Wolf Girl Wednesday

Time to get back into the swing of things, here.  I’ve let Wolf Girl 2 sit and marinate for a while (and yes, it does still need those last 3,000 words to finish up…), and I think I’ve finally come up with a plan for how to rip it apart and put it back together.

Step 1:
Finish the ending, just so I can say it is finished

Step 2:
Reverse outline the story (I used to do this in high school, seriously–for papers where we just turned everything in at once, I’d write the paper, then go back and outline it after)

Step 3:
Revise the outline (there are things I know I need to go back and include, like a little more interaction between Ash and Ansley), and parts that probably should be scrapped and re-written (like the last 1/3 of the book…)

Step 4:
Make the revisions from the new outline

Step 5:
Edit for word choice/grammar stuff/etc

Step 6:
Start working on the file for uploading to Create Space/SmashWords

Honestly, part of what has kept me from reopening that Word file is just what seems to be the sheer daunting amount of work that needs to go into this–WG2 is just an utter mess, unlike Wolf Girl.  Outlining my steps and breaking it down into manageable chunks should help, though.

I also need to outline that Mayan Zombie Apocalypse book, and see if I can get my ghost story whipped into enough shape for ABNA.  So much to DO!

NaNo is FiNo’d

Another NaNoWriMo is in the books!  I hope everyone who attempted to hit 50k did so–I did!

See that?  0 excuses, that’s me!  I had a stretch where I was ready to throw in the towel, just around Thanksgiving.  I had 43,000 words under my belt and I just…couldn’t get up the motivation to write.  I played hookey for FOUR days!  Well, I did write about 200 words on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the Saturday after, but…200 words each day is s drop in the bucket that is NaNoWriMo.

Is the novel done?  No, not really.  Last year’s manuscript clocked in at just over 58,000 words, and I’m currently at 56,000 (almost exactly!) in this year’s novel.  It’s on pace to finish at around the same amount, if not a bit more.  I’m currently embroiled in the “big fight” at the end, which will take another 1-2,000 words to complete, then, of course the ending, which is probably another 1,00o words.  I just have to…finish it.  Which I will, I just need a brain break, honestly.

Today is my region’s TGIO party, which is always a good time.  You get to see small groups of people at the various write ins throughout the month, but the whole group only really seems to get together for the kick off and for the TGIO party.

If you won, CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU DID IT!  YOU’RE FANTASTIC!!!  If you didn’t…well, there’s always next year, of course.  And just because November is over doesn’t mean that you have to stop writing, either.  Finish it!  You can do it!

NaNoWriMo is…it’s almost over…

I’d planned on writing more about NaNo this month…oops!

I’d like to say that this month went fantastically, that the story flowed fluidly from my brain to the ends of my fingers, that I finished a week ago with the 50,000 words and currently I’m just finishing up the story itself.

Instead, there are three (yes, THREE!) days left and I’ve yet to hit 50k.  My big confrontation is still looming over the horizon, though Ansley is *finally* slipping into that leadership role right on schedule.  Currently, she is bossing around 3 other people while watching over The Big Bad, seeing what they’re up to.  The full moon is coming, and I am less than 1000 words from that 50,000 word deadline.

And I just…can’t think of how to get from where I am to where I need to be.  And I need to figure out if I’m going to kill of a character or two–I probably should, and I know who one of them should be.  And maybe who another should be.  I don’t want to kill off that second character–he’s a goofy, fun guy to write, and he wears the best t-shirts.

I know what I’d like to do, but I don’t think I have time to do it and complete the novel in November (I don’t have a great track record of actually finishing novels that cross 50k but still have story left).  Plus, what I want to do…will probably just drag it out too long, anyway, as I like my confrontations to take place under the full moon.  I have no idea what I’d do to fill up the space between the two full moons, honestly.  I may have started out too far away from the moon in the first place…But hey, extra words, right?

I should be crossing the finish line today, though, and hopefully soon!  I have one last write in to go to tonight, where I can hopefully put the finishing touches on the end of the novel.  Last year’s novel ended up being just under 58,0000 words, and edits dropped it down to just over 57,000.  See, there was this horse trailer scene, and it was really bad and had nothing to do with the story at all, but I needed words at the time and I really couldn’t think of anything else to do, and it was very very very mean to a character that ended up having other very very very bad things happen to him, so I cut the scene.

