Now She's Done It!

NaNoWriMo 2008, or rather, What is She Thinking?

As if I don't have enough to keep me occupied, or pre-occupied as the case may be, I've decided to participate in the 2008 National Novel Writing Month - affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo.  It's basically a pledge to write 50,000 words of your novel in the month of November.

I've been writing fiction off and on for - oh - as long as I can remember.  I've never really tried to get anything published, and honestly, I've only ever showed my stuff to fellow classmates and of course my beloved GR Writing Group.  I've been getting the itch to write something a bit lengthier lately so this is the perfect catalyst!

50,000 words equates to about 1,667 words per day Nov. 1 - 30.  I know myself well enough to know that I will not be able to write every day.  So, I'll have to do fewer sessions with more words.  For example, I'm fairly certain I won't be writing on Thanksgiving.  So I've got to make up those words another day.

But, it's not the words that scare me the most ... it's the plot.  I don't have a problem putting words to paper - or screen as the case may be.  However, for this project, I'm going to have to pick a story line ... and stick with it for 50,000 words!  Eek!  I've never written a story that lasted more than 4,000 words I don't think.  So, I've got about 2 or 3 different plot ideas swimming around in my head.  I've been letting them marinate for a while and hope to put together a basic working outline of the story over the next week so I can just get writing come November 1.

The best thing is that this is meant to be an exercise in just getting the words out there.  These aren't meant to be perfect, publishable novels by December 1.  They are supposed to be messy, full of holes, and totally off track.  You're supposed to allow yourself to write something awful, knowing that you can fix it in December.  It sort of gives you permission to let the gaps sit there, no need (and frankly no time) to mull over word choices and motivation for hours on end.  Being the kind of person who doesn't like to do something unless I'm going to be good at it ... this could be tricky - and very therapeutic.

In the right-hand column I've added a word count widget via the NaNoWriMo website to let everyone know how I'm doing on my quest for 50,000 words in November.  If you're curious about the whole thing, visit the official website at www.NaNoWriMo.org.  Heck, maybe you could join me in this crazy quest!

Wish me luck!

A Year Ago Today ...

Hard to believe it's been a year since Ben & I got married in our beautiful little outdoor ceremony, surrounded by our closest friends and family.  Sigh.  A whole year!  How did that happen?

We actually celebrated our anniversary over the weekend ... it's just easier that way when we know we have time to get gussied up for dinner and everything.  We went to this really nice restaurant in downtown Milford called Five Lakes Grill.  It's a small, romantic little place with really great service.  We both had the scallops because we were told they were excellent.  They were pretty good, but you know how some foods are better served sparingly.  Apparently, for me, scallops are one of those foods.  There were four HUGE scallops on the plate with these yummy fingerling potatoes and a red pepper sauce.  But, I could only eat two and a half of the scallops!  It might have been the salmon carpaccio and butternut squash soup I had beforehand!  The soup was AMAZING!

But the best part of dinner was the dessert!  Ben was so thoughtful!  He ordered a small cake from Pastisserie Parmentier, the guy who made our wedding cake, and delivered it to the restaurant beforehand.  They brought out two slices with "Happy Anniversary" written on the plate in chocolate sauce.  It was a total surprise!  I just loved it.  And, it was the same flavor as the top layer of the cake, which was the one flavor neither of us got to taste at the actual wedding.  It was an almond cake with alternating caramel and mocha fillings and the most delicious buttercream frosting.

We're actually STILL eating the cake.  For such a small cake, there's a lot to eat!!!!

I, of course, made a special present for Ben.  First I made a little scrapbook "card" for him.  Well, not really little - it was like 8 x 9.  

 

I also did a set of paintings for him for our dining room.  He's always commenting that it's odd that I'm an artist and we don't have any of my "art" on display in the house.  Which is true - that is very odd!  So, I did a sort of place setting set of paintings.  Again - no photos - yet.  I'll post them when we get them hung in the dining room.  Hopefully sometime this week! 

