Gratitude Monday - The Olds Me Edition

Yesterday a memory floated into my awareness during one of my many daily unguarded moments. It made me laugh, and for a variety of reasons I am grateful.

Back in the mid -1980s I worked at the newspaper in Olds. I'd been away from reporting a few years when I got the job, but I got the work done each week. That's what matters.
Deadline was Tuesday afternoon. The paper had its own printing press so that left some flexibility in when things got done, but I preferred to get done earlier rather than later so that meant getting as much done on Monday as was possible. Monday was also the day I got the police report from the Olds RCMP detachment at 1:30 p.m. and then made the 10 minute drive to Didsbury for the report from that detachment.

Usually I'd get back to the office a bit after 3:30 p.m., slip down the alley to The Beehive, a convenience store, for a solid pick-me-up snack and then settle at my desk.
And that's when it happened.
I'd look down at my notebook, swing my vision to the blank paper in the electric typewriter and think:"What am I doing here? I can't write!"

I had a good chuckle yesterday when I remembered this bit of silliness. Of course I could write, but it didn't stop the occasional bit of panic.

I got over it at some point. I don't recall when I stopped thinking it, but I am grateful that I did. I am grateful that I saw through the absurdity of it. I am grateful that at some point back then thinking I wasn't qualified for my job suggested the people who had hired me were easily fooled. That was both insulting and silly in the extreme. It made me flip my insecurity over and tickle its tummy until it spilled its secrets.
I'd been looking at the world all wrong. Once it righted and I admitted my ability to write everything went well.
I am grateful I came to that realization three decades ago, and grateful for the memory and the laugh it gave me.

Gratitude Monday --Inside Edition

Yesterday was cold. Snow was persistent though so thin one had to know it was there to see it.
I did not have to go out for anything and for that I am grateful.

Also, I got some writing done. I am grateful for that, too.

Gratitude Monday -- Ask and Ye Shall Receive Edition or: Oh, My Hat

I decided the other day I needed a conical hat. I needed it to help me get in character and get back into the manuscript I am editing.
I finished the first draft of it last June. It went down a few different paths, one as far as chapter 14, but I eventually found the story I was to tell and it got done.
It sat for several months.  I wrote something else that is now simmering on a mental back burner as I fix this one up.
But back to the hat.
I often have a prop or two around when writing to help me focus. I bought cowboy boots for the vampire western, a fedora for the story of the man who went to the wrong side of heaven and had to do God's dirty work to get a new life, and for this story I made myself a pine staff and took up drawing.
It wasn't quite enough. I wanted the style of hat commonly associated with witches.
I said so on Facebook on Friday. There was some loose talk of a cousin maybe making me one. She'd already sent me an infinity scarf which helped me with the first draft of this story ( thanks again, Terry) so she'd already helped in a big way.
I thought I might check the dollar stores as one never knows what one may find on a shelf. Meantime, my husband offered to make me one.
As there were none on the shelves Mike did make the hat for me.  Black construction paper,  a leg from a pair of pants that my once belonged to my dad later worn by Mike, and the cheap hat I bought in Australia in the early nineties.
Mike rolled up the paper, cut it down several times, glued on the pants leg and pinned it all to the hat.
It is wonderful, and for it all I am grateful.
It has a nice weight to it, if a bit heavy, but it is a good place to store my thinky thoughts while rewriting.
Because no description can ever do it justice:

Hat with infinity scarf.

A character photo, this time with reading glasses and staff.

Please click to enlarge photos for the full glory.

A Visit to the Discard Pile

I've been culling the herd the last few days and it is not easy.
The herd in this case is all the written-on paper I've collected over years some of which dates back to my teens.
I wasn't going to write about it, but this post made me realize the catharsis of writing about it is integral to it.
Much of it was written on  by me, but I've got my share of newspaper clippings of items I found amusing. Those were easy to toss.

For example: Years ago a man in Bristol was once so depressed had a friend kill him. The fellow was losing his hair and got it into his head surgery on his testicles would stop the loss.
He had the surgery though the article did not say what kind of surgery was involved.

