Staggering over the finish line

Made it! NaNo is done. The novel is not, though it is well on it's way, but I've completed and verified my official 50,084 words for the month of November. And if more than half of them were in the last week - Shhh! I'm not telling.

I'll spend the next week or so finishing the first draft of this year's NaNo. When that's done it's off to my first edit of NaNo 2003. And yes. That means it took me two bloody years to finish the first draft of NaNo 2003 when I didn't complete the plot during NaNo. I learned my lesson, which is why I'm sticking with this one now while it's fresh.

Success!

The sweater I started last Friday is done. It fits! It's flattering!

For the first time ever I've managed to actually make myself a sweater, rather than someone else.

Now back to NaNo. 23,000 words. Two days. Crazy time!

Play it Sam!

http://confessionalpoet.typepad.com/grand_mental_station/2005/11/if_you_tell_a_l.html

Call me a technical idiot - I'm still trying to figure out how to post links and trackbacks. I'll figure it out sometime soon.

In the meanwhile, Susan at Grand Mental Station just said some things about the Religious Right's take on the founding of this country far more eloquently than I am currently capable of. Read it.

Edited to add: Hah! I think I got it!

Could have been worse

Back from the tournament. I had a good time, as did most of the other people from my dojo. Results are not fantastic, but I can live with them. Second in kumite (out of two), but decision by sudden death, as we were tied 1 all at the time-limit. Last in kata, but not every judge placed me there, and all my fellow competitors looked fantastic, so I'm pretty happy with that, though obviously I would have liked to do better.

Came back home to discover that the kids were still in the same clothing they had been in when I left. S had not bothered to change them at all. Sigh. They did have a good time though. Made taffy, made fondant, went to a movie - good times.

Now back to writing like crazy.

Tournament Time!

Tonight I leave to go to Ohio for the Lennox Memorial Tournament. It should be a good time, and as S is kindly watching the kids, I'll even be able to concentrate!

I am a little nervous though. This will be the first major tournament I've gone to in over 9 years - the last time I bombed, big time. Much as I love competing, it's no fun to finish dead last in everything.

Mostly, though, I'm just looking forward to it. Also to the treat of going to an entirely Isshin-ryu tournament. The last two have been local Tae Kwon Do tournaments, and it's just not the same. I can't do weapons though, because I've only learned Tsu-yoi bo thus far, and it's not an official Isshin-ryu weapons kata.

Still to much to do, but the looming deadline is refining my priorities.

Random Tarot notes

This is embarrassing. I don't do Tarot.

However I followed a link from http://zia.blogs.com/wastedbirthcontrol/ to a neat little site that does a quickie Tarot reading. I dithered between asking it about how to finish my NaNo, and what I should do to do well at Saturday's karate tournament. I clicked.

Man that thing was scary. My challenge was The Garden - an overabundance of birth and creativity - ok, check, in spades.

My resolution was The Canoe - focus on the path and the goal to find your way.

The outcome was Gaia - all will be well and in harmony.

I'm not particularly a believer in Tarot, so I kind of wish the darn thing weren't so dead on. I'm ALWAYS overabundant in creativity, too many things to do, too little time to do them in. At least half of my procrastination problem is that no matter what I'm doing, there's always something else I also ought to be doing. I'm persistantly niggled by the idea that if I could just find my point of focus it would all settle into something more coherent. Hasn't happened yet, but I keep plugging.

Life as a procrastinator

Once again I've gotten myself in trouble with procrastinating. It happens every time I turn around, and I've never successfully battled the tendancy for more than a few days. I'm behind on my NaNo (though slowly catching up), the house is a wreck and needs to be straightened before S gets home tonight. By my count, right now I should be: cleaning, writing, doing laundry, doing dishes, doing the bills, helping #1 with homework, practicing my kata, and cooking dinner.

Since this is obviously an impossible task, naturally I chose to blog instead.