I’m brimming with ideas and creative urgency. I know I can’t/won’t get it all done but while things are percolating, I want to get some of it down.

I began a short story yesterday. It’s an idea that came to me over the holidays which, in and of itself, is something to celebrate! (getting an idea while busy doing lots of non-writing activities!)

While driving to and from Maine (and a wonderful Christmas with my younger son and gorgeous granddaughter!) I thought and thought and thought about it. Thinking about a story and writing it are two different things. But I’ve also learned that thinking it through is most advantageous. I believe that in the past I’ve sometimes been too eager to begin too soon. I’m still a bit uncertain about the unfolding of this tale, but nonetheless, I’ve begun and am excited about it.

I’ve signed up for a second round of Exquisite Corpse! Yay. That’s all I can say: yay!

I’m thinking of writing and illustrating some books for Cadi, my three and a half year old granddaughter. Um. Perhaps I should change that to A book.
Having been involved in the process of online publishing (see Third Person Press) makes me realize that I can do this for her, for myself and for very little money. And who knows where that might lead. Children’s books were an interest a long time ago and one that I studied and worked at for a long time. It would be good to get back to it. I have several ideas in the percolator.

A book about the house we live in. This has been an idea since we moved here. The house is old, we know a lot of the history of it and it’s interesting! I’ve been approached by a friend/historian/writer about it. He is doing a book about an old house on the island that has been in his wife’s family for many many years and has two houses other than mine that he’d like to see a book on. In other words, a series.

I’ve been thinking about it and know that my style of book would be completely different from a historian’s. But here’s what I’m thinking of including: some of my *artsy* photos of details of the house and yard, short personal essays, historical essays, and historical fiction, maybe a poem or two, maybe drawings and perhaps some transcripts of interviews with a woman named Georgie who grew up in the house. That sounds long but I think I would have to be extremely selective. Some of the fictional parts are necessary because 1) I write fiction and 2) there are gaps in our historical knowledge of the house and 3) filling in those gaps with conjecture would make the project fun to write and more fun to read!

So we’ll just have to see about that. It’s a huge project and I have no idea if my vision of it would be acceptable for this particular series of books. But it’s a definite maybe.

Then there’s that unfinished novel from last November…….

This must be done: I have two stories that are CLOSE to being ready to send out to possible publishers. I must do quick revisions, maybe give them to someone to review and get them out!

See other stories about and photos of our old house
Putting on a new roof: http://nancywaldman.net/2007/07/25/the-up-side-of-outside/
The White Lilac Fact/Fairy Tale: http://nancywaldman.net/2007/06/20/of-things-dreamed-of/
Near-by Fires and what I learned about what’s most important: http://nancywaldman.net/2007/05/17/weather-or-not/

In January, I did an article for The PCQ on Beth Felice who, as Annie Octavia, owns and operates a beautiful art gallery on Second Life called Gallerie Octaviana. In order to see for myself what it was about (she’s been kind enough to include some of my work in two of her shows), I made myself an alter-ego and made my first forays into this virtual world.

My name is Aplomb Pomilio. The name was chosen with tongue firmly in cheeque. I like the word, I like the concept and it’s something that I often do not have in abundance. I’m finding out that in learning how to navigate in a new world, aplomb is scarce. I find that I’m insecure about what to do, who to talk to, where to go. In fact, it’s like every experience I’ve ever had moving to a new place.

Odd, that.

This isn’t “real” and yet, my self, my mind makes it feel very real even unto bringing along very real emotions as I try to find my way in a new *place* among strangers. And this “realness” goes farther. I could have made myself anything I wanted and yet I’m pretty normal looking though young and with a great figure (I’m not foolish enough to pass up a chance at those two things!)

I want to write about this more as I’m finding the experience puzzling, eye-opening and more than anything else revelatory. I’m just not sure yet what it’s revealing!

One thing is sure: I’m absolutely loving the opportunity to play dress-up! As a child, my sister and I played paper dolls. We loved exploring fashion styles and opportunities that we would never get to experience for real. Being in Second Life has taken me back to that childhood delight but with such HUGE differences that it can hardly be over-stated. I have a gorgeous *me* with a great figure. A me that moves, walks, flies (badly), sits (sometimes in the middle of walls and objects), talks and as such, I can dress me up in hundreds of combinations of clothes and accessories—at this point, all for free. I haven’t spent a dime and I’m having so much fun.

