November 2024. A time to write, write, write, and write. Any guesses what I did?

I wrote! Ha! Got you!

Just not as much as I had hoped to write. You see, at the end of October, I visited my brother, and came home to find a couch wet. I thought maybe I spilled some water on it. So I wiped it up, readjusted the blanket on it, and went away. Come back a bit later, and what do I find? It’s wet! Freshly adjusted, and still wet! What’s going on here?

Then I looked up. Oh.

That, my friends, is a leak. In my roof. That has soaked through the insulation. And was now dripping into my living room.

The subsequent repair of the roof went quickly enough – 2 days of patching, and the roof has a reprieve. It’s old, and will need a replacement soon enough, but for now, I’m safe, and the big leak is patched. Yay.

NaNo starts, and we’re off to a good start. Insurance is annoying because they won’t cover an old roof, but they will cover the repair to my ceiling. Contractors are called, and soon they’re taking over my house. THIS process is a bit more involved, as they have to dry the insulation, remove the faulty ceiling, add new insulation, put new ceiling in, texture it, and paint it. During the whole multi-day process, the entirety of my living room is covered in plastic sheets. I didn’t anticipate my house getting dressed up for Halloween. But man, it did a stunning ET costume, fer sure.

And the cats. They wanted nothing more than to climb up into the rafters, scurry around, and play. But they quickly learned that being up there wasn’t much fun, and they meowed constantly until they were rescued. Silly goofs.

Not wanting them to be trapped up there, I put them first in the office, affectionately titled the “No Game Room” because that’s were I go to work, and not to play. No games allowed there, no sirree Bob.

After several days with the cats there, I opted to put them in the bedroom where they would have more room for zoomies and more comfortable access to food, water, and litter box.

Things were finally getting under control, but still wholly disruptive. Several days went by without getting a single word written. It was maddening, but you know, these repairs had to be done. Luckily such home repairs don’t happen often, and if I’m lucky, it won’t affect me again. And at last, it was done.

Going into the last weekend of the month, I had an extra two days off from work, and spent a whole lot of time writing, and catching up, but Saturday, the 30th, also brought with it another disruption. This was of a far more pleasant kind, however. An hour away, there was a writer’s group meeting up to discuss their works, and sharing their progress with each other for some critique and community.

The group was small, but brilliant. Sitting in the coffee shop with these other two creators, sipping on a chai, I felt a pang of nostalgia for my teaching days, and my student days before that. I really missed that. The drive was worth it to be able to spend a few hours with these people. And I even got some writing done afterwards!

Needless to say, I didn’t quite reach the NaNo goal of fifty thousand words. And that’s ok. My current project will be far bigger than a mere fifty K, anyway. I’m in Part III of… seven? Ten? parts?

Oh, in case you’re wondering. You know that No Games Room of mine? Due to the relentless stress of disruption, that name was put on hiatus many times over the course of November. Not proud of that fact, but I made it through. The cats made it through. Onward now into December!

Some stats:

Total words: 33913

Total complete sections: 2 (most of the third is done, too)

Total chapters: 17

Total books read: 2.

Total Writer’s Group Meetups: 1

The Queen has spoken.