*

Another fellow beat a charge of driving naked from the waist down after he convinced the judge having his girlfriend on his lap rendered his partial nudity invisible to the public.

*

About 30 years ago Alberta's then Solicitor General Graham Harle was caught with a hooker.
He said at the time he was researching Edmonton's prostitution problem. I kept a small news story about this noting that Penthouse magazine named him Researcher of the Month.

*

All these are amusing enough, but I don't need to keep them.

Culling some of my writing has been more difficult though plenty of the older stuff has been tossed with barely a second thought. But some needs a second or third thought and others I will keep simply because it acts as anchor to a specific point in life.

Here's an example:

Pad falls
silent under the stars
through the fields
past the forest edge.
Home.

*

I've been meaning to do this for years. I am a pack rat by nature, but easy as some of these are to toss it still gives me a pang.
This was me, this is what I felt, thought, believed, wanted at a certain time in my life.
It is my personal  history in words. As the ink and paper get slotted into recycling or shredding a bit of me is discarded with it.
It is difficult, but necessary.
I have no need for these items. I have need for the space in my home and in my soul that will be free once they are gone.
And one day, if I don't, someone else will have to do it. If I do it myself now, then the items I collected or created are sent away with love and thanks.
It may not mean anything to the inanimate object, but it does mean something to me.

Time To Wake Up

Spiritual awakening is great.
I'm all for it, but the manifestations of it can leave a lot to be desired.
Specifically No.11 on the above-linked list, the limited desire to do anything, is the one I'm struggling with right now.
Writing is how I define myself. It has been since I was five years old and put together what I knew in my heart I wanted with the word that described it.
I wrote on Monday and some yesterday, too. In fact I wrote a page before breakfast. I'm currently doing a massive rewrite of a manuscript duller than watching a TV channel with no signal.
I plug away, but the fun, the joy, the intense desire to bound out of bed and pound the keyboard is missing in action. If my desire to write were hot wax, then currently it would be long cooled into blocks.

Meditation and self-hypnosis (I am a certified transpersonal hypnotherapist. I know what to do.) helps, when I get around to doing it. This important part of my life is being held in abeyance. I choose to believe it's because I need a break.
As the link noted, one has to shut down to reboot.
A recent spirit message reminded me to go with the universal flow. That is, whatever's going on I should simply accept it for what it is and enjoy it as much as I can.
I try.  It is frustrating to know what I should do and what I want to do, and yet have no compelling desire to do it.

Certain of the ascension symptoms are happening concurrently. Again, this is great because I know it's going to end well.

Eleven years ago I quit my paid employment to write books.
I have done that.
I should have noted when I put it out to the Universe that I was quitting to write books to be commercially published and physically available on bookstore shelves.
Sign No. 9 of the second link talks about quicker manifestations.
Good.
How about it Universe?
I'm waking up. I'll be done with all these frustrating symptoms soon.
I put it out to You about commercial publication of my manuscripts, and thanks for all you do.

So tell me readers, what about you? Got the symptoms? How's it going?
Or is this the first you've heard of it?

Back At It. Soon

Shortly before we left for Guatemala I started rewriting one of my manuscripts. I was hoping it would kick start my thoughts about it while we were away. 

It worked, but not as well as I'd hoped.

Getting away is a great way to refresh your mind, your energy, and your soul. I thought not having a computer in front of me it would free my thoughts to roam at will.

They did, and they were happy.

Over the course of the two weeks many ideas for rewriting flowed to me along with ways to improve other manuscripts. 

It was good. I was renewed. Invigorated even.

Then I came home, fired up the computer and my mind went as blank as_______.

Sigh.

I am sure everything will be fine in a few more days. Travel is wonderful, but it requires recovery time.

I did open a file on a manscript earlier and made a few corrections. As I did I felt fog clearing, gears grinding, the quickening brought by a cool morning breeze.

