I think that soy ginger noodles that come in little plastic, nukable bowls are probably one of the nicer things in life, especially when they come with their own fork.

Sharing them with a half-pint who slurps them up and makes kissy noises at you makes them even better.

Over at the SEx blog, I started something I feel compelled to continue. Unlike everyone else, who’s ready to share all the great holiday memories, and how much they love the holidays, I’m providing a haven for Grinches everywhere. There are all sorts of reasons to suffer through the holidays, and if you’ve ever felt like giving someone an eggnog enema when they tell you to have a great holiday, I’m your gal.

Seasonal greetings themselves have become a battleground. I have heard Ann Coulter being quoted as saying she enjoys wishing people a Merry Christmas because it’s like saying a little “Fuck you” to people who don’t celebrate Christmas. Now I have several reasons to loathe Ann Coulter besides this one, but since it’s seasonally appropriate, it’s a great reason to not be able to stand her for the months of October, November, and December. Coulter’s reasoning makes me think of a dorm-mate I had in college, whose deep West Virginia accent (although since we were attending West Virginia University at the time, I was the one with the accent) made her holiday greeting of choice sound like “Merry Kiss-my-ass,” which I loved and promptly stole from her. So Jessie, wherever you are, bottoms up for that one. But apparently, not wishing someone a Merry Kiss-my-ass means that you’re a terrorist. Bill O’Reilly even claims there’s a War on Christmas (TM).

When was the last time Bill O’Reilly went to a mall? Hell yeah, there’s a War on Christmas (TM). It’s on all the days leading up to Christmas, too, starting from Black Friday. The battlefields are in malls and shopping centers, and being waged by guerrilla troops, who cruise slowly up and down the rows of parked cars, stalking shoppers laden with bags and going the appropriate direction away from the center of commerce.

These automotive vultures drift in and out of the normal shopping traffic, turn signals flickering madly and incessantly as they creep by, hoping for the Big Score–the first parking space after the handicapped spaces. As elusive as the dream of the perfect orgasm, they nevertheless pursue it, edging their way in front of the people who are just trying to get through the damn parking lot to the spaces way out in BuFu just so we can engage in a simple exercise of basic provisioning (I needed a new bra, and JCPenney has those nice old ladies who will measure you). Yet even in BuFuland, the slots are scarce and the vultures are circling. I spotted a slot and headed for it, only to be stalled by a woman who chose to shake her pop-up stroller out in the middle of the lane. Ordinarily, I don’t feel much irritation at these folk–I tied my children to my torso when malling when they were light enough and small enough to stay put–now I make them walk–so I have sympathy with someone who needs to wrangle kids in the Toylands of Consumption. But you can bet I went into combat mode when the woman finally got kit and caboodle situated only to stop in her tracks and wave ahead the person coming from the opposite direction, who swung conveniently and tidily into the spot I’d been eyeing, and lurking, and waiting patiently to access many long moments ago.

It was then I decided that The Girls would have to be happy with sports bras and swinging free like Tarzan for another few weeks. I gunned the gas and with a cheery wave, mouthed a hearty and very clear, “Fuck you” to the couple getting out of the car.

It’s just my little coded way of saying, “Merry Christmas.”

Well…it’s December 1st. I’m no longer chained to my NaNo WIP, and no longer on the hook for 50,000 words in 30 days.

Bet you’re wondering how I did? Ahh…I didn’t think so. But I’ll tell ya anyway. Last night, around midnight, I clocked in at 30,077 words. Considerably less than I hoped for, but hella more than I expected. Having a week of null-computer time cut me deeply–not having my familiar setup made me just a little compulsively nutty. Adding a 14-hr round trip roadtrip over Thanksgiving probably didn’t help, either. I took my laptop, thinking (somewhat foolishly) that family time with the kids in tow meant I could sneak away and get some work done. I should have known that Mr. Xandra is consummately better at sneaking away from family than I am. Of course, he did most of the driving, so I could hardly begrudge him a nap. I may be mean, but I’m not totally heartless.

But every year I participate in NaNoWriMo (and this will make my fourth year now), I learn something new about my writing process. NaNos, BIAWs (Book In A Week, with no word count goal, simply a week where every waking moment you can spare is spent writing new materials), goal-setting challenges (a big shout-out to my local RWA chapter, which runs a goals list that’s incredibly supportive and has come in very handy for me–our list mistress, Jennette Powell, deserves a huge cheer because she has a gift for knowing when to push and the right thing to say to encourage us to keep forging ahead), they all teach me just a little more about my writing process and its constant evolution. Last year’s NaNo taught me that I could make serious progress in world building if I just let my imagination go and not worry about whether or not it fit into the story. As a result, I have a story with a rich world and even if much of the material never makes it into the finished product, it’s still there, and making the world more real to me, and hopefully more real to the readers as well. This year, I learned something that I suspected prior to November’s efforts–if I don’t have a beginning, I’m not going anywhere. I spent about 20,000 words in set-up. It was useful–most of it, anyway, as it has given me possible glimpses into the lives of the characters prior to the inciting incident. But it took me about 23,000 words to come up with a convincing beginning to the story. I got so sick of trying to push my characters together that once I got an inciting incident (and it by no means is a great one, but that’s what this POS…er, Discovery draft–is), I jumped ahead and had to work on something else. The ending. From the ending, I finally figured out what the story should be. So now I can get the characters into a story that will fit them, and fit the ending I’ve written for them.

But not, I think, today. It’s funny, but the WIP I’d been working on up until then (my pet WIP), I’d just started getting into the next level with it when NaNo came up and I had to put it aside (the rules of NaNo say that you have to start on something new and try to write through to the end of the story, the idea being that you have a 50,000 word story framework that you can edit and revise at a later date). Periodically during the month, I’ve had the strongest urges to get this WIP going again, but had to control them in favor of building up word count for the NaNo. Free of that, I can now return to my blond hunk of a telepath who can read the minds of women everywhere–their most secret desires, their most passionate longings…

Okay, so what am I still doing here?

I’ve been grilled!  Over some Smokin’ Hot flames.  :D  Actually, by a Smokin’ Hot erotic romance writer.  Fellow LSB author Kate Willoughby regularly interviews authors at her blog, and to celebrate the release of “Hounded” from “A Witch In Time,” Kate put me to the grill. :D  Hop on over and check me out, along with some of the other intriguing authors of sensual and erotic romance Kate interviews, as well as the books she’s releasing and stories she reviews.

In addition to being on the barbie, I’ve been participating in National Novel Writing Month.  Not that I don’t write every other month in the year, but for November, I use the “blast through and write like crazy” technique characterized in NaNo participation.  I turn off my internal editor and write just to start and end a story within the allotted time.  Since my laptop’s wireless card unexpectedly died last week, though, my great start fizzled out.  I’m still operating at half-impulse as I get things straightened back out (for the g33k squad out there, my old laptop used Gentoo Linux and Gnome desktop, my new lappy had a great start with Ubuntu linux and KDE desktop.  Long story short, I like Kdesktop, but Ubuntu just had too much of a learning curve.  Its package management system just wasn’t as robust as Gentoo’s is.  So back to Gentoo, but this time with dual-boot KDE/Gnome, for whenever I’m in a mood for a change of environment.  Thus endeth the g33k segment of our show).  So for the past week, I’ve had to choose between trying to catch up my story-writing, or doing internet things like blogging.  And since my internet time was exceedingly limited, I wrote…

…and yes, kept serious tabs on the midterm elections, because I have this inner political junkie that loves to watch how politics plays out.  I still love the first four seasons of The West Wing and could watch them for hours when Bravo runs the marathons.  I so wish Martin Sheen was president for realz.

But after the edge-of-the-seat night of watching CNN’s tallies scroll endlessly across the bottom of the TV screen, I realized I’m in Week 2 of NaNo, which is traditionally when people drop out of NaNo, because life intrudes, or they think their story sucks (of course it does–it’s in draft form…you’re vomiting words on the page at a reckless pace about twice as fast as a prudent person would–the idea is to revise and edit later). So the words are coming more slowly, and the time ticks by, and a rare summery day in November just can’t be wasted.

