After the Hanky-Panky

This one’s for all the OCD flavored writers out there. Embrace the minutia, my friends!

(For everyone else, I advise bracing yourself for a little numerical mayhem. I have no idea if the following will help a single creative soul out there, but I wouldn’t be foolhardy Chloe if I didn’t try.)

Ok, here we go…

After days of extensive administrative hanky-panky with The Hushing Days, the following hard data has come to light:

a.) My first mainstream romance novel has lost 2 of its planned 21 chapters. This was not intentional. In fact, I spent two hours searching for them under the couch to no avail.

b.) Out of the approximate 60 scenes outlined for the Revolutionary War-era drama, all but 18 now have extensive wordage attached to them. The untouched 18 are scattered randomly throughout the story like seeds in the wind. What this says about my creative process/psychological state I wisely choose not to contemplate.

c.) Despite all the technical haggling of the last few days, the story’s core 6 brothers have remained 6. Earlier, if you recall, I considered rubbing the youngest sibling out of existence (a bit of total-character-number panic, there.) Well, Leo has not only survived, he has begun to thrive in his supporting character role. Who knew?

Hopefully some insight can be gleamed from this.

But since that is probably not the case and now that I’ve completely wasted approximately 23 seconds of your life, I will bid you adieu.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Writing Itch

With all the tedious, methodical, BORING administrative work on The Hushing Days done, I will finally be able to return to writing the darn thing.

As I stated in yesterday’s blog, Fate has now become attached to the novel. It will be done. End of story, so to speak.

But with destiny now on board, I’ve got the Writing Itch.

No need to sanitize your eyeballs or rub your keyboard with lye, there is no dread disease or embarrassing condition attached to it. In fact, in this case, an itch is a marvelous thing.

I want to write.

I want to write now.

I want to feel the homestretch under my feet.

I want to raise my arms to the sky and feel that cheesy banner rip across my heaving chest!

*deep breath, deep breath, calm myself down*

The only trouble with this go-getter mentality is the tiny fact that I’m only 1/3 done with the book…

But it feels like so much more now that it’s all been pieced together into well thought-out chapters. The end is nigh and I can feel it. I can feel it!

*deep breath, pop a Prozac, deep breath*

So, this simple, rather irrefutable, correlation has been reached in my mad, mad writing life…  

With the end of chaos, comes the Itch.

End of story, so to speak.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Patchwork Moon

After a tremendous amount of work yesterday (i.e. transcribing, copying, pasting, rearranging, rearranging some more, threatening to send each of the Six Brothers out to the curb, my dog/muse threatening to send me to the curb), I collapsed last night with the knowledge that 1/3 of The Hushing Days is now complete!

Relief is mine.

(Pardon me while I smoosh it to death against my chest.)

I have reached the point of no return… and, man, does it feel good!

I think every writer reaches a point in a project where they look back at what they’ve written, assessing it as a whole not just a bunch of scenes pasted together, and realizes one of the following (depending on your analogy-preferences):

a.) Come hell or high water, the book is going to get written. Even if you croak, your ghost will come back and finish the darn thing.  

b.) All opportunities to abort the mission have passed. No matter how you might try to scramble or yank, you are inescapably strapped to the rocket heading straight to the moon. Next stop, la luna.

c.) The patchwork quilt has been pieced together. While a few more blocks may or may not be added, it’s time to strap the piece to the frame and call in the quilting bee.

d.) Fate is now attached to the project. Good luck messing with that.

Yep, I’m fondling me some relief this morning.

Feel free to have a squeeze.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Pen & the Plow

For the past three days, I’ve been feverishly transcribing my handwritten scrawl into nice, clear, Arial Narrow font on my computer. It’s been a tedious process but an enlightening one as well.

As I’ve stated in the past, my method for writing is very much a hit-and-run approach. Particularly with The Hushing Days in which every scene has been outlined down in both my head and paper, I will randomly pick a scene and plow all my intellectual resources through it.

Picture a snow plow plopped randomly down in blizzard-ridden Boston. One little street gets cleared out beautifully. But before the alleyways and side streets connecting the “chosen” lane to the rest of the city are so much as touched… “POOF!” The snow plow is scoffed away. A return promised, but not until next winter.

So, as I’ve been gathering up all my little throughways and  boulevards these last three days, trying to piece the street grid of the novel back together, I’ve come to two conclusions…

1.) I would have sucked at being a City Planner. God knew what He was doing not putting this girl on that career path.

2.) There’s got to be a saner way to write a novel… (My dog/muse suggests that a saner author would be a start.)

Anyhow, the days of transcribing are coming to an end today. I’ll finally know where I stand with The Hushing Days. Whether this will end in laughter, tears or apocalyptic gridlock is anybody’s guess.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Negative Space

Negative space.

It’s a concept most often used in visual art. For example, in a photograph of your dog standing in front of a wall, your dog (the subject matter in focus) is the positive space, while the white wall behind her is the negative space. In any composition, it’s hard to have one without the other.

Well, yesterday (in a moment of novel introspection, I guess you could say), I realized that The Hushing Days is mostly negative space. The entire story is a study of what is left when a singularly important person is suddenly cut out of a family’s life.

Oh, I’m sure this has been done a gazillion times before in literature. I’m by no means shouting “Eureka!” and staking a claim on a concept.

But, the point is, I’ve never done it before.

In fact, I didn’t realize I was doing it until approximately 8 hours ago.  

Now, I can’t quite decide if I should be freaking out and panicking and trying to fix this or that?

Or should I just fold into some kind of yoga pose and “Ohmmm” peacefully?

*sighs pitifully*

I’m off to have a cookie. That’ll clear things up.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Over My Head

On a morning when the first words formed in your freshly awakened mind are, “Holy crap. I’m glad that’s over,” I welcome you to my Monday.

Seeing as how the sun is still cowering below the horizon (no doubt, word about my weird, comically pathetic nightmares reached the heavens as well), I’m having rather low expectations for the day.

Oh well, let’s cowboy things up and get on with it.

*yanks a “Brave Face” over my head…*

*tries not to hyperventilate as the claustrophobia storms in…*

*fails… panics… rips the stupid thing off and shoves it into the crisper drawer with that old, forgotten head of lettuce currently birthing toes and a tongue*

Yeah, um, that was unpleasant.

Since, at this point, I’ve probably lost 99.97% of my reading audience (thank you, Mom, for always staying), I think I’ll end this here.

Wish me survival.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Indulgences

Indulge me, please.

*waits patiently until the escaping horde of followers clears the exits*

For those brave, foolhardy souls who remain, I thank you. I’ll try to make this brief.

Believe it or not, even I get tired of blogging constantly about my writing. While it does take up a significant fraction of my life (98.3% at last count), I do have other concerns, other passions.

In honor of yesterday’s writing “Catch-All,” here is a tee-tiny list of the other things that rile me…

1.) Ceasefire in the Ukraine:  Really? Plop Putin down into the town of Debaltseve and see what kind of peaceful vibes he’d be feeling.

2.) Terrorism Free-for-All:  The terror groups around the world are feeding off of one another. One-upmanship in brutality and threats is rampant and will only grow until somebody puts a real hurting to at least one of them. My opinion: U.S. ground troops will be required to stop ISIS.

3.)  Africa:  From the ebola outbreak to Boko Haram to the crisis in the South Sudan, we do a fine job of ignoring those crises until one happens to accidentally brush against us. Bottom line: Africa matters. Could someone in the West please remember that?

4.) Gay Marriage Battle in Alabama:  Judge Roy Moore is an idiot. And as a woman born and bred in Alabama, I am terribly embarrassed to be from a state that voted “Ten Commandments Moore” back into office. In both cases, he is absolutely free to have his opinions, but as an elected official of the state he is REQUIRED to obey the laws of the land. In short: Judge Roy Moore is more than just an idiot, he is an embarrassment to the state.

Well, as it seems that I’ve failed stupendously in making this brief, I will end my little tirade here. Thank you for your indulgence.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Gently Numbered Gathering

Welcome to the monthly Chloe Catch-All!

That’s right. The tidbits and knick-knacks and “never you mind’s” of my writing life have arrived for your reading pleasure. They are numbered so you can dispense with their worthlessness in an orderly fashion.

Enjoy… or at least struggle through bravely.

1.) Daily word count on The Hushing Days is again rising to acceptable levels. While I’m still scraping the “Writer’s Muck” off of my shoes, the outlook for my first mainstream romance novel being done in April is looking a lot brighter.

2.) While I’m no longer considering whacking Leo (brother #6) from the whole story, I’m straining to find a connection with the gunsmith-ing lad. Perhaps my threat to erase him from all existence is souring our relationship?

