what i will probably not tell my co-workers about how i spent my day off (unless they ask).

[faeriemaiden]

• Woke up slowly, poured a mug of coffee, internetted to Laura Gibson.

• Donned favourite dress, which of course is the plain, strangely flattering dress of unknown vintage I snagged for twenty-nine cents at Goodwill last autumn, and suits me in both my weird gothy moods and my wild woodsy ones. I like it even more with a crocheted skirt underneath it fluttering like a petticoat.

• Went to the coffeeshop for lunch and HARDCORE NANOWRIMO TIME. (Hey, if you've noticed the lack of updates? My words have had other places they have needed to go.) Wrote about six hundred words, very slowly and painstakingly, in between bites of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, and told Tumblr about it a lot because that is productive, yeah? Chair-danced to Florence + the Machine a bit (...a lot), and doesn't lip-synching count as writing? Pre-writing? IT COUNTS FOR SOMETHING, DAMMIT. (I'm very glad they know me at the coffeeshop, because what with the grooving and the silly beaming I am sure I looked a right lunatic.) Caro wore Naomi's beret, Lottie and Kat talked about magic and stole food off each other's plates, and Mal's existence just kind of lurked in the background of Lottie's thoughts the whole time, because he does that.

• Then attempted to make italics, hit something weird when trying to do ctrl+i, and somehow lost my document and about a thousand words I'd written a) just then b) last night. THIS IS NOT A THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE IN ANY CAPACITY. EVER. I HAVE BEEN WRITING ON A COMPUTER FOR, WHAT, TEN YEARS? TWELVE YEARS. I HAVE NEVER LOST ANYTHING BEFORE. So was actually too shocked to even be properly upset about it, just sort of stared at the screen for a while waiting for the words to come back and trying to remember exactly what I had been writing, especially last night. Fortunately very little of what I'd written was anything I was especially proud of -- ohhhhh are my NaNo drafts ever a tangle of awful and bad my poor lovely stories stained with such ghastly prose and me trying to make sense of my own ideas -- but I was just about to get to a part I was excited about writing that would finally kickstart the story proper into motion. BAH. Finally forced myself into action with the help of a salted caramel latte (OMGNOMNOM) and, forbidding myself from CHECKING ALL OF THE INTERNET EVERY TWO MINUTES, made back my wordcount in a race against my dying battery and my willpower.

• After hunching over a coffeeshop table, albeit a lovely one by the large front windows, for several hours, I decided that being inside was a terrible idea -- especially considering that the temperature magically rocketed up to seventy degrees at some point today. I had on a jacket (a long dark red one that Sarah once dubbed my Drusilla coat), and got hot in it; it was madness. Good madness. Walked to the grocery store for some NaNo reward incentive chocolate (Christmas candies are in, which means CANDY CANE KISSES, NECTAR TO MY SOUL), sun in my eyes, belting Florence + the Machine, as one does. YOU WANT A REVELATION! YOU WANT TO GET RIGHT! BUT IT'S A CONVERSATION! I JUST CAN'T HAVE TONIGHT! (My situation over this song is a bad one, let me tell you.)

• Stopped at home to change into more practical shoes, as I... kind of put on my red velvet heels to go to the coffeeshop, because why not, but my feet were not really enthusiastic about this plan anymore after walking to the grocery store and back. Brown brogues still shy away from the strictly prosaic and also flat.

• Anyway, betook myself and my sensibler shoes to the park with my notebook and my favourite pen for REALLY SUPER HARDCORE NANOWRIMO TIME. First, though: the swings. Look, I accidentally invented Marwick on the swings at this park. It was only fitting.(I thought I might have some kind of mad perfect revelation about the whole plot, but alas. It was still nice, though -- warm air laced with just an edge of November wind, one great tree behind the swingset still lit up warm orange and brown, the sharp heavy golden light of late afternoon illuminating everything, making the world cinematic and lovely. And I daresay my flying skirts and stockings and old-fashioned shoes were a bit picturesque.

• Situated myself under the ancient willow tree where Sarah and I once failed to summon Apollo -- it overlooks the pond, and, as it turned out, the sunset (I have no sense of direction; I wouldn't know beforehand!). Sun through danging willow branches: magic. And it's a bit startling how much one can write when one has removed most of the potential serious distractions! Also like magic! Handwrote five pages, in which the common room is very interesting and aesthetically self-indulgent and Lottie gets angry and sets things on fire with her mind -- not yet sure how many words that is, but actually liked most of said words, for once. Stopped writing because it was getting too dark to write. Was going to go home (after gleefully scaring a flock of ducks back into the water, because who doesn't love that (not counting the ducks)), but the swings were calling me, and there was such a moon -- there has been such a moon, these last few nights, so high and bright I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night and kept thinking the hallway light was on. The moon and one beacon-bright star and the swings and the tree and the gloaming chill and fluttering skirts and me maybe singing Flo and Mumford & Sons and the Civil Wars because MARWICK FEELINGS and remembering the afternoon in June I sat on this same swing and accidentally dreamt up something out of my absurd Hex feelings that had to do with demons' marks and a savvy heroine and how I said "naaah, self, that is a terrible idea, that is very silly, and you cannot just watch terrible television shows with unfairly attractive antagonists and then WRITE NOVELS THAT GINGERLY RESEMBLE IT IN SPECIFIC POINTS" and wow summer self you were painfully naive right there weren't you o sweet summer child you didn't believe those who came before you and warned you what Hex had the power to do to people. (Evil parasitic show that infects you with YA novels. Better than demon babies I suppose. Though terrible show has yet to make me ginger tea or give me kisses on the forehead so I feel mildly thwarted.)

• Home now, relaxing a little before I type up what I wrote under the willow tree, waiting for dinner, and holding the promise of chocolates over my own head in case I find I still have a lot more words to write. (Today and tomorrow, am off work and thus must write like the wind as I work all day Thursday.) (Tomorrow may involve writing in the graveyard. I have been writing about a graveyard so it is THEMATICALLY APPROPRIATE.) (SCHOOLS WITH THEIR OWN GRAVEYARDS ARE A LITTLE SUSPICIOUS.)