My favourite so far: a Purple and Silver outfit. The overskirt is animated, it swirls as I move. The knee-high boots are purple with white designs—FABULOUS!

These days instead of playing a morning computer game or other “getting ready” activity before I settle into real work, I go to Second Life and decide what I’m going to wear for the day. Today, for the first time, I tried out an edgy look (for me and Aplomb, that is).

I also have some normal jeans, sandals and t’s outfits but even those are a lot more fun than what’s in my real closet!

This morning as I was getting dressed for real, I took a little extra care because…well, because if I’m going to take such care in a world that’s not real, I should at least make a little effort where it is.

More soon on groups I’m joining and what that’s like.

Today I seem to be swimming freely in my life once again.

For a few weeks, I got stuck. I felt completely bogged down. Any kind of effort toward unsticking myself was a tiresome slog that left me only wanting to retreat back into my rutted state.

This wasn’t that noticeable to others because I still went about my daily life…I just wasn’t as productive. As I’ve written about before, I spent long hours mastering a certain computer game that shall remain unidentified lest someone else fall under it’s marblicious spell.

I continued doing what I could to get away from the rut that included only Me and The Game. Eventually, I began to tell people—my husband, my sons, my trusty girlfriends, and my mom—that I wasn’t really doing that well. I felt at the time that this ‘coming out’ was part of the process of recovery. That if I hadn’t been on the road to recovery, I wouldn’t have been able to admit it.

Today, I woke up feeling that my hated rut had been washed away by a good strong soaking. I can still sense the route that it wore through my brain, but it no longer has depth.

This has happened before of course. I think though that as I get older (pushin’ 60, girl) I have the mental calm, perspective and actual quiet in my life to be able to analyze what this feels like and what’s physically happening to me when I overtakes me. In earlier days, I was too busy with kids and had too many insecurities to look at it without fear clouding my view. Now I can imagine and actually feel (or feel that I’m feeling) a neurological rut—an overused, perhaps over-stimulated linkage of neurons; one that becomes prominent and doesn’t give up dominance easily.

It helps me understand—in an organic way—what people who have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder go through every day. And, it comes up very close to Depression—something I used to suffer from for months at a time. In Depression, certain thoughts or categories of thought (negativity! worthlessness! hopelessness!) become dominant. It’s changing those thought patterns that pull us up out of the mood (to be utterly overly-simplistic).

I don’t understand any of it well enough to predict its coming or its going, but I do have confidence these days that it won’t stick; that somehow I’ve accumulated enough coping strategies to be able to pull out of these neurological quagmires. But I have to be careful with that line of thinking. Maybe it’s never what I DO that pulls me out of it. Saying that implies that anyone can pull themselves out by sheer “coping strategies” and I don’t believe that. I know that if it were that simple, people wouldn’t suffer from it so painfully and so persistently. But on the other hand, that sense that I am doing things that help to get me over the distress is important to my feeling of control over my life. Always important.

This morning, I feel a fresh fluidity in my mind, I’m able to glide freely through the little pond that is my life, and for that I am supremely grateful.

The illustration was taken in Houston over the Christmas holidays at the home of The Newmans who graciously let us use their amazing house in exchange for looking after their greyhound. The koi pond was a practicing photographer’s dream.

Yes, I paid them money. No, you don’t have to, but yes, they make it seem like something you reallllly need to do. Hey. I was vulnerable. I needed something shiny.

Anyway, here’s one version of my first video. The photos are of my granddaughter, Cadi. She was playing in a fountain in the park. Nearby were anti-war protesters who have come out to the park in Bar Harbor, Maine each Sunday since the invasion of Iraq and stood in silent protest. I do not know the priest’s full name but his colleague told me he’s Father Jim and is retired. He couldn’t resist playing with Cadi and she, as you will see, took to him immediately. I’m so grateful I was there not only to see the spontaneous joy of their sharing but also to capture some of it with my camera.

Enjoy Acadia and the Priest, perfect strangers sharing a perfect moment.

Thanks to Beth Felice who first posted an animoto video on Being Practically Creative and to Suze Corte who showed me how to play with them!

I love this little blog. I started it in full expectation of NOT posting often enough and then I did pretty well with it.