To those of you participating in NaNoWriMo with me–good luck and I hope you cross the finish line!  To those of you who want to write a novel “some day”, your next chance is in June with Camp NaNoWriMo.  Get out there and WRITE!

Wolf Girl Wednesday: NaNoWriMo edition

NaNoWriMo is now a week old, and I’m just over 13,000 words into my novel.  This is going…fairly well.  A lot better than I expected, honestly, though I don’t know if I like the format I’ve gone with:  my very first nano novel, I attempted this exact format, and…ended up 1/2 way through the month having to go back and make some pretty major changes.
Oh, the format?  I’m doing a switching perspectives model:  I’m switching between Ash and Ansley, though Ash is in the third person, and Ansley is in the first person.  Last time I did this, I ended up going third person for both characters, which meant that I had some really confusing stuff going on for a while til I finally rooted out all of the first person stuff.

My plan is to go completely first person Ansley once the two of them get together, which I’m hoping is before 25k words, but we’ll see.  I’ve managed to get Ash almost to where Ansley is, but I’m trying to figure out if they’ll meet in the US or Canada (don’t forget, Ash is from Winnipeg).

I’m not using an outline like I did last year–so we’ll see how that works out.  Granted, last year’s outline wasn’t all that detailed, but at least it was an outline.

If you would like to keep track of my wordcount, you can see I’ve added a widget to my sidebar, or you can buddy friend me on the NaNoWriMo site, I’m marzipan9!

Good luck to you if you are participating!  How’s your word count this week?

Wolf Girl Wednesday: Eep! It’s almost NaNo time!

It’s creeping up slowlyway too fast!  NaNo is just 3 weeks away, those 30 crazy days and nights of noveling abandon!

I actually was thinking about NaNo on the way to PetSmart today with the Pooch (she needs food, and I need to find a brand that won’t break my budget yet not be Beneful quality.  I used to feed her Royal Canin, but a couple of years a go I had an issue *finding* her type, and then when it came back in stock it jumped in price by almost $3.   Yuck.  Last foray was pretty successful–I got a bag of Wilderness something or other for 1/2 off because it would expire at the end of October…used the last of it this morning, way ahead of the expiration date!  This time I opted for a 15 lb bag of Natural Balance Skin Formula to see if it helps her itchyness…OOH TANGENT!).  I do some of my best thinking in the car, really.  I think it has to do with having the radio on, and music really seems to inspire me writing wise.  It doesn’t even have to have anything to do with what I’m thinking about either…I think the song in the background that started the wheels turning was something by Katy Perry or Pink or someone like that.

I know how WG 2:  Untitled will be starting!  It’ll be a prologue flashback with Ansley’s “prophecy” as the header of the section, then I’ll delve into how it came about.  Then, I’ll take up with Ash’s POV for Chapter 1.  I’m starting to get really excited, as up until now I’ve been hemming and hawing about a BUNCH of WG2 plot details, but they seem to be falling into place now.  I was very worried that I’d head into this NaNo with very little in the way of ideas, honestly.  I’ll have to keep my “Novel Ideas” folder with me wherever I go now, to have something to jot them down in so I don’t forget them!

How many of you will be joining me on my NaNo Journey this year?  I know a few of you do–can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Wolf Girl…Friday: Vacation, Part 2

“It is way too hot out here,” Niamh complained, fanning her beet-red face with her hand.  Her normally tidy hair was plastered to her neck in messy, sweaty tendrils.  Cassie shot me an annoyed look, which I answered with a “you’re the one who invited here out here” look, complete with innocent head tilt.

Niamh was right, though, it was way too hot out here; Cassie and I just didn’t react to the heat quite like a “normal” human would.  What would make someone like Niamh sweat buckets invigorated us.  Though we’d started our fifteen-mile hike early in the morning, when the sun was barely up and the air around us was cool and quiet, it had not stayed that way.  With no internet connection or cell phone service, we couldn’t check the daily forecast and had only planned for a normal hike, not for one in almost 100-degree weather.

We were barely halfway through the hike, and while Niamh had kept up easily during the first hour (honestly, shoving your way through thick rush-hour traffic on Fifth Avenue really wasn’t all that different from hiking on a remote trail in the woods), she wasn’t dealing well with the heat and had exhausted our meager water supply early on.   Since then she’d been complaining about her feet, the heat, and how dumb we’d been to only bring one bottle of water for each of us, and why wouldn’t I share Lacey’s water with her?  Cassie looked ready to snap, and I placed a restraining hand on her arm.

