Passersby

Blame ghosts.

The entire fault for my unplanned absence from the blogging world yesterday shall be laid upon hauntings of an antebellum mansion.

Friday night, I gathered my brave bits and went on a 90 minute ghost tour of the Hermitage in Nashville! It was incredible fun… alas, the price for such fun is always nasty with my mind and body. Apologies.

Maybe someday I’ll learn the absurdities of my existence and warn passersby accordingly.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Irony Summoned

Just a quick note as the A/C magicians spin their magic over my sickly unit… I have just found a jury summons in my mailbox.  This is the 3^rd time I’ve been summoned. This will be the 3^rd time I’ll be sending a note to the judge from my shrink. This will hopefully be the 3^rd time I’ve been dismissed as patently loony.

Good news… My streak of invisibility is now over.

Bad news… My streak of invisibility is now over.

The irony just reeks.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Prunish

Ten hours in a car.

Brain shriveled like a prune.

Enough said?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Flagrant

*with penitent pout firmly in place, drops a bright yellow flag at my own feet*

A flagrant foul of the daily blogger’s code was committed yesterday, and I was the fouler. Not only did I not post, I did not post for any good reason, i.e….

1.) Tornadoes were not corkscrewing down from the late spring skies. (True story. April 2011, to be exact.)

2.) Electricity was not lost due to the poorly planned antics of mating squirrels. (Ridiculous but true. North Alabama, 2015.)

3.) Rollercoasters were not ridden in reckless abandon. (Guilty pleas in Septembers of both 2013 and 2014.)

No, there’s not a single sound excuse I can give for my failure to blog yesterday.

I am sorry.

*picks flag up and stuffs it back into a pocket, as it will no doubt be used again*

Tomorrow, June 1^st, the final push to the end of The Hushing Days begins.

Thirty days.

25K words.

I’ll see you there.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, the Flagrant

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

The Bolognese Gambit

Like a good Bolognese sauce, I am letting the Six Brothers stew on the back burner, allowing the flavors to blend and bloom.

*pauses, letting the crap settle*

Ok, so that opening line was little more than imaginatively presented bull, but I believe some credit should be given for the effort.

These hectic days of happy familial obligations, when any writing beyond this blog has been impossible, are lying heavy on my mind. Coming up with some literal rationale for my lack of craft-plying is quickly becoming a necessity.

The Bolognese Sauce Excuse was today’s winner… and wasn’t it grand?

Tomorrow, I hope to return to writing. This blog will then return to something at least pretending to be useful, educational and insightful.

So, let’s all keep our fingers crossed that on this last day of backburner stewing, nothing too important will burn, scald, crisp or turn.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Mice Will Play

While the cat’s away, the mice will play…

Or so I’ve always been told. I’ve been lucky enough not to have to deal personally with too many of the beady-eyed vermin in my life, so I’ve just assumed the old saying was true.

Well…

*coughs into hand, cheeks pinken slightly at the foolishness about to be said…*

Apparently, my half-written Book Three is suffering from a nasty case of rat infestation.

Really.

After a week of not touching, not even peeking at the darn thing, I innocently opened up the 23K+ words yesterday and screamed… (Well, not literally. Even I have a crazy limit.)

Anyhow, all 23K+ words of little ol’ Book Three had apparently taken my week away in the mountains to run amuck amongst themselves.

Really.

There is no way I left that novel in that condition!

Scenes all helter-skelter…

Order a foreign concept…

Bits here…

Bits there…

Bits every-freaking-where!

And since I am a very orderly (sane), very disciplined (sane), very experienced (Hello! 16 novels and counting!) writer this mess is clearly, inarguably NOT MY FAULT!

Really.

I blame the mice.

So there.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe