Putting A Lid On Happiness

Excuse my language, but I'd like to give this state a big Fuck You! I just found out today that I'll be laid off from my job and that my last day of work will be December 28th. The reason being that the state is cutting funding for the program in half, actually a little more than half, so over half of the employees in our program are getting laid off. This means that the remaining employees will have double the work and not be able to give the children the services that they really need. On top of that, chances are the program will get no funding at all next school year.

This pisses me off so much. It would be different if this program was a failure, but it's not. It's a huge success! We're currently seeing over 400 students with anxiety, depression, or behavioral problems and nearly all of them have been success stories. And the kids love the program. It hurt to see the woman who developed the program have to give us this news today. She has a heart of gold and I know it must crush her to hear this news.

Meanwhile, while the children are suffering with trauma related disorders from Katrina and other serious psychiatric problems, the government of Louisiana is spending money on ridiculous things like cars for hundreds of state employees that don't really need them. We give cars to over 330 state employees while other states give them to as little as 8 employees. Our program needs $800,000 to fund the program for the rest of the year. That's nothing when it comes to government spending and I think that it's sick that they're not willing to spend that money to continue to better the lives of children who are in need of psychiatric services and can't get them elsewhere. But the fact is they will not spend it and unless a miracle happens and someone gives the money to our program, that's it. What is wrong with this state???

There is NOWHERE for people to go who need counseling. Nowhere! I know because I looked for a job for 5 months in mental health and couldn't find one. Especially for children. This was the perfect job and I'm going to miss it so much. The kids were wonderful, my peers were wonderful, my licensure supervision was free and my supervisor was wonderful, and I was doing what I loved to do! I'm not going to be able to find this anywhere else in Louisiana because this was all that was left for these kids. And now this is being taken away. I can't tell you how disgusted I am. Not even so much for myself. I'll find another job...I'll go do something, but what about the kids...

And The Craziness Just Continues...

If you ever need a self-esteem booster, just announce to everyone that you've finished writing a novel! Thanks everyone for your kind words. I hope that next year more people join NaNoWriMo. It really was a great experience. Grueling but great...

So, now that I've accomplished one task, I'm setting myself up for failure! How might I be doing that you ask? Well, I'm adding two more reading challenges to the already gigantic list of challenges already signed up for. But both of these were just too great to pass up. And like I said in a previous post, I've pretty much accepted the fact that I won't complete all of these challenges. But even if I don't, it'll knock quite a few books off of the TBR bookshelf which now literally can't hold any more books! They're piling up on the floor now. I'll post pictures of the TBR bookshelf soon, it's quite humorous that I still actually buy books when you see what I actually have sitting here unread. But back to the challenges.

The first challenge is Bellezza's Japanese Reading Challenge. I am SO excited about this one. It's an incredible idea for a challenge. I've always loved everything Asian. Food, books, movies, culture, religion...you name it I'm a fan...well for the most part, I'm sure there are a few things in Asia that I could do without. I have a particular love for Japan, so when I heard that Bellezza was hosting this challenge I was filled with glee. It starts tomorrow, November 30th and runs through January 30th and you have to read 3 books. That's it! I'm reading four because I couldn't limit it to 3 :p She's putting together some cool origami prizes! You can sign up here. Here's my list:

1. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (Megan's favorite book, promised her I'd read this)
2. The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
3. First Snow on Fuji by Yasunari Kawabata
4. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

The second challenge is equally as cool and focuses on another one of my favorite things...Graphic Novels! Dewey has put together a graphic novel challenge that runs through all of 2008 and the challenge is to read 6 graphic novels. My list is rather boring and focuses on a lot of Neil Gaiman mostly because that's what's on my TBR shelf and I'm trying not to buy too many books next year. But for those looking for something new, Nymeth has put together an incredible list on her page and she's written some really great reviews recently on graphic novels. Alice in Sunderland sounded really cool and I may end up adding that one anyway. Carl also blogged about one called Mouse Guard that I saw at B&N the other day and I may end up picking that up too :p But here's my list for now. I'm signing up for 7 because I had 7 graphic novels on my shelf and I couldn't leave one out ;):

1. Midnight Days by Neil Gaiman
2. Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman
3. Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman
4. Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
5. Death: Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman
6. Spiderman: Spirits of the Earth by Charles Vess
7. The Book of Ballads by Charles Vess

I Did It!!

I wrote a frickin' book! I officially finished NaNoWriMo today and if you go to my profile, my word count will proudly display that I am a "winner" and that my final word count is 51,315 words. And that's where it's staying. I'm done! I thought that I might finish today but the bigger chance was that I would finish on Friday. But I started writing and the ending just took off. This is what I've been waiting for! I actually knew how I wanted to end the book, so I was excited about writing again.

It's a relief to be done, but at the same time, I'm going to miss it. I don't know what I'm going to do now when I'm bored at work :p Overall, I think I'm happy with my story, but it's going to need some serious editing before it's readable to anyone and I'm sure it'll jump to about 75,000 words by the time I finish expanding it. But I'm leaving it alone for now. I don't think I'm touching it again until next year...maybe in January sometime. I've had enough of that story for now!

