It’s the end of November already - this month has passed by so fast, and I’ve both accomplished a ton of stuff, and not done everything I’ve wanted to do.

NaNoWriMo: I didn’t reach my 50,000 words on the one hand, but my initial goal was never to do that. It was to simply get myself sitting down and writing. So I must say, I’m looking at my official 32,532 words with great pride.

Here’s what I’ve discovered: for me, the biggest obstacle is the first step of sitting down and opening up my writing software. Once I place my fingers on the keys, the magic happens. I’m not sure why I have such a block about sitting down and just doing it, since I really enjoy the process so much. But one step at a time, right?

Starting tomorrow, I will have a new widget thingie on the sidebar, showing my word count for whichever novel I’ll be working on. I wasn’t able to keep going with the NaNoWriMo novel these past few days because of deadlines, and also because it suddenly seemed to me that I had to change the narrative from third person omniscient to first person, but only for the scenes involving the main protagonist. Who also wants a name change, too. (I’m not too sure about that one.)

NaBloPoMo: I was actually on track with blogging every day in November (despite what the dates on the posts tell you - I personally count a day as that period of time before I sleep and wake up to the next day. Blogging software has a more rigid, machine-driven view of “a day”.) And then I went and forgot to post yesterday!

So I very nearly posted every day here. Not too shabby, I think.

Art Every Day Month for November: I couldn’t keep up. Too many deadlines, and I also discovered that the writing took priority. I only did four pieces of work, and only posted three of them because I truly didn’t like the fourth one. I may do this challenge again, but probably not until the new year.

It’s been a good month. Ive still not had the time to check out all my favourite blogs regularly, but hopefully, because the deadlines are lighter in December, I’ll be able to get back to it. It’s one of the most enjoyable things about blogging, I’ve been discovering.

I’m a little blogging goddess today, so many posts! But today’s really been my first chance to get out and about reading everyone’s blogs and visiting links since before that whole deadline crunch thing happened, and I’m telling you - it feels so good!

I was just over at Lynn’s blog, and she’s got a wonderful meme up. It looks like great fun, so here are my one word answers:

1. Where is your cell phone? Here
2. Where is your significant other? Kitchen
3. Your hair color? Black
4. Your mother? Toronto
5. Your father? uncertain
6. Your favorite thing? books
7. Your dream last night? running
8. Your dream/goal? published
9. The room you’re in? office
10. Your hobby? art
11. Your fear? Mice
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Vancouver
13. Where were you last night? Here
14. What you’re not? unhappy
15. One of your wish list items? oceanview
16. Where you grew up? Vancouver
17. The last thing you did? read
18. What are you wearing? Clothes
19. Your T.V.? off
20. Your pet? Cat
21. Your computer? yes
22. Your mood? happy
23. Missing someone? no
24. Your car? outside
25. Something you’re not wearing? glasses
26. Favorite store? books
27. Your Summer? maritimes
28. Love someone? lots
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? now
31. Last time you cried? yesterday

But I have to say, yesterday’s tears were tears of joy. These days, they usually are.

Thanks, Lynn! That was fun!

Playing Ten on Tuesday:

1. Field Center
2. My darling FC group.
3. My darling affiliate goddesses.
4. My kids and how they’re growing and learning
5. My husband the Sensei Chef (ssshhh … don’t tell him I used that term. He really really really doesn’t like it. But it’s true)
6. Eating so many lovely, delicious dishes.
7. Finding my way back to writing.
8. Finding my art again.
9. Finding a contractor and having the renovations start!
10. All the beautiful little glorious moments that make up my days - things like sipping coffee while nestled in the comfy armchair, sunlight splashing over me; hugs from Dylan; talking with Ward into the wee hours of the night; having wonderful, amazing conversations with Hayley and Sean; loving the colour of my manicure, of all things; emails from friends; and many, many more beautiful glorious little moments.

That’s a better word than what I was just thinking two seconds ago.

It’s been a tiring day today, and it occurred to me that the day after some deadline or other is met, finished, can be like that. You feel drained. But those words didn’t feel very good to me.

I like renewal better. I need this day, this bit of time when nothing is required, when nothing needs to be done. I need it to renew myself.

