30,101

Not a bad number to stop at. I´m off to bed. My butt hurts, my tummy aches, and I feel very, very sleepy.

This was nanowrimo 2007. But at least, I now know where the story starts and who the major characters are really going to be. Amazing how stories change as you write them. Didn´t get to 50,000 this time, but I think this is less of a sucky story than the one I wrote last year :)

Delayed news relays (which is what happens when a person is off the net for sometime):

Inside the Writing Mind features an article on Dean Alfar and Philippine Speculative Fiction

Also got this email from Dean Alfar telling me that Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 2 will be launched on December 10, 2006 at 3:00 P.M. Venue: The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at the Promenade in Green Hills, San Juan.

My bro says he's going to be there. Don't I wish I could be there. I wish I could be there...but darned...I'm too big to get onto a plane right now. I doubt any airlines would let me fly. Not when I'm a couple of weeks away from popping.

I have over 400 emails to go through as a result of me not checking my computer since the last time I logged on here for how many days...

Waiting for results of my latest batch of submissions. I suppose that will take a while as most of them take a couple of months to respond. I-Walk is still percolating inside my head, and I'm taking a fresh new look at several stories that need to be sent out.

Purchased this week: Orson Scott Card's, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. A good read. A great book to keep on hand and go back to every now and then. It's going right up there beside Anne Lammott's, Bird by Bird and William Zinsser's, On Writing Well, and of course not to forget, The Elements of Style, and The New York Times Handbook of Style.

Sneaking a look at Dean's list of author's to read, I got myself a copy of Kelly Link's, Magic for Beginners. A great, fun read. I bet Kelly Link had fun writing those stories.

Looking into the possibilities of getting a laptop. I realize now that I won't be able to survive those weeks when I can't climb up to the attic and write.

Turns out, laptops have been going down in price. Another attractive option is renovating our bedroom so that I can put this computer in there. Good idea to get baby used to the sound of keys tap-tap-tapping away.

Yes, dear child, Mommy can't be happy without writing. Better to live with the tap-tapping sound than to live with a Mom who snarls your head off because she hasn't written her 2000 word fix today.

Nano -- nono

Well, everything's conspired to keep me from finishing Nanowrimo this year. Only two more days to go and I still have more than 25,000 words left to write before its finished.

Still, I think I'll finish this cat populated tale. It's quite fun and I've enjoyed the writing. Mommyness, fatigue, my pelvic bones, and moving the computers as well as our collection of books have kept me from writing these past days...how many days? I think it must have been more than a week.

I'm realizing now that it is true what folks say about dragging inspiration into the room by the roots of her hair does work. It works because I've had to drag myself out of the dips and have had to find the energy to climb up the stairs to the attic where our computer is housed.

Writing about 2000 words a day does get those mental juices flowing. I'm trying to figure out something for Rick's poetry challenge. Something about Inspiration...to which I have these lines:

At other times
She is a fleeing naiad
Hiding behind trees
Shorn bare of leaves

Elusive
As a fawn
Trapped in mid-flight
At early morn


I'm not so sure yet if it works the way I want it to work. Darn, but this is hard. My brain is all preoccuppied with this baby kicking inside my belly and the due date coming up in a little bit over nine weeks.

At 23,320 words on my nano project. I hope I do finish it before the baby is born.

Here's something I found really inspiring on literary mama. If I can just get that draft finished before the baby is born, I'm sure I'll be able to do something about it. Surely there must be someplace I can sent some cat fiction to .

music, babies, reading, and the nano project

Thanks to Kristina Seleshanko, for confirming that singing is good for pregnant women and their babies :) I have three groups of singing classes and I am 27 weeks pregnant.

This article on pregnancy and music also makes a great read. I should have read this when I was pregnant with Joel. I remember Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert were daily fare for Joel in the womb. Perhaps this explains his somewhat temperamental nature? Perhaps this explains his love for drama? Perhaps this explains the surprising bouts of poetry? All that romantic music must manifest its influence somehow.

Anyway, I've unearthed Mozart, Bach, and Haydn for this baby. My teacher used to say Bach is the music of logic. According to her, lovers of Bach are logical, orderly, and mathematical. Hmmmm...

So, I'm saying hello again to those sonatas, to preludes and fugues and the three and two part inventions. I'd quite forgotten how difficult the classical era can be. Needless to say, after years of not playing them, even the two and three part inventions are proving to be a bit of a challenge. Oh drat, but I used to play that piece just like that ( that's what I keep telling myself ). I should be able to play them again with a bit of practice, shouldn't I? Lesson learned, if you've practiced something for eight hours a day until you've got it right, make sure not to stick the piece at the back of your cupboard.

I'm wondering if the click-clack of my keyboard will also qualify as soothing music for the baby, and if the nightly reading aloud to Joel from The Chronicles of Narnia means the baby will fall asleep when I read passages from The Voyage of the Dawn Trader?

Perhaps this means, I should stop reading the wacky bits of my nano project out loud. I might find myself with a kitty baby.

Talking about kitty babies. King Rat's minions are preparing for a takeover of Overworld Amsterdam. Kitty boys, kitty girls, the tabbies and the dogs, and that one precocious hamster are going to have their hands full. Needless to say, it's time for the great Tom to come back from the dead.

But before all of these can happen, I've got to rescue one of my kitty children from the dumps. Pushing on 10,000 words. The project still sounds fun inside my head. I'm taking Dean Alfar's advice to heart, stopping when I've reached my quota because hubby and family are still number one on the priority. I need those reminders, I really do.

Otoliths

I thought I could resist, but I couldn't. What is it about poetry that pulls and tugs at the heart? There's something so shivery about the way poets write.

Jump over to Otoliths. Enjoy the feast :)

remember to enjoy yourself

Yes, this is my motto for Nanowrimo. I'm ending tonight at 8,101 words. It's fun populating Amsterdam with a treacherous army of rats and a serpent with an agenda of her own. The thing here is to relax those uptight brain muscles and enjoy the ride. I'll find out later if I've written anything salvageable here.

update on joel's blog

Joel's latest story is up on his blog at http://mooie-woorden.blogspot.com

Enjoy the read.

minor things

Nanowrimo. My Nanowrimo project is running away from me. These kids are developing lives of their own, and turning into kitties. As for the hamster, it talks. Hmmm...okay. Strange things are going on in Amsterdam town, and I wish I could take the train and walk through Amsterdam again, just to soak up the atmosphere. Did I mention how much I enjoy visiting Amsterdam?

But my darned pelvic bones are getting in the way of walking comfortably. I have entered the waddling duckling stage, and would love nothing more than to spend the entire day in bed, sleeping and reading and sleeping again.

God bless my hubby who's managed to clear up the attic, and soon, very soon, we're moving our little library up there. Clearing up stuff, looking through catalogues and wishing I knew for sure if the baby is a girl or a boy. It would make buying baby clothes lots easier. Creams and whites for the meantime, and I make notes like mad about shops were I saw the cutest little things for babies. Of course, they don't stay small forever. After the first week, they sort of expand and before you know it, the smallest sizes can be kept away.

Baby was acting like a drummer inside my belly last night though, and I have been having the weirdest dreams, which probably have to do with me being pregnant and a bit anxious maybe.

I'm procrastinating again. I should go back to doing what needs to be done.