Not Forgotten

I Solemnly Promise That I Did Not Forget About This Blog!! 

*repeat until believed* 

Okay, I know ... I might have hurt people's feelings by not being so .... on top of things. It's 110% my fault and I accept full responsibility.

NaNoWriMo is my one and only excuse. 

I'm a BIT on the behind side. By about 2000 words. On the plus side, I have also been working a LOT at Barnes & Noble. This is a very good thing because with Christmas right around the corner, I've been getting a jumpstart on my shopping. I have one person COMPLETELY done. 

And now ... I have ... like ... 12 people to go. Okay .. it's not that many but I swear it feels like that sometimes. 

On a positive note ... I put up my Christmas Tree. 

A couple people at work were like 'Um ... isn't that a little early' but I was inspired by Christmas music and multiple Hallmark Channel Christmas Movies and I got into it and set up my tree. 

It's a plastic, silver tree that stands at over 5 feet tall. I know this because I'm only 5'2" and it's taller than me. I have it decorated with these funny ornaments of chubby birds in different colors too: red, white, blue, and pink. 

A couple of them are wearing hats and scarves too.I'll try to take pictures next time. 

Anyway, as it's Wednesday and I am SUPPOSED to give you something memorable... I will once again give you a snippet from my NaNoWriMo novel. 

“HEY! I love this coat. It’s so cute. And warm. And fuzzy.”

                “Yeah. You just described a cat.”

                “Shut up!” Lily practically chased him down the stairs to the sixth floor. “I’ll just take it all back and go to my own apartment and clean or something.”

                “Don’t do that. I take it back! I give.” Ben laughed out loud, getting a glare from someone returning to their own apartment with a basket full of clean laundry. “We’ll go to the movie and eat a whole bucket of popcorn with butter and the cheese powder over the top and then we’ll get you some delicious candy. Like three boxes of candy.”

                “Yes! I like that idea immensely. I want sno-caps, raisinets, and m&ms.”

                “I like sour patch kids,” Ben interrupted. “One of the three boxes of candy has to be Sour Patch Kids for ME.”

                “I disagree. They’re good, but only the green, yellow, and orange ones.” Ben and Lily walked out into the streets of Brooklyn and they stopped by a frozen yogurt place called Red Mango before walking to the movie theatre. Lily had gotten cocoa frozen yogurt with pieces of waffle cone, strawberries, blueberries, and mini m&ms. Ben had gotten coconut/vanilla with chocolate sauce, strawberries, and crushed peppermint stick pieces,

                “How could you get something minty in February. Brr.”

                “The chocolate sauce is warm,” he said by way of explanation. “Why did you get blueberries?”

                “Because they’re tangy and delicious this time of year.” Lily looked up at him through her thick lashes. “I’m really glad that you invited me out tonight. I … I was … kind of put out when I realized that no one knew me enough to WANT to go out with me tonight. I was really upset. I had asked Cara to go out tonight and she had turned me down. So I kind of … started feeling awful about how I didn’t make many friends yet.”

                “Well … you’ll make more friends at Broadstreet Publications the more you come out of your cubicle. I’ll help introduce you to some of the others. I think you would really get along with Maggie. The … manuscript editor who accidentally sent you the wrong book? Yeah, she’s really smart, she reads constantly like you do, and she’s funny as hell.”

                “Really? Do you think so?” Lily smiled. “That would be great, Ben.” They walked up to a small cinema on the corner. People were milling around outside the building, buying tickets and going inside. “What it like in here?”

                “It’s full of cobwebs, smelly seats, moldy tile in the bathrooms, and cracked dry wall in the walls. Since I’ve been coming here, there have been 6 murders and they’ve saved all the bloodstains to commemorate each death. Also, make sure to keep your feet off the floor in the theater itself. Rats crawl around. Rabid rats.” Ben winked at her.

                “That is so full of shit,” she choked out.

