May 8, 2009

Writing-

Wrote a bit today, managed to put down around 2,500 words so far. I started writing this novel on 04/26, and based off of other similar novels, I figure it should be around 40,000 to 70,000 words. Right now, I'm at 13,258, which isn't too bad. Next stop is writing a slightly more detailed outline and deciding how long I need to make the rest of the story. I also need to start designing the characters on paper, deciding what art style to use, and create a rough map of the village that the story takes place in.

Life-

Unpacked a few more boxes today, it's a strange kind of bittersweet to see all of the boxes that we'd packed with the confidence that we were moving to start a new life get slowly unloaded back into the house. At the same time though, we are starting to be stricter about what we keep, and we threw away 2 bags full of crap we don't need or never use, and filled a box with yard sale stuff. We also started unpacking my masks for the front room, which is thrilling. I've missed their wooden gazes.

We also walked the dogs, and decided to start training them to walk a different way. Until now, we'd just let them walk ahead of us, and tugged on them when they got to pulling to hard. This has been a problem, as both dogs are over a hundred pounds and can really strain your arms when they tug. Today, after a hilarious sequence where Lindsay, attempting to punish Ludo for tugging too much caught him by surprise and pulled him off of his feet, then tried to force him to go back home with her while I walked Pooka, we decided to try and make them heel at our sides while we walk. We've always heeled them across streets and when we needed them close, like when there's infants about. (Ludo likes to steal their crackers.) So we decided to try having them heel to us full time. We've decided to use a looser heel, which we have been calling Heel Close as we walk, soon to be shortened to Close as they get better at it. It keeps them next to us, leashes loose, but they can have a bit of leeway, as long as their bodies are even with us. It worked pretty good for the last leg of our walk today... we'll see if it still works tomorrow.

We also went to Mama Inez for our weekly Fajita Friday date, and had a splendid Cheese Crisp, then bought 3 books at the Thrift store.

All in all a pretty good day, and its only 6pm!

The Last Sentence I Wrote Today -
Eventually, Uncle Cannon came up and knocked on their door.