Clearing the Cobwebs

I can't say that I got anything worthwhile done today, but what we did do was very helpful in airing out my dusty cranium. A nature walk!

Yes, she who has come to hate the thought of being hot, sweaty and outdoorsey, actually gave in and went with the kiddies to Assateaugue Wildlife Refuge and hoofed it. (No pun intended, though I did get some good shots of the wild ponies!)



All in all, the heightened level of oxygen did my brain some good. And the oppritunity to flex my creative muscles in another way turned out to be a perk. I got some other good shots of the wildlife, some of which I'm very proud of. I can't wait until I get my dream camera with a zoom lens, so I can get even better shots. Enjoy!

Brown vs. Brown

This is to those of you who have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and have also read Angels & Demons:

Am I alone in thinking that Angels & Demons was the far better book?

Da Vinci has illict cover-ups involving the mother of all births (no pun intended) but I felt vaguely let down by the ending. I mean, there seemed to be no big finale. The supposition and art history was fun, but it was like sex without the big finish.

Angels and Demons, on the other hand, had far better plotting, the suspense was top-notch, and I reveled in the art history again. And there was a definitive story arc. This book left me satisfied, unlike The Code.

While The Code recieved more press because of it's controversial nature, I whole-heartedly feel that Angels & Demons is the better read.

Anybody agree?

Latest Read - Aria

I just finished the book ARIA by Susan Segal.

Lemme tell you, it was an excellent way to pass the work week . The MC Eve is recovering from a horrible boating accident in which she lost her husband and two children. Can you imagine?

Enough said.

Segal uses situations that I normally wouldn't have considered to bring out the suffering of poor Eve. The first time she goes grocery shopping, Eve ends up with a basket full of food fit for four people. All she has to feed is herself, and she barely manages to do that, not that I blame her. The paparazzi follows, and her new-found friends may or may not have her best interests in mind... just read it!

(Amazon link in My Library section to the left.)

I HEART GUMP!

Love is like a box of chocolates....Or rather, being in Love is like being a box of chocolates.

Someone comes along bedazzled by your sinfully sweet goodness, they begin to lick their lips with anticipation. In a Pavlovian response, their mouths water at the prospect of tasting your creamy insides... slowly they nibble, getting more vigiorous with each taste...

Then they stop. They look at you like they just realized that they don't like caramel, spit you out on the floor to get stepped on my some big fat guy drenched in eu'de chicken-grease, and saunter over to the ice cream aisle for some Gelato.

Gotta love an ego boost!

My day job appears to be, at first glance, the mirror image of the creative sloth that is sitting here, at eleven pm, trying to type one handed because the other hand is holding a Marlboro.

But now I realize that my daily bread-earning compliments my muse-seeking side. Accounting has become my yen to my yang. My black to my white. My classical to my heavy-metal.

And today, those two sort-of met in the middle.

You see, I am a Purchaser by trade. Yes, read 'em and weep ladies-- I SHOP for a living. Mind you, I'm not out perusing Prada. I work for a fairly small but elite Marble Mosaics company. Anything that is needed for the company or it's workers, I buy it. From saw blades to copy paper.

Recently, I was asked to get quotes for employee t-shirts. I fired back that I couldn't get accurate quotes without the full t-shirt design. I was emailed the t-shirt design, which turned out to be nothing more than 1 graphic that they wanted to use on the back of the shirts. I was told to figure out the rest. So I did.

And after corresponding all morning with the Marketing and Promotions guy via long-distance email. He said that I did a really good job, and had I ever considered Graphic Design. Yippie!


I repeat, YIPPIE!

Did I mention the company has a design center. A loft high above production where David Bowie is inclined to follow Enya on the CD changer. A place where CAD (computer aided drafting) and watercolor renderings co-mingle. A place where all the desktops are beautiful marble slabs.


Yes, I've considered it. I would love it. I wonder, though, if my creative juices would run even drier after a full days worth of being artistic. I might loose my Yen. or whatever.

~K.

Crap, the guilt cometh!

Okay, so I felt a little guilty blaming my kids for becoming such a boring, unimaganitive mom, that I had to give them some air time.

Owen will be 5 next month, and he has really grown up in the last few months. Mind you, he can still throw a 3 year-olds temper tantrum like it was nobody's business, but I can plainly see that my first baby is no longer a baby.

He has his Preschool graduation last week, and I was startled to see the fruit of my loins actually behaving like a little man, all dressed up in his shirt and tie. I will not go into how I felt to see him don the ceremonial cap and gown.

(Don't blame me for the Bambi-killing...that one's all on his redneck father, bless his heart)

And Emma, what can I say about her except that she is most assuredly my daughter, sent from heaven to remind me how stubborn, opinionated, and demanding a child that I was.

And boy does she do a bang-up job of it. Sometimes I say she's all girl, like when she waltzes in after preschool and announces that she is changing her clothes, which usually results in a large ambigous pile of clothes that I have no choice but to wash.

Other times, though, she is the reincarnated tomboy of my childhood, giving the goods back to her brother before he has time to realize, literally, what hit him.

While at the beach the other day, Owen kept close company near me, not trusting the water to stay in the ocean. Emma, on the other hand, walked right down to the water's edge, plopped down and dug a hole (repeatedly, I might add, becasue the waves kept erasing her handiwork.

Night and day, those two. And I wouldn't have it any other way!

Good night, and good luck!

Oh Where, Oh Where Can She Be?

I just don't get it, this inability to take action. Those last ten words add up to more than I have written in a month, if you don't count snappy emails and terse business memos.

