It's Nano Time!

That's the 2013 Nanowrimo logo. Doesn't it suck? I'm almost embarrassed to post it here. It's like Nano hired some six-year-old with a Commodore 64. Well I won't be ordering a t-shirt this year, that's for sure.

It's 8:23 a.m. here in Cold Lake, Alberta. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm procrastinating. My office is upstairs, calling my name, and yet here I sit on the living room couch, blogging. Oh well. Just a few words here before I head upstairs to write a lot of words. Honestly I don't know what I'm so worried about. I have an idea. I have an outline. I have time and lots of coffee. It's just that starting a new project is so intimidating ... and the doubts – the doubts are enough to send you round the bend. What if I can't write anymore? What if the words don't come? What if, what if, what if???

I could talk myself into a panic attack if I wanted to. I even dreamed about Nanowrimo last night. Oh well. Nothing to be done now except climb the big wooden hill, park my lily white butt behind the desk and start writing.

Good luck to everyone doing Nano this year! If you want to be my writing buddy, look me up. My top secret buddy code name is Matthiasville.

***

One more thing before I go – I had to share this photo I took last night. It's Ben-Ben, our opera-singing cat, sitting in the camp chair I had set up next to the front door for Hallowe'en. There were so many kids (175)  there wasn't a lot of point in moving far from the door – thus the chair. Anyway, Ben sat there quite comfortably, watching the kids come and go. I think he enjoyed the evening more than anybody.

It's Not Hallowe'en That's Freaking Me Out

National Novel Writing Month starts this Friday and I'm scared out of my freakin' mind. Honestly, I haven't done any serious writing since who-the-feck-knows and I'm terrified I've forgotten how. Don't scoff – writing is like marathon running. Well, I think it is, not actually being a runner and getting winded when I make the way down the Twizzler aisle at Walmart.

Seriously though, writing is like any kind of training – the more you do, the easier it gets, and the better it gets. I did Nano two years ago (it's when I did the majority of writing for Green Eggs & Weezie) and I remember colleague Mark Kerstetter commenting that he could tell I had been doing some intensive writing because even my blog posts showed some powerfully buff writing muscles. Well, he said something like that. I forget exactly, but the point is he wrote that two years ago and his words still ring in my head, not only as a compliment but as a warning that my writing muscles are now as flabby as their owner.

Still, I'm not going to let that get me down. I am going to write at least 50,000 words during Nano. I will. I make that pledge to you and to myself this very moment. I will persevere. I have to. Because now, at the ripe old age of 53, I am finally starting to think of myself as a Writer. I've been playing around with it my whole darned life but I've never fully accepted it as a description that belongs fully to me. Yes, I wrote as a journalist. Yes, I blog and write short stories. And yeah, I finally realized my lifelong dream and finished an entire book. Still, I was sort of mincing around the title of Writer.

Not now, though. It's do or die for me. I've practically accepted the fact that nobody wants to hire a fat, grey-haired old broad anymore. No, don't scoff – it's true. I've tried. Wait until you're 53 or older and suddenly your old field of endeavour doesn't exist anymore (graphic design in newspapers is almost entirely done in India) and your experience doesn't apply anywhere else. I've tried applying at sign companies and for social media jobs and they've hired youngsters. Nobody wants to invest in a grey-hair. We think we know everything. We want to be paid too much. And, who knows, we could die at any moment so why invest training if we're just gonna pop off one night? Yes, I could work at Walmart. Or the grocery store – IF I didn't have such bad knees. Seriously, I couldn't stand behind the till for more than 20 minutes without crying in pain. Granted, I could lose weight and fix my knees and get a job at Canadian Tire, but why would I? For minimum wage? And be unhappy?

I'm lucky right now. Dave makes just enough money to support us both. You don't have to tell me to be grateful, because I am. This is an opportunity. The opportunity I've been wishing for my whole life. I can be a Writer. Now all I have to do is write. Oh, Nano, you're scaring the crap outta me. But I need you like an alkie needs a bottle of Listerine.

***

I was intrigued by a comment on yesterday's post from author River Fairchild who wrote: Cathy, published is published. It doesn't matter who published it. You are a business. You are not only a writer, but also a publisher.

She's right. It doesn't matter if you're self-published or published by Harper Collins. But there I was at a party denigrating myself, saying that I was "only" a self-published author. Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. I know that it's almost impossible to get a traditional publishing contract when publishing companies and bookstores are going bankrupt. I know that e-books are the wave of, not only the future, but NOW. Because I'm also a reader, I know that self-published books are every bit as good as the other ones. I know this. I do. But I have to start owning it.

River is right. (If you know her, you know River is always right.)

I am an author. Period.

***

Speaking of authors, Marian Allen at Fantasies, Mysteries, Comedies and Recipes invited me to do a guest spot at her blog. (Thanks Marian! *waves*) Please, if you have a moment, drop by and leave a comment. So far I'm the only commenter - I'm beginning to think I drive people away in droves! Just the mere mention of MY BOOK sends 'em a-running! I do understand that you're sick of hearing about me and my book. It's just that it's the biggest thing going on in my life right now. Not working has limited my blogging experience. I find that I have three things to write about: my book, my dog's butt hole and cleaning kitty litter. I think I'll dress up as MY BOOK for Hallowe'en. That'll scare the little feckers who dare come to my door!

