It’s windy outside. I just took a walk, and my ears nearly froze right off. I’m serious, yo!

So I’m just breezing through with an update on life, the universe, and everything. For those of you unaware, I did successfully complete National Novel Writing Month again! For the third time! I wrote what I’m categorizing as a mainstream fiction novel (draft) that follows three different-but-related Army stories. Depending on whether you count hyphenated words as one word or multiple words, I wrote between 50-51k words. So I’m pretty proud of that! As a winner, I get the satisfaction of having won. And a printable certificate. Oh, and 50% off of this writing software that I’m really excited about. Hubby said I can has!

Since then, life has returned back to normal in more ways than one. My mom left after her month-long visit, so the house is back to empty. And I’m back to writing only occasionally (in other words, not really much at all).

I hope that everyone has a great holiday season! I am spending Christmas Eve with Hubby’s family and Christmas Day with my family, and I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring and Hubby’s 2 weeks of R&R!

Life during deployment has gotten better in my neck of the woods. I think that nearing the two-month mark is helping. In other words, the further we get into it the more it becomes…somewhat easier to handle. It’s not that I don’t still miss Hubby. I do, sometimes to the point of tears, but the house just doesn’t feel quite as lonely now that I’m a little more used to the idea that I’m here and he’s not. I’m definitely looking forward to the coming R&R (hopefully in the spring) and his homecoming next fall!

It also has made a huge difference to me to have my mom here for a visit. She arrived last week and is staying for just shy of one month. We’re enjoying some mother-daughter time that we really haven’t had in four or five years! The house feels a lot less empty with her here. So I’m keeping busy with that and with other goals I’m working on.

And, of course, it’s NaNoWriMo time! National Novel Writing Month comes every November, and I’m participating for the fourth year in a row. This year, due to marrying into the Army and currently living through my first deployment, I’ve really got military on my mind, and I’m writing a story about the Army. I did some planning and outlining last month so that I could jump right in on November 1st. So far it’s going well!

Expect my updates here to remain somewhat sparse for the time being as I spend time with my mom and with my writing. I will try to continue updating once or twice a week, though, because I know I need to get back in the habit of regular posting!

How does everyone like the new layout? My friend Jester is still working on a few of the kinks, but it’s mostly done! I like it.

Is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo?

Book writing is definitely on my mind recently. Did you know that I am (or at least I claim to be) an aspiring novelist? Yes, indeed! In hopes of making it easier on me to one day reach the level of Actual Novelist, my husband recently found a great deal and bought me a netbook. Now I can write from wherever I happen to be! The beautiful little computer that I have named Eeeny-Weeeny, since it is, after all, an Eee PC, is just the right size for my hands. Ooooh I can’t wait for NaNoWriMo this year!

Thus Far

Second grade was the first time I got to write complete stories, as far as I remember. My teacher had this bright idea of stapling together a few sheets of unlined paper to make books, and we got to fill in as many as we wanted with stories and illustrations. My stories were all about the Pretty Pretty Princess(es), but I had a lot of them.

I stopped writing for some time after that, perhaps in part due to the dreaded Writing Wednesdays in fourth grade. That was tough. Ugh – writing prompts. My hands would get so sore – my fingers actually developed these hard, raised bumps from holding my pencil all day, and man, I hated Writing Wednesdays. Now, give me a computer and tell me to write all day, and I’d be happy to do my best to comply. But I think doing that in fourth grade was actually a bit of a hindrance to me.

A few years later, I participated in the Young Author competition and wrote/illustrated a story that won some sort of award. A year or two later, I wrote/illustrated another children’s story for school. I still have both of those, in laminated form.

But now writing has become more difficult. It’s not enough for my stories to be 10 pages long with a simple plot. As I’ve aged, I’ve become increasingly critical of my own work. That’s when I started that bad habit of writing a few lines or a few pages of a story, and then putting it aside. I would get stuck, and I couldn’t think of a satisfactory way to continue the story, so I just stopped working on it until the next half-baked idea came along. I guess I just never had the follow-through to finish them on my own.