                “Yeah, I know. This place is actually in pretty good condition all things considering. There are four theaters in this building and it’s been standing since the early 1920’s. They’ve updated the seating and the upholstery over the last couple of years, and the lobby is completely modern. But they tried to keep the original feel of being in the theater back in its hay day.”

                “And this movie? ‘About Time’? Wasn’t it not in theaters anymore?”

                “Oh. This tends to play quite a few movies several months after they leave the original theater. It’s how they are able to keep the price so low. Only $4.99.”

                “COOL! So it’s like Celebration Woodland in Grand Rapids?”

                “If I had any idea what that was, I would agree with you,” Ben said with a slight snicker.

                “It’s what we called the Cheap Seats when I was in school at Cornerstone University. If we were ever really bored or just didn’t want to study for a while, or even just poor, we’d pool all of our change for a couple of tickets to see something fun. It was about $3.99 for a ticket there.” Lily followed Ben into the lobby and she looked around in awe. The lobby was all reds and golds and blacks. The walls were a plush dark red velvet with a gold stripe moving horizontally along the wall that pointed towards the stairs to go to the concession stands. The floors were polished black and white marble that clicked and clacked under her feet like when she walked into Broadstreet Publications that first time. Above her head was an enormous golden chandelier. The candelabras had been replaced with lightbulbs and the crystals glimmered like enchanted mirrors on the ceiling. She got so sidetracked she ran right into Ben’s back, crashing into him with an OOF.

That is LITERALLY where it leaves off. 
I'm actually kind of proud that I've been able to keep up with writing a book that has ABSOLUTELY no plot. 
That part is very true. I have nothing to go on. No bad guy. No real problems. Just a crabby narrator, an odd ball main character, and sexy guy who is her boss. 

I wonder if I could catch up just by creating a bad guy. Maybe one who kidnaps the main characters narrator. That would make the story interesting. The characters would all be looking around, repeating their lines and waiting for the narrator to speak. 
"We have to save the Narrator" they'd all say and then jump off the pages of the computer screen and start running around amok in real time. *laughs* I can picture it now. 

 Yeah. Something like that (points to above)

So there have been other things on my mind the past couple of days. Mainly ... Christmas. 
I've been thinking of Christmas gifts for people and someone told me about this awesome idea for kids. And I think it could totally be implemented for adults in a way too.
It's a Book Advent Calendar! 
Here's how it works! You get 25 books! New or used. But either way, you yourself have never read them or your kids have never read them. 
Wrap them up! Don't leave any clue as to what book is in what wrapping paper.
Every night, you or your child picks up a wrapped book. 
And THAT book is the bedtime story that is read that night. (Still not sure how to work this out for adults because ... how does one read a whole novel in one night/day) 

So what do you think? Pretty interesting idea, huh? 
And if anyone has ANY ideas for how to somehow use this arrangement for adults, I'd LOVE to hear them. You can either post them below in the comments OR you can always find me on Facebook and leave me a message there too. 

Christmas is just that time of year that brings out my Love Language: Gifting. 
Whenever someone is having a good day, bad day, celebration, sad day, or for no reason at all, I show love to people through gifting. 

So this is the time of year that it comes in handy. Because then I get free rein so to speak.
My favorite thing in the whole world is finding something that I know someone wants or will really like, wrapping it up, and giving it to them. They open the paper or ... gift bag and they pull out the gift and ... there's that moment of pure happiness that comes over me when they get to see what's inside. 
The problem is that now I have to get through Thanksgiving first. Dumb turkey. Why you be so tasty and intervening in Christmas? *snickers* 

Sometimes it's a hard thing to remember that Thanksgiving is an important holiday too. 

Oh well. 

Well, I think I'm going to call this done for the day. But ... I will attempt to get back to you readers in a couple of days. I'm seeing the new Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie on Friday at 2:45pm. 
So ... yeah, I want to tell you all about it with no spoilers. 
Until then,

Be Open, Be Loving, Be Yourself,
Taryn