Day 2, which feels a lot like Day 1

I changed my mind. I feel like checking in to report progress. I'll try to respond to comments/questions, but no promises.

We kicked off our month of 30 days and nights of literary abandon (or NaNoWriMo) with our friends here who are also doing it. We had a big breakfast and toasted in the month with some sparkling fruit juice in fancy glasses.

It was a full day since we also enjoyed a children's museum all afternoon with some other friends and attended a Tibetan Feast as a family at the college in the evening. That was absolutely fascinating--the chanting prayers and opening ceremony were so soothing and hauntingly beautiful, the food was fantastic, and the stories of the monks' escape from Tibet were riveting. Hearing about the situation in Tibet pained me. Horrible crimes against humanity. Just awful.

We left with full tummies (my gosh, the food was delicious), expanded minds and hearts, and we also picked up a lovely wall hanging with a great quote by the Dalai Lama as well as a colorful flag banner of a chant for compassion. These may well serve as my writing totems for the month.

I knew it would be a full day so I didn't write until just before bed and I was pretty exhausted. I didn't even report my word count, which was just under 200 words. The daily goal to pull it off is 1,667 so you can imagine how today started. I decided to get a good night's rest before really diving in since Mark and I, in typical daylight savings fashion, used our extra hour to just stay up even later than usual. We're so disciplined.

Mark got a decent word count in yesterday before bed. I'm impressed.

I have pictures of all these things, but I haven't uploaded them yet and I'm not about to do it right now since I've got more writing to do!

So today started very hopeful and feels like my first official day (I actually really like Mondays). I got an email from my NaNo buddy across the pond (we "met" through a mutual friend on Facebook and exchanged contact info before I closed down my FB account for the month--which, by the way, is blissful). She's in London and so she gets her word counts in before I do. I use it as encouragement to spur me on.

I also checked in with our local friend and it sounds like we're feeling similarly about this adventure . . . a bit uncomfortable at this whole flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants method. But we're pressing on!

I've written about 1,592 words so far and I'm about to get back to it since Mark and the kids are out at violin lessons and this affords me some quiet time to work on my book.

I think I should type my book in a blog window like this one since the words seem to come easier here than on my Word document. Or maybe it's my story line. Or lack thereof. Not sure.

Anyway, back to writing I go . . .