November 24th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Good Morning! So we made it home with only encountering a few flurries along the way. I actually saw more snow last night driving my youngest daughter to a birthday party then I did driving home from Vermont. I am glad we left when we did though. One of my daughter’s housemates sent her a snap chat of their dorm with a pretty good covering of snow, and another one of him with a pretty good covering of snow.

Sadly, I have come to the realization today I probably will not hit my goal for NaNoWriMo this time. I have only six days left and twelve thousand words to go, and I have no idea how I will be able to do them and prepare for Thanksgiving all at the same time. This does not mean I am giving up. Whatever spare minutes I can sneak, I will spend writing. When the girls are out shopping on Friday, I plan on chaining myself to the chair and writing. Unfortunately on Friday my husband is home as well, so I’m really not sure if I’ll be able to get much work done then either because I’m sure he’ll be pestering me to clean up for the party we’re having on Saturday.

We are having our annual tree trimming party on Saturday. Every year we shoot for the first Saturday of Chanukah to put up our tree, unless Chanukah happens to fall really late. It’s a tradition that started in our family quite by accident well over a decade ago. One of my dearest friends happens to be Jewish, but she loves decorating Christmas trees, so I invited her over for dinner and to decorate our tree. It was a Saturday and it was the second or third night of Chanukah, so since my girlfriend’s family wasn’t around, I thought I would surprise her by making potato pancakes for dinner. She was thrilled. We had a blast and made some good memories.

The following year, purely by chance and not design, the same thing happened. We were putting up our tree during Chanukah, my friend came over again, and I made potato pancakes because it was Chanukah. Now, I believe this is our seventeenth year, the tree trimming party has grown to include friends of various religions and family. I still make potato pancakes, although now it’s ten pounds of potatoes instead of five. We have a blast, and we make more good memories. Oh yeah, and my tree gets decorated.  

Maybe I’ll start setting my alarm for 4:00am for the next three days as well, instead of getting up at 5:00 am. This will give me an extra hour to write, an hour which my husband can’t complain I’m not cleaning. Sorry, for swinging back to this, but I’m still trying to figure out a way to get to my goal. If I say I’m going to do something, then dang it, I will do everything in my power to do it. I can’t stand falling short of a goal.

Don’t get me wrong, Faerie Tale Queen will get finished. I never had any delusion of actually completing the book in a month, because it will take far more than 50K words to finish the story. The question is, whether or not I will be able to hit the 50K goal by November 30^th.

Well, I have forty-five minutes before I need to start getting ready for church, so I had better use every second efficiently and get writing. I hope you have a wonderful day and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

 

“See, I told you I wasn’t lying.” Camie whispered. “It’s right there, just like I said.”

Joey peaked around the bush, “Whoa.  Do you think anyone lives there?”

“I don’t know.” Camie repositioned herself to get a better look. “Do you want to go and find out?”

“What do you want to do? Just go up and knock on the door?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Are you crazy? What if an axe murderer or something lives in there?”

Camie rolled her eyes, “Like an axe murderer would be living there. Now who’s crazy?”

“Well I’m not going anywhere near the place, and neither should you.” Joey insisted. “Come on we should go.” Camie’s eyes widened and she began to rise, but Joey pulled her back down behind the bush, “What are you doing?”

“Look the door is opening and there’s an old woman coming out.” Camie whispered again.

“Who’s there? Timmy, is that you? Timmy, have you come home? Timmy?” The woman called.

“Oh Joey, she sounds so sad.”

Joey moved a branch so he could get a clearer view of the house. “What are you talking about? I don’t see anyone.”

“She’s right there,” Camie pointed, “and she’s calling for someone named Timmy.”

Camie rose, rounded the bush and walked into the clearing. The woman turned and smiled at her. As Camie began walking toward the woman, Joey grabbed her arm and spun her around. “What are you doing?” He hissed.

“I just want to go and talk to her.”

“Dammit Camie, there’s no one there. Let’s go.”

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

This year you are able to go home for Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. When you get there, things feel just a little off…

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

November 19th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Good morning!

I really need to stop reading Facebook first thing in the morning. More times than not, I stumble on a post which manages to aggravate me, and that is not the way I want to start my day.

Today I saw a post from a young person who I have known practically their entire life and I just wanted to reach through my computer screen and smack them and tell them to get their head out of their butt. (Yes, I know in proper English I should have used “he” or “she”, but I wanted the comment to remain as ambiguous as possible.) First off, what they did was so incredibly stupid and second, it was even more stupid to post about it. I just wanted to scream! Okay, I’m done ranting, even if I’m not done seething.

By this time on Friday, I will be on Route 87 a couple of hundred miles into New York State, on my way to pick up my daughter. Can you tell I’m getting excited already? She called yesterday, and she is equally as excited to come home as we are to have her home. She will be home for eight days, and almost every minute of the poor girl’s time will be accounted for; come Sunday the 1^st, she’ll be more than ready to return to school.

Since I caught up on NaNoWriMo a few days ago, I have managed to stay pretty much on track. Yesterday’s milestone was 30K and I only missed it by a few words. I think I can handle a few dozen extra words added to today’s writing. My main concern is the limited time I’ll have to write all weekend.

Friday I’ll be traveling, but I am bringing my computer with me this time so I can write while my daughter’s in class on Friday. Saturday morning we are leaving her school bright and early for our trip home, and then when we get home we are having dinner at Grandma’s. Sunday is church, and then after church we are going to my son’s house to watch the Cowboys vs. Giants game, so Sunday is completely shot. I am going to be hard pressed to even get my blog out on Saturday and Sunday, let alone spend any time on Faerie Tale Queen, and I seriously doubt I will have a blog post at all on Friday.

While I’m on the subject, there probably won’t be any writing challenges over the weekend either. I know they are only ten minutes long, but coming up with them takes considerably more time than I can afford those three days. This will be the first time since I started the blog where there may be three days without a challenge, but I am not going to feel guilty. If you look at other blogs where they do writing challenges, they usually only post one challenge a week. There are some that only post challenges once a month. You would have a hard time trying to find another blog that does almost daily challenges like mine does.

So, to my non-Facebook audience, did you see my last installment of Faerie Tale Queen yesterday? Since NaNoWriMo began, every even day, I have posted a chapter of Faerie Tale Queen. Yesterday’s post was supposed to be Chapter Eight, but when I posted chapter eight, I noticed it was one of the really short chapters, so as a bonus, I posted Chapter Nine as well.

I am still waiting for you to chime in with comments as to if you are enjoying the story, which errors you are finding, and most of all, if you think I should change the lead male character’s name. If I go on much longer, I am going to get attached to Caleb and then no other name will feel right, so time is running out. Speak now or forever hold you peace.

Just a reminder, there are only a few day’s left for you to enter Heidi Angell’s contest on my blog. Also, something I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded about, but I am going to anyway; the holidays are rapidly approaching. The first night of Chanukah is a week from tomorrow and Christmas is only 36 days away. As a suggestion, books make a wonderful gift for either holiday. They even make great Secret Santa gifts.

On my website under the “LINKS” tab, I have several direct links to some Indie books as well as to my own books. There are a few romance novels, some straight fiction, a horror novel and a couple of mysteries which might interest you or someone on your list.

Since time has been at a premium lately, I have not been able to spend any of it on my website, so I have not had the chance to add the following book. If you want a fun, silly, gift for someone, you may want to consider the newly released Tickle Me Funny by John Sweeney Jr. The book is so new, it won’t even be on Amazon.com for another few days, but you can get your copy now by clicking on the title if you’d like. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, there are some spots where it is “udderly” ridiculous. If George Carlin was still alive, the book would make him chuckle. I’m thinking it may be a good stocking stuffers for my son and husband.

Off to Ireland… I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge:

 

You find yourself in a Groundhog Day loop…

 

(For those of you who might not know, Groundhog Day was a movie from 1993 Starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. In the movie, Murray plays Phil Connors, a weatherman – and a bit of a jerk – who is unhappy he has to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, and he gets sucked into a time loop. He has to keep repeating the day until he gets it right.)

 

One more tick mark on the calendar, one more entry in my journal. Today was the 353^rd April Fool’s Day in a row. Two more weeks and I will have been stuck in this loop for an entire year.

One way I could look at it is, technically, today is my 400^th birthday, because this is my 401^st April Fool’s Day, but even that thought isn’t cheering me up. Birthdays tend to become a little mundane after you’ve celebrated so many.

After the first two weeks in this loop, I became tired of celebrating my birthday every day and started to try and find my way out. I alternated as many things as I could think of, different cake, different gifts, not asking for gifts, different venue, refusing a party all together. Nothing worked. I’d go to bed at night and when I woke up the next morning, it was my birthday all over again.

Since I wasn’t having any luck breaking the cycle, I spent the next ten April Fool’s Days trying to figure out how I ended up in the loop in the first place. I retraced my steps, mimicked everything, down to the last minute detail, of the first April Fool’s Day, but to no avail. I had no clue how I ended up in this mess and no clue how to get out.

Remembering the old movie Groundhog Day, and being the eternal optimist that I am, I took a page out of Phil Connors’ book and decided to spend my time more productively, to better myself. Like Phil, I had always regretted not learning how to play the piano, so, I began lessons at a local shop. I’m no Chopin, but I can now play well enough where I’m happy with my abilities. I have taken the time to read books I had always intended on reading, but never had the time.

I can honestly say, I am a much more rounded person now than I was a year ago. Yet, unlike in the movie where at this point the loop is broken for Phil, I still remain, adding one more tick mark to the calendar, and one more entry in my journal.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

What fictional character would you like to meet in real life and why?

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.