I Am The Very Model Of A Wrimo Individual

Oh my gosh, I think I figured this out. YAY!!

Nano Fever Begins

I don't know how to make the picture appear but the links will take you to a couple of You Tube videos that are awesome.

Nano - it's almost here

I am the very model of a Wrimo individual.

Last year Nan got me all fired up, I think it was late September and I thought I'd burst before November got here.  This year, I had the writing class, I had the conference, I started a new job and I just hadn't caught the fever. I even wondered if I should do Nano.

Something happened yesterday.  

I said the word that made it all real.

Doug will be signing at my office on Monday and he changed the time from 4:30 to 4:00 so I wouldn't be sitting around for a half hour waiting for him. 

I gave him an incredulous look and said, "NANO".  

I have to admit that I felt a bit guilty as his face fell and he said, "Well, I thought you might like to see me?"

The guilt is still haunting me just a tad, but hey...NaNo.

That one little word started the Nano addiction coursing through my veins.

Maybe now my brain will take me seriously and give me a FREAKING plot!!

Nano, Snow and Not the Moon

Nano is only days away and I have no plot.  I keep telling myself that it will gel if I stop stressing about it.  When I finally complained about my opening scene things finally fell together.  So I'm whining about my plot to see if we can get something going.

Speaking of whining:

Have I mentioned that I hate snow!!

Man, I thought Monday's snow storm was an UGH! Yesterday's had me in full blown panic attack.  I reminded myself that I live in a pocket that loves to get snowed on and turned on the news to see the weather cams. Things looked drivable and I calmed down.  Whew.  I am a snow woozie, it's true.

That was the beginning of the most interesting day. I won't elaborate, but suffice it to say that the full moon has passed so we can't blame it on that.  I guess some people are just ass hats.  Just say'n.

Snow - Ugh!!

While I lay in bed listening to the rain pelt the window, I try to convince the dog that it was not morning yet. 2:00 is NOT morning. Not really.  I was hoping to go back to sleep for just a few more minutes. That didn't happen but I did find my opening scene. It's not back story, it has the shark fin, it introduces and or mentions the key players. I HAS IT!! YaY!  The other thing I realized was that the rain had stopped.  AWESOME.  So I decided to call it morning and walk the dog between the rain storms.  The rain had turned to snow.  Curse that vile white stuff.

I had heard rain-ow in the valley and snow in the benches.  I can assure you that I don't live in the benches.  This is not rain-ow this is flat out snow. Ugh, now I have to leave for work early, find a snow route, dodge the other idiots who can't drive in the first snow storm (me included)... oh lament.

Doug is a snow freak, loves the white stuff.  I generally accuse him of dancing naked under the moon when the white stuff flies, but this time I'm blaming Warren Miller. That's right, you heard me.  Saturday night they had a film showing down town. You can not get that many snow loving bodies gathered together dreaming of the all that snowy goodness and not have the heavens do something about it.  Well, I hope it gets it out of its system and leaves us be for a while.  Or as always, I'm fine with snow in the mountains, rain in the valley. I don't think that it is too much to ask, but apparently it is.

Nano is coming

*hangs head and sobs, But I'm not ready.*

I just finished a Discovery Class and I have  a magical shelf, a 3D collage of my characters, another of my settings, but Nano is looming and I have NOTHING.

I wanted to give the Discovery Class its full due.  What good taking a class if I continue to do what I've always done.  I feel the story all around me, but don't have my usual trappings and I'm feeling vulnerable. Part of the discovery class was writing our back story to get it out of our system.  The last assignment was to write our opening scene, which the Nano-ers couldn't do. But we can be thinking about it at least.  I am frozen.  I think I have a good starting point but then it feels like back story.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that when the starting bell chimes at midnight, November 1, my brain take this swirling mass of 'visual' and words will come shooting out my finger tips.

Fairy Friday

Where does one begin to write about fairies? I decided to get scientific with the process. I used the open encyclopedia, close eyes, flip through the pages and point method. Imagine my surprise when I was pointing to King of the Cats. That's a fairy?  Who knew.Well, I guess I do now.

King of the Cats
According to The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Anna Franklin  King of the Cats is often referred to in Celtic folklore.  He dwells as an ordinary cat by day and travels the country at night as a royal fairy cat to avenge any slights given to him during the day.

