And we're off with a bang - a lot of them

Last night sounded like a war was going on - so many explosions, pops, and bangs going on for hours. Fireworks started going off as soon as it got dark (around 5), probably because the Borough allowed the use of personal fireworks in town this year. At least, that was what I heard. We didn't get any, but we stood outside and watched the mayhem in the sky, listening to people scream and shout and shoot off guns. We simply stood and sipped our sparkling apple cider like the simple squares we are. :)

And so the new year begins by doing exactly what I wanted to do - spending some quality time with my husband, and sleeping late. Now I'm fighting the urge to clean the place since it's my only day off with hubby, and we were talking about going out for a drive or something.

Today also marks the beginning of Write 1 Sub 1. So I definitely plan on planting my butt in this chair later today and getting started on that. I've been researching newspaper articles and blog reports, and I have two different story ideas I'm kicking around. I think the hardest part of short story writing is finding ideas. I think my little notebook will come in handy for daily inspiration.

For now, my next question is: what do I want for breakfast?

I know I just posted, but I got nostalgic ...

... and decided to go back and see what I had resolved to do for 2010. I wanted to see how I did as far as completing (or at least making a dent in) those resolutions.

Here's a copy of that list:

1) Stop biting my nails. (I know, I know. EVERY year the same thing. I'll do it for good one day.)
2) Finish working on my novel Sparkless and start shopping it around as I move on to revise Summerland's Savior.
3) Read as many books from that list of 100 books everyone should read. At least I'll try to get to the classics.
4) Perform in at least ONE show this year!

As I said in my earlier post, I've accepted the fact that I'm a nail biter in the hopes that through that acceptance I will finally give it up. (I know, twisted, but hey, it might work!)

I did finally finish my first major revision of "Sparkless," which I am most proud of. I'm not sure if it's ready to be sent out into the world again, so I will consider that as the 2011 wears on.

I tried to read one book that I borrowed from the library on that list: "An American Tragedy." I was interested in it, some of the writing was delightfully terrible, but it was taking so long to finish it, and I was tired of renewing, so I finally returned it to the library half read.

And I did perform in a show this year, "Pride and Prejudice," and made new friends and had lots of fun. I also auditioned for and got into another show, "Nunsense II," which will open in January 2011, so that will count as my show for next year. I don't think they're doing any shows that I'm interested in until 2012, so it will have to do. Unless I get up the guts to audition for something in Anchorage.

So after reading that list and seeing how much I really accomplished, here is my "To Do" list for 2011:

1) Get my dojo going
2) At least finish my 2010 Nanowrimo novel. I'm nearly done, so that won't take too long. After that, finish "Summerland's Savior." If there's still time left in the year, begin revising it.
3) Complete "Write 1 Sub 1." Don't be afraid to do the submission part.
4)Somehow get up the guts to try auditioning for Anchorage theatre. (I'm still wobbly about that one, but a friend of mine told me about it and thinks it would be fairly easy for me to get in. I'm just still not sure if I want to put in the time to drive there and back.)

Some of those are close to being completed already, which is a bit like cheating on my resolutions since they're easy. But it's also easy to put things on the back burner until they become a lot more difficult to complete, so I want to avoid that.

And if I run out of resolutions before the year is out, I'll just write some more.

New Year, New Challenges!

One of my friends just turned me on to this writing challenge that goes on all year, called Write 1 Sub 1. It means you write a short story each week, then submit it for publication as you write the next story. Apparently Ray Bradbury used to do this. I need to read up on this challenge a little more, but as I've always wanted to tackle the short story form, and several of my writely buddies are considering it as well, it sounds like I'm gonna jump in with both feet! I'm terrible at this form, but that's because I avoid it, I'm sure. Besides, my full novels can't be much better!

This is day three of my three days off for the holidays. A friend of mine was not only kind enough to invite me over for Christmas dinner last night, but she stuffed a stocking full of candy for me too! She also told me about getting to play elf for some local kids who weren't getting Christmas this year. I left her house with a full belly, a full heart, and over-full eyes. There need to be more people like her in the world.

I got to Skype with my family on Christmas Day. They set the computer at the end of the dining table. It was almost like I was sitting there and eating with them (except I didn't get any food. Sigh.) I opened a couple of my presents, and got to watch when Mom opened the box from me and passed out the presents to the cousins and my Aunt. There are times I absolutely love modern technology.

Progress on our little garage dojo is slow. We finally found the manual for the gas heater on the wall, so I'm going to start it up today. With an extinguisher nearby just in case. First, I need to finish sweeping out the snow that collected on the wrestling mats. The wind storms we've been having drove the snow through the door cracks and even through the window, leaving piles of it all over the place. I have to sweep it while it's still frozen before I can start the heater.

Nunsense II is shaping up nicely. Hard to believe we've only two weeks left before opening. I'm panicking ...

New year's resolutions? I'm giving up on the biting nails one. I'm just going to accept the fact that I'm a nail biter. Maybe then I'll stop doing it, eh? So I think maybe this Write 1 Sub 1 challenge will help me write more, which is something I want. Can't really think of anything else.

My husband thinks my aunt and uncle's tradition of sending a letter of our year to our family and friends instead of Christmas cards is really cool. So I may send a New Year's letter out this year, then do it for Christmas from now on. Maybe I'll convince him to let me send a picture of us along, too!

Look Ma, I made it!

I crossed the finish line with a half hour to spare for Nanowrimo 2010. I will now be posting my winning badge here on my blog. Make sure you take a moment to admire the gloriousness of it.