Biggest surprise of the whole experience was today as I was writing one of the final scenes. I got real emotional with one part and I was not expecting that at all! It's funny how characters that you create become so real and our minds play tricks on us. Here I am making up the story, it's coming from my brain, but at the same time, I'm processing it like I'm reading this touching story that's already written. Very weird.

But anyway, it's done! One of my biggest goals in life has always been to write a novel. It was one of those things that I always thought I'd say but never do. Or I pictured myself writing in a park sometime after I retired, but never now. So it's a great feeling to have accomplished that goal. And thanks everyone for your encouragement along the way and a special thank you to Deslily who stopped by my blog nearly every day after checking my progress to cheer me on.

Now I have to go find some real work to do....

New Books!

It seems that the new book gods stopped by my house today while I was at work not really working, but rather, writing my NaNo book which I'm less than 7,000 words from finishing! Ahem...work will resume tomorrow *cough*inbetweenwriting*cough* Now I promised that I'd try hard not to buy anymore books for myself this year and I'm sticking to that! I ordered these six books from bookcloseouts.com about 2 weeks ago and there just getting to me. So without further ado, here they are:

The God of Small Things: Both Kim and Nymeth read this one and gave it amazing reviews. I've heard nothing but good stuff about this one and it won the Booker Prize! I tend to like the Booker winners.

The Christmas Tree: This one was an impulse buy. It was only $1.99 on the website and it has some great illustrations. I was just looking for something Christmas-y to read.

A Study in Scarlett: Who hasn't read this book aside from me! Everyone who read this one for the RIP Challenge seemed to love it so I had to add it to my list.

The Bat Poet: I just happened to stumble upon this one on the website and it's such a cool book! It's illustrated by Maurice Sendak who I absolutely love. I feel like I can already recommend this one to everyone before I even read it.

The Book of Flying: Who recommended this to me? Someone did awhile back when I did one of those "what's your favorite book" posts...or it might have been "biggest surprise favorite book" I don't know, but this book looks so cool and I love the cover. And I know it's on somebody's favorites list!

The Kitchen Boy: This one comes recommended by Eva. She read it during the 24 hour reading challenge and really enjoyed it and I enjoyed her review of it :) So I'm hoping to enjoy the book in return! That's alot of joy!

Aside from reading and not working when I should be, I put up the Christmas lights tonight and I must say that they look nice! I couldn't help but laugh when I thought that since Katrina we've decorated a different house every year for Christmas. Actually, for the first Christmas, it was two. First I decorated my condo in Baton Rouge and then when I moved back to Metairie (my hometown, a suburb of New Orleans) we decorated our trailer...the inside at least. Last Christmas we were living in a duplex that we were renting, so we decorated our half of that, and now this Christmas we're renting a house! So at least we're movin on up! Hopefully by next year FEMA will get their act together and allow my mom to finally rebuild her house so that she can have a real Christmas in her own home again!

Christmas Time Is Here

At least in my neck of the woods it seems to be. Did anyone else start their Christmas shopping yet? I just happened to get my paycheck on the day after Thanksgiving and have now spent half of that paycheck already on gifts! But I'm almost done my shopping now! How cool is that...The only bad thing about being almost done already is that I know I'll keep buying until Christmas comes around. I love giving gifts, I always have. It's one of my favorite things about Christmas. There's nothing quite like the feeling of picking something special out for someone and sending it along to them.

The stores were a little crowded today and yesterday, but not near as bad as I thought. I waited in line for 40 minutes at Circuit City yesterday which was miserable, but that was the only bad line. I would've just left but they had Madden '08 for real cheap and my little brother wanted it for Christmas and I found someone else's gift there too, so I had to wait it out. Aside from that though, I really didn't wait in any lines. So now I'm completely finished shopping for Megan, my mom, my dad, my little brother, AND I'm already finished shopping for my secret santa for Nymeth's Blogger Christmas Exchange :)

Aside from Christmas shopping, life has been good. This little Thanksgiving break has been nice, though I've slacked on my book. Not too bad though. I'm 2000 words behind right now. I'm at about 38,000 words and should be at 40,000. I could catch up tonight, but honestly I'm just not feeling motivated enough to write. Instead, I'll continue to fry my brain with the South Park Christmas DVD that I bought at Target today ;) Me and my little brother have spent all night watching that and playing Kirby's Air Ride on the Gamecube....all while stuffing our faces with Krispy Kremes. No complaints here!

Varjak Paw by S.F. Said

I picked up Varjak Paw mainly because it's fully illustrated by Dave McKean. The illustrations are wonderful and there are PLENTY of them throughout the book. But I ended up not only enjoying the illustrations but enjoying the story as well.

Varjak Paw is a house cat, a Mesopotamian Blue. He lives with his mother and father and brothers and sisters and is by far the least popular of the family. Varjak has always loved hearing stories of the great Jalal, the "ancient one", the first Mesopotamian Blue to come to America from what I gathered. His tales include stories of the outside world. Varjak and his family have never seen the outside world. They've never seen anything but the Contessa's house that they live in and the backyard. Now, however, a new man has come into the house after the Contessa has disappeared and with him are two mysterious black cats that are up to no good. In order to get rid of them, someone is going to have to go to the outside world and find something called a "dog" that should scare the cats away. Varjak decides that he will take on this task.

