One More Week of NaNoWriMo!

Sometimes dreams offer me inspiration. Interestingly, and at times irritatingly, I remember most of my dreams. I'll wake up in the morning, and have complete story lines, and character sketches, to share with my husband. Sometimes they're very good dreams, ones I could turn into stories. I still remember the recurring dream from my childhood, where I'm standing on this great precipice, and the sky is black, and the rock around this crater-like precipice is red like pumice stone, and I'm being chased in by none other than that huge shiny demon thing (with the bull horns) from the movie Legend. Yes, my form of a nightmare. I wouldn't use that in a book...I can't even watch horror films or thrillers, as if I could write them.
Then I have these dreams which fit in to "The Greater Plan" as I call it, this intricate arrangement of events and circumstances that could only be coordinated by a supreme being: God. Like having dreams about my grandparents who've passed on.
This summer I lost both of my Hudson grandparents, and two of the people I was closest with, my entire life, in the entire world. I had this crazy dream...I was in what I assume was like a senior's home, and they were playing a game. And I remember seeing Grandma, and it was so wonderful! She was all better, no more dimensia from strokes, just totally lucid, herself, with that great chuckle I can still hear (and remind myself to remember, like the smell of her perfume or her smile)...she even came over for dinner to Mom and Dad's with Grandpa, like old times. Then we ended up playing games at that place (strange how dreams can toggle between locations - they totally defy the space-time continuum!). And then it was a vote or competition, for her and Grandpa to be the "heads" but Grandpa wasn't there so I stepped in...and then I had to remind Grandma not to eat crayons, and then they were gone again.
Huh...
I wasn't ready to let go of them yet, especially BOTH. Grandma was expected...but Grandpa dying a day after her? Not expected. It's like the dream was a boosters shot, just a little more of them, EXACTLY how they always were, to slow down the withdrawal.
Then you get dreams that are totally useless, like last night's dream. Very "Notebook," girl falls in love with guy her family thinks she's way too good for, and even though she commits to the "other" (rich, stable, valiant and utterly boring) guy she runs back to the one she really loves...in this dream he was a dentist, and she ran into his office, and there was this great big romantic kissing scene complete with Liberace on piano, and then I was kissing him (another oddity: point of view change within the same dream...only a second before I was observing only), but his mouth was full of toothpaste, and then mine was too, and it was dribbling down my chin and all over my shirt but I didn't care because I was in love! Don't think I'll use that one as a book idea...
I'm realizing now that there is only one more week until the end of NaNoWriMo...and I totally don't care that I haven't reached the 34,000 word sign-post for today...
If you think about it, I started NaNoWriMo 7 days late...granted, I already had a lot of my story sussed out, and have been working on the background information/reasons for/major events now for 2 years. Still, I didn't start drilling myself into such constant output until the 7th of November. Today is the 22nd. Any way you look at it, I have written 19,000 words in 15 days. That's 19,000 decently organized, well thought out, fluent words. That's pretty awesome! Now, if I just pretend NaNoWriMo is still operating after the 30th, maybe I'll finish this book in the New Year! And, of course, books 2 and 3 are already planned, so it only goes up from here!
I'm also quite proud of my blog's new look...do you know how long it took me to use html (that's right - computer science talk!) to create that interactive menu on the left? Yes, I did that on my own, with the help from a few other blogs who explained it for me. I figured out colour codes on my own though so it wasn't a garish yellow, which it started out as. Cool! Previous to this, the only html experience I had was when I snuck into a friend's computer science class in university to takes notes while she was at the doctor's. Didn't understand a word, but I took many devoted notes.
My husband is sawing logs beside me...I envy his ability to crash so quickly. I'm the opposite...borderline insomniac. Busy day tomorrow: 7:30am start at work, accompanying 6 voice students (on piano) at 4pm for the Festival of Trees, and maybe even catching a late show viewing of New Moon with a friend. I NO it's time to log off Know, because EYE keep typing in the wrong version, or homonym, of the word EYE'm looking FOUR. He he...
Out goes the light.