112,097

112,097 is the number of words I have written in my story about Beria so far. I was lucky enough to got to talk to Deseray about it some yesterday. So now I know at least what I am going to do. We will have to see if I am able to start writing and actually get it done. As of right now, I have 30 or so chapters. Some of these chapters are not yet finished so I don't know if I should be counting them as chapters. :) But for the sake of being able to talk about it I will. There are at least a few (I am guessing less than 5) that I need to write somewhere farther back in the book. There are things that I have skipped. I always knew that I was going to go back and work on those but just haven't gotten around to them yet. I don't know yet how much I need to add to the end of the story to get everything finished up. There seems to be a lot in my mind. And right now I am not going to worry about it. I will just start writing it and see where it goes from there.

Oh, and I think I have decided that I am just going to let anyone who wants to read my NaNoWriMo story read it. Maybe while they are all reading it, it will give me the needed time away from it so that I can start editing it. But to all of those who might be interested, just remember I haven't done any modifying as of yet. And I know that there are several places where things don't fit together very well. Those are the places that I changed something or added something writing in the middle of the story. It took me one month to get it all written. I wonder how many months it will take me to get it edited. ;)

What should I write?

Today, I am actually going to try and focus my thoughts. I have several things that I have been thinking about here the last few weeks. Since NaNoWriMo, I have been very interested in writing again. I like to take advantage of that while it last. Because I am sure my focus will again turn to something else. Since I was able to finish the rough draft of my story in November I would like very much to work on that, ironing things out and making everything fit together better. It would be very cool to have a finished book. But when I sit down with it, I tend only to read over it. I am not sure that I am able at this time to work much on it. I do not know why that is. I have been spending some time thinking about it. But I have not figured it out.

Then the other thing that I have been considering is a completely different story. While I was stuck in November on my NaNoWriMo novel, I had a small idea of a different story. I haven't put a lot of thought into what would actually be happening or any kind of plot. It is just sort of a vague idea of something the might be interesting to work on. I would like to think about it for a while and play with the ideas. Some of that involves a bit of research. I don't currently own the books I would like for that research. I looked at the one and only book store in Grand Island and they have nothing there that I could use. So until I am able to go to Barnes and Noble I will have to wait on that. I also have not been to the library. I do not have a card here, and as I do not live in the city limits I would have to pay for a card. So I have been putting that off. I am not sure that they will have the books that I need there either. I was kind of spoiled by the size and variety of the books in Lincoln libraries. But I think that will be my next step as I am more likely to get to the library in town then I am to be able to get to Barnes and Noble. I have even looked on-line at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon. But for these books I would actually like to hold them in my hands and take a look at them before I buy them. So I have not done any more there. Now because this idea for the story is new in my mind, I have been thinking about it. Which I believe is causing it to be harder for me to work on something else. And right along with this I have been watching a new tv show, Merlin. This will have some similar things. I was going with a more celtic or norse kind of feel for this story. So watching this series has only increased the distraction I feel.

The other option is working on the Beria story. I am so close to being able to finish it, well the rough draft anyway. But I have been having some problems with that as well. The story is mostly finished, it is just the 'wrapping up' of all of the details. I am trying to figure out how much of that to do. I could write pages and pages of little scenes and things that happened in the next few weeks. But really is all of that needed for the story. It might be important for me to know it. I might put some of it in to the story. But how much is too much when it comes to that kind of stuff. I have been wanting to talk to Deseray about it as she knows the most about my story and might have some good ideas to share with me.

So that brings me here. I sit down at the computer with two different documents open...the last chapter of Beria's story and my NaNoWriMo novel. I look at both of them every day. And then in my internet explorer there are two or three windows open with research pages and searches for things for the story I have sitting on the edge of my imagination. Three things that are there waiting for me. But it is here that I write. I spend the time writing about my writing. I guess if I am lucky it will help me to figure out just what it is that I need to work on next. Soon I am hoping for this 750 words a day site to be the place where I sit down to type my 'story'. Whatever story that may end up being. I would be great to be able to say that everyday I wrote at least a little bit more of one of my stories.