We follow Varjak on his adventures as he first leaves his sheltered life and enters the outside world where he meets street cats and encounters the big city. He learns the ways of Jalal, the elder through dream sequences that add a very nice eastern philosophy touch to the book.

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable book and I'd recommend it to readers young and old. I have a couple of people that I think I'm going to buy this one for as a Christmas gift mainly for the Dave McKean illustrations which are really great! There's a second book out in the Varjak Paw series as well. If you're looking for another great review of this book, check out Nymeth's!

Giving Thanks

Occasionally I have my moments of clarity. They don't come often, but when they do, I enjoy them. The world can be such and overwhelming and hectic place sometimes. There are deadlines to meet, places to be, people to please, schedules to make. I was at work today having one of those days. I had my first staffing with the psychiatrist. For those not in the mental health field, this is basically where we, the counselors, present our treatment plans for our clients and the psychiatrist signs off on them as long as she approves. It all went fine, but the process was very hectic to get everything done in time so that I could enjoy my Thanksgiving break.

After staffing, everyone started talking about their plans for Thanksgiving and I started noticing a common theme: Stress! Everyone was stressed out...I have to cook, I have to clean, people are coming over that I can't stand, I have to go somewhere I don't want to be, I hate holidays. Then I started thinking...boy have we lost the point of these holidays. It's become a chore, an obligation, a yearly habitual process that you have to participate in for some people. I know it's not this way for everyone. For our family, we enjoy having our get togethers for holidays. It's nice to sit down and eat together and catch up on one another's lives, but honestly, even for me, Thanksgiving has become just another reason to eat and see family.

So, onto my moment of clarity. My moment of clarity was really as simple as breaking down the word into two separate words and seeing the obvious, it's a day for "giving thanks". We're raised always knowing that Thanksgiving is a day for giving thanks, but I don't think I've ever taken the time to sit and really think about what I'm thankful for. Truth be told, I'm thankful for so much! My list could go on forever. It was rather refreshing to think on this. I'm so used to complaining about what's wrong that it was nice to think about how grateful I am for having such a wonderful family to spend these holidays with, for having 2 paid days of vacation for the first time in my life, for being happy with my job, for writing a book, for having the most amazing girlfriend that a guy could ever ask for, for having a roof over my head, for having the greatest blogger friends in the world, for having good health (for the most part)...

The list could go on and on. There are so many things to be thankful for if you just step aside and take a good look. I hope that each and every one of you enjoy your Thanksgiving Day and cherish the things that you have to be thankful for. Happy Turkey Day!

Classics Challenge Completed

I've officially completed the Classics Challenge hosted by Crazy Cozy Murders. Finished it up last night with C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters which I owe a review on. I liked it well enough though to be honest it was one of those books that I read sometimes and then thought "wait a minute what did those last 10 pages say?" Hate it when that happens...Anyway, this one was a success overall. I really enjoyed Rebecca which replaced The Age of Innocence which I just couldn't get through and I loved The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I'm going to try to read some more Tolstoy next year if there's time.

1. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
   
2. The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
   
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
   
4. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
5. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Thoughts On A Friday Night

First let me introduce you to my new favorite shirt:
Now that you've made his acquaintance...I decided that after a loooong day at work I'd go get some coffee and then come home and work on my NaNo book. I stepped outside and was greeted by this cold, crisp night air and it suddenly felt like Christmas time. It could be Nymeth's Blogger Christmas Exchange or it could be Kailana's Advent Calendar, but I'm in the mood early this year. I love Christmas, but there's a bit of melancholy that goes along with it. I went and looked up the word "melancholy" on dictionary.com and found this as one of it's definitions, which I like best:

"sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness."

It's not so much that this time of the year is depressing, because it's not at all for me...it's a very odd feeling, hard to describe. A mixture of warm feelings, yet a yearning for something missing. I think of Megan a lot when holidays come around. Especially Christmas. This year should be good though because it's looking like she's flying in for Christmas and then I'm driving her back up to Texas and staying for New Years. I'm sure everyone has someone that they're reminded of around the holidays who's either no longer with us or is miles away, yet it's still a happy time to be celebrated with those who are with us. A conflict of emotions. Which leads me to Christmas music...yes this is a very schizophrenic post...

So I got in my car and wanted to listen to Christmas music because of the weather, but of course I didn't have any Christmas CDs in my car yet...so it was between Norah Jones or The Fray...so you might ask, "why Norah Jones or The Fray?" Both artists' music remind me of Christmas music. Norah Jones has an inherent quality to her music that induces a sense of happiness, peace, warmth, yet it's very nostalgic in a way. Listening to Norah Jones album can take you back to times that happened way before her albums were ever released and every time I make a Christmas mix CD I want to put one of her songs on it even though she doesn't have a Christmas album (not that I know of at least). Now The Fray is a slightly different story. First of all, I'm embarrassed to admit that I own a Fray CD, but it is indeed what I chose to listen to tonight. When The Fray writes their songs, I think they aim for this quality to their music. I think they studied what makes a Christmas song a Christmas song and the feelings that go along with it and tried to put it in every song they wrote which is why EVERY SINGLE TV DRAMA uses their music. As an aside, I think the lead singer of the band would do a much better job of being the voice of Kermit the Frog than the jackass that does it now. So The Fray actually worked very well as Christmas music tonight accompanied by a nice chill in the air and a hot mocha from the coffee shop. I'm happy and a little nostalgic and wishing I could talk to Megan.

