The November Numbers Game

I know, this is the first presentation in December, but I like the sound of “November Numbers” better. Of course, I know my alliteration sometimes can be perfectly putrid … so to start!

1: After getting home from church yesterday, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I (Martha wasn't with us because she had all day to help set up and practice for the Renaissance Feast, Minot Chamber Chorale's annual Christmas fundraiser program) set up our house Christmas tree. And amazingly, I wanted to do this! It was the last day before school started for the kids (again) until the twentieth of the month, and they'd been off all Thanksgiving week – we love our children, but we are so glad they get back in school for a while! To be quite honest, if they're anything like Martha and I at their age they were getting bored to tears too; there's only so much time you can spend on a computer (or should) before going completely bananas. And this wasn't just me!

9: The number of days until my forty-second birthday, but you don't have to do anything for it!

36: The number of chapters in the Old Testament book of Numbers, the basis for my 2009 National Novel Writing Month The Book of Numbers (available at most online retailers, ISBN 9781449934309). It's an interesting dynamic and probably the published work of mine so far that I'm most proud of. Starting out three days into the LORD having afflicted Miriam with leprosy around chapter twelve, the family dynamic among her and her brothers Moses and Aaron at the head of about three million Israelites was fun to explore, and as I wrote it I was realizing that really our issues aren't so different. Neither is God.

336: The numerical day of the year that December the second (today) IS this year!

50,145: My official, validated word count for my National Novel Writing Month story, “The Judgment of London”. Early Saturday afternoon I met with Molly our municipal liaison (basically a local coordinator for various events like write-ins and TGIO parties, with the award stickers and the like for us brave enough to stick it out). I got my word count in about forty-five minutes to 50,009 words, but the validator I had to plug it all into on the NaNo website had to make it official, and I had text everywhere. So after Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, Donovan, Mary, Josceline, and I got home from watching the new Disney movie Frozen at our local mall, I was putting everything together and came out with this number. Now you won't see “WORD COUNT” on top of my online messages until November next year … but I have A LOT of editing to do! I will do it … next week, for I deserve a breather!

My work day is half done, so hear ya go.

David