Fess Up Friday

My writing buddy and best friend, Thomma Lyn, mentioned "Fess Up Friday" on her blog the other night. It is hosted by Literate Kitten. It sounded like just the kick in the butt that I need to get me going again with my blogging on this poor, neglected site.

Well...I will try each Friday to make an accounting of my writing progress. I'm currently working on the third book in the Scrungy series.

The first novel is Scrungy: Abandoned, of which is currently visiting a publisher. But I think a rejection is in the offing, it's been too long out and I haven't heard a yea or nay from them yet.

The second in the series, Scrungy: Rescue is dependent on the first getting picked up.

But I'm forging ahead with the third novel, Scrungy: Journey.

I've been spending a couple of months reorganizing my notes, my research material and going over both stories again, so that I can keep in line with this one. I never knew how hard it would turn out to be to write series novels. Not at all like my series short stories.

So now my notebook is updated, my timeline is in order and I've started the story, again. A few weeks back I had written two chapters. I loved how they started the book off. Unfortunately I somehow erased what I had written fooling around with my new gizmo--flash/jump drive, moving things between my main computer and my laptop. I know what I did now, but it was too late. I'd lost those precious starting sentences.

I dreaded starting over, but I did. I like what I've written so far, even if it's only 4,000 words into the story.

I took the time off from Scrungy today because Mike the Mysterious has been nagging at me to use the computer to write about his adventures. So I let him write his story and we got it posted a little while ago. Whew…one down and one to go. He has to write about Ohio next.

So, if you count the 2,000 words I have written today as writing time, then I'm in a good mood.

I hope to have Scrungy finished (100,000 words is my goal right now) in about three—maybe four months. I'm going slow, mainly if I push too hard I get too stressed and bad things happen when I get too stressed anymore. Plus, it's coming up on summer and I like to work with my few little plants in front of my apartment, and go to the park and other neat summer things. On hot days with the AC running I'll most likely spend more time writing. But for now I'm setting my goal of at least a thousand words a day. Accounting for days like today when I had to write a short story for Mike.

On the short story side of things: I've still got a romance short to finish. I started it last month, got frustrated with it and gave it up for awhile. Then Necco is dying to tell about her new neighbors in Neighborhood Nightlife, and also I left Ragpuff on the loose again.

Hopefully, my health will hold and I'll get these projects started again.

Will a Tag Bring Me Out of Hybernation?

Okay, yes...it will. Only because I don't have anything else to do right now except sit here and try and compete with my friends online. Thomma Lyn tagged me for this Make A Wish Meme. Our cats have played this game and I guess it's the grownups turn.

So here are the rules:
1. Think about what it is that you want more than anything, what your heart's desire and fondest wish is, and what it is that you would wish for if you were to see the above wishing star flame across the night sky.

2. Right click and SAVE the blank graphic below.






3. Use a graphics program of your choice and place your wish on the picture.

4. Post the Make A Wish Meme and your wishing star on your blog along with these rules.

5. Tag as many people as you like so that there can be wishing stars all across the Blogosphere and ask them to please link back to Linda at Are We There Yet so that she can see what wishes others have made and share those wishes with others

Here's my wish:

When Thomma Lyn tagged me and I saw her wish graphic, I had to do a book jacket, too. I wasn't satisfied with just one, no...I had to make a jacket graphic for each of my finshed books and those that I am still working on. Lucky you--you get to see me brag.

My November project (NaNoMo) was Murder at Mallard River Bend. It is a Campground Murder Mystery. My first attempt at something other than animals or growing up stories. It's shelved--having it's cooling off period--until after I finish the third Scrungy book, then I will attack it and ready it for the marketing process.


Scrungy is an abandoned cat that has a series of three books about him. He was thrown away as a kitten, found by a feral colony, and the story begins there. This novel is out making its way through the slush piles of publishers at this writing. I expect the rejection letter--which I'm collecting, by the way, any day now.

Scrungy: Rescue is the second book in the series and things heat up a bit in this novel. Rescue is complete and waiting on Abandoned to get picked up by a publisher so it can tell the rest of the story.

But, wait! There's more. Scrungy: Journey is in the writing process now. It's going to be a long journey for me to get this book finished. I've set three months as my goal to get it into the rough draft stage. It may take four, but I hope not. More interesting things will happen in this book than the first two, and some answers about Koac will be given.

Now to keep up with my bragging rights...I also have another novel ready to meet a publisher, The Glass Unicorn. I've been told by friends and my critque partner that this is a magical story. Hopefully, someday it will have a real jacket cover and be on the shelves of book stores where you can find out for yourself.

Bubba and Bean is a story I've been working with off and on for a while now. It is so near completion it hurts, but not finished. Why's that? Because I'm too easily distracted. Actually, I was just about to finish it when it was time for NaNoMo in November last year. I haven't gotten around to finishing it and it bugs me. But Scrungy also bugs me, and therefore, Scrungy won the coin toss for now.

And then there is my first Novella. It's been dusted off a little and I let someone read it for the first time. It is a children's novella, and the first book that I wrote.

I have three other books on the shelf in various stages of progress...but until I get Scrungy, Bubba and Bean, and Murder at Mallard Bend finished, I'm not going to work on those. I didn't even make a jacket cover for them...they're not far enough along for me to visualize a jacket cover, yet.

*deep sigh* I feel better after my little showing off session. Thanks Thomma Lyn, for giving me something to post today on this, my supposed to be, main blog site. Gretchen and Mike take more of my blogging attention and when it comes time to post something here I'm all out of steam.

Also, Mike has two stories he's writing--about his adventures in Texas and Ohio in May. So I'll be back to post them here.

I had two teeth pulled Tuesday and I'm finally starting to get to where I can eat something that doesn't require a straw. I'm sooo glad I don't have to take the goofy pills anymore, too.

There you have it! I'm officially out of winter hybernation, only to go into summer hybernation. The Air Conditioner had to be put in and turned on on Wednesday and it's been running ever since. It sounds worse than it is...I don't turn it on until around noon, and then as soon as the sun goes down and the temperature drops a couple of degrees, I turn that sucker OFF! Yesterday it was 98 degrees and today I quite looking after it hit 95.

Oh, I wasn't ready for hot weather. We haven't even had spring yet!

I'm Still Here...

I'm still hanging around. I haven't felt much like blogging on my own site...just couldn't think of stuff that would be interesting. I guess I'm relegated to just posting cartoons until I get back to my short story writing again.

I'm still setting things up for my 3rd in a series novel for the Scrungy books. I had two chapters written, and yes I backed them up, but I lost them anyway. I was doing a little hard drive housecleaning. Oops…backed up on the wrong computer flash drive and I wiped it without looking closely at what I needed to save. I struggled with those two chapters for some time, but guess I needed to lose them and start over. Except that I haven't started over, mostly because I had to do some redesigning of my research material so it would be easier to know what happened in the first two books and characters so I could proceed with the third, at least, somewhat, knowing what I was doing.

Then I had Gretchen's party…four days in the process of getting it ready…three days of unwinding. She had her 4th birthday on May 1st and we had a grand internet party. Mike was in Texas, came home, went to Gretchen's party, then went right back out again, this time to Ohio.

Spring/summer keeps trying to happen. Things are blooming and I started planning flowers in my pots. I'm feeling better each day, although I still have a tendency to overdo things once I get started on something and have to take a day or two of down time to rest. It really frustrates Gretchen when I won't stop. She watches me like a hawk and would rather I sit all day so she could have my lap.

I'll be back….

Happy Anniversary Good Friends and a Meme

Another page in history

My sweet friend, Thomma Lyn, has tagged me for The Seven Things Meme.

I must tell seven random and/or interesting things about myself. Then I have to get five blog buddies to play, too, and link to their blogs. And I have to post these rules.

I know I've played this game somewhere in the past but there are probably more random things about me that I can dig up that you don't already know; something besides loving wind, trees, purple, green, and chocolate.

1. I love cats—I guess that's a given.
2. I don't like to talk much…I like to be quiet.
3. I have a serious case of apartment fever. (I could take cabin fever—no problem—if it were in the hills among the trees and wildflowers.)
4. I have three new neighbors in my building all at once, two with dogs.
5. I think I've hit a writer's snag…not a block, but a snag. Is there such a thing? Maybe it's just a distraction thing.
6. I will be having three surgeries this summer, teeth, throat, and a hematoma on my mastectomy scar.
7. I'm so ready for that little white farmhouse. Now!

I think all the human friends I know have already done this meme, so I'll go to a mysterious, imaginary friend who I know hasn't been tagged: Mike the Mysterious (besides, it will give him something to do).

Dare to Declaw?

I couldn't help myself on this one...I've had four declawed cats over the years...two of them came to me that way and two I had done...much to my dismay with Gretchen and the botched job the vet did. Never again.

One Year Old Today

Today is my one year blogging anniversary. I started off a year ago not knowing what was out there, what to expect and who on earth was going to want to read anything I wrote. My daughter, Paula, said it was easy and she'd help me get started. I wanted so badly back then to use Windsong or Windsongs in some way. I got discouraged when the name wasn't available and had to come up with something really quick. I think well in a hurry anymore.

Then I thought about why I wanted to blog? What benefit would it give me besides something else to fill up more of my time? I'm a writer. I've written several novels but two of them were about a particular feline and his experiences as an abandoned kitten to adulthood in a feral colony. At the time, I was "shopping out" as they say in the publishing world, the first book of the series. So I had this idea that if I had a sort of website, like a real author, I could have something to call attention to Scrungy and his audience, if he ever got one. The first blog name was Scrungy's Creator. Fine, good, I was satisfied with that. Then mid September last year, I crashed my site trying for a three paneled template. I panicked and started over with a new one. Well every blogger knows you can't use your old blog title and user name…you have to start over. I hadn't saved Scrungy's Creator either and so I came up with Scrungy and Friends until just recently when I tired of the whole Scrungy concept. Scrungy is a fictional cat. A two novel series—the third one being written at present.

Meanwhile, my real cat, Gretchen, was encouraged to have her own site. So in June of 2007 Gretchen commenced blogging. Mike the Mysterious soon followed. Now having three blogs to maintain, I still wasn't happy with Scrungy and Friends. I started off blogging last year by writing short stories about cats on Tuesdays for Gattina's Cat's on Tuesday group. I have to back up a bit and tell you that when my daughter helped me get started blogging a year ago, she signed me up for some of the sites she was involved with. One of them was called Cats on Tuesday. When I asked her what that site was about, her reply was simply, you just write stories about cats every Tuesday and link in with Gattina. Somewhere in my brain I took that to mean that this was a writing site and I should write a short story about cats each week. That wasn't exactly what it was about. Cats on Tuesday was for telling stories about my cat each week. But I like the other idea better. Besides, I needed a writing tool—a trainer, so to speak, to bring me out into the world. I became fond of the challenge of writing a short story about cats each week and so I've stuck to it. Due to some health issues, I've kind of taken a break from writing a short story for cats each week.

That is the other reason I decided to go back to the Windsong theme, so I could have more of a writing, short story oriented site. Scrungy is fine for just his books. But I have other stories and books to get published and felt that Scrungy and Friends was too limiting. I'll still write short stories about cats on Tuesday. But I also want to write stories that are not about cats…and if a publisher ever comes by my site for a visit, hopefully they will see a more versatile writing style.

Windsongs of the Heart was born and has become my official site. Scrungy and Friends will be like Mike the Mysterious. It'll be a mystery to me when I post a blog on that site. Actually, Mike is trying to be more out there. He's made friends on his adventures and will post occasionally when he's not traveling. Also, he can write about his travel adventures from his site now and not through mine or Gretchen's...once people and cats become more acquainted with him.

All very orderly—and confusing. But it's been a whole year and even though I've slowed down lately, I haven't given up. It's just with illness, and writing a novel, keeping up with Gretchen and Mike, well I just run out of time and ideas.

I want to thank all my new friends right from the very first day. The cat group, the cat bloggosphere and my writer buddies. I couldn't have done this without Paula and I appreciate her letting me lean on her until I got my wings. I love blogging, my cat, Gretchen, loves blogging, and so does my fluffhead cat, Mike. It's been an interesting year. I'm also forever indebted to Thomma Lyn at Tennessee Text Wrestling for sharing her writer friends with me and introducing me to the cat bloggosphere.

I'm still evolving...

From Mark Twain

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

--Mark Twain

Happy Easter

If nothing more is said and done on this Easter Day...let at least us remember that Christ lived and died for us. He is the reason we live, we get to do the things we do, make the choices we make. He suffered, died, and rose again, so that we might have God's mercy when all is said and done in our individual lives.

Quote of the Day

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
--Mark Twain

A Fun Play On Words

This was in an email forwarded to me this morning--I don't know who the author is. As a rule I'm not big on forwarded stuff. But for a Dyslexic writer like myself...I thought this was kind of fun. You may have already read this at one point, being that I have seen it on the email circuit before.

You Think English is Easy?

Can you read these right the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wiseguy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

And who came up with the phrase "cream of the crop"? Has anyone ever seen a crop of milk?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this:

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and it is UP.

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we brighten UP a room and polish UP the silver. We warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP old cars. At other times, the little word has a real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP can be used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP.

For now, my time is ......UP.

Time to shut UP.