700 more words today on my WIP.  Woo-hoo!
I guess I'm gearing up for Nanowrimo.  Or hoping to, if I'm not too engrossed on my WIP still.  My new idea is ready and waiting in the wings.  Where it may have to take a back seat indefinitely.  I might have to do my own version of Nanowrimo and use my 50,000 words to finish the WIP while it's still flowing so well.

That's all!

P.S. How many of you are doing Nanowrimo this year?

Update:  I just broke 1100 words for the day and wrote my favorite scene of the whole novel . . . the scene is out of order but it came lilke one of those gifts that happens every once in a blue moon where you see it all so clearly -- I couldn't let it slip away.  Had to share.  Hope the rest of you are having a successful evening.

What do you do if you've lost part of your manuscript?

I reread one of my earlier WIP that is taking a little rest while I write my current WIP and when I finished, I kept scrolling down because I can vividly remember scenes that I wrote after it ended . . . quite a few -- but they're gone.  The only thing I can think is that they're 1) saved on my laptop that my husband currently has out of town with him (crosses fingers and hopes) 2) they are hand written in one of my hundred notebooks that I take with me places (I've been through all the ones I can find...nope) or 3) I dreamed the scenes so vividly that I still remember them after a long time and they're stored eternally in my brain (can't believe this...I'm lucky if I can remember where I put stuff from day to day, ha!).  I know I wrote those scenes...I actually remember hand writing and typing lots of scenes for this story two summers ago on a reasearch/family vacation.  I was so inspired by the area we were visiting that I wrote a lot of the time in the car.  (I had my laptop and took extra notebooks)  Now, I just have to figure out where the missing pages are and get them typed into my manuscript before I forget I've lost them again.  Sigh!  I really don't want to rewrite them, although I'm so grateful I can remember them so clearly.

Am I the only one who has ever done this?  Please tell me others have lost their minds too.  :)

1) I had the most fascinating dream last night. It was almost mind boggling (I realize that doesn't take much for me though :) )

To understand how this dream came about, you probably need some background. This week I read fandoria's amazing novel. I finished yesterday morning. It really got me thinking about my characters and itching to write again (yay!). I sent out my comments to her last night five minutes after I should have been at a dress rehersal for a church drama I'm in for the women in our area. So I spent the next four hours at this dress rehersal.

The drama is a garden party where the first president of the women's organization welcomes and visits with each of the following presidents up to the current president. There's musical numbers and each of the presidents talks about something important that she did during her time serving as president. Anyway, I'm one of the presidents in this little production we're doing for all the women tomorrow. (And no, I don't sing or act, so I'm simply doing this because I love the person who asked me, lol).

So last night, I dreamed about a garden party. But I wasn't the host (I played the interesting role of fly on the wall) but one of my mc's from my very first novel was the host. I sat back and watched as characters from my various novels interacted and talked about their stories with fandoria's characters. I swear, I tried to ask a few questions, but they would not cooperate. I simply watched and learned and tried not to wake up (weird as that sounds).

It was one of the most fascinating things I've ever experienced especially since I can still recall it. A few things really stood out to me. One being that I really want to rewrite my first novel after I reread the very first version. One of fandoria's characters kept telling this host that I had it right the first time and I should try going back to the original pov and age of my mc. Is that so weird or what? (OK, please don't report me, I don't think I'm psychotic). So I need to dig up that first version and hope I still have a copy...and read it. Anyway, this was so cool, I had to share.

2) My oldest daughter's friend has been staying with us for a week. Tonight is her last night. I think we'll have a movie party. It's been fun but also very hectic. This friend will be moving to Japan in June and so it was really fun for my daughter to have her while her parents were out of town.

3) My son is taking 3 AP tests. His first one is this morning. I think he'll do great but he was nervous.

He also scored two goals back to back at his soccer game Wed. night. And it just so happened that he played the high school's head coaches private team (yeah, I think it's wrong that he's allowed to coach a private team because the only ones that make the high school team are the kids who played on his private team). Anyway, my son's team shut out the coaches team 3-0 and my son scored the last two goals. To say he was psyched is an understatement. He loves his team and is the first to admit that he enjoys it more than he would playing with the high school because there are awesome kids and coaches that the boys love (no one -- not even the parents of players or players on the school team even remotely like the hs coach)...but I could tell there was immense satisfaction in scoring TWICE against this coaches ELITE team (next year's hs team, ha!) after the coach wouldn't even look at my son because he hadn't been on his previous premier team. (We'd moved here and my son had played varsity as a sophomore in Colorado-- he hadn't had the opportunity to play with him even if he'd wanted to). Anyway, it was a huge boost to my son who has just taken the whole set back in stride and grown from it. Yay for him!

4) It's a weekend. And although I desperately need to weed, find mother's day gifts (any cool suggestions, I'm thinking books or book gift cards -- any more creative ideas out there, lol), make cookies that were promised to someone, actually pull off this garden party play, take my daughter to her state cup soccer tourney an hour away, return a visiting friend in one piece back to her parents, celebrate mother's day with both mom's, clean my house, put away laundry which has been piling up, finish off all the teacher appreciation stuff I've been helping with at the school this week, get recipes collected for the Enrichment dinner we did for church on Tuesday, put together a budget for our church girls camp I'm directing by Sunday, make sure my son is studying for the next two AP tests which are Mon and Tues, and just enjoying the sunshine...it's still a weekend!

I think I'll just celebrate that! Maybe I can have a little garden party and invite a few of my closest friends and characters -- that would liven things up a bit. Ha! Enjoy.

And a very Happy Mother's Day to all of you women out there. We're all mom's to someone (even if not by blood) because there's always someone who needs extra love and care that we can touch. It's just our nature. Hope it's a great day for all.

5) My thoughts go out to all of those who have swine flu or know someone who has it. But looking on the funny side, for all of you worried about getting it. Don't do this!
( Below here )
Sorry, someone sent this to me and it was so funny, I couldn't help myself.

Happy Weekend!

1.  DH gets home tomorrow!  Woo-hoo!  (Crosses fingers and hope nothing changes) He doesn't leave town again until the middle of April . . .and (whispers so no one at work hears and suddenly needs him) he has a full week off for spring break starting one week from today!  Which might not seem like anything exciting to you -- but my family is psyched!  He's been gone so much this year.  (The other day, my daughter jokingly called him the person who occassionally visits on weekends - sigh!).  My other daughter always asks him where he's vacationing this week, lol.  He's so sick of vacations (hotels, restaurants, etc) -- how would it be?  I'm really sick of Mac n' Cheese (which my daughter finds as her new back up snack and still wants for dinner).  But don't worry, we've only had it as part of a real meal twice in the past month.

2.  I've been cruising on my WIP -- now that I'm passed the agonizing  part that really stumped me and was very difficult for me to break through...yay!  And I have to really hurry because once DH is off, I know I'll get nothing done.  I"m hoping we can still do some exploring in our state...we have some great hikes planned.

3.  So my van didn't pass the state inspection...and took a lot of money to fix it so that  1) I can legally drive it  2) I can someday sell it (but not right away because I have no money to buy a new one) and  3) I can safely transport people without concern that it might completely fall apart.  (And 4 which I shouldn't mention, the mechanic can now buy a new mercedes).  I did wonder if I'd been totally taken for a ride since they knew I had to fix it...but it does drive sooo much better -- I do wonder however, if all the part prices were jacked up because it seemed much too expensive for what needed to be done.  And they told me business had been slow (maybe they shouldn't mention that to customers who might have to take out a second mortgage to pay for their repairs, lol, of course I'm kidding).  So now I'm trying to scale back Spring Break activities to compensate.  Ugh!

4.  Daughter has had a lot of pain in her thumb...today, we had to x-ray it again.  She worried so much about it last night that after 4 hours of trying to sleep unsuccessfully, I finally put her in my bed to sleep.  The x-ray still doesn't show a break.  They're guessing that she's torn ligaments.  The thumb is still bruised and ugly and painful -- but they said to just suffer through a few more weeks to see if the sprain or tear finally heals.  If not...it looks like a hand surgeon is in our future. 

5.  Junior Prom is tomorrow night.  My son is taking a really nice girl.  Him and his friends are still finalizing things like what they're having for dinner and who's  making it -- boys!  But I found out last night that I'm probably making dinner and helping to serve it, which works for me as long as I know what I'm making in time to buy and prepare it.  This is the first prom he's attended -- the first tux he's rented.  He's going to look so handsome.  But man, he's growing up so fast, soon school will be out and starting again and he'll be a senior.  We're looking at scholarship and admission requirements to colleges already...and he's taking the ACT again even though he did really well the first time -- just in case he can improve his English score.  Anyway, hold on to them while you can because in a flash, they're grown.  :)

Hope you all have an amazing weekend.  We're supposed to have rain and snow here but the sun is out today, so I think I'll go enjoy it while I can.
Happy Friday!

I was in the marketplace, manning my stall.  No one seemed interested in my wares today.  The air was pungent with fresh baked bread, strong cheese, and sweat.  Crowds of people pushed through the main channel to get in position for the announcement and the celebration that would follow.  My heart raced and I ran my hands over my dress, wishing I had something nicer to wear for the occasion.  Perhaps a fine silver and gold gown like those worn by the princess.  The man stepped onto the large, wooden platform and cleared his throat.  He looked my direction and nodded.  I thought of what I would say but words abandoned me so I stood quiet, staring up as the man yelled for everyone's attention.  I stepped away from my friend and my wares feeling the distance grow between us like a chasm.  I knew that the time had come and any second I would be pronounced High Queen and I would have to climb those rickety, wooden steps to accept my kingdom.
And then dang -- I woke up.

The dream faded nearly as quickly as it came to me and I vaguely remember the High King finding me in some horrible situation and rescuing me and then agreeing to marry me for some noble cause before he was killed.  And no one around me in the marketplace knew.  That's all I could dredge up except for that last strong scene that was so vivid when I awoke that it took me a minute fo figure out that I wasn't in the market and I wasn't going to be High Queen, lol.  I love how crazy dreams can be.

Often times when I'm writing, I'll dream of my story.  But this story came to me out of the blue.  All morning, I"m going to be trying to figure out what happened and what should happen...maybe it'll turn into a story afterall.

Hope all your dreams are happy today!

P.S.  I remember another reason I like snow...it's come and chased away our very cold air, brr...Sunday night when I went to bed the thermometer said 3 degrees but feels like -10 degrees with the wind chill.  And already this morning the temperature's up to 37 degrees.  The roads are horrible, but hey, I'm warm.

So first off, my muse can't cook. Yesterday, my muse came knocking at my door -- not really knocking, more like kicked the door off the hinges. I had so much to do, cookies to bake and ice, taffy to pull, gifts to wrap, and a few other asundry things to finish for my family Christmas party last night. I wanted to ignore my muse, but hey, she doesn't knock on my door like this everyday. I could see the whole scene in my head, hear the characters, smell the room, everything. It was amazing. I couldn't resist getting it down on paper...so I only went into the den for a minute, I swear that's all I'd planned, just enough time for the butter to melt on the stove. A half hour later when my house filled with scorching smoke, I remembered that I was melting butter for the cookies. Oops! I cleaned up my mess and started again...and if my son hadn't come home to move the pan, I would have repeated my burning scene. Then yes, I nearly ruined the taffy. My son gave me one of those looks that says, something is wrong with my mom but it's probably better to pretend I don't notice. I thought about explaining that I had voices in my head and couldn't concentrate on cooking, but figured that was also probably best unsaid, lol. Luckily though, everything got done, my house is still standing, and I logged over 1500 words in about 40 minutes. It was a great party, by the way. It was nice to be close enough to celebrate with family this year.
So today, I really didn't have much on my plate, and you know, my muse is resting, exhausted from yesterday's karate fit. Figures! Guess my muse has a sense of humor after all.
What do you do when your muse comes knocking and it's not a good time?

1. I have just returned from West Yellowstone with my family. We had a great time. Here are a few pictures of our vacation. But how come unpacking is so much harder than packing? Is it some sort of warped revenge for having a good time?
From the canoe on the river.

From Yellowstone.

We saw six bears but I don't have any good close shots for you. :)
2. We've put a lot of work in this summer on a garden, our biggest yet. Today, I'm going to try making pickles for my first time. I mixed a yummy salsa yesterday and roasted peppers. Here's a picture of our garden.


3. I love fall! I'm getting so excited for fall, even though I'm also sad to see summer end and the kids go back to school. I can't help starting to pull out some of my fall decorations and change from the bright summer colors to some of the richer, deeper colors of fall.
4. The progress on my new WIP has been almost nonexistent the last two weeks and there's little hope for progress over the next three weeks as I've committed to creating a beautiful scrapbook for my inlaws 50th wedding anniversary. We should have about 100 pages in it with wonderful congratulatory and memorable experience in letters from friends and family. I guess I should get started on it . . . and hopefully with school starting, I can also squeeze in at least an hour a day on my WIP. I've got to finish it because I'm already revising in my mind and I need to get those things down before I forget. :)
5. I'm almost finished with another revision on the novel my agent is working on...and then I think after this last revision, it gets sent out. I'm nervous about that...cross your fingers for me.
Thanks to all of you for your support. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! You're the best!