Thanksgiving and Civics and Writing

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of good food, family, football (if you’re a fan), and fun times. We had the family over and really good food. Unfortunately, I took very few pictures. Not sure why. After everyone left, Bob and I did mutual head thumps asking what were we thinking?

Isn’t he beautiful? On sale at Penny’s.

So how did I do with Noom and Thanksgiving? I’m sure you want to know. It worked really well. Do you know sausage balls are only 56 calories each? My daughters both make them. One batch is gluten free with real sausage and one has fake sausage (maybe tofu) and real flour. I had one of each. Well, I may have had two of the real deal. LOL

For the meal, I had turkey, dressing, cranberries, coleslaw and a small roll. This:

There was way more food, but I opted out, because these are my favorites. And yes, I had a piece of pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream. It was yummy if I do say so. For supper later, I had just some turkey. And wine, of course. So, the end result was about ½ pound gain, which was gone in two days. All in all, I’m pretty proud of that. How did you do? Did you cook a turkey? Did you go to a restaurant? Did you host or go to family or friends? Did you skip it all together? Did you get on the scale the next day?

Let’s talk about Civics for a moment. Did you ever take a class on Civics? I did when I was in 8^th grade in Puerto Rico. We had a great teacher who really made me think. I decided right then I wanted to be a U.S. Senator. I was fascinated by the possibility of making a difference. Well, as you know, the closest I came to that was serving on a school board. At the time I represented 77,000 people in my single member district, which was like a Senator in Vermont did at the time. I found that to be amazing.

So, I’m wondering. Are you watching any of the hearings? Frankly, I find it fascinating. I love how very smart some of these folks are. How articulate. How much history they know! It’s fun to hear quotes from Jefferson and Hamilton applied to current events. I like knowing that I’m living in an important time in history. (Perhaps all times are important times, but earlier times I was too busy being a mom, wife, volunteer, and working to notice some of it.)

I’m not asking to get into a nitty gritty discussion of the issues. But I can’t ignore what’s going on right now and I am curious. Are you watching the hearings?

And lastly, let’s talk writing. During the week of Thanksgiving, the Kiss of Death Chapter of RWA sponsored BIAW (Book in a week). You may remember I did a week like that back in September. That week I started book 8. I committed to 2 hours every day for a week. In September I wrote all 7 days. But this time, I just couldn’t get to the computer on Thanksgiving. I started on Monday at 28,733 and by the end of the next Sunday I was at 43,885 for over 17 thousand words. On weekend retreats I’ve cranked out this many words before. But those are hard to schedule and cost money if you go someplace.

At this point, the story is more than halfway finished if I end up with 70-85 thousand words. You gotta know this is very rough though. I’ve got notes saying: add more about the dog and the son. LOL Rewrites are going to be a nightmare. Charley didn’t want to be left out. (BTW, He’s in this new book.)

This writing has been much different than what I usually do. I’m almost full-on pantsing. Y’all, this is scary and thrilling. I finally feel like a real writer. I’ve always been a bit envious of panters over plotters. Like somehow, they were the real creative ones.

Of course, the process doesn’t matter. Everyone does what works for them. The bottom line is to end with a good book, which hopefully this one will be. It’s possible I can finish the first draft by the end of December. I’ll keep you posted.

As always, I’d love to hear from you.

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