Oh, TiV0, where art thou?

We're having a crisis Chez Smacky. One of our Tiv0s has died on us. Yes, we're philistines and have two of them, get off my back. We got it at the hideous blue store and bought the extended warrantee (woohoo for Husband!). So I took it back yesterday and they gave me a gift card with the full purchase price on it. We can't buy a new replacement model because they're no longer made. So we're looking on the auction site and found two that have new, massive hard drives which ups the recording time by a factor muchness. But then I went to the TiV0 site and it says that we can only transfer our lifetime service to a unit replaced through the retailer or the manufacturer. Help me out here: since blue store gave us a gift card, this will appear as a new purchase, not an exchange, right? They don't open up for live calls until 7 am PST and that's a looong time from now, if you're antsy little me. Fudge knockers. I hate waiting.

I'm so far behind on my NaNo that I fear I will never catch up. And? I still have no idea where this damn story is going so I'm just writing little snippets of it as they come to me. Mostly it's descriptive, outlining the characters, where they live, etc. But the plot? She escapes me. Good thing I can do the NaBlo at least. Nothing too substantive, mind you, but something.

Dude is officially sick; he is a thourough and efficient snot machine, producing his weight in mucus every day. I'm sure that's not hyperbole but just in case it is, let me say that he's got A LOT OF SNOT IN THERE. It drips onto his clothes. And my hair. And my pillow and thence into my hair some more. And on my face. If you see me today, that's why I have weird little crusty white patches on my face. It's totally not leprosy. Sorry, Hansen disease.

So I got up at 4:30 to snorkle a certain little snout and when he fell asleep nursing (because he could BREATHE), I sat down to work on my NaNo, which I haven't managed to do in two days. I could cry. I really feel like I have the kernel of a fun story in there but I don't know how to dig it out, kwim? Like, I've never really been able to finish a story because I don't really get how to build up to the climax. I don't even know what it will be at this point, though my mother points out that that doesn't matter, you write enough and it will come. As it were. Ahem.

I originally thought I'd write on storyline, based on a story that I'm afraid I might have read as a kid, but no one I know recognized the plot so I think I may be safe. Either way, it's not like I'm doing this for publication; it's all about the torture.

Then I thought I'd expand on the story I worked on for my senior paper; it's got potential too. I quickly realized that I didn't have the chops to expand that to 50,000 words, and I hit upon a way to tie the two together. Thus far: 5570. That's like halfway to where I should be. Today.

But I'm going to soldier on. Of course, anything I might write while the kids nap today is going to be done while I'm half dead from exhaustion. It ought to be good.