writing. sickness. guitar.

1. WRITING. Yesterday I broke my previous writing record. The old record was 10,000 words in one day, set in July of 2008 while I was sick with the flu. Yesterday, I wrote a whopping 12,000 words. WHOOHOO! I was on a roll, yo! I never write on Sundays (I mean on my novels--clearly I blog and journal and email and stuff), so I'm trying not to think about my novel until tomorrow when I can jump back into it.

This is the first novel I've ever:

- Plotted out fully in advance, beginning to end, and
- Refrained from ambitious plot twists in.

The story is straightforward. If I had to write a pitch for it...

Lena Clark is sure that nothing exciting will ever happen to her, and she's okay with that. Despite herself, she's blown away when she meets Nick, a handsome newcomer to her small Colorado town. As they get to know each other, Lena realizes that things with Nick are not what they seem, and that his past--whatever it is--is still haunting his present. And as her life and his begin to intertwine, she discovers that his secrets may lead both of them to untimely deaths.

So far it has 26 single-spaced pages. If it were in a printed book form, that would be... 53 pages. Word count's at 13,200 right now. I'm aiming at making it 65,000 words in total. If I can squeeze out 12,000 words every day (yeah, right) that would put me finishing the first draft by Saturday! How sweet would that be!

Judging by my outline alone, my outline originally had 37 scenes/plot points. Yesterday I wrote up 12 of them, for an average of each point taking up a little over 1,000 words. I'll have to flesh out a lot of scenes, I guess, to hit my goal for the novel overall.

I'm very excited about this book.

2. SICKNESS Carl spent the weekend ill, starting on Friday. He was sicker than I have ever seen him. Poor guy. Over the past two days, he's probably eaten maybe 500 calories. A bowl of Lucky Charms and four Saltines. He felt well enough to go to bishopric meeting this morning, where he is now. I hope he continues to get better--and that Nathaniel and I don't get what he had. Yuck.

3. GUITAR. Yesterday I decided to practice my guitar. I don't do that too often now, sadly. But I pulled it out, and found my old lyrics blog (not linking! but maybe someday) and practiced some of my old songs. I was superoverjoyed to realize that I could remember several songs I haven't played in years, and never recorded. I decided that I will for sure have to use my flip to record these songs and stick 'em on teh youtubes.

In other news, I realized this morning that I haven't restrung my darling guitar since before I met my husband. This is no good. We've been married for three years, dated for a year before that, and flirted for months before that. My poor guitar is going on five years of the same strings. No wonder they sound so weird.