3.) The battle of writing styles continues. Wordy versus brief. Dickens versus Hemingway. I’m trying for a marriage of the two but both sides are still putting up impressive fights. Things could get bloody before this is over.

4.) Catchers and pitchers have begun reporting to Spring Training camps! Baseball is so close I can smell the burn on the homerun bat! (I always write much better ensconced in baseball season. So this a very good thing.)

5.) I’m in the final stages of contracting out five of my novels for republishing with Riverdale Ave. Books! Yeah!!

6.) Alright, I really can’t think of a #6 right now, so I’ll simply sign off for today. Thank you for dropping by.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

An Adage to Old

While I may not have been blessed with children, I have been blessed with a dog who not only plays the muse in my life, she is tasked with being my very best friend. Today, my puppy turns 13…

A teenager.

Good grief.

Now, I’ve had teenaged dogs before, several of them in fact. (Yes, my blessings run extraordinarily deep in this category. A heartfelt shout-out to God for that one. Seriously. Thank You.)

Many people who have never experienced the teen years of dogs are under the mistaken impression that these canines only grow slow, deaf and gray. And while this might very well be the case from time to time, these are hardly the defining terms to their golden years.

Old dogs are rich.

They are wise in the ways of the world.

If you’ve been lucky enough to have them by your side from those first puppy years, by this point the old dogs know you better than you’ll ever know yourself. Just look in their eyes and they’ll tell you.

Old dogs are cunning. They know what they want and they know how to get it. There will be no outsmarting these vintage fur-faces.

New tricks? They can take them or leave them. It just depends on the treat and the day.

Cats, squirrels, bunnies and all other furry annoyances are still well in their sights. Blind? Please. At this point in their lives, they don’t need to see you to eat you.

Old dogs are troublemakers and tricksters, who wield their seniority as a weapon. “Yes, I may have piddled on the carpet over there. But I’m old and incontinent. Be lucky I don’t choose to poop in your lap.”

And if any of you dear followers doubt me on these facts, may I remind you of one thing… Be it canine or human, the teen years are one wild ass ride. Hold on tight and enjoy.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe and the Birthday Girl Muse

Writer's Muck

Despite a relative plethora of legitimate literary concerns I should be rattling on about, I am instead having to confess to a severe case of Writer’s Muck.

You heard me.

Writer’s Muck.

This demands some explanation I’m sure.

While the commonly damned Writer’s Block is an unwilling cessation of all fictional/nonfictional sentence production, Writer’s Muck is simply a chronic slowdown of all creative thought.

With Writer’s Block, word output is zero.

With Writer’s Muck, word output is eleven.

A small but critical difference, admittedly, but at least with the Muck there is some progress (laughable though it may be.) For instance, this past week instead of my 800 words daily average, I’ve only been able to crank out a little over 200 a day.

At least now I know what I’ll be doing in my 80’s. I just hope The Hushing Days will translate well to the 2050’s crowd.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Kitespotting

Fair warning is given. The following is weird, unintentionally haughty and intentionally naïve. I present it to you only as part of the full disclosure bargain I made with you over a year ago. “It is what it is,” as my sister always says. Take it or leave it, but please forgive it. There is little merit here, I fear…

 

Writers are a temperamental lot.

Pride doesn’t accompany this statement, but neither does regret. It is simply fact. Like the sun is hot, and ice is cold, an author flips and flaps in the prevailing winds like an untethered kite.

I’m sure it is quite the sight to see from the earthbound, with giggles and gasps aplenty.

“Quite a ride she must be having,” the coal miner laments as he peers up from his cavern.

“Damn glad it’s not me,” the farmer adds as he turns back to his safe, reliable soil.

But it is the farmer’s daughter whose “Oh, Papa, toss me up there. I want to fly” is most familiar to the writer’s ears.

Each author has spoken such words at least once in their lives…for a kite does not become sky-born without a farmer, a miner, an earthbounder running aside.

So, remember dear writers while you twist and twirl in life’s storms, keep an eye to the ground. A farmer’s daughter just might be looking up.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

P.S. Told you so.

Keeping It Simian

Progress has been made!

That’s right. To the complete and utter astonishment to both your would-be mainstream author and her war-weary, four-legged muse, I can honestly say significant progress was made on The Hushing Days yesterday.

