Distractions, determinations, and that magical fruit.

I’ve been making a lot of progress in the novel I’m writing, about to hit the 10,000 word mark (woohoo!).  It’s starting to not be so much of a challenge to write, as I have finally reached the point in the story where something happens to change everything, and the main character will now spend the rest of the novel coping with this new reality.

I am really giving my main character a run for her money.

However, I keep getting distracted.  I’ll go to find another word for ‘noise’ or ‘crash’ or ‘whisper’ (seriously, what would I do without Thesaurus.com???), and get stuck in the vortex of finding just the right word to convey the image in my head.  And all that thinking makes me hungry so I grab the box of Mini Wheats and start eating them, so amazed at how bad they taste I have to keep eating them to make sure I’m right.  I totally am every time.  Of course, eating always brings me to Facebook, since Facebook is the perfect place to post photos of what you’re eating.  But before I can snap a photo of the crumbled up wheat at the bottom of the box, someone will post something about Honey Boo Boo, and I have to give my two cents about why our civilization is going backwards when families like that get their own TV Show.  But before I can think of something truly witty, someone posts a video like this:

And seriously, how can you not watch a video like that at least a dozen times without smiling?  I can only do one thing about that.

Blog it.

So here I am, writing about my procrastination on writing my super fun and interesting novel while it’s still stuck under 10,000 words.  That’s ok though.  I think I needed a break after those first really thoughtful 10 minutes of writing it.

P.S. on that thought:  My friend Bert gave me a serious form of inspiration regarding publishing through this article, an argument for self-publishing that is pretty convincing.  I’d toyed with the idea, and even had several people mention it to me.  But I think this was the straw that broke the typewriter’s ribbon when it comes to a multitude of rejection letters vs. having a book published as soon as I deem it finished.  It makes the finish line suddenly a million times closer.  And getting a finished product out there suddenly doesn’t seem like that daunting of a task.

In other news, today is the last day of eating beans and rice.  YAY!  (You can read about why I’m eating beans and rice HERE)  To celebrate, I ate a veggie Marsala burger that has beans in it with a fried egg on top.  It’s actually really delicious.  But I don’t think I’m going to eat beans again for a couple of weeks at least.  I had to spend all day today tight-cheeked – not because I was smiling too much, but because if I didn’t, I was going to kill someone with an odor that really shouldn’t come out of any human being.  It was probably the Mexican casserole that we had last night, a mixture of beef and several different kinds of beans and topped with cheese – the lethal combination for making a really potent stink bomb.  I managed to hold it together all day long, just taking lots of breaks to spare my neighbors.  But this evening I had to stop at the store and had no choice but to find a vacant aisle and drop a bomb.  I then hightailed it to several aisles away.  But I swear I heard someone fall to the ground gagging in the same vicinity as a mysterious mushroom cloud that appeared out of nowhere.

This week we ate bean tacos, curried lentil and yam soup (seriously delicious), eggs and beans, chicken and rice, and I even ordered a side of beans to go with my Rubio’s street tacos. 🙂  Today we had so many leftovers that I told Mr. W to take the night off cooking and we’d just finish off the remains in stinky bliss.

I wouldn’t say we suffered this week, not like 3rd world countries who are forced to eat nothing but beans and rice all day every day in severely small portions.  No, we ate some pretty good meals.  However, that first day when we started this challenge, I got a small taste of what it was like to eat so little.  I couldn’t think, speak, and had no energy.  We really have it good and honestly have nothing to complain about.

And in even more news, Taz is on the path to a healthier lifestyle.  Last night we came to an agreement that we’d work together to get him to eat healthier and get more exercise.  Moving around is the most important part, so I am attaching video game privileges to the deal as motivation.  If he doesn’t exercise, he only gets one hour of video games.  If he does a 30 minute exercise routine or a one-mile run/walk, he can have 3 hours.  It’s a decent compromise – especially since he’s been known to spend 14 hours in his room playing video games and all I’ve been doing about it is nagging to deaf ears.

Last night we worked out in the living room, doing a series of one-minute exercises from an app that’s on my phone.  Those exercises are seriously kickbutt.  He worked up a serious sweat by about 10 minutes in.  But he looked at me like I was crazy when the girl went into a side plank.  Tonight we did our mile.  He ran almost half of it through a series of running and walking.  I gave him short running goals, like running to a certain tree, then walking to a mailbox, then running to the fire hydrant, etc.  There were a little bit of tears by the end of it, but he made it.  Our goal is to run every other day, and do the exercise app on non-running days.  My goal is to continue supporting him and not leave him to his own devices – especially since I promised him he’d see some serious results in only a couple of months if he kept this up.

At any rate, it’s time to get back to that book.  My other goal is to make it to 15,000 words by the end of this 3-day weekend.  And if I keep at it, I know I can get there…and maybe a little beyond.

Here’s to being determined to anything we set our minds to.  And to know when it’s time to lay off the beans.  Whewie!