Oh rats!

I've started a new story. The one I was percolating in the last post. This is a dysotopian-type story, set after a major earth-shattering catastrophy. Being new as this story is, I'm still feeling my way around it, seeing where it will go, before settling down and pounding it out.

As of last night, Marcus, the MC, is busy searching for food and fending off fellow raiders and rats. The prompt I'm working with allows for either sci-fi or fantasy. So, my question for you today is: Should I have fun and include the pov of the rats or keep this more serious and about the humans struggling for survival?

Cast your vote in the comments box.

Garden Tour

While Trust is bubbling around in the subconscious thought percolator, I'm busy brainstorming a new project, possibly a short story or novella. I'm also percolating the long awaited ending to Swan Queen. So many things to think about, I tell you.

This morning I went over feedback on a sci-fi short and got that submitted. That makes three shorts out in submissionland at the moment. I like to juggle a few things out there at once so when a rejection comes in, I'm not too bummed. After all, there are still other possible positive outcomes in the works.

Since I'm doing all this percolating, and ironicaly, this post was not on the list, how about I share some of my garden projects I've been bathering about for the past two months.

Previously. this was a solid mass of siberian iris.

And this was a mess of four foot tall orange daylilies that endeavored to choke out everything else.

These edging bricks were all covered in grass and dirt.
I've done a lot of archeological dig gardening so far this summer.

Added a lot of new stuff here, and after four years of neglect, treated this sun beaten patch of sandy garden to some much needed mulch.

Before I attacked this, only to top row of bricks was showing and the japanese iris had taken over. Amazing what a few years of letting things go will do--and not in a good way.

The new pond I put in. Previously this was a little 30 gallon pre-formed pond. Now its three foot deep and four foot by six foot wide. I wanted it bigger, but the waterfall section is sitting right on top the remains of a tree stump and I wasn't energetic enough to rent a stump grinder.

Lots of weeding done here. If I let this go, it would be a oak and pine tree forest.

The other side of the photo above. It's a very wide garden section.

A new section I put in a couple years ago that only needed some mild clean up.
Hands down, the easiest bed I had to tackle.

The roadside garden. This one was also recently redone so it wasn't horribly overgrown, just weedy.

Finally! One I can show you that has nicely filled in since last fall's makeover.
I hope they all look this nice next summer.

The other section of roadside garden. Did a lot of rearranging of perennials here because the bushes have all grown so much since I first put them in.

The iris patch in front of my very neglected garden. Blame my fractured ankle that came at the wrong time of year. (Is there a ever good time of year for that?) Did some major dividing and giving away of plants from this section.

Two years ago our new neighbors put in this fence which offered me the excuse to finally tackle one of the last untamed sections of our yard. Goodbye pricker vines and sassafrass trees! Moved a bunch of divided stuff into here and did a lot of weeding. Those sassafrass trees are like adverbs, they keep popping up everywhere!

Four more non-spectacular gardens are going undocumented for now. They need to fill in a lot before they are at all worthy of a photo.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. :)

Therapy puppet theatre

Let's just say I'm very glad I didn't jump the gun and post any bursts of good news a couple weeks ago. For those who weren't privy to this as it played out, (a big thank you to those who were. Your support is very much appreciated) I present my last couple weeks through therapy puppet theatre!

Player One sits down and opens up her board game, Lifopoly (the board game I seem to have mashed together in my previous post). She sets up all the game pieces with care, making sure to follow all the instructions and sits back to see if anyone wants to play the game with her.

Player Two happens by. "Say, is that Lifopoly? I love this! Can I play?"

Player one says, "I'd love to play with you! Have a seat."

"Thank you!" Player two sits down. "I really like what you have here, why don't you go directly to Go and collect $200?"

"Really? That's awesome! Thanks!" Player one picks up her thimble game piece and starts to move toward the Go space.

Player Two's brows furrow. "Oh. Hmm. I couldn't help but notice that you're using a thimble. Would you be opposed to using the iron game piece instead?"

"Sure. No problem."

"Oh. And how about instead of car game pieces, you call them hover ships?"

"I can work with that."

"Would you mind changing all the people pegs from pink and blue to yellow and purple?"

"Uhhh. I guess not."

"Great. Let's play."

Player one wipes her brow and moves her iron closer to Go.

Player two rubs her chin. "I just thought of something else. How about we skip the number three when we roll or spin."

"Umm. Okay." Player one gets out a sharpie and turns the number three on the spinner into a snowman and makes an X on the three side of the dice. "Can I move to Go now?"

"Do you have a full house?"

Player one blinks and looks from Lifopoly to Player two. "Uhh, what?"

"A full house. Do you have one? Maybe royal flush?"

"This is Lifopoly, not poker."

"Looks a lot like poker."

