Oops

O is for Oops

I generally fall over fresh air

It's something that I do with flair

Alone or in groups

I usually say 'oops'

As a klutz, I am beyond compare!

This is me!!! *nods* Original Image

Candy Crush

C is for Candy Crush

I hope you will use your discretion

As I make a quite shameful confession:

I admit to a rush

When I play Candy Crush -

It's become my guilty obsession.

Original image

Windows Hate

Those of you that know me know that I have terrible luck with laptops. I think I've gone through... 5? maybe 6? ... in the last seven years. I don't know what it is when it comes to me and technology, but we just don't mesh. It's not like I treat my laptop like dirt. I mean, I don't knock it about or anything... and though I admit to A LOT of use (a good six hours on a 'good' day), I don't really download anything, or ask my laptop to do more than allow me to use Word and a couple of social media sites.

Nevertheless, I seem to average one laptop a year when it comes to killing them. I'm a murderer of laptops. Maybe I shouldn't be called the Princess of Procrastination, but The Laptop Murderer instead.

After the Tipped Coke Incident

Anywho, I am currently on my latest new laptop. It should be noted that I had this laptop over two months ago, but it is only now that I'm actually using it. Laptop number 5 (or 6, or whatever it was) lost the will to live back in the summer last year. Probably because I accidentally tipped a glass of diet coke all over it. *shifty* (This is the only laptop that I will take full responsibility over for killing -  tipped drink = My Own Fault -  all the other laptop deaths I refuse to accept responsibility for without the presence of my lawyer). I think I've actually been scared to use it just in case I send another laptop to Technological Heaven.

Anyway anyway... now I have a decent laptop. Again. Now I also have a full working keyboard (which honestly, is a bit of a novelty to me seeing as between all the laptop deaths and malfunctions over the last few years, most of the time I've had to make do with a keyboard that has half the letters either missing, or just plain not working).

So far, so good. The problem is now I also have Windows 8. And I hate it, which explains the title of today's post. Incidentally, I wanted to make up my own word combining 'hate' with 'eight', but all that I got was 'height', which didn't sound like 'hate' at all. *digressing*

Anyway...

Windows 8. Why do people mess with things that are working absolutely fine just the way they are? Okay, I realise that technology is always being updated to make things better, but Windows 7 was just fine and dandy as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure that other people think that Windows 8 is the best thing since sliced bread, but personally I don't. I think it sucks. Granted, I don't have a technical brain, so I'm probably not grasping all of the wonderful new things that Windows 8 allows you to do. But still, for my needs, Windows 8 sucks.

I dread to think how long it will be before I can use this laptop with as much ease as I did the older one, but it won't be any time soon. I've never had this much trouble when using a new laptop in the past. Nothing - NOTHING - works the same. I need to keep asking the hubby how to do the most basic of things. And I do mean basic. Like, you know, switching the laptop on, and shutting it down. *shifty once more*

Where's the start menu?? *cries*

And when I hover my mouse too near the right hand side of the screen, strange icons appear from nowhere. I clicked on one by mistake last night and I have NO idea where it took me. And, as hubby wasn't around, it took me ten minutes to figure out how to close the damn thing.

Where's the trusty 'close' icon in the top right hand corner? *cries again*

And the desktop keeps hiding from me. *glares at laptop*

As for downloading... I downloaded the free Kindle app this morning, and before I could download it, I was forced into creating a Microsoft account. WHY?? I never had to have one before.

Ugh.

So yeah, I hate Windows 8. On the bright side, I LOVE being able to type properly again! *silver lining*

Awaiting The Third.

I'm sure a lot of you will remember when I limericked last week about my kitty. Poor, sweet little Angel who had been subjected to a visit to the vet to be spayed. She's still recovering well, although with another six days before the stitches can come out (thus another six days of wearing the torture tool that is The Cone Collar), she is still somewhat disorientated.

Altogether now; one, two, three... Ahhhhhh!

You may also remember when I limericked the week prior to that about my infamous Tara-Trips (I'm pretty sure you may know where this is going. *snort*) You know, those silly things that I find myself tripping over from time to time. Like fresh air, for example.

