Dreaming of Cats

I had a dream last night;
Middlekid has a small but tall chest of drawers in her room. In my dream, Peppercorn crawled out from underneath it, and had about eight kittens with her. The reason she disappeared was because she was busy having kittens, not because some wastrel ran over her. Weird, considering we had her fixed in March in real life.

It was a lovely dream, but I don't know where to file it.

Of Cats and Assholes

Some miserable, worthless fuck-wad ran over our cat this morning. No one seems to have seen anything, and the coward drove off. Any way you slice it, Peppercorn is gone, gone, gone, and Mandy has to stay locked in the house because he won't stay off the street, sniffing the spot where she was lying.

This just sucks.

Anthropomorphic Food, Musical Manuscripts

Normally, I don't like eating things with faces, but for a punschkugel, I'll make an exception.

In other news, there is such a big, big difference between the phrase "the novel is in the bag," and "I have bagged the novel." Is there a day in the future when I am sure enough of myself as a writer to start a project I believe in and ram it right on through to the end without waffling, wandering off, being unfaithful? In short, the novel is back on the back burner, yes, again, because I feel like I'm beating my own head in with a brick that would rather be doing something else.
I really do fantasize about a day when I feel as if I have some clue what I'm doing as a writer and I know it may never come. Maybe it doesn't need to? Perhaps this is just the way I do things. Work on something a bit until it stalls. Put it aside and work on something else until that stalls. As long as I don't just play musical manuscripts, I mean, as long as things are getting finished and submitted in their own good time, it's ok, right? Right?

Kapwing!

I'm getting better at handling rejections- some still hurt more than others, but for the most part they are all a learning experience.  At some point I was vaguely thinking there must be a magic number of times you can submit something before it becomes impossible ignore the fact that it's crap, even if you still can't see it.  I never really got around to deciding what this number is, or if it even exists; I retired many things myself, especially in my first year or so of submitting because my learning curve was steep.  (You know what I mean, perhaps?  That "thank BOB nobody ever accepted this!" story?)

The ones I stuck with have either been accepted somewhere (yay!) or had enough positive comments that I knew they were worth subbing.  Except for this one story.  It has been held rather long in some places, read by more than one reader in some places, but, in the end, always returned without comment.

And I've submitted it more than any other story.  Hmmmm.... What's a writer to do?  Perhaps it's time for a cooling off- I'll shelve it for a half year or so and then look if it's really any good.

So what about you, fellow bloglodytes?  You ever have story you really thought was good that no one wanted to touch?

Art & Fear

I flatter myself I'm not wholly chicken. I do think it takes a certain amount of bravery to be an artist of any sort. You have to be willing to expose yourself in all kinds of ways. I write things, sometimes, thinking oh, no. I shouldn't write that- people will think this character is me and that I'm a weirdo (not saying I ain't, but still, who wants that for their grand epitaph?). Or worrying that a piece of writing makes me look immature or conceited or obsessed. Or just exposes me as a crappy writer...

I look into Bayles and Orland's Art & Fear from time to time, when I forget what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. At the end of the day (read: at the end of my life) I can't guarantee that anything I will have written will be meaningful to anyone, so I might as well make sure it's meaningful to me. I'm making use of the vacuum, I guess. Usually, I accuse the vacuum of being guilty of giving me so much space that I lose the plot, quite literally. The upside is that I have enough space to decide, firmly, if I'm willing to stand behind a piece long before anybody else has seen it. Happy writing, Bloglodytes. Keep pecking away at those keyboards.

April, April, macht was ich will.

Hello, fellow bloglodytes. I've been a bad blogger, I know. Sometimes I have the impression there is an inverse correlation between the amount that I write and the amount that I blog. Man With Beard has been away a lot recently, but the good news is, I've written about 35,000 words in the past three weeks. The bad news is, somebody has to type it in now.
Any volunteers? I'll e-mail it to you and...
Oh.
Wait.
Nevermind.





(ps: The proverb is actually 'April, April, macht was er will.' Or, April, April, does what it wants. What I wrote says 'April, April, does what I want.' Which has probably just jinxed me.)

Shiny Lights in the Dim

Peppercorn on the pelmet, ready to laser all intruders (who don't bring kitty snacks.)  

Be it the sun or the cat, I'm all in favour of lights in the darkness.

Spring has arrived, and the purple crocuses and other garden inhabitants are popping up, which makes me very happy.  Spring is usually a prolific time for me, so I'm trying to get busy.  I'm plowing on with my novel again.  I begin to wonder if my characters are all half-lizard; they don't seem to want to get going.  I poke them with pointy sticks and they lie there like so much road-kill.  I have come to the conclusion that I am poking them with the wrong stick.  I need a bigger one.  Or one made of marshmallow.  Or a stick shaped like a tank.  I don't know.  I'll try anything once, though.

I have an obscene number of books on writing, which I read and re-read bits of, off and on.  I honestly can't tell if any of it is sinking in or not.  I would love to believe that my subconscious is making use if it all without telling me, but who knows?  Writing down words and shredding them afterwards seems to be the most effective learning method for me, so I'm off.

After this word:   I hate to bring this up, almost.  I know I'm very late to the game, either pro or con, but I'm just reading Twilight (yes, that Twilight) and I'm sort of in shock.