So go see Marian. Way you go, Alex ... yup, you too, William and EC. Delores and Deb, stop stalling. JoJo, step away from your sick couch. Geez you guys, somebody give Buzzard and Buttons and Karen a shove, will ya? And stop trampling on Juli, Dana, Deb and Linda!

***

One more thing - congratulations are in order for Madeline Mora-Summonte at Shellshank Redemption who has just today released her first book! Love the cover. Love the title. And the stories are fabulous – I just downloaded People We Used To Be this morning and already I'm halfway through.

If you buy her book (it's only a buck) and you love it (because you will), don't forget to leave a review on Amazon. It really helps other people decide whether or not to buy it.

Best of luck Madeline! So happy for you!

Lollipop train derailment

Where did my mojo go?

Have you seen it?

I'm half-afraid I ate the fecking thing. I've been eating everything else in sight these days, why not the lollipop train that's been chugging stupidly along the losing-weight-writing-a-novel happy track?

Picture a zombie. Mindlessly trudging along, a song in its putrefecating pustule that once was a heart, locomoting one asphalt-sucking galosh at a time until it finds some cardio-challenged fattie it can chow down on. Right? Get it? That was me, the zombie. Finishing NaNo was finding the fattie. I chowed down and now I'm at a total fecking loss at what to do next. I feel like I'm adrift in a sea of goal-lessness.

Yesterday was bad. I woke up feeling like a bear with a sore ass and I went to bed feeling like an ass with a sore bear. I had no reason for it, but there it was.

Losing 50 pounds was also like finding the fattie. Tonight I went to Weight Watchers and I am not proud to announce I gained four pounds. In one week! Feck! I came home and bawled.

Oh, I KNEW I was going to gain weight this week. I'm not making up stupid excuses – I just ate too fecking much. I ate out four times (once at the dreaded all-you-can-eat Mandarin buffet, henceforth to be known as the Mandarin Factor); I ate a wedge of chocolate birthday cake, not a piece, a wedge – it was so big you could jack up your house with it. Worse, I suddenly remembered why I was going to Weight Watchers in the first place: I LOVE TO EAT. Even now, right now, I am craving something sweet. Like Mr. Christie's Fudgeo cookies, the ones with Double Stuf (wishing there was Triple Stuf), or homemade oatmeal candy. Or my mom's shortbread cookies, the ones with the sprinkles on top. I have a Santa bowl on my kitchen table and all I can think about is how good it would look with ju-jubes in it. The really fresh kind. The ones coated in sugar. I saw someone eat a bran muffin today and I wanted to take it from him, forcefully, and stuff it into my own great gaping maw.

I'm on dangerous ground here. I know, I've been here before. I am at a crossroads of getting back on the zombie track or jumping the rails and saying "feck it" and gaining every single pound I lost and then some. You skinnies are going, "why in hell would she gain 50 pounds back?" But you fatties and former fatties, you know what I'm saying – it's a mad desperation that can grab us by the balls and send us howling back to the great buffet of life as easy and as fast as a wink of the puffy eye.

I need to find my way again. I need to find that light switch in my head that's currently switched to OFF and turn it ON again.

If I don't, there are bad times ahead and Christmastime is no time for bad times.

Eighty-five words and blah, it's Sunday

My cousin Debi, gawd bless her, wrote this on Facebook:

Heeeelllloooooooo........
So you finished your NaNo, congratulations.
Now write something dammit, we have had nothing from you for days!!!

Which made me laugh. She does have a point, though. I haven't written anything since Tuesday, when I finished NaNoWriMo. In fact, I didn't even finish the chapter I was working on that night. I wrote enough words to complete the damned 50,000-words-in-a-month challenge, then turned off my computer and haven't touched it since. Oh, I've read a few blog posts and checked the weather, and took three seconds to wish my husband a happy birthday. I also saw a photo of my son with some blonde chick on FB, and sent him an e-mail demanding the 5 Ws of Mothers:

Who is that girl? 
Why is she blonde Don't you like brunettes, like your mother? Aren't they prettier and smarter? Like your mother? 
WTF is she doing standing so close to you? 
What the hell were you thinking, not telling your mother? 
And, the classic, 
She better not get pregnant or I'll kick your ass all the way to Kalabogie?


What? The last one isn't a question? Does it matter? Do mothers make sense?

But I digress.

The writing, the writing. This morning I opened up the chapter I was working on and read it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, so I added 75 words, then fretted some more about my son's GF, drank some coffee, made a dint in the laundry and came in the bedroom, my woman-cave writing space, obstensibly to write but more likely to contemplate the growing fuzz in my navel.

NaNo drained me. It took all my writing juice and then some. I needed a little break from it all. Also, I've been busy doing normal person stuff, like going to Christmas parties, going Christmas shopping, celebrating Dave's birthday, eating way too much food, all of that. I am sure to gain weight this Monday at Weight Watchers and no surprise if I do: Wednesday night, a big hunk of chocolate fudge birthday cake; Thursday night, chicken parmesan and pasta at East Side Mario's; Friday night, Christmas party buffet; Saturday afternoon, complete pig-out at Mandarin. Yup, I'm screwed, Weight Watchers-wise. Oh well.  I had a good time. I'll try harder next week.

