Nanowrimo progress

Today was my best writing day. When I finished my word wars, I had a total of 4999 words. I couldn't leave it at that, could I? So I planned to go back and add an adjective somewhere. Instead I added a sentence, finishing with a total of 5008 words for the day. I'm sure that must be a personal record.

Yesterday was almost as good - 4735 words. What a great weekend!


So, I'm at 32, 107 words now. Still a lot of writing to do over the next five days but I can do it. The words are flowing. I will soon have that Nanowrimo winners certificate on my wall.

Welcome to my forties....

Design available at The Writers Zone in the Chickollage Shop

It's the first day of my forties....

and I slept in. Because it's the only day I could sleep in all week. Yep, I have the day off today and then it's back to work tomorrow and Sunday. Will be very glad when this election is over. I've been pleased to have the extra work but it will be good to return to some kind of normal.

Life begins today. And I got myself one of those free solar return charts (gives you a year forecast) from astrology.com and things are looking pretty good in the stars for the next twelve months. Especially in the department of creativity.

I feel as if I'm coming into my own creatively and there's never enough time to create everything I want. The 365 day collage poetry challenge died after two months, although I have since made some 3D collage projects

and Nanowrimo is proving to be very challenging this time around due to my extended working hours. If only I had more hours in the night (not in the day, because I don't want to spend any more time at the day job). I've surpassed 21,000 words and hopefully today I will at least hit the halfway mark. It means a lot of writing in the next week, but there are people out there waiting for the sequel, wanting to know what became of Cinderella beyond the 'beyond happily ever after' so I must not disappoint my four fans. I've always responded well to extrinsic motivation.

Meanwhile a few more designs have been added to the Chickollage shop (including the one at the start of the post) and I'm also trying out zazzle as they have alternative products to cafepress including keyrings.

Tonight will be a birthday dinner, more writing and some sleep before I have to face work again...

An imperfect prince

I think I've finally found my groove... the writing thang. I haven't hit the 20k mark yet so I am still towards the back of the race but if I put my head down and type type type, I might just make it to the finish line.

A tiny sample:

And thankfully a young naïve and beautiful maiden had turned up to the ball
wearing her glass slippers and enchanting everyone including Prince Edward.She had been just perfect, naïve enough to not recognise Prince Edward’s tendencies, young enough to be impressed by the riches, and malleable enough to be conditioned to the role of princess.

Cinderella had been just perfect. The perfect wife for an imperfect
prince. And now she would right it all by giving birth to the heir of the
throne. And right at this moment, the Queen did not give a damn as to how
Cinderella had achieved this miraculous feat. For the child would be the
saviour of the monarchy.

As usual work is trying to get in the way - leading up to Saturday's election, there's just so much of it! I haven't had to deal with extra hours during previous Nanowrimo's and some years I have had time off in November. Not this year. It just means that I have to do more word sprints and word wars and steal small chunks of time for writing to get that certificate to hang on my wall, and another first draft to edit. But I'm having fun, really I am! Who wouldn't want to spend their nights hanging out with the dysfunctional fairytale monarchy?

My mum

I can't believe it has been ten years.

Ten years since Mum passed away.

She was only 48 years old. Too young. I still think of her every day.

I'm competing in Nanowrimo and writing the continuing story of Cinderella and the tangled web between her husband Prince Edward, his cousin Prince Henry and his wife Snow White. I know Mum would really enjoy this story. And I'm very sure that Disney isn't going to be taking out an option on it. But I'm having fun.

Here's to the things my mother gave me: a wicked sense of humour, the ability to see the quirky side of life, and a positive attitude.

The story of the two old ladies at their funerals in a previous post was a nod to mum. She made sure she left a mark with her funeral, starting with the Reverend having a car accident on the way to the funeral delaying the service. One of mum's friends was an on-call ambulance officer and attended the accident and the Reverend conducted the service with his arm in a temporary splint. Ending with the appearance of the Fabio look-a-like, who we joked was mum's secret boyfriend. He was probably at the wrong funeral. At the wake, my friends and I drank Bailey's in mum's honour. Even at her funeral, my mother knew how to have fun.

Love you mum!

It's only a blank page...

I know! I know! I should be writing. But I have battled in a word war tonight, as well as creating some new writerly products at Chickollage. I've ordered the framed tile above as I think it will serve as motivation in my study.