Oh, and maybe it will help to get past Christmas. :D We are baking and getting tons of stuff ready for Christmas at Mom and Dad's with my brothers tonight, with Jonathan on Saturday, and next week with Mom's brothers and all of that part of the family.

More about the lake and other stuff..

One of the things I was thinking about this morning, was how I would write while I was in high school. I was often finished with my lessons before class was over in high school. So I would have small amounts of time throughout the day that I could use as I pleased. I always took a book to school. Reading when I was finished was an easy and normal thing to do. But I soon found that it would be a good time to do some writing as well. But then I was not brave enough to just say, hey, I am writing a story here. People would ask what you are doing. And I had to have a answer. I different answer as I didn't really want to share that part of me. So instead of just writing my stories, I would sit there and write 'letters'. Actually they only looked like letters to people who would walk past my desk. It seems really strange now, that I did this. But I am not sure that I would do anything differently if I was in school now. I might though, as I have gotten into a habit of carrying around my little notebook. Sometimes in high school, I was actually writing a letter. I wrote many letters to Deseray while I was in high school.

The other thing that I was thinking about this morning, was the lake. In my last entry about my Grandpa's lake, it feels like I left out great portions of it. Although when I reread it to see what I might have forgotten, I am not sure what I would add. I could tell of many stories, of things that we did.

One of the things we did do at the lake was swim. This had nothing much to do with our story that we were playing out there. In the story that I was writing, the lake was actually a river. Our group lived on the other side of the river as the village. So the lake/river was a big part of the story. We often took the boat across the river to visit people or get supplies from the village. There was also a bridge (an imaginary bridge) that went over the river just upstream of where our ship was. We would sometimes walk across here.

One time when we were out in the boat on the far branch of the lake the wind came up. We were having a really hard time rowing back across to Grandpa's lot. In fact the wind was so strong that we were not moving at all. Or if we did move it was in the wrong direction. So we went to the other bank. Tim and Jason got out of the boat and hurried around the lake on foot to get the little motor. When they brought it back and put it on the boat we easily made it across the bridge. That was a very funny thing at the time. It is something that only happened that once. I don't know if we learned from our lesson or if we were just not out in the boat when the wind came up like that again.

Sometimes I would sit out on this outcropping of land over the lake to the west of my Grandpa's lot, not far from Dragon Mountain. It was a nice place to sit and just watch the lake. I remember being there a couple of times just trying to dream up the next part of our story.

Sometimes we slept out at the lake in tents. There is something good about sleeping outside in a tent. Something that I still like to this day. But now I find that the ground feels a lot more hard and all of the bumps and lumps are much more annoying to me now. But a lot of the time we actually slept out in my Grandpa's cabin. This cabin was just one small room. There was a door on one side. One two of the walls there was one window. Inside the cabin my Grandpa kept all of this fishing stuff. Well, maybe not all of the fishing stuff, it seems to me that he had some in the back of his truck in the topper. But there were all sort of poles and things up in the rafters. There was no electricity or heat out in the cabin. It was meant mostly as a place for him to store the things he would need. There were life jackets and oars for the boats in there. But there was also and old couch that folded out into a bed. Once we had learned that we could sleep in the cabin we slept there more than in the tents. The boys would sleep on the floor and us girls got the bed. Wow that was nice of them. Well, maybe it was because we were older. And maybe it was because we were the ones with the driver's licences and brought them out there. Or maybe it was just because they were being nice to us. We also discovered that the cabin was warmer and dryer then sleeping in a tent.

Lunar Eclipse

Taking a little break about writing about writing. I might get back to it even today. But last night was a pretty exciting thing with the lunar eclipse. So I thought I would write about it today.

