Welcome to the Nanowrimo ICU, where, if you listen closely enough, you may be able to hear the whoosh of life support and the death rattle of my Nano novel.

I think it might have pulled through if it hadn't been for ISBN-13.

Instead of taking time off to write, I've been stuck at work converting ISBNs in a catalog to ISBN-13.

It's evil. We call it... "the trece."

This is not to be confused with my designer counterpart and teammate, Tracy.

So when I'm going around telling people "the trece" killed my novel, please don't misunderstand.

Oh well, I think it's a decent idea and I'd like to actually finish it in a way that doesn't embarrass me. I'll put it on that shelf downstairs next to the sweaters I intend to finish and the t-shirts I'm going to someday cut up and sew into useful things like underpants for the whole family.

Now that my little green car has fully recovered from having been driven headlong into a PT Cruiser, I feel that the only way to make up for his trauma is to reward him with presents.

Like this.

And I may have to knit him a cozy.

Can cars be turned gay?

Although my word count has all but crawled to a pathetic halt, please don't let that fool you into thinking that I'm Not Going to Finish the Novel. Because I am! It's only that first I am compelled (by arrangement with my employer) to write the infamous Nursing Catalog before we break for the holiday.

Ironically, the Nursing Catalog is currently at 45,880 words... eerily close to the 50k I need for the novel, don't you think? Hmmm. Is there enough drama born out of the publication of a new edition of the textbooks more nursing instructors trust for complete coverage of pathophysiology? Oh, and what about the introduction of all these NEW online courses? Exciting! Makes you want to read it cover-to-cover, eh?

Erm.

[changing subject]

Hey!

Did you know there are knitting podcasts? I just finished listening to this one and it's really entertaining. It almost made updating page counts in the Nursing Catalog tolerable! Here's another one to check out (it's next on my listen list).

Remember, I AM going to finish the novel. I'm 30 now. I can do anything.

Check it out! My lovely and talented eldest daughter will be showing off her brilliant! acting! skills on Show Me St. Louis tomorrow at 3pm. Apparently she and another little 5th grade miscreant have plans to hijack the show while the hosts aren't looking. Watch it! You'll be able to say to yourself, "Hey, I know that kid! And she's darn cute!"

My story has suddenly taken a very dark turn. (Maybe it's all the goth crafting.) I keep trying to steer it back, but that seems to be the way it wants to go.

It's like taking your dog out for a walk and then finding yourself being tugged along behind because he wants to chase squirrels.

Pretty soon someone is going to come along and make the joke, "Hey, are you writing that story or is it writing you?"

We'll both laugh as if it was a charming and original thing to say. And then I'll flip the idiot off behind his back. And then my arm will be practically yanked out of its socket as the story races off in pursuit of another plot twist.

While I'm away pushing for 20k (say it out loud, it rhymes! Oh, the bliss!) this week, I believe you should go check out this new little knitmag: The Anticraft

Because while on the surface I may be a fun-loving, nature-hugging mother of two, in my heart I'll always be a troubled little goth teenager who knits!

Although... I didn't actually knit as a teenager. And... goth wasn't technically my scene.

But it's cool stuff!

Little-known rules of marathon novel-writing:

1. Never stop writing at the tidy conclusion of a scene, because you'll have really no motivation to move on to the next piece of action.

2. Never decide you're good on word count so you're just going to knit through lunch instead of write, because you will find yourself siezed by an idea at 3:06 p.m. and no time to write any of it down.

3. Don't let your characters smoke inside the novel, because the non-smokers start coughing and waving their hands all around and making a big scene about it which, frankly, is just upsetting to everyone and does nothing to further the word count.

PS, why do I feel like everyone's already reached 10k and I'm just treading water here?

All right, 80% of my department are playing a violent round of Hot Potato right now, so I can take a minute to tell you the state of my novel. I've effectively beaten my inner editor into a bloody pulp and she is huddled in a corner over there shouting things like, "stop ending sentences with prepositions!" So streams of crap are freely flowing through my computer unchecked, and there seems to be a shred of plot taking shape.

I have a list of characters and very nearly killed one of them off today, but she's the only one holding on to a certain piece of information, so I'm keeping her alive in a nearby hospital for now. My main character is a 17-year-old girl, the co-dependent caretaker of her self-medicated mother. There's a dead baby buried in the back yard. But that's only one layer in a network of family secrets that are about to be drawn out into the light.

It's a story about the nature of identity and what happens when you discover that you've only heard one side of the story.

Yes, much to my chagrin this plot line seems squarely lodged in the Chick Lit genre, and my only hope is that it manages to play out as more Bastard Out of Carolina and less Lifetime Movie of the Month.

But I do have a working title. And it is: Tripping Over Sleeping Dogs.