I cocked my head, hoping to hear the trickle of a stream nearby, but only heard the usual forest noises–a breeze ruffling the leaves in the tops of trees, birdcalls, and the occasional squirrel dropping nuts to the ground.  While it wouldn’t be smart to drink the water, we could at least stop and splash the cool water on our faces.

“Can’t we at least stop and rest for a bit?” Niamh begged, bending over and leaning her hands on her knees.  Cassie was for pushing on and getting back to camp quickly, but one look at Niamh told me there was no way this city girl was going to make it another mile, let alone seven, if we didn’t give her a reprieve.  We found a mossy log, and Niamh collapsed on it, relieved to be off of her feet.  I, not too long ago, had been just as city as Niamh.  Moving to the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, and then going furry once a month changed that quickly.  I wasn’t really sure how Niamh was going to survive the next four days of sleeping in a tent and showering in a communal shower.

Somehow, we managed to baby Niamh through the last miles of the hike.  When we stumbled back into camp, she grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and stalked off to the showers.  Cassie swiped my car keys and volunteered to go get us more ice, since what was in the cooler was now mostly tepid water.

Looking around, I realized for the first time in days, I was alone, except for Lacey.  Lacey, however, was always good company.  She never complained, was always happy to see me, and the only bad quality she had was the fact that she loved to lick my face.  And honestly?  That wasn’t much of a bad quality.  I grabbed my own bottle of water and sat on the picnic table between our campsite and the one next door, enjoying the silence.  Lacey, also tired from our hike, flopped over on her side underneath the table.

The silence was delicious.  I zoned out, staring out into the dense woods that surrounded the campsite.  This is what I had been looking for when I decided to go camping.  Peace, quiet, and solitude.  I’d wanted an opportunity to be alone and think about the changes my life had gone through in the past year.  Babysitting Niamh and keeping Cassie from killing her wasn’t leaving me much time for reflection, however.

Cassie pulled up to the campsite and found me still staring off into the woods.  “Is Niamh still in the showers?” Cassie asked, a frown on her face.  A glance at my watch told me that Cassie had been gone for almost an hour, and the look on her face told me that she wondered if Niamh always took that long in the bathroom.
“I guess,” I said vaguely, still lost in my thoughts.  “Maybe we should go make sure she didn’t like…slip and hit her head or something.  Those tiles can be slick when they’re wet.”  The two of us (Lacey decided to keep sleeping under the picnic table) headed over to the showers.  Our campsite was located close to the back of the campground, while the showers were close to the entrance, where the owners lived year round.  It took us almost ten minutes to walk there, but it was an easy walk on an asphalt road.

“Niamh?” I called into the row of showers.  I could hear one of them running, and I was loath to intrude upon her nakedness in the shower.  There was no answer, though, so Cassie and I began carefully checking each of the showers and the cubbies near them.  I pulled back the curtain on the running shower, half expecting Niamh to shriek at me, but the stall was empty.  Niamh’s shampoo and soap sat on the shelf, though, and the water bottle she’d grabbed at the campsite lay uncapped on its side underneath it.

“Did you find her?” I called out to Cassie, who replied negatively.  All she’d found was Niamh’s sweat dirty hiking clothes and a hairbrush.  I shut off the water and joined Cassie in the middle of the room.

“Where did she go?” Cassie wondered, and I shrugged my shoulders.  “I don’t know, but I’m starting to get worried.  It’s not like Niamh to wander off, especially in the middle of the woods.  Cassie and I stared at each other, mystified.  It appeared that Niamh had gone missing on us.

Here’s Wednesday’s missing post.  Oh my!  Niamh, were did you go?  Find out in Part 3 on Wednesday!!

Wolf Girl Wednesday: Vacation

Have an original Wolf Girl short story!  Here is Part 1 of “Vacation”

Ahhh, vacation!  No Saxa glaring at me when I walk in the door 30 seconds late to relieve her for the in-town route, no Saxa glaring at me, period.  Just me, my dog…and my watchdog, Cassie.  Niamh, my best friend, had lobbied for a visit to what she called “back home” when she heard I had a week’s worth of vacation time coming up.  I had just about decided to split my vacation up and spend part of the time in New York with her (the thought of spending any amount of time in a big city anymore made my skin crawl), and then spend the rest of the time camping somewhere.

