*sigh of immense relief*

NaNoWriMo is officially over!  Hurrah!  I am so worn out I can't even find my slippers... hmm, where did they go anyway? 

Cherise finished out with exactly 68,559 words!  That's 18,000 more words than she needed!  Give her a big round of applause! 

Oh, and while you're at it, how about a marshmallow for me?  And maybe some hot chocolate to go with it, since I'm getting cold.  *looks around*  Goodness, where are my slippers?

~Riley

Hey y'all!  (I'm from Texas now! Cool!)  Anyway, NaNoWriMo has been going very good, and Cherise is doing great!  She now has 58,000 words, which is enough to win!  However, she has said that she wants to get this novel completely done by the 30th, which means she has a ton of writing to do in the next few days. 

~

Nori was pretty much in control of Cherise until the end of the first week, when Cherise began to get tired and wordcount began to drop.  Since then, I've been keeping her locked up or under Juliet's supervision.  Cherise isn't writing as much, it is true, and she's pretty mad at me about that, but at least Nori is under control. 

~

5 more days, and NaNoWriMo will be over!  Just think of it!  Cherise has no idea what on earth she is going to do, but I know: editing. 

~

Until later!

~Riley

Well, I know for a fact that Cherise didn't have any idea when she started what NaNoWriMo was going to be like.  Neither did I, for that matter.  All we knew was that we were going to have to write a lot.  Both of us liked that idea. 

~

Now, here we are, exactly one week into November, and Cherise already has 25,000 words!!  That's half of what she needs by the end of the month!!  We are both celebrating delightedly, and today Cherise is taking a well-deserved break.

~

However, this writing spree of ours has not been without some sacrifice.  Cherise has had absolutely no time to read A Tale of Two Cities or watch movies with her sister.  She just realized yesterday, as she was having to sort through National Geographic magazines, how starved her brain really is for new information.  Every magazine she picked up totally absorbed her, and in the end she couldn't bear to throw any of them away.  Her dear mother had to give her a new task, and put off sorting magazines until the end of November. 

~

Juliet has almost completely taken over Cherise: all my dear authoress can think about is her novel!  Nori has been exercising dominion over Cherise also (she is mostly responsible for the high word counts), but I am pleased to find that Juliet has been ruling her with an iron hand.  If one of the muses has to be in charge, I would rather it be Juliet.

~

Well, that is all I can say for now!  The time has come for Cherise to go eat breakfast, and I must follow!

~

Riley

As Cherise has been mentioning every half-hour, NaNoWriMo is just around the corner.  The muses and I have been stocking up on ideas (and marshmallows, in my case), and I believe we are prepared for anything. 

The approach of November has brought a new muse into Cherise's life: Nori, a vain, flighty, flippant ninny of a girl if I ever saw one.  She is the muse of hectic and adrenaline-packed chaos, and she insists on being queen for the duration of NaNoWriMo.  *hopeless sigh*  What am I going to do with her? 

Cherise has been writing like crazy for the past few months, but suddenly last night she hit upon a severe case of Writer's Burnout.  It's like Writer's Block, only it's more like a burning swamp instead of a brick wall.  She doesn't want to do any more writing, and has been lying around despondantly.  I fear for her.  I've been trying to feed her marshmallows to cheer her up, but she refuses and says that they're not going to help anything.  I'm sure this is all Nori's fault. 

Juliet, the one person who would be able to help Cherise the most, has vanished.  She left a note saying she is hiding on the internet, but I don't think so.

*pulls out butterfly net*  Well, I'm off to catch those muses!  Wish me luck!

*departs in search of Juliet*

Cherise let me watch that movie a few months ago.  It helps to understand more of American culture.

It has been raining here for two days straight, something that doesn’t happen very often in Colorado.  The sky has been constantly gray with stratus clouds, and the temperature has been very cold – so much so that you often forget it is August, and you are tempted to think it is November or February.  I personally like this weather very much, but some of the humans in this household think otherwise.  Cherise says that too much of this weather makes her depressed.  I can’t see how, but I have heard that a lack of sunshine can make humans very depressed.  

Something very excited happened to Cherise today that I have to tell you about.  I was with her when it happened, so I can give you a full account.  I was sitting on her shoulder while she was working on her story, munching on some Cheerios that she had given me. (By the way, I did get over the stomachache I had from the marshmallows.  Thank you all for your concern.)  Anyhow, she was about to transfer some of her story files to the main file that she keeps all of her story in, when she realized that there were several sections of her story that she had forgotten to factor into her word count!  So now instead of 39,000 words she has 41,000 words, and only has 8,985 words left before she reaches her goal of 50,000!  I don’t know if you know this already, but Cherise set a goal for herself to get 50,000 words written for her novel, The Prophet of Einehrowaye, before NaNoWriMo.  There are roughly eleven weeks left until November, so she only has to write 817 words per week to reach her goal!  I am so happy for her.  I have been helping her a lot with her story, and it is good to see her doing so well with it. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Riley

Today I encountered a new type of human food: marshmallows.  Cherise was having some of them (oh the wonders of humans!) and offered one to me.  I normally trust her judgment on food, so I took a bite. 

Oh, you cannot believe how good it tasted!  It was as if someone had taken a cloud and brought it down to earth!  How sweet!  I quickly ate the whole thing and asked for another one.  And another one after that. 

Every good food has its downside.  I am ashamed to say that I ate too many of them, and now have a really bad stomachache.  Sugar is one of the greatest of human inventions, but it can also be one of the most dangerous.  I am writing this entry to warn you: don’t eat more than two marshmallows at a time!  It can be bad for your digestion! 

~Riley

(Edit: Cherise has reminded me that humans have larger stomachs than gnomes, so the two-marshmallow guideline does not apply to those who are not gnomes.)

Hello world!  My name is Riley.  I am a gnome who lives with the honorable Cherise, who I believe is known here as PoeticMaiden.  Cherise has recently taught me the basics of the computer, and I can’t wait to test out my new skills on this blog. 

You might as well know a little bit more about me.  As I said before, I am a gnome.  I am about 6 inches high, and I have curly red hair and a red beard (along with some red curly hair on my arms and legs, but that’s not so important).  I don’t speak English like normal Americans do – Cherise calls it an Irish accent, but my people have always spoken this way, and as far as I know my family has never visited Ireland.  Pretty much, I am a normal gnome.  The only different thing about me is I’ve recently decided that I prefer flip-flops instead of those boots all the other gnomes wear. 

That’s me.  As for my occupation, I usually spend my time helping Cherise with her writing.  She says I am her muse, but I don’t quite see how I could resemble a nymph from Greek mythology.  I will have to look into the matter.  There is so much I have to learn about human culture.  See, I am one of the only gnomes that I know of to take an interest in human affairs, and I only started hanging around them about six months ago.  I have learned a great deal in that amount of time, but I still have a lot to learn. 

Anywho (I think that’s the correct human phrase), thank you for stopping by my blog!  I will update as soon as I can, however, I must tell you that typing on this thing is not the easiest thing in the world, since the keys are so big.  It takes me a while to do it by myself, and it is much easier to just dictate to Cherise, so I will only be able to update when she’s not busy and can help me. 

Anywho, I will talk to you later!

Riley