Month: May 2004

Greetings and Salutes! I am currently in Mt. Laurel NJ, visiting my family. My mother and step-dad live here in Mt Laurel while my brother, sis-in-law and their two brats live in Riverside. Last night I got to see Kelli get her first belt in karate and see Ryan get a belt promotion (he got a stripe on his belt). He may be eligible for his black belt as early as October but more likely he will wait until April. It was fun to watch them!

Writing – well, its not exactly taking off and flying down the road toward greatness. I try to write at least 500 words a day, even if it is only rambling. I hope to be able to print out and edit SS some more. We shall see.

My word count is awful, not even enough worth updating word count page for. Yawn.
In other Real Life, I got my CPAP adjusted and I believe I am actually sleeping better. It went from 8 to 10. Joella is here with me and has fit in well with my mother’s crazy household. She and my brother’s dog met already too and they played nice. Not much else to say at this point. Sorry!

Slowly my writing is coming back. A few hundred here and a few hundred there. I am doing a lot of thinking and working out problems but still not all that much writing. I am still editing SS and today did some writing on Long Lea.

The May Story-A-Day Challenge is fun. I have done six so far, but one probably does not count. I will do eleven then, just to be fair. I need to put one or two of them up on the site so y’all can see just how horrible a writer I am.

In Real Life the chin strap made no difference. I still snored wonderfully with my mouth clamped shut. Goody, huh? However, I have now become the household power meter. The power went off for some reason late last night/early this morning and I awoke not being able to breathe. Duh. No power meant no air pressure which meant clamped shut throat. It came back on in less than an hour and I put it back on and went back to sleep.

I go up Nawth soon. We are figuring out the final details now. Today I moved a lot of the computer crap (I have several dead computers I am ‘working on’) to under the TV table and then did some much needed paperwork filing. Tomorrow I start working on the desktop computer desk and other such cleanups. If I don’t, Lorna will do it while I am gone and I will spend the rest of the year looking for stuff.

My how time flies when you are having no fun whatsoever.

My writing stalled. Stopped. Halted. Came to a screeching halt. Besides that, I couldn’t create a single sentence.

I think I am coming out of that. I haven’t a clue what happened. I think the editing of SS must have been more mentally that I thought. I will be doing it in smaller chunks now. I added in the new scenes and cleaned up the first 77 pages (double spaced) and printed them out. Lorna has then now with her markers and pencil.

My word count is down. Ha, what an understatement! A few weeks ago, I averaged well over 2500 words a day. The highest I have gotten this month in one day has been 2305. There are just two others over 1000; the rest range from zero to 943. Oh how the mighty have fallen!
Get over it, me. Get a not-so-proverbial grip.

In Real Life, our dear friend Sheryl is in the final stages of moving. She leaves in the morning to close the deal on the ‘new’ house in West Virginia then returns in a week to close the deal on her house here. Then they load up ye’ old UHaul and off she goes. Dangit.

My CPAP mask has been changed. I now have ‘nasal pillows’. It looks very weird but is very very very comfortable. Much more comfortabler than the mask. The problem is, for some reason I have begun to snore again. As a result, I am exhausted. I get a major case of the nods in the afternoon and cannot stay awake. I went to the dealer today and my machine is working fine. He called the doctor but of course the doc was already gone. I should hear something tomorrow. Meanwhile, I will sleep with the chinstrap on to see if perhaps my mouth is opening and causing the pressure to drop which then would lead to a snore. Lorna says it sounds as if my mouth is closed though. No sound of rushing air.

Well, I did some writing yesterday. Shocked as I am?? Not much, but enough that I feel I am getting it back together. I think I have Spring Fever. You know, that urge to be anywhere but inside. Later today I am going to take my laptop OUTSIDE. It is cordless ya know.

I worked some on ‘Long Lea’ as well as another story for the Story-A-Day challenge. I only have to do ten for the month for the level I chose. So far I have done three. I may post one or two of them here just to give you an idea of what my actual fiction style is like. I dunno.

In Real Life, Lorna came home!! Further news is that my PT released me from her ‘care’ until July or so and today the pain doc did too! Cool and groovy, huh? Did some site updating just now too. I really need to spend the time getting it all cleaned up and stuff. What do y’all think of the color scheme? I am thinking of keeping it. This print is BOLD Verdana. I like the font, and I like that I bolded it. I think though that the bolding makes it all seem so close together. Please let me know what you think of the colors.

Can you believe it is MAY already??!! Me either.

Check out the WordCount page for updates on, well, word counts.

I have signed up for the Forward Motion Story-A-Day Challenge. I have done one today, so I am at least semi-active in something! What it is, you go to one of the ‘plot generators’ and write a story on the plot you are given. Cool? Well, yeah, but not as easy as it sounds! For example, mine today was:

My main character/protagonist is a female. My main character is a hair stylist. An archetype present in my story is King Arthur. A key object or symbol in my story is a escalator. My story will be set in Madrid. My story is about fairness. An event or situation in my story is adultery.

Now, YOU try to do something with that! I won’t tell you what I did. Well, maybe if you ask nice.

What else have I done, writing wise? Does the fact that I about 20K behind on the Dare give a clue? Or that I did a grand total of 133 words today give another?? I just have had other things to do, other things I would rather do. I sit down and stare at the screen, nothing coming to mind. I think it’s about to end though. It better!

In Real Life, Lorna has gone up Nawth to spend a long weekend with her folks. Years ago the high school vocal teacher retired. They (the former students and others) gathered and had a surprise concert for her. Apparently a lot of those Pennsylvania Dutch folks had taken her class! They all had so much fun, they now hold two concerts a year, with her as the director. Lorna’s Dad and Sister sing in the group so she went up there to hear it. They now make recordings of each concert then sell/give away the tapes. The surprising thing is, these folks really are good!