Taking Note

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.
— Will Self

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.
— Walter Dean Myers

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.
— Jack London

While one of the previous weeks was all about getting my filing system organized, this past week was all about notebooks.

So . . . at the beginning of my organization blitz one of the things I did was gather up the various notebooks I had laying around my office and throw them in a bin. Some of these notebooks were untouched, but a lot of them were in various stages of being used.

I started my writing career using notebooks, writing in long hand, and I’ll still use a notebook to work out an idea or a poem, or to play around with writing prompts. Once the idea (or whatever) is used, I just put a line through the page (or pages) so I don’t accidentally re-use it.

Unfortunately, I don’t always use the same notebook, hence the stack of partially used ones. So if there were only a couple of pages used, I ripped them out (filing them in the appropriate folder) and then saved the rest of the notebook. But some of the notebooks had too many pages to do this with, so these ones I put in one of the drawers in the wire cart to be used up.

The little notebooks/notepads at the front are blank. They’re intended for quick notes of stuff I want to keep track of/remember but they’re not important enough to go into one of the larger notebooks – names, phone numbers, book titles to look for, etc.

But I still had a bunch of empty notebooks/notepads of various sizes that I didn't know what to do with. I had a box of unused notebooks in my closet so I figured I'd start by seeing if I could just add them to it.

So I take the box out of the closet and see behind it a large plastic bin with the word "Notebooks" taped to it. No ... tell me it ain’t so!

From left to right we have: Cambridge top wire bound 8 X 11 lined pads, Hilroy 8 X 11 single subject notebooks, lined notepads (to be used in a clip board), extra thick steno pads (top), hard bound 6 x 9 notebooks, and the bottom has a couple more hard bound notebooks and some 5 x 8 lined notepads. Beside that bin is the original box of notebooks I had in the closet.

There was no room in either box or bin for the extra, partially used notebooks I’d collected, so I generously stashed them in the black cabinet we use for more supplies in the hubby’s office across the hall. They go nicely with all the plastic report covers, stack of wire bound single subject notebooks, and 8 x 11 notepads I’d already stashed in there.

Mental note: I am not allowed to buy another notepad or notebook ever again. Well, you know, unless I really, really can’t resist. But it’s comforting to know that if we ever get hit by that solar storm that’s supposed to wipe out all electronics, I’ll be set for life with writing supplies, because I also have a drawer full of pens. :-D

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

Last week’s excuse for not getting any writing done was spending so much time duplicating Pillow Cat for the grandbaby (see that story HERE), this week it was working on an afghan for my mother-in-law’s birthday. But I still managed to do my three-minute words every day, so I guess that’s something.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 829+781+928=2,538
Three minute words – 111+119+111+127+129+110+115=822
Total words: 2,538 words

EDITING:
*sigh*

Once again the only editing I did was the story for Friday’s post.

WHAT I’M READING:
Despite the fact I tried to read slowly, I finished Stop the World, Snapshots From A Pandemic, edited by Lise McClendon. This was a combination of personal essays, anecdotes, and fiction, all centered on the pandemic. It’s a powerful book and I think in the years to come it, and books like it, are going to be an important reminder of what life was like during the pandemic.

On the Kindle I’m reading Ember’s Curse, by Gena D. Lutz. This is a yummy book with both werewolves and vampires, and the only reason I haven’t finished it already is because it’s the book I’m reading while riding the exercise bike and I’m exerting a great deal of self-control by limiting my reading to bike time only.

It’s a double edged sword, reading the Kindle while biking. The more I’m enjoying the book, the more likely I am not to skip my workout. But if I enjoy the book too much, I’ll keep reading the book (after my workout) until it’s done and then I’m stuck having to find another interesting book.

LAST WEEK’S GOALS
I nailed the first two goals from last week: I aced the three-minute words and I worked diligently on my mother-in-law’s afghan. But alas, once again that’s as good as it gets.

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Continue with the three minute word, and continue the cave story.
2. Finish my mother-in-law’s afghan.
3. Start the edits/rewrites on Elemental Spirit.
4. Look into online courses.
5. Work on expanding my Christmas story.

Happy writing.

The Cave – Part Three

To quickly recap: Two friends, Eve and Sara, were rock climbing and stumbled across a fissure in the rocks. Upon further exploration, they discover a cave with primitive drawings in it. As they venture further into the cave to see if there’s anything else of interest, there’s an earth tremor – they race back the way they came and reach the fissure just in time to see it fill with rocks.

They decide their best bet is to explore further into the cave and hope there’s another way out. Hours pass before they discover another chamber, this one with sparkly walls, and decide to take a break

Eve had a few empty zip lock bags with her and divided the granola into two of them, handing one to Sara. The bags were handy, and in fact all her food was kept in them to keep it fresh.

Sara took her bag with her to check out the wall that sparkled. As she munched her granola, she ran her hand along the wall. Surprisingly, it was smooth to the touch, not rough like she expected. It almost felt like a mosaic.

“Hey, Eve,” she called. “Bring the light over here.”

“What is it?” Eve asked, getting to her feet.

“It’s amazing, is what it is,” Sara said as Eve held up the light.

It was indeed a mosaic, embedded in the wall. The crystals, she refused to believe they were gemstones, formed beautiful patterns in the grey rock.

“What is it?” Eve asked again.

“It’s a mosaic, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve never even heard of something like this being imbedded in a cave, have you?”

Eve shook her head. “No, but then my memory is pretty dim when it comes to the one class I took in archeology. I was there mostly for the cute guys.”

“I wonder who did this,” Sara mused. “And how. And why so deep inside the hillside.”

“I can see actual shapes,” Eve said. “There’s a tree,” she pointed. “And is this a sun?”

“I wish the light was better in here,” Sara said. “I think if we could see the whole thing at once we might understand its message.”

“You think it has a message?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know, why else would it be in here? It’s such a unique find – I wish we could find some way to let the world know about this.

“Maybe that’s why its creator made it in this place. So no one would ever find it.”

“That’s crazy. Why created something this beautiful if you didn’t want to share it?”

“For the joy of creation maybe?”

“Look, there’s more of it over here.” Sara directed Eve to the opposite wall of the chamber.

“What do you make of this one?” Eve asked, looking at the colors swirling in an abstract pattern. She held the light up and traced the pattern of color.

Sara shuddered as she glanced at it. “I don’t know what to make of that. It’s beautiful, in a twisted kind of way, but hypnotic.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” Eve said.

They both stared at it for a moment, then Eve gave herself a shake. “C’mon, let’s find a place to lie down. We need to get some rest.”

“Rest sounds good,” Sara agreed. “Maybe if we fall asleep we’ll wake up to find it’s all been a dream.

“I’m going to turn out the light while we sleep,” Eve said. “No sense in wasting the battery.”

“Just keep it close by,” Sara said. “I don’t fancy having to look for it by touch.”

“Me either,” Eve agreed. “Okay, here goes.” She switched the light off.

They were plunged into darkness. But after a moment, Sara spoke up.

“Am I crazy or . . .”

“No, you’re not crazy. The stones in the wall are glowing.”

“But not both walls,” Sara pointed out. “Just the abstract one.” She glanced over at Eve, who was staring in fascination at the glowing shapes. “Eve? Eve!” she said sharply, giving her a shove.

“What?”

“We have to get out of here!”

Sara gathered up their packs and pulled Eve towards the back of the chamber, away from the mosaics. Eve kept glancing back, making a half-hearted attempt to return to the abstract, but Sara’s grip was like steel.

At the back of the chamber there were two openings. Without hesitation, Sara dragged Eve through the one on the left, although Eve kept trying to go right.

Finally, after they’d gone several hundred yards, Eve stopped fighting her.

“What was that?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“I don’t know. It was like you were being hypnotized. It felt . . . wrong somehow.”

Eve shuddered. “I think you just saved my life.”

“So much for our rest,” Sara said with a sigh.

“We could just sack out right here if you’re tired,” Eve suggested. “It’s not like we’re blocking anyone’s way.”

“Nah, I’m good. The granola break did wonders for me.” But she couldn’t help wonder what was going to happen when they ran out of food and water. So far they’d seen no trace of either.

“I wonder why only one of the walls glowed and not the other,” Eve mused.

“Maybe it had more exposure to your light?”

“I don’t think so.”

Sara thought for a moment. “It was almost like a trap. Or a test.”

“A test of what? Our ability to resist it?”

“Maybe. Or maybe—” Sara broke off suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

Anyone Can Do it

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

Even if there were no more books published ever, there are still more books in existence today than anyone can read. And most of them suck. Good luck trying to find a good one. It's like finding a needle in a hay stack.
― Oliver Markus Malloy

Everyone thinks they're entitled to their 15 minutes of fame. And it's that narcissism that makes people, who have no business writing a book, think they can write a book.
― Oliver Markus Malloy

Another mostly grey and cold week here in no-progress-land, and one particularly dismal morning I read a book on my Kindle. I read a really bad book. A smart person would have deleted it and found something else to read, but honestly it was like a train wreck, I just couldn’t look away.

On a whim, I checked Goodreads for reviews, curious to see who else was as appalled as I was with this book, but to my surprise half the reviews were positive. Either this person has a lot of misguided friends, or there are a lot of people who didn’t actually read the book.

So then I looked the author up on Google. She has a whole series of these books and I can only hope her writing improved with subsequent books. I found it all rather depressing.

But I vented to my good friend Jamie and she slapped me upside the head (metaphorically speaking) and gave me a word to use for my three minute exercise. :-D

This is where tree books are superior to electronic books – quality. You may not like a tree book’s story, but at least you know it’ll be well written. A publisher has invested time and money to make sure of it.

An electronic book, on the other hand, comes with no such guarantee. Anyone can publish online, and they can publish anything they want. Amazon doesn’t care how bad it is. Kobo doesn’t care how poorly it’s written. Smashwords doesn't care the author only has a nodding aquaintance with grammar.

As readers, we take our chances with electronic books. Even had I checked out the reviews before I started reading the book, I probably would have read it anyway because of the number of 5 star revies it got. None of the reviews mentioned the head hopping, the lack of grammar, the structural issues.

Good thing Indigo delivered three new tree books to me this week.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

Once again, the only new words I wrote were on the three-minute word prompts, so there’s not all that much to report here.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 894+654+945=2,493
Three minute words = 116+113+110+215+101+117+98=870
Total words: 3,363 words

Still no plans for a new Wednesday series, but at least I got the Monday post done on my other blog.

EDITING:
*sigh*

Once again the only editing I did was the story for Friday’s post.

WHAT I’M READING:
I’m still working on, Stop the World, Snapshots From A Pandemic, edited by Lise McClendon. I’ve been reading it a bit at a time to make it last but I’m over halfway through it so I’ll probably finish this week.

On the Kindle I read a young adult story called Prince of Wolves, by Quin Loftis which put me in mind of The Twilight Saga only without the vampires. Now I’m reading Sex, Doug, and a Rocky Road, by Michele Bardsley. I’ve read several of her books and you’re guaranteed a fun time with her stories.

My new Kindle arrived yesterday, but I have not had time to set it up yet. Actually, it’s still in its package. Hopefully it can be charged with the cord from my old one. I ordered the Paperwhite that charges wirelessly, and the wireless charger won’t be here until the end of February.

LAST WEEK’S GOALS
Well, I nailed my first goal from last week. I did all my three minute words, and I posted part two of the cave story.
I’m about a third of the way through the afghan for my mother-in-law. I need to crochet faster because her birthday is in a week and a half.
And that’s it for the goals.

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Continue with the three minute word, and continue the cave story.
2. Continue with my mother-in-law’s afghan.
3. Start the edits/rewrites on Elemental Spirit.
4. Look into online courses.
5. Write.

Happy writing.

The Cave – Part Two

To quickly recap: Two friends, Eve and Sara, were rock climbing and stumbled across a fissure in the rocks. Upon further exploration, they discover a cave with primitive drawings in it. As they venture further into the cave to see if there’s anything else of interest, there’s an earth tremor – they race back the way they came and reach the fissure just in time to see it fill with rocks.

Having no idea how long the batteries would last in their torches (or how long they’d need them), they agreed that Sara should switch hers off.

“These things are supposed to last for days, but why take the chance?” Eve said.

As they continued on further into the cave, the passage continued to close in. Just as Eve was afraid they were going to come to a dead end, it opened up again, this time offering three different choices of tunnels.

“Which one do we take?” Sara asked.

Eve shone her light into each one in turn, and took a few steps into the one of the far left. She came out again, shaking her head. “I don’t think I’m flexible enough to follow those bends,” she said.

“Maybe we should try the one on the right,” Sara said. “That should take us alongside, or maybe even towards the outside.”

“You think?” Eve asked dubiously. “How can you tell what direction we’re going?”

Sara shrugged. “You’re the one who jokes all the time about how I can never get lost. I’ve always had a feel for directions”

“What have we got to lose?” Eve said. “Right it is.” And since she was holding the torch, she once again led the way.

“Wait, stop!” Sara said after they’d only gone a few feet.

“What is it?”

“There’s some kind of writing on the wall. But I can’t translate it.”

“I think it says “Dead End” or something along those lines,” Eve said, her light playing on the smooth wall in front of her.

Sara sighed. “I hope we have better luck with the middle tunnel.”

“Me too,” Eve said, leading the way back to the crossroads.

“Wait,” Sara said again.

“What is it this time?” Eve asked, a little irritably.

“Do you mind if I borrow your lipstick? And don’t try to tell me you don’t have any with you, you don’t go anywhere without a lipstick.”

“What do you need my lipstick for?” Eve asked, handing it over.

“On the off chance someone comes looking for us,” Sara said. “We want them to know which way we went.”

Eve watched in silence as Sara wrote their names, the date, and the direction they were taking on the wall outside the tunnel. Personally, she thought Sara was being overly optimistic, but whatever made her happy.

They didn’t speak as they continued on, but after a while, Sara broke the silence.

“This tunnel is starting to give me the creeps.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s kind of peaceful.”

“It’s like we’re headed for the bowels of the earth.”

To be sure, they did seem to be headed deeper into the hillside, and the path was sloping gently downwards. Eve was starting to have misgivings about the direction they were headed in, and had to clench her teeth to keep from sharing her misgivings with Sara. It would only upset her.

“What was on the other side of the rocks we were climbing on?” Sara asked suddenly.

“I don’t know,” Eve said. “More rocks? Maybe some forest?”

“I’m wondering if this tunnel might lead through the entire mini-mountain we were on, and we might end up down slope on the other side.”

Privately, Eve doubted it, but all she said was, “Maybe.”

They had no way of knowing how long they continued down the tunnel. They’d agreed at the beginning of their trip to leave all electronics, including their cell phones, behind. It felt like they’d been walking for hours though.

There was little variation in the tunnel itself. The ground underfoot was hard packed earth and the walls around them were rough hewn rock, sometimes grey, sometimes streaked with black or brown.

Eventually, the tunnel widened into another chamber, this one a more modest size. The walls however, sparkled.

Sara went over to examine the walls more closely and gave a laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“What’s so funny?” Eve asked.

“You know, a couple of days ago I would have given anything to be in a place like this. But now I’d give anything to be out of it.”

Eve sighed. “Look, it was late afternoon when we found this place, and we’ve been following this tunnel for hours. What do you say we take a break, get some rest, maybe even try to sleep?”

“I guess,” Sara said dubiously.

They moved over closer to one of the cavern’s walls and sat side by side on the ground, backs against the wall. Eve’s stomach chose that moment to give a loud rumble.

“I’ve been trying really hard not to think about food,” Sara said with a sigh.

“Me too. Why don’t we see what we’ve got?”

Between them they had a half a dozen protein bars, three apples, a bag of jerky, and a large sized chocolate bar. They also had two bottles of water each.

“Not a lot, is it?” Sara said. “We picked the wrong day to try and eat healthier.”

“Oh, wait!” Eve opened a side pocket in her pack and pulled out a bag of granola. “I almost forgot about this – it’s my famous sunshine mix, with sunflower seeds and dried apricots. Dinner is served!”

It’s Getting There

Fall down seven times, get up eight. — Japanese Proverb

The best view comes after the hardest climb. — Author Unknown

I didn’t come this far to only come this far. — Author Unknown

Well. As weeks go, I’ve had better.

The only words that got written (besides a couple of long emails and the start of a letter to my sister) were the ones for the daily three-minute word exercises. That’s it.

I skipped Monday’s post on the other blog, and Friday’s post was pretty much just seven of the exercises married up into the start of a story. And that was the only editing I did too – Friday’s story. Didn’t get much reading done, and I finished the afghan I was crocheting on Monday and haven’t started a new project yet.

So what have I been doing?

Well, I’ll tell you. It was a bleak and dismal week (mostly) weather-wise, which was singularly unmotivating to do anything, and what little energy I had was laser focused on getting my office organized.

As you can see, there wasn’t much space to work at my desk, was there? Under my hat is my four tier in-box, which is sitting on top of the mesh cart I was so enamored of.

That picture was taken at the beginning of the week. Now my desk looks more or less like this, so at least I can get at the lap top:

The cart area is looking much better too:

Unfortunately, the bookcase still needs some work:

Most of my time and energy was spent revamping my filing system. See that plastic file holder mid-way up on the right side? I have four of them, plus the two-drawer filing cabinet, a file drawer in my desk, and the file drawer in the mesh cart. The only one that wasn’t full of files was the one in the cart.

It took a lot of arranging, sorting, re-arranging, and more sorting, but I think I’ve finally got my filing system straightened out. It might need a little tweeking going forward, but for the most part I’m pretty happy with it.

Now all that’s left is the bookcase, and dealing with the stuff in my reading area:

The grey bin is full of blank notebooks, some of which have only a few pages left in them, others that have never been touched. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with them. And the bin under the stuff that’s under my hat is full of books that need to be shelved . . . somewhere.

I think I need a bigger office. :-D

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

As I said above, the only new words I wrote were on the three-minute word prompts, so there’s not all that much to report here.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 790+958=1748
Three minute words = 92+112+113+121=438
Total words: 1748 words

I’m not adding the three minute words to the total because they were part of Friday’s fiction post.

EDITING:
*sigh*

The only editing I did was the story for Friday’s post, and it was kind of a slap/dash job at that.

WHAT I’M READING:
On my downtime I confess I mostly played mindless games, but I started reading an anthology I was given for Christmas, Stop the World, Snapshots From A Pandemic, edited by Lise McClendon. It’s a wonderful idea for an anthology, offering a slice of what life has been like during the pandemic from a wide variety of points of view.

On the Kindle I finished Touch A Dark Wolf, by Jennifer St. Giles. I thought the ending was a little abrupt, but I guess that’s what drives you to buy the next in the series, to find out what happened when the dust settled. After that I read Caged Wolf (The Tarot Witches, #1), by S.M. Reine. It was a little grittier than the books I’ve been reading lately, but the story called for gritty. It was the first in a series and as soon as I get my new Kindle I’ll be looking for the next one.

Yes, that’s right. It’s time to retire my beloved George. We’ve had a good run but he’s been getting crankier and crankier, and he has a hissy fit when I try to update him and it takes him days to get over it. So when I was on Amazon yesterday ordering a birthday gift for my granddaughter, I ordered a gift for me too – a Kindle Paperwhite. It should be here next weekend.

LAST WEEK’S GOALS
Last week’s goals were a bust, save for my daily three-minute words.

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Continue with the three minute word, and continue the cave story.
2. My mother-in-law has a birthday coming up so I’ll be starting a new afghan.
3. Start the edits/rewrites on Elemental Spirit.
4. Look into online courses.
5. Write.

Happy writing.

The Cave

Well… this was kind of interesting. Originally I was going to take a look at the resulting pieces for my three minute word exercises and pick one to turn into my weekly flash story. But a couple of days in, I thought why not kill two birds with one stone and use each day’s word to create a continuous flash story?

So each day I kept the story going, and what you see below is the result of seven days worth of exercises. The words I used were picked at random from The Family Word Finder, published by Reader’s Digest, about 40 years ago. I’ve bolded them in my story so you know which ones I used.

Now the question is, do I leave the story as it is, or do I keep going?

They took a break at mid-day, sitting on a tumble of boulders, drinking from their water bottles.

“I have to admit, Eve, this was a great idea.”

“I knew once I got you out here you’d love it. It’s the best of both worlds, hiking and rock climbing.”

“And the rock climbing is easy enough that even a klutz like me can manage it.” Sara said with a chuckle. She motioned with her water bottle. “What’s that over there?”

Eve turned to look. “Looks like a fissure in the rocks, it might even lead to a cavern,” she said with growing excitement. “Hey, Sara, ever try spelunking?”

“Wow,” Sara said when they crawled through the fissure to the cave. “It looks like a giant lives here.”

The cave was enormous, a fact that wasn’t made clear until Eve turned on her torch. The light didn’t reach the edges, but cut in a wide swath through the dark as they moved around. Sara flicked her torch on as well and they moved in opposite directions, parallel to the entrance, to try and give an estimate of the size.

The cave definitely earned the name cavern. Eve figured her whole house could fit inside, with room for parking.

“Hey, Eve, come check this out,” Sara called.

Eve crossed the immense chamber to her. “What is it?”

Sara held her lantern up. “Look!”

Eve sucked in a breath of astonishment. The wall of the cave was filled with primitive art work. “This is amazing,” she whispered. Unable to resist, she reached out to touch the smooth surface of the wall. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s the find of the century,” Sara said with satisfaction. “And we’ll get the credit for finding it.”

“We need to search this entire cave,” Eve said.

“I agree. I can’t believe no one ever stumbled on this place before,” Sara said.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Eve said as they made a slow circuit of the chamber. “This trail is kind of off the beat track, away from the main trails. And do you remember the earthquake we had a couple of weeks ago?”

Sara frowned. “But that was just a teeny tiny one, hardly noticeable.”

“But maybe just enough to open the fissure, leaving the rest of the cave intact.”

“How far back do you think it goes?” Sara asked.

“I don’t know,” Eve replied, holding up her battery operated torch to help dispel the gloom. “I’d heard this area is riddled with caves, I’ve just never seen any. And I certainly never heard any rumors about cave paintings.”

Sara turned and began to trace lightly over the primitive drawings. “I wonder how old they are.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Eve said, coming closer to the wall again. She frowned. “Maybe not as old as we think.”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked.

“Well, look at this pigment. It’s hardly faded at all.”

Sara frowned and looked closer. “I don’t know much about the preservation of art,” she admitted. “But wouldn’t the fact it’s been seal up help preserve it?”

“Maybe.”

In a mood as changeable as the weather, Eve grinned again. “But even if it’s a fake, it’s an amazing one. And maybe it’s not millions of years old, but it’s a good bet it’ll still be at least hundreds. We’ll still be famous.”

Eve’s good humor was infectious and Sara couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon, let’s keep exploring. Maybe there’s more paintings, or even artifacts.”

The two women made their way cautiously along the wall to the back of the cave. It grew smaller the further they went, but it was still roomy.

The walls were rough and the floor was hard packed earth.

“Shouldn’t there be stalactites or stalagmites or something?” Sara asked.

“Not necessarily,” Eve said. “I’m pretty sure you only them in cave where there’s water. This seems pretty dry to me.”

Suddenly, the ground shifted and there was a rumbling noise. Sara and Eve looked at each other in shock.

“Run!” Eve shouted.

They raced back to the fissure, arriving in time to see rocks slam down to fill it completely.

As the two women stood frozen in place, the rumbling stopped and the cloud of dust the falling rocks created began to settle.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Sara asked quietly.

Eve hesitated. “Probably,” she admitted.

“Well, you know what they say about curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat. Looks like we’re a couple of cats who didn’t have sense enough to stay out of strange fissures.”

“Sara…” Eve reached out to touch her arm.

“Don’t!” Sara said, jerking her arm away. “Don’t try and comfort me.”

“Don’t be like that,” Eve said, unable to wholly give up hope. “We just barely scratched the surface of how far back this cavern goes. For all we know, another fissure might have opened up. We need to keep exploring.”

The Organization Blues

For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.
— Benjamin Franklin

A good system shortens the road to the goal.
— Orison Swett Marden

Being organized isn’t about getting rid of everything you own or trying to become a different person: it’s about living the way you want to live, but better.
— Andrew Mellen

Once again I’m on that road that’s paved by good intentions. *sigh*

The organizing of my office is going much slower than I counted on.

Part of the blame lies with the weather. It’s been grey and rainy, grey and cold, and grey and windy. It sucked all my energy away. I didn’t even get any snow to brighten things up a bit. So my heart hasn’t really been in it. In fact, Wednesday, even though my new cart, the proper cart, arrived, I spent the day reading.

The rest of the blame lies solely with me. I want to get this right so I’m doing a major overhaul of my filing system, as well finding homes for various papers and notebooks, and “stuff” that’s scattered around. It is painstaking and time consuming, and yesterday I thought I was making good progress and then discovered two bins of “stuff” on the other side of my desk.

One thing about taking my time and going through all my files, I’m finding things I’d forgotten about. Granted some of them are stories so terrible they’re best left forgotten, but still. I also found a couple of folders of ideas I’d forgotten about, and some of them weren’t so bad.

So needless to say, I’m not doing all that great on my daily goals, spending an hour a day writing, editing, leaning, reading, and crafting. I probably spend, on average, at least an hour a day reading and crafting, and I’ve been writing for three minutes a day to a one word prompt, but editing and learning have kind of fallen by the way side.

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Wordage Report

While the only new words I have to show for my week are the ones I did for the one word prompts, a funny thing happened halfway through the week. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my goals post, but one of the things I want to do is write a flash story each week. Why not kill two birds with one stone and do the story using my three-minute word exercises? I can continue the story each day.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 876+483+324=1,683
Three minute words = 72+98+95+82+76+102+94=919
Total words: 2,602 words

As you may have noticed, I haven’t started a new Wednesday blog series yet. And I probably won’t for a while yet. And while I haven’t been burning up the keyboard with new words, I’ve at least been getting my daily word exercise done.

EDITING:
I’m actually looking forward to finishing the organizing so I can dive into my editing, although I’m thinking it’s more re-writing than editing proper. An Elemental Spirit is an elemental mess, and I really want to rewrite my little Christmas romance story to turn it into the story it was meant to be. Also, I’m not sure how to chart my editing – hours spent? Pages done? I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

WHAT I’M READING:
The book I read on Wednesday was The Obsession, by Nora Roberts. It’s one of my favorites and I just had the urge to read it again. I also read The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa. This was my book flood present to myself. Every once in awhile I like to step out of my reading comfort zone, and this was a pleasant change of pace.

On the Kindle I’ve been reading Touch A Dark Wolf, by Jennifer St. Giles. It’s a paranormal suspense, with a little romance thrown in. To be honest, I find it a little confusing because there’s so much backstory going on.

LAST WEEK’S GOALS
I guess I’ve already touched on the goals from last week. While I didn’t do any editing or learning, I did a little writing and a lot of reading and crafting, working on the afghan I started when we first got Amazon Prime. With any luck, I’ll have it done this week.

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Continue with the three minute word, maybe even expand it to five minutes.
2. Keep up the good work reading and crafting.
3. Start the edits/rewrites on Elemental Spirit.
4. Look into online courses.

Happy writing.

Holidays

Here it is, the first Friday of the New Year, and the first poem. This poem was written in response to the homework assignment given by my poetry group, which was to write a poem about tradition. I’m not sure this is what the assignment had in mind, but it is what it is.

I’m not exactly in love with it, so I might try a different approach at some point.


Holidays

A kiss, a cheer, it’s Happy New Year
A toast for good things to come
We won’t miss the past, though it didn’t go fast,
This year left us all feeling numb.

With candy and cards, poems from the bards
Love often gets carried away
With chocolate and hearts, Cupid’s sharp darts,
Celebrate Valentine’s Day.

A toast with green beer, raise your flagon and cheer
And join me in dancing a reel
It’s St. Paddy’s Day, and the pipers can play
While we dine on a green tinted meal.

Chocolate galore, egg hunts and more
But there’s more to Easter than games
He died on the cross, we mourn for his loss
, He took all our sins without blame.

On Canada Day, fireworks will display
And color the sky with their light
Picnics and games, barbecue flames
The party lasts into the night.

Now summer is done, Labour Day’s come
No more barbecues, beaches or fun
Soon leaves will turn, piles of them burn
The season of fall has begun.

We all gather ‘round, a table that’s crowned
With the annual Thanksgiving meal
Turkey and sides, new dishes tried
A bounty that’s sure to appeal.

A fire of bones, ringed by dark stones
To celebrate All Hallow’s Eve
Witches and cats, pumpkins and bats
And ghosts for those who believe.

The stockings are hung, the carols are sung
The lights of Christmas shine bright
A star in the sky, leads wisemen nigh
To the babe in the manger this night.

Backwards and Forwards

You live life looking forward, you understand life looking backward.
— Soren Kierke

Wisdom is looking back at your Life and realising that every single event, person, place and idea was part of the perfected experience you needed to build your dream. Not one was a mistake.
— John Federick Demartini

The years go by. The time flies. Every single second is a moment in time that passes. And it seems like nothing – but when you’re looking back … well, it amounts to everything.
— Ray Bradbury

Whew! We made it to the new year.

Looking back, I’d have to say last year didn’t start out as badly as I thought it did. I was getting a little writing done, and I even submitted a couple of stories to on-line magazines. Yeah, they were rejected, but at least I got them out there.

Then everything went to hell when I had to have cancer surgery. It was a long road to recovery, and during that time I barely felt like reading, let alone writing. But I did eventually recover, and my writing received a much needed boost in October when I went to the Writescape retreat at the Elmhirst’s Resort.

This was followed by the best National Novel Writing Month I’ve ever had. Thirty stories in thirty days, reaching the 50,000 word goal with a week to spare, ending with over 15,000 words to spare. It was glorious.

Once NaNo was done, it was time to get working on my book flood anthology. It felt a little rushed, but I was happy with the results. And I did every bit of it myself.

I really wanted to start the new year with my office being all organized, but . . . Remember that cart I ordered from Staples? The oh, so handy piece of furniture with the two small drawers and one big file drawer? It was going to be so helpful in getting things in order. Only Staples sent me the wrong cart. This one had four smaller drawers. *sigh*

So it’s going back, and the Staples customer service ticked me off so much I’ll be ordering the proper cart from Amazon, for $30 less.

Not the greatest start to the year.

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Goals For 2022

December was a pretty busy month for me, but I thought a lot about my goals for the year. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far (in no particular order):

Finishing
I have a lot of unfinished/not quite finished stories and novels, and I’d to work away at getting them completed.
To accomplish this: I’m going to take them one at a time, instead of my usual method of trying to do several at the same time.

Selling
It’s one thing when friends and family tell you your writing is good, it’s another thing altogether when someone pays you actual money because they like your stuff. I really want to start submitting more of my work for publication.
To accomplish this: I’m going to set aside an hour a day checking out possible markets and submitting my work. My goal is to submit at least one story/poem per week.

Writing
Kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? Or at least it should. While a lot of my focus will be on finishing the stories I’ve got, I’m never lacking in new ideas. So unless a novel sized idea grabs me and won’t let go, my goal here is to write every day and produce one story a week.
To accomplish this: I want to start every day with a timed writing to get me going, and then set aside 1 hour a day (minimum) for other writing. Blog posts don’t count.

Learning
I think we never stop learning, whether we mean to or not. What I’d like to do is put a little effort into it.
To accomplish this: The internet is a wonderful tool, allowing us to take courses without leaving our homes. I propose to take a couple of on-line courses, maybe even get my certification in editing.

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Every year I usually spend a lot of time trying to work out a schedule to accomplish everything I want to get done in a day at a set time. Even when I’m able to create such a schedule, I never seem to be able to stick to them for long and they end up being abandoned.

So this year I sat down and started with 24 hours in a day, then subtracted the amount of time I spend doing mundane stuff like sleeping and eating, then I looked at the amount of time I had left over and decided an hour a day was a reasonable amount of time to spend at a specific task. That still gives me time left over for other things, and I can get my hour in whenever it suits me.

These task may vary from time to time, but my short list is: writing, editing, reading, learning, and crafting. And the hour isn’t set in stone, it’s the minimum amount of time to spend on each thing.

I’ll let you know how it goes.