Sorry that I am a week late. Life caught up with me.

 Dear Reader,

My schedule has been a mess since I was sick a few months back. I'm trying to fix it but I'm having problems sleeping which just makes things worse. Sleep deprivation is not your friend. Books are still in a holding pattern because this week has been full of appointments for various family members and I'm cleaning up a disaster. You know how they say if Mom gets sick, the whole house will go to pot. For a long time, I just thought it was an expression. Then I had pneumonia for two months and it happened.

I do have one thing to report, I'm making slow progress on all this knitting and crochet I am doing to make presents for people. If I'm lucky, I will have things finished by the holidays. I feel a bit guilty that I knit so slowly, my son's sweater has been on the needles for two and a half years. Fortunately, I have the back third partly done. Now I just have to knit 24/7 to finish it. It's a WWI pattern from the Red Cross that I found on the Smithsonian's website. I thought 'oh, this looks easy enough.' and then my son saw it and declared that was exactly what he wanted me to make for him. Looks are deceiving and it is clear that my son has inherited his father's patience of death on this front.

I would post more, but I have knitting to do and coffee to drink so I can stay awake. Tomorrow, I will do my best to come up with something more directly related to this blog and not so boringly domestic.

Up coming recovery period.

 Dear Reader,

I am taking the next three days off from blogging all over creation. Sunday's Craft of Writing Post will be back to back with Monday's Flora & Fauna post. I just need some time to recover from this migraine and head cold. I'll see all y'all on Monday. ♥

Word count? What is that you speak of?

 Dear Reader,

Here we are at the final day of NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. Many people are at or real close to the finish line. Others are slogging along, possibly cursing their decision to participate in these challenges. Word count is the big gauge of success and source of stress during this month. Posting across six blogs, I have absolutely no idea what my word count is. It took some stress off my shoulders, but six blogs ... that was a lot of work. It has cemented in my mind that some of these blogs are going to be updated on a weekly basis.  Because updating all of them in one day eats my entire morning of writing time.

The serial stories are stalled right now. The science fiction book is stalled because my notes in pencil are become illegible due to fading. At least I found them. The series of modern fantasy is on hold as I am awaiting contact back from the person who requested the work to be done. We had a gentleman's contract initially based on a virtual handshake. I have four books written and a fifth started. It is time to take that gentleman's contract and put it on paper to make clear what is expected of everyone involved. I'm having difficulty contracting him, because he's in grad school right now and busy as heck.

My fantasy series is on hold because I'm correcting errors in one book and trying to make things work according to my plot map in the other book. Hopefully books six and seven of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar will be out by late spring. In case you are curious, the story arc plotted for the whole series takes place over thirty books. I have snippets and bits of ideas for the other books, but I have to finish what I have on the block first.

I have nothing witty or insightful for you today.

 Dear Reader,

Dealing with the stress of how health insurance is a protection racket has rendered me markedly devoid of ideas for this blog. I could talk about how bad it is or how it should be illegal the way they screw people over, but everyone knows this. Don't even get me started on dental insurance or vision coverage. Those are luxuries.

To say the least, my afternoon turned sour and has successfully shot down what plans I had for writing. I suppose it is time to go work on some dishes or otherwise try to be useful. I'm sorry y'all.

Flora & Fauna: No magic plants today.

 Dear Reader,

I have been so busy trying to keep my real plants alive that all world building regarding plants has fallen by the wayside. I would share with you a picture of my small indoor garden, or as Beloved calls it, the jungle. The problem is the plants are in sorry shape. I have three that need to be potted up. They're in bad shape because they're rootbound. I have others that have this weird white fungus growing on the soil. I don't know how they got infected with this, but I have some Neem oil to spray on it and kill the fungus. Long story short, I have quite a few plants that look more dead than alive and I'm trying to fix that. It's not going that great. But as long as I keep trying, I'll probably manage to nurse them back to health.

Craft of Writing: Something funny but useful.

 Dear Reader,

Here's a tip for keeping your preteens and teens from completely invading your writing time. Fart. My boys will either run away going 'Oh Gods, MOM!' or back off a solid eight feet waving things in my general direction that they hope will make the fart go away. If you're lactose intolerant like me, the farts smell worse (or so I've been told). Compared to my husband's gassiness, I am an amature. 

Once, he dropped a bomb that had me reaching for my inhaler. That evil creature locked the windows of the car and cackled all the way home as I was choking and digging through my purse. So, sometimes, I will threaten them with having their Dad fart at them.

Remember, if anyone objects, let them know if we don't fart, we'll explode.

Have a great Sunday and I hope you had a laugh.

I don't typically post here Saturdays, but it's NaBloPoMo so I have to.

