BLOGGING: Who finds who & how

Posted on December 19, 2003 by Susan

There’s a very interesting post on The Word Foundry about how some people land on someone’s blog through their search via one of the search engines. This was something I’d checked out myself when I noticed so much interest in my essays on some of the short stories I’d read, and discovered that it was obviously for student research. (Jeepers, guess my ratings will go way down until the next semester!) Joe Faust found some interesting connections by checking out the searches, and posted some of his findings and comments in “How You Found Your Way Here.”

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REALITY?: Time yet again

Posted on December 19, 2003 by Susan

Great news! I don’t have to worry about fitting in bleaching my roots–after the past week, my hair is coming in grey!

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WRITING: Christmas Countdown!

Posted on December 19, 2003 by Susan

Only 7 more days till I can read and write every hour of every day for three weeks!

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WRITING: Horror Fiction

Posted on December 19, 2003 by Susan

I love(d) Stephen King, still am mad about Poe, used to read Gothic novels non-stop, have seen just about every horror movie ever made, and am now looking for thrills at Michael Arnzen’s Gorelets. A recent post of his brought back memories of Karloff, Chaney, Christopher Lee, Peter Blood, Vincent Price, and then Elvira’s Saturday night horror movies.

The first short stories I wrote back in high school were of the horror genre. One that I remember was called The Black Lace, and it was something about a young girl who was a talented pianist but bore a family curse, and one day her father notices a growing web-like pattern of black lines appear on her hands as she plays…

I’m currently studying the process of decomposition on the body of an unfortunate vole who wandered onto a set mousetrap in my frameshop. (Too late now, after forgetting to ask my husband for six weeks to remove it. I also don’t like guts and gore on a personal reality level—just in books and on film).

“What do you want for Christmas?” my husband asks. Free reign to use the credit card to order some of Arnzen’s books.

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TECHNOLOGY: Fiddlin’ Again

Posted on December 19, 2003 by Susan

Nobody noticed that for the last few days every one of my posts was dated and timed exactly the same–all the way through October in the archives. Well I found the proper string of code and fixed it yesterday.

Thank you for not noticing. Would like to believe you’re so taken with my words that you don’t notice the little details of the site, but I know that in truth, you’re just rushing through the daily weblog trail, same as me.

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EDUCATION: Semester’s End

Posted on December 18, 2003 by Susan

Or just about, anyway. I would like to go tonight to the final but optional Spanish class–it was a great group, but I may be too tied up with framing tonight which is just getting closer to mid-pile and with luck, I’ll keep all my Christmas promises to my customers.

Didja miss me this morning? Last night I decided to get some sleep after wiping out all but one paragraph of my final paper on Blood Meridian–Retelling the Tale of the West for Contemporary Fiction. I really loved this book by Cormac McCarthy, but even after plenty of research and a direction in mind that gave me a very rough draft last week, I just couldn’t piece it all together once I went again online to recheck one of the websites that gave a little more of the historical background of the Mexican/American border and its people as history would have us believe. At seven pm, I took a nap; woke up at nine and worked through until two-thirty in the morning, then returned to the job at five am after another short nap, and finally finished at around nine this morning.

I’m an older student, and should know better by now how to plan these things out I suppose, but I just didn’t reckon on uncovering some more interesting information that swerved me right off the path.

It was a wicked night. But it had been a wonderfully exciting and challenging course. And once again, reading so many different contemporary works has had an effect on my own writing. We’ll truly see how much I’ve learned from both the reading of the various works and the class discussions when I return to my keyboard to write my own stories right after Santa leaves.

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WRITING: Anticipation

Posted on December 17, 2003 by Susan

I am SO looking forward to AFTER Christmas. This is MY time, having semester break, a certain freedom from my job by simply posting a “Closed for Inventory” sign, and making meals of Christmas candy.

This is the time I will take to read and write–especially to work on revising two of my short stories in particular that I’d like to submit somewhere. And of course, another idea is forming that takes root in my icy yard: I am going to write something wherein the protagonist is female and weighs considerably more than one hundred pounds, thus being less likely to walk atop the icy glaze upon the 5 inches of snow and fall flat on her ass.

