They tell me I'm a Winner...

I did it! I officially reached 50,000 words...or 50,236 to be exact, as I only dreamed of doing a month ago. I'm so glad to know...just to know that I COULD. Now, finishing the "novel," as they so flatteringly call in on the Nano website, is going to be another challenge that feels completely out of my league. I think I'm going to take a few days off and relax, ponder, and...pray.

And now I can get back to blogging! :)

A Little Disallusionment

I woke up this morning to a delicious freezing grey wetness outside my window, a roaring fire in the stove, and coffee brewing in the kitchen. I'm marvelling over having two Saturdays in a row (yesterday felt like a Saturday, and lo and behold, I wake up to another one today!) Wow. Wow again. I don't know what else to say without writing way too much and irritating my dear brother who really wants to get on this computer in the next half hour.

As for Nano...44,215 words and counting...getting to 50,000 no longer concerns me. It's finishing the story that I'm worried about. It's looking like I'm going to need another couple of weeks to finish...at least one...and as of December first I am sworn to sign my life over to sewing a knight costume for my littlest bro.

The truth is, I'm scared silly of editing, revising, and having to persevere, and I keep writing with a feeling that I'm producing pig slop. I don't even know what I'm trying to write in the story...I can't figure out any reasonable motives my characters would have for their actions, and I feel like I've built a completely idiotic story on a sand dune...and the tide is coming in very rapidly. Sure, I'm making my 50,000 word goal, but I was hoping to have something decent to show for it. Hmm. I'll have to just keep pressing on and see what happens. Perhaps I will kidnap an unsuspecting friend, lock them in the dungeon (er, my closet) and make them read it and tell me honestly what in the world to do with the stupid citizens of this stupid city, why a music box should be magical and what magical qualities it ought to have, and why a wicked shiekh would really want to kidnap a bunch of little kids. Sorrows.

Well, praise the Lord it is raining, because that definitely helps the writing mood. If it were all humid and sticky and droopy out, I think I would chunk my lap top and move into the refigerator with the leftover pumpkin pie.

Cheerio!

Saying Thank You

I kind of feel bad about what I said. Not a guilt trip or anything...but so many people don't have a nice warm, dry kitchen to bake pies in or a moderately happy, healthy family to eat them with. So here's a big, fat,

THANK YOU< GOD!

Thanksgiving and No Ice Cream Sandwiches

On the afternoon before Thanksgiving, the temperature dropped to a blessed 76 degrees, and it began to rain. A general uproar ensued, in which Cassie madly dashed out the front door and joined two of her younger siblings in a dance of insane happiness, abandoning the cranberry sauce to a simmering fate on the stovetop.

Yes, the change in weather was so sweet. I was so happy that it not only dropped to 76, but well below, with a wicked wind to chase the leaves across the grass. The cranberry sauce was no worse for the cook going AWOL. Cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie are my two favorite Thanksgiving foods (well, candied sweet potatoes vie for a place as well) so naturally I got to make them this year. To think, my mother was going to leave off the pumpkin pie just because we had to resort to canned pumpkin! Canned pumpkin is a sad fate, being so similar to baby food, but even canned is better than nothing.

The pie is fortunate that it came into existence at all, considering the distracted state the cook was in all afternoon. Holidays are so precious, but being a sentimental person, I guess I sometimes take them a little seriously. Suddenly, when you are standing in the kitchen enveloped in a Christmas apron, surrounded by a passel of pies and a scent of cinnamon and a huge mess of flour, and the leaves are dying outside in the greyness...all the seasons and Thanksgivings of the past can tumble down on top of you like a load of dusty old classics in the top of your closet. You think of that particular rendering of the Doxology, or that wintery walk, or that particular pumkin pie now lost forever to gastronmical memory. And with the happy memories that you can't seem to retrace completely, come dreams, and fears, for the future...knowing and longing and wondering about it...

"It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches."

- Lemony Snicket

Life seems to be all leaving and saying goodbye with no ice cream sandwiches. And I haven't even left or moved away! I think more than anything, I am homesick over the home I haven't left, the friends I haven't yet had to said goodbye to, and the family that is all around me as I speak. Realizing what can't come back from the past makes me ache for what I'm going to miss in the future...

So go ahead and say "Cassie, what are we going to do with you!" Or don't bother. It's already done. I'm better now. I know that was a shamefully outrageous burst of emotional goobldegop. Baking Thanksgiving pies is not supposed to drive a person into depression!

It's truly a beautiful Thanksgiving Eve, and I'm thankful to God that this year I am here, with my dear family, just as He perfectly ordained it. The future is bright with Him.

Oh, and Nano...

38,888 words, planning to reach 40k tonight. Kip got in big trouble and the Prince almost had a knife plunged through his heart, but he's going to be ok. He's very quick and able. And Mrs. Mudge is a very good nurse.

Half Way Point

Half way done. 25,000!!!

True, Mrs. Connie, no time for blogging...if I mean to be with people and lead a healthy life. It's not just nano...babysitting, unusual upsets, and the "weight of a thousand disasters"...no, not really, I just like quoting Pinocchio :) A lot of unexpected things this week.

Yes, Nano will come to an end. And it's going pretty well, although it got a little into the stirring-cold-molasses category last week. When I met up with the green genie...well, that's when things got better.

Must go...

My Brother, the Realist

Scene: Mattie and Ethan are curled up in a chair together, staring at the pine ceiling of our log house.

Mattie: Let's look for shapes in the wood. See, there're faces and stuff! I see an alligator and a ghost.

Ethan, looking intently: Well, I see a piece of wood.

A few minutes, (the game came to a quick end) Ethan was "wrestling" Mattie in the chair, and was laying over her face. Mattie managed to yell,

"Help, I'm being terminated!"

