Oh so I’m living in a land without answers. I used to have a tent here, and visit every once in a while, but over the years things have gotten much more permanent. I’m digging in, pouring concrete. You try and you try and you try and you try and you try and you try and you try and you try and when you think you might just be getting close to something truly grand, so you try extra hard, the answer you hear is that there is actually no answer. Circumstances have changed. Decisions are on hold. Pull up a chair, it may be a while. And so I wait.

(Fingers crossed though.)

That’s all I’ll say about that.

The rest of all conscious thought rests on the fact that I am so far behind on my deadline—never have I been this down-to-the-wire. So as I race to the far-off finish line writing this work-for-hire novel (WFH), I’m reminded of my first foray into NaNoWriMo. This isn’t about word count right now—it’s about hitting all the plot points in the outline—but it’s the same kind of philosophy: get the words on paper, make them sound pretty later. So I’ve taken to doing some of the methods I did while making my attempt at NaNo. I don’t read back, I just move forward. When I reach a word I can’t think of I write X or WORD TK or SOMETHING. I highlight them in yellow, knowing I have to fill in the details later. Every page is peppered with yellow. This might turn out to be a disaster…

It’s starting to read like a Mad Libs story, and god knows I have experience with those:

When she put on her BRAND-NAME ARTICLE OF CLOTHING she looked more like CELEBRITY in SOMETHING RIDICULOUS than a NOUN.

Say what?

But today is a new day. (A new moon, too, hey.) A boy at a table nearby tries on his girl’s wig. Then he puts it away in his purse. I reach the end of one chapter and start another. Moving so fast, I can barely breathe.