For the Love of Cashew Milk and the Nervous, Gulpy, Awkward Face

I sort of feel like a broken record. Like once a month I spit out all that ails me in a therapy session. But, I swear I'm not making it up. All that emotional upheaval that make January and February hell? Yeah, it was replaced by life and money hell :p It could be worse, but a trip to the ER for my husband, job changes, tax season, blah blah blah. The past couple weeks have been downright exhausting. Everything sort of happened at once. I like to think things are settling down, but I suppose until I get my final papers written for school I can't quite get comfy.

On a much lighter note, I just had some cashew milk ice cream and thought I died and went to heaven. As a milk-a-phobe (I'm not really afraid of milk, it just makes me feel like miserable), I have known better than to have ice cream for several months. It's really not worth it, and though I have accepted living without, every once in awhile I think about it and get tempted to pick up some non-dairy ice cream. Frankly, though, while usually I'm really not picky, I'm just not a fan of coconut or almond milk ice cream enough to pay five bucks a pint and I don't do soy. So I've just gussied up and tried not to complain about the situation. That being said, when I'm hankering for a cold treat, I'll sometimes mosey on by the freezer section of the store to see if a sorbet looks good. This time around I saw the cashew milk ice cream. It's new, at least in my area and was... well sort of on sale... meaning that if that price is on sale I will never pay full price :p You see I'd learned that the right brand of cashew milk actually has the closest flavor to milk without being sickly sweet or tasting like, well.. an almond. I decided to give it a try and was so excited about the result that I texted my husband with the new - and my boss with the news, because he's a non-dairy-er too.

What does this have to do with writing? Absolutely nothing. I'm just that happy about my discovery. As for writing - I've gotten into the joy of revisions and have been really happy with all the changes so far. I even get excited about the progress! I see it written out like so:


Words Revised: 35,570
Words Yet to be Revised:86,686

And I think, "Yay! Progress!"

Then I think of the scenes coming up and the work to do, I get that nervous, gulpy, awkward face that they've mastered in cartoons, and wonder, "Will I keep making progress?"

It's a silly question, because - Heck yeah I'm gonna keep rolling on! None the less, it's a new challenge to be in this place. I feel excited and impatient, but mostly nervous at the prospect that I may just finish a book. A book that I feel is worth something. One that is worthy of sending out to be read. And hope seems so dangerous. But, dangerous or not, no one ever got anywhere with a book by staying safe and not risking it out in the real world.

So I send out a "Hurrah!" to all of you brave writers out there who are or have braved the danger and shared your work with the world!

How about you? Do you have that "knowing nod" to share about getting into a good revision of your book and seeing what's coming up with the realization of how hard it's going to be? What motivated you? What was the best tactic you took to revising?

At Least I Have Wombat Going for Me (IWSG)

Alex J. Cavanaugh's Blog Hop

Another NaNoWriMo has passed - and I should be feeling like this:

And to be honest, Saturday morning I did... You see it's been a crazy month. Wombat and I celebrated our anniversary. We had some family pictures taken. I had two long dental appointments that knocked me down pretty good. I got sick. Wombat got sick. Our Thanksgiving plans kept falling through, which meant multiple planning sessions. Wombat and I got into a glorious fight. Wombat and I made up after our glorious fight. Then, the crowning experience of the month, was a phone call that landed a major piece of family news that left me bug eyed and my mind spinning for a whole week. 

However.... that isn't why I didn't write more than 4100 words. No, all of that was crazy, and definitely kept my mind far from writing, but there were plenty of evenings or morning that I could have - or even DID sit down to write. 

No, it was Saturday morning- with one November day to go- that I lay in bed postponing my grocery trip with a furrowed brow trying to deduce the reason of my dismal progress. As with anything that I can't figure out - I turned to Wombat and told him, "I keep sitting down to write, but I can't stand the scene I am working on. It's so boring. I'm bored writing it! That's a bad sign!" 

He suggested that I skip ahead to the other character's thread. 

I sighed. "Yeah, but his will be boring too! I mean..." And then my mind began to percolate. "I guess it's boring to me, because there are no relationships. It's all plot, and that's boring to write. Curiel already has his passel of friends. Emerick is kind of interesting because at least you are getting to know Cicero...."

To which the Wombat made me feel jointly dumb as a door knob and chipperishly hopeful, by suggesting: "Well maybe you should make Curiel's friends not his friends yet. You could show him making friends with them."

I thought it over critically. Could I do that? Will that screw up the timing? How would that coincide with what I've written already? All 4100 measly words. Ooo! I know!

And the Wombat came to the rescue. It's always a little disheartening to have to scrap your work before it's really even begun, but if you have to, I guess there is no better reason than to do so to make writing your book more enjoyable.

So, while my NaNoWriMo attempt doesn't even deserve an honorable mention - I press on. Maybe December will be my month.