I am not a consistent person. Moodiness is so much a part of my genetic make-up that I am always astounded to learn that some people aren’t controlled by their mood-of-the-day. I’m drawn off task by not only moods, but also by the newest shiniest activity that catches my interest. And yet, I almost always return to what I love. And this blog, I love.

It feels like me, she said, shyly.

Fertile, then fallow, quiet without being private or secretive, heart-felt and earnest but with tongue-in-cheek.

Inconsistent. Also ambiguous. Moody.

January was a real up and (mostly) downer. I started an overly ambitious writing project that didn’t last more than two days. That led to a slump which caused me to seek solace in mind-numbing computer games, an obsession from which I haven’t fully recovered. There were other things. Emotional snowfalls began piling on, adding layer after layer of weight. Because it wasn’t a blizzard but a steadily growing accumulation of tiny things, I was unaware of what was happening.

I’m on the mend. Writing this is part of my recovery. I love this blog. I must do it more often and then I will remember other things that I love doing and I will rediscover the path to feeling that. Then, I’m sure, I will also get excited about the next new shiny thing that catches my interest. I can do both when I’m occupying the busy part of my life.

The illustration is of winter taken through the old stained glass panels in the stairwell of our house. Part of it I can see through and part I can’t and that is Like Life.

Hugs all ’round.

The bottom line is that I didn’t end up with a cohesive novel. I spent time the last day, after reaching 50,000 words, just writing notes to myself about what seems good about the writing and what doesn’t. One of the things I did was to list all the subplots I had going on. No wonder it never gelled! There were about ten separate things, some of them introduced once and never revisited!

I also wrote what I thought the plot should be. After spending a month immersed in that world and those characters, of course I know better what directions I should gone. I think the notes helped and will help in the future. I have more of a overview of what I wrote rather than being left with the impression of the last few days of writing which was less than inspiring. I also feel that the notes will serve me well later when I want to go back to it. It will give me a way into the story.

So that’s a wrap on Nano 2007.

On the other writing front: I finished the first draft of the short story on Saturday.

Ahhh, such a simple sentence.

Finishing a short story was once close to impossible for me. I had a writing teacher early on who was in the habit of spending 6 months to a year on a short story. She was a very bad influence on me!!! I have since joined a writing group with some wonderful role models who are much more practical. They have been a very good influence on me!!!

This story was a personal challenge to see if I could come up with an idea, write it, edit it, polish it, and send it off to the Nova Scotia Writer’s Federation contest all within 3 weeks. Oh, one other thing: it had to come in under 3,000 words, a feat I’ve never managed before.

So you see… it’s a simple sentence with much import for me. Yesterday I edited and rewrote the ending. Last night I read it out loud and felt it was choppy so I worked on transitions today and did line editing. This afternoon I gave to two trusted readers. While handing it over is always nerve-wracking, I did feel proud that I’ve gotten it to this point with four days to go before it has to be postmarked. The verdict is in from one of my readers; it got a thumbs up!

Now, finally, I have time to clean the bathroom.
What a reward, eh?
Oh the glamourous life of a writer!

view from little tobago; taken by nancy

I didn’t have a plan for what I was going to write tonight so to play for time I went over to Under the Stars to see what my friend, Sherry blogged today. I didn’t even read it. She had a meme going on, so I decided to take it from her and see what I came up with.

The Five Most Impressive Sights of My Life

1) The Grand Tetons driving into Jackson Hole, Wyoming from the east. They took my breath away.

2) A thunderstorm forming in the distance while driving through New Mexico.

3) A pod of whales off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

taken by my friend Ed Warner; I was too busy being impressed to get any decent shots of them! The best part was the sound. The captain of the boat cut the engine and we would hear SPLOOSH! as they came up out of the water followed by a WOOSH! as the air came from their blow holes. Everything was perfectly silent except for these soft, remarkable sounds.

4) View of the water and the rain forests in Tobago (see above)

5) Sparkling snow shadows in my yard when there’s fresh snow fall and a full moon!

Bonus Answers:

• Any woman giving birth
• Driving past London landmarks like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Westminster Abby while coming home from the theater in a cab
• Niagara Falls (an AMAZING amount of water goes over those falls!)
• Fall leaves in New England in any *good* year

Thanks for the mental trip down Impressive Memory Lane, Sherry.
NOW I’ll go read your answers.
Here’s Helen’s blog where Sherry got the meme

I started off this month with a feeling that I had enough NaNoWriMo experience that I might be able to offer other people tips on how to get through it. I actually have evidence that a couple of people did get a little encouragement or a helpful message at the right time from these tidbits, so that’s good. I like that. You don’t do something like this 5 times without learning something.