I did the quill in photoshop but it is very tricky trying to draw with a mouse especially when you're artistically challenged as I am. Thinking about buying a graphic tablet so I can draw the old-fashioned way.

I've also added the new Nanowrimo gadgets to the blog, so everyone can see my progress or lack thereof. See those big red squares under 'My Month' - they're actually days I wrote but did not meet the word count. Days I didn't write are shaded pink. Huh?

It's been a big week. Work, work, work. Then the monthly two hour commute to see my father, followed by a 10 year celebration for work this evening. And a word war. Updating the chickollage shop and now as I have drifted into Saturday, I think its a good idea to get some
sleep.



As Scarlett would say, Tomorrow is another day.

Hang on, it's already tomorrow!

Something trivial....

Okay, I'm back and diving into Nanowrimo. I'm sitting at a tiny 1067 words at the moment but that will change. At least my insomnia has gone. I was just doing too much, thinking too much, and my poor brain couldn't switch off as a result.



Last Saturday, I spent the evening trying to locate all the trivia hidden in my brian. (Freudian slip there - I meant brain, but it came out brian - um, I have an ex named Brian). My writers group had a Trivia Night, and it was fun. I was a spare because I couldn't come up with a table of mates on my own, I joined a table that needed an extra. I came in handy for the Pop Culture section and the Australiana section but failed dismally when it came to Science and Nature. The tension built throughout the night, the teams growing more and more competitive as the scores grew larger. Loads of fun. And I even learned a thing or two on the night. Damsels and Devils below walked away with the big prize money.

.So back to Nanowrimo. I'm all set. I have a new notebook for scribbling down paragraphs in teabreaks at work. I have upgraded my Talking Alarm Clock with Peety the Parrot and the genie, and the speech engine, so it really does talk to me now. I've got my book of fairy tales for inspiration. I've got my on-line Word War challenger to do battle. I've even got a Nano t-shirt.

Still have no plot, just vague ideas. But I figure I'll just keep writing. Eventually something will happen.

I keep forgetting to mention this. I'm in the writing contest at Karin Tabke's blog. Each week we post one sentence only of a story and then some are eliminated. My entry is from Diary of the Future and I'm up to Round 4. Come and cheer everyone on!

November?

What do you mean it's November already?


And Nanowrimo has started?


No! Not possible!

Hey! Wait for me!

T-shirt available at the Chickollage shop.

Jumble sales, writing inspiration and Almodovar

Yesterday was my writer's group meeting and it turned into a jumble sale.

We all cleaned out our wardrobes and brought in the clothes that we didn't wear anymore. Each piece was a gold coin donation towards our Christmas party. We raised over $50 and the remaining clothes went to charity.

We still managed a writing exercise. Using a couple of funeral notices for inspiration, we each wrote a dialogue between the two women at any point in their lives (or afterlives). It was fun and as usual my cynicism shone through. Here's my piece:

'Thank God, that's over!' said Dottie.

'What do you mean, dear? I'm rather sad to leave my grandkids behind.' Alice replied as she admired the wildflowers perched on Dottie's coffin.

'70 years!' she said. 'Can you believe it? 70 years? Washing John's socks and underwear, running about after him, making sure tea was on the table. When they said till death do you part, I never imagined it would be that long.'

'Look at him - he looks lost. What's he going to do without you, Dottie?'

'Wash his own socks for a start.' Dottie grumbled, thinking of all the years she'd spent in the laundry.

'You got a lovely turn-up. Wonder how many will turn up to my funeral this afternoon?'

'I'm sure there'll be a crowd, Alice. You can't hang around this earth for 92 years and not gather a few friends.'

'They might just come to make sure I'm dead. Work out how much money I've left them.' Alice laughed. 'They'll be disappointed when they discover there's not much but some old furniture and some photo albums. Geez, I had a good time after Gerald passed on. He has such a tight reign on the purse strings. It was nice to think about myself for change.'

The two women bow their heads respectfully as they walk past the coffin.

'Bit weird being at the funeral.'

'You don't say!'

'Who's the handsome young man with the long blonde hair?' Alice nudges Dottie. 'Is that one of your grandkids?'

'No, never seen him before in my life. But he is nice looking.' Dottie beamed. 'That'll keep them talking about me.'

Some of our newer members commented on how much the older members can write in a ten minute exercise. But it's all practice. It's years of being able to slip in and out of that creative momentum at will, and it is due to writing almost every day.

