HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
Just a quick note hoping that you have a good holiday weekend. I'd write more, but I'm feeling the effects of a turkey coma coming on.

WHAT AM I DOING AWAKE AT THIS HOUR...

The problem with days off is your free to what you want to do, so yesterday being my day off, I decided I needed to nap from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. That I slept until after noon didn't matter to me. The downside is I wake up way too early for my own good, so that's why there's a post at an hour I rarely see.

Mornings lend me to see the little neighborhood I live in a whole different light. As the sun rises in the East, fog off the wooded area off my deck becomes more and more visible until this moment now, where it starts to burn off exposing the trees in various states of autumn. It's not the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it's nice. I took a few photos with my digital camera the other day of it. Maybe I'll post them on the web site. It's a lot noisier too. My upstairs neighbors are pretty loud, but since I'm asleep, I hardly notice them moving about. Today I did, but it's not big deal. The stairs are quite loud too. No dogs wailing, which is good.

Now for some news: My mom is coming to town. My dad is leaving the country on business and since he doesn't want her to stay in Texas alone, so she is coming to visit me for about two weeks. Most of my free time will be spent a) waiting for my XBOX to arrive (is it here yet?) and b) cleaning up this mess of a home to prepare for the grand tour. I haven't seen my mom in months so I'm looking forward to her visit. On the other hand, I'll probably be crazy soon after her arrival. Parents do that to us sometime.

For those readers who know Casey. She has found a stem cell donor (hooray!) so hopefully she will get to whip cancer's butt one more time. Good luck to you Casey, we Anderson people miss you too and hope that you'll do fine.

Oh yeah... the novel is DEAD, so leave me alone already....

YOU"LL NEVER BLOG ALONE

When I created this blog, I decided it would be a cool way to let my friends, family and other interested people who I have run into in life could catch up with what's going on in my life. I've wondered if people other than my friends and co-workers read this site... since only a couple of people ever make comments. So it was surprising to see five comments on the entry below.

Four of the entries were from someone named Kevin... Three of them said this:
"just checking out the blog. I will be picking up the xbox on the 29th os this month. Added you to my blog. Check it out. "

Don't quite know how I feel about it, really. Nice to know I'm not just writing this for nothing, but at the same time kinda feels weird because now I really want to know who's out there. Anyway, he linked to my blog, so click on his name above to check it his.

NOVEL, SCHMOVEL... I GOT AN XBOX

Yeah that's right, Nov. 11, 2002. My novel is comotose. I'm about to pull the plug because by this time tomorrow, my XBOX will be here. No time to write when I'll be gearing up for online football, racing and gaming. Halo is supposed to be uber cool too, and Splinter Cell and... well you get the idea. Sorry novel. Sorry characters. Better luck holding my interest next year.

BELATED CONGRATULATIONS
I meant to add this to the earlier entry, but congratulations to my friend Mark and his wife Camille. Mark is an officer in the Air Force and he and his wife have found out they will have a couple of additions to the family -- that's right, twins. One is a boy and one is shy. So congratulations to Mark and Camille.

I AM NOT COPYING YOU....

Some people at sports reviewers have started an online hockey league, but the catch is, it for a game only on XBOX. I want to be in this league, so the decision is made.
I am getting an XBOX and I am in the league.

Now I know it may sound like I'm keeping up with the Joneses. Marcus got a Gamecube, but I already had one of those, and now Geoffrey and Stacy have gotten an XBOX, but I really don't think I'm copying them, since I decided to do this on Monday night.

I announced my comittment to get an XBOX last night, and to celebrate, one of the league members is buying me my first game -- the hockey game.

I'M ALREADY A NANOWRIMO FAILURE..
Six hundred twenty six. That's my word count as of right now. Six hundred twenty six lousy words. At this pace it may get done in 2006. Trying to get this done and work at the same time may have been too much to undertake.

As I start Day 3 of this novel project, I'm lagging way behind the field. Some people I know have more than 2,000 words. My story isn't really going places. My idea was pretty good, or so I thought. I wanted to look at life in a small Southern town through the eyes of several characters. The first character is available on my excerpt at the National Novel Writing Month website. My profile name is Neckthai.

Oh well, only 49,574 more words to go. (EDIT: You know what I can't add. If I wrote that much, I'd have 50,200 words, so the countdown is really 49,374) Maybe I should try writing instead of redesigning my blog?

AND SO IT BEGINS...
November 1 is here. That means I have 29 more days to craft a 50,000 word novel before the end of the month. Fear not friends, you can share in my pain, for I hope to get at least an excerpt of the book up once a week so you can mock me. I am still at work, so I don't know how much work I'll get done tonight, but I need to get an average of 7 pages done a day to get it done. I don't think I can. But it's all in the name of fun.

I'll try to keep this daily stuff going to, but I fear most of the blog will be about writing the novel for rest of the month.

Wish me luck,

A