Postcards go Pop

I collect postcards. They make perfect bookmarks - when you pick up a book and a postcard falls out, it reminds you how long ago (or not) you read that book, and you get to think of the person who sent it and the time in your life that you got it. Plus, the images on the front are usually pretty amazing.

So when I spotted a call for entries for a postcard competition, and I happened to have a postcard-length story, it seemed like a perfect fit! Until Binnie asked, what postcard are you sending with it?

Wha? So I did some hunting around online and yes, you are supposed to send a postcard with a postcard story. The postcard is, in fact, meant to inspire said story. So that's a bit panicky, since I now have to drop everything and get to a place that sells story-provoking postcards.

The upside: my online hunting led me to this prizewinning example of the perfect union of story and postcard, written by a fellow SummerCamper. I love this story. I bet you will too.

Keep your toes out of the water!

oh MAN. I knew there was a reason I stopped knitting. I was enjoying my cardi until I noticed it's nearly done. And then I won't have anything to do on long car drives or chatty afternoons.

So I bought a couple of knitting magazines - what's the harm? - and fell in love with a pattern - a quick knit! - and started sourcing the yarn - ooookay, that's a little expensive, and apparently the patterns are notorious for being wrong and also, too small - and got chatting about knitting with Kathi, and then went to the bookstore to pick up a pattern book for the expensive yarn and while I was there, Kathi's felting book I hadn't picked up yet, and WOW, there's a reason it gets such rave reviews, and I want to felt something NOW.

Deep breath. Creep back out of the water. Get perspective. I don't need another sweater or bag. I don't have room for another sweater or bag. I do need a hat, but the hat I want, I'll have to make a pattern for. And wouldn't I rather write? Write the story, for example, that popped into my head last night and doesn't cost anything in materials and doesn't take up any closet space?

yeah yeah yeah. I'm going to block the finished pieces of my cardi now. Call me if you're making hot chocolate.

Moving the Furniture

Saturday nights when she was in her 20s, my mother's friends would creep up and put an ear to the door of her house to listen for moving furniture. If they heard it, they crept away, praying all the while she wouldn't catch them and make them help.

So I guess I come by it naturally, the urge to rearrange the furniture every few months. I've done this so many times inside my house there isn't one more variation to try, and you'd think I'd have been happy to be outside it this morning planting new plants and shifting around the old ones.

And you'd be wrong. You don't get muddy and horrible in a living room. You don't have to find new homes for slugs, either, and you definitely don't have to be friendly with passers-by through a face caked in dirt and hair tugged out of its clips.

I'm still not done. But I will be this weekend (or rather, wherever the garden sits on Monday at 3pm, the garden stays for the winter), and then I will take the camera for a walk along the paths to show it all off and I will remember to post the pictures here, and everything.

I'm FREEEEEE!

Most of my writing has been done inside walls - be they genre rules, time constraints, or scholastic pressure. The gift of SummerCamp is that it was so freeing, even now I'll write anything that pops into my head whenever I get a few minutes.

I'm still a sucker for schedules though, and if I can't find competitions to write for then I set my own artificial deadlines. I found two contests this month, both for short pieces, both with Halloween due dates. The one I hadn't finished was one about the lady and her neighbour's chair. Remember, the other day I took a nap and got a huge way forward with it?

Well, yesterday I took another nap and last night I just couldn't type fast enough and it's finished and I love it. And I don't have to send it in for another three weeks.

So - I'm freee! Free to make elaborate Halloween costumes and dig holes in the garden and move plants around and position pumpkins and knit and bake tons of bread!

And also, oddly enough, free to go back to my novel, from which I ran sobbing last June. I think all my writing since then has given me the perspective I need to make friends with it again.

Have a Biscuit

A few years back I became obsessed with the Judy Bolton mystery series, by Margaret Sutton. And I mean actually by Margaret Sutton, not a series of different writers covering off outlines by a conglomerate (yes, I'm looking at you, Nancy Drew.) Where were these books when I was a kid? I mean, the concept was good for an inquisitive young girl with an interest in roadsters, but Nancy's writers can't hold a candle to Margaret Sutton.

One Judy moment that stands out for me even now is the time she got stranded someplace, found an empty house and went in for shelter, and then put together enough ingredients from the cupboards to make biscuits for herself and her hungry companions.

Never mind the coincidence of there even being still-edible items in an abandoned house. Can you imagine anybody having the recipe for biscuits locked into his or her head? (and yes, I'm still annoyed with myself for forgetting how to make sour cream fudge.)

I never make biscuits now without thinking of Judy Bolton. When I did it today it would have been nice if I was thinking of not forgetting to put in the butter instead, but you can't have everything.

Pop Quiz

I know you didn't study, but I'm running on five hours' sleep and I don't see why everybody else shouldn't be miserable too. I'll put my tea together while you get out your pencils and notebooks.

Ready? Okay:

1. Which is bigger:
a/ my headache
b/ my heartache over sour cream fudge

2. How long is it since I could make sour cream fudge without the recipe and therefore lost the recipe?
a/ 3 years
b/ 20 years
c/ 83 years

3. Why did I dream of killing 68 spiders last night?
a/ because I watched Verminators last week
b/ because SOMEBODY keeps humming The Discovery Channel ad and the only line that sticks with me is "I love a-rach-a-nids"
c/ because it might rain today

4. Does tea aggravate a canker sore you got from too much chocolate?
a/ yes
b/ no

5. Then why the heck am I drinking tea?
a/ because there isn't enough caffeine in hot chocolate
b/ because I'm not that bright
c/ both


Answers:
1. b (I have no headache!)
2. b (what, you think I'm 100?)
3. b (though it really might rain)
4. a
5. c (obviously.)

In Praise of A Nap

There is a reason my nickname used to be The Bat. And I think it had to do with my napping addiction... though maybe I just hope that.

Recently, when I was reading some article or other on how our brains work, I found out that sleep is good for creativity, which explains why I came away from university with an English degree in addition to all the sweaters I knit. I owe a lot to naps. Like this one time, before I'd ever heard of the 3-day novel, I did my own 5-day version--and just before the finish line, I dozed off. I still remember the moment I woke and saw, shimmering before me as on a gilded platter, every single plot point resolving itself behind the perfect closing sentence.

(that novel is beyond horrible, but I did have fun with it.)

I don't nap any more. I am a very happy Morning Person. But yesterday I fell off the wagon and into bed for a snooze, and when I woke up, like magic, I found myself taking my Old Lady Vs. Chair story in a new and exciting direction. Turns out it isn't about a chair after all... but we'll all have to wait to know what it really is about, because today I'm editing. Toodles!