After the meeting, I went to the supermarket and was surprised when I rounded a corner to see Lisa, another member who hadn't made it to the meeting, holding out a DVD for me: Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I love this movie. It's so funny, and has a very young and spunky Antonio Banderas. I haven't seen it for years but I'm looking forward to watching it again. Thanks Lisa!

I watched Volver a few weeks ago, and was pleased to see that Almodovar had returned to comedy. His dramas were just a bit too serious for me. I like his dark humour and silliness!

It also got me thinking. I don't watch a lot of foreign movies anymore. Not sure why. Maybe because I live in conservative regional Australia and we're just not exposed to them. But I have world movies on pay TV but that's no excuse. Maybe I've just frustrated with the quality of sub-titles. Maybe I just want to keep reading and movie watching as two distinct activities. Years ago, when I lived in Annandale, I used to spend Sunday afternoons at the double feature at the Stanmore Cinema. 2 movies for $6. You couldn't beat it. There would be a lot of foreign doubles. And they were great! Maybe I should surf over to World Movies more often.

4 days to the start of Nanowrimo....

Thank God its Sunday!

Thank God It's Sunday!

I couldn't say it on Friday, because I knew I still had the day at work on Saturday to get through. But now it's Sunday so I can say Thank God!

I usually work around between 35 - 45 hours a week depending on which week it is, and if there's a rostered day off in there. This week I've worked over 60 hours! Yawn! And it's been go, go, go (at least mentally) all week. Exciting, challenging and draining.

So today, I'll be doing work of another kind - reading! The spare lounge is moving from the spare room onto the back verandah so that will be where I spend most of my day.

I've also been making a collage of Diary of the Future and found the perfect picture to include in a magazine on Friday, so that's got to go on the collage today. It depicts one of the scenes set at the cinema perfectly. I hopefully will have the collage complete by the time November rolls around and will post it on the blog.

In the meantime, LittleGreyDragon on the Nanowrimo forums has designed me this gorgeous banner to depict my Nanowrimo project. Very pretty and inspiring. Can't wait to tackle those fairytales. Roll on November. October is just a holding pattern!

The Nightly Ritual

Spring is here and the weather is certainly starting to warm up. The magnolia tree is once again filled with leaves, and the white snowdrops of wisteria have also given way to greenery. But with the warmer weather comes the parasites which necessitates the ritual on the left.

I'm yet to find a weapon that beats these pesky little fellas although I'm sure Dorkus would like me to keep looking. We've swapped from Frontline to Revolution this month to see if it makes a difference but we still need to do a nightly comb through to remove the resilient ones.

At the same time, work has also heated up. And in fact, I never imagined we would be as busy as we are. Hard work, long days moving quickly into nights. Before I know it, it will be my birthday and then Christmas. Life is certainly not dull at the moment.

Laptop is back

The universe heard my plea for my laptop. They had phoned me at work that afternoon to say it was ready to be picked up but I'd already left for the day. I couldn't pick it up till Thursday but now I'm back on the laptop. There was nothing wrong with the computer brain. The screen was replaced instead. So I'm happy to say I did not have to reload any programs and I can get to work on my new t-shirt designs before Nanowrimo is upon me.

But when I started using it, it did some very odd things. I was hitting the letter keys on the right hand side of the keyboard and numbers were appearing. I could see it was a 'function' key thing but I couldn't work out how to turn it off. So not-so-tech-savvy me discovered the laptop num lock function that she didn't knew existed before and after about half an hour finally worked out how to turn it off. I guess those two keys had never been hit in combination before!

Now I'm looking forward to getting the router so that I don't have to be chained to the modem/phone outlet to be on the net.

I suspect that today is the only day I'll have at home this weekend (I'm expecting that I'll be called in to work tomorrow) so I need to make the most of it and get a lot done. Which includes my father's BAS statement, the newsletter for the writers group, the new designs and watch at least one DVD from Quickflix (Safety in Numbers, Ten Canoes, or The Kingdom - Lars Von Trier). No surfing for me today. It's back to work.

Novelled out

There have been strange noises coming out of the study lately (or the cave as I like to refer to it.) Sirens, screeching tyres - Holy Batman - you'd think there was a whole city in there. And then the swearing! My partner has discovered computer games! At least it will keep him out of my hair while my mind is occupied with Nanowrimo.

