Reporting in!

Dear Readers,
I feel, finally, like my life has settled down a titch! We have Ms. Bella on a pretty good routine - which starts a little after 5 in the morning and carries on until dark. She spends some chunks of time in her crate which she likes and she has a tonne of lovely chew toys etc ... She gets walked often and has only made a few mistakes in the house (which we must own as she was letting us know!)

The play is done and dusted - the set taken apart and returned to its aggregate parts, the props absorbed back into the homes they arose from - the actors tired and happy - the audience with the briefest memory of a dream in their minds.

And yesterday, dear readers, I entered the SouthWest Writers Contest with a synopsis and my first twenty pages of Bright Angel. I chose to enter it in the YA part although I am still ambivalent about the genre thingy! I'm so glad to have had a reason to do this and as I said the other day, I'm DELIGHTED to have done my synopsis!

As an outcome of this I also had a brilliant flash of insight. I am going to revise twenty pages of Bright Angel at a time - thinking that they will be LOOKED AT and then I'll be done done done. And ready to start submitting to agents and or publishers. Wowza!

Twenty pages is so do-able. I think the thing is in pretty good shape  so it won't be onerous but thinking of it in small bites will make it even easier.

Okay then, how are ya'll?

Shshhhh ... new baby!

This is Bella Bellisimo - our new dear pup. She arrived Monday from Labrador and now she is part of the household. A crazed household - my play opens tomorrow night (one I am directing - I didn't write this one) and I have some sort of revolting cold but I don't give a care! Cuz Bella is here and she's here early - we thought we'd be getting one in June - and she needs our attention - right now!! She's in her little pup tent right now having a wee snooze as I write this. She's pretty easy - slept from 11 until 5:30 this morning - which is wonderful. I slept beside her, on the couch, as she's a bit too wee to be left all alone. We don't have a clue as to what she is - a bit of lab, maybe some collie or shepherd - she looks like all the Irish dogs I saw. Not sure how big she'll get but she is a total love.
Okay - gushing over.
My writing life? Ha!
I will be ready to send a synopsis and the first twenty pages of Bright Angel by the 14th though. The synopsis is done and I'm just pouring over the first twenty pages to make sure it is tight and bright. Then off it goes to the Southwestern Writers' Contest. Yay! I love it when they are old enough to look for work!
That's it for now. Talk to you later ...
Okay - one more photo and that is it!

Reflections on The A to Zed

Well now ... I'm going to be quite honest - I got exactly what I wanted out of the challenge. I got a very few new followers and heard from some folks I haven't before (or some that I heard from last year at this time) but I'm not after followers. I went to some sites that I haven't before and had a boo around and if they seemed like my kinda folk I commented on their posts. I tried to get back to everyone who commented on mine and as most days that was one to five - not an onerous job - but I found that I really wanted was just to visit my circle of pals that are tried and true - some of whom weren't doing the challenge and some who were.

history - I was a big time blogger when I started - posting lots of posts - getting out, entering contests or challenges and then that slowed down last year. I think in the summer of last year I started facebooking more and posting on my blog less. The folks on my fb page could comment easily or just like what I was up to and I could do the same back - it seemed easier and I slipped into it. I made fb my own thing - usually putting up a photo that I had taken and a poem that went with it. I got a terrific response to this and so kept it up. I wrote 60 poems in 60 days while at the same time I was writing the first draft of a novel on the BuNoWriMo. I was on the web everyday but not on this site or my other Living the Complicated Simple Life much.

life - We sold our house in August last year and between then and now I've moved three times. I've packed up, filled out postal forms, cleaned fridges and stoves, gotten rid of heaps of stuff and man oh man am I beat. My partner had to have an operation after our last move into this house (our old crapoid place) and our dear dear dog got sick and had to be euthanized. I got involved in the small village near this place and now I am part of the Sisters in Stitchery, directing a play at the church hall and sitting as vice-chair on the residents' association. We're fixing up this house as best we can as we want to sell it after a year and build a house on a property in the village we've bought. My practice (of psychotherapy) is still a going concern (good thing - it is my retirement plan) and I'm on one of my near last revisions of Bright Angel.  I did a course in poetry at the university and I now have nine poems out looking for homes and more to send. I have a garden to put in and a course to design. I have a step-dot who is finishing high school and a new dog on the horizon. I guess the only thing I don't have is chickens anymore and really they were easy to take care of!

wrap-up - I liked the A to Zed. It was my third year of doing it and while I don't seem to go after the same things as many folks (increased readership etc ...) I get something great out of it. And what is that? Help with my discipline. If I tell Alex and Lee and the gang that I'm going to write a post a day - I will do it. I'm like that. It is the   Daddio in me (when the going gets tough the tough get going AND Never be a quitter) . When I'm diving down into a word to write a small story or poem it is a refreshing break from revising. When I get a message from Margot (bless you bless you bless you) or hear that my sister has been reading every day (my dear dear lurking sis) it picks me up - I do like it - but the writing has to be sufficient onto itself.

