Yes! The correct answer was 10! You guys are right on.

I had my son draw the name out of his very own hat and KIM is the winner! Yay, Kim! :)

Email me your snail mail address to: michelle at michellemiles dot net. I’ll mail your gift card tomorrow!

Congrats

Okay. So. For the first time in his six year old life, my son decided this would be the year to sit on Santa’s lap. The reason? He really really wants a Wii for Christmas. So bad, in fact, he told me back in November he would be brave and ask Santa for it. He wants to write a letter too.

My first thought was… Oh, dear. Because I know these things are impossible to find in any store. I immediatley hit eBay. After many losses, I finally got a win! And I felt like it was a good deal too - two controllers, two nunchucks, 14 games. Cool, eh?

But I digress…

My insurance agent is a volunteer at this Breakfast With Santa thing every year. So this year, she sent out a free ticket to her customers. I figured - what the heck. I’ll take my kiddo and he can ask Santa for his stuff and then I’d be off the hook for the rest of December.

It was really nice. Parking was free. And we donated some canned goods for the event as well. Plus, when I got up to the front, the kiddo got a free shirt and I was a winner too - I got this little musical Christmas matchbox thingie.

So we go inside and he starts to get all clingy. He doesn’t do that well in big crowds like that. But he eventually got better. They had pancakes and sausage and coffee. Thank the Lord for coffee! Even though I had already had one cup before leaving the house, I needed another. Java is my weakness.

We ate our breakfast to a chorus of high school girls dressed in jeans and a Santa t-shirt (cute) and then we got in line for Santa.

With my coffee in tow, we waited for … oh … thirty minutes or so. The lady behind me had a passel of kids in tow and they were all obnoxious. The couple in front of us had a passel of kids too but they were very well behaved. And all super cute.

There’s something to be said for children who are well behaved in public, I think. Those behind me? They were climbing on everything and bumping in to me.

I kept waiting for mine to back out, but he stood in line, holding my hand, just being good as gold. I paid the $5 for the token photo (hoping he’d go through with it - I even asked them if he changed his mind could I get my money back. They said yes. hehe)

We get up there finally and I hold my breath. It’s his turn. He walks right up, gets in his lap. And Santa says, “Mom, do you want to be in the picture, too?”

That’s a resounding NO. Because I looked like crap. I wore my baggy jeans and an oversized Stars shirt. Luckily I did put on make-up and somewhat curled my hair, but overall I looked dumpy.

The lady next to me helping crowd control nodded big and nudged me forward. My kid nodded too.

So it looked like I was getting in the picture.

As I approach, that guy dressed as Santa patted his other knee! As if I was going to sit on it! HELL NO! I shook my head with a forced smile and knealed down next to them instead.

All I could think was “PERVERT!” hahaha That old man (who had on a wedding ring too, mind you) was inviting me to sit in his lap.

Um. Ew.

Thank god I had plenty of java in my veins. Otherwise, I might have decked him.

The kiddo told him what he wanted for Christmas and then we were off. But I was feeling like I needed more caffeine, so when we headed home I polished off the rest of the pot.

So. Did you make it to the end of this little story? If you did - then post a comment. And guess what? I’m giving away a $15 giftcard to Starbucks. Hey- it’s free bucks for your java!

BUT - here’s the catch. Tell me how many times I use the words coffee, java, or caffeine in this post (total number). Everyone who has the right answer will be entered into a random drawing.

See? There was a point to this post. You just didn’t know it.

Or… since when did Christmas involve shoving shit in my face?

Okay so. Is it me? Or is the mall excessively annoying this time of year? I stopped by my favorite mall on the way home from work the other day to pick up some, um, personal items. Yes, I was totally shopping for myself instead of someone on my list (okay okay, truth be told I’m already done with my Christmas shopping. Yes. I totally am).

Anyway…

Wait. I need to back up. I was at the mall with a friend who’s a boy on Sunday and as we were walking around, this person pushes this … thing … at me and asks me to touch it. I shook my head. My friend shouts, and quite clearly too, “She doesn’t want to pet it!”

HA.

So as I was saying. I went to the mall to buy some sexy lacy lingerie totally for myself (okay and my playmate) when I had to literally RUN past all the Annoying Kiosk Workers. Okay, I get they’re trying to earn a living at the mall during the holidays but PLEASE. I do not want to pet whatever-the-fuck that is on your shoulders. I don’t want you putting your nasty make-up on my face. Nor do I want whatever the hell that lip gloss stuff is. No. Thank. You.

