Saturday, June 24, 2006

Having Fun Again

So I had another rejection and this one explained more of the reasons why. It seems my voice lacks spark. Well, likely so, my life has lacked spark of late. : ) It's funny how life, our moods, our illnesses can get in the way and muddy up the works. I knew there was something wrong with my stories but couldn't figure it out. They just seemed flat, kind of like my affect. Hah!

Guess that's what you get from living in a computer chair rather than getting out and embracing life. So I'm doing that now. Embracing life. I'm socializing more, I'm swimming daily, walking my dog and chatting with neighbors, I even bought a treadmill so I can take off some of the pounds that I've wanted to get rid of for years. My dog, Nikki, was getting chubby, too. The Vet put her on the Eukanuba diet and I told Nik if she lost ten pounds I'd lose twenty. That was last October. Well, Nik took off her ten pounds and I think I lost two. Guess I'll have to start chowing down on kibble or walk faster. (grin)

I'm finally writing again and believe it or not, I'm having fun. This story is unfolding faster than I can type it. I started to outline, started to block out my story scenes, but kept getting drawn back to the computer with the actual story. So I gave up and just started typing. I've gone back to being this weird seat-of-the-pants type writer who listens to the voices in her head and just lets the story unfold however it wants to. Of course, I'll go back in later and make sure I've covered all of the basic elements of story telling, maybe vamp up certain aspects of it, but for now I'm having fun. Later on I'll put it before the critical eyes of my critique group but first I'll write my story the best way I know how, by just doing it.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Good news

Well my life has taken a nice turn for the better. My doctor did an endoscopy and took a look at my stomach, seems I have gastritis and have inflammed the stomach lining. An easy fix. I'm already feeling better since starting on Protonix a month or so ago. I'll just continue on that for a couple of months and it will repair the damage. I'd already begun to change my eating habits so am half-way home. (grin) I asked the specialist what might cause this and one of the things he mentioned twigged my memory, food allergies.

The irony is, as a kid I had a huge allergy to citrus and thought I'd overcome it. Apparently not. We'd moved from the Snowy Mountains when I was about twelve years old, to the Hunter Valley. When in the Snowy we never had totally fresh fruits and veges because they had to be trucked in, the Hunter is good farming country, everything grow's like crazy. Being a little piglet, I apparently overdid it on fresh citrus and got sick. I'd swell up in the lips, feet, hands and my whole body would be covered in hives. They'd send me home from school and Mum would cover my poor little body in Calamine lotion, in a few days I'd be fine again. It took quite a bit of investigation to find the culprit.

Anyway, last year I moved from Los Angeles to my new home in the California desert and acquired a nice little citrus grove. The grapefruit are pink and absolutely delicious. The lemons are huge and sweet. The limes perfect. The oranges and tangeolas are to die for. In January my New Year's resolution was to lose 25 lbs. And how was I doing that? By eating two grapefruit a day, putting lemon slices in my water jug, eating oranges, heh heh. The things we do to our bodies thinking we're doing the healthy thing ....

So, I'm good to go now and trying to figure out the best time to visit Australia and research that romantic adventure story I've been hankering to write. I've fine tuned the other two manuscripts and I'll submit those over the next couple of weeks, then I'll begin outlining this new one. I'm really excited that my energy level is back and I'm sleeping better, not in pain anymore AND my enthusiasm for writing has returned. For everyone who has told me not to write an Australian story, I say, "I don't care. I'm doing it anyway. It's what makes me happy. If it doesn't sell I really don't care. I'm writing it because that's where my heart lies."