My Two Blessings

I completed 52 Books Blossom Bookology spelling challenge and squeaked by with a couple with flowers mentioned in the stories as colors or characters.  I forgot to keep track of all the reference mentioned in my reads, but pretty sure there were more than a few mentions of a variety of flowers so I'm calling this challenge completed.  January - Chrysanthemum C: Genevieve Cogman - The Masked City (fantasy)  H: Thor Heyerdahl - Kon Tiki  (NF) R: Robyn Cadwallader - The Anchoress (historical) Y: Rick Yancey -  The Infinite Sea (fantasy) S: Sharon Kay Penman - The Sunne in Splendor (historical) A: Anna Richland - His Road Home (military romance)  N: Natalie Goldberg - Writing Down the Bones (NF) T: Thomas Merton - Thoughts in Solitude (NF)  H: Mark Helprin - A Soldier of the Great War (WWI historical) E: Emma Hamm - Silver Blood (Paranormal) M: Haruki Murakami - Hear the Wind Sing/Pinball (literary) ...

Merry Christmas to you and yours! 

From this  First Grade  to  High School senior -  class of 2018  James graduated from high school today. When we began our home school journey, little did we think we'd continue all the way through to the 12th grade.  With the help of Vision in Education,  the home school division of San Juan Unified School District, who held our hands and kept us on track, he earned a 3.97 grade point average and  graduated with honors and a Golden State Seal merit high school diploma.  I am so very proud of him and all he has achieved. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Synopsis:  "Grace Mae knows madness. She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum. When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past. In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis,...

Ch ch ch changes!  MyProWriMo is being called on the account of creativity.  Yes, odd.  I haven't had time to post because my brain has been busy - working on the story, writing in my head, talking through ideas with hubby, writing and editing.  I won't feel guilty about not posting everyday because I'm making progress, albeit slow progress.  I feel like we're in the second honeymoon phase. My writing relationship has gone from glowing to comfort and now we've rediscovered each other and can't get enough.  *grin*   Once I started typing up revised chapter one, it took longer than expected.  Ideas and epiphanies, hubby putting in his two cents worth, more changes until I decided it was time to move forward. I can always go back and do another pass.  Currently on chapter two, going back and forth with the characters and myself about which clues to drop now or hold on for later.  How much detail do I go into. I don't want to dump an...

I spent a bit more time working on Layla's scene and debating between first person present or third person past.  She's basically trapped somewhere so her scenes are scattered throughout the story.  I like first person present but how does that mix when the rest of the scenes are in third person past?   I know I should choose one or the other. Something to ponder for a while.   I'm also second guessing working linearly on Eyes, instead choosing to work on scenes that haven't been written instead of taking each chapter chronologically until I've worked my way through the whole book.  I'm in the one of those wishy washy modes and worrying I'll get bogged down again after the first few chapters.   No matter what it will get done, as long as I'm working on it every single day.   Perseverance is the key.  I stumbled upon The Millions   Five Non Fiction Books for Writers to read in an Emergency  and much like the a...

First lines:  Organized crime has plagued all the democracies.  It has attacked business establishments, assaulted judges, corrupted police officials.  But the rise of terrorism in recent decades presents a new form of organized violence directed against democratic societies.  Making their appearance in the late 1960's, terrorist attacks have afflicted virtually each of the Western Countries in an unfailing sequence.  Synopsis:  In this innovative and concise work, Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu offers a compelling approach to understanding and fighting the increase in domestic and international terrorism throughout the world. Citing diverse examples from around the globe, Netanyahu demonstrates that domestic terrorist groups are usually no match for an advanced technological society which can successfully roll back terror without any significant curtailment of civil liberties. But Netanyahu sees an even more potent threat from the new inte...

