2,661 new words, making for an updated word count of 156,801 as of a minute ago. I had a late start on the writing and my eyes are starting to droop. I shall try for 7,500-10,000 words in these last two days of the "writing hiatus" and figure out my gameplan to reach 200,000 by my 42nd birthday on Friday.

The manuscript is now up to 154,140 words as of Thursday. I cannot help but feel proud. Tempted to do a little more but am undecided as to where to continue. I went over some of the freewritten scenes that I have left and I cannot decide right now which one to start cleaning up. Perhaps I will start another need-to-write scene entirely before officially calling it an evening. Could I possibly reach 200,000 by next Friday, which happens to be my birthday? It's possible. 

Not much on the writing front, but I kinda planned for that. I did add a little to one scene directly in the manuscript itself earlier today, but the focus of today was actually spending Independence Day with Tara. LIke last year, we brought along our bag chairs and a couple of books. Tara only brought along Atlas Shrugged, while I, unable to decide which book or books to bring along, carried in my old Barnes & Noble James Joyce book bag Ulysses, Netherland, Sputnik Sweetheart and Eclipse.  I started on Ulysses first and got through the funeral/burial scene and got thrown off when all of a sudden Leopold Bloom is in a newspaper office and every few paragraphs are split up with headlines! This is part of the notoriety of Ulysses - how crazily stream of conscious the damned story is. I switched to Eclipse and read that until it started to get dark and noisy. 

Other than that, not much else going on. Going to rack now. 

Writing hiatus (vacation) officialy began yesterday,even though I started on it after I came home from work on Wednesday. The scene I started on Wednesday night, I finished yesterday (after getting a fuckload of housework out of the way), then I started on another one. This morning, I started, after morning e-mail, to rewrite one of the earlier scenes that I'd first written for the book. Since the "original" version had some setup for the character, I simply tossed some of the backstory that was already told better in the preceding months since I started writing this novel, extended a few other things, and kept the rest. This afternoon and evening, with a somewhat reluctant break for dinner in Wilkes-Barre with LVP in the middle, I continued working on the scene I started Thursday night. And the new word count is:

As hoped, I spent a good deal of the day on the novel, cleaning up some of the freewritten scenes, writing another scene, and putting all of those into the manuscript. And the new word count is...


No patting myself on the back or anything, but that's pretty fucking good for a day's work considering that I was somewhere in the 122,000's last time I checked. I feel very accomplished. That's it for me for writing for the day. I'm going to shoot for another 2,000 words minimum tomorrow. 

Writing got a little slow Friday night. Did a little on the novel, got stuck, took a little trip through some of my other writings and progress, and came across one of my short stories that hasn't had its climax and ending written yet. That'll be the next thing I work on after I finish the novel, or maybe the thing to work on a little if I get stuck on the novel. We'll see. I got a little more work on the novel tonight. Tara and LVP are going to a bridal shower tomorrow, so since I'll have the house to myself I'll be devoting a good chunk of the day to writing - a sneak preview of most of my forthcoming early July hiatus from the jewelry store, much of which I'll be devoting to writing work. 

Other than the writing, today was a decently accomplished day.  Got housework out of the way and a little grocery shopping too. 

Friday, the 26th, was exactly one year away from the day Tara and I will get married. I was calling it a "minus-first anniversary" but Tara thought "pre-anniversary" was better. I think either one works but "minus-first anniversary" sounds like a countdown and what else are we doing anyway but counting down the days? :)

I just proofread this and realized that in the second paragraph, I used the word "today" a second time in the first sentence, writing "today was a decently accomplished day today". Oops. Yeah, I guess I'm that tired; might as well rack. 

No novel writing yesterday. Tara and I took an impromptu trip to Knobel's to dine at the restaurant there and walk around a bit; I hadn't been at that place since 1983 or '84. I had just met her at her place of employment when I got a text (SMS relay of a CNN Breaking News tweet) about Michael Jackson being rushed to the hospital, so we were on both of our BlackBerries (well, me on both mine and hers - for some reason mine had trouble connecting at first) trying to find updates. I think we were halfway to Knoebel's when I got on MSNBC's mobile site and read the confirmation. Damn. Farrah Fawcett and Sky Saxon were bad enough, but this was definitely an out of the blue shocker. 

I did do a little writing last night when I got home after ten - a blog entry about yesterday's passings for TGML. I'll have to ratchet up on the word count on the novel this weekend - do at least 2,000 then take a quick break and write at least 1,000 more words. 

Today is Tara's and my pre-anniversary, or as I like to call it, our minus-first anniversary. Whoa. TIme is flying. Yesterday, on our way to Knoebel's (in-between trying to find updates on MJ) Tara said to me, "Do you know what we'll be doing a year from today? Our rehearsal dinner." She also reminded me that the rehearsal dinner was my responsiblity. It is? I didn't know that. 

Off to get ready for the day job, so more later. 

I'm a little out of sync lately. Tuesday Tara and I had an impromotu visit to Sonic. We both had extra-long coneys, regular size Frito wraps, and chili cheese tots, plus drinks. Verdict: way too much food eaten. Yikes. I weighted myself Tuesday night before bed and I'm at 220 pounds. That's at least 30 pounds more than I should be. Sonic is great but  their way-tempting food tends has really thrown off my attempts to eat healthier. 