Poking around on the internet and looking through my other fairy books, I'm not seeing King of the Cats as being sited anywhere. It is an interesting thought though, better be nice to all the little kitties 'cause you don't know which one might come back and kick your ass!!

And why does he only avenge slights. What about the nice lady that takes in the strays and feeds them, gives them attention and a home. Why can't the fairy by night cat be nice to them, do nice things for them. I guess in writing an avenging cat is more intriguing.

Witchy Wednesday

In One Small Step I used a modified version of a spell that I learned from our receptionist at work.

Original Spell:

• Write the name of a person you don't want to come around on a piece of paper.
• Put it in the freezer.

The person coming into the office or your home will feel the chill and it will not be a place s/he wants to be.

My Spell:

• Take a clean white sheet of paper.
• Write the persons name three times.
• Fold the paper three times.
• Place the paper in a zip lock baggie.
• Fill with enough water to cover the paper.
• Place in freezer.

The girls in my story used this spell to help a friend and co-worker get rid of a bad habit.  It was a 'habit' she'd acquired by modifying a spell. Why the girls in my story thought that they too could modify a spell and have it work out is beyond me. Guess some people never learn.

If you are interested in reading One Small Step please comment below, including e-mail address or e-mail me at jaileenq@gmail.com and I would be happy to forward it to you.

It's Over

The Muse Writers Conference is over and Chester couldn't be more happy.
It appears I give the dog more 'sniff' time if I am not RUSHING through our walk.  I hadn't even realized that I'd been doing that until this morning.

Note to self:  Even when we are busy, we must take time to smell the ... hmmm
I'll go with posies since roses are not my favorite.
We'll let Chester smell what ever he wants!! ;)))

Happy Sunday

This is a test.

At the conference they stress that it is important to blog consistently. What if you are out of town or have a busy week or... There is a little button that allows you to write your blog and post it when you tell it to post.  I think this is an awesome feature and wish to test it out.

This is my test.  Did it work?
= )
J.

My brain has gone bye-bye.

It has been a crazy week between starting a new job and trying to keep up with the conference. My brain is going Wha happ'n??? I was convinced at one point my brain would just squirt out my ears. Combine that with sleep deprivation and it makes for some pretty goofy times. If it was November I'd call 'em living Nanoisms.

I was driving home from work and didn't realize that my brain was on auto-pilot until I tried to clutch, could NOT find the clutch and panicked.

Um, Jude? Don't you drive an automatic??

Indeed I do.

I was walking Chester and some stupid cat jumped out of the tree right in front of us. To Chester it was manna from the gods, to me it was annoying. Cats should know better, damn it.  So in the wee hours of the morning I yell at the cat, "Who is your mama?" I suppose I thought I was going to go have a talk with her about proper cat in tree behavior.

It is a good thing it is the weekend I need some serious veg time.

Autumn in Utah

 

We took the G-kids up to Silver Lake for a 'hike'.  It is mostly paved and basically flat so small legs don't get too tired.

There was a skiff of snow and we spent a lot of time finding alien tracks, swishing sticks in the lake, or beating on tree trunks to send the aliens a message.

Doug's brother Craig is into Geo-caching and we searched for alien treasure. We found it. YaY!  The girls took magical rocks from the stash. James took a purple skeleton that, oddly enough, looked just a bit like an alien. ;)

Could I get any busier??

Wait, don't ask!!!

I've been ignoring my class because of the writers conference.  I knew I needed to give it some attention and so tonight I put my efforts into my Discovery Class.

This week we are working on setting.  We are supposed to write about our settings, logical as it is a writing course, but I have not taken the time.  I have thought about it but my brain is fried, more on that in another post. I decided to go with a visual setting thing, at least for now.

I think that this will be very helpful.  I write fantasy and so the places my characters visit are not the norm, at least not in this universe.

Epic Fail... Or not ;)

I slept in...

Hangs head in shame. I have a GET UP NOW alarm set and I almost slept in until that time, so I'm two hours short of where I'd hoped to be.  Oh well, you can only do what you can do.

What a crazy week it has been. Between The Muse On-Line Writers Conference and starting a new job my head is full to bursting.

