Writing

I've been reading Mark Helprin lately (such a wonderful writer). Somehow reading his wonderful prose seems to be inspiring me to write myself. Reading him is lifting me up, in a way, bringing me out of my funk. So, right now I'm plowing my way through his entire bibliography. :) If you haven't read him, pick up a copy of Winter's Tale ASAP. I recommend it highly.

Catching up

Haven't blogged in a while-sorry about that. Let's catch up.

After the funeral, Alex and I both caught colds, just as we were ramping up for Thanksgiving. I was feeling better by Thanksgiving am, in time to get the turkey into the oven. The holiday was great-we had 13 for dinner. Friends and family, it was exactly as the holiday should be. I'm definitely looking forward to Christmas. Ron's sister Theresa will be home from Japan, and all of his siblings but one will be at our house for the holiday. We'll also be celebrating Alex's first birthday party on the 22nd.

My birthday is also approaching (my 38th) on the 12th of December. I'm finding myself a bit melancholy this year. Not really sure why, but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that I don't find myself with a completed novel and an in-shape self, as I had hoped to by the end of 2007. Now that Alex is getting a little older and into his toddlerhood, and I've got the whole "being a mother" down a bit, I'm hoping for a rosier 2008 in those two areas.

On the getting in shape front, I've been walking with my friend Anandi at the dog park every morning. It's great for Hank, and she brings one of her two dogs as well. After a mere week of this, I'm feeling more energetic and ever so slightly slimmer. I'm still committed to my goal of being in great shape when I celebrate my 40th in two years, and I finally feel that I'm making progress.

As to the work on my novel, things are not as rosy. I took the situation with Charles de Lint perhaps harder than I should have. National Novel Writing Month has not gone as well as I had hoped either. However, I will persevere.

Our December round table meeting is on Zeus and Hera and the Royal Marriage, with delvings into the archetypes of the father and the mother (via Demeter). I've just started work on that material this week. I'm actually looking forward to moving on to our meetings on The Masks of God-it doesn't appear that this Greek Gods series was of interest to anyone but myself.

A Funeral and the Round Table

We're headed over to Eastern Oregon in a couple of hours for my Granddad's funeral-he passed away on Monday. I feel sad that I didn't know him better-when I was growing up, I didn't see my mom too much, and consequently I didn't see her parents much either. I know his death was in some ways a relief (his body had been failing him for a while), but it's still a bummer when someone passes on. It is a chance to see some relatives that I don't see often from my mom's side, and we get to show off our cute baby. :)

In other, cheerier news, the November Round Table meeting was last night-two people showed up. We really didn't talk about Apollo and Dionysus much-they didn't seem too interested. Instead I spent the time getting to know them better. It appears that this series on the Greek gods hasn't been a big hit. I'm hoping for a better turnout with the "Masks of God" series I'll be getting started in January. Oh well.

Apollo and Dionysus thoughts

Our RT meeting on Apollo and Dionysus is coming up on Thursday, so I've been thinking about the two of them a lot this week. As I was walking Hank yesterday I was contemplating the joy of being around animals and in nature-the earthy, natural smell of dogs and horses. So much of my day to day life is caught up in the world of Apollo-even this act of writing a blog post belongs to Apollo. But, my early morning walks with Hank take me into Dionysus' space-watching the mist rise off the river, the dogs playing with each other.

Alex's First Haircut

Fate of the Seattle Round Table

The writing has been going better recently. I'm enjoying participating in NaNoWriMo so far.

I sent out my monthly newsletter to the members of the Seattle RoundTable a couple of days ago. In it, I asked people to switch over to the group on meetup.com, to make it easier for me to manage the group. I got quite a few emails of complaint, enough that I'm wondering if I should just shut down the RT altogether. I spend a fair amount of time each month preparing for the RT meetings, and I'm not sure if I should continue if the group doesn't like my leadership, or whatever. Maybe I should just step down.

Wow, I realize that I've been doing a lot of bitchin' on this blog over the last couple of days. I'll try to perk up. :)

Today, its a special shame that my writing sucks

As you may be able to tell by the title of this blog post, not feeling so great about myself or my writing today. Got quite a bit of writing done today, as it's the first day of National Novel Writing Month. I changed my mind back, and I'm again working on The Mythologist. The work may not be much good this month, but at least whatever is good can be applied toward the cause.

The thing thats got me banging my head against my desk today is this. About a month ago, I met a writer who's one of the shining stars of the Mythic Fiction movement. He was doing a reading in my area. Through an odd sequence of events, he offered to read and give advice on where I might submit a story that I've written called "Anya and the Bear". So, off I sent it, full of hope, and I never heard back from the guy. So, fine. I'm sure he's busy, and if he didn't like it it's easier just to never answer than to tell me so. However, today I found out that Terri Windling's next anthology of mythic fiction stories is on the subject of animal transformation. If my story had been any good, this writer (who is good friends with Ms. Windling) could conceivably have sent it to her for possible inclusion in her anthology. "Anya" is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, set in the shamanic tradition of the Inuit tribe of Alaska. Clearly not going to happen anywhere other than my imagination. So, feeling a bit hopeless today. Not a great start for a month in which I'm supposed to produce 50k words.