My friend Paula also posted on Facebook:

And we want to see photos of you in your new Christmas party dress!

Ah yes, the dress. Friday was Dave's Christmas Party, a swanky fabulous do hosted by West End Motors at Hidden Valley Resort in Huntsville. The party was GREAT. I had the BEST time. I really did. I loved talking to Dave's co-workers – it's not something I get to do often and I'm always charmed by their intelligence, their grace and their wonderful humour. The buffet was outstanding and the candy cane cheesecake was to die for. Yes, I had cheesecake, but then I danced my ass off, literally, when the dance floor opened up in all its techno-disco-pop glory. That's the thing about losing 50 pounds and exercising all the time – I COULD DANCE! I shook my booty all over that floor, almost every song. I mean, you couldn't hear yourself talk so you might as well dance, and dance I did. The only time I didn't dance was when I slurped down a Diet Coke. I felt like a teenager again.

As soon as I got in the car to go home, though, everything seized up.

"Dave," I said, "I can't move my neck." He had to do an emergency neck rubbing just so I could drive. (He had rum with his Coke; thus I was driving. I had a stiff neck. He was just stiff.) When we got home, instead of getting romantic, he fed me Tylenol, slathered me with Deep Cold and used the Orbus Forme (or however you spell that) Thumper on my back. He was at it for 20 minutes. His arm was getting sore, so he stopped.

"Oh no," I begged. "More. More!" The neighbours must have thought something wild was going on. Until the hot white smell of Deep Cold wafted through the breezeway.

I'm digressing again. The dress.

You know what? I made the mistake of looking in the full length mirror in the women's washroom at Hidden Valley. There I was, thinking I was all hot. I looked really hot in the full length mirror at the fat ladies store. I looked really hot in the little low-lit bathroom mirror here at home. But in the cold hard light of Hidden Valley I was aghast at my reflection. Despite losing 50 pounds, my arms still look like the arms on the Michelin Man. All puffy and white and HUGE. Yes, they're smaller (I don't need the extra large blood pressure cuff anymore. I don't have to lift my arm flab just to shave my armpits.) But all I could see when I looked in the mirror were two freakishly fat arms. Feckitty, feck, feck.

There was my sparkly sequinned party dress. There were my high heels and my flouncy hair and dangly feather earrings. But all I could see was my fat, fat arms.

Not to worry, though. I have a high tolerance for mirrors and a strong ability to not dwell on body image. "Feck this," I said to my fat-armed reflection. "I am going to go back in there and dance my ass off and have a fantastic time, no matter what you think."

So I did. Why dwell on the negative? Feck the negative! I went out to that party and I danced like there was no tomorrow and I had the BEST time. It was probably the best Christmas party I was ever at. And when we got home, Dave leaned in to make his move and told me I looked gorgeous.

A happy warmth spread all through me and I snuggled in close to his amorous arms and sighed and kissed him and whispered in his ear, "Get out the Deep Cold and the Thumper, baby. I'll meet you in the bedroom wearing nothing but my flannelette nightgown and a grimace."

Anyway, Paula, there are no photos. I took the camera, hoping to ask someone to take a photo of me and Dave in all of our sartorial splendour, but then forgot all about it. The good news is, I have another Christmas party this coming Friday. I will make sure I get a photo then. And don't worry, I'll make sure my fat arms are on full display so you can see what I'm talking about.

One thing about me: I have equal opportunity fat. Some women look like apples, with skinny legs and skinny arms and a rotund apple-like middle. Me? I'm like a sausage casing, from top to bottom. It's like God had a pastry bag and squeezed all the fat into my entire self, from my chubby toes to my chubby ear lobes.

But I'm digressing again. I really did want to talk about NaNo. I think that will have to wait for another day, however. A day that's not Sunday. A day when it's not gray and rainy and slow. I would like to go to a movie today. Anonymous, that flick about who wrote William Shakespeare's plays, is showing at the local moviehouse. I could get down with a bucket of movie popcorn, a bag of Twizzlers and some of the Bard.

One more thing: I'm looking at e-readers and I've heard nothing but bad things about Canada's Kobo. Apparently they go wonky really quickly and the customer service is terrible. Does anybody have one? I have a Kindle and I love it, but a number of current bestsellers are unavailable to me because Canadian copyrights for e-books are held by Chapters and Indigo. Amazon can't sell them to Canadians and Chapters/Indigo e-books aren't formatted for Kindle. Bah. So much for Free Freaking Trade.

49,160 words and a peaceful easy feeling

I have this ridiculously happy feeling bursting in my chest.

It's the weirdest happy I've ever felt.

And I think it's called pride.

Tonight I polished off another 2,000 words or so in my quest for NaNo and now have only 840 words to go.

It is a pittance of words.

A flash story.

An hour's canoodling on the computer.

This marathon is so close to being over that I can literally taste it. (It tastes remarkably like chicken.)

I could finish it tonight. I could.

But I want to be fresh when I walk down the last 840 words. I want to go slow, take in the scenery, wave to my friends with their pom poms cheering me on. I want to savour the moment as I cross the finish line and then I want to do something really amazing to celebrate.

