Just finished my writing session for the day. I just hit 16829 words! The kids met grandpa and they introduced him to the wraith in the pool. Scared him a lot! Hee hee.

16829 words is 159 words ahead of the recommended daily allowance for NaNoWriMo. 10 days at 1667 words per day = 16670 words. Hooyaaa!!

And my daily count (for the 5 out of 7 days that I write) is 2500 words. This is Day 7 for me, so I should be at 17,500, but that’s all right. I’m just 700 behind that.

I’m planning on attending an all-night writing frenzy this weekend, so I’ll catch up.

The Girls

Well, one of our girls has bad legs. Esther. We’ve been chatting about what to do with her. We think she might be in pain because her legs shake when she stands and she doesn’t stand much. However, she does roost once in a while. And I noticed the other day that she walks on her own feet.

Here they are (I took this today – don’t let the watermelon fool you. I found it at the store the other day). Esther is on the very right, with her back to us (I don't know if you can see her legs, but they are quite large):

And she hasn’t started clucking yet – the other girls (including her bio sister) have. She still cheeps. And she is soooo funny. She chases after the other girls like a little sister cheeping at them as if to say “wait for me!” And she comes when we call her.

However, she spends the majority of her time, laying underneath the warming light in the coop.

We hope to get her into the vet soon. Then, we can make an informed decision about what to do. We’ve decided that if she is in pain or if she is contagious/whatever, then we will put her to sleep. But if she isn’t in pain or a problem for the other girls, then she stays. She is very entertaining and awesome and let’s us handle her a lot. We think she’s a great addition to the flock. And the other girls cuddle with her at night so they aren’t put-off by her. But we don’t want her to have a rough life.

We’ll keep you informed.

Off to get ready for work. Cheerio.

I just want to update my blog really quickly since it’s been a while.

NaNoWriMo

I am doing NaNoWriMo and want to use my “writing energy” for it. So far 4314 words (in two days). Not bad. I’m a little ahead of the game, so I’m feeling kinda cocky! I hope to have nearly 7000 words by today.

The Chickens

We were out doing chores the other day (the husband at the chipper shredder):

and we decided to let the girls do some adventuring. We let them out into the yard – and they frolicked. They ate a lot of bugs, played in the grass, and came home (into their run) to a pumpkin. Lucky girls.

This is a picture of 4 of our girls: Polly (tan), Lucy (red), Netty (brown and black), and Petunia (black). Esther and Miss Priss don’t seem to be around when I take pictures. Hmmmm.

Esther has bad legs, we discovered the other day. Her legs are bigger than they should be and she shakes as if her legs are too weak to hold her up. We do find her laying quite a bit. She takes small steps and usually steps on her own feet. But she does all right eating and hanging out with the other girls. She’s also the only one who hasn’t started the clucking sound. She still “peeps.”

The Zoo

The husband wanted to go to the zoo on his birthday last week, so we went for the day. He wanted to take some photos with his good camera:

And we were there for over 5 hours. It was a wonderful time. The elk and cougar exhibits were closed, but we got to see a lot of other animals.

A few pix (the hubby took the majority of the photos).

Two of the 5 elephants on their trek to “squish the squash.” A local nursery donates HUGE pumpkins that the elephants smash and eat. There were a zillion people there, so I didn’t get a good photo.

A leopard. I stepped into a little house-like structure (made for kids) and this cat came walking up to me. FREAKED ME OUT because I thought I was trapped in the little house with it. Just for a second. Made my heart leap.

Off to write for NaNo! Have a great day – whatever you do.

Another productive morning.

I decided to carve out a few hours each morning Tuesday – Thursday for reading and writing. And this is Day Two of that endeavour.

It’s going well. I have been productive each day – and feel as though I am getting things accomplished. Then, I reward myself with The Sopranos on A&E at 11.

No Plot? No Problem Chapter Two

In Chapter Two of Chris Baty’s 50,000-ish word book, he speaks about time – the management and mismanagement of time. In this, he challenges us to spend a few minutes writing down each activity that we have worked on throughout the day (bathing, eating, working, playing on the computer, etc) and to write down how much time we have spent on each.

We then look at our day’s activities in three categories:

1. The required activities
2. The highly desired activities
3. The forgo-able activities

and figure out how much time we have spent TOTAL on the forgo-able activities. This is where we find time to write our 30-day, 50,000-word novel.

It’s up to each of us what to decide what are our forgo-able activities. For some, it might be time with family. For others it might be computer games. And for another, it might be activities that can be pawned off on someone else, like laundry or mowing the lawn.

Then, we use that time to write our 1,667 words per day.

Additionally, in this chapter, Baty writes about using friends and families as tools to keep up motivated. For some, it could mean asking people to nudge/push/shove us into our word count. For others, it might mean shame-filled incentives such as declaring yourself a 50,000-word god or goddess and having to adhere to that for fear of ridicule. And again, for others, that could mean setting up bets or monetary “punishments” for not reaching that 50,000-word goal (Baty suggests that if we fail to reach 50,000 words, we contribute a substantial amount of money to an organization we abhor to keep ourselves on task).

For me? That ever-achievable illustrious novel-writing career and the independence that offers is enough to keep me on track. I make that promise here and now. For fear of ridicule and fun-making.

Waiting by Ha Jin, Part Two

What a delicious book. Another 100 pages into the book, I am no less enthralled by it than I was at the beginning. The more words I read, the more deeply I find myself in the story and the more intrigued by the characters I become. I don’t know the ending – I have a few guesses – but the introduction to the novel promises struggles and difficulties along the way. Does Lin Kong successfully divorce his wife, Shuyu? Do he and Manna Wu stay together? And if so, are they happy? The journey is fun.

(spoiler alert) As an example, toward the end of the second part, Manna is violently raped by a former-officer and friend of Lin . This plot twist was not surprising to me as I expected this (plot-wise, I didn’t feel as though her much-discussed virginity would remain intact throughout the novel and Lin and her chaste relationship).

However, I was not disappointed by this plot “twist.” I was pulled into this piece of the story as much as I have been by every other plot point to date. It was done well, with grace, enough violence to jar me, but not so much that I feel that it is used for shock value.

However, the “repercussions” of the rape are jarring. Manna’s apologies to Lin about putting herself into that situation and losing her virginity is are unsettling. His reaction (wonderfully out of character) is surprising. And the reactions of Manna’s colleagues and friends are abhorrent, yet feel correct for the place, the time, and the political environment.

I look forward to the remaining pages with glee. I can’t wait until tomorrow to finish the book. Ha Jin has put together a wonderful piece of literature. I hope the last 1/3 of the book does not disappoint.