The End is Here!

Yes, that's right. The final chapter of my novel.  Not only did I get my direction back in the last few days, I also got my ending. Like the entire chapter! Oh, the novel is not finished, there's still a lot I have to write out, but I wrote the ending. And what an ending!  There I was doing my daily 2 mile walk (yup, have been consistent for two weeks now!) and suddenly, I heard it all/saw it all in my head and couldn't wait to sit down and type it out. So as soon as I was done, I started, but only got halfway done before that pesky thing called real life intruded and made me come back to earth and take care of baby, run errands, honor prior commitments, but then finally I was able to sit down in front of the trusty laptop again and write, write, write. And now it's written. And I can go to bed and dream about my story some more (and already I want it to be tomorrow so I can continue typing).  It's amazing knowing the end. Becuase that means I also know pretty much everything that's missing. That is, unless my characters decide to play with me and just plain confuse me again. But that won't happen. No, they'll be good this time. :D  Oh, I really, literally can say I wrote the end! I'm still celebrating. Of course, there's a ton of work done. Don't care though. :D I think this is still reason to celebrate.

Oh, that's right, and even before I got to write, Dorian decided to show us his brand new tooth. His first, which sprouted overnight (except he's been teething for what feels like months!).  Oh, my son is growing soooo fast!

Goodnight!

The positive side of those annoying blackouts.

I love waking up to this face:



But I hate waking up to no electricity, and not just for a bit, no. For the whole day, practically. And by the time the electricity came back again, around 4pm, I really was in no mood to do anything more than lay around and do nothing! However, in the middle of the blackout, I did get the ending of a chapter that I had been struggling with and finally sat down and wrote it out. Of course, by that time, Dorian was cranky and ñoño, wanting to be carried, wanting to be put on the floor, carried again, crying, sleepy but fighting it, and most of all, going crazy from the humidity and the heat. Okay, and so was I. But somehow, I did write it out (and I really prefer to type my stories) and from finishing this one chapter, that pesky question of where the story was going, somehow got answered for me. Just like that. Should I thank the blackout? I was just sitting there, playing on the floor with Dorian when it came to me. If there had been no blackout, I would have been doing laundry, cleaning, or maybe watching tv, or on the internet or on facebook, all distractions that keep me from writing. But instead, I was just sitting there, trying to keep a cranky baby entertained, and boom! there they were, characters speaking in my head again. So I guess I'll see the positive side to a whole day without electricity in the hottest month of the year no less.

The Story Takes Over and Real Life Calls

So, at some point, my characters decided to take over the story and lead it away from my original plans, so it feels like I've lost complete control. It's a moment to stop, read over what I've written so far and see what the compromise can be: where do I want to take it and where do they want to take it? If not, I fear that the story will become that never ending monster, the novel that I'll be writing my whole life because I cannot find a satisfying ending to it. It's exciting, though, to see how alive my characters are. In fact, I spend a lot of time just sitting around when I can't be in front of the computer for uninterrupted writing time, dreaming about them, listening to them, plotting out and developing scenes. Long car rides are particularly good for this, I've found. I always end them desperate to sit at my laptop, typing away. I could practically lose myself in their world, and often do.

But then real life calls me over and reminds me there's more to my life than my make-believe world. And baby boy is already over 8 months old. The books all say, finger foods. So I tried that yesterday. Sat him in his little booster seat, cut up some avocados and let him at them. He loves avocado. I figured it's be great first finger food. I'm sure the floor enjoyed it. And the tray. And my pants. And his arms, chest and face. Everything but his mouth. Dorian proceeded to squeeze the avocado to a nice paste and redecorate. I'm thinking here finger foods are better if the baby actually has teeth. Which Dorian doesn't. Oh, he's been teething for months. But not even a sign of teeth yet! I should have taken a picture, but I was too busy laughing at the mess a baby can make with three little pieces of avocado. And then there's more work cleaning up. But all worth it to see how much fun he was having. I'm even going to repeat it today. Maybe the little pieces of avocado will actually make it to his mouth this time!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY @ MOM.DOT

So my backyard is a mess. It's actually more of my husband's work studio and the parts that he hasn't claimed are overgrown with weeds and sharing space with two passionfruit vines grown wild, a huge dead mango tree (horrible landlords poisoned it to kill it!), a guanabana tree and a few plantain trees, plus sand, rocks, etc. But this morning I look out the kitchen window and see this (there was actually a tiny little bird under them when I first looked but the dogs had chased it away by the time I got my camera):

On a roll...

First. Sunday morning baby boy woke up in great mood, playing and clapping and his version of singing. E puts him into his playard, with his toys and what does baby boy do? He ignores all the toys and goes for the one book lying in there. E says, "He really is your son." Yup. Yes he is. :D

Second. I'm really on a productive roll. So proud of myself. Saturday I managed to basically iron all of baby's clothes (and there were a lot as I had accumulated ironing for like weeks!) (Do I have to iron? Yes. We don't have a dryer and the wind dries the baby's clothes kind of wrinkly and feeling stiff--and as much as I generally hate ironing, somehow ironing the baby's clothes it's almost like meditation. I know. Weird.) But not only did I iron on Saturday, I also managed to get us all showered, fed and ready to go to a birthday party on time. On time being the special phrase there because since baby's arrival that has been a major challenge! And then, after the party, when baby finally gave up partying and fell asleep (I'm serious, how does an 8-month old have that much energy?!!!!), I sat in front of my laptop and wrote. Yes, I said WROTE. I worked on the novel uninterrupted til I finished another chapter. Yay!

Third. Sunday was rainy all day. Dark. Windy. A bit cold. Hurricane season has finally arrived, though usually here that just translates into annoying and rainy (hey, I'm thankful for that--I'd rather not live through another hurricane if I can help it). So I planned the baby's 1st birthday party with my mom. Yes, it is almost 4 months away. But, we are planning on making everything ourselves and of course, I'm super ambitious and this is baby's first birthday (which he won't remember at all and can only look at the pictures--but I don't care--it's important to mommy!). I'm actually really excited to start working on all the stuff and hopefully will be buying some of the materials or gathering some (as there's no need to buy all of them) later this week so I can actually move from planning to doing! We even wrote out the guestlist. Well, it was more of my mom taking care of baby and playing with him while I threw out ideas at her and kept annoying her by calling her over the laptop to look at pictures. :D

Fourth. Monday morning. My ex-coworkers went back to work today so I decided to make this my end of summer day too. And I managed to wake up to my alarm (finally--only took like the whole summer!) though I didn't need to as baby alarm was right on time too asking for his milk. Fed the baby, got up and exercised, made a healthy breakfast, watched the news, and then, as baby and E are still sleeping, stole this moment to write this post and play on the internet. Because I have actual work projects to work on the rest of the day and another novel chapter to finish (if baby agrees to give mommy time today).

Anyway, have a great, productive week. I know I will!