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April 16, 2006
Moving Forward Without Signposts and Guidelines
Quarter way through this second novel and I remember that this is the place I got stuck in Hibiscus Airport. Can't imagine it happening again but I did pause to consider the possibility. I rework and edit as I go which is supposed to be a no-no for a first draft, but I am going to try it this way, this time. And it will either work or it won't and I'll learn something out of it. I'm also going to drag a synopsis out of the novel-in-progress to use for my Lit Board funding application. I've missed a day or two of the daily writing routine from time to time and found it so hard to get back into the flow that I've vowed to avoid such breaks. So here I am, sick as a dragon, putting in my daily quota.
My sister, an alternative health practitioner, has been over to support us all--the whole family of dragons are in a bad way. I'd finished shoving some words together and had stopped for a mo and laid aside my laptop on the couch when she arrived. She put oils in my aura and gave me an Indian head massage, and a rainbow drop therapy for my son who had a bronchial wheeze and lent me her oil diffuser. She fixed the rest of the household and left with the cakes that had been leftover from the St Andrews market, a berry and almond tart, a pear and chocolate cake.
I felt like going to see a film to distract myself from bodily ailments but only if I had a magic carpet to take me there. Saw Dear Wendy. the Lars Von Trier film, on DVD last night and it was superb, arthouse. For action and thrills, we saw Inside Man on the big screen on cheap movie night Tuesday. You'd think it was the usual cops and robbers but it had great dialogue, some cool action, the usual star actors, and unusual secondary characters.
Friday night was passover and one of my mother-in-law's friends, a painter, told me she'd read one of my stories and that it read like a postmodern painting. It took me a while to work out that she was referring to the story, Twilight Sky Things Go Bump In The Night in last year BAS. Needless to say, she made my evening.
On another high note, my story Rockpools has just been accepted for the June issue of Southword, magazine of the Munster Literature Centre, and yet another one, microfiction, Man and Dog, to one of my favorite online magazines, Smokelong Quarterly, for their next issue.
I am not even sure if this blog entry is going to be interesting reading--coming as it does at the end of a hard day of illness, writing, and cooking for a family of dragons. Anyway, I promise to do better next time and plan to put together another of those wonderful discussions from a Zoetrope online room. Stay tuned on the blogosphere.
Posted by girija at April 16, 2006 10:13 PM