Icon by Peg Kerr Ihinger
This regular Open Mic post coincides with the Thanksgiving holiday week in the U.S., which is convenient! Good wishes and happy holidays for everybody, and happy turkey week for everyone in the U.S.
Happy Thanksgiving Open Mic
My wuss-mode-NaNo project, picked up where I had to drop it last November, is at 47,484 words. I am frustrated that I can’t seem to get one of those big avalanche-of-words sessions that would let me finish early, but really, the Apocalypse is coming along swimmingly.
I get to introduce the Other Major Complicating Factor soon, which one character has known about all along but the POV character doesn’t. Looking forward to that. (Cue evil writer cackle.)
On October 21st, our foster dog at the time was restless. He kept going over to the side door. My wife let him out more than once, but when he came back in he wasn’t any more settled.
So she went outside with him…and heard this mewing sound coming from our neighbors. The foster dog started whining in sympathy, and my wife talked soothingly to him. Then it happened.
This tiny kitten, unable to stand, her eyes not yet fully open, dragged herself out from under the neighbor’s porch, and started struggling through the grass to where she heard sympathetic sounds.
Determined enough to risk dangers she didn’t understand, desperate enough to do it anyway, she dragged herself across the grass to my wife, and near the foster dog who was blocked by the fence.
I came on out when my wife called, got the cat carrier, and my wife got on the phone. She volunteers with a couple of shelters (and I help out), and as she’d been sure, they were all full.
But one of the ones she volunteers with offered to accept the kitten if we would foster her.
A kitten that age needs feeding every four hours. My heroic wife volunteered to take care of the midnight session, but I joined in on the others. Making formula, cleaning up – she was far too young to understand a litter box – it was an enormous effort.
And, no surprise, my writing promptly ground to a halt, and only picked back up in the last couple of weeks. She’s gotten bigger, uses the litter box – and has her shots now, all of which is good. She’s grown, but hasn’t changed too much; she remains determined to follow her own agenda. But we still get our share of cuddling with her.
That said, I’m glad to be able to write again. Even though I remain exhausted. Playtime cannot be avoided!
Of all the things to stop a writer writing…
Thank you both for saving that kitten! I hope you’re rewarded with amazingly productive writing sessions.
That is awesome! Some things are worth not writing for….
@Jane, @LizV,
Thanks for the kind words!
Not writing well. Jumping from piece to piece even though I write every day. Did get one full draft done.
On the other hand, I launched a substack:
https://writingandreflections.substack.com/
And my existing books are all out on Amazon and many other fine venues. They make great Christmas presents!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Been making progress on my holiday novel again and fending off or at least backburnering short story ideas, but I’m just happy to be finding a stride after an excruciating year on so many personal fronts. Very thankful for that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’ve done bits and bobs of writing here and there, but for the most part I’ve been busy with other things. But hey, I’ve only got two weeks of school after this week, so maybe I’ll get a few thousand words of revision done on the WIP before school starts up again next semester.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! 😀
Incubating a story, but the two main characters are inclined to just sit and chat endlessly, and I’m not sure what the relevant ninjas to jump through their window would be.
Also, as everyone predicted, male protag has the hots for female protag, but (as she has carefully explained) she’s not actually gendered and friendship would be a better goal. Unfortunately male protag is inclined to just mope hornily in the back of my head–he knows this is true, but he’s also frightfully lonely and socially isolated, and, well, there’s a reason everyone predicted this. I don’t know what would constitute a resolution. Also they’re constantly on camera and he can’t so much as help her brush her fur without getting in trouble with his superiors, which is probably making matters worse. Lots of tension, no idea what resolution would look like.
Sounds like limited opportunities to introduce him to a nice girl
My current WIP has gone down the rabbit hole of working out a tangle of clues. It involves a treasure-hunt puzzle and I’m going over all the puzzle parts and the who-learns-what-when bits to make sure they all fit.
Here’s to hoping they do!
An administrivia comment: There is something about the open mic posts that glitch up the “next post”/”previous post” links, both in the open mic posts themselves and in the ones before and after.
For example, this post has “technical difficulties” (from August 28) as its previous post, and no next post.