Player one surveys the game again and then notices the cards in Player two's hands. She cocks an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose they are both games."

"Lifopoly also reminds me of Cribbage."

"I don't even like Cribbage."

"Nevertheless, it reminds me of Cribbage. And Go Fish."

"Huh? Really?" Player one picks up the hover craft with it's family of purple and yellow pegs inside and examines it. "Well, they are all games so I suppose you could call them connected."

"I don't like card games. Unless you change Lifopoly into croquet, I don't want to play."

Player one picks up the iron game piece and pictures whacking it around the lawn with a mallet. "I guess I'll see what I can do."

Player two gets up, jarring the game board and sending all the game pieces flying. "You know where to find me if you want to play croquet."

"Yeah. Thanks." Player one watches Player two leave. She lovingly picks up her game pieces and packs them away in the box, one by one. She takes one last look at the Go space and then folds the game board up. "Well now, that was interesting," she says to the empty chair. "Guess I'll put this game away for a little bit while I decide whether croquet is my thing or not."

She picks up the box and gets ready to leave. The corner of the box rattles and lifts up ever so slightly. Player one notices a high-pitched hum and waves her hand in the air, thinking to shoo away a mosquito. A tiny, bright red hover craft wizzes in front of her face. It's purple and yellow occupants have grins on their little bulbous heads. She briefly wonders how they are driving since they have pegs for bodies, but shrugs the thought off in light of everything else on her mind.

"We're free!" They cry. The hover craft does one more lap around player one's head and speeds off.

The therapist snaps his fingers. "Hello, cazy writer lady, time to put the puppets away now."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Remaining nameless

I sit here this morning, surveying my plethora of discarded characters, not wondering, as you might think, where one of them might be or what they are up to. No, I'm wondering which ones I can lure up to my desk to rip our their names.

Why this sudden need for names? Well, due to certain events, I find myself in the position where I must rename several main characters in order for my novel to proceed down the path of possible success.

Why does this suddenly sound like a board game? In its current state, my novel does not pass go or collect $200. It doesn't even get that piddly job where you get $12,000 every payday. (Where can I get that job in real life?) And please don’t let me land on that ‘you just bought a skunk farm’ space!

While I am rather attached to the current names of my characters, I also like the idea of passing go. The names that belong to these that are milling around on my floor amongst the crumbled papers and adverb crates aren't doing anything productive at the moment and I like them too. As a plus, these guys all came from the same novel so I don’t feel quite so much like I’m grabbing names from thin air.

You might imagine I’m sitting here, perusing my character stock with steepled fingers and pursed lips. You’d be right.

They’re going to notice me and get suspicious soon. If I don’t post on Friday, you’ll know this didn’t go well.

“Hey you.”

“I have a name, you know.”

Not for long…

Guilt monkeys

I'm writing again. Whew, that feels good!

I finished a short story today. Well, I wrote half of it last night and this morning. I wrote the other half three weeks ago when I noticed an intersting prompt and thought, "Heck, I have three weeks to get something together for that. No problem." Ha.

It shouldn't have been a problem. I'm annoyed with myself for taking that much time off. I have excuses, one of them possibly very exciting, but that will wait for another post when things are confirmed. But we all have excuses, don't we? The trick is to not accept them and keep writing.

I must better learn to be my own 'nagging grandmother' as Vayen would say. Let me tell you, if I had to actually vocalize to someone the excuses I make for not writing, they would likely sound far more lame that I try to rationalize.

It's time to break out the guilt monkeys until I can get myself back in line.

Normally, I save the guilt monkeys for November during NaNoWriMo. I also have a pack of rabid, cybernetic attack weasels, but they're off saving the world during the off season. So I'm using the monkeys.

Depending on who you ask and how much sugar or liquor they've recently injested, you might be told that guilt monkeys are actual monkeys or they are your support network. I'm inclined to tell you both--because I have posters I'm printing for my NaNo region to prove it. However, for the purpose of this post, let's call them your support network.

How it works: I tell as many people as possible that I'm going to write something. Something with a goal works best for optimal results. Such as: A short story today, a rough draft of a novel this month, finish a round of revisions on chapters one through ten this week, etc. At least one of my drafted guilt monkeys will follow through and ask how that progress is coming along. I then either have to say, "Awesome! It's done / I'm half done / I'm working on it" or "I didn't get to it because.... (insert sure to sound lame excuse here). I hate sounding lame.

Some people are great at setting goals for themselves and reaching them. Some of us need accountablity... and guilt monkeys.

Where can you find your own guilt monkeys?
-Facebook updates
-Blog posts
-The jungle
-Your friends
-Your critique group
-The produce section of your grocery store
-Your family (but I've found they accept the lame excues a little too easily because they want you to feed them)

And now I must go polish and submit this thing before I get pelted with banana peels.