1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. Esp. with peppermint schnapps. Mmmm....
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped. Always.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White only
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Mmm...when I'm tired of the kids nagging me. Did them today - all except for the tree.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Tea time tassies - they're like mini pecan pies. Oh, and fudge. Yeah, gotta have fudge.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Driving into the mountains every year to cut our tree, going sledding in the snow and drinking - what else? - hot chocolate when we were frozen.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? No idea how old. And I don't even remember the moment I knew. I just did.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes. With my family. We always do Christmas Eve together. Our kids have to wait for Christmas morning to open our presents at home.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Lots of homemade ornaments, collectibles I've gotten over the year.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. Wish we had it more. Hate when it disappears (as it did this morning by 10am)
12. Can you ice skate? Yes, but haven't been in a looooong time. When I was a kid there was a gravel pit not far from my house. Used to fill with water and freeze over every winter. I'd take my mom's old skates and go skate. Alone! Can you believe that? Man, no way I'd ever let my kids do that.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes. Three years ago my DH got me an upgrade on my diamond. Best gift ever.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Family, and reminding my kids of the true meaning of Christmas.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Gotta go with Teri on this one...Pecan pie. Definitely.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Having the kids add to the Advent calendar I made years ago.
17. What tops your tree? Big red bows.
18. Which do you prefer - giving or Receiving? Definitely giving. I have a lot of fun watching others open gifts.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? A Baby Just Like You by John Denver
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum. With hot chocolate, of course. ;)

Okay, so passing the joy this holiday season...I tag Lisa, Piper, Edie and Paty

Lisa said I didn't gloat enough. So, Lisa, baby, this is just for you...

So aside from the fact the Beavers WON (30-28), WOOHOO!!!, I have just one other thing to say. What the heck were the Ducks thinking with those uniforms? In the words of my good friend, Tonia, it looks like someone peed all over them.

Cheer up, Lisa. There's always next year. ;)

Lisa's giving me crap for being what she calls a two-posts-per-week blogger. Yeah, whatever. And here I thought I was saving you all from reading about my frustrations with the WIP.

What have I been doing? Reading. Finished Nora's Vamp trilogy - it's a bloody one, so I'm warning anyone who's thinking of reading it. I actually liked it regardless, but then I like most of her stuff (there are some exceptions) and bloody doesn't necessarily bother me. (I loved Divine Evil and that was about a satanic cult, so go figure.) Right now I'm reading Alice Sharpe's My Sister, Myself and Duplicate Daughter. I have to have these finished before November 28th. Why???? Well, duh...Cindy Gerard's latest bodyguard book is coming out that day - Under The Wire. I'm gearing up for that one.

How's the writing? Don't ask. I finally - FINALLY - got motivated to get working and what happens? Everyone in my house falls sick with some nasty bug. I'm playing nursemaid, which means the writing's getting little attention. I'm just crossing my fingers I don't catch whatever the rest of the petrie dishes are carrying. Odds are I'll get it right over - um, yeah - Thanksgiving.

Oh, yeah, and my kids are home all week next week - conferences and then the holiday break. I swear, teachers don't work in the month of November! (My how the tides have turned. I used to be a teacher, so I can get away with making this comment. LOL) And we all know what that means, right? Yup, even less time to write.

See why I only post twice a week?!

I'm back from the beach. Had a great time. Weather was even somewhat nice. Saturday there was a break in the rain. I took a nice long walk up the beach, and it was even wind-free! Almost unheard of this time of year on the Oregon Coast. There were nine of us total. We chatted, worked, ate, chatted more, worked, worked, worked, laughed and had a fairly relaxing weekend.

(Almost).

This is me working:

I look semi-productive, don't I? HA!!! I got nothing done! Gah. Talk about frustrating. My WIP is driving me loco. I won't bore you with details here, but if you're interested, I whined about it (and am seeking advice) over at Romance Worth Killing For.

And this is me realizing I was getting crap done:

Pretty, huh? Yeah. That's basically how I felt all weekend. Like tearing my hair out at the roots. I did manage to take my frustrations out on the ping-pong table (and Lisa and Piper). I have a feeling they don't want to play ping-pong again with me anytime soon.

How was your weekend? Anyone more productive than moi????

I've given up on Nano. No, I'm not a quitter, but I have more important and pressing things to worry about.

I'm still working on my proposals. Yes (stop laughing), STILL. I'm not slow - exactly - just neurotic in a whole bunch of ways. Let me explain the nightmare that has become my writing world...

I've never started a book and not finished it. Never. Not one. Until August 2006. Since August I've started four. Two I was lukewarm about. I think I'll write them down the line, just not now. Now's not the time, and I'm okay with that. The other two are the two proposals I'm working on now. I will finish these books no matter what because I'm totally in love with the concepts and characters. I just don't know when, exactly.

I started with proposal 1, wrote three chapters, edited and tweaked. And just as I was finished writing those chapters, the idea for the second proposal hit me smack in the forehead. I decided to start in on those chapters right away and skip the synopsis for proposal 1 for the time being so I didn't lose my momentum. It worked. I cranked out the chapters for proposal 2, and I love them. I'm super excited to write this book. Since I was already in the mindset of proposal 2 at that point, I decided to jump right to the synopsis for that book so I could stay deep in my characters. Guess what? That worked too, and I - former I-don't-think-I-can-write-a-five-page-synopsis-before-the-book-is-finished - cranked out a fourteen page synopsis that isn't half bad. (A hurricane forced wind couldn't have knocked me on my ass faster, let me tell you.)

Now here's the problem. Proposal 2 is finished. I should send it to my agent, right? Nope. Can't do it. These are connected books, and I went about this backwards. She has to read proposal 1 first. Not that it makes a huge difference - they are stand alones - but proposal 2 has to be the later book (for a variety of reasons, trust me, it works better as the later one). I don't want her reading that one first. Which means I have to finish proposal 1. Piece of cake, right? Wrooooong.


*sigh*

Something's been bugging me about proposal 1. I like it - love the characters, think the plot fits them well, but there's been something not right about it from the start that I pushed past and ignored. After brainstorming with Lisa the other night, I realized the problem was chapter two - it lacked the immediacy like I have in proposal 2. Result? Chapter two of proposal 1 has to be totally rewritten. Which means chapter three's probably going to need to be rewritten too. Which means....I'm not anywhere close to cranking out the synopsis on proposal 1.

Confused yet? I sure the hell am. Hence, no Nano. I have enough else to do.

I'm going on a writer's retreat this weekend at the beach. I'd hoped to move past chapter three of the first book and start whipping out pages. (40 was my goal). Doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'd be thrilled at this point to get chapters two and three revised and a good chunk of the synopsis finished. Looks like it's going to be a loooong weekend.

So tell me (I need the distraction), how do you handle shifts in your writing plan? Are you an adapter, a go-with-the-flow type writer, or are you constantly revising your writing schedule based on what you did the day before?

NaNo What?

So NaNoWriMo started yesterday. Wait, no. That's not right. It started on Wednesday. See how out of it I am? A very evil girl who shall remain nameless conned me into doing it with her this year. I've never done NaNo before. I didn't want to, but she kept pushing. So I said yes (I succumb easily to peer pressure). I figured it might be a good way to kickstart my butt into getting a good chunk of the WIP finished. Of course, that was when I was sure I'd have these proposals finished by 11/1/06.

How many pages have I written in the wip since NaNo started on Wednesday??? Zero.

How many do I need to write per day to make the 50K word goal by the end of the month? Seven (roughly 1667 words).

How many pages am I now behind? Twenty one as of today.

Argghhhh...

Yes, yes, I know. It's not a big deal. But I'm a competitive person. I'm not checking the NaNo site and I'm not competing with anyone but myself, so it's not a biggie. But that competitive person inside me wants to get cracking.

What's holding me up? You guessed it. The Suckopses I blogged about last week. Yesterday I managed to write the first one - kicked out 13 pgs, so I guess that counts for something. It's not like I'm not writing. But writing a synopsis is draining. I need to edit this one then get started on the second one. THEN maybe I can think about moving forward on the wip.

I don't think I'm going to make the NaNo goal. However, I won't say NEVER because I tend to work really good under pressure. I could totally see myself floating for the first two weeks then writing 15-20 pgs a day the last two just to catch up. I've always been a procrastinator. I'm hoping my "works well under pressure" gene will be an asset once I'm finally writing on deadline.

So a big shout out to all of you doing NaNo...how's your progress? Are you where you want to be or are you already behind like me? ;)

If you're not doing NaNo...I'd love to simply hear what your daily writing goals are.