Officially Fall

Well it is now officially Fall, although the weather is still very nice all the leaves are on the trees and the summer patio furniture is still out in the yard. The schools are open and the mornings are filled with the sound of school buses picking up children. I want to hang onto the summer as long as I can. There is a certain kind of feeling that summer has, I don’t want to let it go.

In the stores all the Halloween things are out, I can’t believe it’s almost here. Over the weekend a friend sent a picture of an early Halloween sighting.

CHICKY CORN VAMPIRE

I would definitely pass the word around to watch out for teeth marks in the chicky corn!

Hmm... might make for a good story "Chicky Corn Vampires".

Below is part of my story "Tunnel Vision," you can read about it by clicking on the Heluim "Go".

Sounding nervous DJ blurted out. "This sure is freaky! Does anyone believe in Aliens?" He really wasn't kidding when he said it; he wanted to see how his partners would react to his question.

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The One That Got Away

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"Possum Catcher" as Puppy

Just the other day I was on the phone with my friend (yeah the one who I am waiting for, to finish her book), we were discussing dogs. She is looking for one, I on the other hand have mine, and he has brought me much joy and needless to say some real surprises in our lives.

My dog is a Jack Russell terrier named Freddie. No, I didn’t name him, my daughter did (funny my daughter seems to be around for names). Anyway he was her dog and somewhere along the line, now he’s my dog. He wasn’t being good at her house; in fact he was just a puppy and was bossing her older dog around. Hmm, I wonder if he learned that from…well never mind, the fact is he was dominating the older dog. Not to mention he wasn’t on his best behavior, getting into things, and his poor bathroom habits (the floor, ugh).

Freddie was about six months old when he came to live with us” his adoptive parents”. He was always very good here; perhaps some things are just meant to be. He came into my life at such a perfect time and we truly enjoy him, except for those occasional times that he brings us his surprises. (Some have set my heart pounding!)

We have a doggie door which allows Freddie the freedom to go in and out. He also loves to climb on the back of the couch and look out the window into the yard; he owns...his turf…ruler of chattels. If a bird should land on his ground, he immediately goes out chasing them away. He does the same if he sees an animal on TV, he runs over barking and trying to chase it off the TV. Sometimes when an animal on the TV leaves he jumps on the couch looking out the window to see if it has gone into his yard.

He has brought us snakes (garden snakes) but to me they could have been rattlers or pythons, I screamed just the same. We chase him around, get him to drop it and then let the creature go into the woods behind the yard. Recently, he came into the house and ran past me very quickly, I immediately knew something wasn't good. I called him to come to me, he does… struts’ in like “What? I didn’t do anything!” He almost gets away with it, when I spot the two legs hanging out of his mouth! Drop it I yell, drop it! He opens his mouth and the frog falls to the floor, I grab it and again let it loose in the wild. This frog was lucky, most are not.

Then there was the night I was watching TV my husband upstairs, (shaving or something). Freddie is in the yard barking and right when I was going to see what he was up to, he stopped, I relaxed back onto the couch enjoying the show. A few moments later I hear the doggie door, I look over and here comes Freddie. Panic immediately grips me! In his mouth almost the same size as him was a possum…DEAD! He drops it on the floor in the hall between the kitchen and the den, looks over at me very proud of himself, he then takes off upstairs to get my husband to show him what he caught.

Now I am alone with the dead possum, I know I have only moments to get it up and out of here before the dog comes back to get it. Getting off the couch, my mind is thinking how I am going to pick it up, maybe with a towel. I would have to hurry Freddie would be down…suddenly as I approached… the possum stands up! I start screaming so loud that I was sure my neighbors were going to be at the door thinking I was being murdered. I am screaming for my husband, and I do mean screaming!

The possum goes into the kitchen, my heart pounding in shear panic, I am peeking around the corner in the hall (far enough away) still screaming, but keeping enough wits about me to try and see where it was going, it passes the doggie door and scoots into the dining room.

The dinning room was dark and of course led back into the center hall that could take you anywhere in my house. I stopped screaming by now, I hear my husband talking to the dog. I cautiously back track to the den, into the back of the center hall, I slowly go down the hall looking at every opening that the possum could come out of. I get to the stairs and yell up to my husband, to get down I need him. The thought occurs to me, what if the possum went up stairs, now I am totally freaked out again because I really have no idea where it is.

Freddie comes down with my husband and starts to go where he had left his find. I snatch him up, didn’t want the possum to get him (what was I thinking.) I am holding the dog he is wiggling around in my arms trying to get down, I am yelling at my husband because he never heard me screaming, telling him I could have been killed, and he would never even know it was happening. It was the gleam in his eye that made me stop yelling at him… back to the possum I told myself.

With Freddie wiggling and whining to get down we look around but can’t find the possum. I am starting to panic again; my husband says maybe it went outside when I was in the hall. I wasn’t buying that! We are both standing in the den when he turns to me and says,” Put the dog down.” I didn’t want to do that not with the possum in the house. My husband then tells me if we wanted to find the possum the dog would show us. I reluctantly put him down, he immediately went to where he first dropped it, sniffed around and then ran into the dining room and started to bark under the china cabinet.

My husband picked up the dog handed him back to me, bent down and sure enough there was the possum. My husband called my son, and together they got a large fishing net and where able to corner it and take it out of the house. Talk about the one that got away.
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End of Summer Draws Near

As the end of summer draws near (September 23rd), and the air chills, life seems to wind down. I am never ready to wind down, summer ends too quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I like the fall and love the spring, on the other hand I am fond of a freshly falling snow (without the wind), it has a very peaceful fresh sort of feeling. But I do get tired of the freezing temperatures or driving on icy streets trying to get somewhere.

I also promise myself that this year will be different, (I seem to do that year after year) but I somehow fall short of making a real difference. I am promising myself that I will be more dedicated to getting my book finished, or at least working on it. I am also going to be very persistent in pestering my friend to work on her book. If she can get that finished I will at least finally know the ending, and it will leave her more time to nag me.

This time of year I feel like having Toffee Bars. I have a recipe from my mother in-law, I could almost taste them. I’ll give you the recipe so you can enjoy them as much as I do; it is almost like an old fashion toffee candy

Preheat oven 350
1 cup butter or margarine 1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla 2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 6-ounce package (1 cup) semi sweet chocolate pieces
1 cup chopped California walnuts

Thoroughly cream together butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add flour, mix it well. Stir in chocolate and walnuts. Press the mixture into ungreased
151/2 X101/2 X1-inch jelly roll pan.

Bake in moderate oven (350) about 25 minutes or until browned. While still warm, cut in bars or squares. Cool before removing from pan.
Makes about 5 dozen

Well that’s it for now. Don’t forget to check out that blog on Bizz Flip.

http://www.bizzflip.com/

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Brainstorming

Today I have plans to sit and brainstorm, every once in awhile I have to do this so that it freshens my ideas. I toss some of these ideas around with a very dear friend of mine. When the other end of the phone gets quiet and there are no questions being asked, I know these are the ideas that have gone over the line.

It is these ideas that I very often expand on. If they can make my friend question my sanity, then this is what I want. Unfortunately I feel somewhat guilty about scaring the daylights out of my friend, but if it scared her it would scare others. (I just hope the men in white aren’t called in.) I try to stretch the imagination to its limits, still trying to have some form of reality in it. (Even if it is very little)

I need to go over what I already have written, and try to freshen it up so that it can go on. Once the monsters are out of the closet you still have to keep you reader’s attention.

There is a new website that has been set up by a couple of young guys, I love checking it out and watching it grow. I really enjoy reading their blog. I will leave you a link check out the site, and then go down at the bottom and click on the blog and get a good chuckle.

http://www.bizzflip.com/ Have fun:)

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In The Mood

To get your mind set regarding emotions when writing, if it calls for writing about something happy, I find going to a time in my life when I experienced something that made me happy. I reminisce with hopes that the emotions comes through my writing.

Of course we have all had our share of sadness’; I find it easier to express that. Not only for the times that my life has experienced such emotions, but sadness is an emotion that you reach out to others with, and they to you.

The hardest thing to do isn’t how the emotions should feel, but to put it in words to get it across. Not so easy! To use the right words just the right way to make the reader feel what I am trying to create, enough to pull them more into the story. To make them sense the emotion so strong that it becomes theirs.

I know when I am enjoying a story it is when I make some of the characters my friends and can’t wait to get back to visit them. For that matter even the characters I don’t like I have to get back and see what they are up to, and that they get their just due.

When I pick up that book, I want to leave where I am and travel in the story with the world the writer created. It doesn’t matter if it’s a wonderful place or a dark place, like you would find in the scarier stories. It is still an escape. And I am always ready to take a trip.

Discipline Needed

I either have writers block or I am overflowing with ideas. I seem to be better doing short stories, I guess because I can get it all out and then go back to whatever I was doing. Instant gratification! Sometimes the ideas come at the worst times and if I don’t get it on paper they don’t come back! Hate that!

I have started two different books which I have not worked on in some time. Takes more planning of my time and perhaps I am just not disciplined enough to do that. I some how have to plan the week out better to fit writing time in. I feel like I won't be ready mentally to just start writing I have always written on the fly. I do miss my stories I get attached to the characters I do like getting lost in the story. Reality seems hard sometimes.

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(Please excuse the way this post looks, it is under construction.)

A small sample of one of the writings:


The alarm clock rang at 6:30 AM, I reached to turn it off, and through the threads of dim light that filtered through the curtains I saw the sticky reddish brown blood on my arm. I looked over the arm and didn’t see a cut. I turned to see if Mark had a nose bleed during the night, and I saw more blood on the bed, more then from just a nose bleed, but no Mark!



If you always wanted to write, do it! We put to many things off, before you know it time has passed us by. And we find that we have less time then we did before, or our mind dries up. Everyone of us has a story in us, and there is always some one out there that wants to hear it. (Like me, I will always listen)



I have a friend who is one of the best writers I know. I pray I live to hear the end of her story, it is really good and I've been in suspense for over a year. I know in my heart that she will finish, it would kill me if she doesn't
because I started to feel like the characters in her book are old friends. I keep waiting to see them.




Books are like old friends, they make for great company.