WOOOHOOOOO!! Who knew dragons could be defeated with the power of Polka music?

Three more days.

Five Thousand more words.

One stolen accordian, two time traveling frogs, one slightly mysterious english gentleman, one unsolved murder, one dragon on the rampage, one evil genius who is not nearly as evil or bad-ass as he would like to think, one evil genius girlfriend, two people in a car with a little girl whose parents have fallen victim to the dragon...

Gee, think I've got enough loose ends there to manage five thousand more words to wrap it all up?

*walks in snuffling and grumbling*

Can I just call in sick to Thanksgiving? I've got a cold, AND cramps, and I really just feel like cuddling up with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, and working on finishing my novel. But no, I have to get everybody packed, make sure myself and the kids look happy and shiny, and then we have to drive to my folks for dinner, and stay for the weekend. Sigh, ah well, right now the fact that I know they made leftsa is keeping me going.

I'm thankful, for lots of stuff, I really am. There's just something in my personality that objects to being told, 'and on this day, you are obligated to be thankful..' I dunno, it's less meaningful if you have to have a special day to do it, don't you think? Gah, I am starting to feel like such a Scooge.

Oh yeah - it is our tenth wedding anniversary today. Woohoo! (My husband thought it was a slight exaggeration when I told him, that since Idaho passed their bigotry amendment, that celebrating did feel just a bit like swiping Rosa Parks' seat on the bus or something.)

Today

The car wouldn't start. At the gas station. Opened the back up, and fished the jumper cables out from underneath the pile of hockey equipment and jackets that we forgot we threw in the back when it got unexpectedly warm.

I was planning on returning back into the gas station to ask if one of the clerks would be willing to give me a jump, when a guy pulls up beside me in his truck.
"Do you need some help?" he says out his window,
"Yeah, could you give me a jump?"
The man agrees, pulls around to the front of my car, gets the jumper cables on both batteries (I desperately need a refresher course in how to properly jump a car, the last two times I've lucked out and had someone else hook up the cables.) A few minutes later, my car is running, the guy is handing my jumper cables back to me (neatly coiled, I might add) I thank him, and we are on our way.

At the museum, after we have spent an afternoon looking at dinosaur bones, native american artifacts, and geological cross sections. Went to start the car... sigh, no juice. Back to the museum to call the public safety office (this was at the university) They ask me for my Bengal Card number...
"My what number?"
A sigh emanates from the other side of the phone,
"Okay, um, what's your name?"
I tell the nice lady.
When's your birthdate?
I tell the nice lady.
"Alright, go stay by your vehicle, someone will be there in a few minutes."
We all pile out, and get into the car.

Pretty soon, the public safety officer comes pulling up beside us in his fancy SUV. I get out and pop the hood of the car. The officer goes around back with his nifty metal clipboard, and takes down my license plate number...uh, okay, just need a jump here, we really don't need to start an investigation...He hands the form to me,
"Alright, I just need you to fill out this information for our records, and sign the damage to your vehicle waiver..."
"Okay.." I say, and take the nifty little clipbaord to fill out my name, adress, birthdate, race...waitaminit..RACE? what the hell does that have to do with jump starting a car? I've already started this though, so I fill the rest out, and hand it to him after I've signed the "I won't sue you if you mess up my car in the process of trying to help me.." line.
"Although I can't see what my importance my race is in getting my car jumped.." I say
"Well" the public safety officer says, and a lightbulb goes on,
"Probably more to protect you guys's ass than anything...."
"And if we need a description..."

UM...WHAT??!! I just need a jump for my car.
At this point, I'm ready to tell him, look, forget it, this is way too much of a pain, I'll just wait for a random stranger to take pity on the girl holding the jumper cables..
But I've already filled out the completely unnecessary paperwork, so I let him hook the cables up, and fairly soon I'm heading home.

I'm at 38,000 words - the end is in sight! I pulled up what I'm pretty sure is going to be my last randomly generated challenge this morning. Once I get the earthquake and century into the future worked in, it's time to start tying everything together. Somehow. This should be interesting....

But hey, I'm so close I can taste it!

And the award for the
"Such bad taste that we're speechless" goes to:

OJ Simpson! for:

His New Book

I mean, really. This goes through bad taste and on out to some amazing level of slimeballishness. Does he still have custody of their children? How do they feel about their father writing this?

31,000 words, baby! WOOT!

Whew, had a slow weekend in which I got absolutely ZERO words written, so am quite glad to reach this milestone.

So, I got to 20,000 words on day 6, so I guess it's theoretically possible that I could pull this off and be finished before next week. Theoretically being the key word there.

Actually, I'll be quite happy if I can manage to finish up before the Thanksgiving Holiday, but we'll see how it goes. Rigght now, the mantra is just 'maintain a lead!' If I was doing the slow and steady bit, I wouldn't need to be to 30,000 words until the 18th. But, I'm not really doing the slow and steady bit, so....

There's some strange bits and pieces going on right now, and I honestly am not sure how all the disparate elements are going to tie in together to make a (hopefully) coherent story. I have some thoughts, but it will kind of depend on what the random generator throws my way the next couple of days. I'm trying to decide if I stop getting random challenges and work on actually wrapping up the story at 40 or 45K. We'll see what's happening, I suppose.

As for what's happening in the novel? Right now, dear Claudia is dreaming about roving bands of lederhosen (sp?) clad accordian stealing hooligans. And that's what is amusing me most at the moment. That, and the fact that my villanous mastermind's girlfriend is continuing in her attempt to steal the show. novel. whatever!

Elections? Well actually, if I look nationwide, there's reason for hope.

Looks like Democrats gained control of the House, and might just pull off the same thing in the senate. This tells me that people are seeing a need for change.

In South Dakota, there was a victory, both for common sense and women's health.

In Idaho, where I live... Voters decided in favor of bigotry, hatred, ignorance and intolerance. These are ugly words. So are the words that are going to be added to the state constitution.

For those who don't think this is such a big deal, take a look at:

A list of marriage protections

These are all the rights and protections that the majority in Idaho have decided that a portion of the population doesn't deserve. They have singled out a group of people to be treated as second-class citizens. They have decided that their petty little prejudices are more important than compassion, fairness, and equality. These are lovely words. These are words that people voted against.

One day, when this is overturned, and it will be, we will have to explain to a younger generation why this ugly chapter in our state's history exsists. Why a majority of voters actually thought that a whole group of fellow human beings were less worthy of protection under the law.

We are at THE HALFWAY POINT!

25,000 words have come pouring out of my brain and into a novel so far this month! Woot!

I'm rather liking my villanous mastermind - a revolutionary who just sort of got carried away, and his girlfriend. More about them, perhaps later. Now if I can just figure out why the villian sent somebody back in time a century so they could steal an accordian... hmm...

Now I have to go to bed so I can stomach looking at the election results in the morning. Expect ranting.

20,000 words and counting woohoohoo!

Had a write-in last night -lots of fun, probably too much goofing off, but hey, we all at least got some words written.

I got my NaNoWriMo poster for being a municipal liason (awesome.)

And some tatoos to distribute to my WriMos (double awesome.)

Onward and upward - I'm not too far off from the halfway mark!