 Dear Reader,

I guess, I could go on a pedantic rant about how my back hurts, coffee is as awesome as tea, or update about my kids' attempts at NaNoWriMo. Instead, I will post a humorous meme, drink my tea, and wait for the Tylenol to start working so my back ache goes away and I can actually focus. In coming meme:

Have a good day, everybody.

Book Review: Beneath the Moon by Yoshi Yoshitani

 

Dear Reader,

Yoshi Yoshitani has done an amazing job in how she handled the tales from around the world and the illustrations she has made for her book are excellent. The stories are delivered in a compact yet elegant format. It ranges from the Arabic folktale of Shahrazad to the Norse myth of the binding of the wolf Fenris. She even included the U.S. folktale of John Henry. I was surprised that she did not include Paul Bunyan but it was clear that there were more tales that Ms. Yoshitanti could have included from around the world that had to leave out for the sake of brevity.

Each tale was treated with respect and a loving hand of someone who delights in stories. The artwork was fantastic and incorporated imagery from the tarot, for Ms. Yoshitanti has made a tarot deck and accompanying guide book to go with this text. (I collect tarot decks. This book and the deck were a birthday present a few weeks ago.) I rate this book 8/10. The only drawback this book really has is the myths are short form and a lot of the interesting detail of the long form myth is not included. 

The Family that Writes together, leaves Mom to edit.

 Dear Reader,

At the beginning of the month I explained what NaNoWriMo was and invited the boys to participate. First week in, my youngest son announced that he had won and handed me his best effort at a graphic novel. There was a lot of foul humor in it and air horns galore. But, he's 14, can I truly expect anything different. His elder brother finished up a train story he was working on over the last two weeks in between doing school work and watching cat videos.

Now, this week, he is nine pages into a new story about a firefighter named Johnson. So far, Johnson has yeeted himself out a window to save a family of pigs, yeeted himself down a flight of crumbling stairs to get to safety, and let off steam from that difficult fire call by raging at his gaming system on video. I'm not quite sure what is more amusing that my son used the word yeet in all seriousness or gamer rage for an audience to laugh at.

He's been laughing as he is writing. I figure that is a good sign. If you can make yourself laugh at a scene, there's a chance a reader will do the same.

The worst plan in the world.

Dear Reader,

When you have a book to write, no money coming in for it, and a ton of other responsibilities, it is the worst plan in the world to devote all your available time to it. Dishes pile up in the sink, you find yourself having weird food combination for your meals (peanut butter and onion sandwiches, anyone?), and the laundry will eventually form a militia and start demanding rights. This is why you have to pace yourself, especially if you are super excited about the idea that you are working with.

You can't let that excitement overrun your responsibilities. A schedule that is detailed may help you get everything done, with writing time as a reward for when you complete crucial tasks. If that doesn't work for you, try out logging tasks and writing time. For an example of what I am describing look up the Bullet Journal format invented by Ryder Carroll. (I may have misspelled his name, but the system is definitely called the Bullet Journal.) Or you can mash the two together as I have to stay on top of things. Pictured below are my planning pages. Every Thursday, I reconcile calendars and plan my next week. (Some how I have become the scheduling maven of the household.)

Let me explain what you see in this picture. The header has space for me to mark down the liturgical date of a kinda obscure religion I follow. That is the short line on the left. The larger line in the middle is for me to write down the Julian calendar date that everyone else follows. And the final short line on the right is for me to note the day of the week.

The column of boxes on the right side are for health tracking stuff. Because I am diabetic and I have some pretty serious mental health problems I'm being treated for, I made some trackers. The first one under the day of the week is tracking how much water I am drinking. The next one below is to track my medication compliance. Following that is my mood scale to help me track my bipolar mood states. In a similar format is the anxiety scale to help me track my CPTSD and general anxiety states. The tracker below that monitors my fasting morning blood sugar.

On the left there is a column of boxes and lines associated with each box. This is where I write tasks, appointments, and important information. I have been using a modified version of the Bullet Journal's symbol code to note appointments, tasks, high priority items, critical priority items, and similar things. The last line of this side of the page is for noting what I am cooking for dinner that night. It works better than having a menu hanging on the blackboard in the kitchen. (It's not a very good blackboard but it's pretty.)

On the back of the page is a series of ruled lines that I use to log major activities and notes of the day. It is basically my mini-journal that talks about important information in a bulleted series of notes.

This system of organization works really well when I remember to use it. But when I get sick or depressed, I forget all about it and everything turns into a mess. Why? Because all my time to do things gets eaten up by being sick or brain fog. I'm still working on finding a way to resolve that challenge.

I knew I should have gone digital with my notes.

Dear Reader,

I found my notes for Dacia's War. The notebook is ruined because of an overwatered plant. As I was working in that notebook, I had the nagging feeling that I should be making a document on the computer with those notes in it. I pushed the feeling aside and continued to work in the notebook. And then after my plants dried out for two weeks, I watered them and the notebook got soaked. A tragedy but one that can be overcome. 

