Category: Uncategorized

  • Join Me at the Writer\’s Retreat Today!

    Come play with me today at the Writer\’s Retreat!

  • Join Me at the Writer\’s Retreat Today!

    Come play with me today at the Writer\’s Retreat!

  • DAWWWWG!

  • A Crazy Little Thing Called NaNo…

    It\’s that time of year again.  November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  All over the world, writers of all ages and genres participate in a mad dash to the finish line.  The objective?  Write 50,000 words, or more, on a novel draft.  It\’s that simple.  It\’s like a marathon, really.  After all, what\’s a marathon but running a bloody long way without stopping?  Same idea.  (Same bloody, too.)

    I write my NaNo words on my laptop or my AlphaSmart 2000.  I have two of the latter, having worn one out.  I prefer my first one, actually, since the space bar on my second one is a little jellied.  We\’ll see if we can fix that.  I haven\’t downloaded my words from Thursday and Friday yet, but I wrote a bunch yesterday so I counted that.  It\’s funny, though, NaNo will only let you count the days you enter words, so my count looks like this:

    That\’s okay, though.  The point is to accumulate words, not please widgets.

    We also have word wars.  I\’m part of ChiWriMo, or the Chicagoland Region.  (Don\’t bother looking on a map for the \”Chicagoland,\” it\’s what locals call the metro area that includes the city of Chicago but also the collar communities.  Some include four counties, some seven.  We\’re an inclusive people, we Chicagoans.)  Our official word war is with Glasgow, Scotland.  The Glaswegians think they\’ll win this year, but I have my doubts.  ~throws down imaginary gauntlet in Scotland\’s general direction, ignoring the fact that there\’s about 1,500 miles of land and an ocean between us – writers are, as all readers know, imaginative beasts~

    What do you have to lose?  Only your skepticism and blank paper.  Why not consider joining the fun?  Already part of the fun?  Tell me your username in the comments and we can link up as NaNo buddies and maybe even have a word war.

    Write early, write often!

  • Remember to Vote on Tuesday!

  • Around the Blogosphere with Noony

    Join me for a discussion of local ghost stories and ghost hunting at Beyond the Veil.

    I\’m also over at the Torquere Press LiveJournal today, Torquere Social.  I have three journal entries for you, throughout the day, all related to October:  John Wayne Gacy, the Celtic New Year, and Wassail.

    Join me!

  • Collections as art

    Collections as art

    I don\’t know how many times I\’ve had people look at something I\’ve made and confess to me that they wish they were artistic – but they just don\’t have any of the necessary skills to create something.

    Usually I tell them they might be too worried about making something perfect, and if they just allow themselves to try something and not worry if it comes out flawed, they\’ll find they have more talent than they think they do.

    And sometimes, if I know them well enough, I manage to find something they\’ve created that\’s artistic without them even realising it. One thing I think people tend to overlook in the quest for creativity is just the ability to assemble interesting things. A collection can be very creative and artistic without involving the elusive skills that people tend to believe they need in order to be considered \’artsy.\’

    I love to decorate with my own creations, and I realized recently that the collections I have are, in fact, a form of my own creation even though I didn\’t actually make the individual objects that comprise the collections.

    As an example – I didn\’t make the shelf or the bright colored bitters bottles that hang in my bedroom, but the collection, as a whole, makes an interesting piece of art.

    Here\’s the collection of miniature vases that hangs in my dining room. Most of them come from garage sales and cost no more than a dollar or two. Arranged together, they make a pretty conversation piece that a lot of visitors comment on. 
    And upstairs in my office, my collection of fancy sea shells, arranged on parchment paper and framed in simple shadow boxes makes a statement on an otherwise borning wall.

    Do you have any collections that you display in an artistic way? Tell me about them!

  • Wiggins: A Cop Tale

    Welcome to our Halloween Blog Hop!  In honor of the season, I thought I\’d reprise something I wrote for a challenge a couple years ago.  I hope you enjoy!  Be sure to visit our other hop participants so you can be entered to win a Nook Touch!

    Happy Halloween!

    * * *

    “Thank you for calling Chicago 311 Emergency Response. Please state the nature of your emergency.”  Calysta, the nametag read, sounded heartily bored.

    I resisted rolling my eyes. First week on the job and it didn’t do to make waves, particularly about employee attitudes.

    “A what, ma’am?” Calysta blurted, interrupting my train of thought.

    I met her eyes and she moved the gum in her mouth over to one cheek, like I wouldn’t be able to tell she had it in her mouth.

    “Jessup! In here!” my lieutenant shouted from her office.

    “Yessir!” I answered automatically.

    Crap. ‘Sir.’ I called her sir! Nothing for it. Just getcher ass in there, Jessup, but sweet butter on a biscuit was the Lieutenant sensitive about her rank and place in a male-dominated department. Even if I was female, I’d cut no points for calling her ‘sir.’

