Obsession, Owls and Ouch

I may have to rename my Monday Meme 'Random Mondays'... hehe. Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving? I hope so!

So, let's talk about obsession first. I hit my writing goal this weekend. Well, actually I think I said I wanted to write 10,000 words, but I really was firm on writing 3,000 words a day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which I did. About 36 pages. I'm not disappointed. I'm sitting right under 70,000 words, so only 10,000 to my first draft goal. I don't think the first draft is going to hit the 80k, but I already know places I need to go back and flesh out, and I don't think I'm going to be cutting a lot, just tightening.

Anyways, so I entered the final climax of my book yesterday, which I hadn't fully plotted out yet, and I finally figured out exactly what's going to happen at the end. Yay! So, I have it all in my head, and I finished my writing for the day, and then I got in this weird obsessive house cleaning mood. It's weird because I hate cleaning. But I really cleaned. Like, on top of the refrigerator, moving all the kitchen appliances and cleaning under them. Yeah. I also threw away the toaster oven and trashcan. It was very strange.

I'll talk about ouch next so we can end on owls (a happy note). So, just a couple hours ago I got back a rejection on a request for the full manuscript of Countless, my first book. The agent said she was really intrigued by my idea and wanted to love the book, but just wasn't pulled in by my narrative and didn't feel it was ready for mainstream pub. Us writers are such sadistic little puppies I was actually glad to get honest, real feedback and not just a form rejection. Anyways, I've kind of had the same feeling about Countless. I think it's a good book. I just don't know that it's good enough to get an agent's attention. Of course, it's great that I'm just about done with my second book to distract me from the disappointment.

Getting to the Monday Meme, which is kind of random (like this whole post). So, I have this strange love of owls, which is fed by the many awesome owl things being sold everywhere these days. When I'm a famous author, I'll feed my owl merchandise fever by buying things like these:

**Photos removed since peeps have been getting sued for posting photos on blogs**

Of course, I may feed this owl fever before I'm a famous author :) But I'll feed it more when I have moula to spend on silly owl decor.

So, what about you, writer friends? Writing ups and downs? Any fave forest creatures? I hope everyone has a great week!