In another day or so when the last of the trip laundry is put away and I've caught up on the bills and  sleep and my thoughts have gathered I will be writing again.

I'm looking forward to it.

Two Sentence Tuesday -- Two On The Go

I'm back in the flow.

 
After a bit of a break I'm back writing some original material. I have two works on the go right now, plus I'm  doing a hard-copy edit of BloodLovers.
I'm not sure what either WIP is really about yet. It's an odd thing to say as I am their creator,  but I mean they haven't clarified themselves to me yet.
A few days ago I finally got a proper idea for a story that first occurred to me last fall. I let it rest as I was busy with something else.
I started it twice and let it go. Last week I realized I'd started the story too early and my character names were all wrong.
I'm more than 1800 words in on The Font. Another reason for abandoning it was it was stepping over the line into horror. It's leaning that way again. Instead of resisting I'll go with it and see what comes out. It may not want to tread there at all.
The other is The Reluctant Psychopomp. A psychopomp is a being who escorts the dead to the afterworld.
The reluctant part hasn't made itself known yet. All I can do is write and see what happens.
I worked on The Font yesterday morning, edited BloodLovers in the afternoon, and added a bit to the psychopomp's story last night.
It was a good day of work and I still found time to read. I started Lolita on Sunday. I bought it 30 years ago and for whatever reason I didn't read it. I think I may have read the first page, then set it aside. I'm kind of glad I waited. I'm not sure I would have appreciated Nabokov's rich use of the language back in my twenties.
Here are two from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, (Berkley Books, 1981):
"Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman, Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness."
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And from The Font:

"The Mother faced them holding up a long, thin object that reminded Brundel of the knife her father used for deboning meat and fish.

What were they doing? This was a casting ceremony."

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Simmering the Cold Away

Turkey Soup. The creamy look is from blenderized potatoes.

Yesterday was soup day. Husband has a cold, I am considering one myself, and I wanted to warm up the house. Soup does that, literally and psychologically.
The carcass went in the pot before 9 a.m. and I let it simmer until mid-afternoon. Good stock takes patience.
We had some leftover boiled potatoes in the fridge. Rather than just chop and toss I decided to sic the immersion blender on them.
I'm glad I did. It made the soup thick and creamy.
Soup is a way to get shed of veggies and whatnot that may be wearing out their welcome. I was able to give a good home to a turnip who ran into a bit of bad luck and wound up in the freezer.
It was mushy and had to be used up quickly, but I think the freezing made it sweeter than it was originally.
The gentle simmer, the soothing, enticing smell, and the knowledge that the evening meal was taken care of helped me write, too.
It was a good day. Even the impending cold didn't seem so bad.

 

Two Sentence Tuesday--More Words

 Where are my characters taking me?

I've added plenty of words to the manuscript lately. I'm starting to get an idea of where the characters want to go, but they're still being coy. I'd threaten to walk away and leave their stories untold, but we both know I can't do it.
They have me, at least for now, and they know it.

From Dead Broke:
"The being on my left twinkled his eyes toward me. He had a 20 year old's face framed by long white hair, and a gentle smile that took my troubles and threw them over a cliff."
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I've been blessed to have plenty of reading time lately. The smoke from hundreds of fires in B.C. settled over us. Much as I like the smell of woodsmoke, it got to be a bit much so I stayed indoors, writing or reading or even  housework when my eyes needed a rest.
It gave me time to lose myself even more in what I was reading. I'm reluctant to come up for anything when reading, but last week I read The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold  (Little, Brown, and Company, 2002) and I fought back every hint from my body that it was time to do something else. Whatever it wanted, I turned a page instead.
Two sentences:
"Every day he got up. Before sleep wore off, he was who he used to be."
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Until I Try

An osprey takes wing near Gardiner, Montana.

