NaNoWriMo Moments and A Name for M

Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us again, and I am knee-deep in the chaos.  I discovered a facebook group (now that I have facebook...whohoo!) and have started a series of "NaNoWriMo Moments" my personal form of procrastination, (well, one of them, anyway) I have 13 so far.  It all started when I realized I had to eat dinner and found myself craving sourdough bread and baked beans- the same thing Connie had been eating in my screenplay.  I've seen things like this on facebook before, so I decided to make my own.  And spent the whole day doing them, (wrote at night)

 

Guilty of most of these, especially 4 and 5...

On another random note, my hair, if you don't already know, is pretty short.  It's layered (because it's super thick) and just brushes my shoulders.  Usually it's puffed out, like this:
I'm the one in the teal t shirt- this is from mission, so it's even worse than usual.
Anyway, my mom spends most of her time trying to make her hair pouffy while I spend the day I take my shower trying to tame my wild locks.  The day after the shower, it looks like I want it to.  But then I have to take a shower again, and the whole cycle starts over.  Anyway, today I just said "to heck with it" and had my mom pull my hair back into one french braid (regular braids are impossible, but I can pull off a french) just so that it was not around my head like a lion's mane...and I would know:

Well, the payoff for tidy hair is that what's left at the bottom of the braid is this teeny tiny tail of hair.  It's about an inch long and is very thin.  I feel like one of those princes or pirates with their little ponytails.  It's very fun to play with...okay, I'm done.

Word count update: 39,500.  YAY! (71 pages) Biggest concern:  I'm just about finished with Act 2 (I'll get no more than 5 more pages out of Act 2) and Act 3 is already 1/5 finished (I wrote the first scene of Act 3 first, so that's in my page count) I'm concerned that I'm not going to get 100 pages...MORE MUSICAL NUMBERS!!! And maybe a sword fight or two... more twin switching?  Nolan and Micah have embarrassing moments when they realize that they're professing their love to the wrong twin? *tehe*

Was editing When the Stars Fall today on the way to a family reunion and read a part where Halyn is talking to a guy named M.  Now he's been named M since December 2010, when I came up with the story.  I had no problem with the name until today, when I read her line "M..." as "mmm..." as in yummy.  This is problematic.  Now, M's full name is Martin- I named him and his twin brother after my own brothers.  But I don't like him being known as Martin, so I decided to give him a name.  I'm down to 2, maybe 3: Matt and Max.
Which sounds better: Matthew and Daniel Gailbraith, or Maxwell and Daniel Gailbraith? Matt and Dan or Max and Dan?  Max Gailbraith or Matt Gailbraith? (He would go by Matt or Max for the majority of the book... there are a few moments where he would go by his full name.)  Also wondering about Mike or Gus.  Moe?  He's kind of a quiet guy, and M suits him pretty well.  He doesn't say much, but he's very good at what he does, just doesn't socialize very much.  But "his" scene is so amazing and he knows just what to say.  Except I'm reading it thinking that Halyn wants to eat him or kiss him or something because she calls him "mmm"

So...
Matt or Mat?  I like the idea of the same number of letters. (They are twins, you know.) Is Mat too weird?
Mike
Max
Gus
Ben
Sam

I cannot do Mark or Marcus because Esteban's (my MMC) little brother is named Marcos...
 Ideas?

Mission, Haircuts, Camp, and just about everything else I forgot to blog about

Sorry, peoples.  Have no idea why, but I have not blogged in quite some time.  So I feel like I owe ya.  Lots of stuff has happened in my life.

Number 1. I got a haircut.  It's not short enough.  As of now, even though I just showered yesterday, it's filthy and hanging on my head like a rag.  Am going to go sit in the tub with a book after this- that's what I do to get clean in the summer.  Call me weird.  anyway, my hair was down just past my shoulders.  It's hanging at my shoulders now.  I think I want it more towards my chin.  I just have too much hair.  It's not long enough to pull back, but it's not short enough NOT to pull back.  *sigh*


