Moving along nicely.

Well, I've gotten to the half way point thank god. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near half done... But I'm going to have to speed through it. I'll put up chapter ten later today.

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Sprinting to make up for lost time....

Okay people... I have to make up WAY WAY WAY too many words tonight... so I'll be doing 15 minute word sprints... (which is you set the timer for 15 minutes then write as fast as you can... most of the writing is pure nonsense...)

But... I'll be posting the sprints here... I average between 500 and 800 words per 15 minutes... (which I know seems rather slow, at between 30ish and 50ish wpm... but, its getting made up as I think it up.. so it slows me down considerably.)

So, Chapter 9, Sprint 1.

The old man was sitting up awake on the bed as the alarm rang.  He leaned over and turned it off, then stretched and yawned loudly.  Rubbing his eyes, he was thinking that he couldn't remember the last time he had to have the alarm wake him, and he was surprised that he slept as well as he did.  He was excited and nervous about the first leg of his trip.  He walked to the small bathroom attached to his bedroom and washed his face.  Next, he put on his robe and made his way downstairs. 
    He set up for a cup of coffee, then walked down to the front door.  He opened the door and took in a great big breath of the morning air before he bent down and picked up the morning paper.  Closing the door behind him as he walked back to the kitchen, he yawned again, not because he was tired, but instead out of habit.  He dropped the paper on the kitchen table, and finished making his cup of coffee, a shake of creamer and a shake of sugar.  Sitting down with the paper, he glanced over the headlines.  "Never any good news in the front of the paper," he grumbled, flipping a few pages further back.  "Ahh, here we go." he murmured as he got to the birth announcements.  The old man always felt that it was best to start the day with good news, and progress past that point. 
    After he finished the page, he moved further back in the paper, and read the comics. He grew up on the older comics, but he really got a kick out of the newer ones.  He felt that the newer ones were funny and were indeed new, with new ideas and jokes, instead of the tired old gags in the old strips.  After the comics, he worked on the jumble and word search puzzles.  His talent though, really was the crossword puzzle, which he always saved for last.
    He pulled out the sheet containing the crossword puzzle, and then carefully folded up the rest of the paper.  No bad news today, he thought, as he pushed it across the table.  Next, he folded the sheet with the crossword paper, precisely into quarters, so that only the puzzle showed.  He leaned over to a can on the counter that held assorted pens and pencils and grabbed one of each.  His habit was to start the puzzle in pencil, but then to finish it with pen as he became more sure of the answers. He read over the clues, and started filling in the answers.  His current record for finishing a puzzle was 36 minutes, start to finish, which was usually the same amount of time it took him to enjoy his breakfast.  This morning though, it was him and the puzzle, he wanted to see  how fast he could get it done. He glanced at the clock above the stove before he started.
    Deftly, he filled in the little boxes, working from the top left straight through to the bottom right.  He filled the top to bottom answers next in the same order.  He paused here and there to think about the tougher clues, skipping some, and coming back once he had filled in more of the letters. 
    His cell phone on the table rang as he was filling in his last few clues. "Hello?" he answered after picking up the phone.  It was Sukie calling to let him know she was up, and getting ready to go and get him. He filled in the last few letters then looked at the clock.  "Yahoo! a new record! Thirty-four minutes!" he said, completely out of context to the conversation he was having with Sukie. He laughed when she asked what he was talking about, and told her he'd explain later. He looked at the screen of the phone for just a second before he pushed the spot on the screen to hang it up. 
    Feeling rather impressed with himself, he headed upstairs to shower and shave.  He whistled a happy tune as he shaved.

Falling behind

You know, I think falling behind several times is a nanowrimo necessity.  Instead of writing, I washed the dishes and baked some GF chocolate chip cookies... and, I've come across one bit of knowledge...

The VERY EXPENSIVE egg replacer that is referenced in the GF Gourmet is essentially Baking Powder.  At least in the cookies, you can sub it 1:1 with baking powder and they'll turn out ok. The flavor of the cookie is enough to mask the taste.... and the cookies turn out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow, we're gonna try another recipe.  Right now though, I'm gonna pull those last cookies out of the oven and then, I'm going to sit and see if I can at least get a couple words on the page.  I have a goal to hit-- and that's 3.5k words today.  Very doable.

Goals and the PoHos

Grr... the nano page just told me I'm 4 days behind schedule.. which means I must get my butt onto the writings, but thats ok... i'll catch up...

If I do another 2 to 2.5 k today, I'll be well on my way to catching up... (the trick is getting into the groove.... )

Todays goal is 2k words... but it'd be nice if I went a little overboard, and got closer to 5k.  The PoHos are an amazing source of inspiration-- Lets see how many people I know will sport cameo roles...

Off for a pedicure with Mom... of course the mobile posting device will be coming along.