Leon's parents adopted a saying that he used to repeat often when the German's started to take over Poland - "If this is the worst that happens," taking each day one day at a time, dealing with each issue as it came along.  Quietly uttered when faced with losing their freedoms, their jobs, their homes, being forced into the Ghetto, then a work camp.  I chose to read The Boy on the Wooden box with James to give him a look at what life was like for the Polish Jews whose lives were turned upside down by the war.   How they had to scrape and scrounge for food, sharing even the tiniest bit with each other. How they managed to hold onto their humanity in the face of evil.  Leon, his brother, and his father worked for Schindler in his factory so he got to know them and was nice to them when the other Germans treated them badly.  When they were taken away and put into the labor camp, Schindler worked to build his munitions factory as quickly as possible and put ...

Choices  Is your cup half empty or is it half full? Or is it overflowing, due to things you think  are beyond your control? You've caged yourself in and given me the key, granted us the privilege, giving me your responsibility.  Don't give me your strength, nor give me your weakness, then tell me it's my fault and and expect it  to be accepted with meekness  Life is full of cups and cages  of our own making. We all have choices, My mother would always say, quite sagacious Take back your key and throw it away. Build yourself up, not tear yourself down.  Break out of your cage and rule your own day. ~R.L. McCormack

Happy Sunday!  I am quite proud of myself although it's only been four days.  I've automatically, without help of the alarm, woken up an hour early every day.   Except for today of course.  I have spent at least 10 minutes daily working on the first scene in Chapter one. I'm ready to type it up and move on to the next scene.  Yesterday I had been thinking that since it had only been four days and the month started midweek, I should give myself extra time and continue to work on that one scene for this week.  However, I'm ready to move on.  Hubby's been quite useful as a sounding board, bouncing ideas off of him.  He's being quite encouraging.   So the goal for this week is to review and rewrite Scene 2 from Greg's point of view, plus write and schedule posts for this week.  I'm almost caught up with my book reviews, have three more to write and then I'll schedule them for the coming weeks.   James and I are going ...

First lines:  On the ninth of August, 1964, Rome lay asleep in afternoon light as the sun swirled in a blinding pinwheel above its roofs, its low hills, and its gilded domes.  The city was quiet and all was still except the crowns of a few slightly swaying pines, one lost and tentative cloude, and an old man who rushed through the Villa Borghese, alone.  Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his cane as he took each step, he raced across intricacies of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark garden floor like golden lace. 

I've had a great start to my reading year and still working on January's Blossomology challenge spelling out Chrysanthemum and have H A E U and M to complete.  I decided to spell out using author names and have been successful so far.  Thank goodness February's challenge is to spell out Rose.  My reading goals this year are to read more physical books from my shelves, not spend any money on books for the first four months of the year and to read more non fiction.  I finished twelve books this month including five nonfiction books, three of which were started last year.  James and I read Netanyahu's Fighting Terrorism and Leon Leyson's Boy in the Wooden Box together which took a bit of time. Reviews will be forth coming.   One of my goals is to read at least two non fiction books a month.  I completed Writing Down the Bones and Thoughts in Solitude , plus sailed from Peru to Polynesia with Thor Heyerdahl in Kon-Tiki .   Started o...

Hello February! How do you do.  This is the month I planned on doing MyProWriMo (My Promise to Write Month) and I'm already balking.  "I have too much to do," Miss Busy Butt yells from my left shoulder and while little Miss Sunshine Hope whispers with confidence from my right, "yes we can."    Organization is the key, plus Lent is coming up so my intention is to spend less time internet browsing and more time writing.  Particularly since I finished outlining Eyes in the Ashes.  I finally came to the realization that I could spend days and months getting ready with more research and more character interviews and this and that, because it's so much fun. However, the goal is to actually rewrite the book and I expect some things will be revealed in the writing that I hadn't thought of during my brainstorming sessions.  And that's part of the fun of writing as well.    So....  My intentions for this month:    WIP :  I have...

