Today is the Middle Of NaNoWriMo, or 25,000 Words

Just My Books and I

Candles from my Dad and Grandma to guide my way

 Writing has changed from when I first began thinking seriously that I could write a book. Well, no, I'd been thinking I could do it since I was a toddler, but getting started, Now That was a different matter.

     I began with a blank notebook and a stack of note cards and a trip to the library to dig into the multi-volumed encyclopedia set of course. This was how I had begun writing all those required papers back in Jr. High, and High School, and at College.

    Now I sit at my computer or tap on my hand ha
eld device and when I need to answer a question I don't have to drive to the library, or even walk across the room to get a stack of notecards, and when I need to know how to describe Mr. Vesuvius in detail, I can read other people's descriptions, or see their paintings, pictures and video.

     When I started my Nano Novel I was already knowing it would be a conversation between two boys, one living in the days leading up to the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii, and one living in the months before the 1980 eruption of Mr. St. Helens. But I am a Nano "Pantster" meaning I don't outline ahead of time, but take my characters and a faint idea and we jump off the Nov. 1st cliff and fly by the seat of our pants toward the goal.

     So I have spent some time writing, alternating with time on Google earth seeing street view and satellite views of the volcanoes. I have watched you-tube video of kids snowshoeing on Mt St Helens and of a determined old man who died because he wouldn't be evacuated since he was a Mile and a huge forest say from the volcano and his mountain wouldn't hurt him.

     Then I have taken every day at work, and grabbed a scratch piece of paper and on every break and lunch time, written or sketched in my novel. So some editing happens there, when I type from a pencilled written piece first, but editing is not supposed to slow down the passionate rush of story this month.  Oh, and neither is blogging.  Oooooopsy daisy.

My sons loved the same picture book I did
Look Out for Pirates
So I made them a poster with their faces

My life has been filled with books, and it started with these, the kids picture books that were always abundant in our house even when we were low on money for almost everything else. On the wall is the quilt from my crib that my grandmother made for me.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be
I had a Mother who read to me.
  --Strickland GillianOr 

Happy Thanksgiving

The cabin we usually rent  on the beach

My Husband, two sons and I last Thanksgiving

     November brings a reminder that we should be counting us the things that we have in this life instead of thinking about the lack or the future lack of things we don't even need.  I know that there are a lot of political issues around the pilgrim and the "indian" thanksgiving stories which I was taught in grade school.  In fact, I was 10 before I met any of my Native American side of the family, at my great grandmother's funeral, when her Sioux relatives came to visit the branch of the family which had been mainly out of touch since she married a stage driver and left the Sioux people when she was only 17 (and she lived to be 98).  I know the divisiveness between the stories of friendship and neighborly harvest festivities, and the reality of war and genocide.  I had ancestors at Plymouth plantation as part of the Mayflower bunch and I had ancestors who would have been better off if the white people never set foot on this continent.  Yet I would not be here and who I am, proud to be an American, where in spite of the differences and the hatreds, there has been an amazing amount of support and connectiveness.  We are the land of mixed marriage and acceptance just as surely as we are the land of stubborn pride and the opinion that anyone else who is different is wrong because we are the best.

 So I choose to face the future that we will be giving to our children with optimism.  I choose to look at the stack of dirty dishes and give thanks because we have food.  I choose to admit that we have a history full of darkness but also to believe in a future filled with light.

 Most Thanksgivings I have rented a cabin on the beach and cooked a turkey with my family and any friends who chanced along.  This year we can't afford the cabin because our insurance wasn't sufficient to keep us from having some huge medical bills.  Still, we are healthy now, and together, and the turkey will taste just as good around the table we eat at on a daily basis.

 Life is hard many times, but worth celebrating and giving thanks for all the same.  There is a light in the darkness and warm hands to hold when it seems there is nothing else there to fill those hand,

Happy Thanksgiving, and may you find yourself surrounded by love and sheltered from some of the storms that come your way.