This is My Brain on NaNoWriMo

Any questions?

(Boy, that Debbie Ridpath Ohi -- she gets me!)

Out of Nowhere

So, I'm driving home from Denver yesterday and I'm listening to some nice music that was sort of sad and thinking about things and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I notice that it's the 2 year anniversary of when my mother went into the hospital. She was in intensive care for about six days and then she died. When I got the phone call, 2 years ago yesterday, I made the stupid decision I'll always regret not to fly out until the weekend because I was just a few weeks into a new job and I was worried about taking the time off. As a result, I never got to see my mother conscious before she died.

I was thinking about all of that and also re-living the moments before her death when she was given the last rites, and remembering made my chest hurt and then I started to cry. Not the little I feel sad so tears leak kind of crying, but the kind where you make noise and you can't help it.

It was pretty amazing to me that I could be driving along one moment and then succumb to complete mental and emotional anguish. I thought, wow, I'm walking around everyday with feelings like this just below the surface?

Basically, I couldn't stop crying for the next 4 hours or so. That was not a fun Friday night. I woke up this morning with big, swollen eyes and a feeling not unlike sore muscles in the area of my heart, which still has not gone away. Yep, feeling pretty crappy.

No desire to write. At all. Or do homework, either. So what else is new?

So, yeah. Grief, as I've said many times before, sucks.

Homework Blues

Homework and NaNoWriMo just don't mix.

If you think I'm behind in my wordcount, you should see my homework. Especially that darn math that just keeps piling up.

Sometimes I'm so stressed about it that I'm paralyzed and don't do either. Smart, huh?

At Last At First

I finally started my novel and got in a whopping 843 words!

I'm so happy.

Not sure what was going on. I think I needed the Kickoff to officially happen (it was so much fun) first. I wrote an outline at the Write In portion of the Kickoff and then deviated from it completely this morning.

I just woke up and suddenly I knew what I was going to write and how.

All Hail

To all those parents (mostly fathers...) who stood out on the cold streets of Colorado, with coat collars zipped up around their chins, hunching so their noses would be covered, gloved hands in pockets, watching their children run with wild abandon on darks streets in 17 degree temperatures: I salute you!

And I was standing next to you!

Another Halloween under the belt!