Last night the kids and I got up to see the total lunar eclipse. When we got home from basketball practice at about 5:30, we could clearly see the full moon. It was quite beautiful just then. It even seemed to have a reddish tint to it at this time. Later after supper we went out again. It was covered by a bit of clouds at this time. But I was hopeful that at 2am we might be able to see the moon. I set the alarm for 1:30. I figured that I would get up first and go and see if there was any reason to wake the kids. So I got warmly dressed and headed outside. It was dark and beautiful. There were so many stars in the sky. It was mostly clear. And as I said it was dark, which would be strange for a night when there was a full moon. So I walked around the garage to see the moon. It was really cool. So I quickly went inside to wake the kids and get my camera. Now had I thought about it before, I should have also brought down my tripod. But I was not thinking of that. I got the kids dressed more warmly and we headed outside. It would have been great to just sit outside and watch even more of it. But being December 21st, it was a tad on the cold side. When we first got outside, the moon was covered by a very thin layer of clouds. But we could still see the light through the clouds. It only took a couple of minutes before these clouds moved out of the way and we could view the moon clearly. The moon was dark. You could see the whole thing, but it was dim and had a reddish color to it. We went into the garage to warm up twice, as we weren't quite ready to head back inside. While we were outside, we looked for any of the constellations. We found Orion, and the big dipper. There were a couple that we weren't sure of. There was a covering of clouds to the north. And the lights of Grand Island to the south. But the moon remained in clear view the whole time we were outside. I guess from the first time I stepped outside until we went back in it was nearly an hour. The shadow had not yet began to move off of the moon, I would have liked to stay out a bit longer to see the moon blacken, but it was cold and I didn't want to keep the kids up for too much longer. I took a couple of pictures by bracing my arms on the fence. I haven't looked at them yet to see how they turned out. And this morning I looked on-line and found some really good pictures of the eclipse. Last night before I went back to bed I sat down at my computer and did a search on the eclipse. I found some people who were commenting on the moon. It was quite exciting knowing that all of those people were outside with me looking up at the moon. I watched as they kept posting comments for a couple of minutes.

The last lunar eclipse that we saw was in 2008. It was also quite nice. It had been closer to the morning I believe and warmer. The kids and I walked across the street and sat on the sidewalk and watched for a while.

Now once again I am all excited about getting my telescope out. We saw a few stars last night that I would have liked to take a closer look at. But I am not sure I want to get up at 2 in the morning again to look at them. We will have to see. In a couple of weeks I will be taking my telescope to Palmer to share some things with the Boy Scouts. I am hoping for a clear and warmish night for us to do that. It will be a lot of fun. Then Zeb and I at least will continue with all of the requirements for him to get his astronomy merit badge for Boy Scouts. It looked to me that they would have to observe the sky for a year. Seeing different objects and things as the sky changed over the year. A couple of weeks ago we went to Hastings to the planetarium. That was very fun. I am happy to say that they man giving the show seemed happily surprised at how much my children knew about the night sky. One of the next big things that I want to see is Saturn. I would love to be able to see the rings of Saturn. So far the planets we have seen Jupiter and the four moons, Venus and Mars. We tried to see Neptune, but just weren't sure if we were seeing the right thing or not.