*pauses as the monkey leaps off my back and goes to take five… yells at the little simian to get a beer while he’s at it (Lord knows he deserves it)*

Every novel has those scenes that define the story both in style and substance. Think of it as the one shot a moviegoer remembers of a film twenty years down the road.  (i.e. Scarlett clutching the dirt of Tara in her hand and vowing “Never to be hungry again,” or Sally faking it for Harry in the diner.)

“Keepers,” I like to call them.

Well, I wrote one humdinger of a “keeper,” yesterday. Nothing was left dangling to finish later. No question marks were left as place markers for things needing further research.

Done, complete, fini! That scene has now been filed away as ready-to-go. It was magnificent and much, much needed.

Now, before the monkey gets back with his Bud Light, I’m off to enjoy a brief burden-less stroll through the tulips.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Disco Dreams Die Hard

Since my organizational dreams went the way of disco, I am left this Monday morning with a certified mess.

Beginning, ending, climactic, post-climactic, fluffy and cry-me-a-river angsty scenes are crammed onto the front and backs of a handful of notebook papers. Written in tee-tiny, wee-itty-bitty handwritten scrawl there isn’t a label, a tag or a direction in sight.

Half the scenes I don’t even remember writing. Reading through them, I’m as surprised as hopefully my audience-to-be will be with what happens next.

While I couldn’t quite call it stream of conscious scene-dabbling (since all scenes do stick to The Hushing Days outline, not scattering like buckshot like my imagination tends to do), the whole collection is probably a hungry, masochistic psych-student’s dream. Talk about a thesis, baby!...

Ok, enough complaining. Time to get to work.

Yippee.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe   

Tidying the Mosh

Stay on point.

Stay. On. Point.

On a morning when all I want to do is crawl back into my mother’s womb and quake (i.e. the nuts in the backroom of my brain are partying hardy with my panic disorder), I am forcing myself not to give in to this distraction.

So, stay on point, it is.

Here it goes…

The Hushing Days is in serious need of a maid. Or, perhaps, one of those professional closet organizers always popping up on HGTV?

Either way, somebody with my handy-dandy outline tattooed into their cerebellum needs to march into the pile of scenes I’ve racked up these past few weeks and put some order to these fresh recruits… (Yes, I realize I’m mixing metaphors right now, but at least I’m not curled up in a fetal position while doing it. Small victories, grasshopper. Small victories.)

Anyhow, I’ve got to spend some time today and probably tomorrow in serious organization mode. While I have managed to stick to writing scenes only detailed in my outline, I’ve just been piling them up in a giant mosh pit.

Yeah, bit not good, that.

So, that is what I’ll be doing today. I’m really, really looking forward to this. Really.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Semantic Wardrobe Malfunction

I’ve had a particular worry of late. This concern can be couched in many terms, such as…

“Semantic Wardrobe Malfunction.”

“The Various Stages of Dialogue Undress.”

“The Bah Humbug Complex.”

While I’m sure none of the above make a lick of sense to most everyone out there (including my muse who’s wearing a “You poor thing” look on her fuzzy little face), let’s go with option #3 just for brevity’s sake.

If Charles Dickens had outfitted his iconic Ebenezer Scrooge’s complaint in something as mundane as “Nonsense!” instead of the ever-colorful, ever-memorable “Bah Humbug!” I doubt Mr. Scrooge would be quite so prevalent in our vernacular today.

He’d be boring, grumpy and, well, rather dull.

While Ebenezer is far more complex a character than his classic two word lament, it is this initial choice of dialogue that hooks us and reels us in just far enough for the wonderful story to grab us.

In The Hushing Days, I’m finding myself warring over how to dress the dialogue. If I deck it out in accurate late colonial wear, would it distance the readers from the characters? If I ram “modern” language down over its head, will my readers be the ones with “Bah Humbug!”s on their tongues?

I have no answer, as of yet. Until then, I guess I’ll just don a “Dunce” cap and get on with it.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

God's Amusement

While most celebrate such life events as engagements, weddings, births, windfalls of career and love, I celebrate removal and streaker-avoidance. How silly is that?

*a stray chuckle of thunder rolls from the heavens as even God snickers at the life He has created for me*

Two years ago today, a doctor yanked my troublesome uterus out of me.

Apart from assuring that I did not accidentally spawn, the hysterectomy gave me a fresh lease on life. My mind and all its quirks and hiccups could once again take center stage in the comedy that is my very strange existence. (Think of my uterus as a poorly endowed streaker running across the stage of one Shakespeare’s lesser known comedies. A distraction from the lameness, yes. But nobody needs to see that kind of ugly in motion.)

