Kathleen Gabriel - the writer--not the singer, not the politician
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oneword.com again
The Path
Spring fever, old woman version
What did you do about him?
On the other side of NaNoWriMo

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The Lazy Girl
Work to goals in less than thirty seconds
Gearing up for NaNoWriMo
just one word
Rejoice! I survived NaNoWriMo again

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Stories are life. Read some, write some, be some.

oneword.com again

I wrote on the htp://www.oneword.com word of the day again today. I think it turned out well. I wrote:

These things that they do, I can’t understand them. They eat with their fingers, they take food from each others’ plates. I don’t think they know what napkins are for. I just do my best to eat, to have enough peace to digest, but it’s difficult, living with such primitives. Children aren’t what I thought they’d be.

The Path

The path is long and climbs
Through woods I hate to see.
And yet I go there constantly,
Symptom of who I hate to be.
In slow-motion I walk along
Knowing where the thing will lead.
The walking is more tolerable
Than not walking it would be.
I'm isolated on this path,
Though others have been here.
I search the path for company,
A response that I will never see.
Walking on this path
Provides me time to think.
And yet the sounds of it
Prevent all thought and peace.
I climb this lonely path of mine,
Symptom of who I hate to be.

Spring fever, old woman version

Not that I'm old! I'm not very old. But my back and my knees are old, and my get up and go got up and went. Inside, I'm still 17.
But spring is going to come again, I know it by the calendar, and the lengthening of days. I know it by the sunshine that heats up the area by the patio door, even though when I open that door and step outisde to enjoy the sunshine, I still wish for at least a sweater. There was snow on the ground again this morning. But spring will come.
And yesterday I did the thing that I sometimes do in the spring--I ordered seeds.

What did you do about him?

I've been going to a class called Practice, Practice, Practice atArtEastin Issaquah, Just for fun, I'm going to post a poetic piece I wrote from a prompt we got in class that only said, "If we ran into each other one day, what would you ask me?" I immediately pictured a couple of high school friends who hadn't talked in years.

* * *

Are you still, did you ever,
Oh how to say it?
What about him? What did you do about him?
Oh, I know it's none of my business, but I was there, too.

On the other side of NaNoWriMo

I made it through NaNoWriMo successfully -- and got what I think will be a pretty god story out of it. Its working title is Piper's Private Writing School. Probably that will be its final title, too. As my two younger children were thinking of participating in it in the beginning, they are featured pretty much as-is as far as personality goes. That will need to change in the final. I may make them a little bit younger, and change their names. I have the story out to a few readers to critique, though it is in first-draft speed demon NaNoWriMo format.

NaNoWriMo 2011 -- day 1!

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo 2011! This is the sixth year in a row that I've participated. I also began it in 2003, but I didn't get very far. I don't remember what my story that year was going to be. I do remember the other years.
2006 was an unnamed SF piece where deaf and hard-of-hearing people saved the world from alien domination.
2007 was Her Thirty Percent, a charming love triangle set in a gym where I let the woman keep both lovers.
2008 was Three Knights in Florida, a game-based tale where three facebook friends met in person for the first time and played a tournament of their own devising and faced a hurricane.

What I've really been doing

I might as well admit it.
What I've really been doing for the last year is playingDragons of Atlantison facebook. 
Naturally, I'm still doing other things, too, but I've been playing Dragons of Atlantis a whole lot.
It's a fun game created by Wonderhill, which has been acquired byKabam, the people who also made Kingdoms of Camelot and Edgeworld. There are people to talk to, a city and outposts and an army to build--which includes several kinds of dragons and mythical beasties--alliances to join or to oppose.

Work to goals in less than thirty seconds

#trust30
Remember this? I wrote a little bit the first two days of the challenge that's supposedly based on Ralph Waldo Emerson's book, Self Reliance.
I have not liked the prompts, so I haven't been writing to them. They aren't Emersonian enough for me. Each author has a quote from the book, then they go off on their own tangent from there. A lot of them talk aobut goals, a modern popular concept.
Today's prompt is this:
 
"One Thing by Colin Wright
 
Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

Course correction

Today's prompt for#trust30
 
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
 
If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.
(Author: 

The Lazy Girl

I have just signed up for#Trust30, an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge via The Domino Project, inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s book, Self-Reliance. Today is the first day of the challenge. The prompt and my response are below.If you're interested in joining in, go tohttp://ralphwaldoemerson.me/
 
* * *
 
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
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