blogging

An Update on My Writing and Life in General


I crossed the 25,000 word threshold. It is the half-way mark for NaNoWriMo but not my ultimate goal now. I am still convinced I have 79,000 words in me, and so the memoir will take me into December which means revising some of my writing plans for the end of the year. Not the worst thing which could happen to me.

I have been prolific over at 50 Something Moms. Check out this, this and this. Sadly, however, Moms Speak Up is being held hostage by a server that is refusing to renew our domain name.  Subsequently, the site is in blogosphere limbo. I am a bit choked about this because I stupidly didn’t make back ups of my work there and fear it is now basically lost forever.

No new publishing opportunities to report but I am hopeful. It’s been about six months since I revised my sci-fi short and sent it back for the requested second look at On Spec. Perhaps the length of time is a good sign? I choose to think so.

I am past ready for my child to go back to school. She has asks daily when she will be able to back to school. Monday is still a long way off.

My mom is okay. That is simply how it is as a widow or anyone grieving a loss really. Things are okay or fine until they are not. My aunt came to stay this past week and all things financial are now in order. Auntie is a wunderkind of organization.

CB has been a bit “fussy”, but I talked with him Wednesday evening and he sounded better than he had in a while.

DNOS and Nephew2 caught the same flu we had. Nephew2 is mended but my sister has a horrible cough. I worry about her. She’s had the cough in some version or another since last spring. We went to Walmart to get Halloween costumes and rode in Dad’s old car. I drove that same car in June to take Dad to the garage downtown and didn’t really notice any smoke odor. But DNOS has been using the car on and off all summer and my eyes started watering as soon as I got inside. It was like sitting in an ashtray. Even opening the windows didn’t help. I worry about her health.

On a sad note, Shelley’s biological father has kidney cancer that has spread to the ribs and hip. He had lost one kidney years ago because of a tumor, so this cancer ridden one was it for him. As I understand it, he was not a good father. A morose alcoholic, his relationship with his children and grandchildren was distant at best.

Rob took the girls to see him Wednesday night. They were ambivalent. Rob was rocked a bit by walking the same halls he’d traveled during Shelley’s treatments.

Death continues to dog us, but I am reminded of a conversation I had with BabyD when I mentioned that Daddy would be going into town to visit with Shelley’s dad.

“God must need him, Mom.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Well, if you are old or too sick to fix that means God needs you.”

Simple universal truths. When do we get too old to remember these things?

The Dance is Song Lyric Thursday


Been listening to Garth Brooks lately. Forgot how much I liked him. The Dance is one of my favorite songs but Brooks didn’t write it, a guy named Tony Arata did and here he is singing it.

 

 

Looking back on the memory of 
The dance we shared beneath the stars above 
For a moment all the world was right 
How could I have known you’d ever say goodbye 
And now I’m glad I didn’t know 
The way it all would end the way it all would go 
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain 
But I’d of had to miss the dance 
Holding you I held everything 
For a moment wasn’t I the king 
But if I’d only known how the king would fall 
Hey who’s to say you know I might have changed it all 
And now I’m glad I didn’t know 
The way it all would end the way it all would go 
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain 
But I’d of had to miss the dance 
Yes my life is better left to chance 
I could have missed the pain but I’d of had to miss the dance

Running in Place


We got back from the States early Monday evening. Thanks in large part to the fall back to standard time, we gained two hours, but that hasn’t helped me much. I came down with the flu on the day we left. Ran a fever even. A real one that doctors would recognize. Normally my temp barely cracks 97 F, so anything over 98 leaves me feeling like death. A recognized fever floors me. My sweet husband pulled all the driving duty then on the way home so I could sleep, but I still feel punk.

Even ill I managed to start NaNoWriMo and should push past the the 15,000 word mark this weekend. Surprisingly, to me alone I suppose, was that the words just run like water from a tap on this project. I am also finding it easier to merely tell the story and not seek perfection as is my wont when I write – although not necessarily on this blog as my husband and Silverstar can attest.

After having a second piece at 50 Something Moms picked up for syndication, I am feeling pressured. It is entirely self-pressure, but it is stifling me a bit idea-wise. I also have no idea what to do with the publishing credits I now have. How to parlay them into a new opportunity has become my new dilemma.

I am missing my dad quite a bit. I was speaking with him daily and around the time I would usually call I find myself becoming sad. Rob saved a phone message for me last year with Dad’s voice. I played it yesterday for myself and discovered it was the birthday call he made to me not quite a year ago. His voice sounded so weak and the message was very short. It was nice to hear him again.

My brother sent me an email mid-week asking me to call him. This was after I had talked to Mom and discovered he’d called her and hinted around for money. He knows better than to ask me for money, but I am betting he wants me to talk Mom into helping him. That will not happen. But I am not putting off the return call for any reason other than I don’t want to speak with him right now. I cannot assure myself that I won’t tell him exactly what I thought about his behavior just yet. After an entire year – plus a difficult summer – of dealing with him over the phone, I need a rest. Am I my brother’s keeper? It would appear so but even keepers need vacations.

I have received condolence cards this last week. One from the Holy Family Schools, probably the alumni office – now there is a job, keeping track of the family deaths of old students – and another from my oldest friend, Lisa J. who is actually younger than I am but I have officially kept in touch with her longer than anyone else I have ever known.

Lisa J and I go back to 5th grade at Resurrection Grade School. That’s about 35 years. She sent a card offering her sympathy and memories of Dad. Chiefly, she recalled that he was always working on one or the other of our cars, a consequence of never buying one that wasn’t used or older than 8 years. She also remembered him fixing a flat on her bike, which I don’t remember at all. Finally, she remembers him scolding us about people who leave mass early.

“Would you leave a movie ten minutes early?” he asked.

She says that has always stuck with her.

I didn’t read a single card I received after my late husband died. Didn’t send one “thank you”. I frankly found the cards impersonal and a stark reminder of how alone I had been on that journey and how only his death seemed to spark people. I don’t feel the same way about the cards and wishes I have received about Dad. Listening to Mom talk about reading and replying to cards has done much to take the sour taste of my own experience out of my mouth, though it hasn’t made me forget or suddenly want to dig them out and write a bunch of belated thank you’s.

Trying to get back into the swing of life as usual this week has left me feeling a bit like a gerbil on a wheel, but slowly routine is seeping into my bones.