About that NaNoWriMo Thing...

So during November I got this crazy idea to participate in NaNoWriMo.  Actually, I arrived at the decision at around 10 pm on Halloween, and then hovered around my computer for the rest of the night waiting for the stroke of midnight so I could get going.  I spent the month slaving away over my laptop keyboard in an attempt to complete the seemingly impossible task of writing 50,000 words of a novel in just 30 days.  But I did it!

As luck would have it, I had outlined a story a few months ago, so I had a plot and characters and setting ready and waiting to go.  I've never done anything like this before, so I handled it exactly the way anyone who knows me would expect me to.  I printed out my detailed outline, character sketches, location descriptions, and lists of strong action verbs and adjectives, and put them all in a binder with color-coded tabs and a whole bunch of loose leaf paper.  Really, the only downside was the fact that the loose leaf was wide ruled instead of college ruled.  I somehow managed to persevere, though, despite a nearly tragic mishap with a spilled water bottle in my work bag that left the bottoms of the papers slightly crinkly (and nearly claimed the life of my phone).

I'm a month behind on most of my tv shows and my reading of The Hobbit in preparation for watching the movie ground to a halt, but I hit 50,000 words on November 28th, two whole days early.  Then I promptly went out and bought myself a Slurpee.  Because I deserved it.

This story still has a long way to go.  I have close to 50 chapters sketched out and I finished November somewhere in the middle of the 10th.  I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it (or if I'll ever actually show it to anyone), but it was nice to get the words that had been rattling around in my head out onto paper. It was also fun to have a sense of purpose for the first time in a while.  Maybe that'll be what keeps me going.  I am, of course, taking a writing break.  I've got a whole load of craft ideas that I've been waiting to work on, and a lot of hours of tv to catch up on.  I like to think that it won't take long for me to get back to writing.

We Were Too Full for Second Breakfast...

Denny's is currently running a Hobbit themed menu in conjunction with the upcoming Hobbit movie and my friend Gabi and I decided that we really wanted to sample the Middle Earth fare.  Our only problem was that we apparently live in the only town in the country that doesn't have a Denny's within five minutes.  We had to make a special trip up to Lakeside Mall just to get some Hobbit food.  It was worth it, though.

We started off with red velvet pancake bites.  I have no idea how these relate to the Hobbit (or to pancakes, for that matter), but they were far too tasty for me to care.  Then I ordered a Hobbit Slam, which was by far the best thing I've ever gotten to say while ordering in a restaurant.  My Hobbit Slam (!) came with pumpkin pancakes and lemon seed cake french toast.  The pancakes were amazing.  I'm pretty obsessed with pumpkin, so I might be a little biased, but they were heavenly.  The seed cake, on the other hand, wasn't so good.  It was ok, though, because that left my stomach free to hold even more of the pumpkin pancakes.

All in all, it was a good day.  Especially since I discovered that I had my copy of The Hobbit in my purse.  Naturally, I had to pose for a picture with it and my pancakes.  Now they can live on in my memory forever and ever.  One of my other friends asked if we had eaten Second Breakfast, but I was so full from our Hobbit feast that I barely ate for the rest of the day.  Yum.

Hobbit Day...

Happy Hobbit Day, fellow Tolkien fans!  Today is said to be the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, so pass around the cake and have an extra helping of Second Breakfast to celebrate.  If you're really ambitious, you could have a fireworks display in honor of the holiday, but that could be awkward to try to explain to your neighbors.  Maybe it's best to just go barefoot as a tribute.

We're only a few months away from the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, as well, so we've also got that to celebrate.  It's a great time to lend your copy of The Hobbit to a friend who's never read it so they can get up to speed for the movie release (if you're one of those people who's comfortable parting with their books).  At any rate, it's a great excuse to pay another visit to Middle Earth and revel in the glory of the stories that have come out of it.