NaNoWriMo Update and Etcetera

I've written slightly over 19,000 words on my novel. Yes, I'm lagging quite a bit behind where I should be, but I wrote out a schedule on Saturday that requires me to write 2500 words per day, which I managed (barely) both on Saturday and Sunday. It's easier to write during the week because I have more computer time when Keith is not home. I rose early this morning to write but had a MECAC blog update to write and wrote a note to a friend whose husband has cancer and who is having a rough day. I'll write during the kids' break and lunch and also after tutoring, and I hope I can get to 21,500 words by the end of the day.

I'm in a fairly easy part of my book right now, describing my character's first Anglican service. It's what happens afterwards that I'm not sure about. I've not given this novel a great deal of thought; I've simply let events unfold organically and it's worked out well thus far. (My criteria of "well" being that I'm still writing it.)

Yesterday after church I started reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for this month's Logos reading and discussion group. It's a book I had never read, and I don't remember who had recommended it. But I was somehow captivated by the very first lines: "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." I read ninety pages yesterday and could barely put it down before bed. I had expected not to like it; the murder of children really bothers me. But it's the utter detachment of the first person narrator, Susie, who somehow makes her own rape and murder digestible. It's not an enjoyable book by any stretch, but it is an intriguing and very well-written one. I can see it joining Toni Morrison's Beloved in high school reading lists. It's a remarkable book with a very interesting, though hardly Biblical, idea of heaven being tailored to our own dreams -- different heavens for different people.

My heaven would have English country gardens with no weeds, and I would never be tired while working it. IN fact, Jesus and I would work in it together, planning borders and training wisteria, honeysuckle, and morning glories over arches and fences. I'd have a thatched cottage with lots of books, bottles of ink, nib pens, and a huge stack of thick parchment paper that would never run out. Neither would my ideas. I would garden and write all day, and my hands and neck would never hurt. I would never be in any kind of pain in my new body. I would gather flowers from my garden into vases each morning and have the scent of fresh flowers permeate the cottage. I would write evenings on a wooden desk under a window, a roaring stone fireplace at my back and the only light from candles, or read curled up in a comfy old armchair next to the fire. That's what "my heaven" would look like. I think I'll ask the group what their "heaven" would look like when we have our discussion.

Back to reality: Keith is now doing handyman work for friends and family, so he's busy with quite a few little jobs and a big one or two. So for now things are okay for us while we wait for God's direction for our lives. Those of you who know our situation, thanks so much for your prayers! I am not as fearful as I have been, thanks be to God. So, THANK YOU for praying!