I've also had a long day and obviously need sleep otherwise I wouldn't have written such a ridiculous post that probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me. But instead of going to sleep, I'm pumping my veins with caffeine and writing a book! This is what the rest of my night looks like:

Wahoo! Wednesday, Blogger Christmas Exchange, And NaNo Day 14

Lots of stuff in this post today! To start off with, CJ had a wonderful idea. As many of you know, our beloved blogger, Bookfool is going through some rough times right now and had to step away from blogland for a little while. She's in my thoughts and I know she's in the thoughts of so many other bloggers out there. One thing that I'm certainly missing and CJ was missing too was Bookfool's Wahoo! Wednesdays :) Bookfool takes the time every Wednesday to find something to say "Wahoo" about in life. That can be hard at times, but you would be amazed at the simple things that she finds in life that are truly beautiful. These are often accompanied with her beautiful photographs. CJ suggested that we all Wahoo about something today and let Bookfool know we're thinking of her. My favorite photographs of hers are always her nature photographs, particularly her bird photos! So the one I'm sharing and saying Wahoo! about is one of three hawks that have been living in our backyard! They've become like family, but I'm afraid that they've moved on for the winter :( I took this about 3 weeks ago...hopefully they'll come back next year.

The next Wahoo is for Nymeth :) She's putting together something that I am so excited about! The Blogger Christmas Exchange. It's a secret santa thing for the book blogging community and you can read all about it and get the details on her blog. She's amazing for organizing this. I'm sure it's no small task. I'm definitely in and I've already signed up and hope that everyone else will too. Like she said, the bigger it is, the more fun it will be. I think it'll be so much fun to shop for another book blogger :D

And the last Wahoo of the day is for NaNo day 14. A Wahoo is due for today because I crossed the halfway mark! Just barely though at 25,020 words. So it's all downhill from here. Another week or so and I can start bringing the story to a close. I can't wait to do that. I have so many plans that I'm looking forward to for the end of this story. But if the rest of the story is any measure of how the ending will go, all my plans will be thrown out the window because the characters just don't like where I'm taking them! They seem to have a mind of their own...

NaNo Day 13

Just a quick NaNo update. Today was odd, a scary day actually. I opened my computer, opened the book file and felt uninspired. I just didn't know where to go with my story. I feel like I'm reaching sort of a plateau with it. I know where I want to go with my ending, but it's too early to start going there. So I don't know what to do in the meantime. But I knew I had to go somewhere.

So I just started writing some stuff. I ended up finishing Chapter 11 and then went on to write Chapters 12 & 13 which may be my favorite chapters that I've written so far. It's strange how that worked out. I went from being uninspired to writing my favorite stuff. Now my concern is that these 2 chapters don't fit in with the rest of the book. They fit in with the story line, but they're told from a totally different point of view than the rest of the book so far. This may make no sense to anyone but me, so just excuse this entry if that's the case :p But I really like them, so I'm keeping them in. I think they add a nice touch to the book and most importantly (in NaNo terms at least) they add 4,000 words bringing my count up to 23,115 words! Almost to that halfway point.

My big worry is that this lack of inspiration is going to become a pattern. I'm hoping some inspiration comes tomorrow. It was rough to get into that groove today. I hadn't had any problems until today. I know that in his book, Chris Baty talks about the second week of NaNo being the hardest for most people and that if you can get past that point you'll make it...maybe I'm just getting my "second week blues" now. But I'll get through it...Luckily, it's another slow week at work, so I have the time to write ;)

Oh! And my copy of Marked came in the mail today! That made me happy :) Thanks Eva!!!

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Some of you may be familiar with David Sedaris. He's frequently heard on NPR's This American Life and he's written quite a few books of essays on life and culture. This is the second book of his that I've read (for the Seconds challenge nonetheless!) and I loved it!

Sedaris' writing can be enjoyed by just about anyone. His stories are personal and are reflective on his life, but in talking about his own life and his own experiences he reflects on the world and society as a whole. And he writes in a way that you'll find yourself literally laughing out loud in embarassing places. I finished this book at the car dealership today while I was getting my oil changed and couldn't help but laugh as David talked about his father hoarding food until it was rotten and not buying meat unless it was priced so low that it had a sticker on it that said "to be consumed immediately" which he would justify by saying that meat was supposed to be gray, the stores just dyed it red to make it look pretty.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is divided into two parts. The first half of the book focuses on David's life in the U.S., stories from his childhood and stories from his experiences living in New York. The second half of the book focuses on his life in France as an American. Trust me, there's lots of great commentary here, and while you'll find yourself laughing out loud, there's a bit of sad truth to so much of what he talks about. Some of my favorite parts of the book are his experiences with the French language which include a French language class taught by a French woman who's goal it was to belittle all of her students and his chapter on trying to figure out the gender of french words.

