Silly Reigns Today

I've done something silly. Well, two things really. To be honest, I've done a lot more than two, but today I'm only going to admit to two things. Both concern cabinet cards (old studio-posed photos on heavy card stock) that I've framed and that keep me company here in my office. I laugh myself silly every time I look at them. The reason I laugh myself silly is because I've added captions to each one, typed and attached to the front of the glass below the photos.

The first:
The caption for a photo of a perfectly respectable older lady in a high collared dress, gray hair pulled back wearing glasses and the loveliest hint of a smile.
"Her smile conveyed the accumulation of decades of happiness, months of family holidays, two weeks of a very well-spent honeymoon, a certain weekend in Chicago and a recipe for rum cake."

The second:
The caption for a photo of five women in Victorian dress grouped together as one appears to read to the others from a letter. When I saw this photo I had my idea of what the letter might read.
"Congratulations! We're very happy to accept for publication your chilling tale of revenge ad murder, Gruesome Tidings at Asylum Lake."

Ta and da.

.........counting down to 2010

Looking back, I didn’t have any epic fails concerning my resolutions for 2009 except for leaving the country. Didn’t make it out of the States. Hmmmm, maybe I’m more of a homebody than I thought! The writing went well, though I didn't finish the new mystery. I entered a writing contest, worked hard and polished several short stories as well as having a good outline for the new mystery. We did a lot more entertaining than in years past and loved it. I worked on my own hooked rug patterns and found that doing so frees the mind to think and juggle ideas and find better ways to express what I want in my writing. Still, the biggest thing to happen this year was the change in my thinking because of my emergency appendectomy. I might not have done the writing or anything else if I hadn’t finally realized how much I want to do and how little freaking time there might be in which to do it. I’m not in a position to give up work, and I actually love what I do, but I did turn down additional work at the end of the year. I made the decision to work less and write more, work less and entertain more, work less and live more.

For 2010, I’m going to blend resolutions with the determination to take the time to do what I need to do. Not make the time or find the time, but take it.

Finish the new mystery
Send out the old mystery (thanks, Em, for the kick in the pants about this).
Create a new hooked rug to enter into the 2011 KIA community art show.
Actually use the Wii fitness stuff.
Send out the short stories to find their way and place in the world.
Entertain more.
Go to a writers’ conference.

To quote Rainer Maria Rilke, “And now let us welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been.”

Thankful

For friends, for family and for the fact that the family, young and old, is better after needing various surgeries this past year. I’m thankful for our pets. I’m thankful for a lovely Thanksgiving when we had a new voice in our home. I’m also thankful I took the advice in my last post. I have nearly 16,000 words on the mystery, a short story polished until it is gleaming, plus serious work on a second short story.

Lots for which to be thankful!

Musings on musings

I had an amazing conversation with the amazing Em the other night. We talked of writing and of motivation, what works, what doesn’t and what we do or don’t do to get our butts in the chair to write. Our conversation touched on some BIG THINGS, namely how creativity begets creativity and how sitting on the sofa mindlessly watching television that is not well written enough to justify our attention ain’t getting it done. I’m so much better than I used to be, but....

I’m one of the world’s great dreamers. I talking epic dreams here. Dreams I’ve decided must come true. Ah, there’s the rub. I’ve focused on the DECIDING they must come true without putting focus on the doing what needs to be done for them to come true.

I’m also a doer, but not one of the world’s great ones. Part of the problem, maybe the biggest part, is one of lack of desperation. I like my house, my husband, my family, my friends, my work and my income. I’ve become complacent.

So, it comes down to finding where desperation lives inside me. Where’s the big terror? And when I examine this thought, I know exactly where terror and desperation live. For me, they live in that horrible place of passing time. Passing, passing, passing. Every day, every hour, every moment passing.

There’s an old saying, Five frogs were sitting on a log. Two decided to jump off. How many were left? Five. This is the difference between deciding and doing.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do.

The Long and the Short of it

The long of it is the mystery novel, a decent first draft of which I’m still hoping to have completed before the end of the year. This year. Yikes. Considering that the noise I keep hearing is not the wind wuthering around the house, but time howling hysterically as it zips past, I’d better get moving.

The short of it is several short stories, one of which, I hope, is very close to being sent out into the world. I also have a one page flash fiction piece that I should be sending out this week. Then there are three other short stories that I need to polish and revise. Then rewrite. Then polish and revise. And then, maybe, if they don’t need another rewrite, they’ll be heading out into the world, too.

I'm wishing myself luck.

Anniversary

Whoa! It’s been two years since I started this blog. Two years that have gone by in the blink of an eye. Time is swift. I haven’t been a total slacker, though, thank goodness, and I’ve made steps lately to get closer to my goals. In my work, I have a big job that I complete over the summer. (This is my excuse for not blogging over the last two months) Once this is done, I’m going to write and create on Fridays. If I’m lucky, also on Saturdays.

Please notice that I did not say, “I’m going to try to write and create on Fridays.” I’m going to do it. I’ve been so excited about writing lately, due in a large part to the time spent at Panera with Em the first Saturday morning of the month, laptops and coffee at hand as well as the once a month meeting of my writing group. Yippie!

So, Happy Anniversary and wish me luck!

Telling Stories

My husband and I have been spending a lot of time together in recent months due to a surgery apiece. This is great and I’m not complaining, but the problem with so much together time is that we have no new stories to share. Whatever adventures we’ve had, we’ve experienced together. No new stories! As a storyteller, this just about breaks my heart. Fortunately, things are back to “normal” now and the phrase “How was your day” is once again answered by twisting and distorting and downright lying about all the funny details that have made up our time apart.

Story telling. Sometimes the story is simply the retelling of a movie or book plot to someone who never saw or read it. Sometimes the story is a tweaking of everyday events tied to something completely unrelated, a leap that takes both the teller’s imagination and the listener’s willingness to play along. Sometimes the story is a “revitalized” family story that grows more outrageous with each telling. Sometimes the story is completely new, something I’ve made up that would not exist if I didn’t tell the tale. Sometimes it seems like lightning flashing in my head, the connections made, the normal turned inside out and a story blooms into being, a story I’m creating for myself at the same time I’m creating it for others.

My husband happens to be away this week and I have all sorts of stories to tell. So will he.