Novel first draft is FINISHED!

The word of the week is perspective.

Aug 27 - Farewell to... Zellers?

I wandered through a Zellers today at the Hillside Mall, mainly out of morbid curiosity. I'd shopped a fair bit there over the years, but not for the last five or so. Maybe longer. I'd always gone in with a shrug of the shoulders and the thought 'Maybe I will find something good today' in mind. I never really did.

Today was no exception; of the masses of pawed-through merchandise in all the departments, I ended up getting a pair of AAA Lithium batteries for about 30% off. That was it.

Soon Zellers will join the ranks of Eatons, Woolco and K-Mart among the dead or chains of stores that couldn't figure out how to compete. They maintained a stock of merchandise but couldn't maintain a lead in their markets, where consumers tempted by choice and price often went elsewhere. The occasional rare 'Hey, that was a good bargain!' experience is not enough to keep people coming back…

I can't say I'll miss them. Their toy section was always so-so.

Aug 28 - A hard day's writing

As you may have guessed, the theme for this week's blog is writing. LOTS of writing.

Today was a hard one for it; EVERY kind of distraction you can think of tossed itself at me. From a fender-bender RIGHT OUTSIDE my window to the kids above staying in for the day, it was trying. A constant flow of heavy trucks and emergency sirens hammered at me from the road while feet hammered at me from above, so I bundled my things and escaped upstairs - or so I thought.

Would you believe that a pair of seagulls picked TODAY to chase each other around on the roof? Right outside the SkyLounge, they decided to have some kind of lover's spat for an HOUR! I yelled at them through the windows, tossed a few pebbles nearby and tried ignoring them. Eventually they left and I managed to finish the other half of the chapter, but I was worn out for the day...

Aug 29 - The Earth Moved!

While writing the second-last chapter of my novel today, the earth shook. It was an earthquake!

A brief one, registering 3.0 on the Richter Scale - have look here.

It happened after 3pm, as the sun was shining. I was tossing words onto the page and then I myself was tossed for a moment. It felt and sounded like the idiot woman in the condo above had moved a huge heavy something-or-other across the floor, which she has done several times before. So I simply ignored it and moved on with my writing for another hour, thinking nothing of it.

Only after we were done for the day did I hear on the news it had been an earthquake; oops! Nothing fell off the walls and there was no reported damage anywhere. The epicenter was RIGHT UNDER where I was writing at my parent's place in Langford; it seems that even Mother Nature tried to toss a distracting rock into my creative pond while I was trying to finish the novel! Sheesh!

Aug 30 - NOVEL COMPLETED!

I wrote the final chapter of my novel today. The first draft's done.

WAHOOO!!!!

I wasn't certain that I'd hit my self-imposed deadline of August 31st 2012 when I started writing in earnest back in June 2012. As of then, I had only six chapters partially completed after six months of effort and my arms weren't letting me write any faster. I was stymied physically and creatively.

Teaming up with my mother proved to be the catalyst: I was freed to CREATE and not be distracted by the details of spelling and minor typing errors. The words began to flow and by the end of July I was often completing about a chapter per day and averaging half a chapter a day since the start of July when you worked in days when I didn't write.

Completing my novel today felt exhilarating! Then I felt exhaustion crash over me; it's been a LONG ride.

Now the hard part begins: making it BETTER. I have lots of notes. :-)

Aug 31 - Incentive!

The first thing I did today was call about a new cell phone. I promised myself that if I finished my novel's first draft by the end of August, I would treat myself by replacing my crazy-making HTC Desire HD cell...

With a Samsung Galaxy SIII - now THAT was incentive for me!

I wasn't sold on it though; the thought of signing another 3-year contract gave me the willies due to my bad experience 2 years ago with Telus and a new LG IQ phone. But: whilst in the mall earlier in the week watching Zellers dry up, I noticed that the Telus store had a sign out the front with 'Trade Your Phone In For Credit' plastered on it. Once I was back home, I looked up 'trade' on their website and discovered that my HTC Desire HD is worth $65 if I traded it in for a new phone. Which is a LOT more than I thought I'd get for it; even at twice that, they're still selling on eBay. Curious, I then worked a few numbers: if I sprang for a Samsung Galaxy SIII on a 3-year contract( gah! )I'm looking at $160+tax, minus the $65 credit, minus a $20 'loyalty credit' leaving me with about $75. Which was approaching a good thing!

So this is what I did today: I called Telus and spent over an hour wrangling a deal with the rep, who ended up crediting me $65 for my current HTC phone AND I don't have to hand it over… so I can SELL it for $180 on eBay, I hope! AND, it gets BETTER: There's a 'loyalty bonus' of $20, plus Telus is giving away 5,000 Scene Points( equal to 5 free movies! )for each contract renewal or new phone until Sept 30th - that's worth $75. PLUS: All Samsung Galaxy SIII's come with 50gigs of DropBox cloud storage FREE, which is worth $99+tax  / year. What's the total, you ask? The phone cost me $160+tax, but with the freebies and credits, I ended up AHEAD by over $350! So in the end, they PAID me to get a Samsung Galaxy SIII; THAT is what I call a deal!

My new 'superphone' should arrive in a little over a week. Yay!

Sept 1 - A Day Off!

Today was great: nothing planned except to enjoy the day!

Except I was really, really tired; for some reason I couldn't fall asleep last night until 2am and the usual early noises work me at 7am… so I was pretty tired; I had went to see the new Spiderman reboot last night at the IMAX and it was finished well before 11pm, so it wasn't that. Or was it?

Anyway, I spent part of the day out with my sister just wandering the downtown area, enjoying the crowds; there were 3 cruise ships in so there was a lot of people-watching to do. I even found a great fall jacket at MEC that I received Full Sisterly Fashion Approval on, so I'll be back to get in very shortly. Cool!

The lack of sleep hit me in the early afternoon, so I passed out for a bit and then went to Moka House to soak up some of the great sunshine. There were again a ton of people out and it was just great to be within easy walking distance of such a perfect afternoon hangout spot. No hedgehog today, though!

Sept 2 - 250 Posts? Um…

Almost two months ago, I wrote what I thought was my 250th post. I was wrong...

It's today. Oops.

Seems I neglected to go through my ENTIRE list of posts to winnow out over a half-dozen drafts that were tucked in there( written but not posted )that threw off my count. So there you are: live and learn.

It was a fairly lazy Sunday for me, one again without any online gameplay - my arms are simply not up to it. I did however find a HECK of a deal for XboxLive points! A place called CrazyGameTime.com in the USA is currently selling points for about 12.5 cents per point or 30% off retail. So I picked up 4000pts for $50.00 CAN all told - quite the deal and fairly easy process to complete online. Best of all? No duty!

In the evening I watched a few episodes of Arrested Development with my sister; we're both fans of the show. Even though I've seen it previously a few times, I try to go a few years between viewings just to make the zaniness all the more fresh when I see it again. The twists and turns of the writing are wonderful, as is the cast - I was tickled to hear that the FOURTH SEASON is currently underway for release on NetFlix in 2013!!!

A few weeks from now and my compiled manuscript will be on it's way to a few lucky beta readers! So far only a few people have asked and I am being rather careful about sending it out - it's a year of my life in the form of a single file and I want to ensure it stays safe! I'm hoping the feedback I get will better inform my second draft and really tighten up the novel!