Quick

Here's a quick numbers update. The word count is 52,589 and there are 161 pages.
I'll finish up on my trailer loading series soon, I promise. Have a great weekend everyone!

Trailer loading 2

Two days after failed attempt
I worked with both Nina and Big Boy at directing them to walk between a bulky mounting block set a few feet from the side of the round pen. Both did well, although they were a little frisky. I can’t blame them though; they’ve had the winter off. Next came going into the stall. The barn we currently have has two stalls with no doors, that you have to step up into(it’s about a foot high step) and one long run in area. I could stand on the outside of the stall and send Nina in and out. I could walk her into the stall. I have been able to both lead Nina and send her in the trailer in past hauling experiences. Big Boy would let me walk him into the stall but did not want me to send him into the stall. In all past hauling experiences with Big Boy, we have always had to lead him in. Now on to the trailer. Nina was a little nervous, but she did behave and actually put both front feet in. I was able to ask her to back out before she could do it herself, which takes some good timing on my part, let me tell you! Big Boy acted very calm around the trailer considering Sunday did not go well for him. But he was his normal self in that when he gets to the trailer he starts locking up. I walked him up to the trailer and backed him up and walked him up and backed him up, repeatedly. I wanted to practice approaching the trailer. We’ll see how tomorrow goes, I’m trying to be positive.

Nine Months

So baby is 9 months old! I just thought I’d update for anyone else who has a baby. He sleeps from about 8 pm until 6 or 7 am, but he does have a bottle at 10ish and 5ish. He is eating lot’s of baby food and has tried all kinds of “adult” foods, like, gasp soda, tea, cake… LOL, these are all in small quantities, I promise. Now, whenever someone is eating, he begs like a puppy! He acts like I never feed him when in reality I’m feeding him all the time, or at least it feels like it. He sits up on his own, he can pull himself up to standing using furniture or even a diaper box, and he likes to walk by pushing said diaper box around. I’m excited and at the same time dreading when he can really walk. I can’t wait until nice weather so we, I mean he, can go outside and play. Any questions to compare? Just ask.

When Characters Change

What happens when characters change? Well, they’re supposed to change, so what do I mean? I’m not talking about how a character develops throughout a story as one reads it. I’m talking about how a character might change through a story as a writer writes the story, and I by change I mean change, not evolves or develops. My main character, let’s call her F, is not what I imagined her to be when I started. There was a point when I was in the beginning of this draft that F finally “spoke” to me. I was thrilled! From this one sided conversation with her, she did all the talking, I came up with how I thought she’d be. I was sure she was going to be rebellious and rambunctious, a real smart aleck who took care of herself and those she cares about. She was to be bold and confident, etc. etc. Well, she’s not. At least, she’s not all of those things. F has turned out to be more of a quiet type. There are some rebellions and she can be rambunctious too, but these things happen when she thinks no one is watching and when she’s doing her chores. Now the hard thing for me is that the further I get along in the book and the more I get to know F, the more I think about all the editing that needs done earlier in the book. There’s a plus to this though. I think because it’s the first time I’m determined to finish a WIP, I’m not sure what I’m doing. That doesn’t sound positive, does it? The positive is that I may have a lot of editing to do, but I don’t have enough experience writing to get to know a character before I write something. So what happens when characters change? Well, you let them be who they are, of course! And you make lots of notes in your head so that when you start editing you can fix it so the character says/does things true to themselves and not to who you thought they were.

Horse Post

Nicer weather is on its way, slow though it may be. That means that I'll be playing with my horses more and talking about it here. The following post is the first in a progressive series on me teaching 2 of my horses to load. Let me just put the disclaimer out there, I'm not perfect and I don't always think things all the way through.

Trailer Loading Horses 1
Let me start by introducing my herd. The first horse I got is a registered appaloosa gelding (but is ½ thoroughbred.) His name is Big Boy. The second horse I got is also a registered appaloosa, but she’s a mare (also ½ thoroughbred and she acts like it!) Her name is Nina. The third horse I got is a registered paint mare that I named Rain; I got her intending to train her to ride and sell her. The fourth horse I got is an Appendix QH gelding. His name is Foster and I am his retirement home from WWU.
Foster loads wonderfully! Rain loads great but doesn’t like to back out, she likes to turn around. I can deal with that because I have a stock trailer. Nina, Miss Hot Head, gets very anxious and antsy when it comes to loading in a trailer. Often times she may put some feet in the trailer only to high tail it out of there however she can. Big Boy, well he locks up and it is impossible to load a horse who won’t move his feet.
After nine months since we last hauled the horses and it had been, oh probably 6 months to a year before that, we decided to load up the horses to haul them to my brother in laws for pasture rotation purposes. Needless to say, trailer loading didn’t go good. I am perfectly willing to admit that I don’t know everything and that I don’t always think things through. For instance, what should have happened is that knowing we were going to be moving the horses soon, I should have started working with Big Boy and Nina on trailer loading ahead of time. I didn’t and Big Boy had a yucky experience. So now I will be working with the two of them so that we can successfully haul them to a new and “greener” pasture. *Grins* I really do mean another pasture and one here on earth.

Recap and March Goals

The word count as of February 28 was 49,003 words. My goal for the month was 45,568. I exceeded my goal but there’s a problem. I had faulty mathematics in my January goal, I think I counted 6 months to write when it should have been 5. My old daily word goal was too low because of that. Why does that suck? Because I’ve been thinking I’ve been ahead of my goals and really I haven’t been that good :( There’s life for you!
Just as a reminder, my goal for the first draft of my current WIP is around 75,000 words and I’d like it to be done by the first of June. So let’s do the math to see where I be! June 1 – March 1=3 months until deadline! 75,000-49,480(I wrote some today)=25,520 words to go! Now let’s simplify this for me to find out what my goal should be now(caution my simplifying=estimating, which means numbers are not exact for my goal, but that’s ok because I hope to exceed my goal!) Ok, so 3 months is about 90 days, which means we’ll take 25,520 divided by 90 days to find that I need to write 284 words a day to reach my goal. And since I don’t want to write weekends and I’d like to finish before June 1,that means I need to be writing way more than that! Wish me self-discipline
Let’s some this up: current word count on March 1 is 49,480; end of month word count goal 58,000; daily word goal is 284 +. Again, wish me self-discipline!!!

Writing Buddy

Here's Jackie on the left and Scooper on the right. Scooper is my handy dandy writing buddy. Almost always, at some point, if I'm on the computer writing or surfing the web, she's on my lap. Who's your writing buddy.

I'm due for a first of the month goal blog, so that'll be coming up today or tomorrow. How's your goals coming along?