• My cool little yellow car is back to normal – actually this is probably the best it has been in a while. The power windows work better and the clock is finally showing the right time.

• I had a wisdom tooth out on Thursday. Took Friday off to recover, back to work today. It’s okay, except for when I smile or raise my voice – and it’s hard not to raise your voice in a class of loud, noisy students who make me smile – and laugh – all the time.

• I found my favourite Old English Toffee ice cream in a 97% fat free variety!

• I am seriously thinking of writing an online novel. Hmmm. If I can just find an idea I like…

• I’ve just finished Season 3 of How I Met Your Mother on DVD – the fourth season is showing on TV on Monday nights now. Love it!

• I have some new photos up at my 365 day Photoblog

• I am still bummed that Coldplay aren’t coming to Adelaide this time around. I debated going to the Sydney show but there were limited seats left to the one show I could have attended.

Day 24 is here and I am at 26,617 words!

It’s looking unlikely that I will make the 50,000 words but I am not ready to give up yet. I may have an awesome week ahead of me! Even if I don’t win, I have a fantastic novel on my hands, with a sequel in the wings (the sequel is the other NaNo novel I tried to begin the the first two days of November). Doing NaNo has also rekindled my love of writing and has reminded me just how much I can get done writing-wise when I put my mind to it! I am aiming to make 30,000 words by Wednesday night and then we’ll go from there.

Apart from writing, I went out for lunch on Sunday with my friend K and also spent a great deal of time listening to some new music. On Friday after school, I managed to buy the Twilight Movie Soundtrack and the Prospekt’s March EP by Coldplay.

I LOVE the Twilight album (it is the best soundtrack I have bought) and my favourite songs are Decode by Paramore, Tremble for my Beloved by Collective Soul and Supermassive Black Hole by Muse. I am looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out.

I also love the Coldplay album but I am very miffed right now because Coldplay aren’t coming to Adelaide on their tour in 2009   Hopefully, this changes or I can see some very unhappy Coldplay fans come February / March. I would have gone to see one of the concerts interstate but they don’t work out workwise.

The weekend was nice and quiet. I went for a drive with my sister and our two dogs on Saturday.  I took my camera but didn’t get very many photos. On Sunday, Central Districts won the flag (Go Doggies!!!) and I had a nice peaceful Public Holiday Monday by working one of my fantasy stories, though I woke up this morning believing today is Monday. My days are totally messed up!

I am currently obsessed with three things. First, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends by Coldplay – my favourite three songs are Viva la Vida, Violet Hill and Life in Technicolor. I loved the album so much that it has been on repeat for a couple of days now. Waiting for Prospekt’s March in November.

Secondly, I am loving the Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Hilarious!

Lastly, I’ve just finished Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. Loved it, can’t wait for the next book. I’ve had it waiting to read for a week now and should have known better than to begin reading in the late afternoon. I couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it at 3am. What a brilliant book!

I had a busy day yesterday. I worked on my computer in the morning and then I went out for lunch with one of my colleagues. We had a good time catching up (and I had a delicious Spaghetti).  Afterward I went shopping and bought two more DS games that were on special ($24 each, that’s half price!) and a new CD and a single. I am currently obsessed with Viva La Vida by Coldplay and have probably listened to it over a hundred times already. It is a beautiful song.

I have done some more work on SR, including some work on Chapter 6 which is now giving me a little bit of trouble (not as much as Chapter 4). I realised that I’d written something which didn’t make sense so I need to fix it before I give the chapter out to my beta readers again. I’m also working on better showing the relationships between the characters. Next is Chapter 7, which is already half-written and is where I am really starting to move into the newer material.

I should probably mention that I have been working on SR since 1999, when I was in Year 10 in High School. It is coming to life so beautifully and has come a long way – I still have the first draft, which was handwritten in a blue book with golden stars – from the early scenes I wrote. In the years that have passed since I began writing, I have finished high school, been to uni, been unemployed, a telemarketer, a sales assistant, back to uni and finally now a teacher. My students say “how boring” when I tell them I come home in the evening to work on my novel but that doesn’t bother me. I enjoy it. That’s all that matters.

~ Jewel