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. ♥
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
