Word Count

Your current Word Count is

24543

[gulp]

cq

Show some LOVE in November

With the dark nights crowding in, wouldn't it be lovely if someone spread a little joy and handed out gifts?
Well, Teh Blogfaddah is doing just that :-)

The generous chap is doling out pressies to Teh Familia.....

Just tell him what you want :-) It's kind of like Santa for grownups.

craziequeen has got diamonds
Vics got flowers
Christa got friendship
Gangstah Nanny got love

Show Teh Blogfaddah some love, Teh Familia!

cq

How to Shower

How To Shower Like a Woman:

Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.
Get in the shower.
Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.
Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Shave armpits and legs.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.
Spray mold spots with Tilex.
Get out of shower.
Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

How To Shower Like a Man:

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.

Walk naked to the bathroom.

If you see wife along the way, shake wiener at her making the 'woo-hoo' sound.

Look at your manly physique in the mirror.

Admire the size of your wiener and scratch your ass.

Get in the shower.

Wash your face.

Wash your armpits.

Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.

Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.

Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.

Wash your hair.

Make a Shampoo Mohawk.

Pee.

Rinse off and get out of shower.

Partially dry off.

Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of tub the whole time.
Admire wiener size in mirror again.
Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around waist.
If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the 'woo-hoo' sound again.
Throw wet towel on bed.

Sent to me by a friend who obviously knows my sense of humour :-)

cq

Word Count

Current Word Count
Your current Word Count is

23532

phew! Almost half way!

If you're interested, chapter 15 has been posted on the storystore to whet your appetite - be warned, this will have spoilers! If you want to save it for the whole glorious(!) thing, don't look! :-)

cq

Always a Silver Lining?

Stabbing victim Abigail Witchalls has told how carrying her baby gave her "great strength and comfort".
The Witchalls family, from Surrey, released a statement on Saturday about the birth of her second boy, who was five weeks early but healthy.
Mrs Witchalls' husband, Benoit, said the family was "looking forward to an exciting homecoming once more."
Last week, Mrs Witchalls left hospital after treatment for partial paralysis following the attack in April.
The statement said Mrs Witchalls had a natural birth with very little assistance and did not require a Caesarean section on Friday at St George's Hospital, Tooting, south London.
With help to support her newborn, who weighed 5lbs 6oz, Mrs Witchalls had started breastfeeding successfully, the family said.

Mrs Witchalls, 26, who will remain in hospital for several days, said: "I have found great strength and comfort in carrying this child over the past few months and it is such a blessing and a joy to now finally see him face to face."
Mr Witchalls said: "Once again the healthcare professionals here at St George's have been so attentive and generous.
"We are really looking forward to an exciting homecoming once more, except now with another beautiful son and brother for Joseph."
Prayers of thanksgiving were said on Saturday in Little Bookham, where Mrs Witchalls was stabbed in front of her toddler son, near her home.
Father John Sheehy, at Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church, said: "I am delighted the baby is safely delivered.
"We are all offering prayers of thanksgiving and will continue to pray for the welfare of the family."
One villager said: "It is an absolute miracle that the baby was born.
"It shows that prayers are answered."

Mrs Witchalls was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was attacked while pushing her son Joseph in a buggy along a country lane near her home.
She told police she turned to see her attacker holding a knife to her son's throat as she tried to open a gate in front of her.
She walked towards her would-be killer before being stabbed in the back of the neck and left with a three-inch wound.
Story from BBC

cq

No NaNo

hehehe.......night off tonight - after last night's excesses.

Bit of Cubis, nipping over to Michele's, nice to see eric on the airwaves again tonight (you're getting to be a regular, mate - people will talk! {chuckle}).......

and general time-wasting.......

of course, I will pay for it tomorrow - perhaps I'll get my own back by killing off one of my characters? :-)

cq

[snigger]

cq

Burning Buns

What burns your buns?

My current bugbear is motorcyclists who zoom up between stationary cars in traffic jams. Not something you can really blame them for, but it's the poor old car driver who seems to suffer.

Yesterday the biker zipping up between the lanes had to stop because a car was (oh horror of horrors!) legitimately changing lanes (indicators and everything!). The chap on the bike actually had to stop and give the poor woman a mouthful. Bleedin' nerve!

And today, I had a pedalcyclist doing the same thing in stationary traffic, only problem was there was a motocyclist behind him. So what did the motorcyclist do? Cut me up veering round the hapless cyclist.

And don't get me started on bikes who sneak up on the inside, then roar off, scaring you to death. Or the ones who traffic jump and steal your braking space. Or the ones who weave through traffic and then leave about an inch between your car and them at red lights, so you are forced to pause when the lights turn green, so they can let you eat their dust!

rant over :-)

I was gonna tag 'Burning Buns - what burns your buns?' but blogrolling seems to have died - and taken all my links with it....so you can tag yourselves.

cq

Armistice Day

Today is Armistice_Day.
For some a big deal, for others a dusty reminder.

The only wars I have been on the fringes of were the Falklands (my then fiance was there) and the Gulf and Balkan wars (sorry, conflicts!) as I was working closely with the military.

So why do I go to the Armistice Day service every year? Why do I bow my head in respect and remembrance?

I have a little list of people I go for:

WWI - my great uncle, who was in a POW camp
WWII - my uncles who fought and my Polish grandparents who survived hell
Mike (see Bruise Brothers post)
Tom (another soldier friend who took his own life)
My dad - never seen a war, but died when I was only 17
And all my friends in the military who have lost friends, family and colleagues.

This isn't a day for old fogies to remember fallen comrades - it's a day for all of us to remember them.

