zebRRa

RR is going to be 8 years old next month and here she is in
all her striped glory ~ at the SF Zoo yesterday for Boo Zoo Day
and then back in her own backyard as the only zebra (I bet) in
Pumpkinville. Have fun collecting cavities tonight (like I should
talk here) and yes, you are a beauty with or w/o stripes.

In the meantime, we folks in our everyday costumes, are
preparing for NaNoWriMo which begins tomorrow. Also
poking around and cleaning up the house because in one week
I'm hosting my first ever Baby Shower! See the trouble I can
get into when I don't work full-time? More about this later...

occupy desk

I've spent some time preparing for the Month of Writing. The candle
helps me focus because I have a tendency to jump up and do many
other important things when I'm supposed to be writing. Lots of
people listen to music when they write, but that isn't me. I like quiet.

Probably the most important thing that I've done is to cut and paste
all the Ellen droppings into a MS Word doc and to my great and
total amazement I have 8,000 plus words. They are every which
way and lots need to be deleted, but it was a revelation. And what
else? I've been reading about writing and (here's the surprise!)
actually banging out a few words and ideas to keep our reluctant
heroine on the move.

As usual, my productive time is morning and I need to set aside
an hour or two (oh hahahahaha) to make sure this really happens.
Already I've decided that 1,000 words a day is MORE than enough,
and I have learned over the years to forgive myself my failings.
But at least the whole experience so far finds me in a good place.

prep work

OK, yes I could get a head start on the novel, but I'm very busy
reading some of my How To Write books. I read somewhere that
this category of books is one of the top sellers in our country.
Maybe after Ellen fully emerges I'll write my own How To Write
book, in less than 30 days. The center book was published in
2004, and I've held on to it since then, thinking maybe that I
would do this crazy thing one day.

I've been reading on the bus where I've spent a lot of time lately,
working on character study. Lordy, does this city have the
characters. Perhaps you've noticed? A barefoot, yelling woman
chased me down 16th Street and I almost dashed into the
SPCA for safety, but I was afraid I'd emerge with two cats,
so I hid successfully in the bus shelter. Quite the dilemma.

Great news yesterday. I dropped in at the Blood Bank center
on Bush Street and to my amazement my iron count had
mysteriously risen from the 12.5 to 14.3. Of course I donated
and ate a donut (glazed). The Leukemia walk is tomorrow
night, so that felt extra special to me.

Early morning meeting at the deYoung today. Gala museum
store dinner at Beppo's last night.

what kind of fool am I?

November is National Novel Writing Month. I signed up for it
yesterday and committed to 50,000 words by 11/30/11.
That's about 1,600 words a day. That's impossible. Maybe it's all
my Round Robin experience, or maybe it's because I get so
restless when I sit down to write, but my usual output is about
250 (500 tops) words per day. When I'm not too "busy" in the
garden, having lunch or planning my next walk, that is.

So, I drop everything we know about Ellen and start all over again.
She'll still be an aging hippie living in SF and probably the unknown
missing sister Laurel will appear. I will flush out Ellen more and
I'll just keep writing. I even came up with a working title ~
Ellen At Last. (Get the irony?)

NaNoWriMo began back in 1999. I've known quite a few writers
who have done this and I so admire them. For years I've kept
a copy of No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty who conceived
this strange concept. His theory is that most writers need a
deadline and that is what is provided. I need a lot more than that,
so hang on to your hats and prepare to forgive me (and Ellen) if
it doesn't work out exactly as planned. It's the old Nothing
Ventured, Nothing Gained notion operating today.

I still have 14 days of freedom, so I'm walking with my friend
Ginger this morning.