They Call Me Anteria...

NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month, Thirty days devoted to writing an entire novel. That's 50,000 words in thirty days.

Here's the break down:
 Sign up at nanowrimo.org
 Declare a project: Title, Cover image, Synopsis
 On November 1st, START WRITING!
 Everyday, check in with your word count.

And that's it. Easy as pie. It's great fun, and good practice for focusing. If you follow any of the nanowrimo boards on twitter there are usually admins running writing sprints, prompts, and other little tidbits to help you get through your writing day.

Read More

I'm taking a few minutes for myself while Lil Miss watches Peg + Cat to write this.
I've written before that I'm happy, much happier than I was before. But there's something that eats away at me.

It's failure. Every time Lil Miss asks for something, I have to tell her no, because we don't have the money. Every time she wants to go to the park, I have to look all over town on the weekends for a park that hasn't been rented out for someone's birthday. But what breaks me in half is when she cries because she has no friends.

We've moved to a new town, again, where we know absolutely no one. Lil Miss's birthday passed a few weeks ago and she had no friends to invite over for a birthday party. She didn't even have  a birthday party, just a cake I made for her and a few presents from us and my in-laws (who do live near us, thank god we're not completely alone). She received gift-cards from others that we used to buy her cold weather clothes, things she needed.

But it's friends she wants. People to play with. Mommy and daddy is all she has right now, and when she plays with her aunt and uncle she breaks down when we have to leave them.

I feel like a failure because I should be doing more for her, but what else can I do? I want to home school her, am trying to, but she wants friends. She did really well in Sunday school the few times my father took her to church with him and his girlfriend. So there's evidence she would do well in a school setting. And she wants to go to school. She doesn't see the schoolwork we do here as school, just something she has to do. The only real way to get her to sit down and pay attention is buy paying her in TV time.

Shows like Peg + Cat, the Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, they all do really well teaching her different situations. Lil Miss lea
rned her whole alphabet from watching PBS, even counting to 100 (the thing I helped there was counting with her when she would ride her bike in circl
es, and that was a game she invented). She can skip count by two's. She asks how to spell words. All of this from TV.

Math is easy for her. Reading, not so much.

Maybe if I put her in school she would do better. Teachers are trained for it better than I am. She wants so much to do things on her own.

Do you see why I feel horrible all the time? I can't give her friends, I didn't put her in a traditional school, she learns more from TV than me. What hell am I even good for in this situation?

I do I help Lil Miss when all she wants is to play?

Read More

Cheese and crackers this past summer has been a process. Neither good nor bad, just...a process. If you haven't guessed from earlier posts, I made some decisions for the better. The goal was to be happier and fix some relationships, and I got so much more than that.

I found out my mama is sick, has been for a while. As much as I wanted to hate her for everything she did to me growing up, I just couldn't do it. We don't know how much longer she has. So I've put everything behind me and stopped being angry with her. I cannot forgive or forget, but I can let it go. I wanted to make sure that she has time with the only grandchild she has. I know she loves her, she would give my Lil Miss her last dollar if she asked (which she probably would). She loves seating at the table and watching Lil Miss cut out strips of paper to build a railroad, or color pictures, or play hide & seek. It makes Mama happy, therefore, it makes me happy.

The most important thing about forging my own path was for my marriage. Sometimes we get so set in our ways we don't see the walls of our homes crumbling down. The roof was gone, the rain pouring in. So I left, and started a new home. I am very happy to say that my husband joined me in this new house. We're still working out problems, but now we're working together, instead of just living in the same house.

And what of the writing career (The whole purpose of this blog!)?

Well, it's getting there. I'm still writing, just not as much. I dedicate three, maybe four, hours a day to nothing but writing. In the morning I'm with Lil Miss and in the evening my husband is home and we spend family time and together time then. Once everyone goes to bed (they have an 8:00 pm bedtime, early work-shifts
), I get to sit alone in the dark at my desk, writing.

I work this way so that I don't take time away from either of them. If I ever sit down to write when they're around nothing ever gets done. Lil Miss wants to play or ask a thousand questions, Hubby needs help finding this or that, asks my opinions on a kitchen island I desperately want (hopefully I'll get it for Christmas, handmade by the hubby), or someone just wants to cuddle.

The writing career is going slowly, but I haven't stopped. As we speak I am on draft 8 (yes EIGHT) of Legacy. Things there are going swimmingly, although I giggle like a little schoolgirl when I get to, eh-hm, certain scenes.
(I just giggled thinking about it. There is definitely something wrong with me.)
Crystallised is coming along even more slowly. I've changed a few things around and now the first draft is half done. My Tutore series is even further away from where I hoped it would be. For the first book I ever actually sat down to write (and never got further than the first chapter) it is definitely taking a lot of time to get to the end of step one.

That's it. That's my life up to to this point. Besides not having internet and keeping me from talking to all you wonderful, I'm content. Happy.

That was the goal for all this.

Read More