Day 12 is a Red Letter Day - 

because not only do we have water - hot water, at that - courtesy of the new water heater (and we have the new water heater courtesy of the nice plumber, who looked nothing like the man in the clipart illustration) - but  - Ta-da! - I've passed the 25,000-word mark, the halfway point in NaNoWriMo. I should finish tonight's work with about 26,000 words, if all goes well.

You know what that means, don't you? Tomorrow morning, instead of going to the Aquatic Centre and taking a shower, swimming, taking another shower, trying to soak up as much hot water as I can, as if I could store it up for later - I can have a nice soaky bath, if that's what suits me, in my very own bathtub. I could even do that tonight, after I finish my writing. Right now, the washing machine is busily washing all the towels that I used to soak up the flood, and the dryer is drying the ones that have made it that far in the process. We have had our dinner, and the dishes have been washed (in hot water, which came gushing from the tap on command). My carpet - not wall-to-wall, thank goodness - is hanging over a rope strung across the covered porch. Little by little by little, the house is drying out. Robin and I were moaning this morning about how we had only had that water heater installed four or five years ago, and already it was falling apart. The plumber checked his records. Eleven years. It's true. Time does fly when you're having fun.

And to think that there was a time in my life when I didn't have running water!



As for writing, interesting things are happening. My character Marie, the daughter of Bridget, is writing a novel. I was reading the NaNoWriMo page yesterday, and I came across a video that set out a few dares for week 2 of NaNoWriMo. Most of them were a little outrageous for me, but there was one that I found intriguing. Tavia, who made the video, dared me to have my character write a novel -- about me.  So poor Marie, who is up to her neck in mysteries already, woke up at four o'clock in the morning

and decided to take advantage of her insomnia by working on her novel. Her main character isn't exactly me, but she is the woman I've always feared I would become -  a woman who is self-destructive to the point that she has lost all her options, and now she is homeless, living on the street, afraid to take even such small opportunities for friendship as present themselves. Marie's work for the night is to learn about the mystery that is Daisy, her MC, and that is my work, too. It's rather cathartic. It has nothing to do with the story, but on the other hand, maybe Daisy will make a cameo appearance in the final book.

p.s. 9:15 p.m. Word counts: 2,207/26,338

Day 11 -When Murphy's Law Came into Effect 

 Remember the strange odor in my house, that turned out to be coming from the water heater, which is in a closet off my bedroom? The problem that the plumber will be here tomorrow afternoon to fix?  Welllllll, I slept in the living room last night, so as not to have to smell the strange smell in my nose all night. This morning, we turned the water heater on long enough to heat water for our showers, then turned it off. Then we left home.

We spent the day in Victoria, came home to find the back of the house flooded because the water heater had exploded (or imploded, or just fallen to pieces. God knows.). We have mopped up what we could with towels, and I've spun the towels dry in the washing machine, but I can't dry them, because the dryer and the water heater are on the same circuit. Oh, and it rained here all day, from the looks of things. (It did not rain in Victoria. That's a bright spot in the story.)  There are heaters running, all over the house. It feels like the middle of the night, but it's really just after 7 p.m., so I suppose I may as well try to write. It's not as if I can go have a nice hot bubble bath.


                                    Big sigh.


p.s. It is 11:44 p.m. - I did write, though it was a struggle. One of my characters had a nice, hot, steamy, lavender-scented bubble bath. Today's word count: 2,116. I also added a little information about Albany to a previous day's work, so my total to date is 24,131.