I've been away from the blog for a few days. Okay, nearly a week. But I have two really good excuses, one of which is I was away for the weekend.
It was the Heritage Day long weekend here so my husband and went to Yellowstone. It was a wonderful trip and I am so glad I did it. I hope to get back to spend more time there.
The other excuse was I am conducting an experiment on myself. I've committed to writing 1,000 words a day.
I started this last week and did it three days in a row. The fourth day was the first day of the mini-vacation and we left at 5:30 a.m. Yes, I could have written the quota, but I needed my sleep.
I'm pleased to report that the writing sessions for those three days went well. I sat down and pounded out the quota and then some in one sitting. Said sitting was less than an hour.
Even though I haven't reviewed what I wrote, I am confident that up to 100 words each day will prove to be keepers.
I've done this for other manuscripts though never formalized it. This time I've made the commitment and I've made an hypnosis suggestion to make it so.
I've been a Transpersonal Hypnotherapist for 14 years. I've experimented on myself many times and was pleased with the results including the time I used self-hypnosis to cut down on the amount of potato chips I eat.
Last week I made a word quota suggestion on tape plus threw in the phrase "thousand words a day" at random points as I was relaxing myself.
Has it worked?
Well, I'll tell you this, I'm much too tired today to do anything with my manuscript yet I feel compelled to fire up a file and write. It's similar to the craving a smoker gets when she needs a smoke ( I'm an ex-smoker. I know of what I speak.) or a desperate need for good, dark chocolate.
It's too early to call it a success, but it looks good so far.
And, like the osprey in the photo leaving its nest, I won't know until I try.

Two Sentence Tuesday -- A Great Read

What a great read.
I've just finished reading Invisible Boy by Cornelia Read. It was witty, passionate, gripping, taut, and sad all at the same time.
I generally don't read murder mysteries although I do enjoy them. This one came to me through a contest held by the gracious and talented Women of Mystery. I am so tickled my name was drawn.
I'd been looking forward to it since I won several months ago, but there were books ahead of it so it waited patiently on the TBR pile.
I am so glad it's number came up.

Two sentences:
"I finally slept okay, considering.
Dean woke up at dawn, his circadian rhythm still governed by some lingering neurochemical trace of childhood heifers and cornfields."

-Invisible Boy, Cornelia Read (Grand Central Publishing 2010)

#

As for me, well, yes I've been writing. I changed my approach on Dead Broke after realizing I needed another major character and that it required, at least for now, a prologue.
The problem is my new character doesn't want to do anything. She didn't do much alive and she is reluctant to change now that she's dead.


I am trying to forge ahead in hopes that she will blossom. I am sure she wants to.

Here are two from the prologue:

"The Guild Mother crossed the name off her list.
"We did as we could. Miracles are up to someone else."
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Twofer Tuesday -- Ducks In A Row?

A Common Goldeneye duck and her ducklings out for a late morning swim.

I'm still editing A Fly on the Wall. I had a particularly sticky problem in chapter eight that took a while to sort out. Or, to make the photo relevant, I had trouble getting all my ducks in a row.
I eventually sorted it out. The rest of the corrections in logic should be easier.
#
Here's a freshly edited passage:
"Brelyan turned on his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. What was he missing?"
#
Our current bedtime story is from The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Vol 1. (University of Chicago Press, 1985)
We decided to read Gogol after my husband found a reference to him in one of my cookbooks. Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka sounded like our kind of stories.
A quick internet search sealed it. In the second picture Gogol looks quite a bit like my husband. I ordered both volumes and offered them as my husband's birthday present.

Here are two sentences, and two extras from The Fair at Sorochintsy:
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" ' Why it looks like two men: one on top, the other under. Which of them is the devil I can't make out yet!'
'Why, who is on top?'
'A woman!'
'Oh, well, then that's the devil!' "
#
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Twofer Tuesday -- The Write Hat for the Job

It was nagging at me for quite some time, but I was unsure what to do about it. I felt the need for a hat. Not just any hat either. It had to be a fedora. The question was, where does one go to get it?

The nagging grew more intense late last week as I got stronger pulls to work on all four of my novel mss. even the one that is unlikely to ever see the cold light of day.