Grandpa's Lake

Today I think that I am just going to talk about the lake. My Grandpa's lake lot was a magical place to us. I remember the first time I was out at the lake. My grandpa was thinking about buying a lot out there. My parents drove out to see it. We rode in the car as my dad slowly drove around the lake. We were looking at all of the different places/lots that we could buy. In the end, my grandpa and my parents bought a lot out at the lake. My parent's lot was on the same side of the lake as Grandpa's. My parent's lot did not have as many trees. The land went right down to the water, with just a bit of sand down on the beachy part. It was on sort of a circle. There were people who owned lots on both sides of my parents' lot. It was only a little while before one of those people built a house/cabin out there. Now this wasn't a cabin like my grandpa's. This was a cabin, that you could live in all of the time. It has running water and electricity. The people on the other side of my parents' lot put up a trailer/camper. We liked to go down to my parents' lot to swim. The water was more shallow there. You could walk out into the water and play. At my grandpa's lot once you stepped off of his dock the water was well over our heads. Now my grandpa's lot was different than my parents in other ways as well. Much of his lot was covered in trees. There was a path through the trees that you could drive through to get to the front (lake side) of the lot. On the lake side there was a clearing. This is where the cabin was. This was also where we would set up tents and have our camp fire. The land at the edge of the lake was a sort of small cliff. It was about 8 -10 feet high. We had to build steps to get down to the water. We put a dock out on the water. This was a great adventure in of and of itself. My grandpa had gotten a bunch of big blue plastic barrels. We drove them out to the lake on the opposite side of his lot. Over there the water came right up to the land's edge. These barrels were tied together. There seems to have been a few boards already attached to them. When we got ready to put them into the water, Grandpa and I, (I am not sure if anyone else went with us or not) got on this boat dock and sailed across the lake to where the dock was going to be. After that the wood flooring was put on the dock and the steps were put down the cliff side to the dock. My grandpa loved to go out to the lake to fish. He went fishing nearly every day. It did not take very much for us to get him to take us out to the lake. We did not go there to fish. We went there to play and explore. Grandpa would load us up in the back of his truck and we would head out of town and to the lake. Grandpa would go down to the dock and fish and we would head off to our fort. We started to build a fort (which in our imaginary world was our fallen space ship). We cleared out an area in the woods. We put up fallen trees and branches up in places to keep the ship more hidden from view. We started to make an eight sided table. I am not sure we every actually finished this table. There was a fallen tree that we kept some of our important supplies in. We made wooden swords and weapons (my dad helped with some of these) that we used to fight the dragons and the rest of our enemies. Then when Grandpa was ready to head home he would get back into his truck and drive towards the road. We would come running and pile in the back. If we were lucky he would take us to the drive-in on the way home. But even when he didn't we thought that we were very lucky. We had gotten to spend time out in our imaginary world. We fought the dragons and found treasure. Once I was old enough to drive we had even more freedom to come and go to the lake as much as we wanted. There were even a few times, I remember that we tried to walk all of the miles out to the lake. We even rode bikes a few times. But having a car made the journey much quicker. We spent many years out at the lake having fun and making up our world.

Burning Pages

As I was looking back at those old papers typed very carefully with two fingers on my Mom's typewriter and my hand written words from back in the 8th grade it makes me remember some other words that I once had.

This was part of my Lake story. Strangely, I had all of the story I had written for the lake story out at the lake one night that we slept there. We were having a hard time getting the fire to burn. We needed paper to get the wood started. And of course we always needed to have a fire when we stayed out at the lake, even on those nights that we slept in Grandpa's cabin. The fire was needed to cook our food. It was needed for the hot dogs and the marshmallows. So I opened up my binder. I had the old handwritten copies of the lake story as well as the ones that I had typed on the computer and printed out at college. And of course all of it was saved on my floppy disk. So I pulled those papers from my binder and used them to start our fire. As I watched the fire consume the paper, it seemed strange to be burning my story. I had been working on it for years. And even as I sat by the now bright fire, I knew that my story was safe at home on the floppy. But it is still not something I am likely to forget doing.

Ola ran to Dragon Mountain to save Joshu. But it is just as likely that he died because Ola ran to save him. Joshu died to save her. The lake story is a combination of memories, words that Deseray and I put on paper, things we played with the cousin/brothers. Some of the items are real. I still have my dreaming ring tucked away in a small paper bag. I have the commanders seal and the clear crystal. Deseray, I think, also has some of our things, treasures from that time in my life. I wonder now if my tunic is still in a bag in the rafters of my Grandpa's cabin. I left it there the last time I wore it.

Xon

Sometime later, I wrote a letter back to those 8th grade girls in 2034. And sat at my mom's old typewriter and typed it all out. I have this typed copy of the story as well. And then this story led to my life on Xon. This is the planet that I lived on when I was not in Worms, NE. ;) My cousin's and I even made up a new language for this planet. Wow that was a lot of fun. And now that I am thinking about it, we might not have made up the Lake story until I was in high school. We were quite busy with our life on Xon.

I think it is a good thing that I am writing about all of this. It is making me remember all sorts of things.

And my other thought is that "Wow! I have been writing for over 25 years (maybe even 30 years). You would think I should be at least okay at it. lol

Lisa's 8th grade writing assignment

Now, I find it funny to read this story. I have the original, hand written pencil copy, with words crossed out and everything. I will edit out the crossed out words and things that I missed on my first edit 26 years ago.

"Hello, the year is 2034, my name is Denyse. I am in 8th grade. Today is Monday, May 1st."

The 8th graders assignment is to tell the 8th graders of 1984 how their school looks 50 years later, and to invite them to join us in celebrating th 150 years that our school has taught the children of Worms, Nebraska.

Denyse and her older brother grab their books and put on their jet-packs, walk out the door and fly off to school.

When at school, Denyse takes of her jet-pack and walks into her room. She just sits down at her desk when Sandra come over ans says, "Have you had any ideas about the letter? I haven't."

"Yes, listen to this.

Dear 8th grade graduate of Zion Lutheran School class of 1984,

We, four of the 8th grade girls, class of Zion 2034 would like tot tell you how our school looks 50 years after you graduated. We have seen pictures of the school when you were here. Well, it has changed from a three room school to a ten room grade school and a ten room high school.

Well, that's all I have gotten so far."

While Denyse had been reading her idea, Rebecca and Diane, the two who are helping Denyse and Sandra write the letter, came over to hear.

"That's great Denyse, now let tell her how we get to school. Because my mom said they rode in cars, you know the things that some rich people have," suggested Rebecca.

"Yes, and how we do our school work. I heard they had to do it on paper!" remarked Diane.

Sandra agrees, "Really? I heard that they only had one computer."

"Now we have a lot more ideas to work on, so lets get to it!" says Denyse.

The teacher comes in and all go to their own seats.

After school was dismissed:

"Miss Weston, can we stay awhile and work on our letter?" asked Diane.

Miss Weston replies, "Sure, but be out of the building before 4:30."

"We will," the girls agree.

Letter continued by Rebecca:

"We hear that you got to and from school in cars. None of us personally have ridden in one before. We get to and from school by jet-packs. We all agree that it would have been interesting to have lived through the change from cars to monorail to jet-packs."

"Now you finished your idea, it is my turn," stated Diane. Letter continues:

"We also heard that you did all of your school work on paper, and you only had one computer. We do all of our work on our own computer. Well, that's one thing we wouldn't want to change."

"You took my idea Diane," complained Sandra. "Who cares, I have another." And again the letter continues with Sandra's idea.

"As we were looking into the records we saw that your class had only four boys and four girls. And that Worms had less than 40 people living in it. After 50 years, Worms has really grown. Now there are 31,350 people living here. There are 24 boys and 20 girls in our class." Sandra finishes with a smile on her face.

Rebecca asks, "Denyse, would you like to finish the letter now?"

"Sure. Here goes everything." Letter continues again.

"That is all of the changes that we know about now. So we would like to invite you to the 150 years of service celebration for our school this summer. It would be a real honor if you come. Also we would be real happy to receive a letter from you telling us what school was like for you. Send it to:

Zion Lutheran

Miss Weston 8th grade girls

1191 Worms Ave.

Worms, Nebraska

68872

Thank you so much for listening to us.

Yours truly,

Denyse Michals,

Sandra Wellington,

Rebecca Wilson,

Diane Keystone

"How does that sound?"

"That's great!" Rebecca said, "Now we can go home."

"Look at the time! It's only 4:15." Diane sighs.

"I hope that she writes back. This was the best assignment ever!" exclaims Sandra.

"Yes," the others agree.

"Lets go home," Denyse decides.

The Beginning

I am trying to think back to what might have been the first 'story' I wrote. I don't even know what that would be. I can look back to the oldest story I still have in my possession. That is a story that I wrote when I was in 8th grade. It was actually a school assignment. My school, Zion Lutheran school was 100 years old and we were celebrating. For our school operetta that year we were gathering old stories as well as newer ones. And our teachers were putting a play together with us acting out these stories. It was great. I loved that operetta. And this is where our story writing assignment came in. As it turns out, I (Lisa of 1984) got to read part of my story in our play. We were talking about our assignments and such, and later it flashed back to some time in the past where there was something going on in our school in the past. Well, the story that I wrote was about our school in the future, 50 years, in 2034 and how they were getting ready to celebrate the school being 150 years old. I will type up this old, old story and post it here in a bit.

