Personally speaking

On the personal side of things, I’ve been (still and much more slowly than I’d like) recuperating from the adventures of the last six months (actually, this Run of Adventure started in early December 2018, so, yanno, no wonder I’m exhausted, never mind the world-spanning trash fire that is 2020).  My most recent project has been to learn how to write again (yeah, but at least I didn’t forget how to read), since there are projects in-queue and Steve can’t write them all.

For my “practice” story, I thought I’d do something easy — yes, yes, laugh — and write a story I’d already written from the POV of the second protagonist.  For those who’d like to have a second big laugh:  I thought this would be easy because I already knew the plot.  Anyhow, I committed to this endeavor, and spent a couple hours a day for, oh, four or five days, staring at the screen and playing lots of solitaire, which was actually promising.  Eventually, I got bored with losing against the House, and started to write.  Mind you, I never have known “how” I write — I just sit down at the keyboard and make words until I have a story.  Not an efficient method, but mine own.  In times of depression, I can reason my way through a story and get a reasonable result, though that’s harder and not as much fun.  Still the method was available to me, and that’s how I started in.

After all, I knew my character and her situation, I knew the reason she was in the pickle she was in.  So I began write the sentences that explained those details, and was feeling pleased to hit 100, 250 words per session.

At some point, as I was mooching along at this snail’s pace, something. . .clicked.  My fingers started moving, and I let them, and the next time I took a breath, I’d written 1,000 words and the story was moving along.  I hope to finish it, eh, tomorrow, in first draft, and will ask Steve to go over it.  If it is indeed a story, I’ll consider myself in working condition, open a new file and start on the story that’s due in December.

So, that.

In other news, Steve and I took and electron-free day to celebrate my birthday.  We went to Pemaquid Point, and I can report that the Light is still there.  We also hit Robbins Hill Nature Area in Solon, to look at the vista, which means that I can also report that Bigelow Mountain, Mount Abraham, and Sugarloaf are likewise still there.

. . .and that’s what’s been doing around the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.

Everybody stay safe.