BROWNCOAT CRUISE - DAY 0

[stream of consciousness notes posted after the fact. i initially thought of cleaning these up, but then they'd likely never see the blog of day, so here you go]

arrive early in san diego, hotel room not ready, go to horton mall - escher like according to vancouver tourist man and wife who came here to escape the rain, wander, purchase, mongolian grill lunch, not feeling cold but wet so go back to hotel, can now get a room, king instead of twin, still a room with free wifi, im w.tonbo, get out browncoat bag, finish baccano - still lots of pieces, but some stuff is coming together, watch first rescue wings - slow, but going to watch more

down for pre-reg at 4:30 pm, long growing longer line, see mike, meet barbara & chris, tom & sue from toronto & angie from uk, english adam fan from uk, jessi, get shiny goods, love dogtag instead of badge & lanyard, back up, debate going down for dinner, go down just after 6 pm to give bc cruise staff prailines, officially meet brian, he ask if i got everything, intro self to tim with broken leg, didn't get to talk to uber-chair guy, back to room, have headache, go with pizza room service and a coke from lobby fridge, re-pack for cruise loading, on computer researching for ss submission (luck, katakana, swordsmiths, cats, japanese history & folklore), get images from baccano websites, no bath, bed

MONOKURO BOO

This is what happens when I go to a mall that has a Sanrio store to kill time. Welcome to two new additions to my plushy family: the Monokuro Boo-tachi.

Photo taken with the iSight camera in my new MacBook, Shiawase. Yes, I named my laptop. And I'm stickering the cover, but fret not Apple purists, I have a protective white cover on it (and you can still see the lit logo) and the stickers go on the cover. This way I can remove it and put on another to re-sticker again! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Needless to say, I'm not working today, as I'm on vacation getting ready to party on the Browncoat Cruise.

Blog updates after I get back and internet access is free again.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE DELAYED

The Good: got a check from lulu.com from Bud the Bunny sales. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of my first children's book, and for those that haven't, it makes a great holiday-of-your-choice gift.

The Bad: Thursday while I'm in Chicago for work I am told my office is being closed. I will now be a telecommuter working for the Chicago office. Same job, now working out of my house.

The Delayed: needless to say, this has affected my word count and the first draft of my novel will not be ready for the beta readers at the end of this month as I planned. And even given everything that is happening, that's what bothers me the most. :(

SO THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

So after having a rather crappy day at work, I come home and am just taking off my shoes when the doorbell rings. My first thought is that I don't want to buy whatever they are selling. Then I go and open the door to find my boyfriend there with a beautiful bouquet of roses and tiger lilies.

It isn't until we've been talking for about 10 minutes that I realize while these flowers are in celebration of my reaching the halfway word count on my first novel (45k words), they are also a gesture of love from someone I've been with for 9 years on the anniversary of our first date.

I had forgotten.

So, girls, it does happen: he can remember an anniversary and you can forget it.

So, boys, if this happens to you, don't rub it in, but know that you have accumulated numerous boyfriend points that can be used throughout the year ... judiciously.

And for those of you who wonder what the exciting, interesting life of a first time novelist is like, this is it: I forgot my anniversary.

NOVEL UPDATE - 1/2 WAY POINT

So lots of stuff has happened since the last post, including a trip to Calgary for Canadian Thanksgiving with relatives and a trip to Chicago for a Forrester event.

But what has really kept me off the blog has been developing the discipline to write 2,000 words a day. And I'm not talking about NaNoWriMo.

Having completed my ACDT novel outline, I have stuck to it, completely abandoned my garden and most of my house, and crank out 2k words a night, with 1 night off per week.

Which means I have achieved 45k on target words as of today.

Tonight, I party.

Tomorrow, I write some more, because it goes to the beta readers the week after Thanksgiving. ;)