It’s been a good day, despite the tiredness. And it feels good, to have accomplished so much and to be back to a regular schedule.

I had a bazillion and one ideas all the while I was working to various deadlines. I felt motivated to make them all come true, too. But the day after, I don’t want to lift a finger.

Hot bath, glass of wine, and a good book beckons.

Or perhaps I should title this post “Meeting my NaBoPloMo Requirement for the Day”.

Renovations, Not Yet

Seriously, though, I had been planning to blog all about our renovation plans, which were supposed to start tomorrow. I took pictures of the area that will be transformed in the space of the next four weeks, and everything!

But, as is often the case with renovations, I’ve noticed, the project has been postponed. Our contractor hurt his foot last week and it’s not gotten any better. So the start date has been moved to Monday.

On the bright side, it means three more mornings of hanging around in my bathrobe, yawning, lying down on the couch for a quick nap after the kids have left for school …

NaNoWriMo Motivation

One thing that has surprised me is how I’ve been able to keep up with NaNoWriMo. I’ve discovered a wicked little tool that almost physically propels me to open up my novel writing files and start typing every night. It’s that little image that’s on the upper right hand side of this blog right now. Every night I log into Nano and update my word count, and like magic, it’s reflected in that little image.

Astoundingly enough, THAT’S what’s been behind my ability to sit myself down and write those words every night. Kind of an accountability thing.

It’s been working so well that I asked my friend Ann-Kat to suggest a Wordpress plugin that will do roughly the same thing once Nano is up. She’s made a few suggestions, and I’ll go and take a look at what’s available once this week is over and those deadlines have all been met and dealt with. I plan to keep a little widget announcing word count progress on my latest novel at all times on this blog.

Because it really seems to be working for me. And honestly, anything that gets me to write is good, very very good.

The Whole Work Thing

I’m amazed at how calm and stress-free I’ve been during this marathon of deadlines. Today I discovered that a couple of my deadlines for next week have shifted into the future, and so I’m really looking forward to this weekend, when I should be finishing up on the last deadline of the bunch. Just thinking about it makes me feel good.

But glitches do pop up. I just discovered I’m missing a document for one of the deadlines that’s due later this week. It’s something I should have clued into earlier. There was a time when something like this would have thrown me for a loop but I’m taking it in stride. I’m good at what I do, and “stuff happens”. Really. It does. And it’s all no big deal.

So all is well. And that feels good, too.

I finally snagged the Halloween pictures from Ward’s camera - not that we had very many! This Halloween told the tale of a little boy reluctant to actually wear his costume. We pleaded and we begged, and he finally consented to wear his cape and witch’s hat. Here he is, sans wand and not looking very costume-y:

As soon as we finished taking pictures, he took the cape off. He liked the hat, though.

It was a gorgeous, warm night. We got out, and Dylan marvelled at our lit pumpkin. We started walking, and he was very interested in each house we went to. But after we hit five houses, he said, “I want to go to three more houses, and then I want to go home.”

He is a little boy who has very firm opinions. After we went to the sixth house, he said, “Now we’re going to go to two more houses, and then we’re going to go home.”

And then: “Now we’ll go to one more house, and then we go home.”

And finally: “Okay, let’s go home now.”

But he did have a good time. And he remembered to say “thank you” every time. Plus he really enjoyed ringing the doorbells.

No, definitely not.

I’m just writing because I’m in need of a good dollop of fun right now.

It’s been incredibly busy around here - I’ve got deadlines coming out of my ears. I took a look at my schedule and realized I’m going to actually have to complete quite a few deadlines ahead of time if I’m going to stay sane over the next few weeks. I’m very good at procrastination, so this is a totally different direction for me.

The great news is that this year it looks like my “heavy crunch” time when it comes to work is happening in November, and not in December, which means I’ll have lots of time to really get into the holiday season. Christmas is my favorite holiday - I’m one of those smiley uplifted chirpy people who adores Christmas and am all set to plunge into the spirit around mid-November (it would be earlier but like I said, the deadlines are coming fast and heavy over the next two weeks!).