I don't know what that is because right now nothing feels big enough to celebrate this victory in the style that it deserves.

Never in my whole life have I shown this much discipline.

Never have I written so much.

Tomorrow I will celebrate a victory that is more than just winning a silly writing contest. Tomorrow I will celebrate a victory over a war that has been waged within myself.

But tonight ... I will sleep.

40,572 words and my Viagra dude

Everyone gets spam, right? Comments on your blog that are trying to link you to penis enlargements or Viagra. Usually the comments are written in busted English have absolutely nothing to do with your blog post. I don't know about you but I pretty much delete spam on contact.

Something weird is going on, though.

In the last few days I have gotten a TON of comments from an address that is pushing generic drug buying online... you know, drugs like Viagra – not the kind you buy from Cheech & Chong, I don't think.

The address was spammy but the comments were actually related to the posts.

Huh, I thought, but deleted them anyway.

On Wednesday my e-mail inbox was filled all day long with comments from the Viagra dude. Really, really good comments. This guy (or girl) was not only reading the posts but was offering intelligent, thoughtful insights as well.

He wrote this regarding a post I made about a camping trip to Killarney Provincial Park:

xlpharmacy reviews has left a new comment on your post "Killarney by Canoe": wow amazing trip you had made, i remember that i made one a few years ago to the yellowstone park, was awesome we get permission to do camping, was pretty awesome to be 3 days without a computer. 

He wrote this about a story about the authors of a new local book called The Hidden World of Huckleberry Rock. I was embarrassed, at the time, because the only commenter was one of the authors! But my Viagra buddy not only read the post but commented on it, too!

xlpharmacy has left a new comment on your post "The Hidden World of Huckleberry Rock": Thanks for your insight for this method great story; this is the kind of feature that continues me though out the day.I’ve long been seeking around for your webpage following I learned about them from a companion and was pleased when I was able to come across it just after browsing for a while. Being a devoted blogger, I’m happy to determine other people taking effort and surrounding to the neighborhood. I just wanted to review to exhibit my thanks for one’s submit as it is quite encouraging, and many writers don’t get the credit they ought to have. I’m positive I’ll be back again and can deliver a number of my mates. 

And I had to laugh at this comment he wrote on a post about why people visit my blog. The number one reason? Because they're googling potato chip bags – I had posted an image of Lay's Potato Chips.

xlpharmacy reviews has left a new comment on your post "Popular Posts": Googling photos of potato chip bags?, are you serious? is people really looking for this on the web?? 

I giggled because I think it's funny that a possible spammer is commenting on what people are "really looking for" on the web.

I told my friends at work about him and what we figured is, this Viagra dude was doing what we all do when we're bored at work – surfing the Internet (well, I never do that, ahem, of course, because I am Practically Perfect and besides, I'm never bored at work because I love my work so very, very, very much).

Is this guy's actual job spamming the internet? And if it is, does the job of spamming get boring so he surfs and blogs just for fun?

My friend at work speculates the spamming business might be operated just like a call centre. But we don't know. All we know is the Viagra dude seems really dedicated to reading my old blog posts. It seems like he is methodically going through everything I've ever written. I mean, who does that? It's a blogger's dream, I guess, to have someone read all your back stuff and enjoy it. So it's all good, right?

I hope so!

What I'm hoping is my Viagra dude reads this and leaves me more information about him or herself. I'd love to know where he's from and what his job is like. I always thought the business of spamming was done by computers, not people, and the idea of connecting with someone like this intrigues me.

So who are you, Viagra dude?

Tell me everything ....

37,931 words and my writing buddies

Right on the heels of telling you how hot I am, here's a photo that proves, not only otherwise, but also how little pride I actually have.

That is me deep in Nanowrimo mode, writing the Great Canadian Novel, or at least, MY Great Canadian Novel. Eight more days of writing ahead. 12,069 words. That's 1,509 words every day. Can I do it? How can I not do it after investing so much time and energy?

Am feeling confident right at this moment because I just had a good writing night. Last night, though, I was convinced I didn't have one more word in me. What I wrote was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't developing the plot. And it certainly wasn't well-written. Tonight I decided, to heck with it, and started writing the chapter again from scratch. This time I knew where it was headed; I had the right atmosphere and the words fairly spilled onto the page.

I asked Dave to take this picture, not to show you how chub-ugly my feet are, but to show you my undecadent writing space and my two furball writing buddies.

I've tried writing everywhere else around the house but I've done my best writing on the bed, scrunched into a back-busting ball. I goof around on my blog or facebook on the kitchen table but when I go into the bedroom and shut the door, I'm all business. Sometimes I even use ear plugs. I find it blocks everything out but the sound of my own brain thunk-thunking in overdrive.

The funny thing about this is my two cats, Dodge (the orange one) and Ben. Cats are creatures of habit and they have made a habit out of sitting at my feet while I've been NaNo-ing. As soon as the door closes they push it open and come walking in. They don't bug me. Much. Sometimes they rub their whiskers on my laptop or demand to be petted. For the most part, though, they just lie down like the slugs they are and fall asleep. Sometimes they even snore.

Is this how The Great Canadian Novels are written?