If I can rewrite my first novel after someone deleted it and someone else shredded the paper copy, I can rewrite some plot notes. After all, rewriting is a thing at many stages of the writing process, right?

I need to write on the calendar the days I have to water my plants. This business of getting depressed and not remembering to water them is just not good.

Four posts to be back on track

 Dear Reader,

Between migraines, terrible sleep, and the huge interruption of Turkey Day, I have fallen behind on my post count.  Somehow it is worse in my mind to fall behind on post count than it is to fall behind on wordcount. I don't exactly know what to post this morning. A part of me says I should post a casual poll on what is the best beverage to have at hand while writing. But I don't know how to make a poll on here and it's a stupid question anyways. Everyone knows it is coffee while working on the first draft and tea for editing. The coffee makes you type faster even as you vibrate through space and time while being able to see sound. (I drink a lot of coffee. LOL)

I'm listening to music inspired by the Nordic and Germanic people of antiquity. It gets a little challenging to make sure that they're not promoting Nazi values, White Supremacy, and similar things. I try to keep my listening and the media I consume free of that garbage. One, I know the kids are watching. They're still absorbing information like a sponge. Two, it runs contrary to my religious beliefs. Beating bigots with a bat is more inline with it, and I have worked very hard to control my rage and be a peaceable woman. 

As such, I try to vilify these things in my writing and some of the logical extensions of their extremist arguments. My science fiction series is more than a pulpy romp through space with random jargon. As I get the original material out of my archives, I will be showing it is a fight for equal rights across a stratified social system. There are the wealthy with their designer genes, clones, and designer babies. (Imagine a baby born with a Coach birthmark as a sign of their social currency value.) There are the middle class crushed as brutally as they were in the early Industrial revolution. Included among them are the cast off children of the wealthy. The lowest strata is the poor who live an almost Dickenson like poverty.

Sure, there's going to be pulpy goodness, it's fun to write. But there's going to be some hard looks at the social system that I see evolving over the years. It will be an inquiry into the outcomes of many social pressures currently at play. It will be an inquiry into what makes a person have value. I'll even be taking a look at what makes a person.

Who is tempted to take their writing project to Turkey Day dinner?

 Dear Reader,

This happens to me every year. I get to a point where I am eyeballs deep in a project and Turkey Day hits. I know it would be poor form to bring my project on the computer with me. Something about being engrossed in a laptop, tapping away at the keyboard, is more off putting than counting stitches on a holiday knitting project that you're desperate to get done. Some how, it's just more socially acceptable to be at work on knitting and ignoring everything instead of typing and doing the same.

I am still tempted, even if what I am doing is blogging instead of writing a novel. I just don't want to get behind and I can't stand the thought of breaking my streak when I do manage to get caught up and actually on one. In the morning, I'll be prepping food to bring. In the evening, I'll be burned out. It's rather tiring.

Pencils vs. Pencils vs. Pencils

 Dear Reader,

My sons are highly creative. One enjoys making things and creating his unique version of graphic novels. The other is determined to right "real" books and has been filling up A5 hardbound notebooks as a prodigious rate. They like to swipe pencils from me. Some how, my pencils work better or something? Magic? I don't know. Maybe just because they're mine and the boys see me writing all the time in various formats.

I have a favorite mechanical pencil brand (those yellow ones held up by my pinkie finger) that the kids have liberated often enough that small group of mechanical pencils are all I have left. So, I have decided to be clever. I picked up that box of rainbow colored pencils. Because they're more colorful, the kids have been more inclined to consider them for use. Hopefully this means I get to keep my favorite mechanical pencils for journal writing. They have gone through my other favorite pencils and left me with two. Which is funny, because they are the old fashioned yellow, number two pencils that you have to sharpen.

When I get the time to write in my free writing journal, I use those number two pencils. As they wear down and eventually get small enough that sharpening them with my manual sharpener, I put them in a jar and refer to them as my dead soldiers. I have a whiskey bottle full of pencils as long as my pinkie finger. Since I can no longer enjoy whiskey or wine due to my diabetes and my other medications, I am now filling up a glass peanut butter jar with dead soldiers. It is my reminder and motivator to keep working. A visual thing that helps me keep at it when the depression isn't too bad. And, if I ever take up golf, I will have my own pencils to keep track of scores. LOL

Science Fiction Book on Hold.

 Dear Reader,

The backstory of Angel, Aeolus, and Dregan is currently in a holding pattern. I found my notebooks from '96 where I wrote much of the original story. One slight problem, the pencil is fading. So, I have to attempt to recreate the story via bullet points that I can draw out of the less than legible pencil. Also, I must confess, my handwriting from '96 is rather atrocious compared to today and that makes it a bit harder to read.

