Woooooo! Zzzzz...

Where in the cotton-pickin' world have I been lately?

Good question, readers.

You see, I've had a lot of folks ask me just what takes so darn long between one post and another. Well, folks, there are a couple of answers for the time lapse as of late. And they are as follows:

I've been busy decorating for Christmas.

Because what's the point of having a New Kids on the Block shelf
if I don't get to decorate it with tiny Santa hats and a teeny tree?

I've been blowin' up Pinterest with fun and festive holiday ideas.

Because we're so broke, everyone in my family will be lucky
to get these candles instead of a pair of socks for Christmas this year!

I've been helping Brian plan for his big graduation from nursing school on 12/12/12.

He has to wear a tux,  y'all!!!

I've been wishing my pal, Arielle, a happy birthday in a most-Laverne inspired way.

Arielle is a Leo girl all the way (particularly Leonardo Circa Titanic.)

I think that about covers it. I mean, that's how I've been spending most of my free time. But I feel like there was something else....

...oh, right, I've been WRITING A BOOK SINCE NOVEMBER 1st!

That's right! I did it! I completed the 50,000 words necessary to win NaNoWriMo 2012. Paired with last year's half-manuscript, I now have almost 250 pages worth of book. I don't know about you, but that's a serious reason to throw around confetti.

The only problem? Things have been so busy (and stressful) around here lately that I haven't had much time to really think about my major accomplishment. I actually finished Nano on Monday, after an 11,000 word marathon on Saturday afternoon. (Yes, I actually meant to include that many zeros.) I finalized my word count, posted on Facebook that I was all finished, and then promptly went to sleep.

Hence, my big celebratory WOOHOO!!! moment was actually more like WooZZzzzzzz.....

But the good news is that now that I've wrapped up the intense writing of NaNo, it frees me up to start blogging regularly again. Hooray for December! And oh, boy do I have some awesome posts coming up.

(None of which are as awesome as the one my friend, Leslie, wrote over on The Bearded Iris today. Especially if you're a fan of Dancing with the Stars. Seriously. If you need a laugh, go read it. I promise. It's awesome.)

So bust out the signs, readers! Balloons are welcome, too! And if there are enough of you to line up and do the wave, I'd be most appreciative. Because I am officially a NaNoWriMo 2012 Winner!!!

I Know, I Know...

...I promised you I was going to keep posting on a regular basis, even though NaNoWriMo has me super-busy. And I haven't kept that promise. I'm a bad Abby.

The truth is, this week hasn't been conducive to much writing at all. Rather than telling you about the week I've had, I'd like to show you instead.

My Week In Pictures

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

And when I haven't been cleaning up a flooded kitchen, exercising my civic duty, tending to a sick (but healing) cat, and celebrating a random weeknight with girlfriends, I've been...well, you know...

Believe me when I say, I miss you, too, readers. Now that the weekend is upon me, I have a TON of catching up to do. I'm really behind with NaNo, so I'll be spending my free time in the next few days scrambling to add to my word count. So...I guess I'll be seeing you guys on Monday.

No, really. I promise. I'll be here Monday.

Unless another pipe bursts. 

An Announcement, A Rabbit That Looks Like My Cat, and A Little Disco (For Funsies)

First and foremost, the formalities...

You will notice that Abby Gabs has been magically transformed over night. That's right---this writer is ready to jump head first into National Novel Writing Month, and I figured giving my blog (and Twitter profile, and Facebook page) a serious makeover would help keep me in the spirit all November long. For those who have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about, you can learn all about NaNoWriMo on their glorious website, or you can click on the handy-dandy tab above titled "Chasing My Dreams."

I will try to post here as frequently as usual, and will probably not write about NaNo (much,) so if you're curious as to my progress, you can check out the Word Count graphic to the left. It'll tell you how many words I've written. May I ask, dear Reader, if it gets to be November 15, and that number hasn't reached 5 digits yet, that you gift me a swift kick in the arse? (Or perhaps a gentle nudge, depending on your mood?) A million thanks in advance.