Then, Cassie announced to me that she was coming with me.  I argued, I pouted, I whined, I stormed out of her trailer and then slammed the door to mine, but it did no good.  She wouldn’t budge.  I suspected her father, the mayor, was behind the announcement, but Cassie wouldn’t give me the confirmation.  I was sure that her father didn’t want his prized Queen of Wolves wandering around the country by herself.

That meant that New York City was out.  I wasn’t ready to introduce my childhood best friend to my Wyoming best friend, and I could already hear the jealousy in Niamh’s voice when I’d mention hanging out with Cassie or visiting the Sunflower Spot, Cassie’s coffee shop.  I knew Niamh would be disappointed, and there was no way I was telling her exactly why I wouldn’t be visiting New York City this summer.  Maybe I’d be able to sneak away closer to Halloween to see Niamh.

Somewhat to punish Cassie, and because I remembered how beautiful it was as a child, I decided to head to the wilds of West Virginia.  Cassie was used to the dry, flat lands of Wyoming.  West Virginia was full of trees, humidity, and mountains.  It also had some of the wildest, most beautiful National Parks in the nation.

I began to count down the days, and after work every day I worked through a giant to-do list:  booking a campsite, checking my tent, packing food, clothes, and everything Lacey would need for a week in the woods.  The car got an oil change, a tire rotation, and new shocks.  Lacey, my rescue Malamute, whipped herself into a frenzy all week, convinced I was going to leave her forever.

Finally, vacation day arrived.  Cassie helped me load the car, and brought us mochas from the Sunflower Spot.  Soon, we were on the road, squinting into the bright Wyoming sunrise.  Lacey sat behind my seat, panting happily that she hadn’t been left behind in her crate or with Isolde Grimhilt, the lady who owned Happy Acres and watched Lacey for me when I needed it.

The car trip took us a little over a day.  We stopped overnight at a KOA near St. Louis, and then arrived just before sunset at a little campground near Gauley River National Recreation Area.  I’d dreaded having a traveling companion, but it turned out to be a good thing:  Cassie was able to help out with the driving, and it was nice to have someone to talk to on that long stretch of I-80 though the boring flatness of Nebraska.

I stepped out of the car at our campsite and took a deep breath of the fresh, piney air.  Our site was near the back of the campground with plenty of trees around.  The campground was fairly empty until the weekend, and I was able to finagle a private spot for the two of us.  I opened Lacey’s door and she darted out, ready to mark and sniff every tree within a half-mile radius of our car.  “Stay near Lace,” I said sternly to the retreating black and white butt.

As Cassie and I pulled out the tent and began to set it up, I heard the growl of a motor and the crunch of tires on the gravel that paved most of the roads in the campground.  I brushed back a lock of my black hair and sat back on my haunches.  “The lady on the phone told me we’d be the only people back here,” I complained as the noise got closer.  Cassie shrugged her shoulders and continued to hammer tent pegs into the packed earth.

“Maybe someone’s just exploring or lost,” I grumbled to myself, annoyed. A non-descript tan sedan pulled into the parking spot of the site next to ours.  “So much for privacy.”  The door of the sedan squeaked open, and a familiar head emerged from it.

My mouth gaped open.  “Niamh?” I said, shocked.  “What are you doing here?”

“Cassie invited me,” she said simply, grinning at me.  I couldn’t help it, her smile was infectious and I grinned back.

“But you hate nature!”  In seventh grade, our parents had sent us to the same Girl Scout camp.  Niamh had made it two days before demanding to be sent home.  She sat in the office of the camp director for six hours, refusing to move, until the woman finally relented and called Niamh’s parents to pick her up.  Niamh shrugged her shoulders and shuffled her high heel clad feet slightly in the dust.

“I’ll…deal, I guess,” she said, brushing an invisible spec of dirt off of her burgundy suede jacket.  “Sometimes you make sacrifices to see the people you love, Ansley…” I could tell from the accusatory tone of her voice that she felt I should have been the one to sacrifice and not her.

I looked between Cassie, who was trying to play off being innocent, and Niamh, who was looking around at her surroundings with a mix of wonder and disgust, and knew I was in for quite a week.

