Ooh! And on my morning run today I even figured out who the bad guy is going to be (amazing that I could write 185 pages and not quite know who the villain was, haha), AND how and where to write in the scene to introduce him and all his cronies.
It's a Christmas miracle.
For weeks I've had to put my mind to the details of this holiday mania, which is wonderful, but it's nice to start to possess my own brain again. That's kind of how I think of writing, of what a gift it is to me--a place and way I can be just myself, my own thoughts, my own creativity, myself. Without it, I don't know where I'd find that. At a gift-giving time of year, it's one I'm so very grateful for.
Speaking of gifts, I have a child born on Christmas, my oldest, so it's even MORE mania than just the Christmas mania and cooking. We also get to celebrate another birthday on that day. For years I loved it because I'd ask what his favorite meal was so I could fix it on Christmas, and we got macaroni and cheese or refried beans on tortillas. (Way easier than a turkey!) His gift to me this year was his favorite meal, a frozen lasagne. Does Christmas dinner get much easier than that? The other kids were kind of confused when they heard him make his request and I shouted "Yes!" and threw both arms in the air in victory.
His cake was a homemade chocolate cake. Have I mentioned a thousand times how great the recipe is on the can of Hershey's Cocoa? It's the BEST. (Just remember to sift the flour!) But you HAVE to make it with the frosting recipe on the can. It's amazing. It's so amazing that when I ate half a slice, I got an enormous sugar headache--that's what I get for "going off sugar" for eight months. Can I express how troubling that is? I cannot. I am the girl who used to polish off one of those super-syrupy orange sodas at the doctor's office during a gestational diabetes test and say, "Can I get another one of those?" while women all around me were wincing in pain at the tongue-numbing sweetness of it.
I guess I'd better go back to eating muenster cheese as my sugar substitute. I haven't had a grilled muenster cheese sandwich for three days. I might be going through a different kind of withdrawal. I might be getting a "cheese headache."
Jennifer, you are TOO funny. Thanks for the comment, I needed it. I wish I could just sit down for 6 weeks and get at least the one book done. But between having to work a job part-time, wrangle troubled roomies (which is one reason to write, either living along, or having at least a real choice)hard to do that. Good news is that the novel is writing itself on paper. Got a tip to Write notes to myself, and have most of the major points now done except the actual action...even have a sequel swimming around up there. I'm trying to eat more veggies and less of everything. Won't give up meat, but being already manic/depressive, I need to keep as much junk out of the body as possible, although looking at me, you'd never know. Too long, sorry.
ReplyDelete"Can I get another one of those?" Hysterical. Wish you lived closer. Ever think about moving?
ReplyDelete@Pam-good idea to keep notes. I just got a voice recorder and I make notes that way when I don't have free hands (like driving or on my walk.) It's the new note-taking for me!
ReplyDelete@Lisa-Ha! Only consider it every day between Mar 1 and Nov 15, the days my AC is blasting! Ask me then, not when it's a balmy 63 degrees on New Year's Eve-Eve!