Ben had a really lovely card made for me - he won't tell me where he got it! It was a sort of interpretation of the invitations we had for the wedding.  

 

It was so sweet!  Tucked inside was one of our wedding pictures and a little message from him.  I really got a good one!  That's all I'm sayin'.

Happy Anniversary Sweetie!!!!!!!

Why I'm Not Being Productive

So, I need to make a confession. I haven't been very productive this month. Surprise, surprise! But, my Mom let me borrow all these great books, so I've been a reading madwoman!

In order to make myself feel less unproductive, I've started a TypeList of all the books I'm reading, and I'll clean it out every month to keep things tidy. You'll find the list in the right-hand column.

I've been reading a lot of romancey sort of stuff, because it's fun and doesn't hurt my brain. I've actually discovered a writer I really like - Nora Roberts. I know. She's been around FOREVER. But, I just got introduced to her in the last few months and I just love how she mixes the romance, with the fantasy (vampires and witches anyone?), and adventure. Her characters are very well thought-out and they never do anything that seems - well - out of character. Have you ever read a book where the main character all of the sudden makes a very odd decision for them and it just throws you off entirely. I hate that. And I don't have to worry about that happening with Nora Roberts. And her men! I love her men! I think I'll try reading one of her man-centric novels next.

Anyway, all of this reading is getting me in the mood to write again myself. I used to belong to a Writing Group when I lived in Grand Rapids. I think I was fairly good. The others seemed to enjoy what I wrote, but I never tried to get anything published. It was just for fun. I miss it. I miss them too (Hi Ellen! Hi Carol!).

So, I'm writing a little bit. Don't know if I'll do anything with it. But, at least I'm trying to be a little more productive until the work comes in!

Where's Heather?

Yeah. I've been a bit "absent" from here lately. I wish I could say I've been away on an exotic vacation, but that's simply not the case. And I haven't been overworked either, though I did just finish up two smaller projects in the last couple weeks. Still, that's no excuse for not blogging. It only takes a few minutes to post something. Sigh. Guess I'm just lazy! (No guessing - I know for a FACT that's true! LOL)

To be honest, I've been non-stop work, work, work for so long that I just needed to slow down and take a break. Breathe for a bit. Now I'm gearing up to get the next stage going. But first, I have to survive a Spring Break visit from my nieces! LOL No, they're great.

Chloe is 14 and really cool, with this gorgeous curly red hair I wish I had. She and I share an obsession with The Sims 2, which I'm sure we'll be playing A LOT of while they're here. She's so funny! She's at that odd age where she's not a little girl anymore, but she's not full-on boy-crazy teenager either (whew!).

Hailee is 10? She'll be 11 this summer. She's a blonde, very lively and quite a ham, but in the best way. She's my arty girl. So, I've got to get my craft table all cleared off and make room for us to work on some projects while she's here! The last time she came to visit I didn't really have the room for that, so I'm really looking forward to pulling out the stamps and papers and going to town.

I'm REALLY looking forward to their visit! They get here on Tuesday and then I drive them back to their Mom's on Saturday. I hope I can keep them entertained for four days!

Guess I should get this placed cleaned up for their visit! I'll try to take some pics while they're here and post them afterwards.

Whew! That was (NOT) easy.

I just finished my BIG graphic design job of the year (which has kept me from doing ANYTHING for my blog in the last few weeks). I sent the files to the printer yesterday so all I have left to do is a little final proofing and I'm done with that. I have a couple of small jobs starting immediately, but NOTHING in comparison to the scope of the project I just finished.

I'm hoping this will mean a LOT more time for me to concentrate on my art. I've got a great idea for a little shadow-box to display all our Paris honeymoon momentos. I went to Hollander's last week - a GREAT book arts store in downtown Ann Arbor - and picked up some Paris map papers to work with as the background. I also picked up a list of classes they offer and I am to signing up for one of their intro to letter press printing classes. It looks like soooooo much fun!