And the perfume counters. *choke* Do you know what 20349803 different kinds of perfume-slash-cologne smells like in a 2.3 cubic foot area? Quite disgusting. Awful, actually. I’m a fan of Lacome’s Poeme and I absolutely adore Aqua Di Gio (yeah baby) but I HATE HATE HATE having to hold my breath as I make a mad dash for the escalators just to evade the stench of all the scents colliding in a cloud that could potentially spontaneously combust. Oh yeah, and please don’t shove that smelly card at me either. Totally NOT interested.

Isn’t it bad enough we’re subjected to Christmas decor on August 31? Must we deal with the Annoying Kioks Workers and Annoying Perfume Counters too? Oh and let’s not forget that it’s a balmy 60 degrees outside but inside it’s like…5000. Hello.

I guess on the bright side… it is a nice time of year. People doing good things for other people. Even if they are trying to make me buy this gross stuff.

Well. This is the last week for NaNoWriMo. How’d you do? Did you make that goal of 50,000 words?

At the time of this writing, I did not. Who am I kidding? I only made it about halfway. But you know… that’s about 20,000 more words than I had on November 1. And even though I didn’t make it to the end and I didn’t get a shiny pretty certificate that says I finished NaNo ‘07, it’s all good.

I got to know my characters the more I wrote about them. And I totally fell head over heels in love with my hero. He’s definitely a beta male, something I’ve never written before. My heros have been strong and burly. Alpha all the way. But the beta… yeah, there’s something to be said for that.

At any rate, I do have the nice beginnings of a good novel. All about a painter and his long lost love. It’s tragically romantic. Okay, not really but it is a good love story about him finding his one true love. I’m enjoying spending time with him and my heroine.

And as for the heroine…she’s a daydreamer. She tends to project HUGE fantasies of the object of her affection. She thinks things will work out one way, but they end up working out a totally different way. And her friend is a very chic and elegant gal who is screaming for her own book.

So I have a great cast of characters who are all doing their job - telling me what to do!

So. How’d you do? Didja make it?

Happy Thanksigiving everyone!

Today, I will…

…be eating lots and lots of turkey;

…eyeing all the desserts but only eating one;

…visiting with my family;

…napping during football.

Here’s hoping everyone has a fabulous turkey day. :)

Now back to your regularly scheduled holiday…

So. I’m still plugging away at NaNo, shockingly enough. I hit the 14K mark around the beginning of the week. The goal is to write 2,000 words a day, but that just doesn’t seem to be working. Most of the time.

Sometimes, though, I have this incredible surge of writing and I sit and go for about an hour nonstop. It’s a Zone Moment.

Anyway.

I was talking with some writing buddies the other night and one of them hit on something that made a lot of sense. She said she can write the first 30 pages and then she gets stuck. Nada. Zilch.

So I started thinking about my own writing and I realized - I do the very same thing. I get about 30 pages in and then…nothing. Not.a.damn.thing.

With NaNo this year, I’ve forced myself to sit down and write something almost every day. I say almost because I haven’t been at the keyboard every day like I should have. But sometimes life interferes with the writing, sadly, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it but accept the fact that Life is in the bloody way.

But I digress. Again.

I realized as I started working back on my WIP I’m doing for NaNo that I had the 30 Page Slump and that I stopped writing the book just becuase, well, I didn’t want to write anymore. I can tell you, I still don’t want to write. Especially when it feels like my head is going to explode (frigging allergies) and the last thing on the planet I want to do is sit down and write. For this month, while I cough and hack away, I forced myself to sit down and write those scheduled words whether I wanted to or not.

One day I got 2500 words in and I felt totally awesome. The next day…nothing. The next day 500. The next day 1000.  Once I started back on the book again, I realized…hey I kind of like this book. I kind of like these characters. I kind of like the storyline. I still kind of don’t have a plot.

It kind of feels good to write again.

Not only is today Samhain - BUT it’s also the beginning of NaNoWriMo! I’m totally excited about it since I’m actually DOING it this year. I’m hoping to finish … something. Yeah. I still don’t know what I’m working on. Isn’t that sad? My goal is 2000 words a day. That should put me over the 50K mark before the end of the month. I hope.

Sounds easy.

Right?