Anywho, on Monday, dear, sweet little Angel, who has been going slightly doolally in the last week owing to her head-wear, decided that a scamper through the kitchen might be a nice idea. Perhaps a frolic by food dish, or maybe a playful swatting of a dishcloth seemed to be the order of the day. All well and good, but when she timed her scurry-by to fit neatly with the time I was poised to empty the mop bucket, then things didn't quite go to plan. Several curses and desperate grasping motions did little to stop the bucket from slipping from my hands and upending all over the floor. *mutters darkly* I managed to rescue my flooded kitchen, but I'm pretty sure my tiles - which are only meant to be cleaned using a damp mop (and not a bucket full of hot soapy water) - will never be the same again.

Honestly, I love my baby to bits, but I'm pretty sure I glared at her. And cursed. A lot.

Despite the dirty look and foul language, Little Miss I Shouldn't Be Called Angel did not learn her lesson. Last night she decided once again that a sprint through the kitchen was the absolute only thing in the world that she wanted to do.

Yup, Trip #2 coming up.

I'm pleased to report that I was nowhere near the mop bucket (though if I had been it would have been fine seeing as it was empty). Unfortunately, I'm not so pleased to report that I was in the middle of ironing. In my surprise of almost being knocked from my feet by a Very Fast Pussy, I inadvertently ended up ironing the inside of my arm rather than my son's school shirt. I'm not sure how clear the picture is (my phone has a poor camera), but you should be able to make out the lovely burn that I have. Isn't it fetching?

With another six days before the collar comes off, hence another six days of extra frantic scampering, I am dreading what the third trip will be, because me being me, there is bound to be another one.

*candles self*

Hmm, perhaps not the best choice of words...

Edit: Ha! I just noticed that Angel managed to get into the picture of my arm. How apt! 

Loopy Laptops

So it's 10pm on Thursday 14th, and I need to get something ready to post automatically for tomorrow (today, whatever) because I'm working an extra shift tomorrow (er, today) and it's an all-dayer. I'm also using a different laptop than normal because  - surprise surprise - my normal laptop is kabuggered. *mutters* I'm sick and ducking tired of having laptop problems... let me recap:

Laptop numero uno, well, this baby actually lasted me a couple of years before it started going loopy. First it was the overheating thingy, which was SO annoying because it would suddenly go off anything up to four or five times a day - and usually when I was in the middle of typing something. Grr. Then the keys went kaput, and we entered the boken keboa period. Ever tried typing without the use of half a keyboard? Not good. Six months or so I struggled before I finally - FINALLY got another laptop. Ok, so it was second hand - being on the breadline kinda stuffs up even the idea of a new laptop - but I paid £100 for it and expected it to last more than a flipping week.

A week?!?!?! Right before last year's NaNoWriMo challenge started, of course, so the timing was what I like to call Tara Timing (in other words ducked up).

It was months before I could even consider another laptop, so I had to use the hubby's computer for the interim (and also my son's computer, which was awkward for many reasons, not least the fact that the PC was in his bedroom, which is in the attic, and I don't like ladders (nor small rooms]). Hubby's comp is linked to the TV - a whopping 42 incher - and the strain of typing with such a huge monitor was awful. I'm a bad typist on the best of days, but my typo rate fairly tripled.

Anyway, back in February this year, we got two shiny new laptops (the joys of contract phones, yay!). Yay! I picked the smaller of the two ( a mere 10 inch screen), so the adjustment from the big screen was strange, but I got to love my little laptop all the same. I have everything set to how I like it, all my bookmarks are there, and it doesn't cause my legs to cramp because it is so light.

You know what's coming, right?

Last month it started switching off several times a day (bugger). It DOES boot back up, but only after resetting the bios thingy about six times (apparently, even though I reset it exactly the same way every time, it only likes it when it's on the sixth reset. Yeah, it's tormenting me, I know it is).

What is it with laptops?? What is it with ME and laptops? I mean, did I do something awful to a machine in a previous life? Maybe it's revenge. I don't know, I just know that I'm bluddy peeved at the whole thing. A simple, easy to use, working laptop. It's not a lot to ask.

I think they make them these days to last six months and that's it, just to make you spend money on repairs or an upgrade. But I don't have the money for repairs or a frigging upgrade, Stupid Laptop Manufacturers!!!

I live in a tiny house, have crappy wages, usually have more money going out than I have coming in, and any money that I DO have to spare on those rare occasions goes on silly things like, you know, clothes for the kids and food for our bellies.

So you see, Stupid Laptop Manufacturers, I would like to get a book finished and PUBLISHED so that I can earn some extra cash. In order for me to do that, not only do I have to curb my procrastinating tendencies, I also need a working laptop!! I was almost too scared to start using the last remaining working laptop in the house ( I now have three gathering dust in the corner, plus the son's computer is naffed too (I think I may have done it, actually *shifty*) in case it blows up or something.