I used to be such a creative person. I handpainted my children's dressers, not because I couldn't afford new ones, but because I wanted to! I blogged, I plotted, I tinkered, I painted, I edited, I mused....

(I wrote and designed the ebook & cover you see at left)

And for the last six months, nothing. Nada. Zip.

My most creative thought today was, well shit! I forgot that too! I am seriously worried that I have lost "the essense of me". Before I had kids, or at least the second kid, I was a much more interesting person. But now that I have a 4 and a 5 year old, I feel so much duller.

Maybe it's because I've always been a solitary person, and now I have nothing to myself. I don't mean to imply that I sat home reading a dusty tome while others where out tapping a keggar. I enjoyed binge drinking until I passed out, fell down concrete steps and awoke sitting in the passenger seat of my white camero covered in vomitus-- for example-- just as much as the next gal. But I digress...

What I mean to say is that I've always cherish time to myself. Stretches of time where my brain mixes and molds the silly putty of creativity, finally sputtering out a perfect Mr. Potato Head replica. Now, I don't have time to ferment the grains. I am not a machine, dammit. I can't just spew creative juices all over the paper at will. I cannot gleek.

Great, now I'm not only aging and dull, but apparently somewhat touched in the head.

I'm off to the bizarro sleep world that I thrive in, because, in my dreams, it is weird NOT to be weird.

~K.

At last! my weary bussom heaves...

Good News! I am having a poetry chapbook published by Blue Bay Books. It is going through the process now, but I should get the galley any day now to review. I'll be posting a link and cover soon, so check back! Tentatively, this chapbook is titled Unrequited: A Poetry Collection.


unrequited >adjective: (of a feeling, especially love) not returned or rewarded.

Here is a sample poem, consisting of the last few lines of the poem "Slideshow":


Could someone take my
Memories of him–
Display them on a screen,
Store them on a disk,
Make me a video to watch
At the witching hour
When my heart can’t seem
to forget
And my mind can’t seem
to remember.




Also I am compiling other collections. These books will contain essays, fiction and poetry by moi' and also offer up the occasional odd-ball quote. More on that soon too!


Until next time-- Ciao'

Oh, my Achin' Noggin!

Forgive the dramatics, but my temporal lobe is making this wierd ticking noise and I swear I can feel my hair pulsing to the rythem of my heart. A is for Aneurysm-- the next popular Sue Grafton novel, available in September 2009! Reserve your copies today!

Not much new on the writing front today. I managed to review a few novel chapters on The Next Big Writer. I'm the middle of two great novels right now-- NANCY BOY and FEELS LIKE HOME. The first is literary, the second mainstream romance/suspense. Both are very well executed and the kind that keep you turning the page (or link). If you get a chance, drop in and check them out!

Other than that, all I've managed to write today is this miserable blog-drivel, that is sure to come back and haunt me some day when I hit the best-seller list and head out to tour Italy.

Some American tourist (evidenced by the fanny-pack, bottled water, and sensible shoes) will approach me while I stare at the Sistine Chapel and blurt, "Aren't you that writer woman? What is it that you wrote...Something that I tried to read but couldn't get past the first page?"

And I'll reply, "Oh, you mean (insert stellar book title)?"

And the shriveled up old hag will say, no that nonsensical rambling on the web-internet thingy...whatcha call it? A frog.. log...dog...cog?"

Enough said. I'm heading to bed while I still have a modicum of dignity left.

What Does it All Mean?

So, ye of expansive cyber-space... you may be wondering, what is the meaning behind this blog?

First, and assuredly most important, I am trying to motivate my sloth-ridden tail into writing again (more). You see, I've hit upon a case of acedia (ahh-see-dee-ahh: creative sloth, otherwise known as a "block".) And from where I sit, the natives in my noggin are getting restless.

Then there is my other reason, which is still self serving, though may offer up a bit of help to others out there like me-- I want to cronical my way to Writer-dom.

You probably need some back-story. In a nutshell, I've always been a closet writer-- making up stories in my head, tinkering with a poem here, a short-story there. You know, you have done it too.

A few years ago, I set about finding my writing niche. I wrote columns for several local papers, one of which made it to a pretty big state paper. I became the non-fiction editor of a writer-ly website. I became an editor of three sites on a Women-geared master site.

Column writing is good for me, and to be honest, blogging pretty much feels the same way. Cathartic.

Then I dabbled in fiction and poetry. I workshopped a good bit of my work, got some decent feedback and submitted a pitiful number of works to small lit mags and such. Suprisingly, I made my first sale ($10) without ever knowing how. One day I got a check in the mail for a pitiful erotic short story that I conjured up after too much tequila. What the hell, I cashed it, effectively selling my baby to a stranger.

My biggest accomplishment to date has been selling a story to a national magazine. Now, before you offer up congratulatory praise, I must tell you, the mag was a CONFESSIONAL type of mag. You know, the one with attention-grabbing headlines like: I sold my baby for $40, or I Ran My Husband Over with My Buick.

Kidding aside, I am proud of that sale. I got a decent little chunk of change and my story hit grocery stores everywhere. I know, it's no Pulitzer, but I've got to think of it as a baby step toward my goal of BEING a WRITER.

Thus, this blog has commenced. Somewhere between wanting to be a writer and being able to say I AM A WRITER (where you inevitably have to answer the question, "What have you published?" with something more substantial than saying "A few things.") there is a middle ground, a Literal Limbo.

I am there. Follow me while I weave my way from the depths of my creative purgatory!