A Mon Seul Desir -- A Somewhat Embarrassing Attempt at Poetry

(A painting from the MET in New York City.)

A Mon Seul Desir

A day of shadows.

Of softly moving waves of

Ethereal sadness mixed with

Curious bursts of love and glee

For my children.

Fatigue. Moving lethargy.

Loving thoughts for my children.

And from them to me.

Art. Magic whispers of the soul,

Reaching, teasing, taunting,

Only there in flashes representing

What

Could be

If only I release and step into the void,

The wonderful, magnificent, exciting

Unknown. Passion through Art,

A touching of myself, A promise.

A secret. Come closer to hear. Swallow.

Dipping pen to ink,

Methodical, hypnotical.

The pen flows with ideas on artistic wings.

Let us dance.

Just close your eyes.

Breathe.

A beautiful smile and a hug,

Filled with love, compassion

And childish innocence and awe.

Look what I can do!

Explore

The mysteries,

The curiosities,

The wonderment.

~7/30/04

November was a bust

I know we are supposed to be thankful for loads of stuff in November, but it seems the only thing I can be thankful for right now are my excuses for not finishing NaNoWriMo this year. (Of which I have contrived many.)

Sarcasm is great for when you are feeling not so hot about yourself. :)

Blog posting will return with a vengence in the super near future. (As in next week!)

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. I hope you all have enough vitamin D for the winter months.

At Last!

Maybe having chicken poop in the backyard, and the puppy getting into our chicken run and terrorizing the chickens, and the chickens flying over the enclosure to get to the backyard, and the puppy eating the chicken poop has all been in vain.

We had our first ever eggs in the coop this morning. (After five and half months of raising them.)

And we ate them.

Mmmm.

"Do a little dance, make a little love. Get down tonight!"

My nanowrimo word count is coming along, I've gone to yoga this morning, I've been able to ward off a cold that wants to invade, and I'm almost done with my book proposal!

Life is good.

ALSO, life is superb. Because Paul has won a contest at work and he and I are being sent to Hawaii for a week! Pretty much all expenses paid. Airfare, hotel and $1600 in hand.

Noveling Affidavit

I, Valerie Christine Willman, hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000-word novel in one month's time.

By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of craft, brilliance, and competency are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.

During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, cliched characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it complete. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect, attention, or freedom from household chores.

I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will result in well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.

(taken from "No Plot, No Problem" by Chris Baty.)

Here I Go Again ... (It's not just a Whitesnake song)

It's November 1st. Nanowrimo has begun. I stayed up until midnight watching old Firefly episodes with my husband and girlfriend so that I could stay awake to start writing as soon as I could on my nano book.

It's funny, I don't even have names for my characters yet. And, truth be told, I only wrote about four paragraphs before succumbing to sleep. But I started! That was the important part.

I've been staying up really late (much later than my body likes) for the last couple of weeks; I've been socializing more and more with my theatre group. It's a lot of fun but maybe a little out of balance. I'm taking herbs and vitamin c to bring myself into balance, so I don't get sick. I had a sore throat last night (gone now thanks to my naturopath's herbal tincture!) but a slight headache this morning. I'm working on another 2000 mg of vit c and more tincture right now.

Paul's left for work and the roomie's leaving with his daughter for church. My girlfriend and her sons stayed the night last night and the kids are all playing games, listening to music. Her husband made a surprise visit this morning after his cab driving shift and has been sleeping on the couch. And after the coffee is done brewing, we adults will sequester ourselves in the bedroom and watch Michael Moore's Sicko.

More writing to come later this afternoon and then a house meeting tonight at 6:30.
November is starting with a bang! Aubrey's ballet rehearsals and class, A's gymnastics class, Robert's swimming lessons, the kids' water safety class and chess class -- and now Aubrey has started a Manga club at our house, too. On top of that is my writing critique group, No Shame workshops and a performance, and puppy obedience classes. Thank Goddess date nights are squished in there somewhere!

So, November and Nanowrimo, here I go again.