Happy Holidays!

I'm humming as I walk around the house these days because I do love Christmas. Lights now hang on my wall, and if it didn't make me nutty I'd hang jingle bells on the cats and officially become a crazy cat lady.

And soon I shall be spending Christmas the way it was meant to be spent - at the beach.

Call me crazy. Call me spoiled. But Bing Crosby was wrong. White Christmases are overrated. Try surfing warm turquoise waters or lounging on soft white sand in the shade of a coconut tree while tropical breezes blow. That's Christmas to me.

Yes, I've lived in snowy climes. Six years in Chicago, thank you very much. When it started snowing I was the first to shout "snowball fight!" and drag my dormmates outdoors for a battle. I remember feeling so cooped up one winter that I dashed out of my apartment around 1am and found myself at a deserted playground, where I made a snow angel and swung high on the swings. I love the crunch of snow under waterproof boots, the deserted lamplit quads at night the University of Chicago softened and blurred by flurries of snowflakes. The Vienna Woods were a gorgeous study in black and white in December.

But would I rather be lounging in a bathing suit under a hot yellow sun (covered in sunscreen) gazing out at blue-green ocean deepening to purple at the horizon?

Duh.

You know I'll be posting the required photo of Bellows, the best beach on earth. I'm so danged lucky.

Love and Happy Holidays to all. May you find the best beach on earth in your heart this holiday season!

Tis the Season

...For a sweet short film called Tis the Season.

My good friend Sarah Baker produced it and was the assistant director. It's being shown on all Delta flights this holiday season. It's part of a contest, where the movie who gets the most votes wins, and the makers make a small stipend.

So go to this site, watch the movie, which is only six minutes long, and give this movie five stars so Sarah can win!

Facebook Madness

I just joined Facebook, and it effectively 'wasted' several hours of my time as I looked up everyone in my address book, reconnected with some old friends, and spied on a couple of guys to see if they were the same guys I dated oh so many years ago.

This thing is insidious!

Why join? Why waste time like this?

Well, there's this whole networking thing going on there, even among those over the age of 22. A lot of people at my workplace are on there, not to mention agents, producers, execs at other companies. Once you make one "friend" you can see their friends and possibly connect with them. Film and TV-land is small. My plan is to check in on fellow Warner Bros folks, reconnect with old friends, see if that cute guy from college remembers me, and eventually use it to network once my book is published.

Yes, it will be published, by gum. Gotta finish writing it first, though!

If you're on Facebook, look up Nina Berry and ask to be my friend. We can all use more friends!

November Word Count

Well, I didn't make my goal of 50,000 words in November. You may recall I entered NaNoWriMo with that stated goal.

However, I did write 28,435 words! Yee ha!

To put that in perspective, that's 98 pages, double spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman with page breaks between each of the eight chapters.

The reasons for not reaching 50k words are varied. The main one is that I'm not really motivated by competition or arbitrary goals. For example, I often work out by running around my neighborhood. I have no idea how far I run and have no interest in figuring that out. I just know that it feels right and helps keep me in shape. So when it comes to writing, I'm motivated because I love the project and love the process of writing it. So even though I failed to reach the 50k mark, I succeeded in instilling the writing habit in myself and wrote 98 damn pages of pretty good stuff.

I also couldn't resist doing some rewriting during that month. I know, I know. The idea was just to forge ahead, and be-damned to the quality. But as I wrote, I came up with good ideas for the earlier parts and felt the need to go back and stick them in before those good ideas vanished. I also got some great notes from my critique group and wanted to effect those before I lost the gist.

As a result I'm about 40% done with my novel. And I'm still high on it. I'll be writing more, every day. Early next year it'll be done, then watch out literary agents!