I reached 10,000 words yesterday, which was my goal.  Despite being feverish and coughing up a lung, I was able to do it.  The words keep coming, no matter how much I distract myself with The Question Club on LiveJournal or articles on Jezebel.

As I’ve gone through this, I’ve found that the forums on the NaNo website are in general not very interesting.  Or maybe I’m looking in the wrong place?  I get tired of the “ME ME ME ME ME” that tends to go on.  I know that’s what this blog is about, and I recognize that I myself am guilty of it, but it’s still weird to see on the forums that have nothing to do with that.

My attainable goal for today is another 3,000.  If I’m feeling particularly prolific, it would be nice to reach 15,000.

We’ll see.

I realize that it’s only been two days, but the NaNo experience is going well.  I’m at 7,251 words.  Once I sit down to write, the process is pretty painless.  The internet is still my biggest procrastination tool, though, and that is a problem.

I’m realizing, of course, that this story is going to be a lot longer than I had anticipated.  My hope is that I’ll keep writing after I reach 50,000.  For the first time, I’m confident that I’m going to reach the NaNo goal.

Tomorrow I hope to pass the 10,000 word mark.  All of it is total crap, but at least I’m writing again.  That feels really really good.

It’s Monday, What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog to discuss what we are reading this week, as well as books completed the previous week.

Books I Completed Last Week:

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  At The Boy’s urging, I read both of the books in the series so far, and can’t wait to read the third book (which probably won’t be out for another year).

Books I’m Reading This Week:

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. I’ve been waiting on this book from the library since the summer, and I’m excited that I finally get to read it.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.  I’ve heard so many good things about his A Song of Ice and Fire Series that I have to give it a try.  However, the book is so epic that I’m feeling way intimidated.

So, what are you reading this week?

Last year I signed up, wrote maybe 1000 words, and never returned.  This year, I’m determined to make it to the finish line.  I figure that because I’m subbing and not teaching full time, I have a pretty good shot at it.

The story came to me in a dream, and it’s kind of absurd, but it might turn into something more serious.  Instead of creating ANOTHER blog to track my progress, I’m going to use this one to do so.  I hardly update anyway, so what’s the harm, right?

I’m trying to get organized beforehand, so that I can concentrate on simply writing the novel when November 1st rolls around.  I have a basic outline but need to work on some of the details.  Today, however, is devoted to developing the characters.

Wish me luck.

Welcome to the awards season, ladies and gentlemen.  Without any further ado, let’s get right into it.  Because I’m somewhat slow, I had to take the images from Getty.  Sorry about the watermarks, y’all.

Up first we have Gossip Girls Leighton Meester and Blake Lively.  I’m not in love with either dress.  The Fug Girls mentioned Leighton’s dress looked like she had toilet paper scrunched up on her shoulders, and they’re kind of right.  The dress looks too big for her, and it bores me quite a bit.  Blake’s dress is  a great color on her, and I’m even okay with the plunging neckline, but I think the slit up the front is a mistake.  It’s too much.  A strong wind at the right angle…

Angela Kinsey looks good in that she’s tiny again (really tiny) after having the baby, and that the fire-engine-red dress is something that her character on The Office would never wear, but I don’t know how I feel about the weird detailing cupping each breast, and now that I think about it, it kind of looks like re-used tissue paper in a gift bag (you know the kind, when you’re too lazy to actually wrap a present?).  Also, it looks like it’s hard to move in.

Parks & Recreation’s Amy Poehler is also looking good after losing the baby weight.  The mermaid-cut dress was popular last night.  She looks good, but it doesn’t do anything for me.  She’s playing it safe.

Then there’s the often-controversial Chloe Sevigny.  She probably gets tired of those weird denim skirts on Big Love, so I can see why she takes fashion risks occasionally. Last night, she made a decent choice while still being a bit unusual–the polka dots add some flair, as does the tiny gold flower at her hip.  Well played.

Of course, we didn’t have great ensembles all-around.  I love Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, but this dress was so wrong in so many ways.  It’s frumpy, ill-fitting, weirdly wrinkled, and the necklace thing is so chunky that it cuts off the line of the one-shoulder.  Not a good choice, dearie.

Next up is Hayden Panettierre, who gets a lot of hate from the kids over at ONTD.  I’ve always kind of liked Hayden, partly because I think she’s adorable and partly because she dated Milo Ventimiglia for so long.  I don’t watch Heroes because I don’t hate myself that much, but if I did, it would be because of our girl Hayden here.  I have to say, the dress is working for me.  It’s one of my favorites of the night.  It isn’t outrageous, but it isn’t completely boring, either.

I’ve loved Holly Hunter for a long time (ever since my mom took me to see Living Out Loud–I was like, 13, and I understood it, mostly).  The woman doesn’t seem to age.  It’s a good dress on her.  It’s good enough that I don’t really have anything to say about it.

Does anyone else when Jamie Lynn Sigler was going around as Jamie Lynn Discala and no one really cared?  Then she got divorced and changed it back, and still no one cared?  I wish I didn’t remember shit like that.  At any rate, I know very little about her (she was an exorcise bulimic and she tried–and failed spectacularly–to have a music career some odd years ago), and yet it still feels like I know too much.  The dress is forgettable, but she looks really good in it.

January Jones’ character on Mad Men is absolutely fascinating to watch.  I think that January has an awesome name, is absolutely beautiful, and is terrific on the show, but I cannot get behind this dress.  It looks good on her (homegirl’s got some corset action going on), but I don’t really get it.  I don’t like the sharp angles jutting out on the bodice and the skirt doesn’t seem to go with the top of the dress.  I don’t know.  Disappointment.

Jenna Fischer is one of my favorite actresses, hands down.  Her blog on MySpace is genuine and adorable, and she seems very sweet and super normal.  She has a terrible track record with gowns for events like this, though, so you can imagine my sigh of relief when she appeared on the red carpet wearing this.  She looks really, really good.  It’s not daring, but it’s perfect for her.  Well-played, madame.

Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter wore one of the most interesting dresses of the night, I think (unless you count Phoebe Price, who I don’t because she does it for attention and I don’t even know who she is outside of the realm of GoFugYourself, anyway).  The beading on the dress is intricate and a bit mesmerizing, and the fact that I’m obsessed with Dexter right now probably creates a certain bias.

I think Mila Kunis is absolutely stunning.  She was so beautiful in Forgetting Sarah Marshall that I completely forgot about how much I hated her character on That 70’s Show.  But this dress?  It reminds me of something a pseudo-alternative girl would wear to prom senior year (you know, if she came from money).  I actually like it, but it doesn’t seem right for the type of event, you know?

Oh Kyra Sedgwick honey, no.  Just, no.  You’re too hot to be wearing something that looks like it came off the rack in the Mother of the Bride section at David’s Bridal.  Bad choice.

Sarah Silverman bragged during her red carpet interview that she helped design this dress and that she loves that it has pockets.  Now, pockets were all the rage a year or two ago, and they weren’t flattering then and they certainly aren’t now.  It creates the most unflattering silhouette I’ve ever seen on a girl that’s really thin.  It’s a great color, and I can’t fault her for that, but the cut is so fucking unflattering.

Toni Collette is so cute. She looks great in this dress, another of my favorites from the night.

There are more dresses worth posting and dissecting, but there are like a hundred blogs and sites out there doing it, and doing a better job than I am.  I’ve been having wicked hard trouble getting pictures to load, so I’m calling it quits.  I’ll see you at the Golden Globes, y’all.

The weather here is gloomy and overcast, which suits my mood and overall demeanor.  It’s an escape from a life that I’m not particularly thrilled with these days, an escape that I felt I needed but didn’t know how to obtain.

The house I’m staying at is wood and glass, and there are trees surrounding us.  The house sits on a dune, and just beyond the break in the trees is Lake Michigan, huge, gray, and wonderful.  In my tower room, I can look out and watch the stillness of the water and pretend like September isn’t coming and pretend like I’m not dreading what lies ahead.

This morning on my run I saw three deer.  When I came back, I watched an owl in a tree while I drank my black coffee.  I want to walk on the beach, right at the tide line, and have my footsteps get washed away.

(This is pretentious and melancholic, but then again, so am I.)

For a while now, I’ve been kicking around a small idea for a story.

I’ve been feeling the familiar pangs that I feel when it’s time to start writing again, and the guilt about not updating this blog and about not keeping up with a paper journal and about not writing at all is starting to reach a creshendo that nearly always signals a return to typing, writing, scribbling on scraps of paper at 2am while The Boy slumbers beside me.

Inspiration comes from strange and unexpected places.  A girl walking down a residential street in St. Paul, a stack of books from the library, begging to be read.  It comes from mediocre movies (how could I do that better?  what were the real moments present?) and from dreams I have about people who used to be in my life.

