Dailyish Musings: October 2008 Archives

Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. In November I will attempt to write 50,000 words in thirty days. That will be around work, parenting, and the genetic need for a minimum of eight and half hours sleep a night. So far, with my job, I've managed to write about ten pages every two weeks. Under NaNoWriMo rules I will have to produce about five pages a day. That's without dialog. Dialog creates inordinate amounts of white space. Space without any words. Which is bad.  NaNoWriMo is all about quantity. Quality is burned in effigy and internal editors are chained to the radiator. All that matters is your word count, your friend's word count, and whether your word count is higher.

If I write one word blogs during November, or all my haikus are missing the last line, that is because these words Do Not Count.

So on this day, sometime before November 2008, I, Daisy, do hereby pledge to write long winded paragraphs, abysmal subplots, crappy dialog and ignore plot structure altogether. In regards to character arc, if my finished work has a consistent protagonist, it will be a miracle. May the one with the highest word count win.

Wish me luck!

Kyna attempted to electrocute herself today. I guess since she is six and in first grade we thought we were through the woods in regards to outlets and other such electrical hazards. Obviously we neglected to realize that with this increased maturity also comes the ability to go get a screwdriver from the toolbox, or to pull up a chair so she can climb on the bathroom counter, or even independently make up her mind to change her bathroom light bulbs without adult supervision. Not one of these scenarios had crossed our minds as something to watch out for, and certainly not as a combined endeavor. Yet that is exactly what happened today. Miraculously the screwdriver she chose had a rubber handle. Miraculously she lived. Miraculously neither Chris nor I had to witness the event, instead, when tidying up before bed we noticed that her bathroom lights wouldn't turn on. A flashlight revealed that none of the light bulbs were in the sockets in the lights above the mirror. Further inspection revealed the screwdriver, its metal shaft charred a smoky black.

When presented with the evidence, Kyna crumbled. Apparently there were sparks. And smoke. She had to run to the other bathroom to put a wet cloth over her eyes. I haven't yet decided if that was scary enough for her. Maybe it would have sunk in a bit more if the whole event had been set to a massive parental freak-out, which is what would have happened had I seen what was going down. I'm sure I could have coordinated my screaming with the sparks, like those firework shows set to music, only not quite so melodic.

We watched the VP debate with friends last night, and while waiting for the gory details to unfold, I manged to imbibe a glass too many from my wine bottle. As a consequence I'm moving pretty slow today.  Things like forethought and coherence seem particularly difficult. Luckily ordering pizza and calling it a week take very little of either and I am turning my brain off for the rest of the evening. Maybe I'll even finish off that bottle to make the transition to full vegetable that much smoother.