A NaNoWriMo Update & Confession

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I have a confession.

It is now day twelve of NaNoWriMo and I have sat down in front of my laptop to write exactly two times. Both times my kids were awake and in the next room watching t.v. and practicing making the leap from the bed to the couch. This is not conducive to creative thougth and concentration. Each writing session has lasted for approximately 15 minutes.

At this rate I will be done with my novel in 2025 . . . if I am lucky.

I may have overestimated my ability to not crash and fall asleep when I am laying down with James at night to get him to sleep. I also may have overestimated my ability to find time to novel while I am working.

Good news (for writing, if not for my pocketbook)! I am out of work as of Friday next week! So I am looking at my NaNoWriMo experience being more like a NaNoWri-last-half-of-Mo experience. I am committed to working on it as much as possible this weekend and next week and then hitting it hard come next weekend.

To be on track I should have about 18,000 words already . . . I have approximately 500 or so . . . but nobody panic! At least the page is no longer blank! And I've worked out some major character kinks and plot points in my head, so that's fabulous . . . and I have completed my prologue, which I thought I'd share with you! Maybe you can help keep me accountable! I got a lovely card in the mail from my dear friend Rebecca who is away at college encouraging me and telling me she knew I could do NaNoWriMo, which is what inspired me to actually sit down and start writing this after feeling very behind and lost. So thank you Rebecca . . . I love you to pieces!

Side note before you read this: please be aware this is a very rough draft, I realize I've used the same words a few times . . . it has not been edited because I am trying to silence my inner editor, get over my fear of imperfection, and try to get words on a page. So please . . . be kind!

Sleeping Beauty 2.0

Prologue

Alexandra Martin did not believe in fairytales. Truthfully, Alex didn’t even know much about fairy tales. In spite of her mother’s best efforts, Alex had always been more interested in finding and cataloging interesting looking rocks than paying attention to stories about princesses and fairy godmothers. Which is why, when she walked into storage room B-23 of the Gem and Mineral Museum of Los Angeles and nearly bumped into a cobweb covered four poster bed, she immediately began mentally tabulated the rarity, historical significance, and cost of the gems embedded into the ornately worked head and footboards. It wasn’t until a soft sound interrupted her calculations that she even noticed that she wasn’t alone. There was someone sleeping in the bed.

At first Alex thought the sleeping figure, like the bed, was covered with fine cobwebs. As she looked closer she realized that it wasn’t cobwebs draping over the figure but hair – foot after foot of sandy colored hair draped from the sleeper’s head, and over it’s face and body, moving gently as the figure breathed in and out. As she looked closer she realized the hair wasn’t growing just out of the sleeper’s head, but from the face as well – a beard that would have done Rip Van Winkle proud flowing down to well past the knees. And that is when Alex realized she didn’t have a sleeping beauty on her hands, but an enchanted sleeping man.

As Alex stared at the figure in shock, trying to calculate how long it would take for that much hair to grow, a soft snore emitted from the sleeping man. Alex jumped back about half a foot at the quiet sound, trying to stifle her slightly hysterical giggles. She may not know much about fairytales, but she was pretty sure that enchanted sleeping princes weren’t supposed to snore.

So what do you think?

Remember, it's not too late to join me for NaNoWriMo . . . I'm obviously just starting, so you could too!