Right.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I can do it. I NEED to do it. In the infinite words of Yoda, Do or do not. There is no try.

Nothing like using The Force to get you through NaNo, eh? HA

So are you NaNoing this year? What’s your daily word goal? Next week, I’ll post my Word-Meter with all my fabulous progress.

The last time I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those who have been living under a rock for the last few years), it was 2002. I did it. I got the T-shirt. I hit my 50,000 word quota.

I wrote a really bad novel about nano (bahah) technology. No really, nano technology. It was called The Nth Degree. It was about a girl who got into some bad stuff, hung out at a coffee house, fell in love, he died, she got into a car accident - a really bad one - and lived. Turns out the dude wasn’t dead after all and she had these nanites inside her that made her heal. There were, of course, bad guys after them. What’s a NaoNo story without bad guys, right? Or and lots of hot, dirty, nasty sex. Anyway. It all started in a coffee house named The Bitter End.

Well, that novel bit the dust years ago, but the coffee house remained. In fact, the coffee house is the setting for two of my novels (and one in progress), Talk Dirty To Me and Nice Girls Do.

So I decided to take the plunge this year and do NaNo again. My only problem is what the hell I’m writing. I thought about finishing one of the three I have in progress, but that’s like…you know…cheating.

But what to write? I have only about a week to come up with a plot. So I thought maybe I’d ask the readers to post plot ideas. So what say you, readers? Wanna give me some ideas?

And for all you writers out there, are you doing NaNo this year? And if so, whatcha writing?

I’ve been going through somewhat of a writer-identity-crisis. Even though I really really want to write, nothing in this world, it seems will get me motivated or inspired.

It’s really a sad state of affairs.

So recently I was in Target and I stopped in the little Starbucks inside the Target (I promise this is relevant) and I ordered a Grande Vanilla Latte from the young gal behind the counter. I had a craving for one. I was also wearing my 2004–or was it 2002?– National Novel Writing Month shirt (that’s coming up, by the way - are you playing?). She asked if I was really a writer and I said yes. She asked if I was published and I said yes. She asked then if I wrote young adult.

I was stumped. No one had ever asked me this question before. I dutifully said, “No, romance.” She actually looked disappointed.

Again - I was stumped!

Me? Write YA? It had never occurred to me before.

So I was talking with a couple of other writerly pals one day and related the story. One of them said, “I can see you wrting YA. In fact, one of your WIPs I told you before was YA.”

I must have purged that brain cell because I sure didn’t remember it. But after I got to thinking about it, I realized - yeah, she did say that! And then I started wondering what was in the YA genre and what sort of stories there were.

Well, about the same time, my good friend in Wisconsin (who writers YA! - it’s plaguing me) emailed me and said, “YOU TOTALLY HAVE TO GET STEPHENIE MEYER’S BOOK TWILIGHT.” Yes, I think that’s a direct quote.

Apparently, it’s a vampire book and it’s - guess what? - YA. So she talked it up to me until I finally dragged another friend who is a boy (but we won’t go into that) to the bookstore the other day and bought it. As of this writing, it’s still sitting on my kitchen counter but I’m planning on starting it very soon.

In the meantime, I finished my edits for Nice Girls Do and in the comments of the manuscript, my editor asked if I was planning to write more Bitter End books.

All of this has come at a time when I’ve been struggling with myself as a writer and what I really and truly want to write. I started to really think about my career as a writer and where I really wanted to go. Even though I love writing the hot books because they’re fun and, well, hot… I don’t think that’s exactly where my heart lies as far as what I truly and really want to write. I think it’s truly and really fantasy. And possibly - yes, you guessed it - YA.

Perhaps I’ll have another latte and consider this some more…

It’s Thursday isn’t it?

I’m so behind on anything and everything that’s writing related. I hate that. There are other things I have large hate about. So here’s my quick Thursday Thirteen. I think I might have some issues.

Thirteen Things I Hate1. Having no time to do the stuff I really need to do 2. Pantyhose. I think a man invented them. 3. Underwire bras. Again - another evil invention by a Man 4. Squash - the veggie not the game 5. Spiders 6. Having a broken garage door 7. Men who think they own me 8. Paying bills 9. Being so tired all you want to do is sleep but you can’t. Man that sucks 10. Spiders 11. Summer when it 5000 degrees outside 12. Rude people 13. People who leave the manual feed tray open on the printer

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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