I highly recommend writing a sex scene for your NaNoWriMo novel, then having your significant other read it.

It was more than worth every iota of frustration, and every minute of every hour of work I’ve put into, the 40K wordcount I’ve written so far. Oh yeah. Absolutely.

I finally hit 35K on my NaNoWriMo novel, right on schedule. Unless I get a whole lot more written in the next week or so, I’ll hit the winning wordcount of 50K on the last day of the month…and since I don’t know if the novel will actually be finished at that point — and I really want to get it finished but I’m becoming less and less interested in doing NaNoFiMo — I’d really prefer to kick up the speed a notch or three.

In other news…well, there really isn’t any. I don’t want to complain about how atrocious my Monday was, or how a bunch of stuff that I planned to get done this week is still as-yet undone, since that would just get me grumpier. And I’ve apparently run out of cheerful snark and clever wit. *rolls eyes*

So I guess I’ll spend 15 or 20 minutes throwing myself a little pity party, and then buckle down and get some shit done. That plan usually works quite nicely for me.

You know it’s gonna be a great day in November when it’s Monday, you’re 3,200 words behind on your NaNo wordcount, the high school you live next to is having marching band drum practice, your period arrived early, and the parent-teacher conferences are going on at your kid’s school.

Oh. Joy.

10> “And you’re *absolutely* sure she was never dropped her on her head as a child?”

9> “Have you ever considered home schooling?”

8> “We usually find that by high school, most drooling problems have been addressed.”

7> “… highly contagious genital herpes….”

6> “Despite governmental guidelines, YOUR child is being left behind!”

5> “… incontinent….”

4> “Although we no longer believe in corporal punishment, capital punishment is another story.”

3> “So *you’re* the one who taught him how to belch!”

2> “Can we briefly talk about his gambling debts?”

and the Number 1 Worst Phrase to Hear During a Parent/Teacher Consult…

1> “… future career writing for TopFive….”

Recent NaNoWriMo issues….I had writer’s block (or just general blah) on Thursday, was busy with my birthday girl and a date with my Number One Internet Fanboy on Friday, so today is crunch time. I only have a 200-word cushion left (and Geoffrey is 7K ahead of me!), so it’s time to buckle down and kick some wordcount ass.

In other news, my eldest’s first decision as a legal adult was to get her nipples pierced. OWIE! *sigh* Maybe she’ll be a Suicide Girl someday. Eh, whatever. I just want her to be happy and healthy.

Good thing I’d already decided her cameo in my novel would be as a tavern wench. *wry smile* Now, I must stack up the wordcount until my fingers can’t move.

Wow, I’m now the mother of an adult child! Eighteen years ago, the Princess Anner-Nanners came into the world, 17 days after her due date, at 19 inches in length and weighing 7 lbs, 11 oz. She was a really good baby (what happened?! …just joking), and she’s a delightful young woman. Here’s Angst with her half-brother:

She’ll be celebrating her birthday all weekend, at OryCon, and possibly getting some body piercings (that I wouldn’t sign permission for). It’s somewhat bittersweet for me, that my little girl is all grown up — but when I first held her in my arms eighteen years ago, I had only the smallest glimmer of an idea about how much joy she would bring me, and what an amazing person she would become!

And I must admit today is something of a milestone for me, in that my ex-husband now has absolutely no reason to ever bother me or interfere in my life ever again!!! (Not that he’s ever lived up to his responsibility as her father, or even seen her — by his choice — since she was a toddler, but theoretically he could have caused me — and her! — no end of grief. And now that’s no longer possible. Woo hoo!)

So if you’re at OryCon or RHPS and you see this lovely lady, tell her Happy Birthday!

Just not feeling it. Suckage.

If the upcoming weekend is anything like how this week has been so far, I should just lock myself in a closet until Monday with a fifth of vodka and a box of tissues.

Scary thought for the day: Exactly 18 years ago, I was in labor with my firstborn.