I finished up a couple of deadlines yesterday, and as you can tell, I didn’t procrastinate (no blog posts for two days, see?). But after all that single-minded focus - not to mention one of my projects involved linear algebra, something about which I know absolutely nothing (still), although it did have the effect of numbing my brain somewhat - I am in huge need of other things right now. Fun things. Anything other than work.

I’m promising myself the fun of writing this post before I plunge into the next project.

Reading

Now that I think about it, maybe my focus hasn’t been that single-minded. I did, after all, manage to start and finish The Mysterious Benedict Society yesterday morning.

It was another, much-needed, distraction. After I finished reading, I felt energized and renewed, and actually plunged back into my work easily and almost happily.

Not to mention, it was such a fabulous read. It was the kind of book I would have devoured as a kid (who am I kidding? It’s the kind of book I devour now, too!). Such a wonderfully fantastic adventure, with characters you can fall in love with, a nice strong plot that holds firm to the very end and a victorious resolution that ties up all those loose ends.

I’ve got the sequel on my to-buy list.

Halloween

Halloween has crept up on us. For the longest time, it felt like it was ages away. This morning we realized - hey! it’s Halloween tonight!

Dylan has changed his mind several times about his costume. He was going to be a train engineer (we bought the hat at Aberfoyle Junction)). Then he wanted to be a witch. Followed quickly by: a fairy, a pumpkin, a fire fighter, a fire engine. This morning (yes, we do like to leave things late) he decided, finally, on a witch again.

Luckily, since Hayley has been amassing props for her film-making for years, we already have a witch’s hat (every year we hit the after-Halloween sales to stock up on props, which get wrapped into a nice big prop bundle for Hayley at Christmas). And last year we bought a cape for Dylan (which he didn’t wear, because he ended up being a pumpkin). So we don’t have to go to the costume store and dig through all the left-over stuff!

(I love good news like that.)

Taking Dylan out trick-or-treating will be another much-needed distraction today. I’m looking forward to it very much.

Writing

Despite all the deadlines, I’m still trying to keep one part of my brain focused on writing. It’s pretty easy, actually. Every night before I fall asleep, I come up with a new scene or character for the novel that I’m going to write during NaNoWriMo.

I’m also jotting down all the scenes I plan on writing onto Post-it notes, which I will then be able to re-arrange to my heart’s content. I’ve also been developing a character mindmap form that I’m hoping will hold the most important information at a glance.

I really intend to get this novel written during November, deadlines or no deadlines.

The Big Draw

Dylan and I worked on another drawing together the day before yesterday (another much-needed distraction from work!). This was done, again, in our humungous sketch book (seriously, this book is something like 18 inches by 12 inches, I think), using our new gel pens. We decided to create a birthday party:

Birthday party. Gel pens.

Yesterday, Dylan drew an incredible drawing. He used Ed Emberley’s Make a World Book to jumpstart his imagination, and created an imaginary bedroom in which he gets to share a bunk bed with his big brother Sean (that’s Dylan in the lower bunk). In case you’re wondering, there’s coffee in the hot cup (Sean’s 17 and marked this very important year by becoming a member of the coffee-drinking population of the world), juice (for Dylan) in the other cup, and the plate holds gingerbread cookies.

Bedroom. Crayola markers.

Ed Emberley’s Make a World book is a fantastic drawing book for kids, by the way. When I was little, I used to borrow this book from the library all the time. I remember my delight when I managed to lay my hands on a large piece of poster board - I went wild and truly created a world. Dylan has loads of fun with this book, although it’s actually been a while since he’s used it, since he usually prefers to draw “from my imagination, Mommy”.

Blogging

Traditionally, at this time of the year when I’m at my busiest and going crazy with deadlines, I start seriously blogging. No, really, I do. So lately I’ve been thinking about reviving a spiritual blog I have, and I also decided to start a book review blog, because now that I’ve discovered the power of reading to ignite my urge to write, I intend to keep reading fiction all the time, even when it feels like I don’t have much time. I’ve gotten as far as purchasing a new domain name for it. If I get seriously bogged down in deadlines, I’ll probably have it up and running over the weekend.