In a messy bedroom with snoring cats?

29,885 words and I'm so grumpy!

Dear Diary:

What on earth is wrong with me? I am SO grumpy!

I woke up feeling perfectly fine yesterday but the minute I got to work people started ticking me off. Nobody was doing everything different than they usually did – it was just me, being grumpy. Like capital G Grumpy. Like a bear with a sore arse wasn't as grumpy as me yesterday.

There's this guy at my work – let's call him Gilligan. Well, old Gilligan works in a different office than me and we hardly ever have any dealings with each other. But he has an inexorable radar for when I'm grumpy – it's the only time he ever appears in my chat window. Sure enough, I was in mid-meltdown, the highest (or shall I say lowest) point of my grumpiness, when Gilligan shows up wanting to chat. The last time we chatted I just about ripped him a new one. Today I managed some decorum. Just "yes-sirred" and "no-sirred" my way through the conversation, practically standing on my tongue. Finally he exited the chat and none too soon. He probably thinks I'm the bitch of all time; the "problem employee" who has trouble getting along with people. The truth is I get along with practically everybody but for some reason Gilligan makes my head spin around and spew pea soup.

Last night, for one of the first times since I started National Novel Writing Month, I didn't make my daily word quota. I wrote 700 or so lackadaisical, blah-blah-blah words. It would have been less painful to slash my wrists and bleed onto the page.

This morning I was grumpy with Dave, who only wanted a kiss before he went to work.

Oh man, I have a headache right now.

Like I said, I don't know what's wrong. Probably hormones, or just pure exhaustion. These two and a half weeks of NaNo, while thrillingly productive, are killing me. Even dieting is wearing me down. My whole focus this month has been diet and exercise, writing and working. Those three things fill almost every minute, from the time I roll out of bed to the time I fall in it again, exhausted.

I'm feeling discouraged, at this point.

Last week I registered a 50 pound loss at Weight Watchers, which is THRILLING, but it followed two days of fasting and laxatives in preparation for a colonoscopy. I went for the weigh-in on the tail-end of the enforced fast. I mean, wouldn't you? Why waste two days of not eating? The trouble is, my weight has crept up a couple of pounds since then, simply because my body has rehydrated. I'm being very good this week, trying to stave off the inevitable, but every day I get on the scale and see that my elusive 50 pound victory has not returned. It will. I know.

But I can't help but feel discouraged.

And I'm discouraged because I wrote a pile of shite last night. A very, very small pile of shite.

Thank goodness for this blog, my diary, my journal, my venting board.

Oh, and it snowed yesterday. It's crazy beautiful outside.

Too bad I'm too grumpy to appreciate it.

25,613 words and Fifty Pounds

I'm overwhelmed, honestly, just overwhelmed. Other than having a colonoscopy, this day was as perfect as any day ever has a right to be.
I wrote more than 4,000 words this morning, bringing my NaNo word count to 25,613 words.
Tonight I went to Weight Watchers and found out I'd lost seven pounds this week, bringing my total to an absolutely incredible FIFTY POUNDS.
I have no words but my heart is as light as a feather on a spring breeze.

21,263 words and I'm freakin' hungry!

I'm having a colonoscopy tomorrow afternoon (YES, ANOTHER ONE) so I haven't been able to eat anything all day. Worse, the stupid procedure isn't booked until 3:30 p.m. so that's almost another whole day where I can't eat anything.

HELLLLOOOOOOOOOO????? Doesn't my doctor realize how much I have to EAT? That if I didn't love food so much I wouldn't be going to Weight Watchers?

I think I'm going to die if I don't eat soon.

And – gak – as soon as I finish writing this I have to take the purgative that will ship everything I've eaten for the last week fleeing from my loins like it's hopped up on nitrous.

Feck, feck, feck I hate colonoscopies.

I just had one in the spring and all was FINE. I was FINE. But then I went and got sick a few weeks ago and now the doc wants to have another look. What does he think my colon is, anyway? A movie? With polyps as the starring role? With him as the director? And his probe-thing as, I don't know, Godzilla?

It doesn't help that I just wrote a chapter about corn roasts. Mother of all that is holy, I was drooling as I wrote this:

"Grandpa Bean set up several enormous pots over raging bonfires. They boiled hundreds of cobs of corn, picked fresh that day from his fields and husked by the entire family. They cooked hot dogs, too, big steaming vats of wieners bursting their skins. Grandpa Bean used a hay wagon as a giant table and it was loaded with plates of butter, buns for the weenies, all manner of condiments and bowl after bowl of homemade potato and macaroni salads, coleslaw and baked beans. Weezie loved all of it. She could eat six or seven cobs of corn at a sitting, on top of a couple of hot dogs and a can of orange pop. The butter and salt would drip down her elbows and smear all over her cheeks and she’d care not one whit. And despite being full to bursting she’d find room in the bottom of her hollow leg for a slice or two of homemade pie. Grandma Bean and her daughters and sisters all made pies for the corn roast. The hay wagon groaned with pie. Apple, lemon meringue, raisin, cherry. Just thinking about those pies was enough to provoke drooling in Weezie some 30 years later. "

 Yep, let's write about hot dogs and corn on the cob when you're eating nothing but popsicles and ginger ale.

