November 2008

Which is fundamentally different from NaNoWriMo 2008. Somehow.

November was a busy month for me, quite apart from my writing. Work was hectic, but nobody wants to hear about my work, so I'll let it slide.

I got back into WoW sometime in October, which was pretty foolish. The expansion called to me, though, and I started playing three or four weeks early so that I could be "ready" when the expansion finally came out.

T-- and AB went to Wichita for a special family thing on Thursday the sixth, leaving me here because I had to work. I was well taken care of, though. Thursday night I spent playing WoW, and then on Friday and Saturday I hung out with K-- and N--. My birthday was on Sunday, the ninth, and T-- came home late Saturday night so she could be there for my birthday.

We didn't do anything extravagant then -- had lunch with K-- and N-- and maybe D--. Then I spent most of the afternoon being lazy, which was awesome, but not much different for me than most Sundays.

The following Thursday was the release date for Wrath of the Lich King, the WoW expansion, and I took off work Thursday and Friday. In case that seems outrageous, bear in mind that one of those was my Regular Day Off, so it wasn't a full two days of vacation just for a silly game. One day, but not two.

Anyway, after spending all evening Wednesday playing WoW, D-- and I ran up to Wal-Mart at midnight to get in line for our copies. My sister's husband joined us there, too. The dork factor was through the roof, but we survived unscathed, and got out after about an hour's wait with fresh copies of the new game.

Then we went home and discovered that the installation process was going to take several hours, so I gave up and went to bed. I think D-- stayed up late, and played some during the night.

I spent some time Thursday morning with T-- and AB, but then spent pretty much all of the next 24 hours playing WoW. I must have slept, but I'm not sure how much.

Friday afternoon my parents arrived, visiting for my birthday, and we had a big party that Friday night (thus the low-key celebration on the preceding Sunday). We had barbecue from Steve's Rib (my current favorite), and everyone brought treats, and we played Rock Band for hours on end. It was awesome.

Oh! I didn't do any writing during all of that. I'd gotten a couple thousand words done Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday over lunch, but as of the time I got home on Wednesday afternoon, I was all about WoW. And then my family came in, and I was busy hanging out with them until late on Sunday, and Sunday evening I got back to WoW.

So Monday morning I was way behind on my writing, and I didn't do a lot to get caught up. Tuesday was a holiday, and also server maintenance for WoW, so I couldn't spend the whole day on the game, but I never get any serious writing done at home. After that, though, I really kicked into gear. Four thousand words a day, regularly, and I had eight thousand-word days on Thursday the twentieth and Wednesday the twenty-sixth -- that last being the day I finished the book. That was pretty exciting.

I know something important happened that weekend after my birthday party (the weekend of the twenty-first), but I can't remember what for the life of me. Sometime in there, probably on the nineteenth, I took T-- to an art opening at the OKC Museum of Art. That was a lot of fun. Pretty sure I'm forgetting something else, though....

Anyway, then Thanksgiving came the week that I finished my book. Actually, I wrote "The End" over lunch on Wednesday the twenty-sixth, then three hours later left work, picked up T-- and AB at home, then got on the highway Arkansas-bound. We got to my parents' place a little after 10 p.m., then sat up talking until midnight.

The plan for Thursday was a late Thanksgiving dinner -- not my favorite tactic, but it gave us leisure to sleep in, and Mom and Dad took us out to IHOP for a big hearty breakfast. Then we got back home and Dad said he needed to clean up the leaves in the yard, but after that he was hoping to get some writing done. He really wanted to hit the 50,000-word goal by the end of the month, but he was still in his low thirties, and he was going to have family to entertain starting that afternoon.

So, more because I'm a good writing coach than because I'm a good son, I offered to take care of the leaves for him if he would promise to spend the time writing. Turned out they have a high-power leafblower (new since the last time I offered to help them with their leaves). It was a major convenience, but they have a major lawn. I spent a couple hours on the project, on got about 2/3 of the leaves taken care of (if you don't count the back yard). I got the most important bit done, though, and around the time my back started killing me, family was showing up, too, so I called it quits and nobody complained.

My dad's brother Perry and his whole family came to visit, making this year by far the most time we've ever spent with them. My older sister and her family was in town, too. They came by for supper, hung around late, then went back to his parents' place for the night.

Friday Mom and T-- went out shopping some. I played WoW, and Dad worked on his book. We all went out to dinner Friday night, and then I watched AB until her bedtime so T-- could do some scrapbooking with Mom. After that, of course, I WoWed.

Saturday we headed home, right after a lunch at On the Border. It's a brutally long drive, and T-- spent a couple hours of it napping, but I passed the time working on a programming project in my head, and it went pretty well. When T-- was awake, we talked about my book, which she'd finished reading just a day after I finished writing it. Egotistically, my books are easily my favorite topic of conversation, so that was fun for me.

Then we got in late enough, exhausted enough, that we just went home, foregoing standing plans to watch the Beldam game with K-- and N--, and the rest of N--'s family who was visiting for the holidays. Turns out they had some drama of their own, but even without that we would have bailed. The game was amazing, though. Dallas won on Thursday, the Sooners won on Saturday, and they got their shot at the National Championship when the polls came out on Sunday. It was a good weekend, footballwise.

Well, all around, really. I played a lot of WoW, spent some fun time with family, and finished a novel all in that last week of November. I didn't have anything to complain about.

Oh! And then I was up Sunday night, playing WoW and trying to bully myself into going to bed because I had work tomorrow, late in the evening when I got a call from Dad to let me know he'd hit the mark. 50,000 words and then some. His book wasn't done, but that's not part of the rules. He made 52k within the 30-day span, and he's pretty confident that, just like last year, he'll have his book done sometime around mid-December.

Awesome. I'm so proud of him.

This week I've been back to work, and that's a drag. I'm also feeling some of the letdown of being done with the novel, and not in a good way. We did have some drama come up with our Tulsa house during that last week of November, and that's pretty stressful, and work remains demanding. So I'm not sleeping great, and I've been feeling pretty out-of-it, but I'm sure that's all swift-passing problems. Overall, life is good.

And, hey, tomorrow's Friday, with the promise of a whole weekend of WoWing afterward. How could I not be glad of that?

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.