I used to write songs about love, and loss, and God, and the tragic but hopeful state of the world.

Today, Dylan and I wrote a song, and the lyrics go: “Apple tree, apple tree. Apple juice, apple juice.”

I’ll save love and loss and tragedy and God for the novel, I think.

“Whoes saur.” It’s two words, pronounced: (whoes, rhymes with clothes, and saur like from dinosaur). I have no idea where he heard it. He’s been saying it forever, and we had no idea what he was talking about for the longest time. We still don’t know really. “Whoes” we think is a small blue cloth cooler underneath his old high chair. Because sometimes he’ll go to it and say, “Open the whoes.” The “saur” part is still anybody’s guess.

It’s just a little freaky, because you know how they say little children can see things that grown-ups cant? I just hope a “whoes saur” isn’t some interdimensionary being living in our cooler. Ack!

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 13
19826 words (on track = 21671)

Dylan is holding a red block, with a green block snapped on top. I wonder what he imagines it is? It might be a car, or a space ship, or a boat… we play this game sometimes.

“What is it?” I ask.

He says, very decidedly, “Green block.” How’s that for imagination?

NaNoWriMo Stats: end of day 5

9189 words (on track = 8335)

On track and a good deal ahead

I had no idea what I would write yesterday, and oddly, ended up writing a good portion of a chapter, a huge crisis moment for Lexi, all the way ahead in part 5! (I’m only on part 2 at the moment) Which means the scene is only hypothetical at this point, but I do have the next few parts pretty well sketched, so it’s likely to stick I think.

I don’t really feel confident writing these kinds of intense, fearful, high-danger kind of moments. How do you pull those off without being melodramatic? How do you make them believable? That’s the question of the day

My child plays with his trucks and tries to make a “vroom” noise, but instead ends up sounding like the “grrr” of a monster. It’s funny

I don’t know how he ended up being such a boy - trucks, cars, tractors, airplanes, digging in the mud, bugs! Oh the bugs! There must be something to cultural gender stereotypes, because I swear we had nothing to do with this. We’re computer nerds, people!

not a writer:

novel stats:
52,500 wds.
159 pages
ch. 5 of 13

Chapter five is coming along. Chapter five is a boy chapter - well, he’s not a boy, but a young man I guess. And it’s really fun to try to dig into a male mind, imagine how on earth one manages to get pee on the rim of the toilet, especially when you’ve been doing it for twenty-something years, lol. And what, exactly, is the fascination with lesbians to a man anyway? Considering the fact that they have no interest in men! Hubby is probably sick of all the questions I’m asking him.

These next few chapters are the part of the book I’m nervous about writing – where people are going to be mad, but I don’t want it to turn into a soap opera. Where people will be sad, but I don’t want anyone crying, “oh, pity me!” Where people make mistakes (and I have to let them!), and deal with the consequences. Eeek!

I guess if I end up turning it into melodrama, I can always try again. That’s why we have second drafts, right?