It's National Novel Writing Month!

and I'm not doing it! I wouldn't mind taking part, it sounds like a lot of fun and I'm sure it would be immensily satisfying to finish a novel in a month. But I still have my story to finish, that I started 3 years ago, and I don't want to start anything else till I finish this. The good news for me though is that I decided it's time to do it! Let's write this, and get over with it. And what best time then NaNoWriMo to get a writing boost? So I'll be trying to write at least 1000 words for the next month..well, 28 days now. I wanted to start yesterday, but I was hindered by a bad cold and a very annoying temperature. Today I felt much better so I opened that word document again and wrote my 1000 words! well done me.

It's been a great day, after a not so great Halloween weekend. Actually, it must have been the worst Halloween I had since I'm in Ireland! Almost nothing went like it was supposed to. I didn't have a costume till two days before friday. I finally decided to dress up as Daphne from Scooby-doo after seeing it in a fancy dress shop's catalogue, but unfortunately it was gone. Then I said to myself:"How hard can it be to find an orange wig, a pink dress and a green scarf?"
VERY HARD! If you're looking for them two days before Halloween. Never again.
I went into all the shops I knew but didn't find the right dress so had to settle for pink top and pink skirt. Then I ordered the wig online with 24 hours delivery, but they were out of stock. Then ordered it from another shop, and they called me to say they were also out of stock! So I thought, ok, I'll die my hair! Not permanently, only with the colour spray that washes off. Take my word: NEVER try those things on your hair. It was awful! My hair looked like a wig that was used to wipe floors after it was too old and ugly to do anything else!
I was in the shop already, and had to get ready to start the day. So thankfully we had a bright pink wig that I used to cover my sorry-looking hair and a witch hat, and that was it. I was a punk witch. I later bought some punk looking black gloves with white starts and similar leg warmers....and it wasn't too bad! but not what I wanted...
Anyway, life had to go on. I got ready to organise the Halloween party with the kids. Callista kindly emailed me few games to play with them and I used one of her suggestions. It was a creepy story to tell in the dark about a dead woman named Brown, and as you tell the story you pass around her "body parts" which were actually bits of food or other things that feel like body parts. It sounded all very scary and promising. *If only* things were done like they were supposed to be done. But we couldn't have a place which was dark enough, so the kids could see what was inside the bowls, even though they were covered. Some of them were also too old and they spoiled the game. Then, the person that was supposed to be the ghost at the end, was busy doing something else, so the scariest bit didn't happen properly.
Yeah, it was a bit of a disaster, but I was very relieved it was over. I swear this is the last Halloween party I organise.

But not everything bad happened in the last few days. In fact, last Thursday was a very exciting day because I went to the signing of.....drum rolls.....Neil Gaiman! You'll hear all about it in my review of the Graveyard book very soon:)