Wishing you a Wickedly Delightful Samhain October 31, 2008

I come from a long line of dead people,

upon their shoulders I stand,

my reach is long, my vision much farther

than those that would topple me down.

For what is Samhain, but the chance to look forward through the light of the past. That’s why we honor those that have gone before us on this day when the veil is thin between the worlds. Let that sheer fabric afford you the lessons learned by the thousands of generations that have come before us. Take the risk to climb that mountain of bones and check out the view. You might find it’s different than you thought. Bones don’t lie, don’t have political leanings, don’t give a damn about your petty concerns. They just are and they will always be and someday you’ll add yours to the heap. But not right now. Now is the time for you to put those bones to good use, a perch to stand upon, and honor the accrued knowlege of our puny blip in time.  Go ahead, I dare you!

NaNoWriMo Update October 25, 2008

A word of caution to all those who know and love me:

I love you very much and wouldn’t dream of hurting your feelings but this month is going to be a bit on the wild side due to the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing a complete novel of at least 50,000 words in the month of November. SO….. if I don’t answer the phone, or the door, and you know I’m home, don’t worry, don’t be hurt, I’ll be out to see the light of day on Dec. 1 and we can play then. I’ll try to remember to put the door hanger on the outside door that says writer at work so you’ll know all is well. And keep in mind I’m a nocturnal creature by nature. All offers of chocolate cookies will be heartily accepted, just leave in a tin on my table in front of the rocker on the front porch ;~)  If you happen to come by and I’m on the porch, I will put my pen away for a bit and will let you know when it’s time for me to go back to work. Count on about a half hour, maybe 45 min.

My novel so far:

I’ve been working on all the pre-write work like structuring, back-story, and outline for the past week. I’m very excited with where this story is going. After generating a list of possible story ideas I chose to go with an old idea from 25 years ago when I was freelancing as a calligrapher. I had done a bit of plotting of it at that time but tossed it all out except the method and then updated the victim and pulled another character out of a more recent story idea. The working title is “In the Balance” and of the murder mystery genre. I’ve had such fun withback-story and character development and I want to start the writing NOW but must wait till November first. You can bet I will be at the keyboard at the stroke of midnight.

Novel excerpts only October 25, 2008

I’ve been advised that I may be putting possible publication in jeopardy by posting each days work on my blog for public consumption. A publisher wants “first publication rights” and publishing it on my blog, whether or no anyone reads doesn’t matter. I will, however, post short excerpts. Maybe it will whet your appetite to read the whole thing when it’s published.

A Long Time Coming October 18, 2008

Yes, it’s been months. But in my defense…wait, this is my blog, I need do defense. Ha ha! What a delight. But to tell the truth it’s been a year of ups and downs. I’ve finally received the okay from my medical insurance to begin taking Lyrica for the fibromyalgia. The CPAP machine has made a wonderful difference in the quality of my sleep. The brain fog that was a side effect of the Neurontin is completely gone. Hope the Lyrica doesn’t bring it back. If it does, it’s outta here. No more brain fog for me. But I’d rather look forward than back so here goes.

Next month is National Novel Writing Month and I’m looking forward to it with great trepidation. Can I really write an entire 50,000 word novel in just one month? Of course, but it’s gonna be pretty bad, in fact I would guess incredibly bad. So I had a light bulb go off in my head. Why not bring the blog up to speed and in November I will post my daily novel offering for the rest of the world to laugh with me. I do reserve the copyright on all things posted on this blog so don’t be tempted. I doubt you’d want to claim what I write in November anyway. So starting November 1st I will upload my days writing in the evening and give you a chance to see how one writer proceeds to go insane. If you’d like to join the rest of us with our November madness visit www.nanowrimo.org and sign up to take part in the official word count. Maybe you’ll upload your novel writings so I can enjoy them as much as you enjoy mine.