Number 2. Just got back from a mission trip in... North Dakota!  My friend Mia of Aperture Mittens is off overseas in Ukraine or France or something, and my friend Amy, who does not blog, is probably in Mexico or something.  She usually is.  Still, I loved North Dakota.  The weather was nice, the people spoke English, the mission was only like $250 to go on, and the kids really needed it.  We ran a residential camp for 1st and 2nd graders in the area. We were always with them.  We never got a break.  It was always "I want a piggy back!" "Can you give me a shoulder ride!"  "I don't like vegetables!" "I want to go home!"  "She's calling names!"  (There was a lot of major fighting going on with a lot of the girls, even I got in on it the first night when my fellow counselors left me alone in the dorm full of little girls who decided to torment me and put me in "jail".  Anyway, I usually ended up helping diffuse these fights.  Surprisingly enough, that gave me great satisfaction when they all apologized.)  I prayed with the kids when they hurt themselves, and taught this one little girl, Kateri, who kept falling and hurting the same knee, to pray for her guardian angel to protect her.  Imagine my joy when she comes running up to me, saying, "Guess what? I almost fell, but my guardian angel stopped me!"

The kids are so open to God's love there.  There was a Pieta statue near the game field (for those of you who don't know what that is, this is what it looks like)

And the kids would just stand there and look at it.  They'd ask questions about why Jesus died, and I'd get to answer them.  They asked so many questions-they were so hungry for God- I really felt like I was on mission.  I've only been on one other mission our church offers (my church does like 5- most in the North Dakota area- I've been on the one in Missouri.) Anyway, during some of the fights, the kids would bring up that they learned it from their parents.  A dad tosses his three year old son on to the couch, a 4 year old little brother cusses up a storm, moms are drinking, dads don't care- these kids are in desperate need of love.  And being that our theme was "Love Never Fails" well... I hope we showed them.

Needless to say, I'm going back next year.  It was my first time on this mission, which we call CLC, and I loved it.  It was the hardest work I've ever done, I lost half my voice, but it was great.

Number 3. Camp NaNoWriMo.  *sigh* I hit 47 pages.  My telling my parents I would fail somehow triggered a series of events that set of a whole bunch of steam and resulted in a huge fight.  Not anything I did- it would've happened later, they assured me, but I just started it earlier by crying.  My dad tried to leave to give me some space, but my mom sat him back down in his chair (we were about to eat dinner, so my timing was bad) like a  2 year old.  Anyway, I was really upset for most of the night, especially since this happened the night before I had to leave for missions.  However, I discovered a happy place- the last scene of Beauty and the Beast (yes, with the Mob Song, Gaston and Adam/Beast's confrontation, and -eek- Adam's transformation and the happy ending- of course) I watched that and suddenly felt so much better.  Thanks, Disney. :D

But you know what I discovered?  Most people, when they write a screenplay, even if it's for a musical, don't write the lyrics or the music.  I took on 3 times the job of a normal screenwriter, and I finished half of it in the time allotted.  I'm pretty darn proud of myself, I am.  I'm going to give it a rest in July, and finish it during August.  And come November- it's BEAUTY IS BLIND TIME!!!!
Yes, I am happy about that story.  Though it requires some serious thought.  I have to work out a lot of stuff.

Also, I am Catholic, (in case you didn't know) and since there's not a ton of Catholic fiction out there (at least not as much as Christian fiction- Ted Dekker, Left Behind... you know what I'm talking about) I like to put some Catholic touches in my stories.  I was trying to work out a way for Beauty and the Beast to work without magic- just curses and blessings (there are legit curses- but no one calls them that anymore.  Ever notice how some families always seem to get divorced or a certain disease... my mom says that's a curse.  Or something.  she wouldn't really talk more about it.  Praying seems to get rid of 'em.) I'm having a hard time, since I want her stillborn twin Gabriel to play the "enchantress" character, as an angel, but since he's human, he can't be an angel and God wouldn't send him- he'd send an angel... and there was a bit with a demon I'm having issues with.  Both Calista (Belle) and Damien (Beast) are cursed- Calista, with blindness because of a deal her mother Elani made so that Elani's father would let her marry Flavian, since Flavian was a shepherd and Elani's father was a merchant, and Elani his only child. Calista's curse was Elani's price- maybe for not upholding her part of the bargain... hmm...

Anyway, someone has just pointed me in the direction of The Shadow of the Bear series.  They are Catholic Retold Fairy tales.  Am kicking myself for not discovering sooner.

Can't think of anything else right now- I'm hungry (there's no food in our house- I mean, I kept complaining and my mom's like "you have pancakes, beans, and bread"  What?  Yeah.  Oh, and protein bars.  Yum! Not.)
I have an eye appointment tomorrow- I think I need stronger glasses, so this'll be fun. whohoo.