Balance

i think mother nature has an evil twin… and she hates me

Take that disgusting thing off of my boobs, thank you!

Holy cow! I can’t believe I’m already on DWC 15! (There are a total of 25, so I’m over halfway through!)

ATTENTION ALL READERS:

Coining a term from my Daily Life, “Scope Creep,” has fallen upon me. Maintaining a lifestyle of a full-time job, dealing with said Daily Life, writing this blog, working on the DWC’s, trying to carve additional time for my WIP’s and trying to obtain a fair amount of sleep each night… Well, it’s becoming all too much and something has got to give. If I’m not careful, it could quite possibly be my sanity.

Let’s face the facts: If the sanity is completely gone, who wants to read the ramblings of a crazy person?

With most of the outline for my first of a two-book series written out, I hope to have at least both outlines completed, along with officially having started to knock out the first book by the end of the month.

With the ultimate goal of getting published someday, (if I’m lucky enough to be selected by an agent, and then, by some miracle have my work picked up by a publishing company), these last two weeks have proven me wrong:

I cannot continue with the mere goal of writing something each day. I need to be focused on my WIP’s each day.

The (mostly) daily blogging has assisted with me getting back into the groove of taking at least one hour to focus on my Real Life work. I need to use my now aging memory for redeveloping my writing skills.

I will try to post as often as possible, at minimum weekly. So bear with me readers, the few but precious you are! I promise to remain faithful as ever to provide a detailed, if slightly ridiculous, report of my progress.

And now, back to our show!

Daily Writing Challenge 

Day 15: Your character is upset. What about? How does it affect them? Does anyone come to comfort them? Write a scene where your character is distraught.

[Today’s DWC and my daily blog post are one and the same. So hope you enjoy!]

Lesson Learned: No matter how much you try, one cannot fight Mother Nature.  Even if you hate it sometimes.

I believe that God has a sense of humor, (don’t believe me? Have you ever seen a platypus?), and although I’m 100% sure He loves everyone, I also believe the caveat of His humor is that He enjoys screwing with me, just a tiny bit, to see how I’ll react.

Case in point: As part of Pilot’s birthday weekend, we went out to watch the IL2, a Russian WWII war bird fly this afternoon. Instead of being part of the museum’s crowd, we made our way to the opposite side of the runway, near the windsock, amongst the tall grass.  After an amazing one-hour show, Pilot and I made our way back to our car.

As I was belting myself in, I felt a presence on my shoulder. Batting the nuisance away, I froze.  The annoying presence fell into my shirt.  Glancing downward, there it was.

A spider.

A really big spider.

Cricket on a cracker, there is a HUGE SPIDER IN MY BRA!!!

As I gracefully scream and tastefully swat at my boobs-

Get it out! Get it out!  Get this fucking thing off of MEEE!

-I end up repeatedly squashing it against my poor, innocent breast.  (Let’s just say some more screeching ensued for the next few seconds on top of the additional swatting and accidental exposure of myself to those within viewing distance of our vehicle.)

Desperate to remove this creepy crawly from my person, I was finally able to dislodge the Spawn of Satan out of my shirt, flinging it unceremoniously onto the console of Pilot’s vehicle where the humongous thing proceeded to lie there… somewhat flatly while twitching.  Bursting through the car door, I stand outside facing the interior of War Machine, (Pilot and I dubbed his vehicle War Machine not too long ago. What can I say? I already told you it’s a tradition that we name our modes of transportation), and pointed directly to Evil Incarnate calmly requesting Pilot to “Get that… that… THING, away from me!”

Pilot, having just sat in the driver’s seat watching this whole ordeal with a look of amusement on his face, (the rat bastard), proceeds to take his hand from the steering wheel, placing his forefinger and thumb behind Satan’s Mistress and flicked it out of the car.

Sadly, I was under the misfortune of not having my wits about me, (remember, I said complete loss of sanity. I never claimed to have full sanity to begin with) and was standing in the direct path of The Devil’s Wrath Upon Humanity.  The spider bounced off of me, causing another Eek! to emit from me, and it landed on the ground.

I maintained my composure by gracefully scrambling into the car, proceeding to lock all doors, seal all windows, securing Pilot and myself in impenetrable cat suits complete with boots and gloves, placing heat-seeking goggles over our eyes, surrounding our vehicle with motion-sensor cameras and setting up a perimeter of an electrified, barbed wire fence.

Pilot: Um, Sweetie? Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little?

