the tree with the lights in it

My writing has taken on a calm, meditative bent now, since there is snow and snow will do that to writing.  I'm terribly distracted by my husband talking loudly on the phone now that he's home, though.  I wish he would stay in the bedroom or lower his voice, though since i'm trying to write something coherent here.



After my post earlier, when i said it looked like it could snow but the puddles were wrong. . .



I went outside and it was sleeting!  Now, normally a person would not be happy about sleet, but i'm not a terribly normal person.  I am obsessed with winter.  Actually.



And then, when I came out of the doctor's office, it was snowing!  It has snowed all day and accumulated so much that the plows are out.  And the snow made it into my novel.



The last scene is about the first snow.  And I love it.  It's wonderful.  Winter is like, the ultra-best!



I've made it past 2K for the day, and we'll see if I make it to 3K, but my nano stats say I'm a day ahead again, so that's really all I can ask for, I suppose.  Two days ahead would be lovely.  Maybe by tomorrow.



I'm supposed to be meeting up with some other nano-ers at [local coffee shop] tomorrow and Wednesday afternoons, so maybe I'll be spurred on by their awesomeness and our collective word-churning power and get the count up there a bit.  Maybe the plot will even come along a little.



I hate writing dialogue, also.  I mean, I don't hate writing it, I just don't think I'm good at writing it.



I went to the doctor, as you know, and it turns out I do have a sinus infection, which is less than pleasant.  It got me out of working today, but I had to pay a $20 co-pay at the doctor and then get two $30 prescriptions, one of which I refused.  So I spent fifty dollars and didn't work so I didn't make any money either.  I wouldn't feel bad about it if i felt like I'd gotten a lot of writing done.  Now I just feel like I did an average amount.
 


And the PA at my doctor's office actually didn't ask me if I was feeling suicidal or homicidal for once, so that was a plus.  She didn't ask me if I was seeing a pdoc or tdoc either, which was a plus.  If I'd seen the actual doctor he would have asked me the latter, and the PA is always asking me the former, which is just awkward.  It's not like I'd tell her if i were feeling that way.
 


And now it is dark outside.  It is like winter.  I love it.  I'm having a fire tonight.  And wearing a scarf indoors.  And it's lovely.

It really has been quite a week.  And even the weekend itself feels like a week.  Not I'm glad it's over because it's been dragging on or anything.  I could certainly do without work tomorrow!

On Saturday I went to the ski and snowboard expo and, because my father and I waited in the slow line even though an event guy said we had no chance of getting them, I got two tickets to Whiteface!  Very cool.  I also saw my cousin CD there selling helmets.  He's a freestyle skier and Smith is one of his sponsors, so he was at their booth.

I also found out that I can ski for free at Belleayre on my Birthday, which I fully plan on doing.  Unless our show in Dorset gets re-scheduled for that day.  We have to cancel it because it unfotunately conflicts with day two of the hiring clinic at [resort i plan to work at].

I'm revisiting that decision, however, because it's never a bad plan to examine multiple options [ski resort #2] also has mid-week lessons and his having a job fair on Tuesday, so I might go up to that if someone can be persuaded to come with me, or I feel like going by myself.  I'm also supposed to be meeting up with some nanowrimo people that afternoon at [local coffee shop].

The problem with working at [ski resort #2] is that I don't like to ski at [#2].  CD was injured at a competition there last year because their jumps were not in good condition (not that i'm blaming the mountain entirely, he should have been aware of that and noted it in his trick choice.) and taken out of commission for a while with a serious concussion.  Then, later that week I got hurt there too.  And I never get hurt skiing.  It was on a blue square though which is typical.  I never wipe out or anything on challenging terrain.  It's always somewhere stupidly easy that I make a fool of myself.  This was a situation where there was a very long sequence of rollers, however one of them did not roll, it just dropped off.  And I was making sure not to get air off of them because it was night time and there was a lot of traffic on the trail and I didn't want to misjudge anything.  In any case, i was sort of down in a low-ish stance and when the non-roller dropped away i rotated forward in the air and landed on my head and neck.  I skied the rest of the night, but I couldn't work for a few days afterward.  Then, my other cousin CP got hurt there the following night.  Three injuries in the same family in a week.  And I had always thought the conditions there were sub-par.  It always makes me feel like a worse skier than I really am when I'm there.  I don't know what it is. . .

Anyway, [#2] is slightly closer than [#1] and it's possible they pay more or have better schedules or their training doesn't conflict with anything.  So I'm considering it even though I'm not a huge fan.  I kind of grimace when I think about it, although I feel bad afterward.