(Before I discovered blogging, I would procrastinate by cleaning the house and doing laundry before Ward could get to it. He’d come home, look around, and say, “you’ve got a deadline, don’t you?”. I consider blogging a huge improvement on the whole house-cleaning-urge thing - it’s definitely a much nicer and far more fun procrastination tool.)

I think I proved to myself yesterday that reading what I love to read is beneficial even when I’m bogged down with deadlines. So time (or lack of) is no longer a detriment. If I make reading a priority, my writing will become a priority too. Which has nothing to do with blogging, I know. But everything to do with procrastination. Or rather, distractions.

That’s how my mind works.

Now, back to work. Because I feel refreshed again, after dipping in here. Which is such a wonderful thing.

It’s a rainy Saturday morning here, which I rather like - it reminds me of Vancouver, where I grew up. I’m used to misty rainy gray days, where every moment contains a hint of dusk. To me, dusk is such a magical time, when I have a chance to just sit and enjoy it.

Decluttering … or Freeing Up Energy

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon cleaning my office. I work from home, and it was getting seriously painful looking at the stacks and stacks of books, papers and courier packages sitting on every available surface, plus portions of the floor. I somehow found room in my office bookshelves for the latest batches of books that I’ve bought recently. I also created a To Be Read corner, which helped a lot!

I stumbled on five filled notebooks - my Morning Pages from quite a few years back. It’s been a couple of years now since I’ve been doing Morning Pages, but back when I did them, I was very good about not reading them over. These scribblings definitely aren’t meant to be read over! So I had a good time tearing out all the pages, and then shredding them, although only half the pages are shredded - I burnt out the shredder! It’s fine today, and I’ll probably resume my shredding later on today.

So now I’m sitting here, at my clean desk, feeling very uncluttered. It’s remarkable how refreshing decluttering can be.

Immediately after I did my clean-up, I felt rejuvenated, as if I’d freed up some energy that had been trapped (as I’m sure it was). And I was able to write the final update on our Thanksgiving dinner at our food blog (considering our Thanksgiving here in Canada was last weekend, I definitely procrastinated on this one!): Our Bon Appetit 2008 Thanksgiving Dinner.

In addition to freeing up energy, it also felt like I’d freed up time, as well. I was able to start reading Kelly Rae’s Taking Flight, which I’ve had for a couple of weeks now. I’m not destined to really get into this book just yet, though: I put it down somewhere last night just before putting Dylan to bed, and I can’t find it anywhere now!

The rest of the evening was spent watching Die Hard (the first one) with Ward and my son Sean. Sean’s doing his individual study unit on Die Hard for his Film Studies class (all I can say is, I definitely would have enjoyed Film Studies in high school, if it had been offered!). Ward threw together some lovely appetizers for the movie, including a Tilapia Po’Boy that was just amazing, and some seared rare beef slices.

All in all, yesterday was a Very Good Day.

The Big Draw

Looking back on this week, I see that I’m behind on a few things - mainly: blogging here daily, and the Big Draw. Dylan, of course, has been far more diligent than I have been when it comes to drawing daily. He always seems to have his markers out and about, and even with days filled with games, computer time, reading, trains, playing, jumping in the leaves, eating his favorite foods, library time, clay time - he still has time to draw. He truly is an artist.

Car and Driver. Crayola markers.

Valentine Heart for Mommy. Crayola markers.

Boat. Crayola markers.

Mail. Crayola marker.

On Inspiration

I’ve been discovering something about myself (self-discoveries are always so wonderful, and it’s just amazing how there’s always more and more to discover, no matter how old you are).

Inspiration ebbs and flows for me. I recently was talking with some dear friends about this, and bringing a great deal of self-judgment into this discovery. They each nudged me back into alignment, an acceptance of all of who I am. So today, I’m at peace with the ebb and flow of inspiration in my life, and can now truly see that the down time of withdrawal is something as precious as the passionate flow of inspiration on fire.

Which, by the way, is one reason why my blogging here ebbs and flows, too!

