Outside the hospital flew a murder of crows.  The city’s full of them this time of year.  Black shapes darting about the blue.  I like seeing them, but my thoughts always turn to Hitchcock when I do.  It’s the bend of the mind, you know.

Brother Todd and I were on our way home from visiting Dad.  Things were improving apace and we expected him home on Monday (which he did.)  Our talk was cheerful, if not memorable.

We reached the car.  Todd was already at the passangerside door.  I had just walked to the other side of the truck.

Then, without warning, this noise went off in the distance.  Firework, one of the whizbang varieties.  I turned back towards the direction of the sound to check it out.  This allowed me to see what has got to be one of the most awe inspiring sights of my life.  Grand Canyon?  The Alaskan Coast?  Disneyland?  In the neighborhood, let me tell you.

Todd  heard me say “Whoa,” in a staggered tone.  Thus he, too, caught sight of the sky around the hospital vanishing from view.  Hundreds of crows, frightened by the firework, had all taken flight at once.  What had been a few spiraling shapes was now a massive cloud.

A small bit of exposition here.  The hospital has a helicopter pad on the roof.  Helicopters and birds don’e get along.  Thus the occasional loud noise to encourage them to go elsewhere.

These dots I might have been connecting when I watched this specticale, slack jawed and amazed.  Todd, however, had been working on another picture entirely.  He said, “Get in the car, Cullen.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the urgence in his voice.  When he said it again, my thoughts were of again of Hitchock and a baby brother over reacting.

Then, finally, I made the connection he made.

When birds take off, they like to leave… souveniers on the ground behind them.

Now a story like this deserves a slam-bang finish.  Or at least a splat-splut one.  Not to be, I’m afraid.  After darting into the car as quickly as this out of shape body could take me, we waited a few minutes for the expected shower, and when none arrived, I can only say it felt anticlimatic.

No doubt when the firework went off, so too did the crows.  As it were.

However, I now know how well I react in a crisis situation.  When the zombies finally arrive (or the crows begin to live up to their group name), I’ll be Victim #1.

I’m so thrilled.

It’s been a hell of a NaNoWriMo, but, iffin my word count is correct (please let it be right), I have only 574 wordies left to write.  Once again, I don’t have a finished novel and, once again, I’m stopping writing on it on November 30.

HOWEVER!  I’m not stopping working on it on that date.  Far from it.  I’m going to restructure my notes, reread what I have, and get ready for Draft 1.1.  I hope to finish this reworking by December 31 and be well on my way by January 1 of 2010.  While I’m not keeping some of this stuff, I am keeping (or reworking) a hell of a lot of it.

This is the closest I’ve come to finishing a novel  and I’m not quitting now.  I want to be done with this one and on the next by, say. March-ish.  I want the second one well underway while I ship LEO (now either TFLL or FLL or just plain L) out to market.  I want a potential 50,000 word tale ready to go for the next NaNoWriMo.

On this, I wanna (re)start the comic again as well as work on that other site in addition to posting a few things here.

Have I gone mad?

Well yeah.  I thought that was a given.

Dad’s gotten through the bypass and is on the mend.  I’m behind on the novel and I’m trying to catch up.  With somewhere around 14 manuscript (double spaced) pages done, that might not be so hard.  (In my head I’m telling myself 8 m(dp) pgs=1667 words.  DON’T TELL ME OTHERWISE UNTIL LATER!)

Whim has once again made me change my blog theme.  It may change again soon, or it may stay like this for a few months.  Who knows?  Not me.

At least I’m not fiddling with the HTML…

Still writing.  My buffer has gone to hell, but it’s still there.  In degrees.  While Dad sleeps, I writes.  And when he’s awake, I surf.  All praise the glorious Lap Devil!

NaNoWriMo, as a contest, doesn’t mean as much as it did the first year.  I know I can do 50,000 words.  It’s the actual finishing up of the novel I have problems with.

Which is what this year’s goal is.  No matter whether or not I hit 50k by Nov. 30, I’m still going to be writing until the novel’s done.

This site might be a little boring while it goes on.  I do apologize.

Todd and Mom have taken Dad into the hospital for chest pains.  More when there’s more.

UPDATE: Hospital stays mean a whole lot of waiting around. Currently, I am waiting with Dad. A Cath lab is in the eventual future.

Unless I slept through it. Heh heh, kind of dozed off.

In any case, I’ve been keeping myself in trouble. Set up my own MySpace account.

Why? Damnifino. Seemed like something to have.

Better than thinking what this newest trip into the land of duck sounds mean.

You might want to think about that last one a second. Meanwhile, the waiting continues. More word when we (i.e. I) get it.

UPDATE PART TWO:  It’s looking like bypass isgo for next Monday.  And the worrying begins… now.

Sasquatch broke his big foot yeti carries on. Abominably.

–For posterity, and for my mom.

A meh day word count wise, but in terms of the craft, something interesting happened.  I might talk about it tomorrow (it’ll be the post without LEO in the title.)  Assuming I can still do non-NaNoWriMo posts

Oh!  Also.  I got Day 8’s count wrong yesterday.  Surprise.  It was 15066.

Hey, don’t say no one cares. You never know.   One day that might be a trivia question.

First off, yesterday was 15223 something.  Don’t hold me to that, though.  Didn’t keep good track.

Anywho.  Two days ahead.  Don’t wanna gloat, but… Never been two days ahead before.

Don’t… don’t check the archives, okay?  Let us pretend I’m right, if just this once.

Each novel I done for NaNoWriMo I’ve liked more than the one before.  This one’s no exception.  I think having some of the ground work done ahead of time helped.

Of course, I’ve more or less abandoned the written outline/reached the end of the notes, and am now relying on the outline I’ve got in my head.

I have also fallen asleep and have forgotten to post this on time.  Well now.

Still working, but I wanted to note here that my first homage to The Venture Bros has died a painless death.  Not because of plot or assassination, but because he shuffled off the literary coil while I wasn’t looking.

He won’t be missed.

FUTURE CULLEN sez: Whoops, spoke too soon.  He’s back, but not as big as I thought he was.  In-ter-est-ing.