I have given up hiding and started to fight

Man, it's been a week of Mondays over here - but I'm prepared to move past all that! After all, this is the 2nd day of Halloween. [:: throws black glitter confetti ::] So it's hard to be too dismal. Unless it's the merry holiday kind of dismal, like my house right about now.

I'd post pictures of the exterior, except that I do try to preserve a modicum of privacy over here; so suffice it to say, there's a 10-foot black sparkly spiderweb, a giant red-eyed spider to call it home, and several skeleton stakes in the yard. Inside, I've got the fireplace mantles all tricked out, cobbled together an awesome table centerpiece, and I've deployed so many candles that I have literally run out of room. I had to put some into storage for later.

Now y'all just wait until I can track down my purple LED lights and the black light...then we're gonna get FESTIVE up in here.




* * *

When I say that it's been a week of Mondays, let me put it this way: I've been hella-sick. Stomach flu sick. Playing slip-and-slide in my own puke sick, and subsequently falling back-first onto a 100-year-old oak floor.

Because I know you all wanted that particular detail.

Yesterday morning I finally woke up feeling kind of hungry, and I've been keeping solid food down since then...but my back is still very stiff and bruised. I don't think anything's actually fractured; I'm giving it a week or so to sort itself out before I go chase down some x-rays. Hopefully, it won't come to that.

And hey, last night I was mobile enough (and non-pukey enough) to visit the Writing Excuses retreat over at Woodthrush. I even held it together sufficiently to serve as a guest on an episode, though I admittedly had a hard time keeping my train of thought. In my defense, it was my first day back on my feet. I was kind of shaky.

The episode airs sometime in January, I believe. I'll link it here when it goes live.

* * *
Hey - October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month ! And yesterday was National Black Dog Day (apparently). I'm just saying, if you have excess love in your life and you'd like something four-footed to impose it upon, you can do a whole lot worse than a black shelter dog.




I'm speaking from personal experience, you know.
* * *

A local acquaintance of mine is crowdsourcing his search for some old photos, and the story is a real doozy . Click the link to read about high-ranking fighter pilots in WWII, German post-war nuptials, classified documents, and a Russian spy posing as a wedding photographer. Even if you can't help David in any concrete way, feel free to go and give the post a read. I've got a lot of writers reading, here. This is bound to be story fodder for someone.

* * *

Here's today's progress on my modern gothic ghost story about a salvage crew trapped in a doomed southern mansion - now with a crunchy murder ballad center and Bonus! clandestine cemetery where the stones don't match the bodies (and were never meant to). As inspired by a (semi)true local legend:
Project: The Family Plot
Deadline: January 15, 2015
New words written: 1934
Present total word count: 18,025



Things accomplished in fiction: Unloaded a truck; got a bad idea that they're not the only ones in the house - but upon searching the place, didn't find anything. Except some handprints. And those could be anyone's...right?

Things accomplished in real life: Neighborhood jaunt with dog; continued recovery from ailments and injuries; visit with Greyson's Auntie Vanessa, who brought goodies to say thanks for hosting The Cooj; ran to the grocery store for milk. Such is my exciting life.

Yardwork Other: Absolutely none. Probably none until after this weekend, for the sake of my aching back.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 169,102

* * *

In closing, for giggles .