But now, the 26th of November, I’m bushed! I do not feel chipper anymore. I do not have the energy to make little graphics for the blog or to even think up anything helpful to say to anyone. If I had any energy, I’d go looking for tips just to help me get through the next few days. I don’t know if my age is showing or if blogging every day has added just that much extra work or if it’s that short story I masochistically decided to begin over the weekend, or the other dozen things I could name that have nothing to do with writing. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. November is almost over.

I’ll get through it and I’ll get my winner’s certificate for what it’s worth, but this experienced Wrimo will be positively plodding her way to the deadline!

Illustration: I took this shot of my older son and my stepson with their heads together while on a superb vacation in Tobago

Maybe if I hadn’t been ahead on the word count, I would have buckled down and concentrated on what I should be doing now. But as the word count has been good for the last five days or I let other things crowd in and take over.

I live far away from both of my sons and farther still from my mother and sister and brother. Getting together for Christmas has become a big hassle! Last year I decided that to have my sons, granddaughter, husband and me descend upon my sister and mother for the holidays was just too much. If any of us had our own home there (in Houston), it would be different, but we don’t.

What I would most like is for my sons and grand-daugther to come to my house, but at the moment that isn’t possible. Neither of them have passports and they live in the States and I live in Canada. I have to go to them. So considering these two parameters, I decided to take matters into my own hands and find a nice vacation rental in a beautiful place, invite my sons and that way we could have Christmas under one roof without causing more work for some third party.

Nice plan. Didn’t work. After spending hours online looking for that illusive perfect vacation rental, my younger son told me, “Honestly, Mom, if you are asking me what I want to do for Christmas, I’d have to tell you that I want to go to Houston.” He went on to say that it was important that my mother and sister see his daughter before she gets too much older. They haven’t seen her in a year. So what’s a grandmother to do? I sprang into action in the other direction. Back to Houston.

But I was still determined to have us all under one roof.

Unfortunately finding a “vacation rental” in the big city of Houston isn’t easy. I couldn’t find a thing that was near our families.

In desperation, I put two ads on Craigslist, one for a short-term (very!) rental and the other for a pet/housesitter. Guess which one paid off? No contest, is it? The pet sitter ad just came through for us.

We’ve been offered a truly gorgeous home in a nice location for almost the full amount of time we wanted. Our pet is an 8 year old greyhound who, we just found out, sleeps in the master bedroom. Eeeu, major drawback! At least it’s a king-sized!

It’ll be an adventure but I’m already feeling 100% better, just knowing that I’ll have a kitchen to cook in and a place to invite family over. In fact, I’ve already started inviting people for our first night in the house to help us make Christmas decorations for our tree. Once they get a load of the tropical plant-surrounded swimming pool with waterfall and koi pond in the back yard, we won’t be able to get rid of them!

Tomorrow, however, I have to remember that it is still November, so it’s back to my novel.

[Santa's little elf up there is Cadi LAST Christmas]

My dad died on November 20th. I think. But I’m not certain of it. It is one of those dates that really seems as if it SHOULD stick— forever and without a doubt—in my mind, especially for someone like me who is basically good with dates and details. However, it doesn’t. I know what this is about. I have a mental block. I don’t want to remember it. If I remember the date, I have to also remember the details of that week and other things that my mind will immediately associate with this part of November such as when John Kennedy was shot and sometimes even US Thanksgiving which wasn’t always the best holiday for me.

Both John Kennedy and Corey Shepard—these good, interesting and smart men—have been gone a very long time. I was pregnant with my second son when my dad died and he is now 27 years old. But it will always make me sad that they died young and unfinished.

We are smartest when we appreciate life even through all the hardships and challenges and sad days that are rougher than others.

Yesterday I got a rejection letter. It was a wonderfully personal and NICE rejection letter. But it still hurt. I’ve always said that they’re like getting kicked in the shin. It’s a sudden unexpected sharp pain that doesn’t last long, then it’s sore for a little while and then you move on and don’t think about it much. Today, it’s still a little tender.

Small wounds and large, we sometimes just have an achy day to get through.