I did it!

At 11:49 PM, July 29, 2015, I verified my word count with a total of 25,393 words.

I did it!

And now I can keep writing because I've uncovered a bit of a mystery in my story. And I know where it's all going to go, and it's really exciting.

Thanks for all your support this month!

XOXO,

JP

Tragedy + Writing

It's been a while since I've written. I started the month off so great, just under 11K words written, that I almost didn't feel like I had to write until I caught up to my word count goal.

And then tragedy struck. We went for a nice family drive up the canyon. I was getting all sorts of inspiration. It was great. Nature is awesome that way. It's kind of like when we went camping and I stayed up a few extra hours that one night to write, and ended up writing a couple thousand words. By hand. In a lined notebook.

Anyway, there we were, driving through the canyon. Out of cell service. We stopped to speak to a camp host about their beautiful campground facility. When we went to drive on, we had no clutch. At all.

The camp host drove my husband down the canyon, leaving me with the tired, cranky kids at the campsite for two hours. Luckily, my amazing sister-in-law, her husband, and my nephew came to save us. They were going to tow us out if we couldn't get the car to start in first gear. Luckily, it did. My husband trucker shifted (I didn't even know this was a thing until Sunday!) all the way home - over 40 miles, if I remember correctly. We thought we could fix the hydraulic clutch ourselves, but alas, we couldn't. It was done for. We had to find a shop to take it in to get fixed. Sadly, everyone wanted as much as we paid for the car to rebuild the transmission. Except for one shop who was willing to do it for about half what we'd previously been quoted, if we picked the parts up for him. Sure thing! So now my car is in the shop, and I'm not nearly as stressed out about it. (I'm supposed to be getting it back tomorrow. Yay!)

So, since I'm no longer as stressed out about the car, I decided to see if I could actually write. I turned on Pandora Classical Radio and set to work. About 4K words later, I was actually caught up to where I needed to be today! And now I'm still going strong. It's looking like I might actually hit my word count goal if I push hard and keep writing tonight.

So, into the writing cave I go! Wish me luck!

XOXO,

JP

Camping

 

I just got back from 4 days of camping.

Yep, actual, quite literal camping.

It was fun. We were out in nature. With the bugs and the rain and the freaking hot, humid weather.

But it was fun.

I loved it.

The thing I think I love most about it is that it gave me some really great ideas for the project I'm working on for Camp Nano this month.

I'm not sure what it is about actual camping that does that, but it does. For example, I wrote the first half of the first draft of The Sector on a camping trip several years ago. Look where that got me! It's published! You can even get it in my local public library (which is pretty awesome).

So who knows? Maybe this current project will work out just as well for me? Maybe, just maybe, it will actually make it to publication. Or, at the very least, get written and out of my brain. Because believe me when I tell you there are a lot of stories taking up space up there, with more joining the ranks every day. I wish there were enough hours in the day to write, work, and take care of the family, but the truth is: there just aren't. So, until we find a way to make a 48 hour day and I only have to sleep for 6-8 hours of it, I'm going to have to take every second I can to write. And let's just say, I definitely took advantage of my time while we were out in nature.

I can't wait to be able to share some of what I've been writing. Be patient, my friends. It will be worth the wait.

Until then, wish me luck! I've crested 10,000 words, leaving just under 15,000 left to write by the end of the month.

XOXO,

JP