I think they're allergic to me. Or me to them.

Anyway, I have three words to say to those Stupid Laptop Manufacturers, who, despite the alleged allergy problems, I'm holding responsible for my laptop woes:

Sort it out!!!!

PS - Blogger is being a pain again with the commenting section, so the same thing goes to you, Mr. Blogger - sort it out!

(Oh, in case you thought I'd steered away from the blogging challenge, this was Tami's final suggestion - a good old-fashioned rant *nods and pokes out tongue at Stupid Laptop Mnufacturers*).

A Procrastinator's Plan

Tami is being very sneaksy with the suggestion for today's topic, because she just knows how terrible I am for not sticking to a plan and getting stuff done. I think she's definitely giving me a massive kick up the butt - which I direly need, no question - and forcing me to commit myself to a workable plan that will enable me to have my book ready to submit sometime in the next century or so. *shifty*

According to Tami ( who I usually listen to because she is a wise Watery Tart without a doubt), putting your plans out there publicly gives you accountability. Normally I would agree with this, but with me being the most lazy of writers, and with 'procrastination' as my middle name, it doesn't always work.

It definitely worked with last year's NaNoWriMo challenge. Announcing my desire to embrace the madness on my new(ish) blog page meant that I needed to keep going if I didn't want to look like a prune. I really shocked myself when I completed it, so heaven knows I probably shocked my nearest and dearest too.

However, announcing a plan of action on my Facebook page several months ago didn't work. My 'Five Month Plan' is way past its deadline, and I haven't completed all of the tasks by a long shot.

So sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. Lets see what happens this time around....

Tara's Plan For Actually Sticking To The Plan That Will Get Her Book Published (otherwise known as Get Your Lazy Butt Into Action).

October 2010

Complete the October blogging challenge. Repeat after me: Writing daily will get you back into the right frame of mind. (Not really book related, but as a motivational tool, highly useful).

November 2010

Enter this year's NaNoWriMo. Okay, so this has nothing to do with editing and polishing my first novel either, but I'm hoping to finish the WriMo as before. With two books under my belt, it would be absolutely disgraceful if I didn't do anything with them, so hopefully this will shame me enough into doing something about it.

December 2010

Bad, bad month for doing anything remotely useful when it comes to writing and/or editing. Christmas sucks up all of my time, but in the unlikely event of finding a few spare hours, I will diligently read through both (*crosses fingers that there will be a second novel*) manuscripts and make some notes on what I like and don't like in readiness for...

January/February 2011

Yikes! 2011??? Anyway, New Year's resolutions will definitely be to work my butt off on editing and polishing Cardiffella primarily, and my goal is to spruce it up and have a readable book to send off to Burrowing buddies by mid February. In the interim, I'll work on my query and synopsis.

March/April 2011

Hopefully I will have gotten feedback from several people by mid March, and this is when I will undertake the final edits and what not in order to have a finished - ! - manuscript to send off to some select publishers that I have in mind.  First queries and sample chapters to be sent off by the end of April at the latest. *glares at self*

May 2011 will arrive at some point (obviously), and I really, really hope that I can get there with everything ticked off on my 'to do' list. Crossed fingers, toes, and anything else that might help would be appreciated, because I have a feeling that I'll need it.

*dies*

Princess of Pickles

Yup, not only am I the Princess of Procrastination, but also the Princess of Pickles (there's that obsession with the letter 'p' again). You see, I'm one of those people who who gets herself into a pickle almost on a daily basis. If there is a problem to be had, I'll have it at some point. If there is a bizarre situation to be in, you can guarantee that I'll be in the vicinity.

Yup, I get myself into some awful scrapes, I really do. Sometimes they're literally scrapes, of the multiple kind. Like when I ran for a bus one day and did my infamous Tara Trip. Not content with falling flat on my face, it had to be while I was on a hill - going downward, obviously. So it was more of a nosedive and a long skid than a trip really, which resulted in the majority of the front of my body being covered in various scrapes and bruises, with lots of lovely grit embedded into my skin in the most unusual of places. Of course, it was summer, so I was wearing thin trousers and a strappy vest top. And of course said vest top got pulled downwards in my slide, er, downwards. So obviously the bus load of passengers who were desperately trying to stifle their giggles at the silly woman who was rolling down the hill also got more than an eyeful of my boobage. And trying to explain to the doctor how I had managed to get an infected nipple isn't my most favourite of memories...