Now I know that this was not the first thing that I had written. My dad had bought a TRS 80 computer. That was so exciting. I loved that computer. My dad had a book that taught you BASIC programing. He worked his way through the book and made us some fun games. I thought this was about the most amazing thing, being able to get the computer to do what you wanted. So, I read through his book and taught myself BASIC programming. Some of my first programs were like choose your own adventure books. I would make up stories with choices to make along the way. And then I put them onto the computer. When I was in the Big Room (6-8 grade) we had a TRS 80 computer at school. Whenever I had free time I would do the same thing at school. So I guess I had been writing a lot of choose your own adventure type stories. I don't think I have any of these anymore.

I also remember writing a couple of other story or story idea's while I was still at school in Worms. But I do not remember if these came before or after this assignment. I will have to look through my notebooks of nearly forgotten stories to see if any of these are from that time. Or if I can even remember which ones they were.

During my last year or two at Worms is also when we started the Lake Story. This is the story that we acted out at my Grandpa's lake lot.

Binders Full of Worlds

The other day I was looking for a notebook that I had written something in. It was just a random thought much like the stuff I have been writing in here so far. I remember it, but I wanted to read over it again to see just what it said again. Well, with moving twice in the last year and still having things in boxes or possibly even still in Beatrice, I was not sure I would be able to find it. Well, in the end I didn't find it. I don't know even what notebook I had written it in. But during all of my searching I ended up looking through all of my Binders Full of Worlds. Or in other words, all of the story ideas that I had taken the time to write down. Some of these are just a couple of paragraphs, maybe not even enough for me to remember what I was thinking of doing with it. Some of these are pages and pages of stories that I have started and never gotten around to finishing. Some of them are typed and some of them are hand written. Some of them were even just short stories that I wrote for my fiction writing class that I took in college. As I looked back at all of these words that I had written it got me thinking. I wondered when I had written each one. Some of those words, I don't even remember having written at all. But I know that they are mine. They are my words. I think I will go back over the next few weeks and read over all of those old and nearly forgotten stories. I would like to see how much of them I can remember. I wonder if I had ever actually had a clear idea of what was going to be happening in them. I know that sometimes my stories would come from a dream that I had had. One of my best and favorite stories (and the one most nearly finished), Beria's story had started out as a dream. The first night that I had that dream, I knew that it would be a great story to write down. I spent a lot of time laying on my bed, just thinking about that story. I would try to go to sleep thinking about it. I seemed to be able to dream about it if it was the last thing I was thinking. And now that I am recalling all of this, I wonder if this isn't why Beria's story is one of those that is most real to me, like it really happened and I am just remembering it. Hmm, that is something I will have to think about a little more. I will have to spend some time going back over some of those old pages and see what if anything I can remember about all of those worlds and stories that I have brought into existence. The other one that I remember most clearly is the lake story. Until Beria, it was the story that I loved the most. It was real to me as well. Ola and the lake story was fun times with the cousin/brothers. It was all of us playing out at my Grandpa's lake lot. It was Dragon Mountain and Rontue and wooden swords and camping out. It was swimming and boating and building our fallen space ship. A great portion of the lake story was about our make believe games that we acted out and played. Years ago, (the last time I was out at the lake) it was rather sad, to see that someone had knocked down Dragon mountain (in truth a small hill near my Grandpa's lot) and built a house there. We could no longer have rowed our boat across to Rontue as that was also some other person's house. We had played and explored all over the lake. But now there were so many houses and people there that our 'world' had disappeared. It is now only just in our memories. Sometime I do want to go back to our ship and finish writing our story. I don't know when that will be. But like Beria's story, those are real memories in my mind. Things that could have been real, or likely things that are real. And now here I am back to the beginning. That notebook that I had been looking for, Hmm, yes. I had been writing in there about how real some of those memories had been for me. Now even more I want to find that old notebook and read once again what I had written there.

