The Goal That Ate My Life
by on December 15th, 2009
filed under On Writing
It has been a crazy few weeks and not just because of the holidays.
I FINISHED MY BOOK!!! 
I set a ridiculous goal for myself and met it. I had to write about 30,ooo words in two weeks! That’s somewhere around 150 pages. Yeah, I questioned my sanity… more than once. But I’d paid good money to enter a contest that required me to send a copy of my completed manuscript. So I had to complete it.
How’d I do it? Well, it helped that I had two friends who had also set insane writing goals for themselves. We met at coffee shops & wrote. We cheered each other on and when we got too jittery reassured each other that we weren’t losing our minds-we were working toward our goals (and then we created a distraction & swiped their coffee cup).
When I’d made the commitment the only obstacle was a five day family vacation. But I reasoned that I could write during the six hour drive and at night at the hotel. That was before Monkey Boy decided to get swine flu wiping away a whole week of writing time because he couldn’t go to school. Time I had counted on. A lot. But I’d made the commitment, I’d paid the money. I had to do it.
I wrote on Thanksgiving and at 4am on Black Friday after returning from a 3am Old Navy shopping trip. I wrote for five minutes, a few hours and on one day almost 12 hours straight. Basically, I wrote every chance I got for as long as I could.
And now I’m in editing and rewrites… another level of hell.
It’s almost the New Year, time to reset goals. I wonder what crazy goal I’ll set for myself next year.
PS- Send a thank you card to a soldier for free at http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
by on November 27th, 2008
filed under Undecided
Here’s a little humor to help you survive Thanksgiving with your family and Black Friday.
Thanksgiving Divorce
A man in Jacksonville calls his son in San Diego the day before Thanksgiving and says, “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.”
“Pop, what are you talking about?” the son screams.
“We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer,” the father says. “We’re sick of each other, and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Denver, and tell her.”
Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone.
“Like hell they’re getting divorced,” she shouts. “I’ll take care of this.”
She calls Jacksonville immediately, and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. “Okay,’ he says, they’re coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”
I hope you all have a great day, eat too much and remember to be thankful for the little things like having enough food to burn/serve raw, being able to go to another room in the house that shelters your family just to get away from Uncle Harry’s gas problem, the bottle of wine that helps you cope with the fact that you are not alone in the world but surrounded by well-meaning loved ones who won’t mind their own bees wax and the super tight pants of the football players your DH is watching on the TV as he lazes around all day making sure the couch doesn’t float away while you work up a sweat preparing food for people who will complain that it’s too salty, lacks flavor or isn’t as good as they would have made it.