Those of you who know me will realize that I was using my grandparents' famous corn roasts as inspiration. Hazel and Charles Hooper farmed in Buttonville, Ontario, where Grandpa was the Reeve of Markham and had a lot of friends in political circles. Every year they hosted a corn roast to thank their friends and colleagues and these parties were one of the highlights of my kid year, right up there with Christmas and birthdays. It was the best corn, the best hot dogs, the best everything. It was such a pleasure to remember it today, even though I'd give my left nut right now for even a slice of dry bread.

(No, I don't actually have nuts. That is just an EXPRESSION. Gawd, sometimes people take things so literally!)

The writing, as you can see, is ROUGH. I'm just laying it down, trying to meet my daily word count and not bothering about grammar or spelling or how many freaking times I used the word "big." Just getting the words down, at this point, is good enough for me. The last few days I've been in a bit of a funk. One day I didn't write anything at all and yesterday I only pumped out a few hundred words. Thank goodness I was able to crank out 2,000 or so today. I feel like I'm back in the game.

Still, the halfway mark is coming up tomorrow and, by rights, I should have 25,000 words under my belt. That's 3,737 words by tomorrow night if I want to stay on par.

Is that possible? When my arse end has a date with Dr. Prong? We'll see. Or he'll see... he's the one with the scope.

Gotta go... have to go drink some really disgusting crap now.

(I hate my life sometimes.)

Happy at Starbucks

I am so happy right now, so very very happy.

I am at Starbucks in Streetsville, which is a village within a city and it is very chi-chi. Don't tell anyone but I have a humongous cappuccino at my elbow, fully loaded with raw sugar and cinnamon and it's in a happy Let's Merry Christmas paper cup which, as I found on Twitter, John Wiswell hates  (Wiswell John Wiswell "Let's Merry"? As though I needed a reason to loathe you, Starbucks.) but frankly it makes me ridiculously happy. I like following John on Twitter, by the way. He's funny.

After two days in a truck stop where I felt like I was gonna get killed any minute, I am relaxed and mellow and listening to Joni Mitchell sing abstract jazz. There are five or six other people working around me, noses buried in their laptops. One girl has pages of music in front of her. She is slender and ethnic, a student of music, with her regal long nose and her long legs and her black coffee. There's a chubby young man in a pink shirt across from me. He is earnestly wearing a Remembrance Day poppy and his MacBook Pro is exactly like mine. There is an older woman from the suburbs, sitting at a stool at the coffee bar. Her hair is like Weezie's, the main character of my novel. She is sitting on her white down-filled ski jacket. I heart her ski jacket but if I had it it would be filthy within the first hour of use. Maybe the first half hour.

There is no Starbucks where I live. No happy Christmas cups. No earnest young men in poppies or regal-nosed music students. I want to buy a mug to take home with me, to remember how creative I felt sitting with the other laptoppers, listening to Joni, eating the cinnamon-sugar foam off my cappuccino with the slim wooden stir stick, the shiv of the Starbucks set.

I am like Hugh Grant

Today I am Hugh Grant in that movie Two Weeks Notice. This hotel is my home and I am running around here like I own the joint, which I do, for the next day and a half.

Except I can't, by rights, call it a hotel because it is a motel. Actually it is a glorified truck stop.

I was all excited about going to Mississauga for two glamourous days in a spa-like writing sanctuary while Dave is taking a transmission course at Chrysler and, lo, here I am in the Husky truck-o-rama, full of grizzled, leathered, tattooed truck drivers and enough carbohydrates to to float a rolling turd.

Yup, I look out my window on the fifth floor and there, spread before me like a Freightliner assembly plant, are acres of tractor trailers. The thought has occurred to me that I could go for a "walk" out in the parking lot and maybe make some extra coin. It could pay for one of those nifty polyester-fluff neck rolls they have on sale in the gift shop.

I am, however, making the Best Of It.

This morning I chose a fresh apple over make-your-own-waffles, stale croissants, white toast and canned fruit salad. Then I went to the exercise room and tried out all their equipment. Man, their bike is WAY harder than my bike. I just about popped a gasket on that one. I can just see the headline: Country Bumpkin Found Dead In Puddle Of Sweat In Tacky Truck Stop. Mother Mortified. 

When I was good and stinky I staggered into the pool area, had a lovely swim with the pool all to myself, then an even lovelier hot tub with all the jets pointed at my sore bits – namely the throbbing gluteous maximus on my hiney.

Then I dashed into the truck stop store and picked up a large coffee (free for hotel guests!) and have come back to my freshly cleaned room where I am now drinking coffee and eating dry bran cereal which I brought from home. I also brought yogurt but forgot a spoon. Am thinking of chugging it right out of the squeezable container, although I'm sure Hugh Grant would send up for utensils.

I must write now. Although googling photographs of Mr. Grant is far more entertaining.

14,235 words, 43 pounds and the hunt

I was all worried about gaining at the Weight Watchers weigh-in last night but I was down a pound and a half, bringing my total to 43 pounds.

I have a sort of losing buddy at WW – she has lost the same amount as me and has about the same to lose so we've made a bit of a pact. Both of us aren't even thinking of our big goal – it's just too depressing to think about. But we've got our eyes on the 50 pound prize. I was thinking last night, wow, only seven more pounds and I hit the big 5-0. Remarkable, really.

