author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Seriously. You're a great pen-pal, an exemplary long-distance acquaintance. I hadn't seen you in the flesh since, oh, 2003 or so, and that was actually really truly OK. When you visit, things get... messy. Uncomfortable. It doesn't help that you send no warning, that you stay some 16 hours, and that it takes another 36 to clean up after you. Look, email next time, OK?

(Then I can hide until you leave again.)

So, yeah. Dearth of blogging has many sources, but the most immediate was TEH SIXXOR. But now I am, if not all better, then much improved. Dressed and showered. Active. Had some caffeinated tea this morning and took a walk outside in the sun, both for the first time since onset of symptoms Tuesday night. Am contemplating foods not on the BRAT-plus-broth diet.

Writing may actually happen today. *gasp* Stay tuned.

Funny thing is, all day Tuesday I couldn't seem to motivate myself to do anything beyond some necessary household chores. I suppose the lack of energy wasn't just due to the all-day rain and my personal species of seasonal affective disorder, but possibly also to the oncoming infection. Next time I have one of those days, I'll try paying attention rather than beating myself up for getting nothing done.

Not that beating oneself up for failures is ever a good idea, understand.

It may not look like it from the word count, but I'm in the home stretch. I know where every one of those 4000-ish words left to write goes; it's mainly going to be a matter of writing down the facts already in my head and the citations for where I learned them.

In having finished this project late, I've gotten three days behind on the NaNoWriMo novel. But that's not my biggest regret. My biggest regret is having left myself no time to volunteer in this, an incredibly historic election year for the U.S.A. I didn't campaign for Obama, I didn't make GOTV calls, and I wasn't even able to work as an election judge between this and other obligations that kept me from attending the training sessions. I feel like a total bum.

I'm doing this much: I'm hosting an election results party for some friends. After everyone gets off work, they'll come over here to watch the news and tune their laptops to various liveblogging events. I'll be cooking stuff from our CSA-overloaded fridge - I'm thinking colchannon and stuffed acorn squash. And, if Nate Silver's election predictions are correct, I will finally have occasion to make Schadenfreude Pie.

(Why, yes, that was an unprompted suggestion in the Google search bar.)

All right, back to the grind. See you after the *thunk*. At which point I'm breaking out the Scotch. And yes, if you know me and you're within easy traveling distance of me, you're totally invited. But if you didn't vote, your role tonight will be piñata.

(See, there, I nearly did that "disappearing in a puff of shame" thing again.)

It's November 2nd. What's your word count? Yes indeed, it's that time of year: National Novel Writing Month! And we had a huge handful of local and not-so-local participants come over for the traditional all-nighter kick-off party. Great conversation! Great food! And, starting at midnight, great productivity! I don't think any participants who attended left having written anything less than 1200 words.

This was, of course, why I knew I'd get nothing whatsoever done on the StyleCareer.com project on Friday. After I got home from work (for the last time), I had a lot of cleaning up and prep cooking to do. Then people came over, and it was no use thinking about anything but NaNoWriMo.

It was Samhain, by the way. John and I celebrated Samhain by filling out our ballots together over dinner. Symbolic, that. Out with the old, in with the new! Our contribution to turning over a new leaf for the new year!

So I did in fact reach and slightly surpass my daily 1667 for Day 1. Then, after everyone went home and I puttered around the vast Internets for a while, I went to bed. At 5:00 AM.

Saturday I got nothing at all done towards anything at all. I slept and read and slept and read. I went to a NaNoWriMo write-in, and did nothing more than smile, hand out stickers, and try to stay awake. We call this "all-nighter recovery."

So now I'm sacrificing NaNoWriMo Day 2 in order to finish up the StyleCareer.com project. My editor granted me an extension, and I am not going to ask for another one. I'm still feeling terrible at how little I got done on Thursday. How does one go into the Denver Public Library with the intention of working, but in fact end up reading web comic archives for four hours? I kept thinking to myself, "Just another few minutes. Then I'll start." And, "I really should start. Why am I not starting?" Click. Click. Not to over-dramatize my particular indulgence in the doldrums, but it's these sorts of shameful, stupid afternoons that bring me closest to possibly understanding what it's like to live with depression.

I thought hard about finishing the project via an all-nighter Thursday, but not only would that result in a much too rushed product, but then I'd be in terrible shape for the planned all-nighter Friday. Of course, now I may be looking at an all-nighter tonight, but that's not nearly as bad. I slept a lot yesterday, and I have nowhere to be tomorrow. Nothing scheduled. Hell, I can be a nocturnal writer now, if I want. I'm a free woman!

So that's the status report. There will quite likely be another one in the wee hours.

Enough about that. It's NaNoWriMo, did I mention? This year, for the first time, I have no idea what I'm writing. Nearly none. I'm out of ready-made novel plots! How did this happen? This past year has been a terrible one for ideas--I've let myself get out the habit of producing them. Been trying to fix that lately, though. Been going on writing dates with a friend, forcing myself to stay in the notebook or word processor just a little longer than I think I can. One Monday morning a few weeks back, I started a character sketch describing a man I saw exiting the bagel shop, and the character turned into one of two guys on a road trip, on the run from a mysterious, scary, supernatural something or other that was tracking them across the country. So that's where my Day 1 words went: imagining how that story might have started. Hopefully, the Muse will be kind, and She'll keep feeding me enough of the story each day so that I'll reach the end of it by November 30.

Today is not a sleep-until-noon Tuesday. It can't be. Not with 18,000 words to go and four days to do it in.

At times like these, one might ask oneself, "Well, how did I get here?" And one might thereafter find oneself with Talking Heads songs stuck in the brain. And no good answer. I mean, this happens every single time I have a deadline ("same as it ever was... same as it ever was..."), and it gets worse every time.

When fledgling writers consider out loud the possibility of quitting their 9 to 5 jobs to pursue the dream full time, they often receive financial advise. "Don't do it unless you have six months/a year/three years worth of income saved up," say the gurus. "Don't do it unless you're married to someone with a paycheck." (I was. I am. I'm lucky.) It's more rare that the advice they get concerns time management. At least, I didn't get that kind of advice. I had to find out for myself what happens when I have all day, every day, to write.

You know what happens? I don't write. I lie back and I think, "I have all day!" And I sleep late and putter around and play games and read blogs and nap with my nose in books and take long soaks in the tub, and suddenly I don't have all day anymore. Ditto when deadline's still a month off. "I have all month!"

Today, happily, I woke up going, "I have all day - I should be able to knock off 10,000 words easily," and I stayed awake. Fired up the computer. Decided on a work and reward cycle that might keep me going all day (2,000 words, fifteen minutes of Puzzle Pirates, another 2,000 words, etc). Started the work part of that cycle. Started going over my notes. Started writing.

So what am I doing taking time off to blog? I dunno. Confessing, maybe. Usually, when I get to this point in a procrastinated project, I disappear from view, ashamed, and I don't resurface until I can proudly tell the world "Thunk!" (Which, of course, means, "I'm done! Finally! Yay! Gonna collapse now.") And I suppose I'm interested this time in keeping a record. I mean, there's my word count. Here's my statement of intent. Let's come back at the end of the day and see how the day played out.

After today I pretty much have Thursday. Friday's my deadline. And both Friday and Wednesday will be spent at the office until 3 PM and then in full-blown NaNoWriMo prep mode (a meet-up Wednesday night and the kick-off party Friday night). So it comes domn to two more-than-full-time days. Can't afford to do the usual Tuesday "I've got all day!" thing.

So that's where I'm at. I would say, "hopefully I will be at a better place tonight," except "hopefully" is the wrong word entirely. "With luck" is also wrong, for the same reason. As usual, the solution to not having written is to write. Neither hope nor luck enter the equation. So we'll say this:

Workfully, I'll be halfway out of the hole in another twelve hours or so.

I form habits.

I think this is just one of those things that some people are more prone to than others. We're all habit-forming beasts to some extent, but I think some of us form them more easily than others. It may be related to the concept of "an addictive personality"--you know, the tendency to become addicted to chemicals or experiences that others can easily partake of in moderation? Right. I think I form habits just a little bit too readily.

Did you know stress can be a habit? I don't think I'd quite realized it myself.

Today I'm sitting here feeling guilty for not working hard on the project I finished and turned in yesterday. (THUNK.) I've been working on it long enough and stressing out about it long enough that I'm in the habit of stress. It's bizarre.

Clearly, I need to go sit at the spinning wheel and make yarn for an hour. Or play more Puzzle Pirates.

Tomorrow: FICTION! Woot! Or maybe some long-delayed WorldCon blogging. Or maybe both! Crazy talk, that is. CRAZY talk.

OK, not 6:00 AM, maybe closer to noon, because I am officially declaring my intent to have a couple hours' nap-time. Thththbbbp.

That's me: still last minute-ish. Only, the last minute is an overnight and no longer a month long. This is an improvement.

As usual, I fell behind on my intended work schedule. Thus, 9,000 words to go between now and Deadline. That's OK; there's a lot of today left in today.

I'm going to go ahead and announce for all to hear that the current project will go THUNK in my editor's inbox by 5:00 AM MDT on March 15. (Hey, it's daylight savings time already! Is this actually helping us save on oil and electricity?) This is because I firmly intend to start some Serious Goofing Off right about then. My crewbies on the Viridian Ocean are planning to hunt the sea monsters of Atlantis at noon GMT, and I want to be there! Yarr!

Wait! It's daylight savings time! That means 6:00 AM MDT. Well then!

Don't worry, I won't go into a month of downtime over this. Sunday's writing time is earmarked for rewriting "Seeds of Our Future" or whatever I may end up renaming the short story currently known as "Putting Down Roots." Hopefully it won't take me more than a few hard-working days. If I run into the person I want to submit it to at the World Horror Convention at the end of this month, I want there to be a chance that she's actually already received it.

Also? Next week, the bathroom and kitchen get cleaned within an inch of their life. I really hate the way we can tell how long I've been working to a deadline by the depth of the grime layer on the fixtures.

So this week has been a nibbly sort of week. Each day I've been sort of nibbling away at the March 15th project, and then running off to do something social and fun (cf. Melanie and Steve Rasnick Tem's book launch for The Man In The Ceiling, the rock climbing gym's free Intro To Lead Belay class, dinner with friends, etc). Where I'm at now, I'm looking at about 2100 words a day from here on out. However, tomorrow's Thursday, and Thursday is a nothing but writing day. "I know," you say; "Promises, promises!" OK, well, I have some housecleaning to do. But other than that, nothing but writing.

Meanwhile, as regards fiction rewrites, I'm starting to experience some percolation. Nothing written down yet, nothing to report in detail, but... I got me some plans. They're at that bubbly stage. I expect to see the bubbles begin to splatter all over the page before the week is out.

So, y'know. Stuff. It's going on.

From the Department of Putting Folk Wisdom and Traditional Aphorisms to Real World Tests, March has officially come in like a lamb. Saturday the 1st was short-sleeves warm; I got sunburned biking home from work. (I had to work. Long story. Emergency involving a Juliet Brailler and a bunch of pie charts.) Most of able-bodied Boulder were out wearing Spandex and clogging the bike paths. Or clinging to mountainsides; I had the rock climbing gym practically all to myself due to all the real climbers being out climbing real rocks. It was a beautiful day.

And Sunday it snowed. That's Colorado for you. John and I looked out the window around 8:00 at all the frozen precipitation, and he said, "It's opaque outside."

So it's March. You'll notice the whole "Thing-a-Day" thing sort of trailed off around here mid-February. I was in the middle of another couple of last-minute deadline cycles--only, due to some extreme suckiness on my part, the cycle consisted of my saying "I'll have it finished in a couple of days," spending the next couple days beating myself up over about 2,500 per day, and then saying "but I'll have it finished the next couple of days for sure." Thus the eleventh hour mentality stretched itself out over most of the month. Most of my meals included a side of stomach lining with adrenaline dressing.

I do not recommend spending one's February this way.

So, partially because I'm swearing never to do that to myself again (and I really mean it this time) but mostly because my editor has said that the next project really truly does have to be turned in on time, I've logged said next project in the database. I can't say much about it, since my contract includes a confidentiality agreement, but I can say I've got a project and am up to this many words. 25,000 of them are due on March 15. It's like NaNoWriMo, but with research. And instead of saying vague things like "Oh, it's coming along" when anyone asks, I can point here and say, "X amount of words! With X days left to go!"

I'm slightly behind because of not really starting the writing part until March 1 and then taking yesterday off. But yesterday was sort of full of weekend things. (Long story involving a lot of friends, several Torchwood episodes, Vietnamese take-out, and a game of "Munchkin.") Now it is Monday, and Mondays are for working.

Meanwhile, you might be asking, what about fiction and poetry and stuff? What about the writing with actual soul? What about the writing I meant when I was seven years old and said "I want to be a writer when I grow up?" (You mean you weren't asking? Huh. Shows how much you care. I was asking.) Well, this great thing happens when I only owe my paying, deadlined project some 2,000 words a day. I have time to spare. And it's not all going to be spend on Puzzle Pirates. Promise!

As I might have mentioned, I'm going to the World Horror Convention at the end of this month. (John's coming with! Yay!) So are a significant handful of my fellow '06 Borderlands Boot Camp alumni. I can't bear the thought of showing up in front of them and not being able to tell them that I've finally sent off a beautifully rewritten "Seeds of Our Future" (ne… "Putting Down Roots") as one of our instructors notoriously told me I ought to do. That's my fiction project this month. And you can hold me to it, too.

Yay! Back to using this blog as a public flogging place! Just like old times!

And so it did.

Look, that doesn't mean I'm going to show you.