WrimoRadio

I'm listening to WrimoRadio right now, and Chris is talking about the different things you go through during each week of NaNoWriMo. How true it is...the week one Fear of the Blank Page, the week two Slowdown, etc. It's not really encouraging me...it's actually making me nervous, as I deal with these bizarre feelings I've been having, like not being excited about writing (yet...will I get there by November 1?), and not having a really great story idea (yet...will I get there by the day after tomorrow?)

I haven't spent any time this weekend so far planning my novel. I have, however, done a lot of great stuff! The highlight was going out to dinner with our best friends last night. Before we could eat, though, though, we had to attend the annual community center Halloween party, in which the kids get into their costumes and run around looking for candy.

Isn't it funny how kids will do anything for candy? They'll crawl through an obstacle course, cling to an indoor rock climbing wall while wearing a cape, approach total strangers in scary costumes, walk around in the snow in the dark...just to get a piece of sugar wrapped in paper.

And most of the time they don't even need extra candy. Take my son for example. This kid still has Halloween candy leftover from last year. Heck, he still has candy leftover from two Easters ago! There's also a bowl of candy on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker that he never touches. He has total access to candy. He has so much candy he forgets about it. But still he feels compelled to carry around a bag and hope adults will throw candy in it. I have this theory that it's either early hunter/gatherer instincts coming through, or else it's a part of this culture of collecting. But, I digress.

Among the fun things the kids did at the party was participate in a cake walk. We figured we had it beat, since there were, like, ten kids walking and three of them were ours. You should have heard the whining and complaining when none of our kids ended up winning. And the kids were bummed out, too.

Then we went to dinner at our favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian, the one with the 90 year old owner that all children are obligated to hug on the way out. Sometimes, if there are no kids around and you're short, she'll hug you. But luckily we had kids, so she hugged'em. (And then she gave them some candy.) Dinner was as delicious as always.

After that we went to see what we call 'the Pumpkin Man's house', a retired guy on the south side of town who carves amazing designs in the monstrous pumpkins he grows, then puts them on display for all the neighborhood kids. He's been doing this for, like, 20 years. And, he gives the kids candy. (Not the greatest photo quality, but you get the idea.)





Then we got to come home and watch a great movie, go to bed late, and sleep an extra hour in the morning. Life is good.