    I felt the presence the minute I stepped in the room and froze in the doorway.

    “Della Jessup, this is your new partner. Wiggins, say hello to Della.”

    “Hello…” The voice whispered and hissed through the room like a nineteen fifties bad monster movie ghost voice, eerie in all the right places. I felt a shiver travel up my back, around my neck, and down my front, tightening both nipples on its way by.

    Gods I hate that!

    “I want you to take Wiggins to the meetup, Jessup.”

    “Lieutenant, there’s nothing here!”

    “Oh?” a voice asked. And it wasn’t the Lieutenant.

    Frickin’ ghosts. Never should have allowed them on the force. Damned ADA regulations stipulated no discrimination on account of any disability, including the bodily challenged.

    “All right, Wiggins. Come with me. We have to meet –” I broke off, mid-sentence, because I saw it again. The same black-haired waif I’d been seeing everywhere since yesterday, following me in Trader Joes, following me to LA Fitness, following me to my carport, following me!

    “Jessup?” Wiggins murmured.

    “Do you see it?” I realized the second it left my mouth, how is a ghost supposed to ‘see’ without any eyes, but I let it stand.

    “What?”

    “The kid, there…” I pointed, but of course, poof, no black hair. No waif. No stinkin’ kid! “Come on,” I snarled instead, leading the way back out to my cruiser, first stopping to pick up my sidearm from the security lockup.

    “Sign here, Della,” Sergeant Whiska ordered.

    “Sergeant, when did you get an earring?” I scratched my nose. Earrings were non-regulation on duty, just like gum, but…

    The feline grin that appeared after my question startled me and I had to resist the urge to step back. His teeth looked sharp! “Like it?”

    “Um…”

    “Beautiful,” Wiggins susurrated.

    Whiska flicked all of his fur in a wave down his back. The glossy reddish brown flashed in the light and I had to physically put my hands in my pockets to avoid petting him. After the evolutionary jump that let cats speak, they now had equal status with humans. One did not pet a fully accredited Sergeant of the Chicago Police Department.

    Not if one wanted to keep their hand, anyway.

    Whiska handed through another piece of paper and I took it automatically. Then I looked at it; the loopy calligraphy beautiful. And pink. Pink? “What’s this?”

    His grin widened. “Jezebel agreed to marry me! That’s your wedding invitation!”

    “When’s the shower?” I asked curiously, eyes on the invitation.

    He hissed. “I don’t like water.”

    “No, silly. The wedding shower?”

    “Oh. I don’t know yet.”

    “Maybe we’ll throw one for you,” Wiggins put in.

    On that note… “I have to run, Sergeant. Thank you for this. I’ll see you later!”

    My car had chilled to ice in the hour it sat in the lot, thankfully free of the snowstorm. First Blizzard of the New Decade, the news called it. I rolled my eyes.

    “Where are we going?” Wiggins asked once we sat down.

    Uh, once I sat down. Wiggins… wafted, I guess. “National City Bank, then the Bank of Ireland. Seems the regulators want some police presence. We’re close to an indictment.”

    “On what?”

    “Money laundering.”

    “Mmm.” Wiggins sounded thoughtful, though I still couldn’t see anything in the car with me. “Perhaps you should not tell them of my presence.”

    “How come?” I asked.

    “I could be of some use, perhaps.”

    “Sounds good.” I shivered as I pulled onto the main street, clogged with new snow. Here’s hoping Wiggins didn’t give the bankers the… well. What was I supposed to say now? Willies?

    Yeah, I did that, and Lieutenant would find me a trained ape by that name for a partner.

    Nevermind. Forget I thought it.

    We turned onto Columbus Drive, both lost in thought.

    Originally posted on 01/08/2010.

  • Wednesday. Yup.

  • Join Me At Torquere Press\’s Blog Today

    What would you do if someone murdered you?  Would you go to Heaven?  Be reincarnated as your cat?  Enjoy Purgatory with all the famous pre-Christian thinkers and meet Dante Alighieri?  Or would you not rest until the man who did it paid for his crime?

    I\’m at the Torquere Press Blog today, talking about \”Solving Her Own Murder.\” C\’mon by!

  • Join Me At Torquere Press\’s Blog Today

    What would you do if someone murdered you?  Would you go to Heaven?  Be reincarnated as your cat?  Enjoy Purgatory with all the famous pre-Christian thinkers and meet Dante Alighieri?  Or would you not rest until the man who did it paid for his crime?

    I\’m at the Torquere Press Blog today, talking about \”Solving Her Own Murder.\” C\’mon by!

  • I\’m Baaaack!

    Wow. It\’s already the 8th of October??  How\’d that happen?

    In honor of the month of October, I\’m sharing my post Chicago Ghosts with you, over at LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers.  I hope you\’ll stop by!