Gobble Gobble Gobllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..............

Character, I once heard someone say, is sticking at something long after the mood in which one began it is gone...... Speaking of which, stuck is what I am feeling at the moment. Stuck in what, you may ask. Well, in an endless loop; a vicious cycle of sorts... I am finding that my imagination is not, as I had naively imagined, limitless; and I'm constantly fishing into my memory bank which, as someone has attested to on numerous occasions, is not very reliable.... and on coming up empty handed time and time again, I'm having to turn to my limited imagination... see what I'm saying? Don't worry if you don't, but feel free to nudge, push, shove... anything to get me unstuck.

Happy Thanksgiving to all y'all Turkey Lovers and to the rest, have mercy on the swans, they may speak the same language but they are not really related.

fiftee thau; 50,000

I did it people... well, sort of; kinda. It is the middle of the night or early morning... 3:43A.M. exactly as I type this here post and I have just passed an incidental milestone. Every time my story comes to a halt, both on paper and in my head, my first reflex is to hit the tool button and find out my current word-count. This last time I noticed that I just reached 50,000 and something characters with spaces..

LOL! Whatever I can do to encourage myself in this wee hour.. right. Well, sleep on my friends, or for you on the earlier to rise latitudes, good morning y'all.

Truth be told: The story thus far....

So... one week and 3 pep-talks later, I have managed a measly 3000 and someth'n words of a story whose plot and direction has completely eluded me. I am feeling like I probably would be half an hour into running a marathon - after a five year hiatus from the exercise world....... worn, winded and out of my depth. Of course that is no excuse to throw in the towel... but I am keeping mine handy (the towel that is), just in case.

According to the last of the pep-talks, I should tentatively have written at least 15,000 words... which tentatively speaking is tentatively placing me ummmmm right at the starting line... LOL! One might say that I am feeling tentative.

I am apparently at this stage -

".... Week One of NaNoWriMo tends to be all about characters. Our imaginations have been leaving a lot of them on our doorsteps lately, and it’s pretty much all we can do to bring them in, give them names, and teach them the rudiments of steering their battle-yaks. Then our doorbell rings, and we're rushing off to welcome another group of newcomers to the party.

Because of this, the first week of November is largely a matter of crowd control....."

I am stuck in week one.... but I will plod on... or is it plot on. Apparently week two is 'That stage called plot'. Personally I think these pep-talkers are full of it; but I really do need a plot.

For those of you who requested a link... check your emails later on today... but don't start bugging till tomorrow... bear in mind that we are in different time zones... Even Obama has to wait till next year to move into the little white house on the prairie.

997 words and counting.....

It is with a thick lump in my throat that I sit to write this post. My screen is blurry... with tears of thousands, transmitted over the airwaves; it is hard to see, with the flurry of activity.... the fanfare that has taken over my T.V., how many of the electoral votes were cast for me. But that is of no consequence.... apparently, from listening to Senator McCain's albeit touching speech, I have not won this historic election.

Perhaps, it is all for good... given that I can not write nearly as pretty an acceptance speech as the one Obama is giving... that none of those who promised to vote for me were really eligible to vote. It is with a heavy heart that I put away my slogans, and banners and what have you.. and once again take up my pen and paper.... and continue on my month long journey. 998 here I come.......

It's on...... Bring out the Patron

Well.. not quite yet. Some breakfast will have to do for now. Kick off was 7 hours ago and like some of you (Neema) predicted, I got off to a beautiful start. I have written down about five words so far... which is not good going by any stretch of the imagination. But write I have started... and taking a lesson from the infamous character of our folklore - Kaka Sungura, I know that kutangulia sio kufika... directly translatable to 'starting at the front is not finishing'.