I visited the NaNoWriMo website today for the first time in nearly a year.  I joined up last July, so eager to begin and so positive I would be able to write a novel in the span of a month, sure that finishing up student teaching would have no impact on my ability to pound out the story.

It didn’t happen.  I don’t think I wrote a single word.  I’d like to do it again this year, to try, but I feel out of practice, slow, unsure of how to begin planning.  I suppose I have to just dive in, but I’m hesistant, and what if I find that I need to start writing before November 1st?  Then I have to choose something else.

Feck.

I haven’t been writing because I’ve been so focused on surviving teaching summer school.  It is, without a doubt, one of the worst situations I’ve had to endure in a long, long time.  It makes my tutoring job from the previous two summers look like Valhalla.

I have a week and two more days.  Seven days of school left.  In all honesty, I wake up every morning oscillating between hating myself, hating the kids, and being unsure whether or not today will be the day I quit.

You guys, the New Moon trailer premiered last night during the MTV Movie Awards.  Now, I didn’t know this because a.) I don’t care about MTV, b.) I don’t get MTV, or any TV, for that matter, and c.) I’m not a die-hard Twilighter, but I did watch the trailer this morning when PopCandy posted a link to it.

The trailer is already so much better than the book that I hardly know what to say.  Does it look like it’s going to be an unintentional laugh-riot?  Of course.  Will I be there on opening day?  Absolutely.

(I laughed so hard when Jacob ripped out of his clothes when he turned that I was scared I’d attract the attention of other classrooms.)

I’m going to go watch the trailer again.  It’s better than term papers, right?

1) What author do you own the most books by?
It’s totally Francine Pascal.  I own most of the Sweet Valley High Series.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
That’s kind of a weird question.  I guess I own a few copies of Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry.  Oh, and I have two copies of Wifey by Judy Blume.

3) Did it bother you that both of those questions ended with prepositions?
Yeah, a little.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

• Marcus Flutie from the Jessica Darling novels
• Henry DeTamble from The Time Traveler’s Wife
• Fred and George Weasley from the Harry Potter series

4a) What fictional character would you most like to be?
It’d be kind of awesome to be Hermione Granger.  I’d also settle for Sookie Stackhouse.  Is that weird?

4b) What fictional character do you think most resembles you?
It’s totally Jessica Darling from Megan McCafferty’s series.  I just reread the entire series, and it’s uncomfortable how closely I identify with her sometimes.  I also see myself in Tibby from Ann Brashares’ The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Finding My Voice by Marie G. Lee might teeter near the top of the list.  Princess Furball is probably the picture book I’ve poured over most.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Oh, Christ.  I don’t know.  I was neck-deep in my non-ironic SVH obsession then.  Probably something from the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.

8.) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
So many things.  Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn was phenomenal.  I couldn’t put it down.  The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by e. Lockhart was great, too.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Portable Dorothy Parker.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I’m so unqualified to answer that question that I’m not going to even attempt to respond.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
The Jessica Darling series.  It needs to be done, for real.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
A Girl Named Zippy. Any attempt would just ruin it.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I’ve definitely dreamed about Marcus Flutie before, but I’m not sharing the details.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker “I’m a Douchebag” Max.

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
How are we defining difficult?  I’ve never made it through the Bible, even though I’ve tried more than once.  I find Hemingway to be absolutely unbearable.  But the hardest time I’ve ever had with a book I had to finish?  Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
That’s a weird question.  I don’t know.  I’ve seen MacBeth, Romeo + Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew…

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The Russians.  I really enjoy Nabokov.  I’m going to get through Tolstoy at some point in the future.  I swear it.

18) Roth or Updike?
Yeesh.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Double yeesh.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare by default.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen FTW.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

I’ve never read The Catcher in the Rye.  I read a lot of YA fiction.  I don’t get this question.

23) What is your favorite novel?
Oh, it’s like my Sophie’s Choice.  The Handmaid’s Tale by Magaret Atwood?  I don’t know.

24) Play?
The Taming of the Shrew is pretty awesome.  I also really like Wicked.  Whatevs, don’t hate.

25) Poem?
Dorothy Parker’s Unfortunate Coincidence.  Emily Dickinson’s I’m Nobody.  ee. cummings’ i like my body when it is with your.

26) Essay?
I don’t have a good answer for this one.

27) Short story?
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.

28) Work of non-fiction?
Why We Read What We Read by Lisa Adams, A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Dorothy Parker.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
David Sedaris.

31) What is your desert island book?
Just one?  The Portable Dorothy Parker.  Sensing a theme?

32) And … what are you reading right now?

• Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli
• Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart