Blocked again

I've got writer's block, and even burning orange candles to Mercury and burning benzoin incense aren't doing it. My vampire character isn't talking to me, telling me what I should write. I'd write the end of the story but then I'll be tempted to curtail the rest of the story and rush towards a conclusion, and that isn't what I want to do at all. I want to develop the story, build suspense, and have it be a true modern gothic novel. I suppose at some point I'll be going back to the textbooks, doing exercises in my book on description and setting that I started reading while in Idaho. Every story is a learning curve for me. I learn with every story I write. I also learn during revision. I may even go back to the literature, and read about vampires. Time to return to basics.

Fried, in desperate need of a cat

I just turned in a story to my editor, and am hot in the middle of a bad case of Fried Brain Syndrome. The only cure I've discovered to work is to stroke a cat's fur. Somehow that
tends to calm me down and open my mind. When I'm working towards a deadline, I tend to get a kind of tunnel vision. I eat, sleep, and live my story. That is being a writer. I know it's weird, but I'm weird. I've been weird all my life. But back to Fried Brain Syndrome, or also known as FBS, my friends in Redding have a treatment for it that works. It's a game of how many kittens can we fit on your lap? Kittens are good because they're basic. They aren't intellectual. All they want out of life is food, water, a place to sleep, the occasional dangly toy to bat around the room, and a hand to scritch them, and stroke their fur. Give them attention and they purr. I'm convinced that the sound of a cat's purr will lower a human's blood pressure. That's what I need right now.

Trees are Absolutely Essential for Human Life

This blog isn't exactly about publishing or about writing. It is about something even more important. It is about trees, and their value to all of life. They shelter smaller plants that are used by humans for food and medicines. Farmers use trees to divide one field from another, and stop the fierce winds that whistle across the plains. But much more basically, trees provide, just by being, like all other green plants, most of the oxygen we need to live. We get fruit and nuts from them. They attract lightning so that we will be spared. Where would we be without trees? I think that if there were trees in Somalia and Ethiopia, there would not now be millions starving to death. They could just pick fruits and nuts from the trees and eat. Manna, as it was described in the Judeo-Christian Bible, came from a tree. I believe it was the tamarisk tree, which dripped a sweet sticky syrup that the children of Israel lapped up. Trees play a key part in the mythology. There were trees in the fabled Garden of Eden. The mystical Jews study the Tree of Life in Qabalah. Shamans climb a tree in order to go to the different worlds, down for the Underworld, in the middle for the Middle World, with which we are most familiar, and up to journey in the Upper World, to visit with the deities, and other Upper World beings. The Germans and the Norse have Yggdrasil, the World Ash Tree, which pointed the way to all nine of the Germanic and Norse worlds. We use trees for countless purposes; building materials, paper, furniture, and many other uses. The Native Americans and early settlers used the bark of the birch tree as paper. Trees trap soil that would ordinarily be washed away in erosion. They also hold moisture in the soil. They prevent dangerous landslides. What else can I say about trees and how important, how vital they are? This blog is by no means exhaustive. It is only to get you, my readers to thinking about trees, and talking about trees, and how important they are to all life.

When we last left our heroine.....

Since my first blog was written, two more of my stories have been published. One is Arianrhod's Bracelet, and the other is Yule Yelps [The Fattigman Files], and the process of creation continues. I had my 60th birthday in January, and thought about how my life has progressed. Why couldn't I have done this 20 years ago? This is great. I don't plan ever to retire. As long as I can apply fingers to keyboard I plan on writing. There are a lot more stories inside of me rarin' to get out. I'm afraid I was a little hard on the editor who edited my holiday story, sorry, Pam. Hopefully, I won't be so pressed for time when my next one gets to the final edit. Right now I'm working on what I hope will be the ultimate vampire novel. The idea came to me just before Yule, and certain signs and omens told me that I should be writing this novel. On December 23rd, of all times, there was a program on the History Channel about vampires. Then after the holidays we saw a show on the SciFi Channel on the historic Dracula. I started brainstorming with snoodlady about it. I also brainstormed about it with Doc on the way to the covenstead at Yule. I made some notes when we got back home. I've been working on it ever since.