Today though - I have to clean up from the mess I created last week working on a birthday card for my now 14-year-old niece! I did manage to get a picture of the card at my sister's house. Sorry for the craptacular photography! I should have just let HER take the picture - she's the professional photographer!

I've been having fun playing with Tim Holtz's new Grungeboard - Chloe's fairy wings are made from grungeboard which I then inked up real good with Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick Distress Ink and then sprinkled (over glue) with Martha Stewart's Fire Opal glitter (LOVE her glitters!). I had so much fun with the grungeboard here that I used it on Ben's valentine's card, on a journal page, and am considering some pieces for the shadow-box I mentioned above.

But - I think that's enough of a post for now. I'm REALLY in the mood to clean off my craft table and get to work on messing it up again!!!!!

Somerset Wedding Vol. 4! - I'm published!

Very exciting! I just got my copy of the new Somerset Wedding Vol. 4 with my wedding invitation right there on Page 37! I'm so proud, and so pleased to be included with such wonderful things. Even though my wedding is over and I didn't pour over the pages with the same eye I would have say ... 6 months ago ... I still find so many of the published projects inspiring. Really fun stuff! Check off number 3 on my list of Resolutions! Well, not really fair because I knew it was getting published BEFORE I wrote my resolutions. Hopefully I'll get a chance to check it off again!

Traci's Birthday

I love Birthdays. Not necessarily mine. It's not a big deal to me, but I love other people's Birthdays. I love celebrating them and making special little presents and cards for friends and family. I started making gifts for friends because I didn't have any money to buy them nice things like I wanted to. Now I do it because I LOVE to see their faces when they open something that was made especially for them.

Well, yesterday was my good friend Traci's Birthday! And even though I'm CRAZY busy these days with a particularly overwhelming graphic design gig (thus the lack of blogging), I made the time to put together this really fun little shadow-box inspired by the great bundle of Claudine Hellmuth books & a DVD I got for Christmas! BTW - I'm a HUGE fan of Claudine's work. And her blog is really great too. Check it out here.

Now, back to Traci. She is such a great person, and I'm really sad because she's moving in a couple of weeks to the other side of the state and I'll be losing my movie/coffee buddy. It was a tough decision to take the new job and I wanted to give her something that kind of reflected the tough decisions she's had to make over the last year and how she's come through them all for the better. So, here's what I came up with:

Then of course ... TRAGEDY! ... the piece of plexiglass I cut to encase the front was off by almost 1/8 inch in length. But, I figured out a way to fix it. I had some black and white paisley fabric tape that I wrapped around the border, which made it look even better if you ask me!

And then, because I love making cards, I had to make one just for her. She's a big movie buff, like myself, so I had this Cary Grant stamp and I just HAD to use it on her card. Then I found this film strip tissue paper and wrapped it all up into a nice color-coordinated package.

Needless to say, she LOVED it! I should have brought my camera and gotten a picture of her with it, but I just wasn't thinking in "blog" mode.

I Resolve to Stick to My Resolutions ...

I’ve never been very good at resolutions. Actually I haven’t even made any ... in earnest ... in a few years. Not that there weren’t things I wanted to work on. I just figured I’d work on them ... no need for resolutions.

But, this year feels different. I feel settled and content and like I’m ready to tackle some resolutions with gusto!

2008 Resolutions

Do a little art every day - if I’m going to take this seriously, I need to be dedicated. I will start an art journal and play in it every day. Then, at the end of the year, I can page through it and see how far my technique has come. I’ve already bought the journal - a spiral bound Canson Field Drawing Book with a hard black cover.

Open up Etsy store. I’ve got the shop already but I haven’t tried to sell anything yet because I haven’t had any time to create anything to sell! But, this is the year. I’ll probably start with some greeting cards or blank journals and see how they go. I know I won’t be able to start on all that until probably February because of the Graphic Design jobs I have going on right now. Hmmm. If I shoot for late January, I can start right off with Valentine’s Cards!

