And the Winner is...

   
    Doesn't it feel great to cross a finish line?  Yes it does!  And that is exactly what I have been able to do today in the National Novel Writing Month challenge.
     Thirty days, fifty thousand words, zero excuses.  At least, that's what everyone hopes for.  And I did it!!  [uncontrollable giggle].  It almost makes me want to break out in song and do a happy dance!
     It has truly been an epic journey for me since I have never written anything on this magnitude before (except for my own personal journals, and I'm not sure that counts as the same thing).
     With four days that amounted to zero words written, a sinus infection striking me one week before Thanksgiving, plus the Thanksgiving holiday itself where we had three additional people come join us (one unexpectedly nearly at the last minute) I was starting to be concerned whether I would meet the deadline by midnight November 30th.  As soon as the Thanksgiving holiday was over (which coincided with me feeling better sickness-wise, but wiped out activity-wise) I knew I really had to punch it if I was going to finish on time.
     If I hadn't, the world would not have come to a crashing end.  Life would still have gone on with me plodding on to the conclusion of my novel draft.  But something kept nagging at me to finish it by or before midnight on the 30th.  I guess I just didn't want any left-over writing to still be hanging around so that I could let the novel marinate for two or three weeks before starting the editing process.
     Whew!
     Glad I'll be able to put the inner editor to work next month.  She'll be happy to finally get her hands on the first draft with her handy-dandy red ink pen and start the job she's been so anxiously waiting for.
   
   

The Month I Write With Literary Abandon

   
November is National Novel Writing Month and I am right in the thick of it!
     Thirty days and fifty thousand words later, (beginning on November 1st and ending November 30th) I should have a completed first draft of a novel. That is the whole idea behind National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  This year I decided to become a participant and so far I am enjoying the journey.  As of the writing of this post, I have a total of 18,340 words written and backed up on a thumb drive and printed out.  I cringe to think of trying to recreate what I have written if, by some catastrophic reason, I lost part, most, or [gasp] all of the material I've produced so far.
     Another part of the NaNoWriMo challenge is to write with no thought to editing.  Just write, write, write. All the editing one will require is to be looked to after November has ended.  As I write this blog post, I am indulging my inner editor because in a few minutes, she is going to be put away again until December!
     So, write on, WriMos, wherever you are.  Write on.  Write with complete literary abandon.  Write knowing you can erase, change, throw out, rearrange, correct spelling and grammar, plus a gazillion other things starting in December.  Your inner editor will be too busy to complain.  Here's to the 50,000-word finish line by midnight November 30th.

A Remembrance Day By Any Other Name...

     In the year 1918, in the eleventh month, on the eleventh day, at the eleventh hour, the armistice between the Allies and Germany was signed in France marking the end of the War to End All Wars, also known as World War I.  Although we have continued to endure wars, this day was set aside by many nations for a remembrance of those who fought and fell  in the Great War as well as those who survived to come home.  This day of remembrance has been expanded to include all those individuals who have fought in the wars since then, and may still be fighting.  In the United States the observance, once called Armistice Day, is known as Veteran's Day today.  In countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain, it is known as Remembrance Day.
     No matter what we name the day, let us be sure to take a moment to remember what those poppies we wear on our shirts and lapels stand for, to especially remember all those men who did not come home, to those who served and gave all they had for the cause of freedom and its preservation.  Remember...remember...remember...