I’m a big sucker for goalsetting. Sometimes I’m an addict–I set so many goals and micromanage them that I don’t actually get anything done. However, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is different. There’s such energy–such knowledge that about 70,000 other people are doing the same damn thing as you–that you just can’t help getting caught up in the crazy.

Being a writer is a lonely business, by and large.  If you are lucky enough to write full-time, your life consists of long stretches of solitary effort, populated by nothing more than the voices in your head and a persistent low-grade carpal tunnel ache.  And not that I don’t think it’s the best damn job in the world, but there are times when the presence of friends means more than words can express.

This week was one of those times.

I had surgery (never something you want to do by your lonesome) on Tuesday.  I’ll spare the gory details, but suffice it to say that Percocet is my best friend, and trying to do anything without your abdominal muscles is damn near impossible.  Add to that two small and very physically affectionate rugrats who drag their poor mother through a very active lifestyle and things get ugly.  About as ugly as all the bruising on my abdomen.

But if you’re damn lucky like me, you have a posse of angels who swoop in to your rescue.  Mr. Xandra hauled my poor, wounded carcass home and tucked me into bed to recuperate, and no sooner did he get me situated than my homegirls came to the rescue.  My son had rides to school and afternoon adventures that kept him active and occupied (and less prone to worrying about Mommy or forgetting that he couldn’t head-butt me with affection as is the norm around here).  My daughter found herself with new toys to keep her occupied.  The Girls brought me dinners and pie (pie!  pie rules!) and not a day went by without at least two calls to check and see if I needed anything from the store, or needed some company to help move around.

My mother-in-law (a voracious reader herself, and the woman who kept my kids in clean laundry, bless her) witnessed this, and asked me if I knew how much of a gift I had in these women.  I answered her truthfully - from the start of my friendships with them, there has been a genuine bond between us that has been unexpected, but not in the least unwelcome.  We are five very different women, and we’re constantly amazed at how our diverse backgrounds led us to form such a wonderful circle.  And we’re very much aware at how we really found something special.

You know who you are, ladies. But I wonder if you know how special you are to me. Even though words are my stock in trade, I have a hard time finding the right ones that can express how powerfully blessed I feel because of your friendship. If you were a bra, you’d be sold in an exclusive boutique for more money than a car, and you’d be the kind of bra a girl would wear on the outside, because she needs to share with the world how great that bra is. Jane Russell would be green with envy at the girl who wore that kinda bra.

Yeah, I know–that was demented. But heartfelt. I love you guys.

Autumn has always carried with it much more of a “New Year” feel to me than the calendar date.  Dating back to schoolwork and the refreshing cool air blowing in with shorter days and a break from the heat, fall has always signaled the start of new beginnings for me.  My religious tradition happens to feel the same way–first week of August is our New Year, and is a time for new beginnings, expunging the old, and approaching the new with fresh eyes and fresh enthusiasm.

It’s now taken on something of a bittersweet turn.  Next week, Firstborn starts his preschool five days a week.  For some reason, the two- and three- day a week sessions didn’t really count in my mind.  But now, he’ll have school every day of the week, and it won’t stop until he’s graduated.  Most of me can’t wait–he’s a bright kid and really loves his school and misses his friends.  I don’t have the energy to occupy him, and don’t want him growing up a vidiot sacked out in front of the TV.  He’s more than ready for school to start.

But that small part of me is aching unexpectedly, and it didn’t start until today (honestly, you’d think I’d be less late and more willing to take advantage of our time together).  But it just occurred to me that there’ll be no more “free day” weekdays, no more lunches with Daddy (unless they’re really early, or on one of those “no school” days).  No more “hey let’s hit the Children’s Museum today” days.  And suddenly, I’m not quite so eager to send him off.  So what if he’s bored out of his skull and climbing the walls.  At least then we could theoretically just jump in the dragon wagon and go somewhere fun.

This is the same small part that feels guilty the rare times when I have to get a babysitter for a doctor’s appointment, or is secretly glad when they’re both upstairs playing quietly (but not so silent that I start to get suspicious) and giving me a few minutes to steal away to read email or write out a few sentences.  Now it’s saying I should have been full-time engaged, playing with them constantly, the big playmate instead of the mom.  Those stupid refrigerator magnets with Erma Bombeck-isms saying you should play more and clean less and all that yadda are haunting me now (even though I’ve got the whole “clean less” part down pretty good already).

I know in theory I’ll get over this, and if I don’t, too bad, because time and tide wait for no one, but still…it’s a bittersweet kinda thing.  Heavens help me next year, when actual kindergarten starts and I have to watch him ride away on a bus.  Gotta stop now, before I get too emo and have to call the waahmbulance.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I return from a vacation, I need another damn vacation to recover from the first one! Maybe it’s because, being an active person who’s married to another active person and who bore two active sprouts who don’t know the meaning of “downtime,” we don’t seem to be able to understand the concept of a truly relaxing vacation. Case in point, this year and every year, when most sane individuals would be taking a relaxing holiday on some beach somewhere, or maybe a hot-tub equipped cabin, a cruise ship, or a luxury hotel, we go to War.

No, not real war. I’m more than aware that Real War is No Fun, and my heart goes out to all those who are separated from their loved ones due to armed conflict. The war we attend is a medieval recreation event known as the Pennsic War. This year was Pennsic XXXV. That’s right. Somebody has been doing this shindig for thirty-five years.

Now, any summer event with that many Roman Numerals after it ain’t no little get-together. We traveled to Western Pennsylvania with not one, not two, but twelve thousand like-minded individuals, set up camp (some of us in medieval period tents and pavilions that could pass for circus tents), put on steel armor and many-layered (read hot) period garb in the middle of August, and beat the living shit out of each other with rattan weapons in melee combat.

And we call it fun.

Hell, who wouldn’t? Pretending to be a medieval lord or lady, swanking around in long skirts (or short kilts if you’re a gent), strapping on a belt with a knife and not having anyone think twice about it, and (theoretically) adhering to the tenets of chivalry (although when that gorgeous metallic-gold trim goes on sale, all bets are off) is a manner of Playing Pretend that takes us all back to dress-up and age six. And having your SO tuck a strip of something you made into his belt and promise to fight for your honor, whether it’s a cross-stitch doodad or a piece of your hair band, and whether or not he actually defeats his opponent–there’s something just that shivery about it, even if it is pretend and you’ve been together for years already.

This year, we added to the fun by taking a short vacation from the Middle Ages to attend GenCon, which is the biggest gaming convention (I am that kind of n3rd, and damn proud of it. I play Dungeons and Dragons, and all your g33ky brothers’ friends only wish they could meet a chick like me) .

Now, I met Mr. Xandra through RPG gaming, so it always holds fond memories for me. All-night dice marathons fueled by Doritos and Cokes, Mighty Moose pizza (the only place that would deliver after three AM), and the zombified shuffle through the next day’s classes with a mind still in Superhero mode (or Elementalist Mage mode, or Cyberpunk Hacker mode) wondering what next week’s adventures would bring and if we could outsmart the GM’s evil plots to kill us off with NPCs. GenCon is where you can, if you schedule it right, just bury yourself in a four-day orgy of gaming until you’re hoarse and the corners of your dice have all worn down so far they might as well be marbles. But more than that, the energy from GenCon comes from what gaming is at its heart. It’s storytelling.

Not only storytelling, but collaborative, cooperative storytelling. A group of people, each working for a common goal of a really ripping tale of adventure, action, excitement, even tragedy. Fantastic worlds populated by characters who really are Just That Good.

So a vacation playing pretend and telling stories.  Maybe it isn’t relaxing, or isn’t exotic, or isn’t at all stress-free, but perhaps it’s the perfect vacation for a writer who loves to tell stories.

I blogged a few months ago about my new fantastic coffeemaker. I’d like to now report that said coffeemaker has developed a lovely, aged film around the inside of the reservoir that flavors the coffee with a deep, rich aftertaste, especially in a dark roast. I am content. I have become One with the Machine, able to now empty out yesterday’s grounds, dump the drizzle left from yesterday’s pot(s), rinse the basket, reassemble the basket with fresh coffee, and fill the water tank, all in a semi-conscious state. Life is good.