Writing

I’ve been in prep mode for NaNoWriMo, which is coming up very soon. Since I signed up, I’ve decided on the idea that I’ll be turning into a novel. This was actually looking like quite a tough decision, as I have several gems on hand, some of which I’ve carried with me and developed for years. But interestingly enough, choosing the idea was easy. I discovered there was one idea I have, for a mainstream mystery, that just kept nagging at me. Basically, it was jumping up and down saying “pick me! pick me!”. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

So this past week, I’ve been playing around with my characters. I’ve created various mindmaps for my major characters, and I’m currently reading James Frey’s How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, which is both funny and has some good tips. I will likely begin writing my character profiles this week, and by November 1 I should be good to go for NaNoWriMo.

Bliss

This coming week, my intention is to live blissfully, in the midst of the seeming chaos of life, family and deadlines.

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in Canada, and our house has been smelling so good all day, with that lovely scent of roast turkey. The only problem? We had salmon for dinner! Not that the salmon was a problem - it was delicious - but my taste buds were hankering for turkey (but ask me next Tuesday and you’ll probably get a different answer).

The reason the house smelled so good today was because my husband has decided to cook a full-blown Thanksgiving meal this Monday with recipes from the Nov 2008 issue of Bon Appetit. Several of the recipes can be made ahead of time, and since we’re going to my sister’s tomorrow for a family Thanksgiving dinner, he figured he’d do most of it today so all that will be left to do on Monday is roasting the turkey and whatever needs finishing. You can see our Thanksgiving menu here. The wonderful roasted turkey smell was from the turkey wings roasting in the oven in preparation for the gravy!

Since Daddy was busy in the kitchen, Dylan and I spent much of the day together doing artsy and crafty things, including our Day 11 drawings, and playing games.

Dylan’s Day 11 Drawing

This is what I love about my little boy: he loves to draw hearts and butterflies and flowers as much as he loves to draw trains and cars.

Butterfly. Crayola marker.

Belle’s Day 11 Drawing

I messed up the jawline - I find the actual shape of a face to be more challenging than any of the individual components, which is kind of strange. But true. If I could draw from imagination this lovely lady would be sporting a funky scarf or something equally camouflaging, but I need to have the actual thing in front of me so I just decided to be happy with the mussed up jawline!

Face. Pen.

Things I’ve Learned This Week

I’ve been thinking tonight about the things that I’ve learned this week. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Never go shopping for jeans shortly after you get a manicure. Those buttons will get your nails every time.
• Along the same lines, if you’re going to mess around with something like a flower petal craft set the morning after you get a manicure, especially one where the instructions state that the included paints are high quality and therefore might stain, be prepared for certain consequences nail-wise.
• I haven’t let go of self-judgment as much as I thought I had. I committed a social gaffe on an email group I belong to and the embarrassment is lingering on and on - it was all done in a moment of unthinkingness (that’s not a word, is it?) and it’s incredible how hard I have had to work at forgiving myself over it! On the brighter side of things, I do recognize that it’s all about self-judgment (and not about the social gaffe itself), which is a step in the right direction.
• Changing the tendency to make assumptions is a very powerful thing. Making assumptions and jumping to conclusions is now high on my list of habits I no longer want.
• Putting together file folder games can be a very addictive thing.

Every week in which I can say I’ve learned a lot always qualifies as a good week …

I just came across a post at Creative Construction about a new film called Who Does She Think She Is? It’s about creative women and motherhood, and the choices that most mothers have, at one time or another, felt the pressure to make.

The film opens on October 17 - you can check out the screenings at Who Does She Think She Is? to see if it will be showing at a location near you. I had a little bit of trouble scrolling through the listings, but I don’t think there was a Canadian location listed. You can preorder the DVD, though, from the site.

Here’s the trailer:

This definitely looks like an interesting film to see.

Somewhere along the way, making yourself a priority has become, for many women, a sign of “selfishness”. My experience? When I care enough about myself to make “me” a priority, my happiness is reflected in the world around me - my husband, my children, my family and friends mirror the joy that I feel.

Sometimes, I look at my daughter, who’s 14, and I ask myself, Do I want her to grow up thinking her lot in life is to sacrifice her own needs and desires for those of others around her? The answer is always a very clear and resounding, “No, absolutely not.”

And I love who I am enough to have the same clear answer for myself.