I want my laptop back! Still no news and it's been more than two weeks. They had to send it away for repairs. I'm sick of this huge monster sitting on my desk. It does not make me inspired to write or edit. And although I've had a heap of ideas for 'writing' t-shirts to add to my Chickollage store, I need software that is not on this computer to create the designs. We're also looking at going wireless for our internet connection (not roaming wireless but within the house wireless). That way once I have my laptop back, I can make use of my 'idle' time watching TV by updating my Cafepress store.

I've been thinking about fairytales again and fracturing some more for this year's Nanowrimo. I had such fun writing Beyond Happily Ever After and discovering what happened to Cinderella and Snow White after they found their princes, I would like to explore some other modern fairy tales with a chick lit twist. Well, that's this week's idea! I've pulled out a book that my parents gave me in 1975 called World's Best Fairy Tales and will be reading that for inspiration. (This must be the only book I still have from my childhood). But it's only Oct 9. Much can change between now and the start of Nanowrimo. And if I do write 50,000 words of themed short stories, maybe I'm really doing NaShoStoWriMo.

All I know is that I'm novelled out. I can't keep writing reams of first draft, without committing to the second and third draft, and however many more it takes to polish it up for submission. Yes, I can say I've completed a novel. At least until 1st or 2nd draft stage. But not to the point where I'm ready to send my babies out on the street to find a home. And that's what I have to do. I've managed the gestation and the giving birth part. I just haven't quite brought them up right yet.

So it's a very conscious decision not to add to the work in progress pile but also not to let the opportunity of the Nano community pass me by. Bring on the short stories.

Nanowrimo again

It's that time of the year again. Time for sign-ups to the Nanowrimo challenge. Write 50,000 words in the month of November.

What? Are you out of your mind? I can hear you thinking it now. Especially if you haven't heard of Nanowrimo before.

But I'm throwing down the gauntlet! If you've always thought you could be a writer, here's your chance to see what amazing things lie in your subconscious. Plot and plan before November 1st hits, or just wait till the beginning of the month, trust your muse and dive right in.

It's exhilirating, stressful and fantastic. Some of what you write is absolute drivel but some of it is truly wonderful, and comes from a place you barely knew existed.

Year 1, I wrote 25,000 words. Year 2 - 38,000. Year 3 - more than 50,000. Year 4 - made it to the finish line with a complete first draft.

Let your muse free. She's bored. She needs Nanowrimo!

Need some more encouragement? Read No Plot, No Problem by Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty.

Okay, so I'm still looking for a plot. And it would be lovely if I could scan old notebooks and hard drives, and come up with something as offbeat as Jenny Crusie's discovery. I'll dip in but I can't promise anything. Although last year's manuscript Diary of the Future was based on an idea I had around 7 years ago. And I'll hang out in the Plot Doctoring forum on the Nanowrimo website. I may just find the catalyst to my whole unwritten novel in the Adopt a Plot, Adopt an Opening Line or The Dares thread.

So are you in it? Or not? Leave me a comment!

My long weekend

Something shifted today and instead of spending the public holiday glued to the keyboard, I went out to the Buskers Festival at Woolgoolga and soaked up the sun. Now I am not a sun baby, I've always preferred to get a moon tan rather than a sun tan, but a couple of hours of vitamin D should have done me good. Well, I had a great time watching the acts even if my legs had gone to sleep and it was great to be amongst an enthusiastic crowd watching grown men humiliate themselves in public.

I paid for my time in the sun this afternoon with the beginning of a migraine, but once I'd taken a couple of tablets and eaten a decent meal with vegies, I was alright again.

I didn't quite achieve all the writing goals I wanted to. I allowed myself some time off this weekend which was enjoyable. The time off included the Festival, and watching 8 episodes of the second series of Dead Like Me. I love that show and I cannot understand why it wasn't shown on free to air TV in Australia. Actually, I do understand - the TV stations are run by morons who think reality TV is the answer to everything and show quality drama such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under at midnight. So now, I'll print out a coy of my work in progress and take it to work to edit during breaks.

When I went to Byron Bay Writers Festival, I saw Richard Flanagan speaking about Research for Fiction Writers. He was very funny, so I borrowed his latest book The Unknown Terrorist from the library.

Wow! This is an amazing but scary story when a pole dancer is implicated by a chain of events and the whole nation believes she is a terrorist. In today's climate of fear-mongering and security alerts, the premise of the novel was all too realistic. Richard Flanagan twists the plot with some incredible metaphors that capture contemporary Sydney.

Although this copy will be returned to the library tomorrow, I will be purchasing a 'keeper' copy soon. The book is that powerful.