I highly recommend that if you have never read any of Sedaris' books, you pick one of them up. I'm sure that they're all equally as good. I've read Dress Your Family Up In Corduroy and Denim as well and that one was great too. I'm not usually a fan of non-fiction or of essays in general, but these do the trick!

Miles Apart

Well me and Megan couldn't have spent our days any differently (For those new to my blog, me and my girlfriend, Megan live in 2 different states since Hurricane Katrina, but that will soon be amended). My day first because I had the boring day. My uncle Robert who passed away recently had some very OCD like tendencies when it came to cleaning. I mean serious OCD tendencies. He'd go through a bottle of 409 a week at my Grandma's house where he lived. So needless to say, no one else used to clean over there because we all knew that it wouldn't be cleaned good enough and he would just go back and reclean behind us. So since he's passed away, no one's given the house a good cleaning. So we went to my Grandma's today and cleaned the shit out of that house! We took the blinds down, polished the baseboards, cleaned the picture frames, and then of course all the normal bathrooms and vacuuming and all that good stuff. So that's how I spent my day.

Now Megan calls me in the middle of all this to tell me that she just jumped out of a plane!!! I knew she planned on going sky diving soon, but I had no idea it was today! And thank God I didn't because I would've been worrying all morning! The only peace of mind that I had was that she was strapped to an instructor who knew when to pull the parachute. She said that she had a blast doing it and that it was amazing. I'm sure it was quite thrilling and I'm really glad she did it, because if she didn't do it then she would've never done it. I'm sure as hell not doing that! lol...I'm a big wimp when it comes to heights...especially plummeting from heights. Now she's going to the Renaissance Festival..yes, the huge one in Texas, and I'm extremely jealous! I love that festival!

In the meantime, I just went and got my coffee so that I can spend the next couple of hours caffeinated and doing some more writing. I was going to take the day off because I really didn't feel like writing, but then I made a really cool mix cd with some great music and it got me thinking creative and now I have ideas. Music does that sometimes.

Update: I finished Chapter 9 of the book tonight and added the whole chapter to my NaNo profile, so if you click on the "novel excerpt" tab of my profile and scroll down past chapters 2 and 5 you can read it (haven't checked it for errors, so sorry if there are some). It's the first chapter I've put on my profile so far that's set in the real world.

Speaking of music, check out this hilarious picture that my sister found. This is right before my 18th birthday. Rockin' the old Pumpkin's Zero shirt and the oh so serious and determined face :p

Not Making The Cut & NaNo Day 9

The Age of Innocence and me really just aren't getting along, so I'm afraid that I'm dumping it and passing it along to the friends of the library. This is the second time I've tried to read it and I couldn't get past page 34. I know so many people love this book, it's just not for me. So, I replaced it with Rebecca for the Classics Challenge so that I can still fulfill my requirements for that one. I've also made the decision to pull out of the Pulitzer Project. I think my ambitions were a little too lofty when I signed up for that one. It's just too big of a commitment for me and I hate leaving things wide open. That one doesn't have a time frame, which means that I would NEVER complete it...I need deadlines! And I would probably run into the same problem with many of the other books as I did with The Age of Innocence. So I accepted that it was not for me and I'm feeling relieved. There are still plenty of Pulitzer winners that I'd like to read and I still will...just not all of them.

In yesterday's post, Dark Orpheus said that she was curious as to what the line of dialogue was that led me to discover what the ending of my NaNoWriMo book will be. So I went back and read it and saw that it was actually internal dialogue and vague enough that it wouldn't give away the central plot, so I'd share. The character who speaks (or thinks) the line doesn't even know what's going on. So here it is:

“You’re not gonna find him,” he thought. “You’re not gonna find him until they’re ready to give him back.”

Ooh...mysterious..psht...whatever, I still don't know exactly where this thing is going! I didn't get much writing done at all today. I had to get to 15,003 words and I got to 15,067 or something like that. So at least I met my goal, but it's only about 500 words more than yesterday. I just wasn't feeling up to writing today. Hopefully tomorrow's better. It's hard to write during the weekend. I've been writing at work, so I associate writing this book with being at work. So now when I'm home for the weekend I feel like it should be a break from everything. But since I'm a state employee now, I have a 3 day weekend for Veteran's Day, so I would have a whole lot of catching up to do if I took the whole weekend off. So I have to force myself to write!

But now I'm going to go enjoy the start of my weekend. I've traded The Age of Innocence for David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day which I'm loving so far. I love David Sedaris. He's hilarious, but writes genius social commentary at the same time. This is my second book of his being read for the Seconds Challenge! Go figure. Hope everyone else has a great weekend as well!

Trying To Stay With It & NaNo Day er...8

Do you ever pick up a book and just want to put it back on the shelf so bad or just give it away but feel guilty for not reading it? That's how I am with The Age of Innocence right now. This is the second time I've tried to read this one and this book is so not my thing. I'm on my third day of reading it and I'm only 28 pages into it and it's been 28 pages of real effort, let me tell you. Normally, I'd just call it a "did not finish" and give it away to someone, but I feel like I have to see this one out. Someone tell me it gets better...please.

