CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 12010: Welcome to March 627 wc

March 1 Blog:





Welcome to March, Gentle Readers. Yes indeedy, this month we get to enjoy the Spring Solstice, the Vernal Equinox, and the Ides of March. We have St. Patrick's Day too. AND we have, us lucky Writers, MarNoWriMo: MarchNovelWritingMonth, which is a somewhat less stringent version of November's NaNoWriMo. In March, we Writers can work on already-in-progress pieces, as well as write all-new. I'm doing both: I'm writing 50K or better on an all-new novel, The Haunted Greenhouse, Book Two in The Testament Corporation Chronicles and part of the novels and short stories set in The Phantom Northern Woods. THG is the sequel to the novel I began Dec. 12 and am finishing this month, The Phantom Logging Operation. Both are set in 1957 in an alternate probability in which the original Northwest Territories (which in our consensus reality became Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) were subdivided into State of Wisconsin, State of Michigan, State of Illinois-and between State of Wisconsin and State of Michigan-State of Algonquin, where all this takes place (including my May 31 2004 short story, “The Phantom Train.”)





I'll include a section here of what I've written today in The Phantom Logging Operation.

Chapter 39 - - -

         I had come to my wits' end-once again. I only knew that I must either stop running like a skeert rabbit, every time some horror twitched, or-well, frankly, it was that or die. My Daddy didn't back down before the Hun Hordes-and he died trying. But he died bravely and I could too, and would if that became necessary. This runnin' and hidin' and scurryin' up under the bed type of behaviour wasn't me. Yes, I had grieved when Leill ran off in February; yes, I still grieved for my Mamma's death, and that were back fifteen months ago, in February of '56, before I'd met and married Leill, in a marriage that had lasted only eight months. But this wasn't grievin', this wasn't sorrow at the loss of loved ones-now, this was just plain skittishness and fear, and I would not have it-not any more. I was a man, only twenty-seven years old granted, but still a man, not a mole, not a field mouse, so why was I runnin' and hidin' like a vole tryin' to outdistance a predator hawk? This behaviour wasn't like me. Good golly, when I first moved up here to the Northern Woods Territories in February, homesteaded this close to The Big Forest, close enough I could see the edge of it waverin' and tricklin' in the distance, like a heat mirage on an August highway, I wasn't a-feard then! I slept in the back seat of the Mercury on cold nights, and when the weather grew a little warmer, I pitched an old Army surplus tent at the end of what would become my driveway, and tossed in my old sleeping bag and more or less slept out under the stars: no fear of lynx or bobcat, nor mountain lion nor bear (and we were far enough North, I believe, for bears). Not frightened by the night calls of owls, the chirping of crickets, the slither of grass snakes.  Not frightened at all until last Tuesday afternoon, scarce a week ago, when I planted perennials all day, planted them happily, encircling the perimeters of my newly erected cabin-happy and content until I saw the Log Truck-without a driver.





I've set myself the goal of 77,500 word count for MarNoWriMo, because that is 2500 day for 31 days. This week is both Mad Dash and March Book-in-A-Week, so 17,500 word count for Mad Dash, 70 pages for March BIW. It's all the same word count, just counted in three different divisions.





March is also:





March GenreChallenge!








References:

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