Keeping it in the family

My word count sucks today... I'm at 18,135.
But I have a pretty good excuse. Last night Alex's school had a really interesting program called Guys Write Nite where all the boys in the class brought their dads into the class from 6-8 p.m. and all we did was write together. Alex's teacher is doing some sort of thesis or something on boys and dads and writing. But it was really fun. Alex was so into it. He knew I've been doing a bunch of writing (especially lately) and he liked being a part of that.
We wrote some fun stories about our road trip to California a year ago and then we made up a story about a boy named Chicken-Butt (Alex's favorite word). In the end, we had about 1,400 words -- that don't count toward NaNo.
Of course, that was only two hours, right? So, what's my REAL excuse?
Well, I did have to write my regular bi-weekly column for the newspapers. That was 650 words -- all of which had to be good enough to be publishable (not quite the standard I hold for my NaNo novel, where I spent about 300 words talking about how my family had bought a new hot water heater (and, no, it has nothing to do with the story ... I think).)
Still that wasn't all my time. How about ER live, Survivor on tape last night and then The Apprentice on tape this morning. How sad and pathetic is that, huh? Well, at least I got 1K-plus done this morning. But now I'm behind the pace again.
This weekend will be the time. In fact, I'll lay down the gauntlet right here... I will have 25K by Monday!
You read it here first!