Then we went to Red Deer last Friday ( a central Alberta city 50 mi. to the east) and as we approached the feeling intensified. I must have a fedora. Now.

I was walking through a mall when I passed a hat store that always seemed to be overfilled with ball caps. But this time as I walked by a shelf display teeming with fedoras threw itself at me.

I'm pleased to report the fedora and I are very happy together. I wear it as I take chapter notes on A Fly on the Wall. Stray scenes from other mss. flow into my mind with suggestions on just what I need to do to satisfy them.
The hat keeps them in check, corralling my thoughts and organizing them into a chute for later launching. It's a good hat, and it's helping me write.
I still have the chew toys as needed and pick out a tune or two on the guitar as needed, but the hat is helping me get it done.

As I said earlier I'm taking chapter notes. This is my way of finding all the times I was repetitive, or contradictory, or simply made no appreciable sense. I also see more mistakes and have the sense to fix them as I find them.

Here's a bit from A Fly on the Wall:

She moved her head in closer to his. "I think she's got a drop or two of the blood in her, that's what. I studied Cryptozoology, you know. Crosses and half-bloods and miscegenation, if you will. Happens all the time."

#
I'm currently reading some Philip K. Dick. Why, oh why didn't I get to this man sooner? Science fiction is my first love and I'm just now getting back to it after years of straying.
We went to a bookstore during our trip to Red Deer and I bought two of his books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ( the inspiration for Blade Runner) and A Scanner Darkly.

I had a quick look at both before consigning them to the TBR pile, but the second one called me. I had to read it.
Here are two sentences :

" 'The receptor sites in his brain are what I've read usually goes first,' Donna said placidly. 'Someone's brain where he's gotten a bad hit or like that, like too heavy. ' "

-A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (Vintage Books 1991, copyright 1977)

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Twofer Tuesday--A Real Ending

I'm happy to report I finally did it. I finally wrote a proper ending to A Fly on the Wall.
The final scene has been in my mind since before I finished the manuscript last summer. I knew how it had to end. The problem was getting there. I didn't have a logical reason to bring about the logical conclusion.
The other day I was winding up the second edit when I realized it had to be fixed. Now. No more waiting and hoping that I'd be inspired in the next pass.
If I kept my weak, happy, all -tightened-up conclusion in any longer I'd be tempted to give up and keep it. That would be wrong and stupid.

Action had to be taken. I had to fix the second -last chapter and rewrite most of the final chapter. This meant guitar playing and chew toys. I strummed for a bit and then bought some gelatinous fruit chewies that got me started and I finished with a toothpick stuck out at a jaunty angle from my mouth.
The ending's not perfect, but neither is it embarrassingly sewed-up and happy. It'll take some rest, and some strumming and chewing, but I'll one day have something to send out.

Here are two fresh lines from A Fly on the Wall:

"Just like the first time, it was over and done before Brelyan knew what happened. One moment he and Nick were about to say goodbye, the next they were in a small cage not sure what happened or who they were."

I'm reading Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits (Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2005.) I saw the movie years ago, sometime in the nineties I think, and loved it. It made me want to read the book. I found it a short while ago and am so happy that it made it to the top of my TBR pile.

Two sentences I read:

"The Jesuit's index finger, which was already raised to illustrate additional tortures, remained suspended like a lightning rod above his head. People stopped breathing, and those whose heads had been nodding suddenly woke up."

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Tuesday Twosomes - Cleaning Time

I'd have to say the editing I'm doing is more like cleaning. I have some extensive rewriting to do on the ending of A Fly on the Wall and yet I'm concentrating on fixing the typos and assorted other errors. I claim it is because it gives me a framework with which to think about what I might do.
Mostly, it lets me put it off a bit longer as I haven't decided the direction it would take.
The current ending is completely logical, but too pat, too feel-good, and much too convenient for my liking. It feels tacked on, and in many ways it was. I wanted to finish the story so it could simmer and then I could get to fixing it up.
I'd like it to be a reasonably happy conclusion with a wee dram of edge to keep readers from being too comfortable. All I have to do is sort out how to do it.

