Winter Solstice

The lunar eclipse occurred on the winter solstice ... and I didn't set the alarm to see it. By the time I made it outside this morning, the moon had set. I'd slept so late that I barely beat the garbage men to the pick=up site. (Mundane, I know, but when pick-up happens once a week, you don't want to miss anything!)

(Pictured -- Sir Dustin at Four Winds Faire 2010)

On the writing side, I located the 2007 edition of "Stealing Cinderella," which was set at SHS -- with a cross-rip going to the Undying Lands, AKA Fairyland. It's a much better beginning than the stuff I wrote last month for NaNoWriMo ... Gwen has a cutting 'tide towards the fairy knight, who has his own agenda. No doubt it'll turn into some sort of romance novel -- I never quite finished the anti-romance of Harry and Alma years ago ... everyone insisted that it followed the romance tropes (and it did -- however, the hero and heroine were NOT destined for each other in a physical romance), and the continual rewrites halted the creative forward-moving juices. Unlike Pat Elrod and Theresa Patterson, I can't re-write the first 30 pages over and over while finishing the plot ... I have to write the whole thing, THEN go back and revise. Otherwise, It's another manuscript for the drawer ... well, jump drive nowadays. I still don't know where the plot will go -- I assume eventually they'll cross the borderlands into the Undying Lands to confront the Queen who plots to destroy both of them ... but that's for the coming holidays.

For now, it's time to close ... My mom and I are doing a "duty visit" to her sister. Old age and infirmity do not mellow people, I've learned. It tends to set whatever behaviors they possessed -- if they were pleasant, they remain pleasant despite calamity. If they're autocratic, they become tyrants ... Mom doesn't want to see her by herself, and I've been drafted since the boys are working. Imagine -- I get to dress in school clothes and wear make-up so Mom doesn't hear catty remarks later on my appearance ... I dress so casually that such remarks may be inevitable. Still, I'll do my beast.

Avanti!