I’ve officially hit my third (or is that fourth?) speed bump — otherwise known as “writer’s block” — for NaNoWriMo.

Of course I have — because I churned out some more writing tonight, I’m within spitting distance of 30K, and I know exactly what’s going to happen in the next 3 chapters…just not exactly how to get from here to there. Or what happens after that.

I also checked on how I’m coming along with the Dares: I have the 7 goats on an island, and a cat (two, actually) following the main character around everywhere, plus just over half of the cameo appearances finished. The Dares involving dialogue will all get squished in there somewhere (dialogue is one of my strengths!), and I know exactly when someone is going to contemplate turning a soup tureen into a murder weapon.

That leaves the character with an unnatural attachment to an old chicken bone. I may have to forget about that one, unless I get the novel finished before November 30th and I’m ambitious enough to edit that in.

Geoffrey, bless his evil bloodthirsty heart (he’s writing a horror novel — a really terrific one!), keeps encouraging me. And all the wonderful blog comments that people have been leaving have been encouraging, too!

But I’m beginning to understand why Leo Rosten said, “The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.” If I wasn’t so damned set on winning NaNoWriMo this year, I would quit now. Because I can help it. *sigh*

I got less than 800 words done on my NaNo novel yesterday. The migraine probably didn’t help. And the nausea caused by taking an Imitrex for the migraine really didn’t help. The comfort food I tried eating to ease the nausea …yeah, not a good idea, either. So I put on my thermals, turned up the heat in my bedroom, climbed into bed, and read a good (military sf) book until I was too tired for my eyes to focus anymore. I fell asleep with a tabby cat (Michiko) curled up next to my thighs and woke up with a tabby cat (Zadya) lying across my face.

The non-tabby cat (Hasani) sleeps on my bed only when there aren’t people in it, at least when he’s not attached to my lap. I wonder if there’s some kind of feline territory thing going on with my bed…

There’s a lovely windstorm going on outside. I love windstorms. I love the roaring sound of the wind. I love the sound of wind shrieking through the trees. I love how much jangly noise my several wind-chimes make in the windstorms.

Must write NaNo novel. Can’t give up now. Le sigh.

The title of the post comes from a hilarious list, similar to The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do in the U.S. Army, except it’s based on RPG’ing. It’s 825 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG, and many of them are hilarious even if you aren’t a gamer (I’m not, but many of these items went right into my tagline collection!).

Tonight, however, I certainly did use my “improvised cooking” skill. After examing the contents of my kitchen cupboards and freezer, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to cook a real dinner, I would have to either thaw something out, or make meatless spaghetti. Neither of these options appealed, so I examined the contents of my kitchen cupboards and freezer again, since of course I may have overlooked something. (I hadn’t, and I knew damned well that I hadn’t, but there’s always a teensy glimmer of that inane hope that maybe the contents of the cupboards or freezer have somehow changed in the last 90 seconds while you weren’t looking. *sigh*)

And now for something completely TMI…

The good news is that I’m somehow managing to keep my house tidy, work on my crochet & quilt projects, help the demonspawn with her homework, and cook dinner fairly often, while also keeping my wordcount up! I’ve just hit 27K and the next few chapters promise to be quite interesting…as one of the upcoming chapter outlines simply says, “Wild sex!” Don’t worry, none of my friends’ cameo appearances will be involved in the wild sex. (But there are cameo appearances in an excerpt of my novel, at my NaNoWriMo profile.)

And now for the bad news…it appears that my washing machine has fallen down on the job. At least I managed to get 6 or 7 loads of wash done yesterday before it died on me. I’m hoping it only needs a belt replaced, or something similarly minor. In any case, it makes normal operating noises but doesn’t actually move the agitator any longer. I’m going to shop around for repairmen, but keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a very minor repair — I can’t see spending a fortune on fixing a washing machine that’s just a month shy of 10 years old!