Today I celebrate that singular removal from my stage.

Even God must have His amusements. And I am blessed to be one.

Until tomorrow…

A very grateful Chloe

The Squeaky Wheel

First, and foremost, my father came through his outpatient surgery just fine. The one little hiccup is being addressed and all is well.  (The fact that said-hiccup scared the stuffing out of me for a teensy bit is neither here nor there. Panic and I are familiar foes. These days, I know mostly when to duck… mostly.)

Now that breath has returned to my lungs, I can turn back to The Hushing Days without guilt, regret or any other “nasty” worry always leaves me.

I have managed these past two days to keep a steady drip of marginal progress going on the novel (220 hard fought-for words yesterday).

Hopefully this means that wheels will not need to be re-greased, a task both tedious and time-consuming. (Picture the Tin Man and his squeaky little oil can. With no Dorothy or Scarecrow around, I’m relying on an eager but thumbless Toto to deal with the oil can and any of my accumulated rust… a humorous but frustrating prospect, let me assure you.)

So, it’s back to work I and my thumbless muse go.

Wish us no flying monkeys!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Scrambling the Jets

Newsflash! Writing is not the same as working an assembly line.

*pauses as the world moans a consensus “Duh!”*

Please, just keep your seats a minute more while I pile some relevance onto that statement. I promise this will be brief.

Surprising to everyone, I actually worked on an assembly line one summer years ago (back when the mind hadn’t learned to buck so violently at that concept.) 5am to 4pm every work day, I put in my time and was a darn good computer innards put-her-in-her.

The point is, no matter what was going on in the world I got my job done every darn day.

I liked it.

It was good.

Writing, however, is way different.

My father is having outpatient surgery today on something relatively minor. But even though I am not logically concerned about it, my subconscious is panicking and scrambling the F-16’s.

Bottom line: It’s hard to write Revolutionary War-era romance while your choking on jet fumes.

So, I’m writing off the meager 156 words completed yesterday as excusable. After all, writing is not an assembly line.

Right?

Pretend with me on this one. The guilt is strong with me this morning.

But most importantly please keep my dad in your thoughts and prayers today.

Thank you.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Surrender Envy

I’m afraid it’s one of those mornings when the imagination fails me. In fact, I fear it has deserted me altogether.

*sighs pitifully at the white screen and its all too pushy cursor blinking… blinking… BLINKING*

Retreat would probably be the better part of valor at this point, but I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. Whether that makes me stupid, brave or simply masochistic is a question for my psychiatrist to address, so I’ll just let that inquiry lie there for now.

But please, feel free to ponder on it as you will. I’m sure it would make quite interesting fodder for those oddball characters every really good story needs.

*sighs pitifully at the mostly still white screen… considers digging the blinking-blinking-BLINKING cursor out of the monitor with a spork*

Alright, perhaps a little retreat isn’t such a bad thing after all?

Maybe I should just fall back, re-gather my troops and freshly storm the blogging world tomorrow?

*”Too late,” the irascible muse at my side grumbles miserably. “We’re committed and it’s a freaking bloodbath.”*

How true.

Be sure to scrape the needless carnage off of your shoes as you depart (i.e. run like hell.)

Good day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Misplaced Spoils

In a fit of pure selfishness, I issued a “Do not touch the Hush” mandate yesterday and forced myself to abide by it. This confused my four-legged furry muse to the point of chronic suspicion. Eyeing my every non-The Hushing Days movement with a “You’re taking me to the vet, aren’t you?” paranoia, the day off proved to be relaxing for no one.

Even turning my attention to the “Cora’s Garden” blog just to allay some of the dog’s manic fears, didn’t satisfy the little taskmaster.

Floor-level “J’accuse!” stares pounded me all day. (A rather psyche-bruising experience, I assure you… especially when one’s ego is Barney Fife-like on the best of days.)

But I stuck to my guns. Not a speck of work was done on The Hushing Days, despite the scowling, fuzzy brow of the peeved General Patton-wannabe on my couch.

In short, I won… even though I haven’t managed to dig up a spoil one yet.

No matter.  I will no doubt be paying for that “victory” through the teeth today.

Wish me survival, my friends.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Romancing the Moons

For anyone expecting either: a.) astronomical chit-chat over Fig and Gruyere Bagels, or b.) a heated debate on the state of astrological horoscopes today, you are excused from this morning’s blog. Have a lovely Sunday.