The reason I feel like I have to read this one is two fold. Number 1, it's for the classics challenge. Now I just read Rebecca, so I could substitute that one for this one, but it's also (number 2) for The Pulitzer Project and that would just drive me crazy if I read all of the Pulitzer winners and then didn't finish just this one. So I'm going to have to read it eventually to complete the Pulitzer list so I might as well finish it now, right?

These high society books are just not my thing. There are just too many names and too many families and no action at all. They go to an opera, they have dinner, they have a party. Mr. so and so talks to Mrs. so and so who's daughter is betrothed to Mrs. so and so's son...you know how it goes. And the funny thing is, I enjoy the period piece films and mini-series that the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre produce, but I can't get into this type of literature for some reason. It just doesn't hold my interest. Who knows. I know lots of people love this book, so maybe if I get further than page 30 I'll start enjoying it.

On the NaNo front, today was excellent! I had a rush of ideas and exceeded the word goal of the day which was somewhere in the 13,000 range and went up to 14,497 words. Then the coolest thing happened. As I was writing dialogue for one of my characters, this one line came out of his mouth and I suddenly knew the ending of my book! Until he said what he said, I had no idea where I was going with this story. Now I do. And I jotted it all down with all of the twists and turns of where I want it to go so that I don't forget any of it. Now I just have to figure out how to get this story to that point. That's the next challenge.

Tomorrow's Friday, yay!

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier & NaNo Day 6

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Rebecca was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year for me so far. I had always thought Rebecca to be a romance novel, mostly due to a horribly misleading cover which I wouldn't look twice at (luckily it's out in a new trade paperback version with a great cover that I picked up which is pictured in this post!). The misleading cover is bright red with "Rebecca" written in gold slanting letters...I'm sure you've seen it. I've always known of Hitchcock's movie, Rebecca, but didn't know that it was a production of Daphne Du Maurier's novel! When I saw that people were reading Rebecca for the RIP Challenge, I put two and two together and came out of the experience with what will most definitely make the top ten list of 2007!

At it's heart, Rebecca is a ghost story, though there is no true ghost in the novel as far as what we traditionally think of as a ghost. It's the story of walking in the shoes of someone that you've never known, of taking over the life of someone you've never known. It's the story of a past that continually haunts the present. The narrator of the novel meets a man by the name of Maxim DeWinter, who's wife, Rebecca, has recently drowned. To make a long story short, the narrator and Maxim marry and she is brought to Manderley, a grand and well-known house where she lives a life in a part of society that she has never known. But she is no Rebecca. She knows nothing of this type of society and she fears that Maxim will never love her like he loved Rebecca. The second Mrs. DeWinter slowly uncovers who Rebecca was and the secrets surrounding her life.

This books was just amazing and took twists and turns that I never suspected. It was just an incredibly classic story and I never wanted it to end. I haven't been so disappointed by reaching a books end in ages. And it wasn't the ending that I was disappointed in, it was just the fact that it had ended. This book reminded me so much of The Thirteenth Tale and The Historian. If you liked the atmosphere of those books, I think you'd enjoy this one. Like those two, this one does a wonderful job of telling it's reader a riveting story. There will definitely be more Daphne Du Maurier in my future!

In other news, I broke the 10,000 word mark today in NaNoWriMo! And a wonderful character emerged. Deslily made a joke in a comment awhile back asking if there was a part for her in my book. So I said, sure, why not?! lol...So she became a queen and was introduced today in Chapter 5 and I really like her character! I've posted the beginning of chapter 5 in my "excerpt" section of my NaNo profile if anyone's interested. It's under the beginning of chapter 2 so just scroll down until you get to chapter 5. You can get to my profile by clicking the NaNo link in my sidebar. Please excuse any typos or grammatical mistakes...I haven't proofread anything! I just copied and pasted. Add me as a friend if you're doing NaNo! I'd love to get a little group of NaNo buddies over there :)

NaNo Day 5 aka The Little Engine That Could

So here's day 5 and I still have ideas! To anyone who thinks that they can't do NaNoWriMo, you can! I promise you, you can! If I can do this, anyone can, trust me. I sat at my computer today knowing that I was behind and knowing that I somehow had to reach 8,335 words today. And sadly I had no plot ideas when I walked into work this morning (yes I'm still writing at work :p). I literally opened my computer and typed a couple of words and thought "uh-oh! No more ideas". And then one hit me and I ran with it and I loved it! I finished the day with 8,482 words and I now have plenty of ideas for where I'm going next with my story.

I am starting to realize that the editing process is going to take quite a long time once I'm done with this puppy. I'm afraid that this is only going to be readable to me in its current form and will most probably make no sense to anyone else in its first draft. I'm going to have to go back and rearrange scenes and add scenes and develop scenes more, but for right now, I'm just going forward as the NaNo team suggests and leaving editing for later. I genuinely like my story though and that's something that I never thought would happen! Yeah, told you, I'm my own worst critic! I really expected crap to come out, but the story is there...it's just hard to get it to come out on paper how it looks in my head sometimes. But we're getting there!

