper this week for class. I also don't know if my story will last that long, I do have that fear. But I have written 10,000 words in 3 days :D! Gotta keep things positive, right? I typically try to write for NaNo in the morning and try to do very little before writing for NaNo, if my coffee maker was a little newer I'd have to do even less, but it doesn't have a timer set in it to go off when I want it too. Ah well it's only a few added steps before I can start writing.

This past weekend I participated in the Hot Chocolate Run--I only did the 5k, no way in heck could I have done the 15k! It was my first run like this and it was one very interesting experience. We actually did more waiting in our corral to start the race than it took us to run the race (us being my brother-in-law, my brother's girl friend [though to me she's totally a sister-in-law :D], and me). There were at least 27,000 people doing this run in Chicago. Aside from having to dodge around the walkers with poor racing etiquette, i.e. walking in the middle of the road versus at the sides, it was a lot of fun. I really didn't think a few months ago when I signed up to do this run that I could actually do it. And then I did, yay! They set the pace to me which was probably best, I had a moment of slowy-Joeyness. I only needed to walk for a brief amount of time, but otherwise jogged the whole time. We averaged just over 11 minute miles which was faster than I'd done on my own before this and we finished the race in 36 minutes! I would totally recommend people to try and push themselves to do something like this, it's a fun experience and this race was pretty laid back and meant to just be fun so if you did need to walk it wasn't like you were in the minority. Plus it feels like quite an accomplishment to get something like this done.

I'll keep my NaNo journey up to date on here as best I can, wish me luck to actually get to 80,000 words and keep on keeping on if you're doing NaNo too!

Thanks for stopping in,
Melissa

Staying Up Late Two Days in a Row and NaNo!

Hi all,
I think I finally have to accept that I'm growing up, staying up late is much harder for and recovering from it even harder. I stayed up until 1:30 Wednesday playing video games just because I could, at least that night I didn't slam down several cups of coffee and some soda on top of it. I even managed to make myself jog 5k Thursday morning, but I pretty much came back to my apartment and napped after showering--napping is a wonderful thing, I believe in it's awesomeness.

Then Thursday evening my husband and I and some friends met at a Perkins for a NaNoWriMo kickoff writing session. Many of us were chugging coffee or caffeinated beverages counting down the minutes to midnight. 2000 words later and at 3 am we finally headed home. I had had at least four cups of coffee and one cup 20 oz cup of caffeinated soda throughout the time we met up and left. I'm very certain I'm going to have a caffeine hangover today (terribly headache and such). But it was totally worth it. I got to hang out with friends and write. I was so excited for the start of NaNo that I was almost to the point of nervousness!

Starting my story wasn't terribly hard, I at least had the beginning more or less planned, but chapter 2 was a little harder to start--it was uncharted territories of the story plot! Frightening. I did just stare at the computer screen for a few minutes, something I generally try to avoid during the adventure of NaNo. It was very nice to kick NaNo off with others though in that it helped motivate me to continue. Though my husband decided and my friends agreed that I should have to write 100,000 words but it was talked down to 80,000 words this year instead of 50,000 because I've been successful so many years in a row. Totally not fair, and yet I kind of want to try to make that possible? Maybe. I don't know if I'll have time once my other class starts up, but who knows what possibilities will be in store for me in this NaNo season of crazy-awesomeness!

As an aside, anyone who does write or is thinking about it, you should try NaNo! It's fun and it's not too late to start. You don't have to get 50,000 words, you can just set yourself a goal to do X many words total or you can set a goal of writing every day for X amount of time. This could really help you get your creative juices flowing!

Thanks for stopping in,
Melissa