Except when it’s not. Yesterday, my semiconsciousness proved to outsmart me (or maybe it was just the universe laughing at me). I filled the basket with two scoops of hi-test and ran back upstairs to comfort the baby who’d woken up with her brother’s heel up her nose.

After rearranging sleeping limbs of toddler and preschooler and prompting Other Half into the shower, I came back downstairs to my stainless-steel Giver of Lifeblood to continue the process of pouring in sweet, clear water and beginning its transformation into the black gold of coffee.

At first sip of the fresh brew, I assumed I’d just lost my depth perception for the few moments it took for me to pour half and half into my bottomless mug. But sip after sip, my discontent grew, as did the monkey on my back clamoring for the caffeine and taste it has come to expect, nay demand, of me. I opened the basket, wondering what had gone wrong…why my dark-roast love had betrayed me so badly. I mean, I couldn’t be pregnant again, and I wasn’t feeling sick. Had the kids finally succeeded in driving their mother completely over the edge?

I cursed. I cursed out loud. In a very quiet voice, I turned the air in my immediate vicinity a lovely shade of turquoise. If I had somehow managed to break my Deliverer of Joy and Caffeine, discovered it wasn’t the caliber of machine tough enough to take on my Joe Habit–

I calmed myself a little and peeked under the hood to peer into the basket, and it came to me in a blinding flash of clarity stunning in its presence in spite of the lack of caffeine to fuel it. I’d put the two scoops of hi-test in the basket, but never put in the other two scoops!

Le Tragedie!

Le Horror!

Le Drama!

So I went weak-kneed with relief, embraced my Cuisinart, and we both promised to Never Fight Again. But I was a wreck the whole damn day.

There’s nothing quite like the thrill I get from building a world and populating it with people, customs, situations, and a history. I know we’re supposed to focus on character, and how plot is character and all that, but I just get this pumped-up thrill at coming up with a world for the people in my head to live in. Because the people in my head, to me at least, seem like everyday, average joes. But the worlds in which they live their “just trying to get by” lives are…special. Maybe it’s the armchair anthropologist in me, but I love seeing and imagining disparate cultures encounter one another.

I hate going to the grocery store. I’m there every week (sometimes twice a week), and it’s the same thing–buy food, yadda yadda. So I play this game when I’m there. It’s basically an imaginary game. “If I were shopping for provisions in ___, this would be like ____.” Sometimes I’m an Ancient Egyptian going to the bazaar. Sometimes I’m a Greek or Roman. Lots of time, I’m shopping in an outpost planet, far from the glittering center of my galaxy, and marveling at the lack of technology. Yeah, I’m a geek…so what?

What my little exercise encourages me to do is to step outside the boundaries of reference.  By viewing common activities through a foreign frame of reference, I end up distilling the essence of the experience, and understanding the underlying commonalities that lie therein.  The exchange of items of worth for goods and services on a (somewhat) equal value.  The fact that a little slip of paper can be worth nothing (my grocery list on the back of an envelope) or save me anywhere from one to five bucks (yay double coupon days).

It also highlights the effect that setting can have on a person.  My local grocery is laid out differently than the one a few exits down on the interstate.  In my imagination, the bazaar in Thebes is a vastly different place than the provisions shop and junk spacecraft flea-mart at the waystation just outside the jumpgate to the Perflaxian system.

Setting itself can have such a significant impact on a story that it creates a whole different experience, even with the same essential characters.  I’ve been working on an SF romantic adventure (yes, with hawt secks in it, too) that has gone through several iterations in the “noodling” stage (the stage after fleshing out characters where I “audition” them in several different plot scenarios likely to show up at some point in the story).  Recently, I ripped apart the setting and placed them in their current setting.  The entire story has changed, although the characters are the same folks.  They’re reacting differently, and the relationships between them are generating different conflict.

It’s an amazing thing, this writing gig.  I’m lucky I get to do it so much.