Give me a few months and I'll probably get the beginnings of a working draft out of that mess. With how life is going, that book is going to be the NaNoWriMo project of next year. A good amount of what I have is disjointed and a mess. But that's what a first draft is like when you're in high school.

If only I had written it in pen. Ah well, you make do with what you have and try to get the best out of it.

I was going to write another installment of Dacia's War ...

 Dear Reader,

I was going to write for you another installment of Dacia's War but this migraine is making it like thinking through mud. Also, my notes for where the plot was going next have gone missing. I suspect my son, who is attempting to write his own novel, swiped the pages to use the blank sides. As such, I have to re-read the entire serial story and figure out what I was up to. With the chaos of turkey day coming up, it may be two weeks before I post the next installment. I ask your forgiveness. Similar difficulties are going with the Iron Lily.

On one hand, it's awesome that my son has taken to writing like a duck to water. On the other hand, he's going through paper like it's going out of style. And already used up half a package of pencils in the course of two months. He's been eyeing my mechanical pencils covetously. Much like his brother, the artist/crafter, has been eyeing my sharpie pens. Gods help me, these are my children. Chaos is going to happen any moment.

Feature currently under consideration.

 Dear Reader,

I live in a household of readers. I'm lucky that way. I'm considering doing reviews of the bed time stories. I'm going to start by reaching way back into the past (not so far as board books, though) to the Little Golden Books series and discussing how well the material works with the modern day and how well it works for young readers. I will gradually work my way forward to the books that my youngest loves right now.

I'm not decided yet. I basically will have two features doing review/analysis before this one enters the scene. I just know that we have a ton of books that I can do reviews of that may be helpful for people writing children's lit and early YA fiction. I know that I'd like to see more diversity in children's lit and YA fiction. A part of me says doing these reviews may help make that happen. Another part of me says am I going to have time for this? Maybe in January. I don't know.

Book quote in stitches.

 Dear Reader,

The Fear litany from Dune wasn't the only book quote that I embroidered. I also embroidered one from a holy book that I read. I think it came out rather well. The motto is one that I love.

Embroidery? Take a peek!

 Dear Reader,

I rather dislike Frank Hubert's Dune series because of the blatant misogyny in it. At the same time there are a few tidbits that are useful. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, I embroidered the Fear Litany. I didn't get it perfect, but I captured the essence. Here's what the end result looks like.

What do I do when I'm not writing, doing chores, or being sick?

 Dear Reader,

I will admit the three things listed in the subject line eats up a lot of my time. (Laundry = Sisyphus's Boulder, dishes too.) I am passably good as an abstract painter, though I haven't had the room to do it in years. I practice the fiber arts: spinning, weaving, embroidery, knitting, and crochet. I am still attempting to teach myself how to use a lucet and how to do naalbinding (also known as single needle knitting). I say I practice the fiber arts because my skills vary wildly between the different aspects. Some tell me that I am a proficient spinner, but I feel that I still have a great deal to learn and it is merely luck that I can draw out super fine thread from a batt of fiber. I am an utter novice at weaving, knitting, and I feel a fool for attempting to knit a sweater for my 16 yo son. It is taking forever.

I do cook. As a person with diabetes, it's been a challenge to adapt menus and recipes to my needs. Now that my husband also has diabetes, it is even more important to find things that work for us. Thankfully, neither of our sons have it. Type 1 diabetes is terrifying to me. We have type 2. Lately, Beloved and I have been going through family cookbooks to adapt favorite recipes. Getting ready for Thanksgiving is proving to be a long series of scientific experimentation with sugar subs. I rather dread cookie baking. I haven't done it in years because I became despondent over the results my first year with diabetes. I have a little more confidence and I'm going to try to work up some old family favorites with the hope they'll hold together when they come out of the oven.

I have a bit of an indoor garden that is hit or miss for good conditions. So far, everything that is supposed to be green is still green so there is hope for me yet. I gave up on my two outdoor gardens this year because the new neighbors just throw so much garbage in there it looks awful. May it be that next year I can get back to those two plots because they're such a mess right now.

Incoming Feature: Book Reviews

 Dear Reader,

I have the tag for book reviews but I haven't done one in a long time. Right now, I'm reading Beneath the Moon and I will be doing a review of it soon. I need to pick a day of the week for reviews of books I'm reading and a different day for that critical analysis of The Artist's Way. I'm literally in the process of renovating how this blog is organized even as I am coming up with random ramblings to make post count. 

In January, this blog will be different but hopefully improved. I will still have world-building material and character snippets posted. But I want to make this blog more versatile and useful for you, my Reader. It is taking some planning, which is not going so well because I have to catch up on a number of things since I was sick for two months and I'm doing this right now. December is going to be tricky to get all the posting across all six blogs done, but it is one of my goals. Wish me luck.

Critical Examination of The Artist's Way reboot coming soon.