 

Wolf Girl Wednesday: Uhhhh

It’s been a busy week here at Wolf Girl Central, and none of it involves writing.  Oops!  I totally missed Monday’s post, and the only reason I posted anything yesterday is because it was pre-written and scheduled.  I’ve got a friend in town from out-of-state (who keeps changing when we’re getting together), and it’s the..uh…male members of my family’s annual golf outing, so I have an uncle in town.  That means lots of dinners out and family get togethers, as my uncles only come in town 1-2 times a year.  I ate out Sunday, then went to a picnic on Monday, then ate out *again* last night…and all of this comes after last week’s busy week, where we had a picnic on Thursday, had dinner with my husband’s cousin and his family on Friday, and went to the Rhythm and Blues Festival my town puts on every year on Saturday (Happy 200th Birthday to my town, as well!).

It’s just been GOGOGOGOGOGOGO around here.  While it’s been fun, I think I need a vacation from everyone else’s vacations…and I still have a few things left on the calendar before it’s over–today is hopefully lunch or dinner with the friend in town, then tomorrow I have a local author panel to attend at a local library to support some friends, and then finally my in-laws are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday, so we’re heading down to the farm either late Saturday or early Sunday for that.  AND I have to make some sort of pie for my father in law.  *FLAIL*

I should make this post sort of Wolf Girl-y, shouldn’t I?  I’ve started to get some feedback on Wolf Girl from the various people who have read the book.  It’s all positive so far…but these are my friends and family, I think they’re a bit biased.  Okay, a lot biased.

From my Aunt:
“Just wanted to let you know I finished you book. It only took me a couple of days to read it. I really enjoyed it. Cannot wait for the next one.”

From my cousin’s daughter (she’s 12, I made a O.o face when I learned she’d read it…but 99% of it is 12 year old safe, it’s just the scene where Ansley catches Kemp in flagrante delecto that is a bit NSFK, but even *that* isn’t too bad)
“hey i just finished ur book yesterday and i love it”
(Oh, gotta love being 12, right?)

From a friend:
“Okay, so. I’ve been sort of going back and forth between Wolf Girl and my other book, but I couldn’t sleep earlier and I don’t want to finish Casket too fast because I’ll be out of Nightrunner, so I was reading some Wolf Girl. And man, I gotta tell you… at first I didn’t really think it’d be my cup of tea, but suddenly I couldn’t stop reading. :D”
(she also pointed out some flaws, as I described a horse coloring wrong /facepalm and I apparently keep changing the spelling of Rawlins to Rollins and Rawlings.  Easy to fix and re-upload the corrected copies to CreateSpace and Smashwords.  The horse thing…well, if you don’t know much about horses, you wouldn’t catch it.  I think I had one color scheme in mind–chestnut–and just misdescribed it as bay.  But hey, very helpful, as I somewhat skipped the beta reader phase because the CreateSpace 5 free copy deal was going to be running out soon…)

I’m really interested to see what non-relative non-friends think, so I think at some point I’ll organize a giveaway here on the blog and through Goodreads.com. Now, if I could just remember to order myself some extra copies…Would giving away e-reader copies be considered tacky?  Hmmm, I think I may have to flex my Google-fu on that one…

So far on the calendar, next week is completely free, so hopefully I’ll be able to crack down and get some writing done.  I still have several half-finished stories that need to get finished and corral me a reader or two so I can polish them up and maybe send them out to magazines.

Wolf Girl Wednesday: Minor Characters

Every book has them–they’re the characters that show up infrequently (or randomly in the background of scenes as the main character passes through and waves and says hi to them), but they help to shape the main character or to move the story along.  Today, I’ll introduce you to a few of Wolf Girl’s standout background characters.

Isolde Grimhilt–Isolde owns the trailer park where Ansley lives.  She’s HUGE, she’s no-nonsense, she loves dogs, and will watch Lacey whenever Ansley is…indesposed.  I love writing Isolde, she says things I’d love to say to people but am too polite to actually say out loud.  She’s the last of her and her husband’s families, and has been running Happy Acres Trailer park by herself since her husband’s death about 10 years ago.