Now that I've reminded you that I'll be hunched over my keyboard, striving for brilliance, for the next 30 days, I'd like to share with you a few highlights from our visit to the Coastal Carolina Fair last evening.

First of all, it was a night of Look Alikes. When we visited the petting zoo, I was shocked and amazed to see my cat, Scooter, there. Except....well, it wasn't a cat. It was a bunny. But he looked JUST LIKE Scooter. See?:

Photographic proof that I'm not crazy (despite my penchant for cooing at animals and children in a weird, high-pitched voice):

Then, as if the Scooter-Look-Alike Bunny wasn't enough, we sat down behind a young man who, I swear, looked JUST LIKE Detective Esposito (played by actor Jon Huertas) from the television show, Castle. So much so that I pulled up a picture of Huertas on my phone just so Brian could validate my claim. Throughout the entire concert (more on that in a minute) I kept elbowing Brian in the ribs, saying things like, "Holy crap, that guy looks like Espo!" and "I swear, he could be Esposito's twin!" Finally, I got up the nerve to talk to the young man, and because he was an awesomely good sport, I also secured more Photographic Evidence to prove to you that I'm NOT crazy:

Photo of Jon Huertas courtesy of this website

I don't know what was more surprising: that all he was missing was a tiny bit of facial hair, that he was totally cool with taking a goofy picture with me, or that he'd never seen or heard of the show Castle.

Crazy pants.

Anyhoo, the only reason we ventured out to the fair last night was because of a change in their scheduled entertainment. You see, The Village People were supposed to play. You know...these guys:

Yes, they still tour. And yes, they still dress up. Awesome. (Photo)

But unfortunately, due to Sandy, The Village People were stuck in New Jersey and would not be able to make it to their scheduled performance. <Insert "Aw Shucks" here.> And so, the very smart people in charge of the Coastal Carolina Fair put out feelers for a last minute replacement, and our hero, Edwin McCain, came to the rescue.

I've told you, without mincing words, that I'm absolutely in love with Edwin McCain. I've been following him since I was a sophomore in high school, and I've been to tons of concerts, and even a breast cancer awareness benefit. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, the author of my life's soundtrack. (Seriously, if you've never heard of him, find him on iTunes. You've probably heard the song "I'll Be" and don't even know it.) So naturally, when we caught wind that Edwin was going to perform in lieu of the People, we beat feet to the fairgrounds and took our seats front and center (behind Espo.)

About halfway through the show, there was a quiet moment when Edwin switched from an electric to an acoustic guitar. A gentleman in the audience took the opportunity to shout "PLAY YMCA!!!!" Edwin, always a good sport, laughed and started to make a joke. That's when his bass player, Jason Pomar, began free-styling the bass line of the popular 70s song. By the time drummer "Tez," saxophonist Craig and lead guitarist Larry has figured out the tune (which took less than 2 minutes), Edwin launched into the song, completely unrehearsed. And naturally, I got it ALL on tape:

So. Much. Fun. 

We've been to a ton of Edwin shows over the past 13 years, and this is, hands down, the funniest thing we've ever witnessed. (Sorry for the blip in the middle...blame the new iPhone user who accidentally hit the "stop" button. My bad.)

To recap: today marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo (if you'd like to donate coffee, email me here); I saw a rabbit that looked my cat, and a dude who looked like an actor; and Edwin McCain knows how to rock, disco style.

Happy Thursday!

Someone Please Inspire Me

I've been totally uninspired lately.

I was so uninspired I couldn't even whip out the real camera for a decent photo.
Sorry, readers...it's a fuzzy cell phone photo for you. :(

Ok, wait...let me backpedal a bit and rephrase. Because that's not 100% true. I've been inspired to write, just not to write blogs. Which is good and bad, all at the same time. I mentioned last time that I've decided to turn my focus toward writing a novel. And I've put a lot of time into it over the past few days.

(Which, let's face it, is totally awesomesauce. Right? RIGHT??)

I get SO EXCITED every day to sit down and start writing that, by the time I look up, six hours have flown by, I haven't eaten anything, and my coffee cup is sitting in front of me, empty and sad. It's wonderful and exhausting and exhilarating and draining and wonderful...wait, did I already say wonderful? Well it is, so I'll say it twice.

But the truth is, by the time I've spent a few hours writing my book, I feel like my creativity gas tank is a little low.

I'll click over to my blog dashboard with every intention to write for Abby Gabs. And inevitably, smoke starts pouring out of my ears because my brain is over-heating. (Didja like that continuation of the car metaphor? Huh, didja??)

I had planned on getting up this morning and writing my blog before I did anything else, confidant that while I slept I would have some brilliant idea that would turn into the Blog of the Century.

That totally didn't happen.

So I turned to the innerwebs instead.

You guys rallied. I got some great blog ideas. Robbie K from Fractured Family Tales came in first with the idea to write about all the things I hate about fall. I really spent some time marinating over that idea---you all know how much I love list blogs---but the truth is, there aren't very many things I hate about fall. Except how EVERYTHING is pumpkin flavored (right Robbie?) I'll take a pumpkin spice latte all the live long day, but you can hold the pumpkin flavored bubble gum, thanks.

Alex from Late Enough shared a unique idea of "my day in pictures." Which is a totally awesome idea!!!...if I lead an exciting life. Truth is, I'm usually by myself, so you'd just be getting pictures of me and my cats doing a whole lot of household chores. That's not very exciting, so you'll just get a few drive-by photos instead. 

(A few other ideas by a couple of my favorite readers (Jessie and Rachel) have been filed away for a later date. Thanks guys!! If nothing else, I've got some awesome blogs ready for next week!) (I couldn't remember the grammar rule about parentheses inside of parentheses. It's legal in math, though, so I'm going with it here.)

As if it isn't bad enough that I could not, for the life of me, think of any blog topics this week, I also had to take my fuzzy brain on a pumpkin carving adventure last night. Great way to tell your brain is overcooked-----sit around and watch all your cool and creative friends come up with nifty jack-o-lanterns while you drool on yourself and swat at imaginary gnats.

Seriously. I couldn't come up with a single idea.

Thirty minutes into the process and my pumpkin still sat in front of me un-carved. That's when I had the most brilliant idea ever. I can't think of a single idea for my pumpkin, and I decide to try and jump-start my creativity with a little liquid encouragement.

It worked. Sort of. I wound up aborting the whole stencil thing and free-handed a pumpkin that said "Trick or Treat." Friend and teammate, Steven, did one that read "Smell My Feet." They were AWESOME. (Except after carving, the "e" in "Treat" sort of broke, and so mine looked like it said "Trick or Truck." Which is basically the same thing.)

Arielle is credited with the cute monkey face. Fred did the Clemson tiger paw. And if you didn't know by looking that Brian did the Autobot symbol, then you've not been paying much attention.

Wine + friends + a brain dead Abby = awesome Halloween pumpkins. 

Oh. Wait. I just figured out what's missing from my blog brainstorming. Gourds!

I Just Want To Write

For as long as I can remember, my dream has been to become a writer. 

Wait, let me rephrase. I AM a writer. But my dream is to be a real-life, actually published, I-have-an-honest-to-goodness-book-with-my-name-on-it kind of writer.

I can vividly remember being a child, sitting in my bedroom floor, surrounded by colored pencils and construction paper and glue sticks and glitter, illustrating my latest storybook. I was about 9 when I had my "a-HA!" moment. While tying my latest creation together with twine, I realized just how happy writing made me. And I decided then and there that I was going to grow up to be a writer.

My dream has taken many shapes over the years. When I was in college, I wanted to be a journalist. I imagined myself interviewing famous celebrities for a big, important newspaper...or covering a local election...or potentially even taking my mad skills overseas in some world-altering Anderson Cooper way. Truthfully, I never wanted to be FAMOUS, I just wanted to write about important things. 

As I've gotten a little older, my dream has morphed into a desire to live somewhere lovely. Some place where I can get up in the morning, cup of coffee in hand, and sit down to write every single day.

The venue, my hairstyle, and the color of my laptop often changes in my little imaginary scenario. The cup of coffee and the writing part, however, have yet to change.

Something about writing--about creativity in general--draws me in like an extreme coupon cutter to a Sunday newspaper. I just HAVE to create. It may not be on a daily basis. But when I'm away from it for any period of time, I start to yearn for it all over again. Writing allows me to be my true self. My most complete self. And whether I'm sharing my thoughts with the world or not, it makes me feel like I'm contributing something, one ellipses at a time.

I'm aware that writing doesn't always provide a steady income. Believe me. While I dream that my life as a professional writer will someday look like this:

...I know that the likelihood of that scenario is fairly slim. Don't get me wrong--that isn't me bashing myself or my skills, or lacking the conviction to go after my dreams. That's just the cold and honest truth. I've read enough books over the years to realize that, while I could most likely write something that is publishable, the chances that I'll ever be another JK Rowling are pretty minuscule.

In truth, I'd be thrilled right down to my toes to have a couple of books published and on the market, even if you could only find them in the discount bin at the bookstore.

When I think about what my professional life will look like in a couple of years, I'm more than happy to picture myself sitting at that desk overlooking the ocean pictured above. But when I turn off my inner cheerleader, and listen to my inner realist, I become more certain, the longer I go without being published, that my professional life will look a little more like this:

Don't get me wrong. I love Target. I really, really do. But I really, really DON'T want to work there. Or any other retail job, for that matter. I worked retail for YEARS before I took my current job (which, it should be noted, really isn't all that different than retail. Except now I get to deal with that lady AND I have to collect her bill when it's late. Awesome.)

As Brian's graduation draws nearer, and the time for change looms, the more I realize that I need to stop dreaming, and start doing. So that's what I'm going to do, starting now. 

Those of you who have been around for awhile may remember that I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year. And I managed to bang out over 50,000 words in less than thirty days. So many of you have asked me what happened to that book, whether I'd put any more time into it after I'd spent so much time focused on it last November.

I told some of you that it's unpublishable. I told others that it was a just silly idea I had, and that I wrote the story just to get it out of my system. I told a few of you that I thought no one would read it because it was too something: cliche, ludicrous, specific to a very small audience.  I told most of you that I had toyed with it for awhile to try to turn it into something but it was just a whole lotta nothin'.

More truth: I lied.

The truth is, after I hit the "send" button and submitted that manuscript to NaNo, I never touched it again. 

I can give you 84 reasons why: the holidays came around, we got too busy, I turned into a lazy bum after nearly 250 hours of writing. But the truth is this: I Got Spooked. For the first time in my life, I was putting some serious effort into achieving my dream. And when I REALLY started thinking about getting published, my heart tried to pound out of my chest, my palms got clammy, and I dismissed the idea just to save myself from polishing off the tequila in the back of my liquor cabinet.

Well, readers, NaNo 2012 is right around the corner. In fact, it starts exactly 25 days from now. And I've decided I'm going to write the second half of the book I started last year. (Don't worry, I checked the website to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules. So long as I don't copy and paste from any of my previous work, it counts as a new submission, even if it's from the same idea.)

In order to jog my memory (since I haven't read what I wrote last year since...well...it was being written) I printed out last year's manuscript a few days ago. And can I just say...I nearly wept when I saw it sitting in front of me.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY PAGES. All mine. Every single word. Mine. 

Awesome.

So, wish me luck, readers. The next few weeks will be dedicated to editing what I already have, and planning out what I'll add to the story next. And maybe...just maybe...this little story will allow me to write another little story someday.

After all, that's what I've been dreaming about since I was nine years old.