Imagine that last April, almost exactly a year ago from today, you began your current novel project, Songs for Piano and Voice.  A departure from your first novel, it’s a contemporary romantic dramedy about a pianist and a singer who just can’t quite get their relationship in tempo thanks to an ex, a nosy pastor’s wife, a smothering older sister, a drug addict, and romantic rivals.  It’s set at a fictional Methodist church in Waco, Texas, and in the very real Baylor University School of Music, where you yourself spent a semester studying vocal performance — though the story’s not based on personal acquaintances or experiences.  Much.   (Though who knows?   Maybe if you hadn’t changed your major to English literature, it would be autobiographical.  Ah, the endless drama of musicians!)

In a year, you’ve written sixteen chapters, totaling upwards of 80,000 words.  You’re either two-thirds or half of the way finished with your first draft.  You’re not really sure which.  All you know is that you’ve finished the first of two “movements” and at this point  have no way of gauging how long the second will be.  You know the end of the novel — the end was actually the starting point of the whole thing — and you know the major plot points between the first movement and the end.  But only the actual writing will tell just how long it will take to get from here to there. Or how to get from here to there.  Which scares you a little, because writing blind is the surest way to write yourself into a corner, though you did manage to avoid that with the first 80,000 words, which you also wrote blindly till you got to the end.

80,000 words sounds like a lot to a non-writer.  Or even to a writer.  Until you break it down into the number of days you work per year and get something like an average of 450 words per day.  And then you think about the other writers you know, who have written entire 100,000 word novels in 100 days, and then you start to wonder what the heck you’re doing wrong.  (Or maybe they’re doing something wrong?)  So it’s best not to think about other writers or break it down into numbers and averages, and instead just revel in the fact that this year you’ve written 80,000 words that a couple of other writer friends really like, and, even more importantly, that you like (or at least don’t think are utter crap), and oh thank God that terrible eighteen month dry spell that followed your first novel is long gone!

For now, you can spend seven nights and eight days at Walt Disney World, and worry about increasing your average daily word count when you get back.

Even before the economy got bad, I loved to save money and get a good deal.  It’s fun to get a lot for a little.  It’s even more fun to get something completely for free.  Like airline tickets.  (Though you don’t want me to get started on Mr. Burt’s current credit card enterprises.)

But even getting something small for free is hugely thrilling. For instance, the other day I bought seven boxes of cereal because A) they were on sale for a really good price and B) you got a free package of Pop Tarts and three free gallons of milk.  It’s a sensible combination for a deal, isn’t it?  Cereal, milk, Pop Tarts — all breakfast foods.  However, I’m at a loss to see the sense in this manufacturer’s coupon offer from the past Sunday’s paper:

Possibly I could see the connection if this were any other soda being offered for free with the purchase of eggs — a lot of people do drink soda with breakfast, and eggs aren’t just a breakfast food.  But Big Red?  Who over the age of eight drinks Big Red?  (Also, I must register my astonishment that there’s actually a Diet Big Red.  Are people who don’t find liquid bubblegum sickeningly sweet really that bothered about sugar?)  In any case, this is one coupon I did not clip with the intent of squirreling away a little extra money while our economy goes down the toilet.

Speaking of the economy, some brave soul has decided to start a new business in our area.  About a week ago, I went out my front door to find a nylon bag hanging on the knob, accompanied by a flier advertising a pick-up dry cleaning company.  As in, on Tuesday morning, you put your clothes in the bag, leave it on your porch, and they pick it up and return my clothes to my porch on Friday, starched and hung neatly on hangers.  If you never intend to use the service, you put the empty bag out on Friday for pickup.

Is it just me, or does this strike you as a highly naïve operation?  First of all, does someone really expect me to be trusting enough to leave my good dry clean only clothes on my porch?  If you’ve ever been to my neighborhood, you’d know that stuff left outside your home is fair game for scavengers.  It won’t last five minutes.  And this is suburbia!

I myself am proof of the kind of property rights mindset people have around here:  on the first Friday pickup day, I did not return my blue nylon bag.  Truthfully, I forgot to put it on the porch, but that was probably more a case of out of sight, out of mind.  As in, the bag was out of sight, in my laundry closet, because I thought it would make a great laundry bag for wet clothes when traveling.  If you put a bag on my doorstep and invite me to take it into my home, it’s not coming out again.  It’s mine, my own, it came to me!  We’re in a recession, I must hold on to anything useful that should fall into my possession.

On one last money-saving note, this week I’ve been stricken with a nasty sinus infection and cough.  While debating whether to drag my sorry tail up to the pharmacy for cough syrup, I googled Robitussin to see if it actually would help.  According to Wikipedia, “some cough medicines may be no more effective than placebos for acute coughs in adults, including coughs related to upper respiratory tract infections” and “Recent studies have found that theobromine, a compound found in cacao, is more effective as a cough suppressant than prescription codeine. This compound suppresses the “itch” signal from the nerve in the back of the throat that causes the cough reflex. It is possible to get an effective dose (1 g, though 0.5 g may be sufficient) from 50g of dark chocolate, which contains 2 to 10 times more cacao than milk chocolate. Cocoa powder contains roughly 0.1 g per tablespoon.  Theobromine was also free from side effects in the blind tests.”

So, I have not spent money on Robitussin, and have instead been drinking many mugs of Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation.  Which may not have saved me money…But even in an economy like this, a spoon full of sugar — or in this case, a mug full of dark chocolate — makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way.