Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

I am still busy at my NaNoWriMo novel. I will hit 50,000 words, which is so awesome! I only wish that I was actually finishing my book in that many words. Instead, I am no where close to actually finishing the story itself. The book will go on. It’s been so fun to write though lately. I hope Thanksgiving doesn’t distract me too much and I can still get my words in!

Anyway–sorry about the lack of posts, particularly Project 365. I have been slipping on that big time. I promise that starting today I am going to get back to the Project, still only posting once a week though.

For Thanksgiving, I’m going down to Pueblo to visit my family. I hope all of my American friends have wonderful holiday!

Long time no blog! Eek!

You should actually take that as a good sign though. It means that all of my writing energy has been poured into my NaNoWriMo book! Last weekend, I finally got the breakthrough I was looking for and I have seriously increased my word count. That being said, I am still massively behind, at only 19,000 words. But I’m not afraid anymore. I feel rather confident that I can get it done, and I’m quickly falling in love with my story.

Falling in love with my story makes me happy, but it makes me worry about the other novel I’ve been working on for a year. I have already invested 300 pages into it and I am still determined to finish it. I’m pretty good and splitting my attention, but I must be honest and say that I am currently obsessed with what I’m working on now and the influences that I’ve been accessing to motivate me. I have a whole new music collection that I’ve been listening to as I write that is completely different from my other book (Click here to see it). I’m not going to lie. A lot of these songs come from Grey’s Anatomy and I think that’s a great thing. There’s a reason why the show uses these songs, because it evokes emotions and allows scenes to play out very well.

So anyway, if you’re wondering what I will be doing the rest of the month, you can bet it’s writing. I’m attacking this NaNoWriMo challenge hardcore!

Speaking of hardcore…I have some other things to report.

As you may recall from 2008, I am a Twilight fan. I shouldn’t be so ashamed about this. I have a strong philosophy of “to each their own.” My hugest pet peeve is when people who have their own nerdy, fringe, or even super popular interest are critical of one of the things I like. This comes out like crazy in the workplace. I happen to work with a lot of lovable nerds that love Sci-Fi, etc., that have literally gone to conventions, and some that love playing WoW and spend a good chunk of their free time doing that. So you would think that I wouldn’t get grief when I mention Days of Our Lives right? I totally do. It’s the most fucking obnoxious thing in the world when people do that and the most hypocritical. Star Trek is not my thing. I barely tolerated the movie and thought it was only okay. I’ll never own it or go to a midnight show for the sequel (actually, I might, because I like going to midnight shows of things). But I have a friend who loves it and I would never try to bring him down. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to bring me down either and totally grasps the “to each their own” philosophy.

So if you’re about to roll your eyes at the next part of this post, because I talk about Twilight. Spare me. It takes so much more effort to hate something than to just accept that some people like it. And if you think that hating on something that is popular, especially amongst women (which I would argue is part of the problem), makes you somehow superior or cool, it doesn’t. It makes you seem insecure.

Life is hard, and so it should be celebrated when anyone can have a ton of fun loving something in the fictional/escapism realm. To-each-their-fucking-own.

Last night I went to the Twilight double feature with my sister and my friend Michelle. It was a blast! We saw Twilight at 9 and then New Moon at midnight. It was a great time and I’m going again tonight with a larger group of friends. Is New Moon the greatest movie ever? Hell no. Do I care? Not one bit. Because I have fun watching it and living in that world for two hours.

So I guess you could call me hardcore for Twlight.

But do you know what you should actually call me hardcore for….

Grey’s Anatomy.

Because even though I got home at 2:45 in the morning and I had to be at work by 9 this morning, I stayed up and watched the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy at 3 in the morning. HARDCORE.

Truthfully, I am not actually hardcore for any of these things. I personally know people that actually attend Days of Our Lives fan events, went to the New Moon premier in Los Angeles, and make montages of Grey’s. And while it’s unlikely that I’ll ever go that far, I could never discredit or mock those girls for being passionate about something they love.

So the next time you’re working hard at hating American Idol, soap operas, Nicholas Sparks, fan fiction, Star Wars, WoW, Lady Gaga, or High School Musical….remember, it’s all for fun and life is too short to stop the fun.

PS……

Grey’s turned out way better than I thought it would for Cristina and Owen last night! I hate that a love triangle is coming, but at least this episode made me pretty happy:

I’m loving my new system of doing one Project 365 post a week. It’s really freed me up and makes me love my blog so much more! Hope you guys like it too.

Nov 01 2009: Lazy Sunday

Today was great. I watched lots of football, made delicious calzones, and started working on my NaNoWriMo. I also enjoyed the nice weather. Only in Colorado could there be a huge snowy blizzard and then lovely sunny weather soon afterwards. The cats have been loving the extra sunshine of course. Here’s Penny, stretching out in the sunshine:

Nov 02 2009: Pure Evil

So Halloween was two days ago, and once again, no trick-or-treaters came by. So I’m stuck with a bowl full of my absolute favorite candy. How good–or should I say how bad? It calls to me every time I walk by. I’ve been doing ok with only sticking to two pieces a day, but I’m afraid I’ll just give in one day and make myself sick on it. Definitely time to put it away or take it to the office to give away.

Nov 03 3009: Mystery Writer

NaNoWriMo is going pretty slow and since this is my first time writing a mystery story, it’s kind of hard for me. I’ve been watching lots of mysteries on TV and reading a lot. I love my plot so much, it’s just kind of hard to execute so far.

Nov 04 2009: Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the 2008 election. I’m still excited and happy. Those feelings last year are still so much a part of me. I will never forget it. And even though I still feel upset and somehow the minority in my belief system when you see these rowdy loons, I remind myself of what happened last year and how a strong majority of this country came together to vote for change.

Nov 05 2009: Jinx?

I have a long and complicated history with the Denver Broncos. For the past few years, it’s been impossible for me to be a Broncos fan because I hated Jay Cutler and Mike Shanahan so much. Then a great thing happened. Shanahan was fired and Jay Cutler became a whiney bitch that got the trade he was hoping for. Good riddance a-hole. No one thought the Broncos could go anywhere and that’s how I liked it! I love an underdog. All expectations were out the window and so I embraced the Broncos once again. I saved up some money to get a new Broncos sweatshirt, and when it finally arrived, I wore it for the first time on Sunday. Well it was the first game they lost of the season. So now I’m wondering, is it a jinx? I doubt I have that much control over the universe, so I think I’ll keep wearing it anyway.

Nov 06 2009: Behind

Today I called in sick today, feeling rather lousy. I thought though that I’d get some work done on my NaNoWriMo novel, but even that seemed too hard. So I pretty much sat around and didn’t get too many words in. I did however find the most stressful desktop background. It’s a calendar that shows where my word count should be at each day. Let’s just say I’m already thousands of words behind

Nov 07 2009: Happy Acorn

Today I felt worlds better. I still didn’t do much though, but I had to get out of the house. So I got dressed and went over to Panera to work on my NaNoWriMo novel. That was a great time and I did get some words in and did some important research. But what I missed was my cute happy acorn that sits on my desk back at home. I don’t know why, but this little thing just makes me happy, which somehow inspires me to write. I mean, seriously, how could you not smile when you see it’s happy face?

It’s Halloween weekend and that means there’s going to be some festivities.

First off, tonight I’m going to rush home and get ready for the annual Matthies Halloween party. Last year was a ton of fun, and I’m expecting the same this year. Like I said in an earlier post, I’m going to be Cleopatra. I’m really looking forward to this costume. Hopefully, I can get the head piece worked out.

Then on Halloween itself, I get to stick around home and relax. Since last weekend didn’t feel much like a weekend all, but instead felt like work, I look forward to just bumming around and doing whatever. Hopefully, I won’t be totally lazy.

Then, at the stroke of midnight, I can begin writing my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve been waiting to participate in this all year, and I’m so excited. The gist, is that you have to write a 50,000 word (150 page) fictional novel between November 1 and November 30. You would be surprised how many people participate in this. There are at least 780 people in Boulder doing it alone. So I’m super psyched!

The work itself is going to be a mystery. I’ve never written mystery before, but I’ve read plenty. It’s going to be called “The Four Mansions on Lambert Bay” and it will have a female tow historian/librarian protagonist that solves it all.

Before it’s all said and done, I’m going to make some calzones on Sunday. Thanks Amanda for the recipe tip!

Today was ho-hum. My dad and Cathy came up, and so Marissa, Johnny, and I met up with them at the mall for lunch and shopping. I had to skip out early though because I wasn’t feeling so well. I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before because I had really vivid nightmares and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I pretty much lied around the house.

But for today’s picture…I recently bought a bulletin board for home. I haven’t put it up yet, but once I do, I’m going to use it to sketch out my novel a little bit better. I’m really looking forward to that. Until then, all these little pins represent ideas.

So many ideas.

I’ve been writing a short story for my EJami board to practice writing in third person and to give me something else to try as I feel a little bored with my book at the moment. Plus I can let lots of friends read it and give me feedback. I’m also trying out some plotting techniques, such as using notecards.

I'm trying this out for the first time.

Back in JUNE, I won a drawing for my friend Nancy’s book contest. Nancy is this wonderful person that I met on my EJami fan board. She’s also a terrific writer and tells quite the saucy tale. Anyway, she sent out my prize (from CANADA), and it was delivered to my leasing office back in JUNE. I missed the the delivery slip and it just sat there and sat there and sat there. Today I got a call that the package had been sitting in the mail room for over a month. Eek! So I rushed right over and got it.

Thank you so much Nancy for the package. I love it! And the surprises were great!

Check out Nancy’s site at www.ejamie.net

Besides the cool writer's journal, there's also some CDs, bookmarks, and a postcard. My favorite part might be the handwritten letter. My Internet friends are the best!

I totally neglected to take a photo today, which is silly because I actually worked on my Project 365 album. I only made one page, and I have so many more to go. As I work on other projects in my life, especially writing my book, I’ve put scrapbooking aside for awhile. Hopefully I can do more in the future, but maybe not until my book is done.

• Storybook Creator Plus
• Earthy Power Palette for the background paper and descriptive text paper.
• Digital Shapes – Tags for the tags.
• Digital Embellishments – Sewing Room Romance for the safety pins.
• Earthy Serenity Digital Kit for the swirly images.

Today was the first day of my week off! I spent it at a computer (sad), but I was working on my book. I also squeezed in some yoga in the morning and cooked some. It was a fantastic day and very productive.

Me and Rodney Yee, stretching it out in the A.M.

So today was my first day off in Operation “Get The Hell Away From Work So I Don’t Rip All My Hair Out.” Overall it was a great success. Now to appreciate this post, you should go back and read “An Ideal Day” to see my grand fantasy of how I’d like to spend my time during this week. I certainly couldn’t have it all, but I could do some of it and I did!

I didn’t get up at dawn, but I didn’t need to. Instead, I woke up around 8:15 fully rested. I took a hot shower and put on my yoga clothes. I meandered downstairs and found my favorite Yoga DVD. I blew off the dust it had collected and followed an almost nude Rodney Yee as he stretched his way into the day.

I sort of wish Rodney Yee tucked me in at night. He's got such a soothing voice.

Seeing him in his little bikini bottom made me think about Never-Nudes, and during my downward dog I chuckled, which didn’t do much to relax my belly toward the earth.

After floor time with the cats, which is essentially what my yoga turned out to be, I went right toward the fruit. Yesterday at the grocery store I bought every fruit imaginable so I could get some variety all week. To start things off, I opted for melon. That along with an English Muffin and I had quite a tasty breakfast. Sadly, I didn’t read anything while eating, but I did listen to music, so that should count for some sort of cultural calories.

I'm a melon girl.

Breakfast, check. Coffee, check. I was then ready to write. In my two-bedroom townhouse, I don’t have a home office, but I do have a cute little desk with a rather comfortable chair. So I planted myself at it and started the writing process. For three hours I worked on my book, reviewing and writing. I managed somehow to stay off of Twitter and Facebook, and got a lot done.

The corner office.

Before I knew it, my stomach grumbled and it was time for lunch. Fortunately, I had purchased some of the ingredients required for the grilled chicken salad of my dream day. I put it all together and it was better than I had expected it to be.

Chicken from the pre-marinaded Archer Farms selection at Target.

Then it was back to work. I started doing some major outlining of my novel with a program called StoryMill. It’s this software that helps you outline, organize scenes, keep characters lists, location descriptions, etc. I’ve only recently started using it for those purposes. I might end up buying it.

StoryMill in action.

I spent a little time on the couch listening to music and trying to dream up what would happen next in my story and that was pleasant. There may have been a little singing, but only the cats could tell you for sure. And that’s pretty much how my first day went.

Sadly, there was no cute café, writers group, or secret forest path. But there will be a book and bath in my evening.

Tomorrow — I’m using the first half of my day to run some errands, pay bills, and do some cleaning. Then I’ll be back on the computer. So tune in tomorrow and I’ll show you just how that turned out too.