It's like participating in NaNo – I can't possibly think of writing 50,000 words in one month, but when I focus on the present I know it's possible to write 1,667 words in one day.

One pound, one word, one step at a time.

Here's another quote from my new favourite book The War of Art, in which author Steven Pressfield compares his writing day to going hunting:

"The sun isn't up yet; it's cold, the fields are sopping. Brambles scratch my ankles, branches snap back in my face. The hill is a sonofabitch but what can you do? Set one foot in front of another and keep climbing. 

"An hour passes. I'm warmer now, the pace has got my blood going. The years have taught me one skill: how to be miserable. I know how to shut up and keep humping. This is a great asset because it's human, the proper role for a mortal. It does not offend the gods, but elicits their intercession. My bitching self is receding now. The instincts are taking over. Another hour passes. I turn the corner of a thicket and there he is, the nice fat hare I knew would show up if I just kept plugging."

12,112 words and 40 million calories

What is up with feeling ravenous while I'm writing?

As you know I've been going to Weight Watchers for a while and I've been doing pretty good, if I do say so myself – and, of course, I do. Last week I broke the 40 pound mark – down 41.5 pounds in total since the end of July. Which is awesome, I know. But I was starting to feel I had this diet thing licked. I knew what I was doing.

Unfortunately since I started National Novel Writing Month last week I've been so hungry I could eat the arse end out of a skunk. Maybe two skunks. Those two up there are looking pretty arse-a-licious.

I sit down to write every night and, about halfway through, I am craving carboyhydrates so bad I run out of the kitchen and find the most fattening thing we have on hand. Fortunately, that's only melba toast, but still. An entire package of melba toast is not On Plan.

I thought that maybe heavy duty thinking burns more calories but, alas, apparently that's not so. I did a quick Google search this morning and found an interesting article on the Scientific American website –Science of Snacks: Why Thinking Makes You Hungry.

It's a terrific article – funny, too. But here's the money quotes, for me:

A study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine contends that intellectual work—that’s right, I’m calling writing this stuff, ya know, intellectual—induces a big increase in caloric intake. The research had 14 Canadian students do three things at different times: sit and relax; complete a series of memory and attention tests; and read and summarize a text. After 45 minutes at each task, the kids were treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. Because Canada has a truly advanced code of human-subject research ethics.

Each session of intellectual work required the burning of only three more calories than relaxing did. But when the students hit the buffet table after the text summation, they took in an additional 203 calories. And after the memory and attention tests, the subjects consumed another 253 calories. Blood samples taken before, during and after the activities found that all that thinking causes big fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels. And because glucose fuels the neurons, a transitory low level in the brain may signal the stomach to get the hands to fill up the mouth, even though the energy actually spent has gone up just a hair. The researchers note that such “caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic.”

Crap, eh? 

And here I thought I'd be all skinny when I went to my Weight Watchers meeting tonight, because my brain had burned all these calories. In all honesty, I'm not expecting any miracles on the scale tonight. This might even be the first week I've gained. I hope not, but those melba toast do punch a wallop when you're practically inhaling them.

I'll let you know how it goes.

9,851 words and weirdness

I just realized I had forgotten to update my word count on the Nanowrimo website.

Can't have that.

So I proceeded to add up what I'd written this afternoon. Part of it was finishing up one chapter and the rest was well into another chapter. I added up all the words and they totalled 1,960.

THAT'S THE YEAR I WAS BORN!

How freakin' weird is THAT?

The War of Art

Are you filled with self-loathing?

Do you feel uncomfortable calling yourself a writer? Or a painter? Or whatever creative activity it is you want to try but you're numb with indecisiveness and paralyzed with fear?

That's my hand up in the air, waving furiously. Yours too?

Then you need to read the book I'm reading. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (author of The Legend of Bagger Vance) is the best, skinniest, smartest smack in the face I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It's like a cuff upside the head. It's like Cher in Moonstruck slapping Nicholas Cage in the face and yelling

"SNAP OUT OF IT!"

I was angsting, as usual, at my writers' group meeting when my friend Dawn suddenly stood up and said, "I have a book you need to read," and she went and fetched The War of Art.

Wow, Dawn, I owe you big, my friend. This was exactly the common sense kick in the arse I so desperately needed.

The point of the book is that we human beings constantly battle Resistance, a soul-sucking internal device that stops us from doing the creative things we were born to do. This tiny tome is not a typical self-help book, which I would loathe. This is just straight talk from someone who knows what he's talking about.

Here's one of my favourite sections, entitled Resistance and Self-Doubt:

"Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?' chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."

You can find more information about the book here, at Steven Pressfield's website.

6,525 words

Good morning!

Thank gawd it's Friday. I feel that TGIF in the very marrow of my bones. One more day of working all day and writing half the night then I get to sleep in. Wow, am I looking forward to that.

I knew fitting Nanowrimo into my schedule was going to be hard on this old bird and I was right. The writing itself isn't hard – it's the pervading fatigue that's hard. Oh well. Enough whining. I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm looking forward to writing in the daytime, not sitting hunched over my laptop until after 10 o'clock at night, then lying sleepless staring at the ceiling, too wound up and senseless to fall unconscious.

