Flying by the seat of my pants

And by “flying” I mean “falling with style”.

NaNoWriMo is nearly here and I’m freaking out. FREAKING OUT.

I had a plan. It was a great plan – and then I scrapped it in favour of something I thought I actually had a hope of finishing. So I worked on plan #2, with Nathan quizzing me on motivations and evil and plot twists. At which point I scrapped it in favour of something I could actually publish under my pen name.

So I took to my third idea, which is a mere germ, and I ignored it. I’ve written it down, but I haven’t got a character, a plot, any subplot, or ideas.

I AM FLYING BLIND AND I HATE IT.

But I’ve got three more days, right? Three days. That’s like FOREVER. Except it isn’t and I’m terrified.

Upside: It’s nearly November and I’m going to have to start whether I’m ready or not.

Downside: It’s nearly November and I’m going to have to start whether I’m ready or not.

Unrelated, a story about chickens:

I have eight baby chickens at the moment, to three mothers. Three chicks belong to one hen, and the other two hens have a sisterwives agreement and they’re sharing their nest and five babies equally. That’s the setup. This is information you need to know.

The sisterhens have been scratching around near the house, showing the babies the tastiest grubs to be found under my fruit trees.

Also around my house are the cats.

Earlier today I was minding my own business when the hens started freaking out. Suddenly, Alfred flew across the yard at full speed, one of the mothers hot on his heels, clucking angrily, fluffed up like a beachball. The other mother stayed close to the babies, protecting them from all evil.

Only they hadn’t actually checked on where the babies were, and when the mothers finished fluffing at Alfred, they called their babies directly into the netting surrounding our jumping castle.

Cue freakouts. The mothers were freaking out, two babies were trapped in netting, and Alfred was trying to figure out if he could work this to his advantage.

I ran outside to rescue the babies, because I AM NICE.

The mother hens didn’t see it this way, and they fluffed up and tried to attack my face. I freaked out, they freaked out, and Nathan laughed at all of us. When asked to help protect me, he stood there, thought about it and replied “Nope, it’s too funny to ruin. Although I could go get the video camera…” Bastard.

So there I am, trying to rescue two very frightened chickens from collapsing netting while not one, but two mothers try to attack my face.

Jumping into the deflated castle, I managed to lift the netting and create a shield to protect myself from the raging balls of fluffy fury while I rescued the babies. And by rescued, I mean “swiftly caught and then threw at their mothers, trying not to lose my eyes in the process.”

Everyone survived. I needed a cup of tea to recover though.

From my Facebook Page:

Alley the cat caught herself a starling and ate it. Confidence boosted, she thought that the next thing to catch and eat should be a chicken.

The chickens disagreed. Alley will not be catching chickens any time soon.