Stories

After all of this I have been thinking about what I will be writing next. I might be jumping the gun just a little bit, as I do really want to edit and revise the story I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November. But as I said before, I think I need to just take a little break from that and let everything sink in and settle around in my brain just a bit. During this past year, I had been working quite a little bit on a story that I started imagining when I was back in college. I sat many hours thinking of how things happened and working through everything. Many of these hours were during the 3 hour drive between Wayne and Worms. It was something to keep me busy as I traveled back and forth to college. At some point I actually did start to write some of this story down. Much of it though had been stored only in my mind. There are a few things that have been modified over the years as I changed things. But all in all it is pretty much the story that I made up while I was in college. This past year I have been working on it quite a bit. I am getting very close to having it actually finished. And by finished I mean that I have typed all of it out and saved it on my computer. There are still gaps in it that I need to work on and probably several things that need to be fixed. But I have been doing my editing while I worked on this one. When Jonathan first mentioned the NaNoWriMo, I was thinking "Yes, I can finally finish my story." But for NaNoWriMo, we were to start a brand new story, one that we had maybe only worked out character and basic outline. So I couldn't use this story. And now it has been on hold for over a month. The last few days, I have had the file with the last written chapter open on my computer. I have read over it several times. Last night I even typed in a couple of new paragraphs. I know all of what is going to happen next, I have seen it over and over. I remember it. Now I just need to get written. One thing that is very interesting about this story is that I can actually 'remember' things about it. I don't mean I remember what I made up. I do of course. But it is more like I remember or have memories of the main character (or me) in the story. There are things in the story that actually make me feel a certain way, when I think of the sad things that happened to her/me it actually makes me feel sad. There is one other of my stories that has this effect on me. It is like I actually see these things, or remember them. The main character from each of these stories is me. And I guess the main character in my NaNoWriMo novel is me as well. Which is why I probably like it as much as I do.

While thinking back to Beria and my story, I came across a different story idea. I had at some point written down about 5 or 6 paragraphs and a few of the character's name. I have been thinking that I will start writing this story. For a bit I thought I should save it for NaNoWriMo and next November. But I don't think I want to wait that long. So I got me a new little notebook and wrote down the beginning of this new story. Now I am undecided as to if I should finish up my Beria story or work on this new one. And then there is always the third option of working on my NaNoWriMo novel and getting that into a more userfriendly form. Melinda was excited today to see my new notebook. She wanted to know what story I am going to be writing in that book.

Oh, and I suppose this would be a good point to add this. But last month both of the girls started writing a story with me. It was so cool to see them taking turns at the computer writing their stories. As they finish up their stories, I will let them add their stories to the blog so that they will be able to share them with everyone. They don't seem to have the same issue that I do about other people reading their stories. They are also working on the illustrations for their books. Actually I think Ella 'hired' Melinda as her illustrator. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

To Read or Not to Read

At least for now, it seems that this is going to be the focus of my random (or maybe not so random) thoughts for the day. I am still thinking a lot about NaNoWriMo and along with that my 'novel'. The quotes are because I have never really thought of the things that I have written as novels. They are just stories, things that have come flowing out of my imagination. But they were never really meant to be read by anyone other than myself. I didn't not write them to be published. I did not write them to share. I write them because I HAVE to. I guess maybe my brain will become too full. I have to let some of them come out an onto the paper, or computer. There are stories that I have written that I have shared with a few (very few) people. Some of these stories I actually worked on with someone else. We would sit there together and work out the dialog. We would figure out just what had or would have happened in our imaginary world. But in general, I write for me, not for anyone else. Now during the month of November (NaNoWriMo) I had several people who mentioned that they would like to read my 'novel' when I was finished. One of the biggest requestor's was my Dad. And of course when the month was over and he knew that I had reached my 50,000 word goal, he was ready to read my novel. But it just wasn't finished. It still isn't finished. I am not sure if I will ever feel like it is finished. After NaNoWriMo I had not even reread over then words that I had written. I knew that there were places in the story that were confused. Things had changed as I had been writing. And because I was focused on just getting the words down, it was not the time for editing, I had not gone back to try and fix this places. So I said, but it isn't finished. And it has been 15 days now. I know, not a long time really. I have since then gone back and read over my story. I haven't done any, or much editing. When I found words that were misspelled or just completely wrong words I changed them. But I haven't actually fixed anything yet. I think it is too soon for my mind to work on it yet. I have sent the story on to my writing buddy. But I haven't heard anything from her. I am not sure if she had read much of it yet. And strangely other than her, I am not sure I am going to be sharing my story with many others, at least not for awhile. My Dad asked me why I wrote it if I didn't want anyone to read it. At the time I didn't know how to answer that. I am not sure if I have an answer yet, other than, I write for myself. I do talk to my kids about my stories. But I haven't even read any of the stories to them. But I felt good yesterday when I was reading some posts on the NaNoWriMo forums pages. I am not the only one who just doesn't feel like it is time to let people read my story. So many of them were saying that it is a rough draft. And things like that. I do feel that way too. But I think it is something a bit more for me. It is like sharing a part of myself. This is a part of myself, that I hold away from most people. I have actually been trying to push through that a bit. Which is why I suppose it was easy for me to send this to my friend, even knowing that there are terrible mistakes and things that I know might make no sense at all to anyone but me. And the funny thing about it is that I would be easier for me to tell you what my story is about than for me to give you a copy of it and say here go ahead and read it. So anyone out there who was hoping to read my story, just be patient. I am not ignoring you. I am not even that worried about what anyone thinks of my story. I wrote it for me and I like it. But I still need to work on being a bit more free and open. I will just continue to write here, and maybe someday I will be posting some of my stories.

