Category: continuity

the muse’s bite

I have at least three novels i am trying to finish at the moment. so I am trying to avoid starting any new stories.  then a steampunk/post apocalyptic story started in my head two days ago. I have not been able to thing of anything else since. I wrote some on elizabeth, fighting off this new story….and ended up with a headache for my trouble. I am amazed at how insistent the muse can be at times.  I am also amazed how absent it can be. The hole that is left when the muse sleeps is painful.

Add to the whimsy that is my muse, is the technical issues of my phone dying. I am not making excuses, just saying that the mobility of the phone made it easier to write. So now when the muse strikes i have to find the laptop or paper. Paper used to be abundant in my home. Not in years though. So i have to fight with an overburdened laptop that is missing keys. (seriously the tab key, the backspace key and the “m” key are missing from the laptops keyboard). It has very little memory and is running win Xp. It’s not mine, it belongs to Joe (my best friend/lover). So i dare not change the  OS. (it would be Linux if i could).  So i gave into the Muse tonight. I wrote over 350 words (and still counting) on the new story.  I may decide that what i wrote is garbage and go in and rewrite it completely. Still for now, I have now four stories to complete and the eternal current volume of poetry. I really love my muse…even though days are there when i truly hate my muse…

Getting things done

Trying to juggle so many hats means occasionally dropping a few. One merely tries not to drop the important ones. Mom, Maid, Writer, Artist, Poet, Dreamer, Momo (Happy third birthday Lennon!), Woman, Girlfriend, Sister, Daughter, Business Owner…Blogger, Person,  Feminist….so many titles….And somehow I do okay at juggling them, most of the time. Today I did ok. I felt good about it. Even managed a couple of people giving me ego candy.  Which believe me was sweet.  I uploaded things for sale in my scott’s marketplace shop…I made new items, I handled a sick daughter. I cleaned, I overcame my social anxiety to talk to a person not online. I ate. (for me sometimes that really is award worthy….lol)

So today there were some hats dropped. I  wasn’t able to write today…until now…and so this blog is all the writing I am getting done. Even that is something though. Perhaps  I should be thankful the hats I dropped in the busy day, were not the most important ones.  Which hats do you wear, and how adept are you at juggling them?

Catching a cliche

Well even though my phone was my main way of writing, I found a way. There is an android emulator for windows, Blue Stacks. I have been playing around with it off and on since it first came out a couple of years ago. It doesn’t work as good as my phone did, because the computer is old and slow. But it does work. So I downloaded my Notebooks app. I went to restore…as it has the option from dropbox and google drive.

Wouldn’t you know it, I accidentally backed up on the dropbox and when i tried to restore from Google drive, it couldn’t connect. so I was miserable wondering how i would be able to continue what i had been working on. Then i was looking at Kindle fire tablets. I may try and buy myself one for a birthday gift next week. I was looking in to app compatibility, and got to thinking, So i went to Dropboxes site to see if i could restore an older version of the file. Guess what? I can. So now i am able to write again. I swear i don’t normally do this. Tonight when I was trying to write, I kept  switching every few minutes to scrolling facebook. When I caught myself doing it, I felt like i had caught a cliche…a writer who is surfing more than she writes. Hopefully now that my setup is fixed, I will no longer hunt the cliche.

How has the times changed…

I remember as a Preteen hating to wear my hair short. I have always been bulky and slightly tomboyish. So I was picked on because apparently I looked like a boy…even though I had breasts. So I always wore my hair long back then. I fought for the ability to wear it long. Tonight I had a talk with my preteen daughter. She fights to wear her hair short (because it requires less care). I asked her if she gets picked on because of her hair. Her response was that she doesn’t get picked on, apparently she is invisible.
I guess in these times of gender neutrality it makes sense. I was her age in 1988…so many things have changed in that time. There are other differences as well. In my daughter’s time there is so many more hazards that were either not there or not obvious when I was her age. I remember the struggles and try to use that when dealing with her, but even with that memory it is so different for her than it was for me, so there are times when the generation gap feels like a chasm.

Elizabeth. Chapter two

            Suzanne stared blankly at the yellowing paper. Surprise too mild to describe the thoughts she was having, she quickly sat and reread the framed  handwritten note. Looking around at the artifacts in the attic, she decided she had to know what happened to this poor girl. She left the rest of the artifacts for later.
               Having inherited gram’s old house was going to be more interesting than she thought. Running her fingers through her red hair, she smiled and hurried to the phone. Quickly finding the number she needed, she felt impatience as all she reached was a voice mail. “Joe, this is Suzanne. Remember the joke about the museum inheriting when I did? Well, I doubt it is a joke. I need you to find someone. A girl from 1498 England. Elizabeth, last name unknown. Noble, probably accused of witchcraft. Red Hair and noted for healing the ill. Need I say asap?”  Frustrated she looked at the mirror above the phone. What else could she do to find this girl? Research was never her specialty. That was why she employed Joe. She looked over the image in the mirror and wondered what the connection was. Could she be finding family history? The tempestuous storm of emotions raged in her green eyes. 
               Shaking her head, she glared at the phone as if it could make Joe call sooner. Well she thought, nothing to be solved by staring at the phone all day. Grabbing her cell and the cordless, she went back to the attic in hopes of finding more documents or other info to go on.
                   “Gram sure left me a mess” she grumbled to herself. Feeling uneasy about where this was going, she tried to put the hesitation about the attic out of her mind. Taking the stairs to the attic in twos, her long legs quickly covered the space back to where she was. Glancing around for something of interest, her eyes landed on a half-covered painting in the rear of the attic. Curiosity poked her until she walked to it and took the paper off. The eyes that looked back at her were as green as her own. Flaming hair and soft features, beauty indeed. Yet the eyes held a sadness, as though the owner had seen hell and lived through it. The portrait frame had a small plaque. Baroness Elizabeth West 1500 AD. Suzanne was captivated by the possibilities as the phone began it’s jangle. Three times it rang before she clicked the button to answer. “Go” she barked distractedly. “Well Sue, found her. Easier than your usual requests. She was a baroness on a isle east of Ireland. She was apparently the daughter of a minor lord before the trial. Seems there was a scandal about her escape from prison. The official paperwork actually listed her as not only a witch but as being wanted by the british police for sentencing.” Joe recapped. “If ya want I can fax it all to ya. I guess the Irish nobility didn’t look too closely at who they married. Huh?” Sighing Sue replied “Sure send it. Thanks Joe.”  Joe was quicker than usual Suzanne thought. She made a mental note to thank him for the research more financially later. There was so many questions. Her writer’s mind was already trying to piece the puzzle of this obvious ancestor together. The similarity in appearance was stunning. Trying to sit, she accidentally bumped a box. The box toppled over revealing several large books.
She knelt down and started looking the books over. “Hmm, Journals? I wonder. I think I will move this box and any like it downstairs. This is a form of research which even I can enjoy.”