Author Archives: Carol M

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 25 or We Had Date Night

Last night, Kid #1 worked from 4-8, so the hubs and I decided we were going to go out. On a date. Kids #2-4 are old enough to stay home unsupervised, at least for a few hours. And my sister lives close. So do the several cops we know in the neighborhood, should something happen while we’re gone.

That pictures is the sunset last night. I took the pic as we walked out of one of the local Walmarts. We also went to Target, Kohl’s, a new home store that I don’t remember the name of, Marshall’s, Ross, TJ Maxx, PetsMart, and back to the home store to get dog sweaters of all things.

My dogs are little and they get cold and have a hard time warming back up. I always said I’d never put clothes on a dog but… here I am :p.

We also went to Chili’s for dinner. Then Culver’s for dessert later. They’re in the Target parking lot, and if you bring in your Target receipt, they’re doing BOGO dessert. Since I bought a friend a present (clearance baby!), we got a free frozen custard :D.

I did a little bit of writing last night. Words aren’t coming easily, but I made progress, both with word count and story. One really good day would get me to the end of the book, though I’d still need to fill in some of the middle later.

Also… sale! Dare You is free through 11/28. Heart of a Prince is 1.99 through 11/27 then 2.99 through 11/30. Grab them while you can!

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 1091
Total: 69023

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 1091
Total: 59736

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Sale, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 27 or Black Friday!

I hope y’all had a great day yesterday! We did! My mother-in-law, stepfather-in-law, and sister came over. We did lunch, hung out for a bit, then hubs, three kids (one came home after a bit), a boyfriend, and my sister went shopping. They weren’t out long last night. I went to Walmart today. Hubs and Kid #4 went a couple places today too.

I Do. Not. miss working at the mall today.

Not even a little bit.

Hubs smoked our first turkey yesterday. It was de. lish. ous. All the yum.

I didn’t feel great last night so ended up writing not much at all. Here’s hoping for a better today – at least until date night ;).

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 118
Total: 67932

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 118
Total: 58645

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 23 or Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope y’all are having a great day with family and friends!

And today, I’m thankful for a 12yo who loves story! She always has, but she struggled for many years with words making sense – her eyes and brain didn’t talk right to each other and it made reading super difficult.

But she worked super hard for over a year in vision therapy and then her doc decided that her brain was compensating so well that it didn’t want to retrain itself. Instead, he gave her prisms in her bifocals and that has helped SO MUCH! It took a year for her to get caught up with what she should have already know but now that she has…

For the last two months, and especially the last few weeks, she’s had her nose in one book after another.

And I LOVE that!

I did get a little writing done yesterday between getting stuff ready for today and a bunch of errands. Hopefully more tonight after everyone heads home/shopping.

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 664
Total: 67814

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 664
Total: 58527

Family, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 22 or Cookie Makin’ Day!

Kid #1 was at work, but the other three all helped making sugar cookies with Grandma. It’s a tradition going back at least 20 years to when my nieces and nephew were little.

So now we have dessert for tomorrow.

I was running around all morning and didn’t get home until time to get started so blog comes now.

Hubs is working on the turkey. We’re smoking it this year. Should be interesting – and hopefully yummy!

My computer got rebooted last night and took like 3+ hours to install an update so I got very little written outside of the newsletter that just went out. You can still sign up here and you’ll get a link to it!

I DID find a work around for something that’s been bugging me since the last major update. When I right click on the icons in my tray at the bottom of the screen, it used to show recent files and let me pin the ones I use often. The pinned ones are still there but no recent ones so I couldn’t add any new pins (like my Publisher file for the NaNo blog cover pics like the one of the cookie making). Apparently you can drag the file to the icon and it’ll pin it. This also works for Scrivener (which is what I write in) which has NEVER shown recent files! YAY!

Sometimes it’s the little things ;).

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 127
Total: 67150

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 127
Total: 57863

Family, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 21 or It’s Been a Decade

I probably write about this every year but… too bad ;). It was a momentous day for us.

This is what I posted on Facebook last year:

Nine years.

It’s been nine years since this sweet boy went in for likely life-saving surgery.

