The computer is back!!  Yaaaaaaaaay!

And there was much rejoicing.

So, the past two weeks have been awkward.  No laptop.  No ability to write trashy fan fiction—I mean, I mean, my novels.  My current list of works in progress looks a little something like this:

• Paranormal/steampunk with Rebecca Hamilton
• Paranormal sequel to With Me Now
• Paranormal C
• Paranormal D
• Possible Paranormal Project 2  **Top Secret!!!**

Yeah.  That’s a little different than our normal lineup.  For those of you who have been around a long time, you may remember the days of old when the only projects I had were historical.  The times they are a’changin!

Anyway, so, for the past two weeks I’ve been sitting here with a weird inability to be creative, since despite my affection for pen and paper, a girl can not subside on it alone.  I worked out some.  I got really addicted to Criminal Minds (more specifically, Dr. Spencer Reid).  And then the laptop came home.

And life, as we know it, continued.

Thank God it’s Friday, right?  Time to settle down and get some legit writing done.  Now that the laptop is back, I worked on my newsletter (but you know that because you’re signed up, right?) and announced the winner of the “Name the Newsletter” contest that was supposed to end in September but ended up in October.  Ehhh.  Anyway, the winner was Hope, who knows me pretty darn well, despite the fact we’ve never met.  And the newsletter name is:

Hambel’s Rambles: A sweetened, condensed version of The Rambling Jour

Sweet!  I have to buy sweetened, condensed milk tomorrow for a cake I’m making tomorrow for church: my notorious “Better than Tom Selleck” cake.  Hopefully I’ll remember to buy the SCM after all this discussion of it.  There will be no Tom Selleck cake if I don’t.

So, anyhow, National Novel Writing Month is rapidly approaching.  You know, I try this every year.  And every year, November is traditionally the month I write the least amount.  Self sabotage?  Rebellion against a popular thing all the cool kids are doing?  It’s not that I don’t try!  I have charts and graphs and then there was the year I cheated in an attempt to win and NO, darn it, I cannot write 50,000 words in a month with the entire world watching.  I can’t.

Should I be writing 50,000 words in a month?  Yes.  I need to switch that internal editor off and just write.  But you know, that darn hard for me.  I’m a writing perfectionist.  I like awesomeness in one shot.  I don’t want to write four drafts of a paper, I want to write it in a couple hours and turn it in and get my A.  That’s how it worked in college and, darn it, that’s how it should work in the real world too.  I even bought one of those Wreck This Journal which is supposed to challenge your perfectionist-ness.  And I’m really trying not to be a perfectionist with it.  That’s probably why the only thing written in it is my name.  In pink.

I’m excited to jump on bandwagons as much as the next kid, but there’s just something about meeting/exceeding word count goals and then, inevitably falling behind, that makes me just want to lay face down on the floor and do nothing.  Maybe it all boils down to my hate of competition.  Stay undefeated.  Don’t compete.

So, no, I won’t be doing NaNo this year.  I’ll cheer those of you who are better word count warriors than me on (gooooooo team!).  I’ll be the one drinking Monster energy drinks or SoCo pretending second drafts are the monsters hiding underneath our beds at night.

Speaking of which: do you know what I found in my kids’ room?  A plastic toy muffin box with two mummified brownies in it.  The last time I remember making brownies was like, 4th of July.  Younger Son said, “Those smell good!”  It sounded like I was dumping charcoal in the garbage can.  My kids are like squirrels, hiding food all over the place and then discovering it months later?  Remember that deflated clementine we found like, a year later?  So gross.