750words.com

Wow, I just found this site from a link on the NaNoWriMo forums page. I have been looking for something to do since I finished NaNoWriMo last month I was amazingly able to finish with just over 50,000 words. I had an idea for a story about eight months ago. But I hadn't done anything with it. So when Jonathan mentioned it the last weekend of October I thought I would give it a shot. It was a crazy month. I started out excited and ready. But soon discovered that I didn't have any idea of where the story was actually going to be going from that point. I found that this book was written in a way different than anything else I have written. Most things I think about for long periods of time. I write when I have scenes and things worked out and ready in my mind. I usually have the whole book 'written' in my head. Then I just have to type it out and add the needed details to finish it up. But this story, well, let's just say it didn't work out that way. I went for days without writing anything. I was stuck. Not what I would think of as 'writer's block.' But maybe that is exactly what it was. I didn't know what to do or where to go. I had no idea of what was really happening in the story. So here I was getting farther and farther behind. After over a week of not writing a single word, (from November 5 - November 14 not a single word was written) I was over at my friend's house. We were just talking. Not talking about writing or NaNoWriMo. I had not told her that I was doing that. But our talking turned to writing. I found out that she had been working on a story idea. I didn't know that she had been writing anything at all. So I was happily surprised. She read me some of her stuff and told me a bit about her story. She was not doing NaNoWriMo. But one of her daughter's friend's father had done it in the past and he had told her about it. This is when I told her that I was trying NaNoWriMo this year. I told her a bit about my story and about the fact that I was somewhat stuck. I gave her a few of my possible ideas. I think just talking to her had helped to work somethings around in my brain. That night after I went home I was renewed. I was ready. And I was confident that I could do this. I was over 15,000 words behind. But I knew that I could do it. I was insane. It was time to write. But even yet, I was not writing this in the way that I normally wrote. I had in the past been able to just sit down at the computer and type the things from my brain and into my computer. But that was not always working with this story. There were parts where I was able to sit at the computer and type. But there was a great portion of the story that I actually had to write by hand in my notebook. I still wonder if that is because by hand writing it, my brain would be able to work things out a bit more slowly. I still have not decided exactly why I had to do it that way. But as it turned out, much of my novel was handwritten in my little notebook and later typed into the story. And then there was another interesting factor in writing this NaNoWriMo novel. I really didn't know what was going to happen. Several times with my pen in my hand I would stop writing and look down at the words I had just written on the page and think, "Wow, really? Is that how I want this to work?" The first couple of times, I actually stopped to think about it. Because I didn't see how that was going to fit into my story. But after this had happened several times, and it seemed to be working for me, I just said to myself, "Okay than, lets go with it and see where it leads." In the end I finished the novel. Or at least got to a stopping point. Some of the things did not turn out the way I had expected them to. But I did it. I finished 50,000 words in 30 days. It was amazing. And now I have an unedited novel, that I know has several problems that I will have to work out. But on the whole, it is a story that I am quite satisfied with. Now I just need to find out if it makes any sense to anyone but me.