After Sonic, we stopped at Five Below for a few minutes. Tara got herself a little wastepaper basket for her bedroom and I found a DVD of Beatles newsreel footage. Then we stopped at Barnes & Noble for awhile. I decided to add to my Haruki Murakami library (Murakami always seems to be inspiring to me as a writer) and bought Sputnik Sweetheart (I still haven't seen What I Think About When I Think About Running anywhere) and also surprised Tara with a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank that she was looking through. Then we stopped at Price Chopper as Tara needed a few things from there and called it a night. Tara made me buy an energy drink (I forget which brand) because she thought I was getting tired - small mistake. I got enough energy for driving home, but once I got inside I started to feel the crash. Nothing other than VitaminEnergy or those little 5 Hour Energy shots works like they should for me. As a result, I didn't get any writing done that night. 

Last night, LVP and I went to my cousin Jennifer's to get our hair done (mine trimmed, hers cut and colored). Got a little writing for the novel in via Moleskine while I waited for LVP to get finished. Jennifer had some stupid kids movie on that her son kept ignoring so I put my earbuds on and some MiniMoni music on shuffle. After dinner and Olbermann I transcribed that freewriting and added a little more before I started to get tired.  

Tonight I'm setting a new daily word count goal: 2,500 words a day. That'll be a good challenge. Since I DVD Olbermann anyway I should save the viewing of him until I'm in bed. 

 Well, yeah, that's about what I'm doing at the moment. Been up for about an hour or so. 

Yesterday I wasn't sure what was going on, thinking that I'd probably be hanging out at the house, getting some writing done, or running a couple of errands for the house.  Instead, around 3:30 or 4 Tara calls and asks if I want to go "somewhere". She will not specify where when I ask her, telling me it will be a surprise. It's an excuse to hang out with my fiancee so I say why the hell not. She picks me up and asks if I'm hungry. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for me at the moment given that I'd eaten lunch a couple of hours before. We stop at a McDonalds for a tideover (Tara got fries and a drink, I just got a sweet tea). Tara then randomly mentions IMAX movies. I've never been to one so we hit Google on our Blackberries, locate the IMAX in Reading, boot up the GPS, and off we go. 

For some odd reason, the GPS gives us a route that is mostly country roads. What? This is their "fastest" route? Maybe we should have set the GPS for shortest route instead. Anyway, as we're going down these roads we pass a few sites that would have made for good pictures had we gotten out our cameras. Tara saw a grange hall I forget exactly where (but wouldn't be too hard to find if we took the same road again) that she thought would look good as the subject of a sepia-tone picture.  I wholeheardedly agree. 

We get to Reading with a good half-hour to spare. Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is the IMAX feature there. I have got to say, seeing a movie on a ceiling-to-floor screen with some badass surround sound is pretty amazing. The seats in the theatre are long-backed recliners - perfect for watching such a huge screen! Very crystal clear picture and sound - then again, this is digital technology we're dealing with here. The movie was really good - good storyline and a hilarious cameo from Oscar The Grouch and Darth Vader. Definitely made me want to go to the Smithsonian someday. I'd like to hit a couple of art museums the next time Tara and I hit New York but that's another story. 

Afterwards we start to head home but Tara wants to hit a diner and there's one she likes in the area, so she has me punch up the name "Reading Diner" in the GPS. It brings up the West Reading Diner. We get there and it's not the diner Tara was thinking of (we later find out on the way back home - on Highway 61(!!) - that Tara was thinking of the Route 61 Diner but we go anyway... after two holdups. One caused by a very heavy fucking rain, and the other 'caused by the sudden post-rain realization that we are in the wrong parking lot - we are actually in one belonging to another restaurant as we discover signs prohibiting anyone but customers of the other restaurant to park there. We drive the car the quarter-block to West Reading Diner's parking lot and go in. The diner is pretty nice, a bit retro but the booth jukeboxes run CDs (I didn't get to play any music though). Tara got spaghetti with veal and I got a cheeseurger. The food was pretty good. We got home a little after midnight and I just checked my social sites before crashing out. 

The weather's been a little too craptastic for my tastes this past week. The other day around 5 in the morning there was a hellacious motherfucker of a thunderstorm. Normally, I'm a heavy sleeper, but this particular thunderstorm sounded like a fucking bomb was going off. I am surprised that I was not hanging from the ceiling by my fingernails and toenails a-la Sylvester the Cat. It certainly fucked up my sleep cycle that day. Part of me thinks I am still feeling the effects of that interrupted sleep cycle. I don't necessarily have to have a full eight hours of sleep, just nights where I don't get "interrupted" in the middle of the night with high-decibel thunderclaps or sudden needs to get up and piss at 3:30 in the morning.  

Last night Tara and I tried out a Chinese buffet in Hometown that had  reopened under new management. Suffice it to say - the food selection sucked and little if any of the food these was very tasty. We will definitely not be going back to this particular place. Afterwards we bummed around at the Wal-Mart next door for a bit. I didn't really need anything but I poked around the DVDs and came across a pack that had the first season box sets of Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere together for 20 bucks. I used to watch both those shows often when they were on NBC, so... definitely worth it. Even back when I was in junior high school, I was very selective in my TV habits. Then I brought Tara over to the house and we ended up watching a movie on PPV - Bride Wars. Pretty decent movie. A couple of silly moments, and the movie kinda dragged a little for a scene or two after those, but a good storyline and a nice climax and ending. 

Today was a little lame. OK day but the part-timer was being her usual aggravating self. When the SM is out of the store for much of the day and it's only the bossman and part-timer there, nine times out of ten I always wonder why the hell I just don't take Thursdays off. It would be a good day to just stay home and recharge a little. 

I've started on the fresh Moleskine with more freewriting/story work for the novel. Things are a bit slow going with it but OK. What I have written up looks good. 

Way tired now. One more day of work for the week, chin-up, tally-ho and all that shit. Hell, I should call off tomorrow - I think I fucking deserve it! I'd even settle for sneaking out in the middle of the work day and going to Sonic for a Coney and a limeade.  Goodnight!