Me: <moves joystick to turn motion-sensor cameras back and forth.>

Pilot: I promised my parents we’d go visit them so they could celebrate my Birthday dinner with us.

Me: <adjusts heat-seeking goggles, searching for unidentified moving entities.>

Pilot: Sweetie, weneed to get going.

Me: <puts finger to lips.>  SHH! They’ll hear you!

gotta fill up those blanks!

Not much to post. I’m working on my outlines for my two-part series. Because trying to balance my need to write with a full time job definitely takes up most of the evenings! So here’s my DWC! (AKA, the prologue to Book 1!)

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 6: How was your characters childhood? Write a scene about them as a child. How was their home life? Their family? Their upbringing? Where did they grow up? What friends did they have? 

May 12th, 1996

Ahh, sweet bliss.  Liesle settled into her overstuffed chair pulling a book Abbreviated Potions: Shortened Spells for the Witch on the Go! up to her nose.  It was her scheduled day off from her shop The Bubbling Cauldron, and she welcomed the break.  The girls were helping Mrs. Stevens clean out her garage today.  Yes, a quiet morning to catch up on modernized spells.

Whirr! The sound of a blender pierced through the manor, shattering any temporary moment of peace, followed by the sound of giggles. 

“What are you two little imps up to? I thought you were at Mrs. Stevens’ house,” Aunt Liesle asked, crossing her arms across her chest and raising her infamous ‘don’t mess with me’ eyebrow.

A spatula that seemed to be swirling a mixture of gooey chocolate icing on its own fell back into the bowl with an anticlimactic splat. Eyes looking up and widening slightly, Margaret who stood behind the bowl, stopped twirling her finger, leaving it stuck in midair as if she was interrupting someone to make a statement.  Lorelei gasped, turning around to look at Liesle, losing concentration on the blender she had been staring at. The blender had a surge of energy before stopping altogether, its lid flying off causing the contents to shower the three of them.

“Of all the boiled rats!” exclaimed Lorelei, as she wiped the strawberry milkshake from her eyes.

“Language, Lorelei,” said Liesle as she looked down to examine the pink globs that now stained her sweater.  Rolling her eyes as if to gain power from an unknown source, she sighed and looked back down at the girls.  “Now what is so important you had to turn my kitchen into a bomb testing site for?”

Margaret glanced at her sister. Lorelei just shrugged, and Margaret made a face at her.  Then, turning back to Liesle, squaring her shoulders, she replied matter of factly, “We thought you’d gone to the store to do inventory today.”

“Claudia is doing the inventory, and that is not an answer.”

Lorelei glanced at Margaret again and whispered not very successfully, “Come on, tell her. Our cover’s blown anyway.”

Margaret’s shoulders sagged as she sighed in only that way a twelve year old could. Looking back and forth across the now ruined kitchen, she spread her arms wide, palms up and said flatly, “Happy Mother’s Day.”

Liesle blinked at them for a moment. All tension melted away and she felt the prickling of tears at the back of her eyes.

“Oh, come here you silly ninnies,” she leaned down and opened her arms.  Margaret let a small grin show and ran over to the welcomed hug. 

“Well that was close.”  Lorelei blew out a breath she’d been holding, wiped more strawberry milkshake from her forehead, and ran over too.

“But your kitchen…” Margaret’s lower lip started to quiver.

Liesle smiled warmly at her niece.  “Nothing we can’t fix. Or haven’t you noticed, it’s already clean?” Liesle nodded pointedly behind them.  Margaret turned to look at the kitchen, whose cleaning sponges lapped at the walls, and the mop started swirling soapy suds across the floor.

Lorelei put her hands on her hips. “Hey, no fair! How’d you do that?” An indignant look of frustration crossed her face.

“I’ll teach you that one when you’re a little older and your powers are stronger.  You girls still need to do your chores.”

“Hmph.” Lorelei now crossed her arms across her chest.  She mumbled, “I still don’t see why I have to wash the dishes by hand when we have magic.”

“Darlings, you know what I always say…”

Lorelei dropped her arms as she and Margaret both answered in bored, singsong voices, “Magic is a gift and must not be abused.”

“Right. You need to understand that we’re lucky to have magic, and you must always appreciate it.”

Margaret’s grin spread a little wider.  “Well, we appreciate you, so that’s why we wanted to surprise you with your favorite chocolate chip brownies and strawberry milkshake for Mother’s Day!”

“Thank you girls,” Liesle laughed. “You’ve certainly made it a memorable one!”