Friday, October 31, 2008

Devotions, Oct 31

I want to make sure my daily devotions aren't sacrificed in favor of NaNo. But, since my attention is, right now especially, all on NaNo, just reading my prescribed verses isn't going to do me any good. I won't retain them. My brilliant solution is to read my devotions in a KJV, since that's what my principal character would be doing. I, of course, don't have a KJV, so its online I go. Since I'm sitting at my computer anyway, I'll pop my short devotion journal online. Plus, this will keep me a little more accountable for keeping up with my quiet time.

I always start my quiet time with seven specific praises:

♥ Sparring with Jazzy last night and the bruise I have from a successful block
♥TanMan's respect
♥ Sweetling in the upper range of on target for 10th grade math/algebra
♥Toa of Boy helping to clean up the preschool room
♥Toa of Boy's drawing of china and mountains and russia
♥ Halloween costumes almost ready <3 style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">

For my scripture reading, I've been doing a
61 day survey reading plan since mid-June. I would say, "quality, not quantity," but in my case its "sporadically, not regularly" that is the more accurate explanation.

Psalm 100;103;139

I think I'll use these verses early on in my writing:
Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.




And of course, the signature verses:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

Research Links

What happened to the list of links I know I collected and saved as a draft on my main blog, I can't imagine.

Here are some links that I've found tonight...because, what else would I be doing at 2am? Surely not sleeping. Anyway, I don't want to spend my writing time in November doing web searches.

historic railway maps

Ft Laramie

Denver Pacific railway on wiki

Lancaster Industrial School for Girls
book excerpt
Thaddeus Stevens postcard
book exerpt--older girl placement
sewing room at Lancaster
google maps

1AM

It's one in the morning, the day before NaNo launches. Why am I still up? Because I was in bed, but couldn't fall asleep. Instead, I was trying to spin out the first section of my story. Which quickly led to a host of doubts. What if I get to 15,000 words, and have completely played out my story? what if I write the full 50,000....and its the most boring piece of work ever? (This is a very, very, very real possibility.)

When am I going to find the time to research some of the historical details of my story? Do I need to pick a specific year? What were east coast boarding schools for young girls like? How could I find some floor plans for old victorian homes? How do I figure out what a realistic travel time by train, by stagecoach?

When will I find time to clip my Sunday coupons? Yes, I'm completely serious. I was laying in bed wondering this. It was at this point that I thought I'd get up and go post all these questions on the NaNo forums. the NaNo site is down, and I wanted to get a NaNo blog set up anyway....so here it is.

And, here also are a selection of sites I found, several weeks ago when i was first tossing the character concepts around. I still have no plot mind you, but I have two main characters. And the lack of plot is a frequent plague of mine. I'll have a character concept, but no plot.

Rambling now. Sites here. Hot chocolate good.

Sites not here. Sites not saved. Where sites go? Me no know.

Nora have sites. Me post Nora's sites. Nora good. Computer bad. Me writer.