First lines: "I was near the door, where woman should stay.  The floor was hard, refusing me, though I lay face down, my arms outstretched, embracing it, wanting this life, this death. I  knew there were people nearby, those from the village who had come to look or pray, but I saw none of them.  Voices in the sanctuary that seemed so far away sang a dirge, a celebration of loss, prayers for me.  I knew the words: I had read and reread them, memorized them, prayed on them, but now they were nothing but sound." I was intrigued by the story of The Anchoress as I'd never heard of the anchorite life before.  I knew about cloistered nuns as I had visited a cloistered convent when I was a teenager.  We were allowed to talk to them through a screen in which they could only see us from the waist up, a privacy screen raised in case any outside visitor was inappropriately dressed.  They were a giggly group of ladies who enjoyed their simple life of prayer and...

First lines:  "Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation.  You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about." Back cover:  Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land -- the Polynesian island of Puka Puka. Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of darin...

First lines:  "The London air was full of smog and filth. Kai's senses were better than those of a human, though he tried not to be too smug about it.  But even he couldn't see down a dark alley any better than the average Londoner.  And even native Londoners walked carefully in the narrow streets behind King's Cross Station." Back Cover: The written word is mightier than the sword—most of the time... Working in an alternate version of Victorian London, Librarian-spy Irene has settled into a routine, collecting important fiction for the mysterious Library and blending in nicely with the local culture. But when her apprentice, Kai—a dragon of royal descent—is kidnapped by the Fae, her carefully crafted undercover operation begins to crumble. Kai’s abduction could incite a conflict between the forces of chaos and order that would devastate all worlds and all dimensions. To keep humanity from getting caught in the crossfire, Irene will have to team up wit...

First lines:  The world is a clock winding down.  I hear it in the wind's icy fingers scratching against the window.  I smell it in the mildewed carpeting and the rotting wallpaper of the old hotel.  And I feel it in Teacup's chest as she sleeps.  The hammering of her heart, the rhythm of her breath, warm in the freezing air, the clock winding down. Synopsis: How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity. Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race. Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death,...

First Lines: "Richard did not become frightened until darkness began to settle over the woods.  In the fading light, the trees began to take on unfamiliar and menacing shapes. There was movement in the shadows. Low-hanging branches barred his path; rain-sodden leaved trailed wetly across his cheek." Back cover:  He was the last-born son of the Duke of York and the last Plantagenet King.  He was Richard III, a complex man living in tumultuous times.  Caught in the vicious power struggle that history has called the War of the Roses, Richard had been raised in the shadow of his charismatic brother Edward.  At nineteen and against all odds, Edward had defeated the House of Lancaster and claimed the English throne for York.  Famous for his sensual appetites and his preference for the expedient over the correct, Edward nonetheless found in his younger brother Richard an unfailing loyal ally.  Richard himself was repaid for his allegiance; he was ...

I finished Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones which was most entertaining, educational as well as an inspirational read.  Her essays are like meandering down a winding trail with something new around each curve to observe and absorb, with new or common sense ideas to try out different approaches to writing as well as writing in different places and spaces.    Synopsis:  With insight, humor, and practicality, Natalie Goldberg inspires writers and would-be writers to take the leap into writing skillfully and creatively. She offers suggestions, encouragement, and solid advice on many aspects of the writer’s craft: on writing from “first thoughts” (keep your hand moving, don’t cross out, just get it on paper), on listening (writing is ninety percent listening; the deeper you listen, the better you write), on using verbs (verbs provide the energy of the sentence), on overcoming doubts (doubt is torture; don’t listen to it)—even on choosing a restaurant ...

Sunday evening and hubby is using everything - including the kitchen sink - to make Margaritas!  *grin*    He dug out the old oster blender and ice crusher and is having a fun time mixing our drinks.  Best he's made yet...Well this time!  I made great progress this week with outlining my current WIP on poster board and had more than a few epiphanies! I've always been a visual person so don't know why I didn't try this before.  Love seeing each scene and how I can move each one around to make better sense. I'm far from done  and have written more notes,  found holes in the main arc and subplots and discovered which characters I need to still interview.  Even after two sessions with the storyboard, I can see I need to put in more time ironing out details so this week will continue to work with the story board and adding scenes.  I have made a lot of changes regarding the number of characters, deleting some and including new ones, pl...