Here are two sentences from a chapter I edited a few days ago:

"He sat quietly as he had been directed. The mirror had been told to be quiet as well, but no one was willing to guarantee that would happen."

And from what I read about the habits of the American Goldfinch:

A goldfinch and a pine siskin contemplate sharing a bath.

"Though bathing is less frequent that preening, it is also an important part of feather maintenance. It provides an additional means of keeping the feathers clean and may also be important for skin care."
- Wild Bird Guides American Goldfinch, by Alex L.A. Middleton, (Stackpole Books 1998)

Thanks so much for coming by.
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Twofer Tuesday - A Busy Week

I've made a bit of headway. I try to put down at least 750 words a day on the WIP. It's a manageable amount and some progress gets made. I thought I was going to do twice that amount, but discovered I was being a bit ambitious.
There's gardening to get at, and ordinary household matters as well.

Also, last week I was called away on important business

which prevented me from writing for a few days.
I did manage to get some reading and writing done, though.

Two lines I read:
"The gentleman gave Bekka a polite half-bow, stepped sideways into the shadows, and vanished. The adepts do it better, Bekka told herself."

-The Price of the Stars, by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald (Tor, 1992)
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From my current WIP Dead Broke:

"It was a funny swirling happy feeling in that part of me where the heart had been. The one that got shattered by the bullet."

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Twofer Tuesday - Salvage Mode

I was thrilled to win a copy of Invisible Boy from the Women of Mystery.
It arrived Monday by courier and I got to sign for it. Signing for stuff makes me feel important.
It's hardcover and it feels good in my hands.
I had a look inside and can't wait to get to it. It's on the TBR pile for now, but I think I'll be getting to it sooner rather than later.
From what I've read, I believe I am in for a treat.

Here are the first two lines of Invisible Boy, Cornelia Read (Grand Central Publishing, 2010)
"So here's what I love about New York City: if someone acts like a dumb asshole and you call them on acting like a dumb asshole, the bystanders are happy about it.
Anywhere else I've ever lived they just think I'm a bitch."

I started something last week in the hopes that writing it would help the idea to solidify. Instead I've gotten about 3,000 words in and have realized most of them will have to be scrapped.
Such is life.
Meanwhile I have two sentences I'm fond of and I will make every effort to find them a good home.
From my current WIP Dead Broke:

"It was a calf-length second skin of a red dress topped with a smile. Her eyes met his and the smile broadened."

Thank you for reading me.
For more, or to get in on the fun, please see the Women of Mystery.

Twofer Tuesday with Sherlock

Another Tuesday where I get to talk about what writing-- such as it is-- I've done, and go on a bit about something I've read. It's one of my favourite days.
I'm clipping along with the clean-up editing of A Fly on the Wall. I thought I'd be done by now, but life gets in the way. I'm not complaining. Hell, I'm glad of it. Distractions can be irritating, but they give me time to think and somewhere along the line I've realized that's good.

I've managed to get a fair amount of reading done. I have to admit something, though, I gave up on the book I mentioned last week. I'd read the info in it in other books over the years. Not only was it a rehashing for me, the type was really small. I sent it to its rightful owner and cracked the spine on a proper book: The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I adored this book. I was riveted to the couch most of Saturday and rarely came up for air until it was done.

Here's a sample:

"The moon was shining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville near her, which raised the hair upon the heads of these three dare-devil roisterers, but it was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye rested upon."
- Arthur Conan Doyle (Red Classics, 2007)

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I'm just at the two-thirds mark of the manuscript. I'll be done shortly and then I can take out a hard copy. The weather's getting warm enough that I might just stretch out on a deck chair on the porch to do the editing. It won't even seem like work.

Here's a two and some extras from AFOTW.