The inscription on the memorial at Kohima in the Far East says:

"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"

cq

Word Count

Confirmed by NaNoWriMo update tonight

21,410

cq

[phew]

[wipes sweat from brow]

Three chapters and 3000 words in one 90 minute sitting........I could barely keep up with the story!

Only thing is, I think I've left some ancillary characters adrift. I must go back and see if I can recapture them :-)

cq

NaNo

oh god, this is so exciting........!!!! :-) :-)

I have to go and get myself a coffee to calm down.

My Nano has just exploded into a frenzy of activity, death, glory and demons!

And I already have people clamouring to read it when it's finished - including at least half a dozen in my team at work!

Just about to break 20,000 words and the story is jumping off the pages.......

cq

Ho Hum

Another boring day in Civil Service Land. It was time for my weekly trip down to Yeovil to see the other half of the team and lend a hand to our short-staffed and overworked young admin lassie.

Left at 7.30 this morning, got home at 6pm - guess that won't hurt the old flexi-time! :-)

I still managed to put aside an hour for my Nano, currently at 16,000.

And I caught up with the skiing organiser. Nice chap :-) And also two other skiiers, all good lads - should be a blast :-)

But other than that it was a long boring tedious day.....bit like this post, actually.

And I'm off to bed with my book :-)
The Novice by Trudi Canavan. Part Two of the Black Magician Trilogy.
I see she has started publishing her next set of books 'Priestess of the White'. They're going on my list :-)

cq

Week One

Dear Writer,

That whooshing sound you just heard was the first week of National Novel Writing Month sailing into the history books. It went pretty quickly, didn't it? I'm Chris Baty, the director of NaNoWriMo, and I'm here with some good news and some bad news about the week ahead.

The good news: In NaNoWriMo, all weeks are not created equal, and you've just completed a doozy. Pat yourself on the back, as some of the month's most taxing terrain is already behind you. Also, you know that uneasiness you've been feeling about your lack of a clear plot? Well, that's a worry for another week. Are you ready for the bad news? That week starts today.

Yep. We've arrived at Week Two. Let the weeping begin.

The writer Edith Wharton once described novel writing like this:
"The beginning: A ride through a spring wood.
The middle: The Gobi desert.
The end: Going down the Cresta run."

As you move from the spring wood of Week One into the trying climate of Week Two, one or all of the following are likely to happen:
1) The fun, good-time feel of the first week will evaporate.
2) You will decide that your book is a miserable failure, that you are a creative fraud, and that novels are best left to novelists.
3) You will put 1 and 2 together, and decide to cut your losses and drop out now while the getting is good and the fall TV season is still relatively new.

I cycle through these feelings every year I participate in NaNoWriMo, and I have two words for anyone who finds themselves falling into a similar Week Two funk: Cresta run.

Yep. The greatest toboggan run in the world is just one week away. Make it through the grumpiness and self-doubt of Week Two, and you'll be rewarded with renewed energy and an eerily improved outlook on your novel. Work diligently through this, the hardest week of NaNoWriMo, and you'll see the tangled mess of your story begin to unknot, and your book begin to soar. I know it's hard to believe. But look at all the work you've done already. You have characters! You have settings! Your manuscript has grown large enough to injure a small dog! Not that you'd want to injure a dog, small or otherwise. But still, you've done more in the last seven days then most writers accomplish in seven months. You've made it through the first huge week of NaNoWriMo. Now dig in for one more challenging push. It's going to be tough. But you can do it.

Oh man, can you do it.
See you in Week Three, author!

Chris
NaNoWriMo

cq

Word Count

Confirmed by NaNoWriMo update tonight

15,177

cq

Stories with Morals

A teacher gave her class of 11 year olds an assignment:

Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.

The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

Ashley said "My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg laying chooks.
One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the car When we hit a big bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess."

"What's the moral of the story?" asked the teacher.

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket!"

"Very good," said the teacher.

Next little Sarah raised her hand and said, "Our family are farmers too. But we raise chooks for the meat market. One day we had a dozen eggs, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral to this story is, 'Don't count your chickens before they're hatched'.

"That was a fine story Sarah. Billy, do you have a story to share?"

"Yes. My dad told me this story about my Aunty Karen. Aunty Karen was a flight engineer on a plane in the Gulf War and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of rum, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the rum on the way down so it wouldn't break and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets. Then she killed twenty more with the machete until the blade broke. And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands."

"Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "what kind of moral did your father tell you from that horrible story?"

"Stay the f... away from Aunty Karen when she's been drinking"

[snigger] couldn't resist it.....

cq

New Persona

I have been given a new persona (Aginoth, Mrs Aginoth and silentmum are gonna love this!)

The Gangstah Nanny!

From Eric Mutta, aka Teh Blogfather and author of hippopotomonstrosesquipidelian blog.

He likes my story store and has added me to his list of Partners in Creative Crime.

'I've just met her recently via Teh Blogfather and loved the energy she has about her. She has two blogs that I visit, but I'd like to point out her Story Store which contains touching and thought provoking stories. Show her some love :-)'

wow! [still blushing furiously]

cq

Tempus Fugits

You know [draws closer conspiratorally]

fitting writing a novel around a day in the office ain't easy......

or should it be

fitting a day in the office around writing a novel ain't easy.....

?

Whichever it is, I have my line management's tacit approval that this is going on in the background and my lunch times are pretty much spoken for....
In fact my line management are helping me to draw out ideas :-)

ok - now a re-write - Demonic Wars.........

mwahahahaha.....

cq

Word Count

Confirmed by NaNoWriMo update tonight

13,025

cq

Excellent new game at Michele's place today

Other Than You're Sorry

Finish this line:

Love is never having to say.......

Let your imaginations run riot! :-)

cq