So thanks all you tireless organizers of the A to Zed! I know how much work this must be and I am glad that I'm allowed to do it in my own fashion. I have the seeds of several stories sticking out little tendrils and I will see if they are ready for a bigger pot!

Insecure? Who me?

                     IS NOW IN SESSION

The monthly meeting of the IWSG is now in session. Take your seats please. Now who has something to report? I see that Elspeth Antonelli over at It's a Mystery sent her sheep in lieu. Happy to see you but step away from the treats table until AFTER the meeting (they will drink and graze to the extreme). Elspeth can't make the meeting - she's too busy WRITING. The nerve. Elizabeth S-C over at Mystery Writing is Murder is also too busy to meet. She's ... hmmm.... let me see - WRITING! What is this - an epidemic? Also the Tartlette from The Watery Tart - busy with her new release!  Harumph!

Well I can tell you that this member is not too busy with all that writing stuff to come to the IWSG - nooooo...oh sirree bob. I'm a little pooped from 26 days of blogging for the A to Zed (as we call it in Canada) and yes I have got nine poems looking for homes (ooh - see that - a rhyme!) and just today I whipped off a synopsis. DID YOU GET THAT? True. I wrote a synopsis of Bright Angel in like twenty minutes - okay two hours but that is several months less than it usually takes me. I think I know why too. I think I finally have a novel with a plot - you know with a character arc and the whole shebang. Wow! Who knew???

Now I'm on my way with said synopsis to have my lovely editor have a boo - then I'm entering it in the Southwest Annual Writing Contest. Kazowie! I know I know - I'm a Northeast writer but apparently they DON'T GIVE A CARE!

Upstairs my guy and his son are putting in new windows. I have a play about to pop and half my actors are down with the dreaded lurgy but I don't care. Why? Cuz I wrote a synopsis in two hours!!!!

See you next month and don't forget to introduce yourself to Elspeth's sheep. They are lovely and they kick butt when it comes to writer's blockages.
Don't forget to visit other members of the IWSG ! 

Z is for Zoon

Before I get to my last word - I just want to share with any who might drop by my experience this month. I'm in the middle of directing (and a lot more than just that role I might add) a play that goes up in a week and a titch. This along with teaching, my therapy work, the class I took in poetry - has made for a crazy time. I didn't do all I wanted with the A to Z - I went to visit old friends and a few new ones. I didn't get many new followers and that is because I didn't get out enough myself. I think those that came by - especially the stalwart hearts like Margot - enjoyed what they read. This is how I worked. I found a word with my finger in the dictionary. I cheated if I didn't like it at all but I was pretty fair with that. No one wants a word like zinkenite ((a steel-gray mineral) for instance - or I didn't! Then I would just start to write - trusting the word would take me somewhere. And it did - it took me to large green creatures (Unusual) and small green ones (Xenogenesis). I got to find out about Bonobos (Auspicious) and an Indian Tribe called the Passamaquoddy. I had mysteries going on in Qualm and faerie visits in Olden. All in all I let my mind trip to wherever and whenever it wanted.
Some of these could be seedlings for a later crop. Some will just have to be their own reward. But writing is always that. Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did!

And now for:
zoon - n. An animal developed from a fertilized egg.  - This started a conversation with my fella and I on what animal doesn't come from a fertilized egg? We couldn't think of a one. Ah well...

Ode to Us Critters

You zoon, you zoon, you crazy loon
I swoon to see you, darling zoon!

I love my kind, we're all a hoot,
whether feathered, or leathered (like a boot)

Yesterday I spied a deer, who brushed my fender (very near)
Was she aware that we are one, nurtured by nature, tame or wild
We are all born of an egg - fawn, chick or child?

When I visit the zoo out my way
Or see pets or wild animals, I will say

oh zoon oh zoon you lovely loon
I swoon to see you, darling zoon.