Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Busy Month of November!

This has been an exciting month. But it just goes to show what I can get accomplished if I am interested, driven, excited, and motivated!

November is Nanowrimo or National Novel Writing Month. We try to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Yes, and there are many people who make the mark. There is one week left in this month and already I have written in excess of 67,000 words. The Novel I’m writing is called “Through Her Eyes” and it’s about a young man by the name of Nick who is an ex-con. As he leaves the prison complex at Jackson Michigan he gets on a bus and meets a high school girl who is at a cross-roads in her own life. They only chat together for a matter of a couple of hours while they travel toward a town that one is going back to and the other has never been before but will have to live in for a year. They are both trapped by their pasts and have less than certain futures. Sarah has suffered the loss of her father and her innocence, and is fleeing her comfortable home for an uncertain future with her aunt. Nick is going back home to a place where he had no direction and friends who tried to get him in trouble.

They make a connection on this journey. This connection lasts them through a turbulent couple of weeks while they sort out their personal woes and make new strides toward finding ways to cope with their own situations. When they finally come together again they are set on their paths and they find that having one another is fulfilling a need that neither really admitted to themselves.

I am about one third of the way through the novel at the moment with one week of Nanowrimo left. Above is the collage that I did for the cover of the plotting book.
Other things that have happened this month: I had arm surgery. Hopefully the last one. I now have a complete Ulna in my arm. I am not in hand therapy at the moment but I may have to do that soon. Can’t tell! I don’t have to go back to Ann Arbor until the middle of January! Glory be, I hope the weather will be OK for traveling!

I also took the class by Ann Loveless on how to do her landscape quilts. It was a really fun class and I love the resulting wallhanging that I made. Here is a picture of the unfinished version. I have some thread painting left to do on it, and then the binding. I would have loved to put a border on it too, but that would have required a little extra planning at the beginning. Next time! And there WILL be a next time!

It kind of reminds me of the Robert Frost Poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Here is a link to the whole text: http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Stopping_ByWood.htm

I also finished a Needlepoint piece that I intend to use as a pocket for a new purse. The needlepoint was a UFO but now so is the purse, so I’m not getting the pins for it until I am totally finished with it.

So far so good, I’m getting things accomplished! Thanksgiving is coming and this year I am thankful for my smaller stomach, my increased energy and my loving family! Hope all of you have just as good a holiday season as I am planning!
Cindy K-K