No, self! Don't talk to me like that!

OH MY GOD.

Second day of NaNo already and I'm going:

What were you thinking, dummy? This is such a dumb idea! You don't know the first thing about medieval knights and ladies and anything. This is going to be a big fat failure of a novel. Just like last year. You're going to get through the first four chapters, then lose momentum. Or you'll skip to the end, to write that, and then forget to write anything that happens in between. You suck, Sarah! You're a lousy writer! Way lame.

AGH. STOP SAYING THESE THINGS TO YOURSELF, SARAH.

Flargen bargen blah grah. I've been resorting to the all-caps a lot lately. I need to stop.

Today I made cinnamon rolls, and didn't write a word. The cinnamon rolls are pretty awesome. The writing not so much. Wait, I wrote a lot for my Yuletide recs, which I did tonight simply to avoid writing about Margarethe and her prayers in the unnamed nunnery.

Man. I never put myself through this sort of angst when I wrote things for the paper. It was all, "Well, here's the facts. Let's make them intelligible." And then I did it.

I've got the facts. I have two reluctant people, who are being forced to get married, for the sake of money, politics, and peace. Luc (which is not his name anymore, but I don't know what his name is) doesn't want to get married because he thinks it will cut in on his freedom to go and smash people with a sword and saddle him with responsibility. He'll have to stop being a bachelor and set up house with this woman he doesn't know, and then they'll have kids, and he'll be responsible for them. His father, Roger, is all, "I'm old, I want to stop fighting, Longshanks told me I could retire, so get hitched and knock this chick up already. Oh, and pick up your brother Christopher to act as a witness, because I'm going home to your mother." And Luc is all, "Fine. I'll do it." And then we switch to Margarethe, who is praying, "Please, God, let my father send word about my future. Don't let me hang in limbo here as a not-a-nun!" And God kind of answers her prayers, because her brother Owain shows up and is all, "Surprise! Uncle Gwilliam arranged a marriage for you!" And then Margarethe has to leave her beloved nunnery to go home to her neglectful father and horrible stepmother.

And my brain won't let me communicate that through prose. Can I just write a really detailed summary for NaNo? Or can I write it snarky blog post style? Like the IM messages of two 14-year-old girls?

~*~lamb_o_god~*~ omg, mel, did u here bout maggie + luc?
melisande no wut
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ like luc's father maed a deal w/ maggie's uncle Gwilliam, and now their all 'maggie marry luc, luc marry maggie, it'll make the king happy'
melisande oooh, longshanks hes hott
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ ya, he's pretty dreamy, for an old guy lol
melisande how many times do i have to tell u hes not old hes sofistikatd
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ i dont even know what ur tryin to say
melisande hes cultured and stuff
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ ask the saracens lollollol
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ annyway, maggie's stepmom Maisry told her that shes kinda fugly, so she's luck to be getting married
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ and maggie was all, 'i dont even wanna get married, so tell this dude to go away'
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ and maisry said that she didn't care, she was gettin married anyway
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ n then maggie's freind Nest came in and spilt wine all over maisry and maisry hit her with a shoe
melisande o no she dint!
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ it's totally ture. i heard it from luc's brother christopher, who is all friendly with the ladies
melisande oh christoperh's really hott he looked at me at mass n i thought i was gonna swoon and stuff
~*~lamb_o_god~*~ hes got a thing for nest
melisande omg eva, y do u got to be so meen to me? is it because im fat?

I predict that it will be a bestseller.

_{I have absolutely no documentation for Maisry as a medieval name, so that's probably going to have to change. Unless, does it strike anyone as overtly modern?}

Stupid cows! I think we're having pot roast tonight.

Doing chores tonight was absolutely terrible.

I've been dropping little notes here and there about how the calves are multiplying exponentially. So, just before Rachel's wedding, all the calves were weaned and put out to pasture, so we had nearly two months where there were no calves to feed, so I had essentially no chores to do. It was awesome. Now, all the new calves are coming in, and it's insane. In less than two weeks, we've had 21 calves come in. Today, we brought in three, and there was another cow having a calf when we were in the pasture. So, tomorrow, there will be 25 calves in the barn, up from 19 on Saturday night.

Anyway, getting those three calves in tonight was incredibly frustrating and irritating and made me want to run away. I'll tell you why, starting from the beginning.

( Loooooooooong )

All that's probably unintelligible, but if you made it through it all, I salute you!

It was just massive FAIL all around. Dad's a really poor communicator when it comes to things like herding cattle. He has a plan, but he never tells anyone what the plan is beforehand. Then the four-wheeler breaks down or the cattle have their own plan (since he doesn't tell the cows the plan either), which is never part of his plan, and we end up yelling at each other. We kind of need a war room in the barn, with a big map of the farm and little cow figures that we can push around with sticks.

Farming! Ooh, boy!

You know what would make me feel better? Some hand-dyed yarn in a squishy merino in shades of olive green. Like, mmm, Malabrigo. Or whatever it is that HandpaintedYarn.com calls themselves. Guess what isn't in my budget with Christmas coming up? Squishy hand-dyed yarn in olive greens. *sigh*

I'm going to settle for a restorative glass of wine and a shower. Not necessarily in that order. And I might stare at the my catfish icon for a long while, because it's hypnotic and soothing.