Oh. Mah. Gah.

OH. MAH. GAH!  Did I really go out in public looking like that?????

Choolie posted the pics in FB, and holy shit.  My hair!  It really is an event in and of itself.   Looking in the mirror didn’t give me the full scope of what I looked like (really sorry I forgot the pearls, though).  I can’t stop staring at the pics.  Who is that woman?  And what did she do with the real Minna?  EEK.

I have to say, I really like the picture of Choolie and me with me pointing my rolling pin (which kept falling apart.  It’s really old) at the camera.  Her tag line for the night was, “I’m better.  Really!”  Mine was, “I WILL make pie.  Don’t think I won’t!”

OK, my line was funny at the time.  When I look at the pictures, I remember how creative everyone was.  I was really impressed by how much time and effort people put into their costumes.  It really was like being in another world, and I can’t stop looking at myself!  I look so strange.

All right.  General housekeeping info:  I have made it to actual goal of NaNoWriMo:  50,000 words.  I made it on Nov. 10, as usual.  Even though I was trying not to get caught up in the number, I couldn’t help pushing myself on the 10th.  I wrote 8K in that one day, which is pretty good, even for me.  Pat, pat, pat.  Yes, I’m patting myself on the back.  50,000 in ten days ain’t bad.  Of course, for me, it’s not as hard as running a marathon, but still.  Even if it’s not hard for me to write the words, it’s still work.  I wrote the 8K on the 10th in about five hours.

I had a bad weekend (don’t want to talk about it), so I didn’t get much writing done.  However, I am working on the ending right now so as to make writing the middle part easier.

I love writing fiction.   Don’t get me wrong–I love writing nonfiction as well.  I also love writing poetry.  Let’s face it–I just love to write.   However, there is something about fiction that just nourishes me.  I have a very active imagination, and writing fiction is fun to do because I get to watch movies in my head as I write.

Usually, I have the bare bones of the story in my head when I begin to write.  Sometimes, when I’m really lucky, a story will come to me intact, and I just have to write it down.  Those are usually my best stories.  This time, however, even though I knew in general where I wanted to take the story, I reached an impasse around 55,000 words.  Now, in general, the middle part of the book is usually the hardest for me to write.  I am excited at the beginning, of course because it’s something fresh and new.  I am excited at the end because it’s all pulling together, and I’m almost done with it.  However, in the middle, I sometimes get bored.  Yes, I will say it.  BORED.  I get tired of my characters and of the situations I have created for them.

They, in turn, are usually not speaking to me by this time.  They are bored as well, and they sometimes act out just because they don’t want to do the same damn thing.  That’s how I felt writing this novel.  I was bored.  I was struggling to stay interested.  The first part is really good and darker–even for me.  Then, I hit the wall.  I did not want to be writing this novel any longer.  I struggled with it for a bit, and then, I decided to switch things up a bit.

I started writing the ending.  Like I said, I knew basically where I was taking the story–I just didn’t know exactly how I was going to get there.  I am writing a murder mystery (though it’s more than that), and in the middle, I had it narrowed down to a few suspects.  When I jumped to the end, I took a leap of faith and picked the culprit.  Now, it’s the character I kinda sorta had in mind as the murderer all along, but I wasn’t sure until I starting working on the ending.

Of course, because it’s me, the plot is convoluted and tricky.  As I wrote part of the ending, I was struggling how to tie a few of the disparate ends together, and then it hit me.  An idea so devious, it even surprised me.  And, then other pieces of the puzzle fell into place.  I love when things dovetail together and a mess becomes suddenly clear.

I still have half the month to finish the novel and edit the hell out of it–which it needs.  Doing something different (working on the ending), really got me jazzed to write more.  So, lesson learned–change can sometimes be invigorating and a good thing.

Finally:  A teaser.  I have been mulling over something rather important in my brain for the past month or two.  I am not yet ready to write about it, so watch this space for further information.