Coming up from air....*deeeeeeep breath*......I feel like I have been hiding a cave for the last month. NaNo. Well, NaNo and a biiiiiiiiig dose of anxiety. I don't know what it was about this past month, but the anxiety in full swing. It was to the point where I was really behind in NaNo. I mean really behind. I hated my story. I hated my characters. I hated everything. So I decided to start over, but I was so far behind that I almost gave up. This is what I do. I get behind. I get stressed out. I get anxious because I'm behind. The anxiety drains me physically and emotionally that I'm not able to try to catch up so I get even further behind and the cycle repeats. It is a vicious cycle. I hate it. I get so far behind and so overwhelmed that I give up. I was close. I was so very close to giving up. But I dug in. I refused to give up this time. I managed to catch up in a week. By the end of the first week, I had less that 3,000 words. I should have 14,988. So I was waaaaaaay behind. I put my nose to the grindstone.....well my fingers to the computer....and I hit 25,000 on time. In fact, I was a little ahead. Whew....I can't even begin to tell you how horribly my hand hurt because of that. I had to get a new wrist brace. It was worth it. I stayed ahead, thankfully, and even finished almost a week early. Yay!

So now that NaNo is over, I feel like I can breathe again. Kinda. I mean is it now the holiday season. I need to finish and edit a novel by January, but I can do that. I'm trying to work on a crochet project now that it is colder. The biggest thing I'm working on is learning Scribus. The bosses want me to learn this so I can help with the layouts of the journals and such. It is.....interesting.....to say the least. I already hate the program. I wish there was a program guide or something I could read. I'm playing with it and all, but it is a pain. As with any program, it takes time.

My Abby book is one step closer to becoming a reality. I mean, it already was a reality but, now, even more so. I met with my illustrator and we started talking about cover art and all that jazz. I'm so freaking excited. I've been finding pictures and stuff for her to use as inspiration.

That is about it from me for now. I have to get back in the habit of blogging at regular intervals. I also need to get my websites updated. That will be soon. I hope. Until then, I bid you adieu.  


P.S. 10 nerd points for the first person who gets the reference in the title. 

So here we are in the middle of November. I forgot to update my blog at the beginning of the month because NaNo. That is going to be my excuse for everything. NaNo. I can't believe that it is already November. It seems like Winter decided to visit slightly early this year. Places are already getting snow. We haven't had any there, but there was snow in Texas. I'm jealous. I love the snow. I can't wait for the first snow. Neither can my dog. She loves it.

So October ended on a great note. Husband and I went on vacation the last week of the month to celebrate our anniversary, which was in September. We decided to vacation this year. It was nice. We haven't been on a vacation in a long while. We like to go in the fall when it is cooler. I can't deal with the summer heat very well. The whole bad air quality and not being able to breathe thing. I also hate the heat. I love the cool. So we rented a cabin in Luray, Va. It was in the middle of nowhere. I was completely unplugged. It was kind of unnerving to begin with, but lovely there at the end. We had a few days to ourselves. The trek out there was amazing. It went through the Shenandoah State Park. It was an uphill, well an up mountain trek, with a ton of switchbacks and windy roads. Brian loved the drive. The cabin was huge. They built and extra open room in the back with a lot of space and tables and such. Abby was able to go with us. She loved it . We were on eight acres in the middle of nowhere. The place had its own little hiking paths as well. That was pretty awesome. On Halloween, a few of my friends came out to kick off NaNo and spent the weekend with us. We tried to write, but there was a fire pit, hot dogs, and marshmallows and booze. It was so much fun.

I had a problem with my original NaNo project. It wasn't ready and my characters were not cooperating, so I changed to a new one. It goes. I was so far behind the first week, but I managed to crank out 17K in a week to catch up, now I'm slightly ahead and I'm trying to keep it that way. It has been a struggle to keep up this NaNo. I'm just not feeling it.

I'm also working on editing my novel from last year. So we will see. I'm just having a really bad problem with anxiety this month. I don't know what is causing it.

Anyhow, that is really about it for now. I have to get back to actual work.