(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Please excuse my lack of presence over the last couple of days. I’ve become lost in Panem and hope to return shortly. Meanwhile, have a great rest of the weekend!
(c) 2013. All rights reserved.
Apology
Are they real?
c. 50 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Are you working through lunch again?” the man asked as I pulled out my notebook.
“Yeah, but this is fun work,” I replied, smiling. I plopped the MS for The Lokana Chronicles down on the table.
He bent closer to inspect the title page. “What’s this? A novel?”
“Yep. And here’s the sequel,” I said, removing the MS for Remnants from my purse. It hit the table with a thud.
He took another look. “You wrote these?”
My waitress joined us. “You’re a writer?”
“Yep.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow! I always see you writing in your little notebook…”
“This is usually what I’m working on,” I said, smiling again.
I told them a little about my work and the man asked if he was part of my story. I said no. Then he asked,
Daily gratitude
Sometimes it’s hard to find things in life to be grateful for. Not everything always goes the way we would like. Certainly I’ve had times like that in my own life; I’ve even written about them (here, there, and everywhere else). Writing sometimes helps me keep things in perspective.
With that in mind, today’s post (that should have gone up yesterday and didn’t for reasons that I’ll mention in a minute) is about the little things, the things that can – and do – make life worth living.
Writing, then and now
My parents in our living room. Those lovely bookshelves went from floor to ceiling. 🙂
Well, once again, I didn’t get my post up on time. I’ve been spending a lot of time writing lately, although not on The Lokana Chronicles or Remnants. I’m taking a writing class online, and in our second class, we received a prompt. My homework was to work more on what I’d come up with for the prompt in class, and it’s been a challenge.
I got called into work yesterday afternoon and since I had to drive over there and drop the boys off anyway, I left in the morning like normal and spent three lovely hours at the library working on this new story. It reminded me of when I was younger, and I would take over the living room to write, or spread things out in my room.
There wasn’t really much to take over in the living room, since my sister lived with my grandparents and my dad lived at his desk in the dining room, but it was the space I wanted. Often a friend or two would join me and we would stay up till the wee hours of the morning writing and giving each other feedback. And also dancing to Gaelic Storm.
And now, an interview!
As promised, I have an interview for you with the lovely Will Macmillan Jones, author of the hilarious Banned Underground books. It might have taken me a little longer than I first thought to get this posted, but what can I say? Writers are not necessarily the most organized lot. (Some may very well be, but I most certainly am not.)
KK: So, now that you’ve done it a couple of times, what’s it like to put out two books a year?
WMJ: What’s it like? Let me see…imagine being run over by a lawnmower, thrown in a washing machine, a tumble drier and finished off in an old fashioned mangle. It’s hard going. As you know, I don’t write especially long books, mainly for commercial reasons. But even so it is very hard work, both creatively and practically. But actually quite rewarding too. I can now look at my dressing table and see a line of my books. Yes, I’m really that sad as to have them on show in my bedroom, so that I can see them when I wake up.
KK: I see nothing wrong with that. In all honesty, I would likely do the same thing. 🙂 They say it takes three books to see success. Do you feel like that’s true? Why or why not?
Snow boats
It snowed here yesterday. October is far too early for snow, in my opinion. If you ask me, the first – and last – snowfall should occur on December 24. It should hang around for Christmas, but then it needs to vamoose on December 26 so as not to interfere with my travel plans.
Clearly I live in the wrong state. Sadly, my dreams of wintering somewhere more tropical are not likely to come true any time soon.
This little burst of winter got me thinking, though, about winters past. I didn’t always hate the snow and the cold. When I was a kid, I used to relish them. I loved sledding and ice skating and building snow forts. I loved walking atop the frozen snow in my neighbors’ yards on my way to and from school, my stomach quivering as I wondered how long it would be before I plunged ankle-deep into a frosty hole.
Old home week
The house has changed, and so have we.
They say you can’t go home again, and I think they must be right. My dad lived in the house I grew up in till I was twenty, and I went back after he moved out once. Once was enough.
The people who bought my house after my dad moved out remodeled it extensively before selling it themselves. It was after this second sale that I returned – Miss Tadpole was selling Girl Scout cookies, so I took her through my old neighborhood to see how many of my old customers would buy from her.
It was incredibly surreal being the parent in this scenario. Miss Tadpole was woefully under-prepared when it came to her sales pitch, but I’d been so well-rehearsed at her age that it was easy for me to pick up the slack. We made a great team.
Late
Bubbles the Paddlefoot
I know, I know – I’m late again. It seems to be a thing with me lately. Our open house was postponed last weekend (sort of), so we’re doing it again today, and it’s thrown my whole weekend off.
I used to always be very punctual; I miss that particular virtue. Now it seems that no matter what I do, I’m always late, always running behind, and I never catch up. Just when I think I’m caught up, I realize I’ve forgotten something and I haven’t caught up at all. *sigh*
I think this lateness issue of mine can be traced to my eighteenth Christmas. I was living with my ex-husband and his parents at the time (we were just dating then), and I was home from college on break. Things that often happen between consenting adults happened and, lo and behold, some six weeks later, I was late. You never think it will happen to you, but it can. And it does.
Romantic-type secrets
Mmm, Devon Sawa, another one of my crushes. 🙂
So it’s time for another post about childhood secrets. The thing is, I can’t remember a whole lot of those. What I do remember, though, are the secret (or maybe not-so-secret) crushes I had on the boys in my class.
Let’s just say there were a lot.
I think last year for this challenge, I mentioned one. In the comments of that post, I referred to another. But I was less than subtle in elementary school. By the time middle school rolled around, I had grown rather more shy when it came to boys. And the boys had grown rather better looking.
My hidey hole
When I was little, my sister and I did not get along. At all. We still don’t and I really regret that, but it’s out of my hands now. Anyway, she liked to go through my stuff, so I needed a way to secure it. My bedroom door wouldn’t latch correctly, never mind lock, so I needed a better place to stash things.
Being a big fan of diary-keeping, my diaries were the items I was most concerned with – like government secrets, they could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands (namely, the hands of my little sister).
Suddenly they all died. The end. 