As Friday the 13th usually does.  13 is my lucky number, which is no surprise since my birthday is on the 13th.  Today, actually, so hooray.  I’m officially 30.  Does that still make me a young writer?  I hope so!  I know that I write more and with a little more finesse than I did ten years ago.  I also know that writing, unlike construction or dancing, is something that you can do for the rest of your life regardless of how your body holds up.  My goal?  Is to be agented and have a novel out by the time I’m 33.  Naturally I’d like to shave a year or so off of that, but we’ll see how it goes.  Conquer the world and all of that, rawr!

You know me and challenges.  I was floundering until a friend said, “I challenge you to finish your rewrites!”  So here’s the breaks:  If I complete all of my rewrites and have it in his inbox by the end of March, he has to wear a funny hat and do a huge song and dance routine in the middle of a public cafe.  If I don’t finish, I have to make sock puppets of our entire writer’s group.  I was walking past Borders the other day and they had the book “How To Make Sock Puppets” on display.  How my friend managed to sneak that book on the display rack, I”ll never know.  I shook my fist and swore, “I shall not lose!” which caused benign book readers to flee.

Do things like this motivate me?  Yes.  Yes, they do.  I’ll report on my rewriting success later.  Hopefully I’ll get a video of his song and will post it here.  Bwa ha.

I’ve had this reoccurring dream.  Actually, I dreamed it about two or three years ago, and bits and pieces of the original dream incorporate itself into my current dreams.  This is telling me that I need to write this dream down, thus exorcising it forever.  I balk at this because it was horrifying, and I tend to pull up my collar and duck past horrifying if at all possible, but apparently this is what I need to do.  I’ll bite the bullet when I need to.

Happy day, all!  Eat some cake for me.

Things in my Google history:  death penalty for child rape, Glass Woman, i hate dolls, Dick Blick, retro skirt patterns, Williams Syndrome and autism, Dios des la Muertos, Popples

Pieces out:  37

Goal:  40