Are you there Blog? It's me, Jessica.

This is truly that point in the year when time becomes that elusive, evasive, coveted thing. I have worked every single one of the last seven days and by the end of yesterday, I was definitely feeling it. Exhaustion was present from my tongue to the core of my bones. Muscles ached, cheery holiday songs were belted out at the top of my lungs and all my eyes wanted to do was close themselves, perchance to dream.

All week long I've been wanting to write, to edit. All week long, ideas have been free flowing, tossing themselves in the air in front of me, frolicking, taunting...either not knowing or not caring that if I do get a chance to sit down, I'll likely fall asleep.

It has felt very much like that last week in October, that week where the build up towards NaNoWriMo has gotten so great that I don't think I can stand it another day until November begins. Only this time, it's January I'm waiting for. I can't wait to pull out the past 13 months of writing work and spread it out before me, piecing it together, making it better. I want to get reacquainted with every sentence, every word.

I'll confess that I did take a few found hours last week to read through the first 50 pages of the 2011 manuscript. While there is a lot of work to be done on those pages, there were a few delightful surprises I found in there as well. It was like dipping your finger in the batter. It only made me want to finish the project even more.

Today is the only day I have to call my own between now and December 30th. (Technically, I am off on Christmas Day, but it's hardly a day I can call my own.) I slept in (remember the days when getting up at 7am was called getting up early?) and made a small breakfast and some coffee and found myself here in the library. (In a side note, later this week my dad is going to install the crown molding around my bookcases!) My husband has also taken today off and in a few more hours he'll be up and we'll begin the days adventures, hopefully involving a trip to see the Zoo Lights, but mostly involving no trips to any stores and general relaxation.

This is a day I hope to savor, taking small sips and deep breaths...

"Movin' right along in search of good times and good news, with good friends you can't lose, this could become a habit! Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it (yeah!). Together we'll nab it, we'll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it! (Cab it?)"

          from Movin' Right Along by The Muppets

Zelda looks as excited as I feel.

Hindsight is Always

I woke up this morning entirely too early for my own good. I stayed up late killing an entire village, including one (other) werewolf. Long story...

While I was pretending there was still a chance I would fall back to sleep, I got to thinking about my book and about editing and about life. I was thinking about how nice it was going to be to go back through and edit, knowing what I know now. It's kind of like getting to go back and piece your life together after you already know how it's going to end. It's not the same as rewriting history, it's more like getting to go back and view the gaps with an altered understanding. It's the ability to see things through a new filter, a new prescription, a new found sense of what the world is meant to be about. Even now I can look back at events and experiences in my own life and understand how they got me to where I am today.

What's killing me is time (and apparently a lack of ability to get even 6 hours of good sleep). I've got a plate that's full and I'm kind of wondering if I could get away with hiding my Lima beans under something else for a while. Maybe no one will notice...

In addition to the writing/editing that I've been wanting to do, there is also a great many other things requiring my attention. The Great Ukulele Quest of 2011 has finally reached its epic conclusion and my ukulele arrived (undamaged and as re-scheduled) last week. Thanks to the help of my husband, it has been tuned every day and the strings are finally starting to stretch and settle. I've learned a couple chords and am looking forward to learning many more...in the new year. But for now, I mostly have to catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.

I've also been trying to read. I had to read a book for work. I don't know that I'm allowed to tell any of you what it is, but I will say this...it's the kind of book you really want to talk about once you've finished and because it doesn't come out for more than another month, there's really no one I can really talk to about it. I am also slowly working my way through WinterTown by Stephen Emond. He's an author I wasn't familiar with until I found his book out of place at work and took a peak inside. He blends storytelling with artwork in a lovely way. I'm about halfway through reading it and am looking forward to finishing it very soon.

In a completely unrelated note. It is still entirely pitch black outside. Wish me luck as I venture inside my own book for a little while...

from Stephen Emond's WinterTown

Mock Judge

A week or so ago I received a desperate plea for additional judges for the 2011 Metro Mini Mock Trial. I looked at my calendar, realized I had the time slot open and hastily replied that I would. As soon as I had agreed, I began to panic, wondering if I was really qualified to be a judge in this competition.

As this week has progressed, I've been thinking a great deal about high school, about the three years I spent participating in programs sponsored by the Classroom Law Project. These programs, these experiences, changed my life. They contributed a great deal to the person I am today and gave me a confidence I was able to carry forward with me for the rest of my life. It is an important program for so many others that I am grateful now, having acted on pure impulse, that I said I would help out. Maybe this is a way for me to give a little something back.

Today I read through the case materials and tonight I'll sit in a courtroom, learning what it's like to be on the other side. I can't help but wonder how this new experience will affect me.

On the 4th Day of December, 2011

This afternoon the sky is a cloudless blue. The moon is making her debut ahead, the sun is shining down on my back. My fingers have missed these keys.

December 1st is always a bit of an odd day, after the intensity of November. Time is an elusive and mysterious mistress. As my favorite Doctor describes, ‎"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." 