For those of you who remain, here’s a spot of homespun literary theory for you. (Again, the exits are well-marked. No need to crowd. *smirks*)

As The Hushing Days continues to move on at a steady clip of 800 words a day, I’ve noticed something of interest of late. I thought I’d share and let you decide whether it’s just more Chloe hogwash or perhaps something a tad bit useful.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the “minor” characters orbiting the big six (the three chief love affairs in the novel). As this is a story centered on one family of six brothers, almost all of the “moons” know each other very well. I’ve found myself carefully weaving their relationships with each other, in hopes of further cementing the inevitable bonds between their respective majors.

Putting it another, and hopefully clearer, way… If the moons of Jupiter clash and dance constantly with the moons of Saturn, then Jupiter and Saturn “getting it on” is not only more believable, it is more dynamic.

See?

*wipes nervous sweat from brow and eyes the exit doors herself*

Well, it made sense in my mind.

Let’s just call this a blog hiccup and move on with our lives, ok?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Beware the Keyhole

I do little in small measures.

Case in point: Starting a gardening blog under a new penname. (I speak of “Cora’s Garden,” of course, which finally had its first posting yesterday afternoon.)

Reading the opening post, the effort on my part seems to be minimal. Writing, after all, is what I do for a living. So, no sweat, right?

But…

Do I stop with a simple blog?

No.

Of course the crap not.

I’ve got “Garden Players” pages.

I’ve got planting charts sitting on my laptop that I have no clue how to get onto a website.

Instead of a handful of seeds in a few pots, I’ve got 144 seeds going in 144 little Burpee dirt pods.

In the grand scheme of things, I know all this effort will not matter. If The Hushing Days does get sold and published under the Cora Douglas Sands name, no one will probably give a rat’s behind about the “little” gardening blog that was meant to get the Cora Sands name “out there.” It’s all probably a monumental waste of time.

But…

I don’t do things half-way.  I give every writing/publishing project my gosh-darn all. And if that means running myself to the ground cataloging the lives of 144 little seeds in my office window to sell one more book, I’ll do it.

*sighs*

I may end up stuffed into a pauper’s grave with nary a cent to her burned out brain, but this pauper will have given it her all.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-Note: Please pardon this post. Self-doubt came-a-calling and I let him in… Alas, you can see some ugly, badly-written things when you peek in through my keyhole.

Linear Survival

With the “Avoid Hermit” scratched off of my to-do list, I turn back to saner tasks today.

*pauses while people quickly glance over yesterday’s blog and satisfy themselves that their blogger is still on the good side of rational*

Thursday, I took the step of printing out all my work to date on The Hushing Days. It was surprisingly bulkier than I had expected. Yes, I knew the word count already, but seeing all that work piled up into an impressive stack of paper gave me a nice rush of accomplishment. (Try it sometime when your morale needs a boost.)

As any of you curious enough to have checked know, the “Cora’s Garden” blog will in fact debut next week, not this week. I’m not terribly surprised by this, but I am disappointed. (Ego docked by at least 10 points by this failure… Yes, of course, I keep score. Doesn’t everyone? *chuckles*)

Anyhow work on the gardening blog has taught me one thing. I have learned how to make a nifty table with Microsoft Word… with 144 seeds/seedlings to keep track of in my office window, a diagram/table/chart really is key. (I refuse to allow the misplacing of a Zinnia amongst the Cornflowers to be what finally knocks me off the edge of sanity. It really is as simple as that.)

Alright, that’s enough babbling at you today.

Carry on with your Fridays, everyone.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, the “I’m not a hermit yet” girl

 

Red Flag Warning

I’d like to pause this morning to share a wee-little confession with you.

It is a truth that occurred to me just yesterday afternoon. And while it is hardly earth-shattering, it is rather momentum-changing… at least for me, it is.

Alrighty-then. Drumroll or dirge, if you please…

Hermit-hood.

It almost got me.

While I’ve been working my little misfiring brain out this last week, I have failed to leave my house.

Now, this does not include trips into my garden or walks around the neighborhood. No, I had not yet reached the point of the true hermit. I had only not gotten into my car and driven anywhere.

Admittedly this would be considered a vacation for most. Unfortunately, it is nothing but a Red Flag, Warners-On Event for me.

I have to work very hard not to “hide” from parts of this world. A panic disorder is much easier to deal with when no grocery stores, no restaurants, no gas stations are in the picture…. See, it does make a sort of sad sense.

