The Story is Finally Done!

Oh man, this week flew by so fast I legitimately can't recall what I did.... I only have the chaos of Friday and Saturday in my head.

I remember being annoyed with myself on Tuesday and Wednesday because I had about seven or eight hours alone in the house and I accomplished NOTHING. I didn't do chores. I didn't write. I didn't even continue playing Fable so I had more to think about for my story next month for NaNo.

I honestly can't recall what I actually did on those two days. I know I continued pondering my Halloween Contest entry. One of those days I think I actually spent about five hours putting together a "creepy music" playlist so I had background music to inspire me. How do I spend five hours putting a playlist together that only has 18 songs!? Sheesh! My tunnel vision is HORRIBLE! Do they have meds for this reverse ADD? They should... I lose HOURS of my time and don't know how!

Thursday both Hubby and I had the day off, but I don't recall how we spent most of the day. I know I sat next to him on the couch for an hour or two scribbling out a rough outline of how my story would go - after spending all week harassing him and poor ChibiSunnie about what I should do. At around three I gave up and decided to use the good pre-hurricane weather to mow our lawn. I figured, "The grass needs to be cut anyway, and the exercise and quiet might help me think."

That quickly blew up in my face. I mowed three quick strips of the grass and nearly tossed the darn thing. The wheels or the actual reel-blades were rusting and giving off this high pitched squeak that was grating on me. After storming through the house - which apparently scared the daylights out of my husband - we both went to the store to pick up our paychecks and some WD-40. This, that, and the other thing happened in regards to people talking to us about work-related topics and we didn't get home until almost an hour later.

I was now ticked because I hadn't accomplished anything - even chores - throughout the week and I didn't have enough sunlight to mow the entire yard with our reel-mower. I still mowed the large section of the grass next to an apartment complex next door. It's silly that we have the property, actually. We have two trees with insanely low-hanging branches - which scratch me up like crazy when I try to mow under them by the way - cutting off this patch from the rest of our property. Plus, the apartment complex has a strip of grass maybe two feet wide and that's it. Why our landlord doesn't try to break off this part of the land and attempt to sell it to the apartment complex is beyond me, but I hate cutting something that doesn't even feel like my lawn.

Anyway, I go to mow under the empty trees without a care that I didn't rake first. One - I just wanted the grass done and didn't feel like I had time to rake. Two - I figured I could just mulch the leaves like I would with a gas-powered mower. I soon realized that I don't have enough horse-power in me to actually tear up the leaves and all they did was clog the mower. That meant I couldn't actually cut anything. So a little more stomping around before spending an hour raking leaves - and now grass clippings - in to a huge pile. I didn't even reach the trees where I actually wanted to rake before I ran out of sunlight. I did have one of the apartment tenants comment about the huge pile. Sheesh.

Friday I got in to a battle with my department manager, and was run ragged by the herd of people at the deli in preparation for the hurricane that's supposed to hit on Tuesday. I also stayed later than scheduled to wait for Hubby to be done with work. Originally I was going to use that time to FINALLY get to my story so I wasn't waiting until the last possible second to write it. I ended up using that time to work on stuff for my Wellness Champion position at work. I did manage to write a little bit during my lunch break - about a page's worth - so that was something.

When we got home I instantly changed in to crappy yard work clothes and headed out to get rid of that pile of grass and leaves. I raked the pile, as well as the leaves I intended to rake the day before, in to an old tote I had from our move. We now have a huge pile of leaves by our driveway because I have no clue how to dispose of the compost. At my mom's house you line the curb with it and a truck comes by to collect everything. We don't have that service here.

The intent was to finish the yard work - screw the mowing on "our side" of the property, no one notices the tall grass but us - by the time dinner was done and then write the rest of the night. Then Hubby reminded me that we had the LARP. I'm still so use to it being once a month that this new every other week schedule throws me off every time.

I really need to remember to bring either my netbook or an actual paper notebook with me whenever we do LARP and just lock it away in my car when we're playing. I should know by now that we won't actually start playing until an hour or so after we're supposed to - usually waiting on players to gather or update their character info. I wasted two or three hours that I could have been writing. Flarg....