Get artwork published. Technically I’ve already taken care of this since my invitation will be published in the upcoming Somerset Wedding out in February. But, I’d like to continue to try to get some artwork published. So, I’ve put a few Somerset theme deadlines on my calendar and will try to work towards those, as well as find a couple of other publications.

Get better at housework! LOL I’m a lazy housekeeper - truly. There are just soooo many other things I’d rather be doing than cleaning. Sigh. But, I know it’s something I need to work on. If I can’t keep the house clean now, how am I ever going to manage it once we have kids? So ... work on it now so that it’s second nature by the time we have kids.

The usual eat better and exercise. Doesn’t everyone have this on their list of resolutions? I don’t really need to lose weight or anything, but I know that I don’t eat as well as I should and I hardly get any exercise at all when I’m working like this because I’m sitting at the computer all the time. So, I need to schedule exercise into my day.

There, I think 5 resolutions are good. I don’t want to get too carried away and I think that all of these are definitely doable. I’ll try to check in periodically on the blog to comment on how things are coming along. So, wish me luck!!!!

Words and Charity

I received an e-mail from a friend this morning about this great website where you can improve your vocabulary while also helping to end world hunger:

I must have played for 15 minutes this morning while I should have been doing other things. But, I justified it by reminding myself that I was actually doing a good thing!

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to add a permanent banner to my blog so it's always right there when visitors come to my site.

There's No Place Like Home

I've been lurking around Michelle Ward's GPP Stream Team blog for some time, just waiting to be able to contribute something to her inspiring monthly "Crusades". But, I'm usually either too busy, or think about it too much and never get around to DOING it, or ... oh, any number of excuses! LOL But, as part of my early New Year's Resolutions, I'm going to put aside my need to do everything perfectly or not at all and just do it!

So, Crusade #15 is about sharing a little about where we're from and where we've lived, yada, yada, yada.

Well, I grew up in the tiny little village of Mendon, Michigan, about 30 miles north of the Indiana border. The population floats around 1100 I think. My graduating class had 43 students! So, yea, TINY.

I actually loved growing up there. I grew up on a farm, the same farm my Dad grew up on.

Here's a pic of the house from up on the hill out back. Some of the barns are in need of repair, but it's still "home" to me:

I had lots of space to roam around and for a girl with a very active imagination, that's really all you need, right? I'd take my notebook, or whatever Anne of Green Gables book I was reading at the time, and a blanket and go for a walk and plop down wherever it moved me and start scribbling what I can now honestly say were truly horrible stories, or lose myself in Anne's world.

Here are a couple of my favorite spots:

I'd spread the blanket out next to the creek and listen to it gurgle away ...

That's my Dad in the background mowing the lawn - an image that always reminds me of home as well. This was a great place to hide out because the barns on either side sheltered me from really blustery days that would make writing or reading, let alone keeping a blanket smoothly laid out on the ground, nearly impossible!

But this is probably my favorite place at my parents' house. There's a big hill behind the house that is probably the highest spot in Mendon - not that that's saying much - and every summer we'd camp out with all the cousins and every winter we'd have huge sledding parties. You can see the fire pit on the right side of the photo.

And just for fun, here's an old photo of me and my friends at one of the sledding parties when we were probably about 13 or so. That's me in the red, orange and yellow snow suit, Natalie in the back covered in hair, and Kristina on the right who is still one of my closest friends!

Sigh. After growing up in these rural surroundings, I eased into city life and went to college at a small private college in Holland, Michigan. While there I took a semester in Philadelphia - which I loved! Then I decided city life was more for me so I moved to the Detroit area for a year after graduation to look for a job. When that didn't come through I moved to Grand Rapids and lived there for 10 years or so. I met my husband there and we moved back to the Detroit Area (Novi to be exact) almost 2 years ago.

So, most of my life has been here in the great state of Michigan. I do like it, and I love being close to our families, but who knows what the future holds!