Moving on.

The worst culprit of my many pickles is my urge to take on more than I can handle - this blogging every day for a month thingy being one of those times. I mean, seriously, most days I have trouble stringing two words together coherently, so this commitment to blogging every day was a bit of a silly thing to do. The thing with promising to blog every day is that there's not really time to go over your posts to see if they are ok. When I committed myself to the NaNoWriMo project last year (another pickle-inducing commitment if ever there was one), at least I didn't have to go public with my pages of rambling if I didn't want to. The finished product was a manuscript that had more typos than anything else, and an embarrassing amount of grammatical errors too. But it didn't matter, because I could choose who would be reading it, if, indeed, I decided to share the madness.

Not so with this blogging malarkey. For a start, the pesky posts are dated, so you can't really cheat - a post has to go up every day to 'win' the challenge. I'm sort of cheating slightly and working a day ahead of myself, and some days I need to cobble together two posts and schedule them in order to work around my commitments elsewhere, but as long as something new goes up every day I'm not overly worried.

Of course, not content with committing myself to this little pickle, I've also (mostly) promised to join in the rather larger pickle of this year's NaNoWriMo too. Which just happens to follow on directly after this blogging challenge finishes.

*faints* I'm screwed.

PS - For those of you who were expecting edible pickles, here's an interesting jar you might like...

Thank God for the Weekend!!

Lordy! Lordy lordy lordy! What a week I've had! My aim since I started this blog has always been to blog each and every day. Last month, the NaNoWriMo madness threatened my plans, but I managed to blog almost every day, with only one day falling into the abyss. Great! Wonderful! If I can write a 50,000 word novel and continue to blog at the same time, normal months should be a piece of piss (as we Taffies like to say), right?

Wrong!!!

Let me recap on my week.

Monday

After said NaNo madness was finished (a day early too, did I mention that?), you can probably imagine the state of my house.  Consequently I spent a large portion of my day scrubbing, vacuuming, polishing, and washing laundry. On the plus side, I did manage to blog (even if it was only an excuse to post droolworthy pictures of the lovely, lovely Jensen Ackles). *shifty*

Tuesday

My mother could be called in at any time now for surgery, and as she helps out for a few old ladies, I promised I'd take over while she was in hospital and recuperating. The whole day was spent (once again) scrubbing, vacuuming, polishing and washing laundry. I just made it back in time to pick my daughter up from school, and then I had to stay for the Christmas fete (which was far too early in the month in my opinion). On the plus side, I managed to squeeze in a blog, and I am now also the proud owner of Christmas tree baubles made by my daughter (one of which has a picture of her inside). Nice!

Wednesday

This is where I dipped. Nightmare of a day, Wednesday. I spent all flipping morning at my bank trying to sort out the gigantic mess caused by a faulty cash machine which not only ate my card for no good reason, but insisted on saying that I had received the £200 that I had requested, when in fact I'd received sweet F.A. After several hours of stress, I was informed that I could have a temporary overdraft to cover my needs, as the missing £200 would take around three weeks to go back into my account. *mutters darkly* Of course, I now have to wait for the new card  (which arrived this morning) to become active, which is imperative as I still have a wad of pressies to order online before next Wednesday if I am to have any hope of them arriving in time for Christmas.

On the plus side, I had some nice news from my home site, HPANA. Voting was scarce this year, but regardless of the poor turn out, I was very pleased to discover that I won the Best Short Story of 2009, with my Pages from the Past  fanfic. Yay! A little cheer was nice, but the stress over the card situation sort of stole some of the joy. I was definitely in no mood to ramble, as I had no wish to unleash several paragraphs of venting on my poor, unsuspecting readers.

Thursday

It was quite a nice day, actually. I had two lovely emails from Burrowing buddies Tami and Leanne (and also from another online buddy, Kim), offering critique on my NaNo novel, along with some very encouraging words. *feels all warm and fuzzy*. My sister was visiting for the day, and my step-daughter also came to say hello (and stayed long enough to be Ellied by my daughter for several hours *lights candle for Amy*). My house is tiny, therefore we were jam-packed. By the time the kids were in bed and the visitors had left, it was late. Then hubby watched a film, which meant that by the time I got to the PC, it was way past 11pm and I was flagging. Hence, no blog for the second day in a row Erk.

                                                                   
                                                                       Today

Today I scrubbed, vacuumed, polished and washed laundry again. Only this time I was working very, very fast, and finding all sorts of extra jobs to do too. Why? Because on what was probably the coldest day of the year so far, my fire conked out. Yellow flames, soot residue, possible carbon monoxide etc, etc. I was running around like an idiot in an effort to keep warm. My house is so cold that I can safely say that I would have been warmer if I had stood in the street. Seriously. *shivers* Thankfully, the man from Swalec came and sorted everything out for me, and I now have heat (as well as expert knowledge on his cat, who is just recovering from a thyroid problem apparently).

Anywho, that's been my week. Many ups and downs, with little to no time on the computer. I'm just thankful that this didn't happen last week, or my NaNo would never have been completed. At least, that's what I'm telling myself; you have to find a silver lining somewhere, don't you?

P.S If you have a spare moment, please check out The Burrow. Our 2009 Advent Calender is now live! And it is fabulous, even if I say so myself. *nods*

*is a great big scaredy cat*

I have a dental appointment this morning, and I am practically hyperventilating. I'm petrified of the dentist, always have been.

Well, maybe not always. I was fine when I was younger, but after eighteen months of wearing braces, dentist visits became unbearable. Luckily for me, I have good teeth. On the downside, my gums are not so clever. The amount of movement that went on when my teeth were being straightened left my lower gums prone to what the dentists call 'pockets'. This means that they need a scale and polish more often than most people. Trouble is, each time I have a scale and polish, the 'pockets' get a little deeper.

For the last five or six years I have been unable to have a scale and polish without the aid of several injections to numb the gums. I'm usually fine with needles - I had so many throughout my pregnancies, not to mention the small surgeries I have had, that I'm immune to them. But when it comes to my mouth, no way. I'm sat here cringing as I imagine myself in the dentist's chair in a hour or so. I'll need at least six injections before they start, and each and every one lasts for around ten seconds. OK, that's only a minute of pain, but honestly, I would rather go through childbirth again if I had the option (and my labours were rough).

I know a fear of injections is pretty common, but it still doesn't make me feel any better. I took my seven-year-old last week for a filling, and she was giggling so much that you would have thought she was being tickled. She winced for about two seconds, but when asked, she explained that it was because the dentist had accidentally brushed against a small ulcer. Go figure. My daughter is ten times as brave as me.

I'm such a scaredy cat, that I had to take someone with me when I had to have a wisdom tooth removed a couple of years ago. Seriously. A thirty-something woman needed someone to hold her hand. The dentist (who knows what a wuss I am) suggested I get some Valium prior to the extraction, that's how bad I am.

Anywho, I don't have anyone to hold my hand today, and it's a double whammy. Not only is it my six-monthly scale and polish, but I need a small filling too. I made sure to get two appointments right after each other, that way the injections from the scale and polish will cover me for the filling too. I can just about muster the courage for these visits once every six months, but twice in a week?  There's no way in this world that's ever going to happen.*shudders*

I'll be there in an hour. *cries* But in two hours I'll be home again. *tiny yay* Of course, I'll be drooling for the rest of the day because my jaw will be number than a bum that's been sat on a cold floor for too long. On the plus side, my nervousness has meant that I was up early and have thoroughly cleaned the entire house, and written my blog too. When I get home, I can concentrate on my NaNo stuff. Of course, I'll need to make sure the keyboard stays dry. A combination of scaredy cat tears and dribble from a slack jaw could prove to be a deadly combination....

Friday Freak Out

It's Friday and panic is settling in,

Less than 48 hours till NaNo begins.

I must have been mad to sign up for this deal,

But Sunday's kick-off is frighteningly real.

Who knows how I'll manage to complete this test?

My laptop is broken, not news of the best.

My pen will take over as primary tool,

Bringing back memories of being at school.

50,000 words, not a single one less,

How the hell did I get into this mess?

30 days of writing, of hope for ideas,

Of praying my Writing Mojo appears.

The plot is half formed, the characters almost,

If I don't finish planning, this book will be toast.

It's all very well  signing up for this quest,

But completing the journey will be the real test.

My grammar's not great, my typing's a mess,

How the story pans out is anyone's guess.

(I'll use these two lines just to ramble a bit,

It's murder when trying to find words that will fit).

The panic is rising with each passing hour,

A taste in my mouth that's increasingly sour.

When Sunday arrives, I'll be at panic's peak,

And that panic will haunt me for four solid weeks.

November will be filled with panic attacks,

Of stressing, and pacing, and poor aching backs.

(When writing, my back always causes me pain,

The sitting hunched over a desk is to blame).

I can mumble and groan just as much as can be,

But whinging won't give any help to me.

I signed up for the deal, a promise was made,

Words have to be written, my promise repaid.

Coming full circle, I arrive at the start,

The panic revealed by the thump of my heart,

My blood pressure's up, my head is spinning,

But balls to all that, I plan on winning!

Breaking News: Update!

Following our recent story about a young Cardiff resident, today we bring you a further twist in the tale.

You may recall how we reported that Tara Smith, 23, had recently celebrated the arrival of her lovely (working) laptop. Cardiff residents rejoiced at this news, which allowed one of their own to bravely continue with her plans to conquer the world (actually, she just wants to write a novel, but that doesn't make for a very interesting story here at The Daily Ramble, so we thoughtfully added an embellishment or two).

Cardiff residents were very happy indeed. Unfortunately, their joyfulness was to be short-lived. In the last 24 hours, there have been several reports of an alarming nature arriving at Ramble HQ. The somewhat metropolitan capital of Cardiff appears to be under assault by none other than a Very Angry Bear.

Residents have spotted said bear frequently since early evening yesterday, as eye-witness Jacob Hollins informs us.

"Well, I don't know that it was a bear like, innit, but it definitely 'ad brown hair like," said Mr. Hollins, a 17-year old student of Cardiff High School.

Further witnesses are similarly vague, but all (none) agree that it was a Very Angry Bear.

"Oh, I saw something nick a bike from Llandaff Fields," said Claire Jones, 29. "It was blinkin' weird, it was!"





"It might have been a bear," said Katy Gingham, 12. "But it was so dark, like, it could have been anyfink. It 'ad brown hair though."

Our intrepid reporter decided to investigate these disturbing sightings, and after much hard work discovered the truth.

The bear is none other than Tara Smith (23). It has been discovered that her laptop has malfunctioned, and this calamity has brought our hitherto happy young lady to the very depths of despair.

We came across the poor unfortunate woman drowning her sorrows at this latest twist of fate, and we asked her exactly what happened.

"Grrrr, grrr, GRRRR!," growled the bear-woman. "Hic, grr, NaNo, grr,, grr, GRRRRR, doomed, hic, grr."

Quite. From these mad mutterings, we deciphered the following fact: Tara Smith (23), is fairly frustrated at the recent turn of events. After recently committing herself to this year's NaNoWriMo, she is now doomed to having to write her story on paper first.

Quite how she will manage this feat is uncertain, especially as she now appears to have grown a set of disturbingly sharp claws.

"Grr, grr, GRRRR,time-wasting, grr, hic, grr,grr,GRRR, hic, doomed, grr, GRRR!"

Indeed. Writing the story by hand, and then finding a computer to type it on, will surely be taxing.

How will this story end? Our dutiful reporter will bring you updates as and when they occur. In the meantime, we shall leave our Very Angry Bear to her (drunken) despair.



Ima Nutcase, The Daily Ramble.

UhOhNaNoWriMo

Usually I am wondering what the heck I am going to put in my blog. Well, I certainly have something to blog about today....


In the interests of continuing my sudden urge to bite off more than I can chew, I did something completely insane yesterday and signed up for this year's NaNoWriMo. Lordy, lordy, lordy.


I don't know what got into me. I struggle to write when I don't have an official deadline, but when I do have a deadline I'm hard pushed to even think of a single idea. Usually I wait until there's only a few hours left until deadline, then I quickly put together some sort of ramble and hope for the best.


That's not going to work this time. I mean, yes, I could wait until the last minute, but I seriously doubt it is possible to write 50,000 words in a matter of hours. So this time I have to do it properly. I have to make sure I write around 1700 words every day of November, and when I'm done I have to have a novel of some sort. Crikey.


Right up until the moment I signed up for this madness, I was adamantly against the whole thing. This is not the first year I have heard about NaNoWriMo, and so I knew what it was about. I've always firmly backed away from the project because I knew that it would be next to impossible for me to do it. I have no idea what made me change my mind, but suddenly I just had the urge to do something crazy, and hey presto, NaNoWriMo here I come.