And oh yes, she will be built like a Barbie doll.

Who says writers don’t project their wishful thoughts into their writing.

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BLOGGING: It’s A Small World (after all)

Posted on December 17, 2003 by Susan

I’m telling you, I would have to close the frameshop, forget my degree, and sever ties with family and friends (except el esposo, of course) to have the time to explore all the exciting things and ways of discovering them on the internet, and especially now through weblogging.

On my morning rounds I discovered a name from the past on Jerz’s Literacy Log, that of Roe R. Adams III, that brought back memories of another part of my life that was lived in another period in history.

This all goes back some time and relates to The Society for Creative Anachronism (too difficult to explain, check the link) that a group of us belonged to in my first steps toward the shooting of the longbow and the pleasures of traditional archery. I have long since left the SCA, and no longer make much of the equipment such as quivers and bow cases as I once had, but still do make wooden arrows for myself, husband and friends. But the SCA was made up of normal people living in a fantasy world on weekends—or through the week-long Eastern Kingdom War. Ah, the memory of a small group of us striding through camp one night after doing shots shouting out “Rape, pillage and burn!” While this introduction into archery was a wonderful way of meeting people and developing archery skills as well as learning much about the Medieval Period, I guess I am too selfish to share my fantasies with other people, or maybe just want to maintain their special glow without the taint of reality and so keep them private (except of course for the Willie one).

But the sight of Roe’s name on Dr. Jerz’s log brought back some wonderful memories, a delight in noting his success, and perhaps another thank you to Roe and Nan who entered my name for my archery abilities which resulted in my receiving the honor and the almost forgotten persona of “Lady Susanna of Rivendell.”

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REALITY?: Christmastime’s acomin’

Posted on December 17, 2003 by Susan

And the pressure is starting to take its toll. Luckily, I have a wonderful sister-in-law who has offered to have Christmas Eve over at her house this year, which means that not only do I not need to worry about making a meal and cleaning the house, I may not even need to put up a tree! That gives me at least six extra hours this year!

But even yesterday in my errand run (and I move fast lately, so for your own safety, stay off Routes 4 and 6 until after the 25th of December) I had the thought of buying yet another fake tree, this time fully assembled and complete with lights, to save time and to have the tree that really somewhere deep inside of me still has a special meaning. Since it doesn’t mean all that much to my spouse, I don’t put him through the intricacies of dealing with it.

But even with the stress and deadlines of a retail business during the holiday season, somehow I usually succumb to the emotional need for a tree eventually and manage to get something, some semblance of a tree up before Christmas Eve. In years past I’ve run uptown to the local Agway around December 23rd and Ron there has always found something that was usable. A couple years ago I broke down and bought an artificial tree as a back-up, but that’s more trouble than a real tree and doesn’t smell good anyway (no, I wouldn’t stoop so low as to buy a fir-tree spray scent). What I miss, and will admit here that I still do every Christmas, is to lay on my back underneath the sparkling, lit-up tree at night, and make faces at one of the larger reflecting metallic ornaments, usually a red or gold one, purposely hung on a lower branch for that very reason. I’ve done this since I was a kid, and for some reason it just seems to take all the magic of Christmas and focus it into that one globe that becomes the world and me in it.

No one has ever seen me do this. And now only you know about it, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.

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WRITING: As A Group

Posted on December 16, 2003 by Susan

The writing bug, once it bites, spreads a fever that is contagious with people of like minds. To this end, here in Connecticut we formed a writing group that involves all mediums such as poetry, plays, fiction, screenwriting, interactive fiction, hyperfiction, and other new media creative efforts. Originally known as “Garmhos” (for, Go ahead, rip my heart out) we felt it needed a more upbeat name and so have settled on the less tragic and more conservative (and easily spellable) “Narratives: A Writing Group” and linking forum for online submission and discussion. Please do check it out and feel free to comment on the Weblog “Narratives” or wander around the Garmhos/Narratives section of the forum. Just ’cause ya ain’t local don’t mean ya ain’t got good ideas.