Then there's [ski resort #3] which is so not a resort that it's ridiculous.  This is where I learned to ski and I would enjoy teaching there if only because it's a place where those who don't have a lot of money can enjoy themselves on the snow and be introduced to an awesome lifetime sport.  It's also the closest.  It's not that fun to ski, but it's never injured me seriously either.  And my best friend's family skis there.  The problem is that their season is short, the trails are short (so getting free skiing there isn't such a prize) and the roads to get there from where I live are mostly back roads that can be rather traitorous in the winter.  And I'm not exactly sure they have full-time instructors.

I'm still investigating other possibilities, but there doesn't seem anything else close enough that would be worth it.  We shall see.

I'm sure I have more to say, but now I want to research some employment things, so I'm done for now.

Maybe I'll post about nanowrimo tomorrow.  In short, it's going okay.  I love my characters.  I want to be in the story.  It has very little plot.

I am quitting my job, and that is it.  The only question is how soon.  Oh, and also, under what circumstances.





When I refuse to do the job of a playground monitor all day instead of my real job, which is music teacher, I just might get canned.





But I'm really not worried about it.





According to my mother, I'm still in demand around the public school district as a substitute and I have applied to teach at [ski resort] this winter as well as had an extensive conversation with the snow sports director.





Words to my boss: Your school is a joke.  It is more like a holding pen.  I thought it was different.





I think she might say something like "You're letting the children down".  And if she does I will either a) not respond, or b) say "And you've let me down".





I'd write more about this, but It's been ongoing and is very upsetting and I've already talked about it to my DH and both parents separately today, so going through everything a fourth time isn't really on my to-do list.





In any case, NaNoWriMo is so more important to me than all that crap right now.  And so is getting on the D.S. (District Superintendent for my district of the United Methodist Church) about rescheduling my Local Pastor candidacy meeting.





Aaah!  Too much going on!  And I haven't been 100% in the brain waves lately either.  And I forgot to take my lovely medication last night/this morning.





Boo.  Maybe tomorrow will be better?  I'm doubtful.

I have met my goal for day one, which was 2500 words.  But I want to keep writing.  I'm not though, because I have some other things to do, like post here and write an email to my boss, which I am really putting off doing.  I may just talk to her in person.

I teach music at a Christian School.  We just started the program this year, and I designed it entirely myself.  After two months, it needs a little tweaking though.  I just hope she goes for it, and implements the changes quickly.  I'm also pretty sure my supplies were never ordered.

But anyway, I've reaffirmed my previous conclusion that plot is totally secondary to me compared with character development.  I never meant that to be the case, and I'd like to be better at writing action, but It just hasn't happened.  

I'm also a lot better at writing in the first person than the third person, which I never expected.  I was pretty against first person for a long time, reading and writing-wise.  But, obviously, I've gotten over that.  I might end up switching this year's NaNo novel to first person eventually.  I switched last year's back and forth a few times and then settled on a combo of first person for current day and third person for dream/vision/back-story scenes. 

Last year's novel, Octaves was totally fictional and the story was not inspired by my own life.  This year's however, Finding You, was inspired by my own life events, although it's not at all autobiographical.  

My own experience of having spent time in a psychiatric hospital and meeting someone there who I connected with and then lost touch with is the inspiration for Finding You.  The main characters are totally themselves, however, and their reasons for being in the hospital, their personalities and their families are not based on myself or the person I used to know.

Another difference between Octaves and Finding You is that Octaves took place in fictional cities, towns, etc.  Finding You, on the other hand, takes place in real-life settings, and it takes place in the area I live in.

So, between these two things, I worry that people I know (If I ever let them read any of it, after many, many drafts) will think the FMC (female main character) is a fictionalization of me and that her significant other is a fictionalization of my husband, and on and on it goes.  But, as I said, they're not.

One might say this is pointless worry, but I'm also a songwriter, and people like to read into my lyrics all the time.  In the end, I've only written 2500 words so far, probably no one will ever read it, and I know it's fiction, so I'm going to stop worrying for the moment.

And now i'm going to go see if the NaNoWriMo site is working. 

I was on facebook, thinking about writing (because of the impending NaNoWriMo) and then thought of LiveJournal.

So I updated my status asking if anyone still uses it.  I few people left mocking responses, which was fine with me.  It wasn't anyone that matters to me, and if it were, their mattering meter would have dropped at that point, anyway.

Then a friend of mine who I haven't seen or talked to in years responded.  As it happens, she's someone I really like a lot and wish I had stayed in touch with.  She said that she now uses DreamWidth for the most part.  So, respecting her choice as having good reason behind it, I checked DreamWidth out, and it seemed good.

So now I have signed up and this is my inaugural post.

I am very excited that there's a nano_writers community!  I'm also excited about common_nature.  I'm hoping to be more involved in communities here than I ever was at LJ.  I'd like to write openly about things I couldn't on the public blog I have for my music pursuits or on twitter or FB or whatever.  But I also want to connect with people I connect with, if you know what I mean.

So, we'll see.  I wish DreamWidth success, and I hope I can be a part of that.