As it’s now late on a Friday night, I’m going to be uncharacteristically brief here. It’s not that I have nothing to say. Far from it. At this moment it would appear that I have too much to say, but I won’t because my fingers and wrists are suffering because of my commitment to writing a novel this month.

I made it through the first week and I have 21,171 words to show for it. My story is moving right along, my characters are developing and becoming so real to me that I can sometimes hear their voices, and my fingers hurt to high heaven every single day. I have faith that I will finish this story and that the joints of my hands will be the worse for it.

In related joint-issue news, Wes and I received our Blackberries yesterday and they were, true to form, teeny tiny. Wes went to the trouble of setting up my Pearl for me before we realized that they sent me the wrong model (I need a Wi-Fi capable phone and this one wasn’t up to snuff).

The trouble is, I already set up my email account on it, my ringtones, and my menu options. I’d already programmed my quick access keys on the left and right and set the background to be a picture of Doc. Now, I’ll have to do all thirty minutes of set-up all over again, and suffer the indignity of only being able to type out half of my email address without my thumbs hurting.

It turns out, however, that this was a blessing in disguise. Since I already have to return the Pearl, I took a test drive on Wes’ Curve to find out if I liked it better. I do. The Pearl combines letters in weird duos on the keys and then forces you to choose which option you mean. For instance, if you hit the key with “AD” on it, a little menu pops up and you have to select whether you meant A or D.

As a writer, I find all the constant double-checking vexing. I am almost always intentional when I type things, dang it, and I don’t need some namby-pamby Pearl asking me if I mean to write what I type out.

The Curve has a full keyboard, even though the keyboard is only suitable for infants and puppies to use because it’s so small, and I vastly prefer that to the insanely convoluted checks-and-balances system of the Pearl. Now all I have to do is go for at least a week without a phone and pretend it doesn’t bother me!

I bet you’re so glad I took the time to write all this out because you’re all just dying to know what I think about handheld cellular devices. What can I say? I labor under the mistaken assumption that the minutiae of my life interests other people and apparently too few people have gone to the trouble to correct my misinformation.

Now, alas, I’m going to do the dishes and go to bed because my wrists are hurting like an unmentionable word and I want to sleep so they’ll stop. I hope you all have a lovely weekend, though, that involves chocolate, sleeping, and all things that are good.

So, November has officially started and so has my novel. Wes abandoned me all day on Saturday to go to a men’s retreat (read: play volleyball and rock out on guitar all day) so I had nearly four uninterrupted hours to write. And write I did.

I have a little over 10,000 words done so far and I’m having a blast! Writing a novel is bizarre, it’s really it’s own kind of beast. I keep thinking I’m going to take the story one way and it squirts out from under my hand and goes in a completely different direction. New characters pop out in unexpected places, characters I thought I was going to develop lose shape and write themselves out of the story, and new plot turns surprise the crap out of me and my characters.

I’m also getting lost in the story more than is likely good for me. If I start writing and then leave to go somewhere, chances are excellent that I’ll be a total space-cadet while I’m there because my head’s still in the story. Wes and I were nearly mute in the car today because his head was stuck in his music, my head was stuck in my story, and the two of us were physically two feet apart but a million miles away mentally.

Who knew that writing a novel could be so hazardous?

I’m having an absolute blast, though, and I’m finding that the more I write the easier it is. It was the same way with blogging. When I first started it was tough to figure out ideas for new posts. Now, I have too many ideas and my blog posts end up a mile long!

Same with the novel. At first I felt self-conscious and a lot like a poser, but now the story is literally flowing through me and my fingers can’t seem to keep up (I feel really cheesy in writing that. Feel free to Boo me in the comments section if you agree).

Oh! And the best part is the shopping. My main character is planning a wedding, which means I get to go dress shopping all over again. Paradise, I tell you!

Now, if I could only figure out how to turn off my brain so I can get to sleep at night that would be ideal. Oh, and also how to get my fingers to stop hurting, too. Do they make tiny little Ace bandages for knuckles, I wonder?