On the first of December, time becomes a different thing for me. The hours line up before me with such potential, such possibility. I find, that having stretched time itself to its very limits in November, filling it with so very much, once the calendar rolls over, I am a bit lost. At once I feel the freedom of being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I can watch a movie. I can knit. I can stare out the window. I can go for a walk. I can have long conversations on the telephone. I can learn to play the ukulele (I cannot bring myself to spend the time to write out this last week's efforts to thwart my efforts to learn...but, seriously, it's getting to be downright frightening and/or ridiculous).

The one thing I have been unable to do, is to let go of my characters. 


It has taken all my willpower to keep the file closed, to give myself some time and space before returning to the work. But I cannot keep the story, the characters, from invading my mind. This morning a saw a ghost (so to speak) and all I could think of was how perfect it would be to use in the novel.


For the first time, I truly understand the story. I see it completely from beginning to end, start to finish. I know what it takes to get from point A to point B in a way that wasn't exactly clear to me a week ago. And my mind is racing to get back to the work to drop in some clues, to fill in some gaps, to undo some missteps, to finish. I have never ever ever ever wanted to edit so desperately. I need to finish this story. 


But for this minute, this moment, there are things that need to be accomplished and I have promised myself a full week away. Soon it will be a week.


My calendar is already marked for my beach getaway in January and I cannot wait to have that space, that time, and my ocean cheering me on.

A Winner...in More Ways Than One (NaNoWriMo 2011, 61501 Words, 161 pages)

Yesterday morning as I sat in my writing space, sipping that ever present cup of morning coffee, I had a vision. For the past week, I've had a general idea of how this book 2 of 2 would end, but then, quite suddenly and quite surprisingly, there it was playing on the cinema of my mind, the final scene. 10 pages and 4,000 words later, I finally wrote it.

After the words were written, it was time to submit my novel for verification to the NaNoWriMo website so I could be declared a "winner." Throughout this process, I could feel a swell of emotions rise up within me and when the winner page came up and the video of staff members applauding me came up, I pretty much lost it.

Up until that moment, as the tears rose up from the depths and spilled out onto my cheeks, I had no idea just how much I'd truly and completely committed myself to this book and to these characters. It was a strange emotional state. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't pride. It wasn't any single thing. Maybe it was all of those things, in equal, overwhelming measure.

I found my husband and said, "It's time for champagne." I got the glasses, he opened the bottle (thanks Lewis!) and together we raised our glasses and I felt so proud and so happy and so completely content.

I don't know where this novel will ever end up. There is no way of knowing if it will end up published. I know there is still a great deal of editing work that needs to be done before I even try. What I do know, is that I'm quite anxious to get to it.

But for today, I need to close the document, go for a walk, go to work, read, eat, step away. I should probably do that for a few more days too.


NaNoWriMo may be ending today, but in so many ways, I feel very much like this is just the beginning...

To be continued...

"If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be, would you go along with someone like me? If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history, would you go along with someone like me?"

          from Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John

NaNoWriMo 2011, The Penultimate Day, 57328 Words

I am not nearly as obsessed with music as my character, Holden is. But the two of us both understand something. Music is a mood alterer and an agent of time traveling. There is a reason sports arenas play music. There is a reason movies have soundtracks. Just imagine what it would be like to watch one of your favorite films without music. Dialogue can only do so much (though sometimes, with the right words, can be intensely powerful all on its own). There are books and books that discuss the affects of music on the brain. Here's a handy link to an amusing article: 7 Insane Ways Music Affects the Body (According to Science).

I've had songs take me back to memories I'd long forgotten, make me remember people (boys) I don't think about anymore. It can make me melancholy. It can inspire. It can make me feel fantastic. Some songs, if they catch me unawares, can knock me flat on my back. I've never needed drugs as long as I've had music.

I remember a difficult time in college when I was really hurting and I would walk around campus with my headphones on or I'd go to the music building and find an open practice room with a piano and play. I was never very good, but just the act of creating music made me feel better.  It still does.

Sometimes when I have my music library on shuffle (with its tens of thousands of songs), it feels a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Which song is going to be the bullet that knocks me down? How many songs will pass by without any impact?

"Diamonds, roses, I need Moses to cross this sea of loneliness, part this red river of pain."

           from Moses by Patty Griffin

Rounding the Last Corner, NaNoWriMo 2011 (Day 28, 56221 Words)

15 hours passed between the time I pulled out of the driveway this morning and the time I returned. Tonight I am grateful for the productive 4,000+ word day I had yesterday. I will reach 60,000 words in the next two days even if it means I don't sleep...but with less than 4,000 words to go for my personal best November, I'm really not that worried.

My characters are well on their way home, and soon everything will be resolved, one way or another. What's been fun is the few little details, barely mentioned in the beginning of the first book, reappearing as the story draws to a close. It's been cool to see how some things come full circle, nearly 400 pages later. (holy bleep! batman! i just realized I've written 400 pages!)

The following song was the first song that came up on shuffle when I sat down at the computer tonight. Seems appropriate for this day.

"I've seen the end of the day come too soon, like the prison dogs they set out after you. You owe nothing to the past but wasted time, to serve a sentence that was only in your mind."

           from End of the Day by Beck

Some people have skeletons in the closet, others keep them on their front porch.