 Dear Reader,

I was working on doing a chapter by chapter analysis of The Artist's Way and then I misplaced my copy of the book. As I have been cleaning the apartment and trying to get ready for the holidays, I found it. Instead of expecting you to go and follow tags back to the beginning, I am just going to reboot the entire thread. I am debating if I will do the freewriting here. I've been finding my freewriting getting rather dark as I have been using it to process psychological and emotional trauma from the past. I wouldn't want this blog to have a 'sensitive content' block on it. Some of it is that ugly, well, most of it is that ugly. I've seen some stuff, y'all, and it wasn't pretty.

I'm not going to start that analysis this week because I'm overloaded with other random stuff. I will be doing once weekly posts about the organization and all that stuff for each chapter. I will warn you, I may go into a rant or two. Now, I'll be honest, this is a book that I actually like but it has problematic elements. I'm going to bring those to light and try to come up with some work arounds for those problems.

NaNoWriMo Vs. NaBloPoMo - Which is harder?

Dear Reader,

Sitting here and looking at how many posts I need to type to catch up on this and one other blog, I am going to say that NaBloPoMo is harder. It requires more mental flexibility because I'm switching topics and themes between six blogs. It is real easy to fall behind. (This blog requires seven posts to be up to date. My other blog that needs work requires ten posts to be up to date. And I'm doing my best not to use memes as fillers.)

I joked with Beloved that I probably should have done NaNoWriMo, though I had no ideas or concepts for what to write. I just get tired switching between the different range of topics as I write. Also, November has always been the month where everything happens, it seems. At least I am over pneumonia that I had from September to October. And the bursitis in my shoulder cleared up, so that I am not stuck another week behind. I don't know what I did to my left shoulder, the muscles are pissy and hurt a fair amount. I'm just being stubborn and grinding my way through it to get my blogging done and the list of other tasks I have to do finished. It is beginning to loosen up again, but I still have a doctor's appointment next Monday to make sure I didn't damage myself some how. And, to top it all off there was a medication change as well as I just started using a CPAP last week. Health stuff is overwhelming and exhausting. Which makes it easy to say 'Oh, I'll do that entry tomorrow. I can do two entries easily.' Then two turns into seven to be current.

I am doing my best not to cheat and post cat memes to catch up. Posting actual content is difficult for the reasons I mentioned earlier and because I worry that I am beginning to become boring as more of my daily life seeps into here with these posts.

I found a Meme!

 Ooop! I better get back to work or the squirrel is going to get me.

A Recipe for an Author

 Dear Reader,

I'm still a bit loopy because of my shoulder and lack of sleep. Please forgive the following silliness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Recipe for One Author

Ingredients

• 50 lbs of paper
• 100 gal of ink
• 2 tons of plot bunnies, well brushed and fluffy
• 34 knives of frustration
• 23 spoons of chaos (golden delicious apple flavored works best)
• 7000 mispelled words
• 1 human

If you can not locate the paper or ink, digital technology has a wonderful alternative for you. Failing that, use one Underwood typewriter.

Once you have gathered all of your ingredients, blend together in a large cauldron (humans don't fit in small ones). Simmer over low heat until the human is screaming Hamlet's soliloquy or in agonizing pain, which ever comes first. The stoic humans are a tough breed and can make for a somewhat gamey flavored result if they're not simmered low and slow.

Turn your well scalded human out of the cauldron and wrap them in the paper and quench with the ink.

Then run, because they are armed with 34 knives.

A bit more rambling because my brain is fried.

 Dear Reader,

If I had a funny meme, a witty quip, or a really good joke, I'd post it. My ideas are off in the aether mocking me. I woke this morning after a night full of terrifying dreams of faceless people trying to kill me. I still shudder over it. I may work that into a story at some point. I have spent my day in pain because I somehow wrenched my shoulder in the night. This was right after I recovered from bursitis in my other shoulder. It's made me a bit grumpy. On top of this, I had forgotten that the kids didn't have school today.

Every time I went to write, there was a fight, demands for answers to odd questions, or just a lot of noise. It was exceedingly vexing. This is why most of my work happens when they are in school or during their time for electronics. I am unashamed to bribe my kids to give me peace and quiet. I am pretty sure this is an unspoken rule for all parents regardless of their child's age.

I think the oddest question that I got today was: Mom, what is the speed of dark?

One of the boys is taking a Physics class and they were discussing the speed of light. I have a degree that is evenly split between English and Physics. My response was to tell him to ask his teacher. It isn't exactly fair to the teacher, but I just didn't have the spoons to muster up a cognizant answer. I used to be a teacher a little over a decade ago. When someone threw that question at me, I gave some witty non-answer because there is no speed of dark.

My husband loves questions like that. His favorite one to annoy me with lately has been asking me what the one-way speed of light is. I usually respond that there is no lumniferous aether in space so it is a question that will never be solved. We're a happily married couple of nerds.

