At this very moment in time, I am 2,085 under par. This means that I've written 16,248 words in 10.5 days which, for me, translates into 58 pages, 18 chapters, and 3 main characters, possibly 4. I only have to write 33,752 more words in 20 days, and then I can turn 40 in UTTER peace.

I don't have Nanobuddies this go-round, so I enlisted the help of my children to meet the goal. To my complete surprise, they happily agreed to whine and complain when I don't send them chapters to read. I get text messages from my daughter saying, "Go out and buy yourself a frito pie. You know you want to. You deserve a frito pie. Frito pies are good for you. They make you be a better writer. Treat yourself to a frito pie today."

Later, I found out that she's the new ad coordinator for Sonic Drive In. Which, brava, she deserves it. I mean, really, what do frito pies have to do with writing? But she convinced me to throw a coat over my sweatpants and sweatshirt and stretch my legs by walking out to the garage. And so I went! I drove to Sonic! And then Sonic! told me that they don't do the frito pie anymore.... at least not this Sonic!

I've come to a couple of conclusions this morning as I sit in my bed wearing a sweater, a scarf, and three layers of thermal underwear. First, I think the reason I'm so intolerant to the cold is because I spent most of my free time at my grandparents house where we all used to sit around a winter fire wearing bathing suits, sweating and seeing visions. Not that it was what anyone could call SUPER COLD in southern New Mexico, but even if it was 30 degrees outside, a person would walk into their house and be hit in the face with a very stiff 115-degree heat. For the first 20 years of my life I thought this was normal.  Imagine my surprise when I moved to Colorado and worked in offices and visited homes where people were complaining about the heat when the thermostat was set to 68 Fahrenheit. People, that's a whole 50 DEGREES COLDER than my body was used to whilst indoors.

After living here for a decade I've become one of those people. Not the I'm-hot-at-68-degree-thermostat people, but the I-have-to-keep-the-heat-at-68-degree-or-colder-because-I-can't-afford-to-be-warm people. I have yet to acclimate to this torture chamber called the San Luis Valley, and frankly if I'm gonna blow $800 every month, I want it to come with souvenirs and syrupy drinks with umbrellas. Electric heat is a beyotchhhhh.

I miss you Grandma and Grandpa. I miss your parties, your food, your very loud telephone, your chickens and roses and apricots, but I mostly miss your warmth... and not just the kind that came from your woodburners.

Back to NaNoWriMo-ing.

 My working title is Hairy Jesus and the Lime Lights, and I'm having way more fun writing this than the title suggests.

The last time I wrote, I was in the throes of making adjustments to my latest manuscript. I was cleaning, cutting, rearranging, and trying to NOT lose the baby with all that dirty bathwater as I prepared my story for the qualified hands of a professional editor.

So not only am I now DONE with editing, I am no longer perpetually tipsy and sleep-deprived and WANDERING THE HOUSE LIKE A CRAZY PERSON AT OBSCENE HOURS. After an especially delicious night of sleep, I went back and read my last post in horror. Did I really say I think you should read it? The truth is that you probably shouldn't be allowed to read my new novel if you are reading this blog post. It's not young adult. It's not even murder mystery. It's like my attic in summer. It's dark and hot and smells very weird. But when you are awake at 4 AM and delirious with I WANT TO FINISH disease, you will say the darndest things. The truth is that you can't read my new novel unless you can say yes to at least two of the following  a) you are at least 35 years old, b) your body is 3/4 covered with tattoos, c) you've been called a unicorn at least once in your life, d) you visit Urban Dictionary at least 4 times a month, or e) you are a card-carrying member of the Chuck Palahniuk cult.

Anyway, I feel as though I misled with my last blog post. Now that I've had time to recover myself , I realize that I should probably refrain from blogging when I'm faced with a deadline. 

Speaking of deadlines, I can't really function without them. Therefore, I will be taking up my usual post over at NANOWRIMO come November 1. It's time for me to start a new project that doesn't involve yarn. 

Between the years 2001 and 2002, when I was on the homestretch of finishing my first novel, (and had just moved to a new state, town, and neighborhood) I would sometimes open my curtains at 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the morning and see that a couple of my neighbors (always the same houses) had a light on in a solitary room just like me. I wouldn't see TV lights flickering and so I made the obvious assumption that they, too, must have kids that wouldn't let them write during normal hours and so they were forced to finish writing their book while their family comfortably snored in their comfortable beds under comfortable comforters. These were my people, the solitary light people, my kindred spirits sipping coffee, wearing glasses, and hating everybody.

And, while I loved these imaginary people for suffering with me, LIKE me, I'm competitive and therefore also wanted to kick their asses. I needed to imagine that they were on a roll, hands moving at warped speed, hours away from their last sentence. It compelled me forward more than the idea of financial independence. I NEEDED TO BEAT THEM.

I realize now that it was crazy, sleepless thoughts. I live in a new neighborhood now. Nobody across the street has lights on at 1, 2, 3, or 4 in the morning. Well. Occasionally one particular condo will have a light on. But my more matured self now knows that they had to get up and pee and then couldn't fall back to sleep. If lights aren't flickering, it's only because this person is playing computer solitaire.... little to no flickering involved in that game.

The point of all this? It's 4ish right now, and I'm back on that homestretch. I've actually written the last sentence long time ago.... now I'm editing. The good news is that I think this is maybe the second to last draft! I don't have imaginary people to compete with anymore, so I'm compelled to finish because I really, really want you to read it.

So back to it...

Dear Reader,

So there was this mixed salad of freakin' crazy ladies, depression, paranoia, embarrassment, anger, all-over ickiness, and tongue-tied disease that kept me away from my own website for almost a year now. I'm over it.

Strangely enough, there are a small herd of people who check in here occasionally. To you people - you know who you are - thank you. Your uplifting emails, your words of encouragement, your faith that I will not burn your house down or steal the family jewels, breathed life back into my fingertips and made me realize that I've remained hidden long enough. No more depriving you from my inane thoughts, opinions, misspelled words, and grammatical errors.

So, while I might not blog every single day, I will attempt to check in regularly. But only because you've convinced me that you need something to read while you're waiting for your favorite youtube video to upload. And I'm here for you.

Love,
C