(Realistically, I am going to struggle no end with this. But there's a little part of me that is telling my self-doubt that nothing is gained if I don't try it.)


It's obviously very doable. NanNoWriMo has been going for quite some time, and each year it gets bigger, with more and more people signing up for it. A lot of these people don't make the 50,000 words, granted, but there are people who do make it. I want to be one of those people.


I managed to write a story almost 15,000 words long in three days earlier this year. Of course, I had the whole plot in my head, but still, that itself proves that 50,000 words isn't unattainable in thirty days. I just need a plot, and some characters. All formed fully inside my head within the next week.

I'm doomed.

But maybe not. I never thought I could keep up with a blog, but here I am sailing comfortably towards the end of four straight weeks. I won't deny that there's been a few hairy moments when I was completely stumped for a topic, but I got past these hurdles and have managed to post something every day. Some days were more interesting than others, granted, but even a master blogger will have days where their blog will be little more than a hastily put together ramble. My one regret is that if I had started this just a couple of days sooner, I could have been proudly displaying a NaNoWriBlo badge.


You know, this NaNoWriMo might be the making of me. Indeed, I can definitely feel that urge to be crazy getting stronger. I have a feeling it might kick Mrs. Self-Doubt's ass.


Anyone else want to join the insanity?


If anyone would like to follow my NaNoWriMo progress, my username is ambermarie on there.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Uh-oh. I've really gone and done it now. It's not enough that I have ventured into the realms of responsibility by committing myself to blogging every day. It's not enough that I've promised to contribute to the latest project with my writing group (http://www.the-burrow.org/ [/shameless plug]). It's not even enough that I've finally got myself to agree to start work on my novel again (not to mention attempting to finish two of my long-term fanfics). Oh no, I had to add another ball to the mix.

I've semi-agreed (that's almost fully agreeing, but with the option to opt out if I chicken at the last minute) to run in next year's Cardiff half marathon. Those of you who know me are probably choking on your drink/food/amusement round about now, but yes, you read correctly. Me. Running. Thirteen miles, no less.

*faints*

Precisely. I'm a good fifty pounds overweight (probably more, but I'm too scared to weigh myself), plus I've never ran before in my life. Not seriously, at any rate. Sure, I had to run during P.E. lessons when I was at school, but the only running experience I've had in the last seventeen years is when I've chased after a bus. How the hell I'm going to work myself up to running thirteen miles is mind boggling to say the least.

To try to come to terms with this disturbing trend of biting more off than I can chew, I'm venturing into the previously unknown realm of planning. Generally speaking, I don't plan anything (well, I plan Christmas, but when you have two kids, a step-daughter and a huge family, not planning Christmas would be incredibly stupid). Mostly I'm a see-what-happens-and-deal-with-it-only-if-I-have-to kind of girl (which kind of explains why I'm such a good procrastinator). But something like this needs planning. I can't just float through the next twelve months with my head in the clouds and think that I'll be able to run this marathon. At the moment I'd be hard pushed to run half a mile, let alone thirteen of the suckers. Luckily I have a good friend who is going to send me a heap of stuff to help me work out a step-by-step plan. (This good friend is the person who talked me into the whole thing in the first place, so although her suggestion initially almost gave me a heart attack, I guess it's fitting that she's helping me work out how to avoid a real heart attack in the long term. *snort*)

Along with the planning-for-a-marathon thingy, I thought I should seriously consider a plan for the writing-a-publishable-novel thingy too. I've dithered and dallied for about four years altogether (Lordy, seeing that in black and white makes it seem so much worse), and I've gotten no further than a couple of written chapters and a Word file full of research. The ideas are there. The characters are there. Heck, I even know exactly how the book will end (which is half the battle apparently). Procrastinating is seriously messing with the writing process though.

I'm off to a good start. I've kept up with my blog (OK, so I'm only into the third week, but for me that's monumental), I've finally got a decent laptop, and I've even shocked myself by managing to install Word onto it all by myself (I'm still grinning to myself madly over that).

The next step is to work on my concentration. At this precise moment in time I have three windows open on my browser: my blog, a working document with half an update for one of my fanfics, and Facebook (the God of all procrastinators). If I could just train myself to only having one window open at a time, I'll be half way there.

Unfortunately, it is Sunday (you all know how much I love Sundays, right *snort*) and even if I did only have one window open, I'd still have about a million distractions to play havoc with my concentration.

Ah well. It's a long road, but at least I'm walking again, instead of burying my head in the sand.