Mental Meanderings

Sick Six, Tireless Two and Short Horrors

My six year old daughter is sick. My two year old son won't sleep. And I attempted to complete my promise of a short story enough so that I'm content that I made an honest effort and yet am disappointed that it was a) hard, and b) not a story.

Sick Six
Yesterday, walking home from school my daughter complained of a sore throat but she was doing fine. Had a friend visit to play on the computer and they had fun, all was more or less normal but her throat still hurt so I just make some chicken stew for dinner.

This morning an hour earlier than the alarm she woke up crying and feeling like she needed to be sick. I settled her in on the couch with blankets and a bucket and she's still there now. She was sick a few times and I hated feeling so helpless but there wasn't much I could do. Kids get sick and I could tell it's nothing too serious, a stomach bug or a bad case of flu. She was already starting to feel better by this evening and her temperature has come down. She's on the mend.

Tireless Two
Of course the disruptied routine lead to my baby boy falling asleep with his sister a time or two today. It was tiring to try and keep him tame today. Keep him quiet and prevent him from climbing all over his sister while she was trying to rest. Of course, now he's wide awake and refusing to sleep. I'll take him to my bed when I go and hopefully having me conking out on him will encourage him to do the same. It's worked in the past.

Short Horrors
I started a new book item today to help my resolved to write fiction prose every day. I also kept my word and added an entry today and I aim to do so every day as dilegently as I aim to post in my blog. I won't blog until I've storied and I won't sleep until I've blogged. *grins*

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Today's entry isn't a story. I'm still struggling with that issue. I start something but if I haven't fully plotted it before I start then I just wander with no idea where I'm going. Every line is dragged out of me and it's painful and not fun. I have however started. And it's a fair start. There are these two characters and we can connect with them as humans. I'm enchanted enough with their lives to want to explore it future. "Invalid Entry" 

The problem is figuring out where things go from where it left off. What lead to that moment and what's next? I don't know, and as the author it's a little inconvinient. Forge and I were discussing it a little today in IM's. It's always great to be able to toss ideas around with him and we have a really great back and fourth that goes on. It's really cool when you just click with people. I'm also planning to pick Anyea 's brain cause she's the one who's really been encouraging me to get the stories out. Or rather not so much encouraging me as inspiring me.

You know, I'm going to get brilliant at these short story things and enthrall the scrollies in story hour sometime. I'd like to try but since I've never managed to complete a story I'm terrified that I'll try in scroll and not be able to figure out how it all ends. When the endings and middles start connecting with my beginnings I'll take the marshmellows and offer myself up to the deities of the scroll.

Meanwhile I went on the hunt for a story workshop and was amazed to find an incredible group. "Invalid Item"  has everything a writer could possibly want. In fact if I'd found this a month ago I never would have started the PPP and I'm now contemplating disbanding my group, closing down my workshop and sending my members to the Academy. I don't like teaching and I'd much rather be a member then the leader of a group like this. I'm an eternal student. I want to learn from the experience of others and share that learning experience with other students rather than be considered the most experienced of the group. I feel uncomfortable having group members looking up to me as if I know what I'm talking about. I don't. I only ever started the group because I couldn't find anything like it. Now I've found something I'd rather participate there and I think members would gain more from that group then they could from mine. Having said that I've made no decisions today and I might make a post in the Ponder Poetry forum asking members what they think, or perhaps send out an email.

One last thing I accomplished today was to track all my submissions. As a premium member I now have access to the submission tracking tool on WDC so I went back over the past two months and entered in the details of all the contests on the site I've entered. I was surprised how many poems I had circulating that hadn't been judged yet. I was also pleased that of the 6 poems that had been judged 4 of them had been awarded 1st place and 2 of them hadn't placed. Those are really great odds.

Now, I'm wiped out. It's definately time for me to get some sleep. Onward to tomorrow. I'm looking forward to exploring the acedemy more and taking part in the lessons.