That was a grueling month. There were a few days where I thought I wasn't going to make it, but I slugged through to the end and now I can breath a sigh of relief. I'm going to finish this novel, then put it away and go back to finishing the second novel I ever wrote, but didn't finish.

But not tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm cleaning the house.

Congrats and YAY to the other Nanowrimo winners around the globe! We all ROCK!

Airport rant and just taking a peek ...

... at my little Nanowrimo counter thingy. Two red squares indicate I didn't write anything that day. The yellow squares show the days I didn't meet the daily word count of 1667. But what it doesn't show is that on the green days, I often wrote way more than I had to. And that's why I'm still ahead by a day.

My lead got as much as four days, but I've taken a few mental health breaks here and there. But I'm pleased to announce that I have enough planned so that I won't finish the story before I've reached 50k. I've heard of that happening to others, but I wanted to make sure it didn't happen to me.

In other news, I believe I can officially say I've been sick four times this year. On Tuesday we had some of the biggest, coldest winds I've seen yet. It froze me, so now I have a bit of throat irritation. I would have written it off as not being sick, except the irritation was accompanied by huge tonsils. But I've busted out my thermals, and taking good care of myself, so I think this one will be short lived. Our neighbor across the street even said he and his wife are sick of the winds and are looking at moving to Idaho or something. I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought of the same thing myself. Especially lately.

I've been very disturbed with the news about airports and the invasive techniques they use in the name of security. It basically boils down to having naked pictures taken of myself (over which I have no control of what happens to the photos afterwards), or having strangers' hands put on my body in places only my husband is allowed to go, and only with my permission. If it were anyone else, it would be sexual harassment or worse. And were does it stop? Pretty soon they'll have to hire doctors to be TSA agents if this goes to the next step, "I can give you a prostate check or a pap smear while we check you for contraband!"

In the lower 48, it's much easier to boycott the airlines. Unless you're planning on driving across the country, most of America is reachable within a couple of days' driving. But in Alaska, unless you want to spend five to seven days driving through a foreign country, you don't have many options. I usually take a week long vacation - two days traveling, and five days visiting family. If I tried the Alaska Marine Highway (ferrying from Seward or wherever to Washington) that will still be three to five days traveling because they're more sightseeing and not direct travel. And I'd have to change ferries in southernmost Alaska. And that's just to get me to Washington. Would still take a day or two getting to my family.

Other options: see if I can hire a private plane to fly me. Have no idea how much that could cost. Or I could get my own pilot's license and fly myself. While tempting (I'm sure it would save a lot of flying money over the long run), I'm not confident enough to take on such a feat. I hate heights. And driving is scary enough.

So far, it doesn't look like Sacramento or Anchorage have the body scanners, but websites have been known to wrong. And even if they don't have the scanners, what's to stop them from doing the advanced pat-downs everyone is screaming about? Just because I've never received one of their random checks doesn't mean it won't ever happen.

As a martial artist and a woman traveling alone, I can't accept the idea of a stranger, man or woman, touching me in the ways I've read about. I'm trained to keep that kind of thing from happening, and it's just plain wrong.

So does that mean I'm stuck here unless I want to try to take longer vacations? Most of the time I can't do that. And if living here means I can't see my family without getting violated, it's not worth it.

I fully admit I may be overreacting. But it doesn't seem very likely.

And the Insanity Parade Marches On ...

Yes, I do believe there is insanity running through my family. I'm only grateful my job isn't full time because I'd be even more nuts than I am exhibiting now. However, while my job is short hours and lousy pay, it's long on physical demands!

And we haven't even started the dance rehearsals yet.

I think Nunsense II may be the most challenging musical I have ever done to date. I'm trying to think of any in my list of shows that were as freaky as this one is. I mean, really: bingo games with the audience, split personality puppeteering, singing and dancing in habits and other costume tidbits. I don't want to give things away, so that's all I'll say on the subject.

Except for this: I can only pray that the audience will be laughing at me for the RIGHT reasons.

Nanowrimo has been going exceptionally well. Yes, my little widget shows some yellow days amongst the green, and here's why: I've been largely ahead of my word count on most days, so there were a couple of days I technically didn't reach my daily word goal of 1667. However, the other days have made up for more than those short days. I think day one had me glued to my computer, cranking out near 5k! The take off is always the strongest.

I credit following Nanowrimo Sprints on Twitter for a big chunk. They run word sprints most of the day, so I can get on there and sprint with other people all around the globe. (So if you've been looking at my Tweets lately, that's what all those word count ones are about.)

The other big chunk goes to the write-ins with the Mat-Su chapter of Nanowrimo. We crank out a lot of words through word wars (where we compete for the most words written in a certain amount of time, making teams with names like Ghosts vs Fairies), with lots of candy and Pandemonium Bookstore's hot chocolate. Nothing like fellow crazies and sugar highs to knock out a bunch of words.

Anyway, now back to writing.

And we're off like a prom dress!

I know, I've probably used that line before, but I can't help it: It cracks me up!

Nanowrimo has officially begun in Alaska. I met with a couple of other die-hards at a restaurant in Palmer (the only one we know of open 24/7). We had salads and sodas, busted out our laptops, and had our first word war together as other late-night patrons chatted around us in the cozy cafe environment.

We left shortly after that first word war, but it was so cool to share staying up late and getting going right off the bat with others, that I didn't mind. It was too cool that we were able to do it to begin with! Always nice to know there are other people out there as crazy as I am!

I'm still 600 words short of my daily allotment of 1667 words, but it's just about two in the morning. I need some shut-eye in order to keep cranking out my glorious story!