What do you do when you are behind schedule?

Dear Reader,

As you can probably tell, I am six days behind on posting here for National Blog Posting Month. Juggling six blogs is hard. Trying to do it while there is a full week of appointments, tasks outside of the house, and general relationship maintenance with teens and your spouse is even more challenging. I wish I could say that I had a stash of really cool things to slap up here rapid fire, but I don't. Part of that problem is I can't find my notes for more flash fiction on here under the pile of notes and workbooks that were used over the summer to tutor my boys in mathematics. I can happily say, however, they are doing well in Algebra and Geometry. 

When I am behind on a project I go through a cycle of emotions. I don't know if this is unique to me or if it is one that all authors go through. At first, I am resolute to catch up and start drafting plans. Then I look at those detailed plans and I despair that I have overloaded myself. I take a bite at trying to complete the plan. I despair again. Then I take a deep breath, steel myself, and return to that resolute state.

I have been struggling to think of topics to post in here for literally months, if not a full year. (That's rather depressing to put up here for the world to see, but it is the truth.) I attempted using my prompt box, but only one prompt was fitting for the purpose of this blog. I'm not going to natter on about what actor in Hollywood is attractive to me. That's just plain silly. I don't even know who most of those people are since I haven't watched television in about six years. (No streaming shows either, though I did attempt to watch Vikings but 3 episodes in the software stopped working for me.) I can't remember the last movie I have gone to. So, those things can't count as prompts or casual discussion topics.

When people gush about these things, I just smile and nod. I'm glad that they're happy. I suppose I could do book reviews, but so much of what I  have read is outdated I am not sure there'd be much interest. There's also the fact that I haven't read anything in a few months that wasn't news related. And the news is just depressing as hell. I don't want to carry that over here.

So, I sit and I stare at the wall/screen until I get a stress headache. Then I wander off to take something for that headache and forget about writing. My brain isn't working that great because I'm depressed and that is making me have brain fog and memory issues. It's rotten and I wouldn't want to subject any of you fine people to that experience, even if it is vicariously.

All of this rambling and going far astray from the topic is fruit of brain fog and my desperate effort to post something here. There's probably going to be more of that going forward. Then I'll find my rhythm and I will be more prolific and sensible in my work here. In the meantime, behold the mess that I have become. Ugh.

Handwritten or typed: which do you prefer?

 Dear Reader,

I have a question for you to consider. The authors and creative folks in my readership, I wonder when you are at the beginning of the creative process and organizing your thoughts, what do you prefer: writing ideas out by hand and drawing diagrams or typing up detailed outlines and bullet point reference notes to go along side that outline? It's two very different styles of organization. It seems like the working method of doing things by hand is falling by the wayside since computers have become ubiquitous. 

For my part, I do a mixed combination of the two since I have my own personal computer. When I didn't have a computer that was strictly my own, I did everything out on paper. Now, I have a hodgepodge of paper and digital notes. Alas, they're all painfully disorganized and I have difficulty sorting it all out because of what my Beloved calls 'shiny object syndrome'. I'll be going through a stack of papers and find outlines for books, notes for instructional essays, and a plethora more all around me. It's hard to focus on one project when you are stuck for how to describe the next scene and something else is glittering with promise of being easier and more organized.

I suppose I live in a state of chaos that I am struggling to fix. Because once I get all these ideas and notes organized, I'll be off to the races. Or staring at the screen until drops of blood form on my forehead. Who knows.

Why blogging every day this month instead of writing a poem every day?

 Dear Reader,

Some of you may be familiar with the Poem A Day challenge. The folks who run it really get going during this month to encourage more people to write. I think it's a pretty awesome thing. I just have one problem, I can't find my poetry notebook. I also have the dreaded imposter syndrome going on. At one point in time, I shared with a college instructor who I highly admired a poem that I had worked quite hard on and thought it was a good piece. I got a sour expression from the man as he told me to stop "aping Edgar Allen Poe and write something original."

To say the least that took the wind out of my sails for a bit and I questioned the validity of all of my writing for a period after that. It stings still and it makes writing poems hard. I'll focus on it at some point in the future when I have unearthed my poetry notebook and life isn't crazy. I want to get back to that kind of written work. It was a great form of emotional therapy and expression when I was going through some very hard times in my life.

But that sharp statement echoes in my ears to this day. It was not a good day when that happened.

Why NaBloPoMo and not NaNoWriMo?

 Dear Reader,

Most years, I knuckle down and I crank out a novella or two during November. As you can tell, I have been having difficulty writing in my blogs for about a year now, perhaps a little longer. Since I have bursitis in my right arm, I am restricted in my movement and have a fair amount of pain. Oddly enough, my recovery time lines up with my writing goals. I am forced to sit and write across my seven blogs or stare at the wall. 