Saxa Fear–named for one of my favorite teen horror settings (Fear Street!), she’s Ansley’s co-worker and self-proclaimed boss at the local post office.  She takes the “easy” jobs of the in-town route and working the counter, but Ansley doesn’t mind, because it allows her to be outside and to check on Lacey at lunchtime.  She annoys the crap out of Ansley, but with being out of the post office for 90% of her workday, Saxa only gets a chance to boss her around at the beginning and end of the days.

Tabithinia Clark–She woudldn’t look out of place on the back of a Harley motorcycle, but she and her husband own and manage the Falcon Roost, the only motel in Falcon Springs.  She comes off as motherly, but mostly she’s just bored and happy to have someone to talk to.  The motel doesn’t get much buisness.

Dr. Lathrop–Dr. Lathrop makes his appearance after Ansley is attacked by the mystery creature.  His name is a vague reference to Back to the Future.  He’s Ansley’s doctor, and Cassie finds him incredibly attractive.

I’m also going to give you a snapshot of a character I created one night while at a Write-In at a local Panera Bread.   A guy walked in, and he just BEGGED to be put into my novel and, well, killed off messily.  Unfortunately, at the point I was in in the book, I didn’t have a spot for him, so I wrote up a sticky note about him, then promptly forgot to add him into the novel later on when I had a spot.  Sad, because it would have been so much fun to kill this guy off…Maybe he’ll make in apperance in Wolf Girl 2:  Untitled!

Maximillion “Maxie” Duncan–6’3″, with slightly long and curly black hair.  He wears a black leather jacket on top of a grey long sleeved shirt with a HOOD (and yes, that does look as bad as it sounds), dark jeans with frayed cuffs, and black and white converse tennies.  He almost has that…50s greaser look to him, and his pale skin, dark eyes, and dark hair make him look almost italian/irish.  You can tell just by looking at him, he thinks he’s the best thing to hit the planet since sliced bread…but just comes off as a gigantic tool.

It was Maxie’s destiny to meet a wolf at some point and get himself mauled to death.  I wish I’d remembered to put him in the book!

 

 

Wolf Girl Wednesday: Introducing Ash

I’m struggling a bit today…I had a very strange dream last night that involved a local historical site, someone killing an old boyfriend of mine (and me being mad that it wasn’t me), a boat being tossed around in a pool that was acting like the ocean during a terrible storm, a geek movie trailer viewing, a really gross dinner (think something along the lines of polenta made with fish juice and then covered in collard greens), learning how to dub step, and a lot more.  It was a *really* long dream, and apparently not very restful because I feel like I only got two hours of sleep last night when I actually got closer to 10.

Onto Ash!  I actually introduced him last week as Mr. Nameless when I shared his character sheet.  However, in the past 7 days, I’ve actually managed to name Mr. Nameless.  I did manage to tear him away from Mark and Marc, as well, which is a win in my book!

I also decided that he’ll be telling the story from his point of view in WG2:  Untitled for the purpose of Camp NaNoWriMo.  If it works out, great, if it doesn’t…well, I can always start over in November.  If you’ll remember from last week, Mr. Nameless lives in Winnipeg and goes furry 3 nights a month during the full moon.  He’s also a lone wolf–he doesn’t have a pack…in fact, there’s a good chance he doesn’t realize that, other than himself and the wolf that turned him, that there ARE other werewolves out there.

Oh, you’re probably wondering what Mr Nameless’ full name is.  His name is Ashley Charles Garrett, or Ash for short.  His mother was a big fan of Gone With the Wind, obviously, but he goes by Ash.  In modern times, Ashley is more of a…bubbly blonde cheerleader name than a guy’s name.  He will also occasionally answer to A.C. or Ace, which is his online moniker.

Also, today is August 1st (where did the summer go?), which marks the start of Camp NaNoWriMo’s second summer session.  The first started on June 1st, and while I signed up and was assigned to a Cabin, I did…absolutely nothing for it.  This time, I signed up for a cabin but then wasn’t assigned to one.  Um, oops?  I put my name back in the queue, so we’ll see what happens this time.  Camp NaNoWriMo is a little more low-key than the November event, as there don’t seem to be any MLs (municipal liaisons for the uninitiated) or official write-ins.

I still don’t have an outline, so I may just seat-of-my-pants this one.  It is still early in the day, I could dash off a WG-esque outline and go from there.  If I can just get myself to wake up a bit more…I think I may have to get out a Cherry Coke.