Saturday was my Last Chance day. I went to work, got almost nothing accomplished because of yet another pack of customers fearing the worst with this hurricane, wrote a little more during lunch, and then dragged my tired butt back home to a house full of guys.

Granted, I was the one who invited everyone over. I figured if I was done writing we could all hang out, if not then Hubby could play Magic: The Gathering with the guys - a game I have no interest in - while I write so he wouldn't be bored. I then "sequestered" myself in my room with a couple sandwiches, a bag of M&Ms, and two bottles of water. Aside from a few bathroom breaks, I was in my room writing like a nut for SEVEN HOURS!!!

I felt a little guilty since Omnibladestrike brought his laptop and wanted me to maybe help him out with the next chapter of his story. At the same time, Chibi wrote her first fanfic - YAY - for the contest and wanted me to beta read it; which I didn't have time to do. I hope she does well. I still need to beta the story anyway. She wants it nice and polished up before posting on DeviantArt. I have off tomorrow, so aside from massive dish washing and laundry - in case the impending hurricane knocks out the water supply - I guess I'm beta reading as well. YAY! :-D

Anyway, the Drop Dead Line was 11:59pm Central Time, October 27th. I finish my story and submit it at 11:30pm ET. I'm just as bad as when I wrote that birthday story for PinkLotus27 last year. Seven hours, sending it to her right about 11:30 my time, which meant she had an hour or so her time before her birthday was over. Nearly identical situations! XD
Major difference is that "I Thought You Liked Redheads" is one of my shortest stories due to the limited time and my Halloween story was able to make it to 6,000+ words and 11pgs. Let me remind you that the minimum it needed to be was 2500 words. I feel sorry for the judge(s).

I'm also a little ticked off at myself. Since inspiration - or opportunity - didn't hit until the last possible moment, I was still finishing up my story, in bed, next to my poor husband who was trying to get a few hours rest before going in to work at 1am. I felt so bad about keeping him awake - but he didn't want me to leave the bed - that as soon as I concluded my story I just sent the dang thing. No proofreading. No editing. First draft and submitted to the contest. There are only three rules to the contest: 1) 2500 words minimum, 2) must be "Halloweeny", and 3) PROOFREAD! Admittingly, I probably wouldn't have proofread anyway. After staring at a screen for 7hrs straight - yup, laptop came with on the potty breaks - my eyes were killing me.

Once Hubby was at work and my eyes were a bit rested up I went back through and found a typo - I used a singular noun instead of the intended plural - in the THIRD SENTENCE. There were three or four typos in the first page alone! I think I had about a dozen throughout the whole story. I don't think my story is going to do so good in the contest after all. *sigh* Oh well, at least I tried, right?

Chibi's drawing for the contest - she did one story and one picture to put in each category - is amazing so I hope she wins! Sorry, Chopfe, I know you entered as well, but hers is just.... WOW... so much detail! She hasn't posted the picture at the time of this update, but be on the lookout. If I find the time I might go ahead and do a Halloween Post this Wednesday! If I do I'll be sure to include Chibi's picture as well as other pictures and writings I can get my hands on that were submitted in to the contest. I'll also announce - if I know at that point - who won the contest!

In the meantime, you can read my entry either on DeviantArt or over on FanFiction. This is the first draft with the typos edited out. I'm probably going to update both once Chibi gets me her notes, but I wanted to have them available for you guys to read now if you so chose. I'm going to try - depending on when Chibi has time to beta - to have the edits done and up by that Halloween post. That is if I have time with work, the hurricane, and Halloween itself to write one.

Given that Thursday starts National Novel Writing Month I'm certainly going to try to squeeze that last blog post in on Halloween. I'm still not sure if I'll be blogging during the month of November.

Regardless, I WILL have one more post before I go in to writing craziness, be it Wednesday or Sunday.
Love you all! Have a safe and happy Halloween and take every precaution you can if you're in Hurricane Sandy/Frakenstorm's way.