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WRITING: Under Control?

Posted on December 16, 2003 by Susan

Can we do it? Can we really control when we write and how often? I’m sure many writers are able to do so; the same type who keep household budgets, visit the folks on Sunday, and eat pizza every Friday night. And this is not a disparaging description—these are all good things. It reveals a character who has mastered organization, dedication, discipline, and willpower. I have the dedication part down pat.

Although I have learned to control my impulses after the words are written down, meaning revising and editing, it is still difficult for me not to sit down and write, but to get up and do everything else that needs to be done. Perhaps this is just an open floodgate reaction to repression of what appears to be a thirty-year stockpile of words within my brain, or perhaps I’ve learned a ladylike prattle.

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BLOGGING: Fun

Posted on December 16, 2003 by Susan

Obviously, I’ve been fiddling with the dials again. This, I’m sure, will be an ongoing project since that’s just the way I am as an artist, and this tendency to fiddle has been reinforced by an insistent writing professor. Seen now as a GOOD quality to possess rather than one that bordered under obsessive/compulsive, I will illogically now take it to extremes.

I’m going to fiddle some more, but please e-mail me if you notice something amiss, or even worse, a blank screen. Which of course would mean you couldn’t read this, but that’s a problem for another day.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS: A Public Service Announcement

Posted on December 15, 2003 by Susan

Well, it finally happened. I received an e-mail from those folks who have been trying to reach me for years through snail-mail and whose letters I unfortunately lost because, jeez, I REALLY want to help them.

I’m posting a copy in full here, and will attempt to forward to the Attorney General’s office or wherever this is supposed to go (if you have a suggestion, please let me know), but let it serve as a warning. Here then, is the e-mail, with subject heading of “Assist us”

Dear friend,

I wish to begin by way of introduction. I am Kenneth Masuku, the first and only surviving son of late Marc Masuku one of the foremost and rich black farmers in Zimbabwe
recently murdered in the land dispute in my country. Before the death of my father, he had given me the certificate of deposite he used to deposit the sum of US$30.5 million
(Thirty Million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars) in one of the private security companies in Europe, as family valuables, when he realized the looming dangers in Zimbabwe.

Continue reading →

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WRITING: Character Study

Posted on December 15, 2003 by Susan

As with everything lately, I view the news first with thoughtful meaning from a writer’s stance. Saddam Hussein has been described by Donald Rumsfield “as one who projected a tough-guy image but was captured as a wimp, cowering in a hole in the ground” (AP). This very element of contradiction in a character has kept me interested since the beginning of the war. This is who we were afraid of? But yes, because he was so skillful as the Big Bluffer, he held a power to which only his own ability to write a story that the world would believe made it dangerous not to give it credibility. One thing I must admire however, besides the outrageous chutzpah of the man, is that old textbooks were found near the bed.

My scenario from this point on if I were writing this narrative would make it more believable. He would be assassinated before he is ever brought to justice.

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PEOPLE: At Christmastime

Posted on December 15, 2003 by Susan

Once again my husband has asked me for a Christmas list. I’ve never given him one in thirteen years, and he seems to do just fine without one. My list to myself is the gift of time and loving; to give the time to things and people that I love. Last year on Christmas morning I opened a tiny jeweler’s box, mindful of my husband’s anticipation of my reaction. In the box was a lovely opal ring, and I had to frame the words of appreciation in my mind carefully because he’d gotten me one very similar two years before. It may be taken as a funny story, but there’s a much more complex story underneath. This was in fact the very ring he’d already given me, and that I had obviously not worn enough to remember what it looked like. The act, interaction, and future of two people were embedded in that moment. The next package I opened was another ring, a new one which I wear every day, because he understood that opal is too fragilely soft a stone to handle the life my hands deal with daily.

I’ve learned many lessons through my life, and some are missed or put aside to ponder for another day. I will, however, not write a list for J. this Christmas either. Maybe I’ll see a need when we are a bit older, and need lists just to get about our days.

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