4:15 a.m.

Uploaded my still incomplete novel a few moments ago….Total word count submitted: 51,777. I’m feelin’ really good about this. Second year in a row I’ve written 50K in the month of November, although this work is still unfinished–unlike last year’s book, which I was able to type “The End” on 11/30 and feel like I had a complete draft to play around with. I’ve still got a good 15K to go for this book before those lovely two words can be typed after three hard returns and a shift to the center of the page….

Now, I should probably try to get an hour or two of sleep, because at 9 I need to be at the courthouse for jury duty….That’s right! They selected numbers 50 through 687. And because I’m number 625, that makes me the big jury winner….

Wouldn’t that be great if they gave you juror door prizes or parting gifts?

And special thanks go to Juror no. 7, who leaves us today with a brand new blender and a $20 gift card to Kameras R Us! We think he did just a great job of intimidating Juror no. 2 to change her vote to convict! Congrats, Juror no. 7! We hope to see you back here real soon!

Ah, yes. Sleep is a definite priority for me right now!

I’ll update when I return. I can’t wait! I’m taking HP and the Half-Blood Prince with me, as well as my Moleskine Reporter’s Journal (I have a Moleskine for every occasion!) and “plenty of quarters for the vending machines” as the district court’s recorded message advised me to do in my special instructions phone call….

Enjoy the day, all! And for those of you who are wrapping up your books or who are blogging for the 30th straight day….waHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Congrats to you!!!

In about three hours, I will be placing a call to our local Jury Duty Hotline, where I will learn my fate to see if my number–that’s number 625, to be precise–falls within the group of numbers selected for duty tomorrow morning.

Mixed emotions on this one.

The teacher in me doesn’t want to leave my kids for a full day (or more). Writing sub plans is a chore, and I really feel like I’m in a good groove with my classes. I don’t like rocking routines that are still in their youthful stride.

The writer in me is ready to deal with the devil to get selected for a juicy trial. The experiences I will gain are virtually limitless: the potential jurors, the interactions with the lawyers in the selection phase, the actual trial, seeing the defendant, working on a verdict with the other jurors, the reactions in the courtroom when the verdict is revealed….Even if I have to sit in the “pool” room all day and not be selected, that experience itself will be worthwhile….

The Nano writer in me craves and curses the opportunity. If I get called in, but not to serve, then there’s tons of time to finish my book (a little less than 7K to go). If I get called in and put on a trial, then my chances of finishing are diminished significantly (unless I do a super-write tonight and git-r-done that way).

I’m up for it, whatever happens. I know most people shudder when their number comes up (not That number, the jury one), but I see this as great material for writing…

I’ll know by 4:31 either way!

Good day, all:

The four-day break was beyond wonderful with my family, and yesterday HG (my 10-yr-old daughter) and I dreaded the return to the grind. But we reminded each other that it’s all in the attitude in which we approach the Monday-morning return…

I’ve always had a challenge in keeping a healthy balance between work and home. As a teacher, I throw myself into my classes and into the clubs I’m involved in. As I head back to school this morning, though, I’m doing my best to remind myself that I can give of myself fully while I’m there, but I can do that in the concentrated time that I’m supposed to be there, and then I should head back home. Too many days after school have I lingered behind, believing that there was just one more thing (or two, or three) that I had to do.

So: Today I’ll leave school by 3:30, beat most of the rush-hour traffic, and return home to my family, where I can resume this wonderful run of days with them.

As I said, it’s all in the attitude. I’ll work hard while I’m there, but I live more fully when I can spend more time at home…

Here’s to a good Monday to everyone…May it be a happy, balanced one!

Those of us who are writing novels or blogging daily in the month of November are facing the home stretch; many of us are being asked many of the same questions, so I thought that I’d address some of them here…

Q: Will you finish?

A: Of course we will. It’s what we do, we crazy writers. We set a goal to write 50K in one month, and we do it. We never said it was going to be pretty (although some great things do happen when you write 50K in one “sitting”).

Q: Is any of it good?

A: It’s all good, if you ask me. It’s a vomit draft, and therefore it serves its purpose to have words on a page to work with. This activity, this exercise in writing, is making the clay–lots of clay–to spend a whole year molding into something worthy of sending off for representation.

Q: What happens after you finish?

A: You take a breather–at least I do. Last year, I took off two weeks before I just had to jump back in and start working with what I had just written. Some people take a longer break. I think that there is another nationally sponsored revision month (maybe March) where you spend a certain number of hours in the month revising what you wrote in November. I can’t wait that long. It took me a full year to revise Cold Rock, which was last year’s Nano creation.

Q: What’s this final week going to look like for you?

A: It’s going to look a lot like the screen on my laptop. Virtually every possible minute will be spent on this draft to make sure I make the November 30 deadline. That means night time sleeps turn into short naps whenever absolutely necessary. It means lots and lots of coffee and very little sugar (causes too many quick crashes, which is devastating for any artist). It means I send my internal editor on a week-long trip to the Bahamas so that he doesn’t try and stop me from finishing.

In a nutshell, it means insanity.

And I love every minute of it.

:)

My goodness, what a great thing that it is still a vacation day, with yet another one tomorrow. This feeling, my friends, is how I believe we all should feel as often as possible: ready to work, but encouraged to play just one more day. . . .

Kind of like, oh, let’s see…..Die Another Day?

That’s right, Jack (too much Seinfesting, I’m afraid; sorry for that one-liner from the Jon Levitz character…). I saw my first Bond movie yesterday afternoon, and I am absolutely hooked.

Today we’ll probably see if we can rent the original Casino Royale so we can begin our Bond movie marathon from the first one through to the remake of Royale in the theaters now. I figure that, if I’m going to see them all, I might as well see them in the order they were released.

Question for anyone out there….Are they much like the Ian Fleming books? I love reading the books before seeing the movies….Would you recommend I do so? Or are the movies in an entirely different league and can be appreciated solely on their art form without even aligning them with the original Fleming novels?

More cleaning today, which is a great thing. My wife and I have been putting our kids through absolute misery these last few days because we’re asking demanding encouraging outright forcing them to have a good time cleaning with us and (shock!) having them clean up after themselves before the next activity begins.

I’ll tell you why we’re doing this: First, we should have been doing it all along, but having two kids in the house who are five or under changes your whole perspective on the issue of what it means to “survive” in the household. Now that they’re getting a little older and more independent, and now that HG, our 10 year old, is upping the responsibility odds to secure a few babysitting gigs in about 18 months, we’re finding the opportunities to care a little more passionately about 1) how much plastic we keep in the house and 2) where that plastic is kept (this will be, for the most part, an all-naturale Christmas for said kids).

Second, our friends are able to do it (or at least through some illusory magic, make us believe that they are able to do it). Watching the Bond movie at our friends’ house was that much more enjoyable because their family room was so, so very nice to be in. If they can do it, why can’t we?

Off to clean and spend more time with my kids. Goodness, how I love these days!

Are you already out there?

Have you been standing in the lines outside Best Buy, CompUSA, WalMart, or Target since 11 last night? Waiting to buy that plasma TV for $199? Or how about that laptop for $99? Hmmmmm????

And if you were out there, was it worth the wait?

I have to ask because I was not out there. I drove by the lines of people, jumping up and down to keep warm, and I followed the streaming spotlights that swirled in the late night Thanksgiving sky. But I did not stand in the lines. I just…well, I just couldn’t do it.

This is the first year that I’ve noticed Black Friday creeping into Thanksgiving day, and I feel like the sanctity of that one Thursday in November has been tread upon, dirtied even, in a market’s effort to steal you away and say, Hey, buying these tvs really is more important than being with family.

I don’t know. I feel like I’m being old-fashioned about this, maybe even a little nostalgic. But I remember Thanksgiving as that moratorium on all things commercial. It was the calm day before the big storm hit, but at least we could count on that peace; at least we could move from one family’s home to another with relative safety that the streets were free of crazy shoppers or consumers with motives other than finding that elusive jar of cranberry sauce still on the shelves at the one store still open in town for such emergencies.

About a block from my house, CompUSA opened its doors last night at 8 p.m. for its special 8-till-midnight sale, and it worries me that next year it might be 6 to midnight, or what if they offer free turkey dinner to the first 100 people who are in line by noon to celebrate their doors opening at 3? I can just hear the promo ad now:

That’s right! CompUSA’s got your best interests in mind! Now you can get the best of both worlds! Bring the whole family and enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner–on Us! It’s our gift to you as you join us in celebrating our first-ever Thanksgiving Dinner Day Sale, where you get a meal and $250 off your choice of plasma tv! This Thanksgiving, you can pass the pumpkin pie in Aisle 3, where we’ve got the NFL Tripleheader playing in stereo surround sound. Don’t miss this opportunity to be our guest and celebrate this most special day of the year–in Hi-Def! CompUSA: the company that brings families together!

And you know what else? Who in the world really gives plasma screens for christmas? I would bet a good chunk of money that many of those tvs that were bought last night and this morning have already been ripped free from their boxes and are being installed in time to watch this weekend’s NFL matchups.

So I ask you: Does CompUSA and the others have your best interests in mind, or theirs?

Silly question, I know.

One quick other thing before I run to CompUSA (just kidding…): Last night, over the best turkey dinner I’ve had since last Thanksgiving (go figure), I confessed to my friends that I have never, ever seen a James Bond movie. And so, the familial celebration continues today, as the Fam and I go over to another Fam’s house. The kids’ll watch Cars while we watch Bond, and I cannot wait for the experience.

Yeah, the movie will be great. But being with friends on this anything-but-black Friday is what makes this holiday great.

Enjoy your Friday, all! And be safe out there! It’s not going to be pretty!

My children do a wonderful job of informing me after the fact when it is “opposite” day. You can imagine what it’s like, being asked a bunch of loaded questions, answering in the negative on every occasion, and then being told that it’s opposite day, and I’ve just given them the right to eat a gallon of ice cream, stay up until midnight, and install a surround-sound dvd stereo system in their room.

Of course, none of these things actually happen as they might wish, and they know they won’t. They just like to offer a good “Gotcha!” whenever they can. It’s in that moment, though, when the possibility exists for them, and the suspended belief occurs for me, that is priceless. That transition of thought, that split-second of Just Maybe.

This is the way I feel on Thanksgiving day. Every year, I enter this four-day break feeling like I’m in that transition. Possibility exists for so much to happen. Reality as I have known it is suspended indefinitely, and myriad thoughts of a simpler life rush through my mind.

This must be the same experience a turkey feels when it flies from one feeding place to another. A good turkey flight can top speeds of 50 miles per hour, but they are not built for the long run; endurance is not their thing. Flying is a matter of survival for them, or at the very least, a quick bus that carries them from lunch to dinner.

Today, I am flying. There are three more days ahead of me, and a good lot of hours remaining in this first day. In mid-air, I imagine the possible ways to simplify my life, to be with my kids more, to lose the weight I absolutely must, must lose.

I imagine the life I always dreamed I might someday have.

And in that flight, in these days that will pass, all things may seem more possible than ever before. Every ounce of me will believe this. I will believe this flight to be forever. The endurance flight, if you will. Destination: Eternity.

But in a few days my kids will come up to me and pull a “Gotcha!” They’ll tell me the ride’s over, it was really opposite vacation after all, and there are no real ways to simplify right now. There are no possible ways to lose weight, despite the myriad meaningful reasons to lose a good 100 pounds.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll be the turkey that doesn’t stop for dinner and goes a little farther into the night, facing daybreak head on.

Maybe these four days are the beginning of that enduring journey.

All I can do is hope, keep flapping my wings, and stay in the air…

May all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Love to all,

Rus

For the last 14 days (including today), I have been working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month (Nano) that is requiring too, too much of my time. It’s not that I don’t want to invest the time in to this story line, it’s the fact that it just cannot–nor it should not–be done in 30 days.

So. I am, on Day 14 here, tabling all of my work on The Pact and beginning anew with a stream of consciousness piece aptly titled, Seventeen Days in November.

This will be the ultimate of discovery drafts for me, and I’m not sure what I will end up sharing with my larger community, if any of it. I am committed to writing 50,000 words this month, though, so I may very well produce something worthy of posting here. . . .

Did I mention it’s good to be back?

I have one more major deadline to complete for a pub that’s going to press for release on Saturday, and then I’ll be free to post on a more-daily routine…I can’t wait to trip on over to all of your sites as well and see what y’all have been up to in the last few weeks.

Love to all, and in peace,

Good night. :)

Yikes! No fancy banner this morning, as I get back in the swing of blogging….I’ll add this to my list of things to do by…..next Thursday!

Here’s my list, nevertheless… :)

Thirteen things I have every reason to be happy.
1. My life, right?

2. My incredible family and kids. I cannot be with them enough these days.

3. My mom and my sister who continue to corner their cancers and dare to live fully every moment of every day.

4. This morning’s sunrise. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to arrive at school with the early morning’s innocent rays spilling across the crimson and amber trees that line the sports fields…Breathtaking, I tell you. Breathtaking.

5. Novel no. 3 is going well for me, and I have the motivation to get no. 2 in the mail before December arrives.

6. I discovered today that all of the Grateful Dead’s concert downloads and Dick’s Picks are on iTunes. My heart hurts for the record stores, but really–why do I need to go there anymore except for the experience of smelling the incense while roaming the rock and folk aisles?

7. My first-quarter grades are in. This should be nos. 7 through 11. :)

8. The recent elections in Maryland and across the country. The times, they are a’ changin’. . . .

9. Seinfeld, season 7, is released on November 21.

10. My micro-blogging community is THE BEST. :)
11. My students are wonderful. They feed me chocolate and pizza, especially on rainy days.
12. Tomorrow’s Friday already!
13. I am back online! Yippeeeee! :)

Hi, all.

I am back online. A long five weeks it has been. And through it all, I’d like to think that I’ve grown a little as a writer and as a human being.

Any experience gives you that opportunity, though….right?

I won’t bore you with the details of my absence. They may trickle in here and there in my posts-to-come….And I assure you they will be much more thrilling than the lengthy summation I could write at this tired, tired moment.

Love to all of you. I hope you’ve stuck around.

rvw :)