What a weekend and what a month!  This one has been exhausting to be sure, but that is not too unusual I suppose. The tricky thing with this month has been that it was a tease. It felt like this was supposed to be the month where things leveled off, but that was so not the case. The further along the month went the more chaotic it all became.

This past weekend we started the Fall Tournament for Iredell County (which SISA is participating. We had to miss Connor’s first game because it started at 5PM in Mooresville. Working in Charlotte means that 5:30 is about the best we can do just to get o town, much less pick up the boys and get to the field. I swear, the children’s activities in that town are aimed at families with one stay at home parent.  I have no problem with families that can manage that, and I hope that we are able to get there in the next three years or so, but it sucks when trying to arrange activities for the boys.  Anyhow, Connor’s other two games were on Sunday and they won both of them.  The second one was a real nail biter and when Connor played goalie in the fourth quarter his mother and I were a pair of nervous wrecks.  He did well, and only had to make one save, but it was still nerve wracking.  Zachary’s first game was early Saturday morning and they won by forfeit (the other team never showed up). They had a game scheduled for that afternoon, but it was cancelled due to the field being under water (rescheduled for next weekend…the season that just won’t end). His third game was on Sunday. Zachary had another good game in goal and only had one real goal against him that was his fault. As a whole the team struggled and I still haven’t figured out how to turn it around.  They played like they were all exhausted, barely running, not listening, getting out of position, etc., etc., etc. I’m stumped on this. I suspect that part of the problem is we never have a practice with everyone there. Occasionally we get a full team there for Friday night practice, but its rare and our Wednesday practice last week was only two boys. Its damn hard to put any sort of strategy to work without the whole team, but even then I don’t think that is where our problem lies. I have one more practice and one more game to figure it out until the long winter break.

On the writing front I have been prepping for the month of November. NaNoWriMo starts in twelve hours…just twelve. I am far more prepared this year than I have been in the past, but I’ll admit the task is a daunting one. 1633 words per day on average. In the last year the best I have managed is 1029.9 words per day in August. I have to increase my output by a little more than 50%. Hear that sound?  That was my jaw hitting the floor as the realization of that number hit me. Okay…shake it off Eric…you can do this.  You know what? I can.  I am going into this more prepared than ever and I have a greater understanding of the process. How am I prepared you ask? Well I actually created a story outline and did character sketches for the main characters, so no flying by the seat of my pants this time. And my understanding of the process?  I came across a few blogs written by more experienced NaNoWriMoers and I came to the understanding that this month is not about quality…its about quantity. Get the story out as fast as you can. Ignore the typos, the misspelling, the bad punctuation and the massive plot holes. Just get the words down. The rewriting phase is where you fix that crap. So badly written words will be flowing freely from me next month…you are warned.

Now all this NaNoWriMo talk brings me to an important bit of information about his blog for the coming month. My daily 100-Word Challenge will still be posted, but I will not be writing anything new. I am about 45 days ahead of what I’m posting due to starting the writing before I started posting, so I will burn through about a month of that.  I may still post an occasional blog otherwise, but it will be pretty few and far between. I am planning on posting my daily output, as crude as it may be, but they will all be removed on December 1, so you had better keep pace. If you are partaking in NaNoWriMo please add me as a buddy here, or if you would like be a sponsor for my NaNoWriMo adventure please make your donation here.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the output in the month ahead, even if it is only for the comedic value of watching me flail about.  Have a great day!

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