NaNo 2018 Check-In and Cat Videos

I didn't really want to write this post. At all. If you watched the tracker from the initial NaNo post this year, you'll know why.

NaNoWriMo and November were a complete failure. And to top it off, I don't feel like I have a good excuse. There was a week in there where I wasn't feeling the best. Plus Thanksgiving, along with Black Friday (online shopping only, thank you very much), also sucked up a week. Planning presents for the kids (my shopping for them is DONE -- that's a relief). Yeah, when I say that, I kind of wonder what happened to the month.

Maybe it's just the year. I mean, it started out wretched, so the pervasive feelings from the beginning of the year are just lingering at the end of it. All of November, I just wanted to say, "Screw it! I just want to sit down and plan 2019."

And that's what I'm going to do in December. That's all I'm going to do. Plan next year, and have the optimism that it will be a much better year for writing. And I'll do a lengthier assessment of 2018 in my next post. (How depressing is that going to be? Ugh.)

OK, I'm going to throw myself a bone now. NaNoWriMo 2018 wasn't a complete failure. I revised about 1600 words. That's 1600 more words than I had before November started, so it's a win, even if a small one.

But so this isn't a terrible and utterly depressing post (like the next one just might be), I needed to throw in kitties. More importantly, kitty videos! And well, a Nightshade picture because I don't have a video of him -- it seems the girl cats in the house are more entertaining at times. Shade is a bit too laid back.

If you want to see Part 2 of the second one, just pop over to my YouTube Channel. It's kind of sparse, but I may add more kitty videos in the future! Enjoy Rikku and Sylph below. =) Goofball fuzzballs.

Magic Is Reality, Reality Is Magic: Mabon

Magic is Reality, Reality is Magic is a series that highlights aspects of religions, particularly Paganism. We pull things from everyday life to use in our fiction. Magic is one of the key attributes of fantasy. Why not explore the realm of magic that many people already have in their lives?

Picture By Tasnu Arakun Mabon! Most people know this day as the Fall or Autumn Equinox, and it is marked as the first day of Fall on most calendars (at least in the Northern hemisphere). The date this lands on can vary, but it's usually some time between September 20 through September 23 (it was the 23rd this year). It's the second day of the year where day and night is the same length. After Mabon passes, nights will start getting longer while the days get shorter.

This is the second of the harvest festivals. It's also considered a Witch's Thanksgiving. This is usually the wonderful time of year where you start seeing apple cider popping up all over (yum, one of my favorites). So, the main crops of this harvest are nuts, apples, and grapes. Apple pie and wine? Who'd pass that up as part of a feast? I'm most familiar with the U.S. Thanksgiving, so when I think of Mabon, that's what I think of (just a couple months earlier).

All those good foods associated with the harvest at this time of year are of course symbols. What do we get when we stuff all those foods together in a horn? A cornucopia, of course! You also have acorns, gourds, pumpkins, and sunflowers (my daughter's sunflower that she started from a seed finally bloomed on Mabon this year) that represent this sabbat.

Of course I've only touched the tip of the iceberg. These websites might be a good place for you to start if you'd like to learn more about Mabon: Mabon, How to Celebrate Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, and Mabon - Overview by Christina.

Further Reading Suggestions:

Madden, Kristin. Mabon: Celebrating the Autumn Equinox. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2002.

I hope you found this tidbit interesting! If you would like me to touch on a particular topic that fits in this series, please don't hesitate to contact me with suggestions.

NaNo Update #2 - Scatterbrained

Life loves to get in the way of writing.

I got sick a little over a week ago, and then I started to get better right when the Thanksgiving prep time hit, and after Turkey Day, my husband and I needed to wind down. This means, I have no new words to add to my total.

My goal for before Friday is to at least finish the rough draft of the second Fate story. It's not a crazy goal, likely only around 5,000 words max, so it should be doable.

The holidays have my head spinning, and I have a lot of other things that need to be taken care of outside of writing, so we'll see when I find time to start making progress on the word count.

Who decided it would be a good idea to have NaNoWriMo in November? One of the worst months for it!

In any case, as you can see, this is a brief update. I'll have a monthly update on Saturday, and you'll find out what I plan to do for another blog series. =)

NEXT UP: Monthly Update