NaNoWriMo

I tried (and failed) to do NaNoWriMo this year. For those of you who don't know what that is, it stands for Nqtional Novel Writing Month. You can find more about it here: NaNoWriMo Wesite.

The story I had outlined didn’t really get far off the ground. I still hope to finish it someday, but maybe when I have more motivation.

It’s about a PI who falls in love with an alleged kidnapper while undercover as a Mormon missionary. Sound cliché to you too? It has it’s moments. My favorite part I would most likely have to cut out if I ever got it published, though. Partly because it’s for a Mormon audience, who may think even mentioning homosexuality is in bad taste.

As you can see from this lovely pie chart. I didn’t even get a quarter of the way to the required 50k in order to “win.”

But the pie chart looks a little more forgiving than the line graph you see below.

 

See, the gray line is how many words I was supposed to have written each day. The brown bars are how many I actually wrote. And yes, not only did I quit writing, but I quit updating my stats.

In the end I only ended up writing 9421 words. But it’s still likely the longest thing I’ve written by myself.

What it feels like—to have a Clown for a Mom

At first people don’t believe me when I tell them my mom is a clown. Then they jump straight to the circus, tents and elephants, peanuts and popcorn. I have to explain to them that she’s never been in the circus, she just does parties. Well, parties and free cotton candy.

My mom clowns a lot less now than she used to when I was a kid. She has a full-time job elsewhere, but she does get paid (sometimes) for clowning. Unfortunately, in this economy not many people hire clowns. I guess clowns aren’t in demand anymore. When I was a kid, my mom would visit my classroom like the other “room moms.” Unlike those others she would wear big shoes, her nose and lips red, stickers on her eyelids. She could make balloon animals.

I also can twist-tie balloons. I can. But I don’t like to. Occasionally, my mom would take me to events to help her out. Pumpkin adorned hallways for the Halloween festival; purple and white classrooms at the high school; and parades under the sweltering sun; I was there, helping my mom. I was there so she wouldn’t get overloaded with children begging for balloons, but it wouldn’t matter. I’d ask them what they wanted me to tie, and they’d say, “No thanks, I’ll wait for the real clown.”

Sometimes when people find out about my mom, they say, “Oh, I don’t want to go to your house. Clowns are scary!” I never understood the fear of clowns. I blame Stephen King for this irrational phobia and I usually force these people to meet my mo. They’re nervous at first, but the sight of animals coming to life out of colorful balloons, jump-roping on a unicycle, and my mom’s magic tricks usually bring them around. The free cotton candy doesn’t hurt either.

If you think this sounds exciting, you should be around for Christmas. Hire my mom and dad to your party as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. She’s the only accordion-playing Mrs. Claus I’ve ever seen.