Zero Words by New Years
Okey dokey. I'm on a roll. I'm done slicing and dicing, and it's a good thing. A few days ago, I said to my dear on-line friend (I hate the word "bloggy") Amy Nathan that if I keep chopping at this rate, I should be down to zero words by New Year's. Maybe as the ball goes down in Times Square (10 - 9 - 8 , etc...) I could be counting down my last ten words. That would give so much more meaning to the New Year! Amy suggested I use this marketing ploy to my advantage, since it would be much cheaper to publish books with no words. Good point. I'll add it to my query.
Birthday Spoiler Alert
Meantime, hubby just left for LA for four days. He hates to travel for work more than I hate him being gone. (Hate. That's such a strong word.) The bad news is, his birthday is Tuesday and we won't be together to celebrate. The good news is he gets back on Thursday, which just happens to be... my birthday! (Yay!) So, dinner is on for my special day. (Presents, unfortunately, are out this year. Hopefully, next year things will turn around for us, and by "us" I mean the world.)
Celebrating t
he Festival of Lights
In case you're wondering, I never got ripped off because my birthday is one week before Christmas. That's because we didn't celebrate Christmas. In my house, birthdays are birthdays, and Chanukah is Chanukah. Besides, you never know when Chanukah will show up. It could be the beginning of December, end of December, or maybe even sometime in the middle. Perhaps even late November. It's very fickle.
Much to my mother's dismay, my modern-day family and I are as far from religious as Sarah Palin is from smart. We do, however, celebrate by turning the lights off, lighting the candles (often on several menorahs - the more candles the more beautiful), and taking turns saying what we're grateful for. Then we sit quietly and watch the candles burn down. It's pretty Zen.
Well, kids, I'd better get back to throwing nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives on my dwindling word count pile. I'm at an interesting juncture where my mc's are at a country club dinner being pursued by rich, attractive members of the opposite sex. I'm dying to see how it turns out!
What are you up to in your WIP (without giving away any trade secrets)? And, how do you celebrate the holidays?
Birthday Spoiler Alert
Meantime, hubby just left for LA for four days. He hates to travel for work more than I hate him being gone. (Hate. That's such a strong word.) The bad news is, his birthday is Tuesday and we won't be together to celebrate. The good news is he gets back on Thursday, which just happens to be... my birthday! (Yay!) So, dinner is on for my special day. (Presents, unfortunately, are out this year. Hopefully, next year things will turn around for us, and by "us" I mean the world.)
Celebrating t
he Festival of LightsIn case you're wondering, I never got ripped off because my birthday is one week before Christmas. That's because we didn't celebrate Christmas. In my house, birthdays are birthdays, and Chanukah is Chanukah. Besides, you never know when Chanukah will show up. It could be the beginning of December, end of December, or maybe even sometime in the middle. Perhaps even late November. It's very fickle.
Much to my mother's dismay, my modern-day family and I are as far from religious as Sarah Palin is from smart. We do, however, celebrate by turning the lights off, lighting the candles (often on several menorahs - the more candles the more beautiful), and taking turns saying what we're grateful for. Then we sit quietly and watch the candles burn down. It's pretty Zen.
Well, kids, I'd better get back to throwing nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives on my dwindling word count pile. I'm at an interesting juncture where my mc's are at a country club dinner being pursued by rich, attractive members of the opposite sex. I'm dying to see how it turns out!
What are you up to in your WIP (without giving away any trade secrets)? And, how do you celebrate the holidays?
10 comments:
I am stuck at 64K, my MC is just about to be thrown for her final loop -- get her freakin' act totally together and come out smelling sweet. Now, if I could only open up my dot doc and write!
We celebrate Hanukkah, Hanukah, Chanukah too. Candles and presents and potato pancakes. What could be bad? We keep it in perspective though, as it's NOT Jewish Christmas. Always hard for people to understand. "Are you going home for Hanukkah" they say. I think, but don't say, "I'm going East because my kids have two flipping weeks off, and we'd go crazy if we stayed in one place. It has nothing to do with Hanukkah." But I just say, "Uh huh."
Ah, Amy, being politically correct will get you nowhere. (Although, so will being politically incorrect. Just ask Sarah Palin.)
64k? Good for you! I've only got 25k to go to catch up.
Oh yeah, and Happy Chanukah. (Or Hanukkah, or Hanukah. Whatever.) May the candles from the Festival of Lights shine a light of beauty, health, happiness and good cheer to you and your family.
Thanks for the cake honey!! Will miss you. Be prepared for me to drink a few beers when I return. I love you!!
Aw, Happy Birthday to Chuck! My youngest is celebrating her 7th on Friday, and I'm a December baby (the 31st) too.
Happy Birthday you two......are as Thich Nhat Hahn would say...Happy Manifestation Day!
Sorry we won't see you friday.
We had a awesome Christmas experience this past Saturday. I had an idea to end our family pollyanna, and instead use that money and effort to help someone truely in need. This turned out to be one of those experiences were it all comes together, like God or some other outside force made it so.
I contacted a couple homeless organizations with the hopes that I could find a family that needed some help, in which we could provide a Christmas treat.
Woouldn't you know...it took work give stuff away, but it was worth it.
Through the help of SafeHome.org, we found a single mother with 3 children in West Philadelphia.
What does Obama say "Help is on the way".
An awesome effort took place, my sister, mom, Joanne's kids, my daughter must have been 20 of us loaded up our SUV's with toy's new and used. baby supplies, diapers, food, etc......it was just inbelievable.
I wish I could write as good as you Deb to desribe what occured.
But it was great. The children of our adopted family were just on a unbelievable high, they were blown away. (2 girls ages 4 and 5)
As all of us stood in this women's apartment (Rashita). It felt so good, and felt right. Man I thought we should have started this 10 years ago.
I love getting stuff....but this was better then all the stuff I have ever got.
So this is my story, of our new Christmas tradition.
Keith H
Chuckie:I will be with you in spirit tomorrow. Beers? You? Who are you and what have you done with my husband?
Wendy: Happy almost birthday to you as well. I'd say we Saggitarians are the best, but you're a Capricorn, so that would be rude. Isn't it nice that the whole planet celebrates your birthday?
Keith: You win the prize for getting out there and making a difference in people's lives. This is something those kids will never forget - the fact that complete strangers can be so wildly kind and generous. I'm proud to know you. Thanks so much for sharing this story, and kudos to you and your whole amazing family!
My wordcount is 120 k. Don't know if I've mentioned that before or not, but my agent is looking at my latest round of revisions, and so far, he hasn't seemed the least bit concerned about length. In fact, he keeps suggesting things that are making it longer.
BPV: I think I'd kill my self before I wrote 120K words in one book. I'm beyond impressed. What is the genre of your book?
Young-adult urban-fantasy.
Sans vampires.
BPV, Thanks for leaving out the vampires. I've never understood that particular obsession. My 16-year old son loves to read YA fantasy. I'm not so sure about the urban part. He's currently reading,"Brisinger" by Christopher Paolini - over 750 pages. Ever heard of it?
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