Hijacked!

Hijacked! Well, all right, not exactly….…. I love journeys that takes me directly from point A to point B.  My NaNoWriMo journey was simple.  Start Nov 1^st (point A) and end Nov 30^th (point B) with 50,000 words of a novel draft.  THAT is not happening. 

My journey got hijacked, sidetracked, and just plain ransacked.  And I not only accept full responsibility for it, but am thrilled about it.  Most of it happened due to not preparing as extensively in October as I’d planned, and then consequently losing myself in self-education and research.

Here’s a few of the places I veered off course: 

• Crafting Unforgettable Characters: A Hands-On Introduction to Bringing Your Characters to Life. This free e-book from K.M. Weiland is full of tips on character crafting and so much more.  I have four well developed characters for my NaNoWriMo novel all due to this guide.

• Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success E-book, by K.M. Weiland.  I spent $4.99 for the  Kindle format.  I’d never outlined a novel before and now have one in the works – this got paired with…

• Novel Writing Help.com – I visited this site for days.  Found it through a small reference on the NaNoWriMo forum…what a GEM!

• The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.  Never again will I struggle to SHOW a character’s feelings. Seventy five emotions are covered and through body language, internal sensations, actions and more.  Again, a $4.99 purchase and it was a surprisingly addictive read!

• I left my laptop, novel notes, research and outlines behind on Nov. 12^th and traveled to SUNY Geneseo to listen to Erika Dreifus read from her novel, Quiet Americans.  I’ve been a follower since the early 90’s and she didn’t disappoint – it was an engaging read and a rare opportunity to share in the process of her writing and her connection to her stories.  A day well spent!

• Reading the daily list of blogs I follow, one of my favorites, Lisa Romeo Writes offered I Should Be Writing Boot Camp – winter 2013.  After emailing with Lisa, I decided to invest in myself and kick off 2013 with this commitment to my writing life.

• The Buffalo News Short Story Contest 2012 submission is due December 3^rd.  After numerous false starts, I woke up a couple nights ago in the middle of the night with the plot in my head.  This is a RARE occurrence for me, but I LOVE when it happens…..

Amidst the detours, I’ve sketched a rough list of my writing goals for 2013, come up with some draft changes for my website and blog, researched a few markets to enter and done a good deal of background research for my NaNoWriMo novel, which I officially now refer to as a “work in progress”. 

Hijacked? Sidetracked? Ransacked?  Absolutely ~ but what a ride!!!!!!!  

And the journey continues…

Maine: Land of lobster, hikes and writing tidbits…

Steven and I spent five glorious days in Bar Harbor, Maine in early August filled with hiking, eating, drinking and relaxing.  Steve looked forward to the “Lob-stah”, of which he got plenty and I came away with a treasure trove of writing goodies.  Vacations have always been an opportunity for me to collect “detail tidbits”.  Away from the distracting daily grind, my writers mind is more attuned to people and my surroundings and thoughts of how to weave those details in to future characters, settings and plots.  

Just makes you smile!

This trip’s constant turned out to be an enormous blow up white swan, strapped to the top of a Subaru.  We saw it at least once a day.  It was everywhere we went.  It was big.  It was bold.  It elicited ridiculous smiles. 

After a glass of wine or two on our balcony at the Holland Inn B&B, we strolled down the block for a quiet dinner at the Black Friar Inn, choosing a table in the near empty bar area.  Just after we ordered, a young woman at the bar made her presence known to anyone within earshot.  Throughout our “quiet” dinner, we learned of her Portuguese heritage, listened to her commentary on the Olympics, and found out that her husband was upstairs in their room with a headache.  We honored him with a silent toast and the future that lay ahead for him. 

Crying children have been a part of our vacations and a source of amusement to us in how they always show up since our honeymoon 30 years ago.  This one, around three years old, cried as she leaned on her mother’s knee for ten minutes straight as we all sat waiting for a shuttle bus.  Remarkably, her mom was able to totally ignore her, offering no consolation at all as she texted on her phone the whole time.  The dynamics of their mother-daughter relationship a few years down the road will be fascinating!      

One evening found us at a unique local attraction, Timber Tina’s Great Maine Lumberjack Show as the sun set in the woods of Trenton, Maine. It was surprisingly entertaining, with displays of wood chopping, tree climbing and ax throwing, sprinkled with a side of campy jokes, some lumberjack education and the larger than life personality of Timber Tina. The audience was split into two teams cheering for either the red or green flannel shirted team.  Our red team won, which meant loud a “Yooooo-Hooooooo” shout out for us!

A trip to the Big Chicken Barn, a huge antiques and book market, netted me a couple books on writing.  At an impromptu stop at another antique store down the road I scored the BIG FIND of the trip, a teapot with cozy.  The search for this piece has taken years.  Steve says they are probably so tough to find because the cozy is probably asbestos lined, but the childhood memories of my Nana’s pot & cozy make the asbestos risk worth it!

We spent most of our time in Acadia National Park. Hiking every day is something I could get used to very quickly.  I fell in love with my walking stick, the rhythm and pace it helped me set and the tricks I learned to use it to help my ascent and descent.  It made me feel almost athletic for the first time in my life!

Saw my first tide pool here!

Our trails ran the gamut from the flat sand bar at low tide to rocky shoreline, evergreen forests, rocky stairs and stone steps.  I mused about the workers establishing those trails, the multitude of other hikers that walked the same steps that I did and what they experienced as they travelled them.  Where they in awe of the clouds and fog that rolled in over the mountains around them?  Did they feel the solitude of their surroundings?  Did they find the tide pools as fascinating as I did and wonder at the delicate balance of life contained there?

Our last hiking day, our arrival at the summit on Champlain Mountain coincided with the clouds as they rolled across the top.  A first for me to have the front roll in and engulf me.  To feel the force as it approached, it’s cool whisper caress on heated skin, and the settling dampness.  To close my eyes, breathe in and be a part of it. A memorable moment to say the least.

When we got home and I looked through the (hundreds!) of pictures, I 

smiled to see one in particular.  It was a bumper sticker we saw during our walk through a little town maybe a mile long total where we’d stopped to stroll the sidewalk and look in the shops.   It reminded me of Steven and I, and of other couples I know of who do (and don’t) live their life by this motto. It has me thinking of the plot possibilities and the twists and turns of living a life where you strive to simply …. Be Excellent to Each Other.