Siblings. Gotta love 'em. ;)

In Which I Insanely Haul the 500 lb. Turkey Down the Hill

My arms are incredibly sore this morning. There's a good reason for it...or maybe a bad reason, depending on how you look at it. No, it's not from typing (I'm not the most muscle-endowed person I know, but I can type.

Yesterday I hauled a 500 pound turkey 700 feet down the hill from my grandparents house to our house. No kidding, I know it was five hundred pounds! This back-breaking labor was not a form of cruel and unusual punishment, nor was it penance or anything of that nature...it was merely a result of the sheer stupidity and stubborn determination of a Nano-crazed girl.

It was like this...I came home from taking Mattie to piano lessons when it was close to supper time, ready to write. As I drove in, Dad, who was outside sowing grass seed in our barren yard, stopped and asked me to drive up to Grammie's and fetch the turkey she wanted to give us. Well, that was fine. I was planning to come straight home and doctor my Nano wordcount a little before supper, but getting the turkey was not too big of a deal. I drove up, parked the car, and went to the door. After knocking for quite a while to no avail, I got impatient, and seeing that there was no car in the driveway, went back home. I told Mom about it.

"Oh, she's gone somewhere, and Paw Paw's in the back. I think she just wanted you to walk in and get it. It's on the counter."

Ok. I climbed back into the car and drove up again. Sure enough, the door was unlocked, so I went right in to pillage the turkey. The bird was enormous. It was adorned in trappings of tin foil, and sat in a shallow roasting pan full of greasy bird juice. I hefted it off the counter and started for the door. I had to set it down in order to open the door, and as I did so, the drippings sloshed mildly. Well, that wasn't so bad, but what was going to happen when I put it in the van? I could just picture Dad's face when he saw the trunk of his van painted in abstract turkey juice. No way.

By this time, my arms were sagging with the turkey's weight, and I frantically searched for somewhere to make an emergency landing before I dropped the thing and sent cooked turkey hurtling into next Thanksgiving. (The drive where I had parked was sharply slanted.) After I had set down the turkey, I employed my best Cassie-logic and took stock of my options.

1. Drive home and find someone to help me, which would probably result in a catastrophic turkey mess anyway.

2. Find an old towel (which would probably get ruined) to line everything with. (That,too, could be a very messy ordeal.)

I completely forgot that we had a truck I could have used.

So, I wasn't thinking so clearly. I had been pretty emotional all day, and was feeling unreasonably distressed, helpless, and close to tears over the wretched turkey. I was really only thinking about one thing: How I could get home in the least amount of time WITH the turkey and WITHOUT the mess, and tackle that novel. The seconds were ticking away, and I knew deep down that it was too late for pre-supper writing anyway. But at that moment, some fearsome force of super-human bullheaded strength took over my frail and helpless person, and, banishing all reason from my mind, I strode over to the 500 pound turkey and lifted it with my own two arms. Then I set off down the hill, bearing the onerous piece of poultry in its pool of oily drippings.

By this time, anger, desperation, and a host of other emotions were driving me down the hill, arms trembling.

"Dumb turkey! Dumb turkey! Dumb turkey" (I didn't say this aloud, because, after all, the bird was so big it was bound to have feelings lodged in there somewhere, even if he was cooked. Besides, I'm not sure I'm aloud to say "dumb.") Then, in a split second, as I had landed the turkey in the grass to briefly relieve my aching arms, I remembered "I'm supposed to be thankful for this turkey, aren't I?" Deb and I had been discussing thankfulness, and thanks to her I had been practicing at it here and there all afternoon. I heaved the turkey up again.

"Thank you Lord, for the turkey...thank you Lord for the turkey...thank you for this dumb turkey, Lord!" And so on. I only prayed my cousins wouldn't happen to walk down their driveway at that moment to see their demented relative speeding for home with a hulking turkey in her arms.

A note to all those planning to shoplift their Thanksgiving turkey: I would just go with spam this year.

Anyway, I had nearly made it to the Little Woods (adjoining our yard,) when my arms really began shaking and quivering and showing signs of betrayal, and the bird became somewhat endangered. Just about 20 yards to go...and there was my Dad, still sowing his seed like a good farmer. And I started thinking to myself, "What is Dad going to say when he sees his daughter carting home this ridiculous hateful overgrown turkey?" The ridiculousness of my own actions was dawning on me as the temporary cloud of insanity began to lift. I could just go ask Dad for some help, but no! I was determined to get that bird home myself!

After another quick break, I summoned all my strength and pride and moral courage and tromped through the short patch of forest at breakneck pace, accelerating as the weight grew on me. Just as I emmerged from the trees into the ploughed-up yard I nearly collapsed. I saw Dad and Dad saw me, and I broke into a fit of weak, semi-hysterical laughter. I didn't know how I would have the strength to explain and pull myself together enough to get into the house with the thing. But my Dad, full of chivalry, just came over and took the turkey from me. I didn't want him to lift it...his back was really hurting...but he wasn't about to stand there and let me collapse, and frankly, I didn't at all mind being rescued.

So, Dad took the turkey, and I stood there shaking, my arms floating around like butterflies out of the their cucoons. Then, feeling like a good pilgrim just released from his burden, I turned and went back up the hill to explain to my newly arrived grandmother why the turkey was gone, the van was there, and I was not.

Note: I did end up Nano-ing about a hundred words before supper time, and after supper succeeded in reaching my 2000 words-per-day goal, which rather surprised me considering the day I'd had. Oh, and we had turkey for supper, too.

Nano Update

Typing...typing...thinking...typing...

I'm planning to reward myself with a blog post every 10,000 words, and right now the word count is just over 6000. (For National Novel Writing Month) Talking camels rock!

Happy November...