I am back in the title industry, yeah!! And on my first day they are telling me that I HAVE to take a half-hour lunch.  HAVE TO. Only in Escrow would your boss tell you that you WILL take your lunch, damn it!!  Only in Escrow will assistants stay at there desks frantically working up a closing while the fire alarm is shrieking in distress.  Ah Escrow...glad to be back!

I will be very brief today. I was in changing the layout. One of my classes is specifically on blogging and she says that left side bar is better than right.  So I switched that up.  Not entirely, I still like who I am standing out so I put me on the right.  I will probably change that too in time, I'm just trying it on to see how it feels.

She also said that white writing on black was BAD.  I really like it with the green background.  I may or may not keep it.  I'll ask young eyes and old eyes to see what the consensus is and go from there.  I used a half hour trying to remember how to change the freaking width so everything would lay right.  Argh!!

Okay, back to class.
I am major busy, but I am happy.
= )

OMG I didn't catch her name, but she was WEIRD!!

World's Strangest Hair Cut 
Didn't your mama never teach you: "If you don't have nothing nice to say, keep yer yap shut!"

I'd say that this goes double if you are working in the public eye.  The snotty comments and superior attitude should be reserved for the lunch room at least.

After a brief word battle between two stylists I was slack jawed shocked. When I saw the look that one of the co-worker's shot the snotty hair stylist, I thought please don't let that be my stylist, please o please o please.

I got the snotty one.  First off she says, "Oh, I love your hair."
"Um, thanks," I reply wondering if I really need a hair cut.  I was going to wait, but after seeing how wild and woolly it got on the hike...

Then she goes on and on about the silver in my hair.  I'm thinking that this could be a sensitive subject...but maybe not, if it bothered me I guess I would color it. They don't color hair so it wasn't a ploy to get more business. But after the way she treated the co-worker I was not 100% convinced of her sincerity.

The whole time she is chopping my hair she is whisper-talking the words to every song. Either belt it out or hum, but this whisper-talking is creepy. AND she didn't get the words right, now that was kind of funny.  I didn't correct her as she was holding a pair of scissors at the time, but...

Did I mention she dances too?  Yep, I got a whisper-talking, shoulder bobbing, hip swaying, scissor wielding hair stylist.

The co-worker got even, and it was AWESOME!!  I was out of the chair, thank you Jebus, and heading up to pay when the co-worker said, "Oh could you check them in please?"  The lobby had filled up while I was getting my hair cut.  I didn't look back, but you could almost feel the heat of the stylist as she seethed over the fact that her EXTRAORDINARY skills were being wasted checking people in.  I bet they did it just to stop her creepy whisper-talking.  Can't do that at the front desk, you have to get them stuck in a chair with a pair of scissors whirling about their head first so they can't run away. ;)

How's the cut?
Eh.
One of the first thing I mentioned was that I wanted wash and wear hair, and that my bangs were too long.  The last thing she did was cut my bangs and while they were wet they seemed as if they might be short enough.  But I washed my hair today just to see what it would do.  My bangs are too long and I still don't have wash and wear hair.

Call of the Wild

The kids are going a hunt'n.  Not only does Bambi have to fear for its life, the the elk do as well.

Last night the kids got home and began terrorizing all the creatures.  Stavo had an elk call. Chester went nuts and was running all over the yard.  Bob stormed into my room demanding answers as to why I'd allowed some new creature to roam about the house.

All in all it was very funny.

In Morgan's Defense

In Discovery Class we are doing back story writing.  The things an author needs to know but the readers don't.

I started with Morgan, I really do need to name my characters and not use the place holder names.  I began with him because I had an epiphany while putting my second board together. He is the father of my MC. As part of my 'homework' I decide to write a scene when he sees her for the first time and realizes that she is his daughter.

While writing the scene I came to the realization that Morgan was a selfish bastard that got The Maiden pregers and left her to pursue his higher calling. I was outraged.  In the scene he sees his daughter as a means to an end. He's been in the Gods disfavor since he deflowered The Maiden (like duh, dude).  When he sees his daughter he realizes that a Maiden has been restored to the world.  He starts plotting ways to use his daughter to get back in the Gods good graces.  Made me realize why his card is The Broken Gate.

