(Takes deep breath and rubs hands together).

Well, I’ve found a new (actually, quite old) idea that I’m resurrecting for Nano. Gotta go edit my Novel Info page.

After I finished my (should never have been written) first two stories, I had an idea which I researched but never wrote, involving the Resistance and some very nasty Krauts, tentatively called “Spiderweb”. So it’s hi-ho and I’m all out for Normandy, not too long after D-Day …

Actually, I have another WIP called “He Who Has My Heart”, but I have to really put some effort on the middle of it to make it work and I think it’ll all be the better for percolating awhile longer. Not to mention careful examination, so that there are no “Mary Sue-ish” elements in it. I can just imagine the hue-and-cry if I don’t (hee) since it’s a very Caje-centric story with a romance in it. I haven’t exactly hidden my deep and abiding affection for our Cajun soljer boy … (insert shy giggle and blush here) … I would prefer that no one believes that’s supposed to be ME — which it isn’t. Our Heroine is a young widowed French lady who’s undergone the deprivations of war and I’m afraid it’s very obvious I haven’t missed many meals (and no one would call me young anymore, either). Although I’m working on that, too — the meals, I mean. My age is past praying for, unfortunately.

In fact, I’m off to work out now! Working hard toward this month’s weight goal.

I reread my post from yesterday and realize that I may have given the wrong impression about something.

One thing that has become increasingly valuable to me as time goes by is people who are willing to be honest, even if the truth is painful.

I wrote two fairly long stories back at the beginning of my Combat! writing. One of them (and the prequel for it) was among those I sent off to the actor whose character figured in them. All along, as I was being betaed (by the first group) I belonged to, I was told “oh, these are really good stories”. But it’s patently obvious they weren’t. I wish my beta had just said, well, it was a good idea but it really isn’t working.

That’s why I’m glad the person who read my newest story has been honest with me. In fact, she’s spent a lot more time on me than I had any right to expect, given I only asked for a critique of the French and Cajun dialect. I am deeply thankful for her honesty. If I am discouraged, it has nothing to do with the rewrite and everything to do with whatever it is I’m fighting with at the moment. I don’t want to write anything right now, not even the Nano stuff.

I hate even writing this here, but where else can I say it? Some of the people I have been talking to aren’t talking to me any more and I don’t know why (this was before the onset of this moodiness).

Lord, aid me. Prayers appreciated.

I’m finding life a little hard going right at the moment.

There have been a number of things I have been, well, kinda ‘cruising’ on. Stuff that has given me a lot of joy over the past several months. But for the past couple of weeks, it’s been a lot more of fighting off depression than surfing the ‘happiness waves’.

I’m sure a lot of it is dealing with Tom’s hypomania. I have this theory that people’s personalities tend to divide into two camps: cats and dogs. People with ‘cat’ personalities can be social and don’t actively hate it, but they need their own space and time, just like our feline friends.

Dogs, on the other hand … well, in my experience with dogs (which, to paraphrase Dr. Watson, ‘extends over many puppies and three separate households’), if you don’t praise a dog roughly every 15 minutes or so (which is their approximate memory span) they think you no longer love them. Dogs need people, and they need them often.

In our household, Tom’s the dog and I’m the cat. I can’t get Tom to “go away” in any form, no matter how kind or gentle, which doesn’t cause him extreme anxiety, even if he’s not “up”. And that means that I can rarely get the space I need. Even the time I spend on my bus rides to and from work becomes valuable and cherished because I can at least pop on the headphones and let my mind “[wander] where it will go”. When he’s like he is now, even sleep is problematic. So I know this is part of it. But it’s not all.

I’ve been working on this story that I felt pretty good about. But a really nice person in our fandom (who was only going to look at the French and Cajun for me) wound up doing a pretty good beta on it, and if I’m going to make it work, I’m going to have to “kill my darlings”, as Stephen King put it. Right now, I don’t feel up to that. It’s always discouraging to start over, and right now, I don’t even want to do the ’start’, let alone the ‘over’.

In fact, I really don’t want to do anything, except maybe find a nice deep hole and dive in. And pull in the hole after me.

Why can’t life be easier?

Or at least, treadmill to the music, which I do most times.

Today was weigh-in day. It should have been Monday, but since I was trapped at my desk Monday and Tuesday and couldn’t work out after work (besides which, the scale at the club downtown is a better and (as far as I can tell) a more accurate one), today was the day.

I have made (barely, but I made it!) the goal I set myself for this month. I haven’t been below this weight since before I was married. I’m going to have to remember that I am below this particular number — it’s defined my weight for so long it’s going to take some adjusting to get used to. But, gosh darn, it’s really tough, but I’ll make an effort to do it.

So now I have a new goal and a new month and I’m going to keep on keeping on. Yippee!

(above sung to the tune of “Let’s Get Physical” by Olivia Newton-John. The author is highly apologetic that she even remembers the song exists, let alone knowing the tune.)

Well, tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo. I’m bench-pressing pencils, trying out legal pad routines, stretching my mind … anything to get ready for the upcoming month.

I figure that I’ll wind up writing longhand, only because I don’t have any electrical go-anywhere gadgets to use and because I’m trying to work out at lunch, which is the only time during the day when I can do any scribbling. Wonder if I should switch to the bike for November. It’s too hard to write on a treadmill, I would think! Maybe I need to dictate into something — there’s an idea!