I was so proud of my near 8500 words today and I started clicking on friends' friends' pages and started finding people who have already gone well over the 50,000 word mark! How the hell do you do that?! One girl went over 50K on the first day! She wrote for 24 hours straight on November 1st and blogged each hour on her progress. Kinda like Dewey's read-a-thon. Now that's impressive!

My reading has suffered as a result of NaNo, I'm afraid (I haven't forgotten about you Pat ;) But I'm still reading Rebecca and I'm REALLY enjoying it now with only about 80 pages left. And then I have to tackle this giant pile sitting next to my bed. I have another ARC heading my way too from Carole McDonnell. She's a really sweet woman who's sending me a copy of her book Wind Follower which sounds incredible and has an awesome cover! So look for that review in probably about a month. As for now...back to NaNo...

We Have Some Winners!

The Saints and LSU both take home huge victories this weekend, which put a big smile on my face :) Now, if Manning takes home a victory for the Colts, I'll be one extremely happy camper. But I know there's something else that everyone else is interested in! The three book giveaways ended today and the winners have been chosen, so without further ado, here are the winners!

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card goes to Booklogged!!! Congrats Booklogged! So glad you won this one. I think you'll love it!

American Gods goes to Susan! You're on a roll, huh? ;) Hope you enjoy this one, it's great!

And Scar Night goes to Kailana! This one couldn't have found a better home. I think this one's right up your alley Kailana. Wasn't for me, but I think you may enjoy it!

Send me your snail mail addresses and I'll get them right out to y'all. My email address is chrisa511@gmail.com. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who participated. I really enjoyed reading everyone's favorite books and added a bunch more to my wishlist...like I needed that :p

No NaNo update today which actually puts me behind about 200 words, but I'll catch up tomorrow! Sundays are made for rest anyway...and for football and Family Guy :p

Giving Back *Sticky Post*

***Scroll Down for newer posts

So it seems that the gods are telling me that it's time to give back, time to keep karma balanced. I've won two books lately! The first was Marked by PC and Kristin Cast from Eva and the second was an ARC of Colleen Gleason's new book (not due until February 2008) The Bleeding Dusk! So I'm doing one of my favorite things to do, a book giveaway! But not just one, not just two, but three book giveaways! Here's the scoop:

I went to Borders tonight and picked up very nice trade paperback copies of my two favorite books. I figured it would be fun to share my favorite books with other people. All I ask is that in return you share two of your favorite books with me! That's the rules. In order to be entered for the drawing, tell me two of your favorite books in the comments. You can even write your own post about it if you'd like and post your link in the comments...it'll be fun to share our favorites with each other. I broke this into 3 separate giveaways because I figured some people may have one or two of these books already, so just let me know which titles you want to be entered for. Feel free to enter for all 3!The first book up for grabs is Orson Scott Card's Speaker For the Dead. This book is truly amazing and is my favorite book ever written. It's the sequel to Ender's Game, so you may want to read that one first, but you could read it as a stand alone...it'll work. This book won the Hugo and the Nebula and really defines what a great book is to me. Card created a completely new world with two alien races that co-mingled with the human race. Both alien races have amazing cultures and the traditions of the pequininos or "piggies" is just beautiful. Here's the great thing about Card: This book is sci-fi...definitely classified as sci-fi, but it will appeal to anyone. It's main aesthetic is based in the relationships of the characters and the book is deeply philisophical. This is really a beautiful book and I hope that whoever wins it finds a special place for it like I did!

The second book up for grabs ranks right up there with Speaker for the Dead. It's Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Words can't describe this book. It blew my mind the first time I read it and it still does each time I go back to it. Anyone who reads my blog knows my love for Gaiman. His writing is just wonderful and has a certain dark charm to it. American Gods is just one of those once in a lifetime perfect books where all the cards line up right. It's a modern dark urban fantasy set against the background of the sprawls of America as it becomes a battle ground between the ancient gods and the gods of modern society. And that's to put it VERY simply. Beautiful book.

The last book is definitely NOT a favorite of mine...in fact it's a total opposite, but well...I can't just throw a book away, now can I :p Scar Night... I wanted to like this book so bad. In fact, I've already bought the prequel, Lye Street, from Subterranean Press because of the Dave McKean cover. The premise of this book is really cool. There's a city suspended by chains, angels, heaven, hell, murder, magic...sounds great, right? I just can't get into it! I gave it like 5 nights worth of reading and only got about 140 pages into it. It'll be the first "did not finish" of the year. Amazon reviews are decent though so maybe someone else will like it. Please take it so it's not abandoned! As incentive to take this one, I'm including a little Lisa Snellings-Clark hand bookmark (the ones that come packaged with poppets).

So leave a comment with your two favorite books and let me know which of the three books you want to be entered for! If you don't own any of them, enter for all 3 drawings! Even if you do own it, it may make a great gift...so let the entering begin! Drawing will be next Sunday, November 4th at 12:00 Noon US Central time. Drawings open to everybody anywhere in the world :) Spread the word.