Yes, I suppose I could attempt my knitting or my crochet. But repetitive movements are painful. And I just have to accept the fact that there is going to be a delay in my work on holiday presents until later in my recovery where moving my arm, even in a slightly repetitive action, is not a source of pain. Typing, however, and writing by hand don't hurt horribly because my arm is stationary as I work.

So, I am doing NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) this year to get myself back into serious writing form. There may be occasional memes if I have no idea what to write. I have to say, maybe there's an upside to this painful bursitis business. 

NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo? Decisions, decisions.

 Dear Reader,

I've been struggling to make up my mind if I am going to do NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo. Some years I have attempted both at the same time. It did not end well. On the novel writing front, I am stalled between being sick and my depression. I don't know if that's going to improve by the time November gets here. I suppose I could grind my way through writing a novel. Or I could cheat and work on finishing two novels that I have in the works.

But I'm leaning towards blogging every day for the month as a way to get myself back into the habit of daily blog posting. I think it will be as much of a grind as working on a novel. But, in all honesty, it is probably better for me to kick start all my blogs and get back to writing in them. If in the course of all that blogging (I have 7 blogs.) I happen to feel the urge to write a novel, I will do it. I just have had mental silence on that front. It's hard to write when you're just staring at a blank wall until drops of blood form on your forehead and you have to stare some more before the words appear on the page.

The Prompt Box Has Failed Me.

 Dear Reader,

As you can tell quite obviously from the intervals between posts, I am struggling to write as of this time. I presently have had walking pneumonia for the last two months, I've been having sleep problems for almost three years now that are getting worse, and my anxiety over my writing has been sky high. As such, I turned to my prompt box. I found things like 'advice for new parents', 'worst cooking disaster', and 'list off the actors you find attractive.' None of that is truly relevant to this blog.

Being sick and exhausted for two months sucks. I go for a chest x-ray in two weeks. Next week I get my blood work done for my diabetes follow up. I anticipate both being unpleasant experiences presaging bad news at the doctor's office. I have been overwhelmed with worry, this could be part of why my sleep problem is getting worse, but I have no idea.

Today I woke up at 0300 and was up for the day as of that time. I've been waking up about that time for weeks now. I'm depressed because of seasonal affective disorder. It's just a rotten experience. I'm exhausted most days and in a brain fog because of it. I'm struggling with various aspects of my mental health disorders (which are the reason why I am disabled). On the whole, it sucks right now.

I wish I had something uplifting, entertaining, or informative. Instead, I have my sob story. Damn prompt box needs more prompts added so that my posts don't turn so maudlin.

Let's do a Free Writing Exercise!

 Dear Reader,

Let's do a Free Writing Exercise. Here's your Prompt to build off of: What is the most legendary cooking disaster that you have ever had? Set a timer for 10 minutes and here we go!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The most legendary cooking disaster that I had was while I was pregnant with my first son. I woke up out of a dead sleep craving popcorn. We didn't have microwave popcorn so I had to cook it the old fashioned way. Pregnancy brain being what it was, I forgot some important steps. Next thing we know, smoke is billowing out of the covered pot. I move the pot to a cool burner on the electric stove and smoke continues. Pretty soon all of the fire detectors in the apartment and in the apartment above us are going off. 

This is three in the morning. I started sobbing about the time we had everything aired out, because I was craving popcorn and I screwed it up. Beloved, who is a night owl and was up working on a project, calmed me down. I think, but I'm not longer sure, if the neighbor upstairs was laughing at my blubbering over popcorn like a toddler. This was pre-Covid era, so the stores were open 24 hours. He went over to the next town's all night grocery store and picked up some popcorn. The clerk advised him for his safety to get pickles and ice cream. When Beloved got home, the smoke detectors (all of them) were off.

He gave me my microwave popcorn and I started crying again, with relief. I had my popcorn and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I had forgotten about everything until I saw the pot I attempted to make old fashioned popcorn in. I debated writing the neighbor a letter of apology. When I opened the door to go do some errands, the neighbor had left a bag of microwave popcorn on the doorstep.

I humbly ask your patience.

 Dear Reader,

As I have one son in the process of wrapping up summer school, the other son and I are struggling mightily with algebra. (I swear they don't teach it the same way that they did when I was in grade school.) I am also coaching him in his writing of his second novella. He just finished the first last week and is jumping into the second with both feet.

We're also getting inundated with back to school stuff. My youngest is entering high school this year and my eldest is a junior. There's a lot of events and such flying around. Throw on top of it they've gone from paper schedules to digital ones and we don't have a printer, it's getting a bit crunchy here. 

I'm hoping to get stuff as ready as I can with out too much insanity at the store. And I'm on the hunt for a new A5 notebook because my eldest took that to write his second book. Not that I mind, but they're starting to become scarce right now. (The weirdest things are getting hung up in supply chain breakdowns.) I'm going to try to post more soon. If there's a victory post, it means we made it past the section of the algebra book we've been working in to material that makes more sense. In the meantime, gods help us.

