NaNoWriMo Pep Talk

The beauty of NaNoWriMo is there is no teacher waiting to grade what you write at the end. You can let the words flow as they come to you and write anything you want to. Advice I’ve read says write, write, write and don’t edit as you go. It is about completing a 50,000 word count, not a poised and polished final result when midnight on November 30th rolls around. Just begin. Getting started is often the hardest part, then see it through. (Says the woman who started NaNoWriMo the past two Novembers and this year decided I did not need the added pressure. Though I have the beginnings saved and am determined to begin again and finish soon.)

I initially wrote these words of encouragement to a Facebook friend, then I held up the mirror and realized I needed them too. I should get back to my own NaNoWriMo dreams. It is time to stop dreaming and Do.
~ Janean

November 3, 2013

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spelling, google and homonyms

I’ve never considered myself A Good Speller. I doubt, and second guess myself all the time. One s, or two? How many r’s? Is there an e at the end of that? I have an old fashioned dictionary. The kind made of paper, and bound together, as a book. Actually more than one. However, I’m sort of in love with google. It’s a plethora of information waiting at my fingertips. It’s A Good Dictionary too. I learned a new word today. While looking for another. All because I thought it should be spelled with a z. (And I still do.) Thanks to google, I learned a new word and found a homonym. Those fascinating words that sound the same as another but mean different things. 

I googled, “braziere”. What came up was, “brazier: (noun) One who makes brass articles.” Who knew? I didn’t. And I made metal sculpture in college. I was a gas welder. Though instead of making a beaded weld, I brazed. From Wikipedia, “Braze welding is the use of a bronze or brass filler rod coated with flux to join steel workpieces.” Guess I found two homonyms today, since you can braise a chicken too. But I digress. 

In my original word search, I changed the z to a double s and hit success. Brassiere. The fancy schmancy longer word for bra. All that, just so I could type this sentence to my friend, without the embarrassment of a misspelled word, “I’m dressed in soft, non-binding clothes, except that trap of a brassier that society requires I wear for my voluptuous rack.”

And this is me, procrastinating from NaNoWriMo writing that I really will get around to doing today. Right after a Caring Bridge update I promised my sister, and some other loved ones, that’d I’d write next. I better get right on that. (Homonyms are fun.)

~ Janean

a reasonably good day

One of my bestest friends wrote to me this morning and said, “Take care of u…i hope u have a reasonably good day.”
This is my reply…
Dear Friend,
Yes, I plan to have a reasonably good day. 
I am going to try to stay offline, reading what other people wrote, and do some serious writing myself.
For this NaNoWriMo thing I signed up for. 
I sent my sister the memory I wrote, about the night she was born. 
She enjoyed reading it and spoke nice words to me, about what I’d written. 
I can’t handle criticism right now. 
Instead of saying, “Thank you for your opinion, now shove it where the sun don’t shine”, I might just stop writing it.
And I don’t want that to happen.
I want to see it through. 
I’ll have three square meals at au bon pain. 
Or maybe round ones, since I’m all curves and bumps right now. 
I am taking care of me. 
Hot shower. check.
Big, cozy, turquoise shirt with hot pink underneath for Color In My Day. check.
Makeup (because I’m a girl). check.
Laptop for endless hours of entertainment in the hospital. check.
Books for when I’m sick of that. check. 
Cell phone. check.
Hope you have A Reasonably Good Day too.
Or maybe even A Fantabulous One!
Love,
Janean
© 2011 Turquoise Tangles