"She turned her head slightly and looked at the mirror and the reflection of her record player.
Why not? Why not put on some Glenn Miller? Or maybe some Vera Lynn. 'The Songbird of the Blitz' herself. It was that kind of a day."

Thank you so much for coming by and reading, and commenting, and all that other good stuff. I appreciate it.
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Tuesday Twofers – More Reading Than Writing

A scene west of town bordering the North Saskatchewan River. Not much to do with today's post other than the book I'm reading has mountains in it.

Writing has taken a bit of a hit since I started reading again. I’d like to think it’s only because we are limited to 24 hours in the day (stupid rotation cycle) and some of those hours need to be spent eating and sleeping. The real story, I suspect, is that I’ve got so much reading to catch up on that I must set aside the writing for a bit. I know better than to stop it all together. No writing makes weird things happen to me. And not the good, fun weird either.
So I’ve been careful to open up the occasional file and do a bit of work. It certainly doesn’t help that I’m editing instead exploding with raw creation. But writing is writing and at least I’ve got a hand in it still.
I was working on a section that was not working so I sent a bit to the remnants file and did a bit of raw creation. It was fun, but still not right. I finally had to admit the section I loved had no business being in the story. The whole chapter got sent to remnants. It’s not a total loss, though. I’ll be able to work bits in later.
Since then I’ve been honing my cut and paste skills on the manuscript. Once the dust settles and the bleeding stops I’ll be able to assess what I’ve done.
Until then, I’ll find every reason, excuse, and spare second of time to read.

On Sunday I picked up a Zane Grey that I’d started in July. I am sure I wrote about it earlier. The bad guy is “Dick Hardman” and Grey uses “ejaculate” in his dialogue tags. A lot. It’s hard not being 12 when I read it.

From Valley of Wild Horses, Zane Grey, (Pocket Books, 1973) where hero Panhandle Smith has just found his family and his true love, Lucy, who is forcibly engaged to his sworn enemy.

“ ‘Panhandle Smith!’ she whispered, gazing up into his face ‘I heard your story. It thrilled me. . . . But I never understood—till you faced Dick Hardman. . . . Oh, what have you done for me?... Oh, Pan, you have saved me from ruin.’ ”

I have done some work on The Legend of Shallal. I’m hoping now that the days are colder and greyer I’ll get even more done on it.
Here’s something from the past week:

“I haven’t been male in so long I wondered if I still knew how to use the body.” Shallal grinned. “You made me think the other day. I thought I ought to take it out and dust if off. In case I need it again.”

For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.
And thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it.

Twofer Tuesday – Stringing a Few Words Together

I’ve been doing my best to get the editing done on my first manuscript. I’ve found I prefer raw creation to trying to fix up writing that may not amount to anything later on. It’s good exercise, though. Best way to learn is to do.
Somewhere between blogging, getting the usual daily life matters under control, going away for an extended weekend to BC and recovering from same, and occasionally opening up a file to edit, I’ve picked up the guitar again.
It feels good. I’m not very good at it as I inherited my musical talent from a relative who had none to spare, but I’m enjoying it.
I had the sense to spend the money and get a good one, a Larrivee, with a wonderful, soothing sound. This helps considerably when I do something . . . unmusical.
It had been so long since I’d held it in my arms I’d forgotten which key tuned G and which tuned high E. I was madly turning the nut and nothing was happening. Eventually I caught on and got it done properly.
Not only is it soothing, it helps me write. I can think better as I strum or pick and the effects last.
This brings me to something I read this week. The very first song I learned to play was Down in the Valley and I played it again recently.
Here are a few lines from it:

“Writing this letter, containing three lines, answer my question, will you be mine?
Will you be mine, dear, will you be mine? Answer my question, will you be mine?”

The songbook doesn’t list any writer attached to it, but I found this.

As for me, well, I’ve gotten a bit done here and there. Here’s something from The Legend of Shallal:

“Darahfenn brought his antenna around from the back of his head and stroked his recalcitrant face scale. He’d always hoped the gesture made him look thoughtful.”

For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.
And thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it.