At nearly four months old he’d gone from 6lbs 6oz (and 30 days early) to just over 8lbs…and back down again. He’d spent over a week in the hospital trying to figure out why he wouldn’t gain weight.

Pics from last year

Turned out it was severe GERD and he needed a Nissen Fundoplication so he wouldn’t spit up anymore. (You know how it always seems like babies spit up everything they eat? He literally was spitting up 1/3-1/2 of every feeding. We measured.)

For the four months before that and the 9 years since, people like Roberta, Dakota, Kourtney, and the rest of the crew at our doc’s office gave us the love and support we needed – and never, ever made me feel like they thought I was doing less than my best. In fact, when I was worried they’d have no choice but to call DFS (because a baby that size losing a half a pound in one week…), they just hugged me and said they knew I was doing everything I could.

He couldn’t burp for two months and had other issues growing for the next year, but this was the beginning of his recovery.

He’s now a healthy, happy, gregarious 9yo. He’s got personality for miles (can you tell?!) and is the sweetest kid.

So grateful for him, the surgeon and his team, and all the others who supported us through that very difficult year. Love you all.

*

I had spent nine days in the hospital with him from Nov. 9 to the Friday before (whatever date that was) then we went home for the weekend while they ordered the equipment they needed since the surgeon had done this surgery on tiny patients before but not since he’d moved to this hospital.

I didn’t go to bed the night before. I was so far behind on my grading that I stayed up trying to catch up. I didn’t, but I only got about 45 minutes of sleep before it was time to take my little guy to the hospital.

We were there until Sunday. Thanksgiving dinner? Hospital food. My sister brought a little of the good stuff from home, but we didn’t have out usual Thanksgiving since hospital and all. She also brought her TiVo and we watched TV all day ;).

I don’t miss those days. I do miss my tiny boy sometimes, but I don’t miss the challenges. After he made it through the not burping phase, he spent two months, literally, going 1.5-2 hours between every feeding, around the clock. That meant I never got more than 1.5 of sleep at a time, and usually less. A successful day meant everyone was alive at bedtime and the two in diapers didn’t stink too long.

That was a very long two months.

But now… he’s a generally happy, healthy ten-year-old/5th grader with a personality that doesn’t stop.

We still deal with the aftereffects of surgery, mainly that he can’t throw up unless he’s REALLY sick, but otherwise, he’s all good.

I did get some writing done last night. Not as much as I was hoping for, but some. Remember to sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already because there’s news going out today or tomorrow most likely. That’s what I spent part of yesterday working on. I also looked through some of book 3 while working on something else and can’t wait to get back to it once In Concert with the King is finished!

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 2136
Total: 67023

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 2136
Total: 57736

Family, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 20 or Poker Playing Puppy

I forgot to mention a Netflix movie I watched Saturday. It’s called A Christmas Prince, and I’m sure you can tell why it instantly appealed to me (and why friend Jennifer Major suggested it to me). Besides being a royalty movie, the younger sister has spina bifida – just like my cousin and the character based on him, though the sister’s isn’t as bad and she’s able to walk at least sometimes with the arm brace-crutches things.

It’s very Hallmark movie-esque despite being on Netflix, so if you have a subscription (or can borrow one or visit a friend who has one), I highly recommend it!

Last night, the fam got together and watched Spiderman: Homecoming and enjoyed it. Tonight, we’re planning to watch Cars 3 (because hello rent one get one at Redbox).

I did get some writing done. Stats below. Also, big announcement tomorrow or Wednesday via the newsletter – be sure to sign up if you’re not already!

No screen shots again today :p. But stats…

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 1347
Total: 64887

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 1347
Total: 55600

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 19 or There was a Parade…

Two of my favorite kiddos! Kid #2 and one of her besties (who calls herself my bestie ;))! They marched in the Christmas parade yesterday in our local town!

You can see from the pic what the morning was like. Gray and miserable and cold, but not cold enough to snow. The high school band wore ponchos over their uniforms and most woodwinds had to hold their uniforms UNDER the ponchos!