When I did sleep last night, man, did I sleep. I had the weirdest dream, too. I dreamt my friend, Vic, was trying to talk some sense into me about something. (Probably Nanowrimo!) Obviously I wasn't listening so, to get my attention, she threw water in my face. When that didn't work, she poured a pot full of cold Campbell's Chunky Chicken Soup on my head.

Oh. Talk about gross. It was slimy and, yes, chunky and you could have eaten the potato pieces off my head with a fork. I was SO MAD in my dream. There was soup all over the house! Soup pieces in the bathtub as I tried to clean up. Soup in my parents' bed (don't ask me why it was my parents' bed - hopefully this wasn't a Freudian dream). I had to strip their bed and wash it, wash the floors, wash my clothes. I woke up pissed off and exhausted from all the work.

Wait'll I see that Vic. She's in BIG trouble.

4,157 words

No wooting tonight. Too tired to woot.

Still, I got another chapter done. I didn't feel like it, I swear each word was torture tonight, but the Nanowrimo pledge was pushing me forward and I managed to get the daily minimum done.

So far I'm pleased with what I'm writing.

To me it's not about the word count – it's all about continuing to write the very best that I can. The chapter I wrote tonight was a tough one to write and I think tomorrow's chapter will be even tougher. These are hard times for my heroine, the poor beleaguered Weezie Polk. It is, after all, always darkest before the dawn and Weezie's dawn is still a long way off. It's getting closer though. I have hope that soon the tide will turn and I'm getting more excited for her every day.

Get well wishes to the girls in my writing group. Poor Sasha and Dawn are down for the count and dear Paula is nursing her sick husband back from a frightening health ordeal. Linda is the only one of us currently joining me in this Nanowrimo insanity and I thank my stars that she is. Linda is ball of positive energy and the more I know her, the more I appreciate her. Take care Paula, Dawn and Sasha and good writing vibes to the unstoppable Mizz Linda.

I'd also like to say thank you to my other bloggy friends who pop by occasionally with cheery words of encouragement. It's fantastic to have you in my corner.

Kisses to you all.

P.S. My bloggy friend Denise (better known to you all as L'Aussie Writer) kindly asked me to guest over at her Romantic Friday Writers website. The topic was Friday Flash and, even though I haven't written a Flash for some time, there's nothing that warms my heart more. You can check it out HERE. Thanks Denise! Such an honour!

2,745 words!

HELLLOOOOOO NANOWRIMO!

CATHY OLLIFFE-WEBSTER IS IN DA HOUSE!

Can't talk now. Am wooting around the kitchen... look at me woot, shaking my thang. See that thang? I got some junk in my trunk, baby, and it's shaking, look at that thang shake!

FIRST day of National Novel Writing Month is DONE and I have slammed 2,745 words down on that keyboard, surpassing my goal of 2,000 words. THIS, in spite of a busy day at the office!

I got involved with NaNo at the last minute, only because a couple of other girls in my writers' group (we are all girls, even though we're as old as Alan Davidson's fez, and we always will be) were signed up and I thought, yes, this is what I need to get my novel finished. A primo kick in the ass deadline with tons of moral support.

So far, so good.

Like a recovering alcoholic, I am taking this 50,000 word challenge one day at a time.

And today was sooooooooooooooo suwheet ...

The Invisible Commenter

So there's this blog I like, a lot, actually (no, it's not yours) and I used to visit it all the time – happily dropping witty comments like breadcrumbs in a gingerbread forest. This blog has more commenters than cats have hairballs. And people don't just comment once, they comment over and over. Eventually the comments take on a life of their own that have nothing to do with the original blog post.

They're a family, these commenters. Close-knit, with nicknames for each other and seamless and sightless adoration for the blogger.

When first tossing my comment gems into the mix I noticed that nobody commented on my comments. I thought, OK, well, I'm new. It will take time to be one of the cool kids. Months went by. My comments continued to be ignored. After a while I thought, what am I doing here? Not that I wanted to be one of the in-crowd, not really, because I have my own cool crowd (love you guys, I really do) but it was the studious lack of involvement that made me feel like an interloper. So I stopped reading for a while.

I started again because this blog is a bit like crack and this morning I couldn't help myself: I left a comment. It was rather like sending a boy you like in school a love note to see if he loves you back. Sort of like that, I guess.

I went back tonight to see if anybody noticed.

It was there, alone, other comments walking over it and on it and through it like it wasn't even there. It was road pizza, this comment. All guts and glory in the middle of the highway while the cars go whizzing over it, its little comment face pushed up against the yellow line. Poor wee flat thing.

I don't tell my commenters here on the River how much they mean to me very often because I don't like to be all smarmy. But I really appreciate you taking time out of your incredibly busy life and reading my drivel and leaving a comment. I don't always reply because I'm geeky at replying – I always feel awkward. It's like, my blog was my comment and now I want to hear from YOU.

Do know my heart does a happy little skip when I see a new comment. Even from spammers!

But especially from you.

oxoxoxoxoxox

P.S. - I'M DOING NANOWRIMO THIS YEAR.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

Are you?