Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

What I Learned From NaNoWriMo

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I learned a lot in the month of November, thanks to the NaNoWriMo challenge (National Novel Writing Month.)

For those who don’t know the NaNoWriMo is “Thirty days and nights of literary abandon” or as one of my fellow participants said, “Write until your eyes bleed.”

For me it ended at 10 pm on the 30th, that is when I saved the file, pulled the thumb drive and shut off the computer.  I’d had enough and couldn’t wring another word out.

Oh don’t go congratulating me, I didn’t meet the goal of 50,000 words.  I tapped out at 37,335 words.

November was a hectic month for me, I knew that going into the challenge, so I’m fairly pleased with the word count I achieved and I feel pretty good with about 75% of it.

I absolutely love the first four or five paragraphs.

I learned a lot too, both about writing and myself.  I thought I’d share some of what I learned with you.

  • A truly gifted and dedicated writer really CAN turn out 50,000 words in a month.

Turns out I’m neither.

Of course some showoffs perfectionists geniuses can actually scrap their original novel on day 17 and complete the 50,000 word challenge in the remaining 13 days (Donna Owczarek.)  I’m so proud of you and honored to call you my friend.

  • Even though I stopped reading blog posts, you all did not stop writing them.

When I signed into my googlereader on Monday, I had 518 posts to read. Please bear with me as I work my way through them.

  • Facebook, e-mail and Twitter will not help you write a novel.

No matter how many times per day I checked them, no magic plot line appeared.  I actually had to write.

  • If you hit a wall with a character or scene, don’t worry about it.  Go on to something else.

You can waste an awful lot of time trying to figure out if/when you want your heroine to become involved with someone.

  • The highlighting feature in a word document is your friend.

You use it to change scenes or to remind yourself of something you need to correct or research. Or figure out your heroine’s romantic dilemma when you aren’t so crunched for time.

  • You may want to research your topic a little bit before starting.

Having to pause, in order to google and read about a topic can really throw off your rhythm.

  • It also probably doesn’t hurt to have an outline or character synopsis’ for any major characters you want to showcase.

I think I based the heroines characteristics after me, but I’m not really sure.

  • Characters and storyline develop as you write.

Even though you want to write a mystery, it can turn into a love story. 🙁

  • You can start your book heading in one direction and in the middle of the writing, find a better beginning.

When this happens cut and paste is your friend.

Any of my fellow NaNoWriMo participants have anything to add?

When I do this next year, I hope to not have all the additional activities that made this challenge difficult, but who knows, if I can write the same amount next year, I might actually have a novel. 🙂

And just because I can, here are some cute pictures of my dogs.

Did your mom abandon you for NaNoWriMo?

 

She’s boring anyway, always on that computer, I”m going to sleep.

What Do You Think?

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A couple of weekends ago Hubby and I took Sampson and Delilah up to the field/trails at the top of the street.

As we entered the field we noticed a bone. Not an animal bone, one of those white bones that are stuffed with processed peanut butter or cheese.  (I fill these with pumpkin and applesauce and freeze them for treats for the dogs.)

A small stuffed bone to keep Delilah occupied while Sampson goes to the vet.

 

The discovery caused me to stop and think for a minute, Delilah had discovered a bone in the field a week or so before.

This particular bone still had stuff inside it.

I can’t imagine what’s inside it.

 

Hubby picked it up and tossed it into the woods.  We continued our walk

I said, I wouldn’t have tossed it, I would have taken it to the garbage can and thrown it out.

Why? He asked.

It makes me suspicious, who would let their dog bring a bone to the field, and a stuffed bone at that?  What if it’s been poisoned?   There are supposedly coyotes and fisher cats in these woods, maybe someone is trying to get rid of them.  There are certainly people in this world that are capable of that.

You’re right, Hubby said.

When we got back to the field he went into the woods and found the bone, he threw it in the trash can on our way out of the park.

This past weekend during our walk on the trails, Hubby and Sampson were in front of Delilah and me.  I saw Sampson deviate slightly into the woods and heard Hubby say, Leave it.

What is it? I asked.

Part of a stuffed toy, but it could be bait, you never know.  There are some sick people in this world.

Do you notice things like this?  Do they make you suspicious, or is it just me with my writer’s imagination?

Have you ordered your Dogs of Blogville Calendar yet?

Hello Again Dr. B

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Thursday evening I noticed a spot on the inside of Sampson’s left leg.  It looked similar to the spot he had in the beginning of October, except it hadn’t advanced as far.  I’ve also noticed that both of my dogs have been scratching a lot.

Another spot, it starts out looking like a bruise.

 

I was picking up food on Saturday so I thought I’d run it by Sandy, she’s very knowledgeable about all things dog and she usually has a holistic solution.

Her first thought on the itching was fleas. It has been a very bad flea/tick season in the northeast for these critters.  I said, “I think I’d see fleas, especially on Sampson.”  She said it could have been only one or two, you need to comb him and check his tail area to see if it feels like he has crumbs there. (Ew gross.)  She also said it could be mites, which really freaked me out. (I combed them both when I got home, no sign of fleas.)

As for the skin thing, she feels like his immune system is weak. 🙁

As you can imagine, I left Sandy’s and called the vet.  We scheduled him for 9:30 this morning with Dr. B.

I’m here to see Dr. B, can you please tell her Sampson has arrived?

 

Sampson was of course excited to see Dr. B.  I tried to get a picture but his excitement was very prominent in the photo, and since they shamed me good on the Human Shaming blog hop, I decided you could do without the visual imagery.

As we walked into the exam room, I noticed he had spots on the inside of each leg!

Dr. B said I just want to read through his records and refresh my memory.

You can read and pet at the same time, right? I’ve heard Vet’s are multi-taskers.

 

Dr. B looked him over and said, yes he has another skin infection.  Thankfully we caught it before it got too bad. She gave me (she didn’t actually GIVE it to me, I had to pay for it) an anti-biotic ointment (Mupirocin) which is applied twice daily.  She also gave me some Vetericin VF wound and skin care spray gel which she suggests I apply the second I notice something amiss.  She said many times the gel will fix the issue before it progresses.

I was concerned about his immune system and the fact that he keeps getting infections. Dr. B put him on Welactin 3, which is a Natural Omega-3 for dogs (fish oil) and she also put him on a probiotic by Animal Essentials. We’re hoping that the combination of the two will give his immune system the boost that it needs to get him over this hump.

She also said if I don’t see an improvement within a week or so, or if it gets worse to call and she will give him the oral antibiotic again.  I’m really hoping to avoid that.

As for the itching, well she ruled out fleas and mites, the official thought is the drier weather, combined with the fireplace had just dried out their skin, which hopefully the Welactin will help with.

Do you use supplements with your pets?  What do you use and why?

Don’t forget to order your dogs of Blogville Calendars!

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