48 Days until Spring

 

The countdown begins. I survived January. Spring is coming. My late mother's Heritage Iris, surrounded by spiderwort. I am going to work both the gardens this year. Do, as they say. Get some sunshine, be with nature. Spring is coming. The spiderwort is the first to pop up after early bulb plants. Spiderwort and irises are always springtime. I didn't really make plans this winter. I am going to play it day by day this year. Have fun. This is one of the most beautiful flowers I know. I love gardening so much. I do. I do. I do.

The perfect quote to describe my main character..

“It was a fairy tale, no fooling. It was unreality becoming real. This frightened her. Because people don't care for unreality becoming real. It pricks their well-fed minds, you see, with something like a hunger pang. They prefer the logical stuffiness of expectancy." 

                                       — Richard Matheson

Genre writers I love.

Naomi Novik, Juliet Marillier, Patricia McKillip, Holly Black, Laini Taylor, Katherine Harbour, Anne Rice, Anne Bishop, Rebecca Ross. Grace Draven, Maggie Stiefvater. In no certain order. That's 11 because Anne Rice is really an out of the box fantasy and paranormal writer. These are all wordsmiths, too, exceptional prose writers. Writers who have romance in their stories. Writers who like girls and goblins.

So far, so good

My mother told me once that "disappointment" was a feeling that destroyed more dreams than failure. Genuine disappointment in people or personal expectations or predicament. Its cousins are frustration and despair. Disappointments are always cruel and sharp and cold. But she reminded me, there are worst things than disappointment and most of us, if we are lucky, only read about those things in books.

Gray 2024

 

I've got a moment, since I am working online tonight and I thought I would post a pic of me, all gray. Just gray. Laughing. It's so appropriate for January 2024, a month where I have suffered from the flu and endured, ice, snow, and brutal cold weather. I wrote on Twitter/X that January is always a year to me, and it is. I seem to fade into a gray ghost in January, but by the middle of February I am buying tulips and looking at seeds and planning a garden. I just have to get through this month and the first half of February, and my countdown to spring begins. Little writing is going on now. Just organizing files and a little revision. I opted to read a few new books and try to relax. Today was the first day of January that I really had a decent meal, I had a filet, some air fry okra, baked potatoes done in herbs and paprika and even a glass of tea. I've been drinking only water all month. I've also been living on can soup and baked potatoes, and scrambled eggs. Tomorrow I am having some sausage pinwheels for breakfast. At the end of next week, I'll go back to creating new words and moving on with the work in progress. I've been working hard since November 1 when I began NaNo. This is my NaNo project. A new version of the older book that went nowhere. I am energized. I like it. It's got the right hero now, it's got a better conflict, it's more compelling in story and voice. It's rich in folklore. It's terribly romantic at times. It's got kicker conflict. I just love it. Laughing. I am almost compelled to write it, something I haven't experienced in a few years since John's death. I miss John. Seven years now. It seems like yesterday at times, some days it seems long ago, almost foggy. It's insane at times. I think a loss like this is like a hole. It's there and most days you just walk around it, and some days you kind of fall into the hole and sink. Most days now, I walk around it. I feel okay. I sort of feel safe in myself if that is a thing. I feel moored to something again. Me. I don't care for selfies anymore. I don't really care about social media. I have this nice life going. Art. Writing. A garden to plan, books to read. A cat who annoys me. My blog is for bits and pieces. I don't even talk about writing that much. I write instead. I try to be kind to others. I made a pen pal list so I would be more than a name and photo on social media to some of my friends. I would be a real person writing snail mail and sending post cards and all that old stuff that people ignore nowadays. I have plans. I play vinyl music and dance. I like to cook. I want to exercise and be able to do cartwheels again. I have these little ambitions. They make me smile. Smiling is important. Laughing is important. Living the best me I can is extremely important. Giving back is nice. Being kind is nice. I can do all this. I can make a difference. Gray and all.

The Middle of January 2024

“Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.” — Neil Gaiman

Symbol and Metaphor

There is no language and no knowledge without symbol and metaphor. Two consequences arise from this: one is that we require imagination both to make and to interpret symbols, and the other is that symbols themselves beckon us through language to that which is beyond language. In other words, symbols are energized between the two poles (as Coleridge would say) of immanence and transcendence. 

                          — Malcolm Guite

 Malcolm Guite

Neil Gaiman on Making Mistakes

“I hope that in this year to come you make mistakes because if you are making mistakes then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before and, more importantly, you're doing something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art or love or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

— Neil Gaiman