Part of me would like to work on expanding all my “Guardian Angel” stuff ito a novel. Maybe next year.

There’s been an epidemic of tree cutting around our and my mother-in-law’s houses lately. I don’t know if there are really that many trees that were in such bad shape they needed to be cut down, or if there are just a lot of people who 1) don’t want to rake leaves and/or clean gutters, and 2) have completely forgotten (if they ever knew) the benefits of trees.

My birth dad told me that when he and Liz moved into their house (this is in North Texas), the house would get so hot in summer that you almost couldn’t touch the interior walls. So, over the years, they planted and encouraged the trees on their lot and now summer’s a lot more bearable — plus I’m sure their air conditioning bills are a lot lower!

Myself, I remember the trees that shaded the house I grew up in. We never had air conditioning — just the house equivalent of 4/40 in a car (4 windows/40 mph). Except on the absolute hottest, most windless days, we’d just open all the windows and catch the cross-breeze; I remember a lot of lovely, cool days on those rare occasions we kids were actually IN the house, plus the whisper of the breeze, especially at night, and the sound of rain pattering on leaves. There were a couple of catalpa trees (also known a cigar trees for their long seed pods), a sassafras, several different maples, including the sugar maple my sister and I used to climb, lots of locusts, which seemed to reproduce like Triffids, a handful of pines and the most wonderful crab apple tree that smelled so wonderful in spring when it was in bloom.

I feel sorry for these people (including my mother-in-law, unfortunately) who really seem to hate trees, to the point where they don’t even want them on their property. They’re not helping themselves with their attitudes, and worse, they’re damaging the rest of us, too.

I just had a fun start to my morning.

One of my friends from the Combat! board (the newer one) has also joined NaNoWriMo. She asked me about the story she was working out in preparation and we had a good skull session, kicking around concepts and ideas and I think I gave her some good ones, including changing her mind about one of the characters.

Lots of days, I wonder if I make any kind of positive impact on the lives of those around me. Most days, I figure if I do, it’s gotta be long-term, because I sure can’t see it. And usually, it’s a matter of prayer, so I have no idea how I’m affecting things, since it’s all up to Him. It’s nice to see (and be told, since my friend is a believer and a generous person herself) that you have helped.

Now if I could only get my own act together … I left the house in such a hurry this morning that I didn’t bring my lunch, my stick drive (and I was going to post ‘Fifolet’ on the board) and my money. Ah, well, there’s always tomorrow!

Ok, I’m not yet. But by the end of November, I could actually have something in common with one of the Boss’ songs.

I just went and signed up for NaNoWriMo. That, for the uninitiated, is the National Novel Writing Month, to wit, the month of November. I have committed to write a 50,000 word piece. DocB looked at “Last Full Measure” for me, and said I need to build it up and add more detail, and that rather than it being one long story, it ought to be a chaptered fic, or a novel, if you like.

So, starting November 1, I’m not going anywhere without a notepad so I can write even when I’m not by a computer, plus a stick drive so I can transcribe anytime I DO run into a computer.

I wish I had an idea for something saleable, but until I get to LA next summer (Lord willing), I don’t have the background for the mystery novel that’s been tickling around my backbrain. So for now, the good thing will be developing some writing discipline and ‘muscles’. Which will be helpful if I ever do get a good idea I can sell.

Yesterday, I actually got a WHOLE DAY off work. Tom and my mother-in-law and I went down to Amish country (Holmes County variety) and toured around. Actually, we started up at Rittman Orchards, not far from Doylestown, but they weren’t open on Monday (darn it), so the apples will have to wait until another time, or I’ll just have to settle for Marc’s apples.

It wasn’t altogether a pleasant trip. One of the fun things (not) about having a family member with bipolar illness is dealing with the minor ups and downs. Actually, the minor downs aren’t that bad. But the minor ups aren’t bad enough for hospitalization — they’re just painful. In this case, it meant non-stop talking, which set off the other non-me occupant of the car. After awhile, I put my headphones on and pretended to sleep — when the two of them get going, me trying to stop things is roughly equivalent to standing in front of an avalanche with a snow shovel.

I have been asked why I stick it out. Taken as a whole, there have been a lot more minuses in our life than most people would put up with. But, you know, while I’m not bipolar, I have long thought that it must take considerable patience to put up with me. And he does.  And I love him. Not to mention that I stood up in front of my family and his and our friends and the Lord and said “I’ll be there, no matter what”.  So I am.  And I do.  And I will.

On Rhapsody: Randy Travis, Forever and Ever, Amen

I know what that image to the right “really” is … it’s a picture of a gaseous cloud in Barnard’s Merope Nebula.

But I can’t help it — it looks to me like a soul worshiping the Lord …  Let me be in Your Light, Lord … let me worship You with a springing joy that is rooted in You and never fails!

(fully acknowledging the Newsboys, I sing)

As we lift up our hands
Will You meet us here?
As we call on Your name
Will You meet us here?
We have come to this place
To worship You
God of mercy and grace

It is You, we adore
It is You, praises are for
Only You, the heavens declare
It is You
It is You

          Holy, holy is our God Almighty!
          Holy, holy is His Name alone
          Holy, holy is our God Almighty!
          Holy, holy is His Name alone

It is you, we adore
It is you, only you