Kate Rivet

Well, it’s certainly been awhile since I’ve had time to write!  It’s definitely not for a lack of wanting to write, but between trying to do NaNoWriMo, the holiday, and work drama, it’s been a madhouse lately.

Notice I said trying to do NaNo … yes, I failed at it.  In fact, between everything that happened over the past ridiculous month, I only managed to write about 5,000 words.  Not helping was the fact that I had an idea I liked, but it was not translating as I had hoped to my Scrivener file.  It was also my maiden voyage on Scrivener, and I was fairly pleased with how it worked.  I’ll most likely be purchasing it with my NaNoWriMo participant discount in the near future, but I’ve still got to figure it all out.

In other news, I have been rereading tons of books!  I haven’t really bought many new books lately since the last big batch of them, and honestly, I haven’t even picked any of the ones I have bought up just yet to read.  While I was off from work the entire Thanksgiving week, I reread at least 4 books, and realistically it was closer to 6 or 8.  I actually spent a good portion of my vacation doting on my grandmother, who had to have an emergency cholecystectomy (that’s a gallbladder removal surgery in layman’ terms) on November 13th.  She was admitted to the hospital late the 11th into the early hours of the 12th, and they did her surgery around 7:30 or 8 AM on the 13th.  She spent about half the day vomiting according to my mother, but when I got to go see her that evening, she was (mostly) back to her old self again.  We took her home the next day, and as I was the one off of work, I got to be the one to convey her to her 10 day post-operation check-up.  I actually went to her and my aunt’s place Monday afternoon, and she and I baked a cake that night, then spent the next day taking her to an eye appointment, then we went shopping, then to the surgeon.  She’s just now finally getting completely back to herself, and I couldn’t be happier that she’s finally feeling better.

That’s the biggest part of the vacation I had, although I did turn 24 years old on the 24th last month during my vacation.  I celebrated it by going to the Strip District in Pittsburgh with my dad at 9 AM to pick up dinner rolls at Mancini Bread for our Thanksgiving extravaganza, and we stopped by Prestogeorge coffee next door and bought my mom some teas, and my dad got a variety of coffee beans as well.  The best part of the Strip trip was that we went to the new Dick’s Sporting Goods Winter Classic store that was opened for the Winter Classic hockey game on January 1st, starring my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins.  I picked up a few things, as did my dad, then we headed to Shadyside (which, incidentally is the location of the hospital my grandma’s surgery was at) and hit Whole Foods to pick up groceries and the turkey.  I spent the rest of the day helping to get things ready for the next day and doting on my grandmother and my father.  My bosses also came over and gave me a present, and I had a generally enjoyable day.  Thanksgiving was slightly annoying, but we all seemed to have a tolerable time, which is all we could ask for with 14 people stuffed into the house!

Now that all the craziness is over (besides the weekends, which will find me glued to the TV for Arsenal when they’re on and cooking up hard candy every spare minute), I plan to get back to fine-tuning Yellow Card so I can start looking for an agent, and beginning to edit Slew Foot.  I also had a few ideas for book three, which I’ll have to write down soon.  I can’t wait to get back to writing, and even though I didn’t completely love my NaNo project, I think I’d like to work on that some more, and maybe take it in a new direction.  I enjoyed the story that played out in my head when I came up with the NaNo book, so we’ll see what happens!

I hope everyone else has been well, and I hope that the book will be in your hands at this time next year!  I’ll be putting up chapter one of Yellow Card soon as well, so keep checking back!

Until next time,
Kate