November 05, 2004
Hey, Wasn't I Supposed to be Writing a Novel?

Overdue NaNoWriMo Update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/4 I have 3,702 words. Sure, it's below quota, but considering I was preoccupied on Tuesday and severely hung over on Wednesday, I think I'm doing okay.

Morale:
Good, but so far writing a novel in the third person is less fun than writing in the first person. The omniscient narrator thing bugs me. I'd rather walk around in the characters, like a suit of armor or fuzzy footie pajamas or whatever they happen to be. I'd just switch, but this one needs the third person, and I need the practice. And I can always get that first person buzz by bringing on the dialogue, which I haven't really done yet.

Excerpt of the day:

It was easier to think the whirring blender or the roaring television made the baby cry, and not the other way around, so that's what they thought.

And when Maura learned to walk, it was easier to believe that keeping the appliances unplugged and putting covers on the sockets was simply childproofing the house, so they believed that, too.

As Maura got a little older, the appliances began to act up less frequently, until the trouble pretty much stopped altogether. So by the time she started preschool her parents found it easier to forget that sort of thing had ever happened at all.