On  my way across the valley for a visit with the G-kids I was so angry. THAT'S not what I had planned for him, how dare he take advantage of The Maiden and just leave? How did he know he had a daughter? Did he see it in the cards or scrying bowl?  None of that matters, he KNEW he had a daughter and had done nothing to acknowledge her or even help her mother through the trying times.  I was not happy.

Last night I had the oddest dream.  I was about to give birth.  Morgan came and lovingly guided me from the birthing bed to safety.  Seems the bad people were looking for me and there would be no mother or daughter had Morgan not done what he did.  He still LEFT them to their own devises, but he's not totally heartless.

So, I am sorry Morgan, you are only a semi-heartless bastard.  Maybe you really did love The Maiden, in your own twisted way.  I'm still having issues with you using your daughter to get back in good favor with the Gods.

So Many Good Things

What a day!!!
I accepted a job offer with an AWESOME person.

On the way home I stopped by a Honks.  My board haunts me...not done, not done. I found AWESOME things.

Okay, I know that this board is the same, but more busy.. and yet it so does it for me.
I never knew that Morgan was sleeping with the mom and produced my protag. 
Morgan??? I love it!!

My son called to congratulate me and I'm blathering on about FINALLY getting my board right.  
*rolls eyes, Rocky punches YET again and smiles*

The Magical Shelf

Really more of a magical wall.  There are a few things that I need to finish, change.

I do NOT like the title, I need to fix that.  I want to print out and maybe laminate the 'cards' that represent the main players and I can put those on the shelf.  But I am calling it done for now as I have other things to do in my life... things that have been ignored because I was nuts about this crazy shelf.

When I was out trying to get vibes from items for the shelf I really wondered why some of the items called to me. However, as I was putting it together things became more clear.  The pictures were chosen early on when I was making my cards, choosing my players.  When I came home with a dream catcher, I thought I was on crack, but there is a definite 'wheel' theme going on.  The wooden flowers by the fence...again, I was thinking crack, but one of the pictures that I'd chosen early on was a quilted version of a similar flower.

On the left side of the shelf, by the framed picture is a star that followed me home. There was this lone star at the store, it had obviously fallen out of a bag of a bunch of them, but I'd be damned if I could find the bag of stars and the other bags of rocks and sea shells did not sing to me and so I gave up. When I cleaned out my pockets there was the star.  I probably owe Dollar Days a nickel,  but if it FOLLOWS you home, is it REALLY theft??

My Magical, Magical

My little corner of the universe if filled with all kinds of magical items.

I have two fairies who will NOT talk to one another.  Does not matter how often I turn them, they will find a way to put their backs to each other.

My bitchy fairies.  They refuse to acknowledge the others existence.

I have stone heads from Easter Island, that do much the same.  For a while one of them kept trying to commit suicide and would jump to his doom.  I always found him and eventually he gave up and stays put.  Well stays mostly put, they move and are social or not social...guess we all have those days.

I have migrating lady bugs.  Really!  They seem to have settled down now, but I had six lady bugs that all started in one place and over time they moved to where they wanted to be.  I was going to be clever and put them together in pairs, but they wanted none of that.  Hey, who am I to impose my will on my magical, magical.

It is fun to let it do its thing.

You can see the lady bugs in each container. The wishing well is for my fortune cookie slips. The good ones ;)

In Discovery Class we are making collages and one suggestion was to make a magical shelf.  I was all over that, but it has done nothing but fight me. Jaker is going to help me put it up today and I need to BACK AWAY from the magic and let it happen.  I spent one day perusing stores, Dollar Days, Honks, Big Lots, Michaels and just bought items that spoke to me.  Once I have the shelf, I'm just going to spend the afternoon and allow the magic to happen.  I don't need to be so freaking in charge of this thing.  Lani said it's like trying to get a cat out from under a bed, ain't gonna happen 'til the cat is good and ready. By ignoring the cat, you get what you want and the cat keeps his pride.  This is not the way she said it exactly, but...

So I'm going to ignore the cat and see what happens.

I will let you know.

Chester's Library

When we walk at the park we can spend a lot of time at this corner.  It dawned on me the other day that it was Chester's library.

Okay, so it's a lame entry, but it is something.