Yesterday is history,who knows what there is going to be when we meet again...

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed....anyway it was a flat day yesterday and I felt like I achieved nothing of import. I did feel a grief for the death of two trees in my yard. One because wood borers had killed it, burrowing deep. I had watched it slowly dying over the past several years not knowing what to do to prevent its demise and yesterday the tree loppers came along and sliced through the branches and trunk with their variety of chainsaws then turn the stump to sawdust. The chipper came and turned the branches piled high on the front lawn, into tiny flakes of wood. The other tree had already been decimated when the house was built and was relegated to a mere stump, albeit a vigorously healthy stump which keeps putting out shoots to the chagrin of my neighbour. I am all in favour of the stump being vigorous. However the neighbour won this round by lopping off all the offending branches and sending them to the chipper with the branches from the bigger tree. I am planning to replace both trees with three more and deciding what I want to put in there. The tree loppers wanted to take out all my big trees and I felt very angry at the stupidity and shortsightedness of such a suggestion. One of them suggested I put in a nice shrub. I wanted to respond more aggressively to that suggestion but managed to contain myself.Sadly, no matter what I plant I will be unlikely to see it in full canopied glory, shading the house and providing shelter for cicadas and birds. A tree is a lifetime commitment.

Sometimes I feel we are all angry selfish babies and it is "All about me".

Today is a better day. Today I had a beautiful fruit salad for breakfast and then set about doing some drawing and getting my blog back on track after neglecting it yesterday. I only managed a meagre 400 words on my novels so today I will dedicate time and effort to building my word count. It is a better day today and I will have momentous results from a more positive attitude.

How to cut a coin in half

Today's PiBoIdMo idea stemmed from a dream I awoke from in which a teenage girl was visiting elderly relatives with her younger siblings. The uncle was encouraging the children to be inquisitive and rowdy and the older sister was trying to keep them in line. The uncle admonished her for being too straight laced and constrained and she retorted that she too would love to let loose and run around yelling and leaping but her needs did not outweigh her responsibility to keep the others safe or the neighbours rights to live quietly. It was an interesting debate between the two and the rest was irrelevant but I think I should mention the pregnant man and the clash between other siblings in the city(my dreams are often vivid and weird).
So then my dream wandered to a centrelink scene with some person screaming at the person working there that they had rights and the worker holding up a five cent coin and saying 'should I cut this in half and give it to you? This is legal tender and on this side there is a small animal and it represents your rights, your right to all the things you are yelling about but not once do you turn the coin around and look at the head of the monarch on this side. This side represents responsibility. It is a two sided coin. If I cut it in half it is no longer legal tender. Did I mention my dreams were weird? The worker went on to give quite a lecture on rights AND responsibilities. I woke up thinking about Baa Baa Rainbow sheep, which some thick witted fool decided was more appropriate than baa baa black sheep because a black sheep was racist or some moronic interpretation of the old nursery rhyme. A sheep is a sheep. In times past the wool of a black sheep was highly prized over that of white sheep. It is a sheep. A black sheep just as the nursery rhyme depicts. Then people decided they wanted red and purple and pink and green wool so the white wool became more prevalent because it can be dyed. Funny how fashion changes things. Now the only rainbow sheep that might exist is in a twisted ditty, because scientists haven't worked out how to pre-dye the wool unless we go back to black sheep and so there isn't one. A rain bow sheep - there isn't one! Except in that idiotic changed song that kids are being forced to sing in case they might misconstrue a sheep as a racist icon. How ridiculous. Why not talk to the kids about counting and sheep and historical context and fashion instead of pretending there is something racist about it? Why not be a responsible adult and talk to kids about lots of things. Enrich their world instead of restricting it.

the rejected novel

My first attempt at a novel took possession of me back in 1999. Its original title : if the shoe fits has been used by someone else and its current working title: the ogre and the puppet woman is unworkable however I doubt I will use this novel again but it does have some good elements I will recycle.
This Novel was rejected by two publishing houses with wonderful feedback and encouragement.
It took me six months to get the courage to actually post this first manuscript once it was in the envelope. It served the purpose of getting me past a fear hump and now I look back on the piece I see so many glaring problems with it but I also see where my influences came from.
I have always wanted to write or rather I just made up stories but I rarely wrote them down. I told stories to my younger siblings and children I babysat in my teens and I have had people tell me over the years that the stories I told them stayed with them. One beautiful young mother tells me she tells my stories to her children.
My own children both grown and still at home often recount how my stories stay with them and my siblings tell me my early stories gave them nightmares and an indelible impression in their memories. I hope they will tell those stories back to me some day because I have forgotten them.

I have several novels in progress. One is a SF/fantasy, one fits in to the new 'urban fiction' category, several are for children and involve fairies far removed from the pretty delicate things people tend to think of, a couple of odd romances and some childrens picture books about relationships. I also have a 'how to' I intend to dust off, polish up and send out into the world.

I am excited about the year ahead in terms of my writing and I am extremely grateful to my supportive fans who bully me about when the next part of an adventure will be related.