In solidarity with all other writers who have kids going back to school.

♥

There's a murder on my lawn.

 Dear Reader,

One of my Beloved's favorite type of birds are crows. There's a small murder on the lawn pecking at the cracked corn he scattered all over the place. It's been interesting to watch the birds while I'm stuck in writer's block. I have started looking over past posts in this blog to see what loose ends I can pick up and start working with again. The first one that stood out to me was the critical analysis of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. My feelings towards this book are complicated. The first time I read through it, I found it highly inspirational and a source of encouragement. Subsequent read throughs, I started finding problems in it and places where Ms. Cameron is socially blind to the limitations of people who are disabled and who have financial security problems. I don't think this is intentional per se, but rather a case of someone of a certain social standing assuming that others have access to the resources that they did. 

To say this more bluntly, I don't think Ms. Cameron can envision a person attempting to write a novel on paper napkins that came with their takeout order, because they don't have access to anything else to write on. I had the good fortune of not being in that place, but there are many who are. Some people have the reaction of 'pish, a composition notebook is just a few bucks.' But when your budget is tight and that composition notebook sitting in your shopping cart is needed for your child who is going to start school in a few weeks, you don't pick up a second one because it will cut into how much you have to get that damned expensive graphing calculator that's perilously close to breaking your budget.

And then there is the question of time. A philosopher will tell you that time is infinite. A physicist may agree and have some fancy equations to prove it. But our lives are finite which means our time in this world is finite. People love to quote that we weren't born to pay taxes and die. But if you're working a grueling job and taking care of your family, including some relatives outside your household, you are going to have a hard time finding the time or the energy to write a few poems or sketch some doodles in a notebook. And quite often the people in this position are also on the super tight budgets because they're living paycheck to paycheck and praying that they're going to get a tax return to help pay off the car.

Just as people have the reaction that you can afford a cheap notebook, there are people who say if you simply organize more and use the latest fad organizational system then you will magically have time for your artistic inclinations. The closest to that which you are going to find me endorsing is creative time management. While dinner is cooking in the oven, take that 45 min time to work a little on your chosen craft. Allow yourself to skip leg day if it's healthy to do so and take an hour to do some kind of creative work. Also remember, creative work is more than cranking out art like some kind of machine. It requires fuel/food in the form of exposure to other's work. So, that cheezy romance novel that you read to keep yourself from smoking during your cigarette break at work is helping to fill the well of ideas even as it keeps you occupied for 15 min.

As Beloved has put it to me: how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time. Each small task that you do towards your creative work is a victory against all the distractions. Stolen moments and creative engineering of your resources leads you to where you are engaged in the great work.

Craft of Writing: Bringing it Back to Basics.

 Dear Reader,

First, I wish to apologize for my lack of posts. My life has been hectic and I have been dealing with a fair amount of off-line trouble that has kept me from posting. Instead of writing inspirational bits for you, I am going to share with you what I am working on with my son as I am tutoring him this summer to get him ready for 11th grade. (Where the hell did the time go? It seems like yesterday he could barely scribble with a crayon. Now he's working on writing his own novel by hand.)

I will be breaking things down to a point that you may feel like it's a review of elementary school material. There is a purpose for this process. Writing anything is like making a building and you must know the fundamental tools and materials of your process in order to succeed. A special focus will be placed on figurative language's relationship to the rest of English. My sons both have difficulty with figurative language and I notice that there are others who have trouble with it as well as I am out and about. 

Before we get to figurative language, however, we're going to be looking at sentence construction and paragraph construction next week.

I have not abandoned this blog.

 Hello, everybody!

I want to first apologize for my extended absence. I have been having some rather severe health issues since that bout with Covid last year. Pretty much all of the impact my ability to write in some fashion. The persistent exhaustion and the brain fog are the biggest problems. I can not promise daily posts. I haven't the stamina for that yet. But I will attempt to post something on a weekly basis, at the very least. 

I have no new books to announce. I have no interesting developments for the Iron Lily or Dacia's War. As I mentioned, I've been having a hard time thinking clearly. It's made writing common words difficult and I have difficulty with getting sentences out while I'm speaking because of this brain fog. I'll be talking to my primary care doctor about all of this. One of the specialists that I see because of my disabilities brought up the prospect of Long Covid as I described what was going on and asked if it was possibly due to side effects of my medications.

This doctor's appointment on Friday is going to be a less than awesome experience if this is the case. It's bad enough to be discussing diabetes (which really sucks regardless of what type you have). That gets my nerves going, now I have this other potential problem on top of that to make me nervous. Ugh. 

I will do my best to have something more pleasant, interesting, and on topic for you next week.