Christmas Pony
Alicia and Sally leaned against the split-rail fence while watching the horses eat. The bails had been frozen together this morning. Getting them to the feeder and breaking them apart had taken half an hour.
“You know, when I was a little girl I asked Santa for a pony every year.” Alicia broke the silence. “All through grade school and right up until I met you I wanted a pony. If I’d known how much work they take, I’d never have asked.”
“That’s funny.” Sally grinned. “Just yesterday I asked my dad to give me that one.”
The Challenge: Write a story in 100 words or less
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
The Photo Credit: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Surfing
It started off with a search for images to use on labels for gift wrap. We have a large collection of decorative cloth bags for wrapping Christmas gifts. Not only is it more ecological, it’s quicker and easier to grab a bag. Unluckily, the sticky labels I usually get at the store wont stay on. I need the kind of card stock with a hole type, but either can’t find them or they are ridiculously expensive. So I make my own.
I’ve been using the same ones for years now. I got tired of them, and decided to google for something fresh. I got distracted.
Suzie’s House 486 : A Lion’s Pride
“I’m proud of you.” Vin stood by their bedroom door with his arms crossed over his chest and a proud smile.
“Yeah? What’s that about?” Miranda refused to look at him any more than she had to. He didn’t need any encouragement if he was going to comment on her character. Instead, she focused on getting her image in the mirror of her vanity and getting the rest of the makeup off her face. This was purely practical. Nothing vain about it.
Return of Internet
I lost internet access for a few days last week. Frankly it’s been poor for a long time. I’ve replaced my router and modem so many times.
Like in the past, my signal just deteriorated badly. It seemed it would come back for a few minutes when I called the ISP tech support. I’d get a solid connection, feel silly for calling, and hang up. Over and over.
Eventually the tech support was fast enough to actually “help” me. They guided me through a reset that failed.
Where I had been able to get online for a few minutes an hour before, I suddenly wasn’t able to connect at all. I felt like they broke my system.
They sent out a technician the next morning. Turned out the problem with that the cable in the alley – the whole length of the alley! – was messed up. They replaced it, fixed the reset issue, and now I’ve got a great connection.
All in time for the weekend when I don’t generally blog. It just figures.
Suzie’s House 485 : Up to Snuff
Gene did not much care for Miranda. Not that he really disliked her. Certainly he hated his own father a lot more. Miranda never hit him, rarely said nasty things to him, and sometime even fed him. So she was mostly okay. But still, Miranda was the kind of woman he already knew he couldn’t handle.
Christmas in a Box
I keep Christmas in a box. It’s a very large, plastic box with “Christmas” sharpied on the sides. The idea is that when Christmas rolls around I can find all the decorations wrapping, etch that I need in the box.
This year we lost the box.
I’m not sure if it’s still out at the storage unit or buried too deep in the shed for anyone to fine. Regardless, Christmas isn’t available this year.
I’m actually okay with that. I’m not in the mood to deal with the thousand strings of lights, half of which are burned out but might be salvageable or the garlands that are getting a bit ratty, or the ornaments my kids made when they were little. I didn’t work very hard to find Christmas.
We made an emergency run to Walmart. For $30 I got all the lights, garlands, and ornaments I need for our two-dimensional Christmas tree. That was as much as anyone wanted anyway. We set it up today Quick, cheap, easy, and the cats love it.
The Last 13 Things I Have Done
In reverse order:
1. Come up with this post.
2. Read a few chapters of a manga called Gantz.
3. Realized I needed a T13 post. Drew a blank.
4. Read a few chapters of a manga called History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi.
5. Snacked on carrots.
6. Read Gantz
7. Discussed snow storms and travel plans
8. Ate seafood stir fry for supper.
9. Ok, there’s a lot more reading and eating, but I’ll skip to more highlights. Went to the gym and used the elliptical machine. Ellipticals are great for my hip.
10. Got up this morning. You can kind of assume I went to bed a few hours earlier.
11. Drove through a snow storm at night.
12. Took pictures of various animals – none of which came out.
13. Took pictures of Mammoth Hot Springs – some of which came out.
Suzie’s House 484: Jumping the Gun
“It’s not my fault.” Lisa sounded even more prickly than Tracy expected.
“When did I say it’s your fault.” Tracy couldn’t help getting a little defensive as she leaned over to look at Lisa’s laptop. “I’m just saying…. I don’t know! It’s just… forty two? Seriously? Only forty two?”
“That’s forty two hits in two days, and it’s only on youtube. I mean, we haven’t put the music video anywhere else yet. Right? Once we get it on Facebook and everything….” Lisa sucked her lips in doubtfully. “I’ve seen a lot of videos that have been online for longer and got less hits than that. Besides, we don’t even have the album sales info yet. Right?”
Black Friday
When did Black Friday become a good thing? yeah, I’m behind the times. The original deaths were years and years ago. It’s just that I never felt compelled to join the crush just for a random chance at maybe a good deal on a handful of items.
I did try it once, years ago. By the time I got there around nine am the shelves with the good deals were all stripped bare already. None of it was stuff I really wanted to begin with. I haven’t bothered since.
Maybe that’s not entirely true. I haven’t bothered with any of the box stores. I did, however, try to make a quick trip into a fabric store for a particularly good deal. I was smart enough to grab a number before making my selection, and still ended up waiting for ten people ahead of me at the cutting table.
But it gets to me when I keep running into people who looked forward to it.
Suzie’s House 483 : Making Movies
Lisa wasn’t sure if she could use any of the film footage later, but she certainly was having fun. She dropped to her knees in front of Bruce, panned up along his stand to the underside of his keyboard, then zoomed in on his face.
Normally she considered Bruce’s innate machismo nauseating. He was too brutal to be an oaf, but not smooth enough to be cool. Or so she thought until today. On film, with that narrow-eyed, knowing expression taken from this angle, he looked pure cool. Unless something weird turned up in the background that she didn’t notice now, it would be a keeper.
.
(more…)
NaNoWriMo
Seems like I hardly even announced that I was participating in this years National Novel Writing Month before I won it!
This does not mean the book it done. I have a long way to go in search of a completed plot line, but I’ve achieved the 50,000 plus words of the NaNo challenge. Yay!
Every book is a little different. This one was quite a bit different in process than previous efforts. I did not write anything out ahead of time – no synopsis, and no spreadsheets. But I wasn’t flying into the mist. I had been thinking about various aspects of this story for a couple of years now. But it wasn’t all clear in my mind as I sat down to write – only bits and pieces.
So in a way, it was a bit like when I wrote Uru – a 75,000 Camp NaNo book that I wrote a few years ago. In a way, nothing like it.
At some point I gave up trying to follow a timeline entirely. I jump from scene to scene, writing whatever comes to mind. I can already see more or less how it will all shake into place in the revisions, so I’m still writing with confidence. But I can’t use the end of the previous scene to tell me what to write next. It jumps around too much.
For now, I’ll just celebrate the word count.
13 Words
Guess who is trying to come up with a Thursday Thirteen after bad time?
1. National
2. Novel
3. Writing
4. Month
5. is
6. in
7 November.
8. How
9. many
10. words
11. have
12. you
13. written?
I’m up to 40,000 already. It’s one of my better noveling years. The photo is from dolphin chasing in Bali.