My oldest got to ride in one of the Corvettes at the beginning of the parade because she was a queen candidate at the fall festival. Unfortunately, they had to put the tops up on the cars so no one could see her looking super awesome in her band uniform – plus she didn’t have to wear a poncho ;).

Afterward, the band turned in the parts of their uniforms that they won’t need anymore. I helped with that then went to my local ACFW meeting to do some writing. Had some discussions with our two board members about what our plans are for next year. Came home and, well, I’d like to say hung out with the fam but…

Kid #2 went with her friend/family to Silver Dollar City. Kid #1 and her boyfriend/family were supposed to go but decided it was too cold so stayed home and played games instead. So neither of them were home. Kid #4 was at a birthday party. Kid #3 was reading a book.

And I kind of took a nap.

But after waking up, I talked with Emily, my first reader, about where the book goes from where I ended on Thursday (before my 3 words on Friday).

I like the plan we came up with and started on it last night. But I didn’t get any screen shots of the progress so… none of those today…

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 1444
Total: 63540

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 1444
Total: 54253

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 18 or Three Little Words


Three.

That’s the number of words I wrote yesterday.

And they only kind of count because I edited the last chapter and tweaked a sentence.

That’s it.

In fact, I’m posting this from my phone, on the couch, under a blanket because I’m cold and that’s all this post deserves. That pic? That was my dog two days ago. Today, I wish I had a fire.

So no stats except three more words than yesterday’s stats…

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 17 or 50K Bites The Dust

I did it!!! 50K in 16 days!!!! Less really because I wrote more than enough yesterday so 15.5 writing days. WOOHOO!

The book isn’t done, of course, but it’s getting there. By the time I stopped last night, I was at over 52K for NaNo and 62K for the book. I’m still hoping to have this draft done by the end of next week but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m loving my characters and my hero especially made some real growth yesterday, which is always good.

I feel like I should have more to say here, but well, I really just don’t atm ;).

Today should see a fair bit of writing. I write late, get up with the kids some days (like today), then go back to bed until later, so will be doing that shortly. Then I’ll write some more, take a kid to work, send another kid to a friend’s house for the night, then probably write some more. Tomorrow is the Christmas parade and two of my kids are going with friends’ families to Silver Dollar City for the rest of the day. I’ll be going to a write in.

So yeah. There we go. 50K written. Didn’t hit my goal of double what I needed to win NaNo but still over 6K so nothing to sneeze at.

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 6316
Total: 62093

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 6316
Total: 52806
Completion Date (50K words): November 16

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing

#NaNoWriMo2017, Day 16 or So Close!!!

SO CLOSE!

I had a GREAT day yesterday, though my official NaNo numbers don’t show just how great, because I did delete those 530 words (or at least moved the file to an area that doesn’t get counted since I’m not using it as part of the manuscript itself… but now that I think about it… It might work as the lead in to the later stuff I wrote last night… Hmm… that would be kind of nice… because they’re all dressed up and everything already…)

I also got all of the above things in the mail/via UPS yesterday!! Oh the hymns! I love the hymns!

Last night, I skipped ahead. I have 50K+ written from the beginning forward (minus one section – I started it yesterday, thought it was going to be two scenes but think it’s going to be four instead, we’ll see). I wrote all the way ahead to a certain point where I’m not sure what happens next, but I knew what happened from another point to the end.

So I jumped to that point. I’d guessed from the beginning of what I knew to “the end” would be 10-12K but then began wondering if it would be more.

Yeah. It’s more.

I’m at 4 scenes so far for what I had anticipated would be 4-5 scenes and it’s going to to be more like 7-8 probably. But they say confession is good for the soul and Benjamin’s finding that out ;).

So yay!

And I only need 3510 words to win NaNo! That should be easy peasy to do! WOOHOO! I knew the circle wouldn’t be green on the book stats yesterday because that was what I needed to win NaNo. But it will be today!

Yesterday’s Stats:

In Concert With the King
Yesterday: 5005 (but really was 5535 because I deleted 530)
Total: 55777

NaNoWriMo 2017
Yesterday: 5005
Total: 46490
Anticipated Completion Date (50K words): November 17 (but will really be today!)

NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo, Writing
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