Dead technology

Well after decluttering my office, and the laptop, I'm afraid to say that neither appears like the photos anymore.

Three days after the decluttering when I thought the laptop was humming along nicely, it proved me wrong by dying completely. All I would get at startup was a grey screen. So the laptop is back at the shop (hopefully whatever's wrong will be covered by the extended warranty) and I've hooked the old monster computer up to the internet, and seriously thinking of buying an LCD screen for it, because the monster takes up the whole desk.



Dorkus the cat is not impressed. He can't take up his usual position on the desk (as above) and has retreated to the desk behind me.

In moving the monster computer back out here, I've got printers on the floor and stuff all around. Hopefully, it will look better again by this afternoon.

I'm sure that Mercury is not retrograde at the moment, but I've been hearing of a lot of computers going kaput. A technical mutiny perhaps?

I can't believe its the last day of September already. I'm hurtling towards my 40th birthday and another Nanowrimo is just around the corner. Seriously, where has this year gone? It'll be 2008 before we know it.

I plan to do Nanowrimo again - I like the impetus and the momentum that being part of the Nanowrimo community gives me and my writing. I have a very vague idea about a young woman and an obsession with classified ads. That's all I have so far. In the meantime, I received my feedback from the Chick Lit competition and have been absorbing all that Jenny Crusie had to say at the RWA Conference, so I'm rewriting and reshuffling and polishing Diary of the Future for submission. Also using that story to participate in Candy Haven's Revision Hell workshop. So October will be over in a flash for me as well, because I'll be busy with work and rewriting.

What a week!

So I got through quite a bit of the decluttering/spring cleaning the office last Sunday and I've posted some before and after pictures. 11 boxes is down to 8 boxes and yesterday I also bought a paper shredder to get rid of century old bank statements and personal docs that I don't need.

Before: collage stuff, magazines, boxes and who knows what else.

After: magazines I can access, my collage box full of cutouts, scrapbooking bits and pieces in the drawer organiser. Much better.


Before: Ugh! What can I say.

After: I do have a floor, and Dorkus likes having somewhere clear to sit.

Everything was going to plan. I'd written a 'to-do' list and a lot of things were crossed off. Remaining was rewrite my synopsis (didn't happen) and watch some DVD's from Quickflix.

I started Monday with everything planned out. Take my car which was playing up to my father for repairs and do his accounts.

The universe had other ideas. My car completely carked it half an hour into the 2 hour journey. The radiator shat itself, luckily in a place where I could pull over safely. My partner was about five minutes behind me because he'd stopped for petrol, so I waved him down when I spotted him. After waiting half and hour and filling the radiator again and watching it all drain out, we realised the car was going nowhere. Suprisingly I didn't stress out and get upset. It was one of those things that happen when you drive an old car and at least I wasn't stranded.

That afternoon the universe rewarded me for my calmness, and my unconscious decision not to go against the flow. I bought a new car after Dad phoned his car dealer friends. This car was running a bit rough, so he said have a look at it, you can have it for $500. We brought it back to my father's workshop, Dad fiddled about in the engine, doing up bolts here and there, adjusting this and that, cleaning spark plugs, put it up on the hoist and checked the front end. And now she's going like a dream. And there are several firsts with this car for me: it's my first station wagon, and it's my first automatic. And I'm very happy. The breakdown was meant to be for without it we never would have found this new car!



So this weekend I've been decluttering my computer and it took a lot more than 15 minutes. When it started going at snail's pace I suspected that the load of my Chickollage graphics and Jen's photo collages, plus my snap happy digital pics were weighing the hard drive down. I only had 2 GB left on it, and the computer was extremely unhappy. So I got an external hard drive and started shifting stuff on it. After moving all my photos, and Chickollage stuff, I'd still only reclaimed 2 more GB. So then I moved into my partner's side of the computer and discovered a folder which had 16 GB all by itself. All his video stuff which had hidden itself into this innocuous looking folder - the My Videos folder was empty. So I moved that as well. Then went to a defrag. The computer told me it didn't need it. It was happy again and humming along, and now I am too.

Decluttering

Visitng Aargh Ink the other night, I found out that Jennifer Crusie is decluttering her office, flylady style. It's a relief to see pictures of other people's clutter because then I don't feel so bad about everything that is accumulting in my writing room. At least I can see my floor, if not my surfaces. And the bookcase is generally neat. My problem is the boxes around the perimeter full of paper with stuff on them, and who knows what else. Finding someone to store these in an organised manner is my dilemma. If they do even need storing.

So to tackle this clutter 15 minutes at a time, I'm going to start with this desk. This is more a storage desk, than a working desk but it would be nice to see the surface. My big plan was to use this desk as a collage workspace. Trouble is my cat Dorkus has taken a liking to it, and whenever it is clear (or not) he sits upon it, blessing it with his cat hair.

He likes sunning himself on top of the blue storage drawers, right in front of the window.

15 minutes later and I'm not done yet. And I have to wonder how much hair one furry little fella can have. When I moved the blue thing, there was cat hair everywhere so the vacuum cleaner came out.

Now half an hour later, the desk is clean althought there is still some stuff that I have to find a home for. Just not on this desk!

I've also cleaned the oven, vacuumed the dining room/kitchen floor in preparation for the mop, vacuumed the hallway and lounge room. Definitely took longer than 15 minutes but just found out the landlord's are paying a visit tomorrow to check what needs fixing so not too soon at all.

However, I think I'm now going to hop down to the chemist...my hayfever is playing up as a result and that I can live without.

A pre-sleep post

Well, I was going to blog tonight but then I got distracted by Californication -remove the first two syllables and you get the essence of the show - chopping up magazines, and now it's time for sleep.

I could be counting my blessings but at the moment I'm adding a parking fine to a car that won't start (looks like it needs a new battery) to forgetting to pick up my keycard before the month ended and then not being able to use Eftpos. Whoops! Interesting week.

I finished reading Blind Submission yesterday. Really enjoyed it and I didn't guess the mystery author although I suspected at least one person that the protag didn't even suspect.

I've been a naughty girl and bought The Sims 2. It's highly addictive and I have to ration my time or I will never ever get anything done and will just spend my spare time in a virtual universe, simulating life. No Sims during the week and I've had my fill of tv for the week. Goodnight for now.

Human again

It is so good to be feeling human again. The flu hung around for about ten days but it only took a meeting with my writers group to start feeling energised again and then two days later I was back at work.

Mind you, it was hard to get back into that mindshift of getting up in the morning and going to work, instead of sleeping half the day. That's the trouble with being an owl instead of a lark. Mornings are torture.

So now I've rejoined the human race, I have lots to do. Besides catching up with sleep while I was sick, I also watched a few movies: Music and Lyrics (never say no to a Hugh Grant movie), Stranger than Fiction (especially interesting from a writer's point of view). I haven't brought myself to watch Volver yet - the fact that I'd have to read the movie and that it's over 3 hours along is a bit offputting at this point. Maybe Sunday. Plus I read Undead and Unpopular, Oh my Goth, Seven Steps on the Writers Journey, Pen on Fire, and I'm now halfway through Blind Submission.

Last year when I created Chickollage as a term for my chick lit collage poetry, I also started the Chickollage blog, talked a bit about it here and there, opened the Cafepress shop, and then about a month later looked up chickollage.com to find that someone had bought the domain about a week after I started the blog. I guess they were waiting for me to make millions and then sell the domain back to me for squillions. Well, I haven't made millions and their registration has expired so I'm now the proud owner of the domain, trying to work out what I'm going to put on it. Yet another thing on the to do list, but I'm imagining it will soon feature my favourite collage poems, a daily poem (yes, got to get back into the daily habit), and links to the big wide collage poetry world.

And yes there is writing to do. I'm anxiously waiting for feedback from the Chick Lit writers competition for Diary of the Future, to see if I'm on the right track or not. And I need to rewrite the synopsis. I'm going to break it down to the three act structure then use the turning points to construct the skeleton of the synopsis as Jenny Cruisie suggested at the Romance Writers Conference. Then I want to rewrite the beginning two more times (with different starting points) and events to see which one works best. I need to get this one polished up and out the door by the end of October so I can dive into another round of Nanowrimo in Novmber.

It's all happening...

It's raining, it's pouring

It's a bit wet here at the moment.

So wet, we can't even drive out and get a loaf of bread.

This is the road to the local shop. There is a bridge under all that water.

And this is the road to the local supermarket. You can see a couple of broken down cars on the other side of the water. I guess they drove through it.

There are only two roads out and they are both underwater so I guess we just have to hibernate for a while. I'm glad our house is on higher ground although the backyard is very soggy.

Not our backyard!