NaNoWriMo has gotten me over that hump, in a way. I now have two complete drafts to work on.

What’s Coming

The first draft has no working title at all. It’s simply NaNoWriMo 2007. The basic plot and the characters I created are good, but the story itself needs so much work that rather than editing the novel, I’m actually in the process of re-writing it. It’s a fantasy “escapism” novel set in a world of my own creation.

The second draft is on the back-burner, still. When I look at it again I’ll be able to see it with fresh eyes – or so I hope. Its sad working title is Pickles From Space. It has nothing to do with either space or pickles, but there you have it. It is, in a way, kind of science-fictiony, only.. It’s really not science fiction at all. It takes place right here on Earth with regular-old humans.

This year for NaNoWriMo, I plan to write a military-related story, since my Hubby will be deployed, and I’m sure the military will be on my mind a lot. And I also have other ideas in mind for the future. Sequels to the fantasy story, possibly, and some more present-day ideas. I can barely wait to get started!

Unfortunately, thinking of ideas is much easier than sitting down and completing a novel. I just hope that, one day, I can actually call myself a published novelist, rather than just aspiring to be one.

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For now I just want to share a little bit of how I got where I am now. To me it is evidence of God working in my life!

My writing – I’ve always, always loved to write. I admit that in fourth grade I despised “Writing Wednesdays,” but that was just because I was being forced. The first stories I wrote (that I remember) were in second grade. Our teacher would staple together little booklets, and we would fill them in during class. I swear I filled in almost twice as many as other kids. I’ve also kept some sort of journal almost all my life, starting when I was probably in first or second grade until now.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy grammar and languages. I didn’t learn to enjoy it at school, but in a lot of ways despite school (I did not enjoy my composition or English classes very much). Now, I’m at the point of having participated in NaNoWriMo twice, winning both times, and dreaming about one day publishing a novel. But speaking of writing, this leads right into…

My blog – Blogging is something I wanted to get into because of how much I enjoy writing. It’s a thrill to move my fingers across the keyboard and have words appear, words that mean something. I enjoy trying to make my words flow and have a certain “sound.” In person, I’m quiet. After being so shy throughout my childhood, this quietness is sort of stuck in me, and I don’t really mind it. It just means that I usually won’t speak up unless I’m sure what I’m saying is relevant and important/useful. But it’s a different story here. Here, I can and will say what I want to, when I want to, and I know that only those who are interested will continue to read. And I’m okay with that! It’s a way for me to express my opinions, experiences, and thoughts that I might otherwise hold back, afraid no one is interested.

My art – I come from a very artistic family, on all sides. My father’s mother painted numerous landscapes, one of which is currently hanging in my living room! I have a niece whose drawings get better every time I see them. My mother’s brother, aunt, and grandmother are all very artistic, and even my stepfather brought in some income for a while by selling his art online. My husband is a whiz with a pen, with paint, with almost any medium he’s tried, so our kids may end up artists as well!

As for me, I never saw myself as an artist. I was just another kid who drew people’s faces. Until, one day, I decided to really try, and I impressed myself. I took an art class in grade school, and a tried a tutorial online one time, but other than that, I’ve been completely self-taught, and I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

Avon – I started selling Avon for a number of reasons. One, I had recently quit my job due to getting married, and I wanted to help bring in some extra income for our little family of two.

Second, I wanted the flexibility of a basically self-employed status because, as an army wife, my husband’s schedule can sometimes be unpredictable. I want the freedom to be able to work when my husband is working, so that I can be spending time with him when he’s not working.

Third, I wanted the challenge. I’m an opinionated person. I can be forceful when I need to be, as I demonstrated at my previous job when I had to speak with insurance companies regarding lack of payment on claims. And I’ve taught myself to be less shy than I used to be. But being a salesperson, developing relationships with strangers, and being assertive is another story completely. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I was and am determined to prove that I can. And you know what? I’m really loving it. Also, I get discounts on products that I’m growing to love.