NaNo Day 3 And Last Call

I'm very whiny right now because the NaNoWriMo site is so frickin' slow! And now it's just completely gone down. All I want to do is update my word count :( It's amazing how much you actually strive for that word count by the way once you do this. It's fun to see that little blue bar rise a little bit higher :) I've officially gone up to 6,433 words on my third day. I'm happy with that. I've completed the prologue and 3 chapters so far, so tomorrow should see chapter 4.

For anyone who's considering doing this next year, I have to say...DO IT! It's so much more fun than what I thought it would be and I'm so glad that I stuck with it. I had envisioned this super stressful thing that I would end up dreading every day (and that may indeed happen), but as of now I'm loving this and I find myself craving my own story which is such a neat feeling. It's like my characters and story have taken over and I'm along for the ride. Every day, I sit at my computer thinking "ok, now what the hell am I going to write" and the story just goes. I love it! Now it's not great writing by any means, but the process is fascinating. I'm enjoying it.

I'm also finding where my weaknesses are which is great because I know where I can focus my energies on improving. For instance, I'm HORRIBLE at writing action scenes. I can't write suspense. I just can't do it as hard as I try. Now Bookfool can write suspense! She posted an excerpt on her profile which you can find by clicking on my writing buddies and I was blown away! I wish I could write a scene like that! But it's neat to see where you need improvement and now that I know I'll try to put a little more effort into that area.

In other news, there's only about 12 more hours until the drawing for the 3 books I'm giving away! So here's last call. You have until 12:00 noon Central time on 11/4 to get your comment in if you want to be in the draw for any of the books I'm giving away in the sticky post!

NaNoWriMo Day 2 And Reading Decisions

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo has come and gone for me. I think I'm putting away my typing fingers for the afternoon after reaching 4,071 words today. I'm happy with what I've got done so far, so I'm taking the rest of the night off. 16 pages: a prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 complete...all rough drafts of course...VERY rough! I posted the first part of chapter 2 on my nano profile if anyone's interested, though keep in mind that serious revisions will have to be made!! But revision time is in December, right now we are supposed to just aim at getting 50,000 words typed by November 30th. For some reason the site took out all of the indentations from my paragraphs and the site is way too slow for me to be bothered with going back to fix it, so excuse that. I've put a link to my NaNo profile in my sidebar, so you can follow my progress there if you so desire :)

So on to reading decisions. I've got my reading all mapped out for the month of November and probably the beginning of December. I'll be finishing up the Classics challenge, 2nds challenge, and Four-Legged Friends challenge this month and into next. Here's what November looks like:

-Finish Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
-The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
-Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
-Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
-The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason (yay! I won an ARC :)
-A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
-Watership Down by Richard Adams
-Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo

After that, I devised a system for all of these challenges, lol. Ok, so I wrote down all of the books that I've signed up for to read in 2008 and I've already commited myself to 50 books next year!! I made myself feel better by reminding myself that I didn't sign up for the 888 challenge which would've been a 64 book commitment in itself. So, how on earth would I ever choose which book to read next with 50 books to choose from with all of these challenges?? I went with the obvious answer and put all of the titles in a hat and that's how I'll choose what I'm reading in 2008...I'll pick each book out one at a time from the hat! That way it adds a little excitement to me when it comes to what I get to read next. Ok, it's getting bad, huh?

Now I'll go look forward to a great weekend of football with LSU playing Alabama and the Saints against Jacksonville! Both games should be great!

New Challenges And First Day Of NaNo!

There are a couple of new challenges that are catching my eye out there, so I'm signing up for 2 more! I'm calling 2008 "clean off the the TBR Bookshelf year". So I'm going to go ahead and admit that I've officially lost it by signing up for all these challenges, but it's all in good cause, because I own all of these books. And if I don't succeed in completing all of them, I won't be too hard on myself because at least I got some of the stuff cleared off the shelf.

The first challenge is really cool! It's being hosted by Annie and it's the What's in a Name? Challenge! This one runs all the way from January til December and you pick 1 book from each of the 6 following categories:

1. A Book with a color in it's title: The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
2. A Book with an animal in it's title: Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
3. A Book with a first name in it's title: Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser
4. A Book with a place in it's tile: Baltimore by Mike Mignola (kinda cheating here as Baltimore is actually the name of a character :p)
5. A Book with a weather event in it's title: Storm Front by Jim Butcher
6. A Book with a plant in it's title: Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

The second challenge is Joy's Young Adult Challenge! This one is to read 12 young adult books in 12 months! Sign me up!

1. The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
2. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
3. Tamsin by Peter Beagle
4. Tithe by Holly Black
5. The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
6. The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
7. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
8. Freaks by Annette Curtis Klause
9. The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull
10. Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague by Brandon Mull
11. Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen
12. Marked by PC and Kristin Cast

More exciting challenge news! Bellezza has plans to host a Japanese reading challenge which I'm really excited and in preparation has a month of NaBloPoMo (national blog posting month) posts all about Japanese literature for us. So stay tuned to her blog for more news on that.

Today was my first day of NaNoWriMo and I got 2,039 words written. I did most of this while at work :p So, basically I'm making myself a paid author. Today was fun...it started out sort of stressful, but once I got into my own story it started taking me away and I can see that this will be a fun...but very stressful month! Only 48,000 words to go....oh Jesus....