And while this was by no means a conscious cowering in my hidey-hole, I guess that’s what it turned out to be.

My bad.

So, to rally my mental stability, work on The Hushing Days will be delayed this morning by a trip to get breakfast.  Perhaps, a quick jaunt to the drug store will be on the cards as well.

Whew! That was close.

But all kidding aside, sometimes my life is so off-center that it is very embarrassing…

Hence, here lies my confession.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Down the Cornflower Hole

Only I would stumble upon a black hole tinted a lovely cornflower blue.

Hard science aside (and really, when has hard science ever darkened this blog’s doorstep?), this is truly a worrisome discovery.

As always, I was completely innocent in this debacle. A guiltless, well-meaning soul who was simply trying to make the world a brighter, lighter place. *sighs pitifully*

Here is what happened…

Yesterday, after my 800 words of The Hushing Days was put in the books, I turned my attention to my new penname (remember dear Cora?) and her soon-to-be released gardening blog (the ill-fated “Cora’s Garden” which had just Tuesday rid itself of a stray camel). Yeah, that one.

Anyhow, as all the framework and design of the blog had finally been set up, I began working on the actual writing of the thing. I started with adding to my “Garden Players” list the lovely Cornflower.

Meant only to be a brief outline of what to expect from this garden visitor (i.e. bloom duration, height, etc.), it rapidly turned into a scathing expose on the poor plant.

Digging for some interesting tidbits to throw in with the cold, hard facts led me (your intrepid OCD blogger) into the dreaded Black Hole of Research.

Yep, I was sucked right into it. Before I could so much as whimper an objection, I was trapped in the I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING of my OCD tendencies.

For instance, did you know the Cornflower is also called the Hurtsickle and is the official flower of Estonia? A better question might be, do you care?

And so it went.

My afternoon was swallowed up in a black hole tinted a lovely cornflower blue.

Really, how utterly ridiculous is that?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Preen Thy Feathers

Well, the camel is gone.

This is notable on two levels.

1.) The camel is gone. Duh.

2.) How many blogs do you know can seriously pull off an opening line like that? I’d wager few indeed. *the inner peacock proudly preens her eccentric feathers*

The fact that I cheated, just a wee-little, on ridding my Cora Sands website of the desert beast is neither here nor there. Throwing up my hands and finally just linking the “Cora’s Garden” blog to its Wordpress sister I will argue was an act of strategical brilliance, not desperation.

Really.

Moving on…

For the last ten days, all my writing on The Hushing Days has been done in longhand on sheets of college-ruled notepaper.

This is notable on two levels.

1.) I’ve written for ten days in a row on The Hushing Days. (The 49-word Super Bowl Sunday I view as an excused absence. It was the SUPER BOWL. Duh.)

2.) At least 90% of the writing on my previous 17 novels was done straight to the computer.

Let’s take this second point as your takeaway bit of the day… (After all, the rest of this post has been rather useless to humanity.)

Don’t be afraid to mix up your writing process. While there’s a lot of superstition usually attached to this kind of stuff, don’t shy away from playing around with the “rules” you’ve set up for yourself on past projects.

Jazz things up, people! It’s a good thing.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe the Camel-less

Dangle Me This

Clawing myself out of the post-Super Bowl fog is proving rather difficult this morning, so please forgive any inconsistencies, misspellings, and grammatical miscalculations.

As for dangling participles, however, they are all intentional… I’ll dangle my participle wherever I gosh-darn want to, Mr. 9^th Grade High School English Tyrant! (Yes, there are issues there, but no need to dwell.)

Looking ahead (and trying to scrape last night’s painful goal-line interception from the inside of my skull), I will once again be writing 800 words on The Hushing Days today.

Yes, it sounds rather boring. But when Sunday’s total word output was 49, Monday’s 800 word goal does appear a bit more momentous. It’s all in the perspective, you see. 

I haven’t had the guts to check on camel-gate yet (see yesterday’s blog for the gruesome details). But after my Prozac settles into my bloodstream, I’ll give it a go.

Thankfully, even if the camel is still there, I now have a good guess as to how to shoo him away. Inspiration struck while I was making a Vanilla Pound Cake yesterday. Apparently, the engineering gears in my mind seem to work better with flour and spatulas about… Don’t ask. I couldn’t tell you.

Alright, off with you! Monday awaits and there are participles to hang.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe